‘I don’t know what kind of condition they’ll all be in.’
‘The helicopter has a team. I have a woman who’s a top-notch emergency medic from Colombia. Go make the deal, Herb. Until then, there’s nothing we can do.’
Benton can hear his captors talking outside the door, but he does not understand what they are saying. They are arguing. The argument sounds heated, but it is hard to tell with Arabs. He has found it too easy to misunderstand them in the past. He was in a minor car accident in Cairo off Tahrir Square in a taxi once. They pulled over, and he thought the other driver was going to murder his own. ‘No, no,’ explained the taxi driver after their altercation ended and both had pulled away. ‘He was being honest with me. He was sharing his emotions. It was OK. It was respectful. You cannot trust people who do not share their emotions.’
More voices are added to the drama beyond the door. All the voices are male. Some mumble; others shout.
On his back, gripping his wound, he gazes at the yellow sea of light spread over the ceiling through the slats on the wall. It is the same mustard-yellow light that comes through his bedroom in Fowey through the window that faces south toward the English Channel and northern France.
The door opens. It is Abu Moe, who sat behind him in the Land Cruiser on the way here. For no helpful reason, he delivers a half-hearted kick to Benton’s foot, and the pain from the gunshot is renewed.
‘We go,’ says the man, with the diction of a Neanderthal.Knowing what is next, Benton is not quite ready to go.
‘My grandfather,’ Benton says for no good reason, ‘died at the battle of the Canal du Nord, 28 September 1918, springing out of a trench to charge a machine gun. Part of the Hundred Days’ Offensive, they called it. Thirty thousand dead in that battle. You bastards think the West doesn’t have the resolve to outlast you? Only one utterly ignorant of history could think that. You know nothing about us. You think we’re soft? If anything, we’re too hard,’ he says, his face barely off the mattress, his hands locked around his wound, trying to keep the bleeding under control. ‘And the reason you’re ignorant is that you don’t translate books. You starve your own minds. That’s why you’re eating yourselves alive.’
Thomas Benton is pulled up and pushed out of the same door that Adar, Jamal, and Arwood were all led through earlier. Beyond that door is a second and smaller room, and then he is led outside into a wide-open courtyard of some kind. The sunlight is a poison, and his chest constricts. He is drowning in the light. Even the dry air gives no quarter. Like thousands before him, to be sure, Benton knows he is being brought to his execution.
It feels medieval here, but the structure must be more recent than that. They’re too far east, and the architecture is wrong. Byzantine? Ottoman maybe? Not British, anyway. Not recent enough for that.
Benton raises his eyes and looks at the fortress: one empire washing over another, taking over what it’s abandoned, repeating its errors, learning nothing.
Fort Sinister.
He is pushed onto the ground, and blood flows again from his nose: proof there’s even more to lose.
Instinctively, he curls into a foetal position, like an animal waiting for recovery or death. Neither comes quickly, though, and he is instead pulled to his feet by another man and punched in the kidney.
Benton vomits. He is sixty-three years old. He is overweight. He is without strength or will or water.
There is the door — the one that leads inside the approaching tower. It will be a dark place. He will be placed on a chair. A machete will be placed against the back of his neck. His captors will spout politico-religious garbage, and then they will hack his head off. He will not die on the first stroke. He knows. He has seen it before.
That soldier as beautiful as a Greek statue — was he a sniper who had shot pregnant women? Or was he only a twenty-two-year-old boy of the most gentle disposition, scared and sad and lonely? He, too, was blindfolded. He, too, had only been in a world of sound and feeling.
They hacked him to death. He screamed while he could. He died in terrible pain, to the sounds of others’ joy. It was the worst kind of death. Benton watched it all. There was no stopping it.
He wrote a report. It was edited down. It wasn’t really new anymore, his editor said, so it wasn’t really news, was it?
The surge of fear reawakens him. ‘No!’ he yells, and tries to resist. He tries to pull back and not go through the door. This isn’t what it was like in the car with the hood on his head. They weren’t going to shoot him in the car, but they will kill him here. And his companions have been shot. He is the last one left alive, and it makes sense. A journalist for a Western newspaper, a British newspaper, he has the highest status of the four of them. They will kill him slowest. He — not any of the others — is a political trophy. It is his head that will be hacked from his body and placed on a stick.
If he is lucky, they will shoot him right now. In the chest. He’ll know he’s been shot; the bullet will enter through the front of his chest, and his eyes will see the flash. Maybe his body will register the pain, so there will be time to acknowledge the end.
That is the best death he can hope for now, the one he wants. There is nothing else to want.
‘I’m not going in there! Outside. Right here! I want to die here!’
But in he goes. There is no resisting it — in through the outer door into a room much like the antechamber he left moments ago, and toward another steel door. This one is opened by two Stooges with rifles, who take him from the first guards and chuck him inside the room where they’ll kill him soon.
Benton’s fails to notice the step leading down, and, missing it, falls forward. He thrusts out his hands to cushion the fall, but he is weak, and his arms fail him.
On his chest, cloaked in the last light he’ll know, he stares into the dirt.
That is when he feels hands touching him. He is powerless against them. There is no protest left to lodge.
