The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (43 page)

Just over a week after submitting his application Rem received a package from Headspring Training offering an interview at a choice of venues: the Welcome Inn outside Knoxville, Tennessee, or the Best Western close by O’Hare.

Curious about the pack, Cathy asked what was going on. Was this some agency? Had he registered for work? Did this have anything to do with their loans? Rem shuffled through the papers, which asked for insurance details, health, and next of kin.

‘Is this a job?
Induction
. That sounds a lot like work?’ Cathy took the papers out of his hands. Sat down as she read, assumed a slow bending stoop, her expression becoming tighter. ‘What is this?’ she asked, serious, confused. ‘I don’t understand. Why do they want details about your health? These are questions about your family, about diseases? I don’t understand. She read on. ‘What’s Headspring? Who are these people?’

Rem said he didn’t know, he’d sent an application to Manpower Recruitment who managed civil-engineering contracts, so he had no idea about these Headspring people.

‘Engineering? So this is work?’ She sounded surprised. Rem didn’t like this reaction. ‘You found work? Where?’

‘It’s a recruitment agency.’

‘I don’t know that I like the idea of you working on construction sites.’ Cathy turned the papers over. ‘It says region three. What does that mean?’

‘Region three means places like Saudi.’

‘Saudi?’

‘Like Saudi.’

‘
Like
Saudi? Where else is
like
Saudi?’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Like the Middle East. Like Jordan. Syria. Dubai. Like Iraq.’

It took a while to penetrate. Iraq. He could have counted the seconds.

‘Iraq?’ She spoke as if absorbing some mighty concept. ‘Iraq?’ And then she appeared to disassemble, her hands descending to her lap, her shoulders, her face even, taking on weight. When she did speak, her voice came considered and final. ‘I’m not doing this again.’

‘It isn’t the same. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Rem, when I said somewhere else, I meant Iowa or Indiana, or maybe, I don’t know, someplace
like
California, but Iraq?’ A small pry cut through her voice. ‘Iraq? Rem? You paint rooms. In houses. In hotels.’ She held the papers to her chest and shook her head, and her expression became so sorrowful, so lost. This wasn’t going to happen again. Kuwait had been bad enough. Iraq was out of the question.

After some moments she softly asked if he had signed anything. ‘You have to call. You have to tell them there’s been a mistake.’

Rem leaned forward, set his hands on her knees to reassure her. ‘It’s information,’ he said, ‘that’s all. Something I found. I sent off an application and they sent this back. It’s nothing.’

‘This isn’t nothing.’ Cathy held up the papers. ‘This doesn’t just
happen
. You’ve already applied. I don’t understand why we’re talking about this.’ She twisted free of his grasp then set the papers carefully on the table. ‘You’ve done this deliberately.’

Cathy left the room and Rem considered how to clarify his arrangement with Geezler without breaking his word. Cathy returned from the bedroom with more papers.

‘You see these. This is on top of what we owe. You understand? You need a job, Rem. Something that has healthcare. Insurance. A job. A stable job.
Here.
’ She shook the papers at him before dropping them on the table. Bills for scans, blood tests, X-rays. ‘That’s what we owe, and they haven’t even got started. We don’t qualify for anything, Rem, we don’t get assistance. No one else is going to look after these. Do you understand the problem? How is this going to work if you go to Iraq?’

Rem separated his papers from the pile on the table. ‘It isn’t what you think. I’m not going to work in Iraq. It isn’t what you think.’

‘When is it ever about what I think, Rem? It has to be something more complicated, doesn’t it? It’s always something else with you. That is an application for a job. It’s in your name.’

Rem straightened the papers on his knee. Let her do this, leave her alone. Explain some other time.

When Cathy returned from work that evening she took a cup of hot water with her to bed, and complained of a migraine, her mood too dangerous to confront.

Rem called Geezler and explained about Cathy. He wanted to tell her, he said. This past month hasn’t been easy. She needs to know. She hasn’t been well. This isn’t helping.

‘You’re not going anywhere except O’Hare,’ Geezler soothed. ‘You go to the induction. You call me. We speak, and then you explain everything to her.’

