The Sanctuary (45 page)

The whole body language was wrong. There was tension between them, in the way
Kirkwood
was walking warily in front of Corben.

It was almost as if he were a prisoner.

CORBEN WALKED BEHIND
Kirkwood
as he directed him to the Land Cruiser, gripping the attaché case in one hand, the silenced handgun in the other.

As they walked up to the SUV, his eyes calmly scanned the surrounding houses. He caught a glimpse of a young boy, peeking out at them from an open window before being pulled back by his fearful mother. He sensed movement in other windows. They had to be quick. The Turkish police were probably already on their way—they were always on alert throughout the region, due to the constant threat from Kurdish PPK separatist militants, whose home turf this was—and Corben had no interest in explaining himself to them, or to anyone for that matter, just yet.

They reached the Land Cruiser. Its windows were down, and Corben could see that its doors weren’t locked. “Get in the car,” he ordered
Kirkwood
in a low rasp, “and don’t do anything stupid.”

Kirkwood
climbed into the passenger seat as Corben chucked the attaché case and the submachine gun into the back of the SUV. He looked up and scrutinized the roofs above them. He couldn’t see her anywhere, but he knew she had to be watching.

“Mia,” he bellowed upwards. “Come on out. It’s safe. We’ve got to get out of here now.”

MIA STAYED LOW as Corben’s voice echoed up from the street.

The last thing she wanted was to be abandoned here, alone, in this godforsaken corner of the world, surrounded by dead bodies. The
Midnight Express
analogy was coming to life alarmingly in her mind’s eye. She wanted to believe that Corben was on their side, that he was here to save them, that he was trying to get her mom back. He’d obviously killed the hakeem’s men.
Which had to be a good thing.
So what if he knew about the hakeem’s experiments? So he’d lied to her about what this was all about.
Big deal.
She didn’t “need to know.” And it didn’t mean he wasn’t also trying to get Evelyn back.

“Mia,” Corben yelled again. “We’ve got to go. Come on.”

She shut her eyes and imagined Corben and
Kirkwood
driving off without her, and the thought suddenly horrified her. She couldn’t face being left behind.

She subdued her warring emotions and, with the fear of making a huge mistake throttling her stomach, rose to her feet.

SITTING IN THE LAND CRUISER,
Kirkwood
felt a surge of anxiety wash over him as he listened to Corben’s calls.

He had to do something. He was sure Corben wouldn’t want Mia around once he got his hands on the book. She knew too much.

He had to warn her.

He reached out and flung the door open and bolted from the car.

“Mia, don’t come out,” he yelled, scanning the roofs around him. “Stay away.”

Corben dashed after him and tackled him a few yards from the Land Cruiser. He grabbed him by the collar and stuffed the gun in his face.

Kirkwood
scowled at him defiantly. “What are you gonna do, shoot me?”

Corben held him there for a breath, seething with anger and frustration. “Get up,” he ordered, pulling him to his feet and shoving him towards the Land Cruiser. He stopped at the car, cast one last glance up at the roofs, then pushed
Kirkwood
into the car and climbed in behind him.

MIA’S BREATH CAUGHT as she spotted
Kirkwood
dart out of the car and run down the street. Her whole body stiffened as Corben caught up with him, floored him, and manhandled him back to the car.

She sank back to her cover and watched as Corben climbed into the car, and her heart sank as she heard its engine churn to life before it screeched off and disappeared around a corner.

She pushed herself to her feet, the blood draining from her face, feeling dizzy. She looked down at the quiet street. The Land Cruiser was well and truly gone, leaving a plume of dust and the two dead bodies in its wake. Stunned and curious people were cautiously emerging from the adjacent houses and from the bazaar.

She glanced at the old book in her hands and noticed that her nails had clawed deep into its leather cover. She felt like ripping the damn thing to pieces and screaming her lungs out in rage, but instead, she looked around, saw what looked like the overhang of a stairwell, and made her way towards it.

M
ia ducked out of a side entrance to the bazaar and into the cobbled alleyway from which Corben and
Kirkwood
had emerged. She could see increased activity in the main street outside the house as people realized the threat was gone, and she snuck the other way, heading back into the alley.

As she turned the corner, she saw a hulking figure stumbling out of the house. It was Abu Barzan. The big man was slowly inching his way out, all hunched over, one hand pressed against his thigh, his trousers drenched with blood. The alley was strewn with several dead bodies. He stopped at one of them and crouched down, running his hand over the dead man’s face. Mia realized he’d found his nephew’s body.

She edged up to him. He turned to her, sucking in deep, laborious breaths. He had pained, half-shut eyes, and his jowly face glistened with sweat.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, avoiding looking too closely at the fallen man by his feet.

Abu Barzan just nodded stoically, his expression bristling with anger and defiance.

“Let me see it,” she said, pointing to his wound.

He didn’t react. She reached out hesitantly and ripped his pants open around the wound to uncover it. She could see an entry puncture as well as an exit one in the thick flesh of his thigh. Noting that the bleeding wasn’t intense, coupled with that he was standing and breathing, she thought that his femoral artery probably hadn’t been severed by the bullet or by bone fragments. This negated the risk of his bleeding to death, but the wound needed to be dressed quickly to lessen the blood loss and avoid infection.

“I don’t think it’s shattered any bone,” she observed, “but it needs cleaning.”

A high-pitched siren wailed faintly in the distance. Abu Barzan looked at her with anxious eyes. “I have to go,” he grumbled, and started to limp away.

