The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (57 page)

Latiffa swept a handful of hair from her face, back over her head, away from the wound. She turned in Annie’s direction. “They lost you in the desert last night. But they will return today. You have no way out.”

As she returned the remaining bandage to the first-aid kit, Annie felt a stab of fear about their chances for escape, but then a strengthening determination.

“Annie, you should come over here.”

At Tom’s voice, her head jerked up. She looked over Naouri’s shoulder into the center of the camp and the mounds of gritty desert to the west. In the strengthening light, a long line of camels crested the ridgeline of the deep desert defile that defined the Wadi Deffeneh.

“
You have no way out
,” echoed in her head. Her voice was almost a whisper even to her own ear. “Perhaps we do.”

With a purposeful, undulating gait, the camel line flowed along the rim of the ridge, a tide of grunts and tawny fur breaking upon the dawn. A group of riders, some on horses, broke away from the camel caravan, raced down the face of the ridge, and galloped toward the encampment.

Annie got to her feet and stepped from within the shelter of the tent. To her left, looking like they just rolled out of their sleeping bags, Tom, Joe, and two of the
National Geographic
crew were leaning across the hoods of two Land Rovers, high-powered rifles cradled in their arms.
Sweet. Always the protector.

“Don’t shoot … it’s okay,” she said, waving her left hand in Tom’s direction. “It’s okay.”

The palm of her right hand shading her eyes, Annie started walking forward, toward the oncoming riders, not giving Tom a chance to challenge either her or the riders. She felt the thunder of the heavy hooves closing fast, a pungent perfume of musk and camel droppings enveloping her in a swirling cloud of grit and sand that filled her nostrils and covered her hair.

Like a dirt shower falling from the sky, the billows of sand settled around Annie, revealing a glistening, black stallion with heavily muscled haunches. It stopped inches from her face. “Welcome, Wind of the Desert,” said Annie as she stood in the shade of the lead rider.

In a flourish of robes, his face still covered by the long tail of his keffiyeh, the rider slipped off the gleaming black stallion and approached Annie. “Welcome back, Lily of the River,” he said. “I never thought I would see you again.”

“I don’t care if he’s the Grand Wazoo of Turkmenistan,” Tom exploded, “we’re not going to tell this guy why we’re here. I don’t know him. Why should I trust him?”

Annie sat in a camp chair on the other side of the tent, a canteen in her hand, halfway to her mouth. Joe and Rizzo were on her right, Latiffa Naouri stretched out on a cot, and Mike Whalen on her left.

“Because
I
trust him.” Annie pushed the words out between her clenched teeth. Her grip on the canteen tightened as her anger and frustration increased. “For the last thirty years, Kabir’s tribe has been the only law and order in the western Iraqi desert. He’s commander of the Anbar Awakening militia that fought against Al Qaeda and shoulder-to-shoulder with US Marines, driving both the terrorists and the bandits from this section of the country. Kabir bows his knee to no man—certainly not the Prophet’s Guard, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or ISIS, or any other group of power-hungry crazies.”

Tom paced across the length of the tent. He stopped suddenly and turned to face Annie. “And how do you know so much about this guy who just materialized out of the desert?”

Annie took a long, slow drink from the canteen, selecting her words as if they were ingredients in a recipe. She wiped her lips on her sleeve as she shot a glance toward Sammy. From the look on his face, he appeared to be enjoying the show. She got up from the chair, walked over to Tom, and offered him the canteen.

“I was here at the beginning of my career, doing a photo shoot in Ur. It was before I met you, Tom. Kabir had just driven the worst bandits out of Anbar Province. We asked him for protection. His father was sheik then, but it was Kabir who led the fighters of the Awakening. We spent a lot of time together, then. And he didn’t just materialize. I contacted Kabir before we left Jerusalem. Told him where we were headed. And asked for his help.”

For an eternal moment, Bohannon felt like his stomach had dropped to the floor and bounced back up into his throat. But then Annie took his left hand, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pressed into his side. There was a twinkle in her eyes. “I’m flattered, sweetie. But that was a long time ago, a long time before you. We were friends. That’s all I could offer him.”

Annie kissed him. Full and warm, her fingers slipping into the hair at his neck. Doubt … fear … melted away as his heart began to trip faster. She pulled back and stared into his eyes. “But thanks for the moment, my hero.”

He didn’t realize Mike Whalen had come up to his side.

“Tom,” Whalen whispered, taking Bohannon by the elbow, “come outside for a minute. There’s something I want to tell you.”

His lips still tasted Annie’s as he followed Whalen outside the tent. The
National Geographic
crew leader leaned against one of the Land Rovers and pulled a battered, half-smoked cigar out of his shirt pocket. He pointed the cigar at Bohannon. “You need to understand something about what’s going on out here,” he said, before tucking the cigar into the right corner of his mouth.

“Back in oh-five, the marines out in this part of Iraq were getting pounded. Fallujah and Ramadi were strongholds of the Sunni militias who opposed both the ouster of their patron Saddam and the American occupation. You gotta remember that Saddam was Sunni and he kept the Sunnis, a minority in Iraq, in power by oppressing the Shiite majority. When Saddam fell and Americans occupied Iraq, it left a power vacuum. One of the biggest mistakes President Bush made was to disband the Iraqi Army and outlaw the top leadership levels of the Baath Party, the Sunnis. Iraq was left without a functioning government and without a functioning military to enforce the law.

