Foster was silent for a moment. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to arrange for your contract over there to go to Decision Infinity. They can use the money. I need all of your attention devoted to the McGarvey problem.”
“That would put Admin in a bind,” Remington protested, even though he had to agree with what was coming next. “We’re carrying a large salary and training budget.”
“We’ll take care of your company,” Foster said. “Your main objective now is to kill Mr. McGarvey as soon as possible. I don’t care where or how, just get the job done, Gordon, and you will be a busy man, because we have the main issue to contend with.”
“I wasn’t in on that loop,” Remington said. “Roland never discussed it with me.”
“Conclude the McGarvey business, and you will be brought into the loop, as you call it.”
“I’ll do my best,” Remington said, but he was talking to a broken connection.
FIFTY
The sky to the east was just beginning to lighten when Hadid slowed down and pulled off the highway a few miles outside of Az Zubayr, a small city just north of the border with Kuwait and barely twenty miles from Basra.
“It’s too dangerous to cross the border now,” Hadid said. “It’s what the authorities will expect Mr. Tony to do. We’ll stay here until nightfall, when Mr. James will spring into existence.”
The battery in McGarvey’s sat phone had worn down, and the Range Rover’s cigarette lighter receptacle didn’t work, but Hadid had promised that when they finally stopped, the phone’s charger could be directly connected to the battery under the hood.
They followed a dirt track for a few miles out into the desert until they came to what at one time in the past might have been a farm or more likely a small sheep station. A main stone building in absolutely horrible condition, a gaping hole in one of the walls, and half the roof missing, sat at the edge of a small dried-up stream. Several other, much smaller buildings in even worse condition made up what would have been a small compound, sections of a stone wall visible here and there.
“This belonged to one of my uncles, but during the first war the U.S. Army based three tanks here. They didn’t leave much.”
“Who owns it now?”
“The family, so this in some respects belongs to me,” Hadid said. “But no one cares. There is no oil just here.” He drove around to the back of the main structure and backed the Range Rover inside, where most of the roof was intact, then shut off the ignition.
It was a good spot, covered from the air and from the highway or anyone coming up the dirt track. Getting out of the car McGarvey felt a sense of sadness for the people who had lived here, their shattered lives. Maybe they had dreamed of cashing in on the oil revenues that had never materialized. All that had shown up on their doorstep were Iraqi tanks and American ordnance.
Hadid had opened the hood. He took the sat phone charger, cut the wires from the plug with a penknife, and peeled them back so they were long enough to be wrapped around the battery terminals. He plugged the other end into the phone, and a second later the charge indicator lit up, and he grinned. “Now we will spend the day here — you and I plus the battery — recharging.”
They sat on the open tailgate and ate their breakfast of flat bread, figs, goat cheese and American vinegar, and sea salt potato chips. Hadid had brought several bottles of sweet tea for himself, along with several liters of water and two cans of Heinekin for McGarvey.
“After the last twenty-four hours you’ve had I thought beer would be better than tea.”
“No worse than yours,” McGarvey said, opening one of the warm beers. “What’s next for you?”
Hadid smiled wistfully. “The sadness is leaving, Mr. James. They are waiting for me in Paradise. This I truly believe and it gives me comfort.”
There was nothing to be said in reply.
“After you are safely back at the Crowne under your new identity, I’ll return to my duties in Baghdad. And for you, did you accomplish what you came here for?”
“A part of it.”
“But there is more back in Washington?”
“A lot more,” McGarvey said looking away.
“Revenge is never the just thing,” Hadid said. “But very often it is the only thing for the soul. I hope you finally find what you are looking for.”
McGarvey was dead on his feet, and bunked out in the rear of the Range Rover he managed to sleep through most of the day, although he continued to have dreams about the explosion that had killed Katy and Liz, and about Todd’s battered body covered by the sheet at All Saints. And on waking around four in the afternoon the images didn’t want to fade.
Hadid was already up, and he was in the front room of the house, looking through a pair of binoculars up toward the highway. “I thought we might be having some visitors,” he said, not looking over his shoulder.
“Civilian?” McGarvey asked. He thought it was a good possibility that either the Baghdad police or more likely Admin would have sent someone after them.
“American military. But why they got off the highway is a mystery.”
“They’re gone?”
“Yes,” Hadid said, lowering the binoculars. “We have a few more hours to wait. There’s more food and water, but no beer.”
McGarvey went back to the car, got the things Hadid had brought for him, and using the door mirror on the passenger side dyed his hair dark brown, darkened his complexion with one of the chemicals Martinez had supplied him with in Miami, and finally placed contact lenses in his eyes to change their color from gray green to blue. When he was finished he exchanged the passport and other documents that identified him as Tony Watkins a freelance journalist, with the papers of James Hopkins, a contractor with Decision Infinity.
He got dressed in khaki slacks, a black short-sleeved polo shirt, and a bush jacket with a lot of pockets. A nylon sports bag contained a few toiletry items, a week-old
Hadid had disconnected the sat phone from the battery and laid it on the seat. When McGarvey was finished he switched it on. It showed a full charge but no missed calls. By now Otto would have heard about Sandberger and the others at the Ritz, but he was holding back, knowing what else had probably happened overnight.
Hadid was looking at him. “You look the same, but different. I would never have picked you out in a crowd as the same man who was Mr. Tony. Whoever arranged this disguise for you was very good. It’s subtle.”
“Let’s hope the people at the hotel, and especially the customs and passport people at Dulles, think the same thing.”
“They’ll be watching for you?”
“Absolutely.”
FIFTY-ONE
It was nearly nine in the evening in Washington, which put it around five in the morning in Iraq, when Remington, calling from his office just inside the Beltway in Alexandria, finally managed to reach Tim Kangas at the Baghdad airport hotel.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded.
“The son of a bitch got the drop on us, which means he must have spotters here on the ground.”
