Killsong

by Mark Mannock

  They say anything that reminds our enlisted personnel of home is a good thing when they’re away for months on end. We turned a corner onto what was probably considered the camp’s main drag to find a row of sheds that were actually well-known fast food outlets from the States. Even the golden arches were there.

  “Who would have thought?” said Brian. He was exploring a brand-new world.

  One more corner and we pulled up at the MWR. It was a very ordinary-looking building, simple to construct, simple to deconstruct. Typical military. We entered to find the crew had almost finished the set-up. Greatrex looked exhausted.

  “Have some food and head back to our accommodation,” I suggested. “It’s only an acoustic show this evening. We can get by without you. That’s an order.”

  He gave me the finger. We weren’t in the Marines now. “We’ll see,” he responded.

  Kaitlin came over.

  “Did you get some sleep?” she asked.

  “Enough,” I said. “Are we sorted for tonight?”

  “We have a starting time and a running order. Everything will be pretty low-key given the impromptu nature of the show,” she replied.

  “How many people are we playing to?” I was full of questions.

  “Around three hundred, enough for a good party.”

  “Three Marines are enough for a good party,” I said smiling. I walked off to find some food before she could respond.

  Three hours later we were finishing the last song, one of Robbie’s biggest hits. The show was acoustic, but the atmosphere had been electric. Every person in that room had become Robbie West’s friend in the course of the evening. He had hosted the show, introduced the other acts, joined in with some of them, got audience members up to sing, and told stories from his home state of California. As John Steinbeck had once commented about entertaining troops abroad, Robbie had gone out of his way to “bring a piece of home to a place full of fear.”

  We all stayed around for a while talking to military folk and signing anything they wanted autographed. When the word came it was time to head back to our sleeping quarters, none of us were complaining. We were all dog tired yet a little reluctant to leave. I had almost even managed to put out of my mind the dangers of what lay beneath our goodwill visit … but apparently not for long.

  We were all being ushered into small buses and jeeps at the side of the makeshift building when Elliot Brooks tapped me on the shoulder. “Nicholas, I believe this jeep is for you,” he said, pointing to a vehicle sitting behind the others. I had noticed Brooks talking animatedly to Kaitlin at the end of the show, but I had thought nothing of it until now. I had also noticed Tommy Dabbs not far away from them. I had thought he was trying to listen in without looking like it, but then I thought it was just my imagination.

  I climbed into the back seat of the jeep, surprised when no one joined me. As we took off down the small camp “street,” surprise turned to mild alarm when the other vehicles turned left, and my driver turned right. Greatrex had slept through the show, as I suggested; suddenly I wished he hadn’t and was here with me instead.

  “Where are we going?” I asked the driver. “Aren’t our quarters in the other direction?” Not that I was certain of that.

  “Special orders,” said the driver noncommittally.

  “Whose special orders?”

  No response.

  Two minutes later we were pulling up outside another makeshift army hut. It was dark, and all the windows had been blacked out. That wasn’t unusual on a military base in the theater of war, but I had a bad feeling. My driver opened the door of the hut, and I went inside.

  The interior of the hut was nondescript, mostly bare walls with a few maps scattered around. The roof was canvas, held tight over curved metal rafters, and the floor was wood. A dim light allowed me to see the outline of what I presumed was a man at the other end of the room. Then a brighter light flicked on. I wished it hadn’t.

  I felt the warm desert night turn ice cold as I saw Giles Winter standing before me.

  “Nicholas, you’ve made it this far. I’m glad you and your friend saw the wisdom in doing what was asked of you.”

  Once again, I felt anger surge through me, but I wasn’t going to let Winter have the satisfaction of seeing me struggle a second time.

  “Are Leyla and Amira all right?” I asked, sounding emotionless.

  “Fine.”

  “I want proof.” I felt demanding.

  “You are predictable, Sharp. Here is a photo,” Winter said, offering me his cell phone.

  I looked at the picture. Leyla and Amira were huddled together holding a copy of the front page of a newspaper. Their hands were covering the top of the paper, but the date was visible and circled; it was two days ago. I couldn’t make out much of the newspaper’s masthead, and certainly no words. The girls looked scared but in one piece; thank God for small mercies. I studied the picture for as long as I could, trying to make out any hint or clue it could give me. I closed my eyes, tried to see the picture in my head, and then reopened them. I did this several times. It was an old sniper’s trick, the camera-shutter technique. It was about printing the image in my mind. I was also attempting to drag the moment out by looking as forlorn as possible while studying every detail of the photograph. All I could make out was the girls, the date of the paper, and the top of a picture of a couple of men I didn’t recognize. Nothing useful.

  Winter snatched the phone back. “Now, down to business. Where is Greatrex? I assumed he would be with you.”

  I explained. Winter seemed to accept my story.

  “It was important I see you tonight. For obvious reasons after my last time in Iraq, I am now persona non grata. I am unable to obtain papers or even forgeries to travel freely there.”

  “My heart bleeds.” I understand sarcasm.

