Middle Man (17 page)

T
hey clothed me and fed me and gave me aspirin. Giddy from the successful raid, they laughed while watching the TV, which repeatedly played the cameraman's video of the King toppling over. That was followed by a news update featuring a photo of me. The announcer said I was wanted by the Asayish and might be working with the PKK. They turned off the TV and opened a computer and read the stories about me and my investment with the PKK. They got serious.

“Why did you claim to have given money to the PKK?”

“Aren't you the PKK?”

But they had no time for answers; they had questions. “Why did you search for Diyar? Are you an agent of the U.S. government? Do you want more soup? What kind of torture did they use? Do you have any money for us?” And more. I sat in a plush, comfy chair. Four sat in front of me and one behind. We were in the living room of a modest house. I told them I claimed to be in business with the PKK to gain leverage against the big oil companies who were making deals with Baghdad and the regional oil companies. I was trying to get attention.

“You got lots of attention.”

“Are you an agent of the American government?”

My silence made the questioner launch into a long anti-American tirade about illegal occupation and ending that occupation prematurely. “Your plot failed. The Prime Minister has not been assassinated. The shooter missed his mark.”

He sat back with satisfaction. The others did not seem to share his certainty that the U.S. was behind this.

“Have they caught the shooter?” I asked. They didn't answer. “Is the man they caught one of yours?”

Two of them answered at once, “He did not do it.”

“Has he been missing for some days? A week or more?”

Their faces gave the answer.

Bannion's brilliance dazzled me. Magna cum laude from Dan U. He had fed the hounds a taste, then unleashed them. The King was out of the way. The PKK would be taking the official blame for the failed assassination. I still could not figure his goal. But every move made sense. Every move threw someone else off and solidified his own position. I wanted to get hold of him.

The man behind me said, “What is your relationship with John Bannion?”

I watched the faces of the others. The guy behind was the boss. His question almost made me laugh. I was Bannion's fool, his protégé, maybe his executioner.

“You can have the money if it's there,” I said. “I want Bannion.”

He asked, “Have you been inside the compound?” He was a thin, handsome man, about thirty-five, with messy, curly hair and light brown, very steady eyes.

They gave me a piece of paper and I drew the layout for them the best I could.

We piled into two trucks and stopped at another house that served as an armory. They loaded up with pistols and rifles. The leader handed me a SIG Sauer that might have been mine. They had grenades and a rocket launcher. I kept waiting for the pat on the back before the knife, but there was no fake friendliness and no shunning. The mood resembled preparation for a combat mission under a good commander: efficient, with minimal emotion or speculation. It did not surprise me that I felt so comfortable with them. The leader pulled me aside before we got back in the trucks.

“You can call me Rajan,” he said.

“Robert.”

He showed his skepticism. Maybe he was mimicking mine.

“You get Bannion. We get whatever is there.”

“I don't guarantee any money.”

“I said whatever is there.”

“Why are you bringing me along for this?”

“If it goes wrong, I will negotiate to give you up to help the rest of us escape.” He smiled, but I don't think he was joking. Maybe he was Diyar. Maybe he was nobody. There was no reason to ask.

______

The rocket blew out the front gate. No one returned fire and we moved into the courtyard, taking out as many surveillance cameras as we could find with rifle fire. Grenades for the office door and tear gas inside and up the staircase. Grenades into the building on the left. The rest of us went toward the residence at the rear. The door was unlocked. Rajan ordered one of his men to lead the way inside. He took three steps before the fire hit him. We backed out and tossed two grenades. I went in. I almost tripped over one goon groaning in the foyer from the shock of the blast. I smashed his head with the butt of my gun and moved forward. Rajan ordered one man to guard the entrance. Two of the PKK were taking fire as they worked their way upstairs. Two more worked cautiously down the hallway to the left.

Rajan joined me in the living room. I told him to expect at least eight goons. It was possible the house would be stocked with other DS Security men but they would have to be stacked on top of each other. The place was not huge.

A shot came from behind us. We hit the floor and turned. The goon I had hit was on his knees, firing unsteadily. Rajan shot him in the belly. We moved to both sides of the door to the dining room. I picked up a lamp from a side table and tossed it. No reaction. I thought I saw the flicker of a shadow. Rajan was about to go inside, but I signaled to wait. I stepped back from the wall and fired three shots through it. Rajan did the same on his side. Two goons fell. We stepped into the dining room, and Rajan put a bullet in each of their heads. Three down. There were at least two goons upstairs. That left three.

