13

Arwood wakes, stretches his arms, and — to check his sobriety — keeps his eyes closed as he brings a cigarette to his lips with his left hand and lights it with a Zippo from his right. It is actually harder than standing by the side of the road and trying to touch your nose with your finger, because the Zippo can set your nose on fire, whereas the cop isn’t allowed to.

The other nice thing about starting the day with a cigarette is that, whatever else happens later, at least the first move was yours.

It’s going to be a good day. Arwood can feel it. Today is the day he’s been dreaming about and anticipating for a long, long time. He always knew he’d be back here to finish his business. He’d known ever since his father kicked him out of the house after he got back from Desert Storm.

‘What the hell are you doing with yourself?’ his father had said to Arwood, who, by late June 1991, had been back from the Gulf for a month. Arwood was deep into a new video game called Civilization. It mainly involved taking over the world by destroying everyone else’s. He played it in his boxer shorts and dog tags while chain smoking.

‘I’m trying to civilise the world, Dad, the old-fashioned way. Why, what are you doing?’ he’d said in the blue light of the cathode ray.

His father had come with an agenda and a message, and was in no mood for Arwood’s flippant attitude, which the US Army had — implicitly, if not contractually — promised to change when his son enlisted. Instead, they sent him back early, emotionally damaged, and even more obnoxious, because now he wasn’t afraid of anything and had no respect for authority, including his father’s.

‘It’s time for you to get out and see the light of day, and maybe even look for work. You’re a man, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I had a job, Dad. I was a soldier. I was paid for it,’ Arwood said, not taking his eyes from the glowing monitor. ‘I was kicked out, but my need to conquer foreign lands is not yet sated. Ya see, all those little orange people, there to my north-east, are getting a little grabby with the mineral wealth in my sphere of influence, so I’ve decided to genocide their arses and let that be a lesson to all the other civilisations, especially the purple ones in the south. I don’t like their attitude either, but maybe they’ll learn to step down once they see the bloodbath I’m inflicting on their orange kinsmen. The thing about this game — and you only know it after you’ve played it for a really, really, really long time — is that I’m not sure the other civilisations are capable of learning what I’m trying to teach them. How fucked up would it be if I’m spending all this time killing people to send a message they are actually not capable of understanding, because they don’t have those algorithms in their brains? I don’t have it worked out, but I think I’m on to something.’

‘Watch your language.’

Arwood turns to his father for the first time.

‘Are you serious?’

‘You have three days to get your act together, and either get a job or get out. Your mother and I aren’t carrying you. You were lazy in high school, so you joined the army. You did the minimum there by specialising in that damn gun rather than something that could have made use of the high IQ that God gave you. And then, when you actually did your service, you dishonoured yourself, your country, and your family. So, yeah, I’m serious.’

‘I did my job and then some.’

‘The US Army doesn’t think so.’

‘They don’t think at all.’

‘You fire that weapon at anybody?’

‘No.’

‘Then you didn’t do a fuckin’ thing.’

Arwood takes a pull on his cigarette, blows it out, has a languorous scratch where it feels best, and then sits up just in time to let the ash fall onto the sleeping bag rather than into his left eye.

Up, alert, and exfoliated, his only regret is that he’s alone.

The reason he is alone with the cigarette this morning is that he couldn’t find a girl to ride pillion last night. After Benton and Märta pulled away, Arwood started looking for company himself. No point in being single, surrounded by the mountains and dust, and not trying to get laid. The fact is, other than complaining and getting drunk, it’s really the only sport in town.

He’d been working on a girl named Ann. They met at the cafeteria. Ann was in her late twenties and old enough, so his thinking went, to appreciate the value of an older man who wanted to make her intensely happy very briefly.

Sadly, Ann was a talker. And while he often liked loquacious women with strong opinions, it did in the end come down to what they said rather than how they said it, and what Ann said was annoying.

As best as he can figure it, the reason he woke alone to a cigarette was that the conversation had turned insipid, and Arwood has never been good at recovering from the dizziness caused by thin arguments.

Arwood liked to imagine logic as being like a taco shell. Sure, logic is fragile, but the shape is stable and supportive if you’re delicate with it and use it correctly. What you can’t do is ignore its structure, overstuffing the bottom and squeezing it from the top.

