Blood Moon Rising (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 2)

by Dawson, Mark

  At some point after she left Group Fifteen, Lydia Chisholm had been invited to join the board of the company, and she had established its affairs in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. Joshua Joyce and Bryan Duffy had been recruited, too, taking senior operational positions. It was estimated that the company employed five thousand soldiers, many of them with a background in Special Forces.

  A small army.

  “Good evening, madam.” The steward was smiling down at her. “Would you like a drink?”

  Beatrix looked at the trolley.

  “Whiskey, please. Rocks.”

  “Certainly.”

  The steward opened one of the miniatures and poured it into a glass. Beatrix thanked her, and then, when she had moved down the aisle, she took out the blister pack of Zomorph and popped out two of the tablets. She swallowed them, washing them down with the whiskey, and then put the iPad away and settled down to try and sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  Bryan Duffy was a big man. He was in his early forties and bristled with muscle from the time he spent in the gym that he had installed in his house in the upscale part of Basra. He was an ex-soldier, like the other mercenaries who worked for Manage Risk, and like many of them, he wore a big hillbilly beard that reached down to his sternum. An array of tattoos was visible on his arms and neck. He wore a black T-shirt and olive-green cargo pants, and there was an expensive diving watch on his left wrist. He was an impressive man with a lot of presence.

  He was standing in the yard of the al-Mina prison. The space was bounded by two temporary Portakabins and the wall of the main prison building. There was a small table sheltered by a golf umbrella, and there was a monitor and three empty bottles of beer on the table. He had a half-finished bottle in his hand, and he took a long draw on it before he ducked down to look at the monitor, shielding his eyes against the glare of the morning sun.

  The picture showed a young Iraqi prisoner, late teens or early twenties, dressed in a prison jumpsuit. There was an ugly bruise on the side of his face, and his nostrils were blocked up with dried blood.

  “Fuck this shit,” he said to Brent McNulty.

  “Tell me about it.”

  McNulty was Duffy’s number two. An ex-Ranger, a tough and hard-working man who had been employed by Manage Risk ever since he had left the military.

  “You reckon any of them know anything?”

  “Hard to say,” McNulty said. “Sure as shit we got to find out one way or another.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “This is my fifth one today.”

  He shrugged expressively. “Do I look impressed?”

  “How many?”

  “Nine.”

  “You want this one, too? Make it an even ten?”

  McNulty grinned. “You’re alright, boss. I’ll have a beer and watch out here. Make it a good one. Maybe I can learn a little.”

  “Ah, fuck it. Sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can go home.”

  He finished the beer and handed over the empty bottle. He took a ski mask from his pocket and pulled it over his head. He started to sweat immediately. That always put him in a bad mood.

  He opened the door to the hut and went inside.

  He remembered the first time he had sat in on an interrogation. He had a strong stomach, but he had almost vomited from what he had seen. The sordid room, the puddles of urine and blood on the floor, the prisoner who had been beaten so badly that he had been dragged back to his cell, his head lolling insensately between his shoulders, the flesh on the soles of his naked feet scoured into one big red welt by the length of hose that the Iraqis had used on him.

  He had sat in on hundreds of interrogations since.

  He had conducted hundreds.

  He saw them for what they were, now: a vital tool. It was a game. The prisoner had a piece of information that he didn’t want to divulge. Duffy wanted the information. It was a battle of wills to see who came out on top.

  Make it something impersonal like that, and the unpleasantness is easier to ignore.

  All part of the game.

  And Duffy always came out on top.

  The inside of the hut was like all the others. The first thing that hit you was the heat. There was no ventilation, and even though the windows were blocked by blackout blinds, the sun still beat against the metal ceiling and cooked the air inside. And then there was the smell: a toxic mixture of sweat, urine and excrement, seemingly intensified by the temperature. There were two gaunt policemen from the Basra department, waiting to the sides. They were both sweating. They had spent five minutes working over the prisoner, softening him up. It was hot work.

  There was a video camera on a tripod, its lens aimed at the man kneeling on the floor, his hands secured behind his back with cable ties. He was blindfolded. There was a bucket on the floor, a hose and a dirty towel.

  Duffy took a clipboard from the table next to the camera.

  “Let me see.” Duffy looked down at a piece of paper on the clipboard. “What’s your name? It’s Faik, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr Faik al-Kaysi?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “Alright, then.” He knelt down and untied the blindfold. The man had bloodshot hazel eyes, and he blinked at the sudden light. “Hello, Faik. Let me tell you how this is going to go down. I want you to listen to me when I’m talking to you. I want you to look at me. I want you to think very carefully about my questions, and I want you to give me honest answers. You understand?”

  The boy glared up at him.

