The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (68 page)

Security had increased since Rem’s first visit, and they found the compound barricaded behind a concrete blast wall and double wall of sandbags topped with razor wire. Out on the street a guard post and a row of concrete bollards with chains reached between them cut access to the road. The worry of a car bomb (or suicide bomber bounding over the barricades making it right to the front of the building) made security a clumsy affair of blocks and stoppages. Inside, sandbags obscured three-quarters of the windows so the offices took on a dry air of reflected, indirect light.

They were met inside the entrance by an officer dressed exactly like the bursar, who introduced himself as Howell’s clerk. Squires, Markland’s replacement, would see them in Howell’s office. Rem had seen some young people working in Iraq (among them Fatboy, Samuels, Chimeno, Kiprowski, and Pakosta, who ranged from their late teens to their early twenties), but this boy looked like he didn’t yet shave, and Rem found this disturbing. He wasn’t an
officer
but an
intern
. The clerk assured Rem that there would be protection once they’d taken possession of the money; someone would see them back to the airport. There was also money for that. ‘People watch the office,’ he gestured to the street, ‘they know what happens here. Somehow the word gets out.’

Sutler struggled with the information that Markland had left. ‘I spoke with him yesterday. He said nothing. Everything was set up with Markland.’

‘Squires has been briefed.’

While they walked to Howell’s office the boy made a casual comment that the building needed retrofitting. They were going to ask HOSCO to make a survey to see what needed to be done to make it more secure. ‘These aren’t solid, these are prefabs, not much more than a trailer. We’re a whole lot more vulnerable than we look. You could kick your way into here.’ The boy spoke in a flat voice. ‘You’d be surprised what you have to think about.’

The clerk knocked on Howell’s door.

Squires called out that the door was open: on Howell’s desk sat a small packet, a box which might, in other circumstances, contain a cake.

‘Just you two.’ He pointed his pen at Sutler and Kiprowski and told them to close the door.

The clerk made his excuses and Rem waited with Pakosta who still seemed steamed about the earlier exchange with Kiprowski. He dressed his agitation with further indignation: Sutler.

‘You’re sure you’re not making a mistake?’ he asked. ‘He’s soft. He has stuff going on you know nothing about.’

‘There’s no other
stuff
, Pakosta. He’s employed by HOSCO the same as you and me.’

‘Why don’t you ask your wife? She knows more about what’s going on here. You have no clue.’

Kiprowski came out of the offices and signalled to Rem. ‘You’d better come in.’

Rem found Sutler standing in front of Howell’s desk, looking small. Kiprowski stopped at the door.

Squires spoke without looking at Rem, his fingers spread to play chords at the edge of his desk. ‘Can you tell me how HOSCO know about the shipments to Camp Liberty?’

‘What shipments?’

Squires pushed his chair away from the desk. ‘The shipments of military property to Camp Liberty.’

‘You mean the boat?’

‘What has this to do with HOSCO? This is none of their business. These matters lay outside their interests. I’d like to know how they know.’

Rem shrugged. ‘I don’t see the difference?’

Sutler bowed his head. ‘He’s telling us we can’t have the money. He wants to know how HOSCO managed to hear about the transports being made to Camp Liberty.’

‘I told them. Why wouldn’t I?’

Squires shook his head. ‘Those vehicles and the property on which they are kept are managed by the United States military under our authority. Why didn’t you come to us? This is Southern-CIPA’s business, it has nothing to do with HOSCO. You will leave them where they are.’

Rem said, ‘I wanted to know what we were supposed to do about the vehicles on the Beach.’

Sutler held up his hands in submission. ‘I’m here for money. That’s all I’m here for. This doesn’t involve my project.’

‘Well, you’ve wasted your time.’ Squires slapped his hands on the armrests, satisfied with himself. ‘I can’t just hand out money. You’ve raised these orders without any permissions from the divisional director. They need to come through the proper channels.’

‘There isn’t a director for this region in post. You know that.’ Sutler leaned over the table.

Squires continued unabated. ‘Once you have those orders properly countersigned we can see about distributing whatever amounts you need. I can’t give you the money until you’ve followed the proper procedures. It takes twenty-one days.’

‘This is childish.’

‘No. This is about 1.4 million dollars. That’s what you’re asking for. We can’t release any monies without the proper guarantees about how it’s going to be spent.’

‘I’ve been through all of this with Markland. Let me contact HOSCO.’

‘No. It can’t be arranged over the phone. You need the proper authorization
on paper
.’

When Sutler protested, Squires folded his arms. ‘I’ve explained what you need to do, I don’t understand why you’re still here.’

Sutler walked out of the office, bypassing Kiprowski and Rem.

On the return flight Sutler sat apart from the crew. HOSCO would deal with this, he said, and they would still be paid for what they’d done today, and maybe there would be something extra in it for them as this wasn’t any part of their normal duties. Pakosta and Kiprowski exchanged glances.

Sutler spoke more privately with Rem. ‘We have to come back.’

‘I’m about done with these people.’ Rem enjoyed the certainty of this thought.

‘Did you notice the photographs?’

Rem said he hadn’t.

‘In Howell’s office. Did you notice the photograph behind Squires?’

Rem said no.

‘I’ve not met Howell. I take it he has white hair?’ Sutler appeared to refigure the idea as he expressed it. ‘In the photograph there’s a man with white hair on a boat. This is Howell. Do you know what his hobbies are?’ Sutler waited for a guess, which Rem didn’t provide. ‘Sailing. He likes boats. Do you know what he did when he took Pakosta and the others to Kuwait?’

‘No.’

‘He went sailing.’

‘I don’t see the problem. So the boat belongs to Howell?’

