The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (58 page)

✩

On the second day a message came through from Southern-CIPA that Highway 80 was now open for traffic heading north. Markland sounded blasé. They would see the results in about three hours. If they kept to their post until then, an army vehicle would bring the last convoy through.

As always with CIPA another message arrived within the hour. The final convoy from Kuwait would arrive at Camp Liberty at 02:00 Zulu, and they would need volunteers to accompany the drivers as there was no security.

The traffic stopped two hours after the notification of the convoy. Both Kiprowski and Chimeno waited at the compound entrance.

Rem took the opportunity to speak with Amer Hassan.

Hassan answered the door and stepped aside for Rem to enter. The two beds, both made, both tidy, and so close that once they sat down their legs interlocked. Rem found himself embarrassed, uncertain how he should start the discussion.

‘I have made a decision. I have no choice. I have to leave. I was recognized. The men in the car will tell everyone I am working for the Americans.’ Hassan paused, looked quickly at Rem. ‘At Southern-CIPA I always covered my face. Then, one day, they said that the interpreters cannot cover their faces any more. They killed two interpreters. The same day. My wife and children are in Britain. My son is very sick. My father and my brothers are here. I should not have come. I have placed my family in very serious trouble.’

‘We can help.’

‘You cannot help.’ Hassan briskly shook his head. ‘There is nothing you can do.’ He looked up. ‘Everything makes trouble. You give our names to the Ministry of Finance, who sell this information to anyone. Anyone can find our names. Sooner or later.’

‘You could stay here?’

‘And what about my family?’

Rem stood up in surrender and said that he understood.

The convoy arrived forty minutes ahead of time: Scanias and MANs, large bull-headed flatbeds, long bodies, camel-packed, mounted incestuously so that one could drag four.

The men gathered round them as they parked, dust colliding upward. The drivers were small, Indian and Sri Lankan, thin and anxious, exhausted from the drive.

Pakosta punched Rem on the arm. ‘You heard? We get to ride in these all the way to Amrah and they fly us back?’

Rem asked Santo if this was true. Watts stood beside Santo and nodded. ‘Apparently. This is the understanding. They won’t go any further unless they have an escort.’

‘I was sitting at the stop lights when a semi ran right over a car loaded with Muslims . . .’

Rem checked that Hassan was nowhere near earshot, and caught Pakosta’s arm. ‘You need to watch your mouth. You understand?’

Pakosta hunched and immediately apologized. ‘What? What did I do? It was a joke. Nothing but a joke.’

Bolder, Pakosta tugged back his sleeve. As he walked out he directed a comment at Kiprowski Rem did not quite catch. ‘What did he just say?’ Kiprowski shrugged. ‘I heard him say something. What was it?’

‘It was nothing.’

‘It wasn’t nothing. He said go fuck sand out of his ass. Right? Is that what he said?’

‘It wasn’t anything.’ Kiprowski pushed through the group of drivers. They were hollow-eyed but wired and decided on continuing.

Santo slapped Rem on the back. ‘You coming?’

Rem said no, he’d stay. ‘You can take Pakosta and Kiprowski, and Clark. Clark can follow and bring everyone back. I’ll stay here with Watts and Samuels, and Chimeno.’

Chimeno immediately complained. He wanted to go.

‘Let him come along if he wants.’

‘Fine with me.’ Rem stepped back and bumped into Amer Hassan. Hassan offered his hand. If he returned with the convoys, he said, he could find his family.

Rem asked him to reconsider.

‘I don’t have a choice.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Give me two days before you tell anyone.’

Rem slowly nodded in agreement. ‘You should say something to Kiprowski before you go.’

Hassan looked puzzled.

‘He’s young. He doesn’t have too many friends out here. I think he likes you in his way.’

Hassan nodded briskly, decided.

‘Do you need to get your things?’

Hassan had packed what he could in a small backpack. Kiprowski climbed into the cab behind him.

✩

Most mornings the boy waited for Cathy to come out with the dog. She wanted his name but the boy wouldn’t give it. On the final morning one of the cashiers from the currency exchange came out, unlit cigarette in hand, she squinted into the sun and asked Cathy what she was doing.

