by Adam Baker
‘Families were sitting down to dinner. Sheep and goats in their pens.’
‘Why? Why did he do it?’
‘September, ninety-eight. Saddam wanted to consolidate his power. He wanted to punish the northern Kurds for supporting Peshmerga rebels. Crush the tribal system. He wiped out Shabaks, Yazidis, Turkoman. There were deportations, mass executions. He released anthrax spores to kill cattle and poison the land. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted a final solution. Operation Panther. To this day, no one knows exactly what they used. Some kind of binary nerve agent. Maybe VX. Maybe hydrogen cyanide. Something truly satanic.
‘The plane flew overhead. Minutes later animals convulsed and dropped dead. Dogs. Cattle. They say some people coughed blood, and others died laughing. There were terrible lesions and skin turned blue. The ground remains tainted to this day. When some tribesmen returned to the area they soon suffered respiratory problems, birth abnormalities and high rates of cancer. Saddam’s cousin organised the attack. Ali Hassan al-Majid. People will dance in the street the day he is hung.’
‘Christ.’
‘I was part of the regime. We all knew. We all heard. We all share responsibility. I’m not proud of the things I’ve seen and done. I’m not a good man. Each night I pray to God to spare me his terrible judgement and hell.’
‘Your battalion spent weeks out there, camped in the contamination zone.’
‘Yes.’
‘And none of them got sick?’
‘None of them got Anthrax.’
Lucy sat back.
‘A fortune in gold, sitting in the desert, waiting to be found. Can you prove any of this story?’
‘What is your instinct?’ asked Jabril. ‘Am I lying?’
‘Yeah. I think you’re lying through your arse. I don’t know what happened out there in the desert, but you know what? I don’t care. Tell me straight. Is there gold? Is that much true?’
‘Yes.’
‘If my crew go searching for the gold, if we travel to Al-Qa’im and find nothing but sand, I think you know what will happen. The boys won’t be in a forgiving mood. It won’t be pretty.’
Jabril nodded and lit another cigarette.
‘Here’s the deal,’ said Lucy. ‘Military Intelligence are done with you. A few days from now you’ll be transferred to local jurisdiction and shipped out. They won’t take you to Ganci right away. They’ll take you for processing at the Central Station. Throw you in a holding cell. You’ll be surrounded by fifty Sunni fucks wanting payback for a lifetime of hurt. You’ll spend every waking moment trying to stay alive. You won’t dare sleep. But there is an alternative. We could arrange your freedom.’
‘In return for the gold.’
‘We’d treat you fair. You’d get a cut.’
‘How many of you are there?’ asked Jabril.
‘A team of five.’
‘Do you trust them?’
‘With my life.’
‘Wait until your friends lay eyes on a mountain of gold. You will soon see how much their trust is worth.’
Lucy and Amanda rode the expressway towards Baghdad. Suffocating humidity. Rain blattered against the cracked windshield.
Amanda scrunched her Abu Ghraib visitor pass and tossed it from the window. She turned the air-con dial, put her hand over a dash vent until she felt a blast of chill air.
‘Western Desert,’ said Amanda. ‘Tough terrain. Bandit country. Peshmergas. Jihadi guerrillas. Fuckheads of every stripe.’
‘Think it’s all right?’ said Lucy. ‘Taking the gold?’
‘It’s dirty money. It’s not going to build a hospital. It’s going to end up in some asshole’s Swiss bank account. Might as well be ours, right?’
‘Yeah.’
Amanda kicked at bullets rolling in the foot well. The Suburban got shot to hell in the previous day’s ambush. AK rounds had penetrated the Kevlar door panels. Gleaming silver mushrooms littered the carpet and seats.
She took an envelope from the glove box. Two new passports. Big gold crest. Canada. Passport/Passeport.
‘We risk our lives every day,’ said Amanda. ‘Sooner or later, our luck will run dry. You keep saying you’re sick of the life, you want to start over. Well, this is it. This is our shot. We could be home free.’
‘Three tons of gold. Can’t be hauled over sand dunes. We need choppers.’
‘Gaunt has a couple of Hueys.’
‘I don’t want to involve Gaunt,’ said Lucy. ‘The guy is bad news.’