Ann worked for a non-governmental organisation called — no shit — Happy Planet®. She was a project officer. For almost twenty minutes last night, Arwood had tried to care. He tried to care about her master’s degree in conflict resolution, and about her internship with the United Nations Volunteers, and how the UNV had helped her ‘almost’ get a job with the UN, and how that failure had led her to Happy Planet®, where, presumably, she would make the planet happier, though Arwood wasn’t sure the planet itself was unhappy. What he couldn’t get past was how every statement she made about the world was in the form of a question, while everything that should have been a question was presented as a statement.

‘You see,’ she’d explained to Arwood, who knew that feigning attention to her pet philosophies was the surest path to wearing her thighs as a hat, ‘I wrote my thesis on participatory action research? So I’m here to teach people how to transform conflict by empowering them through narrative, so they can better resolve conflict rather than revert to war? It’s … well … I guess it falls under conflict transformation, technically, but I think that term is overstretched these days — it’s been unpacked too much, if you see what I mean — and I’d rather go back to the more solid work in conflict resolution that takes more seriously the postmodern, post-Foucauldian, and postcolonial assumptions about the status of knowledge. Because, you know, we don’t just want to transform conflict, we want to resolve it, but without imposing the solution or anything? I’m especially interested in this new school of thought in development studies, which says that the only solution to our misapplication of power in these instances — given the subaltern status of the participants — is to not even be there.’

He had wanted the sex. He really had. He had wanted to receive muffled feedback through a pillow as he massaged her milky-white arse and slapped it red. But he didn’t want it that much. Arwood Hobbes was forty-five years old. Having started when he was sixteen, it meant he’d been having sex for almost thirty years. And while sex after thirty years is still totally great, it most often doesn’t feel quite as good — not in the long run, not for the memories, not for the big smile — as setting someone straight. This is why he really had no choice but to tell Ann, sincerely and from the heart, that ‘technically speaking, war is a conflict-resolution mechanism’.

Ann split, and Arwood slept alone, but the Great Taco of Logic remained intact, and in a postmodern world that is no small thing.

Up, out, and ready for the day, Arwood doesn’t knock on Märta’s office door, and instead steps brightly into the prefab to see whether Benton is there yet. It’s seven-thirty. He finds both Märta and Benton inside at the conference table.

Märta speaks first, and catches him off guard with a phrase no one’s ever said to him before: ‘Oh good, you’re here.’ She continues, saying, ‘I’m taking you both to see Louise Ballan, who’s the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross sub-delegation here. She’s Swiss, from Nyon. Very bright. A little intense. Big hair. Try not to stare at it. We’re going to see her. She knows a lot, and it never hurts to have a friend with a helicopter. And as for you,’ Märta says, pointing to Arwood, ‘the only words you speak to Louise are “Good morning,” ‘Thank you,” and ‘Goodbye.”’

‘I want to be on the road by eight-fifteen,’ Arwood says. He isn’t smiling. ‘There’s a timeline. We don’t have time for lectures.’

Märta walks across the room to a pile of equipment on a folding table. She talks as her hands pick up Motorola headsets, and she starts placing batteries and checking the signals.

‘All my people,’ she says, ‘are registered with the UN. They all have DSS call signs, VHF radios, timetables for radio checks, and maps showing where to call in when on the road. We’re connected to the Dohuk radio room. You,’ she says, handing a Motorola headset to Arwood, ‘are Romeo Charlie Niner Two, and you,’ she says to Benton, ‘are Romeo Charlie Niner Three. Ahmed Haddad is the one on the radio. He’s Egyptian, a little on the heavy side. He’s well tapped in up here, and he’s on the ball. He’s young, and he eats too many potato chips, but don’t let that throw you. I will let him know you’re with us. I’m calling you’ — turning to Arwood — ‘a consultant. And you,’ she says to Benton, ‘are a visiting journalist, which happens to be true. You’re in the system. Please use it. It’ll keep you safe, and remember that your actions are a reflection on me and the International Refugee Support Group.’

Arwood watches Märta click the batteries into place. ‘Why don’t you just use the charging bases for the walkie-talkies?’ he asks.

