“They had to take them down. Too much cover for the insurgents. This route from the airport is one of the most dangerous strips of highway in the entire city.”
“What a shame.”
Ward rolled his eyes. “Try having your legs blown off. You’d be chopping down a few trees too if you thought it would save you.”
With checkpoint stops, it took us almost an hour to travel to our destination. Concrete barriers thrown up to prevent truck bombs from getting through and a heavy military presence stopped us from driving right up to the hotel. We parked and walked to the entrance.
Stocky, tough-looking soldiers dressed in black uniforms patrolled the hotel. They carried enough firepower to take over a small country. I was surprised to see they weren’t Americans. “Peshmergas,” Ward told me. “Kurdish soldiers; they’re working with the American military. You don’t want to fool around with those guys.”
After being checked out by the guards, we proceeded to our suite—one bedroom with a sitting area and bathroom. The hotel looked to be in very rough shape and Ward told me it had been looted when the occupation forces had entered Baghdad. He ushered me into the bedroom and ended my brief flirtation with freedom by cuffing my wrist to the bed frame. This time he left my right hand free.
“I’ve got to go out to make some arrangements. I’ll order you something to eat. When I’m back we can talk.” Ward said this on his way out the door. Eris accompanied him. The two mercenaries made themselves comfortable in the sitting room and immediately popped a movie into the DVD player.
I found I could slide the bracelet of the cuff a little way along the bedrail so I maneuvered over to the side near the window and looked out. Off in the distance I could see the turquoise dome of the Fourteenth of Ramadan Mosque, one of Hussein’s last megaprojects. He was a great one for building monuments, most of them in praise of himself.
I looked down to the hotel grounds and could make out a pack of dogs, once family pets, now forced by hunger to return to their wild roots and forage in the urban landscape. They tore at some whitish lumps on the ground. I shifted my eyes away, not wanting a clear picture of what they were eating.
Traffic noise died down. The lyrical notes of the Adhan cut through the evening air. This would be the fifth and last call to prayer for the day, coming between the fall of darkness and midnight. I felt the beauty of his song, tried to loosen up and let the halftones float through me. Then came the tat-tat-tat of gunshots. The dogs howled, the muezzin’s call shattered by their song of despair. Laurel was now so far away I couldn’t imagine how to help her. My own prospects were barely any better.
When we’d passed through the lobby, I’d noticed a number of Westerners and judged by their easy camaraderie and casual dress that most of them were journalists. The thought occurred to me that if I could get free, one of them might lend me a hand to get away. But with no money or papers I’d have no means to get out of the country. And even if I’d found a way around that, Ward would take it out on Laurel.
I used the time to do some thinking and believed I knew why he’d brought me to Iraq. If I was right it would soon be obvious.
I called out to one of the guards. He stuck his head around the door. “What?”
“I want a drink. Can you get me something from the minibar?”
“We’re not your waiters.”
I could smell the hot dogs he’d just heated up in the microwave. “How did you get hot dogs?”
“It all comes in from Kuwait. We don’t eat the eye-raki shit.”
Despite his claim that he wasn’t a waiter, when my food came he brought the tray in and placed it on the bedside table. Chicken tikka, rice, and something vaguely greenish that I guessed had originally been a vegetable. Along with that, a carafe of sweet chai with a screwtop lid that could be used as a cup. I wolfed down the entire meal as if it were cordon bleu.
After Ward returned he undid the cuffs so I could use the can. I took my time, soaping and splashing water over my arms and hands, running a washcloth under the steaming hot water and pressing it to my face, giving my hair a comb. My beard was starting to look unruly.
Walking back into the bedroom, I told Ward I wanted a drink. “Help yourself,” he said.
It was a measure of how low I’d fallen that I felt elated when he let me go unaccompanied into the sitting room to reach the minibar. His guards kept their eyes trained on me as I grabbed a mini bottle of Scotch and poured it into a glass before returning to the bedroom.
