Lion of Babylon (9 page)

Bewildered, Sameh replied, “I am your humble servant.”

“My men and I are suffocating. We are as trapped as the prisoners.” The major leaned in close enough for Sameh to read the desperation in his gaze. “Take my team with you on this rescue mission.”

“I have no right—”

“If we are successful, no one will bother asking such questions. We will have an excuse to apply to the Justice Ministry for reassignment. If we fail, we deserve our fate.” He leaned in closer still. “But we will not fail.”

Chapter Thirteen

T
hey circled the outskirts of Baghdad north toward the Kirkuk Highway. Which was easier said than done. This far from the city's center, many of the roads were gravel. Road signs were a myth.

The final light of day was gradually fading over the western horizon. Sameh called his wife to say he would be late and not to worry. He explained that officers would be bringing his car home, as he was traveling to his appointment in a Ministry car. Out here, the cellphone connection was so patchy he had to call his wife back four times to complete a three-minute conversation.

Sameh and Marc rode in the lead vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser. Major Lahm sat in the front seat with his driver. The Palestinian had already left in another car, bound for the airport. The former gardener had offered them precise directions even before leaving the prison compound. As the Palestinian had put it, they could lie to him just as easily on the plane as they could in the prison. But behind the man's bitterness, Sameh had detected a hint of panic. When Sameh had gently pressed, the Palestinian had confessed he feared his partners might be spurred by his absence to relocate.

Sameh spent the ride relating to Marc all the Palestinian had told them, and filling in details from his own experience. “The Palestinians have been in Iraq for some time now. At the height of Saddam's power, before the Gulf War, Saddam used his oil revenue to foment rebellion throughout the Arab world. Any regime that opposed Saddam came under threat.”

Over his shoulder Major Lahm added, “Do not forget the role that Saddam's Baath Party has played.”

“Saddam Hussein's political arm was known as the Baath Party. The Baathists had three primary aims,” Sameh explained. “A secular dictatorship, free of all religious influences. Arab socialism. And military expansion.”

Major Lahm said, “Which means Saddam's aims brought us a very special friend to the north.”

Marc supplied, “The Soviets.”

The policeman nodded. “Believe me when I tell you, if you have the Soviets for friends, you need no enemy.”

Sameh went on, “When the Palestinians' first Intifada failed and their soldiers were forced to flee the West Bank, Saddam made them welcome. They were given passports and jobs to which they never needed to show up, except to receive their paychecks.”

“But now their easy life is over,” Major Lahm said, sounding very satisfied. “Thanks to the Americans.”

“And they have become Iraq's most enterprising criminals,” Sameh said.

The Land Cruiser bounced over a ragged ledge, and the driver announced, “We have arrived.”

———

One minute they had been surrounded by the poorest hovels and desert scrub. The next, they were back in a semblance of civilization. The street was paved in segments, which was what caused the bump. No warning sign, just a sudden end to the gravel and a ragged rise up to fresh asphalt. The same was true for the development they entered. Large houses loomed behind concrete walls topped with broken glass and barbed wire. Between the houses were stretches of rubble, refuse, and stubborn desert scrub.

They halted in a borderland of night shadows. Ahead of them rose a line of shops, little street-side storefronts with flashing neon and music drifting through open doors. A couple of groceries, three cafés, a clothing store, a more dignified restaurant, electronics, and a hardware store. Guards patrolled the sidewalk and street in front of the shops. More guards patrolled around the neighboring homes.

Lahm said, “It is a perfect situation. Big houses, guards, and neighbors who want to know nothing. Many Westerners working the oil fields live here. They come and they go at all hours. The fields work night and day. Perfect.”

Marc asked, “Which one is it?”

“Beyond the stores and the lights. Five houses past. It stands by itself.”

“There's a guard outside the gates.”

“Look around you,” Lahm said. “There are guards everywhere.”

“But this is a good sign, right? They wouldn't keep a guard if they already had moved.”

Sameh realized Marc was grinning. “You find this humorous?”

