The Bible of Clay (50 page)

"You two haven't had to listen to him. Every day, for years, this madman has talked to me about the tablets," Heinrich complained. "The man is obsessed!"

"We may be secure, but what will happen to the Fiihrer?"

"Are you turning sentimental, Franz? What do we care? We can't be associated with a loser. He had a great idea for Germany, but he has lost the war; for us to share in that defeat would be absurd," was Georg's cold answer.

"But where is he?" Franz insisted.

"It seems he has been convinced to retreat into his bunker—I don't know exactly where, but I don't care either. I'm leaving here, just as you three are. He wouldn't protect us if we stayed. Let us save ourselves. He already has his place in history; now it's our turn."

They took their leave of one another, knowing that it would likely be years before they met again, but they each swore loyalty to the others until the end of their days. Their futures were bright. They were going to wrest from the bowels of the Middle East its most precious treasures. They didn't care who the artifacts belonged to, and they knew there would never be a shortage of unscrupulous collectors eager to acquire unique treasures beyond the reach of mere mortals.

They would sell them to the highest bidder.

42

lion doyle was wandering through the camp, look-

ing for answers. Someone had broken into Alfred Tannenberg's room, and it wasn't him. Either the clients who hired him had hedged their bets with a second man, or one of Tannenberg's enemies had tried to eliminate the bastard.

The Colonel's men had questioned him, of course. They'd been totally ham-handed; Lion could tell that these men were more practiced with torture as the fastest route to confession.

It had been laughably easy for Lion to breeze through the interrogation as a freelance photographer; he was a pretty good actor, if he did say so himself. And he was more than accomplished at taking on different personalities, living them out as though it were the most natural thing on earth.

He'd talked to Picot, who also had more questions than answers. Fabian and Marta were distressed, but they obviously didn't know anything, nor did Gian Maria, who was visibly shaken by what had happened.

The only person who seemed unaffected by the violence was the Croatian, Ante Plaskic. After he'd been interrogated by the Colonel's men, he'd coolly returned to his computer to finish up some work that he hadn't been able to get to yesterday.

Lion had always suspected that Ante was not what he claimed to be—he just wasn't the type to be a computer geek, any more than Lion was a photographer. And Ayed Sahadi had revealed himself to be a soldier under the command of the Colonel, although he was still wearing civilian clothes.

So Lion decided to have a little talk with Ante, to probe for a chink in his disguise and get to the bottom of what had happened. He knew it wouldn't be easy to find that opening, though, because Ante looked every bit the professional Lion was. Still, he could give it a try.

When he went into the storeroom where the Croatian was working, Lion found the village leader's son with him. The son was the leader of one of the labor details and often reported in from the excavation site; it wasn't unusual to find him with Ante in the computer house. But what
was
strange was that they seemed to be having a heated argument, which ended the moment Lion came in.

Lion had to admire the Croatian's cool. Ante didn't miss a beat. He sighed and said, "Lion, the workers are upset. They want to know what will happen to the village when we leave. They're afraid that one of them will be blamed for the murders, and our friend here says Professor Picot won't tell them anything. So if you know anything . . ."

"None of us should do anything. I assume we'll have to stay here until this whole thing is cleared up and the murderer or murderers are caught. As for leaving—I think that decision has already been made."

Ante Plaskic turned to the young man and shrugged his shoulders but said nothing. The village leader's son spoke a few words of apology and left.

Lion stared at the computer technician, and Plaskic held his gaze. The two men measured each other for several seconds, and the tacit understanding seemed to be that if it came to a confrontation, the result would be lethal.

"What do you think happened in the house?" Lion Doyle asked, breaking the silence.

"No way to know."

"You must have an opinion."

"No. I never speculate about things unless I have all the facts." "Ah . . . well, I guess whoever it was, he's got to be here." "If you say so . . ."

They stared at each other again, and then Lion turned and walked out. The Croatian sat down at the computer, apparently completely absorbed in his work.

Ante was sure that Lion Doyle suspected him, but he also knew that the photographer had nothing on him. He'd been extremely cautious; no one knew about his relationship with Samira. From the day she arrived, the nurse had thrown coy glances his way and gone out of her way to bump into him. They would talk—actually, she would talk, he would listen. She was trying desperately to find a man to get her out of Iraq, and apparently she'd decided that that man was Ante Plaskic. He didn't know why, but it didn't matter—she never stopped throwing herself at him, and she made it clear it could go as far as he wanted it to.

