It took Liv and Gabriel eight precious hours to reach the Turkish–Iraqi border on roads that became increasingly worse. They knew they were getting close when they came to the first military checkpoint. Gabriel did all the talking and they were quickly waved on. The checkpoint was manned by Turkish soldiers, he explained as they drove away, and their primary concern was the PKK—Kurdish freedom fighters—not Western fugitives; the border would be a different story. He handed her a maroon British passport with a picture of a blond girl in the back who looked a bit like Liv if you squinted.
“I borrowed it from one of the volunteers,” he said, watching the checkpoint disappear in his rearview mirror. “The border police never look too closely. They take photocopies for their files and I’ve already done some with the contrast whacked right up so you can hardly make out the picture anyway.” He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “We’ll be fine. I promise.”
Fifteen minutes later they crested a hill and saw the border crossing at Silopi, built on the side of a muddy river. It was little more than a delta-shaped concrete parking lot that ended abruptly at the river’s edge. Liv’s first reaction when she saw it was that she was going to die there. A road bridge extended from the center of it, spanning the river and joining another complex of squat buildings on the Iraqi side: one bridge, one road, and literally thousands of trucks waiting to use it. They were parked in rows by the border-patrol buildings and in makeshift parking lots on either side of the main road that snaked away through the dry land, choked with a solid, unmoving line of more traffic. If they had to wait in line, it would take days to get into Iraq, days they didn’t have.
“Don’t worry,” Gabriel said, reading her mood. “That’s the queue for road freight. We’re going to join the one over there.” He pointed to a clear strip of road close to the bridge where a US Army Humvee was speeding toward a line of waiting taxis. It left the road, kicking up dust as it skirted around the parked cars and barely paused at the barrier before picking up speed again to cross the bridge into Iraq. On the far side of the river were more military vehicles and men with M4 assault rifles slung across their chests. They stood in the shade of a small arch that spanned the road. Above them was a sign written in Arabic with an English translation beneath saying welcome to iraqi kurdistan region.
“We’ll be on our way in no time,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve done it many times before.”
Liv wasn’t convinced. “Have you ever done it with half the Turkish police force after you?”
He smiled and handed her a passport. “They’re not looking for me, they’re looking for someone called Gabriel Mann.”
She opened the passport and saw his face staring back with someone else’s name beneath it.
“Who’s David Kinsella?”
“I am, when I need to be—all part of my glamorous existence as a charity worker. I got fed up with being thrown out of various countries for trying to help people the government was busy persecuting. Unfortunately, the deck is stacked heavily in favor of any regime who wants to keep you out. All they have to do is stick your name on a list of undesirables, and all normal methods of entry cease to work. So I got a little creative and stopped playing by the rules. Believe me, getting out of Turkey won’t be a problem; it’s what happens when we get into Iraq that worries me more.”
They drove along the road past the wall of trucks and parked next to the local taxis.
“This is where we might get held up a little,” Gabriel said, nodding toward the taxi drivers. “They make a good living out of guiding tourists and travelers through all the red tape and don’t take kindly to free agents who don’t need them. We could plead with them, see if they’ll let us jump the queue, but I doubt any will, and we don’t really want to cause a scene and draw attention to ourselves.”
Liv studied the line of taxi drivers and their passengers. There were around fifteen of them, all looking as if they were on a leisurely Sunday outing. Some were talking to the border guards; some were eating; most were smoking; a small group was even playing cards, but none of them seemed in a particular hurry.
“How do we know how many people are in front of us?”
Gabriel pointed at a blackboard with a number twelve chalked on it. “You get a chit from the desk and wait until they chalk your number up.”
A wave of heat flooded the interior as he got out of the car and headed across to a uniformed man sitting behind a scratched Perspex window to get a number. Liv stared out the window, jogging her leg up and down with tension. They couldn’t afford to hang around here waiting patiently in line. Time was too short. They had to get to the front somehow, even if she had to kiss every driver to do it. She surveyed the level of male beauty on display. Stained shirts, vests and hairy shoulders. Maybe she’d try a different approach. She popped open her door, stepped out into the dry heat and headed over to join Gabriel.
“Twenty-six,” Gabriel said, showing her the chit he had just been given. “I’m going to have to chat with some of these guys, see if I can’t get us moved up the list.”
