removed his shoes, replacing them with sandals from a pouch concealed in the folds of her dress.
Mr. Guerrero appeared alone in the doorway to the dining room. He was small and well-formed and he wore a yellow and black Hawaiian shirt tucked in and white linen pants and a rope belt. His hair was thick and dark. He looked like a well-to-do man pretending to be a beachcomber.
‘Mr. Santerra, welcome,’ Guerrero said. ‘I trust your ride was sincerely terrible.’
The tall man, whose name was not Santerra, held up a small cloth bag. Glass vials jingled softly inside. ‘At least nothing broke.’
Guerrero’s cheek jerked. ‘It is done, then?’
‘Proof of concept,’ the tall man said. ‘Pure and lethal. Try it on someone you no longer need.’
Guerrero held up his hands. ‘I am not that kind of man,’ he said. ‘We will test it in a lab, with animals. If it is what you say, you will be given your next money at a place of our choosing. Money is not safe here or in the islands. Terrorism has forced your nation to pay too much attention to world banking.’
A large balding black man in a black suit entered from the kitchen and walked around Guerrero. He stood in front of the tall man and held out his hand. He received the bag and opened it carefully. Three vials filled with fine powder tinkled into his pink palm. ‘You realize this is not the final product,’ the black man said in a reedy voice with an Austrian accent, to Guerrero. ‘It proves nothing.’
Guerrero waved his hand, dismissing that concern. ‘You will tell me if they have proven good faith before the next payment. Correct, Seńor Santerra?’
The tall man nodded.
‘I may never see an end to this trouble,’ Guerrero said. He had not taken a step closer since the tall man held up the cloth bag. ‘But I hope my children will. Have you viewed the movie, M, Seńor Santerra?’
The tall man shook his head.
‘The underworld of Germany seeks out a child molester and puts him on trial because he is bringing down so much heat on their operations. It is so here. If you keep your promise, we will give those thoughtless monsters what they deserve.’ He paused, allowing the black Austrian to leave the room with the bag. Then he sat on a heavy wooden chair. His face was lined with years of worry. ‘You have a dangerous quality. It makes me want to trust you.’
The tall man did not acknowledge this compliment, if it was one.
‘I appreciate that you have come in person. When can I expect news?’
‘Within three months, at most six.’ The tall man held out his hand to shake on their deal.
Guerrero looked down at the hand. His cheek twitched once more. He looked decades older than his forty years. ‘Now you will go,’ he said.
The old bronze woman hustled into the room again and knelt to replace the tall man’s shoes. He stood and walked to the door.
In the courtyard, they had kept the engine running. The little girl had gone inside. The driver extinguished his cigarette and deposited the butt in a tin he drew from his pocket.
The fat man opened the door to the Range Rover and dangled the hood from one hand, smiling. ‘There are too many bats around here,’ he said. ‘I suppose it is because there are so many insects.’
CHAPTER TWO
Iraq Year Minus One
The red plastic beads on the curtain rattled like finger bones in a cup.
The man who stepped down into the coffee house had yellow hair. He wore sunglasses, as did almost every man in Baghdad, a city of thieves, killers, and merchants. Fine dust swirled from his shoes as he pushed them through a double brush set in the bricks. For a moment, he turned up his nose and frowned as if possessed by some noble doubt, and his temple and cheek were lit by a false hope of rubies. A hero, obviously—an Englishman perhaps—tall and slender and possibly strong, though that was difficult to judge beneath the baggy cut of his linen coat.
Ibrahim Al-Hitti watched from the small round table and pulled in his polished black shoes, not wishing them to be trampled. There was little room in the basement, few tables and fewer customers. A one-eyed cousin of a cousin owned the establishment and had been persuaded it could be used on occasion as a place of personal business, not to be asked after. He would literally