The Mirage: A Novel (45 page)

“Another world. A world in which America is the invading superpower, defiling the holy places of Islam. A world in which Arabia is broken up into minor principalities, in which men like Saddam Hussein and Muammar al Gaddafi are not just criminals or the butts of jokes but heads of state. A world in which the suffering of ordinary Arabs is, correspondingly, multiplied.

“It’s your turn to be shocked. You realize, if this is true, you’ve been wasting your time, struggling inside an illusion, while the situation you were trying to create already existed. All you have to figure out is how to restore it.

“And so, very late in the day, you have a new mission. It’s the same mission the crusaders are on, which ought to be ironic but really just makes sense, since in your pride, you’ve invited the same person to come whisper in your ear. In any case, that is your wish: To return to a world of sorrow, to an Arabia whose people will be ripe to receive your message, the word of God the All-Merciful and Compassionate as interpreted by the mass murderer Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden.”

Mustafa paused and drank some tea. Samir was staring at him uneasily, and Amal had picked up the CIA report and was flipping through it.

“It’s an interesting story,” Amal said good-naturedly. “But even with this”—she dropped the report back on the table—“you know no one is going to believe it.”

“No,” Samir agreed. “If you go to the president talking like that, he’s going to think you’re nuts.”

“Oh,” said Mustafa, “but I haven’t even told you the crazy part yet . . . Here. Let me show you a photograph.”

Uday Hussein had come upstairs in pursuit of a maid. He’d been stalking her on and off since she’d started work at the Adhamiyah estate, following her through the house each time he caught sight of her, each time letting her elude him, confident that he could corner her whenever he wished. Today though he’d grown tired of the game and determined to end it, and so he was very annoyed when he burst into a bathroom where he was sure she was hiding, only to find it unoccupied.

He backed out into the hall, turning towards a gallery that overlooked the domed chamber containing the Nebuchadnezzar statue. A male servant was polishing the balustrade; sensing Uday’s attention upon him, he recalled another chore in a distant part of the house and hastened away.

Uday went the other direction, poking his head into rooms at random. In the westernmost part of the hall he paused in front of a massive wooden door banded in iron. The chamber beyond was off-limits but Uday decided to check it anyway, reasoning that if the maid were inside he’d have an excuse to punish her—not that he needed an excuse.

The door somewhat surprisingly was unlocked. Uday leaned into it and swung it wide, then spread his arms and cried “Aha!” No one tried to bolt past him. He lowered his arms again and stood just inside the threshold looking around.

The chamber was octagonal, ten meters wide. In the past it had been used as both a prayer room and an astronomical observatory, and its single broad window was oriented towards the Qibla. Its current focus, however, was neither Mecca nor the heavens, but the heart of the vast desert in the Arabian Peninsula’s southeast quadrant. Sand from that desert had been poured in a series of curving lines on the chamber floor, forming a pattern like a whirlwind viewed from above. In the whirlwind’s eye the brass bottle from Al Hillah had been placed atop a mound of sand, its unstoppered mouth tilted towards the window. Incense burners and stands of bells and chimes were spaced around the whirlwind’s outer edge, and other trinkets and talismans had been arranged within the swirls of sand according to some system Uday had not been schooled in.

The sight of it made him dizzy, and being dizzy made him angry. He approached the near edge of the whirlwind and nudged one of the smoking braziers with the toe of his boot.

“Do not disturb the pattern!”

Mr. Rammal, his father’s sorcerer, stood in the doorway holding a set of iron shackles. Uday clenched his fists at the rebuke and for a dangerous second contemplated stomping through the whole design like a boy kicking apart a sand castle—and then maybe, for an encore, pistol-whipping Mr. Rammal until his brains came out his ears.

He resisted the urge. His father was home and not far away, and maids weren’t the only ones in this house subject to cruel punishments.

Instead he glared at Mr. Rammal. “Who do you think you are talking to that way?”

“You mustn’t disturb it,” Mr. Rammal repeated. He came forward to make sure that it hadn’t already been damaged, and Uday suppressed another impulse to violence.

