‘We’ll be leaving our old names behind.’
‘And what about me?’ said Koell.
‘Pull over.’
‘Here?’
‘Stop the fucking car.’
Koell pulled the battered SUV to the side of the road. He parked outside a bombed-out restaurant. He shut off the engine. The chill blast of air-conditioning dwindled and died.
He anxiously looked around. A deserted street. Shanty squalor.
‘Why here?’
‘Shut up.’
Lucy took plastic tuff-ties and lashed Koell’s wrists to the wheel.
‘What are you doing?’
Koell started to sweat.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
Amanda climbed out and shouldered the holdall.
‘Don’t,’ said Koell. ‘Don’t leave me here.’
Lucy reached round the steering column and turned the ignition key to ACC.
‘Relax, said Lucy. ‘Listen to some music.’
She turned Cypress Hill up full volume and climbed out of the car.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
A last glance at Koell.
‘Please,’ he mouthed through the windshield.
Lucy and Amanda hurried down the deserted street, ‘Ain’t Going Out Like That’ blasting from the battered Suburban. The song mingling with the mournful, city-wide call to prayer.
Koell struggled to snaps the cuffs. Deafening, jackhammer bass-beat.
He twisted his hands, stretched his fingers to reach the ignition. Plastic cut deep into his wrists.
He kicked off a boot, raised his foot and tried to press the CD off switch with his toe.
A beat-up Mercedes pulled to the kerb behind the Suburban. Koell checked the rear-view. Five Iraqis in tracksuits got out the car. One of them carried an AK and yammered into a cellphone. The group lit cigarettes.
Koell leant down and butted the door handle until he engaged central locking.
The men circled the Suburban.
Stubble. Cruel eyes. Local militia.
The lead guy hammered at the cracked side window with the butt of his AK. Cracked ballistic glass began to bow inward.
Koell sobbed with fear. He tried to chew his way through the plastic cuffs.
The window broke. Koell closed his eyes and whimpered as a clawing hand reached inside and popped locks.
They cut Koell’s restraints and hauled him from the SUV. He clung to the wheel. He clung to his seat.
‘No,’ he sobbed, as they prised his fingers free and dragged him from the vehicle.
He lay in the street. He lost bladder control.
‘I’m important,’ he croaked. ‘I’m worth money.’
The leader crouched beside Koell. He smelled of cigarettes and talc.
‘You should not have come here, my friend.’
Lucy and Amanda ran down the deserted street. They could see sangar gun towers above the roof tops. A maple pennant hung from an antenna.
Garbage in the road. A stinking sewer trench. Locked doors and shuttered windows, like the locals were braced for a storm.
Amanda sagged with exhaustion.
‘Come on. Keep moving,’ said Lucy
She wrapped her arm round Amanda’s waist and helped her run.
They turned a corner. The QRF compound up ahead. High walls and guard towers. Entrance gate flanked by Hesco barriers and concrete bollards.
The gates pulled back. An armoured patrol rolled out in a haze of dust and diesel. Two Humvees and a Stryker eight-wheeled APC setting out on some kind of snatch operation.
Lucy blocked the street and flagged her arms. The vehicles braked. The turret .50 cal on the lead Humvee swivelled and took aim.
Troops ran from the APC. They took cover behind the lead Humvee, assault rifles trained on Lucy and Amanda.
Loud-hailer:
‘Stay where you are.’
Lucy tossed the pistol. Amanda dropped the bag.
They stood, hands raised.
‘We’re civilians,’ shouted Lucy.
‘Take off the coat. Lose the hat. Lift your shirts.’
Lucy shrugged off her prairie coat. Amanda threw her Stetson aside. They lifted their shirts and turned full circle. No suicide vest.
Lucy held up passports.
‘We are Canadian citizens. We got carjacked. My friend is hurt. She’s been shot in the leg. She needs medical attention.’
‘Kneel. Keep your hands where we can see them.’
They knelt, hands on heads.
Amanda sagged with exhaustion.
‘It’s all right, baby,’ murmured Lucy. ‘We made it. We made it home.’
Doc ID: 58h
Page 01/1
10/25/05
Partial transcript of hostage video released by an unknown Sadrist/Shia insurgent group thought to be linked to the Mahdi Army. Digital footage is poor quality, but appears to show Field Officer Robert Koell. Koell is wearing a red boiler suit. He is clean shaven. He has a dirt mark or bruise on his right temple. He sits in front of a white sheet backdrop and reads a prepared statement to camera. He speaks in a monotone. He appears disoriented, possibly sedated.
‘…The New Crusades have exposed the ugly face of the infidel West and its apostate agents in our Islamic region. This pact is led by the empire of evil and criminality, America. Their criminality has manifested itself in atrocities committed against our Islamic peoples in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine…
‘…We swear by Allah the Magnificent, who raised the sky without pillars, that neither America nor those who live in America shall have peace until all infidel armies have left the land of Muhammad, peace and prayers of Allah be upon him…’
Doc ID: 67bd
Page 01/1
12/19/05
MEMORANDUM TO: Special Adviser, Office of Director
SUBJECT: Spektr
Sir,
We have concluded the sterilisation of the Spektr station in Baghdad. All cryptographic coms equipment has been secured and all relevant documentation shipped red-bag to Andrews Airforce Base aboard our Suisse GeoTech Gulfstream.
Staff stationed at the staging base Sharjah have been ordered to stand down and relocate.
The body of Colonel Drew has been repatriated. The standard KIA notice has been issued to his family.
Officer Robert Koell remains officially MIA while we await identification of the headless body found by scavengers in a refrigerator at the garbage dump in Kasrah Waatash, a residential area northeast of Baghdad. However the West Point cadet ring recovered by our informant suggests the remains are indeed those of Robert Koell.
The Spektr project may be regarded as closed.
PRESENT DAY
Eyewitnesses report fireball in night sky.
A fireball lit up the sky last night, prompting panic calls to emergency services across the county.