The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (53 page)

‘You don’t have enough security?’

‘Believe me,’ Markland glanced up with a sly quick smile, ‘everything we have here is committed. We’re under-resourced. We have three security details for the entire Southern-CIPA, and on occasion, when the Deputy Administrator makes his trips, we’re caught short. I need more security. You need explosives and men who can carry guns. I can have them flown in for you. Today even. Look.’ Markland sat forward. ‘I can’t pretend we aren’t cutting corners. But I can advise Howell to let you have everything you need.’

The problem with shipping explosives, it was explained to him, was the most complex problem of all. If news of the shipment leaked out of the office then every convoy, Christ knows, would be sabotaged. The solution, simply, would be to airlift the munitions as soon as possible, before any rumours could spread.

As they left the compound Santo sucked air between his teeth.

‘How do they find people like that?’

‘Like who?’

‘Markland. You see that safe? Wasn’t even locked. You ever seen so much money? The whole thing packed. How much you think was in there? You see the whisky? He had whisky. There were bottles in the safe.’

Rem said he didn’t want to know. ‘We have what we came for.’

‘And they do too.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Now they have us managing some security detail. That’s all they wanted. Stop.’ Santo held Rem’s arm. ‘Is that a woman?’

Rem took Santo’s arm and led him on.

When they arrived back at Camp Liberty they found Watts and Clark waiting for them. A message had come ahead of their arrival. Markland had spoken with Howell and everything was agreed.

‘They’ll send the first shipment with the next food drop. You need to pick men out for training.’ Watts explained the message. ‘They want to send a team to Kuwait for a certification course in firearm safety.’

Rem passed the note to Santo. ‘You’ll know more about this.’

Santo asked Watts what this was about.

‘They want a security team.’

Santo held up the paper. ‘So who are we going to send? It says you need to select them.’

Watts had already considered this. ‘Send the men who already have basic training.’

Clark immediately began to protest. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t go. ‘Don’t put me on that list. I want nothing to do with it. Once they start taking notice they’ll pick you out for all sorts. You put your head up a little and they pick you out.’

‘Clark, that’s what people call a career.’

‘Whatever they call it. I don’t want it.’

Clark gave a gesture like he didn’t care.

‘Did they say how many?’

Rem looked over the note. They didn’t say.

Santo counted out the men. ‘Pakosta, Clark, Chimeno, Kiprowski, me.’

‘Kiprowski? With a gun? I don’t want to see that.’

‘He’s done basic already. He’ll do fine.’

‘Kiprowski was in food services.’ Watts disagreed. ‘There’s no way he ever did basic.’

‘Then Samuels. But that hound won’t hunt.’

Santo grimaced, but Clark protested. If they wanted everyone who had basic training, then they needed to include Samuels. It was only fair. And why not take Kiprowski if he wanted to go?

Rem asked if they could keep it down. ‘Tell them we can only spare four. We still have to run the pits. Even with four down this will leave us short. Find out more about what they want.’

Watts steered clear of the ruts, and the Humvee lost traction and slipped sideways, a small slip, almost imperceptible.

Watts called on Rem late in the morning.

‘We have a connection. Praise the lord.’

‘You have a signal?’

‘I know. Who knew. A
connection.
Different thing, same result.’

Rem sat in his doorway with a towel over his head and poured water on occasion to keep himself cool. ‘Who was it?’

Santo stretched out in the shade, feet dug into the dust. ‘Probably your boyfriend Markland.’ Santo rolled to his side, wrapped his arms about himself, spoke in a squeaky voice. ‘Oh Rem, tell me about HOSCO. Kissy kiss kiss.’

Watts pulled a face. ‘Actually, it was Markland. He said they’d fixed what you wanted and you should expect him to arrive this afternoon. Fourteen hundred hours.’

Rem didn’t understand. ‘You said
him
?’

‘Or
it
. I’m not sure.’

Rem asked if he knew what
him
or
it
was.

Watts shook his head. ‘I just wrote down what he said.’

Santo sat upright, ‘Markland’s pimping for you now? You even remember what you asked for?’

Rem shrugged. ‘You were there.’

‘Me? I lost all interest the minute you started talking.’

Watts held his cap up for shade. ‘Well. It’s coming in two hours, whatever it is. He just wanted us to be ready. That’s all.’

Rem looked up at the man. ‘I’m ready. You ready?’

