The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (24 page)

‘Safe? He was in Baghdad, on the eve of an aerial bombardment! Where he was safe was back in Southampton, before you and your people kidnapped him!’ He looked at Gerry. ‘You see how hard it is for me to trust you?’

‘Yeah I can understand that, but after the invasion he did get back to Southampton.’

‘But thanks to you he was involved, even if he didn’t know what he was carrying across the border.’

‘So he was carrying the Gilgamesh documents?’

‘Yes. Have you any idea what happened to him when he arrived? He told me he was interrogated by the secret police. They were convinced that he might have read them, but fortunately Hakim Mansour turned up just in time before they got really rough with him. Have you ever been interrogated?’

Gerry ran her tongue over her missing tooth, and stared toward the distant horizon for a few seconds while she suppressed an unpleasant memory. ‘So what happened to Rashid after I delivered him to the CIA?’ she asked.

‘He was taken to an American airbase in England, where someone who called himself Colonel White told him he would be doing a great service for his country by taking this document over the border from Saudi Arabia to Baghdad. Hakim Mansour met him and took delivery of it and then brought him back to our house.

‘The next day he was taken away again and then he was very quiet when he later came home,’ Ali replied. ‘He refused to talk about where he’d been, but he told my wife and me that he had been interviewed by the police about the journey over. Later when his mother had gone to bed he described what had happened to him in greater detail. He told me that it had been the secret police who had interrogated him and how they had threatened him. He hadn’t understood what they were trying to find out from him but he was very happy when Hakim Mansour turned up and made them release him. I was glad that I had a good relationship with Mansour despite his close connection with the Husseins. But just the same, I think Rashid was more badly frightened than he admitted to me.’

‘I can imagine he was,’ said Gerry. ‘People were always disappearing during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Thousands of political prisoners, deaths in police custody and then there were the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs.’

‘Maybe, but how many Iraqis have died in the years since the invasion? I don’t want to be an apologist for the old regime, but does it profit a man’s family to know that he died by bomb or bullet before or after his country had been freed from Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror? Three thousand people died in the twin towers of the World Trade Centre but thirty thousand Iraqis died in the invasion and yet my country had nothing to do with the atrocity in New York.’ Ali suddenly looked uncomfortable. ‘Gerry, I need to er…use the washroom, as you might say.’

‘Ok Ali, I’ll close my eyes while you go over the side. Erm…that side of the raft, so the wind is behind you. Call me when you’re done.’

She turned away from him and gazed at the distant clouds that had built up during the last hour. It was approaching midday and the sun was beating down on the canopy. If she had been alone she would have stripped off her clothes to try and stay cool but she did not feel that she could upset Ali Hamsin. Apart from his wife there was a fairly good chance that he had never seen any woman naked before, or at least been in such close proximity to one. Also despite his age and his good manners, he was a man who had been in prison for many years and it was unfair that she should cause him any anguish. ‘Even if I do look a mess,’ she muttered quietly to herself.

‘What was that you said?’ he asked

‘I said it look there’s rain over there,’ she answered and sure enough greyish swirling curtains of rain fell from the base of distant storm clouds down to the sea. ‘If it rained on us then we could collect water on the canopy.’

She saw him swallow awkwardly at the mention of water. She looked at her watch. It was 10:43am US eastern time, but out on the ocean the sun had climbed towards its midday zenith. They had been on the raft for nearly nine hours and she had drunk about three quarters of a litre of water and already she was feeling a raging thirst. She looked at the remaining one and a half litres of water in the plastic bottle lodged in the corner of the raft and felt that she could drink all of it in one go. She glanced at Ali who was staring out across the sea. No doubt he felt just as thirsty. She wondered if he might try and drink all of the water when she was asleep, but deep down she was convinced that he was a deeply honourable man. Perhaps he was more likely to offer to forego his half so that she might have more. Would she be strong enough to reject his offer? There was no possibility that he could force the issue in his favour. She was bigger and stronger and highly trained; she could overpower him in a few seconds if it ever became necessary. As for her, she would do her best to keep him alive, at least until he had told her all he knew about Gilgamesh.

‘Look, it’s an aircraft!’ he called.

