The Burning Gates

by Parker Bilal

  ‘He drove back into Iraq anyway?’ Makana asked.

  ‘I don’t think he ever really believed Iraq would lose. He knew Saddam would never surrender.’ Kane smiled wistfully. ‘And things changed on our side too. Turns out we had other prior­ities. The Saudis were worried that taking out Saddam would bring in the Shias, who they hated worse than beer and barbecued ribs. President Bush decided it wasn’t worth going to Baghdad. So we sold out the Iraqi people to keep our allies happy. Hundreds of thousands died in that uprising, thinking we were coming to help them get rid of Saddam.’

  ‘So Iraq remained intact and Samari could go home,’ said Makana.

  ‘Exactly. I should have died out there in the desert. But I didn’t. If there was one thing that kept me going it was the thought of getting even one day.’

  ‘Who is Zachary Kane?’ Samari spluttered.

  ‘You don’t remember, do you?’ Kane gave a hollow laugh. ‘Zachary Kane was the last member of my crew. A young kid of nineteen who hailed from some one-horse town in Iowa. Funny thing is he was dead set against the deal, said I couldn’t trust you. I should have listened to him.’

  ‘You took his name?’ Makana asked.

  ‘I’d had a few problems with the law and I knew Zach didn’t have any family, so at a certain point it just made sense. I’d kept some of his papers – driving licence, Social Security card, stuff like that. I reinvented myself. I brought Zachary Kane back to life.’ He turned to regard Samari, who seemed barely conscious by now. ‘It doesn’t seem like much, does it? The life of one man? But he was a good kid and he died because he trusted me. So I carried him with me all these years. I swore that one fine day I’d get my revenge.’ Almost as an afterthought he pressed the glowing tip of the cigar into Samari’s armpit and smiled as he screamed.

  The noise brought Faisal back onto the upper gallery. He was busy trying to button his trousers and raise his gun when Cassidy shot him cleanly through the neck. As he did so, Hagen moved, diving to one side and pulling a long thin knife from his boot which he threw. It hit Cassidy just under the left shoulder. Makana fired and Hagen went down clutching his thigh.

  Makana swung the Browning back towards Kane who raised his hands and smiled. A swift burst of automatic fire swept across the room as Jansen opened up from the gallery above. The table kicked and spattered splinters into the air.

  ‘Everybody stay put and no one gets hurt.’ The young soldier swung the barrel of the rifle to take in all of them. Bilquis was shielded behind him. Makana lowered the Browning. Sindbad put down his guns. The only one who didn’t move was Cassidy, who held the Colt aimed up at Jansen.

  ‘You’d better be sure of your aim,’ said Cassidy. ‘I don’t usually miss at this distance.’

  Something about his words must have struck home because Jansen seemed taken aback. He lowered the automatic rifle a fraction.

  ‘Dad? Is that you?’

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  ‘Virgil?’ Cassidy was looking up at Jansen.

  ‘Jesus, Dad, don’t call me that. How many times do I have to tell you?’ Jansen started to descend the stairs. ‘What the hell are you doing here anyway?’

  ‘You’re alive.’ Cassidy lowered the Colt. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  Kane stirred, lowering his hands. Makana swung the Browning back in his direction. Jansen didn’t notice. Kane raised his hands to show he wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Sure I’m alive,’ Jansen said. With a glance at Kane he went over to his father and examined the wound. ‘It’s in deep. If we try to move it we could rupture an artery.’

  Cassidy didn’t seem to care. Clearly in pain, he squeezed his son’s shoulder.

  ‘You’re alive.’

  ‘You’d better believe it. Now let’s take a look at you.’

  ‘How touching.’ Kane rolled his eyes. ‘A real family reunion.’

  ‘My son,’ Cassidy said to Makana. ‘I can’t believe it.’ He leaned against the wall and slid down slowly to the floor, one hand clutched to his shoulder.

  ‘I thought your son’s name was Virgil Cassidy?’ said Makana.

  ‘I’ve always hated the name Virgil,’ the young man explained as he reached for a first-aid pouch in his pack. ‘Anyone in their right mind naturally would. When they got divorced I took my mom’s family name, Jansen. Cody’s my middle name.’