“No. Sorry. It's adrenaline.” He hesitated, then added, “And yes. It is funny. Two days ago I thought I was trapped forever in a life that fitted me about as well as a straitjacket.”

“You could die out here and be buried in a dusty grave.”

“Right. But I trust you both to watch my back.”

Sameh found himself flooded with a fear so intense it almost choked him. “You Americans talk of trust like it is something you can pull from your wallet.”

“Back when I worked in Washington, some of my superiors liked to take a new subordinate out and get them roaring drunk. They felt that was the best way to test a person's core. The staffer's inhibitions fell away, showing who he was inside. Angry, hurt, depressed, aggressive, problems at home, whatever. The problem was, I don't drink. Which meant a lot of these guys would never trust me. But my boss, the man who sent me over, had a different idea. He said the best way to test a person was by studying how they faced fear. Both of you face fear honestly. I like that.”

The major said in Arabic, “I thought you said he was a bookkeeper.”

“He used to be an intelligence agent.”

“Why the change?”

“Perhaps you should ask him.”

Instead, the major studied the American with an unblinking gaze.

Finally Sameh asked Marc, “Are you afraid now?”

“I've been scared since the jet's wheels touched Iraqi soil.”

Major Lahm nodded, then said, “There is a problem. We cannot attack in force without risking the lives of the children.”

That was another item the Palestinian had mentioned. How there were other children. Which Sameh and Lahm had suspected all along. Marc stared out the front windshield at the street and the house and the night. “I have an idea.”

As the American described his plan, Sameh realized an invisible line had been crossed. Somehow the young man seated beside him had done the impossible. A Shia police officer and a Christian attorney, two men who had survived by distrusting all strangers, had come to treat Marc as an ally.

And something more.

They considered him an equal.

When Marc was finished, Major Lahm said, “I can send one of my own men to do this thing.”

“You and your men are trained to attack. I'm trained to be invisible.”

“But you are the newcomer. This is my world.”

“Maybe so.” Marc shrugged. “But the night is the same everywhere.”

———

Sameh returned from his errand feeling thoroughly ashamed. His face burned from the look the storekeeper had given him while handing over Sameh's second package. He stepped into the alley where the vehicles were parked and handed Marc the paper sack the storekeeper had drawn from a locked closet. “I have never bought alcohol before.”

Marc drew the pint bottle from the sack. “Did you get the other thing?”

“This is the largest they had.” Sameh gave him a dark jacket.

“It doesn't have to fit perfectly,” Marc replied.

One of Major Lahm's men stood sentry at the alley's entrance. The other eight men watched as Marc dropped the jacket into the dirty roadway. He used both feet to walk the jacket around. He then reached down, took a double handful of grime, and rubbed it all over his trousers and his shirt. Two more handfuls were applied to his face and hair. “Now the booze.”

Marc opened the bottle and splashed it liberally over his jacket. More on his face and neck, some into his hair. The men watched him in openmouthed astonishment.

Marc pointed to Major Lahm's second-in-command. “Ask him if I can borrow his headgear.”

Lahm ordered, “Give him your
koufia
.”

The officer looked at Lahm, but did not object. He handed it over, then helped Marc tie the kerchief properly. Marc made careful adjustments so it appeared only barely in place, yet covered most of his face. The man stepped back and said, “My wife will smell this and accuse me of drinking during Ramadan.”

Four of Lahm's men slipped away. Two were instructed to halt any approach made by guards from neighboring houses. The other two, led by Major Lahm's second-in-command, made their way toward the target house's rear. The rest followed the major, Sameh, and Marc as they circled back several blocks to approach the house through a darkened lane. Lahm and his men were dressed in midnight blue trousers and T-shirts and Kevlar vests. Marc stank of booze. Sameh had never felt so out of place in his entire life.

When the house came back into view, Lahm opened his cellphone and punched numbers. He whispered, listened, then said, “They are in place and awaiting my signal.”

