Blood Moon Rising (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 2) (8 page)

Chapter Sixteen

B
eatrix managed a broken night’s sleep and finally gave up the pretence at six. She rose, showered in the lukewarm dribble that was the best the hotel could manage and dressed in a white sleeveless T-shirt, black pants and black boots. She collected her Oakleys from the dresser and went down to the restaurant, where she had fruit and toast for breakfast, washing down two Zomorphs with a glass of tepid orange juice.

Faulkner joined her as she was flipping through an out-of-date copy of the
Herald-Tribune
.

“Ready?”

She nodded.

He drove her to downtown Basra. They stopped at a money changer and swapped some of her dollars for Iraqi dinars. They continued to a tailor’s workshop, and he told her that she was expected. Faulkner drove off to take care of the paperwork for their drive to the oilfield, and she went inside. A man was working with a large bolt of fabric, measuring it out and then using a pair of long-bladed scissors to shear off the amount that he needed.

She cleared her throat.

He looked up. “Miss Rose?”

“Yes.”

“Number Twelve said you were coming.”

“What’s your name?”

“That doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No,” she said. “Just that the quality of your merchandise is as good as it needs to be.”

“Then you need not worry. It is.”

Beatrix knew that the Group had quartermasters positioned around the world. They assimilated themselves into local society and surfaced only when called upon to kit out agents when they were in the field. She had met plenty of them during her career, but it had been years since she was active, and so it was no surprise that this man was new to her. He led her into a smaller room at the back of the workshop. There were finished suits hung on hooks on the wall and a large canvas bag on a table.

He unzipped it and took out an FN F2000 Tactical TR compact assault rifle. Beatrix picked it up and hefted it. It was a gas-operated, fully automatic and ambidextrous bullpup rifle, equipped with both an optical sight and an under-slung lightweight 40mm grenade launcher. She field-stripped the weapon down to its
component
parts and inspected each of them carefully. She
reassembled
it again.

“You won’t get much smaller or more mobile than that,” the quartermaster said.

“Ammunition?”

He took ten
30
-round magazines and five grenades from the bag and put them on the table. “It is good?”

“Very good. Secondary weapon?”

“There you have a choice.”

He laid out a Glock 17 and a Sig Sauer P226 Tactical. Both were 9mm pistols, and both had been fitted with custom suppressors. The quartermaster took out magazines for each weapon and laid them out. Beatrix took the Sig and broke it down, quickly pleased with it. It was almost box fresh. The Glock looked as if it had seen more action, and when she broke it down, she confirmed it. The parts were worn and in need of attention. The Sig was the better bet.

“And the rest?”

He retrieved a set of head-mounted LUCIE night vision goggles, six M84 flash-bang grenades and two canteen pouches for
carrying
them, a length of Cordex detcord, a No. 6 plain detonator, a small amount of C4, a roll of double-sided tape, binoculars, a handheld GPS unit with spare batteries and a combat first aid kit.

“Is that everything you need?”

“This is good,” she said. “There’s one other thing.”

“Yes, please, what is it?”

“I need a small GPS tracker and a receiver.”

“I have a commercial model. Quite reliable.” He went over to a cupboard and took out a small black box that was about the same size as a cigarette lighter. It had a peel-away adhesive strip on one side. “It works with a smartphone.”

“Do you have one?”

“Of course.” He took a white box from a shelf, opened it and took out an older model iPhone. “This is unregistered. The tracker app is already installed.”

“That’s fine.” She replaced the phone in the box and added it to the other items. “Thank you.”

Beatrix hoisted the bag of equipment over her shoulder and went outside onto the street. This part of the city was heaving with new money. Oil money. The road was wide, almost a boulevard, and had been cleared of the rubbish and rubble that scarred so many others. Instead of bomb craters and decades of putrid refuse were new cars and touts hawking trinkets. There were garish new shop fronts selling everything from Turkish shawls and Gulf fragrances to Lebanese sweets. Photograph shops displayed photos of chubby babies. Cigarettes, carbonated drinks, fruit, bolts of cloth and cans of petrol were piled in tottering heaps across the pavements. Neon lights were everywhere, and the streets were thronged with shoppers. Restaurants had posters offering strangely coloured kebabs.

