The Sanctuary (28 page)

“I’m with the American embassy,” Corben informed him flatly. “We’re trying to find Evelyn, and we’re hoping you can help us. The Fuhud detectives you called up told me about the man who came to see you yesterday, Farouk. We really need to talk to him to see if he can help us secure her release.”

“He’s going to call me at
noon
.” Ramez’s voice quivered uncomfortably.

Corben pointed at the cell phone on the desk.
“That one?”

Ramez nodded. “They said they were coming here. They said they’d tell me what to say.”

“I’d prefer it if you came with us to the embassy,” Corben said. “You’ll be safer there.
Just until we bring Farouk in.”

Ramez’s eyes widened at the mention, and he took an instinctive step backwards. “Safer?”

“Just a precaution,” Corben assured him. “We don’t know how well connected these guys are, but they seem to know what they’re doing. They’re also looking for Farouk. I can’t guarantee your safety anywhere else.” He paused, clearly letting the warning sink in.

From the grim expression on Ramez’s face, it seemed to have sunk him with it.

“We should go,” Corben told him soberly as he stepped to the desk and picked up the phone. He handed it to Ramez, who took it, looked at it for a moment, and slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans. “I’ll let the detectives know you’re with us.” He saw some lingering anxiety in the assistant professor’s eyes. “You’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

Ramez glanced at Mia. She gave him a small nod and a supportive half-smile. He shrugged and nodded back with grim acceptance.

Corben led the way as they exited the building and walked back to the car. He scanned the quiet surroundings—the university’s campus was an oasis of tranquillity even during the worst of times—as he ushered Ramez into the backseat. Moments later, the big gates parted again and the big gray Cherokee rejoined the noisy streets of
Beirut
.

Corben waited for a couple of cars to pass before cutting across Rue Bliss in the opposite direction and heading up the big, open intersection that fronted the university’s entrance. He glanced in the mirror at Ramez and reached for his cell phone to call the Fuhud detectives. The assistant professor was staring nervously ahead, his face riven with unease—and just then, something else rushed into the mirror, a dark shadow accompanied by a strained engine growl and an earsplitting screech of tires, and a split second later, something rammed the Cherokee full force from behind.

C
orben’s hands tightened against the steering wheel as the Jeep lurched forward from the collision, the power of the impact launching Mia and Ramez against their seat belts as they screamed in panic.

Corben flicked a glance through his mirror and saw the car, a large, dark Mercedes that he recognized from outside Evelyn’s apartment, fall back a bit as the Cherokee disengaged briefly from its attacker, the momentum of the hit propelling it forward, but before he could floor the pedal to try to outrun them, the charging car screamed forward and rammed the back of the Cherokee again, hitting it at a slight angle this time and sending it swerving wide and out of control. The parked cars to their right flashed past in a blur before the Cherokee’s front bumper clipped one of them and spun on itself, plowing into the small gap between two of the cars, its air bags popping open and slamming into Corben and Mia as the big SUV bulldozed through the cars in an orgy of mangled steel and exploding rubber before skidding to a lung-wrenching stop.

Less than five seconds had passed from the moment of the first impact.

Dazed, his vision blurred and his ears ringing, Corben heard the attacking car screeching to a halt somewhere nearby, off to his left. He knew they had seconds to live if they didn’t move with lightning speed. He couldn’t see anything out of the windshield, which had spider-webbed, but his own window was open and he saw the doors to the attackers’ car swing open and armed men emerging, one of them, the pockmarked man he recognized from the chase outside Evelyn’s apartment, spewing out loud orders in Arabic. Corben shot a glance at Mia, who looked shell-shocked but seemed unhurt, next to him, an air bag pinning her against her seat, and pulled out his gun. Without flinching, he put a bullet in his air bag, then one in hers. They flattened with a sudden outpouring of air. Crouching low, he swung his arm towards his window and loosed a few rounds at the hit men, sending them scattering for cover as he yelled to Mia, “Get out, that way, go!” and stabbed a finger towards her door.

Mia unclipped her seat belt and tugged at the door latch desperately. The door wouldn’t open, its frame bent from the collision. “It’s stuck,” she shouted back as she pushed, putting her weight into it. “It won’t open!”

