Devil in the Wires (2 page)

 

Chapter 2

Night Moves

A
t 3
A.M.
Baghdad is almost quiet. The restaurants and cafés are in use, but nobody goes in or out. The doors stay shut. Diners who dropped in for an evening meal stay on till 5 a.m., when curfew lifts and everyone goes home. It's like the world's biggest lock-­in. Equipped with papers and an escort, you can stand there in the dark and listen to the music drifting from a window twenty yards away. It's dream-­like, spooky . . . laughter on an empty street. Nighttime in the land of ghosts.

And then the trucks start up. Big engines grumble, big tires grinding in the dirt. Another US convoy setting out. They move at night, each night—­but this time would be different. This time, we were going with them. Out of town, and then a few miles more. After which, the plan was, they'd head one way, and we—­well. We'd be on our own.

It was just as Dayling had described it. One truck, retrieval gear stowed in the back. A local guide named Nouri, chain-­smoking his PX Marlboros, occasionally remembering to blow the smoke out of the window. Carl was the driver. Heavy forearms mottled with tattoos, accent probably Glaswegian; the most I'd had from Carl so far had been a quick, obligatory, “All right?” when we'd shaken hands. After that, it was all business. He seemed sharp, confident, experienced. Somehow that didn't altogether calm my nerves.

We drove with windows down. I could smell petrol fumes. A dog barked somewhere. Then, astonishingly, children's cries. It was the middle of the night, but on a half-­cleared bomb site in the ruins of the city, kids were playing soccer. They paused to watch us pass, ready to run if need be. Instead we waved to them, and someone in the Humvee up in front yelled, “Go Colts!” and the kids called back, “Beck-­haaaam!” and the game went on.

Nouri clapped his hands.

“You see? Only the children now are brave.”

“How's that then, Nour?” asked Carl.

“Because the rest of us,” said Nouri, “we lock ourselves away. We say,
yes sir, no sir
. But the children, they don't care for stupid rules. They do as they please!”

“They'll care if they get shot,” said Carl.

“No one likes getting shot, I can be damn sure. Especially by interfering foreign squaddies like yourself, eh? No offense,” he added, amiably.

“Ah, none taken, pal. None taken.”

N
ouri was watching me.

“You are worried, friend.”

“I'm fine.”

“He's worried,” said Carl.

“I'm cool.”

“Worried.”

I stared into the night, my head filling with visions, daydreams, near hallucinations: some crazed gunman charging at us from the dark, some nutter with a grudge and a Kalashnikov, or else some mad old woman strapped with gelignite—­

“No,” I said. “It's going to be an easy job, I think. Once we're there I'll do a survey, and then we'll know—­”

“The job. Aye. Right.”

“OK.” I looked from one of them to the other. “I'm worried. That suit you? Shit scared, if you want to know. How's that?”

“Only a fool,” said Nouri, “isn't worried.”

“I don't do this. Places like this. Jesus—­”

“Aye. And you can tell your boss, your Mr. Dayling, we don't bloody do it, either. Not without some preparation and the full security, no way. Still,” Carl said, “here we are. So I guess we
do
do it, after all. And so do you.” He sucked air between his teeth. Then he said, “Want lessons?”

“Lessons?”

“Aye. Iraq 101. War for dummies. You want 'em?”

The whole time he'd been talking, he'd been looking at the road, the darkness either side, the country slipping near enough invisibly along beside us. He hadn't once looked at me.

Maybe that was my first lesson.

 

Chapter 3

The Car Wreck

T
here was a strange effect, almost an optical illusion, which I noticed once we'd left the other vehicles and moved out into open country. The lights from the truck lit up a little of the roadside, giving the impression, not of flat land, but of two low walls running on either side of us. We seemed to be passing through some quiet residential suburb—­the weird illusion I was still in England. For some reason, this soothed me, and in spite of my anxiety, I found myself starting to doze, drifting off into this dreamy little fiction.

Darkness peeled back slowly over palm trees, telegraph poles, little houses squat as pill boxes.

Then sunrise. The heat came almost instantly, like switching on an electric fire. Nouri blew cigarette smoke through a half-­inch crack in the window. We passed a small boy leaning on a staff with goats all round him, like something from the Bible.

