The Wreckage: A Thriller (5 page)

BAGHDAD

The queue outside the Ministry of Finance stretches more than a hundred yards, snaking between concrete blast wals that are decorated with political posters and daubed with anti-American graffiti.

Checkpoints are always dangerous. Anyone can approach—beggars, vendors, teenagers sel ing soft drinks or newspapers; fuel sel ers carrying jerrycans and rubber hoses that are swung through the air making a whooshing sound. Any one of them could be carrying a grenade or wearing a suicide vest.

Luca produces his accreditation. The Iraqi soldier looks at both sides of the media pass, studying the English and Arabic versions. Then he consults a visitor’s book in the plasterboard kiosk.

“Your name is not on the list.”

“I made the appointment only an hour ago.”

The soldier taps the pass against his cheek and slowly circles the Skoda, as one of his col eagues checks the boot and passes a mirror beneath the chassis.

They are waved through. Jamal pul s up outside the Ministry. Engine running. Luca opens the door.

“Are you going to wait?”

Jamal taps the dashboard. “I have to get petrol. The queues are long today.”

“I’l give you money for black market fuel.”

“I should queue like everyone else.”

Luca smiles. “You’re the only person in Iraq who doesn’t buy on the black.”

Jamal looks a little sad. “It won’t always be this way.”

The two men slap their palms together and their shoulders touch.

“Give my love to Nadia and the boys.”

Luca jogs up the stairs, zipping up his jacket. There are more checkpoints inside, along with metal detectors and bag searches. He surrenders his pistol, which is placed in a strongbox, and asks for Judge Ahmed Kuther, the Commissioner of Public Integrity. The receptionist points to a row of a dozen plastic chairs, al of them taken.

Luca waits.

A cleaner is polishing the marble floor, running an ancient machine across the smooth slabs. Elsewhere workmen are peeling blast tape from the windows. Wishful thinking.

It has been more than a year since the Coalition Provisional Authority handed over control of Iraq to the Iraqis, but independence is stil mostly a state of mind. The parliamentary elections were five months ago but no single party emerged with a clear majority. The level of violence has increased since then as various groups have tried to influence the outcome or scupper the talks completely. Uncertainty is the only constant in Iraq apart from the petrol queues and power outages.

One of the security guards begins tel ing a joke. Luca has heard it before. A young boy runs to his mother, sobbing, because his father has touched a live wire and been electrocuted. Throwing up her hands, she says, “Al ah be praised—there is electricity!”

A convoy of four SUVs has pul ed up outside, doors opening in unison. Six men in black body armor emerge from the vehicles, setting up a perimeter guard. Two others jog quickly up the stairs and scan the foyer before giving the signal.

Four passengers climb from the SUVs and are ushered up the stairs. Heads down. Moving quickly. The guards are civilian contractors. The passengers are westerners, dressed casual y apart from the Kevlar vests.

One of them is a woman with a basebal cap pul ed low over her eyes. Pretty. Hair bunched up in a ponytail, poking through the back of the cap. Dressed in a loose white shirt and cargo pants, she’s wheeling a pul -along bag, looking like an off-duty airline hostess or a film star checking into the Betty Ford clinic.

Half the security team escorts her across the foyer, while the rest stay behind, making sure they’re not being fol owed. Luca recognizes one of them. Shaun Porter runs one of the smal er American security companies. Big and bulked up, he looks like a surfer with his sun-bleached hair and brightly colored Hawaiian shirt beneath a Kevlar vest, but he was born and raised in New Jersey.

Shaun slings his weapon over his shoulder and gives Luca a high-five.

“Yo, my man, my man! Long time no see. How’s it hanging?”

“I’m good. I’m good. How about you?”

“Same old shit—babysitting some IT geeks.”

“Americans?”

“UN auditors—they’re instal ing new software.”

Luca watches the woman enter the lift. She turns and peers between the shoulders of her bodyguards. Their eyes meet for a moment and she glances away, taking in everything.

Shaun punches his shoulder. “Hey! What you doing tonight? It’s my birthday. We’re having a few drinks at the al-Hamra. Come along.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“You were thirty-nine last year.”

“Fuck off!”

Shaun punches him harder. Luca tries not to grimace.

