The Shroud of Heaven (2 page)

There was no way to avoid startling the oblivious defector, but he tried to minimize the shock by softly clearing his throat. The Iraqi man turned his head slowly, almost absent-mindedly, before reacting exactly as Kismet feared he would. Yet, as the man flailed backwards, waving his hands defensively, Kismet’s apprehension that he had walked into a trap eased considerably. The defector had not groped for a concealed weapon or called out in alarm; no hidden accomplices had leapt to the man’s aid. Kismet waited motionless for his contact to recover.

“Is salaam aleekum.”
Peace be upon you.

The softly spoken greeting did not seem to soothe the frightened man, but he heard the muttered, traditional reply: “Wa aleekum is-salaam.”
And upon you be peace
.

“Well that’s a good sign,” Kismet muttered in English. His grasp of Arabic was not as strong as he would have liked. A lifetime of world travel with his father had immersed him repeatedly in foreign language environments, but he considered himself fluent only in the Romance languages.

However, despite the fact that his self-directed words were barely audible, the defector suddenly brightened. “You are Mr. Kismet?” he asked in halting English.

Kismet blinked. In his pre-mission briefing, he had been given precious little information about how the rendezvous would proceed. There had been no arrangement made for passwords and counter-signs. His commander was unable even to supply a name for the defector, much less any sort of safeguarding procedures. The last thing he had anticipated was for the Iraqi man to know his name. He switched off his night vision goggles and swung them up, away from his face. “That’s right.”

“
Il-Hamdulillaah
,” breathed the man. “God be praised. I feared that you would not be coming. I am Samir Al-Azir.”

He sensed that the man expected to be recognized, but the name triggered no memories. He smiled and gave the man a knowing nod, hoping nothing would happen to further expose his ignorance. “We should probably get moving.”

Samir seemed further relieved at the suggestion, as if suddenly remembering why he was lurking in the cold desert night. He flipped his cigarette onto the sand. “Yes, yes. Follow me.”

Before he could protest, Samir turned and began climbing the dune. Dumbly, Kismet started after the Iraqi. At the top of the rise, he signaled the waiting Gurkhas by extending his arms out to either side, as though waiting to be searched. The unusual gesture was a previously established signal, indicating to his comrades that he was not being taken along under duress. If Samir noticed, he said nothing.

Based on his recollection of aerial reconnaissance photographs of the area, Kismet knew that the nearest road was more than a kilometer from their present location. That roadway was a featureless track snaking across the desert to provide access to the semi-permanent Bedouin communities, and more importantly, to expedite the deployment of troops in the event of a war. With that war now looming large, the likelihood of armed forces moving along the highway was greatly increased. He did not find Samir’s eagerness to approach that destination encouraging, but what he saw as they crested yet another dune a few moments later increased his anxiety tenfold. Barely visible across the intervening distance was the unmistakable silhouette of a vehicle waiting beside the highway.

It took another ten minutes of struggling over the uneven terrain to reach the parked sedan, long enough for him to ascertain that the battered, silver Mercedes was unoccupied. “Where are we going, Samir?”

The defector flashed a grin over his shoulder, but Kismet could see the other man’s concern etched in deep lines across his forehead. “Not far. The tell is nearby.”

Tell
? There were many ways of interpreting the word, none of which made sense in the context. He frowned, but did not press for more information. Instead, he opened the rear driver side door of the sedan and carefully slipped inside. Samir’s pale face registered confusion at Kismet’s decision to sit behind instead of beside him, but he said nothing as he turned the key and eased the car onto the paved road.

Kismet rested the CAR15 on the seat beside him, shifting the waist pack of his load-bearing vest to avoid sitting on it. That the Army-issue equipment had not been designed for use in the cramped interior of a passenger vehicle was only one factor owing to his choice of the rear seat. Sitting in the back represented an attempt, however insignificant, to take a measure of control over the situation. He was completely at Samir’s mercy. Even if the defector meant him no harm, there would be no effective way for Kismet to respond in the event of a sudden crisis. From the back seat at least, should the worst case scenario play out, he would be able to encourage the Iraqi to heed his suggestions by holding the business end of his sidearm to the base of the other man’s skull.

