Authors: Raymond Khoury
The Sanctuary (40 page)
The hakeem shrugged.
“Like I said.
Get me the book and the buyer. Maybe after that, you can stage a miraculous escape and free her too.” He looked a question at the pockmarked man and asked him something in Arabic.
Corben strained to look over his shoulder and saw the killer pull out Corben’s cell phone from a pocket. He’d taken out its battery, which he held in his hand.
The hakeem nodded, then stowed the syringe in the briefcase and motioned to his men to take it away. He turned and walked off, flicking a terse signal to his men. They approached Corben.
“So is it real?” Corben called out after him.
The man kept walking.
“Does it work?” Corben shouted out, persisting.
The hakeem stopped, turned, the corners of his mouth breaking in a thin, wry smile. “I hope you won’t try to be too clever. I can always find room for you in my little clinic. Do we understand each other?”
Corben locked eyes with the hakeem. He realized the man would be impossible to rein in, and Corben knew he’d have to adjust his plans accordingly. If the other buyer knew his stuff, Corben would ditch the hakeem. The thought of bringing the sick bastard in or—even better—pumping a bullet through his forehead seemed hugely satisfying right now.
The hakeem got into a waiting car. He was driven away while his men converged on Corben, gagged him with some packing tape, lifted him off his feet, and carried him off like a roped steer before dumping him into another car’s trunk and slamming it shut.
T
he dusty morning sunlight conspired with the car horns and street vendors to wake Mia up. In truth, she hadn’t slept well at all despite the cushy comfort of her bed. As if the whole notion of the hakeem’s insane aspiration being possibly not-so-insane wasn’t enough,
Kirkwood
’s closing words had sent her mind into a confused spin. The three martinis probably didn’t help on that front either.
Kirkwood
was right. They had to keep this quiet, at least until Evelyn was safe.
Which meant keeping it from Corben.
Thinking back, Mia had sensed
a wariness
in the agent when she’d first seen him around
Kirkwood
. What was the real reason for that? Did the agent know more than he’d shared with her? She thought back to Corben’s telling her about the lab in
Baghdad
. He’d suggested that it was about bioweapons, but he hadn’t given her a satisfactory explanation of why the hakeem was after the codex, repeating—annoyingly, as far as she was concerned—that it was irrelevant to getting Evelyn out. If the hakeem’s experiments had to do with longevity, surely the CIA’s experts would already have figured that out.
Which meant they’d want to keep it under wraps.
Either she was way off the mark, which she thought was quite likely. Or, on the off chance that what she and
Kirkwood
had speculated about last night was real, Corben was hiding things from her.
Which, she reminded herself, wouldn’t be that shocking.
He was a CIA man. He had a job to do. Not telling her the whole truth wouldn’t exactly be keeping him up at night.
On the other hand, she didn’t know much about
Kirkwood
. She’d felt a certain distance, a hesitancy in his manner, almost a shyness—about something. But he also exuded calmness, a confidence that came with well-honed knowledge. Still, she didn’t know anything about
Kirkwood
, really. He’d appeared in
Beirut
wanting to help get Evelyn out, he was with the UN, and that was pretty much it. Mia realized she had to be careful with him too. The same reasons that would have her be wary of Corben had to apply to
Kirkwood
too.
Her mouth felt dry and her stomach was grumbling in protest. Deciding that the buffet would provide a quicker fix than room service, she quickly slipped on some cargo pants and a shirt and headed out to the hotel’s restaurant.
She was lost in her thoughts and waiting for the elevator when its doors
pinged
open.
Kirkwood
was standing inside.
A silver attaché case and a backpack were by his feet. He looked as if he was leaving.
Mia stepped inside, her eyes darting from his face to the bags and back. Something caught in her throat. “You’re leaving?”
His face tensed up, as if he’d been caught out. “No, I
,…,
” he stumbled, “I’ll be back tonight.”
She nodded, sensing his discomfort. She decided to probe a little deeper. “Look, I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about, and I think I should let Jim know.” She studied his face. “Maybe it’ll help.”
