The Wreckage: A Thriller (7 page)

Shaun pul s a beer from a bucket of ice and flips it open with the edge of a cigarette lighter. He hands it to Luca, who wishes him a happy birthday.

“You know most of the guys.”

“I’ve seen them around.”

Beer bottles are raised in welcome. A redneck from Texas is wearing a T-shirt that says, “Who’s your Baghdaddy?” He starts tel ing a joke about why Iraqis have only two pal bearers at their funerals.

“Because garbage cans only come with two handles.”

The men laugh and Luca wishes he were somewhere else. A big guy in a cut-off sweatshirt joins them. He has blue flames tattooed on his forearms.

“This is the mate I was tel ing you about,” says Shaun. “Meet Edge.”

Edge’s grey eyes flick over Luca as though sizing up his fighting weight. Slightly older than the others, he has deep wrinkles around his eyes and a crushing handshake.

“You’re that journalist living outside the wire.”

“That’s right.”

“Does that make you crazy or fucked up?”

“Deluded, maybe.”

Edge raises his margarita and sucks salt crystals from around the rim. Behind him, the pool lights glow an alien green beneath the water.

Two Filipino women shriek with laughter. They’re wearing short denim skirts and skimpy tops, flashing midriffs and muffin tops to the group of contractors who keep plying them with drinks.

Edge is watching, amused. Sexual conquest is a local sport among the contractors.

“You were here in ’03,” says Luca.

“Saw the whole clusterfuck.”

“So what made you come back?”

“I missed the place.”

Edge drains his margarita and licks his lips.

“I got bored working for my father-in-law. America’s fucked, man—people losing their houses, their jobs, factories going offshore—the bankers and politicians screwed everyone over.”

“You think this place is any better?”

“Here you can shoot the bad guys.” He grins. “In America we give them corporate bonuses and promote them to Treasury Secretary.” He holds his glass aloft, signaling to the barman for another. “You know the moment I knew I was coming back to Baghdad?”

“No.”

“Happened before I even left. I had to pick up a package from the Military Postal Service—it was a birthday present from my folks. This fat chick was sitting behind the counter painting her nails. She said it was her coffee break and she made me wait fifteen minutes while I watched her stuff her face with Twinkies. I was getting blown up and shot at for twenty-five grand a year while that fat chick, sitting on her fat ass, lifting nothing heavier than a pencil was making four times what I did. Tel me if that seems fair?”

“I’m not a great judge of fairness.”

“Yeah, wel , nobody twisted my arm to come here the first time, but now I’m gonna fil my boots.”

Luca glances past Edge to a table on the patio. A woman is sitting with two men. Luca recognizes her from the Finance Ministry. She was part of the UN Audit team. Dressed in grey flannels and low-heeled shoes, she’s wearing her hair down and nursing a glass of wine. Her high cheekbones look almost carved and her eyes are shining in the reflection from the pool. She doesn’t seem to be listening to the conversation at her table.

“I wouldn’t waste my breath,” says Edge, fol owing his gaze.

“Why’s that?”

“I offered to buy her a drink and she treated me like I was contagious.”

“Maybe she’s sick of being hassled.”

“Or she could be an uppity, better-than-everyone, super bitch.”

Edge has the barman’s attention. Luca slips away and stands beneath a palm tree, checking the messages on his phone. The woman is no longer at the table. She’s standing by the pool, talking on her mobile, arguing with someone.

“It’s only for two more weeks… I know… but you can wait that long. No, I’m not at a party. It’s the hotel.” She makes eye contact with Luca. Looks away. “I think you’re being total y unreasonable… I can’t talk to you when you get like this… I’m going to hang up…”

She snaps the phone closed and purses her lips.

“Problems at home?” asks Luca.

“That’s not real y any of your business.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

She has an American accent and large eyes with eyelids that pause at half-mast like a face from a da Vinci painting.

“I shouldn’t have been listening. I’l leave you alone.”

Luca walks away. She doesn’t stop him. He goes to the bar and has a drink with a German journalist and his French col eague, who are both pul ing out when the last of the American combat troops leave at the end of the month.