“What’s this supposed to do, anyway?” Uday said. “Suck the jinni into the bottle like a magic vacuum cleaner?”

“You should not refer so directly to the creature,” Mr. Rammal cautioned. This time he moderated his tone. Though he knew he was under Saddam’s protection, he also understood that there were limits to Uday’s self-control—and standing this close, the younger Hussein’s rage was palpable. “But to answer your question, no, this is only a lure. What it will do, if it works, is draw the creature into this city and compel it to reveal itself. Then while it is visible we must find it, and bind it.” He held up the shackles. “To incant it back into the bottle will require a final ritual.”

“Do you actually believe this shit you’re spewing?”

“Your father believes it.”

“I’ll tell you what my father believes,” Uday said. “My father believes in making examples of people who try to cheat him. When he realizes you’re a charlatan—and he will—he’s going to want you hurt. And guess who he’s going to call on to hurt you.” He bent his head close to the sorcerer’s and exhaled sourly against his cheek. “Go ahead, guess.”

A gust of air came through the window, causing several of the chimes to jangle. Uday reared back laughing at Mr. Rammal’s reaction. “Praise God the All-Compassionate!” Uday said. “The wind is ringing the wind chimes! It’s a miracle!”

Then the breeze ceased, but the noise didn’t. It spread around the circle, an unseen hand gripping each stand, agitating the bells. The clean lines of smoke rising from the braziers twisted and dispersed. An incense burner near the window shot up a column of blue flame, as if a gas jet had been fired through the bowl; the flame rose to a height of a meter before flickering out. There was a pause, long enough for a heartbeat, or a whisper, and then another brazier spat fire, and another, and another—but only one at a time, as if it were really a single flame jumping playfully around the circumference of the circle. Uday, feeling as though the room were revolving, stayed rooted in place until the flame reached the brazier by his feet. Then he fell back shrieking all the way to the door, his spine fetching up painfully against the jamb.

Mr. Rammal remained where he was, observing the progress of the fire and listening to the rustle of the chimes. A cold smile bloomed on his lips.

“Go and get your father,” he said to Uday. “If you please.”

The rally was being held just south of Ground Zero Plaza, on a wedge of land where the World Trade Center Number Seven building had once stood. In 2002 this property, cleared of debris and converted temporarily into a park, had been used for the memorial services commemorating the one-year anniversary of the attacks.

The idea of erecting a mosque on the site had first been floated in April 2003 and had met with near-universal approval. The devil was waiting, as he always is, in the details, and soon enough a squabble had broken out between various Sunni and Shia factions over just who would be in charge of funding, planning, building, and administering the project. Public meetings called to discuss the matter ended in acrimony, and closed-door sessions between city, state, and religious officials fared no better; a visiting mullah compared the atmosphere of the latter to Prime Minister’s question time in the Persian parliament, “only not so friendly.”

The politicking and debate over the mosque had continued for another six years—culminating in an announcement five months ago that a deal had finally been reached. Since then several deadlines for fixing a start date for construction had been missed, and new fault lines had appeared in the mosque coalition. Today’s rally was an attempt to get things back on track. Billed as a celebration, it was really more an act of sympathetic magic, the idea being to get all the principals together in public acting
as if
construction of the mosque were going forward. Then, assuming they made it through the ceremony without the world coming to an end, maybe they could bring on the builders and the cranes for real.

Not everyone had been able to make it. The president, while offering a strong message of support for the mosque, had declined an invitation to the rally, promising instead to attend the actual groundbreaking, assuming there was one. He’d sent a group of Unity Party functionaries in his place, and the POG, not to be outdone, had dispatched a delegation of Sauds.

Saddam Hussein had also respectfully declined to attend—and unlike the president, he hadn’t bothered to wait for an invitation before doing so. Given the identity of the woman in charge of the guest list, this was a tactically wise move.

One other notable no-show was the Arabian senator, Osama bin Laden. He had planned to attend the rally and had come down from Riyadh with the Sauds, only to fall ill at the very last moment. He was presently recuperating at his hotel.

