The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (47 page)

Rem said he couldn’t believe it himself. Some things are beyond imagining.

Santo, seeing the conversation heading in a bad direction, pointed out the new manager. ‘Speaking of Chicago. He’s from your town.’

Rem looked across the commissary at the tall thin boy, still couldn’t place him, but doubted that they knew each other from Chicago. More robust than Fatboy: corn-fed and wholesome. ‘Looks lost.’

‘Talking of dumb-assed, you hear what KCP did to him yesterday?’

‘KCP?’

‘Transport. They hear this new guy is coming in from Southern-CIPA, which is right on the other side of Amrah. He’s here three hours and he has to go back for one last duty. This is a journey you can’t make without security, without armoured cars, guns, SWAT teams, nuclear devices. So he goes to Transport, places his request, says he has to get to CIPA, as soon as. They take a dislike to this guy, because, well, I don’t know, they just don’t like him. So they give him the brush-off and tell him to come back in an hour. So, he’s back in an hour, and the office is closed, and there’s a sign saying come back in another hour. These guys are just messing with him.’ Santo took in a deep breath. ‘An hour later he’s at the counter, and there’s a new sign saying “back in five”, only they aren’t back in five. So he calls them, tells them he has to be back at Southern-CIPA in two hours for a function. He’s supposed to be laying on the food for this function. Cutting sandwiches. Making coffee. He goes away. He comes back a third time. Still nobody there, this time the sign says, “vehicle in loading dock”. He goes to the loading dock and there’s nothing there except a fat-assed BFV. A tank. And just for good measure they’ve leant a bicycle against it with a dishwalla and one of those headscarf turbans. You know what he does?’

‘This already didn’t happen.’

‘You know what he does? He dresses up. He puts that shit on, he dresses like a fratboy heading to a hazing. He takes the bike, and he cycles all the way to Southern-CIPA.’

‘It’s not true.’

‘It’s true. Fact! Jalla Road. Ask him. Ask him how he got to the tea-party at Southern-CIPA yesterday. Ask him.’ Santo shook his head. ‘What is it with Chicago these days? Is there some kind of crazy in the water? I’m putting money on him for a kill.’

Rem looked across the room. The boy checked items on a clipboard. Something about the turn of his head, not directly down, but tilted, gave Rem the reference he couldn’t place. Nut. The boy looked like his dog.

✩

Matt survived two strokes in his first week in hospital, and suffered a blood infection in the second, which temporarily turned his skin yellow, but responded immediately to treatment. He held on. This is what they told themselves: Cathy, Cissie, the attending medics. Matt was holding on with superhuman determination. The doctors ordered scans and tests, amazed that he demonstrated any brain function at all given the damage caused by his fall. They depended a good deal on the word
instinct
.

Cathy came to the hospital when she could, and kept in touch with Cissie by phone on the days she could not visit.

Cissie’s quiet unnerved her. She ran her day to a bare routine of arriving and departing, picked the same seat, sat in the same attentive poise, wrung her hands and waited. On the phone Cissie had nothing to say, and in her stillness Cathy saw a kind of madness.

The news that Matt had been transferred to Kansas City came as a relief.

✩

The arrival of the Division Chief signalled another change in HOSCO: a potential reshuffle of directors and deputies assigned to the regions. No one could put a name or a face to the Division Chief for the Middle East, or could find such a man on the company website – that the position might be vacant meant little to the men of Unit 409 who were bothered only by the disruption that accompanied any such visit or site inspection. Since the assault on Jalla Road resentment had begun to grow and the Iraqi Ministry for Infrastructure and Sanitation had become more diligent. Permits for clearances and demolitions were stalled. Rem guessed that the delay depended on the right amount of money hitting the right person or the right clan before they would be able to continue with their work. This, he thought, would be the real motivation behind the visit. He doubted it had anything to do with Fatboy and substandard equipment.

Still, curious enough to show up, Rem accompanied Santo to the meeting.

The commissary was sectioned off with small rope barriers to mark out a rough rectangle. Men from the unit sat on either side of the tables interested in the boxes stacked alongside the vending machines. Two of the tables were marked with a ‘reserved’ sign.

The Division Chief arrived with a posse of bureaucrats: uniformly dressed in white shirts, chinos, buckskin boots.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Santo whispered, ‘would you look at that. The Banana Republic hive mind. They sleep in one big bed, swap clothes. Have interchangeable limbs. They have no genitals.’

