Authors: Chris Ryan
‘We’ve already had the satellites taking a look,’ said
Laura. ‘We’re analysing those images right now. But we need the snaps you took, and the data you retrieved.’
‘Where’s our pickup?’
She started to answer, then stopped. Jed could visualise her face. A trace of a smile on her lips. A flick of her hair. A slight furrow of her brow, and a tightening of her lips. ‘I’m sorry, Jed, there’s no pickup,’ she said. ‘We need you on the ground.’
‘Fuck the ground,’ said Jed. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘And we need to see those pictures, and then we need to decide on the appropriate response.’
Appropriate response, thought Jed bitterly. Bureaucrat-ese. You could always tell when the Firm was about to screw the men on the ground because they slipped into the language of the committee room. It made it easier to tell the guys at the sharp end they were worth so little their lives could be blown away while the Ruperts sat around deciding what to do next.
‘Bugger the appropriate response,’ said Jed. ‘We’ve done our job, and two of our mates have died. This craphole is teeming with soldiers, and they’re all looking for us. We need to get the hell out of here.’
‘Listen, Jed,’ said Laura firmly. ‘I’m going to give you the name of a contact in Baghdad. He’s one of our men. Go to his house – there’s a secure Internet connection. You can feed the pictures you took back to London. Once you’ve done that, then we’ll arrange for you to be picked up. OK?’ She paused, then added: ‘And keep this one alive, please. These guys are expensive.’
Jed stifled his anger. He could feel his heart thumping inside his chest. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the sound of shouting, then of a gun being fired. Sitting around in their cosy offices, they had no idea how dangerous it was out here on the ground.
‘Jed …’ she repeated.
‘I’m here.’
‘I know you’re in danger, but don’t worry, we’re looking after you,’ Laura said slowly.
‘Spare me the bloody pep talk,’ Jed spat. ‘Is it an order or not?’
A silence. He could hear a sharp intake of breath. ‘It’s an order, Jed.’
‘And a fucking stupid one. You told us we were going to be lifted out of here after we got the pictures.’
‘This is a war,’ she said coldly. ‘The plans change all the time. Get used to it.’
He grabbed a pen, and wrote down a name and an address:Abbas Mansour. He had a house in the al-Thawra district of the city. Jed folded the phone back into his kitbag, then looked up at Matt. ‘There’s no pickup,’ he said.
‘What the fuck do you mean?’ snarled Matt.
His eyes were filled with fury, and there was sweat starting to glisten on his face. Jed could hear more shouting in a nearby street, and the sound of sirens. ‘We’ve got to upload these snaps, then await orders,’ he said. ‘We’re meant to be picked up after they’ve analysed the data. But I’m not sure I believe them. Not any more.’
Jed stared back at the river. Rob’s corpse was looking
up at him, but one eye had already come out of its socket, and sunk to the bottom of the Tigris. Suddenly Matt was tugging at his arm. ‘You knew all along,’ he said.
Jed turned to face him. ‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘You knew.’
‘What the hell did I know?’
‘You knew we weren’t going to be picked up,’ said Matt. ‘You’re a bloody Rupert, Jed. I can smell the buggers and you’re one of them.’
Jed glanced nervously up towards the bridge with the lights on it. They shouldn’t be making any noise, it was too dangerous. ‘I didn’t know any more than the rest of you,’ he said, struggling to keep his anger under control.
‘The fuck you didn’t,’ said Matt. ‘Look at me straight, Jed. Two of us are already dead, and I reckon the casualty list is going to get longer before this job is finished. Tell me what this bloody mission is all about.’
I don’t know any more than he does, Jed thought bitterly.
Whatever shit they were being dropped into, they were all being thrown into it together
.
‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ he repeated.
‘You’re lying.’
The blow hit Jed hard on the side of the face. It smashed into the side of his jaw like a hammer. Jed had seen it coming, and had rolled with the punch, deflecting some of the force of the blow, but he could still feel the bone numbing beneath his skin. He controlled his anger, telling himself not to return the punch.