Marc said, “Tell them to hang tight. Let's watch the guards for a while.”

Lahm relayed the orders and settled in beside him. Sameh heard him ask the American, “Why you do not contact your military?”

“They'd do exactly what I asked you not to. Go in cowboy style. Storm the house and risk harming the children.” Marc's voice was a careful murmur, soft as the night breeze. If he felt any fear, Sameh could not detect it. “Besides, why should I phone the cavalry when I've got you guys?”

The house showed the street a blank face. Now and then people strolled past, likely returning home from the stores and the cafés. This far from the city center, in an area so well guarded, life was relatively safe. The night was almost welcoming. The absence of streetlights meant the stars overhead shone brilliantly. There was no moon. A couple walked past the house arm in arm, their footsteps tapping the new pavement, their voices jarringly normal. They pretended not to see the guards patrolling the houses, who responded in kind.

Marc straightened. “Okay. I make one guard stationed outside the garage gates, another by the entry, and one on foot patrol inside the wall.”

“I confirm.” Lahm offered Marc a pistol. “Take this.”

“I can't. If they notice it, my cover's blown. And I intend to get in close and personal with those guys.” He mashed the kerchief down tight on his head. “Don't you or your men move until you see the gate open up. You understand what I'm saying? If I go down, you fade away. I'm just one man. Stick your prisoner back underground, go to the judge tomorrow. Keep a team on patrol around here in case they shift their location. Maybe you can strike when they're out in the open. Bring an army.”

Major Lahm gripped the sleeve of Marc's jacket and demanded, “How will you take out the man on the inside without a gun?”

Marc's teeth flashed in the starlight. “What's the Arabic word for luck?”

Major Lahm released his grip. “There is no such word. Not here. Not this night.”

Sameh watched as Marc started down the side street, one that would take him back toward the shops. Sameh's entire body was gripped by a fear the American seemed incapable of feeling for himself.

When Sameh was certain he could hold his voice steady, he used an expression more than a thousand years old. The Abyssinian caliphs called their highest military force the
hajib
, the group that formed the caliph's personal bodyguard. Nowadays the term
hajib
referred to the barriers an Iraqi used to protect his feelings, his spirit, his family, his life. Sameh said, “This American is managing to penetrate my
hajib
.”

Lahm grunted his agreement. “For the sake of those children, I hope he can create the luck we have learned to live without.”

Chapter Fourteen

O
n the bumpy ride from the prison, Marc had allowed himself a moment's worry whether he still had a grip on tradecraft. After all, he had been effectively retired for three years and counting. But here in the street, with the rush of terror and thrill, it all came back. Like taking the proverbial bicycle out for the ride of his life.

He had no such worries about his other skills, the ones that would be required if he managed to get in close to the three guards. As Marc had told the Arabs, he had indeed studied accounting during his wife's illness. But he'd also spent hours at a full-contact gym. It was only there, standing barefoot on the mats, facing opponents with backgrounds as rough as his own, that he could unleash the weight of fate's cruelest hour.

Marc emerged from the side street just beyond the shops' illumination. He stumbled down the center of the otherwise empty thoroughfare, his passage followed by those inside the cafés. Marc weaved about and mumbled to himself. One of the guards he passed laughed softly and spit in the dust.

He angled toward the house, walking sideways and leaning so the kerchief dangled about his face. Quick glimpses from beneath the checkered curtain confirmed that the two guards were watching his approach.

The front wall had two openings, a pair of sheet-metal doors for the garage and a gate of iron bars by the entrance. A guard stood sentry before each. As he passed, the guard by the garage said something to him, a bark of Arabic. Marc teetered closer to the front gate.

The garage guy moved over to where his mate stood and spoke again, more sharply this time. The second guard stepped forward and shoved Marc away. He went down hard.

Marc made an ordeal of picking himself off the road. He dusted himself off, his gestures slow, deliberate. As he did so, he stumbled back toward the front gate.

