Book of Stolen Tales (43 page)

“Not this one but one like it he bought,” Khalid said. “He wanted to know about the jinn.” He looked up at me. “Many types of jinn exist, some beneficent and others evil—like ghouls.”

A fleeting memory came back to me. Something Samuel once mentioned. About nomads who'd journeyed the desert for decades, unaccountably vanishing and their bodies turning up, ravaged by some unknown predator. Evil jinn were blamed, demons born of fire who crossed between the earth and the spirit world.

“The jinn play pipes at dawn to draw unwary travelers into the desert. After the traveler becomes lost the jinn attacks it to take possession of his soul. Many stories have been written about this. Some can be found in this book here,” Khalid said.

Shaheen pointed to the title in Arabic script:
Kitāb alf laylat wa-laylah
.
The Thousand and One Nights
.

“You know this?” Khalid said, looking at Shaheen. “Our most famous tales from far back in history.”

“What other book did they want?” Shaheen asked.

“Italian one. Same kind. Tales for children.”

“Why would they think you'd have an Italian book?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The Englishman was very sorry when he found out I did not have it.”

I knew how Renwick must have felt. Shaheen gave me a commiserating look.

Khalid caught the expression on my face and said brightly, “But now I do.”

“You mean the Italian book? You have it here?” I held my breath in anticipation.

He walked over to another trunk. I heard the ancient lock clicking as he turned the key and pried open the lid. He bent down and withdrew a package wrapped in an Arabic newspaper and handed it to me.

I peeled off the layers of newspaper with trembling fingers and almost shouted with joy when I saw Basile's book. I opened it to the title page. It was the one we wanted. The last volume—the fifth day. I gave Shaheen a quick nod.

“Where did this come from?” I asked Khalid.

The shop owner spread his hands out. “From a Syrian I deal with from time to time. Where did he get it? You know how these things are. We do not always ask.” He gave me a pointed look. “Do you wish to buy it?”

“How much?” I said. The expression on my face told him how excited I'd been to see the book but I thought it prudent to bargain a little.

He asked for one thousand American dollars, an astronomical sum to him. It was ludicrously cheap and a fraction of the book's real worth. I was on the verge of accepting when Shaheen intervened. A discussion ensued in Arabic with much gesturing and waving of hands. At one point Khalid shook his head indignantly and I shot a glance at Shaheen, afraid he'd pushed the proprietor too far.

The conversation stopped abruptly when Shaheen reached for his billfold. He peeled off four hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Khalid, who smiled broadly.

The deal concluded, I thanked the shop owner for his time. As I turned to go, Shaheen spoke up. “Did those men want anything else?”

“Yes. They brought with them a very old object.” Khalid made a circle with his hands. “A round stone with a hole in the center. They wondered if I knew what purpose it had. I did not know its use but recognized it from descriptions in old stories. I told them it carried a dreadful curse.”

“Why did you say that?” I asked.

“This object was possessed by one of the most fearsome beings—Nergal of the Babylonians who reigned over the underworld. The god of plague. Anyone who possesses the object may.…” His face twisted in frustration as he sought the right English word. “May help the god to wake from his long slumber.”

“Did they say where they got it?”

“I did not wish to know.” He glanced quickly at Shaheen and then back at me. “The old Englishman did say one thing. They wanted to visit an ancient site.”

“Did he say where?”

“Oh yes—Babylon.”

We'd hit a wall for certain this time. The site of Babylon covered almost a square mile. I couldn't believe the scientists would have been allowed to do any excavating there. Even if they had, it could literally take years to investigate the entire site in detail. Without being able to narrow down the specific location the quest could end right here. Unless I was able to unravel the secret held within the volumes of Basile's book. And that still looked doubtful.

Forty-Four

December 6, 2003

Baghdad, Iraq

A
fter the explosion, we'd moved from the Palestine to the Ishtar, formerly a Sheraton hotel. The Ishtar had once been a fine place but two wars separated by a decade of poverty had taken their toll. At one point its second floor had burned. The ghost of the fire still haunted the inn, though the staff had done their best to air it out. Everything smelled of melting polyethylene and burning plastic. Even the drinks tasted of it.

Following our visit to Khalid's shop I spent a day and a half in our room with my photocopies of the volumes, racking my brains to discern some pattern I'd missed before.

Now that I knew which story Renwick pursued, based on the spindle whorl and the hidden house underneath the palazzo, I turned to Basile's version of “Sleeping Beauty,” titled “The Sun, Moon and Talia.” The tale appeared in day five, the last volume, the one we'd just bought at Khalid's shop. I scrutinized the story but could see no indications, by way of marks or other printing features, that set it apart from text in the rest of the volume. As with the other volumes, if the clue resided in the story's Italian text, I'd need a translator to sort it out.

