The Babylonian Codex

by C. S. Graham

  Jax glanced at October and knew she was thinking the same thing he was—that the brutal murder of Araji’s family and the destruction of his house was no accident.

  She said, “Can you remember any of the verses?”

  “Remember?” The Iraqi gave a soft laugh that held no joy or amusement, only bitter anguish and regret. “Sometimes I can’t even remember my wife’s smile, or the smell of my children’s hair when I’d hold them close. The years before the war have become a blur.”

  “Perhaps you sent parts of it to a fellow scholar?”

  This time, Araji’s smile held genuine amusement. “You don’t know much about paleographers, do you? We’re a very jealous, possessive lot, I’m afraid. Our careers depend on our publication record, which means that until our final papers are presented, we’re very careful to keep our discoveries to ourselves. I published an article describing the discovery of the codex and the existence of the lost verses, but not their contents. Do you realize that parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls are still unknown? And they were found back in the forties. Is it some big conspiracy to keep their contents secret? No. It’s simple, professional jealousy.”

  A rattle of falling stones drew Jax’s attention to two men approaching along the berm of sand and shattered artifacts. They were dressed in khakis and carrying Heckler and Koch machine guns. But they weren’t soldiers: their black baseball caps with the Circle K logo marked them as contractors, probably from the Apache they’d seen landing.

  Araji was saying, “A colleague of mine in Spain did talk me into sending him one of the verses.”

  Jax was only half listening. He didn’t like the way the contractors were carrying their weapons. Not casually slung over their shoulders, but with their hands on the grips, muzzles pointing down, fingers inside the trigger guards.

  October said, “Spain?”

  Araji nodded. “A biblical scholar named José Zapatero, from Medinaceli. A brilliant man, but far too ready to share everything he knows with anyone who asks.” Again, that ghost of a smile. “Afterwards, I wondered what possessed me.”

  As Jax watched, the two men split, fanning out as if to position themselves at a 45 degree angle.

  Jax said, “I think we’ve got trouble,” just as the two contractors brought up their weapons.

  “Get down!” Jax yelled, reaching for his Beretta as he threw himself flat.

  He sighted on the nearest contractor, a big muscle-bound grunt with a jaw like a tugboat, and pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession. Bam. Bam. Bam. The asshole went down—just as Jax heard the rat-tat-tat of an HK.

  He swung the Beretta to the second contractor and nailed the guy right between the eyes. Then he put two more rounds in the sonofabitch’s chest before he fell.

  Jax lay prone, his gun held at the ready, his breath coming hard and fast as he scanned the ruined walls and littered dirt, looking for more bad guys. Nothing. From the distance came the pounding of running feet, the sound of excited voices speaking Arabic.

  He turned his head to where October crouched in the lee of a wall. “You okay?”

  She nodded, her throat working hard as she swallowed.

  Then he glanced over to where Dr. Araji had been standing. He lay flat on his back, his chest a pulpy red mess, his eyes open wide and sightless. “Damn.”

  The running footsteps were coming closer. Jax caught October’s hand and pulled her up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He grabbed the assault rifle from the nearest contractor and saw it was an MP5 N, a variant manufactured for United States SEALS. Interesting, he thought, tossing the strap over his shoulder and taking the guy’s canvas ammo bag, heavy with extra magazines.

  “You think that wasn’t the end of it?” said October, watching him.

  “I think it’s a long way back to Najaf.” He took off toward the Range Rover at a run. “Where the hell is Tareq?”

  Chapter 49

  Tareq was already throwing the Range Rover into reverse when they made it back to the palm grove.

  They scrambled inside and hauled ass down the highway. Tareq kept the accelerator floored, weaving around stray camels, battered civilian cars packed with women and children, donkeys loaded with vegetables.

  “Who do you think those guys were sent to kill?” October asked, looking over her shoulder. “Us, or Araji?”

  “Araji,” said Jax. “They took him out first.” He sat in the backseat, the Heckler and Koch in his hands. “But now they know we’re here.”

  October glanced at Tareq. “How much farther?”

  “Thirty kilometers.”

  “Shit.” They’d reached a desolate stretch of road, where the few scattered villages were only blasted hulls, their houses’ walls scorched by fire and pockmarked by bullet holes and broken gaps left by tanks and RPG fire.

  Jax said, “They’re cleaning up every loose end they can think of. First Gabriel Sinclair and Madeleine Livingston. Now Dr. Araji.”

  “Do you think they know about Zapatero in Medinaceli?”

  Jax turned his head to eye a dun-colored Hummer that was speeding up on their ass, fast. “Maybe. Maybe not. But they know Bosch was in Madrid. They may figure it out.”

  “We need to get to him first.”

  “Ah . . . Tareq . . .” said Jax, just as the Hummer accelerated hard and slammed into the back of the Range Rover.

  The impact sent them careening wildly across the road and shattered the back window. “Y’allah,” shouted Tareq, tires squealing as he brought the SUV under control again and floored it.