There was a shop selling colourful veils and gowns next to the tailor’s. She stopped inside and bought an
abaya
, a dark cloak which was worn over the clothing and obscured its wearer from the top of the head to the ground. The synthetic fibre was lightened with colourful embroidery and handfuls of sequins. Beatrix was not interested in its decorative effect. It offered anonymity, and that was a gift that she suspected might be useful before she was through.

She saw the Freelander. Faulkner pulled out of the frenetic
traffic
and parked alongside.

“Get what you needed?”

She nodded, dumped the bag in the back and climbed up into the front.

“Want to have a look around town?”

She nodded, then sat back and looked out of the windows as Faulkner drove them out of the city. Basra’s buildings reminded her of the old Soviet style of architecture, with boxy and uninspiring construction arranged in careful order. The Russians had pumped money into the country in the seventies, and this was their
lasting
legacy. The buildings could have been in Finland or
Warsaw
, save that the plain concrete walls were stained a dirty yellow by years of exposure to the sand and the dust. A few apartment blocks were enlivened by touches designed to elicit local custom, some of them even sporting Assyrian-style bas-relief etched onto the walls. But most were utilitarian and functional, with rusting air-
conditioning
units breaking up the straight lines.

The streets were busy with life. Taxis nudged and edged into the never-ending flow of traffic, their orange bonnets and boots dinged and dented from numerous collisions. Youngsters hauled wonky carts that were piled high with sacks of grain. A donkey staggered beneath the weight of the baskets of coke that had been balanced across his back. They saw a flock of sheep grazing on the sun-blasted grass of a roundabout, oblivious to the clatter of traffic that circulated around them.

“Let’s go out to the oilfield,” she said.

Authorisation was needed to get out to the oilfields to the southwest of the city. There had been numerous attacks on the facility by insurgents, and now that Manage Risk were engaged in providing security, it was vice tight. Faulkner had arranged the fake clearance; the papers were made out in Beatrix’s name. The documents had been slid into in a plastic sleeve and placed on the dash.

They were halfway to the oilfield’s administrative buildings in Energy City when they passed a large armoured vehicle parked at the side of the road. They were twenty feet beyond it when Beatrix heard the throaty roar of its big three-hundred-horsepower diesel engine turning over. She watched in the mirror as it rolled onto the road and started after them. There was a sign on the front, in both English and Arabic, that threatened “lethal force” if traffic got too close or didn’t move out of the way. It sounded its horn, and the soldier in the roof turret waved for them to pull over.

“Here we go,” Faulkner said anxiously, looking in the mirror.

It was a Grizzly armoured personnel carrier, a big infantry carrier designed for urban combat. The steel armour was painted jet black and angled into a V-shape to deflect explosive blast waves. There were multiple gun ports and a ring-mount roof turret with a soldier standing behind a 12.7mm machine gun. It was a beast of a vehicle, fast and almost impregnable. The Manage Risk logo, a Roman legionnaire’s helmet before two crossed gladii, had been affixed to the flanks.

“What do they want?”

“Take it easy,” Beatrix said.

“We’ve got gear in this car we won’t be able to explain.”

“I know we do. Pull over.”

Faulkner slowed and parked at the side of the road. They were adjacent to an enormous nodding donkey that squeaked loudly every time the big head dipped down and back up again.

The hatch in the Grizzly’s flank opened, and two private
soldiers
stepped out. They were dressed all in black, and both wore wraparound shades that obscured their eyes. They were equipped with M4 carbines, and they toted them as they approached, one on either side of the jeep.

“If they search . . .” he began quietly.

“They won’t,” she interrupted. “Leave it to me.”

The soldier on Faulkner’s side of the jeep spoke first. “Where are you going?”

“You can talk to me,” Beatrix said.

“That right? And who are you?”

“Juliet Watson,” she said, using the false name that they had used for the permit. She spoke with authority.

“Take your glasses off, please, miss.”

“I will if you will.”

The man frowned, but did as she asked. She removed hers in return.

“That’s better,” she said.

“So? Where are you going?” He was American, a low drawl of an accent that she guessed was from the East Coast.

“Down to the oilfield.”

“No, you’re not.”

“We have a permit.”

“What for?”

“I work for the BBC. The news division. You’ve heard of the BBC, haven’t you?”

“Of course.”