  Sindbad retrieved the weapons he had set down and took over keeping Kane and Hagen covered. Picking up the kaiken, Makana carefully sliced the plastic loop from around the boy’s neck. He was relieved to see Hadi jerk awake. He hadn’t been sure he was still alive. Now he sat up and began to cry. Bilquis came down the stairs unsteadily. Her blouse was torn and her hair was a mess. She avoided Makana’s gaze as she bent to take her child in her arms.

  ‘Take him to the kitchen,’ Makana said. ‘Clean him up, give him something to eat.’

  He turned to cut Samari down. Bilquis paused and helped to support him. The Iraqi looked too weak to stand. His hands were still bound together. He resembled a wounded animal. His back was bowed and his eyes were lowered. He swayed and almost fell. Makana watched him hobble away, dragging his feet, leaving a trail of blood on the tiled floor.

  ‘Who said America isn’t a great country?’ Kane was grinning. ‘Anyone can become anything they please.’

  ‘Sit on the floor,’ Makana indicated. ‘Put your hands on your head.’

  Kane sat cross-legged on the ground. Hagen groaned. Jansen glanced over at him but ignored him. His attention was on his father.

  ‘I saw you, in Cairo, at the Marriott,’ said Cody. ‘I thought I was seeing things.’

  ‘You saw me?’

  ‘The last person in the world I expected to run into. And there you were snooping around the lobby, doing your detective thing.’

  ‘But you didn’t say anything?’

  ‘I couldn’t, Dad.’ Cody sighed. ‘I wasn’t alone. I figured you were there for me, or for Kane. I didn’t know how you’d found us, but I knew that if I identified you they would kill you. I held back and hoped you would just go away. I even left a message at your hotel, telling you to go home.’ He gently removed his father’s hand from the knife wound. ‘You shouldn’t have got involved, Dad.’

  ‘I’m your father, of course I’m involved.’

  ‘This is going to hurt.’ Cody held a dressing pad to the wound and pulled the blade out slowly. Cassidy groaned. He looked as though he might faint. ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘I followed you,’ gasped Cassidy. ‘They said you were killed in action.’

  ‘And you just wouldn’t take the army’s word for it.’

  ‘I had to know,’ insisted Cassidy. ‘I couldn’t just leave you out there alone.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Cody taped the dressing down and added another.

  ‘I went to Falluja. I followed the trail.’

  ‘Once a cop, always a cop, isn’t that what Mom used to say?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Cassidy was smiling. Then slowly the smile faded. ‘What happened, son?’

  ‘It’s complicated, Dad.’ Cody stared down at the ground.

  ‘What the hell are you doing with these guys?’

  Cody stood up. ‘We need to get you to a hospital, Dad. You need surgery.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Cassidy said. He was watching his son.

  ‘Like I said, it’s complicated.’

  Kane slow-clapped from across the room. Grinning, he held his arms out wide. ‘Here we all are, one happy family.’

  ‘This is between me and my son,’ growled Cassidy. ‘Stay out of it.’

  ‘I hear you,’ laughed Kane, ‘but you have to admit, it’s a touching scene.’

  Hagen, who had been clutching his leg, decided to make his move then, throwing himself sideways. He announced his move with a growl. Cassidy leaned past his son, raised the Colt and shot him. While Makana was distracted Kane threw himself forward and rolled, ducking out through the doorway. Sindbad went after him. He
came back a moment or two later.

  ‘He’s gone, ya basha.’

  ‘He can’t have gone far,’ said Makana. ‘Can you use that thing?’

  Sindbad looked down at the M16 he was clutching. ‘I think so, ya basha.’

  ‘Then get outside and keep your eyes open for anything. Kane might be back.’

  ‘Hadir, ya basha.’

  Outside dawn was breaking and the sky was clearing. Sindbad stepped out onto the terrace and began pacing from side to side like a good sentry. Cassidy was slumped against the wall with his eyes closed.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ Makana set down the Browning and knelt beside Cassidy.

  ‘He’s losing a lot of blood,’ said Cody. ‘He needs to get to a hospital.’

