The Girl in Green (38 page)

Märta and Tigger sit down together on the same side of a small, plastic, rectangular table. There are small squares on the table that feel like plastic, but claim to be napkins. There is a plastic ashtray with slots for four cigarettes. There are three tables in all. A bright-blue door opens into a black and unlit room of an adjoining concrete building. Thus far, no one has come out of it.

Tigger radios in their location to Ahmed. He deliberately turns the volume up so the crackle and hiss of the handset unmistakably echoes and travels down the street. He shares his call signs and Märta's. He notes their arrival time at this new site — now dubbed Romeo 5 — that Ahmed has added to the maps. No one from the UN ever comes here. No NGOs have passed through here, according to the records. It is
terra incognita
.

‘We didn't set a time,' Märta says. ‘How will they know we're here?'

‘They already know.'

‘I suppose you're right.'

‘Maybe you should make sure your phone works. Phones are all different. What's true for one—'

‘I have a damn signal, Tigger, OK?'

‘I'm sorry.' He reaches into his bag to remove a cigarette, but thinks better of it, so returns the pack. ‘There really is nothing to do now but sit here and hope we don't get shot. Should we do that in silence, or would you like to chat?'

‘Herb would have said something reassuring,' Märta says.

‘I suspect that's true.'

That is when they hear the first helicopters. They are distant. There are several of them, from the sound of the rotors, but their sound is impossible to track in the rock and concrete surrounding them. Wherever they are going, they will be carrying ordnance and orders.

A man steps out of the dark doorway of the market in a dirty robe that hangs to his feet. He wears a blue Western-style blazer that is fitted for a stranger. He does not look at his two patrons. Without acknowledging them, he unfurls the awning so it extends well beyond the three tables and blocks them from the view of whoever might pass or linger above. He walks to their table, and wordlessly takes a wet and filthy rag from his pocket and rubs it across the surface of the table, leaving a grey streak of droplets behind that immediately evaporate into the hot day, leaving the table identical to the way he found it. He then leaves.

Tigger, ignoring the man, has turned his closed eyes to the sun, and washes his face in the light. Märta envies how much it refreshes him.

The man returns to them with tea for three. He retreats into the building quickly, and closes the blue sheet-metal door behind him.

‘Three cups. Here we go,' Tigger says.

Tigger folds his fingers together. He has walked into many different conversations and spoken to many hostile leaders — youth leaders, elders, tribesmen, angry military staff. Like stage fright, it can be managed. This feels untamed, though. Colder.

‘I'm having some tea. You want some?' he says to Märta.

‘It's a diuretic. It makes no sense to drink tea in this circumstance.'

‘It's calming. And it is a diuretic only if you consume three hundred milligrams of caffeine in the same sitting. An average cup has fifty milligrams. That means it produces a diuretic effect only if you drink six cups. Personally, I think it's the six cups of water doing it, not the caffeine, but I am no doctor.'

They come — three men, two of them armed with eastern-bloc assault rifles that Russia has been pumping into the region since 1955. The third one carries no weapon. They approach from the main road, and walk toward them with the sun at their backs.

‘Game on,' Tigger says, sipping his tea.

And then, behind those three men, come three others. Two of them, with weapons, are pulling along a third man in the middle. His head is covered in a black hood. There is a halo of sunlight behind him, turning the hood blacker.

The unarmed leader takes the seat across from Märta and Tigger. His eyes are set. Märta senses that what passes before those eyes will not affect their vision of the world.

Märta pours tea into the man's cup. He does not pick it up.

The leader is the first one to speak.

‘You know this man?'

One of the hostage-takers yanks the hood from the captive's head. He is a young man in his twenties, has a ponytail, and is clean shaven. He has been badly beaten. His stylish clothes are dirty.

Tigger and Märta look carefully at him, and turn to each other. Neither has seen him before.

‘I came here for four people,' Märta says. ‘Three men and a girl. This man makes me think you don't have my people, and that we should leave. You obviously have other business.'

Märta makes to stand, and Tigger stands as well, without saying a word.

The man across from them raises a hand and signals them to sit. Then he nods to one of his men, who withdraws an automatic pistol and places it against the man's temple. The captive's shoulders rise and he whimpers, but he says nothing.

‘So if I kill him, it means nothing to you?' the man says. ‘He says he is a journalist. Writes stories for the Internet. You say he is not with you?'

‘It means everything to me if you kill him,' Märta says. ‘Our work is committed to saving human lives. All lives. The purpose of this conversation is for me to recover my people. If your first move in this conversation is to insult us, to harm someone else, and change the purpose of our meeting, then nothing will be able to continue. I'm not here to be intimidated. I'm here to talk. And since he is not one of my people, I'd like some proof you have them. I assume you have their names. At least give me those so we can proceed.'

The leader nods to the man with the pistol. Immediately, the man shoots his captive in the temple. Blood arcs from the wound, and he is dead before the sound of the gun reaches his ear.

His limp body is collected by his executioners and dragged back the way they came.

Märta's heart races, but she does not stand and does not move. Though her voice is weak, she says, ‘Do you have what I want, or don't you?'

‘They aren't here.'

‘You could have anyone. I don't know you.'

He nods. He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a piece of white paper taken from the pages of a child's school notebook. He reads the names aloud.

‘Adar al-Kaysi. Jamal al-Khedairy. Ferris Bueller. And'— he checks his note again — ‘Inigo Montoya.'

Tigger shakes his head.

