The Veil (2024) s01e01 Episode Script

The Camp

1
(HEELS CLACKING)
(PA SYSTEM PLAYING INDISTINCTLY)
- TOMAS: Portia!
- Mmm, Tomas.
As usual, your timing is impeccable.
(PORTIA SPEAKING GERMAN)
(CLEARS THROAT)
Everything will be completed
once we get to Berlin.
And you have been invaluable.
- (GLASSES CLINK)
- Thank you, Tomas.
Mmm
I doubt you'll feel the same in a moment
when Interpol arrives, though. (GIGGLES)
(CLEARS THROAT)
Erm, what are you talking about?
Who are you?
I'm the person who has
recorded and memorised
every move you've made,
every word you've said
for the last 37 days.
And all of it has been very
wrong. And highly illegal.
(SPEAKING GERMAN)
(SPEAKING GERMAN)
Hmm.
INTERPOL AGENT: Tomas Schmidt?
All done. No fuss, no mess.
I need a day in London.
Then I'll get a flight to Istanbul.
I would like my name to be Imogen.
(WIND BLOWING)
(FOLK MUSIC PLAYING FROM TRUCK)
(CHILDREN LAUGHING)
(TRUCK HONKING)
(PEOPLE CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY)
(ENGINE REVVING)
GUY: No, no, no, no, no! No, no, no!
Move the vehicle to the north road.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
Hey, what's happening?
GUY: What does it look like?
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
(SANDRINA SPEAKING ARABIC)
(PEOPLE YELLING INDISTINCTLY)
(SANDRINA YELLING IN ARABIC)
(ALL YELLING IN CONFUSION)
(SCREAMING IN ARABIC)
(WOMEN YELLING)
No, no, no.
(SCREAMS IN PAIN)
(BOTH GROANING)
- Adilah!
- (MOB CLAMOURING)
- (THUDS)
- (GRUNTS)
(ADILAH GROANS IN PAIN)
- Adilah! Adilah!
- (MOB SCREAMING)
(WHIMPERS)
(ADILAH SCREAMS)
(MOB CLAMOURING)
- (GASPS)
- (MOB SCREAMING AND CHANTING)
(GUN FIRING)
(GRUNTS)
(GASPS FOR AIR)
DAAN: Back up! Back up!
Come on, get up. Come on.
Get up. Get up.
(ADILAH SOBBING)
What country, friends, is this?
(TEARDROP PLAYING)
Love, love is a verb ♪
Love is a doing word ♪
Fearless on my breath ♪
Gentle impulsion ♪
Shakes me, makes me lighter ♪
Fearless on my breath ♪
Hi!
Hello, hello!
Welcome to the shitshow.
Miracles do happen.
Do they?
Yeah, well,
they never send anybody
to help us out here. Never.
They say, "You should think
it's bad where you are.
Well, you should see blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah."
And then I speak to blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah,
and they've been told the
same bullshit about us.
This badge has nothing on it.
Well, they didn't tell us who you are
they just said they
were sending someone.
So who are you?
IMOGEN: I was due to
go home five days ago.
And then they said you
needed someone urgently.
Really? They said that?
I said, I suppose I
might as well pop by.
Of course.
Only adds an extra 50
hours to the journey.
- Oh, yeah?
- Why not?
Personally, I love travelling
on really dangerous mountain roads
and putting my foot on the brake
and carrying on because
of the fucking ice.
- Why wouldn't you?
- (GASPS)
So where is home?
London.
(PANTING) I think.
Righty-o.
So that's Main Street.
The streets are numbered
left to right. Sort of.
- And this is Times Square.
- (CHUCKLING)
You make it here you
can make it anywhere.
If you don't like the weather,
just wait five minutes.
Estimated 10,000 refugees here,
mostly Syrians. Some Yazidis.
Mostly women. ISIS killed the men.
Fuck!
- You all right?
- Sorry.
I was just counting back the days
since they asked me to come here.
And I just realised,
today is my birthday.
- Are you serious?
- Today is the 28th, right?
Today is the 29th.
Fuck! It's even worse.
I have to call my mother.
She'll assume I'm dead.
I don't have mobile service
up here. Do you have comms?
It's the comms shack right there.
You're very funny.
Oh, thank you.
- The comms is this way.
- I have to pee first.
- The toilets are frozen.
- They always are, aren't they?
I'm used to it.
(WIND BLOWING)
GUY: Hey, where are you going?
Why is there a military
uniform inside the camp?
GUY: That soldier's there for
the protection of a French woman.
One of the Yazidis
recognised her from Raqqah.
