‘Sierra four, have they said anything? Over.’
‘No. But they are not happy. Boss man comes to see you, I think. Over.’
‘Thanks. We see him. Out.’
The Iraqi jeep was closing fast, weaving through the traffic with its headlights ablaze.
‘You want I do some Formula One?’ Latour checked, ready to race.
‘No. Let’s see what he has to say when he catches up.’
A huge portrait of Saddam loomed up at the roadside then slipped behind them. The jeep pulled alongside, its warning lights flashing and its VHF whip aerial waving wildly. A security man pointed a pistol from a side window and flagged them down.
‘So I stop, yes?’ Latour checked, his voice heavy with irony.
‘I think you’d better before they fine you for speeding.’
The two UN patrols slowed and stopped with the Iraqi jeep directly in front. Mustafa erupted from the door and came storming back along the kerb towards them followed by two of his dark-haired men.
‘What you think you do?’ he screamed as Hardcastle wound down the window. ‘It not permitted that you go like that. You British, you think you still own Iraq. Mister Hardcastle, if you do not respect us, respect our laws, we will not have you in our country.’
‘I’ll respect you when you stick to the UN’s rules, Mustafa,’ Hardcastle retorted. ‘Under Resolution 687 we can inspect any site we want. Without delay. All that nonsense about national security. It’s rubbish, Mustafa. Rubbish!’
‘You cannot go without escort,’ Mustafa grimaced, exposing tobacco-stained teeth. ‘And we need some clarifications. Show me your map, please.’
‘Better still, I’ll show you on yours, Mustafa,’ Hardcastle countered, stepping from the cool of the vehicle into the scorching sunlight. ‘Now let’s be quick about this.’
‘One moment,’ said the Iraqi. ‘Wait here.’
Mustafa walked back to his own vehicle and leaned inside, talking on the radio again. Eventually, after a couple of minutes, he returned clutching a military map.
‘Now, show me.’
Hardcastle unfolded the chart and indicated a general location but with deliberate vagueness.
‘We take the Habbaniyah road, then turn down the western side of the dry lake. Then when my GPS tells me –’ he pointed to the satellite navigation handset clipped to the dashboard. ‘– we’ll turn off and cut overland. You just follow me, okay?’
The Iraqi shook his head. ‘This is not possible.’
‘Yes it bloody well is!’
They glared at one another like deadlocked gladiators.
‘Look, Mustafa . . .’ Hardcastle softened suddenly. ‘Maybe I have been a little brusque. I apologise. But we have our job to do. Let’s string the convoy back together and move on. All right?’
‘One moment. One moment please.’ The security man stomped back to his jeep.
‘Bloody hell!’ hissed Hardcastle, slipping back into his seat and closing the door to keep the cool in.
Another five minutes passed, then the Iraqi jeep began to inch forward.
‘What’s happening?’ Hardcastle flapped.
‘It’s okay,’ Latour reassured him. ‘Look behind.’
Fifty metres back down the road the other two UN vehicles were driving towards them. The team was together again.
‘At last. Let’s go.’
Led by the security men’s jeep, the UNSCOM convoy crossed the wide, brown river Tigris via the rebuilt Jumhuriya Bridge and progressed onto the Qadisiya Expressway heading west.
Nearly two hours later the GPS placed them 4.2 kilometres northeast of the Task Two grid reference. For thirty minutes they’d driven south on a dirt road along a strip of cultivated land watered by the Euphrates. Now, however, they were in undulating desert. In a small village of squat, flat-roofed houses the colour of the earth on which they stood, blue-eyed Bedouins in grubby dishdashas gaped at the unusual convoy, more used to seeing battered pickups loaded with goats or the daily bus that took the younger children to school. Burgess stared back in bemusement; before now he’d only seen sights like this on TV.
Then all life disappeared. A barren sweep of sand and stones reached to the horizon. The vast emptiness of the place brought home to Burgess the impossible nature of UNSCOM’s task. In such a landscape it was only too easy to hide weapons of mass destruction. How had the photo reconnaissance guys picked up on this site? Pure chance?
