Richard House - The Kills

Aware that he was being watched, Geezler looked up. ‘Gunnersen.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m with the Division Chief. One day. In. Out.’ Geezler indicated the seat opposite him. ‘Join me. I was hoping to speak with you.’

Geezler shifted his tray to make room, asked Rem if he was eating. ‘I haven’t heard much from you lately?’

The air-conditioner focused a fine stream between Rem’s shoulders.

Geezler spoke of his business, a tour to Singapore then Indonesia. ‘Denpasar. They insist, even now, on a face.’ He gave a resigned shrug. ‘You like it here? It’s a sincere question. Do you like your work?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘Have you thought about staying?’

Rem couldn’t help but laugh.

‘You’ve been useful.’

‘There hasn’t been much happening.’

‘I have what I asked for.’

‘I want to get through this without trouble. I had a friend—’

‘The boy who shot himself.’ Geezler nodded as if considering a personal sorrow. He paused, set down his fork. ‘I don’t think we’re using you to your full advantage. I’m thinking you’re in the wrong place.’

‘I have two weeks.’

‘Hear me out. What if I could offer you something uncomplicated? How would that sound?’ Geezler’s eyes were a perfect blue, disarming in a man. ‘People are frightened of you. Did you know that?’

Rem shrugged. ‘I want to go home. There are things happening, I should be home.’

‘Maybe you want something safer?’

‘Safer is good. Home is better.’

‘How is that business of yours? Can you go home and start that up again? Will the money be enough?’

Rem looked at the man and focused on not giving a response.

‘I need a manager. Have you heard of Al-Muthanna?’

‘It’s the desert. In the south.’

‘Remind me what you earn?’

Rem held up his fingers.

Geezler nodded again. ‘What if you earned that in one month?’

‘Total?’

‘Total. No tax, as per.’ Geezler held up his hands and looked at them. ‘You’ll need to decide quickly.’ He asked for a napkin. ‘I see you as a manager. What do you know about the burn pits?’

Rem pushed a pack of towelettes across the table.

‘Tell me. What have you heard?’

Rem shook his head.

‘Everything we’ve brought here needs to be taken away. What can’t be taken away needs to be burned. We have four sites. Camp Bravo, up north. SB Alpha and Camp Victor, both central. And Camp Liberty, south-west. Every one except Camp Liberty is manned. I need a manager to assemble a team. No more than seven men. You’ll be your own man. It’s secure, remote, and absolutely safe. HOSCO have set up the pits, the systems, the deliveries and sites are independent.’

‘How long?’

‘Two months. It’s hard to tell. Until we close them down.’

Rem reflected for a moment. Kiprowski in a paper hat, a white bib, tall and lanky, waited behind a counter, head forward, arms behind his back, bored.

‘You can pick whoever you want.’

‘You need an answer now?’

‘I leave in three hours,’ Geezler checked his watch, ‘but let me know by the end of play tomorrow. I won’t ask anything else of you.’

* * *

It took Rem an hour to find Santo down in Transport watching the TCNs being dispatched. ‘Makes me feel bad watching them go like that. You ever seen those convoys?’

Rem said he hadn’t and followed Santo across the central quad.

‘I have a proposal. There’s a man here from HOSCO and he’s asked me to put together a team. Seven men to go down to Al-Muthanna. They need a team. He’s asked me, but I think I could persuade him to take you if it’s something you’re interested in?’

‘Why would I want to go? Things are working fine here.’

‘It’s double the money.’

‘Where is this again?’

They waited by the entrance to the transport dock. Three rows of vehicles, the noise shuddering through the garage, the fumes rising. Santo pointed out a mechanic who stood among the security and drivers as they decided on a running order. Santo waved the man over. ‘This is Pakosta, he’s been here longer than me.’ Pakosta wiped his hands on a rag as he came to them. Confident and fresh, he shook Rem’s hand as they were introduced.

‘Should have stayed here,’ he said to Santo. ‘Had a fight. No one wants to ride in the first set.’