  ‘Do the best you can. Help will be on the way.’ It seemed something of a miracle to Makana that his telephone was still working. He called Okasha, explained where he was and something of what had happened.

  ‘I can be there in an hour with a helicopter,’ Okasha said. ‘We’ll need as many men as we can get if we are to catch Kane. You’d better call Marwan and let him take care of Samari.’

  Makana hung up. Cassidy looked pale and exhausted. He looked up at Cody.

  ‘Talk to me, son.’

  Cody nodded to himself a few times. ‘Okay, I’m just going to get this off my chest and then we’ll be done with it, right?’ He glanced up at his father. Frank Cassidy nodded.

  ‘It all started when we hit an IED. I must have been out for a while. When I woke up everyone was dead. I thought I was finished too. I was wounded and I was out in the desert. Then all I remember is seeing Kane and his men coming out of nowhere. It was like a miracle. They took me back to their place, a palace outside Falluja. Gold taps in the bathrooms. Everything covered in marble and shit. The Kingdom of Zach.’ Cody grinned at the memory. ‘Rock and roll, beer, Jack Daniel’s on ice. It was a long way from Dreamland. There was this car pool of Ferraris, Porsches, a gold Ford Mustang, all just abandoned out there.’

  ‘What about your unit, what about the army, the war?’

  Cody screwed up his face. ‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘I’m trying, son, but you had a duty to fulfil.’

  ‘That’s the whole point, Dad. I started out believing, I truly did. That’s why I joined up. I believed in the mission, or at least, I thought so. We were there to help, right? I thought of us as like the Peace Corps but with guns. Before long I began to realise that the Iraqis hated us. Even little kids threw stones at us. And I’d heard all the stories about Haliburton and Brown and Root, how the politicians were making a ton of money out of this war. People were dying, getting maimed, all kinds of horrible shit. You think the people back home know about that? You think they care? You want me to come home a cripple, minus a leg and an arm, blind? And for what, so that some fat cat in Washington can make a fortune?’ Cody shook his head slowly. ‘Kane is right, you have to be a damn fool to fight their war for them.’

  ‘So you decided to join him.’

  ‘It made about as much sense as anything. This was a chance for us to clean up for once. The little guy. I figured I could disappear for a while. I was down as MIA. Kane could get me papers, get me back home. Shit, he could get anything he wanted. I wasn’t asking for much, just enough to come home and set up a little business of my own, hiring out boats in Louisiana, or something.’

  ‘Or something . . .’ Cassidy rubbed a hand across his face. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open. His shirt was soaked in blood. Sindbad reappeared to report that everything appeared to be calm.

  ‘You’d better check on Samari and the girl. They’re in the kitchen.’

  Sindbad sauntered off. He seemed to stand taller and straighter than he had before, as if the act of walking around with a gun had somehow revived some memory of his time in the army doing his national service. A moment later he was back, summoning Makana from the archway with a wave of his hand. The kitchen was deserted. Makana checked the storeroom. There was no one there.

  ‘Afreets, ya basha?’ asked Sindbad in a worried voice. ‘Did they just turn into smoke?’

  Makana had a feeling the explanation had to be a little more ordinary than fairy-tale spirits. He paced the room. There was no other exit. He walked back over to the door and surveyed the kitchen again. The light coming through the high windows opposite was stronger now. Sunlight illuminated one wall. Makana ran his eye carefully over every corner of the room, first the walls and cupboards and finally the floor, where he spotted a trail of blood spots. They led to an uneven patch in the floor tiles, where they disappeared. He felt with his hand until he found the hidden catch. Sindbad gave a gasp as Makana hauled up a trapdoor. A set of steps led down into the gloom below.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said to Sindbad. ‘Keep an eye on the others. Kane might come back.’