‘She made a point about the application being real, being in my name.’

Geezler appeared to give this some thought. ‘You’re right. We should have used another name. You’re still going?’

‘I’m still going.’

‘I’d like to send you to the training camp in Austin. I could use you out in the field.’

The idea had its own logic.

‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘I know. I’d pay a bonus. A straight fifty, no questions. However you wanted it. Fifty thousand on top of anything you earn. No tax. No questions.’

‘You’re talking Austin?’

‘Two for Austin but fifty for both Austin and Iraq.’

‘Nice numbers, but not possible.’

‘I wish it was. She already thinks you’re going.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Think about Austin then. Will you do that?’

‘I know I can’t do it.’

‘One week at the training camp.’ Geezler backed off. ‘It’s just a thought,’ he said, ‘it would be useful.’

They agreed to speak after the induction.

✩

On the last day in May, Unit 409 were sent to Jalla Road to lay the final section of blacktop. On this night, the people who had lived in the neighbourhood gathered at a squatter camp in an archaeological park bordering the highway. It wasn’t that their tents and campfires hadn’t been noticed, but everyone assumed that these people were part of the influx of refugees from Basrah, Nasiriyah, even Baghdad. A mistake with serious consequences. The highway, nearly complete, with its steep walls, was little more than a deep concrete trench. As the long convoy of vehicles approached, none of the crew of Unit 409 noticed the refugees beginning to congregate on the walls above them. By the time they did notice, and stop, the angry former residents, raised above the convoy, were able to pelt them with stones and bottles loaded with gasoline.

The crews, expecting back-up, withstood the first barrage. A second wave brought a hail of bottles which burst into fire on impact. They watched the front vehicles burn, their companions scuttle from one vehicle to the next seeking refuge. When security did not show the convoy steadily reversed down the unpaved highway and abandoned the stricken vehicles. As they retreated, the bolder citizens came down the concrete banks as a wave. Rem watched the mob fill the roadway. As the contractors made their way back to ACSB they passed the security forces, a pack of armoured trucks with helicopters riding overhead. The zone behind them strafed with streams of tear gas.

The next morning the highway was blasted to pieces. IEDs planted every twenty metres uprooted hanks of concrete, pitched holes, spoiled a road which had never been used.

✩

Rem arrived an hour early for the sessions at the Premier Suite, and sat in the parking lot facing the white front of the motel. A few cars on either side. Cathy’s ‘
don’t commit
’ hung with him, and he regretted not explaining the situation to her. ‘Why are you even going? What are you trying to prove?’

In a beige VW parked beside him sat a man who appeared to be speaking to his fist, a white wire ran from his ear.

Rem gathered his papers, locked his car and paused for a final smoke. The man in the VW wound down his window and asked Rem if he was here for the Headspring event. The induction.

‘Which company are you with? Manpower?’

Rem nodded.

‘Manpower. Roads, right? Highways and byways.’ The man gave a thoughtful nod. ‘That makes sense. Civil work? You’re not security, then?’

Rem shook his head. The man stepped out of his car and still appeared small.

‘Pendleton, Manpower, RamCo, ReServe, Outcome. Headspring recruits for them all. They’re all the same, in any case. You’ve heard of HOSCO?’ This wasn’t a question so much as an assumption, the opening of a conversation.

The man looked up as Rem shook his head.

‘HOSCO. Look them up. They run everything. Most of these companies are subsidiaries, but HOSCO run the show. They’re the people you’ll work for. You’re serious?’

‘Serious?’

‘About going?’ The man answered his own question as he locked his car. ‘Serious enough to come, I guess. Serious enough to find out.’

In the first session they were given nametags, offered coffee and an over-large platter of mini-Danish. Rem counted thirty people, exclusively men, the majority Black and Hispanic, and they sat facing a roll-down screen, silent while an introductory video titled ‘Amrah City – New City’ played and replayed. Rem watched as a decrepit city of low-rise buildings of dead whites and tawny browns, with blank dusty skies, was digitally transformed with new roads and highways, a river, then, rising from the ground, office buildings, libraries, schools, a museum, an entirely new administrative centre surrounded by flags and trees under a slick blue sky. No people, he noticed, not one placed in there. This, he guessed, was the project the man in the VW had described.
Regeneration For The Next Generation
. The title faded out. Re-build. Re-generate.

