The Wreckage: A Thriller Page 5

  Ruiz orders a steak-and-Guinness pie and a pint of ale. While he’s waiting he ducks outside to a newsstand and buys a copy of The Stage. Turning to the listings, he runs a finger down the page. Most are by appointment only. She was looking for an open casting. His finger stops. Taps the page.

  Speed Dating, a romantic comedy.

  Alasdair has been dumped by his girlfriend and is convinced to go to a speed dating night. Rehearsals begin September 18.

  We are looking for:

  —Alasdair 25–35. Northerner. Slim, a little clumsy around women.

  —Jenny 20–30. Confident and sassy with a bruised heart.

  —Felicity 20–30. Jenny’s best friend.

  —Chris 25–35. Jenny’s fiancé.

  Casting at Trafalgar Studios in Whitehall, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

  (Please bring headshots and a brief resume.)

  Ruiz looks at his watch. It’s almost two now. Lunch first and then a look-see.

  7

  BAGHDAD

  The helicopters are flying close tonight. Luca can hear the whump whump of the propellers concussing the air as they pass overhead. American troops are patrolling, searching for weapons and insurgents and “wanted” faces on playing cards.

  They’re early. Most of the raids don’t happen until after midnight. The Apaches hover above convoys of armored Humvees that will seal off entire streets. The phys-ops vehicles are fitted with loudspeakers broadcasting messages in Arabic or Farsi or Kurdish, telling people to put their weapons next to the front door and walk outside. Few have time to comply.

  Five soldiers will enter the house while five wait outside. They go upstairs first, grabbing the man of the house, dragging him out of bed in front of his wife and children, forcing him up against a wall. Other family members are corralled into the same room and made to kneel with their hands on their heads.

  The interpreter will ask the head of the household if he has any weapons or anti-US propaganda. He will then ask if he is involved in any insurgent activity. The householder will say no, because that is normally the truth. If something is found, they will shackle and hood the men and teenage boys, tossing them in the back of a Bradley. If nothing is found, they will say, “Sorry to have disturbed you, sir. Have a nice evening,” before moving on to the next house.

  Luca spent three months embedded with the Third Brigade, First Armoured Division, and watched these “cordon and search” operations first hand. He saw Iraqi men humiliated in front of their terrified families and their homes trashed. He saw accidents because soldiers, wound up with fear, were convinced that people inside these houses were waiting to kill them. One wrong move, one mistaken gesture, and innocent people died.

  Passing through the hotel security screening, he enters the foyer of the al-Hamra. Some of the windows still haven’t been replaced since the bombing and are covered with plywood. People have taken to scrawling their signatures on the wood panels and leaving short messages.

  The bar is crowded with security contractors, engineers, journalists and western NGOs. Luca knows most of the reporters, cameramen and photographers. Some of them are in the veteran class because a year in Baghdad can seem like a lifetime.

  They’re talking about a car bombing this afternoon in al-Hurriyah Square. Fifteen civilians died and thirty were injured in the marketplace. One of the Associated Press photographers has photographed the severed head of a small girl. Now he’s drinking tonic water and showing the picture to anyone who wants to see it.

  The security contractors are out by the pool because the al-Hamra doesn’t like guns in the main bar. For the most part their weapons are hidden, tucked into shoulder holsters or socks. Their heavy artillery is at home in their apartments and hotel rooms.

  “Hey, Luca, you made it!”

  Shaun Porter waves from a deckchair. He’s lying next to a pretty Iraqi girl who is sipping a fruit juice. Prostitution in Iraq is one of those hidden vices, outlawed under Saddam, but never stamped out. Now there are families that bring their daughters to the hotels for the enjoyment of the westerners.

  Shaun pulls a beer from a bucket of ice and flips it open with the edge of a cigarette lighter. He hands it to Luca, who wishes him a happy birthday.

  “You know most of the guys.”

  “I’ve seen them around.”

  Beer bottles are raised in welcome. A redneck from Texas is wearing a T-shirt that says, “Who’s your Baghdaddy?” He starts telling a joke about why Iraqis have only two pallbearers at their funerals.

  “Because garbage cans only come with two handles.”

  The men laugh and Luca wishes he were somewhere else. A big guy in a cut-off sweatshirt joins them. He has blue flames tattooed on his forearms.

  “This is the mate I was telling you about,” says Shaun. “Meet Edge.”

  Edge’s grey eyes flick over Luca as though sizing up his fighting weight. Slightly older than the others, he has deep wrinkles around his eyes and a crushing handshake.

  “You’re that journalist living outside the wire.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Does that make you crazy or fucked up?”

  “Deluded, maybe.”

  Edge raises his margarita and sucks salt crystals from around the rim. Behind him, the pool lights glow an alien green beneath the water.

  Two Filipino women shriek with laughter. They’re wearing short denim skirts and skimpy tops, flashing midriffs and muffin tops to the group of contractors who keep plying them with drinks.

  Edge is watching, amused. Sexual conquest is a local sport among the contractors.

  “You were here in ’03,” says Luca.

  “Saw the whole clusterfuck.”

  “So what made you come back?”

  “I missed the place.”

