The Shroud of Heaven

by Sean Ellis

  Kismet’s mouth worked, trying to form words, but there was only rage and futility in his throat. Hauser faced him now, his lips drawn back in a fierce grimace, his eyes dancing hungrily. Without warning, he thrust the gun sideways at Kismet, who reflexively caught it, his left hand grabbing the stock while his right fingers wrapped around the shortened barrel of the carbine. He felt the sting of hot metal scorching his skin but did not release the now-impotent weapon.

  “Why?” he whispered, finding at least that single word. It seemed inadequate, but it was all he could manage.

  Before Hauser could reply, if he intended to at all, a voice called out from the far end of the antechamber where it passed into the main area. The words were in the same unrecognizable language, but the commando leader understood. Nodding, he fired back a quick response in the same tongue, then addressed his sole remaining captive.

  “This prize is not for you, Kismet. Not now.”

  The short declaration was not at all what Kismet was expecting. “What the hell are you talking about? You did all this for…for that thing?” He gestured toward the main chamber where he had last seen the truck and its mysterious, ancient cargo.

  “One day, you will understand what we have done, and why it had to be done.” Despite his earlier, almost gleeful reaction to his act of violence, Hauser now seemed more subdued. He turned without another word and began striding toward the exit. His men followed, keeping wary eyes on the one man who did not belong to their number.

  Kismet glanced down at the CAR15 in his hands, feeling the throb of pain in his right palm. Blue smoke continued to waft from the barrel and the air was heavy with the smell of burned cordite. He knew without looking that Hauser had shot off every round in the magazine, rendering the weapon temporarily useless, but there was something Hauser either did not know or had forgotten about. In two clip-on pouches, one on either side of his combat belt, Kismet carried spare magazines. He tried to estimate exactly how long it would take him to eject the spent clip, tear open the clasp on the ammo pocket, extract a spare and jam it into the magazine well. Two seconds?

  Time enough for the cautious commandos to take preemptive measures; their weapons were already loaded.

  As he weighed his options, the last of the men exited the antechamber, leaving him alone with the dead. He moved toward the passageway, walking slowly enough that he did not alarm the gunmen.

  The commandos had made short work of the sand barrier Samir had used to cover the main entrance. The far end of the ruin was exposed to the chilly desert night, illuminated now only by the stars. Their work finished, the assault team began climbing into the rear of the truck. Hauser lingered behind them, catching his eye once more. “Do not fear, Kismet. It will be kept safe until the world is ready.”

  “Safe?” he echoed hollowly. “With you? You’re a fucking psychopath.”

  Hauser hopped onto the rear bumper and pulled himself half inside the truck. He then turned to Kismet and grinned, shifting his head back slightly, like a werewolf ready to howl. Kismet shook his head to clear the image. “Who are you?”

  “I’ve given you my name,” Hauser replied, elevating his voice to be heard as the diesel engine rumbled to life. “Anything else I could say would only serve to confuse you. However, this much I will reveal: We are the chains of God, sealing Pandora’s box for the preservation of mankind. We are Prometheus, guiding the destiny of the world until humanity is ready to ascend Olympus.”

  The words sounded like a mantra; a pledge learned by rote. The truck lurched into gear, spinning its wheels for a moment before finding purchase in the loose sand. Hauser steadied himself, then shouted over the din. “Do not try to follow us, Kismet. I have done what I can to spare you, but I will take no responsibility for the fortunes of war.”

  Something Hauser had said earlier now echoed in his mind. I told him he is lucky he didn’t kill you.

  “Why?” he shouted as the vehicle moved away from the chamber. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

  Hauser broke into unrestrained laughter; his first honest display of emotion. “Kismet, if I killed you, your mother would have my head.”

  If Hauser had anything more to say, it was lost as the truck moved away, threading the narrow alley between brick structures and sand dunes. Kismet took a step after them, then stopped as rage built in his chest and arms.

