“If you decide the device is real,” said Mac. “Which it isn’t.”
“Not up to me,” said Eliza. “And we haven’t made an official determination.”
“You’re not going to send him to GITMO, are you? He’s a con man. He wanted a little money. Isn’t that right?”
Shah shook his head violently and let loose a loud, passionate screed in Arabic.
At which point, Mac picked up the “suspected radioactive container sourced from one of Saddam Hussein’s most advanced engineering laboratories” and pulled it apart.
“Stop,” said Eliza, rising from her chair. “That’s government property.”
“It’s not lead,” said Dekker, looking inside the cylindrical metal flask. “The first thing you need if you want to transport radioactive material is lead. And not just a quarter inch thick. If anyone put five grams of uranium-235 inside this, it would burn its way through in ten minutes.”
“I didn’t know you possessed expertise in nuclear physics,” said Eliza.
“I’ve helped you guys before,” said Mac. “You didn’t find anything then; you’re not going to find it now.”
They left the prison thirty minutes later, Eliza with the promise to return the next day to complete her interrogation. Eliza most certainly would not bring Dekker back with her. There were plenty of other Agency employees capable of driving with her to the prison and, once there, of keeping their mouths shut.
But the story didn’t end there.
On the drive back to the Green Zone, Eliza asked that they pass through Sadr City, the Baghdad suburb ruled by the Mahdi Army, the Shia sect led by a duplicitous cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.
“Not a good idea,” said Dekker, speaking to her from the front seat of their armored Chevrolet Suburban. “We’re not welcome.”
“I’m told the city has been pacified,” said Eliza. “The senator would appreciate an on-the-ground report.”
“A sitrep?”
“Precisely.”
“Suit yourself.” Dekker told the driver to take them through Sadr City. Ten minutes later, they left the highway and entered Baghdad proper.
“Sadr wants to rule the country,” Dekker said. “He doesn’t respect the Americans. He doesn’t listen to the Sunnis. The only people he pretends to like are the Iranians, and secretly he hates them too.”
Sadr City was an occupied ruin, buildings gutted from shellfire, roads pulverized, the whole place a wasteland.
“This is their Wisconsin and M,” he went on, pointing out various landmarks. A restaurant, a café, a ruined movie theater.
“What can we do to win them over?” Eliza asked.
“Leave,” said Dekker.
It was at that moment that the IED exploded. The lead vehicle was destroyed, blown high into the sky. A direct hit. Eliza’s vehicle ground to a halt. Debris and fire rained down. There were two vehicles behind them, and she had a clear memory of them reversing at speed and rounding a corner out of view and her thinking, “Oh my God. We’re dead.”
Eliza’s vehicle couldn’t reverse. Its engine was damaged, and the driver couldn’t get it started, no matter how much he swore. She stared out the window, too dazed to be frightened. A dozen figures lurked in doorways and on rooftops, firing at them. Striking the armored vehicle, the bullets sounded like a xylophone played by a drunk musician.
“Stay put,” said Dekker.
Like that he was out the door, M4 assault rifle at his shoulder. Aim and fire. Aim and fire. She watched as he shot the men dead one after another, never flinching as bullets struck the vehicle behind him, the ground at his feet, and seemingly passed through his hair. It was over in a minute. Either the bad guys were all dead or they’d run away. By the time Mac opened the door to sound the all clear, a Bell Jet Ranger was hovering above them, blasting at the surrounding rooftops.
“I didn’t know it was so loud,” Eliza said to him at dinner that evening. “My ears are still ringing.”
They were sitting at a squalid hole-in-the-wall inside the Green Zone, one everyone called “the Baghdad Country Club.” There was a stereo powered by someone’s iPod. A few tables. Fake shrubbery. And too many mercenaries to count—“private contractors” was their formal title—most of them three sheets to the wind.
Eliza had no recollection of what they ate. Nor could she recall what they talked about, except that it wasn’t about Dr. Shah or theeight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. It was all a haze. She was married and, she admitted, unhappily so. He was divorced, disillusioned with the war and subsequent occupation. Two wayward souls. A war zone. A scrape with death. A bottle of arrack, the local firewater. He was, she decided, the bravest man she’d ever met. Nature took its course.
Later, she wondered if she’d given herself to him out of desire, or if it was something else, something less genuine, a kind of payment or inducement. You can have me, but at a price. And the price was Dr. Shah and his slipshod contraption. The laughable container of radioactive materials. Keep your mouth shut.