Rem watched the group approach, the Division Chief concealed by the huddle, then, as the deputies spread out, revealed. Large in every sense, he wore a white linen suit and carried a light-blue handkerchief with which he mopped his forehead. Disproportionate, tall, and so overweight that walking appeared cumbersome. The man swung his arms, breathed through his mouth, had a sprightly edge, and seemed, at least to Rem, uncommonly alert.

Santo swore under his breath. A chuckle stirred through the unit, then the men fell unusually silent.

The Division Chief was introduced by the section head, Mark Summers, who appeared decorous beside the chief.

Santo complained that he hadn’t heard the Division Chief’s name, and the answer came back, whispered down the row: Mann, David Mann. Division Chief for Europe.

‘What happened to the last guy? The one for the Middle East?’ Santo asked in a voice that was not so quiet. ‘You think he ate him?’ The men looked back and considered the possibility.

Summers stood beside the boxes and began to speak. His shirt was wet at the armpits, his hair matted. The boxes contained new protective jackets.

‘These,’ he said, struggling out one of the black flak vests, ‘are what we’re offering all ground personnel. Gratis. You can take these now.’ He opened the vest, spoke about the new neck guards, the crotch-bib.

‘What did I tell you?’ Santo nudged Rem. ‘I must be psychic. They’ll take pictures now, and this goes in the company magazine. Gets sent to the newspapers.’

To Summers’ embarrassment the men stopped in their seats. Rem kept his eye on Mann and was surprised that he did not intervene, but appeared, instead, to study the men.

Summers, quieter, squeakier, said that the men could sign for the jackets at the PX. ‘One each,’ he said. ‘One.’

Rem hung around the visiting party as Summers and Mann were shown ‘the ovens’. He overheard Summers ask if he could see the men’s quarters, and the mistake stuck with Rem, not because of its irony, but for the lack of understanding. Neither Summers nor Mann had visited a live compound before. They couldn’t have. The accommodation was no different from HOSCO’s usual provision: inadequate for a combat zone. As European Division Chief, David Mann could be forgiven. Summers had just never left his office.

Rem followed with his arms folded.

That evening Rem found Paul Geezler in the commissary. Paul Geezler. In Iraq. Amrah City.

Rem picked a soda from self-service and stood at a distance. Geezler wore a blue shirt with HOSCO sewn in white along the right breast pocket, a plate of pasta-bake in front of him.

Aware that he was being watched, Geezler looked up. ‘Gunnersen.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m with the Division Chief. One day. In. Out.’ Geezler indicated the seat opposite him. ‘Join me. I was hoping to speak with you.’

Geezler shifted his tray to make room, asked Rem if he was eating. ‘I haven’t heard much from you lately?’

The air-conditioner focused a fine stream between Rem’s shoulders.

Geezler spoke of his business, a tour to Singapore then Indonesia. ‘Denpasar. They insist, even now, on a face.’ He gave a resigned shrug. ‘You like it here? It’s a sincere question. Do you like your work?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘Have you thought about staying?’

Rem couldn’t help but laugh.

‘You’ve been useful.’

‘There hasn’t been much happening.’

‘I have what I asked for.’

‘I want to get through this without trouble. I had a friend—’

‘The boy who shot himself.’ Geezler nodded as if considering a personal sorrow. He paused, set down his fork. ‘I don’t think we’re using you to your full advantage. I’m thinking you’re in the wrong place.’

‘I have two weeks.’

‘Hear me out. What if I could offer you something uncomplicated? How would that sound?’ Geezler’s eyes were a perfect blue, disarming in a man. ‘People are frightened of you. Did you know that?’

Rem shrugged. ‘I want to go home. There are things happening, I should be home.’

‘Maybe you want something safer?’

‘Safer is good. Home is better.’

‘How is that business of yours? Can you go home and start that up again? Will the money be enough?’

Rem looked at the man and focused on not giving a response.

‘I need a manager. Have you heard of Al-Muthanna?’

‘It’s the desert. In the south.’

‘Remind me what you earn?’

Rem held up his fingers.

Geezler nodded again. ‘What if you earned that in one month?’

‘Total?’

‘Total. No tax, as per.’ Geezler held up his hands and looked at them. ‘You’ll need to decide quickly.’ He asked for a napkin. ‘I see you as a manager. What do you know about the burn pits?’

