‘I did not know. And, of course, I am shocked and very sorry to hear this,’ Tawal said, his mood disarmed. ‘Naturally I will do everything possible to assist your enquiries. Come let me show you what we have created here. We can talk along the way.’
He stood. We stood. A poke around the joint was exactly what we wanted. Masters shuffled the photos back into the folder.
‘Guts before glory,’ I said as she followed him out.
‘Unfortunately, the storm will preclude the full tour. The facility is spread over a number of hectares. It is too far to walk so we often move about on golf carts. But not today, I’m afraid.’
We passed though fifty yards of corridor to a second set of elevators, and rode one to the basement. ‘Do you know how desalination works?’ he asked.
‘You take out the salt,’ I said.
‘Er . . . well, yes, of course. The desert may seem dry, but beneath it are natural reservoirs containing many thousands of megalitres of water, deposited over millennia. Unfortunately, due to the high content of salts, this water is undrinkable. The salt content is not as high as sea water, but still not suitable for human consumption.’ The doors slid open on a wide underground corridor that disappeared in darkness in both directions.
‘Saving on electricity?’ I asked.
‘We are not fully operational as yet,’ he said with a shrug.
Five men wearing jeans, body armour and machine pistols strolled out of the darkness and walked past us. Tawal ignored them. We found it hard to. They moved with the confidence of combat vets. I wondered what their backgrounds were.
Moving to a heavy security door, Tawal punched a code into a panel and the door swung open on hydraulic arms. Behind it was a control room. Displayed up on one wall of the room were flow diagrams illustrating the plant’s main processes – that of power generation and desalination.
Two large control panels dominated the floor. A couple of additional rows of computer terminals, all with joysticks, backed them up. Four male technicians hovered over the control panels. One of the men had a welt on the side of his face; he didn’t appear to be entirely happy in his work and frowned at the control panel, avoiding eye contact with the boss. I recognised him. He was one of the men we’d seen Tawal discussing industrial relations with just before the storm rolled in.
‘Kawthar al Deen is almost totally automated,’ said Tawal. ‘The systems are monitored and there is a maintenance crew, but we can produce enough water for a city of three hundred thousand people with a work force of just twenty.’
‘Then why do you need all the office space?’ Masters asked. ‘Looks like you’ve got enough of it here for at least several hundred people.’
‘Yes. We have planned for Kawthar al Deen to be a business centre. We have incorporated all the facilities of a modern Western-style workplace: a swimming pool, gyms, a nursery. Perhaps we will also incorporate a retail shopping mall one day.’
Tawal then spoke in a brusque manner to the guy with the facial remodelling. The man went to work on his keyboard and a section of the diagram up on the wall filled with green.
‘There are two kinds of desalination processes – electro-dialysis and reverse osmosis,’ Tawal continued. ‘Here we utilise reverse osmosis. The process begins when we draw off brackish water from the subterranean aquifers. The larger solids are removed, the pH is altered, then we pressurise this feedwater to 375 pounds per square inch.’
Various sections of the diagram lit up to illustrate Tawal’s pitch.
‘The feedwater is then forced through water-permeable membranes and we end up with brine on one side and virtually salt-free water on the other, all without the need for heating, environmentally questionable chemical processes, or phase changes. The only by-product is brine – salt-saturated water – and the impurities and minerals that have been removed, all of which is disposed of through the proven method of deep-well injection. The product water that remains is ready for distribution free of solids, pollutants and bacterium. Cleaner and fresher than rainwater.’
‘So this process also removes uranyl fluoride,’ I said.
A pause followed that was pregnant enough to give birth to quintuplets. The guys on the control panels froze. ‘Excuse me?’ Tawal asked.
‘Uranyl fluoride. Apparently it’s in the water hereabouts, right?’
‘No, I do not think so,’ Tawal replied. ‘Let us continue the tour.’ He moved to the door and held it open, frowning. I wondered whether it was something I’d said. Masters and I followed his lead. ‘Would you care to see the gas-fired electrical power station we have built here? If desalination has one drawback, it’s that it requires a lot of energy to pressurise the feedwater.’
