“You’ll get your money.”
“Sooner rather than later.”
“What’s the rush?”
“That bull’s-eye painted on your back.”
Luca returns to the gas cylinder and pulls out a wad of US dollars, counting out five grand. Jimmy pockets the money without recounting.
He looks around the apartment again. “So who did this?”
“The Iraqi police.”
“Was it something you said?”
“I looked at them the wrong way.”
Jimmy chuckles and cracks his knuckles. At the door, he turns. “Are you leaving town?”
“Looks like it.”
“People are gonna miss you.”
“You trying to tell me something?”
“I just did.”
A pine-scented air freshener shaped like a Christmas tree swings from the rear-vision mirror of the Skoda but it still reeks of fresh paint. Luca drives to the al-Hamra Hotel and gives the keys to the concierge. He tries to call Daniela’s room from downstairs. She doesn’t pick up. She hasn’t checked out. One of the housekeepers opens the door for him.
Daniela is lying in darkness, curled up on the bed. Luca reaches for the light switch but she tells him to go away, anguish in her voice, a soft wet sound.
The housekeeper leaves quickly, pocketing a banknote. Luca moves into the room. Sits on the edge of the bed. Catches a glimpse of her face.
“I’m sorry to hear about your German friend.”
“He wasn’t my friend.”
She rolls on to her back, pulling the sheet up to her stomach. Her hair is matted into greasy clumps, her eyes dull and listless. Luca takes her hand and pulls her up. Groaning softly in protest, she’s like a refugee being told what to do and following automatically. He leads her to the bathroom where he turns on the shower, letting steam billow and the air grow humid.
Button by button he undresses her until her blouse falls open and slips from her shoulders; her drawstring pants are pushed down, one foot raised and then the other.
Standing before him in quivering stillness, she waits while he undresses. Then he leads her beneath the stream of water where he soaps a flannel and gently washes her arms and legs, her feet and hands, her shoulders and breasts. He shampoos her hair, massaging his fingers into her scalp, letting the soap stream down his forearms and over his penis.
Only when he’s finished does she open her eyes and gaze into his. Her lips move slightly apart. She wants to be kissed, but he holds her at arm’s length and begins drying her. Wrapping a robe around her shoulders, he takes her back to the bedroom and pours her a drink from the mini-bar.
“Shaun is dead,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“So are the others.”
“What happened?”
“They were dressed like soldiers. They came into the Ministry and started shooting.”
“Where were you?”
“Away…” She sucks in a breath. “I had to identify Glover’s body. They tortured him with an electric drill and then cut his throat. He was covered in flies…”
Her voice has a mechanical quality, devoid of emotion, like a person who has spent a lifetime tethered to the banks of a river, only to wake one morning and discover that someone has severed the mooring lines overnight and she’s drifted into a dark new place.
“The attack was premeditated. We were the targets. They went straight to the basement.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To stop the audit.”
“Had you discovered something?”
“The software had only been running for forty-eight hours. There were some double payments and overpayments…” The statement tails off.
“Except?”
“Do you know of Jawad Stadium?”
“It’s south of here.”
“According to the financial records it has been completely refurbished. Work began in 2005 and was finished two years ago. But the work was never done. I’ve seen the stadium. That’s where I was when they launched the attack.”
“How big was the contract?”
“Ninety million dollars.”
“And the duplicate payments?”
“Forty-two million.” She pulls her knees up and takes another sip, unused to the harshness of the vodka.
“Who knew you were looking at the contracts?”
“Glover called the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office and asked what team approved the project.”
“Did they tell him?”
“No.”
“Did you talk to anyone else?”
“I sent an email request to New York asking for information about the main contractor, Bellwether Construction. They sent a file, but most of the important details had been blacked out.”
They lapse into silence.
Swinging her legs out of bed, Daniela moves barefoot across the floor. She opens her satchel on the luggage rack and retrieves a single sheet of paper.
“You asked me about cash deliveries to banks. I did a search of the Central Bank database.”
Luca leans forward expectantly, his knees touching the edge of her robe.
“And?”
“I’ve probably broken a dozen laws.” She hands the page to Luca and begins explaining the figures. “The first column is a code used to identify each bank branch. Next there is a date and then the amount of cash requested in the nominated currency. I concentrated on US deliveries.”
Luca looks at the first three transfers.
BI (74-312)
092609
US$5.3m
RB (74-212)
020610
US$15.6m
ITB (74-466) 021110
US$1.8m
Even without checking, he knows these cash deliveries correspond with the robberies-preceding them by twenty-four hours. Somebody must have leaked the information to the armed robbers. How many people had access to the information? It could be an insider at the Treasury, or the Iraqi Central Bank, or the delivery company.
Daniela curls up next to him, reaching between the lapels of his robe and running her fingers down his chest, loosening the knot at his waist. She flattens herself against him, pressing her loins tightly to his and he feels a desire stirring that he tries to ignore.
“Don’t you want me?” she asks.
“I don’t want you mistaking my motives.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I might not see you again.”
“You will. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Daniela crosses the foyer, moving from memory on marble tiles that are polished and cool. Her cheeks have color now. Her hair is drying and her clothes are clean. Outside the air is hot and harshly bright, thick with the smell of wood fires and paraffin stoves.
They drive east along busy roads. As they approach each checkpoint, Luca tells Daniela to lower her eyes and cover her face with a scarf. Once they pass through, Luca continues his story, telling her about his arrest and interrogation-as much as he can remember. The account seems so strange, so pulled out of shape and littered with broken and jagged pieces.
“So you don’t have a visa?”
“No.”
“What will you do?”
“Leave.”
Sadr City is an immense suburb in eastern Baghdad full of ramshackle one-storey buildings covered in dust and patched together with scavenged building materials. The city has many neighborhoods like this one-sectarian strongholds, full of widows, orphans and the dispossessed; Sunni or Shiite, bombed back to the Stone Age. Amid the poverty, children play football using oil drums as goal posts. Their mothers, in full chadors, look like shadows in the darkened windows. The only splash of color comes from billboards advertising mobile phones and flat-screen TVs.
Jamal and Nadia have two rooms behind a shop that sells water barrels and tools. Luca parks beside a mound of broken bricks and discarded planks. He fixes a lock to the steering wheel and another to the gearstick.
A woman opens the door just a crack, one eye visible, suspicion in it, then fear, then anger. This is Jamal’s wife, Nadia. Two young boys are clutching her legs, peering from the folds of her dress.