The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (21 page)

‘Oh I see,’ said Mandy. She brought the vehicle to a halt outside the prison block and as she watched the British woman climb out of the car she bestowed a small look of contempt towards her back. She had been briefed that Gerry had been released from prison to meet Hamsin.

Mandy led the way into the monitoring room. Two men in military fatigues were scanning the CCTV screens that showed each occupant of the cells in turn. ‘The guards look into the cells every few minutes, and monitor them all the time on these screens.’

‘They don’t get much privacy,’ Gerry remarked.

‘No, none at all really.’

They watched the screen cycle through the detainees. They were all wearing beige coveralls, which showed that they had co-operated to some degree with their captors. Several sat in wheelchairs and a few of them were missing limbs, the result of explosions or combat injuries. Mandy tapped on the computer screen below one of the monitors and there was Ali Hamsin sitting in an armchair reading a novel. Mandy zoomed on to the cover.

‘It’s “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad,’ said Fisher. ‘Very appropriate.’

‘Yes it is,’ Gerry agreed. She glanced at Mandy wondering if she had actually read the novel and understood the metaphor in the title. Ali looked older than she had expected. He was thinner but still appeared distinguished despite his scruffy beard.

‘I don’t want to talk to him in one of those interrogation rooms,’ Gerry said.

‘We’ll go to one of the recreation pens, then,’ Fisher agreed.

She led the way along the corridors, nodding and smiling at the guards and swapping the occasional name and greeting. They were all men and they stared at Gerry with some interest. She stopped outside a door with a hatch and an observation port but rather than looking in she knocked and called out.

‘Hi Ali, this is Mandy.’

His reply emerged from a speaker on the wall next to the door. ‘So I suppose you are coming in, then.’

Mandy unlocked the door and Ali stared past her at Gerry. ‘Emily…you’re here.’

‘Hello Ali. It’s been a few years,’ said Gerry.

‘Yes.’ He inclined his head in polite agreement.

‘Come on Ali,’ said Mandy, ‘we’ll talk in one of the recreation spaces.’

She led the way outside the back of the building into an area about six metres by three surrounded by a concrete wall and a mesh roofing that cut out most of the sun. Gerry looked round and saw that there was another CCTV camera mounted in one corner with an array of microphones beneath it. There was no chance of a private conversation while Ali Hamsin was under the supervision of his captors in Guantanamo bay. Presumably Bruckner, Grainger and half a dozen others were preparing to listen to their conversation. Maybe it was also being transmitted to the George Bush Center in Langley.

Ali sat down on one side of the table and Gerry and Mandy sat down on the other. He placed his hands on the table and Gerry could see that his nails were bitten as badly as her own. He had a mosquito bite on the back of his hand and he had scratched it until it bled.

‘So Emily,’ he began in his near perfect English accent, ‘how are you enjoying your visit to our tropical island paradise.’

‘Not at all really Ali,’ she replied. ‘I’m here strictly on business.’

‘Why that’s too bad,’ he said in a high pitched American accent, ‘we have excellent facilities for leisure and entertainment, all the food you can eat; medical care; feature films as well.’

Gerry guessed that his accent was an imitation of Mandy Fisher’s. She glanced towards the psychologist and her tight-lipped expression confirmed it. ‘Unfortunately the television is mostly closed circuit surveillance and hardly anyone gets a chance to leave,’ Ali finished.

‘I’ve been instructed to leave the two of you to talk on your own,’ said Mandy. ‘Besides I’m sure Ali has had had enough of my company.’

Gerry and Ali watched her stalk off to the exit, then he said ‘Of course everything will be recorded anyway, in fact I expect she’ll go next door and put on a pair of headphones.’

‘In that case let’s begin, but first of all my name isn’t Emily, it’s Gerry.’

He gave his head a weary shake. ‘For years I have thought of you as Emily.’

‘Perhaps you can get used to Gerry. We intend to settle you in England, as you know. Will your wife be happy to leave Baghdad? Is there anywhere you particularly wish to go?’ Gerry asked.

