The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (42 page)

‘Shut up Neil,’ said White. ‘Well Gerry, it seems like the search for the Gilgamesh document ends here. The only remaining question is to tie up a few loose ends.’

‘I say we finish them off here,’ said Samms, leave them for the Iraqis to find.’

‘Give me your gun Neil,’ White ordered.

‘You gonna do it yourself? Sure, here you go.’ He handed it over to White, who gave the weapon a quick but thorough check. ‘Glock GL23, standard FBI issue,’ he said. ‘And that one I can see tucked into your belt; could you lend me that one too?’ White asked. Samms complied.

‘Sig Sauer P250,’ he murmured.

Gerry shuddered as she watched him give the second gun an inspection before tucking it into his belt. Then he looked up at her.

‘Would you go sit down…next to Hall, if you don’t mind?’

Gerry backed slowly away trying to keep her eyes fixed on his rather than at the gun he had waved casually towards her. She sat down next to Dan and felt him reach for her. She felt a ridiculous moment of embarrassment as she clutched his hand. ‘Oh shit he’s going to kill me!’ her mind sang out, ‘and he’s going to kill Dan I’m going to die here, why did I come here at all I don’t want to die I want to live and I want Dan to live!’ She saw White glance at Samms and then back at her. ‘Oh god he’s going to do it now!’ She gripped Dan’s hand tighter. ‘I should have stayed in prison not gone on this useless bloody trip. I’m sorry Dan, oh shit.’ She closed her eyes and moaned very quietly.

‘Now Gerry, what you wanted to do was find out who killed your guy Philip all those years ago, right?’ White asked.

It took several seconds for her terrified mind to process the question. Maybe he wasn’t going to kill her yet. Maybe she would live for a few more minutes. She opened her eyes and stared at him warily, wondering where he would go with this question. She swallowed hard and managed to answer fairly normally. ‘Yes I do, and I also want to know who it was that put me in prison.’

‘And I guess that you hold me at least partly responsible for that?’

‘It wasn’t me who killed Dean Furness’ said Gerry, she shook her head. ‘I didn’t do it.’

‘Ok well I reckon the two people who killed Philip Barrett are already dead,’ said White, ‘and you killed them.’

Gerry managed to think more clearly. ‘Oh, do you mean…Carson and Parker?’ she said.

‘Yeah, that’s what I figured. But when it comes to Dean Furness, I don’t reckon it was you who killed him.’

‘No it wasn’t.’

‘Who do you reckon it was then?’ he asked.

‘I wish…’

‘Neil, who do you reckon it was?’ White turned round and aimed the gun at Neil Samms.

‘I really have no idea…’

‘You shot Dean Furness when he went to Gerry’s apartment.’

‘No I didn’t.’

‘Oh come on Neill, if I was gonna kill you for it I would have it done it years back when I found out,’ he said with a smile, ‘After all you were only acting under orders, weren’t you. I just want Gerry here to know who it was.’

‘Oh well yeah ok, it was me.’ He gave a small grin, revealing his gold tooth. ‘I was ordered by General Bruckner.’

The Glock gave a sharp crack. Samms gave an anguished gasp, staggered back and grabbed hold of his upper arm.

‘Hey Colonel, you shot me!’

‘Yeah, and I’m going to kill you Samms, I’m fed up with your stupid grin.’ He dropped his aim and shot Samms through the knee. He gave a surprisingly high-pitched screech and collapsed to the ground.

‘You’re gonna die Samms, for killing Dean Furness,’ said White. He picked up the shovel and inspected the bloody blade, then looked at Gerry. ‘Do you want to finish him off?’ he asked, offering the shovel towards her. She stared at him, transfixed. She felt Dan’s grip tightening on her hand and briefly shook her head. White made as if to hit Samms with the shovel and he cried out again, and then he began a pitiful moaning which got louder as White slowly aimed the pistol towards his head and then stopped when White pulled the trigger. He looked at the corpse for a moment and then turned to Gerry.

‘You’d better show me where your car is parked; you need to get Dan to a hospital.’