We’re in enough trouble already without fighting among ourselves
.
‘Cool it, you fucking madman,’ said Jed.
‘There’s going to a reckoning soon, Jed,’ said Matt. ‘Two good men are dead, and it’s your fault.’
‘You want to go your own way?’ said Jed. ‘I’ll just tell them we got lost.’
‘And have me tried for desertion?’ said Matt. ‘No bloody way.’
Jed started walking. Matt was cracking under the strain of combat. It might be better to turn him loose, and try to finish the job by himself, but right now that wasn’t an option. A fight on the streets would bring the soldiers down on them in a minute. He climbed back on to the street, checked the direction, then turned left. From the map in his kitbag, it was about a two-mile walk due north to the al-Thawra district, where they would meet their contact, and the only way to get there was on foot. He didn’t want to risk the buses, and anyway, he didn’t have a clue where any of them went: despite the millions spent by the Firm on gathering intelligence in Iraq in the last few years, they still didn’t have a public transport map. Taxis were too dangerous: the drivers were all vetted by the Fedayeen, and would inform the police of anyone suspicious in their cars.
After finding a side alley, they grabbed three hours’ rest, then resumed the journey at ten. It was hitting mid-morning, and the streets were thick with people once again. They walked along the side streets, making sure they weren’t being followed. Matt was walking at his side, brooding and silent. Another day, thought Jed. Then we can get the hell out of here.
* * *
From the looks of his house Abbas Mansour was a wealthy man. It was a detached villa, two storeys high, built around an inner courtyard, with a row of palm trees along its front. Baghdad had plenty of traders and middlemen who had made some money despite the sanctions: Iraq was still permitted to trade oil, and wherever there was an oil industry, Jed thought, there was always a few guys living well. Most of them seemed to be in this street. It was full of posh-looking houses, with air-conditioned cars parked outside them.
Jed pressed the intercom. There was no reply, but that didn’t trouble him. Laura had told him just to press the button and wait. He checked his watch. Eleven thirty-five, local time. A minute ticked by, then another one. Jed looked anxiously up and down the street. About six blocks away he could see a green jeep cruising down the street: a teenage boy in a black uniform was hanging out of the back of it, an AK-47 clutched to his hand. Matt was looking edgy at his side, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘Where’s the fucker got to?’ he hissed.
‘Buggered if I know,’ said Jed.
‘There’s soldiers everywhere.’
‘Five minutes,’ said Jed. ‘Then we get the hell out of here, and head down to the coast. Fight our way back into Kuwait if we have to, and sod what the Firm wants.’
The jeep disappeared from view, and Jed breathed a sigh of relief. A truck made its way down the street, but didn’t even slow down. On the other side of the road, Jed could see a woman and her baby coming out of
one of the houses, then opening her car door. She glanced nervously at the two rough-looking characters, then slammed the door and locked it. Don’t bother, thought Jed.
It’s us that’s afraid of you
.
A black Honda CR-V pulled up on the street. The door slid open. ‘Get in,’ the driver hissed. Jed glanced at him. About forty, with a lean, angular face, a scar on his left cheek, and the thick, black moustache that seemed to be mandatory for Iraqi men; his hands were hovering on the wheel. Alone, Jed noted. With no sign of a gun. ‘Get in,’ he hissed again. ‘We haven’t much time.’
They climbed into the back of the four-wheel drive and the car pulled away from the kerb, gradually cruising at a steady thirty miles an hour down the street. Some Arabic music was playing on the radio. The driver looked at them in his rear-view mirror. ‘You Mansour?’ said Jed.
The air conditioning was on, and the car was heavily scented with air-freshener. The smell hit Jed straight in the chest, and made him nauseous: it was more than twenty-four hours since he’d had anything proper to eat, and his stomach was churning. Mansour nodded. ‘I’m taking a big risk.’
‘So are we,’ snapped Matt.
Mansour nodded again, but remained silent. Jed could smell the cheap aftershave burning off the man’s skin. ‘Where are we going?’ he said.