‘Sloane Square sounds nice, or perhaps Virginia Water. Will the budget stretch to either of those places?’

‘I doubt it,’ Gerry smiled, ‘but you’d be welcome to stay in my little house in Twickenham until we can sort something out. It used to be my fiancé’s home, but sadly he was murdered by someone in the CIA and it’s been empty for a while.’

‘Ah… do I hear that you too have unresolved issues?’

‘Oh yes,’ she nodded, ‘I certainly have many unresolved issues. But our listeners will be growing impatient. So what do you have to tell me?

He stared at her for a moment, and then smiled.

‘Do you remember when we were travelling back to Kuwait? You and I and Hakim Mansour.’

‘Yes I remember.’

‘You saw a document named Gilgamesh?’

‘I was just about to have a look at it when you stopped me.’

‘That’s right, I did.’ He gave an artificial smile. ‘Now I want to negotiate what I know about Gilgamesh for my freedom and resettling my family in England.’

‘Why didn’t you do it years ago?’

‘Because back then George Bush was president of the United States. Now Obama is in office I feel it is time. And I am desperate. I’m worried that if not soon then I’ll never get out of here.’

‘But…’ Gerry hesitated.

‘But what?’ Ali asked, frowning.

‘President Obama has already promised to release everyone from Guantanamo Bay. First of all he said it would be done inside one year after his inauguration. That’s proven wide of the mark because he’s in his second term now, but still you should be out of here anyway.’

‘But of course nobody saw fit to inform me!’

‘Well there’s a surprise, but nevertheless that’s the case.’

‘God be praised!

‘Well yes of course, but good for President Obama as well!’

‘But this means that I don’t have to strike any deals.’

‘Well maybe not Ali, but I was told you asked for me to come here all this way to talk to me about Gilgamesh.’ She leaned towards him. ‘So go on, tell me why you had me brought here.’

Ali frowned. ‘What do you mean? I had you brought here.’

Gerry leaned back in her seat and stared at him in consternation. ‘I was told you had asked for me to come here to talk to me about Gilgamesh.’

‘I had no idea that you were coming until this very morning!’ he replied.

Gerry gazed up at the CCTV cameras and microphones, then she reached out and seized his hand. ‘I really want you to tell me what you know. I think it might throw some much needed light in dark places. It might certainly help me found out who killed my fiancé, and clear up one or two other matters.’

‘Very well,’ he shrugged, ‘Gilgamesh was an agreement drawn up between Hakim Mansour…’

A siren blast cut Ali off in mid speech. The door burst open and four men charged in. The first two grabbed Ali just as Gerry sprang to her feet, lifted up her chair and whirled it round and slammed it into the body of the third man. She lost her grip on the chair and faced the fourth man who rushed recklessly at her. She side-stepped, jabbed him under the ribs then chopped him hard on the back of the neck and then she launched herself at the two men hustling Ali towards the door. She punched one of them in the back and he fell to his knees gasping for breath. Then she heard a sharp click and felt a huge jolt of electricity all over her body; her muscles went numb and she collapsed to the floor realising that she had been hit by a Taser. She gritted her teeth knowing that the pain would end as soon as her assailant cut the power, but she saw Ali being hustled through the door before she was at last released from her seizure. The other men departed the room and left her gasping on the floor. As her muscles recovered she groaned and struggled on to her hands and knees, muttering ‘bastards!’ to herself.

‘Crap thing to happen,’ someone said. It was Mandy Fisher who had come into the enclosure. ‘I had a jolt as part of training, but they didn’t keep it on me like that for so long.’ Gerry turned her head towards the woman and saw the grin on her face. ‘Come on tough Miss Tate; get up! You’re heading back to your hotel, probably none the worse for wear.’

On the return journey to the aircraft Gerry and Mandy Fisher were escorted by two armed guards, but she was greeted cordially enough by Felix Grainger. Perhaps he was oblivious to the drama of her encounter with Ali Hamsin. At any rate he made no enquiries as to the outcome of their meeting.