Gerry stared at Rashid’s garden gate remembering how she had helped Jasper White drag Vince Parker’s corpse alongside Neil Samms. White had then told her to drive off. She had looked back and seen him pouring petrol over the corpses and as she had climbed into the car next to Dan she had heard the whuffing noise as he had set them alight. Now she opened the car door and climbed out carefully while holding her hand briefly to her painful ribs. The doctor who had tended her bullet wound had assured her the gash was clean and given her what he hoped was a broad spectrum antibiotic injection and some tablets, but admitted that he did not know if the drugs were genuine or not. He had urged her to take Dan to the American base where he would be assured of good treatment and Dan had insisted he should go there too. Gerry had argued with him for a while but the doctor had said he could operate but he had no anaesthetics and if she really wanted Dan to live she should stop wasting time.

She sighed and walked over to the gate and pressed the bell push, just in case Rashid had been foolish enough to return already. There was no sound of an inner door being opened, and no response when she banged on the door with her fist either. She looked up and by the light of the moon she noted the strands of barbed wire across the top of the gateway lintel. She returned to her car and then drove it up next to the gate. She pulled out a rear seat cushion and stood on the roof and put the cushion on top of the wire. She climbed over the gate and jumped down the other side, wincing as the landing jarred her ribs.

Then she had a sudden sense that she was not alone. She turned around slowly and was confronted by a woman wrapped up in a gown with a shawl over her head and her arms folded in front of her.

‘I think you must be Sandra, or Gerry,’ the woman spoke to her in good but heavily accented English. ‘I am Tabitha Hamsin. You had better come inside.’ Gerry followed her into the house. ‘Come into the kitchen,’ said Tabitha. ‘It’s not so comfortable but I find women always talk to one another most openly in the kitchen, don’t you agree?’

‘Er…I don’t know,’ Gerry mumbled. Perhaps in the kitchen, maybe down the pub, possibly in the office canteen. Or in a prison cell. ‘I suppose so,’ she added.

‘Here, take a seat.’ Gerry sat on a chair at the big wooden table and watched her hostess. Her face was lined but she was a handsome woman with very long dark hair shot through with white streaks. She was slightly over-weight but straight backed and elegant. Gerry recalled that she was twenty three years older than Rashid so that made her in her mid-fifties.

‘Would you like some coffee, or a cold drink?’ she asked.

‘Coffee please, milk no sugar.’

Nothing further was said until the two of them were seated opposite one another. ‘Excuse me I’m going to have a cigarette,’ said Tabitha. She pulled an ashtray across the table. ‘Do you want one?’

‘No thanks,’ Gerry replied. She watched Tabitha light up and take a drag.

‘Now you’d better tell me your story,’ she said.

‘How far back do you want me to go?’

‘You can go back as far as you like but maybe start with why you kidnapped my son. Perhaps you can explain why you are so careless towards other people?’

‘I’m not careless.’

‘I didn’t mean careless; I meant callous.’ Tabitha saw her guest appear to flinch at the accusation. ‘Perhaps we should speak in Arabic. Rashid tells me you are remarkably good.’

Gerry spoke for nearly an hour and a half. She explained why she had kidnapped Rashid; how she had become pregnant; how she had helped him escape; ended up in prison; given up her baby for adoption; how she had been released and been sent on her journey to the USA; why she had met Ali Hamsin in Guantanamo Bay and how they had ended up on a life raft together; how he had died; why she and Dan Hall had come to Amman and then finally to Baghdad; how Samms and Parker had died; her failure to find the Gilgamesh document and her return to Amman.

When she had completed her story she stretched her arm out across the table and rested her head on it. Tabitha stared down at her and they were both silent for a minute.

‘What a miserable life you have led,’ Tabitha said eventually.

Gerry looked up at her and then sat upright. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What have you got to show for all this pain and sorrow? The only time you seem to have been happy was when you were in prison; I’m surprised you wanted to leave. The only close woman friend you’ve had seems to have been Angela who shared your prison cell and the only man who you loved and who loved you was this Philip who died.’