Most of the contractors are good old boys, former soldiers with shaved heads and softening bodies, who couldn’t cut it in civvies. They have nicknames like “Spider,” “Whopper” and

“Coyote.” Luca met Shaun when the latter was stil a Marine and came walking into the bar of the al-Hamra one night asking journalists if they had any books they wanted to exchange.

He and Shaun had been swapping novels ever since—mainly crime stories: McDermid, Connel y and James Lee Burke.

“You stil living outside the wire?”

“Yeah.”

“And you think
I’m
crazy!”

“Maybe just a little.”

Shaun scratches his unshaven chin. “I lost money on you.”

“How so?”

“Some of your col eagues in the pool ran a book on how long you’d survive outside the wire.”

“I heard about that.”

“Some guy had you down for six days. I gave you six weeks. Thought I was being generous.”

“Bummer.”

“You’re one lucky SOB.” Shaun looks at his wristwatch, which is big and silver with lots of buttons. “I got an airport run. Some new blood coming in.”

“Don’t let them shoot anyone on their first day.”

“I’l try not to.”

“How is the Irish route?”

“Safer than it used to be, but I miss the old days—we could fire first and ask questions later.”

Luca shakes his head and Shaun laughs. “Got a mate coming in. Dave Edgar. ‘Edge.’ You’l like him. Edge was Third Infantry Division Armour, first into Baghdad in ’03. Toppled Saddam al on his own.”

“And he wants to come back?”

Shaun rubs his thumb and forefinger together. “It’s al about the folding stuff.”

The SUVs are ready. He nods to his col eague.

“Come to my drinks. You can meet him.”

After Shaun has gone, Luca goes back to waiting. Iraqi bureaucrats operate on their own timetables and the idea of an independent media acting as a guardian of the public interest is a complete anathema to the culture.

Minutes pass slowly. Closing his eyes, his mind floods with images from the bank—the burnt corpses and empty vault; the manager’s body, a macabre Venus de Milo dipped in tar, locked in a silent scream.

He opens them again. A secretary is standing in front of him; her body garbed in black and her head covered in a white scarf. She does not make eye contact with him in the mirrored wal s of the lift or as she holds open the doors. Fal ing into step behind her, Luca is taken along wood-paneled corridors hung with tapestries.

Judge Ahmed Kuther isn’t alone. Five of his col eagues are leaning over his desk, looking at photographs.

“Come in, Luca, come in,” he says, waving him closer. “I’m just back from Moscow. I have pictures.”

Someone passes him a photograph. It shows Kuther in Red Square, grinning widely, with his arm around a blonde wearing a short skirt and a slash of red lipstick.

“She had a younger sister. Another blonde.”

“Double the fun,” says one of his friends.

“For double the price?” jokes another.

Luca puts the photograph on the desk. “It’s a nice souvenir. Not one for your wife to see.”

Everyone laughs, including the judge. Kuther is wearing a wel -cut suit and a blue tie rather than the traditional loose-fitting shirts and long cloaks. His only concession to his heritage is a kaffiyeh, a square scarf folded and placed over a white cap, which he wears on those rare occasions he risks appearing in public.

Twice tortured and imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, the judge is now tasked with the most dangerous job in Iraq. The Commission of Public Integrity is the country’s anti-corruption watchdog and has issued over a thousand arrest warrants against corrupt officials in the past four years. Seven members of his staff have been kil ed during the same period, which is why Kuther travels with up to thirty bodyguards.

Clapping his hands together, he sends people back to their desks. Then he slumps in a leather chair, spinning it back and forth from the window.

“How was Moscow?”

“It’s not Baghdad.”

“Successful trip?”

“How does one measure the success of such a trip? I addressed a legal conference, while the Minister asked for money, shook hands and smiled for photographs.” He circles his hand in the air. “But you didn’t come here to talk about Moscow.”

“There was another robbery.”

“I heard.”

“How much money was taken?”

“Even if I knew the exact amount, I could not comment.”

“It was US dol ars.”

“Are you tel ing me or asking me?”

“It could have been an inside job. Four security guards are missing.”

Kuther raises his shoulders an inch. Drops them. A cigarette appears in his hand, then between his lips. He lights it with a counterfeit Dunhil lighter.

