Kardina

by Thomas Emson

  But they were not fighting the Muslims. Neither conflict had been holy. They had been wars of survival. The survival of humans.

  Now Lawton was fighting that battle.

  And she would do the same to him. Take him into her bed. Become his lover. Destroy his campaign against the Nebuchadnezzars. It was what she did. It was her instinct.

  But now that other feeling was rearing its head.

  That stain that she couldn’t wash away.

  The trace of what she had been and how she was supposed to feel.

  Headlights glowed in the distance. She smelled diesel on the air. An engine’s growl grew louder. The car approached.

  She stopped and waited. Her white dress fluttered on the breeze.

  Her skin rippled with the excitement of a blood feast.

  She licked her lips. She looked vulnerable on that lonely road in the night.

  She was there to be ravished, surely.

  The car slowed down.

  It stopped in the middle of the road.

  Three young men leapt out. They wore denim and white T-shirts. They had black hair. They were in their twenties, young, confident. One of them wore glasses.

  They spoke in Arabic.

  She smiled at them.

  They gaped, excited at her response.

  She smelled their lust. She smelled their blood.

  They circled her.

  She smiled wider, opening her lips.

  Showing her fangs.

  One of them saw, and fear flared in his eyes.

  Another reached out to touch her, but before his fingers brushed her arm, he was dead, his jugular vein spouting blood.

  In a split second, the second was dead.

  Ereshkigal turned on the third. He was frozen to the spot. She glared at him. Then she kicked him hard in the belly, sending him crashing into the car.

  Before the dead men’s blood ran cold, she drank it from their open veins. After she was done, the third man was coming round. She picked him up and slammed him on the bonnet of the car. She bared her bloody fangs and hissed in his face: “Yakhedney ala Beghedad.”

  CHAPTER 43. ONE SOLDIER.

  THEY took Lawton into an interview room. It was better than the cell. It had a carpet and a table and chairs. He sat and they gave him coffee – black and strong.

  The younger man said, “An officer from the Department of Border Enforcement will be coming to ask you questions.”

  “My favourite categories are films, sport, and travel.”

  The young man furrowed his brow.

  Lawton drank the coffee. He stared into the dark, thick liquid. The smell was overpowering. He started to think about Ereshkigal. He wondered if she’d got out of the vehicle. His own objective concerned him. His quest to kill Nimrod. Without the Spear of Abraham, he didn’t think it could be done. He hoped that somehow Ereshkigal had escaped the soldiers and taken the spear with her. He focused on her. He tried to dream her, like he had dreamed her before. His head had started to throb again. The false eye smarting. It had swollen on the journey from Mosul and was bruised. He could feel the tentacles of red flesh encased in the glass eye seeping out and coiling around his nerves. But he couldn’t pull the object out. It hurt too much, and he felt he would tear part of his brain out with it.

  “I don’t understand completely,” said the young man.

  “Don’t worry, you understand mostly – and your English is good.”

  “I learn from the British soldiers. I was seventeen when they came. They saved us from Saddam.”

  Lawton looked at the man. An ally, he thought. Someone who thought the action in Iraq was worthwhile. Many of the young man’s compatriots did think that. Or at least the ones Lawton had met. He had been thanked hundreds of times when he’d walked the streets of Basra with his squadron. But times had changed. He didn’t know what Iraqis thought of it all now. So he would be grateful of any support he could find.

  The young man said, “You had wounds on your body – bullet wounds.”

  “How do you know they were bullets?”

  “My father has them. He was shot by Saddam’s men in 2000. They shoot him through here,” he said, pointing to the back of his knee.

  “Kneecapping,” said Lawton.

  “Shooting,” said the man.

  “Yes, that’s what they call it – shooting from behind the knee… kneecapping.”

  “Kneecapping,” the man said, as if he were tasting the word.

  “Why did they do that?” asked Lawton, feeling he was forging a relationship with the man.