‘We know you, don’t we, Roscoe.’ She spoke with mean and nasty intention to the boy, who immediately started walking, hands in pocket, head down. ‘Yes, we know all about you.’ She pushed her glasses back up her nose, looked to Cathy, and told her to watch herself. ‘He’s bad with women. Like his father. And watch your things. I wouldn’t trust him with anything. That entire family is handy, if you know what I mean. He’s always around here. Waiting for an opportunity. Helps himself to what he sees.’

Cathy wanted to defend the boy, but found the dog pulling in the opposite direction. She watched him walk up Lunt, but Nut had other ideas.

She still hadn’t told Rem. When he came back she’d surprise him.

✩

Three hours after their departure, Rem received a report that the convoy was involved in an incident on Route 567 in which the unit translator had been killed.

Chimeno and Kiprowski were flown to hospital at Camp Buehring, and brought back the next day by Catfish Air. Chimeno had no difficulties talking about what had happened. Straight off the transport he called his girlfriend in Ohio, told her the story in detail, said that he missed her and made her cry. Immediately after he called his sister in Lansing, and after that his mother in Denver and did the same thing, improving on the story with each telling. By the time he talked to the unit it was smooth and elegant and properly composed. They listened with reverence.

Chimeno’s driver was a man from Nepal, only just tall enough, he swore, to reach both the pedals and the steering wheel of his rig. Two hours into the drive the guy was standing up waving his arms, insisting on some point Chimeno couldn’t recall. The floor of the cab was drecked with candy wrappers, and he was making plans about how he’d have to drive if the driver had a heart attack. In the event, the man drove courageously into what would have been the line of fire to protect the rig that went down. At that point all they knew was one of the lead trucks had taken a hit. Kiprowski was riding two trucks ahead with Amer Hassan. Once it happened, Chimeno did exactly as he was trained, and when they came to Kiprowski’s truck they found him banging and shrieking to get out. Amer Hassan had landed on his head and snapped his neck, and when they pulled him out there was black blood in his mouth, a limp head, but no other sign of damage.

Rem spoke later with Kiprowski. The plainer truth was that Amer hit his head when the truck went over. Not at the beginning of the fall when it was tipping, when he slid to the side, and not while the truck was still going forward, but once it was past the point where it could correct itself, when gravity pulled it down. For Kiprowski it was a question of velocity and force and how it was impossible not to fall, how everything happened in one compressed moment with his back against the glass and feet up to the seat. He was hit in the face, a coffee canister, CDs, pens, a map book, torch spun down, and dirt and sand and whatever else was on the seat or dashboard, everything thrown into the air and falling with them – a vague memory, or was this invented, of Amer slipping past. The moment before Kiprowski had turned to see Amer, curled up on himself in the small daybed at the back of the cab.

Amer had told him he was leaving.

Kiprowski had sulked at the news, so Amer had curled up and slept, or seemed to sleep, and before Kiprowski could explain himself the vehicle had come off the road.

Kiprowski was the first pulled out of the truck, they tugged him free over the body of the driver who was concussed. His first thought, much like Chimeno, was that this was an attack, and they would come to the front of the truck and shoot them through the glass.

Out of the cab, Kiprowski heard small-arms fire, a hollow clap sent out over the desert, and it took him a while to realize that these were the shots from the other drivers, who carried, illegally, their own weapons. There was no ambush, no roadside bomb, no attack. The driver had fallen asleep and they’d lost the road.

The death of Amer Hassan was like every other, he supposed, except he counted this man as a friend. It all came down to a curve in the road – that was it. No junction, not even an intersection, just a simple slight change in direction.

Rem understood that the problem, Kiprowski’s attachment, was not that simple.

He called Geezler again and began reading his notes, but felt the words slip from him, the call itself to be useless. ‘You know what, there’s probably some legitimate reason for not hearing from you, but some contact would be appreciated.’

As soon as he hung up he immediately regretted the message. It wasn’t what he’d said, so much as his tone.

Rem wanted to speak with the men in the Quonset the night before Kiprowski and Chimeno returned. He let them gather first, and when he came in he surprised Santo, who had money in his hands, a notebook.

‘What’s this?’

‘Nothing.’ Santo tucked the money behind him, slipped it into his back pocket. ‘They owe me.’

‘They owe you?’

‘It’s nothing.’

Rem looked to the group, Clark, Watts, even Samuels with hangdog expressions – all except Pakosta, who also had money in his hand.

The realization that they were gambling left him dumbfounded.