KIRKWOOD
HADN’T SLEPT WELL either. His chat with Mia, at the rooftop bar, deeply unsettled him. He’d nudged at the truth with her,
then
he’d pulled back.
Which left her with a lot of questions.
Questions that could get her into trouble.
Corben and his handlers obviously had their own agenda. Evelyn was expendable,
Kirkwood
knew that. Mia hadn’t posed much of a threat to them, but if she started asking too many questions, making a pain of herself, they might feel threatened. And he knew what these people did when they felt that way.
He’d made that mistake before. Keeping quiet about the real significance of the tail-eater had put people in danger. He didn’t want it to happen again.
And he certainly didn’t want it to happen to Mia.
“Let’s talk about this some more before you do that,” he said as they stepped out of the elevator. His eyes swept the lobby and noticed the agent guarding Mia sitting by the hotel’s entrance, reading a newspaper.
The agent nodded to Mia, who acknowledged him back before turning to
Kirkwood
.
“I know you’re not sure about Jim’s motives,” she pressed on, “but he’s been pretty open with me about what they have, and—”
“Please, Mia,”
Kirkwood
interrupted, “you’ve got to trust me on this.” He checked his watch and winced.
He’d wanted to tell her everything the night before. He’d thought of calling her room earlier that morning, to fill her in on what was going on, but he’d held back.
He took her aside, into the small library bar, out of the agent’s eye line. No one else was in there. “We got a hit early this morning, out of
Iraq
,” he lied. “I’d put the word out through our contacts on the ground there. We’ve been heavily involved in trying to secure the country’s historic heritage, especially after the fiasco at the
Baghdad
who knows—well
, knew—him told one of our people there that Farouk had mentioned the items to him. He said Farouk was brokering them for another dealer, a man from
Mosul
.” He’d skirted around the difficult part, but he was back on track now. “Farouk didn’t have the pieces with him here in
Beirut
. That’s why he only had the Polaroids.”
“So the book’s still in
Mosul
?” Her eyes were alight with interest.
“No. It’s in
Turkey
.” He paused, taking stock of her reaction, before diving in. “I’m going there now to bring it back. Come with me. I’ll fill you in on the plane.”
QUESTIONS AND confused feelings harried Mia’s mind.
She wasn’t sure about
Kirkwood
, but then again, she wasn’t sure about Corben either. The only person she could really trust to look out for Evelyn’s interests was herself. If the book that could free her mom was really out there, she had to do everything she could to make sure it got into their hands—her hands—safely. But a nagging uncertainty was still vying for her attention, warning her.
“I can’t just fly off with you like that,” she objected.
“Mia, listen to me,”
Kirkwood
insisted. “There are things you don’t know.”
That made her angry. “Like what?” she asked fiercely.
He heaved a conflicted sigh. “Look, I’m sorry, but…last night. I wasn’t being perfectly honest with you. After you mentioned this hakeem at the embassy, I managed to get hold of his file.” She could hear the deep concern in his voice. “What we talked about last night. It’s exactly what he’s working on. And Corben and his people know it.”
Her mouth dropped an inch. “The experiments…?” She already knew the answer.
Kirkwood
nodded somberly. “That’s what they’re interested in.”
She didn’t know which way to turn, but one certainty was hacking its way through the thorns in her mind: She couldn’t trust Corben. Not anymore. The verdict on
Kirkwood
, on the other hand, was still open, but she didn’t have much choice. She had to risk it.
“What do I tell the agent out there?” she asked flatly, motioning towards the man guarding her.
“Don’t tell him anything.”
“He’s here to guard me. He’s not going to let me waltz out of here with you without checking with Jim.” The man’s name felt like poison on her tongue.
Kirkwood
frowned and thought for a moment. “The restaurant next door’s part of the hotel, but it’s got its own entrance further down the street. They’ve got to have the same kitchen. I’ve got a car waiting for me outside. Go back to your room, get your passport and whatever you need to take with you, and take the stairs down to the restaurant and make your way out from there. I’ll be parked around the corner.”
