“There’s a big job in Ramadi and everyone’s EOD units are stretched thin.” Pete tossed Fields a bottle of water.
“Thanks, Pete,” he said.
“So I hear you’ve got some information for me?” Camille said.
“I think I saw your man.”
“You think?”
“It was getting kinda dark and he was dressed like a towel head, uh, I mean like a local. And he was with a girl.”
“An Iraqi?”
“Dressed that way, but I’m sure she wasn’t one of them. She stripped to get the convoy to stop. She was as thin as a twig.”
“Where is he now?”
“Somewhere here in the Emerald City.”
“In the Green Zone?”
“Yeah. We were packed to the gills, so they had to ride with Rubicon. I knew you’d want to know more, so I called one of my buddies who works for them. I’ve been trying to get him to switch over to Black.” Fields picked up the water bottle and gulped down half of it, then let out a sigh. “Anyways, my buddy was in the SUV with him. Jimmy said the guy was some kind of a spook. Apparently he and the girl infiltrated the insurgents and things got too hot for them. Jimmy said she was so dehydrated, they pushed in two bags of saline between where we picked them up outside of Ramadi and here. She was skin and bones. She was definitely American from what Jimmy said. Oh, and he couldn’t stop talking about how bad they smelled. Said it was all the guys could do to keep from puking. Now I could identify her for sure. I got a real eyeful when she flagged us down.” Fields flashed a conspiratorial smile at Pete. “You shoulda been there.”
“So does Rubicon have him? Did they take her to the hospital?” Camille tried to get her mind off Fields’ intense body odor. It was starting to make her queasy and she worried she might not be able to get the place aired out well enough by bedtime.
“Nope. Said they’d be fine and they got out over by the al-Rashid. Jimmy said they were real cagey.”
“Pete, what was the name of that geologist kidnapped in Anbar a couple of weeks ago?” Camille ran her hand through her hair and leaned back while she tried to come up with an explanation for Hunter hooking up with a woman in that condition. Her best guess was that he had come across a woman being held hostage and she knew him well enough to know that he would either free her or die trying.
“I remember that. The woman was freelancing for an oil company when they grabbed her. One of the al Qaeda splinter groups backing al-Zahrani sent out a ransom demand, then I didn’t hear any more. I don’t think they have her back yet.”
“Get on the internet and pull up a picture.”
Pete handed Camille a color printout of a studio shot of the abducted geologist. She had shoulder length brown hair and the complexion of a movie star. She passed the photo to Fields, stretching herself to get it as close to him as possible, so he didn’t have to raise his arm to take it from her.
“Bingo! That’s her.” Fields tapped the picture with his index finger.
“Who is she?” Camille said.
“The article is printing out. Just a sec,” Pete said. She took a sheet from the laser printer and glanced at it before handing it to Camille. “Her name’s Jackie Nelson-I know who she is now-she’s the wife of a Rubicon exec who tried to lure me over to them once.”
“What’s his name?”
“Brian Nelson, a VP for Rubicon Petroleum.”
Camille glanced at the photo again. If she didn’t know the Rubicon exec’s spouse was a geologist, she would’ve guessed trophy wife.
“Rubicon does oil, too?” Fields said.
“Their fingers are in everything,” Camille said. “Don’t you know the Rubicon story? When Dick Cheney left Halliburton to run for VP, some of the execs split off and formed Rubicon Group. The government throws nonbid contracts at them all the time. Rubicon Solutions is the security subsidiary they started after 9/11 and they’ve also got a consulting firm that does studies for the Pentagon, recommending the mother ship’s services. Then, of course, there’s their PR firm that constantly reminds the world that everything they do is really for Third World widows and orphans. Think of them as Halliburton’s evil twin. Frankly, both of them scare the shit out of me.”
Fields grunted. “Didn’t know that. I always thought they were small potatoes because that’s where the guys go when they get fired from us or TC. They’re known for being a little loosey-goosey. I know one Rubicon shooter who claims he’s wanted in-”
“Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention.” Camille stood and extended her hand to Fields. She couldn’t stand to look at how his sweaty T-shirt clung to the rolls of his beer belly any longer and she needed to track down her lead before Hunter slipped away. She pulled three one hundred dollar bills from a pocket where she had stashed them in Ramadi and held them out for Fields without looking down at them.
“I can’t take that from you, ma’am. I’m happy to help out.” Fields waved his hand.
“Then do me a favor. Take it and go treat your crew to a few rounds of drinks on me.” Camille smiled as she walked him to the door. As soon as he left, she opened the windows and said to Pete, “Find out where Jackie Nelson lives. And check the hospitals, just in case. I want to have a chat with her-tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Green Zone, Baghdad
Jackie Nelson’s apartment might not have been up to middle class American standards, but it was the most luxurious place Hunter had been since he last left the States. He’d slept inside plywood walls in the Rubicon barracks and he worked in cinder block houses or mud brick homes clearing them of weapons and insurgents. The walls of Jackie’s apartment were Sheetrock and they were covered not with oriental carpets, mirrors or pictures of some bearded mullah, but with dozens of charcoal portraits and pencil drawings of American troops and Iraqi civilians. The furniture was a jumble of Iraqi antique chests and Ikea basics, but the TV was flat panel; the stereo was Bose and he was sure the beer was cold. It felt almost American. It felt almost safe.
Hunter knew he had to be careful.
“Walk me through it. I want to know how you know your husband won’t be coming home tonight.”
“You’re as paranoid as Brian is. Like I said, we have a system. See these two drawings?” Jackie pointed at a pen and ink drawing of an Army medic bandaging the arm of an Iraqi girl and at a sketch of a bearded spice merchant in an Iraqi market. “When the one with the medic is on the right, he’s in the country. When it’s on the left, he’s abroad. He’s out of the country. Don’t worry. Brian never gets home at night.”
“And why do you think he’d still be doing this weeks after you were kidnapped?”
“He’s a creature of habit. I could be dead for a year and he’d still be doing it.”
“He travel a lot?”
“Constantly. There’s always some big secret project. So secret, he won’t even tell me what continent he’s going to.” Jackie took a glass pitcher from the fridge and poured two glasses of water. She handed one to Hunter, then held hers up in a toast. “To my hero-Secret Agent Man Ray.”
Hunter flashed her a smile and wished he could forget what the tangos had made him do to her. He couldn’t believe she didn’t seem to have any memory of it, but then he knew all too well the tricks the mind had to play in order to survive torture. He gulped down the entire glass without pausing. She refilled it.
“Don’t you want to call your husband and at least tell him you’re alive? You couldn’t wait to call him earlier.”
“I don’t know whether he gives a damn anymore, but it doesn’t matter. He’s in Uzbekistan and he doesn’t have his cell with him. God forbid that he leave a trail of anything.” Jackie grabbed a box of Ritz crackers and ripped it open. She popped a whole one into her mouth and held the box out for Hunter. “I have to shower. I can’t stand being like this a second longer. Afterwards, I’ll call my sister.”