True to his word, Samir drove the car only a few kilometers along the highway before once more pulling off into the sand. Kismet hastened from the confining interior of the sedan, and began scanning the dunes for any sign of enemy forces. They appeared to be alone in the night. Samir lit another cigarette then motioned for Kismet to follow as he headed into the desert.

The path chosen by the Iraqi defector led north across a section of flat land where bare rock struggled up through the ubiquitous layer of sand. Kismet gradually became aware that they were descending into a low valley sculpted by centuries of wind and, perhaps in a forgotten age, water. In the otherworldly green display of his goggles, he saw clear evidence of previous foot traffic along their course; not simply a scattering of prints, but a line of disruption indicating the passage of several people. He hefted the CAR15, his thumb poised on the fire selector and his finger on the outside of the trigger guard, but resisted the impulse to spin strategies for dealing with a hostile encounter. He would likely be outnumbered and outgunned in such a situation, so there was little to be gained by worrying. Samir, however, seemed to relax, as if each step brought him closer to a place of refuge. Their destination soon became apparent.

From the outside, it did not look like a cave, merely a bruise in the surface of a vertical rock face which might simply have been the product of an ancient boulder collision. Only on closer inspection could Kismet perceive the depth of the cut in the rock and the fact that the stone surface was not stone at all, but weathered bricks of baked clay laid one atop another. It was not a cave, but a structure built by men in the middle of the desert and almost completely hidden beneath the dunes. Samir ducked through the narrow slit without hesitation. An almost blinding flare in the midst of Kismet’s night vision display indicated a light source within. He switched the goggles off and swiveled them out of the way, then crouched down and followed blindly.

The passage beyond was narrow. His shoulders scraped against brick on either side as he descended along a crumbling staircase. The steps, like the structure itself, were clearly the work of human artifice, but their condition suggested centuries of both use and neglect. They were in an ancient place.

At the foot of the stairwell, he saw the source of the light. As his guide stepped forward into a large antechamber, he could clearly make out the flickering of several randomly placed oil lamps. It was not until he moved out from the narrow recess, however, that Kismet realized they were not alone.

Before he could bring his carbine up, or even identify a target, Samir hastened in front of him, arms extended. “No, no, Mr. Kismet. This is my family.”

Kismet exhaled sharply and lowered the weapon. In the undulating lamp-light he made out several human shapes: an elegantly dressed woman, her head covered by a colorful scarf; a teenage boy who seemed a younger, thinner version of Samir; and several more indistinguishable lumps, hidden beneath blankets on the floor. In all, there appeared to be a dozen people camped out in the hidden structure, possibly representing three generations of Samir’s clan.

“Family,” echoed Kismet, the significance of the revelation sinking in. “No one said anything about your family.”

Samir looked shocked. “I could not leave them. When it is learned what I have done, they would be made to suffer. Such is the way with President Hussein.”

Kismet felt a moment of self-loathing for having questioned the matter. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just…well, we didn’t develop a contingency for exfiltrating more than one person. There won’t be room on the helo for all of us.”

Samir’s expression fell, prompting Kismet to hastily augment his statement. “What I mean is, we’ll have to make some changes to the plan.”

The Iraqi seemed pleased at the promise and brightened once more. “Allah is great.”

“Yeah,” muttered Kismet, loosening the chin strap on his helmet as he surveyed the room a second time. “Say, you didn’t all come here in that one car?”

Samir grinned. “No. There is also a truck.”

“Any more surprises?”

“No more surprises.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you wish to see it?”

Kismet sensed the defector was no longer talking about the truck, and that whatever he was referring to would indeed be a surprise, but the only way to know for certain was to play along. “Sure.”

Samir launched into motion again, but did not move toward the stairwell as Kismet expected. Instead, he crossed the antechamber, picked up one of the lamps, and headed toward an arched entryway on the opposite side.

“The truck is here? Inside this—whatever it is?”

“These are the ruins of Tall al Muqayyar. We are very near to what you in the West call Ur of the Chaldees. It was the birthplace of Ibraiim; Abraham, the father of Ismail. Our nation takes its name from this place: Uruk. It is the birthplace of civilization.”

