Lion of Babylon (12 page)

Chapter Nineteen

T
hree hours later, Sameh left his office and entered the old town on foot. His destination was quite a ways off, and the day was blistering hot. But he needed time to sort through his thoughts, and he did some of his best thinking while alone in a crowd. Just another city dweller, walking and breathing the city's fearful and frenetic energy.

The imam had left one of his aides to help maintain the orderly procedure. A few of the families had allowed panic to color their claims, but nowhere near as many as Sameh had feared. Most who could not find their child on his walls left voluntarily, after handing over photographs and depositions and tearful pleas. Sameh carried their desperation with him as he walked.

The entire group had been processed in three hours. The families had brought photographs of their own, along with written lists of distinguishing marks and characteristics. They had all been through such procedures endless times before. The photographs were compared and the hospital phoned when a match was made. A nurse was on duty to check the child in question. As Major Lahm had thought to number both child and photograph, this took very little time. Once confirmed, the families were told to arrive at the hospital the next morning. A number of the children had been so traumatized they had required sedation. The doctors wanted to keep them all under supervision for another day.

By the time Sameh had left his office, all but four of the children had been identified. For those four, no family members had come forward. Which presaged a different tragedy. But that would have to wait.

Sameh passed Tayeran Square and remnants of the city's most ancient walls. Baghdad had been erected upon ruins that predated Babylon. It originally had followed the Persian design, a series of tight collectives, similar to guilds but structured as separate villages. One for carpenters, one for goldsmiths, another for healers and herbalists, and so on. One village farther north had been reserved for those noncitizens described by the Koran as “People Of the Book,” meaning Christians and Jews. The old city was vibrant again, the war damage not so much erased as joined to a myriad of more ancient scars. The traffic was chaotic, the smells and sounds and people a vibrant mix.

Sameh crossed Nafura Square and took Kifah Street. His route took him by one of modern Iraq's many anomalies, a brand-new Persian market sprawling around the sides and rear of the Al-Gailiani Mosque. Sameh was astonished at how fast the market had grown. Sheikh Abdul Kader Al-Gailiani, a tenth century Shia leader, was buried across the street from where Sameh stood. It remained a pilgrimage site, and Persians were bused in on government-run package tours. Sameh had no problem with pilgrims, Persian or otherwise. But his sentiments toward the Iranian regime and their ultra-orthodox clergy were something else entirely.

Initially, this market's traders had served the Iranian pilgrims. But increasingly these unlicensed hawkers offered everything from Persian mountain honey to Iranian toothpaste to boxy air-conditioners to diesel generators. All at prices below anything manufactured locally or brought in from the West. This was possible because the Iranian government secretly offered these traders a substantial bonus.

The deeper the United Nations sanctions bit into the Iranian economy, the more desperately these traders and the Persian manufacturers clung to the Iraqi market. Tehran subsidized the pilgrim bus services, charging the traders pennies for their transport. They doubled the number of vehicles in service. These days, more than half the buses coming from Iran carried no pilgrims at all. Seats were stripped out to increase the space for products. Freezers, motorcycles, even sacks of Persian cement were coming through border stations as “pilgrims.”

Iran's largest bank had opened an office across the street from the mosque, despite the fact that it was under UN sanctions for its ties to Iran's nuclear program. Another bank on the UN watch list had just acquired a building near the market's ever-expanding northern border. Sameh knew this because his closest friend in the legal profession had handled the building permits. Sameh was always very careful never to publicly voice his opinions. Iran's spies were everywhere. But he refused to do business with them. He would rather bed down with a nest of vipers.

Iran had sought to oppress and dominate Iraq for more than thirty centuries. The two nations had fought war after war. Sameh was a passionate student of history, and he knew Iran's habit was to smile and embrace, then slip in the unseen blade.

But their poisonous influence was far more immediate, far more dangerous. Iran was home to the most strident and conservative strains of Shia Islam. Their oppressive regime stifled everything Sameh held dear. The Christian minority of Iran had been crushed, expelled, reviled, decimated. In his opinion, Iran's current government was Iraq's most dangerous enemy. This stroll past the new Persian market was Sameh's chance to take the pulse of a plague carrier.

He rounded the corner leading to Sheikh Omar Street, where the market spilled over the curb and slowed traffic to a snarled mess. Suddenly he was surrounded by young bearded clerics, all wearing the starched garb of Iran-style conservatives. When Saddam Hussein had tried to eradicate Iraq's Shia majority, most scholars and clerics had fled east to Iran where they had been welcomed. An entire generation of Iraq's clerics had studied their theology in Farsi, rather than Arabic. The clerics who surrounded Sameh wore black trousers, scuffed black shoes, white shirts buttoned to scrawny necks, and scraggly beards.