‘That’s not true, Dan Hall loves me.’

‘Yet you left him with the Americans who you think will probably send him to prison, assuming he lives.’

‘We hoped that if we found this Gilgamesh document then it would give us some leverage. For one thing I wanted to be able to guarantee your family’s safety, and also I want to…oh, it doesn’t matter now.’

‘Do you think it would have given you this leverage?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gerry sighed. ‘I don’t really know exactly what the document said, if the threat of revealing its contents would have been enough.’

‘The document said that the United States Army would stop short of Baghdad. Qusay Hussein would provide the whereabouts of his father Saddam Hussein and his brother Uday Hussein. The two of them would be arrested or killed along with various other members of the regime. In exchange Qusay Hussein would be allowed to take over power in Iraq. The United States would not object if he became President for his lifetime. In addition the United States and the United Kingdom would raise no objections if Qusay’s son were to succeed him as President in the future.

‘In exchange the American and British oil companies would be given a license to operate the Iraqi oil industry and profit from the oil reserves of Iraq with a fifty percent stake in the current assets and a sixty percent stake in any further fields developed.

‘The United States would also be permitted to maintain a military base including nuclear weapons close to the border with Iran.’

Gerry stared open-mouthed at Tabitha for ten seconds or more and then slowly shook her head. ‘I don’t fucking believe it! Shit! How do you know?’

‘I read it. I read Ali’s translation and I read the original, or rather the photocopy that Hakim Mansour gave to Ali.’

‘But was it genuine?’

‘How could I tell? I assume the signatures were genuine but how could I tell?’

‘You mean it was signed by…’

‘Yes, and with that seal attached and also by the one from your country, who struts about the world and proclaims a clear conscience despite the thousands of deaths and the mayhem in my country.’

‘No wonder that people have died.’

‘Yes I can understand why. It would prove very embarrassing.’

‘But what happened to the photocopy that Mansour made,’ Gerry asked. ‘What happened to it after you read it? Rashid told me it was still buried in the garden.’

‘I wish I could help you,’ said Tabitha. ‘I left it buried in the garden as Rashid described. Perhaps Ali disclosed where it was and someone found it. Perhaps when he was in prison or when he was working for Qusay Hussein when the war began. Maybe someone dug it up by chance. I’ve no idea where it can be now.  I’m sorry.’ She paused, and then stared at Gerry.

‘There is one thing that I have found curious about your story; why did they let you live? Why did they just send you to prison?’

Gerry shook her head. ‘I really don’t know.’

They were both silent for a while and then Tabitha asked ‘What will you do now?’

‘I will go back to the United States and tell them that I have found the Gilgamesh document and it is hidden in a safe place. I will describe what it says and tell them that if they harm anyone associated with it, you and your family or me or my daughter, then it will be published on the internet. I will demand freedom for Dan Hall.’

‘How will that work, if it is lost?’

‘But it isn’t lost is it Tabitha. If some stranger had come across the document then they wouldn’t have left behind your husband’s passport and one thousand seven hundred US Dollars in cash for his safe passage. You took the Gilgamesh document away and you have it hidden somewhere safe.’

She reached inside her pocket and placed Ali Hamsin’s passport and the money on the table. Tabitha put her hand to her mouth and stared at her wide eyed. Gerry suddenly realised that she was scared of her and what she might do to get the document.

‘I’m going to leave now,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to cause you and your family any more distress.’

‘No wait. I have something which should help you.’ Tabitha hastened from the room and returned a couple of minutes later clutching a sheaf of paper. ‘This is a transcript of Ali’s Arabic translation which he made for Mansour. He wrote it out with pen and paper, but this is a typed version. It will perhaps persuade them that the original is available. Before I give it to you I want to say something to you.’

‘Ok, go on.’

‘Don’t let your life become one of killing and revenge, and then further killing. I think you are a very unhappy woman. Pursuing your enemies will bring you no peace or happiness. If you kill them then you will create more enemies and you would never have an end to it. If the man who took my husband from me were here in this room then I would spit on him but I would let him live.’