At nine o’clock Luca cal s it a night. As he crosses the hotel lobby, he notices the woman again—this time she’s arguing with the hotel receptionist. There is a problem with the room.

The power points don’t work. She can’t recharge her laptop.

Luca is going to walk right by but stops and addresses the receptionist in Arabic—sorting out the problem.

“They’re moving you to another room,” he says. “It wil take fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you,” she says, hesitantly, her mouth fractional y too big for her face. Luca nods and turns to leave.

“Where did you learn to speak Arabic?”

“My mother is Iraqi.”

“And you’re American?”

“I was born in Chicago.”

She glances at her feet. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Why?”

The question flummoxes her.

“Do I have to explain?”

“You could say loneliness, or guilt, or perversity…”

“I’m sorry for being so rude to you.”

“In that case I’l have a whisky.”

Rather than go back into the bar, they go into the restaurant. She’s a foot shorter than he is, but carries herself very straight, her footsteps almost floating across the tiles.

“I’m Daniela Garner.”

“Luca Terracini.”

“That’s an Italian name.”

“My grandfather came from Naples.”

“It’s impressive to meet a journalist who speaks Arabic.”

“I’m glad you’re impressed. How do you know I’m a journalist?”

“Most of the people here are journalists or private contractors. You don’t look like a mercenary.”

“I saw you today. You were at the Ministry.”

She shrugs. A waiter takes their orders. She’s drinking white wine. Luca tries again.

“You’re working for the UN?”

“Who told you that?”

“Shaun is a mate of mine. He cal ed you an IT geek.”

“I’m an accountant.”

She shifts in her chair, recrossing her legs. Everything about her is dainty and refined, yet strong. The restaurant is dark apart from the table lamps.

“We’re instal ing new software to audit government accounts and keep track of reconstruction spending.”

“Sounds dry.”

“Bone.”

“How long wil the job take?”

“They told us two weeks, but from what I saw today, it’s going to be longer. I don’t think anyone in Iraq understands bookkeeping.”

“Good luck with that.”

He drinks half his whisky but can’t real y taste it. Downs the rest. Orders another.

“How long have you been here?” she asks.

“Six years.”

“Do you mind if I ask why? I mean, who would stay here… if they had a choice?”

“Most Iraqis don’t have a choice.”

“Yes, but you have an American passport. Do you have any family here?”

“No.”

She motions over her shoulder towards the bar. “I mean, those guys out there—the mercenaries—they’re here for the money or to play at being soldiers or because of their homoerotic fantasies; and most of the journalists are here because they have this romantic ideal of being war correspondents in flak jackets, appearing on the evening news. You don’t strike me as being like the rest of them.”

“Maybe I’m deranged.”

“No.”

“Or pumped ful of drugs.”

“It’s something else.”

Luca can feel a dangerous light-headedness coming over him, a trembling inside. He knows he should end the encounter. Draining his glass, he gets up from the table.

“Thank you for the drink.” He gives her a tight smile.

Daniela looks disappointed. “Have I offended you?”

“No.”

“I think I have. I’m sorry. Your friend in there—the one with the tattoos on his forearms…”

“He’s not my friend.”

“His first words to me were that we might get blown up tomorrow and did I fancy a fuck? I’m not interested in your life history, Luca. I was just making conversation because you were nice to me.”

Silence.

Luca takes a deep breath. Relaxes. Manages a proper smile. “There are things you do to get by in a place like this. Masks you have to wear.” The way she looks at him, her silence, her detachment, it reminds him of a shrink he went to see after Nicola’s funeral.

The hotel receptionist has crossed the restaurant. Daniela’s room is ready.

She looks down at his hands and then up into his face. Her tongue touches her lower lip.

“Do you want to help me move my luggage?”

“They can send someone up.”

She doesn’t reply and turns away, leaving the restaurant. Luca walks outside, beyond midnight, making his way home to an unmade bed and sweat-stained sheets. He doesn’t contemplate what it would have been like to sleep with Daniela Garner. He doesn’t fuck any more. He’s not a performer.