One of the students revealed awful teeth as he hissed, “There is a dagger pointed at your heart.”

The cleric was in his early thirties, a bad age for fanatics. It meant he would never be recognized as a leading scholar yet was still young enough to volunteer for foolish acts. He also spoke Farsi. In which Sameh was fluent. Even so, Sameh responded in Arabic, “Sorry, brother, may I be of service?”

The man switched to heavily accented English. “We know you are facile with languages. We also know you are a betrayer of the worst kind. One who is disloyal to his own people.”

Sameh again replied in Arabic, raising his voice so it carried to others forcing their way around the tight cluster of clerics. “You want my watch?” Sameh lifted his hands in the manner of a supplicant begging for the attention of passersby. “Take it, please, it is yours.”

Two of the younger clerics dragged down Sameh's hands as their spokesman switched back to Farsi. “If I wanted your watch, I would have cut off your hand. Which is the proper fate of all thieves.”

Sameh knew it was very unwise to bait a man with a knife. But he had not survived Saddam to be frightened by this bearded mob. “Brush your teeth.”

The man's eyes narrowed to slits. “You would die for that, except I was ordered to stay my hand. And I obey orders, unlike traitors like you. But here is an order you will obey, thief. Stop your investigation into the missing young man.”

Sameh's voice lost its edge. “Whom do you mean?”

“The eldest son of el-Waziri. He is an apostate and deserves his fate.” The cleric's gaze shone with pleasure from shaking Sameh's composure. “Leave this alone. For the sake of your family. Go back to begging the Americans for crumbs. For myself, I consign you to the dark and the void.”

Chapter Twenty

A
police officer and Sameh's niece accompanied Marc down to the street. The officer personally flagged him a taxi, then shrugged off Marc's attempt at thanks, as though this was a service he did for all visiting foreigners. Leyla instructed the taxi driver to let Marc off across the square from the hotel. She explained to Marc this was safer, and clearly the police officer agreed. Leyla let him go with a quiet warning to take great care. Her farewell carried a distinct Baghdad flavor.

Duboe's phone call had instructed him to go to the Palestine Hotel. The high-rise building dominated one side of Ferdous Square and was surrounded by concrete antitank barriers. The access points were patrolled by guards with Kevlar vests and submachine guns. Outside the barrier, a crowd of mostly Iraqis waited to be processed and searched. Inside the barrier, two more guards manned a sandbagged fifty-caliber machine gun.

The square was packed, the traffic awful. In the distance, Marc saw the massive head of Saddam, lying now on its side and covered in refuse. A pair of Iraqis stood grinning in front of the fallen statue while a third took their photograph. Beyond them, a burned-out tank stood as sullen testimony to the city's troubles. The vast square was lined with buildings and shops and a police station and cafés.

Marc started toward the hotel when someone called his name. The sound was so bizarre, he assumed he was mistaken. Then it happened again. “Hold up there, Royce!”

A figure swiftly weaved through the crowd wearing a baseball cap pulled down low, sunglasses, a shapeless blazer, and dusty trousers. But something about the man triggered a recent memory. Marc said, “You're the leopard.”

“Say again?”

“The guy in the Rhino with me. Slipping into Baghdad.”

The guy responded with a mere twitch at the edges of his mouth. But Marc knew he liked the tag. “I'm headed down the street and around the corner and into a place I know. If you want to stay alive, you follow.”

He was gone almost before the words were formed, gliding through the massed foot traffic like smoke. Marc did his best to keep up, moving at a pace one notch below a full run. They left the square and went down a major thoroughfare, turned onto a smaller street, then entered an alley so narrow it remained in perpetual shadows.

The leopard found his way into a locals-only café filled with smoke from a dozen hookahs. He walked to the back wall, mirrored so he could sit with his back to the street and still survey everything that was going on. He pointed Marc to a stool and said, “This place caters to the crowd that doesn't like the Ramadan fast any more than I do. You gotten sick of mint tea yet? It's either that or coffee thick as oatmeal.”

“I'm supposed to be meeting—”

“I know all about that, sport. Why do you think I'm here?”

The leopard moved to the counter and ordered in what to Marc sounded like passable Arabic. He returned with the teas and a plate of cold flatbread. He settled on the stool next to Marc and offered him a hand that felt like stone. “Josh Reames.”

“Are you special ops?”

He had a grin that mocked. “Where I go, baby, that ain't nothin' but words for the body bag. You dig?”

“You're a ghost operating outside the official remit.”

“Roger that. I'm not here, and we're not talking. Only, I got to tell you, I like what you did, saving those kids. And I like even more how you gave the 'Racks credit. Me and my crew, we dig knowing there's an American civvie working the local scene, who's not hunting the spotlight back home.”