‘Sure,’ Santo laughed, ‘I’m always ready.’ He kicked down his heels, folded his arms, and closed his eyes. ‘Ready for anything, me.’

Rem stood at the cabin door and watched as Chimeno wandered from the latrines to the Quonset to the latrines. As far as he could tell Chimeno didn’t want to go to the latrine or back to his cabin and was caught tracing the ground between them.

The afternoon gave itself to reflection, the strangeness of being here. Rem took out his phone, turned the camera to video, and panned about the camp.
Goldrush
, he thought. We look like prospectors.

Chimeno’s movements made little sense, and when Samuels came out of his cabin Chimeno sank back to the Quonset door. Rem watched as Chimeno watched Samuels walk to the latrines. After one moment inside Samuels came out running, helter-skelter.

‘You should see this.’ Samuels pointed back at the latrines, eyes agog, face bright with surprise.

Samuels’ shout brought Pakosta and Santo to their doors. Rem couldn’t immediately see the reason for the fuss. The latrines were a simple row of open-topped huts with a sandbag wall, head height, built as a blast protection. Samuels pointed to the ground where the bags slumped into the dirt, at what Rem first took to be a kind of hairy crab, brittle and spindly: an insect, with a body as long as the palm of his hand. The creature straddled the first sandbag, legs splayed on one side, tucked in on the other.

‘Ten legs. That’s not right.’

Not keen on leaning any closer Rem took Pakosta’s word.

‘You know what this is?’

‘Camel spider.’

Samuels ducked back. ‘That’s no spider.’

‘You’re right. It’s not a spider. It’s not a camel either.’ Pakosta straightened up, matter of fact. ‘I wouldn’t stand so close.’ He stuck out his boot and the creature braced. ‘See that? Instinct. They only come out once they’ve bred. Females. They inject you so you can’t feel anything, then chew a hole in your guts and lay their eggs. They run at thirty miles an hour and jump five, six feet at a time. Spring right up. See those legs? Man, you don’t want that on your face.’

Pakosta flicked his cigarette and the spider sprang right at them. Pakosta, Samuels, Santo and Rem careened out of the latrines, the spider, already ahead, scuttled under the cabins. Chimeno ran full pelt past the Quonset and the fuel dump until he couldn’t be seen.

Pakosta pointed in Chimeno’s direction. ‘Spider-boy moves to number one.’

Rem wanted to know if these creatures were harmful.

Pakosta laughed. ‘Sure. If you give it a chance to bite you. There’s other things, much worse. Scorpions for one. They’ll sleep in your boots and get you five times before you pull your foot out. You can’t get help fast enough.’

The three of them looked along the cabins for the spider, each armed with a section of tent pole taken from the Quonset. Chimeno waited at a distance, hands on hips, and couldn’t be coaxed back to help with the search.

‘Vibration. That’s what they don’t like. Most times you see them at night, if you see them at all. Then you wake up and it’s chewing your dick off.’

Pakosta made a munching sound and Santo told him to shut up. Some things they didn’t need to know.

‘Fine by me, just don’t sleep.’

Santo raised his pole as a threat. ‘I’m not sleeping.’

‘It’ll still get you. They hide in holes smaller than your fist. Come out at night and rape your ass.’ Pakosta stood with the pole over his shoulder, satisfied. ‘And they love dark meat.’

Santo levelled his pole at Pakosta’s neck and prodding him, warned: ‘You say shit like that
one
time.’

Pakosta backed away with a small laugh.

Watts and Clark stood at their doors curious at the fuss. Watts suggested they get Kiprowski out to help find it, and Kiprowski, already behind them, came to the front, sank to his knees, and swept his arm under the steps.

‘Woah!’ Watts jolted back. ‘You don’t do that. You don’t know what’s under there.’

Kiprowski smiled up, still reaching. ‘There’s no way a camel’s getting under there.’

‘Spider,’ Santo corrected, ‘a motherfucking egg-laying turd-breeding bastard camel
spider
.’

‘Yeah?’ Clark nodded thoughtfully. ‘I heard about those.’

‘Place is infested.’ Santo spat.

‘No shit.’

Kiprowski stood and dusted off his shirt.

Pakosta stabbed his pole under the cabin. ‘Seriously, no shit. This is serious business. They crawl up your ass and eat their way out to your face.’

‘That won’t feel good.’ Watts began to collect the poles.