8

LONDON

Trafalgar Studios has crimson carpets, dusty chandeliers and an ageing splendor. Dozens of wannabes are miling in the foyer, pretending to ignore each other. Some are rehearsing soliloquies or listening to iPods or chewing gum. Multi-tasking in the modern age.

Hol y Knight gives her name to a brisk young assistant wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard. She’s handed a scene to read—a two-page dialogue between “Jenny” and

“Alasdair,” a young couple meeting for the first time.

“You’l be assigned a partner,” says the assistant.

“But I’ve prepared my own material,” says Hol y.

“I’m sure your mother loves it.”

The assistant is already taking another name.

Hol y has to climb the stairs to find a square of carpet, beneath a window. She reads each line of her dialogue and closes her eyes, trying to memorize them.

After waiting an hour she gets bored. Pushing open a polished wooden door, she finds herself in a smal theater with a bril iantly lit stage. Tiered seats rise into the darkness on three sides.

The director, dressed in a Che Guevara beret and fatigues, barely seems to pay attention as names are cal ed and a new pair of actors arrives on stage. Candidates are whittled down. Hol y watches them, some trying too hard, others battling nerves. Periodical y, the director whispers something to his personal assistant, an unnatural y tal , thin girl with large eyes and a swan neck—a model with dreams of becoming an actress; not beautiful, just different.

It’s almost five o’clock before Hol y’s name is cal ed. Her assigned partner is an inch shorter than she is and seems to be channeling Hugh Grant with his flop of hair and nervous mumbling. Hol y ignores his affectations and tries to relax, finding places in the dialogue to move and look away and back to her partner.

When she finishes, she waits. The director confers with his assistant. Then he tel s Hol y to leave her number. It’s not a cal back and it’s not a rejection. She almost skips off stage.

Outside she runs along the street and descends the steps into Charing Cross Station. She needs to get to Hatton Garden before the jewelry shops close. Walking down the escalator, she fol ows the subterranean maze of passages until she reaches the Northern Line and takes a tube to Tottenham Court Road, before changing to the Central Line and surfacing again at Chancery Lane.

Stepping into a doorway on Holborn Road, she takes off her coat and pul s on a cashmere cardigan before brushing her hair. Using a smal compact, she paints her lips and checks her make-up, pouting at her reflection. Final y she unwraps the delicate hair-comb from tissue paper, sliding it into her hair and looking at the result in a shop window. Satisfied, she turns into Hatton Garden and chooses a jewelry shop that is clear of customers.

An assistant is returning a tray of engagement rings to a display case.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t done this sort of thing before,” says Hol y, putting on a perfect Sloane Square accent. “My mother wanted a few pieces of jewelry valued. She’s looking to sel them. They were gifts from Daddy, who isn’t her favorite person.”

Hol y takes out a smal velvet box and places it on the glass counter-top. The assistant fetches the owner, who emerges from the back room as though he’s been interned there since the war. Blinking at her shyly, the old jeweler examines each stone and setting with an eyeglass.

Hol y leans closer. She’s wearing an expensive watch on her wrist. She wants the jeweler to notice.

“There’s nothing here of particular value,” he says. “Apart from the sentimental sort,” he adds.

“Oh, Mummy wil be disappointed. I think she was hoping… wel , it doesn’t matter. Thank you anyway.”

As she’s talking, Hol y takes out the hair-comb and tosses her hair back before reinserting it again.

“That’s a very interesting piece,” says the jeweler. “May I see it?”

“What? This old thing.”

Even before she places the hair-comb in the old jeweler’s hands, she can see the hunger in his eyes. Desire is something Hol y understands, particularly in men.

“It belonged to my grandmother.”

“And perhaps to her grandmother,” he says.

“Is it that old?”

“Indeed it is.”

The jeweler motions to his assistant, who unfurls a dark velvet cloth. The hair-comb is placed careful y at the center of the fabric.

“Would you consider sel ing it?”

“But it’s an heirloom.”

“A shame.” His fingers tap thoughtful y on the counter. “I could give you seven hundred pounds.”

Hol y has to stop herself from looking surprised. “Real y? I didn’t think…”

Opening the cash register, the jeweler begins counting out notes in front of her. “Perhaps I could go as high as a thousand.”