Deep Black

87

My clothes stuck to my freezing wet skin. My hands were so cold, it took for ever to get the key into the old brass padlock and give it a turn. Jerry shivered behind me, waiting until the lock came off and the double corrugated-iron doors creaked open.

It was a little warmer inside than out, but not much. I couldn’t even console myself that we were out of the wet. It had stopped raining just as we got to the bottom of the hill.

‘Go find the wagon,’ I said. I wanted to keep Jerry moving.

I fumbled about for a light switch as he ventured further in, but didn’t find one.

‘Got it! Over here!’

Keys in hand, I stumbled towards the tapping noise he made against the bodywork. I eventually bounced off a high-sided wagon. I felt my way round the left-hand side and got the door open. The interior light came on to reveal a VW van and my vaporizing breath.

The van was one of the newer, squarer models but it was just as rusty and battered as any old surfer’s Combi. The back was full of empty hessian and nylon sacks, lengths of baling twine and handfuls of straw. The cab floor was littered with newspapers, sheets of paper, pens, drinks cans, all the usual shit.

I jumped in and unlocked the passenger door for Jerry, then turned the ignition. The diesel engine fired after a few protesting shudders. I flicked on the headlights. The inside of the barn was high, with a corrugated-iron roof, and the floor would have been big enough to fit a dozen vehicles, if they didn’t mind parking on piles of sacks and bits of old farm gear.

I pressed down on the cigarette lighter, then threw the gear shift into reverse, backing up so the lights covered as much of the place as possible. The fuel gauge showed half full. The cigarette lighter clicked back up. ‘Check it, mate. See if we can get a fire going.’

I left it in neutral, engine running, the exhaust chugging against the concrete block wall. I was beginning to feel more energized as I jumped down on to the hard compacted earth. Fuck carbon monoxide – I just wanted to get the cab warm and be able to see my way around.

Concealed behind piles of cardboard and wooden crates, Salkic had promised, were six cans of diesel. I pulled away the crap until I found them, and lifted each one to check it was full.

Jerry gathered empty polythene sacks and lumps of wood, straw, cardboard, anything that would burn. He made a pile big enough to give us some heat but not so high we torched the place, then ran back to the van. He got some newspaper going in the cab, and brought it over. We were soon warming our hands and faces and inhaling the stink of burning plastic.

I used a rusty old knife to rip arm- and neck-holes in a couple of the sacks and handed him a set. ‘We need to get our clothes a bit drier, mate.’

I’d always hated peeling off wet things and exposing my skin to the cold, but the fibres had to be wrung out so they could do their job and trap a little air.

We ended up looking like Cabbage Patch dolls, but at least the sacking gave us an extra layer against the cold. By the time we’d put our clothes back on top, all the dirt inside had turned to mud, but at least it was warmish mud. The fire was helping.

There were enough combustibles lying around for us to have stayed all night drying kit, but I wanted to get on the road just as soon as we could.

‘Have a look round for something to boil up some water. Be good to get something hot down us before we go. I’ll fill up the tank.’

Jerry moved off into the shadows as I picked up my AK and both our bumbags.

I kept the engine on now. If I closed it down it might not start again, so why take the risk? I dumped the bumbags on the passenger seat, folded some cardboard into a cone and shoved it into the tank. After doing the smell and taste test to make sure it was diesel, I emptied in the first can.

It couldn’t take all of the second, so I slung it in the back along with the three full ones. I was already fantasizing about heading up the road, the heater going full blast and a stomach full of hot water. What more could anyone want?

I went to the cab and leaned inside to check if the footwell heaters were doing their stuff. Nothing yet. The bumbags were just inches from my face, and through the nylon of Jerry’s I could see what was left of his camera. Jerry had been lucky. The Nikon had probably saved his life. I unzipped the bag and pulled out the camera. Part of the lens fell on to the seat.

The round had ploughed through the casing. The body looked as if it was about to break in half. As I held it in my hands, that was exactly what happened. And, digital or not, I knew enough about cameras to see at once there was something inside this one that shouldn’t have been.

I managed to slide a finger between the battery and its casing. The blue plastic disc was about the size of a 50p piece; it was cracked and chipped, but I could see clearly what it was, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with taking pictures.

My hands began to shake as I pulled out the Thuraya and powered it up. I pulled out the download cable and checked if anything else was in there that shouldn’t be, then hit the menus.

This time, Jerry had fucked up with his opsec. Registered on the call list were Salkic’s sister’s number and the hotel’s, and one other, at least twenty digits long. It wasn’t any source’s land-line number in DC, Virginia or Maryland, or any normal cell number. They, too, have area codes.

Who the fuck had he been calling? I’d seen him in the al-Hamra with the cable attached. Had he been downloading pictures? Of who? Of what? To ID us for the attack?

Fuck the blue device for now. I could deal with that later.

There was a shout from the shadows. ‘Hey, I got a can without a hole! It’s gonna need one mean clean, though.’