Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(91)

There was something in the road. Dark shapes, what seemed to be the roofs of vehicles, then a movement, detaching itself. A man walking around as if wading in water, ripples shifting all about him . . . but no water. Obviously. The light moving instead.

“On the floor.”

“What?”

“Floor. Now.” Carl wasn’t offering debate. “Our mission is to protect you. Down.”

I sank into the footwell, but kept myself propped partway on the seat, peeping out.

“Might be nothing. Might be legit. Safest to assume not.”

I heard a click, realized Carl had his pistol ready.

“Oh fuck,” I said.

Two old Toyota flatbeds had been pulled across the road. There were four or five men in the uniform of the Iraqi army; a bunch more sitting or standing at the roadside. Carl pulled up a way before them, waiting for them to come over. They beckoned him, but he wouldn’t move. “Down,” he said to me. I was on my hands and knees now. Nouri’s tennis shoes were right next to my face. He wore no socks, and I could make out every detail of his ankles, every curl of hair, the red blotch of an insect bite on one leg, the scabby graze above his ankle.

I heard him wind the window down, call out in Arabic.

Someone threw a sheet across me.

And I waited. I heard talking. Nothing I could understand. I tried to analyze the harsh, guttural syllables, desperate to work out what was happening. Desperate and scared. It seemed to take a long time. Then I caught the salaam of good-bye. I heard an engine start; one of the flatbeds moving out the way. “Stay down,” said Carl. We crept forwards. We were well away before he let me up.

“What’s that about?” I said.

Nouri reached a hand down, helped me back into my seat.

“Nothing, my friend. Just a check. They say there is a car smash up ahead. A mile, maybe two. Is all.”

I looked at the pair of them. “You knew we were going to be OK, right?”

Nouri showed his palms. “If we are good, we are good. If not . . .”

Carl said nothing.

“You knew it was legit? The roadblock?”

“Aye, well.” Carl lit up a new cigarette. “Truth is, the other kind can look legit as well, sometimes. You never know until it happens. Aye?”

“True, my friend. Very true. You never know until it happens.”



We came across the car wreck not long afterwards. There was only one vehicle still there, a farmer’s truck. It hadn’t been moved because it was lying on its roof in the middle of the road. There was fruit or something cooking on the tarmac. Several wicker baskets had been lined up at the roadside. No one about. It was a sad sight. Carl said, “Down,” again, but while I hunkered low, I still kept looking.

“Is anyone hurt? I don’t see anyone. We ought to help—”

Another quarter mile on, we passed a house, a little one-story shack. Sheltering beside a broken wall, an oldish man, wrapped in robes, looked out at us. He had a dazed expression.

A companion lay upon the ground beside him. They were obviously the crash’s victims. Nouri pulled the window down and called a blessing as we passed.

“Could have stopped,” I said.

“Could not,” said Carl.

“Those guys—”

“Aye. Very bad for ’em, no doubt. And likely they’re as innocent as newborn lambs, the pair of ’em. Likely they are. Or else they’re not. And either way, still doesnae stop somebody else coming along, hiding the other side o’ yon brick wall. Dinnae talk or we kill you. Or putting a bomb in that wrecked-up truck, just for the moment we glide by. Eh now?”

“OK,” I said. Then, a little later, “I’m not used to war.”

“No. You told us that.”





Chapter 4

Everywhere Is Somewhere




The dust got in. The dust got into everything.

Fine, fine sand. The finest sand you could imagine.

I’d stop to pee and bring it back, tucked in my boots or folded in my shirt and then, once it was in the truck, it seemed to spread. I’d crunch it in my teeth, dig it out my ears. It gathered in my hair and in my nostrils. It wasn’t as if we were driving into dunes or anything like that; the countryside was rocky, barren, but at times there were patches of scrub, even trees. But the dust and the sand were the biggest thing. Months later, I’d still be finding it among my clothes, or trampled into odd parts of my flat.

The journey was hypnotic. I drifted off, even while I jolted this way and that.

Carl said, “Look sharp.”

I sat up, scared.

“What? What now?”

We were passing by a few low, square-built houses, electric cables strung on poles between them. Dry, dun-colored hills rose in the background. People looked up from the roadside as we passed. There was no question of blending in, no question of Dayling’s “stealth” plan.

“See?” said Nouri. “Up ahead?”

“I thought this place was in the desert somewhere. Like, miles from anywhere.”

“This is the oldest country in the world,” he said. “Here, everywhere is somewhere.”

“Aye,” said Carl. “And we’re nearly there.”





Chapter 5