Sandstealers

Something about Munro made her feel uncomfortable. His body language implied he didn’t see what she could achieve. She didn’t even know herself. Baghdad, she supposed, was a dangerous city for those who weren’t sure what they were doing; it was a place for certainty, not for doubt.

It was the tremor in her mother’s voice that had convinced her to come. ‘Please, honey; we need you there for us, for the family,’ Eliza Lowenstein had begged. ‘He’s your brother, after all. Who knows, maybe you can help him.’ Help him like you didn’t do before, in other words—or was that just how Camille had chosen to interpret it, through the prism of her broken conscience? Besides, there was no excuse. Camille was in Dubai which—if you were looking at a map in Pittsburgh—seemed pretty much next door to Iraq.

Camille had been called out of a meeting to be told the news. She had stood there in the glass palace where she worked, staring out at its panoramic views of nothing. She had supposed she ought to cry, but no tears would flow. Perhaps it was the shock, she thought; perhaps they’d come later. She’d gone home, tossed some clothes into a suitcase and made sure her secretary cancelled everything in her diary, except the dinner date with the man she’d met two weeks earlier: Camille wanted to make that call herself. He hadn’t sounded particularly sympathetic nor very bothered that she wouldn’t be around. At 52, she couldn’t help thinking she was too old for dates anyway. As the bank’s limousine eased her past Dubai’s lavish skyscrapers, she wondered whether her brother would be dead or alive when she saw him again. Either way, she resolved she wouldn’t come back until she knew for sure. That much at least she owed him. She plugged in her iPod headphones and put on some Janis Joplin. It always reminded her of Danny. But she asked herself another question: was it bad taste to listen to music when the corpse of your only sibling could be lying in a ditch somewhere?

At Baghdad International Airport, a lone immigration officer in a slightly tatty uniform waved her through without even opening her passport. He gave her a look that said: Trust me, if you’re crazy enough to come to my country, I really have no plans to stop you. Then, as Harper and Munro shepherded her to the waiting motorcade, a plump diplomat in a white shirt and tie stepped forward to greet them.

‘Hi, I’m Adi—Adi Duval.’ Camille noticed with mild revulsion two dark ovals of sweat around his armpits. ‘You need to know we’re doing everything, and I mean everything, to find your brother.’ Adi assured her that army intelligence was on the case, with spy satellites and unmanned reconnaissance planes searching 24/7. They hadn’t yet established which group was responsible, but they had a list of suspects. CIA analysts had made it their top priority, and they’d crack it soon, he was sure they would. Danny was a ‘distinguished American citizen’ who deserved ‘our best and fullest resources’, he went on, his tone implying that the country’s less impressive passport holders might receive a slightly inferior level of service from their government.

He handed her a flak jacket and helmet.

‘You’ll need to wear these, Miss Lowenstein—just for the ride into town.’

Camille, Harper and Munro were driven at unfeasible speed to the Hamra Hotel, the gleaming white GMC Suburban—bulletproof, of course—swerving and screeching its way through the fiendish chicanes designed to slow traffic. At intermittent checkpoints ordinary mortals were having their papers checked and car boots searched, while Camille’s convoy sailed through as though she were the First Lady herself. If only her brother had enjoyed such protection.

An image returned to her—for no reason she could fathom—of Danny aged eight, playing hide-and-seek in the garden of their home in East Allegheny, Pittsburgh—‘Deutschtown’ as it was known. Camille, who was three years older, had kept on searching even when she’d seen his foot poking from behind the garden shed. He was enjoying the game so much, she didn’t want to spoil it. When she finally pounced and Danny screamed, she thought it was his silly mock surprise at being found at last, but then she saw it, curled up in the grass only a few feet from him: a Copperhead snake, watching him with sullen disapproval. All along, while she’d dragged out her search, poor Danny had been petrified. Head pounding, she’d grabbed a stick and flicked the snake away. As it scuttled off into the trees, Danny had looked at her in admiration, a look that came back to her now. She was his sister, bigger than him and so much braver. He’d been absolutely certain she would never let him down.

So why was it that she had? Not just once, but again and again.

Black curtains across the side windows hid away Baghdad, but the occasional glimpses were enough to make her swallow: so here it was, the place she had watched on countless television bulletins; where Saddam had strutted his stuff; where shock and awe had lit up the sky; where the liberating troops had marched in to such short-lived acclaim. She could never have imagined she would see it for herself.

‘At some stage we should be able to get you down to the spot where Danny disappeared.’ Adi sat beside her, the smell of his stale sweat wafting into her nostrils. ‘First Cavalry are still securing the area, but when they’re done, we could have an armed escort take you there. Only if you want to, of course.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Camille.

