Fox Hunter

by Zoe Sharp

  I nodded toward one of the huge tinted plate-glass windows offering a view of blazing blue skies and potted palms.

  “Realistically?” I said again. “I think I’ve more chance of inviting you out into the car park for a snowball fight . . .”

  SEVENTEEN

  I WOKE THE FOLLOWING MORNING IN RESPONSE TO LOUD HAMMERING on the door of my room. When I checked the Judas glass, Dawson stood impatiently outside. She brushed past me as soon as I opened the door.

  “If the hotel’s on fire,” I said dryly, “then somebody forgot to sound the alarm.”

  She was wearing running clothes. Judging from the state of them—and her—she was on her way back from exercise rather than on the way out to it.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Who?”

  “Bailey,” she snapped. “I’ve just seen him on the airport bus. He arrived about a fortnight before I did for this tour. He’s not due to leave for months. Bastard’s trying to sneak off early.”

  I glanced over at the clock next to the bed. It was a little after 5:00 A.M.

  “You’re not kidding about the ‘early’ part.”

  “I always run at this time. It’s too bloody hot once the sun comes up, and I can’t stand treadmills—boring.”

  “Have you checked with Garton-Jones?”

  She shook her head. “Thought I’d best let you know first. What d’you want to do?”

  “How long ago did he leave?”

  She checked her watch automatically. “Five minutes, maybe. I was on my way through the car park when I saw the bus go. But it stops off at a couple of the other big hotels on the way to the airport. If we head straight there, we can probably beat him to it.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what exactly we could do once we got there, but doing anything seemed better than letting Bailey skip the country without challenge.

  “OK, although if he’s already gone through security we don’t have a leg to stand on. We’ve nothing concrete we can use to have him held at the gate.”

  “I know, I know, but better to try something than sit here wringing our hands, don’t you think?”

  I learned a long time ago to lay out the next day’s clothes before climbing into bed at night, just in case of emergency. It took me only a few moments to throw them on and grab the keys to the Range Rover and my phone. As we jogged down the stairs, I wished I’d made time to brush my teeth.

  The sun was on the rise, the air temperature still cool. The airport was almost close enough to walk, but the roundabout route taken by the transfer bus meant I had time to drop Dawson by departures and find some short-stay parking before the bus pulled up at the terminal.

  We waited inside, out of obvious sight of the automatic doors. The space was vast. The tented effect to the ceiling, supported by massive columns, gave it the feel of a modern cathedral.

  The air-con inside was aggressive. I added a jacket to my wish list. Dawson shivered in her running gear, shoulders hunched.

  The doors slid open and the first of the bus passengers spilled through in dribs and drabs. Their luggage was largely carried by porters who squabbled over the right to do so. No Bailey.

  I caught Dawson’s eye. She scowled and pointedly went back to checking the faces coming past.

  Just when I thought we’d missed him, Bailey came sauntering through, carrying a khaki duffel bag. We saw the reason for the delay at once. He was walking slowly alongside a big guy who was on crutches. I’d spent some time on them myself and could sympathize. I took in the awkwardness of his progress and recognized they were a recent occurrence.

  The lower half of the guy’s left leg was in an external fixator, caged and pinned like someone had gone all out with a medical Meccano set. His shin was streaked iodine yellow where the pins pierced his flesh, holding his bones back roughly where they should be. I’d seen plenty of ex-fixes on fellow motorcyclists who’d been through the whole ground-sky-ambulance sequence and not come out ahead on points. I guessed this guy hadn’t acquired his injuries falling off a bike.

  He was a big man, not tall, but wide and muscular, with blond hair close cropped around a square, tanned face, and a mustache that didn’t suit him. He wore laceless running shoes and a pair of old sweatpants with one leg cut away to allow for the mechanical support. The sweatpants looked out of place against his upper body, dressed in Oxford shirt and sports jacket.

  Dawson and I let them pass, then converged at an angle from the rear in a pincer movement.

