The Sanctuary (42 page)

He was wondering if he’d get lucky before his bluff was called, when his cell phone suddenly warbled. Omar checked its screen,
then
handed it to Corben as he pulled out his handgun and pressed its nozzle against Corben’s neck.

“Be careful what you say.”

Corben ignored the comment and just took the phone. He glanced at its screen. It was Olshansky.

“Where the hell are you?” his techie asked. “I got a really weird ring-tone on your phone.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Corben countered. “What have you got for me?”

Olshansky sounded excited. “The NSA’s got a lock on your Swiss mystery caller. You’re not going to believe this.”

Corben eyed Omar coolly. “He’s in
Turkey
,” he told Olshansky, his voice flat.

“Not just in
Turkey
, my friend,” Olshansky enthused. “He’s in
Diyarbakir
.”

“Where in
Diyarbakir
?”

“Last lock I have placed him at the airport—no, hang on. He’s just crossed cells. He’s on his way into the city.” Olshansky’s tone changed to concern. “Hey, are you alright?”

“I’m great. Just let me know when he stops moving.” Corben brusquely hung up, spinning around to scan the roads out his window. “Is this the airport road?” he asked Omar.

Omar relayed the question to the driver in Arabic. The driver nodded.

Corben turned and checked the road behind them. It was empty. “Get your driver to pull over somewhere discreet. Our buyer’s on his way in.”

T
he sun-drenched landscape between the airport and the elevated city was barren and desolate. Mia and
Kirkwood
’s driver had to stop several times as villagers in tattered clothing meandered across the road with herds of sheep and goats, the languid processions escorted by squadrons of flies and trailing an acrid stench.

The Land Cruiser eventually reached the concrete bridge and headed up to the city. The buildings lining the approach were a haphazard, unruly mix of old and new, cheaply built, many further defaced by half-torn election posters and the garish signage of the shops that occupied the street level. The road was crowded with pickup trucks and overloaded sedans carrying everything from watermelons to refrigerators.

The driver threaded his way through the congested obstacle course. Neither he, nor his passengers, noticed the two dusty SUVs that were parked along their route, shielded by a large tanker truck that was unloading water.

AS THE LAND CRUISER glided past Corben’s SUV, something about it snagged his attention. It was reasonably clean, it was in good condition, and though he couldn’t make out much behind its smoked windows, he’d caught a glimpse of the man in the front passenger seat as the car had been heading towards them, a fair-skinned man with sandy-colored hair wearing black shades.

That had to be the target. Hardly any cars had driven in from the direction of the airport, and this guy wasn’t local.

“There.” He pointed it out to Omar. “That’s our buyer. Follow him.”

Omar ordered the driver to do so. The two SUVs pulled out and slithered forward, keeping two or three cars between them and the Land Cruiser.

Corben’s muscles tightened with anticipation. He wasn’t sure it was the buyer’s vehicle, but he sensed he’d gotten it right. Regardless, he’d soon get a lock from Olshansky on the buyer’s final destination.

He glanced over at Omar. The hakeem’s man gave him a small nod before his lifeless eyes swiveled back to take in their quarry.

The Land Cruiser tunneled through a vast stone gate and entered the old city. The houses here were much older, lower, and were built of distinctive alternating bands of white stone and reddish black basalt. Mosques abounded, their minarets spearing the dense townscape. The uneven, cracked sidewalks were crowded with men, most of them in the traditional baggy black trousers, and women in white headscarves. Narrow, dark streets radiated away from the main road, sheltering children who played in the shade.

The two SUVs shadowed the Land Cruiser from a safe distance. They stopped around the corner of a big market as their target pulled up outside a house adjacent to it.

Two men waited outside. One was an Arab, the other a Westerner. Both looked as if they were packing. Omar asked the driver where they were. The driver explained that this was the Hassan Pasha Ham, an old caravanserai that now housed souvenir shops and carpet merchants.

Corben wasn’t listening. His eyes were locked on the Land Cruiser as its doors swung open.

The fair-haired man emerged first, scanning the surroundings with practiced eyes. The shades and the holster bulge under his khaki desert jacket told Corben the man was a hired gun. He exchanged a couple of words with the Westerner waiting outside the house as the Land Cruiser’s rear doors opened.

Corben spotted Mia step out first. And if that wasn’t enough, the sight of
Kirkwood
following her tripped the remaining circuits in his brain into overdrive.

He’d been expecting to see Webster. His mind rushed to process the development. Clearly, Webster and
Kirkwood
were working together.
Which explained a lot about
Kirkwood
’s appearance in
Beirut
, and his interest.

He glanced at Omar, who’d also seen her, but didn’t know
Kirkwood
. Corben just nodded and kept his satisfaction cloaked.

Perfect.

M
ia climbed out of the Land Cruiser and watched the Australian hand
Kirkwood
the silver attaché case.
Kirkwood
turned to her. “Give me a minute, will you? Let me make sure he’s not going to give us any trouble.”

Mia nodded.
Kirkwood
went into the house with the Australian, leaving her outside with the other hired gun, a South African named Hector, and Abu Barzan’s man. Both men acknowledged her with curt nods—the Arab checking her out a touch more obviously than the South African—before they remembered their day jobs and concentrated on the surrounding streets and buildings instead.

The town seemed to have settled into
a typically
Middle Eastern
midday
torpor. The street was quiet, and few people were going in and out of the bazaar. Down a narrow, cobbled side street, a few kids who hadn’t succumbed to the general lethargy played soccer barefoot under some crowded clotheslines. Mia watched as one of the boys bounced the ball repeatedly off his feet, knees, and thighs, to the cheers and taunts of his friends.