‘What’s down there?’ I asked, nodding towards the end of the blacked-out corridor heading off in another direction.
‘Nothing interesting. Storage, mostly.’
The elevator doors opened. Tawal gestured that we should go first.
‘Lamb before slaughter,’ I said to Masters, who smiled.
‘I’m sorry?’ Tawal asked, eyebrows raised.
‘So you don’t know anything about the uranyl fluoride?’ I replied.
‘No, but I can only think you must be referring to the vehicles your American government buried that contaminated the surface water upstream of Kumayt. You may not know about this. It was because of such contamination that the Iraqi government decided to build Kawthar al Deen. In fact, I can give you a copy of the environmental report that revealed the problem. Depleted uranium is a terrible weapon,’ Tawal said, spreading icing on the guilt complex he wanted to serve us. ‘Your government gave Agent Orange to Vietnam, and they have given Iraq depleted uranium. This will be a problem for a thousand Iraqi generations to come.’
‘A copy of that environmental report would be handy,’ Masters cut in.
‘I will see to it.’
‘Wasn’t shredding it part of the tender process?’ I enquired.
Tawal paused. ‘Only the unsuccessful bidders were asked to destroy materials. The file is confidential, but I’m sure you have the appropriate clearances.’
‘I don’t suppose you might know where this radioactive graveyard is located?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry, Special Agent. Your government doesn’t share its secrets with me.’
Seemed to me a lot of people knew about the stash of buried hot wreckage, only no one would – or could – produce the smoking gun.
The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. A man with an M4 carbine, body armour and a pistol in a hip holster stood in the doorway. I recognised him also – the guy with the binoculars who’d seen us looking down on the facility. His eyes were hidden behind the wrap-around sunglasses, so I wasn’t sure if the recognition was mutual. He gave the boss a nod and was about to step past us into the elevator when Tawal said, ‘Oh, Jarred. Would you mind doing me a favour and showing our visitors our special defences?’
The man nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Jarred is our deputy head of security.’
Jarred’s accent was interesting – I couldn’t place it. At a guess, the country in which he was born and raised was probably no longer where he lived. The U-haul carrying his speech patterns unhitched itself from the wagon and got left somewhere along the way. He was tall and blond with brown eyes that drooped at the corners. The guy looked depressed.
‘I will get a copy of the report and see you again when you are finished – in, say, around twenty minutes,’ Tawal informed us.
‘Take thirty minutes, if you like,’ I said.
Tawal switched on a smile that held about as much warmth as a photo of a long-life bulb.
‘So where’s the head of security?’ I asked our latest guide.
‘On leave.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Would you like to see our crows?’ Jarred asked cryptically.
‘Your what?’ Masters was going for clarification.
‘Yes, I will show you our crows. Y
ou will see what I mean.’ Jarred turned and walked in the opposite direction to the one Tawal had gone in.
We followed along behind. After a few steps, Masters gestured at his side-arm. ‘An unusual pistol you’ve got there, Jarred,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
‘A Barak.’
‘Never seen one before. Where’s it from?’
‘Kmart.’
Masters and I shared a glance. Another Barak SP-21: nine-millimetre, fifteen-round magazine, and as Israeli as a Jaffa orange. Maybe Israel was Jarred’s adopted country, which might explain the ambiguous accent.
‘Which Sayeret unit you serve in?’ I asked, playing a hunch, the Sayeret being the special forces arm of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Jarred turned his droopy eyes on me. He heard the question, but wasn’t prepared to answer. Maybe the guy had already used up his daily quota of idle conversation. He took us up a couple of floors via another elevator, along one more corridor and into a loading dock, passing at least thirty surveillance cameras and half-a-dozen armed men, who nodded respectfully at our guide.