‘Because Motorola batteries tend to overheat when you charge them inside the handsets rather than outside, which shortens their life cycles, and anyone who’s worked in the field knows that. I know what I’m doing, Arwood, and you two don’t. Here,’ she says, handing a map to each of them. ‘These maps have all the roads in northern Iraq. We don’t officially call this place Kurdistan, though everyone does. Each checkpoint is in blue. I’m logging your journey with DSS, and I’m putting a time estimate on it. Ahmed knows exactly how long it is supposed to take to get from one point to the next, and he stays in touch with local authorities, so he even knows if there’s traffic. If you do not radio in your location within twenty minutes of each check, he’ll call you. And if you don’t answer, he’ll call me, and then he’ll notify the police and we’ll have to come look for you. If you veer off your planned journey, you will force everyone to start looking for you, which would divert needed resources from any real emergency. So don’t. Are we clear? What’s your call sign, Arwood?’

‘OU812.’

‘Thomas?’

‘RC 92 and RC 93. We’ll stick to the filed route and abide by procedures.’

‘Is it true,’ Arwood asks, ‘that the French call these “talkie-walkies”, not “walkie-talkies”?’

‘Yes,’ Märta says.

‘Isn’t that being contrarian? I mean, “walk” and “talk” aren’t even French words.’

‘The radio room,’ Märta continues, ‘can be contacted on the handset and also by phone. Here’s the number.’ She points to the tops of the maps. ‘Right now, in front of me, you enter that number into your cell phones. Both of you. Then assign a speed dial to it.’

Arwood and Benton do as they’re told, while Märta hands Benton an extra phone. ‘It isn’t protocol, but please take this extra one. It’s my personal phone and has an Iraqi SIM card. I charged it last night. I’ll use the IRSG’s phone. If you lose yours, or it’s taken from you, you have a backup. Trust the system, trust Ahmed, and strap this phone to the inside of your leg.

‘Now, we need to meet Louise and Ahmed before you leave, so they can put a face to a name in case you two get into trouble.’

Benton follows behind Märta and Arwood as they drive through the camp and onto the road that takes them to Dohuk, where the ICRC sub-delegation has its office. Benton looks at the children who are barefoot, in flip-flops, or in Chinese knock-offs of Crocs. A two-year-old is screaming and wriggling in her mother’s arms, and the woman has a vacant expression. She and Benton look at each other.

When Charlotte was two and a half, she became obsessed with hair clips. She needed to touch them, collect them, put them in the box, take them out of the box, lose them, find them, put them in her hair, take them out of her hair so she could see them, have them in and out of her hair at the same time so she could wear them, and see them and hold them at the same time, and she needed to sleep in them, but she couldn’t sleep in them because they had sharp edges and could hurt, so she wasn’t allowed to until, finally, he and Vanessa relented after a scream so angry, so long, and so high-pitched that the wavelengths were converted into light and she glowed with the hellfire of a thousand suns at the cosmic injustice of her parents’ arbitrary authority, but alas, she couldn’t sleep in peace because the sharp edges of the hair clips hurt her head.

He can’t imagine Charlotte as that child. He should be able to, but it is not possible. Not really.

Louise’s Red Cross office isn’t in a prefab. It has its own two-storey beige building, and there is a large placard outside with its name in French — Comité International de la Croix-Rouge. There is an Arab guard sitting on a white plastic chair out front. He is unarmed. On his matching table is another of the ubiquitous Motorola handsets.

Märta waves to him as the Toyota passes through the doors and into the parking lot, where it joins half a dozen other Japanese vehicles with the same colours but different markings.

The foyer is clean. There are posters of the ICRC working in different countries. Others contain quotes from the Geneva Conventions. Benton sees Arwood studying the posters as they walk to Louise’s office. One reads: ‘Prisoners of war must be allowed to use tobacco. (Convention III, Art. 26)’ He smiles and points, and tries to get Benton’s attention, but Benton ignores him.

The doors are all marked with the names and titles of the staff. Märta leads them to the left, past an HP printer and a Xerox machine, past a line of maps showing the region, then Iraq, and then the Middle East in its entirety.

There is a plague on the wall commemorating their dead from the 2003 bombings in Baghdad which closed their offices in the capital and in Basra — the town where the uprisings started in 1991.