  “If you don’t do any of those things, there are going to be consequences for you. If you give me attitude, I’m going to make you sorry. If you are insolent, I’m going to make you sorry. If you lie to me—especially if you lie to me—I’m going to make you sorry you were ever born. Are you getting all this?”

  The boy looked away.

  Duffy slapped him across the face.

  “You need to keep looking at me, Faik.”

  He glared back at him. There was fear in his eyes. That was good.

  “Let me explain to you why I am here. You are under the jurisdiction of my friends from the Basra police department over there, but we think you might have some information that is helpful to my employers. Seeing as the Basra police and my employers have an excellent working relationship, they’ve agreed to let me have a talk with you. So we’re going to have a chat, and you’re going to help me out. You do that, maybe I can make things go a little easier for you. Are we clear on all of this so far?”

  Faik glared at him.

  “Yes or no, Faik?”

  No response. Hatred seeped out of him like poison.

  Duffy struck him again.

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alright. Now, first of all, I understand you have a complaint?”

  “Your men, your mercenaries, they shot my mother.”

  “At the protest. Yes, I heard about that. Awful. It’s a pity.”

  The boy’s anger flared. “A pity? Is that all you can say?”

  “You should watch your temper, Faik.”

  “Are the men being prosecuted?”

  Duffy laughed. “Who?”

  “The men who did it.”

  “No, Faik. They are not. There was an attack on a facility that is guarded by my company. The men responded appropriately. That is that. The protesters shouldn’t have been there. And they shouldn’t have attacked the gates. What happened next is their fault, not ours.”

  “I want to make a complaint. I demand that they be arrested.”

  “You are in no position to make demands, Faik. Look around.” He swept his arm left to right, encompassing the awful room. “Look where you are.”

  “I want to . . .
”

  Duffy interrupted him. “No, Faik, it’s my turn now. It’s what I want.”

  “They beat me with my hands tied. Why should I help you?”

  “Because they’ll beat you again if you don’t. You need to focus on me, Faik. I’m your only friend here. I could give up right now, walk out that door and not come back, but if I do that, they’re going to throw you into a cell, and then there won’t be anything that I can do.”

  “No,” he said. “I have nothing to say. I did nothing wrong.”

  Duffy walked around the boy, slowly, and then leaned in close. “You took part in an armed assault on an Iraqi civilian installation. My colleagues have evidence to suggest that the operation was organised by the Promised Day Brigade. That’s a terrorist organisation, Faik. You know what will happen to you if you are found guilty of being a member of a terrorist organisation, don’t you?”

  “I am not . . .”

  He shouted over him: “It’s time for you to shut your mouth, open your ears and answer my fucking questions.”

  The boy shrank away from him.

  “Why were you and your mother protesting, Faik?”

  “Because it is not right what they do.”

  “They?”

  “The people who run Energy City.”

  “And what do they do?”

  “The jobs at the oilfields—those are Iraqi jobs. They have always been Iraqi jobs. Why do they bring in foreign workers when it is Iraqis who should be doing the work?”

  “That is a matter of economics. It’s nothing to do with you.”

  “We are hungry. We have no money. All we want to do is work.”

  “You are a terrorist, aren’t you, Faik?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Tell me about the Promised Day Brigade.”

  “I know nothing about them.”

  “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No,” he said, “I am not.”

  He took the photograph that was clipped on top of the list of prisoners and showed it to him.

  “That there is Mr Muqtada al-Sadr. We know he’s been behind the attacks on foreign companies. What I want from you is where you met him and where I can find him.”

  He paused.

  Faik said nothing.

  “Feel free to chip in.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “You do. I know you do. If you tell me where to find him, I’ll make sure you get a cell to yourself tonight. A shower and a hot meal, too. You just have to tell me where he is.”

  “I do not . . .”

  Duffy shook his head. “This is a real shame. I’ve been doing this awhile and it’s always better if everyone is on the level, cooperating with each other. I was hopeful you might want to get yourself out of this mess. I’m disappointed in you.” He straightened out the ski mask. “Alright. Have it your way. Next question: Why were you carrying an AK-47?”

  The boy looked up at him with stunned eyes. “I was not.”

  “That’s not what your file says. It says you were arrested with an AK and two full magazines.”

  “That is a lie. They are fabricating it.”

  “Do you want to think about my questions again? Tell me about the Promised Day Brigade. Tell me about al-Sadr.”

  “I know nothing about them, I swear it.”

  He sighed expressively. “Fine,” he said. “I tried my best. Have it your way.”

