The Shroud of Heaven (17 page)

As he approached the corner around which his quarry had disappeared, he was able to distinguish a strident cry in Arabic. The words were simple enough for him to translate.It was a cry for help. While the tone was several octaves above the low voice the assassin had used, Kismet had no doubt that the same person was now summoning help, perhaps from the workers on the site. Underneath the shouted words however, there was a strange humming noise, like a building electrical current.

Ready for anything, Kismet raised the Glock and rounded the corner.

A sea of faces gazed back at him. Hundreds, possibly thousands of men, young and old, armed with crude signs demanding that the United States leave their country, as well as sticks, stones and at least a few AK-47 assault rifles, stood their ground directly ahead of Kismet. To a man, they were barefoot. The assassin had already vanished into the throng, blending chameleon-like into the surroundings, which left him alone to face the wrath of the mob.

It dawned on Kismet right then that the construction site in which he now stood was not a stadium or high-rise office complex, but rather the Al-Rahman mosque, which upon completion would be the second largest in the country and certainly one of the largest houses of worship on the planet. Not only was his presence an affront to the collective political will of the group before him, he was also insulting their faith by standing on holy ground.

No one moved for a long, eternal moment. Then, from somewhere in the back of the crowd, a shout went up, demanding that the blood of the infidel be shed. The tide turned and the outraged sea roared toward him like a tsunami.

At nine o’clock that morning, roughly fifteen minutes before Kismet and Chiron had set out with their escort to interview Mr. Aziz at the Baghdad Museum, a very different sort of meeting was taking place not far from the route chosen by Colonel Buttrick. The assemblage was open to any male resident of the city, but implicit in the invitation was the message that those who chose to attend ought to have a deep belief that there was no God but God—Allah in the local parlance—and an abiding faith in the guidance of the
imams
, the spiritual heirs to the Prophet Mohammed. The meeting—a protest rally—was for, of, and by the Shiite citizens of the city, which accounted for roughly half its population. Baghdad was a melting pot where many members of that majority sect, displaced by the pogroms of Saddam Hussein during his twenty-six years in power, had ultimately relocated, living and working alongside the more secularly minded Sunnis.

There were a few among the crowd who were not Arabs, nor even citizens of Iraq, but were in fact Persian agitators, bent on stirring the sleeping giant that was the Shiite majority in Iraq to forcibly oust the United States’ occupying forces and establish a theocracy. Their simple message resonated with a people too long oppressed, who looked upon the foreigners in their midst as merely the latest form of subjugation.

Nearly three thousand men had gathered in front of the Parliament building, not far from the Sujud palace and the military parade grounds, outwardly carrying signs, American flags and effigies, the latter items to be consigned to flames when the watchful eye of the news media turned their way. But under their robes, they carried weapons. For the most part, these consisted of knives and cudgels. A few however had laid their hands on Russian-made assault rifles and sidearms abandoned by the defeated Iraqi military forces. While there was no particular plan to make use of these articles of destruction, the rabble were ready for the call to arms; ready and willing.

Shortly after the four Humvees had passed by unsuspectingly, the crowd had commenced a march to the Al Rahman mosque, a distance of just over two kilometers. The raw skeleton of the massive Islamic temple had become a powerful symbol to these people. Because it was incomplete, not yet bedecked with gaudiness like the extravagant Umm al-Ma’arik or “Mother of All Battles” mosque which stood more as a testament to the former president than to God, it represented the potential of the Shia to shape their own destiny, albeit with a gentle nudge from their fellow believers to the east.

The center of the mosque site was an open circle, more than one hundred meters across, where no work had yet been done. In fact, very little would be done in this area at least until the construction reached the final stages, following the erection of a glorious gilt dome. For now however, the area served as an impromptu amphitheater where a number of honored speakers whipped the already fervid crowds into a religious frenzy.