At a desk, in front of a PC, is a young Muslim woman in a fashionable headscarf and Cartier glasses. She is slender. She has elegant cheekbones, thin wrists, long fingers, and perfect fingernails. There is an effortless grace to the way she moves. Headscarves make it a little harder to pin down a woman’s age, because hair is more of a cue than we often realise, but Benton puts her at about twenty-seven. Compared to the young British women he works with in London, she seems exceptionally composed.

She smiles warmly when they arrive. Märta embraces her, and they kiss on each cheek.

‘Farah, this is Thomas Benton and Arwood Hobbes. Benton is a journalist with the Times, and Arwood is a consultant with me. Louise said we could come by for a short chat. They’re headed west to al-Qanat near the border.’

Farrah extends her hand, and Benton shakes it. It is like holding the wing of a bird. She smiles diplomatically and says, ‘Very nice to meet you.’

She does the same to Arwood, who shakes as well and — blessedly — says nothing.

‘Farrah is from Erbil. She knows this region better than anyone else I know,’ Märta says.

‘The situation near al-Qanat and al-Rabiaa is not good,’ she says, directing her comments to Benton. ‘The Ninawa province has certainly not been the worst, not compared to al-Anbar, but there are reports of ISIL groups clashing more and more with the Kurdish Pershmerga and the Shiites. Also, some of the Sunni tribes find ISIL too brutal, so they are turning on them, too. But not all. Deals are being struck. Also, the Kurdish PKK is moving south from Turkey and linking up with other groups. The situation is very fluid. It is best not to go there if you can avoid it.’

‘We’re going. So if we can get on with this—’ Arwood says.

Farrah smiles again. It is then Benton realises that her grace is not a form of polished diplomacy, but a highly refined survival skill.

Märta raps gently on Louise’s door and swings it open enough so that they make eye contact. Benton can see them both from his angle. Louise ushers them in. She’s on a call, and the speakerphone is on. She’s taking notes on a legal pad with her free hands. ‘I’m on with AirOps,’ she whispers. ‘Give me second.’

A dry, humourless, and distinctly Russian voice that channels the collective charm of the former Politburo comes through old speakers on the phone. Disembodied, it says, ‘We had three stretcher cases yesterday without stretchers. This created problem for loading and off-loading of wounded and other messy people. Technically this isn’t our concern, but the Iraqi Red Crescent — which is not always the most cooperative national society, not that this is news — is using ambulances for collecting patients, and they don’t have stretchers for stretcher cases. They only have the one used in the ambulance. This results in blood leaking onto the floor of my aircraft, which is bad for the aircraft. It also smells very bad and irritates me, and makes everything tacky, including my instruments, and I don’t like it. I now think if we are carrying bleeding wounded we need a new solution for protecting against blood spillage into, and from, the aircraft. So I’m telling you — my boss.’

‘Thanks, Spaz. I’ll tell the head of mission, and I’ll see what we can do about the sheeting. You’re helping save lives, Spaz. We’re all grateful.’

‘Yeah … OK,’ he says, and unceremoniously hangs up.

Louise hangs up by pushing an orange button. She opens her palms. ‘Busy morning. You know how it is.’

‘His name is Spaz?’ Arwood asks.

‘We don’t know his real name.’

‘Is that good?’

‘It’s working so far, which is pretty much the definition of success around here.’

‘Louise Ballan,’ Märta interjects, ‘this is Thomas Benton from the Times, and Arwood Hobbes, who is temporarily with me. They’re headed up north for the day. I wanted you to all meet and see if there’s anything that wasn’t in the UN sitrep this morning.’ Turning to the men, she says, ‘After I left the UNHCR in 1995, I was with the ICRC myself. They have a network of their own, and they don’t share information. So this conversation is not to be repeated.’

Louise is in her early forties. She is slender and big-chested, wears heavy and dated glasses, and her hair is the greatest mass of black, tangled curls Benton has ever seen. She sees him looking at it and smiles.

‘Hypnotic, isn’t it?’

‘I didn’t mean to stare.’

‘Everyone stares. It’s hypnotic.’

Benton smiles, and reaches out his hand to shake hers.

Arwood does the same, and says nothing.

‘Where are you going?’ Louise asks, sitting down again and ignoring Arwood.

Märta is about to speak, but it’s Arwood who answers. ‘A few kilometres south-east of the Yaaroubiyeh border crossing in al-Qanat. There was an attack three days ago,’ he says. ‘We’re going to the spot — as soon as we’re done here. We’re going to find the girl. You know the one.’ He checks his watch.

