The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (15 page)

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a suspicious character. A gun too, I imagine?’

‘Yes; a gun, a knife, a handbag and an attitude problem; armed to the fucking teeth I am.’

He looked down and saw that she had one hand inside the bag now slung over her shoulder.

‘Ok, I’ll come quietly.’ He sat himself in the front passenger seat and watched her walk round the other side. Instead of getting into the driver’s seat she opened the rear door and climbed in behind him. She thought he looked slightly nervous in the rear view mirror.

‘So explain why you stopped me then, Jasper White,’ Gerry demanded. She had rather assumed that White was an alias when Rashid named him because it seemed such a commonplace surname.

‘My company was rather disappointed at the disappearance of Rashid Hamsin from this country. We feel that he must have had some assistance.’

‘How do you know he’s not in this country still?’

‘Because he transited through the airport in Amman, Jordan.’

‘Well if you managed to find him, why don’t you ask him?’

‘We didn’t get hold of him at the time and he’s slipped out of sight.’

Gerry had not known for certain that Rashid had successfully eluded his pursuers, but she frowned to avoid a delighted grin. ‘Actually I don’t give a shit about the whereabouts of Rashid Hamsin. I’m on maternity leave. Ask your own people: they staked out his place.’

‘We’ve seen the reports and we’re not convinced that someone didn’t tip him off.’

‘So you followed me up here to tell me that. Your people send a surveillance team because you have some suspicions?’ She stared at him in the rear view mirror. ‘If that was the case I’d be having further interviews back in the office, not be put on immediate maternity leave and allowed to travel at will.’

‘There’s no surveillance team; just me.’

‘So you’ve been watching me. What did you learn?’

‘I know that you are expecting a girl, unless those pink baby clothes you were looking at were for someone else.’

She stared at him angrily in the rear view mirror. This bastard had been watching her for the last few days, and what made her even more irritated was that she had not picked up on it. ‘You’re a nasty toad, White,’ she eventually replied.

‘I’m just doing my job. C’mon! You’ve done surveillance, so it’s unreasonable to become all high-minded when it happens to you!’

‘So are you going to file a report describing my weekend away? You still haven’t said why you stopped me out here.’

‘Have you been in contact with Dean Furness?’

She frowned. Dean Furness was that guy who she had met on that freezing January night in Frankfurt, when she had brought Hakim Mansour and Ali Hamsin to meet with Hugh Fielding and General Brooking or someone. Not Brooking…Bruckner. ‘Dean Furness? Who’s he?’ she asked.

‘Give me a break. Have you heard from him recently?’

‘No I haven’t heard from any Dean Furness. Why are you asking?’

‘I want to know what happened to Rashid Hamsin, and also to Dean Furness…he’s a good friend.’ He placed a card on the dashboard above the vents. ‘I’ll get out now if that’s ok. You can look me up on the computer, but if you want to get in touch I’ll leave my phone number here.’

Gerry nodded and watched him walk back to his silver Ford Mondeo. He turned round to gaze at her for a moment and called out ‘I’ll be seeing you, Gerry,’ before climbing into his car.

As she drove home Gerry wondered what to make of the fact that Jasper White, a CIA agent had evidently been watching her every move during the last few days, but then had candidly admitted to her that he had done so. If she was under some unknown American suspicion then why had he waylaid her on a quiet country road and introduced himself. There was evidently a connection between herself, Dean Furness, Jasper White, Ali Hamsin the translator and his son Rashid Hamsin, but what did it amount to?

CHAPTER TEN

Reaching her Richmond apartment, Gerry opened her front door, put down her overnight case and picked up her mail. She found a letter from a solicitor that confirmed that she was sole beneficiary to the will of the late Mr Philip Barrett, and could she attend his office at a mutually convenient time? She guessed that she would be given title to his house in Twickenham, but she wondered what else the terms of his will would reveal. Perhaps, she thought with some anticipation, there would be something that would shed light on his death and the e-mail that he had sent, but then she knew that was ridiculous. Secrets would not be left around for his lawyer to see. Nevertheless she decided to drive over to his place immediately on the off chance that there was some letter for her.

