Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

“Test me,” says Holly.

“How?”

“Tell me something true or false. Anything.”

“I’m not playing games.”

“OK, don’t do it.” Holly shrugs and pushes back her chair.

Ruiz reaches into his pocket and closes his fist.

“OK, what’s in my hand?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have a coin. Do you know which one?”

“No.”

“It’s a fifty-pence piece.”

“No it’s not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re lying.”

“What if I told you it was twenty pence?”

“You’d be a liar.”

“What about a pound?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Ruiz uncurls his fingers. The pound coin lies flat in his palm.

“Lucky guess.”

“If you say so.”

She’s challenging him. Ruiz knows he should let the subject go, but her cockiness irritates him.

“Let’s do it again.”

“Only if we play for money. I get a pound for every time I’m right.”

“OK.”

Ruiz takes a moment to plan his tactics.

“I’m going to tell you five things. Tell me which ones are true.”

“That’s five pounds.”

Holly sits opposite him, looking at his face.

“I was once arrested on suspicion of murder.”

“Wow, that’s a bummer.”

“You think it’s true?”

“Yes.”

“My middle name is William?”

“No.”

“My middle name is Yanko?”

“What sort of name is that?”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“I have a brother but he doesn’t live in London.”

She hesitates. “That’s two facts.”

“So what?”

“He doesn’t live in London.”

“Are you saying I don’t have a brother?”

“No, but there’s something wrong…” Holly taps the table with her finger, thinking of the possibilities. “Is he alive?”

Ruiz’s heart seems to lurch sideways in his chest. How could she possibly know that?

“This is ridiculous. I don’t want to play anymore.”

She holds out her hand. “I want my five pounds.”

How can she… it’s impossible… is he that transparent? Then he remembers that Holly has been in his house. She looked through his things. There are photo albums upstairs, marriage and birth certificates, pictures of Claire and Michael, Laura’s letters…

“You really are a piece of work,” he says, glaring at her, pushing up from the table.

Holly cringes as he passes, waiting for the blow to fall. The front door slams.

She has glimpsed the monster. There’s one inside every man.

Luca has a long wait at the checkpoint into the International Zone. A soldier wearing reflective sunglasses examines his papers, while another walks around the Skoda and seems to be counting the bullet holes.

“You were lucky,” he says.

“That’s exactly what I thought at the time,” replies the journalist. “I was dodging those bullets and thinking, How lucky am

I?”

The sarcasm is lost on the guards, who are mostly Latinos or Nepalese working for private security companies.

The boom gate rises and Luca enters a different world-four square miles of air-conditioned, fully supplied comfort in the middle of a bombed city. There are juice bars, ice-cream parlors, beauty shops, cafeterias, clothing stores, swimming pools, gyms, a Pizza Hut, a Subway and a giant PX store.

Iraq took control of the zone in 2009 but little has changed in the fortified compound. The only difference is that now it’s home to dozens of Iraqi politicians bickering with one another, oblivious to what’s happening on the other side of the wire. They don’t have to queue for petrol or worry about roadblocks, or suicide bombers or sniper attacks. They don’t live in the same fear, which is the dangerous disconnect that skews all decision-making in the new Iraq.

Luca drives to the eastern edge of the zone and stops outside a gated compound protected by ten-foot-high electric fences, topped with razor wire. Inside, baking in the heat, are dozens of gleaming SUVs parked in rows.

He sounds the horn. Jimmy Dessai looks up from a deconstructed truck engine. Six foot plus, overweight, with a fringe of greasy black hair, Jimmy has a wide arse that causes him to waddle when he walks. Every time he sees Luca his face lights up like he’s surprised that the journalist is still alive. Then he immediately starts working the angles, quizzing Luca on what he needs and what he’d pay to get. Jimmy is a fixer, a King Rat, a man who can source things that are hard to find.

He came to Iraq with the US Army Motor Pool, but later resigned his commission and opened up his own transport business. Now he’s the Hertz, Avis and Budget of Baghdad, all rolled into one.

He glimpses the Skoda and walks around it slowly. Impressed.

“What happened?”

“We got shot at.”

“No shit!”

Luca glances into the lot. “I need another set of wheels.”

“I got nothing to spare.”

“What about them?” He points to the SUVs.

“They cost two grand a day.”

“I’m a freelance journalist.”

“And I’m a businessman.”

Jimmy takes him to the office where Johnny Cash is singing “Ring of Fire” from an iPod speaker and a dog is sleeping beneath his desk. Pitted with scars and eczema, the animal reacts to every visitor as though expecting a boot.

“You want a drink, Scoop?”

“No thanks.”

Jimmy hammers a soft drink machine in the corner and a can drops into the tray. The dog jumps and then slinks into a corner, looking at him with rheumy, half-closed eyes.

Vehicles aren’t Jimmy’s only business. He also provides armed bodyguards and drivers. Armor plating is extra. The full package comes in at four thousand dollars a day, but he still bleats that insurance is killing him.

His two regular mechanics are Iraqis, half his size. Brothers. Jimmy calls them sand niggers, camel jockeys and ragheads, but the mechanics seem totally unfazed.

“You can still drive the Skoda,” he suggests.

“It’s rather conspicuous.”

“I could swap a few door panels.”

“It’s leaking oil.”

“Might need a new engine.”

“How much will that cost?”

“Seven grand.”

“Three.”

“You got to be kidding. Six.”

“We’re mates.”

“Mates are going to send me broke.”

“Make it five and we’re done.”

They shake hands. “That’s how to do a deal,” says Jimmy. “These camel jockeys want to serve you tea and fondle their worry beads, telling you how poor they are and how you’re stealing food from their children’s mouths.”

A helicopter thumps the air overhead. Luca has to wait for the noise to pass.

“I have a question about trucking.”

“Stick to journalism.”

“If someone had a large amount of cash they wanted to smuggle out of Iraq, where would they take it?”

“So we’re talking hypothetically?”

“Of course.”

Jimmy crushes the can and sends it arcing over Luca’s head where it rattles into a bin. “Take your pick-Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Saudi, maybe not Iran-they’re all within reach and porous as hell. I’ve never met a border guard who couldn’t be bought.”

“What about the Syrian border, by way of Mosul?”

“That’s a pretty busy crossing. On any given day maybe a thousand trucks go through carrying everything from sheep to shit-rolls.”

“Who are the drivers?”

“TCN’s mostly.” Third Country Nationals, the bottom of the food chain. Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos, Afghans, Sri Lankans… most of them working for less than ten dollars a day. “It’s a rat run.”