“Get it open now or we’re dead,” Corben yelled as he fired out his window again, peppering the street around them with bullets, buying them a few more seconds. “Ramez, get out of the car, away from the street,” he ordered. He edged upwards for a peek over the headrest of his seat, towards the back of the car, and saw the tips of Ramez’s fingers poking up from the back, shivering nervously. “Ramez,” he shouted again, but the assistant professor didn’t answer him, instead muttering something angrily in Arabic that Corben couldn’t make out.

Mia slammed her shoulder into the door and it groaned open a couple of inches. She kicked and pushed at it until it was wide enough for them to climb out. “Okay,” she screamed.

Corben herded her out frantically, yelling, “Get out and stay low,” as he fired a few more rounds before crawling across the seat behind her, head down, and slithering out of the car headfirst onto the sidewalk. “Ramez,” he shouted as he pounded on the back door. He craned his head up to look into the car, but had to duck down, cursing, as a volley of bullets crunched into the other side of the car and splattered against the wall behind him.

He heard the leader of the killers shout something out in Arabic—“We need him alive, don’t kill the professor”—and a second later Ramez screamed back in Arabic, “I’m coming out, don’t shoot!”

Corben yelled,
“No!”
as he heard the opposite passenger door creak open. He spun to Mia, ordered her, “Stay down,” clenched the gun in both fists, and took in a deep breath before springing upwards, finger on the trigger, only to find Ramez, his hands raised, stumbling away from the Cherokee, towards two of the killers who had now emerged from their cover. The sight down the nozzle of Corben’s handgun found one of them and he loosed a couple of rounds. The man snapped backwards and yelped in pain as his shoulder erupted in a red puff of blood. Corben swung across to fire at the other man but hesitated for a split second as Ramez was in his line of fire, and before he could find the shot, the pockmarked leader of the hit team swung out from his cover and fired back. Corben ducked down as the rounds hammered their way into the car’s bent panels like rivets while others sizzled past, skimming the stranded SUV’s roof and biting into the wall beyond.

Mia and Corben huddled against the Cherokee and crouched low, with their backs against the car, Corben scanning left and right, mind racing frantically, Mia watching him with her heart in her throat.

He heard some more hurried orders in Arabic—“Finish them off, hurry, we have to move”—and tensed up as he peeked over the doorsill and glimpsed two of the killers converging on the Cherokee, one from either side, while Ramez was being shoved into the big sedan by the leader. Corben took in a big gulp of air, raised a cautioning finger at Mia, and waited a split second, listening carefully to the rushing, approaching footsteps before rolling to his side, towards the back of the beached SUV, and, staying low, raising his gun to fire from under the vehicle at the feet of one of the killers who was now less than ten feet away. He steadied his grip and ripped out three quick shots and saw bursts of blood erupt from the man’s ankles before he toppled over, screaming in agony.

The move took the other killer by surprise. He freaked out, unleashing a ferocious barrage of bullets at the SUV, cursing maniacally at the top of his voice as the rounds tore through the metal and the seats and exploded any remaining windows, before the gang’s leader ordered him back to the car with a fierce yell. The crazed shooter kept cursing out loud and firing as he retreated to the sedan.

Corben felt his jaw muscles tighten as he waited for him to turn and climb in, figuring that would give him the opening to take him out. Sure enough, the wild firing stopped a couple of seconds later. Corben visualized him getting into the car, and just when he imagined the man would be most vulnerable, half into the car, he darted out from behind the SUV and fired, only the car’s door was already swinging shut, and more worrying, the man whose ankles he’d obliterated was turning to face him and raising his submachine gun at him. Corben quickly dropped to one side and fired off four rounds into the writhing man’s chest and skull before watching the Merc tearing down the street until it disappeared from view around a corner.

Corben got up, the staccato beating of his heart pounding deafeningly in his ears. He stepped out into the street and checked the downed killer. There was little doubt that the man was dead. He looked around him, taking in the otherworldly, deathly silence after the ear-shattering chaos of only seconds ago, and called out to Mia, “You okay?”

Mia emerged from behind the SUV, covered in dust and with deadened eyes, but otherwise intact. “Yeah,” she said, nodding as she came around the battered car and joined him.