She had not been to Philip’s home since she had checked up on it two weeks ago as the rooms held to many memories for her. She had spent some time looking at his clothes and books and personal effects, trying to come to terms with the fact that he would never return to wear them or read them or use them again.

As soon as she opened the door she realised that since her previous visit Philip’s house had been searched thoroughly. It had not been ransacked and there was no sign that anything had been stolen, but her inspection revealed that every drawer had been opened, the contents removed and put back in a slightly different way that was immediately apparent to someone who had spent so much time there. The pictures on the walls were no longer  hanging quite straight while the toiletry items in the bathroom, some hers, some his, were arranged in neat groups on the shelves and on the corner of the bath. 

She wondered if her own organisation had carried out the search or if it had been the work of the Americans. She wondered what they were looking for, and indeed if they had found it. Then she noticed that the tower case of his computer had been taken away.

Gerry returned to her own flat in a state of some anxiety. She and Philip had been too security conscious to leave much of their personal lives on a home computer and certainly nothing of their professional lives was stored there, but she nevertheless worried about what the thief might discover besides some slightly embarrassing photographs.

It wasn’t until she opened her wardrobe doors ready to unpack her bags that she became more suspicious. When she had clumsily pulled some clothes out to pack them, she remembered cursing as her blue silk evening dress had rustled off its hanger onto the bottom of the wardrobe. Now it was hanging back up. Also the hangers were in a fairly orderly row rather than pushed to one side. She looked around and realised some other items were not quite in their familiar places

Her own flat had been rummaged by someone who had clearly not been bothered about revealing the search. She shivered and sat down on the bed. Her landline telephone rang. ‘Hello.’

‘My name’s Dean Furness,’ an American voice told her.

‘Who are you and how did you get my number?’ Gerry said deciding to play ignorant in case her line was bugged.

‘Do you know the Hollytree café, Richmond? It’s in the Terrace Gardens on the river side.’

‘Yes. Yes I do. It’s about fifteen minutes’ walk from here.’

‘Ok, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

Gerry locked up her front door and walked to the cafe. She ordered a latte, sat down outside and gazed out over the river watching some rowers sculling back towards the local club. Philip had been a member there; she wondered if Furness knew that. Gerry shivered and folded her arms. Then she checked the time. He was late. ‘Look Furness, I don’t really know who you are or why you’ve asked me to meet you, but I’m here,’ she said to herself. ‘What is it you want?’

As if on cue she saw a man aged about forty, deeply tanned with a wary expression on his face walking towards her. He looked all around before sitting down next to her.

‘Hello again Gerry, or should I still call you Emily?’

‘You’ve shaved off your beard and had a decent haircut, but I recognise you. Should I still call you Dean?’

‘Dean’s my real name,’ he answered. He gazed at her while reaching for a packet of cigarettes from his shirt front pocket.

‘Sorry this place is no smoking.’

‘Not out front here it isn’t,’ he countered. Gerry reached across and deftly removed the cigarette from his mouth before he could bring his lighter up to it. ‘I’m a no smoking area, then. Why did you call me?’ 

‘I worked with Philip Barrett in Abuja.’

‘Oh yes?’ Gerry picked up her coffee and took a drink. The saucer rattled when she replaced the cup. ‘Go on.’

‘Yeah, we got on pretty good, I don’t know if he ever mentioned me. Did Philip tell you what we’d been working on? Send you any messages about our stuff out there?’

She stared at him for a few seconds. ‘No, his work was classified. Although we’re partners…we were partners, he wouldn’t send me official material. So what were you doing out there?’

