Rem stood up in surrender and said that he understood.
* * *
The convoy arrived forty minutes ahead of time: Scanias and MANs, large bull-headed flatbeds, long bodies, camel-packed, mounted incestuously so that one could drag four.
The men gathered round them as they parked, dust colliding upward. The drivers were small, Indian and Sri Lankan, thin and anxious, exhausted from the drive.
Pakosta punched Rem on the arm. ‘You heard? We get to ride in these all the way to Amrah and they fly us back?’
Rem asked Santo if this was true. Watts stood beside Santo and nodded. ‘Apparently. This is the understanding. They won’t go any further unless they have an escort.’
‘I was sitting at the stop lights when a semi ran right over a car loaded with Muslims…’
Rem checked that Hassan was nowhere near earshot, and caught Pakosta’s arm. ‘You need to watch your mouth. You understand?’
Pakosta hunched and immediately apologized. ‘What? What did I do? It was a joke. Nothing but a joke.’
Bolder, Pakosta tugged back his sleeve. As he walked out he directed a comment at Kiprowski Rem did not quite catch. ‘What did he just say?’ Kiprowski shrugged. ‘I heard him say something. What was it?’
‘It was nothing.’
‘It wasn’t nothing. He said go fuck sand out of his ass. Right? Is that what he said?’
‘It wasn’t anything.’ Kiprowski pushed through the group of drivers. They were hollow-eyed but wired and decided on continuing.
Santo slapped Rem on the back. ‘You coming?’
Rem said no, he’d stay. ‘You can take Pakosta and Kiprowski, and Clark. Clark can follow and bring everyone back. I’ll stay here with Watts and Samuels, and Chimeno.’
Chimeno immediately complained. He wanted to go.
‘Let him come along if he wants.’
‘Fine with me.’ Rem stepped back and bumped into Amer Hassan. Hassan offered his hand. If he returned with the convoys, he said, he could find his family.
Rem asked him to reconsider.
‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Give me two days before you tell anyone.’
Rem slowly nodded in agreement. ‘You should say something to Kiprowski before you go.’
Hassan looked puzzled.
‘He’s young. He doesn’t have too many friends out here. I think he likes you in his way.’
Hassan nodded briskly, decided.
‘Do you need to get your things?’
Hassan had packed what he could in a small backpack. Kiprowski climbed into the cab behind him.
* * *
Most mornings the boy waited for Cathy to come out with the dog. She wanted his name but the boy wouldn’t give it. On the final morning one of the cashiers from the currency exchange came out, unlit cigarette in hand, she squinted into the sun and asked Cathy what she was doing.
‘We know you, don’t we, Roscoe.’ She spoke with mean and nasty intention to the boy, who immediately started walking, hands in pocket, head down. ‘Yes, we know all about you.’ She pushed her glasses back up her nose, looked to Cathy, and told her to watch herself. ‘He’s bad with women. Like his father. And watch your things. I wouldn’t trust him with anything. That entire family is handy, if you know what I mean. He’s always around here. Waiting for an opportunity. Helps himself to what he sees.’
Cathy wanted to defend the boy, but found the dog pulling in the opposite direction. She watched him walk up Lunt, but Nut had other ideas.
She still hadn’t told Rem. When he came back she’d surprise him.
* * *
Three hours after their departure, Rem received a report that the convoy was involved in an incident on Route 567 in which the unit translator had been killed.
Chimeno and Kiprowski were flown to hospital at Camp Buehring, and brought back the next day by Catfish Air. Chimeno had no difficulties talking about what had happened. Straight off the transport he called his girlfriend in Ohio, told her the story in detail, said that he missed her and made her cry. Immediately after he called his sister in Lansing, and after that his mother in Denver and did the same thing, improving on the story with each telling. By the time he talked to the unit it was smooth and elegant and properly composed. They listened with reverence.
Chimeno’s driver was a man from Nepal, only just tall enough, he swore, to reach both the pedals and the steering wheel of his rig. Two hours into the drive the guy was standing up waving his arms, insisting on some point Chimeno couldn’t recall. The floor of the cab was drecked with candy wrappers, and he was making plans about how he’d have to drive if the driver had a heart attack. In the event, the man drove courageously into what would have been the line of fire to protect the rig that went down. At that point all they knew was one of the lead trucks had taken a hit. Kiprowski was riding two trucks ahead with Amer Hassan. Once it happened, Chimeno did exactly as he was trained, and when they came to Kiprowski’s truck they found him banging and shrieking to get out. Amer Hassan had landed on his head and snapped his neck, and when they pulled him out there was black blood in his mouth, a limp head, but no other sign of damage.
Rem spoke later with Kiprowski. The plainer truth was that Amer hit his head when the truck went over. Not at the beginning of the fall when it was tipping, when he slid to the side, and not while the truck was still going forward, but once it was past the point where it could correct itself, when gravity pulled it down. For Kiprowski it was a question of velocity and force and how it was impossible not to fall, how everything happened in one compressed moment with his back against the glass and feet up to the seat. He was hit in the face, a coffee canister, CDs, pens, a map book, torch spun down, and dirt and sand and whatever else was on the seat or dashboard, everything thrown into the air and falling with them — a vague memory, or was this invented, of Amer slipping past. The moment before Kiprowski had turned to see Amer, curled up on himself in the small daybed at the back of the cab.
Amer had told him he was leaving.
Kiprowski had sulked at the news, so Amer had curled up and slept, or seemed to sleep, and before Kiprowski could explain himself the vehicle had come off the road.
Kiprowski was the first pulled out of the truck, they tugged him free over the body of the driver who was concussed. His first thought, much like Chimeno, was that this was an attack, and they would come to the front of the truck and shoot them through the glass.
Out of the cab, Kiprowski heard small-arms fire, a hollow clap sent out over the desert, and it took him a while to realize that these were the shots from the other drivers, who carried, illegally, their own weapons. There was no ambush, no roadside bomb, no attack. The driver had fallen asleep and they’d lost the road.
The death of Amer Hassan was like every other, he supposed, except he counted this man as a friend. It all came down to a curve in the road — that was it. No junction, not even an intersection, just a simple slight change in direction.
Rem understood that the problem, Kiprowski’s attachment, was not that simple.
* * *
He called Geezler again and began reading his notes, but felt the words slip from him, the call itself to be useless. ‘You know what, there’s probably some legitimate reason for not hearing from you, but some contact would be appreciated.’
As soon as he hung up he immediately regretted the message. It wasn’t what he’d said, so much as his tone.
* * *
Rem wanted to speak with the men in the Quonset the night before Kiprowski and Chimeno returned. He let them gather first, and when he came in he surprised Santo, who had money in his hands, a notebook.
‘What’s this?’