The Mirage: A Novel (24 page)

“I would like to speak with your father about his recent online purchase.” Mustafa nodded at the package. “And about any other similar items he may have acquired.”

“I don’t know what items you are referring to, but a conversation with my father is impossible.”

“I understand your father is a busy man and not especially trusting of government agents. But if I may appeal to him directly . . .”

“You may not.”

“Then please tell your father for me that I am on a special assignment for the president, who will be grateful to anyone who assists me.”

Qusay didn’t blink. “And if my father isn’t interested in the president’s gratitude? What then?”

“Please,” Mustafa said. “I make no threats, only a respectful request for help. If your father says no, I’ll leave and trouble him no further.”

“Just like that, eh?”

“Hey.” Mustafa waved a hand at the land outside the gate. “It’s a free country.”

It was the kind of really big house that seemed designed to make you remark, repeatedly, on how really big it was. The ungodly nature of the excess, the awful tackiness of the furnishings and décor that also begged for comment—those were perhaps less deliberate.

Baath-affiliated artists had been drafted into the decorating effort. The mansion’s grand reception hall featured a painting of Saddam and his wife Sajida dressed as heads of state of some antique kingdom (Babylon, judging by the ziggurats in the background). That portrait wasn’t so bad actually, but another, which cast Saddam as a knight of jihad defending Jerusalem against Richard the Lionheart, struck Mustafa as a bit much. And a third painting, showing Saddam as the Spartan King Leonidas holding the line against Xerxes’ Persians at Thermopylae—that had to be either a gag or a loyalty test: Look at this without snickering and you may have a future as a citizen of the Republic.

“This way,” Qusay said. He led Mustafa through an archway into a hall lined with statues. More historical figures, each carved or cast with the same mustached face: Saddam as Hammurabi the Lawgiver; Saddam as Gilgamesh; Saddam as Shalmaneser, as Sargon, as Sennacherib; Saddam as Ramesses the Great . . .

The hall ended in a circular domed chamber with one last statue at its center. This ultimate king stood seven meters tall, and sunlight streaming through windows in the dome made the monarch’s head glister like gold. But when Mustafa, unable to resist, gingerly rapped a knuckle on one of the royal feet, what he discovered was neither gold nor a mix of iron and clay, but the hollow ring of tin.

“Wait here,” Qusay said, leaving Mustafa in Nebuchadnezzar’s shadow. “My father will join you shortly.”

As Qusay’s footsteps faded into the distance, Mustafa heard a low droning sound. Following it to another archway, he gazed into a side room where a boy sat playing with a fleet of toy trucks. The boy was European or possibly American and looked about five years old. There was something forlorn about the way he pushed the same dump truck back and forth, making listless
vroom-vroom
noises.

A woman who sat minding the boy looked up at Mustafa looking in. Mustafa nodded to her, then turned to see the real-life king of the Republic coming up behind him.

The prosecutor at one of his trials had described Saddam Hussein as “a village thug in city clothes.” He was a big brute of a man, tall and thick, like the monument he longed to become. He swam laps daily to keep himself in shape and dyed his hair and mustache to hide his age. Informants said he had back trouble and often limped when out of the public eye. But there was no sign of that now—as he approached Mustafa he kept his stride confident and even, channeling whatever agony this cost him into an air of affable menace, like a cunning old lion strolling out to see what had wandered into his den.

“Welcome to my home!” Saddam said. As he reached out to shake, his sleeve pulled back to reveal an old gang tattoo on the back of his wrist. His grip was strong and he squeezed Mustafa’s hand to the point where it almost became painful, sizing him up as he did so. Mustafa, still too giddy to feel fear, did his own counter-assessment and decided that the way to play this was to be respectful but straightforward.

“Mustafa al Baghdadi,” Mustafa said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“It’s my pleasure to be of service. I trust I need no introduction, but in answer to your next question, you should feel free to refer to me as either Saddam, or Uncle. Many of my union brothers prefer the latter.”

“ ‘Uncle’ would be awkward for me, I’m afraid. I’m not a member of Baath.”

“But you are an Iraqi,” Saddam said. “I consider all Iraqis honorary Baathists.”