A bunch of golf carts were parked in the bay, the shutter door banging and rattling with the weather pounding against it on the other side. A fine dust hung in the air and tickled the back of my throat.
‘I hope you don’t mind a little sand,’ Jarred said, hopping down a small flight of stairs and making his way to the cart closest to the shutter.
Forty
The sand in Iraq is not the kind of sand that kids build castles with at the beach. It’s about fifty times finer and, when pushed around by a wind that’s eighty-plus miles an hour, about a thousand times meaner. The fine, abrasive particles penetrate everything. They get inside your nose, your ears, your hair, inside your eye goggles, your gloves, under your fingernails, into your clothes, your pockets, your webbing, your shoes, your socks, your underwear. Even your cracks – especially your cracks. It penetrates everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. Machinery gets it worse. The dust combines with lubricants to form a paste that destroys bearing surfaces, which explains why our golf cart stopped dead fifty yards from the bunker and had to be pushed the remainder of the way, into the lee of a concrete wall.
‘These damn crows had better be worth it,’ I shouted into the howling wind, Masters beside me, back bent behind the cart.
‘What?’ she yelled back.
I shook my head. Translation: forget it.
The bunker rose out of the orange-red hellscape, the concrete curved dome of its roof a black silhouette in the haze. Jarred punched a code into a keypad, jerked open the heavy steel access door, then closed it behind us. Masters and I pulled off our Kevlar helmets and goggles while Jarred coughed up a clod of brown paste and spat it on the ground.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Masters, shaking the grit out of her hair and blinking it out of her eyes. The air about us swirled with vortexes of fine power.
A phone on the wall rang. Jarred answered it while I took in the surroundings. There was nothing special about the bunker per se – just your usual reinforced, armour-plated speed bump for mobile attacking forces, though this one did have a twist.
‘That was Mr Tawal,’ said Jarred, interrupting my scoping. ‘Your escort has been recalled.’
‘They not coming back for us?’ Masters asked.
‘Not until the storm is over. It is getting worse. Mr Tawal has made accommodation arrangements for you.’
Nothing we could do about it. And maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. It might provide us with the opportunity to do a little more snooping, this time without a tour guide.
‘So, do you like our crows?’ Jarred asked.
I realised what Jarred had been referring to as soon as we’d walked in – the five .50-calibre M2 machine guns arrayed around the bunker wall. Each was set up as a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station, or CROWS. I’d seen CROWS mounted on Humvees, but this was a variation on the theme. We went in for a closer look. I knew they could be programmed so as not to shoot off parts of their own vehicles, or in this instance, their own facility. A thick rubber boot between the wall and the barrel kept the dust out of the bunker, although I wouldn’t want to be in the vicinity if a round went down those barrels before they were cleaned.
‘This bunker, and eleven more like it, have been built around these CROWS,’ Jarred announced. ‘Some use your American Mk 19 forty-millimetre Automatic Grenade Machine Gun instead of the M2. The sensor array for the system is built into the hardened external concrete shell and includes a daylight video camera with a 120-power zoom, a thermal imager for night operations and a laser rangefinder for pinpoint target acquisition. Each is furnished with a fully integrated fire control system. And if one array goes down, an array on a neighbouring bunker can take over. In this way, they are all as one.’ Jarred stroked the barrel with a lover’s touch. ‘Using a simple joystick, each weapon can be fired individually or linked together, and from a remote location.’
‘We’ve been there, seen that,’ I said, Masters nodding. The bank of screens each with a joystick – the facility’s control room was also the fire control centre.
‘The system can also be set to shoot automatically, and will do this in all weather, day or night.’
‘You here on commission?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘I like this weapon.’
‘Never would’ve guessed,’ Masters said, arms folded.
‘How many mines you got out there?’ I asked.
‘I am not authorised to answer this question.’
‘What kind of mines are they – anti-personnel, penetrator?’
‘I am not authorised to answer this question.’
‘How many men you got enrolled in your private army here?’
‘I am not –’
‘We get the picture,’ I said.
