Mercury Rises (26 page)

They found their figurehead in the form of an ambitious young Amorite prince named Sumu-Abum. Tiamat received an unquestioning oath of loyalty in exchange for her assisting Sumu-Abum in vanquishing the rival provinces and creating a unified Babylonian Empire.

The plan worked well at first: Sumu-Abum focused on military victories while Tiamat continued to build ziggurats. But Sumu-Abum's attempts to unify Babylon were hampered by rumors that he was receiving assistance from the wicked Tiamat. It was Mercury who suggested a solution.

"What we need," he said, "is a redirect. As much as I hate to say it, Sumu-Abum needs to declare his allegiance to Marduk."

"Marduk!" Tiamat spat. "We've almost gotten people to forget about that idiot, and now you want to make our handpicked figurehead the president of the Marduk fan club?"

"Think about it," said Mercury. "Right or wrong, Marduk is popular. He evokes thoughts of a golden age, when Babylon was guided by a benevolent god. And you, well..."

"I
what
?" Tiamat demanded.

"I'm just saying, it's easy to idealize the past. Marduk's not around, so people don't blame him for all their problems. They associate Marduk with everything good that happens, and they associate you with everything bad that happens. What we need to do is convince them that Marduk is somehow indirectly working through Sumu-Abum. That way, we solve the problem of your affiliation with him, and every action he takes is lent an air of divine provenance."

As much as she hated Marduk, Tiamat had to admit it was a sound plan. And Mercury turned out to be right: once Sumu-Abum started claiming to be an agent of Marduk, consolidation of the kingdom became much easier. After Sumu-Abum died in an unfortunate gardening accident, Tiamat selected a new king, Sumu-la-El. Tiamat stuck with the agent-of-Marduk strategy with great success through five kings. The sixth, however, ended up being a bit of a handful.

"Hammurabi's all right," Mercury insisted. "He just has too much energy."

Hammurabi had, over the course of a few years, conquered nearly all of Mesopotamia, and now was anxious to move into Phoenicia, to the west. Tiamat opposed the idea, as Phoenicia was too distant to be a reliable source of laborers for the ziggurats, and in any case she had no shortage of workers these days. Further, she felt that the need to defend the Phoenician territories would stretch the Babylonian military too thin, making them vulnerable to attack from the Hittites and Assyrians.

"The guy needs a hobby," said Tiamat.

"He has one," replied Mercury. "He collects city-states."

"He needs a hobby that's not going to get Babylon overrun by Hittites," said Tiamat. "Can you get him to take up the lyre or something?"

Mercury sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

The next day, Mercury met with Hammurabi, who excitedly related his plans for a surprise attack on the Phoenicians.

"Surprise?" asked Mercury doubtfully. "I think you may have lost the element of surprise at the Battle of Elam, where you yelled, "Next stop, Phoenicia!"

Hammurabi rubbed his beard thoughtfully for a moment, and then crossed out the word SURPRISE in front of ATTACK.

"Good thing the clay wasn't dry yet," he said.

"Hmm," replied Mercury. "Have you considered your legacy?"

Hammurabi appeared puzzled. "What do you mean? I'm going to take over the entire Fertile Crescent. I'll be the greatest emperor the world has ever known!"

"Well, sure," said Mercury. "But then what?"

"What do you mean, 'then what?' I'll be the most powerful man in the world! I'll be immortal!"

"Mmmm no," said Mercury. "I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that."

"Well, not literally immortal, like you and Tiamat. But still, I'll be famous
forever
."

"Listen, Hammy," said Mercury. "Talking as someone who
is
literally immortal, you've got to believe me when I say that the point of life isn't just getting more and more and more. Quantity doesn't equal quality. Whether you have all of eternity at your disposal or the entire world at your command, there's no shortcut to finding meaning or purpose. I mean, there's no question that you've done well as the king of Babylon; you're head and shoulders above every other ruler in the area. But what does it all mean in the end?"

Hammurabi frowned, regarding his ATTACK plan glumly. He knew that Mercury was a master manipulator, but somehow it didn't matter. It didn't matter that Mercury probably didn't believe a word he was saying; what mattered was that Hammurabi believed it. What
does
it all mean? he wondered. What
is
my legacy going to be?