It was no coincidence that brought the assassin to this place. The rally was an ideal place to blend in and escape the searching eyes of the US military. Had Kismet realized that his foe had intentionally led him to this place, he would have greeted the notion with a degree of irony. There was a very good reason why the crowd spread out across the mosque site was exclusively male. The Quran did not permit members of the fairer sex to attend such a gathering.

Therein lay the one piece of information concerning Aziz’s murderer about which Kismet had no doubts. It was the secret he had, for no rational reason, held back in his discussion with Buttrick. In the initial moments of the chase, when they had grappled at the museum, he had felt breasts. The cold-blooded, highly trained assassin was a woman.

At just that instant however, the assassin’s gender, or for that matter, the inequality of the local religious teachings was the last thing on Nick Kismet’s mind.

He instinctively brought his gun to bear, waving it in a broad arc before him in hopes of intimidating the crowd. It was a foolish effort, he realized. In the zeal of the moment, a collective sense of invulnerability had come over the protestors. To be sure, each man had applied the simple logic of the odds—there were far more of them than bullets in his gun. However, the charge was deflected somewhat. The human surge seemed to run into an invisible barrier three meters from where he stood, wrapping around him to either side while maintaining that minimum safe distance. In the space of a heartbeat, he was surrounded.

Realizing his mistake too late, Kismet turned to flee. Although they had outflanked him, the mob was at its weakest point where they had filled in at his rear. The human wall was a thin line no more than two men deep. He swung his pistol in their direction and fired.

The shot was intentionally high. The last thing he wanted to do was compound an already dire situation by killing someone. If he crossed that line, the crowd would settle for nothing less than dismembering him. As it was, the sound of the discharge fanned the flames of wrath, but for those directly in the line of fire, the warning shots had the desired effect. The men dropped in a panic, weakening the line as he charged.

In that moment of sublime pandemonium, Kismet reckoned his chances of escape were about even. Despite the overwhelming force of numbers, the crowd was a cumbersome entity, limited by the strength and speed of its leading edge. Those in the middle had to rely on guidance from their comrades and sometimes the lines of communication were slow and unreliable. The seeds of a plan sprouted as he closed in on the skirmish line. All he had to do was get past them and he would have the advantage.

At the moment of contact, he attempted to vault over the cowering defenders. His focus was narrowed to the three of four men who actually had a chance of stopping him. One man, older than his companions and more wary, was practically on his hands and knees. Kismet leaped over the man’s bent back, and was a step closer to freedom.

Suddenly his world spun around. Instead of open sky, he found himself staring at the desert floor and before he could even begin to comprehend what had happened, the wind was driven from his lungs as his torso slammed into the ground. Someone, perhaps the old man, had snared his ankle, ripping him out of the air in mid-leap.

The protest marchers swarmed over him like warrior ants, tearing blindly at his extremities. The gun discharged several times, although he made no deliberate effort to pull the trigger, and cries of pain and rage went up from the dog pile. The Glock was torn from his fingers a moment later, even as blows began raining down upon him.

In that frantic moment, adrenaline took over. The instinctive need to survive—to flee and fight—directed his hands and feet in a way that his conscious mind could not fathom. He began to kick and punch and gouge, twisting like a dynamo, inflicting close-quarters damage that slowly accumulated to the point where his attackers were forced back, if only to arm’s length. As they fell away, Kismet’s fingers closed on the haft of his
kukri
and he wrenched it free from its scabbard, waving it menacingly. The large steel blade intimidated the mob in a way his firearm could not. It held promise of slashing wounds and lost limbs, rather than the almost intangible threat of a bullet hole.

There was blood on the sand. Some of it was his, but at least two of the men had suffered gunshot wounds and lay motionless on the ground. Others bore the marks of Kismet’s adrenaline fueled counterattack with bloody noses and split lips, but he knew that whatever traumas he had managed to inflict were reflected and magnified on his own body. Rivulets of warm fluid were dripping from his chin, and somehow he knew it wasn’t perspiration.

