morning when she heard the first clang of boots climbing the metal ladder. She rolled silently across the floor, her heart jack-hammering, the scalpel slippery in her sweat-slicked grip. She positioned herself by the trapdoor, her legs drawn up tight to her chest, ready to kick hard at whatever appeared in the gap.
The footsteps rose, heavy and loud, stopping just below the trapdoor. ‘Hello,’ a deep, syrupy voice called up in English.
She didn’t reply.
‘I bring you water and food.’ Very slowly a hand raised the trap and pushed a canteen and a pack of K-rations through the gap, then a pair of eyes appeared. ‘No need to fight,’ the man said. ‘You are safe here. You have my word.’
‘And who are you?’ Liv replied, now there was no point in keeping silent.
‘I am Tariq al Bedu. I rode with Ash’abah – the Ghost. I will watch out for you as he did, in the memory of his name. You must drink. I will bring more in a while.’
She glanced at the canteen, still wet from being dipped in the pool of fresh water below. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then – because she had once written an article on victim survival and remembered it was harder to harm someone if you knew their name – added, ‘My name is Liv Adamsen.’
The man smiled and she could see the warmth of it spread to his eyes. ‘I know who you are,’ he said, and was gone.
Liv listened to his steps ringing away down the ladder, melting into the taunting hiss of fresh water spewing out of the ground below. She dragged the canteen towards her with her foot, still wary of going too close to the trapdoor, unscrewed the cap, sniffed the contents and then took the tiniest of sips. She figured a small amount of any kind of drug wouldn’t be able to knock her out, so she sat for as long as her thirst would allow, analysing how she felt, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, she took another drink, then another, until the whole contents of the canteen were slipping down her dry throat in thirsty gulps. Within the hour the man was back, bringing more water and an apple to eat, then he left her in peace and made sure everyone else did the same. Then, just before dusk, the soldiers came.
They rolled into camp in a cloud of dust and well-drilled purpose, American marines on a single-minded mission. Armed sentries surrounded the broken helicopter and others quickly winched it onto a flatbed loader while someone else addressed everyone in Arabic offering a ride back to Al-Hillah for anyone who wanted one. Liv used the distraction of their arrival to steal down the ladder, careful not to make a sound, and ducked into the shade and cover of one of the metal-sided buildings. Much as she wanted to leave the compound, she knew the US military were actively looking for her and, after all that had happened, she wasn’t inclined to trust the reasons for their search or whoever had ordered it. She scanned the gathered crowds, looking for Tariq. A shadow fell on her and she turned to discover a stocky man in oily overalls glaring down at her with hate in his eyes.
‘A curse be upon you,’ he said, spitting on the ground at her feet, his hand drawing back to strike. Liv gripped the scalpel ready to fight back when Tariq stepped between them. ‘Go, if you are going,’ he said to the man, ‘and take your grudges with you.’
The man’s hand dropped to his side. For a moment he looked as though he was about to say something but he just spat on the ground again and hurried off towards the American convoy.
‘That’s Malik,’ Tariq said, his eyes fixed on the man. ‘He was in charge of transport here until the fuel turned to water and killed all his engines. He thinks you are responsible.’ They watched Malik join a line waiting to board one of the troop carriers. ‘He’s leaving, along with all the others who now think this place is cursed.’
A marine stepped up to the waiting men and ushered them into the vehicle then hit the switch to seal the rear hatch behind them, ready to move out.
‘I can take you anywhere you want to go,’ Tariq said, ‘or you can stay here a while, for there is much work to be done, is there not?’
The din of revving diesel engines rumbled through the air as Liv considered his strange question. She stepped from the cover of the building as the convoy started to pull out, figuring she could still sprint after them if she chose to, but instead she just stood there, watching the dust cloud drift away until the sound of the engines faded to nothing.
She turned and looked at the people who had stayed. Most of them were riders but there were a few compound staff too, their white overalls singling them out. They gathered around her now, all faces turned towards her. She could feel the expectation coming off them like heat. ‘What do they want?’ Liv whispered.
‘They want to know what they should do next.’
She laughed. ‘And who put me in charge?’
The ring of faces smiled back at her, reflecting her good humour. It was as if the soldiers had taken all the anger away with them, leaving just a few relics of the violence behind – some bullet holes in the skin of the buildings, the rust-coloured patches of earth. ‘What happened to the dead?’ she asked.
‘We put them in a refrigeration truck to keep the flies away,’ Tariq replied, ‘though with no fuel, the cooler isn’t running.’
Liv nodded. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘then that’s what we do first – we bury the dead.’
Gabriel had no idea how long he had been lying in the shade of the dry wadi when the sound of engines drifted down to him on the wind.
Instinctively he rolled onto his front, adrenalin flooding through him despite his raging fever and the well-drilled operational part of his brain taking over.
He couldn’t be spotted now, not with the blight burning inside him.
He grabbed the trailing reins of his horse to keep it close and listened out, trying to locate the sound. The hot wind moved it around making it hard to pinpoint, which was a good sign. It meant it must still be some way off.
He used the reins to haul himself to his knees then moved the horse into the sliver of shade, stroking its flanks to calm it and tethering it to a rock. He forced himself up the side of the bank, choking down on the sobs that still battled to burst from him, the scratch of the dry earth blissful against his screaming skin. He reached the top and listened again.
The sound was closer now, coming from the west.
The itch crawled over him like fire ants and he rode the waves of it, clamping his arms to his sides to stop his hands from clawing at the prickling skin. When the itch subsided a little he tipped his head on one side to keep his profile low and slowly raised his eye above the line of the bank.
Two white, flat-bed pick-ups were kicking up dust as they bounced across the desert a couple of hundred metres to his left. Their windows were smoked black and the 50-calibre guns mounted on their backs
