by Adam Baker
The room was littered with files, reconnaissance photographs and downlink screens.
Koell sat beside Gaunt and handed him a tumbler of scotch.
‘Jabril wasn’t the only person to walk out of that valley when the shit went down,’ said Koell. ‘There was another survivor. Doctor Ignatiev.’
Koell swivelled a laptop so Gaunt could see the screen. He clicked play. A squat Slavic guy sitting in an interrogation cell. His skin was burnt and peeling. The guy talked. No sound.
‘The valley team got wiped out while I was taking care of business back in Baghdad. A couple of garbled distress calls then radio silence. A few days later I started to hear rumours. A white guy for sale in Mosul. Bedouin had found Ignatiev half dead in the desert. Figured he might fetch a good price. I flew to Mosul. We bartered. I bought him for forty thousand bucks.’
Koell handed Gaunt a reconnaissance picture of the citadel.
‘Ignatiev found the crypt entrance among a bunch of subsidiary buildings behind the main temple. It’s the only underground structure. A deep catacomb with a vaulted ceiling. The crypt contains the bones of temple priests and their acolytes. Whenever the big guy died, the head priest, they carried him underground and laid him to rest. Then his pals drank some kind of poison draught and lay down beside him. Kept him company on his trip into the after-world.
‘Jabril and his boys may have used the crypt as storage space. Plenty of sandstorms in that region. Extreme temperature fluctuations. The crypt would be safe and cool. Good shelter. When you arrive onsite, when you begin your search for the virus flask, it’s the first place you should check.’
‘Okay.’
‘The trunk is green. No markings. About the size of a suitcase. It contains a thick document bundle, and the virus flask. We want both items. That is your mission. Your primary objective. You have forty-eight hours. After that, we pull the plug.’
The silence of the temple crypt was broken by the rasp of a stone lid hauled aside. A torch beam pierced the darkness.
Gaunt crept down worn stone steps. He swung his Maglite left and right, lit niches and plinths cluttered with bone.
He explored the crypt. He stooped beneath the low ceiling. Archways receded into impenetrable shadows. Strange hieroglyphs on walls and pillars. Hybrid blasphemies. Creatures with the bodies of men, the heads of eagles, alligators and bulls. Curling, sting-loaded scorpion tails.
There were calcite urns stacked around the base of each pillar. He shone his flashlight inside. Jumbled bone.
He examined a skull. Good teeth. A diet free from refined sugar.
Brown stains on the flagstone floor, criss-cross like tyre tread. The imprint of reed mats long since crumbled away.
Broken clay pots. Tiny skulls. Dogs and cats.
Something stank. New death. New decay.
His torch lit mummified bodies. Dead soldiers. Three Republican Guard in olive fatigues. They were sat facing a battery lamp that had long since burned out. Exit wounds in the top of each head. It looked like they passed round a Makarov pistol and, one-by-one, took a bullet in the mouth.
He unlaced his boots and compared sole-size with the dead men. He found a good match. Leather parade boots. They had been protected from leaking body fluid by a double layer of socks.
Gaunt tried them for size. He laced.
The dead guys wore gold jewellery. Drab uniforms decked out with pimp accessories. Rings. Bracelets. Neck chains.
Gaunt unclipped a gold Rolex with a black face. He wiped it clean. It still kept time. He threw his plastic Casio G-Shock aside and buckled the Rolex.
He checked the Makarov. No bullets.
He took stick deodorant from his backpack. He rubbed deodorant on a bandana, then tied it round his face bandit-style. The reek of decomposition masked by cloying perfume.
He searched pockets. The mummified faces grinned at him like they were sharing a private joke.
Coins. Prayer beads and a Koran. A couple of crappy penknives. No weapons, no ammo.
Gaunt kicked through smashed laptops, discarded clothes and food wrappers. He shone his flashlight into the deep shadow of the catacombs. No green trunk.
Gaunt rubbed his eyes. He felt tired. He felt out of his depth.
He found a blanket. He shook out dust and wrapped it round his shoulders like a shawl.
