Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation

by A. W. Hill

  The basement corridor Scotty was due to be brought down was long, wide, and dim, and broken up by alcoves leading to file rooms and unused offices. In any case, it was a Sunday, and not even the most dedicated civil servants were working. It led directly to the parking garage; halfway down, there was an emergency exit to the alley off Hill Street, an exit Djapper meant to use. He parked himself in the alcove nearest the exit and dropped briefly into a squat. For some reason, he thought it would be appropriate to pray, but he really had no experience with it. He mumbled a few words about fortitude and then stood back up. The gun felt good against his ribs. He wanted to put his hand on the grip, but knew that if he did so, his palm would soon begin to sweat and make his hold less than sure at the critical moment.

  He heard footsteps.

  As he put his hand on the grip, he told himself that he was more than a Jack Ruby. Ruby had slithered from beneath a rock and struck to prevent a great unmasking of deep power. This was different. Wasn’t Djapper, like Picot and the others, an idealist? The world they wanted was one in which the choices were clear, where ideas and cultures in stark opposition were allowed to face off. As it had been in the ’50s, with the Reds. How was the right side ever to win if history continued to blur the distinctions?

  With regard to his own fate, he was realistic. They’d told him he’d do two years at most. But they’d told Ruby that, too, and he’d died in his prison cell.

  The party turned the corner much sooner than he would have estimated based on sound. The echo of jangling chains off linoleum and high-gloss institutional paint had created an illusion of distance. Djapper was surprised to feel his mouth go dry on first seeing the boy. He’d played this through so many times. Scotty, shackled, had a DynCorp man at each elbow and two more behind. At the rear were three NSA agents and Douglas Picot. For all the speed with which they’d reached the main corridor, they now moved as if through water.

  A slowing of time occurs on the cusp of violent events, like a rallentando just before the big finish in a symphony. Djapper had experienced this phenomenon before drug raids, and once when thwarting an assassination. The ether through which time flows suddenly attains a higher viscosity. When he stepped from the alcove, his gun drawn, there was an instant of cessation within which he was able to perceive the shape of things with absolute clarity. He could see the secret thoughts concealed by each guarded expression and suddenly knew that behind any conspiratorial act are as many differing agendas as there are conspirators. In any case, he’d passed the point of retreat.

  He took another step and aimed for Scotty’s heart.

  While the others seemed barely to register him at first, Scotty turned instantly, and so did the course of events. The boy wore an expression Djapper had seen before on the faces of the condemned. He smiled, and Djapper realized he’d been trumped, and that Scotty would be the one to make history today. He felt a rush of vertigo as two of the DynCorp men broke from the posse. They pinned his arms against the wall and hammered the gun loose. Scotty dropped his chin to his chest and mumbled something that might have been a prayer. Three seconds later, the explosion came.

  In his last moments of consciousness, Djapper witnessed the carnage from the vantage of the ceiling, nine feet above the killing floor. He’d heard of such things happening at the instant of passage from life to death, but didn’t know whether he was being afforded the perspective because he was having an out-of-body experience or because his head, blown from his torso, was tracing an arc over the scene with still-seeing eyes. All members of the escort were dead, and the Darrell boy was in a hundred little pieces.

  With a terrible thump, the curtains dropped and it was dark.

  “How the hell did he get a bomb?” Raszer asked, on a static-ridden connection between a hillock in Sogmatar and Lt. Borges in Los Angeles.

  “Obviously, they had someone on the inside,” Borges replied.

  “Obviously, but who?”

  “Scotty saw a lawyer his parents brought in, and an outside doctor checked him over at the lawyer’s insistence.”

  “Not likely it was either of them,” said Raszer.

  “Not likely, but at this stage we can’t dismiss anyone. Jesus, what a mess. You see these things on the news, but close up, you can’t imagine the damage.”

  “Christ. This is going to push the mother off the deep end. Does she know?”

  “It makes a shitty job even shittier, Luis, that’s for sure. I feel like I’ve outlived my usefulness.”

  “Not to me,” said Borges. “Know what my grandmother used to say?”

  “No. What?”

  “You walk through graveyards, don’t be surprised if the dead follow you home.”

  “I’d better go, Lieutenant,” Raszer said. “Will you let me know what develops?”

  “I will,” said Borges. “You be careful. And if you find yourself without any cards to play, come home. I wouldn’t advise bluffing with these people.”

  “Thanks, Luis. You be careful, too.” Borges clicked off, and Monica was back on the line. “Monica,” he said. “I think I may need some protection.”

  “Let me see what I can find over there. How many men?”

  “Maybe three, four. To station along the approach to this . . . fortress.”

  “What do you want me to do about our files? Should I try and retrieve the data?”

  “No. Not now. We’ll rebuild everything when I get home. For all purposes, we’re closing up shop.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The moon was full, and bright enough to make bobbing shadows on the pale rock. People were dancing wildly, arms in the air. The empty whiteness of the rising land was even more apparent by night, when it glowed as if absorbing ultraviolet from the stars. There was music—of saz and spiked fiddle and frame drums hammered in furious counter-rhythm—and vocalizing in blue moans and ecstatic shouts.

