The Key

89

Gabriel had done the journey to the border many times before, driving supplies down to the charity’s various projects in Iraq. He told Liv about some of them as they drove — the schools they were building, the wetlands in the south they were re-flooding after Saddam Hussein had drained them to drive out the marsh Arabs who’d lived there for thousands of years. Gabriel talked and Liv listened, stoking the fire of his conversation with the occasional question while she leaned against the hot window and watched the dry, rocky countryside slide past.

The further they got, the more the green vanished and the desert took over. It reflected how she was feeling — as if some vital part of her was disappearing and slowly being replaced by dry dust. At first she tried to convince herself that it was just the residual effects of the sedative; but as the miles wore on and the feeling of emptying out grew stronger she started to think it might be something else. Two days, Gabriel had said; forty-eight hours — and they were going to spend at least half of it travelling, with no guarantees they were even heading in the right direction.