I possessed photocopies of three volumes and the one original we'd just bought. Alessio said he destroyed Naso's volume so I was forced to work with what I had. I taped the paper photocopies up on the wall in their proper sequence. My inability to read the Neapolitan dialect initially proved helpful because it made it easier to compare the books and search for hidden maps or symbols.

The volumes yielded nothing as obvious as a map. And there were no unusual symbols in the thin margins. I became increasingly frustrated, unable to find any sign pointing to a physical location. Hiring someone to translate all this material from the old Neapolitan dialect into English would prove time-consuming and expensive. And, so far removed in time from the original book, the English translation that Tye Norris had lent me would be unlikely to help.

I examined the fifth volume carefully. It was in the same pristine condition I'd found the first one in: stiff, browned pages that could easily be spoiled. An engraving of a noblewoman surrounded by scrollwork appeared on the frontispiece. It differed from the others in that it had only nine stories and no eclogue, all of it incomprehensible to me.

Scanning each of de Ribera's illustrations with equal care again I was struck by his vibrant, provocative images and yet they gave me no discernible geographical clues.

Shaheen had been gone all morning, leaving Ali to stand guard. Though he appeared unkempt and casual, Ali always kept a sharp eye out. He stationed himself near the door, occasionally pushing aside the curtains to look out the window and sweep his gaze over the grounds. I began to wonder what had become of Shaheen. When I asked Ali he answered with a smile and shrug. I'm sure he knew and had no intention of telling me.

Toward 11
A.M
., I heard Shaheen's voice outside. Ali let him in. He breezed in carrying a can of Coke, gave Ali a grin, picked his way through the line of my papers, and plunked himself down on the bed. “Loretti and Hill,” he said, shaking his head.

My mind was still half immersed in Basile's volumes and I barely registered his remark.

“What about them?” I asked absentmindedly.

“Just got off the phone with Leonard Best, the contact back in the U.S. I'm working with on this. We finally know what killed them.”

I looked up. “What?”

“Cryptococcus gattii.”

Forty-Five

“
I
t's a spore-forming fungus. Ever been to Brazil?”

“Just a beach holiday.”

“Assuming you stayed away from the Amazon, you'd have been safe. It likes warm, moist environments. They call it a killer fungus because the death rate can reach 25 percent for people who come into contact with it. An even more dangerous strain is on the U.S. West Coast. Fatalities there hit 40 percent—that's already close to mortality rates for the Black Death. The fungus our medical people just identified? Through a microscope it looks like a distorted human hand—a spongy palm with four fleshy fingers extending out from it. It's what they call hyper-virulent, meaning it kills over 90 percent of lab animals exposed to it. Loretti and Hill never had a chance.”

“How's it transmitted?”

“They're speculating it's airborne but don't know for sure. It lives in soils; in that environment it's practically undetectable.”

“So you're out for a hike and you reach down to pick up a flower, your fingers stir up the dirt and you get hit with it?”

“And weeks later you're dead. The spores we're dealing with seem to have properties that are both more acute and different from the spore-induced sickness you find in the western U.S. They haven't seen the skin and bone infections out there for one thing. It's primarily respiratory.

“Saddam had some clever researchers. Now we're wondering if they found a way to tweak this damn thing chemically to kill everything it came into contact with. If so, where the hell were they doing it?”

“If it's undetectable in soil, how would you know? Sounds like an impossible task.”

“You've got that right. Our only shot is to figure out where the scientists went. There's still one more lead to check out. Another contact turned up,” Shaheen said. “A guide at Babylon. Apparently she gave Loretti, Hill, and Renwick a tour.” He popped the lid of his Coke and drank some. “You made any headway with your brain teaser?”

“No. I'm at my wits' end with it actually. I've been staring at it too long. It's got to be something in the text itself. It would help if I could narrow down what I'm looking for. A map? Words buried in the text of one of the stories? There's just not enough to go on. Not to mention I'm totally hampered because I don't know either Italian or the Neapolitan dialect.”

Shaheen got up and walked over to the wall. “Aside from the one volume you don't have, is all the material spread out here?”

On the point of saying yes, I realized I hadn't laid out the photos of the gold covers. I hastily removed the images from my case and moved over to the window, shifting the curtains to get better light.

“Watch that,” Shaheen said sharply. “You forgot what happened last time?” He pushed me out of the way and looked out. “It's okay, I guess. But don't take long.”

I held the two pages up to the light and scrutinized the arabesque designs. There'd been no wind today to stir up the dust and the sun burned through with crystal clarity. Whether it was the particular quality of Middle Eastern light or the way I held the pages, I saw something I'd missed before. With a tremor of excitement, I shifted the angle of the pages and peered at them again to be sure. I was right.