I dangled my legs over the edge of the bed while Ward pulled up a chair. He seemed more relaxed, a little brighter.
“Eris checked out the address you gave us. It looks credible. Actually, it’s in this neighborhood, al-Mansour. The owner of the house is Assyrian like the Zakar brothers. Tomas may very well be hoarding the engraving there.”
“So why not just raid it? You have the means. Why involve me?”
“I don’t want to risk damaging it in a raid. And I need to know more before we go in. We’ve had them under continual surveillance. Whatever was in there a few days ago still is.”
“Would Tomas have had time to get back here? He could hardly sail in through the airport.”
“It’s been what—over three days since you last saw him?” “Pretty close.”
“I doubt he ever entered Turkey. Mazare set all that up for him. That left more than enough time to fly to Syria or Jordan and drive in. The borders are like a sieve now, millions of holes for anyone to crawl through, and it’s only half a day’s drive to the city.”
He tilted back and stretched. Despite the heat he was dressed in a relatively formal suit, white shirt, and tie. Perhaps to appear more casual and set me at ease, he took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves.
The tattoo on his forearm stood out like a neon sign. A lowercase h with a short bar at its top.
Ward bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists. “Tomorrow morning we’re sending you to the address you gave us. We want you to get inside.”
“Why me? There must be any number of people you could call on.”
“Shock value. You’re absolutely the last person Tomas Zakar would expect to see in Baghdad. We’ll be able to flush him out that way.” He paused to make sure I got the full impact of his next words. “Also, you’re expendable. I don’t want one of my own people dying in there.”
“And after what happened in Turkey, exactly how am I going to explain how I got here, or why I even went to the trouble of coming?”
“You won’t have to. Tomas is hardly going to answer the door, but whoever does will be reporting back to him. He’ll be feeling very pleased with himself. Resting on his laurels. It will shake him up hard just knowing you’re alive and made your way here. He’ll want to know whether you’re alone or if we all escaped. That’s the state we want him in. Uncertain and knowing his plans have been shot to hell.”
I got up and walked over to the window. Ward made no move to stop me. In the distance, the palms stirred slightly in the breeze; the air shimmered in the heat and haze. I felt as though I were part of the mirage, that none of this could actually be happening to me.
I faced Ward. “I won’t do it. What’s the point anyway? You’ll kill Laurel and me anyhow.”
Ward smiled, got up, and went into the sitting room. He came back seconds later carrying a suitcase, which he plopped on the bed and opened. He dug into the fabric sleeve inside the case and pulled out a manila envelope, spilling its contents onto the bedspread. I moved over to look.
A roll of about a hundred American dollar bills and my Visa card, along with my passport that he’d shown me before.
Ward pointed to the card. “The balance has been taken care of; you can use it now.”
He reached into the case and lifted out a large black velvet bag. Loosening the braided gold drawstring, he gently lifted out a sculpted object. The copper head of Victory from Hatra.
I was stunned momentarily
by the natural beauty of her face. Her eyes were intact, unlike the Mask of Warka, whose missing eyes made her resemble a blind sibyl. Victory’s eyes, the irises crafted from obsidian and the corneas from pearly-white shell, gave her a startling lifelike appearance.
“Like I could ever get that into America.”
“When the job’s done we’ll fly you from here to Belgrade. From there we’ll drive you to Zurich. A dealer there will be happy to take it off your hands.”
“I know who you are. You can’t afford to let me go free.” Ward avoided my gaze and let out a manufactured laugh.
“We’re not interested in either you or Laurel. You’re not the center of our universe. Just get us what we want.”
This was another one of his cooked-up stories. There may as well have been a hook twisted into my lip with Ward jerking the other end of the line, the money and promise of freedom made simply to secure my cooperation. And I didn’t believe his tale about not wanting to storm the house. Once I’d confirmed Tomas’s presence the raid would start. The Victory sculpture was hotter than a blowtorch and would play a starring role. The blame for the carnage would be laid at my doorstep, the disgraced American art dealer. There’d be nothing I could do about it because I’d be dead too. His offer was made purely to ensure I’d play the role he’d created for me.