  Jax swore, “Son of a bitch.” Tossing the HK over his shoulder, he clambered into the rear. “Try to hold it steady!” he shouted as he whipped out his Beretta.

  “Steady? Habibi, have you seen this road?” Tareq demanded. “Abrams tanks and pavement are not a good combination.”

  Steadying the Beretta as best he could, Jax aimed at the head of the Hummer’s driver and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet bounced off the windshield, leaving a little pockmark.

  “Shit. It’s got bulletproof glass!”

  “Why aren’t you using the damned machine gun?” October demanded, climbing into the backseat.

  “Because this is a hell of a lot more accurate.” Shifting his aim, he put a couple of rounds into the grill and saw sparks as the bullets ricocheted off into the desert.

  “Jesus Christ. The damn thing is armored, too. Who are these guys?”

  “Keefe,” she said quietly.

  Jax met her gaze. Six months before, the CEO of Keefe had tried to have her killed.

  “Look out!” she shouted.

  Whipping around, Jax saw a man’s head and shoulders appear above the Hummer’s sunroof.

  Jax brought up the HK and nailed the asshole.

  Tobie cheered.

  Tareq shouted, “Now what do we do?”

  Jax kept a sharp eye on the Hummer. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

  Tobie ripped into the nearest case of wine. “Give me your pocketknife.”

  “What?”

  “Your pocketknife,” she said, hauling out one of the vintage bottles.

  Jax laughed. “October, you are a genius.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” said Tareq, watching them in the rearview mirror. “Y’allah,” he yelped as Jax used his pocket knife to punch in the cork. “The ambassador’s wine!”

  Jax said, “You can console the ambassador with the thought that all this bouncing around wouldn’t have been good for it anyway.”

  “Right. As if—Y’allah,” Tareq yelped again as Tobie emptied the wine onto the backseat’s floorboards. “Now what are you doing? The car!”

  “Front passenger window,” October warned.

  Jax brought up the HK and sprayed the contractor who was trying to maneuver an RPG launcher out the window.

  October reached for the nearest jerry can.

  “You’re spilling it,” Jax warned as she splashed gasoline into the now-emp
ty wine bottle.

  “Oh? Like this is easy? Find me something to shove into the top.”

  Jax took his pocketknife, cut a slit down the back of the leather seat, and handed her a wad of stuffing.

  “Y’allah!” cried Tareq. “What are you doing? You are destroying Joe’s car!”

  “Just give me your lighter, okay? And drive.”

  October handed Jax the Molotov cocktail. “Here. I’m not lighting it. I’m afraid I’ll blow up the whole car.”

  “No!” shouted Tareq.

  Jax handed it back to her. “Make some more, first.”

  She grabbed another handful of stuffing. “Here they come again,” she warned as the Hummer accelerated toward them.

  Lifting the HK, Jax emptied an entire magazine onto the Hummer’s windscreen, just to make sure they didn’t get any ideas. The glass didn’t break, but thirty rounds did a pretty effective job of covering the bulletproof glass with lots of little splats and dings.

  “What are they doing now?” October asked, her attention all for the half dozen bottles of wine she was emptying onto the floorboards. The Range Rover smelled like an unholy alliance between a vintage wine cave and a wrecked oil tanker.

  “Sitting tight, but keeping close on our asses. I just hope they don’t get the bright idea to call in some helicopter gunships.”

  “Hush. You’ll give them the idea.”

  “Right. How can I do that?”

  “Studies have shown that thoughts are energy. You send your thoughts out into the ether and someone can easily pick up on them without realizing where the idea came from.”

  “Stop it with the woo-woo, okay? Just focus on the Molotov cocktails.”

  They hurtled across the desert at a good 140 mph. A couple of times the Hummer tried to edge up beside them. But Tareq set the Range Rover careening back and forth across the road, forcing them back. The Hummer had the advantage of being built like a tank, but its maneuverability was lousy.

  “Okay,” said Jax as soon as October had five bottles lined up. “Slow down a bit, Tareq.”

  Tareq eased up on the gas. The Hummer immediately pulled up within five or six feet of them.

  Jax lit the first two Molotov cocktails, then handed October the lighter. “You’re going to have to light the rest, whether you like it or not.”

  “Y’allah!” screeched Tareq.

  Jax bounced the first bottle off the windshield, which was not what he was aiming for. The second one missed completely, smashing into sparks on the road. The third and fourth landed right against the grill.

  The Hummer might be armored, but its engine still needed air, which meant that the plates behind the grill were baffled. As the burning gasoline splashed up into the engine block, it set fire to wires and vacuum hoses. Black smoke poured out from beneath the hood. The Hummer’s expensive little computer melted.

  The Hummer coasted to a stop.

  “All right!” shouted Tareq, punching the air with his fist as he floored the accelerator.