  He pressed the button to eject the spent magazine from the carbine, then slammed a fresh clip into the weapon, slapping it with a mechanically practiced action to guarantee that the first round would not jam. He released the bolt, advancing a cartridge into the firing chamber, then raised it to shoulder height and sighted down the stubby barrel at the receding truck. Even as his finger flexed on the trigger, he knew the shot would be a futile gesture. He might get lucky and actually hit one of the escaping killers, but the odds were not good. With a defeated sigh, he lowered the gun and backed into the now deserted ruins. The oil lamps placed by Samir and his family continued to illuminate the abattoir that was the antechamber.

  The sulfur odor of gunpowder lingered in the air, but there was a new scent added to the mix—the unmistakable stench of death. He had been in the presence of the dying and recently passed, but nothing like this. He had never seen healthy, vibrant individuals so violently ripped away from the world. It took a deliberate effort for him to search the memories of his combat skills training in order to determine his next action.

  Like an automaton plugged into a new program, he lurched into action, systematically moving down the row of shattered bodies. The 5.56-mm green-tip ball ammunition had not ripped their flesh apart as larger and softer lead rounds might. Instead, the bullets had stabbed neat little holes clear through the victims, lacerating intestines and vital organs, wreaking internal damage with less outward trauma than might have been expected.

  Samir and the woman Kismet assumed to be his wife had both expired from their wounds, but two of the younger children and one older male still drew ragged breaths. One of the children, a girl, clung to consciousness, whimpering when he turned her over to inspect the wounds. It was enough to throw him out of his almost mechanical routine, and he felt hot tears streaking down his face. He drew out one of two Syrettes of morphine hanging from a breakaway chain around his neck and quickly injected the contents into the girl’s thigh. Her agonized moans soon gave way to shallow breathing.

  He knew the morphine would probably kill her, but that would merely hasten the inevitable and with less anguish. None of those who still drew breath would survive the night. Perhaps with the care of skilled surgeons in a state of the art trauma center, the hand of the Reaper might be stayed, but here in the desert with only Kismet’s basic first-aid skills and even more rudimentary first-aid kit, it was foolish to entertain hope. He cradled her in his arms and waited for the inevitable silence that would follow her final gasp.

  “Bloody hell.”

  The low whisper from behind startled Kismet, but he did not let it show. Instead he turned his head slowly and saw Sergeant Higgins and two of the Gurkhas. Higgins was standing exactly where Hauser had been at the moment of the massacre, and was surveying both the carnage and the scattering of 5.56 millimeter brass casings on the floor. Higgins was solemn. “Did you do this, sir?”

  Unable to find his voice, Kismet shook his head.

  Higgins nodded slowly. “That’s good enough for me, mate.” His words carried the implication that Kismet’s denial might not be sufficient for the others who would eventually ask the same question. The Gurkha continued. “We’ve got to move out, sir. Something has happened. About half an hour ago, the northern sky—by that I mean the sky over Baghdad—lit up like the end of the world. I think it’s finally started.”

  Kismet eased the mortally wounded child to the floor and stood. “How did you get here?”

  “We ran, didn’t we?” Higgins managed a triumphant grin. “More like walked fast. We followed your tracks to the road. After that, it was trusting luck that we were going t
he right way and that you hadn’t gone too far.”

  “Luck.” Kismet looked around the chamber, at last spying his helmet and night vision goggles. “Let’s get moving. We’re going to need the devil’s own luck to get through this.”

  They filed back up the staircase with Kismet leading the way. A fourth Gurkha waited at the entrance to the ruin, a guard left behind by Higgins. With a nod to the sergeant, he fell in with the rest as they marched single file back up to the roadway.

  In the still desert night, Kismet could make out the sound of a distant vehicle engine, perhaps more than one. It might simply have been the sound of Hauser’s captured truck stealing away with the prize, but they couldn’t afford to make that assumption. They were deep in enemy territory.

  One of the Gurkhas approached Samir’s sedan cautiously, peering through the windows. Higgins turned to Kismet. “At least we won’t have to walk back.”