‘Any minute now there should be a good-sized wadi on your right,’ Hardcastle told Latour, peering at his chart. ‘That’s if the wind hasn’t filled it in.’
The Canadian slowed and glanced in the mirror. The Iraqi escort vehicle was directly behind, but the rest of the convoy was further back, obscured by dust kicked up by their wheels.
‘Maybe here, you think?’ the Canadian checked, slowing to a crawl. A dry dip in the ground ran off to the right at ninety degrees to the track.
‘Looks good. Anyway there’s been nothing else that fits the chart.’
Hardcastle snatched up the VHF microphone to tell the others they were turning off.
Latour engaged four-wheel-drive and swung the machine to the right, gingerly testing the firmness of the sand. The wadi bed proved firm.
‘How far along here?’
‘One-point-one kilometres, according to this toy,’ Hardcastle chirruped, straightening the aerial of the GPS handset to maximise the signal. He glanced back to check the convoy was following.
‘All present and correct,’ Burgess assured him from the rear seat. He’d noted the time they’d entered the wadi in the log, then shot some video, pointing the Hi-8 to the left and sweeping it round in a wide pan.
The ground in front rose gradually and the vehicle climbed at walking speed to ensure they didn’t get bogged down.
Suddenly Burgess spotted something and pointed dead ahead.
‘Wheel tracks.’
Latour stamped on the brake. The tread pattern was large, the mark of a large vehicle like an earth-mover. The machine had dipped into the wadi from one side and out the other.
‘Left. Go left. Follow the tracks,’ Hardcastle ordered. ‘The GPS puts us three hundred metres north of our grid ref.’
Suddenly the green jeep with Mustafa inside swung out to pass them and climbed the shallow slope of the wadi’s left bank. The guy had heard them, Burgess realised, the microphone in the dashboard transmitting direct to their jeep. Latour jammed into first and accelerated out of the ditch, sand and stones spattering from beneath the wheels. Beyond the wadi’s ridge the plain stretched to a distant line of low hills. Thirty seconds later the tracks they were following ended in a swirl of disturbed sand at the centre of which stood Mustafa’s jeep.
‘We’re there, gentlemen. Time for a leg stretch,’ Hardcastle murmured.
Beyond the Iraqi jeep lay a stack of steel girders, cinder blocks and bags of cement sufficient to make a medium-sized barn. But no people.
‘Maybe they’re building a Holiday Inn,’ Hardcastle mused.
Mustafa picked his way over to them, trying in vain to keep the sand out of his slip-on shoes. His face was smug. ‘Why you come here, Mister Hardcastle?’ There was even a glint of triumph in his eyes. ‘There is nothing here of interest. Like I tell you.’
To Burgess the Iraqi’s unconcern looked disconcertingly genuine. He suspected they were indeed on a wild goose chase.
‘Nothing? What’s this then? What are they building?’ Hardcastle persisted.
The Iraqi shrugged. ‘I do not know. Why should I know? This is free country. Maybe someone build a house for chickens.’
‘For flying pigs more like,’ Hardcastle muttered.
‘Nothing here. See?’ Mustafa gloated. ‘Have a good look.’
‘I shall.’
Hardcastle marched forward. Next to the stack of building materials the ground had been dug over with a mechanical shovel, a rectangular area of disturbed sand some sixty feet long. The top had been smoothed over but on
ly in part. Many of the stones visible were a different colour from those on the undisturbed ground nearby, as if churned up from a greater depth. Burgess took some shots.
‘This stinks,’ Hardcastle muttered, standing at the edge of the dug area. ‘There’s something under here.’
The rest of his team had caught up and were stretching stiffened limbs. He bunched his fingers over his head in a gather-round signal. When they’d assembled he checked they were beyond the hearing of their minders, then began.
‘Right folks. This is it. Don’t ask me what we’re looking for because I simply don’t know. All I can say is that I can’t think of any good reason why somebody would want to erect a building in this Godforsaken place, and there’s nobody around to tell us. Until three weeks ago this was just featureless desert, remember. Then overhead photography revealed the ground had been dug over. Another photograph taken yesterday showed they’d moved all this stuff here.’ He waved a hand at the girders. ‘My hunch is they’ve buried something and were about to cover the site with a building.’