‘These are not your people?' the man asks.

‘Those are our people,' Tigger says.

34

When Arwood was stuck in the cell with Benton, he'd wondered what was behind the inner door, if only because, after so many years of game shows, he had no choice but to wonder what was behind curtain number two.

It turned out that when they finally dragged him through that door, there was nothing behind the proverbial curtain, because it led first into a small antechamber or guardroom, and then outside to a courtyard that could once have garrisoned a company of men and their horses. Outside, in that courtyard, Larry shot into the air as a signal or warning — a message in a language Arwood did not speak. Maybe it was a signal to someone. Maybe it was to make Benton think Arwood had been killed.

‘I'm not sure there's been anyone to tell you guys, as you live in kind of a closed-off world that only reads its own press,' Arwood says as he is pulled across the courtyard, ‘so just in case you don't know this, you are in fact a bunch of complete fucking arseholes.'

What this journey behind the curtain has taught him is that the room where he was kept with Benton is but one corner of an old military fortification. Of the four square towers, only his holding cell and the one directly across from it look intact. The others were bombed out and ruined long ago. Connecting these four corners are castle walls. Arwood looks up as he walks, and views the mountains to the west. Ahead of him is only the wall. Beyond that is a clear view north into the plains in Ninawa that he cannot see.

Long ago, this fortification provided a high-terrain advantage — an Arab Masada. Later, when man took to the skies to kill from above, and war was fought from the wings of eagles, the advantage was lost.

As Arwood walks, he imagines the view of this fortress from inside the cockpit of an A-10 Thunderbolt — a plane that many call ugly, but one that Arwood has found stunningly beautiful since he was a boy. He made one with his uncle. He studied the specs. What might it be like to hear the 1,100 rounds of 11-inch-long 30mm tank-killer bullets ripping into these walls at four thousand rounds a minute? He smiles at his captors as he imagines those aerial gunfighters lingering over the fortress, giving close air support to onrushing infantry — flying low and slow, distinguishing friend from foe, getting their chins into the fight, and blowing these people to hell.

Inside the next room, he is tossed onto the floor. Half an hour later, Abu Larry comes in for a chat: he wants to know Arwood's name and who he works for. Arwood explains that he is on assignment for
Wallpaper Magazine
to write an exposé on the interior design of terrorist holding cells.

‘And I've got to say,' Arwood adds, ‘I love what you've done with the place.'

Abu Larry shoots him in the leg.

The bullet rips through his quadriceps. Arwood is then uncuffed, and allowed to tend to the wound. He is left alone, and there he sits for hours, thirsty beyond belief. Later, in the blackness of that night, the door opens, and Adar is pushed at him.

He rushes to her as best he can, and holds her face in his hands. She starts to cry when she sees him. He turns her head, and examines her scalp, neck, and shoulders. Though it is against every local code of behaviour, he turns her around and lifts up her garments, to reveal her bruised but unpunctured back and then belly. She does not resist him. When he is convinced she isn't injured or bleeding, he again sits on the floor, and rests his body against the wall.

She sits by him, as she did on the Ural.

‘I'm sorry about this,' he says.

Adar does not speak.

‘Did they touch you?'

Adar still does not speak.

Later, they toss in Jamal, too. He has the same gunshot wound as Arwood.

‘You OK?' Arwood asks.

‘Of course I am not OK. They shot me.'

‘Have you seen Benton?' Arwood asks.

‘No.'

Jamal explains that they gave him Adar's dress to stop the bleeding of his wounds. They had told him that his companions were dead. Jamal said he was happy to see them, but he does not look happy.

‘Did they ask you any questions?' Arwood asks.

‘My name. Who I worked for. If I was sent to spy on them.'

‘Uh-huh,' Arwood says.

‘Do you think they are going to kill us, Mr Arwood?' Jamal asks.

‘I think that whatever is about to happen is going to happen soon.'

He calls himself Abu Saleh. He talks at Märta and Tigger for twenty minutes about the imperialist West, about the treatment of the Palestinians, about the will of God, about the suffering of his people, about the meaning of jihad, about how Muslims must live by the word of the Koran, and how no power on earth will ever stop that from happening again, and how Märta and Tigger are now his hostages.

He explains how ISIL in Syria has new needs that separate it from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says there will be a caliphate again. And the West will shudder.

Märta has never seen a man shot before. She does not know whether Tigger has, but she is glad he is the one to talk. ‘Time is wasting,' Tigger says, sounding unimpressed and uninterested. ‘I suggest you tell us what you want, because we have a call scheduled at eight-thirty. And if we do not make that call at eight-thirty, then this conversation is over, and there will be consequences for everyone involved.'

‘You will give me your telephones now.'

Tigger, conscious of the time now and the window that is about to close on their chances, looks at Märta and tells her to place the call.

Abu Saleh raises his hand to signal his men to come.

Märta dials.

Tigger looks up, expecting to see two assault rifles in his face, but is surprised to see only the calm street.

The two henchmen are no longer at their posts. They no longer seem to be anywhere.

Abu Saleh looks at Tigger, and registers the look of confusion. He turns to look for his men, and finds them gone.

He shouts in Arabic for them to come.

Märta has dialled, and the phone rings.

‘Put it on the speaker and turn up the volume,' Tigger says.

Abu Saleh, irritated for the first time with his new loss of control, shouts again for his men.

‘No one's answering,' Märta says.

‘There is no Plan B,' Tigger says.

It is 8.32 a.m.