He sat on the worn steps of the crypt. He ejected the clip from his Sig and counted bullets. NyTrilium rounds. Blunt-ridged, like molars. Four left.
He sipped from his canteen.
He leaned against ancient brickwork and closed his eyes. He tried to sleep, despite the cold. Vapour curled from his mouth and nose like cigarette smoke.
A strange dream. His long-dead mother standing the other side of a crowded street. She shouted. She seemed desperate. He couldn’t make out words.
Lucy’s voice.
‘Gaunt? Gaunt can you hear me?’
Gaunt jerked awake. He unzipped his leather jacket. His earpiece was hanging round his chest. He hooked it to his earlobe.
‘Hello, Lucy.’
‘How are you doing out there?’
‘I’m walking on sunshine.’
‘Raphael is dead. Talon is destroyed. Bad Moon is damaged. I want to cut a deal. Repair the chopper and fly us home. We’ll let you live.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Think about it. We have to get the Huey airborne. How do you feel about walking home? Several hundred miles of desert between us and Baghdad. Reckon you could make it on your own? Lucky if any of us get back alive.’
‘What if I can’t fix the chopper?’
‘Then we’re all fucked.’
‘You’d put a bullet in my head soon as we touch down. I’d be dead before the rotor stopped spinning.’
‘We’d find a spot outside the city limits. Put the gold out the door. After that, head for the Green Zone. You know that road outside the convention centre?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Set us down right there. Place is always crawling with traffic. There are CCTV cameras covering the entrance. Plenty of sentries. Land there and walk away. Take all the gold you can carry.’
‘Voss. Your girlfriend. They would track me down.’
‘Then get the fuck out of Baghdad quick as you can. Yeah, they’ll be gunning for revenge. But you would have a head start, if you are smart enough to use it.’
‘What do your friends say?’
‘They want to get out of here. They are prepared to be a little pragmatic.’
‘Let me think it over.’
Jabril unhooked the earpiece from his ear.
‘Your friends seem to be having problems. One of your helicopters is destroyed. The other is damaged. They blame Gaunt.’
Amanda wiped sweat from her face. She cracked her knuckles. She wiped her hands dry.
The flashlight dimmed a little further. The dying bulb threw out a warm ember glow.
Amanda yawned.
Jabril yawned in sympathy.
The instant his eyes squeezed shut Amanda snatched a handful of rings and watches, and hurled them at Jabril’s face. His shocked flinch gave her the half-second she needed to throw herself forward and grip his left hand.
They rolled on the plate floor of the truck, scattering jewels, wrestling for the grenade. Amanda bent back Jabril’s fingers and eased the grenade out of his hand. She gripped the grenade in both hands, fingers locked tight round the safety lever. She brought it down on Jabril’s head like a rock. Repeated blows. She slammed his jaw. She cut open his forehead.
She removed the knife from the door mechanism, and kicked open the vault.
She jumped out. Cool air.
Lucy ran to the truck. They hugged and kissed.
Amanda held up the grenade.
‘He’s got the pin in his pocket.’
Voss dragged Jabril from the truck. Jabril lay on flagstones, holding his bleeding forehead. Voss kicked him in the back, the balls. Jabril curled foetal. He shook with each blow. He
took the beating but didn’t scream.
Amanda took the pin from Jabril’s pocket, twisted it back into the grenade and set it down. She looked around.
‘Where’s Toon?’ she asked.
‘Toon and Raphael are dead. Both choppers are fucked. Gaunt is out there, in the ruins.’
‘Holy fucking Christ.’
‘Never trust a Christian,’ said Voss. ‘That’s what my dad used to say. If you meet a guy with a cross round his neck, keep a firm hand on your wallet. Team Jesus. Think they are better than anyone else. Think they are a breed apart.’
‘He wanted the gold?’ asked Amanda.
‘I guess. I’m not sure. I’m beginning to think the gold is a side-show. We’re caught up in some nasty shit and I think it’s about time we extricated ourselves.’
Voss dragged the metal case from the truck.
‘What’s in here?’