Mirages of lakes, water on the tarmac up ahead, folding into nothingness as we approached . . .

I nodded off awhile, dreaming of home. Then Carl shook me awake.

“Huh? What?”

He jerked his head to indicate.

There was something in the road. Dark shapes, what seemed to be the roofs of vehicles, then a movement, detaching itself. A man walking around as if wading in water, ripples shifting all about him . . . but no water. Obviously. The light moving instead.

“On the floor.”

“What?”

“Floor. Now.” Carl wasn't offering debate. “Our mission is to protect you. Down.”

I sank into the footwell, but kept myself propped partway on the seat, peeping out.

“Might be nothing. Might be legit. Safest to assume not.”

I heard a click, realized Carl had his pistol ready.

“Oh fuck,” I said.

Two old Toyota flatbeds had been pulled across the road. There were four or five men in the uniform of the Iraqi army; a bunch more sitting or standing at the roadside. Carl pulled up a way before them, waiting for them to come over. They beckoned him, but he wouldn't move. “Down,” he said to me. I was on my hands and knees now. Nouri's tennis shoes were right next to my face. He wore no socks, and I could make out every detail of his ankles, every curl of hair, the red blotch of an insect bite on one leg, the scabby graze above his ankle.

I heard him wind the window down, call out in Arabic.

Someone threw a sheet across me.

And I waited. I heard talking. Nothing I could understand. I tried to analyze the harsh, guttural syllables, desperate to work out what was happening. Desperate and scared. It seemed to take a long time. Then I caught the salaam of good-­bye. I heard an engine start; one of the flatbeds moving out the way. “Stay down,” said Carl. We crept forwards. We were well away before he let me up.

“What's that about?” I said.

Nouri reached a hand down, helped me back into my seat.

“Nothing, my friend. Just a check. They say there is a car smash up ahead. A mile, maybe two. Is all.”

I looked at the pair of them. “You knew we were going to be OK, right?”

Nouri showed his palms. “If we are good, we are good. If not . . .”

Carl said nothing.

“You knew it was legit? The roadblock?”

“Aye, well.” Carl lit up a new cigarette. “Truth is, the other kind can look legit as well, sometimes. You never know until it happens. Aye?”

“True, my friend. Very true. You never know until it happens.”

W
e came across the car wreck not long afterwards. There was only one vehicle still there, a farmer's truck. It hadn't been moved because it was lying on its roof in the middle of the road. There was fruit or something cooking on the tarmac. Several wicker baskets had been lined up at the roadside. No one about. It was a sad sight. Carl said, “Down,” again, but while I hunkered low, I still kept looking.

“Is anyone hurt? I don't see anyone. We ought to help—­”

Another quarter mile on, we passed a house, a little one-­story shack. Sheltering beside a broken wall, an oldish man, wrapped in robes, looked out at us. He had a dazed expression.

A companion lay upon the ground beside him. They were obviously the crash's victims. Nouri pulled the window down and called a blessing as we passed.

“Could have stopped,” I said.

“Could not,” said Carl.

“Those guys—­”

“Aye. Very bad for 'em, no doubt. And likely they're as innocent as newborn lambs, the pair of 'em. Likely they are. Or else they're not. And either way, still doesnae stop somebody else coming along, hiding the other side o' yon brick wall.
Dinnae talk or we kill you
. Or putting a bomb in that wrecked-­up truck, just for the moment we glide by. Eh now?”

“OK,” I said. Then, a little later, “I'm not used to war.”

“No. You told us that.”

 

Chapter 4

Everywhere Is Somewhere

T
he dust got in. The dust got into everything.

Fine, fine sand. The finest sand you could imagine.

I'd stop to pee and bring it back, tucked in my boots or folded in my shirt and then, once it was in the truck, it seemed to spread. I'd crunch it in my teeth, dig it out my ears. It gathered in my hair and in my nostrils. It wasn't as if we were driving into dunes or anything like that; the countryside was rocky, barren, but at times there were patches of scrub, even trees. But the dust and the sand were the biggest thing. Months later, I'd still be finding it among my clothes, or trampled into odd parts of my flat.