  “We are Shia. From the Tigris-Euphrates Marshlands originally. Marsh Arabs. My father was in the uprising of 1991. My people rose up after the Americans promised to help us defeat Saddam – but they left. The British, too. Everyone left. We were alone, and we had no chance. Many of my people were killed. The wetlands were drained. My family escaped. But they hunted down my father. Kneecapping.”

  “Where did you escape to?” asked Lawton.

  He eyed the other man, the squat frog-like fellow. He’d been standing quietly in the corner of the room. He was watching Lawton, trying to follow the conversation. But maybe his English wasn’t as good as his colleague’s.

  “Basra,” the young man answered.

  Lawton’s spine tingled. He kept his eyes narrow. He kept his bearing cool.

  “Do you know Basra?” asked the young man.

  Lawton hesitated. Then he said, “I was there in 2003, with the British Army.”

  Big risk. But he’d evaluated the odds. He took a punt.

  Although they had welcomed Western intervention, many Iraqis had become disillusioned, particularly when the insurgency began and foreign fighters flooded the country to cause carnage.

  Basra had been relatively peaceful – relative in Iraqi terms. So there was a chance the young officer may not hold any grievances. However, it could have all been a ploy to get information out of Lawton. The man might be a former Saddam loyalist. There were many still in positions of authority. But that was part of the gamble Lawton took. He held the young man’s eyes. They glittered.

  “British soldier?” he said.

  Lawton nodded.

  “Will you tell me your name?” asked the Iraqi.

  Lawton said nothing.

  “You will have to,” said the man.

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe. You will have to. And you are not an enemy here. We are not your enemy.”

  “Maybe.”

  “The British saved my life.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I was going to worship.”

  Every nerve in Lawton’s body tightened.

  “Hundreds of us going to the mosque.”

  Memories flooded back.

  “Al Qaeda bombers with explosives on their backs came, and they were going to kill us. Butcher us while we prayed. British soldiers killed them. They saved our lives. One soldier. One man.”

  Lawton’s skin goose fleshed.

  “I am Fadoul Khoury,” said the young man. “Lieutenant Fadoul Khoury of the Federal Police.”

  Lawton nodded, knowing.

  “I know your face,” said Khoury. “I knew from when you walked in. I know the shape of your body. The way you move. I know your – your eye, the one you have left. Steel grey. I know you. One soldier.”

  Lawton said nothing.

  “Allah has worked a miracle,” said Khoury.

  The man’s lip trembled, and a tear ran down his face.

  CHAPTER 44. PLAN OF ACTION.

  “I WAS there that day in Basra,” said Khoury. He looked at his watch and yawned.

  Lawton glanced at the man’s wrist and saw it was about 4.40am.

  Stupidly early, he thought. Or stupidly late.

  They were trying to psyche him out, denying him sleep. But if anyone could go without sleep, it was Lawton.

  Khoury had dismissed the short guard. Told him to get more coffee and something to eat for their guest. “I was a
police cadet. Nineteen years old when it happened. I had joined the new police of the new Iraq. I was being trained by British police.”

  Lawton narrowed his eyes.

  Was the man trying to dupe him?

  “I have seen your face on the internet,” said Khoury. He was sitting opposite Lawton, staring straight at him. “I have watched you in England, fighting your demon enemies, and I say to myself, ‘I know who that man is.’”

  He hesitated and stared at Lawton’s face.

  “You are Jake Lawton,” said Khoury.

  Lawton said nothing. He was considering the odds on another bet now. Playing it safe until he knew everything he could possibly know.

  “Two men leapt from a VW,” said Khoury. “I remember clearly. Two men with backpacks. Bombs on their bodies. I remember waiting to go into the mosque. Still in my cadet uniform. A soldier shot one of the insurgents.”

  Rabbit, thought Lawton. That’s what they called him. A true comrade. A brother in arms.

  Khoury continued.