“Yes, well,” said Mustafa, “as I suspect you’ve already been told, I’m also a former Halal agent who spent nine years trying to bust you. So you really shouldn’t do me that particular honor.”

“Ah, Halal.” Saddam smiled. “An amusing organization . . . Did we ever meet, during those nine years? You look familiar to me.”

“I attended a couple of your trials,” Mustafa told him. “And I was part of the team that executed the search warrant against the Hakum factory. I tried to speak to you on that occasion but your lawyers wouldn’t allow it.”

“A pity. I could have told you you were wasting your time. But I suppose you found that out on your own.”

“We surely did.” The Hakum Seltzer-Water bottling plant, located outside the city of Musayyib, had been identified by several trusted informants as a secret distillery producing thousands of liters of hard liquor, but a two-day search had failed to turn up so much as a drop of alcohol. The incident had been a major embarrassment for Halal, and a lawsuit by the plant’s management had resulted in the firing of one of Mustafa’s superiors.

“And now you work for Homeland Security,” Saddam said. “A much more satisfying career, I’m sure . . . And my son tells me you’re working for the president?”

Mustafa nodded. “A special assignment.”

“And you need
my
help?” Saddam raised his eyebrows, as if amazed that a humble palace-owner such as himself could have anything to offer.

“I believe you can assist my investigation, yes.”

“Then I shall be glad to. Come, let’s go to my office.”

“If I may ask . . . ,” Mustafa said.

“Yes?”

“That boy in there. Who is he?”

“His name is Stuart. He’s the son of an Englishman I’m doing some business with. He’s staying with me until the deal is completed, to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

Mustafa blinked. “The boy is your hostage?”

“My honored guest,” Saddam Hussein said. “Don’t worry, he’s being looked after. He’s getting his milk.” He paused, and a shadow of uncertainty crossed his face. “You there!” he called, to the woman minding the boy. “Is he getting his milk?”

“Yes, Saddam!” the woman replied.

“There, you see?” Saddam said to Mustafa. “He’s getting his milk. Nothing to worry about!”

Saddam’s office resembled a war room, with wall maps of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, each map decorated with a constellation of pushpins. “Would you like to take some cell phone pictures?” Saddam asked, noting Mustafa’s interest in these. “I’m sure your old Halal colleagues would be fascinated.”

“They would,” Mustafa said. “But I’m not here for that.”

“Good. Very good.” Saddam opened a drawer in his desk and brought out two glass tumblers and a bottle. “You like whiskey? I know it’s early . . .”

“Ah, no thank you.”

“I insist. Before we talk business, you must have a drink with me.”

“I really can’t,” Mustafa said.

“Of course you can. Halal agents drink all the time, ex-Halal agents all the more so . . .”

“I’m a Muslim.”

Saddam chuckled. “So am I!” he said. “I’m not a saint, though, and I don’t trust men who act as though they are.” He poured a finger of whiskey into each tumbler and pushed one across the desk. “Come. Share a small sin with me, so I can relax. God will forgive you.”

The whiskey was bitter on Mustafa’s tongue and it made his eyes water, which Saddam found funny. “That’s good stuff. You should appreciate it!”

“I guess I’m not a sophisticate,” Mustafa said.

“Ah, but you are well informed.” Saddam placed a hand on the package containing the cards. “Who told you about this? Your friend Wajid Jamil I suppose.”

“I see I’m not the only one who’s well informed.” Mustafa set down his tumbler, which still had half a finger of whiskey in it. “You should know Wajid wasn’t spying on you, specifically.”

“No?”

“I asked Waj for help researching something we’re calling the mirage legend. One of his keyword searches turned up several eBazaar auctions, including that one. When he saw the mailing address attached to the winning bidder’s account, he contacted me.”

“Ah, the mailing address . . . Qusay warned me about that. ‘Rent a PO box,’ he said. But it’s a hassle, for something that’s not even illegal.”

“Your eBazaar account name isn’t exactly subtle, either,” Mustafa noted.

“Well, that I couldn’t resist. I’ve always been an admirer of Nebuchadnezzar.”

“So I gather.”