  “Hello Bailey,” I said, loud enough to be heard over the background chatter. “Didn’t know you were skipping the country.”

  He turned with a start, eyes flicking from me to Dawson and back again. The other guy paused, too. His gaze tracked over the pair of us, and his eyebrows rose toward his hairline.

  “Not that it’s any business of yours, but I’m not going anywhere.” Bailey jerked his head in Dawson’s direction with the faintest suggestion of a curled upper lip. “Ask her if you don’t believe me. She knows I’ve got another ten weeks to run.”

  “That’s funny, what with you being in an airport and everything,” Dawson said meaningfully, eyeing the duffel.

  Bailey swung the bag off his shoulder with enough force to make her step back to keep it from thumping her injured arm.

  “The bag’s mine,” the guy on crutches broke in.

  His accent was London, shades of Cockney softened down by time and distance. He rested the heel of his busted leg lightly on the ground for balance and folded his arms on top of the crutches. He wore a huge wristwatch with all the extra dials you could probably have used to calculate the return trajectory of a space shuttle.

  “Look, ladies, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m the one who’s flying out this morning. Dave just offered to come along and help me get through check-in.”

  “Speaking of which, mate, I’ll go see if I can rustle up a wheelchair for you,” Bailey said, dumping the bag at Dawson’s feet. “To be honest, it’s starting to smell a bit fishy around here, know what I mean?”

  I ignored the insult. Dawson glared enough for both of us.

  “So, what’s with the intercept?” the blond guy asked as Bailey stalked away.

  “False alarm,” I said shortly. “Sorry about the ex-fix. What happened?”

  “Fell through a roof chasing a kid who’d been taking potshots at our convoy. Compound fractures, tib and fib.”

  “Nasty.”

  “Tell me about it. Worst thing was, I’m the team medic, so I had to tell the lads how to pull my leg straight again without passing out halfway through.”

  Team medic . . . Something twitched along my spine. “You didn’t happen to be in the Royal Marines at one point, did you?”

  “How did you guess?” He straightened, looking surprised and not a little pleased. “Still shows, eh?”

  “Something like that . . . Look, do you have time for a quick chat before you catch your flight?”

  He looked around, but there was no sign of Bailey. “Sure, why not?”

  I held out my hand. “I’m Charlie Fox. This is Luisa Dawson.”

  “Osborne—everyone calls me Ozzy.”

  We found a couple of unoccupied seats within easy hobbling distance, and Ozzy lowered himself carefully into one, hooking the crutches over the arm.

  “That’s better. Good to take the weight off, y’know? Now then, what’s Dave done to get you two so hot and bothered? Trying to avoid a paternity test or something, is he?”

  There were so many things wrong with that question I hardly knew where to start. It seemed best not to try. And not knowing how much time we had, I jumped straight in.

  “Were you the one who told Ian Garton-Jones at Streetwise about seeing someone leaving the place where Clay died?”

  “You don’t go much for small talk, do you, Charlie? Yeah, that was me.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  He shrugged. “Not much more than that to tell, to be truthful. I was roll
ing by when I saw him come out, so I stopped.”

  “You stopped? Why?”

  “An obvious Westerner, on foot, in that area? I thought he might be in trouble, eh?”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “Sure. I saw the blood on him, asked if he was OK.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly that it took a heartbeat for the effect to hit home.

  “How much blood?”

  “Enough for it to look serious. He played it down, said he’d just helped some local who’d been hit by a car, but somehow it just didn’t ring true, know what I mean?”

  “In what way?”

  The ex-Marine frowned. “He looked a little . . . spaced, is the best way I can describe it. Seen it before with guys who’ve just been under fire. Shocky, but pissed off, too.”

  Shocked and angry . . . Because he’d just found Clay tortured and either dead or dying? Or because Sean himself had done those things to him?

  “And you left him there.”

  Ozzy flushed a little at the flat tone in my voice. “Hey, he insisted he didn’t want help. What was I supposed to do?”

