The blond one stood up. 'Next door.' He picked up his armour and helmet. 'Where's yours?'
'Don't know, mate.'
I followed him out into the blinding sunshine. I almost had to close my eyes. We turned right in the sand and headed for a concrete-block building. The guy turned back to me as we walked. 'You ever seen a dead body before, mate?'
I nodded.
Entering the building was like stepping into a fridge. This was where all the air-conditioning lived. Beyond sheets of thick plastic hanging from the ceiling lay five stone slabs like kitchen worktops.
A body lay on one, covered with a sheet. Two clear evidence bags lay on the floor next to him. One was smeared on the inside with wet blood that must have rubbed off his clothes. The other, much smaller, contained his personal effects. His wallet, his watch, his wedding ring. And his precious memory stick.
The guy went over and pulled the sheet back, then stood aside and leant against the next slab along.
Pete's couple of days' stubble would keep growing for a bit longer, but he'd been cleaned up pretty well. I realized this was the first time I'd seen him without a smile on his face.
He had two strike marks in his chest. They'd dried up and looked like big scabs. The rest of his skin was pale.
'What's going to happen now? How's he going to get home?'
'I guess we'll fly him back to Brize. That's what normally happens.'
I looked at Pete again. Something about those strike marks wasn't right.
I walked all the way round him, looking for more strikes, more marks. 'Why wasn't he wearing armour?'
The guy was getting bored now. He'd done his bit. Beyoncé beckoned. 'Don't know, mate. He just got shot and brought here. That's it.'
I lifted Pete's right arm, then pulled it up a bit more until his shoulder lifted and I could see the exit wounds in his back. They were large, as they always are when the rounds are allowed to exit the body. I put his arm down where it belonged.
'I'm going to see you all right, mate…' I said quietly.
The medic came towards me with the sheet. 'No need to worry about that.'
'I wasn't talking to you.'
I picked up Pete's personal stuff and left him to it. I walked back out into the sun. Dom and I would take his gear to his family. The least we could do was make sure the stuff that was most important to him got back to the people who were most important to him. Small things in big firms always tended to go missing.
Why wasn't he wearing Osprey? Everyone had to wear it even to go for a dump. Pete was so careful. He would have had it on. Even if those two rounds had pierced his body armour by some sort of miracle, they wouldn't have exited like they did. When a high-velocity round enters the body, it creates a vortex behind it like the wake after a boat. As it leaves, the pressure equalizes. There's a small air explosion that rips the exit wound open. It's what high-velocity rounds are designed to do.
22
My arm hurt like fuck as it swung and I had to cradle it against my chest.
Screwing up my eyes, I turned right, headed past the morgue and into the dining tent. People were coming and going with mugs of brew. The entrance was full of people in body armour and helmets washing their hands in cleansing liquid so's not to waste water. They looked at me like I was an alien. 'I know, I haven't got any. Anybody know where Media Ops are?'
I was pointed beyond the cookhouse. I turned left by the showers and half walked, half ran, asking for directions along the way. Most people knew their own areas and that was it.
Eventually I found myself outside two Portakabins with huge air-conditioning condenser boxes. I knew where I was now. This was where we'd had our briefings.
There was movement inside the second Portakabin. I went in and the place was almost as cold as the mortuary tent. The Royal Artillery captain who'd done the meet and greet was behind a desk. I couldn't remember his name — I'd just nodded and agreed as he gave his talk, not expecting to see him again. But I did remember he was in the Territorials, and had volunteered to come out here. In the real world, he was responsible for Plymouth Council's CCTV cameras.
He seemed shocked to see me. 'Nick, how are you? I was coming round later. I wanted you to rest first.' He looked uncomfortable. He stood up and took a breath to give me the bad news.
I put up a hand. 'I know Pete's dead. The recce sergeant's already seen me.'
He sat down, relieved not to be the one. I was a civvy. I might want to cry on his shoulder and have a hug.
'Why didn't he have any body armour on?'
'I don't know. We told you lot to wear it all the time — and a helmet. It was part of the briefing. Dom told us they were getting some shots of the Merlins flying low. They didn't have permission. They didn't inform anyone of what they were doing. We cannot take responsibility for these actions. They should have informed me that they—'
This was bollocks. 'Where's Dom now?'
'He's left. I don't know where or how. His kit's gone and he hasn't even signed out.'
'Signed out? How the fuck's he going to get out of here? Call a minicab?'
'He must be taking the two o'clock. It's thoroughly irresponsible behaviour — it doesn't help the media's call for closer liaison.'
'Shut up, for fuck's sake, and give me a lift to the terminal.'
I followed him back out into the heat. The Media Ops company car was a dust-covered Discovery that knocked out air-conditioning, but not enough. I shielded my eyes from the glare as we came out of one compound and went into another. We bounced over dusty tracks, working our way up to the metalled road that paralleled the runway.
'What's going to happen to Pete?'
'The TV station has notified his wife. They're arranging for her to receive him at Brize Norton. After that? Well…'
I held up the plastic bag. 'I'll take this back to her.'
We hit the tarmac. The terminal was about two clicks further up. It looked like another of Saddam's palaces. Lots of marble and towers, but surrounded by barbed wire and HESCOs. Squaddies zoomed up and down the road in stripped-down Land Rovers with.50-cal machine-guns on the back.
The Brits had used the terminal as their temporary HQ after the war until the COB was built. It had since been handed back to the civilian authorities, and catered for just one flight a day. No airline except Jordanian was willing to take the risk.
We parked outside the building. I didn't care if the media guy stayed or not. I just ran into the cavernous empty terminal.
There were about four people in civvies, but none was Dom. All the rest, about ten of them, were RMPs with dogs and SA80s.
Another marble quarry must have been gutted to build this place. The roof had to be at least seventy metres high. The walls still had gaffer-tape marks from where the Brits had run cables.
The check-in area was a line of about forty desks along the far wall. All had digital displays behind them. None was working. None of the belts was moving.
One solitary guy sat behind one of the desks. His eyes widened as I ran towards him. The flight wasn't for at least another hour and a half and it wasn't as if there were masses of people gagging to get aboard.
'This for the Jordanian flight? The Amman flight?'
'Yes, yes.'
'Has Dominik Condratowicz checked in yet?'
He looked at me blankly.
I took a breath and slowed down. 'Mr Dom-in-ik Con-drat-o-wicz.'
He checked his manifests and I leant forward to help him. I couldn't see the name. 'Do we buy tickets here? This desk?'
'Yes, yes.'
'Has he bought a ticket?'