The Babylonian Codex

by C. S. Graham

  “Thank God.” October sank down on the sofa. “Peter must still be alive.”

  “The shootings were reported by FBI Agent Mark Kowalski—”

  “That him?” Jax asked as a man with short sandy hair and blunt Slavic features appeared on the screen.

  “Yes.”

  Kowalski had half a dozen microphones stuck in front of him and was giving what appeared to be a mini press conference. “I was gone for maybe twenty minutes, picking up some burgers and fries,” he said in a thick Jersey accent. “I’d just come back and was getting out of my car when I heard shots and saw a young woman running away from the building. I called upon her to halt. When she failed to comply, I gave chase.”

  “Holy shit,” said Jax, sinking down beside October.

  The camera returned to the newscaster. “The police have yet to release a formal statement, but we do know that the FBI has named this woman as a person of interest.” A picture of October filled the screen.

  Wordlessly, Jax reached out and squeezed October’s hand.

  “Naval Ensign October Guinness is twenty-five years old. She has dark blond hair and brown eyes, and is listed as being five feet four and weighing one hundred fifteen pounds. According to unidentified sources—”

  “What the hell?” Jax pushed to his feet. “What’s this ‘unidentified sources’ crap?”

  “—Ensign Guinness has a history of mental problems and was at one time given a psychiatric discharge from the Navy before being called back to active duty last summer.”

  Jax glanced down at October. She was staring at the TV, one hand pressed to her mouth.

  The newscaster’s voice droned on. “Anyone with information about Ensign Guinness’s current whereabouts should contact the number on the screen immediately. We’ll have an update at ten.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Jax, zapping off the television. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “What?” She shook her head, not understanding. “But . . . why?”

  “Because for all we know, the taxi driver who dropped you off at my doorstep is calling his local FBI office even as we speak.” Grabbing a gym bag from the entry closet, he moved systematically through the house, tossing in October’s wet clothes and assorted other items. “The first thing we need to do is figure out who we’re dealing with here.”

  “How the hell do we do that?”

  “By preceding from what we know to what we don’t know. And right now, the only thing we know for sure is that the idea of you viewing that list of artifacts was enough of a threat to these guys that they sent someone to watch the viewing—and kill you if you saw something they didn’t want you to see.”

  “I just don’t understand what some ancient artifact could possibly have to do with the death of the Vice President.”

  “We don’t know that they’re connected. Let’s just focus on the artifacts, okay? I want to talk to someone who knows enough about Mesopotamian art and history to decipher all those symbols you were seeing.”

  She watched him slide a magazine into his Beretta and click it home. “Got someone in mind?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” Jax slipped the gun into its holster and clipped it onto the inside of his waistband at the small of his back. “When was McClintock going in for surgery?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  He tossed her a phone. “Call him. Tell him you’re okay and that you’re with me. He’ll know to keep his mouth shut if anyone comes around asking questions. And tell him he’d better have the Navy mount a twenty-four-hour guard on Peter Abrams.”

  She caught the phone and stared at him. “You think they might try to kill Peter in the ICU?”

  “Right now, Peter Abrams is the only person besides you who knows what really happened tonight.” Jax pulled a cream sweater over his head and reached for his peacoat. “They already tried to kill him once. The minute it looks like he might live, whoever is behind this will go after him again.”

  Jax zipped the gym bag closed and caught her arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 11

  Daniel Pizarro still felt as if he were living in someone else’s house.

  He’d been in the White House for two weeks now. His suits hung in the closet. His underwear was tucked into the drawers of a chest that once belonged to Woodrow Wilson. His eight-year-old’s drawing of a cat decorated the door of the refrigerator in the family quarters. Yet he still felt as if the house belonged to his predecessor. As if someone might at any moment politely ask Pizarro to leave.

  “You’ll get used to it,” said his visitor, a crusty octogenarian senator with an age-spotted face and arthritis-gnarled hands.

  Daniel smiled and went to pour his guest a drink. “How many presidents have you seen come and go in the fifty-odd years you’ve been in D.C.?”

  “You’re the eleventh,” said Senator Cyrus Savoie without having to stop and count.

  Pizarro laughed. “Keep track, do you?”

  “Of course.”

  Pizarro handed the Senator a fresh gin and tonic. “Never had any desire to run for the office yourself?”

  “Once or twice,” admitted Savoie in the strange, guttural accent of an old-time New Orleanian. “When I was younger. Fortunately, I overcame the urge. Now, I’d just as soon not be president pro tem of the Senate. But that’s what happens when you outlive all your colleagues.”

  Pizarro laughed again and went to settle in the armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace. “It looks so easy from the outside. You know what you want to do. Then you get in here and you realize your hands are tied in ways you never imagined possible.”

  Savoie took a slow sip of his drink. “Doesn’t help, having your vice president drop dead of a heart attack two weeks after the inauguration.”

  Pizarro scrubbed one hand across his face. “That’s the understatement of the year.” Bill Hamilton had been the consummate Washington insider, the guy who’d graduated from Yale Law, who’d spent four terms as a U.S. Senator, who knew exactly how the system worked—and didn’t work.