‘Who else can we hire? A job like this has to be off the meter.’
‘I guess.’
‘This is our last war,’ said Amanda. ‘We need a retirement plan. We owe it to the guys. We can’t them send them home broke.’
‘Okay,’ said Lucy. ‘Let’s roll the dice.’
TOP SECRET SPECIAL HANDLING NO FORM
Central Intelligence Agency
Directorate of Operations, Near East Division
Doc ID: 575JD3
Page 01/1
08/21/05
MEMORANDUM TO: Project Lead, D.Ops
SUBJECT: Spektr
Colonel,
JABRIL JAMADI has made contact with a team of security contractors operating under the name VANGUARD RISK CONSULTANTS. We believe they are unaware of the SPEKTR project. They are currently seeking helicopter transport to carry them to the Western Desert. This presents an excellent opportunity to secure our objectives at the SPEKTR site. The region of desert between Al Qa’im and Al Hadr is remote and hostile terrain favoured by foreign Jihadists attempting to establish smuggling routes in-country for mortars and surface-to-air missiles. We have yet to determine the level of risk presented by the contamination zone itself. It would be preferable to utilise a deniable back-channel proxy squad, rather than dispatch an Agency fire team.
I respect your reservations regarding the scope of the SPEKTR project, but I would draw your attention to Presidential Directive 39 which instructs the agency to undertake ‘an aggressive programme of foreign intelligence collection, analysis and covert actions’ in our efforts to combat terrorism. The offensive potential of the SPEKTR battle-strain is incontrovertible, and gives us a firm legal mandate in our steps to secure the virus on behalf of the United States.
R. Koell
Field Officer
CA Special Proj, Baghdad Station
Gaunt
Jim Gaunt pulled back the hangar door. Open for business. No different from a neighbourhood grocer hosing down the sidewalk and laying out fruit boxes and flowers.
He sipped from a silver thermal mug with Marine wings.
Dawn. Reveille. A plaintive bugle call crackling from loudspeakers. The rain had cleared. Sky bluer than he’d ever known. Wet asphalt would soon burn dry.
The morning delivery. Raphael drove down the airstrip service road. He pulled up in a five-ton flatbed. Russian RGD-5 grenades under tarp.
Gaunt checked his clipboard. Three hundred crates, twenty-four grenades per case. Surplus ordinance shipped from Johannesburg, via the Emirates.
‘Como estas, baby?’
Raphael. Gaunt’s partner. Each night he slept on a canvas cot at the back of the hangar, shotgun by his side. Hair tied back into a ponytail. Thick moustache. Leather waistcoat. Torso covered in jailhouse tattoos faded lavender with age. He ripped the cellophane from a king-size Balmoral and lit up.
‘Absolutely fucking peachy,’ said Gaunt.
Raphael kept a Rottweiler chained by the door. Sasha. She sat with her blanket and bowl. He teased her with a hunk of jerky. She slavered. She snapped and lunged, pulled against her heavy neck-chain.
Baghdad International Airport.
Bullet-pocked terminal buildings. 86th Airwing bivouacked in a departure lounge, To Dare Mighty Things shield-banner draped to mask a Bollywood mural of Saddam leading his men into battle on a white stallion.
Thirteen-thousand-foot landing strip cratered by cluster bombs. Steady traffic from massive C141 Starlifters. The planes threw t
ight corkscrew turns as they descended towards the runway, popping starburst flares and chaff in case a ground-fired SA-7 locked on their heat-trail.
Fuel trucks pumped gas.
Loadmasters supervised forklift crews as they removed pallet cargo from vaulted holds. Generators. Water purification equipment. White goods. DHL de-planed sacks of mail and courier packages.
The planes were reloaded with metal coffins and wounded, and dispatched to Ramstein Airbase, Germany.
Gaunt was exiled to the far end of the runway. A low-rent private carrier. His hangar part-blocked by an abandoned twin-prop Sherpa turning to rust on the slipway, like the ghost of old wars.
Gaunt turned his face to the morning sun and breathed the sweet scent of aviation fuel.
‘They revoked our pass, Ese,’ said Raphael.
‘The chit?’
‘Expired. They won’t renew.’