  “You need to know, however, that I do have a person in country who will be keeping an eye on you and relaying instructions as needed.”

  Person, not man or woman. No clue given.

  “The fact is, things may have gotten slightly more complicated since we last met. We have lost a valuable agent in the field, a small explosives issue, I’m afraid.”

  “I just don’t care, Winter. I don’t care who you lose.”

  “Well you should care, Sharp, because no longer will you simply be passed our samples and the accompanying paperwork. You and Mr. Greatrex will now be required to retrieve them from their original hiding place yourselves.”

  “You must have lost the plot, Winter; Jack and I don’t have the papers to go adventuring around Iraq. We can only stay with the tour.” I felt confident with this.

  “Not really an issue. A couple of small changes to your itinerary and we can cater for all scenarios.”

  Small changes to our itinerary. Just how well connected was this man? How far into the military could he reach?

  “At the appropriate time you will be instructed as to the location of our goods. You and Mr. Greatrex are resourceful men; you will find a way to retrieve what we need.”

  “Who is our contact? We need to know who to liaise with.” I asked, it was worth a try.

  Winter looked amused.

  “I will decide what you need to know and when you need to know it. Just do our bidding as requested, and you and your friends will live.”

  Do our bidding. Who was this guy kidding? He may have been a pretentious pain in the ass, but of one thing I was certain: Giles Winter was a ruthless, dangerous man. He was also a liar.

  Before I knew it, Winter was out the door. I followed quickly, but not quickly enough. By the time I had got out the door he had disappeared into the night. The jeep and driver were also gone. Another trail goes dead. We still had no firm idea who Winter’s connection was. I kicked the dirt in frustration.

  Giles Winter was still pulling all the strings, and now things had become even more complex. Even if we did everything he asked us, there was a good chance we would be caught by the military authoritie
s. The armed forces do not respond well to civilian musicians digging for buried treasure on their patch.

  “So sad?” I heard the friendly, mocking tone of Jack Greatrex’s voice behind me.

  I spun around. “I thought you were back at the room sleeping.”

  “I couldn’t let you loose on your own. I arrived at the MWR just as you were leaving. When I saw you head in the wrong direction, I followed,” he explained.

  “Well, I just got a serving from Winter. I don’t know how he got here or where he disappeared to, but things just got a whole lot more complicated.” I filled Greatrex in on the conversation, leaving nothing out.

  “More complicated? What chance in hell do we have of pulling all that off?”

  “Very little, if any.” I was no more optimistic than Jack.

  Then that mischievous smile slowly appeared on my friend’s face.

  “Well, there may be a couple of things I forgot to mention.” Greatrex pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket. He passed it over to me. It was a shot of Giles Winter leaving the building where we had just met.

  “I took this as he was doing his vanishing into the night bit,” he continued. “If nothing else, and the shit hits the fan, we can tie him in to being here tonight. The picture may give us some much-needed credibility.” The photo had a date and time stamp on it.

  I was pleased. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

  “Oh … one more thing. I managed to have a little chat with your driver before he disappeared.”

  “And?”

  “He wasn’t keen to be very talkative at first, but after a bit he seemed to see some reason,” said Greatrex.

  I knew Greatrex’s methods of reasoning when he was crossed.

  “And?”

  “Our man had instructions to take Winter over to the British unit when he was done with you. That’s where he picked him up from an hour ago.”

  “The British.” Wheels were spinning round in my mind, albeit a little too slowly.

  “He came in with the British, he’s leaving with the British,” said Greatrex.

  “The British,” I repeated. The wheels began to turn faster. I thought back to the photograph, the one of Leyla and Amira with the newspaper. In the back of my mind I knew, I felt, that there was a connection that I just couldn’t grasp. I thought I recognized the typeface on the small bit of the masthead I could see under their fingers. I just couldn’t place it. Now I could.

  “I know where Winter is keeping Leyla and Amira,” I virtually shouted to Greatrex. “At least, I know what country they are in, and I would bet money on where they are within fifty square miles.”

  Greatrex looked confused.

  “Where are we playing after the Iraq shows?” I asked.

  “The Isle of Wight Festival, Southern England.”

  “Where are the Air Force dropping us off?”

  “The RAF Brize Norton base in Gloucestershire, South-West England,” he said.

  “That newspaper, the one Leyla and Amira were holding. The Gloucestershire Echo. I think Leyla had moved her fingers just enough to show me a small section of the masthead print. I think she hoped I might recognize it.” I felt my enthusiasm build. “Remember I spent some time in Somerset and Gloucestershire with an English girlfriend when I was on leave way back when? I had told Leyla about it and how much I liked the area and would like to go back.”

  Greatrex began to nod.

  “The girls are being held in the southwest of England. I’m certain Winter will have plans to seize the chemical samples from us there, because we would not expect it. If something goes wrong, he will have Leyla and Amira there to hold over our heads.”

  My thoughts were becoming more lucid. What I was suggesting just seemed to make sense.

  “That also means Winter will want to deal with us at that point as well. Probably during or just after the festival.”