Rem pushed a pack of towelettes across the table.

‘Tell me. What have you heard?’

Rem shook his head.

‘Everything we’ve brought here needs to be taken away. What can’t be taken away needs to be burned. We have four sites. Camp Bravo, up north. SB Alpha and Camp Victor, both central. And Camp Liberty, south-west. Every one except Camp Liberty is manned. I need a manager to assemble a team. No more than seven men. You’ll be your own man. It’s secure, remote, and absolutely safe. HOSCO have set up the pits, the systems, the deliveries and sites are independent.’

‘How long?’

‘Two months. It’s hard to tell. Until we close them down.’

Rem reflected for a moment. Kiprowski in a paper hat, a white bib, tall and lanky, waited behind a counter, head forward, arms behind his back, bored.

‘You can pick whoever you want.’

‘You need an answer now?’

‘I leave in three hours,’ Geezler checked his watch, ‘but let me know by the end of play tomorrow. I won’t ask anything else of you.’

It took Rem an hour to find Santo down in Transport watching the TCNs being dispatched. ‘Makes me feel bad watching them go like that. You ever seen those convoys?’

Rem said he hadn’t and followed Santo across the central quad.

‘I have a proposal. There’s a man here from HOSCO and he’s asked me to put together a team. Seven men to go down to Al-Muthanna. They need a team. He’s asked me, but I think I could persuade him to take you if it’s something you’re interested in?’

‘Why would I want to go? Things are working fine here.’

‘It’s double the money.’

‘Where is this again?’

They waited by the entrance to the transport dock. Three rows of vehicles, the noise shuddering through the garage, the fumes rising. Santo pointed out a mechanic who stood among the security and drivers as they decided on a running order. Santo waved the man over. ‘This is Pakosta, he’s been here longer than me.’ Pakosta wiped his hands on a rag as he came to them. Confident and fresh, he shook Rem’s hand as they were introduced.

‘Should have stayed here,’ he said to Santo. ‘Had a fight. No one wants to ride in the first set.’

‘It’s that bad?’

Pakosta shrugged. ‘The problem is how they drive. People fall asleep. Lose the road. They won’t slow down or stop. I’m sick of picking dogs out of fenders. Last week one ran through a herd of goats. Refused to stop. They think if they stop then they’re dead. Most are high on chaw anyway.’ Pakosta pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘They wear adult diapers. Honest to god. Like monkeys. Don’t even stop to shit. You don’t want to go inside those cabins after a long haul.’

Santo asked Pakosta when he was done, and Pakosta said he was looking for an extension. ‘You mean here, right? You’re asking when am I done here?’

‘You heard of Camp Liberty?’

Pakosta looked up in the air in thought. ‘Which one?’

‘South-east. Al-Muthanna. On the way to Kuwait.’

Pakosta nodded, he knew it. ‘Camp Crapper? Off Highway 80 someways? I’ve been there on a recovery. It’s not occupied. Why?’

‘He’s putting a team together.’

‘For?’

‘A short job, managing the burn pits.’

‘They need people for that?’

‘The pay is good.’

‘They dump stuff and set fire to it. Why do they need people?’

Rem said he didn’t know, and Santo asked if it mattered. Pakosta said he guessed it didn’t. Santo asked a second time if he was interested, and Pakosta answered that he’d sooner just wait in Amrah and see what came up.

Ready to leave, Rem began to make his excuses. Pakosta rolled up his sleeve.

‘You see this. Here.’ He held up his arm to show a fresh scratch, a short thick line, as thick as a finger. ‘Nearly died last night.’ Santo and Rem looked at the scar.

‘What is that?’

‘We were recovering a vehicle on North Jalla. We just got it hitched and someone took a shot.’

‘Is that a graze? You saying it just missed you?’ Santo leaned in to look closer.

‘They shot out the bulb from the headlight. Burned right through.’ He turned his arms so he could look.

Santo disagreed. ‘Doesn’t count. No one’s getting rich off a miss.’

As they walked away Rem and Santo were silent.

Imagine you could do something undeniably, unquestionably good. That dropped into your hands was the opportunity to achieve One Good Thing.

Imagine a man stumbling across a motorway, blind, out of his mind, and you beside him, guiding, making those split-second choices.