For Amal’s brother Haidar, chief security coordinator for the event, the news of Bin Laden’s absence was a welcome relief. He only wished it could have come sooner. While all of the rally attendees were concerned about safety, Bin Laden’s advance team had been uniquely paranoid, questioning him repeatedly about every detail of the security arrangements. Haidar had no objection to thoroughness, but he did have a problem with people who obviously didn’t trust a Shia to do the job correctly.

Now he had a bit more energy to devote to other problems, of which there was no shortage. The security setup consisted of three layers. The outer layer of barricades and checkpoints was being manned by the Baghdad PD. All the necessary bribes had been paid, so Haidar expected little trouble here—unless Saddam, miffed about his nonexistent invite, decided to arrange some sort of payback. The innermost security layer, directly around the stage, was composed mainly of bodyguards of the various attendees. Here the potential for mayhem was greater, since despite the ongoing show of solidarity, many of these people couldn’t stand one another. Haidar was particularly troubled by reports of new hostilities between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, both well represented here, and he could only hope that the presence of news cameras would convince them to honor their good-conduct pledges.

But his biggest concern was with the middle layer of security—armed men, some in uniform and some in plainclothes, whose job was to circulate through the crowd, looking for any threats that might have made it past the police checkpoints. Haidar had wanted to use only his own people for this, but several of the more high-profile guests had insisted on detailing additional personnel to the effort. Unable to refuse the help without precipitating a political crisis, Haidar had instead broken the park into separate patrol zones and assigned each group its own territory. The Mahdi Army got a strip on the far west end of the park, next to the Arab Telecom building, while the Badr Corps got the east end, alongside the post office. The Saudi security team was placed in the center, surrounded by members of other, more local Sunni groups, arranged according to Haidar’s understanding of their current relations with the Badrists and the Sadrists. Haidar’s own men were scattered throughout the park and instructed to watch the watchers.

Haidar himself roamed freely, using radio, eye, and instinct to try to keep tabs on the whole show at once. As his mother stood onstage talking about The Moment, he stopped at one of the police checkpoints to get a head count on the crowd. Turnout was low, around two thousand people in a space that could hold five times that number. Not that it mattered for PR purposes: The estimate released to the press would be inflated to suggest a capacity crowd, and the cameras were all down front near the VIP seating, which was full.

Senator Al Maysani finished her remarks and turned the podium over to the governor, Nouri al Maliki. Haidar walked the northern perimeter, scanning the park. Mist-spraying machines had been set up at various points to keep the crowd cool and to add a none-too-subtle rainbow effect to the proceedings, but they also interfered with the sight lines. As Haidar maneuvered to get clearer views, his suit went from dry to damp and back again.

Al Maliki was followed at the podium by the man who also hoped to succeed him as governor: Muqtada al Sadr. Haidar, now standing among the Guardian Angels, made a quick radio call to the men he had monitoring the Badrs. “It’s OK,” came the reply. “We’ve got a few people here who look like they just bit down on lemons, but nobody’s acting up.”

“No problems by the stage, either,” added a second voice.

“The Anbaris are starting to grumble,” said a third voice. “I hope we’ve got some Sunnis on the speakers’ list.”

“Don’t worry,” said Haidar. “The mayor of Ramadi is up next.” He kept moving.

The rally was approaching the fifty-minute mark, and a few bored spectators were beginning to drift towards the exits, when the only Christian scheduled to speak got up to use the microphone. The Patriarch of Babylon was an old man from Kurdistan. Like a number of the speakers before him, he seemed a bit off-balance at first, unsettled perhaps by the still-shocking emptiness above the plaza to the north. But he gripped the sides of the podium and steadied himself, and looked down at the crowd, and smiled.

“Good afternoon,” he began. “I would like to say a few words about peace.”

Haidar was over in Badr territory, hunting the source of a strange noise—a metallic bang, possibly a door slam—that he’d heard just a moment before. The murmur that went through the crowd at the Patriarch’s first words caused him to look up at the stage. As he was turning away again, he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye: a figure, stepping out from the side of the post office. By the time Haidar turned all the way around the figure had vanished behind a spray of mist, leaving a jumble of impressions: White shirt. Dark vest. Pale skin. Straw-colored hair.