Free The Wreckage: A Thriller by Michael Robotham

quadrangle float like yel ow bal s suspended from above. Something moves in the shadows, a hooded figure, head down, walking quickly. It could be anyone.
    The flat is fifteen yards along the walkway. Edging along the wal , Ruiz stoops in a crouch and looks through the splintered door. He can only see one half of the entrance hal .
    Keeping his back to the wal , he steps inside. A darkened bedroom is off to the right. The place has been searched. Ransacked. Drawers pried open, yanked out, emptied. Wardrobes pil aged, clothes ripped from hangers and tossed on the floor.
    The sitting room is another disaster. The sofa slashed, a bookcase overturned, the back smashed in. Dishes and cups have been raked from kitchen shelves and lie broken on the linoleum.
    The boyfriend is sitting in a chair in the main bedroom. Naked. Rail thin. Covered in wounds. His forearms and wrists are thick and corded with muscles and veins; his thighs are slick with blood.
    Ruiz tilts Zac’s head, looking for signs of life. His eyes are open. The neat hole punched through his forehead is like a red bindi on an Indian bride.
    Standing frozen for a moment, Ruiz drops his hands to his sides, his senses dul ed, his mind deafened by the sound in his head like pounding surf. He backs out the door, not touching anything.

    10

    BAGHDAD

    Luca works late. His body has an internal clock that wil not let him sleep before the early hours. He sits at the kitchen table working on his laptop, answering emails and making notes for a story. On the wal above the table there is a map of Baghdad, already out of date because the areas of control have changed, along with the locations of the checkpoints.
    Nothing about his apartment real y belongs to Luca or couldn’t be left behind if he had to evacuate, except for the photographs. Only one of them is of Nicola. The rest he gave to her family with her clothes and mementos.
    Eight months have passed, yet he stil imagines seeing her face in crowds or in cafés as he drives by. Once or twice he’s caught a glimpse of someone with the same dark eyes or feminine walk and has wanted to shout out and wave and run to her. Luca doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he understands how the dead haunt the living.
    He looks at his emails. There are messages from commissioning editors and his publisher. The latest chapters of his book are due. He’s also late delivering a feature for The Economist .
    His mother has left six messages, most of them indecipherable. When Luca was last home he instal ed voice recognition software on her computer because she couldn’t type. Now she just yel s at the screen and the words get jumbled.
    Her latest missive could be about his great-aunt Sophia or about his mother’s cat Sophocles. One of them is dead. Run over. There’s mention of a funeral. He’s none the wiser.
    Opening the paper cartridge on his printer, he takes out the sheets of blank paper and pinches one corner, flicking through the pages. Several printed sheets flash amid the white.
    Hidden notes. Retrieving them, he looks at the first page.

    050707 Bank of Baghdad:
    US$1.6m
    062207 Rasheed Bank:
    US$3.8m
    070107 Dar Al-Salam Bank:
    US$28.2m
    081107 Middle East Investment Bank:
    US$1.32m
    030208 al-Warka Bank:
    US$1.2m
    061808 Industry Bank (ransom payment): US$6m
    072909 al-Rafidain Bank:
    US$6.9m
    092709 Bank of Iraq:
    US$5.3m
    020710 Rasheed Bank:
    US$15.6m
    021210 Iraqi Trade Bank:
    US$1.8m
    Luca adds another robbery to the list:

    082310 al-Rafidain Bank: Amount Unknown
    Half a bil ion US dol ars stolen in four years. This is on top of dozens of smal er robberies that netted Iraqi dinars. The amounts seem almost inconceivable, but so many things in Iraq defy belief. Bil ions have washed through the country since the invasion, funding reconstruction, repairing infrastructure, paying for security. The robberies have become so commonplace that banks have stopped using armored vans because they draw too much attention. Instead they use