After the video a man of about Rem’s age delivered a short introduction. He clasped his hands as he spoke, thanked everyone for coming and said that this was the final round of the post-application, pre-selection process, then introduced himself as Steve.

‘Today, we go through our final screening procedures – nothing to worry about.’ He pointed at the screen. ‘We want you to have an idea of the scale of the project. Forget what you’ve heard, or read, or anything you’ve been told. This is a whole new situation. You’ll be involved in rebuilding. Helping to finish what we’ve started out there. Amrah City is the hub. Government. Business. Communications. Industry.’ While he spoke he looked slowly through the seated rows, man to man, and when he stopped he gave a little hesitation as if expecting applause.

Steve asked if there were questions, and one man struck up his hand and said he didn’t get it. ‘Are we working for the military or the government?’

Steve nodded through the question, then said he understood and that this raised a good point. ‘When you are out in the field you are a contractor. A private individual. You’re working for yourself. Except, we provide the opportunity for you to work. We’ll go more into this later.’

After the introduction they formed four queues in the foyer, A–F, G–L, M–S, T–Z, where they showed their papers and documents to a couple at a desk, after which, with everything satisfied, they returned to the seminar room. Rem noticed fewer people returning, and was joined by the man he’d spoken with in the parking lot. A sticker,
hello, my name is
–
Rob
, on his shirt pocket. They shook hands.

‘Did you show references?’

‘Do we need to?’

‘You’d think? This is an employment agency, right, and they don’t ask for references? You think they don’t have enough people to build their own roads out there?’ Rob kept his eye on the door. ‘Have you spoken with any of these guys?’

Rem said no.

‘Security is usually ex-military. Who knows who these people are?’ His voice low, he asked Rem questions while men were called out for their medical evaluations.

Rem wondered if the man was part of the recruitment process, a spy to vet the candidates they were unsure about, and with this doubt he became less confident about answering his questions. Was he working for the company, or for a rival? You have to consider these possibilities.

When the assistants called the candidates for interview, Rem noticed that Rob became quiet.

Rem took off his shirt, wondered how far he should go with this, gave blood anyway, breathed in and out when he was asked, answered questions about his general health which made him laugh, and then, behind a screen, produced a urine sample and made sure he filled the container to the top although he had been asked not to. He signed a form certifying that he’d never been convicted of a felony and faced no ongoing charges. When he returned to the seminar room he noticed that Rob was gone, along with half of the applicants. Eight men remaining. After a small wait he was asked back to another seminar room where a formal offer was made. On the wall hung a row of prints, scenes of windmills, fields, and waterways.

Rem allowed the man to talk. If he signed the contract he’d be working with HOSCO: the Hospitality and Operational Support Company of Hampton Roads, Virginia – just as Rob had said. Steve explained that HOSCO managed civil contracts in Europe, Africa, and across the Middle East, but they were hiring now for southern Iraq in a last bid to complete contracts within Amrah City. Rem also needed to understand that while these projects were nominally classified as
civil
, they were, in fact outsourced
military
projects: meaning that they were open to private business, and that those private businesses enjoyed military protection.

Rem fought against the urge to explain himself, the pure fun of stating that he was already working for HOSCO.

In Amrah City, Steve promised, you won’t see one local. Not one. It couldn’t be safer. Plus (not that you’ll need it), you have the entire US Marine Corps looking out for you. Posters behind Steve showed men beside diggers, smiling, shaking hands with men in desert MARPAT, a ziggurat in the background, a long low-lying adobe village; or men seated during a work-break at some stumpy oasis surrounded by skinny dogs, handsome strays with dark almond-shaped eyes; or (Rem’s favourite), an employee in a flak jacket playing soccer on wasteland with a scattered group of boys. ‘
HOSCO: Building Communities One Project at a Time
,’ the sky a clear wondrous blue, suggesting worthy effort and reward. Naive? Sure, but so what, at least they appeared sincere.