Deep Black

63

This time, we had a forty-seater minibus to take us across the tarmac. Jerry sat next to me, his right leg sticking out into the aisle because I’d taken up too much room. I was knackered and wanted to lean against the window as I listened to Now That’s What I Call Mosque 57 playing on the tape-machine. The driver bopped away in time with the music as he spun the wheel with his elbows. I could just hear the rotors of two Blackhawks; I turned my head and watched them hover the last few feet before hitting the pan alongside about another eight of the dull green things. My hands, knees and elbows were scabbing up nicely after my tour of Baghdad’s back alleys, and in a few days, I knew, I’d have a hard time trying to resist picking them.

Jerry hadn’t said much since we left the al-Hamra. That was OK, I needed time to think.

The bus was full of self-important businessmen checking their mobiles as they roamed for the new signal, and others holding their diplomatic passports firmly in their hands like some sort of talisman. I never knew why, but the people who have one always think it gives them better protection than body armour.

‘Hello, General,’ someone brayed behind us, in the kind of voice that could only have been shaped by Sandhurst, the Guards and a lifetime’s supply of Pink Gin.

It got worse. ‘Ah, David, old boy. Been back to the UK, have you?’ the general boomed, as if talking from the far side of a parade-ground.

‘Three weeks’ leave. New father and all that. Got there just in time to see the sprog drop.’

‘Splendid, splendid. I was a young major when the memsahib had her two. Away on exercise both times. Damned good thing, if you ask me. Boy or girl?’

‘Boy. Nine pounds six ounces.’

‘Marvellous. Prop forward in the making, what?’

They had a jolly good laugh, apparently oblivious to the rest of us, until one of the very important businessmen’s phones went off in his briefcase. Instant red face as he dug it out: the ring tone was the theme tune for Mission Impossible.

‘Anything cooking in my absence, sir?’

‘All rather rumbustious – as per. Just been to Oberammergau. Meeting about a meeting, you know the sort of thing.’

If he didn’t, I did. Guys like this could wring years out of meetings about meetings. A year or two of to-ing and fro-ing from Sarajevo would see him through to his engraved gold watch and lump sum.

Jerry gave me a grin. Either he’d spotted the look on my face or he finally felt within reach of the picture of a lifetime.

I gave him one in return, then went back to planning how I’d track down Ramzi Salkic, the man who might be able to get me to Hasan Nuhanovic, the man who might, in turn, be able to help me find out who had killed Rob.

Because when I did, I’d drop them.