Escape from Baghdad! (31 page)

“Olive tree? Old Man?” Hoffman had his jaw open. “Sab, is it Avi?”

“Hush, dear, keep reading, we're just at the interesting bit.”

“It's Avi, isn't it? Your grandfather.” A cool finger rested on his lips. She was too close. Hoffman breathed in deeply, the light citrus of her skin filling his head. He leaned back, disoriented.

“I'll explain everything. Let's just finish, ok?”

Log 35, Day 68, Safe House 1, Office.
Subject 1, male, 34 years. Subject 2, female, 29 years. Mazra has finally found some suitable candidates for our clinical trial. So far, the analysis of Taha's blood and DNA reveals many clues as to the methods Geber/OM must have used. Yet some part is missing, some critical portion. Something that OM himself does not know, presumably. He is pressing me to go over old notes and look for mentions of the Druze watch. I have fobbed him off for now. I am growing convinced that the Druze watch has the missing link of this alchemical immortality. Mazra and I have taken turns questioning Taha, but he is growing very difficult to control. Mazra has him locked in the cell full time now. Taha refuses to answer questions about the watch. I wish I had a professional interrogator to work on him. I have discussed the situation hypothetically with Dr. J. He suspects, of course but can never know the true extent of the situation.

Log 39, Day 72, Safe House 1, Lab.
Disaster! Taha has escaped! He overpowered Mazra during feeding time. The tranks must be like water to him now. He's gone! God knows where. Luckily Subjects 1 and 2 are
ok. Mazra has brought in Subject 3, male, 25 years. I must continue the work without Taha. Cancer is a big problem. Subject 2 already showing tumors. The delivery method is another issue. It must be like a disease, like a virus, which can affect almost every cell in the human body. Only a very potent virus would be able to effect wholesale changes in the host human body. Something like herpes simplex, perhaps, which has different latency stages and does not cause immediate cell death. The virus could have a long lysogenic cycle, where it would copy itself into the host DNA and lie dormant, allowing the host cell to multiply normally. I must try to graft the telomerase-making protein code or some similar device to a viral DNA that can successfully penetrate the human body, spread to most of the key cells—perhaps mainly stem cells—and then not cause cancers or other ill effects, but rather, simply prevent senescence. Is this even possible? It boggles the mind to think someone 1,300 years ago might have thought of this.

The problem would be easier to fix if it just caused a genetic mutation in the sperm or egg cells. The beneficiary, of course, would be the offspring. Yet this is not the case. OM, Geber, even Taha most likely were not born but transmuted, as the alchemist would say. I cannot help but wonder: if these alchemists discovered immortality so long ago, then are these terrible old men floating around now, ruling the world in secret?

“Ah, Sawad, the prick knew too much, really.” The vulgarity sounded ill on Sabeen's lips, made her face somehow cruel.

Hoffman made to withdraw, uneasy suddenly that Behruse was behind him. BANG! He jumped in the air, half expecting to be shot. The shockwave of the bullet reverberated around the closed space and set Dog Boy off moaning again. Hoffman rolled to a crouching position, his nose bleeding, to see the tree trunk body of the Kurd toppling slowly, a red ruin in the center of his face, a gaping hole
that Hoffman could almost see through. Too late, he scrambled for his gun.

“Sorry, Hoffy.” Behruse had the pistol on him, so close, that he could feel the heat from the discharge.

Sabeen lit a cigarette and pulled deeply. Her eyes were cold. “It could have played out differently.”

Hoffman sprawled on the ground, hands out. “Sawad worked for you.”

“Yes, from the start,” Sabeen said. “He betrayed us, of course.”

“Who pushed him off the roof?”

“That would be me,” Behruse laughed. He did not appear so kindly anymore. “I was supposed to capture him, but he made a run for it—
to the roof
. I swear, what the fuck did he expect to find there? A stairway to heaven? The idiot practically jumped rather than get caught.”

“You fucked me, Behruse.”

“Hey, Hoffy, it was just pure bad luck,” Behruse smiled and then his boot came down, smashing into Hoffman's knee. “You shouldn't have fucked my bitch wife.”

“Enough!” Sabeen's voice was a whiplash; it left in no doubt who was master here.

“Sab, what the hell was this?” Hoffman asked from the ground. “Why play me for so long?”