  “But the other one fled. Down an alley. I remember. And it was you who followed him, you who shot him dead. You saved our lives. Hundreds of lives.”

  “I did my job.”

  “You stopped evil.”

  Lawton said nothing.

  “Why are you here?” said Khoury, his brow furrowed.

  Now it starts, thought Lawton. Maybe this was all part of a psychological game. Maybe Khoury was nowhere near Basra that day. But whatever the case, he knew about Lawton’s actions on that November 2004.

  Khoury said, “There are no vampires in Iraq. Europe, I know, suffers, but we are not contaminated yet. Are we?” A look of fear crossed his face. “Tell me if this is the truth?”

  “I don’t know if you have vampires.”

  “Then why does a man known on the internet as a vampire killer come to Iraq illegally?”

  “Are you interrogating me now?”

  “Hardly,” said Khoury. “But someone might, very soon. The men from the Department of Border Enforcement will come before Hassan is back with the tea. You have no authority to be here. You have no visa or a passport. Are you doing contract work?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you working on a security mission, secret mission?”

  Lawton said nothing.

  “I am not asking you from interrogation,” said Khoury, “I am asking you because I am interested in Jake Lawton – the man who saved my life.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “You will be questioned. You might be charged with entering the country illegally. You will be put on trial. You will be found guilty. You might be sent to jail, or you will be fined 10,000 dinar.”

  “How much is that?” said Lawton.

  “Eight dollars.”

  “That’ll break the bank.”

  Khoury looked confused.

  Lawton said, “Forget it.”

  Khoury said, “You might be sent back to Britain, if you are lucky – expelled.”

  “No, that would not be lucky.”

  “Not be lucky?”

  “They will kill me.”

  “But you are a hero. We read of you on the internet.”

  “I’m not a hero now. Britain has changed. There are powerful people who want me dead. And if I’m sent back, they will kill me.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know, what can you do?”

  Khoury shook his head.

  Lawton started thinking. Thinking hard. Planning. Strategizing.

  Never stop thinking. Keep your brain fired up. Like an engine. If it stalls, you might not get it going again.

  He had to get away. That was it. And for that to happen, he needed an opportunity. Just a second’s hesitation by his guards. Just something to unsettle them, to make them lose concentration. And he had to be outside this building. Outside in the streets among the traffic and the crowds. Outside where you could easily lose yourself so that no one could find you.

  “I need you to do something,” he told Khoury.

  The Iraqi looked worried.

  Lawton told him what he needed him to do.

  Khoury leapt to his feet, the chair flying across the room.

  He said, “No, never! I am not a barbarian!”

  CHAPTER 45. THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD.

  LAXMAN and two of his colleagues, Xavier and Ashton, took the same route as Lawton had taken to Baghdad. But their journey was more pleasant. They were stopped once at a checkpoint outside Tikrit, but their papers were in order.

  Laxman chilled out in the back of the Toyota Land Cruiser, music on his iPod, the interior of the vehicle at a nice temperature. Xavier drove with Ashton riding shotgun.

  He gazed out at the night. They drove through cities and towns and passed shacks on the roadside.

  They passed compounds protected by barbed wire, with warning signs in Arabic hanging off the gates.

  They saw the skeletons of tanks and Humvees. Ruins from the war. A war Laxman would have loved to have been part of. But he’d had to wait for it to be over before he could bring his White Light Ops team in.

  They were hired in 2004 to protect American industrialists. The Yanks were in the country to make a profit in the aftermath. The insurgency had just kicked off. Al Qaeda nuts joined forces with Ba’athist thugs, and anyone they regarded as an enemy was murdered or kidnapped. There were videos posted online of fanatics sawing people’s heads off with a butcher’s knife. It was a crazy place at that time. A dangerous place. But it gave a military man like Laxman a permanent hard-on. His blood was up. Adrenaline was in constant supply. He just loved it. Loved the danger, the action. You had to be constantly on your guard against insurgents. But that was part of the fun for him.