‘We were interrogating people brought out from Iraq. Well I was interrogating; Phil was mostly doing Arabic translation for us and drinking a little too much. Anyway we were ordered to fly back to London together. That’s the day he was killed. I was due to travel with him to the airport in the same car, but I had a motor bike to deliver.’ He looked all around, and then reached for a cigarette again. This time Gerry just watched him light up and inhale deeply.

‘I was interrogating this guy Kamal Ahwadi. I don’t know if you’ve done any waterboarding. Rumsfeld and Cheney might think harsh interrogation is ok, but they haven’t done it. The guy thrashes around and he starts bleeding from the places where he’s held. You can see the cloth over his face puffing in and out, in and out as he tries to breath. It might not be torture in the sense of inflicting physical pain, but it’s everything else.

‘Anyway this guy Ahwadi had readily told us that he was working on Qusay Hussein’s staff and then he admits that he was his personal bodyguard and hatchet man. He’s given us the names of the people who worked in his office, but I was convinced he was keeping something back. What we wanted to know was where his boss is hiding, possibly Saddam as well. He tells us he has no idea but when I give Sergeant Myers the order to pour water over him he hollers out ‘No wait, wait I tell you, I’ll tell you about Gilgamesh!’

‘Gilgamesh? What the hell are you talking about?’ I ask him. Anyway the guy begins to talk in Arabic about this document that was carried across the border from Saudi Arabia in the middle of February. I was involved in that project, and so were you in a small way, because it all came out of that meeting we were both at in Frankfurt. You remember?’

‘Yes of course I remember it,’ said Gerry. ‘Go on.’

‘Well I’d recorded what Ahwadi had said in Arabic, but I hadn’t followed it all ‘cause my Arabic’s not that good, so of course I call up Phil who knows the language from all sides around.’ He paused and lit another cigarette while Gerry watched him intently.

‘I’m sorry to say that he was overdoing the boozing. I nearly said something - we were pretty good buddies by then - but our time out there was nearly up and I figured that when he got home he’d sober up ok again. You know Phil hated his assignment out there and wished he’d not let himself in for it, but I’m afraid you’re a little to blame.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ she demanded.

‘He told me he had this girlfriend who worked in the field, and although she had never suggested for one moment that he should get himself involved, he always felt guilty that she was out there doing the dangerous stuff while he was in London. He felt that his assignment in Abuja made up for it a bit. At that time I had no idea that it was you he was talking about.

‘Anyway we met up at this restaurant we liked to go to. I remember there was a TV in the bar. It was showing CNN and they showed that newsreel of when President Bush arrives on board the aircraft carrier
USS Abraham Lincoln. 
Bloody idiot, grandstanding like that! Anyone would think he’d just flown some combat mission out in Iraq, not sat in the back seat as someone flew him out to a ship thirty miles off the US coast. And then he makes his speech with that banner above him.  Mission Accomplished! Actually it was just the ship’s banner to mark the end of a long commission, but that’s not what it looked like to everyone else, and as sure as hell it sounded like he was making a victory speech. I tell you Gerry we’re not gonna be out of that country for years! It’s a helluva fine mess.’

‘Of course you’re right Dean,’ Gerry agreed, ‘but stick to your story.’

‘Yeah ok, sorry…anyway I say to Phil that we should talk to Ali Hamsin…’

‘Ali Hamsin the translator?’ Gerry broke in.

‘Yuh, didn’t I say? We’d brought him out of Baghdad on the same flight as Ahwadi and we were holding him there as well, and Ahwadi mentioned him as knowing all about it too, the Gilgamesh thing. Anyway Phil is on my case because Hamsin had always co-operated with us and Phil didn’t want me giving him any of the rough treatment, which I have to say I found a bit rich because your people in London might not have been doing the asking, but they were sure involved in setting some of the questions.’

He frowned, took a drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out.

