Escape from Baghdad! (28 page)

Now, he mixed in salt, pepper, and a bit of lime juice into the mash, remixing the stuff with a fine wooden spoon. He took out egg-shaped scoops and used his thumb to hollow out the center into a kind of meat donut. The stuffing balls went in there, and two quick pinches on either side completed the kibbeh, beautiful ovals with a single pointy end.

Into the fire, the whole three dozen of them, and they hopped in the oil, developing that beautiful crunchy outer shell. The vendor had his pita breads lined up; the kibbeh went in there, nestled in some lettuce and tomatoes and other irrelevant stuff, and the dash of tahini and lime juice, and harissa if you wanted it. It was like an edible plate. You had to give it to these guys. They were smart. No point wasting time on crockery.

Tommy liked the blood red harissa, even though it burned through his mouth every time. It was just something so alien. It attracted him with an almost superstitious dread. The vendor recognized him and waved. Tommy beamed. He liked being recognized.

Ahh the first bite. The heat of the kibbeh, the coolness of the garlic yogurt. He slapped down the money on the counter and saw for the first time the light red glow beneath the cart. Something cringed inside him.
IED IED IED
. He began to gibber in fright, dropping the food, turning, leaping, all in his mind, unfortunately. Kibbeh lodged in his gullet, choking.

He began to claw at his throat. Something slammed into his stomach—a big hairy Iraqi police fist, some kind of frontal Heimlich maneuver, and bits of kibbeh flew out; “IED! IED,” he shouted at the top of his lungs and saw the panic on his friends around him. And then, with
unfair
finality, the horizon expanded with concussive fire.

Ancelloti heard that familiar dull thump of improvised ordinance. It woke him up from his drug-addled nap. It was a common enough noise that he did not immediately react. In fact, his first concern was the splitting headache and the rapidly growing bump on his skull.

A bump caused by sudden impact between his forehead and the hummer axle. Recovering from moments of confusion, he realized that he had somehow fallen asleep under the parked vehicle. He remembered. Tommy had sent him to forage, and he'd just started aimlessly wandering around, living rough. He was about to roll out, when he heard another thump of explosion, this time much closer.

The tinkle of glass hitting the pavement told him that it was almost certainly the apartment building directly overhead. Curious, since that was their temporary bivouac, arranged by the fat rascal Behruse to be precise. His suspicions were further roused as he heard sandaled feet slapping up the pavement and then several pairs of hairy ankles appeared. He lay silent, as a group of men appeared to be jimmying open his car.

There was a lot of back slapping and general jubilation. The hairy ankles exchanged rapid fire Arabic, some of which Ancelloti understood, primarily the phrases “death to Americans” and “to hell with infidels and Jews.” The words filled him with dread. His hashish-clogged brain struggled to process. The exhaust roared all of a sudden, and he barely missed cracking his head again on the chassis. The hummer lurched forward with a clash of mangled gears, coating him with a mist of motor oil and dust. The hairy ankles all piled in, and the hummer roared off down the street. No one looked back.

Ancelloti got to his feet. Around him, the neighborhood had suddenly realized they had been bombed and were going through the usual reactions: disbelief, anger, exhibitionist wailing. Ancelloti staggered a few steps toward the scene, enough to verify the remnants of Tommy and his squaddies. He found a dog tag, absently pocketed it. Down the street, the stolen hummer accelerated and then took a corner, whooping. Wearily, Ancelloti began to follow.

27: MINISTRY

T
HE
M
INISTRY TURNED OUT TO BE EASY
. H
OFFMAN PRETENDED TO
be a visiting colonel on tour. He wore the stripes he had stolen from Colonel Bradley. Sabeen pretended to be a doctor liaising with the UN and his interpreter. Behruse had to stay in the car because he couldn't pretend to be anything other than a stone thug.

Harder than access was actually finding anything coherent. The bureaucrats were on strike because their salaries were late. The building was having problems with electricity, and the phone lines had been cut last night by vandals. Inside the vaults, hundreds of thousands of paper files were being protected by two rival armies of clerks. Two-thirds of them were the “New Nationalists.” One-third was Ba'athist loyalists. The New Nationalists had the political might, but the Ba'athists knew where everything was. It was a stalemate.

This was, in fact, Hoffman's comfort zone. He smoked, gossiped, and bribed his way into the Ba'athist headquarter, where a quick deal with the chief clerk netted him a jar of Vaseline and two hours alone with the Al-Rashid Hospital files. The chief clerk, did, in fact, charge by the hour for alone time with files, and moreover, he had his rates printed out on a piece of cardboard. Hoffman was able to avail himself of the “American Liberator” discount but could not swindle the ultra-low “Secret Ba'athist Sympathizer” rate.

The files themselves were in chaos, but Sabeen was quick, and she knew how hospital bureaucracy worked. It turned out that Dr. Sawad, being a suspicious man, tended to rotate his staff with extreme efficiency. Interns, junior techs, even nurses were changed with regularity, and all of them left him with highly negative recommendations. It was as if once having used them up, his earnest desire was to bury them somewhere far from sight.

“This is useless,” Hoffman sneezed. “This guy was paranoid.”

“Not a single medical staff stuck,” Sabeen said. “He had no team. Could he do his work single handed?”

“No way a single man could handle Taha. Not even sedated.”

“He trusted no doctor or nurse,” Sabeen said. “He lived alone. He was mostly estranged from his daughter. No friends to speak of. No colleagues. The man was a hermit. How on earth could he have a partner?”

Hoffman laughed. “Look for the invisible people; cleaners, guards, cooks. They wouldn't be able to steal his work. And he would be able to control them easily.”