The sounds that come from above, however, are not guttural and foreign. They are familiar and soft.
He has heard those sounds before.
‘Thomas Reginald Benton,’ a voice says. ‘Open your eyes.’
Benton turns his head and rests his cheek in the dust. The face of Arwood Hobbes is smiling warmly at him. It is the smile Arwood gave to the boy in the minefield. It is the smile he gave to Adar in the truck. It is the smile he gave to the girl in the green dress who died in his arms. And it is only now that Benton understands why they responded to Arwood as they did, because that is precisely how he feels now.
‘Arwood.’
‘Hey, buddy,’ he says. ‘You look like you could use some good news.’
Benton turns his eyes in the direction that Arwood’s pointing. There are two figures there — both Arab. One of them is still very much a child; the other, a young man with an injured leg.
‘They’re alive, too?’
‘Like I said, we’re the luckiest.’
36
The man on the other end of Märta’s phone is one of the worst people she has ever had the misfortune of dealing with. He is cut from the same cloth as the man Tigger is threatening with a pistol. He is the man Märta saved on the Syrian border yesterday morning.
He is a character assembled from the stuff of human misery — Abu Malik al-Almani. At the border, he had been shot in the gut after he and his group killed one hundred women in front of their families for dressing inappropriately. He was suffering a bleed from his femoral artery. How his men got him to the unit before he bled out was some kind of satanic miracle. His people had occupied a Syrian town near al-Maabadah after their murder spree, and were rounding up more women and starting public executions when the Kurds, on the outskirts of the city, started giving them hell.
The Kurds were no longer respecting international borders, and they considered the invasion of ISIL into Kurdistan to
be a threat to their autonomy. Abu Malik joined his forces for a counteroffensive and, one way or another, was wounded. As the Syrian government was assassinating doctors and nurses who helped the people he was trying to kill, Abu Malik’s only chance was to make the journey through Kurdish-held land, past the border, and into Märta’s tent. Which is what he did.
On the stretcher, before the surgery, he reached up and held her shirt in his bloody hand.
‘You know who I am?’
‘Yes, I do,’ she said.
‘And you will still help me?’
‘I’ve taken an oath,’ she said.
‘To help me is to help my cause. You are with us?’
‘To help any person is to ensure that all people will be helped. That is my cause,’ she had said. And — unlike now — she was not scared. Because then, at least, she knew what she was doing and was prepared for it, and she knew it was right. Helping him was not in itself a good thing; obviously, poisoning him on the table would have been the right thing to do. But it was right, because after he was patched up he allowed her team access to the refugees. Whether, in doing this, she would be helping more people live in the long run, or whether she was instead killing even more people by having saved this mass murderer, she could not know. Sleeping with Benton last night had been a helpful, if temporary, way to stop asking herself these questions.
All she could do to make it worthwhile was approach him after the surgery. ‘I need something,’ she had said to him. ‘We need access to people on land you control. That means I need to be in contact with those who can grant it. I want your phone number.’
‘So the Americans can send a drone after me? Send a Tomahawk missile to my encampment? I don’t think so.’
‘Something, then. An email address. A solution.’
So he left her something. Someone else’s number. And this morning she called it and made an appointment to speak to him personally at 8.30 a.m. It was, as she said, a bold move.
Abu Malik speaks in a low and quiet voice through the speakerphone as Abu Saleh listens. Once Abu Saleh realises who it is on the phone, he shrugs Tigger off his arm and sits down. A pistol trained on his heart, he lifts the tea and sips it as Abu Malik speaks.
Märta’s Arabic is not good enough to understand the details of what is being said, but she can follow the sequence of topics. A word here, a word there. She connects the dots.
Abu Malik greets his comrade, who evidently knows who he is. Then he speaks about Märta. And jihad. And Iraq and Syria. He speaks of the umma and the community of Muslims. He speaks of dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, the realms of submission, and of war.
As Abu Malik speaks, and lectures, Tigger realises he has no idea what is happening, his attention isn’t required, and that it would be a good time to check in with Herb.
He hands his own phone to Märta and asks her to dial and press it to his ear. He is not an amateur, and is not going to take his eyes off his mark.
The phone rings only twice, and Herb answers it. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘It has been a busy day at the office,’ Tigger says, aiming the Webley at Saleh.
Märta watches Tigger’s expression grow grave as he listens to Herb. He glances once at her, and she knows their plans have changed even further. And yet he says nothing, because it is information Tigger does not want Abu Saleh to know.
‘I’m done,’ Tigger says to her. She takes the phone away.
Soon, Abu Malik is done, too. He stops talking, and, as befits custom, it is Abu Saleh’s turn to speak. He greets Abu Malik in the traditional way, but after uttering abbreviated pleasantries, his tone turns argumentative and insulting. Märta hears him talk about power and money and corruption. He mentions Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He talks about Tal Afar. He talks about al-Qaeda, and spits on the ground. He, too, talks about the caliphate. He rages.
Tigger, for no reason she can understand, smells the Webley. She has never seen him hold a gun before. She has never imagined him capable of harming someone. Now she is certain he can, and that he absolutely will if called upon.