Gerry immediately looked up and sure enough there was a vapour trail visible above the scattered clouds directly above them. She saw the tiny silver shape of the aircraft generating the trail. ‘Probably going to the Caribbean,’ she said. She imagined the scene in the cabin; the lights dimmed, the crew relaxed, the passengers enjoying drinks while watching films on the entertainment system, all of them secure in the knowledge that they would arrive safely in some holiday resort in a few hours’ time, and absolutely no one on board would be searching the ocean for the tiny silver speck that was their life raft. Nevertheless Ali waved franticly at the aircraft but as it travelled westward at eight miles a minute it was soon out of sight leaving nothing but a vapour trail that broadened, disintegrated into smaller sections and then faded away.

‘We should keep a look out for ships,’ said Gerry. ‘It might be best if you look one way and I look the other. First of all I’m going to use the bailer; I’m fed up with sitting around in puddles of water.’

After thirty minutes of slow bailing, trying to avoid working up a sweat Gerry and Ali had the raft nearly dry inside apart from an impossible to reach stream where the cylindrical side met the floor, but the heat of the sun began to dry that up as it trickled back and forth.

They sat down opposite each other.

‘So how did you end up in Guantanamo Bay then Ali? And what the hell did this Gilgamesh document say that was such dangerous information?’ she asked, suppressing an urge to seize Ali by the throat and shake the truth out of him.

‘Ok I’ll get around to that. You asked me how I ended up in Guantanamo Bay, didn’t you.’

‘True, but…’

‘We have plenty of time, don’t we? What else is there to do on this raft except relate our stories to one another?’

Gerry sighed in irritation, but then she said ‘Fair enough Ali, go on then, tell me.’ She and gave him what was meant to be a bright smile but it turned into a grimace of pain from her damaged mouth.

Ali related how he had been summoned by Hakim Mansour to translate the Gilgamesh document. Then he had been taken by Kamal Ahwadi to work for Qusay Hussein in his desert palace, and after the invasion he had finally ended up in prison where he had been found by their old acquaintance.

‘So that’s how I learned about Gilgamesh and how I met Dean Furness again. I was taken to the airport and put on an aircraft. You can imagine how surprised I was to see Kamal Ahwadi brought on board too. I found out later that he had been picked up trying to cross the border into Lebanon carrying half a kilo of gold bars. Of course by then he wasn’t the same Ahwadi. The swaggering stride had been replaced by a stumbling stagger; his hair was in disarray and his face was badly bruised. I think perhaps his hands had been cuffed behind his back.’

The raft suddenly lurched to a wave and there was a sudden surge of water alongside. Gerry looked behind and saw that there was a line of dark clouds scudding along in the distance and a churned up sea with some foamy white wave tops. The raft surged again and some spray flew aboard, just missing her but splashing into the far end.

‘Maybe we should put the sides of the canopy down,’ Ali suggested.

‘Then we might miss a ship,’ Gerry protested.

‘Rather we need a ship to see us, I think,’ he suggested. ‘After all we have no means of attracting their attention.’

She thought about it and then reluctantly nodded. They pulled down the sides of the canopy and secured them to the edge of the raft. In the short time it took them, the sea had become much rougher and they felt the raft heave and sink as the spray crashed down on to the canopy. They sat back down and clutched on to the straps that ran along the inside as the raft lurched about.

‘I’d be sick if there was anything in my stomach,’ Ali groaned.

‘It will make you more dehydrated if you throw up,’ Gerry warned. At that moment her own stomach gave an extra heave and she brought a revolting tasting fluid up into her mouth. She tried to swallow it down but instead she gagged and spat it down the front of her shirt. ‘Oh fuck,’ she moaned, and then spat again to try and get rid of the horrible taste.

Then she heard a new sound and realised that rain was beating down on the canopy. She was galvanised into action. She snatched up the empty water bottle and made a futile attempt to pick a hole in the middle of the canopy roof with her finger. Shit! Why wasn’t she ready? She looked round for inspiration and snatched up one of the support rods and she managed to force a hole with the metal end. Then she held the bottle underneath and she and Ali watched it fill with water. When it came to the top of the bottle she put it to her lips, drank and then spat it out. ‘Bugger it; it’s salty! All that spray has drenched the top.’

‘Try again!’ said Ali. ‘Maybe it’ll wash clean.’

She emptied the bottle into the raft and held it up to the hole again. It was a quarter full when the flow of water stopped. The rain shower had passed by. She tested the water. ‘Yuk! Still salty, but maybe not so bad.’

