Free The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit by Richard House

few of them held out documents as if offering a petition while the soldiers, regardless, tossed their luggage onto the road. From what Ford could see there was no explicit purpose to the search.
    One gruff and baby-faced soldier barked instructions at the coach driver. The driver civilly repeated the soldier’s demands and the passengers rose without complaint and began to disembark. The student peered over the headrest, startled, poised a little like a flightless bird.
    The passengers began to assemble beside the coach. Their lethargy struck Ford as a sign of assent, a sign that this was not unusual. The student held back, then with a deft stab he tucked a small plastic bag between the seat and the seatback. A guard leaned into the bus and told them, as far as Ford could understand, to get out. The soldier’s face became a comedy of infantile demand, plump, sulky.
    Off the coach and out of the air conditioning the heat pressed down. Ford rolled up his sleeves and stood with the passengers feeling a wash of heat; everybody squinting at the coach’s silver side while the driver sorted through the luggage in the hold. The student waited beside him. The driver, labouring alone, passed Ford the wrong rucksack. The mistake became immediately obvious as soon as he lifted the pack; this rucksack being newer, cleaner, was also heavier than his. The label, a clear plastic star, gave the name
Eric Powell
, and an address in France on one side and in New York on the other. Ford handed the rucksack to the student and returned to the hold to claim his own.
    The student waited with him and asked if he understood what was happening. American, he spoke in quick bursts. His accent, East Coast, precise and educated, sounded different to the supple Midwestern drawl Ford was used to. Ford retrieved his bag from a line of luggage, the boy followed and picked out a small metal case then walked back to the line of passengers. He repeated his question and Ford said he didn’t know, whatever it was it didn’t look out of the ordinary. Ford looked back at the tractor-trailer. Unsupervised, the refugees, mostly women, huddled in a pack as if hiding, luggage loose in the road. The passengers from the coach, mostly men, and most of them smoked, strung out in a line waiting for the patrol to check their papers and belongings. The student set his case close to Ford’s feet, looked clearly into his face, and gave a nod, as if Ford had asked for assistance, as if the small silver case were his.
    ‘It’s film,’ the student said, indicating the case, ‘undeveloped sixteen-millimetre film. Shots of landscape. That’s all it is. Every time I’m searched they open the camera.’ His hands gestured the unspooling of film.
    The student stood a distance away with his rucksack, leaving a gap of three or four paces between them. Ford could not see the purpose of it and did not like the boy’s assumption that he was sympathetic. Even so, he did not step back.
    They waited in line with their backs to the sun as the soldiers inspected the bus. The road cut into an escarpment, a curved chalk wall. In front of them ran the straw-coloured plains of Anatolia. It was good that this was only the Turkish military. If they were British or American he would be nervous – despite the day, the bright sunlight, the broad view of open fields.
    One soldier examined the hold and shuffled on his knees through the empty compartment. Above him two soldiers searched the cabin, to check the floor, the seats, and the racks. The coach wavered in the full midday heat. Another soldier, pug-faced, younger than the others, led a muzzled Alsatian between the passengers and their luggage. He held the leash high and tugged the animal between the baskets and suitcases. A compact semi-automatic slung over his shoulder, battered and hand-me-down. The soldier stopped the dog in front of the student and forced the dog’s muzzle to the student’s backpack. He indicated that the student