“This one’s name is Dabir,” the lieutenant said. “He says that all the men—the workers—are gone. His son was one of them. Big trucks from Baghdad came here three days ago and took them away. The wives, a few old men like him, the children; they were told more trucks would come for them, but none have. There’s no one here right now but the elderly, the women, and the children.” Dabir said something else, pointing at Michael. Bedeau grimaced and hesitated before translating. “He said that you and the other one are abominations in the face of Allah, that you must leave so the men can come back.”
“Well, that’s nice,” Michael said. “Rusty will be happy to hear that. Tell our friend Dabir that we don’t think the men will be coming back at all, that tomorrow or the next day more of our people will be coming to work here. Tell him that we’ll talk to Prince Siraj and try to make sure that the trucks show up to pick them up to take them to wherever their men went.”
As Michael spoke, he saw movement behind the old man; a boy, probably no more than ten or eleven. The child crept out to stand next to the old man, who put an arm protectively around him as he listened to Bedeau’s translation, scowling. The boy said something in response—again, Michael thought he heard the word “Djinn” in the torrent—and Bedeau’s face colored.
“This is Dabir’s grandson Raaqim. He’s . . . not exactly happy with the news,” Bedeau told Michael. “The rest, it’s not worth translating.”
“Yeah, I kinda gathered that.” Raaqim was staring at Michael, scowling like Dabir with his arms crossed defiantly in front of him. “Tell the old man we’re sorry, but that is the way of things. It is the will of the Caliph and Prince Siraj.”
Bedeau shrugged. He translated, and Dabir’s scowl deepened. With a middle hand, Michael dug in his pocket for the old coin Rusty had given him. He crouched down in front of Raaqim, the muzzle of his weapon pointed down at the sand, and held out the coin. “Here,” he said. “You can have this.”
The boy stared; the old man watched without saying anything. “Go on,” Michael said when the kid didn’t move or respond. “It’s yours.”
Raaqim unfolded his arms. He stared at Michael, his gaze roaming up and down his long, muscular body, staring at the several arms, at the snarl of tattoos decorating his skin, at the sextuplet of tympanic rings covering his chest and abdomen. His eyes widened. He looked at the coin.
With a violent lurch of his head, he spat in Michael’s face.
Michael recoiled, dropping the coin and standing abruptly. Raaqim flinched, stepping quickly backward; the old man snarled something in angry Arabic, his hands coming up as if to ward off a blow. The soldiers’ weapons snapped up, all of them.
“Stand down!” Michael shouted. He wiped the spittle from his face with an upper hand; he forced himself to smile. He spread all his hands wide. “Shit. Everyone take it easy . . . Lieutenant, tell the old man I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I’m sorry the men were made to leave and I hope they’re all together again soon, but we have the wellheads now and there are more people coming to take the oil. That’s the way things are. We need to check their houses for weapons, but once we’ve done that, we won’t trouble them again. We can give them food or water if they need it. There won’t be any trouble for them as long as they let us do our job.” He waited until Bedeau had finished translating, watching Dabir’s leathery face, watching the doorways and windows around them.
He’d dropped the coin when Raaqim spit at him. He could see it glinting on the sand. He shouldered his weapon with a flourish of many arms, and nodded in the direction of the houses. “Let’s get this done,” he said. “And be fucking careful.”
The connection over the satellites was static-ridden and erratic, and Michael had to strain to hear Kate’s voice. “Everything’s still going easy here,” she said. “Clockwork. Last place, there were villagers wandering around and scavenging stuff from the facility, but they scattered when we landed. We had some shouting and cursing, but no real resistance.” The line squealed; he could barely make out the last words.
“Yeah. Same here,” DB told her, half yelling into the cell phone. Across the lobby of the Administration Building that had become their base, Rusty glanced over at him. “No problems. Makes me happy; I wasn’t looking forward to another dustup with the Caliphate, especially not over oil.”
“What we’re doing is about people,” Kate said. “That’s what matters. Half the world is suffering because of the embargo. That’s the reason we’re here.” Then, a laugh that made him grin. “That sounded like John, didn’t it?”
“All you need is a scarab beetle in your forehead.”
There was silence, and he worried for a moment that she’d taken offense. “Sorry,” her faint voice responded at last. A squawk of static cut off most of what she said afterward. “. . . watch yourself, especially. And see you soon back home, okay?”
“Right,” he told her. “Soon.”
“How’s Curveball and the others?” Rusty asked.
“It’s good,” Michael told him. “Everything’s good.”
The rest of the day was uneventful. Michael and Rusty toured the wellheads that their team had secured; all seemed well. The evening subsided into semi-boring routine as the workers arrived from Baghdad Internationaclass="underline" derrick workers whose job it was to get the oil flowing again. The feeds they received from the news channels were full of praise for the work of the teams. Fortune sent word through Barbara that the aces would be brought out within the week—there was more need of the Committee elsewhere with this operation going so smoothly.
The next day, Michael and Rusty, along with two blue helmets—Lieutenant Bedeau and Marlon, another French soldier—decided to sweep through the refinery area to the south of the Administration Building, where crews were scheduled to begin work. Tomorrow, Michael and the others would be heading somewhere else, landing in some other desert wellhead.
They walked along a large open area set in the middle of the cluttered refinery: weapons shouldered, their Kevlar vests unbuttoned against the day’s broiling heat—Michael, against orders and his own nagging paranoia, was entirely bare-chested in the fierce sunlight. Marlon was snapping pictures with a digital camera; Bedeau was speaking into a satellite phone, reporting in to Colonel Saurrat’s adjunct. “The refinery looks to be operable,” Michael could hear Bedeau saying in French-accented English. “There’s no—”
The voice cut off with a grunt. Michael glanced back. Bedeau had dropped the phone and was clutching his stomach with both hands, a look of surprise and shock on his face as blood poured through his fingers and bloomed on his uniform shirt. A strangled, wet cry came from his open mouth as his knees gave way and he crumpled. At the same moment, there was a familiar, chilling metallic chatter: small-arms fire. Something pinged from Rusty’s body and whined away past Michael’s left ear, leaving behind a burning line from his ear to his forehead. He could feel blood sliding hot down his cheek.
“Shit! Take cover!” Michael screamed. A four-foot-tall set of thick pipe sections was stacked a dozen feet away. Michael took two running steps and flung himself behind them. Marlon was trying to get his FAMAS up when a round took him in the biceps and spun him around; he managed to crawl behind the pipes with Michael, puffs of sand kicking up around him from bullets.