Gerry sat in the aircraft considering her conversation with Hamsin. Some confidence trick had apparently been played out on them both and she found the implications very worrying. However following the abrupt and violent termination of their meeting, she was now sitting here none the worse for wear as if the whole incident had never happened and nobody seemed inclined to speak about it.

She stared across the aisle at Vince and Ryan who were reviewing case notes together. She looked at her own files while trying to listen to their conversation. After a while they began to talk about the political situation in general and her attention wandered off.

Her train of thought was interrupted by a loud snore from Grainger seated across the aisle from her. She remembered Philip snoring in bed beside her and how she had pushed him in the shoulder until he rolled on to his side. Her thoughts moved onto other intimate details of their life together and once again she felt a burning anger towards whoever had destroyed their happy relationship. She felt a resurgence of other emotions that she had repressed all those years ago: her confusion at the events that led to her suspension and then her sense of betrayal at her subsequent arrest. Only now she was not pregnant and neither was she suffering from depression.  She began to speculate on the possibility that a sudden jolt of electricity from a Taser could reset her thought processes as if her brain had been rebooted like some kind of computer. She felt a renewed determination to learn the truth about what had happened to Philip and Dean Furness and who was responsible for her imprisonment. Her mind whirled around in circles until she was mentally exhausted. She deliberately closed her eyes and tried to doze off. Then she felt a prod on her shoulder.

‘Wake up Gerry, landing in ten minutes.’ Ryan smiled at her. With an effort she forced a smile in return. Somehow he no longer seemed so handsome.

Annie met them off the aircraft and drove Gerry and Vince back to their hotel. Vince began to talk to her but she just ignored him and strode off towards the elevator. Half an hour later back in her room she had poured herself a whisky from the minibar and was trawling through the service intranet searching for information when the telephone rang. ‘Yes?’ she snapped into the mouthpiece.

‘Hi Gerry, this is Dan Hall. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you yesterday, and I thought that if you weren’t busy this evening, perhaps you might like to go for a drink and I could apologise in person?’

Bloody Dan Hall; now he was inviting her out with this obviously prepared speech! She considered just how rudely to brush him off.

‘Gerry?’

You don’t need to antagonise everyone, the voice of reason whispered in her ear. ‘Sorry, I can’t…er…I haven’t eaten yet. Sorry Dan.’

‘Ok…maybe some other time then.’

Wait a minute; maybe Dan Hall could answer some of the questions that were vexing her. Perhaps she could subtly grill him for information. ‘No wait Dan…what I meant was can we go someplace where I can get a light meal or something. Have you eaten yet?’

‘Well no; going out someplace was what I had in mind.’

‘Could you give me twenty minutes please Dan?’

‘Great I’ll see you in the lobby if that’s ok.’

Gerry looked at herself in the mirror above the desk and plucked at her rather sweaty shirt. Her rain-drenched hair was a mess and she had been wearing her clothes all day.

‘Actually can you make it seven thirty? That’s fifty minutes from now.’

‘Ok sure, see you then!’

After a shower she dried her hair and pulled clean jeans and a polo shirt from the closet. She checked the time. Still twenty minutes before Hall was due to pick her up. She picked up the TV remote control and lounged on the bed and began to flick through the channels. Her attention was caught by a wincing Sandra Bullock who was having her legs waxed in preparation for her transformation from grungy detective to beauty pageant detective. Many years ago Gerry had heard one of her colleagues mutter ‘Here comes Miss Congeniality…not!’ in a whisper plainly meant for her to hear and she had subsequently watched the film during a flight to Boston. At the time she had viewed it with amused derision but now perhaps if she was going to pump information out of Dan Hall she should try the feminine wiles approach. She rather suspected she would be no bloody good at it but nevertheless she quickly pulled off her jeans and top and put on her shorter skirt and a blouse that would display some cleavage. She put on some high heeled shoes, wishing for a thousandth time that her feet were a size smaller, but then she decided that she did not want to be taller than him. She kicked off the shoes and chose sandals with a low heel and then rushed to the bathroom and busied herself with mascara and eyeliner and lipstick. By 7:30pm she decided she had done the best she could. Time to go.