‘Sorry I’m digressing again. Anyway we’re keeping him and the other prisoners in the barrack block room in this dilapidated old military camp. As I said he’d co-operated fully and so he’d been given good treatment and reasonable food too. However he’s got no idea where his family are and although Phil had tried to find out for him, he was in a bad way with worry and all. He admits to knowing Kamal Ahwadi and listens to the tape and when he hears it he agrees to tell us what he knows.

‘Having got Hamsin’s story down on tape, I get in touch with Jasper White as he’s the senior man I most trust. I hoped he would come out, but instead it’s Bruckner himself who turns up, along with two bag carriers, one of our guys I don’t recognise and some English guy from your lot. Bruckner tells me and Phil that we’ve done really well but he warns us not to talk about it to anyone at all, this Gilgamesh business. Then he tells us he’s arranged that we take Hamsin and Ahwadi to Guantanamo for further debriefing and that we’ll drop Phil off in London on the way back.

‘Now I’d  promised this local contact guy called Achebela who does security at the airport that I would give him my motorbike when I ship out, a sort of reward for services rendered, so next morning I give Sergeant Myers my bags to take in the car and I arrange to meet him and Phil at the airport terminal. I ride off there and wait for them but they don’t show. Then I notice that the engine covers are still on the airplane and those red streamers that show that the landing gear pins and stuff are in place. Time’s going by and there’s no sign of Bruckner or Hamsin or the pilots and Phil’s not shown up still. I go back to my friend Sam Achebela, the guy who’s going to have my BMW, and get him to call the control tower. He tells me there’s no flight plan filed for the Gulfstream. So I’m really getting jumpy. I get back on my bike and head off back towards the city.’

He pulled out another cigarette. ‘Sorry, did you want one?’ She slowly shook her head and watched him light up. Then he looked at her. ‘Are you ready for this?’

‘Yes. I don’t know how or why, but I know he’s dead. Go on.’

‘About five miles down the road I stop. Across the other side of the freeway I see the blue Toyota Camry lying on its side in the ditch at edge of the road with its roof blown off and all the windows shattered. It’s surrounded by police cars and an ambulance and a tow truck. The police were busy all around it keeping away the onlookers. I was just waiting for a gap in the traffic to drive across when I see this other car pull up. This western guy gets out along with a senior local policeman, more medal ribbons on his chest than a Russian general. These two go and take a good look inside the car. Now I run across the road still wearing my crash helmet. You can’t hear too well wearing one of them but I heard the western guy making some comment about there only being two people in the car. Then I realise that he’s the English type who was with Bruckner.

‘Now of course I know I’m the missing third man who should be in that car and I’m frankly scared that my own people have issued a kill notice on me and Phil. Then I’m wondering if Ali Hamsin’s ok so I make a phone call to Sergeant Simski at the guard house telling him I’m coming over and ride back to the prison.

‘Simski greets me as his old buddy just the same as usual so I decide it’s safe to walk in there and tell him I need to see Hamsin. Simski tells me that some guy turned up with orders from General Bruckner and marched Hamsin clear out of there.

‘Oh ok, I say, I’ll go and have a word with Kamal Ahwadi instead,’ said Dean Furness. ‘So I go to his cell and I find that Ahwadi’s lying on his bed. He looks to be asleep, but I can’t wake him. No pulse and his pupils fixed and dilated.  I go back to the guard house and find Simski talking on the phone. Well to cut it down a little, Simski has orders to arrest me. By now as you can imagine I was ready for something like that and I jump Simski just as he’s trying to pull a gun on me.

‘He tells me that there’s a detail on its way to arrest me and I tell him that I’m gonna drive down to Lagos, get down to the docks and find a boat to take me down to South Africa, as I’ve got friends down there. Instead I ride the bike to one of the northerly border roads crossing into Niger, work my way east using the desert tracks and then approach Ndjamena in Chad from the north avoiding the busy road from Nigeria through Cameroon. Then I get on a cargo flight up to Algiers, cross the Mediterranean by sea and then I get to England. Then I come to see you.’ He fell silent and took another look around.