Escape from Baghdad! (24 page)

To his surprise, then, Yakin was prodded forward by Salemi, causing his heart to flutter like a defective alarm clock. It was a strange place for an execution, but he was now so inured to the irrational turns of Salemi's mind that he could only stumble forward with a litany of half-remembered prayers. The inside of this house, however, proved to be largely inoffensive. A narrow corridor, and then an antechamber, bare with polished marble, and then another turn into a little courtyard, beautifully paved, with the air of antiquity about it, a pocket time capsule a thousand years old, reminiscent of the glory days of Baghdad, when the city sported innumerous pleasure gardens and a generally decadent air.

There was a stunted olive tree, and underneath it sat an old man smoking a cigarette. It wasn't a regular filter tip cigarette but rather, one of those long, hand-rolled ones in fancy brown paper, with a holder made of horn or ivory or something, a bit of detail that absolutely oozed wealth and class. Yakin hated him already, and as he
got closer, something naked in the man's face shivered a thrill of ice down his spine, reverting him to instant caution mode, which was pretty much a semicomatose state of inaction and bubbling panic. With the unerring instinct of a lifetime bully, he registered instantly that this old man was neither paternal nor kindly. He felt caught between two starving wolves and understood that he himself was just a piece of disguised meat.

There were two chairs only under the tree, so he was forced to stand like a servant behind Salemi's back, off to one side of course, so as not to spook him. Normally he would have resented this, but prescience told him that in this meeting it was possibly best to stay unobtrusive. And still. Moving prey was caught first, after all.

“Welcome, imam,” the old man said with faint irony. “Please, be seated.”

The imam, who had already availed himself and who did not follow the niceties of fashion or irony in any case, merely stared him down through his steel-gray eyes.

“Thank you for attending to me,” the old man said. “You may call me Avicenna. Would you care for some tea?”

“I know who you are, old man,” Hassan Salemi said. Yakin moved to serve his master, but Salemi stopped him with an outstretched hand. “We eat or drink nothing here.”

“Oh?” Avicenna raised a withered eyebrow.

“Your reputation is well earned, alchemist,” Hassan Salemi said. “I have no desire to be poisoned.”

“It was not my intention,” Avicenna said. “But I respect your concerns.”

“You are a man reputed to be very…
civilized
,” Salemi almost spat the word. “Such things are wasted on me. Get to the point quickly.”

“You abhor civilization? How interesting,” Avicenna said. “And by interesting I mean barbaric.”

“Let me rephrase then,” Hassan Salemi said. “You no doubt take me as a gun-wielding brute with the banner of Ali nailed to my back; A killer of men, a fanatic, a destroyer.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I am all of those things.”

“It is always nice to have one's observations supported by confession.”

“When civilization has let you down, barbarism is the obvious answer.”

“Let you down?” Avicenna sat forward, obviously intrigued.

“I have spent my whole life in revolution,” Hassan Salemi said. “Against Saddam, against Americans, against the men who rule us now. Early on in life, I understood one thing. It was a singular lesson. Everything afterward has confirmed this.”

“A religious epiphany? Extraterrestrials? Djinns?”

“Someday, old man, I may kill you,” Hassan Salemi said. It was casual, as if he were speaking of the weather. Yakin remembered Amal's blood cooling on the floor, the reek of it. “I answer to no man. Remember that when you mock me next.”

“I am merely curious,” Avicenna said, unperturbed. “The lesson you learned.”

“Is that no one man is the enemy,” Hassan Salemi said. “Nor any one army or company or country. These are all facades of the same thing.”

“How profound.”

“The system is the enemy,” Salemi said, ignoring him. “The system of everything, the system of the world. The system supports tyranny, the control of wealth and power by a handful. It requires the vast majority to live in ignorance and weakness, to work unceasingly toward some dream of prosperity just beyond their grasp. The faces change, but their habits do not.”

“This is an abstraction. You are a soldier.”

“I am a soldier of God,” Hassan Salemi said. “And I answer to no man, although many may claim to be my master. The only way to win is to tear it all down. When I was a foot soldier, I was treated with contempt. When I commanded a brigade, they offered me guns and dinars to fight Saddam. Now they offer me US dollars in Switzerland
to fix elections. In five years, they will offer me barrels of oil per day and villas in Spain to run the city. What changes? Nothing.”

“And what do you want, then, imam?”

“This game cannot be won. We must change the game. I am doing God's work.”

“God's work. He told you so, did He?”

“You have lived a long time Avicenna,” Hassan Salemi said. “Yet till now you have found nothing of God? He turns his face from you. You are an abomination.”

“Nonetheless, you are here, imam. We are at the same table, working toward the same goal. Do you know what that tells me? It is not God who moves men: It is earthly motivation,” Avicenna leaned back. “Imam, I want you to kill some men for me.”

“I am not a hired gun.”

“In return, I will give you some information,” Avicenna said. “It is the only currency I deal in these days.”

“What information is worth the life of men?”

“The information you have been searching for so fervently. I will give you the murderers of your son—and the Americans who helped them,” Avicenna said. “Is that not sufficient?”

“That is sufficient,” Salemi said.

“Very well. Parked beside an abandoned building in an alley off Abu Nuwas Street is an American military vehicle. There are four soldiers stationed with it. You are to kill them. There will be no repercussions from the military. Those four men and the vehicle they are in do not exist in official military logs.”

“These Americans killed my son?”

“Yes, they were partially involved,” Avicenna said. “Do not mistake me. These men are drug addicts and mass murderers. They are human scum. No god on earth would tolerate their existence for long.”