  The soldier tried the door handle.

  Do not try to follow…

  Kismet threw off his paralysis and started toward the car. “Get away from there…”

  The Mercedes suddenly split in two, lifting off the ground in an eruption of orange fire and black smoke. The shock wave slapped Kismet and the others to the ground and sucked the air from their lungs. He felt a heavy weight strike him in the chest—something warm and yielding—and reflexively pushed it away.

  It took only a moment or two for the stunned group of soldiers to recover. Higgins, the most senior among the squad, sprang to his feet, sweeping left and right with his weapon. “What the fuck was that?”

  The Gurkha sergeant was screaming, but Kismet could barely hear through the ringing in his ears. They had all been close to the blast, but none as close as the soldier who had triggered it.

  “Singh!”

  Kismet followed the line of Higgins’ shocked gaze and saw what was left of Corporal Sanjay Singh of the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles.

  The blast had knocked him away from the detonation site a fraction of a second ahead of the flames. The live ordnance in his equipment vest had been triggered by the shock wave, but his flak jacket had directed the force of those secondary explosions away from his torso. Nevertheless, despite escaping the force of fire, Singh’s skeleton had been pulverized within by the release of energy, and his remains were now an almost-shapeless mass of smoking fabric and flesh near Kismet’s feet. Kismet saw the streaks of blood on his own BDU blouse and felt his gorge rise a second time.

  Another of the Gurkhas, the machine-gunner Private Mutabe, was down, his left arm opened to the bone by a slashing fragment of metal. The fourth soldier knelt beside the wounded African and fished out his Syrette, injecting him with a dose of morphine to dull the pain.

  “Jesus Christ,” scowled Higgins, stomping closer to where Kismet stood, reeling. “What the fuck was that?”

  “Car bomb,” murmured Kismet, feeling a fool for stating the obvious. “They booby trapped it. He tried to warn me.”

  “They? Who the fuck are they?” And then, phrasing it so it sounded like a curse, the sergeant added: “Sir.”

  “I don’t know.” Kismet’s answer was inaudible.

  “Well we’re fucked good now, sir.” He jerked a thumb at the column of smoke that spilled up into the night sky. “That’s going to bring everyone within fifty klicks right down on top of us, and in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re down to three.”

  “I noticed,” Kismet muttered. He turned away from Singh’s corpse, fixing the sergeant in his gaze, scouring his memory for the leadership skills he had been taught but never applied. When he spoke again, it was more forcefully. “I noticed, sergeant. Now get your shit together and let’s get moving. Those two can buddy up. You and I will carry Singh.”

  He felt like a fraud for saying it, for using a command voice; he had never commanded men before. And as he watched Higgins’ face quivering with barely contained rage, he wondered if he had made a mistake. Higgins would blame him for this. He was the officer, the mission leader, and responsible for the lives of his subordinates.

  An image of Hauser leering like a coyote flashed in his mind. No, he decided. I didn’t do this. Hauser had murdered Samir and his innocent children. Hauser’s men had rigged the car to blow.

  You and I will eventually meet again…

  In that instant, he knew that he would endure. For the sake of revenge, if nothing else, he would survive.

  Perhaps Higgins saw that light of resolve igniting in Kismet’s eyes. Or maybe it was simply the product of his years of military discipline. Whatever the case, the Gurkha’s expression softened. He took a step toward Kismet, then knelt beside the shattered form of Singh. When he stood, he held the fallen man’s kukri.

  Gripping the back edge of the broad blade between his thumb and forefinger, he extended the hilt toward Kismet. “When we lay him to rest, I’ll want this for his widow. Until then…”

  Kismet accepted the knife, acutely aware of the honor Higgins was paying him. He held the blade out, contemplating its balance and the visible keenness of its edge. He then did something that flew in the face of his training. Bringing himself to attention, he saluted the sergeant.

  Higgins stiffened respectfully and returned the salute, holding it until Kismet lowered his hand.