  Then he pointed the Browning down below him and began to descend. He half expected a knife blade to come up at him out of the darkness. When he reached the bottom step he found himself in complete blackness. He closed his eyes for a moment and waited for them to adjust. When he opened them again he could detect a faint glow somewhere up ahead. He moved slowly towards it, feeling his way with each foot he put forward. He felt a cool gust of air against his face. The path descended and the light grew steadily stronger. A shimmer appeared in the distance. It took him a moment to realise that he was looking at the end of a tunnel. The path carried on, dropping at a shallow angle, and Makana began to move faster now, suddenly sure that he would arrive too late. The tunnel led down through the mountain behind the house, roughly towards the south. There was no sign of anyone ahead or behind him.

  By now he was jogging along at a steady pace, cautious, not wanting to trip with a loaded gun in his hand. The tunnel widened as the angle eased off and then began to rise. The light grew like an eye opening in the darkness. He glimpsed them now, a scattering of shadows. Samari limping, the slighter figure of Bilquis alongside, holding the child in her arms.

  ‘Wait!’

  They came to a halt in the mouth of the tunnel, apparently exhausted. Bilquis let the child slip to the ground. Samari slumped against a stack of crates piled just inside the entrance. Beyond them was an open space, a circular arena hemmed in by rocky pinnacles. The man in the jumpsuit was coming towards them.

  ‘Leave those,’ Samari said, as the pilot went to lift up another flat crate. ‘We don’t have time. Prepare for immediate take-off.’

  The pilot jogged back onto the open ground towards the helicopter. It was a military grey, an old British Sea King without markings. Who it belonged to was unclear – more of Samari’s contacts, Makana guessed. Another figure was busy untying guy lines that secured the rotors, removing protective covers from the engines.

  Clearly in pain, Samari straightened up. ‘Well, this is it, Makana, you’ll have to shoot us to stop me getting on that aircraft, but I sense that you are not the kind of person who takes the idea of shooting an unarmed man lightly.’ He turned and began limping away.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ Makana said. ‘It’s not too late.’

  Bilquis hesitated. The boy clutched at her leg. She pressed him to her side.

  ‘It’s always been too late for us,’ said Bilquis. ‘In another life perhaps. I know too much about you and you about me.’ She stared at him for a long moment. ‘Goodbye Makana.’

  Then she turned and hurried after Samari, stooping to put her arm under him to lend support, her son clutching her other hand. Makana let the gun drop to his side as the three of them walked out into the sunlight. Samari was right. Shooting a man in cold blood was not something he was capable of.

  Makana watched as the helicopter rotors began to turn, beating themselves into a frenzy. Dust kicked up around the feet of the three passengers. Hands reached down to help them climb aboard. By now the whine of the engine had risen to a low scream. Makana watched Bilquis climb aboard last, the door sliding shut behind her. Then the ro
tors gathered force. They churned up the stinging sand, making Makana duck his head and cover his eyes. As he turned away he spotted the figure standing on a rocky ledge off to his left, on the periphery of the circle, a man whose head seemed to flutter in the wind. Kane. He was holding something to his shoulder. Makana knew what it was but there was barely time to register it before the cough of flame announced the launch of the rocket. The helicopter was about ten metres in the air, vertically above the wheel marks it had left in the sand. It had begun to turn, spinning slowly round. A few seconds more and it would have been clear, taking her into another life. Instead it exploded into an angry fist of flame and smoke. Makana ducked, hearing the whine of metal flying overhead, striking the rock with a resounding clang. For a moment the little arena was choked with dust and the smell of burning aviation fuel. The smoke cleared to reveal the helicopter had sunk back down into its tracks, a skeletal frame of its former self, flames and black smoke billowing from the fuselage.

  Kane was striding towards him out of the blast, the rocket launcher cocked on one shoulder, the other hand thrown out wide.

  ‘Now, that’s entertainment!’ he yelled, throwing his head back and laughing. He tossed aside the spent rocket launcher. Then a shot rang out from behind Makana. Kane jerked backwards, lifted off his feet and fell to the ground. Makana turned to see Cody, Kane’s Desert Eagle held in both hands. He lowered the gun slowly.

  ‘Your father?’ Makana asked, although he knew the answer. Cody shook his head.

  Makana turned back to the remains of the helicopter. Thick black smoke still billowed from the interior. It would have been instantaneous. She wouldn’t have felt a thing he told himself. He stood and watched it burn, thinking about what might have been and the pointlessness of it all.