In a beige VW parked beside him sat a man who appeared to be speaking to his fist, a white wire ran from his ear.
Rem gathered his papers, locked his car and paused for a final smoke. The man in the VW wound down his window and asked Rem if he was here for the Headspring event. The induction.
‘Which company are you with? Manpower?’
Rem nodded.
‘Manpower. Roads, right? Highways and byways.’ The man gave a thoughtful nod. ‘That makes sense. Civil work? You’re not security, then?’
Rem shook his head. The man stepped out of his car and still appeared small.
‘Pendleton, Manpower, RamCo, ReServe, Outcome. Headspring recruits for them all. They’re all the same, in any case. You’ve heard of HOSCO?’ This wasn’t a question so much as an assumption, the opening of a conversation.
The man looked up as Rem shook his head.
‘HOSCO. Look them up. They run everything. Most of these companies are subsidiaries, but HOSCO run the show. They’re the people you’ll work for. You’re serious?’
‘Serious?’
‘About going?’ The man answered his own question as he locked his car. ‘Serious enough to come, I guess. Serious enough to find out.’
* * *
In the first session they were given nametags, offered coffee and an over-large platter of mini-Danish. Rem counted thirty people, exclusively men, the majority Black and Hispanic, and they sat facing a roll-down screen, silent while an introductory video titled ‘Amrah City — New City’ played and replayed. Rem watched as a decrepit city of low-rise buildings of dead whites and tawny browns, with blank dusty skies, was digitally transformed with new roads and highways, a river, then, rising from the ground, office buildings, libraries, schools, a museum, an entirely new administrative centre surrounded by flags and trees under a slick blue sky. No people, he noticed, not one placed in there. This, he guessed, was the project the man in the VW had described. Regeneration For The Next Generation. The title faded out. Re-build. Re-generate.
After the video a man of about Rem’s age delivered a short introduction. He clasped his hands as he spoke, thanked everyone for coming and said that this was the final round of the post-application, pre-selection process, then introduced himself as Steve.
‘Today, we go through our final screening procedures — nothing to worry about.’ He pointed at the screen. ‘We want you to have an idea of the scale of the project. Forget what you’ve heard, or read, or anything you’ve been told. This is a whole new situation. You’ll be involved in rebuilding. Helping to finish what we’ve started out there. Amrah City is the hub. Government. Business. Communications. Industry.’ While he spoke he looked slowly through the seated rows, man to man, and when he stopped he gave a little hesitation as if expecting applause.
Steve asked if there were questions, and one man struck up his hand and said he didn’t get it. ‘Are we working for the military or the government?’
Steve nodded through the question, then said he understood and that this raised a good point. ‘When you are out in the field you are a contractor. A private individual. You’re working for yourself. Except, we provide the opportunity for you to work. We’ll go more into this later.’
After the introduction they formed four queues in the foyer, A — F, G — L, M — S, T — Z, where they showed their papers and documents to a couple at a desk, after which, with everything satisfied, they returned to the seminar room. Rem noticed fewer people returning, and was joined by the man he’d spoken with in the parking lot. A sticker, hello, my name is — Rob, on his shirt pocket. They shook hands.
‘Did you show references?’
‘Do we need to?’
‘You’d think? This is an employment agency, right, and they don’t ask for references? You think they don’t have enough people to build their own roads out there?’ Rob kept his eye on the door. ‘Have you spoken with any of these guys?’
Rem said no.
‘Security is usually ex-military. Who knows who these people are?’ His voice low, he asked Rem questions while men were called out for their medical evaluations.
Rem wondered if the man was part of the recruitment process, a spy to vet the candidates they were unsure about, and with this doubt he became less confident about answering his questions. Was he working for the company, or for a rival? You have to consider these possibilities.
When the assistants called the candidates for interview, Rem noticed that Rob became quiet.
* * *
Rem took off his shirt, wondered how far he should go with this, gave blood anyway, breathed in and out when he was asked, answered questions about his general health which made him laugh, and then, behind a screen, produced a urine sample and made sure he filled the container to the top although he had been asked not to. He signed a form certifying that he’d never been convicted of a felony and faced no ongoing charges. When he returned to the seminar room he noticed that Rob was gone, along with half of the applicants. Eight men remaining. After a small wait he was asked back to another seminar room where a formal offer was made. On the wall hung a row of prints, scenes of windmills, fields, and waterways.
Rem allowed the man to talk. If he signed the contract he’d be working with HOSCO: the Hospitality and Operational Support Company of Hampton Roads, Virginia — just as Rob had said. Steve explained that HOSCO managed civil contracts in Europe, Africa, and across the Middle East, but they were hiring now for southern Iraq in a last bid to complete contracts within Amrah City. Rem also needed to understand that while these projects were nominally classified as civil, they were, in fact outsourced military projects: meaning that they were open to private business, and that those private businesses enjoyed military protection.
Rem fought against the urge to explain himself, the pure fun of stating that he was already working for HOSCO.
In Amrah City, Steve promised, you won’t see one local. Not one. It couldn’t be safer. Plus (not that you’ll need it), you have the entire US Marine Corps looking out for you. Posters behind Steve showed men beside diggers, smiling, shaking hands with men in desert MARPAT, a ziggurat in the background, a long low-lying adobe village; or men seated during a work-break at some stumpy oasis surrounded by skinny dogs, handsome strays with dark almond-shaped eyes; or (Rem’s favourite), an employee in a flak jacket playing soccer on wasteland with a scattered group of boys. ‘HOSCO: Building Communities One Project at a Time,’ the sky a clear wondrous blue, suggesting worthy effort and reward. Naive? Sure, but so what, at least they appeared sincere.
And how did the money sound to him? The first figure presented didn’t look impressive, but the advisor added up overtime, what he called ‘strategic placement bonus’ and a ‘completion of work bonus’, then explained the allowance for meals and reimbursement for any work-related accommodation. ‘This is covered while you’re at Amrah. We have a complex close by the government compound, with housing, stores, a PX, a commissary, a fully-equipped gym. And remember, there’s no tax. They can’t take a dime.’
As an idea Rem could see its appeal. The man continued. There were two kinds of insurance, one for life, one for catastrophic trauma.
‘You won’t need it, but it’s there. And supposing, and I mean supposing, something were to go wrong, we’d ship you to Germany and bring you back home. No questions. No trouble. You get the same cutting-edge medical attention as the military. It covers your family back here if you or they have to be provided for. Tell me,’ he asked, ‘where you could make this kind of money, every month. No tax. Not one cent.’