Juggernaut

The colonel checked a clipboard. ‘Lucy White. Thirty-three. British citizen. Fourteen Intelligence Company. Target reconnaissance. Honourable discharge.’

‘She’s nothing special. My driver is ex-Delta.’

The colonel flipped pages.

‘No listed next of kin, no home address. Runs her own crew. “Vanguard Risk Consultants”. Dummy corporation registered out of Uruguay. Plays mother hen to a bunch of Tier Two operators. Quality trigger-time. Three US citizens and a guy from Pretoria.’

‘Good for them.’

‘Seems a pretty low-rent outfit. Nickel-and-dime. Did some stuff in Honduras. They aren’t connected. They’re out of the loop. No State Department deals. Losing work to the big contractors. Mostly been pulling taxi runs. Hauled kitchen equipment for the new Halliburton chow halls. Shipped foreign currency to the Interior Ministry. Provided close protection for a couple of Exxon engineers.’

‘Then she’ll be just another KIA. Both of them. No need to complicate matters. They won’t be missed. Let’s tie up loose ends. Triple shot of phenol. Quick and painless. Finish them both, and get the fuck out of here.’

Koell took a pneumatic injector gun from the case and loaded a vial of clear liquid.

‘Hold on,’ said the colonel. ‘This was your call. You found these guys. You sent them out to the valley. What the fuck happened out there? Don’t you want to know?’

The colonel crouched beside Lucy. He waved a hand in front of her unfocused eyes.

‘Can you hear me, Lucy? I want you to concentrate. I want you to tell me what happened.’

No response.

He sat in the chair next to the bed. He took Lucy’s hand.

‘Can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying? We’ve got a little something to help you sleep. But first I need to know. What did you find out there in the desert?’

No response.

The colonel examined the gang photo. The faded, smiling faces. He held the picture so Lucy could see.

‘You have to tell me, Lucy. What happened to you? What happened to your team?’

FIVE DAYS EARLIER The Score

Camp Victory. The US army compound at Baghdad International Airport

Lucy and her crew sat on crates and watched marines transfer money from a bomb-proof Peli case to a black canvas holdall.

The soldiers had locked themselves in a caged section of the warehouse. Four men stood around a trestle table. Two to count and re-count, two to bear witness. They stacked bricks of hundred-dollar bills in vacuum-sealed plastic.

‘Got to be three, four million at least,’ said Lucy.

Lucy and her team were wearing full body armour. Lucy had a cheery Sheraton conference badge pinned to her flak jacket. ‘Hello, my name is… FUCK YOU.’

‘That shit is straight from the Federal Reserve,’ said Toon. African-American. Black Power fist scribbled on the breast plate of his vest. Bald head. ‘Consecutive serial numbers. You could steal it, but you couldn’t spend it.’

‘Bet some oily Swiss fucker would give you thirty cents on the dollar. Still a cool million.’

‘Split five ways? Wouldn’t go far.’

Lucy shrugged.

‘I’ve been broke so long, I wouldn’t know how to spend it.’

‘Look at those clowns,’ said Toon. ‘Cherry motherfuckers. Green as grass. They’ve been in-country five minutes. We could take them out anywhere between here and the Interior Ministry. Wouldn’t even put up a fight.’

‘No. Make the drop. Cash the cheque.’

‘Fuck that shit. Five hundred dollars a day. Is that how much your life is worth? Five hundred bucks is nothing.’

Lucy shook her head.

‘My motto? “Live to spend it.” No use being rich and dead.’

‘No one would give a damn,’ said Toon. ‘Victimless crime. Not like this stuff is going to feed starving orphans. They’re just greasing some Provisional chieftain for a bunch more reconstruction contracts. Only a sucker would stay honest in the middle of this shitstorm.’

Lucy watched a rat scurry along a roof girder high above them. She rubbed her eyes.

‘All right, boss?’

‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘Just tired.’

Huang entered the warehouse by a side door. A combat medic and a good driver. He rejoined the crew and sat on a crate.

‘What did you get?’ asked Amanda. A Californian rich girl gone bad. She had blond hair, a nose ring and a meth habit. She had found redemption in the meditative breath control and serene focus of an airforce rifle range.

‘The orderly is a cool guy. Happy to see a bottle of Jim Beam. He broke out a bunch of Percocet. A few Vicodin. Smoother ride than guzzling fucking NyQuil.’

Amanda and Huang bumped fists.

‘You got to score some more Oxy. Pure, sweet buzz.’

‘Fucking pill freaks.’ Voss. Tall, lean, early forties. He had a thick South African accent. ‘You think you’re dealing with combat stress. You’ll just rot your fucking brain, bokkie.’

‘A person has to relax.’

‘So cook up a spoonful of smack. Do the job right.’

The crew adjusted their scopes, their buckles, their laces. A series of pre-mission survival rituals. They checked mags and chambered. Green tip tungsten carbide penetrators.

Lucy bit the cap from a Sharpie. They wrote call-signs, grids and frequencies on their forearms.