‘Look, am I under arrest or what, because if not, Sir, I would like to get back to doing the job I’m here to do, Sir. I brought you the nuke, I’ve ID’d the executioner. I’ve brought you the results of my interrogation of Bashir as he was expiring. I got you a name!’
Andrews’ smile looked disarmingly real.
‘Good to see the fight hasn’t gone out of you, soldier,’ he said.
Cole was still waiting outside. He had a satphone to his ear, but Blackburn guessed he had been listening to every word.
‘How did it go?’
‘How do you think?’
Cole took a lungful of hot dusty air and blew it out through pursed lips.
‘I’ve been thinking.’
Great, thought Black: what now? In the last few days he had felt his respect for Cole, a soldier he had once deeply admired, crumble away.
‘I think we should press the reset button, huh?’
He ventured a smile. Cole didn’t do smiles, so this one looked as though he was at the dentist. He backed it up by gripping Black’s shoulder and following alongside as Blackburn walked back to his crew. After a few paces, Blackburn came to a halt. He looked around him at the buzz of the camp. One Osprey was preparing to land as another was taking off. Two AA guns were trained on the sky. Men, machines and weapons were moving in all directions: the US Marine Corps doing what it knew best. The Marine Corps that had been his guiding force all his life. He took a breath, straightened himself and gave his Lieutenant a brisk salute.
‘Whatever you say, Sir.’
What kind of an answer was that? he asked himself, as he walked on alone.
41
‘Weird shit, huh? As if we haven’t got enough on our minds, just fighting the freakin’ war.’
That was all Campo would say about it.
Black had tried to hang around outside the ‘interrogation tent’, as he now thought of it, to be there when Campo emerged. But Cole had called him to the briefing. As they crowded round the map table he caught sight of Campo arriving and moved over to his side. He looked shaken. His body language said Don’t talk to me.
‘Listen up, guys. Who likes to ski?’
Cole’s mood had changed, as if someone had given him a shot of something. In fact, he sounded completely different. Did he know something? Was it because of something Campo had told them? Blackburn told himself to calm down: all he’d had to do was tell the truth. But Andrews and Dershowitz had treated him as if he had something to hide. They’d made him feel like a criminal.
If Cole was expecting laughter he didn’t get it. But he carried on looking pleased with himself.
‘Thanks to our liberating the PLR’s nuclear device, intel have run a side-by-side comparison test with the signals it’s been giving off against a pair of pulses that have been picked up coming from here.’
He tapped a pencilled mark high on the southern face of the Alborz mountain range to the north of the city.
‘There’s nothing marked on our maps, but Bigbird is showing us this.’
He laid out a satellite shot of a large building surrounded by trees, tucked into a mountain slope.
‘Fuck’s that?’
Cole unrolled a copy of an old set of plans. It looked like a Swiss chalet, with overhanging gables and shutters on the windows. Quaint.
‘It looks like The Sound of Music,’ said Matkovic.
‘Yeah, the hills are alive — with somethin’!’
‘A loud tickin’!’
‘What we’re looking at here, gentlemen, is the favourite holiday home of the late Mohammad Rezâ Shâh Pahlavi, one time Shah of Iran. Since it was a gift from his admirers back home, some farsighted archivist in Langley had the presence of mind to file away a copy of the plans.’
Black’s attention was wandering. Another day, another crazy mission. He looked over at Campo, who didn’t look as if he was taking in a word of what Cole was saying either. What had they asked him in there? What had they said? Whatever it was it had spooked Campo, who briefly met his gaze — distant, wary. Holy fuck, Blackburn thought, is this me or them?
‘You got all that, Sergeant Black?’
His attention snapped back to the briefing.
‘Yessir.’
Cole looked at him for a beat.
‘Okay, gentlemen, get to it. Black, over here.’
Campo filed out with the rest of the platoon. Blackburn went over to Cole.
‘Want to know why I’m looking pleased? Because the Colonel’s looking pleased. He’s happy, I’m happy. He’s happy because the Pentagon’s happy that we found that nuke. We get the other two. .’
His arms went up as if to catch a giant volley ball.
‘So let’s draw a line under everything and go to work. Roger?’
Black looked at him. What kind of mind fuck was this? When shit happens you make me the scapegoat, and when I deliver, you bask in the glory.
He jogged up to Campo, who was sucking on a cigarette and talking to Montez and Matkovic. He stopped and looked uncomfortable.
‘Cole says we did good, finding the nuke: the Pentagon wants to make us all generals.’
Campo left it a second before he responded. ‘Cool.’
‘How was it with those two fuckbrains?’
Campo flicked his cigarette away.
‘I didn’t see the shot, okay? You were on the vehicle. You had your hand in the cab. I’m not lying to them.’
Black felt a sudden surge of rage. He grabbed Campo’s lapels.
‘Hey, I didn’t say shit about lying. You saw what you saw. Who said anything about lying?’
‘“Why does Blackburn want you to lie for him? Is it because of Harker?” That’s what they asked. What do I say to that?’
‘Whadya mean, what do you say? You say No! You say No! I did not ask you to lie! What the fuck’s wrong with you, man?!’
He was possessed by an overwhelming urge to hurt Campo, to smash him against the side of the building and go on smashing.
Montes separated them.
‘Guys, let’s be cool. We got work to do.’
He was frozen in position, as if still holding Campo’s lapels. Blackburn let his hands drop. Campo stepped back, looking at him as if he was crazy. Was this how it started? Losing it, for real? He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he felt so alone.
42
Alborz Mountains, North of Tehran
Dima drove, even though he was the one who had had the least sleep. In fact, no sleep. Zirak was beside him in the front, and Gregorin in the cargo space, ready to fire on anyone thinking of giving chase.
Amara wanted to sit in the front as befitted her status as sole female and owner of the car, but he had insisted she go in the back, in the middle between Vladimir and Kroll, two human shields to protect her. If she thought they were going to try anything, she was wrong: they were far more interested in her picnic bag.
‘Some for you, and some for you: don’t be greedy,’ she said, sharing out the cheese.
‘You’ve given him more,’ said Kroll.
‘That’s because he’s bigger than you. Now be a good boy and eat up.’
Vladimir chomped triumphantly.
‘I used to get this at home,’ muttered Kroll.
There was a raw beauty to the dawn. The dust curtain gave the sun’s rays on the mountains ahead an extra golden glow. At this time the road network would normally be choked with vehicles trying to beat Tehran’s legendary traffic jams. They said that it took so long to get to meetings, people did their business deals across the lanes. Today it was deserted, the usual clutter of cars and buses gone, leaving behind a sad and strange serenity. A German shepherd, its coat dusty, saw them coming and ran towards them, tail wagging, hoping. Vladimir gave Kroll a meaningful look.