‘Got that right.’

‘Hey, Watts, what it’s like to have something eat out your ass?’

Watts paused on his way to the Quonset, gave serious consideration to the question. ‘Ask your mother, Pakosta. Go ask your mom.’

For a moment Pakosta’s reaction, a slight collapse in his expression, showed him to be nothing more than a boy. Santo stumbled back, mock-shot. Clark doubled over and laughed into his fist. Kiprowski looked about, undecided, checking for a cue.

Rem followed after Pakosta as he walked toward the pits, wanting to know what Pakosta had meant by saying Chimeno had moved to number one, but Pakosta’s smart stride made it clear that he didn’t want to talk.

At 15:40 the sound of the convoy could be heard, a rick-rack reverberation clattering off the cabins – seeming to come from the huts not the desert. Rem looked out to the road, hands shading his eyes, but still not able to see. The noise increased, adding a bass sound and becoming insistent, internal, felt. The craft, when he saw them, five army Chinooks, smooth, black pods, almost too distant to justify their noise.

The men grouped behind the Quonset to an area where the ground levelled, big enough they imagined for the five craft to set down. Rem asked Santo if this was good enough and Santo gave a gesture, he had no idea. None of them had any idea.

Beneath the helicopters hung vehicles strapped to platforms, a truck, a Humvee, what looked to be an ambulance, another Humvee, a boat. The five craft came out of the blank white sky. Holding a loose ‘V’ they swung wide of the Quonset and rode over the cabins and kicked up a sharp blister of sand. Watts and Clark backed into the Quonset, hands holding down their hats.

Chimeno pointed to the Beach and gestured to Rem that they should take the Humvee.

Rem cupped his hands round Watts’ ear and had to shout. ‘Call Southern-CIPA. Find out what this is about. I want to know what’s going on.’

The wind ripped between the cabins as the first craft hovered above the Quonset, dwarfing the camp. The cover on the Quonset rippled wildly and threatened to tear. The cabins, otherwise solid, shivered and strained against their footings – Rem feared the down-draught would destroy them.

*

By the time they arrived at the Beach the first vehicle had been unloaded. One corner of the pallet slipped into the sand and the ambulance shifted as the sand settled. One by one the packets were carefully lowered and released. The boat, improbably beached, tilted precariously, the bow pointing downhill. The cables wound back up as the helicopter yawed away.

Watts said he knew what that was, and Clark slapped him on the back. ‘In my culture we call them boats. Buh-oats. Normally we like to use them in the sea or in the ocean, or on some kind of water, on which, my friend, they glide as if by special powers.’

Watts ignored the taunt and couldn’t resist running his hand along the boat. ‘It’s a Sunshine Fifty-five-O. I was raised on the Sunshine Forty. Five years, from when I was nine.’

‘I took you to be a trailer-boy. Same as everyone else.’

‘Benton Harbor, before we moved to Missouri.’

‘Hippies?’

‘Something like that.’

Pakosta couldn’t do much but laugh, a boat in the desert being too strange to make sense.

The fifth helicopter set down the truck then veered away toward the camp. Rem and Santo followed in the Humvee. Irritated not to know what was going on, Rem drove into the dust barely able to see.

The helicopter settled behind the Quonset and left two long crates and one man. The man stood by the boxes as Rem drove round, and the helicopter hovered then swung away. Whorls of sand drawn by the craft’s swift rise twisted about the man, then dissipated. A clear sky began to break through the yellow dust.

The man stepped forward and introduced himself as their translator, Amer Hassan. He repeated his name and his duties until Rem was clear on both.

‘
Translator
?’ Rem couldn’t help but smile. ‘But everyone speaks English.’

‘He say translator?’ Santo leaned out of the vehicle and shouted: ‘You sure you’re supposed to be here?’

Amer Hassan took the question seriously. He was certain. Camp Liberty. This was his destination.

‘Who sent you?’

‘My previous position was with Security at Southern-CIPA. I will be working with Paul Howell and his security team.’

‘Howell? Here?’

‘Yes. With the security team based here. I received instructions this morning.’

Now Rem scratched his head. ‘Paul Howell is coming here?’

‘No. This is the equipment.’ Amer Hassan indicated the two crates. ‘For the security team.’ He paused, eyes closed. ‘This is only what I have heard. When Mr Howell makes his visits he requires a security detail and a translator.’