‘Let us go back,’ he said, giving the machine gun a parting fondle.
On the way here the sand blast had been at our backs, but it was into our faces on the return journey. So, in a word, worse. Arriving in the loading dock, we took some time to shake the sand and grit out of our clothes.
‘Please let there be a damn shower in this place,’ Masters prayed aloud.
‘I will take you to Mr Tawal, now,’ Jarred said.
A short walk later, Jarred left us back in the boardroom, waiting for Tawal. I had no skin left in my crotch area, or under my arms where my shirt combined with sweat and dust to rub the skin raw.
‘So, what do you think of Kawthar al Deen?’ asked Tawal as he came through the door, his good humour having returned along with his smile.
‘Like Evian crossed with the Maginot Line,’ I said.
‘Yes, we are well defended, if it comes to that.’
‘And a handy place to launch an attack from, if you were so inclined,’ Masters observed.
Tawal’s smile left in such a hurry I almost felt the draught. ‘I have the report here,’ he said, ‘the environmental impact study that preceded the building of this facility. It is your copy to keep.’
‘Thanks,’ replied Masters, accepting the five or so pounds of printed report, tucking it under her arm.
‘I believe Jarred has told you about your escort?’ Tawal asked.
I nodded. ‘They were told to come inside out of the wind. Jarred informed us you’re going to put us up here.’
‘If that is suitable?’
‘If it comes with a shower, it’s suitable,’ said Masters.
‘I am sure that can be arranged. So, I am happy to answer any further questions you may have . . .’
I wanted to ask Tawal, just to gauge the reaction, if he’d had Colonel Portman, Bremmel, Doc Merkit, Emir and the others killed, only I had no follow-up answer if he responded by asking why he would want to do that. And as far as we could see, there was no motive wrapping this guy up with the murders. ‘Not for the moment,’ I said. ‘Though I suggest you don’t leave town till we’ve concluded our enquiries.’
‘You have no authority here – ov
er me.’
‘We know that, Mr Tawal,’ Masters replied. ‘Like Special Agent Cooper said, it’s a suggestion.’
‘I have a conference in Cairo in two days time.’
‘I’m sure we won’t be keeping you that long,’ Masters promised.
Tawal snapped out a phrase in Arabic. The Iraqi servant appeared and stood stiffly at attention, waiting instructions. Tawal spoke to the guy like he was something that needed a saddle on its hump. He turned back to us. ‘Achmed will show you to your accommodation. I am around should you to desire to discuss anything further. Achmed doesn’t speak English, by the way, so there’s no point asking him anything. If you leave your uniforms and any gear you want cleaned outside your rooms, he will see to it.’ Tawal stood, eager to leave. ‘Now, if there is nothing more, I have a desalination plant to get operational . . .’ He was out the door in four strides.
‘Shall we leave our sidearms and body armour outside for a little sprucing up?’ I asked.
Masters answered with half a smile.
The dust and sand blew across the windowpanes in heavy red waves, the glass flexing under the pressure. We could have been on Mars. Achmed cleared his throat to catch my attention, then gestured for us to follow, holding the door handle. The three of us retraced part of Tawal’s earlier tour, passing several armed personnel, who checked us over far more heavily than when we’d been accompanied by Jarred, their boss.
Coming around a corner, I collided with a guy in a white coat. I recognised him from the welt on his face. I noticed he also had a split across the bridge of his nose. He was one of Tawal’s whipping boys, the one I saw earlier in the control room. I looked at him, he looked at me, and then he dropped something – a small scrap of paper. And then he hurried off, leaving the scrap behind.
Achmed came back around the corner to check on the delay, but by then I was bent down, tying my shoelace, the scrap secured beneath my rubber combat sole. While fumbling knot number three, I checked the area for cameras. There were plenty, but all of them were pointed in other directions; we were in a blind spot. It occurred to me that the guy who left the note knew exactly what he was doing. Achmed glanced away, giving me enough time to palm the scrap.
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