She was about to leave when
Kirkwood
put his hand on her arm. “Please, Mia. Trust me on this. Don’t confront Jim about this. Not yet. Not until we know we have the book safely. I don’t want to give anyone any chance to screw us on using it to get Evelyn back.”
She made a quick study of the man. His eyes shone with sincerity. He was either telling her the truth, or he was a spectacularly effective liar.
Either way, she’d soon find out.
She nodded and headed back to the elevator.
KIRKWOOD
WATCHED her leave with a knot in his stomach. He was now committed. There would be no turning back.
He checked his watch and decided to initiate a precaution he’d been mulling. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number of the scout in
Iraq
who had first brought Abu Barzan’s find to their attention.
The man could be trusted. Years of collaboration, a couple of passed trust tests, and a healthy retainer had proven that.
He couldn’t risk calling Abu Barzan himself. He knew that if Corben had in fact been the counterbidder for the book, he and his minders knew about Abu Barzan and had his phone number. They could be monitoring it. And
Kirkwood
preferred not to announce his real interest to them just yet.
The scout picked up quickly.
Kirkwood
told him what to do. He had to do it quickly and be brief. He also had to make sure he didn’t spook Abu Barzan. He asked the scout to call him back from another number and let him know where the new meeting would take place.
He hung up, picked up the attaché case and the backpack, and headed for the door.
F
ifty miles further east, Corben was lying down on a narrow bed, looking around his stark white cell. The small room was windowless, and he had no idea what time of day it was, but he hadn’t really slept and he didn’t think more than a few hours had passed since they’d shoved him into the trunk of the car and driven him off.
He tried to imagine what the other prisoners of the hakeem’s compound were going through. He pictured Evelyn Bishop and wondered how close she was, and whether she’d ever make it back into the sun’s embrace again.
A picture was forming in his mind, and all the pieces seemed to fit. He was either in some town in north
Lebanon
or in
Syria
. He thought the latter more likely. The accent of the pockmarked thug and the rest of his cronies gave away their nationality pretty clearly. Corben didn’t speak much Arabic, but the little he did know allowed him to identify the different accents—Lebanese, Iraqi, Gulf Arab, Palestinian, Syrian. Now that he’d heard them speak, he was able to place the accent. Also, the car ride fit the profile. The second leg, at least, the one he’d been awake for. A winding road up a mountain and back down, a stop and some chatter—probably the border crossing—followed by more winding roads leading to a city that reverberated with a deafening cacophony of prayer calls, far more noticeably than Beirut.
It had to be
Damascus
.
The thought angered him. The city had actually been his first—and obvious—guess, back in 2003, when his assignment was officially live, when he’d tried to figure out where the hakeem had escaped to. A lot of Saddam’s cronies had made their way there to avoid getting shocked and awed. Despite the deep, long-felt animosity between the two countries, timely conveniences and dovetailing objectives meant that bitter enemies occasionally found reasons to help each other out.
In the case of the hakeem, however, Corben knew the arrangement had nothing to do with politics.
It also made sense for the hakeem. He would find patrons who could provide him with the same level of support that he’d enjoyed in
Baghdad
. Whatever he needed would be provided. His little guesthouse would run at full occupancy. And, when complications—or opportunities—such as those of the last few days arose, the expert, ruthless manpower was readily available.
Speaking of which, the lock clicked open. The hakeem stood at the cell’s door. The pockmarked killer, Omar, and two other armed men were with him.
“Time for you to sign in,” the hakeem announced.
He gestured to Omar, who pulled out Corben’s cell phone and snapped the battery back into place. “You need to get the precise GPS coordinates of the Iraqi dealer,” he added, then raised a cautioning finger at him. “Remember, thirty seconds. No more.”
Corben got up, still in his boxers, and did as told. He got through to Olshansky. No one at the embassy seemed to have noticed anything amiss. Not that they had any reason to. As long as he signed in on time, no alarms would go off.
“Your target hasn’t moved since last night,” Olshansky informed him. “He’s still at the same location in
Diyarbakir
, but something else came up. Someone called him from
Iraq
.”
“Who?”
Corben asked.