“I dedicated my first novel to him . . . He was a great leader. A great
Arab
leader, unlike Salah al Din, who had the misfortune to be born a Kurd.” Saddam’s expression grew distant as he sipped his whiskey. “You know, the Jews say Nebuchadnezzar went mad. For seven years. Exiled from his rule in Babylon, forced to live like a lesser person . . .”

“Like a beast, actually,” said Mustafa, who’d been reading the Book of Daniel as part of his research into rapture theology. “ ‘You shall be driven away from human society, and your dwelling shall be with the wild animals.’ ”

“But the story has a happy ending,” Saddam said. “At the end of the seven years, the king returned to his right mind, and to his throne.”

“Yes.” Mustafa glanced at the whiskey bottle. “After he submitted to God and became a righteous man . . .”

Saddam seemed to mull something over. Finally he reached under the edge of his desk and toggled a hidden switch. The section of wall on which the map of Al Hillah was mounted gave a shudder and began to swing inwards.

“Finish your drink,” Saddam said. “I want to show you something.”

“I call it my alternate-reality room,” Saddam Hussein said. “You know this expression, ‘alternate reality’? It’s a new media thing.” He waggled his hands in the universal gesture of the over-fifty trying to get a grip on the Internet Age. “My daughter Hala explained it to me. They do this thing now, to promote movies and new TV series, sometimes video games as well. They plant clues and hints in cyberspace, so it’s like this mystery for people to solve, but really it’s an advertisement.”

“They?” Mustafa said.

“Bollywood. The Hindus invented the practice. But now film companies here are doing it too, and in Israel. Some of the cutting-edge alternate-reality productions are very elaborate, not just stuff on the web, but live-action events with props. Hala, who is very interested in new media, got wind of an alternate-reality campaign that seemed to be about me. Now you know there’s going to be a movie version of
Zabibah and the King
—if my producer ever gets off his ass—so at first I thought it was connected to that. But nobody at the production house knew anything about it. So I had my people do some investigating, and they started finding these items, these—”

“Artifacts.”

“Yes. Like pieces of a puzzle. As you can see, someone is quite fixated on me.”

The room was like a small museum whose focus was the same as the vanity art in the rest of the house. On the walls behind glass were many newspaper and magazine clippings, all featuring Saddam’s image. Most of the clippings seemed to be from English-language publications, or ghost publications—Mustafa spotted several
New York Times
front pages.

Display cases in the center of the room held other types of artifacts. Mustafa lingered beside a tabletop display of a war game. The playing board showed North America, divided into sectors; an invasion force of brightly colored plastic tanks and troops had landed on the east, west, and Gulf coasts and was pushing into the heartland. Mustafa was confused as to how this fit with the general theme of the room, but then he saw the art on the game box lid—the face of the invaders’ leader—and he understood.

“So what does it all mean?” Mustafa said. “If this is a puzzle, what’s the solution?”

“I’m still working that out,” Saddam Hussein said. “But these objects tell a story about another world, an Arabia and an Iraq with a different history.”

“And you are the hero of this story?”

Saddam spread his hands and smiled, as if to say, Who am I to argue with my fans? “Every legend needs its champion.”

“What about the other characters?” Mustafa said. “Who else is in the story?”

“Various celebrities, politicians mostly.” Smirking: “That clown Al Gaddafi, though I think he’s the comic relief.”

“Osama bin Laden?”

“Ah, that one.” Saddam shrugged. “He might have a role I suppose. But you know, I don’t even find him interesting in real life. He’s too stuck up, like a Saud without the pedigree.”

“And America?” Mustafa looked down at the game board. “What’s America’s role in the story?” He looked up again to find Saddam nodding.

“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” Saddam said. “Something to do with the Americans.”

“It seems this alternate-reality campaign, or whatever it is, has caught the attention of a number of crusaders,” Mustafa told him. “But they think it’s a true story.”

Saddam chuckled. “Americans . . . Always confusing fantasy and reality.”

“Tell me where you get these items,” Mustafa said. “Are they all from eBazaar?”

“I have various sources. Lately though, yes, a lot of items have been turning up on eBazaar. The auctions are typically private, but there’s an email notification list for people known to be interested in such things . . . By the way, as long as your friend Wajid Jamil is giving away personal information about his customers, I would love to know who has been bidding against me. That game, for instance, that cost me almost ten thousand riyals.”