Marc gave that a moment, then asked, “Why are we sitting here?”

Reames lifted his tulip glass by the rim between thumb and forefinger. He blew softly, sipped, then said, “The guy you're supposed to meet inside that hotel, he's not on your side.”

“You mean Barry Duboe?”

“Not him. The man who ordered Duboe to set up this meeting.”

“I don't know who that is.”

“You're lucky. Jordan Boswell is not your basic embassy stiff. Boswell's clawing his way up the Washington ladder and doesn't care how many good joes he leaves in the dust.”

“Does this mean you're an ally?”

“Long as you're looking for the missing three, you bet.”

“Now why is that, I wonder.”

“One of the women who took off with Alex, we had a thing going.”

“The missionary, Hannah Brimsley?” Marc watched the specialist jerk a brief nod. “Can you tell me why they've disappeared?”

“All I know is, they were working with this other guy on something big.”

“The missing Iraqi, Taufiq el-Waziri. He was Christian?”

“No, man. His family is big-time Muslims.”

“So maybe he converted?”

“You don't use that word around here. It's like lighting a fuse with these people. But the way Hannah talked about this secret gig of hers, I'd say something more was going on than one local coming to faith.” He took off his sunglasses, revealing two strips of lighter skin across forehead and cheeks, and eyes hollowed by the strain of his life and his loss. “There aren't supposed to be missionaries operating inside this country. Hannah was here as aide to the Green Zone pastor. He's an okay joe, but he's in way over his head, just marking days off his calendar and praying he makes it home in one piece.”

Marc heard the unspoken. “Hannah Brimsley is different.”

“The lady lives for her God. She spent two years studying Arabic before she shipped over. She took care, she worked it smooth. She lives to bring Jesus into this world. And there's just no telling what's happened, or where she's . . .”

Marc watched in the mirror as Josh Reames fought down his panic and restored the iron calm of an officer operating behind the lines. The way Josh loved this woman resonated deeply. Marc asked, “You met her over here?”

“Last year at a church gig.” His voice had lowered one raw octave. “I'd studied the Book, man. For years. But she was the one who taught me what the words meant.”

“Love,” Marc said softly, remembering. “Hope. Peace. Healing. Life.”

The hand lifting Josh's cup shook slightly.

Marc said, “Since we're into confessions, let me tell you, I don't know what I'm doing. Until last week, my world was a prison called Baltimore.”

That brought Reames back from the edge. “Duboe said you were a bookkeeper.”

“The correct term is forensic accountant. Sort of an operative with numbers.” Marc waved that away. “The important thing is, I've been dropped in the deep end.”

“Which means you're open to advice.”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, Royce. Here's what you do. Call Duboe. He's over there in the Palestine Hotel, sitting next to the embassy jerk. He's why I'm here. Duboe's been made by every watcher in Baghdad. You, on the other hand, do not want to show up on that list. The Hotel Palestine is strictly for people taking the armored limo from the airport to the Green Zone, have dinner with the ambassador, bunk down at the safest hotel in Baghdad, and jet out again. They're the sort who're after photo ops and bragging rights. The embassy jerk ordered Duboe to arrange this meet because he wants you made by the bad guys. And taken out.”

Marc opened his phone and dialed the number. “What do I say?”

“Tell Duboe there's been a bomb alert aimed at the hotel. Which there was. Only it was last week. But you don't need to say that. The embassy jerk will bug out and scuttle back to the Green Zone.”

When Duboe answered, Marc fed him the line. Barry Duboe had clearly been expecting it. There was the sound of the phone being muffled, then Duboe asked, “Think you could find that alley where the troop carrier dropped you off?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow morning, ten o'clock.”

Marc shut the phone and said, “Why does somebody at the embassy want me gone?”

“You're the last thing they expected.”

“Which is?”

“A success.”

“How can they say that? I haven't done what I was sent out here to do. Alex and the other three are still missing.”

“Maybe so. But they hear the justice minister talking about some mystery American being involved in locating kidnapped children, and they worry. Then the top imam's son, Jaffar, he talks about the role this American played and how great it is to see Americans caring about Iraqi children, and they worry some more.”

Marc started to ask Josh Reames how he knew all this, but decided it didn't matter. “Is there a tie between the kidnapped children and the missing Americans?”

“That's a good question, Royce. Here's another. Are you ready for a walk on the wild side?”

“With you? Absolutely.”

“That's the right answer.” Josh Reames finished his tea and rose from his stool. “Duboe gave me your cellphone number. When the time is right, I'll invest a dime. You be ready to move.”

Then he was gone.