“You don’t say.” He thought Samir sounded like a tour guide. He had studied enough source material about Iraq to recognize the truth of Samir’s words, but ancient ruins held little appeal; he preferred the company of the living. “We are under the ground though?”

“The sands come and go. The ruins have been excavated several times since their discovery almost two centuries ago, but the sand always returns. In this instance, I have used the sand to conceal the main entrance to the ruin.” He gestured with the lamp, throwing a wavering yellow glow into the shroud of darkness. Beyond the antechamber was a larger room, its ultimate width and breadth beyond the scope of Kismet’s unaided eyesight. He resisted the impulse to swivel the goggles down, electing instead to wait for Samir’s lamp to expose the room’s secrets. As the Iraqi strode purposefully forward, his light cut a swath through the darkness in the middle of the chamber. After only a few steps, the bare floor disappeared beneath an increasingly dense accumulation of desert sand.

The lamp’s rays soon revealed a vehicle in the buried chamber—what looked to Kismet like a deuce and a half, or 2.5-ton truck—its rear cargo area covered by a low slung canvas tarpaulin. The truck appeared to be a cast-off military vehicle, broken, repaired and mongrelized to the extent that its origins were unrecognizable. Beyond the truck, the sand rose up in a vast dune, completely blocking what must have served as the main entrance to the ruin. Samir placed his lamp on the rear bumper of the truck, but hesitated there.

Kismet tried to peer into the tent-like enclosure, but saw nothing in the shadows. “Well?”

“Forgive me. I am a coward. President Hussein says it is not the hand of Allah—that it is a Zionist trick—but he does not touch it. No sane man dares touch it.”

“The hand of Allah?” Again Kismet sensed that he was expected to know more than he did. He decided to end the charade. “I’m sorry, Samir, but I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of you and I haven’t the faintest idea why you think I’d care about what’s in that truck.”

His declaration hit Samir like a blow. The Iraqi staggered back, his hands moving nervously. “You-you are not Kismet.”

“I am Nick Kismet. Pretty sure I’m the only one.” Given the unique circumstances surrounding the choosing of his name, he felt safe in the assertion.

“But then you must know. You of all people would know…”

Kismet shrugged. “They didn’t tell me much about the mission, Samir. I didn’t even know that you were the person I’d be meeting.”

He could tell the revelation troubled Samir, but the Iraqi began nodding slowly, as if to clear his head. “I believe I understand. When you have seen it, everything will become clear.”

Kismet stared once more into the cargo area of the truck. His thoughts began to spin out of control. Just what was the secret Samir was delivering to him?
The hand of Allah
? Had the defector snatched one of Saddam’s much-rumored nuclear weapons? Almost trembling with eagerness, Kismet laid the CAR15 on the deck and pulled himself into the truck.

He had to crouch down under the low hanging tarpaulin, but once inside, his ability to see in the darkness began to improve. He could discern that the cargo bay was empty save for a lone object in the center, secured to a wooden pallet by a single nylon rope that zigzagged back and forth across the bed of the vehicle. Whatever lay beneath that web was further concealed by a heavy blanket of dark material, but he could make out a vaguely familiar silhouette. It didn’t look like any kind of nuclear warhead.

Samir held his light close to the opening. “I would advise you not to touch it, but of course, you would know more about this than I.”

Kismet stared in disbelief at the veiled bundle. He recognized the outline of the object only because it looked exactly the way it had in a motion picture he had enjoyed countless times as a child. “What the…is this some kind of joke?”

Samir’s eyes seemed to dance eagerly in the flicker of lamplight. “Does this not buy freedom for my family and I?”

Kismet spun to face the Iraqi. “If this really is what you want me to believe it is, then how in hell did you get it?”

“President Hussein has long feared that if the Zionists—the Israelis—learned that we possessed it, they would not hesitate to use any means necessary to take it back. And once they possessed it, they would be emboldened to make war with all Arabs. Yet he hesitated to destroy it—what if it truly is the work of Allah? But now with America ready to invade, he can wait no longer. If it is from Allah, then Allah must decide how to save it, or so President Hussein says. He ordered me to have it destroyed. Of course I was supervised, but I managed to switch it with a decoy. It was very costly. I had to find enough gold to fool the others, but I did. And when the chance arose, I sent for you.”