Apparently she's ISIS.
What's her name?
She says her name's Adilah El Idrissi.
Who knows. Could be anything.
Did you report it?
Yeah.
We sent her fingerprints
off to the French spooks.
Wherever they are.
And the Americans in Doha,
like they give a flying fuck.
But that guard
he sneaks off at night, to get warm.
I'd give you good money
that, well, we'll find her
with her throat cut before
anyone even looks at that email.
Then again I was in Dohuk, in Iraq.
I saw what those ISIS
animals were capable of.
Was fucking disgusting.
And you'd happily slit
her throat yourself.
Wouldn't you?
I don't know.
A knife, bottle of Arak, you never know.
I need to make that call.
Yes. You wanna do happy
birthdays with your mum, then?
Philippe, the French
wanker, he'll hook you up.
(GUNS FIRING IN VIDEO GAME)
Oh!
Hi. I need to use comms.
Sorry, Imogen. I was sent to help out.
They never send us anybody to help out.
(SIGHS) Look, I need to speak
to my mother in Wimbledon
and you would get embarrassed
and I would get embarrassed.
(SIGHS) Would you go for a walk?
By the way, you can't
really smoke in here.
Yes, I really can.
(DOOR CLOSES)
IMOGEN: I'm here. The
situation has changed.
There was an incident before I arrived.
Witnesses confirm she's
one of the few female
high level commanders in ISIS.
The prints are inconclusive.
Try to get her to do Edip
Koi Camp as quick as you can.
The Americans are circling.
And we want to get to her first.
I've no doubt you'll get
something out of her before that.
I will.
I know this is lost
on you, but be careful.
(IMOGEN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
(SCANNER BEEPS)
(SPEAKING FRENCH)
IMOGEN: I'm an NGO worker.
Guy sent me to assess her condition.
Why don't you give us some privacy?
(SPEAKING FRENCH)
(SPEAKING FRENCH)
(ZIP CLOSING)
you want to keep me alive?
I speak French.
Yes, but your accent is very bad.
Is it?
Right. Erm, we have a
pledge to keep people alive.
Like doctors.
You're not a doctor.
No.
What are you?
Do you need a doctor?
Someone stabbed me in the fights.
I didn't notice until after.
(GROANS SOFTLY)
You need antibiotics.
No
if they give me medicine,
it will be poison.
No one will poison you.
They hate me.
Do you deserve to be hated?
Where did you learn to speak English?
At school.
Where did you go to school?
Outside Paris. They
taught us English there.
I like English.
The poets.
Me too.
My father used to read them to me.
Has anyone checked that?
Why do you care about me?
I suppose I have a conscience.
It dictates how I am in the world.
When I was little,
(CHUCKLES)
I rescued worms.
- Worms?
- (LAUGHS)
Yeah, insects.
(CHUCKLES) So am I a worm or an insect?
(CHUCKLING)
You are the bee in my bonnet.
I don't know what that means.
It means no one will poison you.
I will be dead soon anyway.
Well, I doubt they would dare
come for you if I was here.
PHILIPPE: You cannot smoke in here.
Oh, fuck off.
Did the English woman call her mother?
Yes.
What did they talk about?
I don't know. She sent me out.
I called Pieter at HQ. He
said he knew nothing about her.
Did she ask you any questions?
She just wanted to know if
she could Zoom from my laptop.
Now, I've been thinking,
since when do they send
non-medical aid workers up here
to help us out, when it's minus 20
with 10 feet of fuckin' snow?
ADILAH: Sometimes,
when I close my eyes, I
see all the people looking at me.
Who are touching me like I'm a thing.
Jesus. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Start from the beginning.
I was still in school.
I loved mathematics, I wanted
to be an engineer, actually.
Someone saw me in a launderette.
They took some photos,
and I got invited to Paris.
I left school.
I'd never been into the city before.
I mean, not the Paris everyone knows.
I started to drink.
Too much. And there were
the drugs, and, you know.
Men?
Yes, men.
You know, one man.
Good man or bad man?
Bad man.
My family disowned me from all of it.
I had very few choices.
How the fuck did being a model in Paris,
lead you to a tent in a refugee camp?
Accused of being in ISIS?
They say you were trying
to give sacks of flour
to mothers with small children.
I have a child.
In Raqqah?
In Paris.
I left her.
She's the only reason I
would want to stay alive.
All I want is just to
have a life with her.
But I'm afraid that will never happen.
A mother should never
have to lose her child.
(IMOGEN CLEARS THROAT)
If you are okay with it,
I will get you antibiotics.