  I shrugged, suddenly tired. “You just said it yourself—he was spaced, maybe in shock, and on foot in a dodgy area. So, you tell me?”

  The mustache bristled as his mouth compressed. “Hey, it’s not like he was on his own out there—”

  “Wait a minute. You never mentioned there being anyone else with him.”

  “They weren’t exactly with him. But I saw the car waiting further along the street.”

  Dawson must have sensed how close I was to making permanent and painful adjustments to the scaffolding around the guy’s leg, because she butted in with, “What car?”

  “I don’t know the guy’s name, all right? He’s some kind of local fixer-cum-guide. Drives a beat-up old Toyota Land Cruiser the color of bad diarrhea. I’ve seen him touting around the hotels, but as for what his name is, or how you get hold of him, I haven’t got a clue.”

  EIGHTEEN

  WE FOUND THE FIXER THAT AFTERNOON AFTER STOPPING IN AT the major hotels used by outside contractors and asking at the front desks. At the fourth one, the concierge said he knew the vehicle we described, that the kid who ran it had taken some journalists over the border into Iraq. I left a business card, and he promised to send the kid over when he dropped them off again. He couldn’t guarantee when that might be—a few hours or a few days.

  Instead, it was later the same day when a skinny teenage boy appeared in the entrance to the bar at our hotel. One of the staff made a beeline to chuck him out, but he ducked lightly under the guy’s arm and waved something the size of a ticket at him, grinning broadly. The man scowled but didn’t pursue it.

  I watched the exchange idly until the kid swaggered over toward where Dawson and I were sitting. He was, I saw then, holding my business card. It was now slightly crumpled.

  “Please excuse me, pretty ladies. Are you Miss Charlie?”

  “That’s me.”

  His grin became even wider. “I am told you want the services of the best guide in all of Basra.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed, which dented his smile only a little. “And you are . . . ?”

  “I am the one you are looking for.” He bowed with something of a flourish. “I am Moe. Like from the Three Stooges, yes?”

  Dawson was grinning. I had to admit the kid’s smile was infectious, revealing very white teeth. He wore a football shirt for a team I didn’t recognize—broad horizontal bands of black and red—low-slung jeans, and the ubiquitous sandals. He barely looked old enough to drive, never mind remember a comedy act from the 1940s, the last member of which died several decades before he was born.

  I scrolled through my phone for a picture of Sean and showed Moe the screen.

  “I understand this guy hired you a few days ago to drive him over the border.”

  The kid’s face turned wary. He peered at the picture for a long time, gave a theatrical shrug. “Maybe yes, maybe no. It is hard to know if I can remember this man.”

  I reached into my pocket and retrieved some dollar bills, which still seemed to be universal currency. Moe’s eyes locked on the money. This time when he shook his head, his sorrow was palpable.

  “I am very sorry, pretty ladies, but I cannot discuss my customers with anyone but themselves.”

  It took me a moment to unravel the double meaning of that.

  “Ah, so if I were to hire you . . . oh, for the next couple of days, for instance . . . that would make me also one of your customers, would it?”

  The smile returned in a flash. “Of course!”

  I agreed on a rate with only minor haggling. Dawson—and even Moe himself—seemed disappointed that I didn’t put up more of a fight.

  When the formalities were over with, I brought up Sean’s picture again. “Now will you tell me where you took this man?”

  Moe shook his head, his expression tragic. “I cannot speak of it,” he said, then his grin was back, flicking on like a high-wattage bulb. “But I can take you there . . .”

  Moe’s Toyota Land Cruiser was considerably older than he was. It had rolled off the production line some time in the ’80s with metallic gold paintwork, to which an early owner had added fairly tasteless vinyl graphics in orange and brown. More recently, the body had been touched up with paint that did indeed resemble the aftermath of a truly upset stomach but was most likely the result of mixing all the odds and ends of leftover colors into one tin. It was now mostly two-tone beige and rust.