  The temple ruins at Sogmatar were a second-century watchtower built of blocks quarried from the same white stone that formed the low, surrounding hills. But the place was older than that. It was at the northernmost reach of Mesopotamia, an outpost of the Babylonian moon god, Sin, and his orgiastic Sabian cult but long before that, a shrine of Venus in one of her guises. There were Syriac inscriptions on the rock, and a crescent moon carved on the tower. From here, on the Anatolian massif, the Tigris on its southeastern course passed through the first cities and had carried away the blood of the first wars. Down that red river—maybe not far—some white-knuckled Alabama kid clutched his rifle as he felt the breath of ancient gods on his neck.

  This place now served as the ceremonial ground of the band of brothers into whose hands Raszer had been delivered. It was about twelve miles north of the Fedelis’ Suayb retreat. They had traveled here in a small fleet of old Land Cruisers, and later been joined by a ragtag collection of visitors, local twentysomethings of both sexes who had evidently trekked in from neighboring villages. Altogether, there were about thirty bodies dancing a dithyramb beneath the moon, firelight strobing their brown flesh. They were grouped tightly atop a flat expanse of rock. Shouts went up and the huddle broke as the dancers drew back to reveal what was in their midst.

  On a seat once occupied by a priest of the moon god, Stephan Raszer sat cross-legged, his freshly shaven head reflecting moonglow. Francesca held a straight razor in her hand and appeared pleased with her work. She looked to Chrétien for assent. Nodding approval, he approached Raszer and regarded the transformation. “Not bad,” he said. “It’s amazing what changing just a couple of features will do.”

  Someone brought Raszer a tarnished mirror. At first, it startled him not to recognize his own face. He realized he hadn’t looked in a mirror since leaving Taos, and wondered if it was possible that the disembodied feeling he’d had over the last twenty-four hours might be linked to a change in his appearance greater than what the girl could have accomplished with a razor, a brush, and a pair of tweezers. Could his inner state somehow have been externalized? No, he co
ncluded quickly. Too crazy. And yet. His scalp was hairless, and his eyebrows had been thinned and dyed with henna, and these cosmetic strokes had changed everything.

  “Wow,” he whispered. “That’s some makeover.”

  “It’s all about directing attention,” Francesca said. “For example, you haven’t stopped looking at my lip ring since you got here, so you probably haven’t noticed my chin. A shaved head alters the shape of a face. Different eyebrows make different eyes. But you’re not finished yet. We need something to draw attention away from your mouth. That mouth gives you away.” She smiled. “I’ll bet the girls like that mouth. It’s full of bad intentions.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Raszer asked, now aware of her dimpled chin.

  “Well, there is one little touch that would do it, but it would involve some scarification.”

  “Scarification?” Raszer repeated.

  She ran a fingernail gently down his left cheek, stopping just short of his mouth. “If we make a cut along this line, it will be the first thing people register. It will be the thing they remember. But we’d have to let it scar, and then you’d be stuck with it.”

  “Kind of a souvenir.” He paused. “To remember you by, Francesca. If you think it will make the critical difference, go ahead.”

  In truth, the only thing that concerned him was that it would frighten Brigit.

  “We can’t use the razor, though,” said Chrétien. “Too clean a cut. If it’s going to scar over right, we need some rough edges. A piece of flint, maybe.”

  Raszer slipped off the stool and surveyed the site. There were other shrines on other rises in the land—he counted four within sight—each one reflecting the silver from above, but this one seemed to be the hub. He’d read about the Sabian moon worshippers. Their rites were wild and had survived here well into the Muslim era. The new priests of Allah had for a time coexisted with the old priests of Sin, or Marilaha, or the most ancient: Bel. Bel. Be’el. Betyl. Beth-El. Ba’al. Baal. Baetyl. Sacred rock. There were thousands of chips of all sizes scattered in the vicinity. He picked up one about the size of his palm from beside the fire and handed it to Francesca. “Let’s do it,” he said, and sat down before her.

  The dancers had moved back and slowed to a willowy sway, quiet now. “I’ll have to be fairly brutal about this,” Francesca said, examining the stone for its sharpest edge, “if it’s to look like a wound.”

  “I understand,” said Raszer. “I’ll try not to hit back.”

  A smile crossed her lips, and without preface, she leaned in and kissed him full on the mouth, her jeweled lips parting just enough for him to feel her tongue against his teeth and taste the silver in her ring. Then she took a step back and struck the blow while he was still dizzy from the kiss. Blood ran into his mouth and he felt the night air in the cut, but he was surprised by how little pain there was. She held the towel against his cheek to staunch the flow, then took his hand and moved it into place.

  “Press firmly,” she said. “Until your pulse slows. We’ll have to cauterize it to keep it from getting infected.” She raised her eyes to Dante, who then went to the fire and probed through the white-hot ash with a stick, looking for a suitable stone. Raszer lifted the cotton towel from his face and tossed it to the boy to use as a mitt.