The journey was hypnotic. I drifted off, even while I jolted this way and that.

Carl said, “Look sharp.”

I sat up, scared.

“What? What now?”

We were passing by a few low, square-­built houses, electric cables strung on poles between them. Dry, dun-­colored hills rose in the background. ­People looked up from the roadside as we passed. There was no question of blending in, no question of Dayling's “stealth” plan.

“See?” said Nouri. “Up ahead?”

“I thought this place was in the desert somewhere. Like, miles from anywhere.”

“This is the oldest country in the world,” he said. “Here, everywhere is somewhere.”

“Aye,” said Carl. “And we're nearly there.”

 

Chapter 5

Thirty-­Four Potential Sites

“Y
ou must watch for scorpions, my friend.” Nouri had a long stick and was happily flipping over stones with it, inspecting the dimpled bits of earth they left. “Also snakes. There are snakes to be very afraid of: the saw-­scale viper, the horned viper” (he pronounced it “hornèd” like some old English poem), “also the cobra. And the giant centipede. And . . . ah.” He gazed around. “Wolves. Hyenas. In rare cases, lions, tigers. We have both, you see. Then too there are bears, which must be very much avoided . . .”

“Are you winding me up?”

“Not at all, my friend. These are great dangers. You must be aware.”

“And isn't it better not to stir them up, if they're there?”

He flicked the stick, raising a plume of dirt. “Let us know our enemies, know their positions. A snake bite or a scorpion sting—­”

“You're wearing tennis shoes.”

“Ah yes. I will admit. Not the best choice.” He leaned upon his stick. “The city of Assur is more than four thousand years old, a great historic monument. It has outlasted the Sumerians, the Assyrians, and the Persians. With luck it will outlast us, as well. The Americans placed troops here to defend it from destruction in the war. It would be a bad place to die, I think . . .”

“No doubt.” Dust blew, scouring my face in a hot blast. The low, eroded mounds seemed not so much ruinous as still under construction, as if the builders had just gone for a siesta. I didn't blame them, either. My back was soaked in sweat; the heat and dust brought tears to my eyes, and I could hardly see.

I took a handkerchief and mopped my face. I pulled the reader from my pocket, switched it on, set the levels. Almost immediately the lights began to dance.

“So, my friend. Where to?”

“Away from the scorpions.”

I left Carl at the truck with the bulk of the gear. Nouri followed me, but after a short time, sat down on a block of masonry and watched as I roamed about the site. It must have all looked pretty aimless, I suppose, and yet it wasn't. I had the site map in my hand. Each time I took a reading, I'd jot it down, near as I could place to the location. But that seemed to be throwing up more questions than solutions. A census in the seventh century
BC
had listed three palaces and no less than thirty-­four temples in Assur, not all of which have been uncovered yet. Thirty-­four potential sites of worship. Thirty-­four charged spots. But it had been a thousand years or so since anybody'd actually bothered with them, and things had grown a little sloppy in the meantime. There was power here for sure, but I couldn't get a clear location. It just seemed to have leeched away into the rocks, diffused across the site and probably beyond. I didn't have the cable length to stretch that far. Assur might be a small city by modern standards, but it's still a good ­couple of miles across. And that was more than I could handle.

I watched a heron strutting through the shallows of the river, the curve of its neck as graceful as the Arabic calligraphy I'd seen since my arrival, its movements delicate, almost hesitant. Then suddenly its head shot forward. It scrabbled in the water, shaking like a dog. The neck swung up, its beak raised to the sky, and it gulped, greedily, too fast for me to catch a glimpse of what it had.

I checked the reader once again.

Flick, flick, flick
.

Stood. Took a few steps, one mound to the next.

Flick, flick
.

I raised the water bottle to my lips. Perhaps the god was everywhere, melted down into the Earth. Or maybe there was more than one—­two, three—­thirty-­four? Gods in swarms, like birds, like fish . . . ?

I looked back. “Nouri!” I called. I saw his head come up; he'd been playing on his phone. Now he jumped to his feet, gave me a mock salute. “Let's get the gear,” I said, “and get started!”