“I don’t know,” Olshansky replied. “The call was too brief to lock it in. The caller just told him to hang up, remove the battery from his phone, and call him back from another phone.”
Corben didn’t allow the unexpected complication to perturb his countenance. He kept his cool and, without a tremor in his voice, asked Olshansky for the Iraqi cell phone’s last GPS coordinates.
“You sure you want them?” Olshansky asked. “He’s got to know he’s being tracked by now, after that call. He’s probably long gone.”
“Just give me the coordinates,” Corben said simply.
Olshansky sounded a bit puzzled, but acquiesced. “One more thing,” he then added. “The
Geneva
cell phone I’ve been trying to lock onto—it’s not in
Switzerland
anymore. Its signal bounced off a jumble of satellites and servers before disappearing into a digital netherworld, but its trail definitely indicates a change of region. I’m liaising with a contact of mine at the NSA who’s prioritized the trace for us. My guy thinks he might be able to get a lock on his position before the end of the day.”
“Do it sooner than that. I need it,” Corben replied curtly as he vaulted the information.
He had his suspicions about where the caller might be headed.
The hakeem looked at him suspiciously and gestured for him to hang up, which he did after telling Olshansky to keep him posted if the Iraqi signal changed location. Omar was quick to take back the phone and pull out its battery. These guys were well versed in covering their digital tracks, Corben thought. They’d kept Ramez’s phone live not to miss Farouk’s call, but they wouldn’t make that mistake with Corben’s phone. He wouldn’t be able to work backwards to pinpoint the hakeem’s lair beyond the broader confines of the city.
He gave the hakeem the coordinates, which he knew were probably worthless, but he didn’t have much choice. He had to wing it from here. As he did, Omar punched them into a handheld device—the killer evidently spoke English, Corben noted—and it zoomed to a map of the Syrian-Turkish border, and to the town of
Diyarbakir
. Omar nodded with satisfaction.
A thin smile broke across the hakeem’s aquiline features. “Time to go,” he ordered, gesturing for Omar to bring Corben.
Omar gestured to one of his men, who handed him a folded batch of clothes and some boots. He threw them at Corben’s feet. Corben slipped them on over his boxers—baggy khaki pants, dark gray sweatshirt, and military boots. Omar pulled out some plastic cuffs and motioned for Corben to put his hands together. Corben grudgingly acquiesced. Omar snapped them into place,
then
pulled out a black cloth sack. He grabbed Corben’s shoulders and spun him around harshly, preparing to slip it over his head.
“Yalla, imshi,”
he grunted. Move it.
Corben had had enough of being pushed around for one day. “Back off, asshole,” he snapped back, pulling his arm free and shoving Omar back. “I’ll do it myself.”
Omar grabbed him, pushing him against the door, yelling,
“Imshi, wlaa.”
Corben resisted, but the hakeem interceded, ordering his man to stand down. Omar glared angrily at Corben, then shoved the hood into his hand and stepped back.
WITH AN EAR GLUED to the door, Evelyn listened intently to the noise outside her cell. She’d heard the door being unlocked and had feared another victim, like her, being brought in or, worse, being collected for another torture session with her demented host.
Instead, she heard a man speaking in English.
An American.
She couldn’t really make out what he was saying, but he seemed to be in solid health.
And now she heard a tussle and realized they were taking him away. The man had resisted.
Her mind flooded with panic. She wasn’t sure what to do. Part of her wanted to cry out, to make her presence known to the other prisoner. If he escaped, if he was freed, he’d let the world know she was still alive. But another part of her was terrified. Terrified of getting the man into trouble, terrified of being punished
herself
for the insubordination.
She couldn’t let the opportunity pass.
Screw the consequences.
“Help me,” she shouted at the top of her voice. “My name’s Evelyn Bishop. I’m an American citizen. I was kidnapped in
Beirut
. Please let the embassy know.” She banged her hands repeatedly against the solid, unyielding door. “Help me. I need to get out of here. Please. Tell someone, anyone.”
She stood still for a
moment,
her nerves frazzled by the effort, her weary body taut with fear and tortured by desperate hope, and listened for a reaction.