Santo said it wasn’t quite what it looked like.

Rem struggled to speak. ‘How much?’

‘It’s not like that.’

Rem pointed to Santo then Pakosta. ‘How much?’

Now Pakosta lowered his head.

‘How much?’

Pakosta drew the money out from his pocket and folded it round his fingers.

‘Seventy dollars.’

‘And you?’ Rem asked Santo. ‘How much?’

‘It isn’t like that.’

‘I want to know what he was worth.’

Pakosta gave a snort, something small, either derisive or nervous, Rem didn’t care to know.

Rem sat outside his cabin and watched them leave the Quonset one by one, none of them speaking. The temperature dropping. The sky an unbroken black.

✩

On Saturday mornings Cathy made a point of going to Evanston Farmers’ Market on her own – she regarded this as part of her independent life, and did not mind so much that she had erased Rem from the routine. She bought exactly what she wanted: basil, tomatoes, olive bread, and when she could make the expense, cut flowers. Hot with her walk from the station and irritated at the shoulder strap for her purse (over her breast, to the right, between, under? None of the options felt comfortable) she pointed out two bunches of gladioli, and as she searched for the correct change she became distracted by the conversation beside her, two women, one making the choice for the other and explaining in a hurry: ‘Four months ago I had no idea. Now? Now I have a whole new language.’ She replicated the action with three pained gasps. ‘He’s lost weight. His appetite. None of the specialists will admit this has anything to do with the smoke.’

Cathy took her change and backed away. Had she heard the words
burn pit
? The cut stems bled through the paper, a little repellent. She left the market and made her way back to the station, sure that the conversation was not what she now imagined, then changed her mind and returned to the market to seek out the two women – but could not find them among the stalls and the crowd.

She walked to the library without the decision being properly made and found herself coming up the stairs, sweating at the effort, tired as usual (why always so tired?), and before she could properly rationalize what she wanted she was facing a volunteer and explaining that she was looking for information on burn pits, HOSCO, and everything associated with their dealings in Iraq. She needed to sit down. Damn it, no, she needed to pee.

Phyllis, her name pinned to her jacket, stood with Cathy’s packages as she hurried to the restroom. As Cathy returned she adjusted her top. It wasn’t that her clothes were small exactly, not all her clothes, and maybe it was just because her breasts this past week were as sensitive as hell.

Phyllis helped with the bags and walked with her to the computers. As soon as Cathy sat down she thought she’d need the restroom again – and Phyllis said yes, with a small laugh,
it was exactly the same for me
.

When she came to say goodbye, Cathy sought out the librarian, and found her collecting books from the carousels. Phyllis asked with interest if Cathy had found what she was looking for.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ the woman stepped forward, hands precise in their movements, shaping an idea, ‘but how far along? Eight weeks?’

Hands full with bags from the market Cathy looked down and couldn’t see what the woman was talking about. Did she think she was pregnant?

They sat outside the Unicorn Café, Phyllis with her black coffee, a smart air, with her hair drawn back in a style from another era, one where women smoked, occupied kitchens and dining rooms, took lunch, held dinner parties – her mother’s generation, where women worked to appear sophisticated, nurtured,
that look
.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything. You aren’t very far along, are you?’ It was only intuition, she explained. ‘You won’t know, properly, until you see a doctor.’

Neither did she apologize. Cathy had cried. Her first thought that she wasn’t much of a woman if she didn’t know this about her body. How stupid could you be? It wasn’t just the dumbness of the situation, but that she’d missed two months of the experience. Here she was, by her calculation, reaching the end of her first trimester without any of the usual indicators. No specific weight gain, no obvious hormonal changes, no morning sickness. Yes to a change in her complexion. Yes to sore breasts, off and on, of all things the nipples, especially today. Yes to the constant need to pee – although wasn’t all this a little early? Yes to the void of her periods, which usually came irregularly with irregular flow. Christ. She’d heard examples of women making it right to the birth without knowing. If she had to admit she thought this was pathetic.
How can you not know?
She could excuse herself, what with the fainting, and having given up some time ago on her gynaecologist, who’d pronounced her womb to be a hostile environment. Something like Mars. Not very likely to sustain life. Not in those words, not from a professional who couched the judgement in gentler terminations:
unfriendly
being the favoured phrase. She must have conceived the night Rem left. This, at least, almost had some kind of logic.