The Provisional Authority had been superseded by the Interim Governing Council. All private contractors had to renegotiate terms.
‘They want us out, Ese. End of the month. Vacate and give them the keys.’
‘I’ll talk to the main office,’ said Gaunt. ‘Try to buy us more time.’
‘I heard there’s a vacant warehouse near the Central Station. We could rent space. Bid for police contracts.’
‘A few helmets, a few flaks. Pocket change. Go down that route and we’ll end up bartering AKs for cows. No. All the big deals are happening here. This is the hub. This is the action.’
‘Ten months, bro. Been here ten months.’
‘Just got to hold our nerve. Everyone else is making out hand over fist. Why not us?’
‘You said we’d get Agency work. You said they were desperate for guys.’
Gaunt had approached an intel analyst at the Al-Rasheed two months ago. The basement sports bar favoured by Central Intelligence document recovery teams sent to scour bombed-out ministry buildings for paperwork and hard drives. The analyst was sitting alone, sipping scotch. Only guy in a shirt and tie. Gaunt took a stool next to him, begged for work, begged for a way in. The guy drained his glass and walked away without saying a word.
‘Like I say. Just got to hold our nerve.’
Gaunt and Raphael unloaded the truck.
Engine revs. An SUV with a damaged muffler. They watched it approach up the service road. An armoured Suburban with heavy ram bars. Scorched, bubbled paint work. Body pocked with bullet strikes. Cracked windshield.
Lucy and Amanda.
Lucy got out the car. She raised her Oakleys and tucked them in her hair like an Alice band. She approached Gaunt and held out her hand.
‘How’ve you been?’ she asked.
‘Fuck you.’
Amanda hung back and kept a hand on the butt of her sidearm.
Lucy checked out the interior of the hangar.
Stacked crates. Boxes of cheap boots. Blue Iraqi police uniforms still sheathed in plastic. MRE food pouches.
Gaunt’s desk, cluttered with manifests, transit papers and end-user certificates. There was a framed photograph on the desk. Young Gaunt and his father, both in dress blues.
Amanda looked Gaunt up and down. Young guy. Crucifix round his neck. An old burn on his forearm, skin like melted wax. He wore a big skull ring on one hand, a West Point graduation ring on the other.
‘What the fuck are you doing here, Lucy?’ asked Gaunt.
‘We need a ride. Three-day charter. We heard you might be looking for business.’
‘You’re kidding me, right? Take your shit-heap car and get out of here.’
Amanda lifted the lid of a green wooden crate labelled ‘engine parts’. An ancient Russian machine gun. Bipod. Chipped wooden stock. Drum magazine.
‘Where did you get this stuff?’ she asked. ‘A yard sale?’
‘No market for American carbines,’ said Raphael. ‘Not round here. Fancy scopes and laser sights. Not interested. They want AKs. They trust them. They can get the spares, they can get the ammo.’
Amanda worked the slide and aimed at Raphael’s dog. She pulled the trigger. Clack of an empty chamber. The dog barked and jerked its chain.
‘Where does all this shit end up?’ asked Amanda.
‘Burqan oil fields, mostly,’ said Raphael.
She laid the weapon back in its newspaper bed.
Lucy opened a crate and examined grenades. Russian. Green baseball grenades with a long aluminium fuse. Gaunt took a grenade from Lucy’s hand. He pulled the pin. The safety lever flipped, and clinked on concrete. He tossed the grenade. Lucy caught it, unconcerned.
‘Doubt you’re dumb enough to pack them fused.’
She put the grenade on Gaunt’s desk. It rolled among paperwork.
‘Get out,’ said Gaunt. ‘I’m not going to tell you again.’
‘Thousand dollars a day,’ said Lucy. ‘Plus a cut of the haul.’
Gaunt spat on her boot.
‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘I got some work for you.’
Gaunt leant on his desk, hands planted either side of a Colt pistol resting on paperwork.
‘Guess I’m not making myself clear.’
Amanda popped the restraining strap of her side-holster.
Raphael stepped between them.
‘They got money, Ese. I want to hear what they have to say.’
Raphael led them between stacked crates of 7.62mm ammunition. African import stamps on the crates. Kinshasa. One battle zone to another. Half the rounds would probably misfire.