  Pizarro, on the other hand, was the ultimate outsider. A two-term governor of New Mexico who’d been born just eighteen months after his parents slipped across the border from Mexico, he’d gone to medical school on a scholarship and practiced as an ob-gyn before being pulled into politics almost by accident.

  Or at least, that was the popular image, and Daniel had never tried to dispel it. But the truth was that he’d been passionate about politics ever since the day, as a lonely twelve-year-old, he’d learned his mother had hemorrhaged to death after his birth because the local hospital refused to treat her.

  “It’s not going to be easy, finding someone with the right mix to replace him,” said Pizarro.

  “You don’t want to wait too long,” Savoie cautioned. “You’re not immortal, Daniel. Your election has stirred up some nasty emotions amongst certain elements. And the last thing this country needs right now is an eighty-five-year-old president.”

  “You?” Pizarro frowned. “I thought that according to the Constitution, the Speaker of the House is next in the line of succession.”

  “Theoretically. Except that Marie Barnett has just been named the new Speaker.”

  “So?”

  “Marie was born in Canada, remember? She’s ineligible. Which means that if anything happens to you, I’m ‘it.’ And I’m telling you, I don’t want to be president. You need to get yourself a new veep. Fast.”

  Chapter 12

  Washington, D.C.: Friday 2 February 9:15 P.M. local time

  “Her name is Dr. Elizabeth Stein,” Jax told October as they zipped through the rainy streets in his little black 650i BMW convertible. “She’s an expert in ancient Mesopotamian history.”

  “So how do you know her?”

  “She was one of my professors at Yale.”

  “I still can’t believe you majored in history,” said October.

  Jax laughed. “To be frank, neither could Professor Ste
in. She was convinced I’d end up in prison. She moved to Georgetown a few years ago when her husband died and she retired. But she’s still actively involved in research and consults part-time with the Smithsonian.”

  He was aware of October studying him with an intense, solemn gaze. “You trust her?”

  “Implicitly.”

  Professor Elizabeth Stein was a startlingly tall, wiry woman with steel gray hair and heavy eyebrows, her skin permanently tanned and weathered by years spent beneath a fierce Middle Eastern sun. Jax had called en route to warn her that he and a friend needed to talk to her about something urgent.

  She met him at the door of her Georgetown rowhouse, her arms thrown wide to envelope him in a warm embrace. “Jax. It’s been too long,” she declared in her trademark Oxbridge accent. “Do come in, quickly. What a frightfully nasty night this is.”

  Jax hesitated on the steps, a cold mist billowing around him. “You know that friend I told you about? I should probably warn you that she—”

  Dr. Stein gazed beyond him, to where October waited just beyond the front gate. “I saw the news. I think I understand why you’re here. Tell your friend there’s no need to worry.”

  Chatting pleasantly about the days when Jax had been her student, Dr. Stein bustled them into a warm, gently lit kitchen. In place of the standard built-in cabinets, the kitchen was furnished with an eclectic collection of gently worn pie safes and Hoosier cupboards. She fixed hot tea and loaded down the old round oak table overlooking the dark rear garden with plates of small cakes and scones with jam and cream. Then she pulled out one of the pressed-back chairs, sat with her chin propped in her fists, and leveled him with a fixed gray stare.

  “I saw what happened to Elaine Cox. I assume that’s why you’re here?”

  “I didn’t kill her,” October blurted out, her hands cradling a delicate cup of pink flowered porcelain.

  Professor Stein blinked. “Goodness. I never thought you did. But why don’t you tell me what did happen?”

  October glanced at Jax.

  He said, “You knew Special Agent Cox was bringing in a remote viewer to help locate some of the antiquities looted from Iraq?”

  “Yes. She contacted experts at a variety of institutions, from the Smithsonian and the University of Chicago to SUNY Stony Brook and the Massachusetts College of Art. We were each asked to draw up a list of what we considered the ten most important items looted from the Iraqi National Museum and Library.”

  “The National Library?” said October.

  Dr. Stein nodded. “The library burned a few days after the fall of Baghdad. It’s generally assumed the fire was set to cover up the theft of its most valuable collections, although it could have been more malicious than that. Thousands of irreplaceable texts were lost—everything from illuminated medieval Korans and ancient Arabic copies of Greek and Roman texts to early Bibles.”

  “Bibles?” said October.

  “Mmm. Yes. Most people don’t realize that Iraq was one of the most important centers of early Christianity.”

  Jax said, “Did all these experts Agent Cox contacted know what she was planning to do with their lists?”

  “Most thought she was simply endeavoring to refocus the Art Crimes Team’s efforts.”

  October took a slow sip of her tea. “Why did she tell you?”

  “Elaine and I have been friends for more than a decade—we’ve worked together many times. Billions of dollars’ worth of artifacts are stolen and traded every year, and the vast majority of them come here, to the United States. I think Elaine knew me well enough to be confident that I wouldn’t disparage what she was going to do—or, worse, blab about it to the press.”

  “You’re familiar with remote viewing?” said October in some surprise.