One of the PKK men joined us. The kitchen had two doors. Rajan and his man prepared to go in through the first one. I slipped past the first door and waited next to the second one. Rajan went in first, his man following close by. I stepped in. The goon was crouched behind the center island. I put my gun to the back of his head and ordered him to put down the weapon. He complied. I lifted him.

“Where's Bannion?”

“I don't know.”

I hit him across the jaw with the gun. He crashed back into the stove. I shot him in the knee. “Where is he?”

“I don't know, man. We weren't expecting the attack.”

We left him with the PKK man, and Rajan and I went to the study. The door was locked. Rajan shot out the keypad, but that did not work. He shot the lock. That did not work. The firing upstairs had stopped. I asked Rajan if he had a grenade. He shook his head and said, “Not for this room.”

A goon came into the other end of the hallway. I shot at him and he dived back. I doubted I killed him. We were trapped there. I signaled to Rajan that we would have to retreat up the hallway. We hugged the near wall and crept forward. After three steps the goon showed himself at the end of the hallway again. I shot. He ducked back. We did not hear the click of the door behind us.

A goon, the one named Neil Bess, knife in his right hand, leapt out at Rajan. Rajan managed to duck under the knife and turn toward Bess. But Bess hugged him and was pushing the knife at Rajan's throat. My head swiveled back and forth like a puppet looking for a laugh. I did not have a good shot at Bess and I did not want to turn my back on the guy at the end of the hallway.

Bess was going to slit Rajan's throat. I moved to them and slid my arm under Bess's. I put my hip into him and levered him off Rajan. Rajan fell. I had control of Bess. I spun him around so his back was to the end of the hallway. His friend down there shot him in the back.

A PKK man came from behind and shot that goon.

Rajan took a long look at me. I wasn't sure what it meant. “You are a very confident man,” he said. He kicked Bess aside and we entered the study.

The safe was open. Two body bags were inside. They were unzipped and newspapers spilled from them. I stood there like a drunk at the racetrack staring at discarded tickets, knowing it was useless to inquire. I dragged them out anyway and dumped them onto the floor. Five copies of the same paper from 2005 spread out. On the front page, a photo showed candidates for the Iraqi Parliament sitting unhappily at a long table. Bannion had stuffed the bags long ago. Not a single dollar bill fell out.

The safe did not interest Rajan. He went across the room to the closet. That door was locked, but he was not going to shoot out the lock. Two of his men came in. They reported that the premises were clear. Five dead and the man wounded in the knee. They looked at Bess. Six dead. I asked if Bannion was among the dead. Rajan had to describe Bannion to the men. They shook their heads. He asked them if they found “it.” They shook their heads. Another PKK man came in and said they had secured the offices. Rajan asked him about “it.” He shook his head.

Rajan asked one man to open the closet door. The man carefully examined the lock. Satisfied, he took the butt of his pistol and knocked the doorknob off. He turned the lock with his fingers and opened the closet. “Everything is ours,” Rajan said and held his gaze on me until I nodded.

The computer server was inside. This was their goal, more valuable than money. It held the security details for hundreds of locations in the north of Iraq: electronic and human assets. Rajan took a long look at me to make sure I was not going to try to stop him taking the server. I had no orders to get involved in that and no intention of taking that initiative. I shook my head to let him know I was not interested.

Disgust soaked me. No Bannion, no Victor, no money. And no good next move. The men were rolling the server out of the closet. The wheels got stuck on the doorknob on the floor. One guy picked up the doorknob and tossed it into the safe against the back wall.

It made the wrong sound.

Everyone turned. I ducked and stepped into the safe and picked up the doorknob. I hurled it against the rear panel. The wrong sound: lively and thin when it should have been dead and solid. “Don't lock me in,” I said. I pushed the back panel. It swung open.

Rajan ordered the others to take care of the server. He followed me down the stairs into a tunnel. The glare from the one lightbulb hanging midway through the tunnel obscured the other end. The walls were plasterboard. The floor was dirt. We moved slowly, weapons ready. I pressed lightly on the boards as we progressed. There were no side passages or cutouts. We reached a staircase and went up.

