by Mike Bond
“I see.”
“We need the Iraqis on him. Hard.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Or I will.”
“Don’t be a lone ranger, Jack, you’ll only get her killed. Stay with us.”
“I still don’t see why.”
“Tactical, Jack. Tactical. Gives us time to move on the ground.”
“Don’t you fuckheads dare try to rescue her.”
“You’re an American, don’t try to tell us what to do.” Simon cleared his throat. “You call your own people?”
“You were first.”
“Thanks for that.”
“She’s your citizen. Your famous journalist. You have to lead. My side will be sympathetic, nothing more.”
“Despite all your years.”
“I’ve burned too many bridges. You know that.”
“She was just a journalist. She never worked for us. Not in any way. That will be our position.”
“I don’t care.”
“We’ll be in touch.”
Telling Simon about Isabelle’s absence had made it even clearer how impossible it would be to find her. They would have to wait till her kidnappers got in touch, if they ever did.
Unless she was already dead. By the side of the road somewhere, her throat cut. In a trash heap or down by the river. In a ruined building or a cemetery for cars. Thousands of bodies out there already, waiting to be discovered.
Nothing he could do. He had to. Visions of her swirled around him. His every cell ached. The universe screamed with pain. Sorrow deep as the dark night of space overwhelmed him.
“I DON’T BELIEVE I heard you,” Timothy said.
“Isabelle’s been kidnapped, I said.”
“Oh my Lord!”
“I need help –”
“Are you sure?” A rustle of sleeve as Timothy checked his watch. “It’s not even eight o’clock – maybe she’s just late or something?”
“I’m coming in.”
“There’s nobody here.” Timothy’s throat caught. “It’s just me, and I’m headed back to DC in two hours.”
“Nobody there?” Jack was out of breath from pacing, forgetting to breathe. “Where the fuck’s Feist?”
“On his way to Qatar.”
“Get him back. Who runs the networks?”
“Rickner. And he’s over the Atlantic right now.”
“Get him back too. I need to reach his people, the networks... And I need GPS on Isabelle’s phone, right now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Jack. And Isabelle’s their citizen, not ours. We have to wait till they ask.”
“They’re asking. Don’t waste time.”
“Tell them call me.”
“And we have to get the word out.”
“It can’t come from us. Not visibly.”
“Why?”
“She’s not ours, like I said. They have to handle this.”
“They’re doing all they can. But we have twenty times the resources. This is our war, remember? They’re just helping us out, giving their guys some experience. Timothy I need a list, introductions. Now.”
“You could put everybody in danger, Jack. You know the rules.”
“Fuck the rules.”
“That’s been your problem all along, Jack You’ve always fucked the rules. It gets tiresome. Counterproductive.”
“Are you saying a long-term US military agent’s next of kin may die because you guys won’t help?”
“She’s not your next of kin. That means spouse or blood relation.”
“We’re engaged, getting married soon as we get out of here...” The words choked in his throat, get out of here, their unreality now. “Rickner and Feist, get them back here.”
“You’re not my CO, Jack. I wish you’d remember that. We will chat with him, see what his options are.”
“I want to talk to him. Now. And the other one, soon as he lands.”
“Do you remember this afternoon, Jack? What you said to me?”
“I said the truth. You have a right to disagree. But I’ve been paid by you guys for over twenty years, done more for you than almost anyone else –”
“We’ll do what we can.” Timothy exhaled. “I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t you dare leave town, you bastard.”
The line was dead. Jack called him back. “Timothy if you don’t help me on this...”
“Of course we will.”
“I want the GPS on her phone.”
“Give me,” Timothy paused as if seeking a pen or paper, “the number.”
“Just so you know, I’m calling The Independent. And going to Hassan al-Shelby.”
“The Police Chief? Not yet. Her people are right: give them, give us, two days to work it out and if we don’t know something we’ll go outside.”
“I’m offering a hundred grand. Right now.”
“Don’t do that either.”
“And I need Feist back. Here, now. And for you to stay till we know what’s going on.”
Timothy sighed, a man suddenly old, a husk. “I’ll call you, before I go.”
“Get me the GPS, Timothy,” Jack seethed, but the line was dead.
He stared at the silent phone, almost threw it at the window. But it was his umbilical cord to her; the only chance of saving her would come through this phone.
He went down to find the old man at the desk.
Retribution
“ALREADY I tell you,” the old man said. “She does not come down from these stairs while I am here.”
”She was still here at three forty-five. I called her.”
“Perhaps I was in the toilets. Perhaps then.”
“When?” Jack wanted to choke his flaccid dirty neck. “When did you go to the toilets?”
The old man spread his hands. “For that, one doesn’t look at the time...”
Jack nodded at the clock. “You must have! Don’t you check to make sure no one’s expected?”
“I am not from America. Here we do not live like that.”
There was no choice. Jack lifted him like a straw dummy and carried him cackling through the office door into the back room and sat him in an old tilting plastic chair and shut the door behind them. “It’s very simple,” he said. “I give you ten minutes to tell me what happened. Every word. The truth. I can see inside you and if you lie I’ll kill you.”