The whole experience had been mind-blowingly brief and intense, and she felt shell-shocked and yet, oddly, desensitized. The crash, the bullets—she felt strangely dissociated from it, as if it had happened to someone else. It was all such a blur, a confusing, manic storm, one that she’d somehow survived.

She saw the dead killer lying in the middle of the road and wanted to turn away, but couldn’t, not immediately. Something made her get closer to it. She took a long, cold look at his body—one of his feet had been sheared right off at the ankle, a bloody mess splattered on the asphalt around it—and at his hard, lifeless face, before glancing up at Corben.

He looked at her, as if trying to suss out how she was feeling. Somehow, she didn’t feel devastated. She didn’t feel scared, she didn’t feel like crying. She felt different.

She felt angry.

And right there and then, standing in the middle of that dusty road, with blood pooling under the dead killer and steam pouring out of the SUV’s engine and stunned civilians emerging from every corner and converging on them in shocked silence, what she wanted most in the world was to make sure the bastards that did this, the bastards who had kidnapped her mother and killed those soldiers and had now also taken away Ramez, the pathological psychopaths who destroyed lives and rode roughshod over this city as if it were their little fiefdom, meting out pain and suffering with galling indifference, were stopped with—to use an expression for whose meaning she now had a whole new appreciation—extreme prejudice.

C
orben had just finished checking the dead killer’s body for anything that would lead back to the hakeem, or for a cell phone—neither of which he found—when the Fuhud detectives barreled in.

With them there to arrange for carting off the dead body and the wrecked Cherokee, he was good to go. He didn’t want to hang around there any longer than he had to, and he didn’t have to. Filling in the detectives was a courtesy, to keep them sweet, but the clock was ticking. Farouk would be calling Ramez in less than four hours’ time, and with Ramez in the hands of the enemy, Corben had to move fast.

He recovered his briefcase, and not holding out much hope, he checked the back of the Cherokee for Ramez’s phone in case it had fallen out of his pocket in the chaos. It wasn’t there. He dropped to one knee and swept his eye under the car too, but there was no sign of it there either. He made sure the weapons cache in the trunk was solidly locked, and after giving the two detectives a clipped briefing of what had happened and telling them to clear the area as quickly as possible and not to release anything to the press just yet, he turned down their offer of a ride and, instead, hailed a passing taxi to take him and Mia up to the embassy in Awkar.

MIA LOOKED BACK at the receding scene of the shoot-out through the rear windshield of the taxi as it drove off towards
East Beirut
and the hills beyond.

She was still dazed by what had erupted around her only minutes earlier, and a tangle of frenzied, jarring images flooded her mind. She settled back into the subdued normality of the comfortable car—the driver, who hardly spoke any English, had his radio on, piping mind-numbingly upbeat Arabic music around her, while Corben was on the phone with someone at the embassy—letting her mind settle down, until she found herself processing what had happened with more clarity. As the tightly packed, somewhat shabby stucco apartment buildings streamed by, she wondered where Ramez was being taken to. She pictured him in some grimy, windowless room somewhere—perhaps where Evelyn was being held too—and flashed forward to Farouk’s imminent phone call. She felt a sudden upwelling of worry as she played out its implications in her mind.

She heard Corben end his phone call, and given that the taxi had been picked out randomly off the street and that the driver’s failed attempt at casual conversation had clearly shown how virtually nonexistent his English was, she felt it was safe to talk. She turned to Corben.

“We need to find a way to warn Farouk,” she urged him. “If he calls Ramez, he’ll be walking into a trap.”

“You’re assuming they know he’s expected to call him.”

She hadn’t thought it through, but it seemed to make sense to her. “Why else would they grab him? The timing’s a bit too perfect for it to be just a coincidence, don’t you think? I mean, Ramez calls in to say he’s in touch with him, and boom, they show up and grab him?” The idea seeded her with more unease. She lowered her voice, feeling more aware of the driver’s presence. “Last night, you said you didn’t want to flag Ramez to the local cops. You must think the kidnappers have a mole at the station, right?”

Corben glanced at the driver. Mia followed his gaze. The driver seemed to be uninterested.