  “By that time, we’ll be out of military hands and his stash will be easier to get to … and so will we,” added Greatrex.

  “It’s quite a stretch, but for a moment let’s assume we’re right.”

  A very small opening, and a tiny amount of luck for the first time in days, thanks to Leyla.

  “What can we do with this information, if it is information and not just theory? It’s a bit like knowing the time and place of your execution but still being in chains.” The big fella had a point.

  I thought for a couple of minutes. “Our advantage is the fact that Giles Winter does not know we have figured this out. Somewhere along the line we may be able to use this knowledge as leverage, to try and manipulate a better result. If we are lucky it could be a result in which we all come out of this in one piece.”

  “In the meantime?” asked Greatrex.

  “We do our damnedest to carry out Winter’s plan in every possible way,” I responded. “We need to if we want to get to England and find the girls.”

  Greatrex and I looked at each other. We both knew just how hard this was going to be, if it was possible at all. We were also both very aware that the lives we were risking were not just our own, and not just Leyla and Amira’s. With the likelihood of chemical weapons falling into the wrong hands, a lot more lives were at stake.

  “Despite every chance that this will blow up in our faces, and the dread I’m feeling, there is one more thing,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We now have a little hope.”

  My friend looked up at the dark desert sky and then turned to me; the half-smile returned. “Yes, I suppose we do.”

  14

  The noise of military airport machinery at Ali Al Salem dominated the soundscape as we all stood around on the tarmac watching our US Air Force C-130 Hercules Tactical Transport Aircraft being loaded. It was midmorning of the day following my run-in with Giles Winter. I was still apprehensive of what lay ahead, but hope sprang from the ideas we had formed the night before. At least, they had kept the nightmares at bay.

  The C-130 was almost loaded. A smaller plane than the C-17 we arrived in, this prop-powered aircraft had dominated troop transport over shorter distances in the theater of war for decades. I had racked up many hours in them.

  Kaitlin called us over to where she was standing with Brooks.

  “Elliot has our itinerary for the Iraqi leg of the tour. Please listen carefully.” She was almost shouting over the noise.

  The schedule of any civilian military tour was never published beforehand. This was for the security not only of the personnel traveling but also of the troops. If a president visited a war zone, America didn’t know he was there until he was back. It was just the way it went. We were all ears.

  “Well,” began Brooks, “there is no need to tell you we are launching the tour from Kuwait, because we are standing in it.”

  If he was looking for a laugh, he didn’t get one.

  “We have had some last-minute changes due to local considerations, but in about twenty minutes we will be departing for Baghdad Airport. From there we will be choppered in to Baghdad itself, the US embassy compound in fact. There will be an evening performance there for armed forces personnel and US contractors. We will, of course, spend the night at the embassy.”

  Jack Greatrex looked at me. “Changes? Local considerations?”

  “Or Giles Winter?” I added.

  Brooks continued. “The following day there will be a small performance at the Al-Faw Palace. This will be for government and university dignitaries. Again, we will overnight at the embassy.”

  I knew the Al-Faw Palace well. It was an incredible building near the Tigris River. Years earlier, when there was a massive coalition presence in Iraq, it had been at the heart of the coalition’s Camp Victory headquarters. I understood that it was now being turned into the American University of Iraq, Baghdad. Winning hearts and minds.

  “The day after that, our party will again be flown by helicopter from the embassy to the Camp Taji operation base, nineteen miles north of Baghdad.
All your equipment will travel by road from the moment we land at Baghdad Airport.”

  Greatrex and I had both visited the Taji Base briefly in our former roles but didn’t know it well.

  “We will stage a major performance for personnel at Taji. The audience will include US military personnel, contractors, and Iraqi military from the other side of the base. The brass regard this as a bit of public relations coup.”

  I whispered to Greatrex, “Nothing like being used for PR fodder.”

  He barely smiled a response.

  Brooks was not done yet.

  “While we are to be based at Camp Taji we have also had a request for another acoustic performance, but not at Taji. A small component of our touring group will be flown to an outpost near the town of Al-Qa’im, which is on the Iraqi border with Syria. There are obviously some security considerations involved in this expedition.”

  Which small component? we all thought.

  “Mr. West, I have suggested that as the rest of us are continuing on to Afghanistan, and your group is leaving us at that point to fulfill your commitments in England, that you may want do the Al-Qa’im show.”

  Subtle.

  I looked at Robbie West. He was looking a little unsure because it was obvious this would be the most dangerous section of the trip. He looked around at his band—we all nodded. Robbie was always the good guy, not that he’d been given much choice about it this time.

  “Of course we’ll do it, Elliot,” he responded.

  Twenty minutes later we were taxiing down the runway. The C-130 offered the usual airborne military luxury but our minds were no longer on that discomfort. In around an hour we would be landing in Baghdad, Iraq, a place that meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people on that plane. It was a place that filled me with misgivings, trepidation, and conflicted memories. I was sure this visit was going to add another color to that emotional palette.