Sabeen shrugged and grudgingly dug into further packets of mildewed files. Hoffman, whose Arabic was not up to scratch, basked in the light of his great idea.

“None of these files track the lower staff,” she complained. “Ah, payrolls. Interesting.”

“What is it?”

“Shit, you were right,” Sabeen said. “Janitor. Was at the Al-Rashid with him the entire time. Got full marks from Sawad, regular raises. Quit five months ago, no reasons given. Sawad recommended him for redundancy and full pension.”

“Address?”

“Yes, but four years old,” Sabeen said. “Full name. Ali Mazra. Kurdish. Phone number crossed out. We'll have to tease him out.”

“Behruse has been wanting to hound somebody for ages,” Hoffman said. “Best let him do it.”

Behruse, it turned out, was surprisingly good at hounding random people down. Having numerous old friends at police stations, post offices, and municipal authorities, he had access to the dry bureaucratic bones of the city. Apartment records, cell phone registrations, marriage certificates, voter records, income tax returns—Ali Mazra had them all. Sawad, if he had been trying to hide himself, had been woefully amateurish.

It took Behruse only a day to track down Mazra's current address, two apartments in a half-abandoned tenement building. One year's worth of rent had been paid in advance in cash.

“Now where does he get that kind of money? Hmm?” Sabeen said, on the way over. She held a pistol in her slim fingers, a 22 caliber Beretta. There was a small grin on her face, the instinctive excitement of a predator catching a scent. Hoffman couldn't stop leering.

“You think Taha's come back here?” Hoffman asked.

“If we're lucky,” Sabeen said. “Or we'll get a better idea, at least.”

“Mazra will talk,” Behruse said. “Leave it to me.”

The building was in a bad neighborhood and had lately suffered both bombing and looting. Several plots were burnt husks. The people on the streets were rough, many of them openly armed. The apartments themselves had no elevator, only a narrow stairway smelling of urine. The lights were gone, and they had to climb in near darkness, the false light of dusk filtering in through broken windows in the landings.

“Camera,” Hoffman said, pointing.

“It moved,” Sabeen drew her gun. “Someone knows we're here.”

Behruse knocked on one of three doors, a heavy BAM-BAM-BAM, reminiscent of police everywhere. There was no answer. He moved to the next one, tried again. Shrugging, he lifted his foot and started kicking methodically, using the sole of his boot.

“Stop, stop,” a muffled voice said from within.

“Ali Mazra?” Behruse asked, in his cop voice.

“Yes, yes.”

“Open the door. Police,” Behruse said. “Be very slow.”

“What do you want?” Ali Mazra cracked the door open as far as the security chain would allow. “I have paid the monthly gift to Sergeant Ali Kharimi already.”

“Kharimi is out, and I'm in,” Behruse said. “Transferred last month. He conned you. Now let me in.”

“What? Transferred?”

“Your boss Sawad made arrangements with me. Said you'd settle up,” Behruse said. “Now open the door.”

Ali Mazra opened grudgingly. He was a huge man, well over six feet, of cavernous height and build. Large, raw hands gripped a cleaver. He was ill at ease, his face sunken and blemished with lack of sleep, his body stinking of unwashed clothes and various chemicals.

Behruse barged in, into a small antechamber, cluttered with garbage and cardboard boxes. The door in the back was heavy wood, fortified with bands of iron. It was partially ajar, but the interior was cloaked in darkness.

“You aren't police,” Ali Mazra said, staring at Sabeen and Hoffman. His hands gripped convulsively on the knife. The hilt of a tranquilizer gun peeped from his waistband. The hallway seemed ridiculously over crowded. Hoffman didn't mind the smell, but the Kurd looked crazed, capable of anything. Surreptitiously, he tried to maneuver Behruse's bulk between himself and the janitor.

“Relax,” Sabeen said. “Not police. Mukhabarat.”

“What?” Ali Mazra said.

“We are friends of Dr. Sawad,” Sabeen said. “He told us where to find you.”

“Where is he?” Ali Mazra asked. “We don't have any friends.”

“Relax, Ali Mazra,” Sabeen said. There was some hypnotic cadence to her voice, which, Hoffman couldn't help but notice, seemed to soothe even the most savage humans. “You have been alone too long. We have come to help you.”

“Get out of here,” Mazra said, gesturing to the door. “Leave. It's not safe.”

“You think the Lion will come to get you,” Hoffman said. “The Lion is loose, and he might want revenge. How long can you stand guard? How long can you even stay awake?”

“Sawad will come back.” Mazra stared at Hoffman, as if daring him to disagree. The cleaver wavered between Behruse and Hoffman. The Kurd had his back to the wall and, even in his debilitated state,
could probably take both of them. There was in him a sense of pure animal strength and desperation.

“Dr. Sawad is dead,” Sabeen said flatly. “I have his autopsy and death certificate. He was murdered not long ago.”

“No,” Ali Mazra seemed to collapse into himself. “No.”

“In my bag,” Sabeen indicated her slim leather case. “You must know that Sawad was working for us. We are Mukhabarat. I am the doctor who was monitoring him. I will take over his work.”

“Murdered how?”

“Thrown off the roof,” Sabeen said. “By Afzal Taha, his patient, who even now might be looking for you. You are in danger, Ali Mazra, out on your own. We are your only aid.”

“Taha killed the doctor?” Ali Mazra laughed hysterically. “Or maybe the Old Man killed him, Mukhabarat bitch. He was running from
you
.”

“A misunderstanding,” Sabeen said, smooth. “There are factions in the service. Some elements—like the Old Man—wanted to take over the doctor's research for selfish gain. We are the other side of the Mukhabarat, the reasonable side. We have the government mandate. We are legal.”