  “I want you to lie down,” said Francesca. “Over there.” She indicated a slab of stone, half-buried in the alkaline soil, and led him to it, then motioned for him to lie down. All the while, she kept hold of his fingers.

  “I’m not a virgin, you know,” said Raszer. “In case that matters to Venus.”

  “Venus will have to take you as you are.” She placed her free hand on his forehead. “Dante,” she called. “If it’s hot enough, bring it over.”

  Dante folded the towel over twice and removed from the fire a smooth stone the size of a child’s fist. From the corner of his eye, Raszer saw Chrétien signal the musicians, and they began to play an incantory rondo that had a bit of the blues in it. The dancers started swaying again, but with a certain restraint. The other members of the Fedeli were mixed in with the locals, some of them having paired up for the dance with village girls who wrapped around them like vines.

  The dancers stirred, and two in the front parted to let through Shaykh Adi, the

  Fedelis’ canine dai, who came panting to the altar. The dog nuzzled Francesca and then lapped wetly at Raszer’s open wound.

  “The baba’s blessing,” said Francesca.

  An instant later she pressed the stone to Raszer’s cheek and he heard the hiss of his own skin being seared. The saz played a reedy lick, and Francesca stroked his newly shaven head. The dancers drew nearer, the smell of flesh was in his nostrils, and for a moment, Raszer’s mind’s eye left his body and raced out over the Sumerian plain.

  He heard his name called, but he did not answer to it. For now, it belonged to another.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Toyota lurched over a steep embankment and came to a stop, its engine surging twice before dying. They were atop a mesalike land formation just above the old traders’ road, a passage that had been there in one form or another since the days of Marco Polo. Francesca cranked the ignition, and the engine protested with a deep and ominous whine. A second attempt, and it turned over.

  “She’s getting old,” Francesca said. “She’s gone 118,000 miles on the same set of valves. All the dust here wears them down. But she’ll make it to Hakkâri.”

  Raszer nodded, less than reassured. There were four of them in the Land Cruiser, Francesca taking turns at the wheel with Dante, and Raszer sharing the backseat with the dog, Shaykh Adi, who’d taken to laying his perpetually drippy muzzle on Raszer’s thigh, the loose flaps of his cheeks spreading like a skirt and leaving an expanding wet spot on Raszer’s khakis. He’d have preferred Francesca’s head in his lap, but could hardly say no to a holy man. Given the dog’s exalted status, his affection might be a form of grace.

  The Land Cruiser’s luggage area was loaded to the ceiling with gear. There were boots, climbing slippers, heavy woolens, axes of half a dozen sizes and weights, and three hundred meters of nylon climbing rope, along with the other essential hardware of the craft. It seemed like overkill to Raszer, who liked to travel light.

  They had left Suayb before dawn and had been on—or off—the road for close to eight hours. It was now approaching high noon, and even at 4,400 feet, it was getting hot. They were traveling high roads, some roughly paved and some not much more than cattle paths, skirting the Turkish–Syrian border and dodging north as necessary to avoid battlegrounds in the ever-metastasizing war.

  The virus of conflict that had traveled up the Tigris by way of the American invasion had now spawned opportunistic infections from the Hindu Kush to the Caucasus. Closest at hand was the bloody game of tit for tat between the Turkish army and Kurdish separatist forces, in which U.S. troops had been given the impossible role of referee but were slowly and surely being drawn into the fight. Antiaircraft fire issued from the floor of the valley below, and there were bright flashes of light in the hard blue sky, followed by concussions that shook the mountains like the bass on a hip-hop track. Based on what could be seen at this height, a battle analyst would have had a hard time drawing conclusions about the alignment of forces, much less putting points on the scoreboard.

  There seemed to be both Turkish and U.S. aircraft in evidence, dropping payloads on whatever and whomever was unfortunate enough to be wedged between the two steep mountain ranges. From time to time, a fearsome-looking eggbeater would swoop into the breach and pepper the foothills with fire, but it was hard to identify its target. The official story was that the Turks were raining hell on the Kurds and the PKK’s stingers were hitting back, while the Americans were bombing the middle ground, ostensibly in an effort to enforce a ceasefire and—at all costs—prevent Syria from throwing in with Turkey against the Kurds and rupturing the NATO alliance in the process.

  But everyone knew that things had gone far
beyond that. If someone wound up dropping a nuclear weapon on Mosul, it would be the first time in history that a state had been destroyed before it had even raised its first flag. Because the borders were where they were, it would also be an act of war against Iraq, and against both U.S. and Iranian interests, and that would be the beginning of the end—the twenty-first century’s Sarajevo.

  It would have, Raszer thought, a symmetry worthy of some grim bard’s epic poem: the nations of the world, spoiling for apocalypse in the land that had first given rise to the notion of civilization. If what Philby Greenstreet had told him was true, the end of civilization was precisely what those cheering on the End Times wanted, for only then could the self-anointed prophets of an avenging God reclaim dominion over Earth.

  Francesca released the catch on the Land Cruiser’s hood, and Dante got out to have a look. Raszer, itching for a smoke, joined him on the overlook and gestured to the fireworks in the valley.