  He nodded at the two Iraqi policemen, and they quickly moved from the back of the room to where the boy was seated. The boy tried to stand, but they were at his side, each taking him by an elbow and a shoulder and pushing him back down onto the floor. Duffy took a towel from the floor and draped it over the boy’s face. He reached over to the tap on the wall, twisted it on, and took the hose just as the tepid, dirty water was starting to dribble out. He held the hose over Faik’s face and the towel quickly became heavy and sodden.

  “Muqtada al-Sadr is responsible for the attacks on foreign oil workers in Basra. You know where he is.”

  “I don’t!” the boy said, gasping for breath.

  He lowered the hose so that the water fell directly onto Faik’s nose and mouth. “Tell me where he is and this can all stop.”

  “I don’t know him!”

  “Why are you protecting him?”

  Faik tried to speak, but he could not.

  “Where can I find Muqtada al-Sadr, you piece of shit!”

  The boy coughed and spluttered again, and Duffy ripped away the sodden towel. Faik gasped for air.

  “Pick him up.”

  The policemen did as they were told.

  The boy’s face and hair were wet. He looked much younger than before.

  He coughed helplessly. His eyes shone with fear.

  Duffy gripped him by the chin and tilted his head up so that he was looking at him. “How old are you?” Duffy said. “Really?”

  “Nineteen,” he said quietly.

  “Nineteen. Sounds about right, Faik. I reckon that’s the first truthful thing you’ve said to me all day.” He let go of the boy’s chin, and his head slumped forward, resting against his chest. He turned to the policemen. “Take him back to his cell.”

  Duffy left the hut and stepped out into the baking heat outside. McNulty was still there. He was sitting on an upturned oil drum, watching the monitor as the policemen fixed cuffs around the boy’s wrists.

  “You been watching?”

  “Nothing better to do. What do you think?”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Duffy said. “He’s just a kid. What do you think?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Poor little bugger. He’s going to get thrown into a cell, and then God only knows what they’ll do to him.”

  “Not our problem,” McNulty said, standing up and sliding his Ray-Bans onto his weather-beaten face. “You want to get another beer?”

  Duffy had been doing this long enough to be able to compartmentalise his work. The interrogation was necessary, even if it hadn’t produced anything useful other than that the boy knew nothing. And now it was done.

  “Sure,” Duffy said. “Why not.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The airbus stopped in Doha to refuel before travelling on to Kuwait City.

  She spent her time reading the dossier on Mackenzie West that Michael Pope had provided. He fit the profile of the typical Manage Risk operative: he had been a Ranger with experience in Iraq during the occupation. His file showed that he had enjoyed an exemplary career and had been recruited by the company as soon as he demobilised. There had been work in Pakistan, Afghanistan and then Iraq. His annual fitness reports were near perfect.

  It appeared that he had enjoyed something of a Damascene conversion soon after his arrival in Basra, with his line managers reporting that his conscience was proving to be an impediment in the efficient fulfilment of his duties. They had insisted that he undergo a psychological evaluation, and the spooks at GCHQ had been able to hack into Manage Risk’s servers and download it. The report had suggested that an incident on the road out of Basra in which an insurgent’s IED had killed a colleague had provided the impetus for his change in outlook. What he had witnessed outside the gates of Energy City had been the final shove that he needed. Now, the report said, he was unstable and could not be trusted to toe the company line. He was, they said, a liability.

  They arrived in the evening, the dying sun casting its last rays across the expensive new airport. Beatrix had operated in the Middle East dozens of times before, but it was still a shock to the system to leave the climate-controlled interior of the Airbus for the heat outside. The air bridge was air-conditioned, too, but the evening’s heat bled through it and slapped against the disembarking passengers as
if it were a physical presence. Beatrix slugged back a mouthful of cold water from the bottle she had taken from the steward and walked purposefully to border control. Now that she was here, she wanted to get started. There was a lot that needed to be done.

  She flashed her diplomatic credentials and bypassed the sweaty line that had formed at the understaffed gate. The airport stretched away, gleaming steel and chrome and marble. She bought another bottle of water from a concession, swallowed another Zomorph and negotiated the slowly revolving doors into the baking warmth outside.

  She carried her bag to the taxi rank and slid into the nearest cab. It was blissfully cool inside.

  “Where to?”

  “The Intercontinental,” she said.

  Beatrix was waiting at the hotel bar as she had been instructed. It was a hot, stifling evening, and she had ordered a beer to try and combat it. The place was as weird as the rest of the crazy city: armed guards at the door and an atmosphere that was wound tight with apprehension. The other drinkers were going about their business with single-minded determination, as if they could find reassurance in the bottom of their glasses. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a sleeveless top that emphasised her lithe and muscular figure.

  A man had been drinking next to her for the last five minutes. He was alone and she had noticed him casting cautious looks in her direction. She had angled her shoulders away from him and was about to take an empty table when he cleared his throat awkwardly.