"So what do I do?" he asked in desperation.

"I think you need to spend some time reflecting," said Mercury.

"Reflecting?"

Mercury nodded. "You've been all go, go, go ever since you became king. Maybe it's time to just sit and think for a while. With any luck, your purpose will come to you." He added hurriedly, "Just make sure you run it past me before you do anything."

"OK," said Hammurabi. "Thanks, Mercury."

After that, Hammurabi disappeared for three days. Mercury was about to tell Tiamat that he had solved their problem when Hammurabi showed up at his door bearing another clay tablet.

"Check it out!" Hammurabi exclaimed, holding the tablet for Mercury to see. "I call it 'Hammurabi's Code.'"

The tablet read:

WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

Mercury smiled faintly. "Not really much of a code, is it?"

Hammurabi frowned. "You don't like it? I spent three days on that."

"It's a fine sentiment," admitted Mercury. "But it's kind of whiny, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't sound like something a
king
would say."

"Hmmm," said Hammurabi. "OK, let me think about it some more."

Hammurabi disappeared for another three days. When he reappeared, he was bearing a tablet that read:

BE NICE TO EVERYBODY

"Wow," said Mercury. It was all he could do to keep himself from telling Hammurabi to go back to conquering neighboring provinces. "It's a bit more assertive, I guess. Still, I don't think that's the stuff that a legacy is made of."

"Well, hell," grumbled Hammurabi. "Then I just don't know. How about 'Treat others the way you would like to be treated'?"

"The thing is," Mercury said, "I like the idea of a code, but I don't think you're going to be able to do this in one sentence. Think of this as the legal foundation for your empire. You're going to need a few more concrete rules."

Hammurabi nodded, wheels turning in his head. "Got it!"

He disappeared for six weeks.

"OK, check this out," he exclaimed upon his return. He handed Mercury two clay tablets, filled with writing. "Ten commandments!"

Mercury looked over the tablets. "This isn't bad," he said. "I like how you establish your authority with this first one. But I still think you need more."

"More?" Hammurabi asked. "Really?"

"Well, for example," said Mercury, "what if slave strikes the body of a free man? What happens in that situation?"

"Well, obviously you'd cut the slave's ear off."

"Hmm," Mercury replied. "Yeah, see, I wasn't getting that from this. I mean, you know it and I know it, but it's not explicitly spelled out in your rules. Or how about this: A man strikes a pregnant woman, causing her to miscarry and die. Then what?"

"The assailant's daughter is put to death, of course," said Hammurabi.

"Again, not really evident from these ten rules," said Mercury, frowning at the tablets. "Like I said, it's a good start, but if this is supposed to be some kind of code of conduct, you're going to need to eliminate some of the ambiguity."

Hammurabi sighed. "Fine," he said, and trudged away.

This time he was occupied long enough for the workers to make significant progress on the latest ziggurat. Tiamat was giddy with enthusiasm, convinced that they were finally building in the right spot---whatever that meant. "A few more years," she could be heard mumbling under her breath. "A few more years."

THIRTY-TWO

"I can't believe stupid Uzziel assigned us to retrieve the stupid Case of Pestilence," Mercury groused. "Doesn't he realize that we're the A-team? I mean, remember that time we averted the Apocalypse?"

He and Christine were resting in a small park in view of the unimpressive, squat building that served as headquarters of the World Health Organization. A cold breeze had picked up, and above the building, dark clouds were gathering.

"Three hours ago, you were overjoyed not to be escorting tourists around the planeport," Christine chided.

"Yeah, well, that was before I had to carry your ass across half of Europe. We nearly got smoked by those F-15s, you know."

"I told you to stay low over Israel, didn't I?" Christine said. "It's not 2,000 BC anymore, you know. They have air defenses now."

"So I've gathered. Anyway, we're here. What's the plan?"

"You're asking
me
?" Christine asked incredulously. "This is your show. I'm just here as auxiliary support."

"Right," said Mercury. "OK, here's the plan: we go into that building over there, find the Case, and take it."