‘It’s that bad?’

Pakosta shrugged. ‘The problem is how they drive. People fall asleep. Lose the road. They won’t slow down or stop. I’m sick of picking dogs out of fenders. Last week one ran through a herd of goats. Refused to stop. They think if they stop then they’re dead. Most are high on chaw anyway.’ Pakosta pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘They wear adult diapers. Honest to god. Like monkeys. Don’t even stop to shit. You don’t want to go inside those cabins after a long haul.’

Santo asked Pakosta when he was done, and Pakosta said he was looking for an extension. ‘You mean here, right? You’re asking when am I done here?’

‘You heard of Camp Liberty?’

Pakosta looked up in the air in thought. ‘Which one?’

‘South-east. Al-Muthanna. On the way to Kuwait.’

Pakosta nodded, he knew it. ‘Camp Crapper? Off Highway 80 someways? I’ve been there on a recovery. It’s not occupied. Why?’

‘He’s putting a team together.’

‘For?’

‘A short job, managing the burn pits.’

‘They need people for that?’

‘The pay is good.’

‘They dump stuff and set fire to it. Why do they need people?’

Rem said he didn’t know, and Santo asked if it mattered. Pakosta said he guessed it didn’t. Santo asked a second time if he was interested, and Pakosta answered that he’d sooner just wait in Amrah and see what came up.

Ready to leave, Rem began to make his excuses. Pakosta rolled up his sleeve.

‘You see this. Here.’ He held up his arm to show a fresh scratch, a short thick line, as thick as a finger. ‘Nearly died last night.’ Santo and Rem looked at the scar.

‘What is that?’

‘We were recovering a vehicle on North Jalla. We just got it hitched and someone took a shot.’

‘Is that a graze? You saying it just missed you?’ Santo leaned in to look closer.

‘They shot out the bulb from the headlight. Burned right through.’ He turned his arms so he could look.

Santo disagreed. ‘Doesn’t count. No one’s getting rich off a miss.’

As they walked away Rem and Santo were silent.

* * *

Imagine you could do something undeniably, unquestionably good. That dropped into your hands was the opportunity to achieve One Good Thing.

Imagine a man stumbling across a motorway, blind, out of his mind, and you beside him, guiding, making those split-second choices.

Let’s say it’s only temporary. Let’s say it’s in your power to grant someone a reprieve. You can snatch them away, and offer a short respite. And maybe what’s coming might become less of a certainty?

Rem slept, woke, slept again, revived the same dream of scooping people from highways, buildings, cars — elemental dreams with floods and fires. Dreams of stress not salvation. The last hours of the night he slept heavily and decided on a plan. These men in Fatboy’s book were lined up, dead certainties while they remained at ACSB.

The story as Watts tells it goes something like this: it’s his third time in Iraq, he’s working directly with Southern-CIPA on comms across the entire South-Central region — we’re talking basic communications, because everything digital and terrestrial has been looted, bombed, looted. Not one hub or exchange has survived intact. They haven’t come close to re-establishing the basic services available fifteen years ago, it’s that backward. (Watts sits in a folding chair. Magisterial. Elbows on knees, thick forearms, a broad forehead, and explains himself in a voice Rem would describe as Midwestern, grained, husky, rangy.) What you have to understand, he says, is the mentality of the Iraqi versus the mentality of the average Westerner. An Iraqi, for example, can’t be relied on to innovate. You can’t give an Iraqi a job and expect it to be done; these guys have been trained over decades to do nothing. This isn’t your average Arab. You have to give explicit instructions and tell them step by step what you want and exactly how it’s going to happen, and even then you have to supervise. Why? Because these people don’t improvise. They have to be told. Free food and regular government handouts have made them lazy and unambitious. It’s all clan-like, top-down, individual responsibility just isn’t in the picture. Alongside this, there’s the talent of the Iraqi to completely fuck up anything that might look like progress. Which brings him to Rule Number 1: if something can be dismantled it will disappear. He’s seen whole substations stripped in one evening.