He feinted experimentally with the
kukri
, driving once more at what he perceived to be the weakest point. As he did, one youth broke toward him, screaming a war cry. Kismet whirled to face him, slashed blindly and the blade found flesh. There was a crunch of steel on bone as the heavy knife lopped off a hand, and the battle yell became a howl of agony.

Kismet did not waste time surveying the damage. The youth had broken ranks to attack him, leaving a hole in the perimeter of the assault. Still slashing the
kukri
before him, he charged toward the gap. A few brave fingers snagged his clothing as he pushed through, but none were able to stop him. In a moment he was through.

As the mob began to realize that their prey had eluded the pinchers and was now escaping, their rage grew to blinding proportions. Men pushed forward, heedless of those ahead of them, and dozens were crushed or trampled in the surge. The crowd seemed to fragment beyond that point, with individuals breaking loose and sprinting after Kismet, while most remained caught in the snarl. Notwithstanding this, their strength of numbers remained.

Kismet wove through the obstacles of the construction site, more intent on staying in motion than reaching any particular goal. The task before him seemed overwhelming; he had to find refuge in an unfamiliar city where virtually everyone wanted him dead.

For a moment, he thought about trying to cross back through the rail yard in order to rendezvous with Buttrick and his soldiers. He immediately dismissed that idea.All it would accomplish would be to bring the rage of the masses down on those men as well. Instead he stayed on a straight course, veering left or right only when an obstacle presented itself.

He ducked his head reflexively when he heard the familiar crack of his own gun being discharged. The distinctive sound of the nine-millimeter pistol repeated two more times, but none of the rounds found their mark, and after the third concussion, the gun fell silent. It was only a momentary reprieve.Kismet knew there were other guns among the crowd.

He reached the edge of the construction site, slipped through an inexplicable stand of trees, and once more onto the barren brown desert floor. The
kukri
in his right fist seemed like an anchor, weighing him down and making each step that much harder, but the crimson stain on its edge was compelling testimony to its usefulness. Besides, the thought of throwing it away was abhorrent. He had once believed he would die with the blade in his hand; now it seemed another such opportunity for that fate had arrived.

He dared not look back. There was no need to verify the fact that mob was at his heels. He was more concerned about what lay directly ahead—a lot of nothing. There was nowhere to hide, no safe place where he would be granted refuge. This was an endurance race, and he would lose only when he could run no more.

So he ran.

Nothing else existed but to keep moving. Time was measured by the pounding of his heart in his ears, synchronized to the rhythm of his footsteps—four strides per beat. He could hear nothing else. His field of vision likewise was narrowing, focusing in on a fixed object: a high-rise structure directly ahead and perhaps five kilometers in the distance. He had no idea what the building was and there was no way he would ever reach it, but it was something tangible that he could move toward. He was barely aware of the darkness closing in at the edge of his vision.

The crowd could not match his pace. Their collective motivation to rend his limbs was not as fierce as his will to survive. Barefoot and exhausted from the long march, many were content to fade into the background, allowing their brothers and neighbors the thrill of the kill. A few score however surged ahead, breaking away from the mob and sprinting with all their might after the fleeing figure. Unconsciously, the men separated into two packs, forming wedges behind the fastest runners. As they narrowed the gap, each leader angled away from the distinctive pattern of Kismet’s footprints, swerving into a parallel course that would enable them to cut off and overwhelm him. Through the pounding and the darkness, he almost failed to notice.

One young man, wielding a rudimentary carving knife whetted so frequently that it was a mere sliver of steel, charged prematurely. He dived at an angle, the wooden grips of the knife squeezed tight in his right fist, and stabbed at the center of Kismet’s back. The blade snagged in the already ragged fabric, and as he felt the first twinge of pain, Kismet twisted away. The attack had thrown the running youth off balance, and as the knife was torn from his grip, he sprawled forward onto the sand. The man closest behind tried to leap over his fallen comrade but mistimed his jump, tripping on an outstretched leg and likewise ending up prone on the desert floor.