The Wreckage

5

Luca and Daniela have a long walk to Heathrow immigration and a longer queue. They go to the counter together. A Sikh man wearing a bright blue turban flicks through Luca’s passport, looking at the many stamps.

“Where have you come from today?”

“Istanbul.”

“And before that?”

“Iraq.”

“What was in Iraq?”

“Oil. Sand. Terrorists.”

“Are you making a joke about terrorism, sir?”

“I never joke about terrorism.”

The immigration officer holds the information page over a scanner then waits. He picks up a phone and presses a button before placing it down again. Then he tucks Luca’s passport under his keyboard and begins processing Daniela. He stamps her passport and hands it back to her.

“Enjoy your stay in the United Kingdom.” Then he turns to Luca. “Please step to one side, Mr. Terracini.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The computer has flagged your name. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Luca glances at Daniela. Over her shoulder he can see three armed airport police officers making their way quickly along the rows of immigration desks.

“Pick up the bags. I shouldn’t be long.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“I need someone on the other side. Call Keith Gooding.”

As he embraces her, he slips his notebook into her shoulder bag.

The police officers have arrived and Luca is escorted past the queues of hollow-eyed travelers to an interview room furnished with a table and three plastic chairs. The white walls seem to blur the corners and the only sound is the hum of the air conditioning.

An hour passes. Luca takes a copy of the Herald Tribune from the front pocket of his small rucksack. More suicide bombings in Iraq. Fifty-nine dead in Baghdad. More than a hundred injured. Most of them young men lining up to enlist outside an army recruiting centre. Luca keeps turning the pages. Another ship captured by Somali pirates; the Lockerbie bomber still alive after a year; Robert Pattinson the world’s sexiest man; a missing banker in London…

The door opens. A head comes into view. He’s in the right place. The tall thin man is dressed in a pinstriped suit and trousers that are fractionally too short for his legs. His name is Douglas Evans and he reeks of public service.

He has brought Luca a sandwich and a bottle of water.

“Sorry about the delay,” he says, businesslike. “I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here.”

“Yes.”

“Is that your only luggage?”

“I travel light.”

“I will need to search your bag.”

“Is that necessary?”

“A routine requirement of anyone coming through UK Customs.”

“I thought you were immigration.”

“Two hats.”

“You’ll have some form of identification then?”

Evans smiles with less enthusiasm and produces a Home Office ID card.

“You sound quite paranoid, Mr. Terracini.”

“I’m just very careful.”

Evans unzips Luca’s bag and searches through the underwear and clean shirts that Luca purchased in Istanbul. Daniela helped choose them.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

“We’ve had a complaint from the caretaker government in Iraq, via the US ambassador, that you fled their jurisdiction while still the subject of a criminal investigation.”

“My visa was revoked two days ago. I was told to leave the country. Check with the American Embassy in Baghdad. Mr. Jennings.”

“Why was your visa revoked?”

“The Iraqi government doesn’t always see the point of a free press.”

Evans touches his chin with a long index finger. He has feminine hands, which remind Luca of a girlfriend he once had. Penny, that was her name. They shared a bedsit in Paris for six months. When she orgasmed she used to call out her own name, which either made her completely narcissistic or so unsure of herself that she needed reassurance.

“I’ve been asked to review your status here, Mr. Terracini.”

“My status?”

“Why have you come to England?”

“I’m here to see my commissioning editor at the Financial Herald .”

“You’re working on a story?”

“Yes.”

Evans taps at his wrist as though checking that his watch is working.

“You left Iraq in a hurry.”

“I left Iraq as instructed by the Iraqi police and the US Embassy.”

Evans taps again. “It seems the Iraqis may want you back.”

Luca smiles wryly. “You and I both know that the British government is not going to extradite an American journalist back to Baghdad.”

“You can be denied entry to the UK.”

“On what grounds?”

“Undesirable activities.”

There is a knock on the door. A uniformed Customs officer whispers a message to Evans. The door closes on a heavy spring. Luca is alone again.

Opening the water, he sips it thoughtfully. The English are so polite yet Hollywood is always portraying them as fiendish villains. Christopher Lee, Alan Rickman, Charles Dance. Jeremy Irons. The lip-curling sneer, the cut-glass accent-it is just another cartoonish stereotype, of course, like the amusing Indian, the arrogant Frenchman and the inscrutable Asian.

Luca’s father loved the English poets. Donne and Blake were his favorites, but he didn’t like Wordsworth, who he said was a rock star poet, famous in his own lifetime, as if that were his worst crime.

More time passes. Luca closes his eyes and tries to doze. Daniela will be through the airport by now. She’ll call Gooding. He’ll pull strings.

The door opens. It’s not Douglas Evans this time. Two airport police officers escort Luca along stark corridors and through swinging doors until he emerges into the arrivals hall. Daniela and Keith Gooding are waiting. Gooding gives him a bear hug. Their bodies don’t fit well together.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone,” Gooding says. “Daniela wanted me to call out the Queen’s Guard.”

“I inspire loyalty.”

Daniela shakes her head. “You attract trouble.”