Juggernaut

Bullet-pocked terminal buildings. 86th Airwing bivouacked in a departure lounge, To Dare Mighty Things shield-banner draped to mask a Bollywood mural of Saddam leading his men into battle on a white stallion.

Thirteen-thousand-foot landing strip cratered by cluster bombs. Steady traffic from massive C141 Starlifters. The planes threw tight corkscrew turns as they descended towards the runway, popping starburst flares and chaff in case a ground-fired SA-7 locked on their heat-trail.

Fuel trucks pumped gas.

Loadmasters supervised forklift crews as they removed pallet cargo from vaulted holds. Generators. Water purification equipment. White goods. DHL de-planed sacks of mail and courier packages.

The planes were reloaded with metal coffins and wounded, and dispatched to Ramstein Airbase, Germany.

Gaunt was exiled to the far end of the runway. A low-rent private carrier. His hangar part-blocked by an abandoned twin-prop Sherpa turning to rust on the slipway, like the ghost of old wars.

Gaunt turned his face to the morning sun and breathed the sweet scent of aviation fuel.

‘They revoked our pass, Ese,’ said Raphael.

‘The chit?’

‘Expired. They won’t renew.’

The Provisional Authority had been superseded by the Interim Governing Council. All private contractors had to renegotiate terms.

‘They want us out, Ese. End of the month. Vacate and give them the keys.’

‘I’ll talk to the main office,’ said Gaunt. ‘Try to buy us more time.’

‘I heard there’s a vacant warehouse near the Central Station. We could rent space. Bid for police contracts.’

‘A few helmets, a few flaks. Pocket change. Go down that route and we’ll end up bartering AKs for cows. No. All the big deals are happening here. This is the hub. This is the action.’

‘Ten months, bro. Been here ten months.’

‘Just got to hold our nerve. Everyone else is making out hand over fist. Why not us?’

‘You said we’d get Agency work. You said they were desperate for guys.’

Gaunt had approached an intel analyst at the Al-Rasheed two months ago. The basement sports bar favoured by Central Intelligence document recovery teams sent to scour bombed-out ministry buildings for paperwork and hard drives. The analyst was sitting alone, sipping scotch. Only guy in a shirt and tie. Gaunt took a stool next to him, begged for work, begged for a way in. The guy drained his glass and walked away without saying a word.

‘Like I say. Just got to hold our nerve.’

Gaunt and Raphael unloaded the truck.

Engine revs. An SUV with a damaged muffler. They watched it approach up the service road. An armoured Suburban with heavy ram bars. Scorched, bubbled paint work. Body pocked with bullet strikes. Cracked windshield.

Lucy and Amanda.

Lucy got out the car. She raised her Oakleys and tucked them in her hair like an Alice band. She approached Gaunt and held out her hand.

‘How’ve you been?’ she asked.

‘Fuck you.’

Amanda hung back and kept a hand on the butt of her sidearm.

Lucy checked out the interior of the hangar.

Stacked crates. Boxes of cheap boots. Blue Iraqi police uniforms still sheathed in plastic. MRE food pouches.

Gaunt’s desk, cluttered with manifests, transit papers and end-user certificates. There was a framed photograph on the desk. Young Gaunt and his father, both in dress blues.

Amanda looked Gaunt up and down. Young guy. Crucifix round his neck. An old burn on his forearm, skin like melted wax. He wore a big skull ring on one hand, a West Point graduation ring on the other.

‘What the fuck are you doing here, Lucy?’ asked Gaunt.

‘We need a ride. Three-day charter. We heard you might be looking for business.’

‘You’re kidding me, right? Take your shit-heap car and get out of here.’

Amanda lifted the lid of a green wooden crate labelled ‘engine parts’. An ancient Russian machine gun. Bipod. Chipped wooden stock. Drum magazine.

‘Where did you get this stuff?’ she asked. ‘A yard sale?’

‘No market for American carbines,’ said Raphael. ‘Not round here. Fancy scopes and laser sights. Not interested. They want AKs. They trust them. They can get the spares, they can get the ammo.’

Amanda worked the slide and aimed at Raphael’s dog. She pulled the trigger. Clack of an empty chamber. The dog barked and jerked its chain.

‘Where does all this shit end up?’ asked Amanda.

‘Burqan oil fields, mostly,’ said Raphael.

She laid the weapon back in its newspaper bed.

Lucy opened a crate and examined grenades. Russian. Green baseball grenades with a long aluminium fuse. Gaunt took a grenade from Lucy’s hand. He pulled the pin. The safety lever flipped, and clinked on concrete. He tossed the grenade. Lucy caught it, unconcerned.

‘Doubt you’re dumb enough to pack them fused.’

She put the grenade on Gaunt’s desk. It rolled among paperwork.

‘Get out,’ said Gaunt. ‘I’m not going to tell you again.’

‘Thousand dollars a day,’ said Lucy. ‘Plus a cut of the haul.’

Gaunt spat on her boot.

‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘I got some work for you.’

Gaunt leant on his desk, hands planted either side of a Colt pistol resting on paperwork.