Richard House - The Kills

‘At the moment they can’t agree on anything. There’s no decision on the presiding authority, so there’s no consensus on whether Howell should be handed to civil or military authorities. Right now, until the charges are formalized, the decision is academic, but nobody wants to decide.’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘If, or when, they make that decision they’ll have to decide which military or civil authority takes precedence. It’s very sticky.’

They continued their walk; the guard a step ahead, a curve of sweat wetting the small of his back.

‘Everything’s made a little more complicated because Howell holds dual citizenship with Denmark and the US. He also worked for the State Department, which doesn’t make matters easier. Both the military and HOSCO are making a strong case to have him returned to Washington. You understand the complexity?’

Eyes bright, the attorney spoke of patience. None of this was easy or pleasant. Howell was cooperating, while at the very same time he was being stripped of his assets. Each day brought worsening news as his public and private lives were ransacked in the search for the money. ‘When the office was destroyed they lost most of their records.’ At the very least he would lose his house in Charlotte, North Carolina, his apartment in Washington, DC. His bank accounts, already frozen, would be cleared. A team of government and civilian lawyers had already divided the claims. ‘HOSCO will sue for what they can. The transatlantic flights, the hotels in Damascus, Dubai, London, and every expense relating to these and other such visits during the period of the charges will be clawed back. They’re intent on it.’ By mid-September Howell’s Danish-based properties would be seized. Not that any of this could yet be proved to come from the money they believed he’d extorted. The attorney curled back her hair. Did Parson understand how unjust this was? He’d yet to be proven guilty. He’d yet to be formally charged.

Whatever the outcome, Howell’s reputation lay in pieces. She said this as an aside and allowed her hand to waver, so-so. She spoke about Howell as if he were a remote element, which Parson found distracting, a quantity they could coolly consider and assay. ‘Now Stephen Sutler,’ she again curved her hair behind her ear, ‘is a whole other matter. We’ve had sightings in Iran, Bahrain, Sulaymaniyah, Basrah, Kuwait, Damascus, Aden.’ Everywhere except the oil-rich wastes of Al-Muthanna and the dusty tracks of Amrah City. A phantom Sutler crawling through the Middle East left open too many possibilities. She pointed in the direction of a hangar. The airfield swam in a humid light. ‘Remind me, are you looking for the money or the man?’

‘The man.’

‘You’re from HOSCO?’

‘I work for Gibson and Baker. We advise HOSCO on insurance settlements that concern the UK and British citizens.’

‘You investigate claims?’

‘And we advise on litigation, we investigate fraud.’

‘You’re part of the clean-up?’

‘I’m a public adjuster. There are other people looking for him. I’m here to gather information and because they want my advice.’

‘As an adjuster? They’ve sent a claims adjuster on a manhunt? Can you see why I find this interesting? We’re in a country where graduate students run public services, I shouldn’t be so surprised. Do you know how much money is missing?’

‘I have an idea.’

‘Yesterday’s estimate hit fifty-three million,’ she pronounced the words in pieces, ‘dollars.’

‘And how did he manage this?’

‘No one knows. When you find that out, you find the money. They have no idea.’

‘Why have they arrested Paul Howell?’

‘Because, like you, he’s here.’ The attorney nodded and drew in breath. While there could be no doubt about Howell’s complicity, it just wasn’t possible that Howell could have absconded with fifty-three million dollars, tra-la, like some magic trick. It wasn’t logistically possible. It couldn’t be achieved. ‘The bulk of the money came through his office, so we have to assume that he was involved. Witting or unwitting.’ She tucked the files tight under her arm. ‘Stephen Lawrence Sutler is a very interesting man. He doesn’t appear on company documents. There’s no record of him coming into the country. Like you, I’ve been looking and I’ve found nothing. HOSCO hired a ghost. Shall we?’

With a signal from the attorney the guard unlocked the door to the hangar.

* * *

The interior of the hangar was made out as a makeshift ward, empty of patients but busy with equipment. Green cots, litters, stanchions, and stacked boxes of medical supplies. Some areas appeared to be organized into stations set about black-framed rickshaws to transport the wounded. An American flag hung high above them. Parson couldn’t tell if the area was used as a field hospital or for holding patients for transport, and suspected that the function depended on demand.

The attorney walked to a table on which lay a number of files. ‘This is everything that survived.’ She offered Parson a seat. The guard stood close to the desk.

‘Can I see him?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Howell.’

‘Howell?’ The attorney looked to Parson, at first confused then amused. ‘No. He’s in Baghdad at Combat Support. You didn’t know?’ She sat back, took in the long view of the hangar. ‘I thought you wanted to see the documents from Southern-CIPA?’

‘I came to speak with Howell.’

‘Well, he isn’t here.’ She leaned into the desk and indicated the files. ‘Paul Howell was thrown out of the offices when they were hit. He needs surgery.’ Of the three people in Howell’s office only Sutler, they believed, survived without harm. The boy, Kiprowski, was cut to pieces.

The attorney drew out photographs from a folder. ‘This is Paul Howell.’

The man appeared more delicate than Parson had imagined. Recently shaved, the Deputy Administrator wore a smart white shirt and sat upright with his hands flat to the table, angular, poised as if stuffed. His most striking feature, remarked in every report, was his platinum-white hair, which gave him an unreal quality, slightly other-worldly. Howell didn’t match Parson’s idea of how an embezzler should look; trim and sensitive, with no hint of greed. He could intuit an element of pride in the man’s presentation, clean shirt, clean-shaven, a small miracle given the heat.

Parson looked over the images. He couldn’t recall the attorney’s name. The introduction had passed too quickly, his mind in any case occupied with the strange geography of her office: one desk, hidden away in a field hospital in an aircraft hangar set distant from the base and surrounded by a temporary cordon — a game of Chinese boxes, all of which seemed to intensify the heat. He looked from the attorney to the guard. The attorney spoke in a hushed voice, aware of the current limitations and the presence of the guard. She produced another folder and laid out a loose stack of faxes and newspaper cuttings.

The details of Howell’s arrest played across the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times. She spread out the papers and turned them for Parson to read. The London Times, Die Zeitung, the Corriere, ran a photograph of the offices at Southern-CIPA — a building bunkered behind sandbags and razor wire. The Charlotte Gazette reported that Howell’s family had escaped their homes dressed in sunglasses and wigs and checked into motels along Highway 85, hiding out in the hope that a decent week would staunch the fierce interest now focused on them. Parson looked from one to another and took in the information without reaction. The New York Times ran a photograph of pallets of cash, stacked and swathed in plastic, blocks of money rimming the black-ribbed mouth of a Hercules. Paul Howell standing hand on hip with Stephen Sutler beside him, similarly posed, face obscured by shadow. Sutler, the author of this disaster. Stephen Sutler, the vanishing man.