‘Keep it for when we get desperate,’ Ali suggested, then added ‘more desperate.’

They slumped back down and sat staring at nothing while the raft pitched about. Every now and again they would exchange a glance, but the effort of talking seemed too much as they focussed on their feelings of nausea and disappointment at their failure to collect more water, and they each began to contemplate their almost certain death from dehydration.

As evening approached the sea began to moderate and the raft resumed a more even rise and fall, although it still remained rougher than it had been in the morning. ‘The sun must be going down soon,’ said Gerry. She lifted up the canopy sides and they gazed out at a beautiful sunset, a bright red orb obscured sufficiently by the haze to enable them to look directly at it and a cloudy sky that glowed a luminescent pink. They watched the sun rippling as it sunk below the horizon and the colour slowly faded.

‘It’s still quite rough,’ Ali remarked.

‘I believe this is probably normal,’ said Gerry. ‘I think this morning was exceptionally calm.’

‘And the afternoon was exceptionally rough,’ said Ali.

Gerry glanced at him but said nothing. She suspected that exceptionally rough weather would tear off the canopy, toss the raft upside down and drown them, but perhaps that would be an easier death than dying of thirst. ‘Shall we pull up the side of the canopy again?’ she suggested.

‘I think so. I like to look at the night sky.’

‘It’s still partly cloudy, but I guess it’s better than just staring at the inside.’

They settled back down in the raft and gazed towards the horizon. Gerry wondered if this was a good moment to ask Ali about Gilgamesh again. She gazed over at him but he had his eyes closed and seemed to be asleep. She decided that she would wait until tomorrow before trying to elicit further information from him. She stared up at the stars alone with her memories.

She was trapped in the sinking aeroplane fighting with a man named Barry Mulholland who had succeeded in stabbing her low down in the abdomen and although there was no pain in her dream world she knew that she was pregnant and her baby was in danger and across the other side of the cabin she could see Dan Hall but for some reason she could not attract his attention although she was screaming that she could not get her leg free and then she lost sight of him as the water swirled around her and then she woke up from the nightmare and realised that Ali had taken hold of her foot and was shaking her leg. ‘Gerry, wake up! Are you ok?’

She sat upright and stared across at him while her mind collected her conscious thoughts into order. ‘So we’re still on board the raft then?’ she said eventually.

‘I’m afraid so. I didn’t know if I should wake you. You were shouting out.’

‘Sorry, I must have woken you up.’

‘No I’ve been awake for ages. I’m too cold to go to sleep.’

‘I’m cold too. Let’s take the canopy down and wrap ourselves up in it.’

‘Ok.’

A few minutes work and then they were lying under the plastic sheeting.

‘Maybe we should keep it down and then use the cleaner underside to collect water,’ Ali suggested.

‘But what if it doesn’t rain, we’ll just get hotter, sweat more.’

‘Let’s see what the weather’s like in the morning.’

They lay in silence for a while.

‘Still awake?’ Gerry asked when she felt him shift slightly, but he made no reply.

‘You could tell me what was in the Gilgamesh document,’ she went on.

‘Ah, back to Gilgamesh again. What is the point of me telling you when we are both going to die out here? You cannot profit by the knowledge.’

‘What is the point of you not telling me?’ Gerry countered, trying hard not to sound irritated by his fatalism. ‘After all you did ask for me to come to Guantanamo Bay to see you.’

‘No I didn’t!’ he declared. ‘Remember I had no idea you were coming until the day you arrived!’

‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh…yes, of course, but you might at least satisfy my curiosity, even if there’s no longer any benefit to me. And besides which I did help your son escape.’

‘Escape? It was you who delivered him to the Americans!’ he said angrily.

‘No no, this was three months later. They were after him again, but this time I helped him get away.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘Very well. First of all tell me how you helped my son escape and how you ended up in prison. Then perhaps I’ll tell you about Gilgamesh.’

‘Ok then. I had just got back from this operation in the Gulf and I was taken off active duties because I was pregnant.’

‘Pregnant?’ exclaimed Ali. ‘You have a child?’

‘No, I don’t have a child...I…I had a miscarriage.’

‘Oh I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Yes I know, but all the same…’

‘Look, shall I tell you about Rashid or shall we discuss my gynaecological issues?’

‘Sorry, please go on with your story.’

Gerry described how she had gone back to Southampton, met up with Rashid and encouraged him to flee to Ireland.

