Juggernaut

‘Guess I’m not making myself clear.’

Amanda popped the restraining strap of her side-holster.

Raphael stepped between them.

‘They got money, Ese. I want to hear what they have to say.’

Raphael led them between stacked crates of 7.62mm ammunition. African import stamps on the crates. Kinshasa. One battle zone to another. Half the rounds would probably misfire.

There were two Huey choppers at the back of the hangar. Vietnam-era war-birds. Bad Moon and Talon.

‘These things actually fly?’ asked Lucy.

‘I bet my life on these girls,’ said Raphael.

‘Mind if we check them out?’

‘Go ahead.’

Lucy and Amanda circled the choppers. Crude avionics. Old-time gauges and altimeters. Leather seats patched with duct tape.

‘These things are older than my grandpa,’ said Amanda. ‘We’re wasting our time.’

‘Gaunt is just running his mouth. Look around you. He needs money. Needs it badly.’

‘What about tattoo guy? The barrio gangbanger? What do you know about him?’

‘Raphael? I asked around. Shitload of combat flight hours. Flown everywhere. Night recon. Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. Any stan you care to mention.’

Gaunt and Raphael watched them inspect the Hueys.

‘The two chicks are wearing rings,’ said Raphael. ‘What’s the deal with that?’

‘What do you think?’

‘We need the bucks, Ese. We need to eat.’

‘I don’t care if I fucking starve.’

‘We ought to hear what she has to say. Thousand dollars a day, Ese. We can’t turn it down.’

Lucy ducked beneath the tail-boom. She approached Gaunt and Raphael.

‘How much can these things haul?’ asked Lucy

‘Sling-load, or cabin?’

‘Cabin.’

‘Three tons each, give or take,’ said Raphael. ‘We can take out the bench seats, easy enough.’

‘Can they handle desert?’

‘They’ve got filters.’

‘So what do you say?’

Raphael relit his cigar.

‘I’m wondering why you’re talking to us and not military liaison.’

‘Those grenades. Where did you guys pick them up? Pretoria? Liberia? They’ve got to be twenty years old. Corroded to hell. Sell those to some warlord down south and you’ve got a real problem. They’ll crack open a box for training and find they don’t go bang. They’ll snatch you off the street. Cut you up slow.’

‘That’s my concern,’ said Gaunt.

Lucy smoothed out a map, spread it like a tablecloth over a couple of grenade crates. Raphael fetched Dr Pepper from a refrigerator and cracked cans. Gaunt hung back, arms folded.

Iraq. All the major cities clustered east in the fertile alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates. Irrigated vineyards. Pomegranate and date groves. Oil money down south near the gulf.

Lucy pointed west. Al Anbar. The Western Desert. Terra incognita. A here-be-monsters blank. No towns, no cities.

‘Here,’ she said.

‘Middle of the desert.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Nothing out there,’ said Raphael. ‘Sand and scorpions. Might meet a few Bedouin. A few Talib. Slit your throat given a chance.’

‘Those choppers. Could they make the trip?’

‘Edge of their range but yeah, they could make it.’

‘It’s a salvage run. Stuff from the war. We find it. We load it. We bring it back.’

‘Munitions?’

‘No. Totally inert cargo.’

‘Weight?’

‘Approximately two tons.’

‘Coke? Heroin?’

‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘Why us?’

‘Like I say. Salvage. Less people involved the better.’

‘Grand a day?’

‘Up front. Guaranteed. After that: partners. A cut of whatever we find.’

‘And how much is that likely to be?’

‘Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands.’

Lucy uncapped a pen and wrote her cellphone number across the cover of an old Stars and Stripes, digits scrawled across Saddam’s forehead.

‘I’ll give you guys some space to think it over. Call me, all right? Let’s make some money.’

Gaunt and Raphael watched them leave.

‘Fucking bitch.’

‘But three thousand bucks, Ese. We’re hurting. Everyone is getting rich but us.’

‘You can leave anytime you want,’ said Gaunt. ‘You don’t like the way I run things, you don’t like the calls, then walk out the door.’

Lucy headed for Baghdad. The city viewed through a spider web crack in the windshield.

Amanda killed country tunes from Freedom 107FM and slotted Cypress Hill into the dash. ‘Ain’t Going Out Like That’. She turned up the volume. Lucy turned it down.

Lucy checked the rear-view. Locals kept clear. They pulled back, swerved to let the GMC pass. Provisional Order Seventeen. Paul Bremner’s decree. Civilian security contractors were immune from prosecution. A licence to kill.

‘Who next?’ asked Amanda.

‘No one,’ said Lucy. ‘We take the Hueys.’

‘Did I miss something? Gaunt told us to fuck off.’

‘He’s desperate. I could smell it. Three thousand dollars. Sooner or later, he’ll swallow his pride and call.’

‘What’s the story with you and him?’

‘Fallujah. Couple of years back. Woman runs in front of our Warrior. Nearly got crushed flat. Babbling something about her family. Said a squad of US marines kicked down the door of her house, went berserk. I had to testify at the tribunal. They’re doing a long stretch at Miramar Brig.’

‘Gaunt?’

‘He had a good lawyer.’