To Potzner he simply smiled and said, “I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
“Oh yeah,” Potzner said. “I’ll bet.”
In a corner of the cabin a fax machine hummed into life. Farrell wandered over and gathered the transmitted papers together. He scanned the documents and looked up with a frown.
“Fish is checking out the lie of the land. He’s done a satellite scan – nothing new so far, just the known archaeology. ‘Important remains still standing at Kish – yada yada yada – include the city’s red-bricked ziggurat built perhaps by Nebuchadnezzar – yada yada – on a rectangular base. Also the grand palace and two other ziggurats –’”
“Give me that.” Potzner snatched the documents and read them briskly. “This is crap. We’re looking for something else – something subtle. Get Fish on the phone.”
Fish was on within seconds. “You’ve got nine square miles to check out, Fish.” Potzner bent and peered out of the jet window as he listened to the response. Dracup caught a glimpse of the sun, a red disk on the horizon, the clouds a scattering of grey and white cotton.
Potzner was pacing the small space now, glass in hand. “They’ve only excavated three out of forty mounds? So the other thirty-seven should keep you busy for a coupla hours.” Potzner sat down heavily, his face contorted with frustration. “Uh huh.” His voice took on an exaggerated emphasis, as if he was talking to the most challenging pupil in a remedial class. “Anything unusual. That’s right, Fish. No, I don’t have any clues either. Just get on with it.”
Dracup watched the sun reflecting on the surface of the cloud. He was so tired he had forgotten how it felt to be rested, or what it was like to wake up with nothing more than the mundane activities of a University lecturer to inform his mind for the day. He found himself thinking about the number seven. Seven. What was it Sara had said? Seven sevens – the square root of your age is seven. Seven sevens are forty-nine. Forty-nine. He closed his eyes as the figures jumbled and swirled with the clouds, like a white alphabet soup, but with tumbling numbers that refused to add up or make any kind of sense.
Dracup woke to the jolt of the undercarriage on tarmac. He groaned and rubbed his eyes. Farrell was looking at him with a thoughtful expression.
“Welcome to Baghdad International Airport, Prof. You’d better prepare yourself for a few surprises.”
Dracup squinted out of the window and saw a vehicle moving alongside, shadowing their arrival. He felt rather than saw the glint of gunmetal from the vehicle’s cabin. A helmeted US soldier, chewing vigorously on a stick of gum, kept his shaded eyes on the plane as it came to a standstill. The door hissed open and heat invaded the interior. Dracup was wearing a heavy jacket and thick shirt in keeping with a British autumn.
Wincing in the strong sunlight he descended the steps like a sleepwalker and allowed himself to be escorted to the military jeep that had jauntily roared up to the rear of the stationary plane. The driver was wearing light camouflage fatigues and sunglasses in an attitude of style only achievable by Americans away from home in a hot climate; they all looked cool. Dracup self-consciously took off his jacket and slung it across his shoulder. He could feel oppression in the air, the nerve-tingling sense that he had arrived in a city where literally anything could happen at any time.
Farrell saw his reaction. “MANPAD attacks on incoming military and civilian aircraft are pretty common. They’re having a day off today, but small arms are a backup contender. We don’t want to stay out here too long.”
“MANPAD?”
Farrell grinned. “Man-portable Air Defence missiles.”
Dracup nodded dumbly. Great.
The jeep took them to the terminal where he was fleeced by a trio of wisecracking GIs and given a good-humoured OK to proceed. One of them called after him, “Toodle pip!” in a wildly exaggerated English accent. Dracup acknowledged it with a poorly executed salute followed by a thumbs up. Potzner was already striding proprietorially across the terminal floor. He followed in the slipstream of Potzner’s cigarette smoke and found himself in a glass-fronted office that looked out onto the airport runways. The room was full of equipment – flickering monitors and damp-armpitted operators. There was a wide screen suspended from the mezzanine roof, a window into some remote centre of operations. A moment later Dracup recognized it as the UK air force base from which he had recently departed. Before he had recovered from his surprise the plasma display was filled with Fish’s earnest yet harassed face. Potzner’s reaction was immediate.