‘Jabril’s prize,’ said Amanda. ‘A Hellfire missile. It’s loaded with some kind of bio-weapon.’
Voss opened the case. He examined the missile. He thumbed through documents and photographs.
‘CIA black ops. You got serious friends, Jabril.’
Lucy lifted the glass cylinder from its foam bed. She held it up. It lit her face ethereal blue.
‘It has to be destroyed,’ croaked Jabril. ‘The virus. The documents. The entire project has to be erased.’
Lucy lay the cylinder back in its foam bed.
‘You’ve dropped us in some deep shit.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into this mess.’
Voss threw the documents aside. He stood over the injured man.
‘I think I’ve been fucked quite enough for one night, bokkie. About time we regained the initiative.’ He pressed the gun barrel to Jabril’s forehead. ‘I say we snuff the fucker right now. Save a little water.’
Jabril struggled to his feet.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Please. Wait.’
‘Fuck it,’ said Lucy. ‘Waste him.’
Voss racked the slide of his shotgun and took aim.
‘Hold on,’ said Amanda, pressing a tissue to her broken nose. ‘Listen to what the guy has to say.’
‘Why?’ asked Lucy. ‘Everything he told us so far has been lies. The man is a liability.’
‘He can tell us about the virus.’
‘It’s fucked-up shit. That’s all I need to know.’
‘We need him. Both choppers are screwed. Odds are, we will be walking home. He managed it once before. He crossed the desert and survived. He could be our guide.’
Voss reluctantly lowered his shotgun.
‘All right,’ said Lucy. ‘Tie him up.’
Voss lashed Jabril’s left arm behind his back, tied his wrist to his belt. He put a rope round Jabril’s neck like a dog-leash. He tethered him to a pillar near the campfire.
Lucy sat beside Jabril. He ran his tongue round his mouth and checked for missing teeth.
Lucy uncapped her canteen and held it to his mouth. He sipped. He sluiced and spat.
‘It’s going to be a long, cold night. So let’s start over. Let’s start from the beginning. Who are you, Jabril? What in God’s name happened out here?’
Central Intelligence Agency
Directorate of Operations, Near East Division
FLASH CABLE – READ AND DESTROY
TO: Project Lead, D.Ops
FROM: R. Koell
08/23/05
21:18 AST
Colonel,
You requested I keep you apprised of significant developments in our attempts to retrieve the battle-strain from the contamination zone. Our man at the SPEKTR site reports the incursion team have encountered difficulties which have rendered their transport, two Bell UH-1 helicopters, non-operational. He has also been unable to locate and acquire the virus package.
11th Recon will not be able to resume Predator over-watch until first light, so we are unable to make an independent assessment of the situation. However I feel it prudent to put our assets in Sharjah on standby. The use of an expendable contract security team gives us the distance and deniability. Our man continues his survey of the site and I remain hopeful that the virus package can be recovered. However I also feel we need to be prepared to take significant steps should it become necessary to cleanse the site.
Next scheduled update: 05:30 AST.
Starfall
‘How about a cigarette?’
Lucy put a lit Salem between Jabril’s lips. He smoked a while, then spat the butt into the fire.
‘Okay,’ said Lucy. ‘Start talking.’
I worked for the Office of Special Security under Uday Hussein. Ba’ath Party Intelligence, Directorate Four.
I worked out of Baghdad. We were based in Little Venice, the presidential compound next to the Tigris. The area that is now the Green Zone.
I was part of the weapons acquisition programme. I led a team of senior intelligence officers. Loyal men who spoke English, German, French. Our job, throughout the eighties and nineties, was to fly abroad and source materials for the biological and chemical weapons programme. We were called SEPP. The State Establishment for Pesticide Production. We used intermediaries. We bought precursor chemicals from Egypt, the Netherlands, Singapore. We bought steel fermentation tanks, centrifuges and reactor vessels from Japan and India. We sourced Anthrax, smallpox and yellow fever from labs in Moscow and North Korea. Samples were sent back to Baghdad sealed in a diplomatic pouch. The objective of the procurement programme was to develop chemical and biological weapons to be delivered by adapted SCUD and Badr missiles, and specially milled artillery shells.