Heads nodded in agreement.
‘Could be SCUD components, or lab equipment carefully packaged so it can be recovered later.’ He turned to the Canadian. ‘Pierre, I suggest you divide us into teams and allocate sectors. Use the shovels from the jeeps, wear respirators and monitor continuously for CBW. Obviously we’re not going to be able to dig deep without machines, particularly in this heat, but just see if you can find anything near the surface that would justify our suspicions. Be very careful of course. If there is anything interesting buried here it could be nasty. Better run over the site with the sniffers before we start, Pierre.’
Latour set to work with the nerve-agent detectors as the rest of the team donned light masks and prepared to dig. Mustafa’s men watched with mild amusement at the prospect of so many of these intrusive foreigners melting in the glare of the midday sun.
Burgess videoed the scene, then he and Hardcastle measured out the site for the records and logged the building materials that had been dumped there.
‘What does your detective’s nose tell you about this place, Dean?’ Hardcastle asked when they paused for a drink from their water bottles.
‘That it makes no sense. But what I find most disconcerting is that Mustafa’s men don’t seem to give a shit that we’re here. It’s as if they know there’s nothing to interest us under there.’
Hardcastle grimaced. ‘I fear you may be right. But we have to be sure.’
‘In which case the sooner we get some machines to help, the better,’ Burgess told him, looking up at the glaring sun.
They heard an engine start up. One of the Iraqi jeeps headed back along the tyre tracks that had led them here.
‘Where’s that man off to?’ Hardcastle wondered.
‘Maybe he’ll tell us.’
Mustafa was approaching them, his shirtfront now patchy with sweat. His expression had softened. He looked almost friendly.
‘Sending off for some rations, Mustafa?’ Hardcastle quipped.
The Iraqi smiled. ‘I try to help you. So we don’t waste so much time. I send someone to the village we pass through, to ask what this place is. Because we don’t know. Really,’ he confided. ‘But soon we find out. Then we can all go back to Baghdad.’
‘It’s not that simple, Mustafa.’
The Iraqi held his smile for a moment, but with difficulty. Then his expression changed into that of a supplicant.
‘Mister Hardcastle. Today is the birthday of my son,’ he pleaded softly. ‘My wife, my other children – they will celebrate him this afternoon. I also would like to be there. We can finish here soon, yes?’
‘Mustafa . . .’ Hardcastle warned.
If this was a ploy the man’s sincerity was worthy of Hollywood, thought Burgess.
‘Mustafa, you know the UN cannot suspend its mandate for a birthday party,’ Hardcastle replied dismissively. He pointed towards the broken ground. ‘Something’s been buried here and we need to know what. We require a mechanical digger from you.’
‘Not possible.’ Bruised by the rejection, the Arab had drawn in his cheeks and his face had set like stone.
‘It’s utterly possible,’ Hardcastle insisted.
‘Not possible. Here there is no digger.’ He spread his arms to indicate the emptiness of the desert.
‘There was one,’ Hardcastle snapped, pointing at the tracks in the sand. ‘Not long ago. Can’t have got far. Maybe in the village where your man’s gone.’
‘Not possible.’
The security man turned on his heel and sidled like an angry crab back towards his vehicle. Then a shout from the direction of the area of dug earth stopped him in his tracks.
‘Andrew! Over here.’
Pierre Latour was beckoning wildly. As they hurried towards him he pointed at his face mask to warn them to cover up. The three others who’d been digging with him were staring at the ground.
‘Well, well,’ breathed Hardcastle. ‘Let’s see what the cat’s brought in.’
Mustafa walked with them, then fell back when they pulled on their masks. Burgess switched on the camera.
‘Aha!’ Sounds of triumph from beneath Hardcastle’s mask. ‘Just look at that! I knew it. I damn well knew it!’
Burgess zoomed in to where Latour pointed. There was something sticking out of the sand. Something that looked at first like the blackened stump of a sapling. Then as the lens pulled focus he realised he was looking at the scorched hoof and bone of an animal’s hind leg. The foreboding which had hit him on their departure from Bahrain came bombing back.