“We’re filming a piece about the oilfield.”

“What about it?”

She smiled at him as if he was simple. “You know this is the biggest reserve in the world, right?”

“Yes.”

“So we’re doing a piece about that. About the effect it’ll have on the local economy. About the opportunities for the Iraqis and the companies contracted to get the oil out of the ground.”

“It’s been cleared with the authorities.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Would you expect to have been told?”

He shrugged.

“Want to see the paperwork?”

She took the plastic folder and handed it to him. The man opened it and shuffled dubiously through the sheaf of papers inside. They were fake, but they were good fakes. How was he possibly going to be able to tell? He glanced at the papers, but she could see that he wasn’t really reading them. He was trying to work out what he should do next.

“Do you need to speak to your commanding officer?”

“No,” he said, defensively. “This is my road. I got authorisation. Don’t need to speak to
no one
else.”

“That’s great. Can we go, then? I’ve got to start filming this tonight, and I need to scout a location. I could really do without the hold-up.”

He looked across the cab of the jeep to his mate, who was still wearing his dark glasses. The man shrugged back at him.

“Ah, shit, why not. But stay on the road, alright? There are plenty of minefields on either side. You go the wrong way, you’re liable to get blown to kingdom come.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

Faulkner put the jeep into gear again, and they left the two
soldiers
standing on the side of the road.

“They’re well equipped,” she assessed, “at least when it comes to gear. Maybe not the smartest soldiers on the planet.”

“They get better,” Faulkner assured her.

Chapter Seventeen

T
he closer they got to the oilfield, the more Beatrix could smell the money. It oozed from deep under the featureless expanse of desert where oil derricks and natural gas wells sprouted among sand and scrub. Flames gushed high above them, and the air was thick with smoke and the acrid stench of burning.

They passed through makeshift villages of narrow metal-sided buildings that rose from the dunes, temporary housing to accommodate the workers who were needed to exploit the largest claim of crude oil in recent history. Shiftless children were gathered on the street corners, staring at them as they drove by. Beatrix would have expected the townships to be prosperous places, but they were not. They looked dirt poor.

Faulkner slowed as they approached a huge compound surrounded by two-metre-high walls. A sign next to the gates declared that it was Iraq Energy City and that trespassers would be shot. There was a tall observation tower on stilts, and a soldier with a sniper rifle watched from the accommodation at the top.

Below him, a large crowd had gathered by the gate. It was composed of men and women, all of them yelling abuse at the thirty or so Manage Risk guards facing them on the other side of the gate. The guards were armed with sidearms and batons that they wore through loops on their belts.

“What is this?” Beatrix asked.

“The facility? They just finished building it. It’s offices for the companies with a stake in the field. Accommodation for the foreign workers, too.”

The protesters were chanting loudly. There must have been four or five hundred of them, and the mood was fraught and tense.

“You know what that’s about?”

“There’s been a lot of protests like this. The locals say they’re not getting a fair shake when it comes to the new jobs. They’re probably right. They’re bringing senior management over from the west, and the workers are transferring from fields in Libya, Saudi, Qatar. They prefer people they know. They don’t trust the locals. But these fields used to be owned by the people around here. They say they’re being driven out.”

She took out the field glasses and put them to her eyes.

Her heart jolted. “Shit.”

She pressed the binoculars tight to her eyes and looked again.

“What is it?”

“Stop the engine.”

He did as she asked, and she opened the door and hopped down.

“What is it?”

She ignored him and went around to the back. She opened the bag and, as discreetly as she could, took out the Sig, pressed in a fresh magazine and then pushed it into the waistband of her
trousers
. She took the
abaya
and pulled it over her head.

“Rose,” Faulkner said. “Stop. What is it?”

She balled her fists, clenching and unclenching impatiently. “It’s Duffy,” she said. “Over there. Behind the gate.”

Faulkner turned to look. There was no reason why he would recognise Bryan Duffy, but similarly, there was no way she could ever forget him. He was standing behind a line of soldiers, directing them. He was obviously the most senior man present. He was in command. She stared at him, remembering the way his hair swept back from his temple, the sharp nose, even the way he moved. He had grown a wild beard since the last time she had seen him, but it couldn’t disguise his identity.

Faulkner suddenly looked very nervous. “Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Just get a little closer.”

