The Key

97

Washington was waiting for them when they emerged from the dingy hell of the asylum. They got into the cooled interior of the 4x4 — Gabriel in the front, Liv in the back — and drove away without saying a word.

‘That bad, huh?’ Washington said after a few kilometres of silence.

Gabriel shook his head, still trying to process the bizarre story he had just heard. ‘I don’t know, he seemed pretty lucid to me. I think he was telling the truth, or something he believed to be true. He said a dragon destroyed the camp and a ghost killed my father. I’m sure these must be abstract or metaphorical terms for something else, but his burns are real enough, and his experience was clearly traumatic enough to splinter his mind.’

Washington went quiet. ‘Did he say “a ghost” killed your father, or “the Ghost”?’

Gabriel stared out of the window at the bleached streets as he tried to recall.

‘It was “a ghost”,’ Liv answered.

Washington frowned. ‘There’s an insurgent — not a major league threat, so he’s low down on the priority list — but he’s caused us some problems in the past. He’s known as Ash’abah — “the Ghost”.’

‘Is he still around?’

‘Oh yeah. He’s been around for ever. He’s a proper old-school fedai, fighting anyone who comes along for the freedom of his land. Apparently he was a pain in the ass for the former regime too, so you’ve got to give him some credit. A lot of the locals see him as a kind of Robin Hood figure, which has made it hard for us to gather any useful intelligence on him or find out where his base is. All the most successful insurgents tend to live out in the desert. Most reports of the Ghost’s activities come from south of here, in Babil Province.’

‘Around Al-Hillah.’

‘Exactly. The other thing worth mentioning is that he deals in ancient relics, selling them on the black market for premium prices. But he only ever sells to well-funded Christian organizations and occasionally to museums. Some people think this is because he is actually a Christian himself with roots stretching back to biblical times before Islam pushed the Christians out.’

‘Any idea where we might find him?’

Washington shrugged. ‘Not really. They don’t call him “the Ghost” for nothing. The locals seem to view him with a mixture of fear and respect. Many of them think he actually is a ghost. He’s supposed to have this big scar on his neck and a strange way of talking, like stones being rubbed together. If he was the one who sold out your old man, I would advise you to proceed with caution. He’s pretty serious people out here — very well connected — and you’re just a stranger in a strange land with no clue about how you’re going to get to where you want to be. Fortunately for you — ’ he pulled over and pointed to a jeep parked on the forecourt of a battered-looking garage — ‘it turns out that you too have friends with influence. I booked it through one of the dummy corporations we use. It’s handy, being involved in covert work; they’re a lot less particular about expenses. It’s in your name, or at least the name in that phony passport you’re travelling with. Consider it a belated leaving present from Uncle Sam for all your hard work and early starts.’

Gabriel turned to him with a look.

‘Don’t you even think about giving me some weak-assed civilian hug, Mann. I know you’ve been out for a while, but that’s still no excuse for going soft.’

Liv leaned forward from the back seat and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

Washington smiled. ‘Now from you I’ll take it all day long.’ He turned to Gabriel, the sternness back in his face: ‘But you disappoint me, soldier, you really do.’

Less than ten minutes later they were pulling out on to the dusty blacktop and heading south towards the edge of the city. They’d had to sign a whole bunch of disclaimers against explosives or small arms damage, but other than that it had been just like renting any car. Washington had sent them off like a nervous father, giving them his desert survival pack, his service automatic, a spare clip and a lecture on never travelling first thing in the morning when the roads had been freshly mined.

Gabriel drove through the outskirts of Baghdad, glancing nervously out of his window at the first hints of dusk darkening the sky to the east. They drove in silence, both knowing they were heading into a hostile desert with only the sketchiest of ideas of what they were looking for. They were going to a place where ghosts and dragons roamed, and they both knew that the coming night was all the time they had left.

When dawn came it would all be over — one way or another.