‘My house is being watched, so we can’t go there,’ said Mansour. ‘I’ll take you to a workshop. You’ll be OK.’
Matt looked at Jed, and although he remained silent,
the question was evident in his eyes. How can we trust this man? Jed just shrugged, but at the same time fingered the knife tucked into the inside of his jacket. For a moment, he wondered if they should just turf the guy out here. The CR-V looked in good nick: it could get them down to the border in a day. No, he told himself. Get the job done. Then get home.
He glanced out of the window. There was an army truck up ahead, but no roadblocks. A police car was spinning in the opposite direction, its siren blaring. Jed tucked his head down. The city was on high alert. You could smell the fear and tension in the air, and see it in the faces of the people as they walked by.
Mansour turned the Honda into a whitewashed courtyard. They were surrounded on all sides by walls, with only one gate looking out on to the street. Killing the engine, he turned round. ‘You’ll be safe here,’ he said.
Jed climbed from the car. Ten yards ahead of him, Mansour was opening the padlock on a door that led into a small workshop. There was a bench in one corner, with a set of lathes. Next to that, there was a desk with an old-looking Hewlett-Packard computer and a single wooden chair. The room was dark, illuminated by a single forty-watt bulb, and it smelt of metal and grease. ‘We used to make machine tools in here for the local factories,’ said Mansour. ‘Since the sanctions started to bite, half the factories in Baghdad have closed down.’ He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. Things will be better once the Americans get here.’
‘You’re betraying your country,’ said Matt, looking at Mansour.
The man laughed, his moustache wrinkling up on his face as he did so. ‘The regime is changing,’ he said. ‘Everyone in Baghdad knows that. It is just a question of getting on the right side.’
‘You’re helping foreigners,’ persisted Matt.
‘Helping foreigners?’ Mansour laughed again. ‘I don’t think President Bush, or your Tony Blair, know very much history. People have been invading Iraq for centuries, but the same people always end up in charge of the place. And I’m planning to be one of them, that’s all.’
‘It’s not a bloody debating society,’ interrupted Jed. ‘We’ve got work to do.’ He pointed at the computer. ‘That piece of kit work?’
Mansour leant over the machine, powering it up. Behind them, Matt had already shut the steel doors on the workshop, and the room was absolutely quiet. Jed could hear the whirring of the computer’s fan as it booted itself into life. ‘We need an Internet connection,’ he said.
‘This connects through an ISP in Jordan, and the traffic gets routed straight through to London.’
‘Is it secure?’
Mansour smiled. ‘On the Internet, nothing is secure. But the chances of the Fedayeen intercepting the message are slight, and even if they do, they’ll have no way of knowing where it has come from.’
Jed sat down at the desk. He had no idea what kind
of deal the Firm had cut with Mansour. At a guess, a couple of oil wells down near Basra already had his name on them for after the invasion: he didn’t look like the kind of man who’d sell his life cheaply. ‘Is this place safe for a few hours?’ he asked.
Mansour nodded. ‘It belongs to one of my companies,’ he replied. ‘It’s been shut for six months, so there’s no reason for anyone to come here. For one day, you should be OK. Any more than that is risky. Any of the neighbours could report that this building is back in use, and the secret police will come around to investigate.’
Jed took the digital camera from his kitbag, hooked out its wire and plugged it into the USB port on the computer. It took a moment for the machine to find the right software, then a few more minutes for the pictures to download. As soon as they were loaded, he fired up the Internet connection, and started putting the pictures on to an email to send to Laura. Next he plugged the memory stick into the computer to upload the data they had taken from the computers at the plant. The connection was slow – no chance of broadband out here, he thought – and it looked set to take at least an hour to complete the task. ‘Any chance of something to eat?’ he said, looking up at Mansour.
‘I’ve got a few dates in the car, maybe some bread. I’ll get them for you,’ said Mansour. ‘And there’s a microwave out the back if you want coffee.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jed.
He looked back at the computer. Another batch of
pictures had loaded themselves on to an email and were about to send.