  He had a grudging respect for them. He hated what they stood for but liked their ruthlessness.

  He didn’t mind killing or torturing civilians, but he wouldn’t do it for pleasure – and he thought from watching some of those decapitation videos that the psychos doing the sawing were in it for the blood and the shit.

  They probably jacked off after slicing off a head.

  Those guys were willing to kill anyone, at any time, for no reason.

  However willing Laxman was to slaughter, he did like a fair fight. Especially if it improved his skills. Bad odds bored him. Sure, having an edge was important, just to make certain he came out on top. But you had to give your opponents a chance.

  That’s why he was looking forward to taking on Lawton.

  His head told him to pop Lawton from a distance – bullet in the brain from 100 metres.

  But his heart told him, “Go hand-to-hand with this fella.”

  Lawton had a serious reputation. He was a first-class soldier who was drummed out of the army because he’d done his job.

  After his discharge, he’d acquired a reputation as a bareknuckle fighter. They said he was undefeated in illegal bouts all over England.

  It was all part of the mythology that had built up around Lawton during the vampire plague.

  He was the only one to fight the monsters up close and the only one who seemed to win.

  People liked that.

  Laxman liked that.

  He admired Lawton’s tough-guy approach to life.

  But he also knew that Lawton was vulnerable. He was vulnerable because he would never sacrifice a mate so he could survive. He would never turn his back on a colleague. He would never let someone weaker than himself suffer.

  And that’s what exposed Jake Lawton.

  That’s why Laxman had the edge.

  That’s why he would win.

  Laxman thought about Alfred Fuad. He wondered what the guy was up to. Laxman had been hired by Howard Vince. They’d known each other during the first Gulf War in ’91. At the time, Vince was an officer on the frontline, but he later became Chief of the General Staff. The military big cheese in the UK.

  Laxman and his firm were being paid well. More than a mil
lion pounds. And it was an easy million, as far as he was concerned. It was not as if White Light Ops had been forced to sweat for their wages. The only problems they’d encountered so far were that girl – Laxman’s balls ached at the thought of her – and the foreign fella with the walking stick. Nothing else. Until now. Until Jake Lawton.

  He’d guessed that the main reason he was here was to keep Lawton at bay.

  He wasn’t completely clear on what Fuad was up to. Digging for some ancient mummy. Something called Nimrod. Fuad and the others seemed to believe this creature might still be alive.

  Laxman wasn’t going to argue with that. He didn’t care what people believed. He had his own faith – in weapons. Shooting a gun was like a religious experience to Laxman.

  But then everyone had their superstitions.

  Some of the Iraqi diggers on the site were jittery about vampires.

  They spoke about witches and goblins. They spoke about the ghost of Nimrod’s wife, still stalking the earth, still trying to find her way home.

  And when she did, there would be trouble.

  Always trouble when the wife comes home, thought Laxman, brushing the scar across his forehead. His missus had smashed him across the head with an iron after a domestic. Bitch, he thought, smiling. Loved that girl.

  Laxman knew about vampires. The UK was plagued with them. He’d never believed in them before, but there was no doubting their existence now. But he wasn’t bothered. Laxman had spent most of the past few years living in Switzerland and working in Africa and the Middle East – well out of the way of any vampires.

  The dawn was starting to peek over the horizon, a white band cresting the skyline.

  “How long?” he asked now.

  Xavier, a Swiss national who’d worked with Laxman for ten years, said, “Thirty or forty minutes.”

  Ashton said, “What’s the plan, boss?”

  “I’m just thinking one up,” said Laxman.

  He shut his eyes and had a nap.

  CHAPTER 46. SPYCATCHER.

  KAMAL Najib, forty-seven in years and also around the waist, combed his moustache in the mirror of the gentlemen’s toilet at the Ministry of the Interior.