Kirkwood
’s voice cut through Mia’s momentary distraction and invited her to join him inside the house. The front door led straight into a large living room that was simple and sparsely furnished and reeked of stale nicotine. Their Australian escort was in there, as were three Arab men, all of whom, she noticed, were smoking.

“This is Abu Barzan,”
Kirkwood
informed her, pointing out a heavyset, triple-chinned man with dyed jet-black hair, a thick matching mustache, and a prominent mole on his left cheek.

“Very nice to meet you.”
Abu Barzan smiled, balancing his cigarette off his lower lip while taking her hand into his large, sweaty paws enthusiastically. “This is
Kaak
Mohsen,” he said, using the Kurdish term for “brother” and gesturing to an older, more reserved man who quietly gave her a welcoming half-bow, “my dear friend who kindly invited us to use his house, at very short notice,” he added pointedly, glancing at Kirkwood, who acknowledged the remark with a nod of gratitude. “And my nephew, Bashar,” the Iraqi concluded, indicating a younger, paunchy, and prematurely balding man.

Mohsen offered her the ubiquitous cup of heavily sugared tea. As she sipped from it, she cast her eyes behind the men and picked out the panoply of guns in the room. Two rifles were on a sideboard by a door that led to the back of the house, and Abu Barzan’s nephew was holding an AK-47 machine gun and packing a handgun under his belt.

She also noticed
Kirkwood
’s silver attaché case, on the dining table in the corner of the room.
Bryan
, the Australian hired gun, seemed to be guarding it. On the floor beside it were several wooden crates filled with items wrapped in soft cloth sacks.

Her gaze found
Kirkwood
. “Does he have the book?” she asked.

“Ah, this famous book,” Abu Barzan chuckled throatily, his girth rippling in tandem with his labored breathing. “Yes, of course I have it for you. Here,” he said, padding heavily over to the table, picking up a small pouch, and holding it up to them knowingly. “This is the one you want, yes?” He
unwrapped
the protective oilskin cover to reveal the codex and held it up proudly.

Even from across the room, Mia could make out the snake-eater. The entire room seemed to resonate with promise and expectation.

Abu Barzan set the codex squarely on the table. “Please.” He gestured, inviting them over.
Kirkwood
glanced over at Mia,
then
approached the table almost reverently. Mia joined him. He reached over to pick up the codex, but Abu Barzan calmly settled his sausagelike fingers over it and flashed
Kirkwood
a questioning smile.
Kirkwood
acknowledged it and gave
Bryan
a signaling nod. Mia watched with a flutter of unease as the man picked up the attaché case and handed it over to a gleeful Abu Barzan, who retreated deferentially.

She wanted to ask what was going on, but her attention was gripped by
Kirkwood
, who was picking up the codex. He held it up so she could examine it with him.

The cover was in remarkably good condition. The Ouroboros was meticulously tooled into the leather, its scales individually carved out.
Kirkwood
looked up at Mia, his face radiating nervous anticipation, then, carefully, opened it.

It read from right to left, as with all Arabic writing.
Its
inside front cover had a blank pastedown, which was common for the period. The first inside page had some Naskhi writing in its center.

As soon as his eyes drank in the words, his face contorted with disappointment.

“What?” Mia asked.

“This is a different book,” he said with a dismayed shake of his head. “It’s called the
Kitab al Kayafa,
” he read aloud.
“The book of principles.”

For a fleeting second, a look of puzzlement crossed her face at the discovery that he could read Arabic. She watched with rapt interest as he turned the pages and gave each one a quick scan.

Whatever he was looking for, it clearly wasn’t there.

She stood in silence as he went back to the first page, and her eyes were quickly lured back by the lines of cursive Latin script that had been added, much later it seemed, in its top corner.

“What does that inscription say? Is that French?” she asked as she struggled to make sense of the highly stylized writing.

“Yes,” he confirmed. He read them to himself, in silence. She scrutinized his face. It was locked in deep contemplation, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist for him. Whatever was written on that ancient sheet of paper seemed to reach deep into his very core.

She waited patiently, not wanting to intrude, then couldn’t subdue her excitement any more. “What does it say?”

“It’s a message,” he told her solemnly.
“From a dying man to his long-lost wife.”
He paused, clearly still processing the words that he’d just read.

After a brief moment, he spoke. “It says, ‘To my love Thérésia, how I yearn to see you, to tell you how much I miss you, to bask in your warm embrace once more, and to show you what I now know is real, for it is all true, my darling. Everything I hoped for is true. I have seen it with my own eyes, but even the discovery of a lifetime pales when I think of what it has cost me, that is, being with you and with our dear son, Miguel. Farewell,’ and it’s signed, ‘Sebastian.’”

A look of puzzlement played on his face. He cocked his head, as if toying with a notion, then turned the page and started reading. He noticed something, then flipped to the next page, immersed in its contents, and then to the next, and the one after that. His eyes lit up as they scoured the text, devouring the Arabic script, then a broad smile erupted across his face.

“What?” Mia asked
,
her eyes riveted on him. “What is it?”

“This is…it’s marvelous,” he said, beaming. “It’s real, Mia. It’s real.”

“Y
ou see, look, here for instance,”
Kirkwood
enthused, “it refers to how ‘the memories of the men and the women of the new society will be challenged as never before’ and sets out ways in which to overcome that. And here”—he turned to the previous page—“it talks about how the men and women of the new society should deal with their numerous descendants in their new world. Not just the men.
The men and the women.”