‘We appreciate what you and your family are going through and we understand you’re going to need some closure here.’ He chose the word carefully, to imply—very gently, but from the start—that they might well be looking for a body.

‘Thank you. I don’t intend to leave this country until I have my brother, whether he’s dead or alive.’

‘He’s really an extraordinary journalist. You must be so proud of him.’

‘Thank you, I am.’

‘I know a few of his friends; they’re over at the Hamra, too. Maybe you’d like to meet with them?’

Later, when it was all over, she would think about how different things would have been for her if she’d just said: ‘No thanks, Mr Duval.’

‘Yes please, that’d be good.’

Soft morning light fell upon the carnage of the night before: a fresh batch of mutilated corpses, dumped around Baghdad like garbage put out for collection. Some lay down alleyways, some amid the bulrushes in the Tigris. Danny’s friends knew they would be out there and couldn’t help thinking he might be among them.

The Junkies were prone to insomnia at the best of times and now sleep seemed a physical impossibility. Their wakefulness meant there was an eternity of time to fill but work was unthinkable: why head out to cover some new Iraqi tragedy when they had their very own?

‘Fried eggs and tomatoes, anyone?’ Edwin was buzzing around the suite’s kitchenette, pouring olive oil into a scratched old frying pan. ‘I’m making breakfast.’

‘You’re always doing something,’ said Becky.

He looked confused, so she let it pass.

‘Oh, all right then, why not. Two, please, sunny side up.’ She had no appetite, and neither had the others, but they would eat because it kept Edwin happy. He had loved to cook for them on the road—the more challenging the circumstances, the better: Bosnia, Africa, Chechnya, it didn’t matter where. It was one of the therapies that worked for him.

When the unnecessary business of breakfast was complete, the long silence began. Everyone slipped into memories of Danny until a knock at the door reverberated around the room and jolted them from their reveries. Becky jumped, as if it was a gunshot.

Adi stood there with three people they’d never seen.

‘Guys, I’d like you all to meet Tommy Harper from the Times, Jim Munro, who’s here as a security adviser, and this is Camille Lowenstein, Danny’s sister.’

She was the only one they looked at. She was just like Danny; a little taller and older, but with his presence. For a moment it felt as though he were with them again, back from the dead. The same persuasive eyes peered out at them through Dolce & Gabbana glasses, black and oblong, giving her the stern, studious look of the tutor you admired at university and wouldn’t want to cross.

Rachel leapt up from the sofa and hugged her, while the others were more circumspect, shaking her hand one by one and introducing themselves.

‘You got here pretty fast,’ said Rachel.

‘My bank has been fabulous but I’m kind of dazed; one minute sitting in Dubai, the next here in Baghdad—which isn’t exactly the sort of place you expect to find yourself at a moment’s notice.’

Her educated East Coast cadences rolled easily over them in much the same way Danny’s always had.

Kaps led her to the shabby armchair he’d just been sitting in and fixed her a coffee while she took in the faces around her, especially Rachel’s and Becky’s, with their puffed-up, reddened eyes.

‘So how was the flight in?’ Rachel, like an uneasy cocktail-party guest, was determined to clutch at small talk. Becky, slumped beside her, said nothing at all.

For half an hour, between more tears and drifting silences, the Junkies told them what they knew of the area where Danny had disappeared, the various insurgent groups who operated there and the extent to which the Americans were or were not in control. At the end of it, Harper and Munro thanked them and said they needed to make some calls.

‘I should be going too,’ said Camille.

Why, said the look on Rachel’s face. What the hell else is there to do?

‘Stay if you like. It’s nice to talk about Danny.’

When Turner and Munro had gone, Camille asked them again if they knew what he’d been doing in al-Talha.

‘That’s the beauty of being freelance, and the curse,’ said Kaps. ‘You don’t have to tell anyone your plans, but when it all goes wrong, no one knows what you’ve been up to. He could be pretty secretive.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s the reason he left the Times in the first place—to be a free spirit. Said the bureau had become a fortress, with all the security consultants and armed guards you had to have there. Soldier boys like your friend Munro.’

‘He took a lot of risks?’

Kaps chuckled.

‘We all take risks. You’re taking a risk just by being in this city, in this country. But Danny? Yeah, he took more than most.’

He handed Camille the coffee he’d just made. She grabbed it in the palms of both hands, defying its heat. You’re a tough cookie, Kaps thought, and something told him to be a little wary about what he said.

‘And what d’you think are his chances?’ Camille asked. ‘You guys know Iraq so well and I really don’t have a clue.’

‘Okay then, no bullshit,’ said Kaps. ‘If this had been down south with the Shia, I’d say good. But we could be talking about al-Qaeda—al-Zarqawi in particular. Not exactly renowned for the quality of his mercy.’