“I’d be amazed if they didn’t,” Corben said in a muted, unfazed tone.

“Which means they know Farouk’s going to call him,” she pressed, whispering conspiringly now. “You need to do something to warn him. What about putting something out on the news? Get the main local stations to say that Ramez’s been kidnapped, maybe even give Farouk a signal to come in, to call the cops or—no,” she quickly corrected herself, “to call you, to call the embassy directly.”

“If he finds out that Ramez’s been kidnapped,” Corben countered, “he’ll run. He’ll be so scared he won’t trust anyone. He’ll just disappear. And if he does, we’ll lose our only link to your mom.”

“But he’ll be walking into a trap.”

Corben’s expression suggested he had already thought of that. “Maybe we can use that.”

Which took her aback.
“What do you mean?”

Corben hesitated. “I mean we might have a chance to get Farouk and flush these guys out at the same time.” He darted another glance at the driver. “Let’s not get into it right now.”

She got his drift. She still didn’t think there was any risk in discussing it, but she relented and sat back in her chair and looked out her window, uncomfortable with the notion of using Farouk as bait.

The taxi cruised along the seafront, past the new marina where gleaming hundred-foot yachts mingled uncomfortably with rickety wooden fishing boats, and onto the highway that led to
East Beirut
. The city bubbled on regardless, turning a jaded eye to the not-so-infrequent acts of violence that would have caused huge outrage in other countries. As the fruit and vegetable vendors rushed by, something kept nagging at her, the question that wouldn’t go away and that, once you got past the priority of getting Evelyn back, was really at the heart of everything that was happening.

She turned to Corben again. “What is he after? What the hell does he want with some moldy old book?”

“I don’t know,” Corben simply answered.

“But you must have researched it. You must have some theory about what it’s about, what he’s looking for, don’t you?”

Corben slid another glance in the driver’s direction,
then
looked at Mia.
“Like I said.
It’s not necessarily relevant.”

“Not relevant?”

“You’re trying to apply your logic, your way of thinking, to what maniacs like this guy are about,” he clarified. “But that’s not how it works. We’re talking about some very sick people here, guys who are certifiably insane. Saddam, his sons, his cousins…these guys lived in their own fantasy world. People’s lives had no value for them. You know those kids who get their kicks plucking wings off butteries or blowing up frogs with firecrackers? These guys are like that, only for them, humans are much more fun than frogs.”

“Okay, I understand that, but I still don’t get his interest in ancient relics.”

“It could be anything,” Corben replied. “Remember Mengele’s experiments?
Hitler’s obsession with the occult?
Maybe it’s some cult from history that he feels connected to. The key word here is
insane
. Once you factor that in, anything’s possible. There was a scientist working on a biological weapons program in
South Africa
a few years back, in the days of apartheid. You know what his pet project was?
An ethnospecific bioweapon.
He was developing a virus that would only kill black people. And that was after they’d started putting stuff in the water to make them infertile. And it’s doable. Anything’s doable when it comes to killing people. So you tell me. Is our guy after some ancient recipe for something, some virus, some old plague or poison that holds some poetic appeal to him? Or is he just some demented nut whose obsessiveness will help bring about his downfall? I’d go with the latter.”

Mia thought about it for a moment. Maybe it wasn’t that relevant after all. The point was to free Evelyn and, as a bonus, take down the hakeem. Still, it was bugging her. “Iraq, Persia, that whole area’s got a rich history, medically speaking,” she noted, “but that was a thousand years ago.” Her brain was firing more efficiently now, and thinking about history and medicine nudged her into more comfortable and familiar territory, a theoretical, problem-solving mind-set that helped move her away from the harsh reality she’d been sucked into. She also found solace in the notion that perhaps this was where she could be useful.

“Do you know how old the book is?” she asked.

“No.”

She frowned, deep in thought. An idea surfaced. “I’ve been working with a historian on my project out here. This guy—his name’s Mike Boustany—he’s a walking encyclopedia when it comes to this region. Maybe if I showed him the Polaroids, he could give us an idea of how old the books are.”

Corben grimaced. “I’m not sure we’re ready to show them around. Not while this is in play.”

