‘You better come see for yourself.’
Liv saw why Tariq had fetched her the moment she stepped out of the main building. A thick column of dust was rising in the eastern sky heralding new arrivals.
‘Soldiers,’ a voice shouted down from the guard tower.
‘How many?’ Tariq called back.
‘Difficult to tell. There’s one Humvee and one truck. The truck could be empty or it could have twenty men inside.’
Tariq looked over beyond the perimeter fence to where a group of workers were hurrying back to the compound. He waited until the last of the grave-digging detail had slipped through then shouted, ‘Close the gate and man the guns.’
‘No,’ Liv said. ‘We’ve been through this. We cannot meet everyone who comes here with suspicion and loaded weapons.’
‘We tried it your way last time,’ Tariq replied. ‘First we talk, then we let them in. I cannot risk all our lives again.’ Then he walked away before she had time to argue.
The Humvee and the truck pulled to a halt about fifty metres short of the gate and sat there for a while, engines running, shrouded in a cloud of their own dust.
‘American,’ Tariq said, reading the markings on the side of the vehicles.
Liv was standing next to him, inside the perimeter gate waiting to greet them. ‘What are they doing?’ she asked.
‘They are being cautious,’ Tariq replied, his eyes never leaving the lead vehicle.
‘Can you blame them.’ She glanced up at the .50-cal gun in the guard tower, a man standing behind it, poised and ready.
She noticed Tariq’s hand tighten on the grip of the AK47 slung across his back and wondered for a fleeting moment if he wasn’t spoiling for a fight. This was the problem with letting men do the negotiating. Sooner or later their hormones took over and it usually ended in battle. ‘HEY,’ she shouted at the Humvee, ‘OVER HERE.’ She waved her hands over her head and jumped up and down to get their attention.
‘What are you doing?’ Tariq looked at her as if she had gone insane.
‘You said we should talk first so I’m talking. HEY. I’M AN AMERICAN.’ She pulled a keffiyeh from round her neck and started waving it in the air. ‘USA. HELLO.’
‘You can stop now,’ Tariq said. ‘I think they heard you.’
The Humvee started to creep forward along the tracks in the dirt leading to the gate. It was impossible to see who was inside because of the sun on the windscreen, a bright slash of light that shimmered as the hard wheels crept over the rough ground.
‘Can you do me a favour?’ Liv said out of the corner of a fixed smile, ‘take your hand off your rifle strap.’
Tariq reluctantly obeyed just as the Humvee crunched to a stop ten feet short of them. The door popped open and a rangy corporal got out. Liv felt Tariq stiffen beside her as he saw the M-4 the soldier was cradling in his arms, eyes shielded by the standard-issue Oakleys most of the soldiers seemed to favour. He stood by the vehicle saying nothing. By the slight tilt of his head Liv could tell he was scoping out the guard tower and the .50-cal cannon that had tracked the Hummer all the way to where it now stood.
‘Hi,’ Liv said, smiling through the tension. ‘I’m Liv Adamsen. I’m an American. Who are you?’
A hand let go of the M-4 and pointed at the name badge stitched to the left breast of his desert fatigues. Liv squinted against the glare coming off the Humvee’s windscreen and read the name. ‘Williamson. You got a first name?’
He nodded. Liv’s smile was starting to hurt now. ‘Want to give it to me?’
The soldier ignored the question, looking straight past her at the fountain of water shooting up from the spire of the drill in the centre of the compound. ‘What is this place?’ His voice was soft, almost childlike and totally at odds with the hardened image the rest of him radiated.
‘It’s …’ Liv paused as she realized she did not have a ready word to describe it.
‘It’s beautiful,’ the soldier whispered, his shaded eyes taking in the lines of the rivers snaking away across the dust. Behind him the truck’s engine fell silent. It rocked on its springs and other men emerged, dropping down one by one to the ground, six of them, all wearing the coffee-stain camouflage of the US military. Liv was reminded of the welcoming committee she and Gabriel had encountered crossing the border from Turkey what seemed like a lifetime ago. Three more uniformed men climbed out of the Humvee. And though they were wearing uniforms and carrying weapons, there was nothing threatening or hostile about them. They just seemed like a bunch of cautious guys edging their way into a party they weren’t sure they were invited to. Tariq must have sensed it too. He raised his hand to the man in the guard tower and the .50-cal cannon swung away as the man stepped back.
‘Where you from?’ The soft-spoken corporal removed his shades and squinted at Liv with pale blue eyes that looked like they should be peering out at a wheat field from beneath a faded starter cap.
‘I’m from New Jersey,’ she said. ‘You?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m from all over, I guess. Illinois originally but I wouldn’t exactly call it home.’ He looked back at the spout of water shooting up from the ground, like a kid watching a firework. Then he smiled. ‘Did you feel it too?’
Liv frowned. ‘Feel what?’
‘The pull to this place. We all felt it. We all volunteered to stay behind when orders to ship out came through – the rest of the men were off like rabbits, they been pining for home for weeks, never seen homesickness like it. But none of us have any real homes to go to …’ His hand clenched into a fist and tapped on his chest above his heart. ‘But then we felt the pull to come here. So we came.’
Liv looked up at Tariq. ‘Why don’t you come on in,’ she said.
Tariq glanced down at her then back at the row of soldiers. ‘How many are you?’
The Corporal shrugged. ‘Just what you see here.’
‘The vehicles stay outside the fence,’ Tariq said, ‘and you need to hand over your weapons. We’ll keep them over there, locked in the armoury,’ he pointed to the nearest guard tower. ‘If you want to leave you can have them back again, no arguments, but no one walks around with a weapon inside the compound, understood?’
The Corporal stared hard at Tariq for a few long moments. Asking a soldier to hand over his weapon was like asking him to surrender. ‘How come you get to keep your AK?’ he said.
‘I don’t,’ he replied. ‘You lock up your weapons, I lock up mine. Everyone’s the same.’
‘But who gets the key?’
Tariq nodded at Liv. ‘She does.’
The Corporal smiled. ‘Well in that case it’s a deal breaker. In my experience you can never trust a Jersey girl with something of value.’ His face broke into a laugh and she saw the boy in him again. ‘I’m only kidding.’ In a few