I
don't know how many jobs I've done. I daresay there's a record somewhere. Some were easy: in and out, more time setting up than actually doing them. Still, there are always dangers. “Your biggest threat,” I'd tell trainees, “is you, thinking you know it all.” But sometimes it's not that. Sometimes it's just dangerous, and no amount of care and forethought is ever going to make it safe. As a trade, Field Ops has its share of casualties, and everybody thinks, “It won't be me.” Until the day it is.

I'd had my own slice of the damage, sure enough. Esztergom, in Hungary. I could pretend it hadn't been my fault, except it had: I should have done the final check myself, and not left it to my trainee partner. A good op checks once, and then again. Another message for trainees. And I bore my share of guilt for what had happened since, and what might still be happening, somewhere in the world. Hopefully a long, long way from here.

I scanned the ground for scorpions and other nasties, then sat down on a rock. Carl and Nouri brought the truck as close as possible and started unloading equipment. A bunch of kids had gathered. Nouri bribed the bigger ones to keep the rest away. I hoped that they were good at it. I didn't want kids within a mile of the place, especially with the strategy I'd got in mind. That's if I went with it. Right now, I couldn't quite make up my mind.

What I wasn't happy with, though—­ and less and less so, as the day wore on—­was Dayling's “stealth” plan. It wasn't terrorists that worried me. There were just too many ­people round about. Carl felt the same, I knew, but he was careful not to say too much. He came towards me now, a canvas carrier of cables loaded on each shoulder.

“Hey, boss.”

I pointed north. Up where the readings had been highest, by the palace, and the temples, and the big mound of the ziggurat.

Nothing for it now except to carry on.

I joined the other two, lugging the gear up to my chosen spot. I wish I could have called someone, got some advice. One of the older guys. Fredericks, say, or Karen Meier in Frankfurt, both great ops in their day, just to ask them, “Is this smart? Would you do this?” The trouble was that I'd been doing the job so long now, I pretty much
was
one of the older guys. I was the one the new kids came to for advice, unaware how ignorant I still was, how much I, like them, was flying by the seat of my pants.

How much the guys who'd taught me had been doing just the same.

So I knew already what advice I'd get out of the older guys. If it works, they'd say, then yes, you should have done it. If it doesn't, no, you shouldn't.

Then maybe I should trust myself. “Acceptable risk.” Maybe I did know what was best, after all.

“Y
anks were guarding it during the war,” said Carl. “Thought they were trying to protect the history, an' aw.”

“Our history,” said Nouri, “has been mortgaged many, many times. I am surprised, to tell the truth, that we have any left.”

“Ha.” Carl handed him a cigarette. “You're kind of selling off the family silver here, aren't you?”

“Silver. Oil. We give it you, perhaps you fuck off, leave us alone, hey? No offence there.”

“Aw, none taken.”

“And you, Mr. Englishman.” Nouri turned on me gleefully. “Already, you have half Iraq, locked away in your Museum. I have been in London, I have seen this! Half our heritage! I tell you, one day—­” He leaned towards me, squinting through his glasses, pointing with his cigarette, “one day, I am coming to London again. And I will take it back!”

It was the first time they'd involved me in their banter, and I took it for a good sign. Maybe they'd trust me. More than I could trust myself just now, at any rate.

So we finished off our break. I told them what I wanted: where to put the generator, where I'd start to lay the cables.

“I've worked with Registry before,” said Carl. “This isn't how they did it last time.”

“No.”

“This like, some special method, then?”

“Not really. But I can't get a proper fix on the thing, the way it is. I'm going to try . . . kind of a trick. I'd like to get it done before the sun goes down. Then we'll camp, finish off by sunrise, yeah?”

They looked at me. I said, “You might want to keep back once I get started. You know. Just in case.”

Nouri took his glasses off, polishing them on his shirt. “What is your plan, my friend? What will happen here?”

“I'm not going to go for the catch. Not right away. I'm just going to . . . nudge it a bit, see?”

“Nudge.”

This didn't fill them with delight.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just try and . . . kick it into shape. You know. See if it'll start behaving.”

Nouri put his glasses back on, frowning through the lenses, looking like an anxious gnome.

“My friend. It sounds like you plan to wake it up.”

“Just a bit,” I said. “Only a little bit . . .”