The Wreckage: A Thriller (26 page)

“Shame.”

Jimmy lifts his stubbly chin. The light from the window shines through the jug-ears, turning them pale pink.

“Hey, that thing you wanted to know about truck driving, I might have found someone. His name is Hamada al-Hayak. He’s been smuggling petrol over the border since the end of the Iraq–Iran war in the late eighties. A few months back he got shot up on a run to Jordan. Lost his arm. Now he works as a cook at a trucking camp outside of Baghdad. He’l want payment… talking of which, you owe me five grand.”

“You’l get your money.”

“Sooner rather than later.”

“What’s the rush?”

“That bul ’s-eye painted on your back.”

Luca returns to the gas cylinder and pul s out a wad of US dol ars, counting out five grand. Jimmy pockets the money without recounting.

He looks around the apartment again. “So who did this?”

“The Iraqi police.”

“Was it something you said?”

“I looked at them the wrong way.”

Jimmy chuckles and cracks his knuckles. At the door, he turns. “Are you leaving town?”

“Looks like it.”

“People are gonna miss you.”

“You trying to tel me something?”

“I just did.”

A pine-scented air freshener shaped like a Christmas tree swings from the rear-vision mirror of the Skoda but it stil reeks of fresh paint. Luca drives to the al-Hamra Hotel and gives the keys to the concierge. He tries to cal Daniela’s room from downstairs. She doesn’t pick up. She hasn’t checked out. One of the housekeepers opens the door for him.

Daniela is lying in darkness, curled up on the bed. Luca reaches for the light switch but she tel s him to go away, anguish in her voice, a soft wet sound.

The housekeeper leaves quickly, pocketing a banknote. Luca moves into the room. Sits on the edge of the bed. Catches a glimpse of her face.

“I’m sorry to hear about your German friend.”

“He wasn’t my friend.”

She rol s on to her back, pul ing the sheet up to her stomach. Her hair is matted into greasy clumps, her eyes dul and listless. Luca takes her hand and pul s her up. Groaning softly in protest, she’s like a refugee being told what to do and fol owing automatical y. He leads her to the bathroom where he turns on the shower, letting steam bil ow and the air grow humid.

Button by button he undresses her until her blouse fal s open and slips from her shoulders; her drawstring pants are pushed down, one foot raised and then the other.

Standing before him in quivering stil ness, she waits while he undresses. Then he leads her beneath the stream of water where he soaps a flannel and gently washes her arms and legs, her feet and hands, her shoulders and breasts. He shampoos her hair, massaging his fingers into her scalp, letting the soap stream down his forearms and over his penis.

Only when he’s finished does she open her eyes and gaze into his. Her lips move slightly apart. She wants to be kissed, but he holds her at arm’s length and begins drying her.

Wrapping a robe around her shoulders, he takes her back to the bedroom and pours her a drink from the mini-bar.

“Shaun is dead,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“So are the others.”

“What happened?”

“They were dressed like soldiers. They came into the Ministry and started shooting.”

“Where were you?”

“Away…” She sucks in a breath. “I had to identify Glover’s body. They tortured him with an electric dril and then cut his throat. He was covered in flies…” Her voice has a mechanical quality, devoid of emotion, like a person who has spent a lifetime tethered to the banks of a river, only to wake one morning and discover that someone has severed the mooring lines overnight and she’s drifted into a dark new place.

“The attack was premeditated. We were the targets. They went straight to the basement.”

“Why would they do that?”

“To stop the audit.”

“Had you discovered something?”

“The software had only been running for forty-eight hours. There were some double payments and overpayments…” The statement tails off.

“Except?”

“Do you know of Jawad Stadium?”

“It’s south of here.”

“According to the financial records it has been completely refurbished. Work began in 2005 and was finished two years ago. But the work was never done. I’ve seen the stadium.

That’s where I was when they launched the attack.”

“How big was the contract?”

“Ninety mil ion dol ars.”

“And the duplicate payments?”

“Forty-two mil ion.” She pul s her knees up and takes another sip, unused to the harshness of the vodka.

“Who knew you were looking at the contracts?”

“Glover cal ed the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office and asked what team approved the project.”

“Did they tel him?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to anyone else?”

“I sent an email request to New York asking for information about the main contractor, Bel wether Construction. They sent a file, but most of the important details had been blacked out.”

They lapse into silence.

Swinging her legs out of bed, Daniela moves barefoot across the floor. She opens her satchel on the luggage rack and retrieves a single sheet of paper.

“You asked me about cash deliveries to banks. I did a search of the Central Bank database.”

Luca leans forward expectantly, his knees touching the edge of her robe.

“And?”

“I’ve probably broken a dozen laws.” She hands the page to Luca and begins explaining the figures. “The first column is a code used to identify each bank branch. Next there is a date and then the amount of cash requested in the nominated currency. I concentrated on US deliveries.”

Luca looks at the first three transfers.

BI (74-312) 092609 US$5.3m

RB (74-212) 020610 US$15.6m

ITB (74-466) 021110 US$1.8m

Even without checking, he knows these cash deliveries correspond with the robberies—preceding them by twenty-four hours. Somebody must have leaked the information to the armed robbers. How many people had access to the information? It could be an insider at the Treasury, or the Iraqi Central Bank, or the delivery company.

Daniela curls up next to him, reaching between the lapels of his robe and running her fingers down his chest, loosening the knot at his waist. She flattens herself against him, pressing her loins tightly to his and he feels a desire stirring that he tries to ignore.

“Don’t you want me?” she asks.

“I don’t want you mistaking my motives.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I might not see you again.”