Ward gave a little jump, showing how wound up he was. I realized his phone must have gone off, vibrating on his hip. He fished it out and started talking then turned around and stood in the doorway, keeping his voice low. His form filled most of the door so the two guards couldn’t see a thing. I scooped up the roll of bills, slid a couple into my pocket, and hastily put it back in exactly the same spot. It was agonizing to have to leave the passport and Visa card.
When he shut his phone off and turned back he was all business. He took the case and its contents off the bed and clipped my wrist back onto the rail. “I won’t return until late and we’re going to make an early start.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
“You don’t have a choice.” He mumbled something to the guards and banged the door on his way out.
I felt for the Scotch I’d put on the tray with the dirty plate from the meal. I closed my hand around the glass tumbler and brought it to my lips. A volley of shots exploded again, so loud they could have been aimed right at our window. I dropped my glass, spilling the liquor all over my shirt. I lay there reeking of booze, swamped in misery.
I must have drifted off because I woke with a start in the middle of the night. My arm ached from being locked onto the bedrail in an unnatural position and from all the punishment over the last couple of days. The light was still on in the guards’ room, casting a dim glow into mine. Over the blaring movie and their snores I thought I could hear a rustling at the foot of my bed. I sat up and peered toward the source of the noise.
What was this—a hallucination? Some kind of strange insect crawled on the bedcover. It had a body as big as a hunting knife, the same unearthly, pale coloring of those underwater creatures that never see light. At its head, reddish mandibles opened like the beak on a squid. The thing was huge. I kicked at it and yelled. It scurried over to the wall. I grabbed for the empty glass and threw it. The tumbler splintered when it hit the wall, but the thing escaped into the dark crevice between the bed and the wall. Then it reappeared even closer. It raised its forelegs, waving them in the air as if trying to hone in on the vibrations from its enemy.
“What the hell’s going on?” The figure of the guard materialized in the doorway, blocking out all the light. Now I couldn’t see the thing.
“There’s some kind of scorpion or something on the bed. Kill it. For God’s sake hurry up.”
He flicked on the light and I could see it was now only a foot away from my bare arm. “Shit. How did that get in here?” he said. “It’s a camel spider. I’m not touching it. They hide in the sand and then spring up. Use their mouth to rip into the camel’s soft belly. That’s how they get their name. The bite’s really poisonous; it’s worse than a scorpion’s.”
In full panic mode now I yanked my body away as far as possible off the bed, but my arm was still firmly locked onto the rail. I could feel the feathery touch of forelegs beginning to probe my bare skin.
“Throw me the key then, you ass.”
The second guard elbowed his way into the room, took one look, and doubled over laughing. “You should see yourself, Madison. You look ready to piss your pants.” He grabbed the dinner tray, dumped the empty dishes on the floor, and batted the spider. It flipped over on its back, legs flailing uselessly in the air. He brought the tray down hard and I heard a crunch. With the coverlet he wrapped the carcass up.
I shifted back onto the bed. “You jerks let that thing in here on purpose.”
“Shove it where the sun don’t shine and think again before you treat us like servants then,” the second guard said. “We needed a laugh. It’s boring watching movies all the time. Arm hurt?” The cuff bracelet had scraped the skin around my wrist raw when I’d pulled away. The two of them disappeared back into their den. I lay awake for the rest of the night wary of any more of their ugly stunts.
Thirty-one
Saturday, August 10, 2003, 9 A.M.
Next morning we walked out of the hotel into white-hot sunshine. Even the palms appeared to wilt in the corrosive heat. Patrolling soldiers gave us the once-over and looked away. As for our little group, tension all around—Ward’s temper was particularly short once again. He kept snapping at his cohorts.
