The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 3

Sameh wanted Ellie to go back downstairs, to their room, to calm down. To calm down, and so Sameh could make sure Ellie was okay in private. Ellie said no, that she had to organize getting home. She knew what Sameh was trying to do, had been with her three years and knew her better than most people in the world, but it didn’t need doing. She tried to say so, but Sameh wouldn’t listen.

Sameh was convinced she was the hard one, that Ellie needed looking after, and Ellie was always hiding how she felt. Right now she probably didn’t want to think that Ellie was a monster who didn’t care enough about her own daughter to actually cry.

Ellie wasn’t sure if she ought to cry or not. She was upset, though.

Ellie wrote an email back to William and said she needed time off, a week or more, depending on the transport. She wrote up the action reports she’d been putting off for days, the houses they’d checked and intel they’d been fed and which of it Ellie thought was lies. She attached those to the email, and added that Miguel knew where they’d been and where was still hot. She checked the schedules of aircraft movement and tried to work out a way back to the world, but before she could finish that, William phoned her, and broke her data connection, and then wasted twelve dollars a minute asking if she was all right. He said he’d organize the travel home, and not to worry about anything, and it could all wait until she was back.

She was glad, in a way, not having to worry about details. “Thanks, mate,” she said.

He said she was one of their best team leaders, the only one willing to go this far out and stay in-country this long, and they needed her. They needed her with her head in the game.

Ellie though that was nice of him. Even though what he really meant was Miguel and Sameh were violent thugs, and Ellie could keep them under control. Under control enough to scare people well. That was what made them an effective search team, for actually making finds, Ellie knew, not how long they stayed deployed.

William was probably right about having her head in the game, though.

“Sameh needs to come too,” Ellie said, thinking.

Sameh looked up, and grinned. Relieved she didn’t have to ask herself, Ellie supposed.

William pretended to be surprised. He pretended, because the company were kind of rednecks, even though they were Chinese, and didn’t really approve of Ellie and Sameh being together. He wasn’t really surprised, though. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard from other people, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t been sharing a room for years so that eventually he’d have to have realized that the demands for their own room and a closing door weren’t just modesty and privacy. And it wasn’t like Ellie and Sameh couldn’t have just got married and settled the matter for him, either.

William acted all reluctant, and Ellie realized it was probably because he wanted Sameh to take unpaid leave, so she snapped at him not to be a prick and then, looking guilty, he said yes, that was fine. He told her to hold on, that he’d make some calls and email her a schedule to get her home, give him ten minutes.

“Three days,” Ellie said. “I need to be back in three days.”

“I saw,” William said, because obviously he’d read the notification message, even though they were both pretending he hadn’t.

Ellie said thanks and hung up. Then reconnected the data link and sat and waited. Sameh sat on the edge of the roof and emptied her spare mags and polished the rounds inside them, overtly, on the edge of the roof, where the hajjis could see. It always gave them the shits because they thought the polishing made her shoot straighter. Even out here they’d seen movies. Sameh was an awful shot and cleaning her bullets wouldn’t help at all, but she scared them so much that whenever she shot at a hajji and missed they all assumed she’d done it on purpose, and was tormenting them for fun, and got even more scared.