  To be fair to Moe, however, even the splodges of rust had been waxed over and polished. The noxious smoke that poured from the exhaust when he cranked the engine might have felled a passing camel, but the motor caught and ran without a hitch. The side and rear windows had been coated with mirror film, now peeling badly. It still kept the outside world from looking in, and the whole effect was a lot less obvious than traveling in one of the brand-new SUVs usually favored by foreigners.

  “What’s the point of this? After all, we know where he took your guy,” Dawson murmured as Moe trotted out to retrieve his vehicle before I changed my mind.

  “I know that, but he doesn’t,” I told her. “If he takes us straight to the place Clay died, he might just come clean about where else he took Sean, too. If he tries to give us the runaround, we know we can call him on it.”

  “Ah. Devious. I like that about you.”

  It was a long and featureless drive to the border crossing into Iraq. Moe had acquired a tacky solar-powered plastic daisy in a flowerpot that sat on top of the dashboard. It bobbed and waved its leaves, in a manner that was as hypnotic as it was irritating. This was but one of the reasons I let Dawson have the front seat.

  She and Moe chatted about football—European-style soccer rather than the US version—for most of the journey. She’d recognized his shirt as the one worn by the winning German team from the last World Cup, apparently. The two of them argued the merits of various aspects of the game. I tuned it out, stared unseeingly through the patchily tinted window.

  Instead, I went back over the story from the injured Royal Marine, Ozzy. About seeing Sean leaving the building where Clay died. About the blood on him. “Enough for it to look serious.” About the obvious lie that was Sean’s explanation.

  I think what worried me most was his description of Sean’s state of mind—that he seemed spaced and shocky. Sean had seen things that went beyond my experience, both in the military and after. He hadn’t forgotten that part of his past. He’d done things, too, that I would have shied away from . . . once. I would almost have said he was unshockable.

  So, what had he seen or done in that grimy building in a run-down suburb of Basra that had affected him so much?

  NINETEEN

  “THIS IS THE PLACE!” MOE ANNOUNCED PROUDLY AS WE PULLED UP at the side of a dusty street.

  I leaned across the rear seat and squinted out of the glass on the far side of the vehicle. The buildings had the same semi-derel
ict air, abandoned not through danger or the fear of danger but through sheer apathy. They were empty because nobody could be bothered to live in them.

  In the front of the Land Cruiser, Dawson twisted to face me. As I straightened, she caught my eye with a questioning frown.

  “This is where you came?” My flat tone did not dim Moe’s brilliant smile.

  “With Mr. Sean, yes. This is where I bring him.” He pointed across the street to a doorway standing open. A beaded curtain swayed gently in the aperture, keeping out the flies. “My uncle, he serve chai there. That is his house.”

  “You brought Sean here . . . to have tea with your uncle?”

  “My uncle’s chai is the best in all of southern Iraq. He keeps a samovar brewing all day.”

  I took a long breath in through my nose, let it out slowly, and tried to keep my voice reasonable. “Moe, listen to me. I need to find Sean. It is very important that I do so. And I don’t have much time. You understand me?”

  He nodded. “This is why you hire me. Best guide in city!”

  “And because you claim to be the ‘best guide in city’ I agreed to pay you very well for your services, yes?”

  “Yes, Miss Charlie. Very fair price.”

  I rubbed my hands across my face, aware of a dull throb beginning to build up behind one eye.

  “What Charlie is saying,” Dawson broke in, “is that if you do a good job for us, she will recommend you to all the foreigners at the hotels, so they will all want to hire your services, yes?”

  He beamed and nodded again.

  “But if you lie to us, or try to misdirect us, we will give a description of you and your truck to every head of security at every hotel in Kuwait City, and you will get no more work there,” Dawson continued. “You still following me, Moe?”

  “Of course.” Suddenly he did not sound quite so upbeat. “But—”

  “So, last chance to save your livelihood—where did you take Sean the day he hired you?”