“We needed you, sweet one,” Sabeen said. “We needed you to take us places where we could not go. We needed to find out the full extent of Sawad's betrayals. Grandfather saw the potential in you, and he was right.”

“Dr. Nur?”

“Dead, strangled by you,” Sabeen said.

“Dr. J?”

“Soon to be shot using your gun. You also pushed Dr. Sawad off the roof, in case you were wondering.”

“My friends?”

“Salemi knows where they are hiding. He'll take care of them,” Sabeen said. “And return the watch if they have it.”

“He'll kill them.”

“Lucky, if they die quick,” Behruse said. “Hassan Salemi likes to toy with his food before eating it, I hear.”

“So you win everything,” Hoffman said. He let his head fall back flat on the ground. Ali Mazra's blood pooled nearby, steaming.

“Taha is still loose,” Sabeen shrugged. “He will return here, one day soon. It is the only refuge he knows. We'll take him then.”

“Oh yeah, and your men,” Behruse said. “They're dead. Salemi got them two days ago. IED. Islamic Jihadi Grand Council of Shulla took responsibility on the radio for it.”

“You
didn't have to do that,
” Hoffman cried. “They didn't know anything.”

Sabeen shook her head. “You think grandfather takes chances anymore?”

“I shoot myself now, I guess?” Hoffman asked. “You want me to write a note?”

“I'm not going to kill you, dear,” Sabeen said. “You're far too precious. Grandfather wants to know who you really work for. And again, you might have to stand trial for all those murders.”

“At least give me some more pills,” he said, panicked at the sudden thought of all that poison eating up his insides.

“Oh, Hoffman, you're addicted to them,” Sabeen said. “You've taken so many that I think you're impervious to
all
poison now.”

“That won't help if I put a bullet in your gut though. Get up. No bullshit now.” Behruse kicked Hoffman in the back, not in anger, more with a sort of professional force, enough to hurt, not enough for permanent damage.

Hoffman curled up, whimpering. He felt no compulsion to hold up under torture of any kind. He knew very clearly that he would blurt out any and all truths at the first opportunity. Behruse swore disgustedly, grabbed him under the armpits, and started to drag him away. The sound of the Dog Boy's incoherence got louder.

“Wait, wait!” Hoffman shouted. “Do not put me in with that freak! Behruse! Behruse! Aarrrggghh.”

30: BURNING BOOKS

Y
AKIN GRIPPED HIS
AK47
WITH TRUCULENCE
. I
T WAS JUST HIS LUCK
to get a bum weapon. He had asked for the Bulgarian gun with the beechwood stock because that was the best, but of course, he had been overruled. They hadn't even given him a Chinese one. No. Instead, he was holding some mangled reject made in Bangladesh, which didn't even have a gun manufactory. It was probably made on some boat by a fisherman. The gun had a 75% misfire rate! 75%! It was actually safer to give the gun to the enemy and let it blow
his
hand off.

Even though he was shadowing the imam, and therefore probably going to be the first one to die, he still did not garner the respect he deserved. The others called him names behind his back and were trying to kill him. They hated him and wanted him out of the way.

That was the only answer. How was he supposed to get on in life if his own side was trying to kill him? He had asked for a bulletproof vest and a helmet, but the imam had laughed him away, and their de facto quartermaster had given him a red scarf. A red scarf? How the hell was that supposed to stop bullets? In fact, it would probably attract bullets. The enemy would single him out as a champion warrior because he was the only idiot wearing a red scarf. Of course, Yakin reflected bitterly, if he now refused to wear the red scarf, they would all gang up on him and call him disloyal, and a traitor, and unwilling to die for God.

This was the one epithet to be avoided at all costs in this crew. To be eager to die for God was the one credo the imam consistently loved, no matter what kind of madness was the current flavor of the month. To be fairly lukewarm about the idea of dying for God was a surefire way of getting pressed into the front lines.

The imam was on a roll. Things had been going very well for him after the initial disappointment of having his house blown up. This was bad news for Yakin, who had realized some time ago that whenever things went well for people around him, it meant inevitably that he was somehow going to land in the shit. This, he reflected bitterly, was the story of his life.

The partnership with the Old Man had borne fruit. The imam's bomb squad had just taken out a group of American soldiers, without any reprisal from the Americans. At the current market rate of 1 white body equaling 78.3 olive-skinned bodies, this was a massive coup in the streets, and his name was being touted for the state legislature.