Juggernaut

A slight breeze. The tails of her prairie coat billowed around her.

Jabril climbed and stood by her side.

‘Not far,’ said Lucy.

‘No,’ said Jabril. ‘Not long now.’

He took a pack of Salems from the chest pocket of his flak jacket. He struck a match, lit a cigarette and savoured it.

He offered the pack to Lucy. She took a cigarette. She smoked half, stubbed and tucked the unsmoked butt in her pocket.

‘Poor-girl habit,’ she explained. ‘Can’t abide waste.’

She looked around.

‘Why the fuck would anyone try to scratch a living out here?’

‘Because it’s all they have ever known,’ said Jabril.

‘What do locals call this stretch of desert?’

‘Something dramatic. I forget. What do Americans call it?’

‘The Motherfucker.’

Jabril smiled and shook his head.

‘And yet they think we are the barbarian culture.’

‘No point acting all sly and superior,’ said Lucy. ‘Those dumb yanks kicked your arse. That whole contest-of-civilisations thing didn’t exactly work out for you.’

Toon picked up a rock and dropped it down a well. Brief clatter. No splash.

Amanda sipped warm water from the shoulder pipe of her hydration pack.

Scattered shoes and clothing.

‘Must be nice,’ said Amanda. ‘A simple life. No bullshit. Straightforward.’

She fanned herself with her Stetson.

‘Easy for you to say. Little Miss Trust Fund. Little Miss Finishing School. I was born poor. Nothing romantic about poverty. I used to work as a grill man. Flipped eggs for truck drivers and construction workers. Had to ask permission for bathroom breaks. Fuck that shit. And I was living like a king compared to these guys.’

‘Hey. I worked. I had summer jobs. I wore a name badge.’

‘Answer me this. When did Daddy buy your first car?’

‘Just before he broke two of my ribs and kicked me out the house. That was the last parental dollar I ever saw.’

Toon looked around.

‘Imagine playing out your whole life in a place like this. Poor bastards. Sitting in dirt watching their teeth fall out. No wonder they need God and the promise of something better.’

They pushed open a door.

Bare rooms. No plumbing. No electricity. A couple of beds. Some cushions and rugs. Everything dusted in sand fine as flour.

A back room. Scattered shoes. Broken tea glasses. An old, black bloodstain on the carpet. Cushions stuffed in the windows.

‘Looks like a bunch of them died in here,’ said Amanda. ‘They tried to block the windows, keep out the gas. Plug every gap. Didn’t do them much good.’

‘Might have been best if they stepped outside and took a deep breath.’

She picked up a playing card from the sand-dusted floor. She blew it clean. Ace of spades. Saddam’s portrait on the back.

‘Death card,’ said Toon. ‘The clean-up crew. I’m guessing they sent in a bunch of guys in NBC suits to take pictures and police up the bodies. They left a message in case any camel jockeys tried to resettle the place.’

‘How does a guy do that? Saddam. How can he sit at his desk and sign the order? Live his life? Kick off his shoes, eat a meal, laugh at the TV, while all this shit goes down in his name?’

Toon shrugged.

‘I’ve lost count of the men I’ve killed. I can’t say they haunt my dreams.’

‘But mothers? Children?’

‘Never killed a woman.’

‘Guy must be a psychopath. A proper, strap-him-down, throw-the-switch psychopath.’

‘Evil. Some people are just plain evil.’

Huang was asleep by a wall. Lucy kicked him awake.

‘All set?’

The team headed into the desert. They climbed dunes.

‘Hold on,’ said Amanda.

Something beneath her boot. Something white.

Lucy crouched.

‘Sheep skull.’

‘Take a look at this,’ said Amanda.

A skeletal human hand. Amanda brushed away more sand. A child’s skull.

‘The villagers,’ said Lucy. ‘A mass grave. Poor bastards.’

Amanda dug out the skull. Sand poured from empty eye sockets. She brushed dust from the cracked cranium with a gloved hand.

‘Part burned. They doused them in gasoline. Humans and cattle, piled together.’

Lucy kicked sand to cover the remains.

‘Leave them be. That’s the best we can do for them.’

Amanda scooped sand and reburied the skull.

‘Sorry, kid.’

They headed north.

They entered the shade of the hills. A ridge of jagged crags high above them, like the ramparts of an impenetrable fortress.

Lucy uncapped her compass and checked the azimuth.

‘Sure there’s no one up there?’ asked Lucy. ‘Feels like we are being watched.’

‘No one,’ said Jabril. ‘Kurdish militia might have used some caves for munitions storage, years ago. But they are long gone. Nobody dares come here now.’

Lucy spat grit. Toon pulled off his do-rag and dabbed sweat from his neck and face.

‘People got no business living in a country like this.’

They watched a serpentine dust devil dance across the dunes ahead of them. A mini tornado riding the thermals where shadow met the sun.

‘Not far now.’

They kept walking. The team adopted full combat formation. They spread out and kept three-sixty coverage of the terrain.

‘Stay loose, all right? No bunching.’

Lucy took point.

Amanda held their left flank. She scanned the high valley walls above them.

Huang buddied with Jabril and checked dunes to their right.