“There was another robbery,” says Jamal.
“When?”
“Overnight. They set the bank on fire.”
“Where?”
“In Karrada.”
“I want to go there.”
“What about the media conference?”
“They still won’t have formed a government.” Luca mimics the voice of the former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. “Today we are a step closer to agreement. Old hatreds are being put aside and we are talking in good faith. I am committed to the constitution and believe Iraq will get the government it deserves.”
Jamal laughs. “One day they’re going to kick you out of Iraq.”
“Promises, promises.”
He calls Abu in the HiLux. “We’re going to Karrada.”
“What address?”
“Follow the smoke.”
The two vehicles circumnavigate Firdos Square and head south along the dusty dual carriageway past mud buildings and footpaths lined in places with drums and razor wire.
Baghdad used to feel foreign to Luca but he’s no longer spooked by the strangeness of the place-the jangle of tongues, the confusion of smells and the thick honey-colored light. A bus has broken down. Passengers are standing on the pavement, arguing with the driver. The men draw on cigarettes, forming wraiths of smoke that are whisked away on the breeze. The women are delicate, unknown creatures swathed in black, with non-descript bodies and dancing eyes.
Jamal takes a stick of chewing gum from his pocket and turns on the radio, beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel as he listens to a local pop song. He and Luca have become friends over the years, but that friendship has boundaries. Luca has never been to Jamal’s house, or met his wife or his two young sons. There are people who cannot know that Jamal and Abu are working for an American journalist. Sunnis. Shiites. Insurgents. That’s where death lurks. Grudges are a national sport in Iraq.
A black plume of smoke rises into the white sky ahead of them. Normally Karrada is one of the havens, thrumming with street traders and gaudy shouts of greenery. Now police and fire engines have sealed off an intersection and hoses like black pythons twist across the asphalt, bulging and squirming. Some are so perished and worn they are spraying the concrete instead of the smoldering building.
The Zewiya branch of the al-Rafidain Bank has been gutted and the windows are ringed with dark shadows of soot that leak like a beauty queen’s tears down the pale walls.
Jamal parks the Skoda and Luca takes his camera from his rucksack. He signals Abu, who waits with the cars, keeping watch from a distance.
“How many is that?”
“Six in the past two months.”
“And this year?”
“Eighteen.”
“Soon there will be no banks left to rob.”
Across the street, a group of teenage boys are laughing and shoving each other, frantic to be noticed. They are admonished by older men and told to show some respect.
A siren. A convoy. Four military vehicles weave between the fire engines, escorting a white police car with blue doors. The car pulls on to the curb, scraping metal beneath the chassis. Luca recognizes the man in the passenger seat: General Khalid al-Uzri, Commander of the National Police. Two uniformed officers wrestle each other to reach his door.
Al-Uzri stands and stretches, cracking his vertebrae and rolling his head from side to side. Cigarette smoke hangs over him like a personal cloud. Dressed in black-and-blue camouflage with a beret and epaulettes of a crossed wreath and star, he waves dismissively at the offer of an umbrella and walks through the spray, pausing to appraise the bank building as though considering making an offer.
A senior fireman emerges from within. His uniform looks too large for him, like he’s wearing his father’s clothes. He shakes al-Uzri by the hand and kisses each cheek.
“What has been lost?” asks the general.
“Three dead.”
“The money?”
“Gone.”
The general brushes water from his jacket sleeve and glances at Luca.
“You’re a photographer?”
“Yes, General,” he answers in Arabic.
“Today you work for the police.”
Luca exchanges a glance with Jamal, who shakes his head. Luca ignores him. He follows the general and the fireman down the ramp, stepping through oily black puddles and around piles of smoldering debris.
The large roller door has buckled and twisted in the heat. Two bodies lie inside. Security guards. They look like discarded mannequins with melted and blackened flesh. The smell pries open Luca’s senses. Vomit rises. He swallows hard, coffee chewing at his stomach.
Al-Uzri crouches beside the corpses. “It’s the protein,” he explains. “When it burns it sticks to your clothes and the inside of your lungs.”
Holding a skull, he turns it as if he’s testing the firmness of melons at a market stall.
One of his aides speaks. “There were six guards rostered on last night.”
“Where are the others?”
“We’re looking for them.”
“These men were shot. Take photographs of this.”
The general stands and walks onwards, wiping his hands on the coat of the nearest fireman.
The concrete vault has a heavy metal door that has barely been singed by the blaze. It opens easily. Nothing remains inside except a single aluminum case, smashed open. A handful of US banknotes are floating in a grimy puddle.
The general leaves the vault, moving towards the internal stairs. Firefighters have erected ladders to the upper floors.
“Is that going to take my weight?” asks al-Uzri.
“Yes, sir.”
He points at Luca. “You go first.”
The journalist climbs the ladder and steps over a collapsed section of the floor. A toilet has come through the ceiling and landed vertically across a doorway. Glancing past it, he can see a long corridor with offices on either side. The desktop computers have melted into modern sculptures.
The senior fireman stops at one of the offices. It takes a moment for Luca to realize what he’s supposed to photograph. A blackened corpse is seated at a metal desk with stiffened half limbs reaching towards the blown-out window. Charred beyond recognition, the skin of the face is shrunken and leathery, gripping the skull, and the mouth is wide open in a scream. A swollen tongue protrudes from between teeth that seem unnaturally white.
Al-Uzri circles the body, examining it from all sides, his wet brown eyes full of wonder but not horror. Luca is taking short breaths through his mouth.
“This is one of the ignition points,” says the fireman. “Someone doused the body with petrol and poured a trail along the hallway to the door.”
Al-Uzri has moved behind the carbonized body. He pulls a small Swiss army knife from his coat, unsheathing the blade. His hand steady, he holds the sharp edge against the corpse’s neck and pulls something away, a wire thread embedded in the skin. A garrote.
He nods to Luca. More pictures are taken.
Closing the knife, he lights a cigarette, blowing smoke towards the ceiling.
Nothing shows in his eyes. Not surprise or sadness. Luca has seen that look before in soldiers who have witnessed such horrors that nothing is new under the sun or moon.
“A bad business,” says the fireman. “Have you seen enough?”
The general nods. He addresses Luca. “Deliver the photographs to my office. They are the property of the Iraqi police.”
Descending the ladders, he retraces his steps through the puddles and up the ramp, pausing only to blow cotton wool from his nostrils. Luca follows him outside where drivers scramble into cars, preparing to depart.
“Excuse me, General, I have a question about the robbery.”
The commander turns.
“Your name?”
“Luca Terracini-I’m an American journalist.”
“Your Arabic is very proficient, Mr. Terracini.”
“My mother was Iraqi.”
Al-Uzri lights another cigarette, shielding it from the spray. He takes a moment to study the journalist.