And I will try to get you out of Syria,
to a camp in Turkey.
There you can make a
claim to be repatriated
and you will be processed properly.
Do you mind if I smoke?
(TENT UNZIPPING)
(SCREAMING IN ARABIC)
(BOTH GRUNTING)
(WOMAN CRYING IN PAIN)
(IMOGEN GRUNTING)
IMOGEN: Run!
(SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY)
(GUN FIRES)
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
(WOMAN EXCLAIMS)
- Stop!
- (GUN FIRES)
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
(ALL PANTING)
So that little drama proves
you're not a bleeding heart NGO worker.
You're a liar.
I am lying.
You found a way to be a little
less lonely here, haven't you?
Is there just one?
Or are there many?
(SIGHS)
So is this the big reveal?
Is this why they sent you here?
No, but it is the reason you'll
allow me to leave with her.
And enough petrol to get me
across the border to Turkey.
(INHALES AND EXHALES DEEPLY)
If that woman's who they say
she is, she's a murdering bitch.
Women, children and babies.
Brutalised, raped and murdered.
And you hold hands
with her? You trust her?
These radicalised European fighters,
they're smart, well-educated,
they seldom repent.
All I'm doing is try to
I'm trying to create a system.
For this filthy chaos
and broken humanity.
I'm nothing. I'm harmless.
Your new friend from Paris is not.
If I file a report, you're fucked.
If you do as I ask
I'll leave you to your conscience.
(SIGHS)
Who the fuck are you?
SANDRINA: She will need injections.
I'm trained to do that.
SANDRINA: You're not
taking a guard with you?
SANDRINA: How can you not know
that this woman is your enemy
whose only desire is to cut your throat?
Maybe I do know.
Hey, let's agree no smoking in the car.
Those cigarettes make me feel sick.
(SIGHING)
Right.
If we are establishing road trip rules,
let's agree on something else.
We've got no radio. We have to talk.
Oh, come on, I saved
your life. You owe me.
Okay. We talk.
Not about boring things
like food or sex, or music.
What then?
Let's start with family.
(MOBILE VIBRATING)
(PEOPLE CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY)
(TYPING)
So,
ADILAH: Mostly Shakespeare.
You like Shakespeare?
What? You don't think I
would know Shakespeare?
My father was a school
teacher who taught English.
And my grandfather, he
used to read me Shakespeare.
He was an intellectual.
Of the Algerian kind.
Anger and self-pity.
Mmm.
He was also a hero of
the Algerian Revolution.
Grandpa was okay.
But the rest, not?
The rest not. No.
I have a trash can in my memory.
Most of my family are in there.
(SIGHS)
(BEEPING)
(DOOR BEEPS OPEN)
(BOTH SPEAKING FRENCH)
I took the long way around the mountain.
We're in Turkey now.
I just dreamt I was in Paris.
How long since you saw her?
Too long.
(SNIFFS)
(CHUCKLES)
Oh, my God! (GASPING)
Oh, she's beautiful.
How old is she?
She's 10 now.
How does a mother leave
her daughter behind?
What?
I said, how could a mother
leave her child behind?
Do you have children?
No.
But the question still stands.
Explain to me how you leave your child.
I I just couldn't bring her with me.
(MALIK SPEAKING FRENCH)
Your family
They're dead. (CHUCKLES AWKWARDLY)
My mother died when I was
born. My father when I was 16.
Do you have a man?
Occasionally.
(BOTH SPEAKING FRENCH)
The most American American,
America has ever produced.
(BOTH SPEAKING FRENCH)
everything about me is boring.
You're the granddaughter
of a communist revolutionary
who became a model and then joined ISIS,
and likes Shakespeare.
You don't "join" them.
You jump off a cliff.
(MAGRITTE IN FRENCH)
(MOBILE VIBRATING)
(DOOR BEEPS)
(SIGHING) Okay.
You haven't asked me to
hand over my knife yet.
(CHUCKLES)
I haven't asked you for your knife,
because I'm not afraid of you.
When the Yazidi women came,
you fought like someone
who really knows how to fight.
When I was younger, I was attacked.
After that, I learned to protect myself.
Were you trained to fight?
- Yes.
- And kill?
Yes.
Did you?
No.
Please don't lie to me.
When I was in Raqqah,
we moved to a small village.
We had to gather up all the people.
The men and the boys, they
took away and they, uh
There was a garage,
where big trucks park.
It had really high fences.
And a dog.
They shot the dog to remove the trucks.
The women we locked in there.
The fighters would come
whenever they wanted,
and do whatever they wanted
to the women and the girls.