‘When I spoke to Dean Furness just before he was killed he told me Rashid had been seen in Amman. He must have got clear because I was given all this grief and then kicked out of the service. I didn’t really put up much of a fuss because I had recently heard about Phil’s death and I was feeling rather downhearted as you can imagine. Then I went to visit my mother and on the way home I met Colonel White and…’ she stopped and looked over at Ali Hamsin. Under the light of a crescent moon that shone feebly through the clouds he appeared to be fast asleep. She wondered at which point in her story he had drifted off. She resisted the temptation to wake him up. She was uncomfortable and thirsty, and although mentally exhausted, her mind pored over her memories and would not allow her to sink into sleep. Maybe Ali’s years of incarceration had left him fatalistic, or maybe his religious beliefs had taught him to trust in the will of God. What was ordained was ordained and whether he was fearful or brave, only God would decide if he lived or died out here on this life raft on the Atlantic Ocean.

Or maybe he had died already. Gerry rolled over onto her hands and knees and scrambled over to him and with some relief heard his gentle snoring over the sound of the sea washing around the raft and the breeze rustling through the canopy. She crawled wearily back to her place and lay on her back staring up at the stars and wondering how he could possibly rest so easily.

She remembered her feelings of bitter anger at the world in general after she had heard of Philip’s death and her sense of isolation. She had been completely unprepared for becoming a mother and the prospect scared her. She had few friends with whom to discuss the life-changing step into parenthood. Following her recruitment into the service she had allowed herself to drift apart from her university friends who had begun to settle and start families. The demands of her secret life had dragged her away from social events and the need to avoid discussion of her profession had rendered her reticent and reserved in company. Now her friendships were only with people who shared her work. She had experienced three serious relationships since she had joined the service, and these had all been with colleagues. One of them had left the service when he married, the second was now based permanently in the USA having wed an American woman, and the third had been Philip with whom she had been closely involved for three years until his death.

Gerry looked out at the clearing sky. She folded part of the canopy back so that she could gaze up at the stars. To the north she could see Ursa Major, one of the few constellations she could easily recognise, and to the south she thought she could identify Scorpio. She looked up overhead where her eye was caught by the flashing lights of an airliner flying towards Europe, its strobe lights winking in the night sky. ‘Hello, here I am,’ she muttered quietly and gave a sad little wave. She watched the airliner slip past the backdrop of stars until it was out of sight.

She huddled down in the bottom of the raft and thought about her convalescence and return to London. Until Cornwall had given her the news of Phil’s death she had enjoyed a brief period contentment in  which she had come to terms with the shock of being pregnant. She was looking forward to the challenges of family life with Philip despite the abrupt change in her career. But did she really love him? Although they had been together for three years there had still been some lack of commitment. Despite sharing his house, she had never sold her own flat and she had often retreated there when the demands of their lives conflicted or tension had arisen between them. Her pregnancy had been the result of mutual declarations of love during a winter holiday in Barbados followed by enthusiastic sex which had included a contraceptive failure.

She thought back to the day all those years ago when they had first met. The end of the year was approaching and she had been facing the prospect of another Christmas and New Year alone when Richard Cornwall had summoned her with instructions to go on her annual liaison meeting at GCHQ in Cheltenham. ‘‘Do I really have to go?’ she had protested. ‘I’m due to go to Amman in three days and I’ve lots of stuff to research.’

‘But I heard you in the canteen telling your friend Fiona Bennett that you were hoping to play golf tomorrow, and as I’m sure that golf isn’t part of your mission you can damn well spend tomorrow in Cheltenham. Your train leaves Paddington at 7:25am and gets in at 10:00am. You’ll have to get up early but then it’ll help you get on to Amman local time, so that’s ok. Alternatively Brian Lincoln, Robert McAllister and Malcolm Cooper are taking the train this evening and staying the night. You could go with them if you like, it’s up to you.’

‘Oh not Brian Lincoln! I think I’ll take the train tomorrow.’

‘I remember that when you were accepted into exec ops it was emphasised that you were expected to maintain good relations with everyone on the team, including Lincoln,’ said Cornwall. ‘I don’t know why I put up with you.’

‘You put up with me because I’m the best Arabic speaker you’ve got and because I’m better looking than all of the blokes.’