“I cannot become too fixated on money, Luca. Do you know how many people die in this city every day?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t see al of them. You hear about the bombings, the big events that provide footage for your news bul etins.” The judge points to a report on his desk. “This is from last night: seven bodies were found in Amil, three bodies in Doura, two bodies in Ghasaliyah, one body in Khadhraa, one body in Amiriyah and one in Mahmoudiyah. There were eight more bodies in Rusafa. None have been identified.”

Luca looks at the file. “Why are they sending this to you?”

“Because the Interior Ministry cannot handle so many.”

“You’re supposed to be investigating corruption.”

“I do what is necessary.”

Kuther draws on his cigarette and exhales a stream of smoke that looks like his very spirit escaping from his chest.

“We are tearing ourselves apart, Luca: kidnappings, executions, house by house, family by family. The same people who celebrated the toppling of Saddam would today go down on their knees and kiss his feet if they could bring him back.”

“You’re losing hope?”

“I’m running out of time.”

The judge crushes the cigarette. He’s a busy man.

“Tel me exactly what you want, Luca.”

“I want to know who’s robbing these banks. These are US dol ar robberies. Reconstruction funds.”

“Money is money,” says Kuther. “Green, brown, blue… any color.”

“A platoon of US Marines captured an insurgent two months ago with a wad of hundred-dol ar bil s that had sequential serial numbers. The bil s were part of a shipment from the US

Federal Reserve in 2006. They were stolen from a bank in Fal ujah four months ago.”

Kuther bows his head and places his hands together as though praying.

“There is a war on, Luca. Perhaps you should ask the Americans where their money is going.”

5

LONDON

The pawnshop is on Whitechapel High Street, squeezed between a Burger King and a clothing emporium that has “ladies, gents & children’s fashion wear” spiling from bins and racks.

Bernie Levinson’s office is on the first floor, accessible via a rickety set of metal stairs at the rear of the building that are held in place by a handful of rusting bolts.

In the basement there is a clothing factory where thirty-five workers, most of them il egal, sit crouched over sewing machines that operate day and night. Two shifts of twelve hours, Bangladeshi and Indian women earning three quid an hour. It’s another of Bernie’s business ventures.

A dozen people are waiting on the stairs to see Bernie, mostly junkies and crackheads. They’re carrying a selection of car stereos, DVD players, laptops and GPS navigators—

none of them in boxes or with instruction manuals. Hol y Knight waits her turn, clutching her shoulder bag on her lap.

Bernie sits behind a big desk next to an air-conditioning unit that takes up most of the window. A goldfish bowl rests on the corner of his desk, magnifying a lone fish that barely seems to move. Bernie is a short man with a doughy body, who favors baggy trousers and candy-colored shirts.

“Do a twirl,” he tel s Hol y. “Show me what you’re wearing, such a pretty bint. My daughter is the size of a cow. Takes after her mother. Bovine family. Built to pul ploughs.” Hol y ignores him and opens her shoulder bag, placing the contents on his desk. She has a passport, three credit cards, a mobile phone, a digital camera, four col ector’s edition gold coins and some sort of medal in a case.

“What’s this?” asks Bernie, flipping open the box.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s only a police fucking bravery medal!”

“So?”

“You turned over a copper, you daft cow.”

“He said he was retired.”

“Yeah, but he’s going to have friends, isn’t he? Col eagues. Old Bil .” Bernie is waving his hands at her. Wobbling his chins. “I don’t want any of this stuff. Get it out of here.” Resting her hip on the desk, Hol y leans closer, letting the front of her blouse casual y gape open.

“Come on, Bernie, we look after each other. What about that gear I brought you the other day?” She points to a dark leather briefcase sitting on top of his filing cabinet. “That’s top quality.”

She and Zac had turned over a suit in Barnes and scored the briefcase, a laptop, two mobiles, passports and jewelry.

Bernie grunts dismissively. “You’re getting sloppy. Taking too many risks.”

“It won’t happen again… I promise, but I’m real y short this week. My landlord is going to give me grief.” Bernie hesitates. Contemplates. The pawnbroker is not a soft touch. He thinks the only true sin is to surrender. He lost most of his family in the ghettos of Warsaw and at Treblinka.