“You wil . There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Daniela crosses the foyer, moving from memory on marble tiles that are polished and cool. Her cheeks have color now. Her hair is drying and her clothes are clean. Outside the air is hot and harshly bright, thick with the smel of wood fires and paraffin stoves.

They drive east along busy roads. As they approach each checkpoint, Luca tel s Daniela to lower her eyes and cover her face with a scarf. Once they pass through, Luca continues his story, tel ing her about his arrest and interrogation—as much as he can remember. The account seems so strange, so pul ed out of shape and littered with broken and jagged pieces.

“So you don’t have a visa?”

“No.”

“What wil you do?”

“Leave.”

Sadr City is an immense suburb in eastern Baghdad ful of ramshackle one-storey buildings covered in dust and patched together with scavenged building materials. The city has many neighborhoods like this one—sectarian strongholds, ful of widows, orphans and the dispossessed; Sunni or Shiite, bombed back to the Stone Age. Amid the poverty, children play footbal using oil drums as goal posts. Their mothers, in ful chadors, look like shadows in the darkened windows. The only splash of color comes from bil boards advertising mobile phones and flat-screen TVs.

Jamal and Nadia have two rooms behind a shop that sel s water barrels and tools. Luca parks beside a mound of broken bricks and discarded planks. He fixes a lock to the steering wheel and another to the gearstick.

A woman opens the door just a crack, one eye visible, suspicion in it, then fear, then anger. This is Jamal’s wife, Nadia. Two young boys are clutching her legs, peering from the folds of her dress.

She covers her mouth and nose. “You should not have come.”

“I need to talk to Jamal,” says Luca.

“You have caused enough trouble.”

Her gaze switches to Daniela and her anger evaporates. She opens the door wider. “You take too many risks and put other people in danger.” The boys run away and hide in the second room, peeking out through a curtain, one head below the other. Electrical wires sprout from the wal s and a kerosene lantern hangs from a beam, revealing woven rugs and bedding rol ed in the corner.

Jamal emerges from the second room, his handsome face transformed. Rearranged by fists or clubs, his almond eyes, his white smile, his youth. Gone. Beaten from him. His lips are blown up to twice their size and his right eye is ful of blood, while the left has almost closed completely. Daniela can’t hide her shock.

Jamal opens his mouth to speak. No sound emerges. He tries again, his voice altered by his swol en lips and broken teeth.

“Please leave. It’s not safe for you to be here.”

His voice is loud in the tiny room.

“What happened?” asks Luca. “Why did they do this?”

“I work with Americans—this is the reason.”

“Abu?”

“He is safe, but they’re looking for him.”

Jamal wipes the spit dribbling down his chin. Luca reaches out and touches his friend’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“It is not your fault. We both knew this could happen.”

Nadia is making coffee. From the plastic container she carries from the pump each day she pours just enough water into a saucepan. Daniela introduces herself and crouches down, talking to the boys, who are losing their shyness.

Jamal pul s cushions from the corner and asks Luca to sit down. His modesty and politeness are a study in respect passed on by his parents. He glances at his wife. Speaks softly.

“I met Nadia at university. I remember thinking I could never marry someone so beautiful, so I didn’t talk to her… I was too nervous. Then one day I found her crying. Her father had been taken by Saddam’s secret police for something he’d done or said or not done or not said. I told Nadia I would find him. It took me two weeks. It cost four thousand dol ars to buy his freedom. Nadia married me out of gratitude, but it has become love.”

He wipes his mouth on his sleeve.

“None of my five sisters are married. My father says he won’t find them husbands until the militias stop kil ing each other. He prefers to keep them safe at home.”

“What does your father do?”

“He runs a market stal . I did have a brother, but he’s dead.”

They are silent for a moment and Luca tries to apologize again.

“You are not to blame. There is too much blame in Iraq. The Sunnis blame the Shiites, who blame the Baathists, who once poisoned the Kurds, and they al blame the Americans.

We’ve become a country of nasty, pissed-off people with guns and third-grade educations. My generation has been at war ever since I was born. We are so familiar with it we have coffin makers on every corner, moving bodies like melons.

“The new Iraq was never going to be perfect, but we hope, we dream, we survive. The Americans wil leave one day. And what wil be left behind? Al things light and al things dark.” Jamal’s eyes find the floor. “They tried to drown me. Now each time I fal asleep, I dream of swal owing water. I can taste it, smel it coming out of my mouth and nose. I wanted to die in the end. I didn’t care anymore. I made a statement. I wrote what they told me.”

“I know.”

He blinks back tears, looking like a man whose life has undergone a violent decompression, a diver returning to the surface too quickly.

Jamal taps his chest. “They could not change who I am. They could not touch me inside.”

Daniela joins them, bringing a jug of rose-scented water and a tray of sweet pastries. Luca takes one and feels the sugar melting on his tongue. They speak in English for her benefit.

Jamal remembers something else. “There was an American… when they were interrogating me. I saw him just once, but I remember his voice. He was feeding them the questions.” Daniela interrupts. “What did he look like?”

“Like an American,” says Jamal. “He asked me if I was scared. I told him no. He laughed and said I was too stupid to be scared.” Daniela: “Did he have a side-parting?”

“Yes.”

“What about his voice?” Luca asks. “Did it sound cracked or broken?”

Jamal nods and al three of them are staring at each other, wondering how they could know the same man.

“His name is Jennings,” explains Daniela. “He was assigned to us by the US Embassy as our local liaison officer.”

“I was told he works for the State Department,” says Luca. “I met him this morning.”

Luca takes a moment to consider the ramifications. US involvement in the arrest and torture of an Iraqi civilian doesn’t come as a complete surprise to him, but normal y such operations don’t feature personnel from the State Department or the CIA as eyewitnesses. The US government prefers to remain in the background, promoting the culture of deniability.