The old man caught his breath, rubbing his throat. “They will find you.”
Jack took off the old man’s scarf and tightened it round his neck. “Who? Who will find me?”
“You will kill me anyway?”
“Not if you tell. And promise Allah to be silent.”
“Then they kill me.”
“Who is they, you old fool? I’ll get them.”
A quavering snicker. “That could never happen.”
Jack twisted the scarf. “So I kill you. Or you tell me now. Who are they?”
“They will kill,” the old man fought for breath, his long fingernails at Jack’s wrists, “my family.”
“So will I.”
“Take away the scarf. I will tell you.”
The old man sat up in the rickety chair and Jack crouched before him. “They are Sunni people. You Americans have put over us this evil Shiite al-Maliki – why I do not understand, since so many of us are Sunni. So there are many young men who have survived your invasion, who have survived the troubles you unleashed on us. They want retribution.”
“Against who?”
“Against you Americans who have once again destroyed our country and killed so many thousands of our people. Against the Shiites who desecrate Islam and whom you enforce upon us because you want to make friends with Iran.”
“What does this have to do with Miss Palmeiri?”
“If they took her it is because she is with you. To punish you, perhaps?”
“Why? What have I done to them?”
“For that you would have to ask them.”
“How
do I find them?”
“You cannot. Nor can I. Perhaps they will find you.”
“You told them I was here, didn’t you, you old bastard.”
“It is known. I did not have to say it.”
Jack fell to his knees, exhausted. “Why didn’t they just kill me?”
“For that you would have to ask them.”
Jack snatched a reservation form from the desk and scribbled on it. “Here’s my phone number. If they come back, call me. If you lead them to me I will give you ten thousand dollars.”
“They will kill me if I do this. If they do, what good is money?”
NESTS INSIDE nests. Endless skins of an onion that when you finally peel down you find was just another wrong onion. He thought of the taxi driver – not a boy any more but once a student till the Americans came. Who had lost an eye in the muqawama. And now was driving a taxi instead of doing physics research.
Hadn’t things been better, as most Iraqis said, under Saddam? Evil as he may have been, an American executioner in the 1950s, a slaughterer of America’s enemies, a ruthless ally till the 80’s then suddenly an impediment in the global oil game, and thus an enemy?
And the Iraqi people who’d lived through Rumsfeld’s “Shock and Awe”? So many people blasted to oblivion, their homes destroyed and children obliterated before their eyes. Everywhere shattered bodies and bloody streets. All their young men who never came home. What does it feel like to have an M-60 bullet punch through your chest?
What would he have done, had he been one of them?
20:55 IN BAGHDAD was not even 6 pm in London. The operator at The Independent was still there and passed him to a junior editor named Barbara Sachs.
“One of your reporters is in trouble. I need to talk to the Editor in Chief, the Owner –”
It took another ten minutes to find a senior editor named Alison Krump who soon connected him to editor in chief Lionel Hutting. “This is dreadful,” Hutting said. “Horrifying. What can we do?”
“Think. Think how you can help. Her files –”
“She kept nothing here. All we have are her emailed articles. We sometimes edited them, but nothing else. This isn’t an old-fashioned newspaper office full of filing cabinets.”
“What about sources? You must have checked her sources.”
Hutting said nothing, then, “Her sources were vetted. But not by us.”
“You’re telling me MI6 runs you? Tells you what to say?”
“Young man I’m not telling you that at all,” Hutting huffed, “not at all. Do you have her phone? Her calls?”
“Her phone was with her.”
“Your people can trace it –”
“That’s my next call. And I need every reporter you know of to spread the word we’re doing a ransom.”
“Who is?”
“You and me.”
“While I daresay we could do something, perhaps, I can’t commit –”
“A hundred grand is what you’re offering.”
“Jack, I –”
“Or I’m doing a press conference about how you guys knowingly sent her into danger.”
“Journalism’s a dangerous job, we all know that.”
Jack’s phone buzzed, an instant’s hope it was Isabelle but it was Timothy. “Feist’s on his way back.”
“When?”
“They turned around, soon as I called.”
“How many hours?”
“Six, maybe, then it’ll be three am.”
“I’ll meet him then.”
“He’ll call you. You’re lucky he’s coming back. Don’t push it.”
Jack returned to Hutting but he was gone. He called him back. “I have to discuss this with the Board,” Hutting said.
“Do it now. I’ll call you back. Be sure to answer.”
“Don’t expect miracles. Some of them may be unavailable till tomorrow.”
“You have till 9 am London time. That’s fifteen hours. Then I blow you wide open.”
PAIN. In her skull, her arms, her back and knees. Where they had hit her, roped her, jabbed, kicked and dragged her. Her mouth torn by the rag knotted across it, her eyes driven into her skull by her rag blindfold, her wrists burning and bleeding through her bindings.
She was lying on her side on the dirt floor of a dark room. Truck engines rumbled in the distance. The arm beneath her had gone to sleep. She realized she could move, and twisted herself onto her back.
A horrible pain seared into her face ripping her cheek. A whip or something, barbed wire. “Don’t move,” a man said. In English.