‘Gentlemen,’ growled Hardcastle portentously. ‘Look around you. See any grazing land? Do you heck. There’s only one reason anyone would bury a cow out here in the middle of nowhere. This benighted creature, gentlemen, was the victim of a biological weapons experiment.’
8
Midday
London
SAM PACKER LEANED against the window of the 767 looking down at the city he’d feared he might never see again. London’s outline beneath the flight-path was dulled by a grey haze. He should have felt exultant to be nearly home, but instead he was troubled and uneasy.
The previous day, after Chrissie’s abrupt departure from Mowbray’s house in Amman, he’d slept long and fitfully in that narrow child’s bed that still bore traces of her smell, helped by some strong painkillers the doctor had left. Then, in the evening, Mowbray had taken him to eat at a small Arab restaurant in the neighbourhood and given him the unsettling news that Salah Khalil, the Iraqi for whom he’d been swapped, had not after all been bundled back to Baghdad to receive his expected punishment from Saddam Hussein. Instead, the men who’d met him on arrival at Amman airport on Saturday night had hustled him onto a chartered Learjet the next morning and flown him to Cyprus. Mowbray had been tipped off by the Jordanian Mukhabarat. When he’d hurried Chrissie away from the house yesterday, it had been to take her to the airport for a midday flight to Larnaca.
The turn of events had alarmed Sam. Not only was the Khalil affair clearly more complex than SIS had thought, but it was Chrissie who was being sent into danger to check what the Iraqis were up to. Chrissie. Pregnant with a child he suspected was his.
Mowbray had had a simple explanation for the development.
‘Cyprus means one thing and one thing only in a situation like this,’ he’d told him. ‘Money. The island’s a beehive of offshore companies and dodgy banks. London’s theory is that whatever accounts Khalil controlled on behalf of Saddam they were probably run from Cyprus. And now they’re making him transfer the funds elsewhere. To an account Saddam can control more directly. We’ll be warning the Central Bank of Cyprus of course. Telling them any large sums being moved by Khalil could be in contravention of UN sanctions.’
But why had they sent Chrissie?
‘Simple. The Firm’s been caught off watch. The Nicosia man’s on leave. And she knows Khalil.’
The undercarriage clunked down as
the gleaming curve of the Palm House in Kew Botanical Gardens passed beneath them, its glass burnished by a sudden shaft of sunlight penetrating the gloom. Beyond the gardens stretched dense suburban streets. All those people down there, he thought to himself. Easy pickings for some nutter with a biological weapon.
Anthrax. He knew little about the stuff, but the very word sent a chill through him. He pictured the scrawny face of the messenger in Baghdad, his milky, petrified eyes as he’d delivered his warning. Remembered the grotesque bloated corpse the monsters in Baghdad had reduced him to. A warning so cataclysmic and, he was convinced, so earnestly meant, yet one so vague in its detail the intelligence community could make little use of it.
The wind roared in the wheel struts as the plane made its final approach to Heathrow. There would be a car to meet him, Mowbray had said, to take him to a debrief, his controllers at SIS hoping he could inject some sense into what had happened.
The stewardess, who’d slipped him a few miniatures of whisky to take home with him when the bar closed, strapped herself hurriedly into the folding seat by the forward door. She gave him a tight, conspiratorial smile.
Sam eased the knees of his trousers. For the journey back to England he’d worn the lightweight grey business suit he’d had on at the time of his arrest and which he’d found neatly folded in his suitcase. The fabric kept snagging on the bandages round his shins, however. He was bruised and stiff still, but the sleep, the nourishment and a couple of drinks on the flight had set him to rights.
The wheels touched down. The seat belt dug into his bruised body. As the Boeing turned onto the taxi-way he unclipped the strap and gathered his belongings, including a newspaper the airline had provided. A report in it about the round-the-world sailing race he’d read with interest. He owned a half share in a sailing boat, kept on the south coast of England, which he hoped to spend some time on before winter set in.
Inside the terminal on the long walk to immigration and customs, the pains in his shins slowed him down. It was midday in London. The baggage came through unusually quickly, and once past customs he saw a line of dark-suited chauffeurs holding name boards.
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