I pushed open the door at the top.

The room was bare, no windows and a tiled floor. An overhead light fixture was turned on. On the left, a door was partially open. I stood next to it. The room was dark. I caught a glimpse of a window and a chair. I pushed open the door, and before I walked in, a shot came through the window. A heavy load hit the floor.

“Close that door.” It was Bannion. I closed the door and rushed over to kick the gun from Bannion's grip. He noticed Rajan behind me.

“I see you brought help, Mr. Hewitt. Good for you.”

“Who is out there?”

“It's Victor,” he said. “One of my boys.”

I was glad for the darkness so he could not see my expression. I wanted Victor much more than I wanted Bannion. I moved close to the window and peeked out. Cars and trucks lined the dark street. Victor would have an easy time with me if I went out. I did not think I could appeal to our past together. I ached to get him, but the mission was clear: Bannion was the goal. Victor would have to wait.

“He thinks I have millions of dollars on me,” Bannion said.

“Isn't that what you wanted everyone to think?”

He chuckled. “You know me too well, Mr. Hewitt.”

“We must go,” Rajan said.

I took hold of Bannion. “Call me Rollie.”

B
annion did not want to escape. He did want to chat, though. The old days, the days of undeclared war and glory: Central Africa, Central America, anywhere a general or a despot got the idea that training his cannon fodder would prolong everyone's agony, Bannion found money and a temporary home. He had grown up operating on his own, much as I had, homeless by the time he was fifteen. Eventually, he found his way into the British Army and discovered that he was good at telling people what to do and teaching them how to do it. So he struck out on his own. Free from the constriction of the Army, Bannion combined his talent for villainy with his talent for organization and training. “People love being told what to do,” he said. “As long as it is something they think will give them an advantage. But the next step, Rollie, they seldom know how to take the next step. They continue to need me to tell them what to do.”

He wanted me thinking about his story and his wisdom and not thinking about the reason he was cooperating and why he wanted to cross the border into Turkey. I thought I knew. I just did not know how he planned to get rid of me. I expected it would involve an offer.

“What does ‘DS' stand for in DS Security?”

“Nothing anymore, I imagine. My boys are killed, most of them, anyway. And the rest scattered. My plans failed. I've disappointed so many who depended on me.”

He could have been the reincarnation of Dan. Meaner, more lethal, equally devious. I was part of his plan. I did not know my role.

“What was the plan?” I asked.

“You don't expect me to confess, do you, Rollie? Have you ever confessed?”

“I never staged a coup.”

“I will tell you, though, that you were wrong about something at dinner. Defending the oil fields is a better position to be in than attacking them. Those defending the fields control the flow of the oil and therefore the flow of the money.”

We reached Dohuk around sunrise. Like Erbil, Dohuk was booming, construction sites every way we turned, and next to them old, tired, low structures begging to be included in the makeover. Rajan gave the orders without explanation and was never questioned by his men. I did not want to question him either. He might have been grateful to me for saving him. He might have just wanted to see Bannion out of the country. He might have been using us as bait. A PKK man drove us and pretended not to understand English. Bannion occupied the backseat: the grand poobah in his carriage. I turned to face him so I spent much of the time looking for followers. I did not spot anyone. The threat of Victor nestled in my spine like an irritating parasite. And I did not think Gill was finished looking for me.

We stopped in an industrial area for about ten minutes, just parked alongside the four-lane road. A panel truck passed us, slowed down, and we followed it for about a mile right into a warehouse.

It was a coffee and tea warehouse if anyone asked or gave it a quick look. It was a liquor warehouse behind the fake walls and in the basement. Liquor was valuable in the Kurdish sections; they were brimming with energy and the taste of freedom, and the PKK needed money. Smuggling the booze across from Turkey gave them access to bribed border guards and the chance to smuggle guns and bombs, too.

Rajan was waiting in the small office. He told us we would start out again in the late afternoon. I could not use my passport and they did not trust Bannion using his. The Asayish had put up roadblocks and was guarding the border crossings into Turkey. The Peshmergas were out in force, too. I asked Rajan about the news reports.

“They want you. They want me.”

“What's the fallout from the assassination attempt? Is there a political change?” He shook his head. “What about the oil fields? Any violence there?”

“I haven't seen any reports of that,” Rajan said. “I have men who work at the Ain Sifni fields. They're at work this morning.”