“It didn’t take long for Al Qaeda to show up. There was an Al Qaeda terror group of fundamental Islamists in Syria. When Saddam fell, Al Qaeda flooded across the Syrian border into Iraq, into the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. For all intents, Al Qaeda became the rulers of western Iraq. At least, until the tribes rose.”

Whalen took the stub of cigar out of his mouth and pointed its mangled, chewed-on end in Bohannon’s direction. “The Albu Mahals, a tribe that moved with impunity across the borders of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, called together the leaders of the tribes of Anbar Province. They were Sunni, but they hated Al Qaeda more than they distrusted the Shi’a. Sheik Abdul led the Anbar Awakening. They called themselves the Sons of Iraq and joined forces with US marines to fight against Al Qaeda. The battle for Anbar Province was one of the most brutal and intense of the Iraq war but, between the marines and the Awakening, they beat the living daylights out of Al Qaeda and the militias and drove them back into Syria. By 2008, the Anbar Awakening was an army of over fifty thousand strong, and the west was secure.”

Back in his mouth, the cigar bounced around like moving punctuation. “Today, the situation out here is ten times worse. When the United States pulled its troops out of Iraq in 2011, sectarian violence escalated, and Al Qaeda—now merged with an even more radical group of Syrian jihadists—returned with a vengeance. You know, forty-five hundred American soldiers lost their lives in the eight-year war with Iraq. Well, last year alone over eight thousand Iraqis were killed in this sectarian civil war. Eight thousand in just one year. Just a few weeks ago, this new incarnation of Al Qaeda—ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham—overran both Fallujah and Ramadi once again and took control of the cities from government troops. Al Qaeda is threatening to cut this country in half. And this guy”—he gestured with his thumb in the direction of Kabir, who was overseeing the care of his camel caravan—“I’ve heard of him before. Sheik Abdul was his uncle. This guy is now the head of the Anbar Awakening. And he is a fearless enemy of Al Qaeda.”

Whalen pushed off the side of the Land Rover and stepped closer to Tom.

“Listen. If Naouri is right, you are not going back to Baghdad, and you are not going back to Israel on some comfortable airplane. If you want to get that package of yours out of here and back to Jerusalem safely, then you better put any concern you have about Kabir aside. Because I think this guy may be the only ticket you have—hey, the only ticket any of us have. If we don’t get out of here soon, I can almost guarantee we’ll be in a firefight right on this spot. So suck it up Tom, and let’s listen to what this guy has to say. And”—he put his hand on Tom’s shoulder—“give your wife a break.”

Tom grunted. “Let’s go talk to the man.”

Standing in the entrance to the tent, he blocked the light like a robed eclipse. Sheikh Khalid al-Kabir wore the ubiquitous keffiyeh headdress of the Arab male, red-and-white checked, with twin black ropes wrapped around his head to keep it in place, their ends hanging down his back. But the rest of his wardrobe was an anachronism. An open, white muslin robe hung from his shoulders, but it covered a black dress shirt and well-worn blue jeans. A pair of supple, sagging leather boots had lost most of their color to the scoring wind of the desert.

Kabir was taller than Bohannon, his thick, curly, jet-black hair and beard streaked with the gray of leadership and hardship. He was broad shouldered and solidly muscled. Even standing still, Sheik Kabir commanded attention and evoked respect.

Behind the sheikh stood two imposing Bedouin fighters, Kabir’s lieutenants. The three of them created a formidable presence. Bohannon felt a shiver of apprehension.

“Hey, Chief.” Rizzo sidled up to the surprised Arab. “You got any genies stuffed away in your saddle bags? You know, three wishes and we can all be sipping piña coladas in Barbados?”

A smile on his face, Kabir leaned over toward Rizzo. “You are most fortunate to be a friend of Ann’s. Perhaps, I will deal with you later. But first …”

Kabir stepped across the tent and stood in front of Bohannon. He looked at the sling once again encasing Bohannon’s right arm and offered his right hand.

“Mr. Bohannon, forgive me. In our culture, it is an insult to offer the left hand. I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet you. A man worthy of Ann’s love is a man I would be proud to call friend.”

Bohannon searched Kabir’s face for sarcasm. After a heartbeat, he stepped closer and gingerly grasped the sheik’s right hand. A volume of life’s experience could be conveyed in a man’s handshake. True hearts and trustworthy character are communicated in an instant. Or their opposite. Kabir’s hand was rough and calloused, but his handshake was warm, firm, and sincere. In that moment, he won Tom’s trust.

“My men and I are at your service,” said Kabir. “Tell me, how can we be of assistance?”

“How about making breakfast?” Rizzo was straightening his rumpled shirt. “Pancakes would be great.”

Over the next hour, in a surreal summit meeting with the extended members of the team present, Tom and Annie told Kabir and his lieutenants their story of the mezuzah, its secret messages, how it cost some their lives, and why it was still pursued with such violent determination by the Prophet’s Guard and the Muslim Brotherhood. They told him about Aaron’s staff and what they believed they were called to do now that it had been found.