“Wait.” She followed, stepping over the fallen gunmen. “You need to go to a hospital.”

He waved her off.
“A hospital?
Are you crazy? I’m half-Kurd,” he spat back. “How do you think I’m going to explain this?”

Mia nodded somberly. “I’m not sure I know how I’m going to explain this myself.”

Abu Barzan studied her for a beat,
then
said, “Come.”

She put an arm under his shoulder and helped him keep the weight off his injured leg as they slipped away into the dark back alleys of the old town.

CORBEN KEPT A CLOSE EYE on his rearview mirror as he guided the Land Cruiser out of the city and headed south, towards Mardin.

He had a big decision to make, but the more he thought about it, the more he believed he could pull it off. He had
Kirkwood
, who could unlock the mystery if properly motivated, and Corben was, if anything, an expert on inspiring. He had a window of opportunity during which he could misbehave: He’d been abducted in his sleep, the front door of his apartment would testify to that. He would say he was a prisoner of the hakeem. Everything he did was with a gun to his head. Enough said.

The problem was
Kirkwood
.

He couldn’t be allowed to walk away from this. Not with what he knew.
Mia—that could be finessed.
Kirkwood
was more complicated.

“You really with the UN?”
Corben asked him. His handgun nestled in his lap.

“Last time I checked,”
Kirkwood
answered flatly, staring ahead blankly.

Corben nodded, impressed.
“Six hundred grand.
Not exactly chump change.” He waited for a reaction, but none came. “How many of you are there?”

He detected a flicker of confusion in
Kirkwood
.

“What are you talking about?”

“How many of you are there looking for this thing? I mean,
there’s
you, and there’s Tom Webster, right?” Corben fished. “You’re able to fly in at the drop of the hat with a case full of cash. I’m thinking you guys have some decent resources to draw on.”

Kirkwood
ignored the comment. “Where are we going?”

“We’re both after the same thing. I say let’s see it through all the way.” Corben paused, glancing over at
Kirkwood
. “Besides, I miss the mountains. Clean air up there. Good for the lungs,” he deadpanned.

The Iraqi border was a couple of hours’ drive away. He debated whether to call in, inform his station chief that he’d been kidnapped, say he’d managed to get away and was now shadowing the Iraqi smuggler behind the kidnapping, and get them to call ahead and make sure he was allowed through the border crossings unhampered. He decided against it, preferring to keep his cohorts in the dark a little while longer. And although he didn’t have a passport or any ID on him, he had a far more effective travel document in the back: a case full of dollar bills. In that desperate land, he
know
a few of those greenbacks would open most doors. From there, it wasn’t far to Al Amadiyya. If everything went smoothly, they’d make the village Abu Barzan had spoken of by nightfall.

“What are your plans for it, if it’s out there?”
Kirkwood
asked bluntly.
“Can’t imagine our government’s anywhere near ready to deal with something like this.
Preserving the status quo and all.”
He turned to face Corben. “’Cause that’s the plan, isn’t it? Bury it—along with anyone who knows about it?”

Corben smirked and let out a small chortle.
“Probably.
But it’s not mine.”

Kirkwood
raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Corben glanced at him, a wry smile crinkling the edge of his mouth. “Let’s say I have a more entrepreneurial approach to life.” He paused. “Question is
,
what are you guys planning for it?”

“A better world for everyone,”
Kirkwood
replied, seemingly thrown by Corben’s cavalier attitude. “And I mean
everyone
.”

Corben shrugged. “So I guess we’re on the same page.”

“Except for one pesky little detail.
I’m not prepared to kill for it.”

“Maybe you just haven’t yet had to face that choice.”

Kirkwood
let it simmer. “What if I have?”

The insinuation intrigued Corben, but he masked the feeling. “Then I’d say I care more about making the world a better place than you do,” he replied nonchalantly.

“And where does Evelyn Bishop fall in all this?
Collateral damage?”

“Not necessarily.” Corben glanced over at him. A motivational tool had just presented itself. “Help me figure this out, and nothing will give me more pleasure than taking the hakeem down and getting her back.”

Corben cocked an eyebrow, waiting for
Kirkwood
’s reaction, and smiled inwardly. He had him thinking, which was good. It meant he’d be spending less time trying to
wrangle
his freedom.

Corben decided to nudge him a little further in that direction. “By the way, when were you and Webster planning on telling Mia that her dad was still alive?”

KIRKWOOD
STIFFENED at Corben’s jocular tone. At least Corben didn’t know the whole truth, he reminded himself.

At least he didn’t know that he was Tom Webster.

He thought back to what Corben must have overheard back in
Diyarbakir
and replayed the conversation in his mind. Corben assumed the formula didn’t work, not for anyone.
Which was why he hadn’t made the leap.

Let’s keep it that way,
he thought.

The name he’d used with Evelyn drifted his thoughts back to her. Guilt consumed him. If he’d told her the truth back then, in Al-Hillah, maybe she would’ve been more careful. She would have known dangerous people would be after this. They always were. They came out of the woodwork the minute they got a sniff of it. It was the way of the world.
Had been for hundreds of years.

Evelyn wouldn’t have been kidnapped.

And he would have known he had a daughter.
A daughter who would have grown up with a father.
He’d have made sure of that. He’d have found a way.

He remembered the look in Mia’s eyes when he’d told her the truth, and it gutted him again, just ripped his insides out and left nothing there but a gaping black hole.