“Who is guarding the fields?”

He said he would find out.

We started out toward the border in the panel truck. After an hour, we pulled over. Bannion and I were put in the back, snug among the rugs for export. Two hours later, we arrived at a mountain cabin built of stone, a crumbling place. A stream trickled past on the left, and a stone well sat just a few yards from the porch. Again, Rajan preceded us.

“The border is too hot right now. Perhaps in a few days it will calm down. Like a fever.”

“And if it doesn't.”

“Maybe you'll become a shepherd.” He swept his arm across the barren mountainside where no sheep were ever going to live. We were in a hollow, surrounded by crags and cliffs and slopes. No view, not easily viewed.

I slept through the night and deep into the morning. Rajan was gone. Two of his men remained. One was cooking on a propane stove and the other sat outside on the porch with a rifle. Rest had wiped away the fog shrouding Bannion. To understand Bannion, I only had to ask myself what Dan would be doing if he were in Bannion's position.

Bannion wanted to get the money. I was enabling his getaway. He would be my new best friend until I was maneuvered to the edge of a cliff.

The vehicles were gone and that suited me because it gave us a feeling of time stretching without end, which I hoped might exhaust Bannion. Dan always arranged an out, a pressing appointment, a not so secret assignation, and most reliably and most fantastically, the demands of being a single father. I had never seen Dan stranded in this way, so I had an extra reason to look forward to my sessions with Bannion.

Though he was big and a bit blubbery, Bannion was hardy. Uphill did not make him breathless enough to stop his storytelling. I did not tell him I wanted the money; that admission would give him too great an advantage. I assumed that he assumed the money was my interest. I inquired, instead, about which Americans were involved beyond the two generals I had met.

“I started out with a dream, Rollie. A dream of controlling this vast untapped pool of oil. Me, a boy of the streets. But I needed partners. Always look for partners with power. That's the rule, and it meant dealing with the Americans. I admit that their eagerness to join was something of an astonishment. They mistrusted their own government even as they risked their lives to serve it, even as they bragged endlessly about it. It was never a matter of betrayal for them. They convinced themselves they were merely extending the policy and serving their country's interest. Their own profit was an unspoken fact of life. Like self-abuse.”

He wanted me to laugh, so I did. He wanted me to tsk-tsk, too, so I did. He spewed names. We stopped and sat on flat rocks and I wrote down the names on a pad I found at the cabin.

“They were generals and colonels, big shots one and all, diplomats, too, and they thought that since they spent years giving orders, they could begin a new empire, blaze a trail, but they were followers one and all, Rollie. They ended up taking orders from me. I just had to lie low and let them pretend they were in charge. But you understand this, Rollie. I can tell. You view them the same way I do. You knew General Garner, didn't you?”

“Did I?”

“We should have been partners.”

I knew what to do, but I hesitated. The lifetime of Dan proximity mandated that I reply, “I don't think that partnership would work.”

“Close the door partway. Leave it open a crack,” Dan would say. “That sliver of light thrown into the hallway is magnetic, Rollie boy.”

But did Dan magic work on Dan? It was always easy to hate him, easy to marvel, easy to absorb the lessons and employ them to survive. Easy to work on everyone else. But Bannion had all the knowledge. He had engineered a project far larger and more ambitious than anything Dan had ever imagined. Bannion would recognize my moves. I hesitated, not sure if I did so fearing success or failure.

“I don't think that partnership would work.”

“If I had you with me from the start, we would be kings by now.” I didn't answer. “You know it's true.”

“I know that we can't go backward. Who did you have in the diplomatic corps?” The rule: Change the subject to make him stick with it.

The names of diplomats meant nothing to me. I wrote them down as if they did. “Tell me who you work for now, Rollie. This is hardly a fair exchange.”

I spewed a bunch of plausible lies describing a DIA agency similar to SHADE. I called it PLG for Post Liberation Group. I said they chose me for my language skills.

“I should think they chose you for many reasons, perhaps some of the same reasons I would choose you.” He widened his eye to exclaim his admiration and his roly-poly cheeks rose with his smile. When he let go, everything fell at once like a popped balloon. “I had a man in the U.S., a Colonel McColl, quite a capable man. Did you know him?”

