‘That won’t feel good.’ Watts began to collect the poles.
‘Got that right.’
‘Hey, Watts, what it’s like to have something eat out your ass?’
Watts paused on his way to the Quonset, gave serious consideration to the question. ‘Ask your mother, Pakosta. Go ask your mom.’
For a moment Pakosta’s reaction, a slight collapse in his expression, showed him to be nothing more than a boy. Santo stumbled back, mock-shot. Clark doubled over and laughed into his fist. Kiprowski looked about, undecided, checking for a cue.
Rem followed after Pakosta as he walked toward the pits, wanting to know what Pakosta had meant by saying Chimeno had moved to number one, but Pakosta’s smart stride made it clear that he didn’t want to talk.
* * *
At 15:40 the sound of the convoy could be heard, a rick-rack reverberation clattering off the cabins — seeming to come from the huts not the desert. Rem looked out to the road, hands shading his eyes, but still not able to see. The noise increased, adding a bass sound and becoming insistent, internal, felt. The craft, when he saw them, five army Chinooks, smooth, black pods, almost too distant to justify their noise.
The men grouped behind the Quonset to an area where the ground levelled, big enough they imagined for the five craft to set down. Rem asked Santo if this was good enough and Santo gave a gesture, he had no idea. None of them had any idea.
Beneath the helicopters hung vehicles strapped to platforms, a truck, a Humvee, what looked to be an ambulance, another Humvee, a boat. The five craft came out of the blank white sky. Holding a loose ‘V’ they swung wide of the Quonset and rode over the cabins and kicked up a sharp blister of sand. Watts and Clark backed into the Quonset, hands holding down their hats.
Chimeno pointed to the Beach and gestured to Rem that they should take the Humvee.
Rem cupped his hands round Watts’ ear and had to shout. ‘Call Southern-CIPA. Find out what this is about. I want to know what’s going on.’
The wind ripped between the cabins as the first craft hovered above the Quonset, dwarfing the camp. The cover on the Quonset rippled wildly and threatened to tear. The cabins, otherwise solid, shivered and strained against their footings — Rem feared the downdraught would destroy them.
* * *
By the time they arrived at the Beach the first vehicle had been unloaded. One corner of the pallet slipped into the sand and the ambulance shifted as the sand settled. One by one the packets were carefully lowered and released. The boat, improbably beached, tilted precariously, the bow pointing downhill. The cables wound back up as the helicopter yawed away.
Watts said he knew what that was, and Clark slapped him on the back. ‘In my culture we call them boats. Buh-oats. Normally we like to use them in the sea or in the ocean, or on some kind of water, on which, my friend, they glide as if by special powers.’
Watts ignored the taunt and couldn’t resist running his hand along the boat. ‘It’s a Sunshine Fifty-five-O. I was raised on the Sunshine Forty. Five years, from when I was nine.’
‘I took you to be a trailer-boy. Same as everyone else.’
‘Benton Harbor, before we moved to Missouri.’
‘Hippies?’
‘Something like that.’
Pakosta couldn’t do much but laugh, a boat in the desert being too strange to make sense.
The fifth helicopter set down the truck then veered away toward the camp. Rem and Santo followed in the Humvee. Irritated not to know what was going on, Rem drove into the dust barely able to see.
The helicopter settled behind the Quonset and left two long crates and one man. The man stood by the boxes as Rem drove round, and the helicopter hovered then swung away. Whorls of sand drawn by the craft’s swift rise twisted about the man, then dissipated. A clear sky began to break through the yellow dust.
The man stepped forward and introduced himself as their translator, Amer Hassan. He repeated his name and his duties until Rem was clear on both.
‘Translator?’ Rem couldn’t help but smile. ‘But everyone speaks English.’
‘He say translator?’ Santo leaned out of the vehicle and shouted: ‘You sure you’re supposed to be here?’
Amer Hassan took the question seriously. He was certain. Camp Liberty. This was his destination.
‘Who sent you?’
‘My previous position was with Security at Southern-CIPA. I will be working with Paul Howell and his security team.’
‘Howell? Here?’
‘Yes. With the security team based here. I received instructions this morning.’
Now Rem scratched his head. ‘Paul Howell is coming here?’
‘No. This is the equipment.’ Amer Hassan indicated the two crates. ‘For the security team.’ He paused, eyes closed. ‘This is only what I have heard. When Mr Howell makes his visits he requires a security detail and a translator.’
Rem gave a soft ‘oh’. ‘OK. You didn’t hear anything about those vehicles that were just delivered, because they don’t look much like junk?’
Hassan closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘No. There was some talk, the men who brought them also did not understand why they were bringing them here.’
‘And this was organized by who? Tom Markland?’
‘By Howell, I believe. This is what they said.’
Rem offered a ride to the cabins. Santo gave Rem a quick look and slipped into the back seat. Watts, Clark, Chimeno, and Pakosta, they agreed, could move the munitions boxes back to the Quonset — under strict instructions that they should not be opened and stored securely away from the other provisions.
* * *
Rem found the man disarming. It wasn’t his handsomeness, but his softness: big eyes, long lashes, his slender shoulders and small frame which conspired to one delicate effect.
He led Amer Hassan to Kiprowski’s cabin, apologized, and said he hoped it wouldn’t be inconvenient, sharing a small cabin with another man.
‘That’s Kiprowski’s cot. Don’t worry, we have plenty in the Quonset.’ Kiprowski, he assured him, was a good person, quiet and unassuming.
As Rem walked back to his own cabin he shook off this coyness. There were things he was missing, he told himself. Things that weren’t good to be so long without. Santo wolf-whistled and asked if Rem was interested in seeing what they’d been sent.
* * *
Rem found Kiprowski in the Quonset and explained the situation.
‘This will only be temporary, but we don’t have enough cabins and sharing is necessary. I can’t see any of the others being…’ He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, accommodating? ‘You speak Arabic?’
‘No, sir.’ Kiprowski shook his head and looked like he had something to say.
‘I thought you spoke Arabic?’
He worked in food services. Remember?
‘No matter. Obviously he speaks English. This whole thing is some kind of mix-up. I can’t see him staying with us for long.’
Stopped at the doorway Rem began to make the introductions and suggested that Kiprowski help find a cot and whatever else Amer Hassan might need.
Kiprowski and Hassan greeted each other affectionately with smiles, a handshake that fell into a brisk hug.
‘We were at Southern-CIPA at the same time.’
The silence that fell after this explanation made it clear to Rem that he should leave.
* * *
That evening Kiprowski brought the translator to the area they’d set aside for eating. Hassan helped Kiprowski start up the portable stoves and watched as they brought water to the boil. He shook hands with the other men, but once Kiprowski had passed out the rations, they sat separate from the group — and about the two men grew a private air.