“I’m sure he can be discreet if we ask him to.” Mia could see that Corben wasn’t convinced. “We need to explore every angle, don’t we? Evelyn would want us to.”

Corben held her gaze for a beat. “Sure, why not,” he relented. “Knock yourself out. But I’d like you to think about something else. I want you to reconsider leaving the country.” She opened her mouth to object, but he raised his hands to pause her. “I know you feel you need to be here, and that’s normal. I wanted you here
too,
I thought you might remember something that could be important. But this is snowballing out of control. I know you want to do everything you can to help get your mom back, but realistically, I don’t think there’s anything more you can do. These guys were prepared to kill you today. You need to think about your safety. We can keep you safe, but…I can’t guarantee anything. I’m not saying you need to go far, but even
Cyprus
would be better than here. I just need you to think about that, alright?”

Mia felt a tightening in her chest. She knew she’d already used up whatever karmic goodwill she had coming to her in the last couple of days. Staying on was simply tempting fate, and, thinking about it, his suggestion, however deflating, made perfect sense to her. But then again, it wasn’t about rational thinking. She couldn’t leave. It was as simple as that. She knew she wasn’t safe here; she wasn’t even sure she had anything to contribute to finding her mom. But she was part of it. She felt connected not just to Evelyn, but to Ramez and Farouk and their struggle for survival. She felt connected to the city and to its people, and—there was no denying it—to the perverse and dangerous visceral elation that coursed through her when bullets were flying and when she was running for her life.

Beset by a confusing cocktail of dismay and relief, unsure about which instinct to follow, she looked at Corben. “Just do your best then,” she finally muttered, not really wanting to debate the issue right now. “I can’t ask for more.”

“You got it.” He paused,
then
nodded reassuringly. “We’ll get her back.”

She knew it wasn’t a certainty.
Far from it.

The odds were against it.

A deep sense of loss swooped down on her, and she turned and looked out the window as the city flew past her in a sun-drenched concrete blur.

C
orben found Mia a workstation in a small, unoccupied room by the press office, where she could make her calls and use the Internet.

He told her that given the urgency of Farouk’s expected call and the live state of play, he’d have someone arrange for her to stay at a hotel or in an embassy safe house, and that he’d have someone watching over her in either case. He’d also have her stuff sent over from his apartment as soon as he had a chance to go there himself, but that in the meantime, to let him know if there was anything she needed.

He left her in the annex and crossed the courtyard leading to the main villa and the ambassador’s office.

The thought of Mia discussing the Polaroids with her historian colleague flashed through his mind. It worried him slightly, but he didn’t think it was avoidable. He would have preferred it if she’d agreed to leave the country. The hakeem and his men weren’t pulling punches, regardless of the fallout. And aside from her being able to positively identify Farouk, Corben didn’t really think she could bring anything more to the table. Still, he knew she’d be staying. And it aroused mixed feelings inside him.

Despite the context, he’d enjoyed her company. She was good-looking and smart, and she was American. It made a change from the local casual companions he’d been hooking up with since he’d been posted to this little corner of the planet.
Beirut
didn’t lack in women—far from it, in fact, due to the huge number of men who left the country in search of a decent paycheck and a slightly reduced risk of death by shrapnel—and Corben was an attractive, available man. And with sexual electricity bouncing off the walls all across the city due to the constant—and in the case of the previous summer, realized—threat of war, his dance card was pretty well filled. But the job meant that his personal life had its limitations. Casual encounters never went beyond just
that,
and he knew nothing would have come out of being with Mia either, even if this thing hadn’t erupted around them.
Which suited him fine.

He wasn’t exactly a nesting kind of guy.

He climbed the stairs that led up to the ambassador’s office. Although he would have preferred not to waste time on such a meeting now, he had to brief his boss on the morning’s events. He didn’t really want to confer with anyone at the embassy at all, but he couldn’t avoid the meeting. The shoot-out had been too visible, too glaring to be sidelined. So he was annoyed to discover that, as well as the head of station, the ambassador and
Kirkwood
would also be attending. He knew the next few hours were critical, and the last thing he needed was any unwarranted interference.

He was let in immediately, greeted the men, and took a seat facing the ambassador’s desk.

He weighed his words carefully.
Which wasn’t a problem.