  Edge drains his margarita and licks his lips.

  “I got bored working for my father-in-law. America’s fucked, man—people losing their houses, their jobs, factories going offshore—the bankers and politicians screwed everyone over.”

  “You think this place is any better?”

  “Here you can shoot the bad guys.” He grins. “In America we give them corporate bonuses and promote them to Treasury Secretary.”

  He holds his glass aloft, signaling to the barman for another. “You know the moment I knew I was coming back to Baghdad?”

  “No.”

  “Happened before I even left. I had to pick up a package from the Military Postal Service—it was a birthday present from my folks. This fat chick was sitting behind the counter painting her nails. She said it was her coffee break and she made me wait fifteen minutes while I watched her stuff her face with Twinkies. I was getting blown up and shot at for twenty-five grand a year while that fat chick, sitting on her fat ass, lifting nothing heavier than a pencil was making four times what I did. Tell me if that seems fair?”

  “I’m not a great judge of fairness.”

  “Yeah, well, nobody twisted my arm to come here the first time, but now I’m gonna fill my boots.”

  Luca glances past Edge to a table on the patio. A woman is sitting with two men. Luca recognizes her from the Finance Ministry. She was part of the UN Audit team. Dressed in grey flannels and low-heeled shoes, she’s wearing her hair down and nursing a glass of wine. Her high cheekbones look almost carved and her eyes are shining in the reflection from the pool. She doesn’t seem to be listening to the conversation at her table.

  “I wouldn’t waste my breath,” says Edge, following his gaze.

  “Why’s that?”

  “I offered to buy her a drink and she treated me like I was contagious.”

  “Maybe she’s sick of being hassled.”

  “Or she could be an uppity, better-than-everyone, super bitch.”

  Edge has the barman’s attention. Luca slips away and stands beneath a palm tree, checking the messages on his phone. The woman is no longer at the table. She’s standing by the pool, talking on her mobile, arguing with someone.

 
“It’s only for two more weeks… I know… but you can wait that long. No, I’m not at a party. It’s the hotel.” She makes eye contact with Luca. Looks away. “I think you’re being totally unreasonable… I can’t talk to you when you get like this… I’m going to hang up…”

  She snaps the phone closed and purses her lips.

  “Problems at home?” asks Luca.

  “That’s not really any of your business.”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  She has an American accent and large eyes with eyelids that pause at half-mast like a face from a da Vinci painting.

  “I shouldn’t have been listening. I’ll leave you alone.”

  Luca walks away. She doesn’t stop him. He goes to the bar and has a drink with a German journalist and his French colleague, who are both pulling out when the last of the American combat troops leave at the end of the month.

  At nine o’clock Luca calls it a night. As he crosses the hotel lobby, he notices the woman again—this time she’s arguing with the hotel receptionist. There is a problem with the room. The power points don’t work. She can’t recharge her laptop.

  Luca is going to walk right by but stops and addresses the receptionist in Arabic—sorting out the problem.

  “They’re moving you to another room,” he says. “It will take fifteen minutes.”

  “Thank you,” she says, hesitantly, her mouth fractionally too big for her face. Luca nods and turns to leave.

  “Where did you learn to speak Arabic?”

  “My mother is Iraqi.”

  “And you’re American?”

  “I was born in Chicago.”

  She glances at her feet. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Why?”

  The question flummoxes her.

  “Do I have to explain?”

  “You could say loneliness, or guilt, or perversity…”

  “I’m sorry for being so rude to you.”

  “In that case I’ll have a whisky.”

  Rather than go back into the bar, they go into the restaurant. She’s a foot shorter than he is, but carries herself very straight, her footsteps almost floating across the tiles.

  “I’m Daniela Garner.”

  “Luca Terracini.”

  “That’s an Italian name.”

  “My grandfather came from Naples.”

  “It’s impressive to meet a journalist who speaks Arabic.”

  “I’m glad you’re impressed. How do you know I’m a journalist?”

  “Most of the people here are journalists or private contractors. You don’t look like a mercenary.”

  “I saw you today. You were at the Ministry.”

  She shrugs. A waiter takes their orders. She’s drinking white wine. Luca tries again.

  “You’re working for the UN?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Shaun is a mate of mine. He called you an IT geek.”

  “I’m an accountant.”

  She shifts in her chair, recrossing her legs. Everything about her is dainty and refined, yet strong. The restaurant is dark apart from the table lamps.

  “We’re installing new software to audit government accounts and keep track of reconstruction spending.”

  “Sounds dry.”

  “Bone.”

  “How long will the job take?”

  “They told us two weeks, but from what I saw today, it’s going to be longer. I don’t think anyone in Iraq understands bookkeeping.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  He drinks half his whisky but can’t really taste it. Downs the rest. Orders another.

  “How long have you been here?” she asks.

  “Six years.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why? I mean, who would stay here… if they had a choice?”

  “Most Iraqis don’t have a choice.”

  “Yes, but you have an American passport. Do you have any family here?”

  “No.”

  She motions over her shoulder towards the bar. “I mean, those guys out there—the mercenaries—they’re here for the money or to play at being soldiers or because of their homoerotic fantasies; and most of the journalists are here because they have this romantic ideal of being war correspondents in flak jackets, appearing on the evening news. You don’t strike me as being like the rest of them.”