Our work came to end during Desert Storm. All the major bio-warfare facilities were blasted flat by the American air force. A relentless barrage. Tomahawks. Incessant B52 strikes. The al-Salman facility south of Baghdad burned to the ground, ending our attempts to weaponise the plague. The al-Kindi bacteriological lab was levelled, destroying our stocks of Anthrax and Botulinum. The vaccine facility at al-Amoriyah was bombed, ending our attempts to refine typhoid, cholera and smallpox.
There was no serious attempt to restart the programme after the war. The country was in ruins, the army had been decimated. My greatest coup, in the latter years of the regime, was circumventing sanctions to procure a custom Lamborghini Uday had glimpsed on TV and decided he must possess at all costs.
The order came down a couple of years ago, days before the American invasion. It was a dark and desperate time. The US army was massed at our borders. We knew aerial bombardment would begin any day and the ministry buildings of Baghdad would be a primary target. Should we run? Should we abandon our posts and flee? Each man faced the same dilemma.
That is why I was astonished when the order came across my desk. Investigate an incident that occurred in the Western Desert near the border with Syria a decade earlier.
A strange craft had fallen to earth. It had not been recovered.
Why, in the dying days of the regime, would anyone consider it a priority to investigate this incident?
You have to understand that Iraq did not have a single state police. Saddam was too cunning to let a single agency become all-powerful. There were a series of rival intelligence agencies, some loyal to Uday, some loyal to Qsay. Everyone involved in the security apparatus understood they were pawns in a grand game of succession. There were no simple orders. A misjudged word or action could easily result in a show-trial and execution. We led a privileged life. But the price was constant fear.
Nevertheless, this order allowed me to flee Baghdad with the full sanction of the state. I was happy to comply.
I scoured records. I brought cart loads of paper from basement storage.
Ten years ago, military air traffic logged an unexplained radar hit over Al Anbar. An object passing from Syrian airspace at high altitude. A steep descent, at unbelievable velocity. Twenty-five times the speed of sound. At first it was assumed that a meteor had fallen to earth but examination of radar records
revealed the object appeared to alter course and speed as it fell. There was a significant deceleration ten kilometres from impact, as if the object were trying to perform some kind of controlled landing.
A Mig pilot on night reconnaissance had glimpsed the unidentified object to his north as it crossed his flight-path. It was moving fast, burning bright. He described it as a shooting star. This took place in the early nineties. Our war with Iran had cooled to a stand-off. America and Russia were competing for regional domination. This entire sector was a cold-war buffer zone. Plenty of US Blackbird reconnaissance flights. I assumed some kind of spy plane had been forced to crash-land in the desert.
They sent out choppers the next morning. They were hampered by a fierce dust storm. When the storm cleared, no trace of the mysterious object could be found. Empty desert. No sign of wreckage. No crater.
We could expect little help from the locals.
Iraq is an artificial nation. Disparate tribes ruled by fear. Al-’Anb r governate was hostile territory. We could easily have been prey to Peshmerga guerrillas or Kurdish tribesmen, men with plenty of reason to hate Saddam and his attempts to secularise and unify the nation under his rule.
I requested thirty men. To my surprise I was assigned a full battalion and a truck-load of gold for bribe money.
We loaded excavation equipment and headed west down the Fallujah highway. It was a relief to flee Baghdad. The city was already a ghost town. Anyone who could leave had already gone. Every shop locked and shuttered. Windows were criss-crossed with tape. Sandbags and anti-aircraft guns on each hotel roof. We were running ahead of the storm.
We drove out into the desert. Drove day and night. Miles of sun-baked highway. We had a grid reference, nothing more. A red cross in the middle of blank terrain.
We passed wretched villages. Hovels clustered around a well. It was a depressing sight. We had all risen from poverty. Every Iraqi, no matter how educated or powerful, can trace his recent ancestry to dirt-poor subsistence farmers trying to coax a few ears of corn from barren soil.