When Abu Saleh has finished, Abu Malik speaks again. When he does, it is in English, so Märta can understand. He sounds tired, as though talking to such people has worn him down over the years. Inter-terrorist politics, Märta concedes, must be exhausting.
‘You are going to release them,’ he says in a quiet voice. ‘And if you do not, Abu Saleh, I will raze your home village in Tunis and kill your children, who attend not a madrassa, but the British International School on rue du Parc. I know your wife’s favourite flower is the lily. I will kill not only them, but all your extended family, so that your line does not continue. I am tired of disobedience. I am healing from a bullet wound, and my energy is elsewhere. If I learn by sundown tonight that you have not done as I say, your family will die. And if you call them to warn them, and my people see their routine change, they will die. And when I find you myself, I will strap a bomb to you and use you in my war. These people you have captured, Saleh, are not our enemy. Even our correct reading of the Koran does not direct us to jihad against everyone. And if you are such a fool that you cannot understand this, then I will think for you. Ms Märta? You and your people will be released. What happens to these people after you go is no concern of mine. They are petty thieves and not Muslims. Can you hear me?’
‘I hear you.’
‘Peace be unto you.’
Then, in a small mercy, he does not wait for Märta to say the same, and instead hangs up.
‘I suggest,’ Tigger says to Abu Saleh, who has been left holding the phone at the other end of the line, ‘you accept that we have an agreement, and that we now go to collect my people before you start thinking better of the idea. It is also very clear to me now that if I kill you, with your own gun, no one will avenge you. So call your men on this phone and let them know we’re coming. I prefer to show up invited.’
37
Charlotte slept after her walk with Miguel, and woke early, determined to see her mother. It is a three-hour drive from Bristol to Fowey on the M5. Charlotte drove it with a bag of yogurt-covered peanuts between her legs until the peanuts were gone. She has always liked to split the yogurt with her molars and break it off from the peanut evenly to save the crunch for last. It is more than a preference; it is a skilled compulsion.
Thirty minutes from Fowey now, she calls her mother from the road, with the Saab in overdrive.
Vanessa answers and says she is in a teahouse down by the water. She is reading a book. She is marking it with pens and pencils and highlighters. ‘I don’t know why everyone is so respectful of books,’ she says to Charlotte. ‘They are meant to be engaged with, not preserved. There’s a woman,’ she whispers, ‘looking at me from across the room as I mark up the novel. I wonder if she thinks I’m a critic. Every so often, I shudder and make a disapproving face. I think she’s a tourist.’
‘I can’t reach Dad,’ Charlotte says.
‘Your father has been unreachable for ages. That’s how all this started.’
‘No. I mean, he’s in Iraq. He’s properly missing. I’ll be with you by nine or so. That’s eleven in the morning in Baghdad. I’ve been speaking with someone at a refugee camp in the north. His name is Miguel. He’s helping me find Dad.’
‘What’s he doing there?’
‘There’s a girl who is missing. He went to find her.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘It’s a long story. I only have a guess at it.’
‘Is this why you’re driving all the way down here?’
‘I’m driving down because he’s missing and I want to be with you when we place the next call, because we are in fact a family.’
‘Maybe I want him missing,’ her mother says.
It is starting to rain. A slick sheet of oil floats over the new and fresh water reflecting the red
taillights that glimmer before Charlotte under an iron sky.
‘Just be home, OK? I’m to check in with Miguel when I get there. Hopefully, there will be news by then. He’s making a lot of time for me, considering how busy his own job is.’
‘Drive safely.’
‘Is it raining there?’ Charlotte asks.
‘Yes,’ Vanessa says. ‘It is beginning to.’
Spaz does not smoke. He does not chew gum. He does not smile. He seldom speaks. What he does is fly helicopters. He is of medium build, medium height, and speaks English with an unapologetic Russian accent he has no interest in improving. He does not allow music in the aircraft. He prefers the sound of the wind, the whirr of the rotors, and the opportunity to explore the airspace around him.
He is conducting the pre-flight check. He is meticulous from habit. Beside him is a small, dark-haired woman with exquisite skin. They don’t talk to each other.
The helicopter pad is little more than paint on dirt at the edge of the refugee camp. It is surrounded by a thin fence to fend off the curious: usually children who seem attracted by nature to anything that spins.
Louise, his boss, walks out to meet him. Following her is a large black man in blue trousers and a T-shirt white enough for an imam.
‘Good morning,’ she says.
‘OK.’
‘You are going to be sharing airspace today with the Iraqi air force and probably a lot of bullets and missiles. Also an American named Herb Reston.’
Spaz looks at Herb. He can tell that Herb was once military from the way he stands.
‘OK,’ he says again.
‘Where did you learn to fly?’ Herb asks Spaz as he opens the door and climbs inside the EC155.
‘Chechnya,’ Spaz says, handing the completed paperwork to Louise and opening the cockpit door.
‘Repenting?’ Herb asks, climbing in.
‘Depressed economy,’ he answers. Turing to Louise, he asks, ‘We have a flight plan?’
‘No.’
The Girl in Green Page 29