‘I would recommend against it,’ Louise says, starting to shuffle some papers around on her desk. ‘There’s word that ISIL is targetting Iraqi police and security forces, not only to weaken them but to scare people off from joining them. That area is overlapped by half a dozen unfriendly power players, including the Kurds, Jabhat al-Nusra, and ISIL, at the very least. We have refugees passing through, but we’re trying to divert them to better routes or else send them south into Jordan instead, though conditions there are getting very bad. And the Kurds are … unpredictable at this point.’

‘Thanks. We’re going anyway,’ Arwood says, and then, to Benton’s embarrassment, makes for the door.

Louise and her hair nod. ‘Hobbes, huh?’

Arwood stops. ‘That’s my name.’

‘Any relation?’

‘What difference would it make?’

‘OK.’ Then she looks at Benton. ‘You do know, I assume, that dozens of journalists have been kidnapped by the Syrian government and the Islamist insurgents alike, right? That no one is talking about it on the theory that not publicising it will undercut the motive to do it? Also, the attack you’re talking about, the mortar attack — the claim of responsibility by that Kurdish group is unconfirmed. Most people don’t think it was the Kurds. I don’t think it was. I wouldn’t go near the Syrian border now if I were an English journalist travelling with an American.’

‘We heard,’ says Benton. ‘And, perhaps unfortunately, many European governments are regularly paying ransoms to get their journalists back, which means a market has already been created and prices set. In any event, we won’t be there long. In and out over the next few hours is the idea. We’re going to check the site, take some pictures, and come right back.’

‘We’ve got to get on the road,’ Arwood says, clearly growing impatient. ‘Thanks for the information.’ Arwood, this time, walks out.

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Louise asks, looking at Benton.

‘Of course.’

‘This was one attack in a thousand. Over eight thousand Iraqis have been killed this year. It’s a blip on the radar. Why is the Times covering it?’

‘Because it was on global TV and you remember it,’ he says. ‘It’s not a good reason for something to be a story, but it is a common one.’

‘I was told through the grapevine that the Times is trying to turn a profit for the first time in two hundred years. This doesn’t seem like the way to do it.’

‘It’s a big old goofy world,’ Benton says.

‘It sure is,’ Louise says.

Märta lingers when Benton has gone.

Louise is not smiling.

‘None of that sounds right, Märta.’

‘I know.’

‘The American. Is he CIA?’

‘CIA?’ she says, sitting down. ‘No. No way. He doesn’t fit the profile.’

‘He’s smarter than he looks. He seems very at ease in a conflict zone. He’s in shape. He’s focussed. He’s punctual. He could be Directorate of Operations or a contractor. There’s a whole universe I don’t even understand.’

‘No,’ says Märta. ‘People from the Directorate of Operations, despite thinking they’re all mysterious, are actually pretty easy to spot. They’re political moderates, college-educated, have weak religious affiliations, are patriotic but not zealous, are able to work in formal administrative systems and follow instructions, and are not especially materialistic — though boys will be boys, with their cars and TVs. They’re all square pegs in square holes, and they love their jobs and hate their bosses. Arwood doesn’t fit. He has a bad discharge from the army, and the CIA has grown very competitive and selective since September 11. I don’t see him being able to have a boss or a job. Also, my experience is that the CIA, despite crossing almost every conceivable moral line, still respects the boundaries with humanitarian organisations and journalists.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Louise says. ‘Maybe they just haven’t been caught yet.’

‘I don’t think,’ Märta says, ‘that Arwood is working his way up a bureaucratic organisation.’

‘They hire assassins, too. And he sort of does fit that profile. Your reputation would go to hell if he’s any way connected to that world, and the International Refugee Support Group would lose access to thousands of non-combatants who rely on you. And since we all look the same to most of these people, a lot of other organisations, including the Red Cross, would suffer, too. So you’re gambling with the whole system here to help two strange characters follow a non-story and look for a dead girl among eight thousand others. It doesn’t add up. Why are you doing this?’

‘I don’t know, Louise. Maybe it’s because their irrational belief that one girl and one story still matter is somehow infectious. It’s like a first kiss. I can barely remember feeling that way.’

‘It’s not our job to feel that way.’

‘No. But I still like it.’