My chariot awaited. A battered orange taxi, a Datsun that had to be mid-eighties. Amazing the driver could even get it going.
Eris led the way, driving a sedan with Ward beside her, the taxi wedged in between that and the white Humvee bringing up the rear, commandeered by the two mercenaries.
Ward had been right when he’d said the address was close. Once we entered the residential zone it took about ten minutes before we pulled to a stop at an intersection. The homes in the area were palatial—at least that’s what I imagined because a good many of them were concealed behind walled compounds. Many had tough-looking armed guards posted outside. A lot of heavy movers and shakers apparently lived here. But even in this area, one of the wealthiest sections of Baghdad, I could see bombed-out hulks. I remembered hearing on the news that two homes full of people had been obliterated after a nearby restaurant was mistakenly pinpointed as a location for Saddam Hussein.
Ward got out and leaned in my window. “The taxi will pull up in front of the house; it’s about half a block up. The Humvee will stay here and my car will stop farther up the street. The rest is up to you.”
My destination was hidden behind a substantial wall of basalt blocks. I stood in front of the gate, an elaborate metalwork grille. Through it I could see a cobblestone courtyard and a Mercedes parked in front of a two-story home. The car was silver and therefore not the one we’d used in Turkey. Young trees and vines grew lushly over the top of the wall. I pushed the button fixed into a brass plate and prayed for a miracle.
Nothing happened. I swore. Could this end up as some tragic-comic anticlimax when it turned out no one was home? I pressed the button again and heard the front door click open. A diminutive figure dressed in slacks and a polo shirt peeked out at me. A man, but not Tomas.
He turned and said something to whoever stood behind the door then walked toward me. He waited about eight feet away, making no move to open the gate, and jabbered on; it sounded like the Assyrian Tomas spoke. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “Tomas Zakar,” I said. “Is he here?”
The man glanced over to the front door once more then pressed a remote he held. The gate swung open, closing automatically the second I walked through. He motioned for me to follow him inside and indicated a seat in the vestibule. Minutes ticked by. The room broadcast an air of elegance despite its sparse furnishings. Several kilims in gorgeous reds and ivories hung on the walls. A spray of roses sat in a tall alabaster urn p
laced on the floor. Imagine finding fresh flowers in this beleaguered city.
A second man entered, dressed in the long black cassock of a priest. His hair was dark but he had light blue eyes that gave him an ethereal look. He tilted his head forward in a slight bow. “How may I assist you?” I detected a hint of a British accent.
I put on my best face. “My name is John Madison. I just arrived in Baghdad with a cultural delegation. Tomas Zakar gave me this address and asked me to contact him when I arrived. Is he here by any chance?”
“Zakar? How do you spell that?”
“Z-A-K-A-R. Zakar,” I said again.
He shook his head slowly. “I’m awfully sorry. I can’t help you. There’s no one here by that name. A misunderstanding, no doubt?”
“I don’t think so. He gave me his card.”
The man responded with a weak smile. “That is strange. My father has owned this property for years; I can’t imagine how anyone could make such an error. Have you come here alone?”
“Yes.”
“I’d advise you to take great care then.” He gestured gracefully toward the window. “Hostages are taken every day in the city. Two doctors live on this street. The son of one of them was kidnapped three weeks ago. They still don’t have him back. The other doctor is so frightened he’s barricaded himself and his family inside his house. It’s a miracle you even made it alive from your hotel to my home.”
I was growing impatient. I had to take something back to Ward. “Look, I appreciate your concern for my welfare and any privacy worries you may have, but it’s imperative that I speak to Tomas. I know his brother, Ari, is in London. We were together recently in New York. I can be trusted.” A flash of irritation crossed his features. “Sir, I will allow that someone has misled you, but I assure you, I’ve never heard of these individuals. If you don’t mind, I think it is best you depart.” He hesitated. “You’re staying at a hotel?”
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