‘After I left Howell’s office I went to speak with the CA. The Civil Authority coordinate everything that happens at Southern-CIPA. These people are the muscles to an overworked brain. There were no records of any deliveries coming to Camp Liberty. You’ve seen those Chinooks, every other day something new comes over, but there’s no record. They’re all missing. The equipment was moved without proper authorization. I don’t know why, but it looks like Howell is using military resources to move his own property without proper authority, Squires and Markland must know this, that’s why they aren’t pleased that HOSCO knows. Have you seen the boxes? Have you checked what’s in them?’

‘Explosives for the burn pits.’

‘But have you looked?’

Rem said no. The boxes were all marked the same. He assumed they all held flares and grenades for the burn pits.

As soon as they arrived back at Camp Liberty, Rem and Sutler checked the crates stored in the Quonset.

‘Have you spoken with anyone else about this?’

Sutler said no. It wasn’t something he’d properly thought through. Not that it made absolute sense to him at this moment. ‘I don’t know Howell. And I don’t know why anyone would be doing this. But it seems bizarre.’

The crates could not be moved by two men, so Sutler found Kiprowski, and when they still couldn’t move them Kiprowski was sent to find Samuels. These two, Rem believed, could be trusted.

Inside the first crate, packed in moulded sections, they found industrial equipment. None of them could make sense out of the parts or tell if they were weaponry or machinery. The oiled metal left a residue on their hands, retained their hand and fingerprints, and Rem said they should just leave it as it is.

In the third and fourth crates they found explosives, the same baton grenades they used for the fires. In the smaller pits they simply used flares, set trails of gasoline, lines of fuel to light the fires. The quantity of explosives surprised Rem, it wouldn’t be possible to use everything they were supplied with – but this also didn’t seem out of the ordinary. They had more water than they needed, they also had a surplus of toilet rolls.

Rem and Sutler sat by the Quonset door, which reminded Rem of a gas station: the open door, the scrappy road, a building busy with crates and boxes, the smell of oil.

✩

Cathy checked her emails after work.

✩

Santo gone. Pakosta gone. Kiprowski gone. Sutler gone. Chimeno, Clark, gone and gone, a weekend in Bahrain with Howell, and Watts back home: everyone away except Samuels (which, to Rem’s thinking, was pretty much like shepherding a lame, wet dog).

Rem couldn’t sleep in a room on his own, nor in his cot, so he moved to Kiprowski’s with the notion that this would compensate: a different perspective on the same room, a relief from his own stale mattress and pillow – not that he could distinguish Kiprowski’s smell from his own. He attempted to sleep in his shorts and T-shirt, then naked, then fully clothed, then just for a laugh, tried on clothes he found in a bag under the cot, and realized once he was dressed that these were Amer Hassan’s trousers and T-shirt, unwashed. A dead man’s clothes lovingly folded in a doubled plastic bag.

Samuels’ company was worse than no company at all. The boy, a lanky blankness, came to him panicked with a message from HOSCO saying that inspectors would come to confirm compliance with the closure of the burn pits.

Rem asked Samuels to join him on a drive through the camp, and found the boy unsettled by the news because he didn’t want to return home. Rem didn’t press for details.

‘Your contract with HOSCO still runs for the next couple of months, but you’ll be working with Sutler, and he’ll organize what happens, and there’ll be more work if that’s what you want.’

This confused Samuels even more. ‘You’re leaving?’

Rem didn’t want to answer. The air stank of burning oil, a sense of trouble coming toward them, faint at first, a little doubtful, but definite as they came to the pits. Fires sparked up independently once in a while. From Pit 3 rose slow wisps, the soft green-black of a mallard’s neck. Not trusting the smell or the colour Rem took Samuels up to the Beach and they both looked out at the horizon. Samuels held his hand up to his face, sheltered his eyes, his watch caught the sun.

‘What’s that on your wrist?’

Samuels looked at the watch.

‘Nothing.’

Rem took hold of Samuels’ arm and looked closely at the watch.

‘How did you get a Breitling?’

‘I bought it from Santo.’

‘Santo sold you a Breitling?’

‘I won it playing poker.’

‘Do you know how much a watch like this is worth?’

Samuels looked at his watch with a little more curiosity. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’s a Breitling. Santo picked it up on his way back from Kuwait.’

‘And how did Santo manage to buy a Breitling?’

‘Maybe Howell gave it to him? I don’t know.’ Samuels began to sound uncertain.

‘Howell?’

‘It was part of the pay. He said we were working for him, not HOSCO, and this was on top of the work we were doing.’

‘Was this just for Santo?’

‘We all had a choice, cash or pick out something. Everyone picked a watch.’

‘A Breitling? How many did he buy?’

‘I don’t know.’ Now Samuels sounded defensive.

‘What did he give you?’

‘A watch and cash.’

‘He gave you cash? How much, exactly?’

Samuels muttered his reply.

‘I didn’t catch that.’

‘I picked a different watch and he made up the difference because it was cheaper.’ Samuels nodded. ‘A hundred, a hundred and fifty.’ Then in a smaller voice, ‘Four hundred and seventy, something like that.’

‘He bought you a watch and he gave you over four hundred dollars, and you accepted these gifts?’

‘He said it was pay. He said it didn’t matter.’ Samuels shrugged, a little insulted by Rem’s questions. ‘It wasn’t just me.’

‘And none of you thought this was strange? From the Deputy Administrator?’

‘There’s no harm done. It’s his money.’

This, Rem recognized, sounded more like Santo than Samuels. Samuels held out his hand, flat, palm up, a gesture meaning,
look about you, come on, take a look, exactly what is normal here?
And Rem considered this gesture to be borrowed, although he could not place the quote.