“Don’t forget about . . .”

“Don’t forget about Mackenzie West,” she finished for him, “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

She walked to the back of the crowd. Her Arabic was
excellent
, and she understood the chants. They were loud and angry, declaiming the Americans for their imperialism and demanding jobs for local workers. The men and women thrust out their fists and stabbed upwards with the placards that bore their slogans. A cheer sounded to Beatrix’s left, and she saw a flash of flame as a barrel-chested man set fire to the Stars and Stripes, inky smoke curling into the scorched air. The cheer was taken up by the others until it became a bellow of rage.

She stared through the forest of limbs and the bars of the gate at Duffy, and the flame of her hatred flickered and caught hold.

Another group of workers joined behind her. The atmosphere was febrile and capricious, and seemingly at the flick of a switch, it curdled from rowdy to ugly. The newcomers surged at the gate, and Beatrix was pressed deeper into the throng. She was heaved right into the middle, the eddies and currents of the crowd drawing her ahead against her will. She found the man with the burning flag to her right and a girl, incongruously young, small and fresh faced, to her left.

She turned her head. She couldn’t see Faulkner anywhere.

The crowd pressed up against the gates, hands laced around the bars, and started to yank at them.

The chanting became angrier.

Beatrix tried to force her way back again, but the men and women behind her were pressed too tight, and there was nowhere for her to go.

She was less than twenty feet away from Duffy now. She was the only Westerner in the crowd.

A man in front of her tripped and fell, and she was pushed into him, stumbling, and reached out for support against the shoulder of the protester to her left. The fallen man reached up himself, his fist closing around the
abaya
and, tearing at it, yanked it down so that it fell away from her face.

She tried to rearrange it, but the crowd was constricting, and her arms were pressed against her sides.

If Duffy turned in her direction, if he saw her . . .

There was a screech of metal as one of the gates was pulled away from a hinge. The crowd yelled in jubilation, and the men at the front redoubled their efforts. The second hinge popped out, and the gate was thrown into the yard, forcing the guards to retreat.

Beatrix looked over at Duffy. He fell back, yelling something that she couldn’t hear. The guards drew the batons from their belts and surged forward, meeting the crowd on top of the wrecked gate. The tenor of the protests became angrier as the shouting was punctuated by the deadened
thwack
of the batons crashing against skull and bone.

The man with the burning Stars and Stripes threw his smouldering pole like a javelin and rushed at the guards, bellowing in fury. Beatrix was jostled again, bumping into the little girl and knocking her over. She saw her face, looking up in terror as the stampede swarmed around her, and she realised that if she didn’t do something, the child would be trampled underfoot.

She was pushed into the crowd again, but she pivoted, narrowing her profile, and shot out a hand. Her fingers fastened around the girl’s wrist, and she wrenched her up into her arms and edged into a gap in the scrum, forcing a passage out to the side of the crowd. The first few yards were treacherous, and a guard’s baton pummelled her arm as she shielded the girl’s head. A second blow clattered against her forehead, dizzying her. The guard drew his arm back again, but Beatrix was faster, straightening her fingers and supporting them underneath with her thumb, driving her hand like a dagger into his larynx. He dropped to his knees, unable to breathe, his hands fluttering at his throat.

She kept moving, clutching the girl to her breast.

Once she was out of the mêlée, it was easier to move. She broke free of the crowd below the gatepost. A fully fledged battle was underway inside the gates until, as Beatrix picked the girl up and carried her out of the way, a single rifle shot rang out from the observation tower. The brawling paused, and then there were screams of terror as the protesters staggered back away from the gate, leaving a wide circle around the body of the man who had burned the flag in its centre. Beatrix saw a flash of red on his scalp but did not wait.

A second shot echoed back.

Two Grizzly APCs had pulled up at the gates, and men with automatic rifles were disembarking.

She needed to get away from here right now.

She looked for the jeep.

It was gone.

Faulkner must have been moved on by the security detail.

The short battle was over now, and the Manage Risk men were beginning to round up the protesters.

A meat wagon drew up.

More armed men disembarked.

Beatrix couldn’t afford to be arrested.

The girl slipped her small hand into hers and pulled her away from the gates.

“We must get away from here,” she said, as if reading Beatrix’s mind.

“Where?”

“Come with me.”