‘Some of our chaps are very good looking Gerry, even though…oh I give up. Have a lovely day in Cheltenham.’

‘Yeah thanks…sir.’

Outside GCHQ building Gerry snagged her tights on the edge of the seat as she climbed out of the taxi and let go a stream of Arabic invective. A young man about five feet nine inches tall, slightly overweight with unruly brown hair was approaching the entrance and he turned around when he heard her. He peered at her through his spectacles and then down at her legs. ‘Oh that’s quite some pair, er…some tear you’ve got in those legs, I mean tights.’

Gerry finished her inspection of the damage and straightened up to her full height of six feet in her high heels and stared down at him. She was about to issue a withering reply but then he asked her forgiveness in Arabic and she noticed his engaging grin and the fact that he was blushing.

‘No problem,’ she replied in the same language and preceded him through security. In reception she was gazing at the display screen that showed visitors where their attendance was required when she was aware of him standing near.

‘Are you here for the seminar on the Middle East?’ he enquired. She gazed round at him and he quickly added, ‘because I’m Philip Barrett and I’m hosting it. You must be Geraldine Tate.’

‘Gerry,’ she said holding out her hand.

‘Er, I’m Phil,’ he said. ‘Look, without wanting to go into any boring explanations of how I know, there’s this vending machine that sells tights and other stuff in the ladies loo over there. If you want to get some more, that is.’

‘I can wait for you here…’ he saw Gerry’s raised eyebrows ‘or…or maybe I should go on up. It’s room two nineteen, second floor.’ He pointed vaguely towards the lifts and then hastened off, pushing his spectacles into place.

‘Hey Phil,’ she called after him.

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Ok ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our day then I think,’ said Phil Barrett six hours later. ‘Unless anyone wants to bring up any last minute thoughts?’

‘Well Rob and Colin and I have a train to catch, so I think we’d best be going,’ Brian Lincoln announced. ‘How about you Gerry? Are you heading back to the smoke with us?’

She had endured quite enough of Lincoln’s company for one day. ‘No I’m going to get a coffee and then I’m going to visit a friend. I’ll see you next time.’ She watched the three of them gather their things and prepare to leave and then realised that Phil and his GCHQ colleagues were looking slightly miffed.

‘Before you rush off I’d like to thank Philip for organising our day. It’s been really interesting and I’m pleased to have met you all. Once a year isn’t really often enough for our visits here, wouldn’t you agree Brian?’

‘Oh absolutely right,’ he said taking the implied rebuke comfortably in his stride. ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

In the canteen she took her cappuccino to a corner table and pulled out her laptop and while it was starting up she heard some muttered conversation and saw the five people from GCHQ who had been at the seminar gazing over at her and one of the men gave Philip Barrett a small shove. He walked over to her table.

‘Hi, can I join you? I wanted to thank you for the commendation at the end and wondered what you really thought of the day.’

Gerry smiled. ‘It was good; really.’ She closed the lid of her computer. ‘Perhaps you should get yourself a coffee, if you are joining me,’ she suggested.

‘So you’re going to visit a friend,’ he said when he had sat down opposite her with his drink. ‘That’s lucky being able to get in a social call in the same day. Does she…or he live nearby? But unlucky for me because otherwise I would have asked you out for dinner myself,’ he added with a rush.

On the other side of the canteen Gerry saw his colleagues grinning and pretending not to listen. ‘Actually there’s no friend,’ she confessed. ‘I’m really just avoiding travelling back on the train with Brian Lincoln. I’m going to catch the following train, so I’ll have to be going now unless…’

‘Unless what?’ he asked.

She raised her eyebrows and smiled at him.

‘Oh! In that case…perhaps you could have dinner with me after all, before you go?’ he asked, blushing again.

‘That would be lovely, but I don’t have very much time so shall we go now?’

‘Great!’ He jumped to his feet and upset the remains of his coffee on to the table top. Gerry quickly pulled a handful of paper napkins from a dispenser and blotted up the mess, and then she stowed her computer in her bag, linked arms with him and smiled at his colleagues as the two of them left together.

Away from the pressure of work, Gerry found Phil a lively and interesting companion, with an excellent working knowledge of Arabic although lacking her familiarity of the vernacular and regional variations. She also found him entertaining on topics away from work and the evening passed quickly. While sipping their after dinner coffees she smiled and asked ‘So did you have a bet with your colleagues on asking me out, then?’