"Brilliant," said Christine. "Do we know where in the building they're keeping it?"

"According to the intelligence, it should be here on the fifth floor," Mercury said, pointing at a map that Uzziel had provided.

"Security?"

"Couple of guards, maybe," said Mercury. "Shouldn't be a problem. I'll just turn their bullets to chocolate."

"Chocolate? Why chocolate?"

"We're in Switzerland, Christine. Get in the spirit of things."

Mercury set off toward the building and Christine followed. She wanted to yell at him to stop, but surprisingly, she couldn't think of a flaw in his plan. Mercury was right: a few armed guards were no match for a cherub. If the case really was in the building, there was no reason to think Mercury would have any trouble recovering it.

And once they had the Case of Pestilence, they would move on to Famine. War and Death were already back in Heaven's possession, and once Mercury delivered the remaining two, the Apocalypse would officially be averted---assuming that Uzziel did his part by neutralizing the threat of the anti-bomb in Africa.

"OK," said Mercury, as they neared the building. "You'd better wait here. I don't want to take any chances."

"Wait here?" protested Christine. "Why did I even come along, then, if I'm not even going to go inside the building?"

"Auxiliary support," said Mercury. "Just wait here. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Mercury disappeared inside the WHO building, and Christine waited anxiously on a bench some fifty feet from the entrance. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Christine felt droplets of rain on her face.

Retrieving the Case will be a piece of cake for Mercury, she told herself. On the other hand, she thought, it would have been a piece of cake for
any
angel---a realization that prompted the question: why hadn't it been recovered before now? Uzziel could have sent any old cherub---even that moron Nisroc---to get the Attaché Case of Pestilence. Why hadn't he?

Paging through the dossier, it was fairly clear why the Case of Famine hadn't yet been retrieved. It had been sighted at the headquarters of a small biotech company in South Africa, but had disappeared after the hubbub with the runaway corn. The company, which bore the unwieldy name AfroGeniTech, was privately owned, but was suspected by the M.O.C. to be a front for one of the big Western biotech firms. The section of the dossier speculating on the current whereabouts of the Case of Famine had mysteriously been redacted with a black marker almost beyond coherency, but Christine's eyes were drawn to a brief note in the margin. It read:

EH?

"My God," she whispered, looking up from the dossier. But her pondering was cut short by the sight of two figures striding toward the building. "Oh shit," she mumbled, and did her best to bury her face in the dossier.

There was no doubt about it: it was Izbazel and Gamaliel, two very bad demons. She had been under the impression that the two had been through a falling out, but now apparently they were working together again. When Christine first met them, they had been working for Lucifer, but then it turned out that Gamaliel was secretly working for Tiamat, Lucifer's chief rival. The fact that Izbazel and Gamaliel were together again meant...what? They were both working for Lucifer? Or they were both working for Tiamat? Or, God forbid, Lucifer and Tiamat had teamed up?

The two cherubim passed Christine by without a glance, disappearing into the WHO building. They were evidently not after her. Presumably they were here for the Case of Pestilence. Or Mercury. Or both.

I have to warn Mercury, she thought.

Christine had pulled her hair back for the flight from Israel,
¹¹
which was probably part of the reason Izbazel and Gamaliel hadn't recognized her. She removed her sunglasses from her purse and put them on. Not much of a disguise, she thought, but she didn't have time to come up with anything better. She took a deep breath, got to her feet, and walked boldly to the door.

Pretending to be enthralled by something on the screen of her phone, she went through the revolving door and strode into the lobby. Standing some ten yards directly in front of her, facing the elevators, were Izbazel and Gamaliel. As she came in, their heads turned to face her, and for one sickening split-second she forgot entirely how to breathe, walk, and keep her heart beating. Her mind went completely blank with fear.

But in the next instant, they turned back to face the elevators, and momentum carried her into her next step. Her heart started beating again, and once she had managed to take three more steps without collapsing into a quivering pool of jelly on the marble floor, she started breathing again. Altering her course to avoid the elevators, she walked to the door behind the reception desk labeled "STAIRS."