Nothing came back.
She slunk down to the floor, a nervous quake in the corner of her lips, and wrapped her shivering arms around her.
CORBEN FROZE at Evelyn’s screams. He turned and cast his eyes over the series of doors on either side of the long corridor, wondering which cell she was in. She sounded as if she was close by, but the muffled sounds could have come from any of the adjacent rooms.
Not that it really mattered anyway.
He wasn’t in a position to do anything about it.
He glanced at the hakeem. The man was unflustered. He seemed to be studying Corben’s reaction.
A thin smile broke across the hakeem’s thin lips. “It’s up to you,” he said sardonically. “Do you want to be a hero? Or do you want to live forever?”
Corben let the words sink in. He hated that this freak, this insanely evil monster, could mess with him like that, goad him,
tempt
him. He hated the hakeem for it; more than that, he hated himself for succumbing to it.
A pact with the devil.
It never worked out, did it? If he had the opportunity, there and then, to gain the upper hand on his captors, to blow their brains out and free Evelyn and the rest of them, would he have done it?
He wasn’t sure.
But if he had to choose, he had to admit he probably didn’t think he would.
Too much was at stake.
The prize was too big.
Corben scowled at the hakeem, and gave him his answer. He slipped the hood over his head. And in the darkness of the shroud, he hoped that the haunting sound of Evelyn’s scream wouldn’t remain branded into his consciousness for too long.
Forever was far too long for that.
T
he Beechcraft King Air skirted the lush Mediterranean coastline, its twin turboprops powering it north towards
Turkey
.
Mia hadn’t had much trouble sneaking out of the hotel unnoticed.
Kirkwood
’s car was parked around the corner. At the airport, there were no formalities to go through; she and
Kirkwood
were driven straight to the small plane that was waiting for them, its props spinning. Its wheels lifted off virtually as soon as they reached it. Clearly, the UN held sway in
Beirut
, even more so since several thousand of its troops were currently keeping the peace in the south of the country.
Diyarbakir
was northeast of
Beirut
, and the direct flight path would have cut across
Syria
diagonally, but Syrian airspace was tightly controlled.
Kirkwood
had decided on a more discreet, if slightly longer, course. They would fly north, keeping well out of Syrian airspace, until they reached the Turkish coast. There, they’d bank right and head east, inland, to
Diyarbakir
.
She turned away from the distant coast shimmering along the horizon as
Kirkwood
came back from conferring with the pilots. He sat down opposite her and opened up the map in his hand.
“Farouk’s friend is called Abu Barzan,” he informed her. “He crossed the border point here, at Zakho, and drove into
Turkey
yesterday.”
Kirkwood
pointed at the map, showing her the border crossing that was close to the tip where
Turkey
,
Syria
, and
Iraq
met. “He’s in
Diyarbakir
.” He indicated a town that was around fifty miles north of the Syrian border.
“Is that where he’s meeting his buyer?” she asked.
Kirkwood
nodded. “We’ve got a couple of private contractors meeting us there. They’ll take us to him.”
It was happening too fast. She wasn’t sure what to make of the sudden development. “How did you manage to track him down?”
Kirkwood
hesitated. “He wasn’t too hard to trace,” he offered as he folded up the map. “
Mosul
’s much smaller than
Baghdad
, and he’d boasted about making a big score.”
“How are you going to get the book from him?”
Kirkwood
seemed uncomfortable with her questions. “He’ll hand over the book and the rest of the pieces, in exchange for us not shipping him back to
Iraq
for prosecution.”
“What about his buyer?” Mia asked. “He could be part of this, couldn’t he?”
Kirkwood
shook his head. “He’s probably just some antiquities dealer from
London
or
Frankfurt
,” he speculated dismissively.
“Hardly our concern.
We just need to get the book to trade for Evelyn.”
Mia frowned. She hadn’t heard anything on that front since making her televised plea, and she wasn’t hugely comfortable with being out of touch with the embassy—or even with Corben. “We don’t know if the kidnappers have made contact yet,” she noted.