SHE WAITED. Forced herself to breathe slowly, deeply, steadily. In, out. One, two. Up to a hundred then start again. Maybe CO2 will dull the pain.
No it doesn’t.
A thunder of jets climbing overhead. F-10s maybe. Out of Bagram? Was she still in Baghdad? How long had she been unconscious?
The van at the corner of the suddenly empty street, its doors flinging open, the men dragging her inside, she bit the hand clamped over her mouth. He swore and a huge pain hit her skull. And now this.
“Water,” she whispered. A horrible pain smashed into the small of her back, the kidneys. A boot. She gagged, writhing for breath.
The whip slashed her cheek. “I said Don’t move!”
Time passed with the slowness of a drop of water trickling across a desert. It did not pass at all. Not even one minute passed. The pain was overwhelming, more than she could stand.
Her swollen throat made it hard not to gasp. Her hands were on fire, her feet. The pain in her side and shoulder, in her kidneys and the crushed bleeding in her skull were all killing her but she did not die.
“NO TRACE of her phone,” Timothy said.
He hadn’t dared hope for it. “Is Feist in yet?”
“Not yet. Get some sleep, Jack. Stay near your phone.”
He walked the cold dark damp streets. There were no taxis. He thought of the physics kid. He’d saved his number somewhere. Where?
The pocket of the shirt he’d worn. But he’d changed shirts.
03:10. Three hours to dawn. He went back to the Palestine. A young man with a sharp moustache was dozing at the desk. “The old man who was here,” Jack said. “He was very helpful...”
“Uncle Wazir,” the young man yawned. “He comes back not till Monday.”
“I’m leaving but want to give him a small gift –”
“Leave it here.”
Jack shrugged: we both know it will get stolen. “I wish to give it personally. How do I find him?”
The man yawned again, covering his mouth with the back of his wrist. He got to his feet and fumbled in a drawer, pulled out a sheet of paper and peered down at it. “Al Attar Street, number seven twenty-three.”
Jack pulled the Baghdad map from his pocket. “Show me.”
The young man looked at him, beady-eyed. “You are going now? At this hour?”
“No. In the morning.” He climbed the four floors to his room, took a headlamp and the note with the cab driver’s number, left the Palestine and walked the pocked, littered streets till he found a Vespa he could hot wire. Nervous of the clatter it made, he drove slowly to Al Mahdi Street where it crossed Al Attar and parked it.
Al Attar was a mix of empty warehouses, some shell-damaged, and a few broken-stuccoed apartments smelling of human habitation, cars huddled like dying animals on both sides of the road, low-hanging electric wires like vines against the dirty sky.
Number 723 was a low concrete block bungalow with a metal roof, steel window bars, and an old VW Passat parked on a dirt patch beside it.
He slipped into an empty two-story building three down from it. The door was gone, the hallway dark, broken glass and turds underfoot, a shattered window at the end, a stairway of broken treads, rats hissing as they ran out the back into an overgrown alley of broken cars. He climbed the stairs to a naked second floor room of crunching plaster and smashed furniture where he could hide and still look down on the old man’s ho
me.
05:41. An hour to daylight.
HANDS RIPPED off her blindfold and bright light burned her eyes. She blinked, closed and opened them; black shapes flitted across her sight.
Hands yanked her sideways. Black masks stared down. Three, crouching over her with only black eyes showing through black masks. One thrust his face closer. “Keep silent. Do what we say.”
She nodded. The pain in her back was more than she could take, her skull and jaw, her torn face, the agony in her wrists and feet.
He gripped her shoulder. “We are your masters. Understand?”
Again she nodded.
He slapped her. “Infidel whore.”
“QATAR’S A SNAKEPIT,” Jordan Feist said.
“You’re back!” Jack said. “Thank God, thank you so much for coming back!”
“All these Qatari and Saudi oil sheiks funding Al-Qaeda and ISI with our money. And we can’t touch them. We get to watch. And write reports. It sucks.”
“Isabelle’s takers haven’t contacted anyone so they may not be interested in dealing.” Jack swallowed, waited for the words to come. “Unless they’ve already killed her... So we need the reward offered fast. For a starter it’s two hundred grand, from The Independent. Half of it’s actually from me – that wipes out my savings and everything else – but it’s better it all seems to come from the paper.”
“We’re not in that game.”
“What game?”
“It’s better, like Simon says, to first spread the word. That she’s missing and we want her back.”
“Without a reward –”
“We have a good team here. Some have teams of their own. But their lives depend on me, and probably mine on them. I can’t risk, morally or strategically, any of them.”
“Nobody’s asking you to.” Jack forced himself to slow down. “For the reward we need a callback number, anyone can leave a message, so we get the location where they’re calling from.”
“Home office says no financing.”
“I wasn’t asking you guys –”
“No, Jack, you don’t understand. We can’t even send out the word.”
DAWN BLED across the tattered rooftops. The muezzin’s first call echoed through the concrete alleys and battered buildings against an empty sky where a few rooks rose and fell on the bitter wind. The hum of traffic began as if the city were a vast, toxic beehive, a waking snake pit.