Who the fuck had he been calling? I’d seen him in the al-Hamra with the cable attached. Had he been downloading pictures? Of who? Of what? To ID us for the attack?
Fuck the blue device for now. I could deal with that later.
There was a shout from the shadows. ‘Hey, I got a can without a hole! It’s gonna need one mean clean, though.’
88
I jumped out of the van, AK in hand. I pushed the safety all the way down and got the butt into the shoulder. Taking deep breaths to calm myself, I leaned into the weapon and aimed at the noise coming towards me from the darkness.
He moved into the van’s lights, using them to inspect the tin can in his hands. His shadow danced along the far wall.
I stayed behind the headlights, waiting for him to get closer.
‘Stand still. Hands up, both up.’
‘Hey, it’s me.’ He held up the can, squinting into the beams. ‘I got us a kettle.’
‘The pistol. Where’s the weapon?’
‘My jacket. Nick, what’s—?’
‘Shut the fuck up. Drop the can. Kneel down and put the pistol on the floor.’
He did as he was told and I moved forward, weapon up, still in the shoulder, releasing first pressure.
‘What’s happening, man, what I do wrong?’
I came at him out of the beams, my boot connecting with his head before he had a chance to get up again. He hit the floor and I kicked the pistol away from him, then carried on kicking him wherever I could reach: head, arms, legs, back, anywhere he left exposed.
When he raised his hands to protect himself, I got him in the guts and he puked up bloodstained bile.
‘You haven’t been calling a DC source, have you?’ I didn’t give him time to answer, just kicked him towards the fire. ‘You download from the al-Hamra to that fancy number?’
He tried to get to his knees again.
‘That why the phone and camera were rigged up, was it?’
I kicked into the mass below me. He collapsed by the fire, falling into the embers and spreading them across the mud. He rolled back towards me, desperate to get away from it, and tried to curl into a ball. I could smell burnt hair.
‘You got Rob killed, didn’t you?’
Sweat poured off my face as I gave him another kick in the kidneys, then I got the AK butt back into the shoulder and dug the muzzle deep into his cheek.
I took first pressure.
‘No, no, no . . .’ he pleaded with me, his eyes made even more manic by the flames. ‘I sent the shots, but there’s no way they were connected with the attack. There wasn’t time to rig anything up. No time!’
I could smell his fear and deceit: it was coming off him in waves. ‘I wanted to go with you, remember?’ He sobbed. ‘Please, Nick, please . . .’
I leaned into the weapon more; the muzzle dug deeper into his cheek. He fought for breath so hard through his split and swollen lips that he sprayed my face with blood and snot.
What the fuck was I doing? It was like an out-of-body experience. Someone else was controlling me, telling me to kill him.
‘Nick, please . . . my family . . .’
I leaned more heavily into the weapon, felt the heat of the fire starting to burn my face. My finger held first pressure.
Then I stood up.
Jerry saw the safety click back up to safe, and rolled on to his side, his knees drawn up against his chest. He held the cuff of his jacket against his face as I went over to the pistol.
I picked up an oil-soaked rag and threw it towards him. ‘Clean yourself up, for fuck’s sake.’
He stuck it to his face and rocked backwards and forwards.
‘You’ve been caught out, Jerry, accept it. You’re in the shit.’
He tried to talk through the tears, the rag and the pain. I couldn’t make out what he was saying so I knelt down beside him. ‘Take that fucking thing away from your mouth. Who’ve you been talking to?’
He lifted the rag. I got a weak, snot-filled ‘I don’t know.’
This was going to be a long night.
But Jerry wanted to help. ‘I don’t know his name, man. I don’t.’
‘Did you use a number or a code or any of that shit?’
He shook his head slowly. Blood dripped down his face and on to his jacket. ‘Just had to go see him in DC.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘An old building some place. I can’t remember the street. The office was Hot something, Hot Black, something like that.’
It didn’t have to mean anything.
For all I knew, lots of guys used the Hot Black business cover.
‘What did he look like?’
What he said was mostly lost in the rag, but I heard enough to know the universe was caving in.
‘He keeps calling me son. I’m not his fucking son. I’m no son of that asshole . . .’
‘You’re right, Jerry,’ I said. ‘He is an arsehole. Arsehole is George’s middle name.’
89
‘You know him?’
This was about me finding out what he knew, not the other way round. ‘What’s George got you doing?’
‘He said you’d take care of me, help me find him. Once we did, I had to press a button on the side of the battery pack, then carry on with the shoot. I had to make sure the session lasted at least two hours. If we had to go early, I had to leave the camera.’
I started walking back towards the VW.
Jerry shuffled along behind me, trying to keep up so I could hear him over the engine.
‘I know what he’s got me doing, man. I’m not fucking stupid. It’s some kind of tracking device, right? I press the button, they know where he is. They find him, they kill him. As soon as we got to the Palestine and then the Sunny Side Up I had to call him and press the button. That’s all I know, man, that’s all. I swear.’
He sat in the beam of the headlights, dabbing the rag at his face, as if that was going to help.
‘What did you tell George about Rob and Benzil at the al-Hamra?’
‘He wanted to be on top of things. I had to tell him everything that was happening, every day. So when I called him about the military grabbing our asses, and then about Rob and Benzil, he wanted pictures. You gotta believe me, Nick, I only got the Beemer because that’s where you guys were at. Can’t have been anything to do with the hit . . .’
He let the rag fall from his face and his swollen, bloodshot eyes searched mine for help, forgiveness, anything.
‘Why did you do it, Jerry?’
I reached into the cab and picked up the blue disc.
Blood dripped off his chin, making a small puddle in the mud. ‘He said it would be one job, and all my problems would be over . . .’ He coughed up some stuff from the back of his throat and spat it out.
‘What problems? What’s he got on you?’
Jerry had calmed a little. ‘I fucked up.’ He started dabbing again. ‘I went to one of the training camps in Afghanistan with guys I’d met from Lackawanna. I got arrested when I landed back in Detroit.’ He sounded almost angry. ‘I’m no fucking terrorist. I was just chasing a story. They fucking knew that, but they still sent me to the Bay.’
‘You were at Guantanamo?’
‘Two fucking months, man, held in solitary. Speaking to no one, nobody speaking to me. In the dark. Renee was totally out of her freaking mind – she didn’t know where I was. Then one day this guy George turns up and plays the good cop, says he can get me out of there in a heartbeat – but I have to do something for him some time. Like having a favour in the bank. Well, he finally called it in. I told him I didn’t wanna go, but I had to. He said if I didn’t go find Nuhanovic, he’d kill Chloë.’