He never touched her, of course. He didn't like Muslim women, even the blond, blue-eyed ones of his home country. So this dark-skinned, black-haired woman with a broad nose through which she seemed to snort rather than breathe left him cold.

But he couldn't afford to reject her: She was far too valuable. Samira was a direct line to everything that went on in Tannenberg's house: the state of his health, who called him, who visited him, even the rift between Clara and her husband.

This inexhaustible source of information allowed Ante to send back detailed reports to Planet Security through his intermediary, the village leader's son. He'd been recruited by Yasir, the Egyptian who'd been Alfred Tannenberg's right-hand man before the two had come to hate each other. It was a perfectly unobstructed flow of information: Yasir would send Ante's reports on by further intermediaries whom he'd also hired, and they, in turn, would convey instructions to him from Planet Security.

Yasir had come into the camp with Ahmed Husseini and had insisted on an accurate report on Tannenberg's health. Neither Yasir nor Ahmed had yet been able to confirm their suspicions that the old man was dying. Dr. Najeb adamantly refused to speak to them about Tannenberg's condition.

So Plaskic had asked Samira to see him, much to her delight. That night, when the camp was asleep, she'd let him into the house.

She had told him that if he could slip through the shadows and get around the guards, they could be together. She detailed the routines of the ten men who surrounded the house, five in front and five in back— not long after midnight they got together for an unauthorized cigarette and coffee break. He need only bide his time until then and slip to the back of the house, where there was a little window that opened into a storeroom; she'd leave it open a crack. Once he got in, he could wait until she came to him.

Ante agreed to the plan, although he had no intention of waiting in the storeroom—he was going straight for the old man.

To a point, it had all gone according to plan. After Picot finished his meeting with the inner circle of the excavation team, Ante waited for the camp to go dark and silence to fall. It was midnight when he got out of his cot and crept to the back of Tannenberg's house, where he waited half an hour in the darkness before one of the guards at the front came to get the others for coffee. They didn't entirely abandon their posts but stayed at the side of the house, maintaining sightlines from which they thought they could catch anyone who tried to approach the back or front of the house.

They were wrong. Plaskic managed to get in with no problem at all. Two men were dozing in chairs at each side of Tannenberg's bedroom door. Both of them had a bullet in the brain before they could open their eyes. The silencer had done its job: The only sound was that of the bodies slumping to the floor and one of the folding chairs tipping over.

Then he pushed the door open. Samira was right. The old servant woman was asleep and never even realized that anybody was in the room.

Samira took one look at the ski mask he was wearing and the pistol in his hand and went crazy. She thought he was going to kill Tannenberg, and she tried to stop him from getting any closer. Plaskic put his hand over her mouth and told her to keep quiet and not to scream, but she wouldn't listen. He throttled her, but it had been her own fault, he told himself, for being so stupid. If she had just shut up, she'd still be alive.

The old servant had also decided to become a problem. She jumped up and started to yell, so he smothered her before smacking her a couple of times with the pistol butt. He thought he'd killed her—God knows she'd bled like a stuck pig. But she'd survived somehow. He'd rather she was dead, but it didn't bother him either way. With the mask and the darkness of the room, there was no way she could identify him.

As instructed, Plaskic had reported in detail on what he'd seen in Tannenberg's room. But this time he didn't write it down; he'd just informed the village leader's son of the old man's condition: hooked up to a monitor with a blood transfusion going in one arm and some kind of clear liquid transfusion in the other.

The village leader's son had asked Ante straight out if he was the one who killed the nurse and the two guards, but Plaskic hadn't answered, sparking a heated argument. The young man told him the Colonel would probably wind up detaining and even killing every Iraqi in the village—but he also knew well what consequences he himself would surely suffer if he betrayed the Croatian. The full implications of the dangerous game he had gotten himself involved in were written all over his face, and he was becoming increasingly agitated. That was when Lion Doyle had walked in on them.

The next day, the Colonel was in a fouler mood than usual. Ahmed Husseini was listening to him patiently, desperately trying not to enrage him further. Yasir sat in silence.