The two guards were angry now. Their words attracted the attention of the third guard on patrol inside the wall. He stepped up close to the bars. Which was exactly what Marc had been after all along.

Now both guards grabbed for him. Only Marc was no longer there. He ducked under their hands and reached through the bars.

The inside guard was still waking up to the fact that the drunk was not a drunk at all. Marc gripped the guard's lapel with one hand and his hair with the other. The guard's hair was long and plastered with some sort of oil or pomade smelling vaguely of lilacs. Marc yanked the inside guard forward with all his strength. The guard's forehead clanged against the bars.

Marc did not wait for the man to go down. Nor did he take time to turn around. Instead, he leaped straight up and double-kicked, using his grip on the gate's bars to steady his aim. His spread-eagle attack took one guard in the throat and the other on the chin.

The guard to his left, the one he had struck in the throat, went down on one hand and choked out tight breaths. The other guard spun and almost fell, but managed to hold himself upright. He turned back, drawing his pistol as he moved.

Marc rushed forward and chopped hard on the arm, paralyzing the hand. The gun clattered to the sidewalk unfired.

Marc closed in, striking the man in the chest and the temple. Two blows so fast they hit as one. The man was out before he hit the asphalt.

Marc wheeled about and realized the other guard had managed to make it onto his knees, one hand to his throat. His face was turning purple with the effort to breathe. His other hand held a gun. He took aim as he choked.

Marc saw the barrel coming into range, and knew he could not make it in time.

But Major Lahm had not followed Marc's orders. The policeman raced out of the night to bounce his baton off the man's wrist. With the speed of a thousand practice swings, Lahm struck the man square in the forehead. The man's eyelids fluttered, but he remained upright. Lahm hit him again. He sprawled at Lahm's feet.

What Marc wanted at that moment was a chance to step back, study the stars, feel the simple thrill of being able to draw another breath. What he did was turn to the gate and see that yes, the inside guard was out for the count. But the problem was, the man had fallen backward.

As he feared, Lahm finished searching the two guards and hissed, “No keys.”

It was standard security ops. The inside guard would be responsible for opening and shutting the gates. Which was locked from the inside.

Marc stripped off the two outside guards' head-kerchiefs and knotted them around his hands. Behind him, Lahm's men were swiftly moving up and down the street, showing badges to the other security, ordering them to remain absolutely silent. Lahm saw what Marc was going to do, moved over to the wall and cupped his hands. Marc stepped into the stirrup and allowed Lahm to lift him up to where he could get a grip on the top. Both kerchiefs were lacerated by the glass imbedded in the concrete. Marc felt something bite into his left palm. But he was committed.

Marc clambered up and stood upon the wall. The glass crunched softly beneath his canvas boots. Marc heard footsteps rounding the house. He darted along the wall and was above the guard when he came into view. Marc leaped down, landing on top of his opponent, and came up first. He hammered the guard once, twice. The man crumpled around his unspoken warning.

Marc raced back. Beyond the gate, Lahm was already on his cell, hissing softly to his men at the back. Lahm's forward team hustled quietly into position. Marc felt through the moaning guard's pockets and came up with the keys. He fumbled until he found the one that fit the gate. He sprang back and Lahm's men spilled inside.

The silence only intensified once they were inside the compound. The house, large and two-storied, had a pale stucco finish and a massive nail-studded front door. Light splashed over the rubble-strewn ground from the downstairs windows. Marc held the keys in a tight grip so as to keep them from jingling. Lahm lowered his phone and whispered, “The two rear windows show empty rooms.”

“Let me try the front door.”

Lahm spoke briefly into his phone, then nodded to Marc.

The door responded to the third key. Marc turned it slowly, then tried the handle. When the door shifted open, Lahm halted Marc with a finger on his arm. The major then pointed at the ground by Marc's feet. Stay.

Marc knew better than to argue with a professional. He stepped out of the way.

Lahm gripped the door's handle, lifted his cellphone, and hissed what Marc assumed was the Arabic version of
green light
.

Bedlam.