Only well enough to kill him. But Bannion did not suspect that yet. He wanted to know if I was aware of the buried money. “His name was mentioned,” I said.

Below us, a truck labored up the rough track toward the cabin. We walked back. A PKK man was unloading supplies from the truck. He ignored Bannion's questions about how long we would be there. After dinner, we sat on the porch, watching the darkness slide across the mountainside. He was shameless enough to say he had “reached for the stars.” I was being wooed.

“We go into these conflicts with goals. But it's the goals that hold us back. It's like this: You see a beautiful woman and you decide you must have her phone number and you set out for that. But what if you could have gotten more, so much more. The mission defines your limitations. It holds you back if you allow it to. Think of the Americans stopping in the first Gulf War. They could have changed the world if they had just followed their noses. In Bosnia, I saw opportunities to make millions. Not lawfully, mind you, but opportunities nonetheless. And it was my responsibility to face the truth. If I hadn't, I never would have been able to help the Kurds. I never would have met Maya.”

He paused and made sure to hold my eyes. He wanted to see if I had slept with Maya. After a while, he said, “I won't ask what went on between you two. It was over for us long ago, long ago. I don't think it could have been any other way. She was attracted to me as someone who was seizing opportunities, and to satisfy her, I would have had to spend all my time seizing her. If she likes you, then I take it as a confirmation of my assessment of you. She is not a woman to spend her passions frivolously.”

It was like eavesdropping on Dan and his guests. Opportunities missed, wistful regrets, lessons learned. And just as I was expecting the proposal, he stood and said, “Don't like talking important matters with these fellows listening in. Zealots, you know, can never be trusted.” His timing was perfect. He went inside. I sat there letting the endless questions pop and sparkle and fade like the stars.

The morning was a duplicate of the previous day: clear and cloudless. The PKK man said we would not be moving out for hours, at least. Bannion and I hiked the same route. I asked how long he served in the Army. I overpraised my current job as a way of showing my doubts. He mentioned timing as the key to making a decision to go civilian.

When we reached the flat section, he said, “You must know about the money.”

“The buried money? That was a good plan.”

“It was. It was.”

“Yours? The plan, I mean.”

“Safe haven, that's what I thought. I must have a safe haven for these riches we found. Remember, I snuck into Erbil before the war started. Finding that money was a top priority from the beginning. They all pretended it was found by accident. They were like kids searching for hidden Christmas presents whenever the folks turned their backs; it was the only thing on their minds. But the generals did not know how long the war would last. They couldn't say how long we would have to hide it until the moment came to put our plan into action. They could not trust each other, though they never said that out loud. Suggesting the U.S. as a safe haven solved everything.”

“I heard it's all been found. All the graves located.”

“Have you?”

“Maybe you waited too long.”

“Do you know the most difficult thing in the world, Rollie? More difficult than cold-blooded murder. More difficult than restraint or patience. Or sincerity.” He stopped and seemed to consider what else was difficult in life. His eye darted around, checking each corner of the world for something left behind. “It's knowing what you really want.”

“You mean it took you all those years to decide how to spend the money?”

He stopped the gangster, fake friendliness. His voice became a naked growl. “I think you know exactly what I mean.”

I did. I knew because there could be only one answer, and I was the only pupil in the class that had been taught this lesson. Bannion had betrayed everyone. The plot to take over Kurdistan was a decoy, a still photo for the cover of the brochure. The ambitions and dreams of the military men and the diplomats were turned against them, used as a leash to parade them and then tie them to the porch. Bannion knew the secret: They would not go out without that leash.

The money was always for Bannion and only Bannion.

“They helped you hide it and you had until the U.S. pulled out to perfect your exit. Most of what you had to do was wait. But knowing what you really want is harder than patience.”

“The best plans evolve. Time is an ally.” He read from The Book of Dan, chapter one.

Time was an ally, and I worked for time. The story that McColl or someone else spilled the locations took the pressure off Bannion. He would not have to face the moment when his partners faced rotting corpses where they expected crisp hundreds.

“You must have been delighted to get rid of McColl.”

He looked at me for a long time and I thought I had revealed too much. Did he already know I was the one who had busted McColl?

“McColl was a problem from the start. He had no business digging up that grave in Oklahoma. Just impatient. And by accident he picked the one that some other guy had looted. Someone I never heard of. Bad luck for him, bad luck for McColl.”