"I'm not leaving here until we find out who did this. He's here, among us, laughing at us. But I'll catch him, and when I do, he'll pray for a quick death."

Aliya, the new nurse, entered the living room. Clara had sent her to report that her grandfather was ready to see them.

They found Alfred sitting in a chair, a blanket covering his knees, no transfusion bag in sight. He was all bones, and his face was ghastly pale.

Beside him sat Clara, smiling slightly. She'd convinced Dr. Najeb to do everything in his power to allow her grandfather to meet with the Colonel in a chair rather than in bed.

Tannenberg knew he had precious little time. He skipped the niceties and got straight to the point.

"My friend," he said, addressing the Colonel, "I must ask you a very special favor. I know it won't be easy and that only a man of your caliber can undertake such a task."

Ahmed Husseini looked at Tannenberg, intrigued, while at the same time taking in the self-assurance that Clara had regained, as though the old man really were going to live forever.

"Ask me anything; you know that you can always count on me," the Colonel assured him.

"Professor Picot and his team wish to leave. I understand that; given the circumstances, we can hardly keep them here. Clara will stay behind for a few more days and then join them later to prepare a grand exhibit of the objects and structures they have found here in Safran. It will be an important exhibition, traveling through several European cities. They will even try to take it to the United States, which I'm sure our friend George will facilitate through the Mundo Antiguo Foundation."

"And what is the favor?" the Colonel asked.

"I want you to secure the permissions Picot will need to remove from Iraq all the things they have found. I know it won't be easy to convince our beloved Saddam, but you can do it. What is urgent is that you requisition helicopters and trucks so that Picot and his people can leave Iraq as soon as possible with their precious cargo."

"And how does that benefit us?" the Colonel asked bluntly.

"It will benefit you, insofar as you will find a half-million dollars in your Swiss account if you do this with the same efficiency you have shown on other occasions."

"Will you speak with the palace?" the Colonel wanted to know.

"I already have. Our leader's sons are informed of the matter and are anxiously awaiting our messenger."

"Then if Baghdad has agreed, I will call my nephew Karim and tell him to set the operation in motion."

"Clara should leave as soon as possible," said Ahmed.

"Clara will leave when she sees fit, just as I will. For the moment she will continue the excavation. I want the work to start again tomorrow; we will not abandon the project because of a dead nurse and a few worthless guards," replied Tannenberg angrily.

"There are pieces that have been found that. . . Well, it's delicate to include them in an exhibition," said Ahmed.

"You've already sold them?" asked Tannenberg, surprising both Ahmed and Yasir. In fact, Yasir could only stare at the floor.

"You always mistrust those around you," Ahmed protested.

"I know those around me. So I think it is quite likely that Robert Brown, the president of the Mundo Antiguo Foundation, has been instructed by George to contact our best clients and announce that there have been important findings in Safran. And that those clients, always eager to add novelties to their collections, have already deposited large sums as an advance against receipt. Am I wrong, Yasir?"

Tannenberg's direct question confounded Yasir, who found that he was suddenly covered in sweat, his white linen shirt sopping wet. He looked over at Ahmed, pleading wordlessly for help, terrified of how Tannenberg would react.

It was the Colonel, concerned about the way the conversation was going, who spoke.

"So there is a conflict of interest with your friends in Washington—"

Tannenberg cut him oft. He lied, knowing that the Colonel would not want to be a part of an internecine war of this sort.

"No, there is no conflict of interest. If they've decided in Washington to sell some of the pieces we've found, that's fine with me—that's our business, after all. But one thing has nothing to do with the other. The pieces will leave here first to be shown to the world in the traveling exhibition. They will simply not return to Iraq after being delivered to their buyers. The buyers will have to wait a few months, perhaps as long as a year, before they receive them. That won't be anything new for them; they're accustomed to waiting. They will eventually have what they purchased."

"That's why I enjoy doing business with you, old friend. You have a solution for every problem," the Colonel said, clearly reassured.

"What have you found out about the killings?" Tannenberg inquired.

"Nothing, and that worries me. The killer must be a professional; he must also have a good cover, and a better background. But what is most important is that you are alive, my friend," the Colonel declared.

"I'm alive only because he didn't want to kill me. He never intended to kill me."