“Do not speak of God, blasphemer. What next?”

“In a certain safehouse, hiding, are the three men who actually pulled the trigger,” Avicenna said. “After you have eliminated the Americans, I will give you that location. You may find three women
living there, and other…human dross. You may kill them all. And burn the house down.”

“You appear very well informed on the murderers of my son.”

“As I said, information is my currency. And I am not a hoarder,” Avicenna said. “These men are petty criminals, whom no one on earth shall miss. They are insignificant in the greater scheme.”

“And the others in this house?”

“War sometimes has a purifying effect. It shakes loose all the human garbage that exists on the fringes of society. This house is full of this ilk: the useless, the discarded, the forgotten dregs. Killing them will be doing a favor to the rest of us.”

“If it is so simple, why have you not done it yourself?”

“I am no longer in the business of killing,” Avicenna said. “There are three women living in that house, women who bear me some grudge. It would be a favor to me if you destroyed them.”

“It is distasteful to me, this killing of rabble.”

“This rabble has all had a hand in the death of your son, directly or indirectly.”

“I have heard it whispered that you were chasing these men for a reason of your own.”

“The three petty thieves, whose description I am sure you have already obtained, carry with them a small object. A watch, stolen from me. It is critical that this object is returned to me. That is all the payment I require for my information.”

“Very well.”

“After that, I would advise you to erase all proof that these men ever walked the earth. Kill their families, their friends, anyone who knew them in any way,” Avicenna said.

“Do you fear retaliation?”

“These men are nothing. They are not capable of retaliation. What I seek is to remove all links between us and this business,” Avicenna said. “Trust me it is better for both of us to keep our—association—private.”

“This watch,” Hassan Salemi said casually. “What is it? Why kill so many men for it?”

“An heirloom,” Avicenna said. “I merely object to being stolen from. It's the principle of it. I'm sure you understand.”

“I understand that there are some men quite frantic to get this watch,” Hassan Salemi said. “Do you think I have no one in the Mukhabarat?”

“Mukhabarat?” Avicenna let out a slow, private smile. “Let me tell you a little secret. The Mukhabarat of Saddam was the great-great-grandchild of a far older organization. Something that I helped to build, in fact. I would not trust the Mukhabarat if I were you.”

“I have heard that ‘the Old Man is looking for an ancient treasure',” Hassan Salemi said. “And now you ask me to murder a handful of men for a watch.”

“Do you seek great treasure, imam? If I knew it were that easy, I would not have bothered meeting you. Write your price on a piece of paper. I will send the amount to whatever bank you trust.”

“I am not a dog to do your bidding for a bone,” Hassan Salemi said. “There is word of a Druze watch and the mystical secrets it contains. Tell me the truth of this matter.”

“The truth? The Druze watch is a myth. There is no great secret; only the remnants of a handful of Druze riffraff, cowering in the shadows somewhere.”

“Then why do you pursue them?'

“Because they are my enemy and have been for centuries,” Avicenna said. “Because I would destroy them once and for all and close this chapter. When you age, you will realize that one by one every lofty ideal falls away and all we are left with are old grudges.”

“You are a man who has stayed hidden in shadow through countless regimes,” Hassan Salemi said. “And now you stick your neck out for an old grudge? I am a simple man, but this is too simple even for me.”

“I sense that you are destined for great things, imam,” Avicenna said. “Be content that after this episode, you will never see or hear from me again.”

Outside, Yakin felt the sunlight on his face and shuddered a release of long held tension. The very presence of the old man had been oppressive, an insidious oppression, sneaking up on him and causing subconscious panic. He was used to a low level state of panic in any case; hanging around Hassan Salemi did that to him. He now realized that his mistake had been to assume that Salemi was a unique creature. That other leviathan terrors existed in the world broke upon him now, and he railed for a moment at the unfairness of it. How many of these monsters
were
there, prowling in silence? How was a regular street bully supposed to compete?

“What did you think of our benefactor?” Hassan Salemi asked, in the car.

“He is old,” Yakin said, “and evil.”

“Yes,” Hassan Salemi said. “A very old evil man. I think we will kill him after this little game is finished. God will appreciate that.”

23: INTO THE ABATTOIR

D
AGR STOOD ON THE ROOF AND BREATHED
. T
HE SMELL OF BURNING
trash disturbed the moment, but there was a cool breeze off the river, and he could imagine the Tigris flowing serenely not far away, a silvery reflection of the dawn, unmindful of all this temporary agitation, going back centuries through the Ottomans, the Abbasids, the Persians, back to Babylon and even beyond, to the first men settling on its shores. The river had tasted plenty of blood and ashes. The river didn't care. He saw across the city from this height, and it all looked peaceful. He could tell no difference from now and before, and it surprised him that everything would endure, that soon the bitter little points of his life would be forgotten. He couldn't recall ever standing on the roof and watching the sun rise. He missed the rush of stumbling out of bed, bickering over the sink with his wife, trying to make breakfast and coffee at the same time while she fussed over the girl, combing hair and brushing crumbs, the routine check for errant pencils and books. It seemed far away now, as far as the river.

“This shit burns. Fuck. Don't take it.” Kinza joined him, and as usual the world jarred back to the inescapable present.

“I wasn't planning on it,” Dagr said. “Where the hell did you get it?”

“The witch's nephew. He's brilliant. Can get you anything. Fucking cut my coke with paracetamol, though, the little bastard,” Kinza took another tentative snort. “Not so bad the second time around. Hmm. My nasal passage is perhaps already lacerated.”