  “Maybe I’m deranged.”

  “No.”

  “Or pumped full of drugs.”

  “It’s something else.”

  Luca can feel a dangerous light-headedness coming over him, a trembling inside. He knows he should end the encounter. Draining his glass, he gets up from the table.

  “Thank you for the drink.” He gives her a tight smile.

  Daniela looks disappointed. “Have I offended you?”

  “No.”

  “I think I have. I’m sorry. Your friend in there—the one with the tattoos on his forearms…”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “His first words to me were that we might get blown up tomorrow and did I fancy a fuck? I’m not interested in your life history, Luca. I was just making conversation because you were nice to me.”

  Silence.

  Luca takes a deep breath. Relaxes. Manages a proper smile. “There are things you do to get by in a place like this. Masks you have to wear.”

  The way she looks at him, her silence, her detachment, it reminds him of a shrink he went to see after Nicola’s funeral.

  The hotel receptionist has crossed the restaurant. Daniela’s room is ready.

  She looks down at his hands and then up into his face. Her tongue touches her lower lip.

  “Do you want to help me move my luggage?”

  “They can send someone up.”

  She doesn’t reply and turns away, leaving the restaurant. Luca walks outside, beyond midnight, making his way home to an unmade bed and sweat-stained sheets. He doesn’t contemplate what it would have been like to sleep with Daniela Garner. He doesn’t fuck any more. He’s not a performer.

  8

  LONDON

  Trafalgar Studios has crimson carpets, dusty chandeliers and an ageing splendor. Dozens of wannabes are milling in the foyer, pretending to ignore each other. Some are rehearsing soliloquies or listening to iPods or chewing gum. Multi-tasking in the modern age.

  Holly Knight gives her name to a brisk young assistant wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard. She’s handed a scene to read—a two-page dialogue between “Jenny” and “Alasdair,” a young couple meeting for the first time.

  “You’ll be assigned a partner,” says the assistant.

  “But I’ve prepared my own material,” says Holly.

  “I’m sure your mother loves it.”

  The assistant is already taking another name.

  Holly has to climb the stairs to find a square of carpet, beneath a window. She reads each line of her dialogue and closes her eyes, trying to memorize them.

  After waiting an hour she gets bored. Pushing open a polished wooden door, she finds herself in a small theater with a brilliantly lit stage. Tiered seats rise into the darkness on three sides.

  The director, dressed in a Che Guevara beret and fatigues, barely seems to pay attention as names are called and a new pair of actors arrives on stage. Candidates are whittled down. Holly watches them, some trying too hard, others battling nerves. Periodically, the director whispers something to his personal assistant, an unnaturally tall, thin girl with large eyes and a swan neck—a model with dreams of becoming an actress; not beautiful, just different.

  It’s almost five o’clock before Holly’s name is called. Her assigned partner is an inch shorter than she is and seems to be channeling Hugh Grant with his flop of hair and nervous mumbling. Holly ignores his affectations and tries to relax, finding places in the dialogue to move and look away and back to her partner.

  When she finishes, she waits. The director confers with his assistant. Then he tells Holly to leave her number. It’s not a call back and it�
�s not a rejection. She almost skips off stage.

  Outside she runs along the street and descends the steps into Charing Cross Station. She needs to get to Hatton Garden before the jewelry shops close. Walking down the escalator, she follows the subterranean maze of passages until she reaches the Northern Line and takes a tube to Tottenham Court Road, before changing to the Central Line and surfacing again at Chancery Lane.

  Stepping into a doorway on Holborn Road, she takes off her coat and pulls on a cashmere cardigan before brushing her hair. Using a small compact, she paints her lips and checks her make-up, pouting at her reflection. Finally she unwraps the delicate hair-comb from tissue paper, sliding it into her hair and looking at the result in a shop window. Satisfied, she turns into Hatton Garden and chooses a jewelry shop that is clear of customers.

  An assistant is returning a tray of engagement rings to a display case.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t done this sort of thing before,” says Holly, putting on a perfect Sloane Square accent. “My mother wanted a few pieces of jewelry valued. She’s looking to sell them. They were gifts from Daddy, who isn’t her favorite person.”

  Holly takes out a small velvet box and places it on the glass counter-top. The assistant fetches the owner, who emerges from the back room as though he’s been interned there since the war. Blinking at her shyly, the old jeweler examines each stone and setting with an eyeglass.

  Holly leans closer. She’s wearing an expensive watch on her wrist. She wants the jeweler to notice.

  “There’s nothing here of particular value,” he says. “Apart from the sentimental sort,” he adds.

  “Oh, Mummy will be disappointed. I think she was hoping… well, it doesn’t matter. Thank you anyway.”

  As she’s talking, Holly takes out the hair-comb and tosses her hair back before reinserting it again.

  “That’s a very interesting piece,” says the jeweler. “May I see it?”

  “What? This old thing.”

  Even before she places the hair-comb in the old jeweler’s hands, she can see the hunger in his eyes. Desire is something Holly understands, particularly in men.