“Let me try,” Liv said, taking the chit and heading over to the four card sharks. “Have you got any money?”
“A little.”
“Give me enough to grab these guys’ attention. And translate for me, would you?”
She arrived at the upturned oil drum that served as a card table and smiled broadly. “Hey, fellas. Any of you guys got a lower number than me?” She held up the chit while Gabriel translated. They each reached into various pockets and produced their own chits. Unsurprisingly, they all had lower numbers. She turned the full beam of her smile on the driver holding up the number fourteen, a short, tubby man with a beard and the sort of glasses that turned black in sunlight. “How would you like to win some money?” she said. His face clouded with suspicion the moment Gabriel translated.
“Stick down twenty bucks’ worth of dinars and ask him again,” she said to Gabriel out of the corner of her still-smiling mouth.
With the appearance of real money the man was suddenly interested. Liv scooped up three cards from the pile and held them up: a three of hearts, a seven of diamonds and the queen of spades. “All you have to do is find the lady,” she said, flipping them over and mixing them up in such a way that it was easy to follow the queen. “If you guess right, you get the money. If you guess wrong”—she held up the chit with twenty-six written on it—“we swap numbers.”
Gabriel explained the rules. The man still wasn’t convinced, but Liv was undeterred. “OK, free go. No bets down.” She shuffled the cards some more. “Find the lady.” The man hesitated, then pointed to the middle card. Liv flipped it over to reveal the queen. “Hey, we have a winner.” She handed him the cash.
“I thought there were no bets on that one,” Gabriel whispered.
“I can’t see him complaining,” she muttered back. “Stick some more money down while I’ve got the hook in him.”
Gabriel did as he was told while Liv shuffled the cards. Again she did it so slowly that following the queen was easy. “OK,” she said. “Your number against my bet. You want to take it?”
The man was staring at the card on the left and clutching the money he had just won. He nodded and laid chit number fourteen down next to the cash.
“OK, then. Find the lady.”
He pointed to the card he’d been looking at. Liv flipped it over. It was the three of hearts. She scooped up the cash and the chit and shrugged. “You can’t win ’em all,” she said. “But everyone gets a prize in this game.” She handed him the chit with twenty-six written on it and walked quickly back to the car.
Ten minutes later they were driving over the bridge and crossing the border.
Gabriel shook his head and smiled. “Where on earth did you learn to do that?”
“Coney Island. I did a series of articles on classic boardwalk cons and an old-time grifter showed me how they worked. When all this is over, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Gabriel’s smile deepened. “Deal.”
They passed under the sign welcoming them to Iraq, and Gabriel parked in the shade of the arch ready to go through the whole process again with Iraqi customs and immigration officials. The office on the other side was almost identical to its Turkish counterpart—the only difference being the uniforms. The patrol guards here wore drab green fatigues with military-style badges showing palm fronds encircling a sword and an AK-47. There were plenty of US military personnel around too. Gabriel had spotted a small enclosure of field tents set up off the road behind the main buildings. The Humvee they had seen earlier was parked in front of one, and several other vehicles suggested there was a full platoon stationed here—thirty men at least.
The border guard studied their passport photographs, checked them against their faces, then handed them back. He finished his checks, stamped the vehicle documents and that was it.
“Welcome to Iraq,” he said.
It was easier than Liv had expected. All they had to do now was drive for several hundred miles along some of the most dangerous roads in the world with no escort and no real idea of where they were going, to a place they hoped would lead them to the ancient site of Eden. It wasn’t the most promising of missions, but even so, it felt like a minor victory to Liv as she pushed through the office door and back out into the blinding sun. Then she saw the welcoming committee.
There were three of them, all wearing the coffee-stain fatigues of the US Army. Two were inspecting their vehicle; the third faced them, his eyes hidden behind standard-issue Oakleys. “Could I see your passports, please,” he said, his finger resting on the trigger of his cradled weapon.
“Is there a problem?” Gabriel stepped in front of Liv, as if that might protect her from what was happening. The soldier said nothing, he just continued to hold out his hand for the passports. Gabriel handed them over. The soldier didn’t even look at them.
“Follow me, please. We need to ask you a few questions.”