  “Yes, actually.” A soft smile lit up the professor’s eyes. “I understand you’re a remarkably talented viewer.” The smile faded as she looked from October to Jax. “Don’t tell me that’s why Elaine was killed. Because someone was afraid of what you might see? Bloody hell.”

  Jax gave her a quick rundown of the evening’s events. At the end, he said, “Do you know what was on the list of twelve items that Agent Cox selected for October to view?”

  Dr. Stein blew out a long, troubled breath and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Elaine kept her final selection quiet—even from me. Part of it, I know, was because she didn’t want anyone to be able to claim that October could somehow have known ahead of time what the items were. But I think she was also worried about offending my professional sensibilities—you know, in case items I considered terribly important were left off.” Dr. Stein pushed up from her chair and went to put the kettle on for more tea. “How much do you know about the looting of artifacts from Iraq?”

  “Not much,” said October.

  Dr. Stein stood with her arms braced against the kitchen counter. “The history of Iraq stretches back more than eight thousand years. Every time I think about what has happened—what the world has lost . . . I just feel sick. It’s difficult to overestimate the debt we all owe to the ancient Iraqis. From the civilizations of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers came the wheel, astronomy, writing—even the concept of cities and government. Hammurabi wrote the world’s first law code in Babylon over three and a half thousand years ago. Uruk was the scene of the Gilgamesh Epic. Abraham was said to have been born in Ur . . . How can anyone put a price on that kind of heritage? But people do. People who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.”

  “How many artifacts were stolen?” October asked hoarsely.

  The professor made a harsh sound, deep in her throat. “That’s the problem. We don’t even have an accurate accounting. The Baghdad museum housed something like one hundred seventy thousand artifacts, everything from exquisite gold ornaments and massive Sumerian statues to small five-thousand-year-old tablets bearing some of the earliest known writing. But the thieves who looted the museum also burned its archives and catalogues, which means that no one knows exactly what is missing.”

  “But . . . why would they do that?”

  It was Jax who answered. “To make it harder to track down the items. And to complicate the Iraqis’ efforts to lay claim to any items that are found.”

  Dr. Stein nodded. “It’s not an easy process, reclaiming stolen antiquities across international borders. There’s even an organization of big-time collectors and dealers in this country that’s working to get the U.S. government to essentially scrap laws like the Cultural Property Implementation Act and the National Stolen Property Act that are designed to stop the trafficking in stolen antiquities. Needless to say, its members are very rich and very powerful.”

  “That’s disgusting,” said October.

  Jax shrugged. “Money talks.”

  Dr. Stein nodded. “The situation is made worse by the fact that Iraq was under a crippling embargo for more than a decade before the invasion began. People were starving. Farmers started looting archeological sites for items to sell, just to stay alive. And even when discoveries were turned in to the Department of Antiquities, there was no money to fund research or publish papers.”

  “So you’re saying no one really knows exactly what was taken?”

  “Not entirely. The most recent estimates put the number of artifacts still missing from the Baghdad museum at between ten and fifteen thousand items. But that doesn’t count what was taken from the National Library, or from provincial museums in places like Basra, or from the unprotected archaeological sites themselves. All together, you’re probably looking at hundreds of thousands of artifacts.”

  “Jesus,” whispered October.

  “The most infuriating thing about all this is, it didn’t need to happen. Once it became obvious the United States government was bent on war, the scholarly world begged the British and the American administrations to take active steps to protect Iraq’s antiquities.”

  “You mean, the way we did the oil ministry?” said Jax wryly.

  Dr
. Stein nodded. “One tank at the museum’s gates would have been enough to save it. Just one tank. Instead, U.S. forces drove away the Iraqi soldiers guarding the museum and then left it wide open.”

  The shrill whistle of the teakettle cut through the stillness. She turned to shut off the gas and pour the boiling water into the waiting teapot.

  October said, “Were there any ancient manuscripts at the museum? Or would those have all been at the National Library?”

  “I believe the museum had a collection of Torah scrolls, as well as some very early Christian writings.”

  “Nothing earlier?”

  “Not to my knowledge. The ancient Babylonians did use papyrus, just like the Egyptians. But none have survived.”

  Jax saw October’s eyebrows draw together in a frown. If she hadn’t “seen” an ancient Babylonian papyrus, then what had she seen?

  “My own specialty is cuneiform tablets,” said Dr. Stein, bringing the teapot back to the table. “That’s why Elaine consulted a variety of scholars with different specialties. She assumed—quite rightly, I suspect—that our selection of the ten most critical missing items would be weighted heavily towards our own specific area of expertise.”

  Jax smiled. “Was there a manuscript on your list?”

  Dr. Stein let out a humph. “Are you serious? There wasn’t anything on my list under four thousand years old.” She fixed her fierce stare on October. “One of the items you viewed was a manuscript?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Any idea what it was?”

  “No.” October reached for a pen and notebook that rested on a nearby counter. “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  “I kept getting impressions of what I think were symbols,” said October, sketching rapidly. “A snake. A large expanse of water, like a flood. And this.” She drew an object that looked like a strange combination of a cross and a menorah. “Have you seen it before?”

  Dr. Stein tilted the notebook toward her. She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Yes. I have.”