There were two Huey choppers at the back of the hangar. Vietnam-era war-birds. Bad Moon and Talon.
‘These things actually fly?’ asked Lucy.
‘I bet my life on these girls,’ said Raphael.
‘Mind if we check them out?’
‘Go ahead.’
Lucy and Amanda circled the choppers. Crude avionics. Old-time gauges and altimeters. Leather seats patched with duct tape.
‘These things are older than my grandpa,’ said Amanda. ‘We’re wasting our time.’
‘Gaunt is just running his mouth. Look around you. He needs money. Needs it badly.’
‘What about tattoo guy? The barrio gangbanger? What do you know about him?’
‘Raphael? I asked around. Shitload of combat flight hours. Flown everywhere. Night recon. Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. Any stan you care to mention.’
Gaunt and Raphael watched them inspect the Hueys.
‘The two chicks are wearing rings,’ said Raphael. ‘What’s the deal with that?’
‘What do you think?’
‘We need the bucks, Ese. We need to eat.’
‘I don’t care if I fucking starve.’
‘We ought to hear what she has to say. Thousand dollars a day, Ese. We can’t turn it down.’
Lucy ducked beneath the tail-boom. She approached Gaunt and Raphael.
‘How much can these things haul?’ asked Lucy
‘Sling-load, or cabin?’
‘Cabin.’
‘Three tons each, give or take,’ said Raphael. ‘We can take out the bench seats, easy enough.’
‘Can they handle desert?’
‘They’ve got filters.’
‘So what do you say?’
Raphael relit his cigar.
‘I’m wondering why you’re talking to us and not military liaison.’
‘Those grenades. Where did you guys pick them up? Pretoria? Liberia? They’ve got to be twenty years old. Corroded to hell. Sell those to some warlord down south and you’ve got a real problem. They’ll crack open a box for training and find they don’t go bang. They’ll snatch you off the street. Cut you up slow.’
‘That’s my concern,’ said Gaunt.
Lucy smoothed out a map, spread it like a tablecloth over a couple of grenade crates. Raphael fetched Dr Pepper from a refrigerator and cracked cans. Gaunt hung back, arms folded.
Iraq. All the major cities clustered east in the fertile alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates. Irrigated vineyards.
Pomegranate and date groves. Oil money down south near the gulf.
Lucy pointed west. Al Anbar. The Western Desert. Terra incognita. A here-be-monsters blank. No towns, no cities.
‘Here,’ she said.
‘Middle of the desert.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Nothing out there,’ said Raphael. ‘Sand and scorpions. Might meet a few Bedouin. A few Talib. Slit your throat given a chance.’
‘Those choppers. Could they make the trip?’
‘Edge of their range but yeah, they could make it.’
‘It’s a salvage run. Stuff from the war. We find it. We load it. We bring it back.’
‘Munitions?’
‘No. Totally inert cargo.’
‘Weight?’
‘Approximately two tons.’
‘Coke? Heroin?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘Why us?’
‘Like I say. Salvage. Less people involved the better.’
‘Grand a day?’
‘Up front. Guaranteed. After that: partners. A cut of whatever we find.’
‘And how much is that likely to be?’
‘Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands.’
Lucy uncapped a pen and wrote her cellphone number across the cover of an old Stars and Stripes, digits scrawled across Saddam’s forehead.
‘I’ll give you guys some space to think it over. Call me, all right? Let’s make some money.’
Gaunt and Raphael watched them leave.
‘Fucking bitch.’
‘But three thousand bucks, Ese. We’re hurting. Everyone is getting rich but us.’
‘You can leave anytime you want,’ said Gaunt. ‘You don’t like the way I run things, you don’t like the calls, then walk out the door.’
Lucy headed for Baghdad. The city viewed through a spider web crack in the windshield.
Amanda killed country tunes from Freedom 107FM and slotted Cypress Hill into the dash. ‘Ain’t Going Out Like That’. She turned up the volume. Lucy turned it down.
Lucy checked the rear-view. Locals kept clear. They pulled back, swerved to let the GMC pass. Provisional Order Seventeen. Paul Bremner’s decree. Civilian security contractors were immune from prosecution. A licence to kill.