  “Sergeant, I promise you that we’ll give it to her together.”

  You and I will eventually meet again…

  And that’s the day I’ll cut your heart out, you sick bastard.

  But something else Hauser had said gnawed at him. It was a deeper mystery that he would have to solve before exacting his revenge, a conundrum that would supply impetus to his resolve to survive.

  Both Samir and Hauser had known that it would be he, Nick Kismet, coming to supervise the defection. Both men had believed that Kismet would have a particular interest in the ancient—perhaps even holy—treasure unearthed in the ruins of Babylon. But Hauser had added one more dimension to the enigma.

  Kismet, if I killed you, your mother would have my head.

  Nick Kismet had never known his mother. The woman that had borne him into the world had vanished forever from his life mere moments after completing her labor. No memory or trace of her had remained to prove she ever existed, save for a healthy male child of indeterminate heritage, and a single word, written in the blood of her womb, in a language nearly forgotten; a word that translated alternately as luck, destiny and fate.

  A word that had become his name.

  Miracle

  May 1995

  Between heaven and earth, a veil…

  She came to the waters once a year, not on Christmas or Easter or any of the days reserved for Saints and their feasts, but always on the same day: the second Sunday of May.

  Pierre Chiron had once asked his wife what significance that date held but her answer had been vague and insincere. He had not thought to press the issue then. It was on the occasion of her second pilgrimage, and he could not have imagined that her annual tradition would endure through so many turnings of the calendar. Though he did not share her faith, he had always secretly believed she would receive her miracle. Surely it was only a matter of bad timing. Later, when the years of her barrenness stretched out for more than a decade—when the best doctors in France, then Switzerland, and eventually New York pronounced over and again the same sentence with the same requisite apology—Chiron could not find it in his heart to ask again or to call into question her earlier response. By that time there were other questions hungry for answers.

  Once, after too many glasses of Bordeaux, he had shaped his smoldering ire into words. “How can you continue to beg this God of yours for a miracle when he repeatedly denies you?” How can you continue to believe?

  He was not angry with her, of course, and her answer absorbed all of his fire, tacitly excusing his outburst. “There is a veil between heaven and earth. We cannot always see clearly the will of the Divine. It may be that He is still testing me to see if my faith is stron
g enough to deserve such a reward.”

  He did not want to relent in accusing her God for withholding the blessing of a child from this woman, his devout servant, while any common street whore, too lost in the delirium of a heroin fix to remember or care to employ a condom, might be graced with another bastard child, but her quiet certitude disarmed him, as it always did.

  “Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was ninety years old when she conceived Isaac,” she had said, quietly repeating what she surely must have told herself every day. “Hannah, the mother of Samuel, wept openly before God for years, and He listened. I pray only that He will find me as worthy as those women.”

  “Well,” he had harumphed, trying to step back from his argument without conceding the point. “If it takes until we are ninety years old, then I shall do my part and keep trying every night.”

  Collette had kept trying as well, praying every day in the Basilique du Sacré Coeur and visiting the Massabielle Grotto at Lourdes once every year in May. She was 56 years old now. From a biological standpoint, there was no longer any reason to continue trying. Her menstrual blood had ceased to flow and most of the symptoms associated with the change of life had already abated. Perhaps not as old as ancient Sarah, he thought, but it will nevertheless take a miracle to give me a child.

  Millions came to Lourdes every year looking for miracles, and many went away believing they had found them. The history of the place, insofar as the believers were concerned, was rich with divine acts of provenance. The first such blessing had occurred in 1858 when two young sisters had experienced a visitation while gathering firewood in a cave on the banks of the Gave River, just west of the garrison town of Lourdes. In the years that followed, one of the women continued to experience the presence of the Divine, at one point miraculously locating a spring, the waters of which possessed healing powers, at least for the faithful. It was to this holy place in the southwest Hautes-Pyrenees that Collette made her annual journey looking for just such a miracle.