At the camp, the Yazidi women said
you were seen giving
orders to male fighters.
The people that said
that don't speak French.
I was yelling in French.
Yelling what?
I was trying to stop it.
It was, uh
I was in shock.
The other two women I had travelled with
were putting heads onto spikes
in the railings of the school.
(ADILAH IN FRENCH)
everyone was sleeping,
I went to the garage
and I unlocked the gates.
I set the captive Yazidi
women free. (INHALES)
And I told them to run.
What about you?
I joined some refugees
walking to the border.
I had taken off my niqab,
but someone in the camp
still recognised me.
That is the truth.
I've never killed anyone.
The fighters know that
I released the women.
And when we get to Edip
Koi, they will be there.
They will know me, and they
will kill me more surely
than the Yazidi woman ever could have.
So you want the truth?
You are taking me to Edip Koi to die.
I will be thrown in with all the others,
and there will be no one crazy,
and kind like you there to save me.
Hi!
- Bonjour.
- Max Peterson.
(IN FRENCH)
do you think you can help me
figure this out for a sec?
So I'm just standing
here, and I'm watching this
blue point of light travelling north.
That is a French Control
Information Stream.
And I'm asking myself,
why the fuck are the DGSC
allowing this guy Malik
to run a British agent
who he was fucking in
her apartment, in London,
on a regular basis only
three and a half months ago.
What the fuck are you doing,
watching secure material
on a cell phone in a public place?
Whoa, whoa. Take it easy.
I'll answer that after you
answer my next question.
Why are the DGSC allowing
the Genie of Raqqah,
all right, this fucking
ticking time bomb,
to roam free and unrestricted
across the territory of a NATO ally,
with only your girlfriend for company.
That is a French operation.
(SNICKERS)
You have no jurisdiction
And no rights to intercept
- Hey!
- our intelligence.
Now, Monsieur Peterson,
you must be tired.
We have a car waiting.
Give me my fucking phone, dude.
You are in France.
I will return it to you
when it has been cleared.
That's my fucking phone!
And it has my fucking
family photos on it.
Motherfucker! Give me my phone!
Is there a problem, gentlemen?
(BOTH GRUNTING AND PANTING)
Not anymore.
(SPEAKING FRENCH)
Thank you for your service.
(MAX SNIFFING AND PANTING)
That was pretty
embarrassing and undignified.
Of you.
- Welcome to France.
- Yeah, I hate France.
Look, for reasons we are
not yet prepared to divulge,
the United States of
America is officially
taking over this investigation.
You will do nothing.
To interfere now would endanger
the French authorised handler
who's currently active in the field.
Tell your girlfriend in the blue light,
to expect a series of
real-time escalations.
(SPEAKING FRENCH)
as we have 30 minutes left,
you have to tell me something.
Honestly, I think I'm afraid
it may completely undo me.
I lost something.
A long time ago.
And I've been trying to
find out why I lost it since.
Your life.
Explain to me why the beautiful daughter
of intellectuals and communists,
would take a flight, and cross borders
and walk up mountains,
to join that ugly, brutal circus.
I don't know why I did it.
I think you know that.
I would like to live long
enough to find out why.
Okay. Here goes.
(EXHALES)
MALIK: Do you have her?
I have very little time.
I'm at a truck stop.
- We know where you are. Do you have her?
- IMOGEN: Yes.
MALIK: Do you think she is
the woman we're looking for?
- I don't know yet.
- MALIK: Your instinct?
My instinct doesn't know yet.
I think she was but I
don't know if she still is.
- Does she trust you?
- Of course.
She's making mistakes,
but she's very smart.
So I don't want your people
all over us, fucking it up.
You're no longer following
the directive, Imogen.
Please.
Not again.
Please don't speak to the real me,
it is extremely unhelpful.
- Wait, there is something
- (HANGS UP PHONE)
- (SIGHS)
- (CAR DOOR CLOSES)
"Such as we are made of, such we be."
Adilah, my friend,
you should know that I have
absolutely zero idea what comes next.
(ENGINE REVS)
MAN: Silly girl.
IMOGEN: Begin.
I'll be glad when
you're dead you rascal you ♪
I'll be glad when
you're dead you rascal you ♪
You know you've done me wrong ♪
You done stole my wife and gone ♪
I'll be glad when
you're dead you rascal you ♪
I'm gonna kill you
just for fun you rascal you ♪
I'm gonna kill you
just for fun you rascal you ♪
I'm gonna kill you just for fun ♪
The bugs can have you when I'm done ♪
I'll be glad when you're
dead you rascal you ♪
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