  Jax slumped back against the side window, the HK still cradled in his arms. “Let’s get out of here before they call in hel—”

  But October put her fingers against his lips and said, “Hush.”

  Chapter 50

  Marrakech, Morocco: Monday 5 February 9:45 A.M. local time

  Noah sat on a low wall overlooking the pavilion at the center of the Andalusian garden of Dar Si Said. Once, this had been the grand palace of a vizier, who’d covered its walls with intricate plaster friezes and zellij tilework, and surrounded its shady courtyards with graceful arcades that echoed with the soothing trickle of fountains.

  Noah had been sitting here for almost an hour.

  He cast a quick glance around. The museum was nearly deserted. The only Westerners he could see were a young Danish couple in jeans and heavy sweaters, and an elderly Frenchman who gave Noah a quizzical look as he passed in and out of the museum’s succession of rooms.

  Noah had been sitting there long enough that it had occurred to him he was probably a fool for coming. What if he was being set up? What if he’d been lured here so that he could be killed?

  He stood quickly, breathless with a sudden terror. Then it occurred to him that anyone intending to lure him to his death would have picked a more desolate rendezvous—or a very crowded one.

  He sat down again.

  A Moroccan woman dressed in an elegant cream wool kaftan topped with a filmy silk mansourya came to sit on the far side of the nearest fluted column. Most Moroccan women wore a hijab, or headscarf, but not the veil. Yet this woman had covered the lower half of her face so that only her eyes showed.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said in an undervoice roughened by fear.

  He glanced quickly away again, but not before he saw that her eyes were blue and that a stray lock of flaxen hair peeked from beneath her headscarf. Somehow, her fear reassured him. If she was afraid of him, then surely he had no reason to fear her?

  “So you really are a woman,” he said, before he could stop himself. “I did wonder.”

  At that, she gave a soft laugh. “What were you expecting? An old man with nicotine-stained fingers and a raspy cough?”

  Her voice, like her eyes, was young. He tried to place her accent but couldn’t. It was mainstream USA.

  “I didn’t know what to expect,” he said, although that was only partially true. He knew how he’d always pictured her: dark and voluptuous, a prettier, more sophisticated version of the famous porn star of the seventies. Instead, she was tall and thin and very fair. Beautiful, but not voluptuous. Refined and elegant rather than earthy or sensual.

  She said, “Did you wonder why I wanted you to meet me in Morocco?”

  “Yes. Although not as much as I wondered, Why now? Why meet me now, after all these months?”

  “Because we’re running out of time.”

  She shifted her weight to reach into the cream leather bag she carried slung over one shoulder. “You said no newspaper would print your story without proof. What if you had an example of the device used to provoke Bill Hamilton’s heart attack? Would that be enough proof?”

  “You have it?” he said incredulously.

  “No. But I know someone who does.” She handed him a photograph.

  He found himself holding a picture of a man. Clean shaven and fresh faced, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six years old, his light brown hair cut short, his white dress shirt worn rolled up at the sleeves. In the picture, he was standing in the door of a grass hut beside two naked Africans, and he was smiling.

  “His name is Michael Hawkins,” she said. “He used to work for Warren Patterson Ministries in Sierra Leone. But for the past eight months he’s been hiding here, in Morocco, at a ruined casbah called Telouet, in the High Atlases. He’s living with a family that sells rugs to the few tourists who make it that far south.”

  Noah turned to gape at her, completely forgetting she’d warned him not to look directly at her. “Eight months ago there was governmental upheaval in Sierra Leone after the previous strongman died unexpectedly. Of a heart attack.”

  “Most unexpectedly.”

  “How do you know this guy Hawkins?”

  She colored faintly. “Let’s just say we’re old friends.” She paused. “It’s not an easy place to get to—you’ll need to either rent a car or take a grand taxi.” The petits taxis like Noah had caught from the train station were only for the city; for longer hauls across country Moroccans used what they called a grand taxi, usually bigger—and older.

  “You’ll also have to work to convince him to talk to you,” she said. “But this may help.” She pulled the ring off her little finger and held it out to him. “Well, take it.”

  It was a simple ring of worked silver inlaid with black enamel in a pattern similar to the stylized geometric carvings on the arch above their heads.

  She said, “If you show Michael this ring, he’ll know you come from me and that he can trust you. But you’re the one who’s g
oing to have to convince him to give you what you need.”

  She pushed to her feet, then looked back in surprise when he put out a hand, stopping her.

  Noah said, “When you first came, you said we’re running out of time. They’re going to move against the President next, aren’t they? When? You do know when, don’t you? Tell me.”

  But all she said was, “Soon.” And then she left him there, with the silver-and-enamel ring cradled in the palm of his hand.

  Chapter 51

  Najef, Iraq: Monday 5 February 1:15 P.M. local time

  Bubba was supervising the loading of a stack of mysterious wooden crates into the Gulfstream’s cargo hold when Tareq pulled up at the edge of the runway. The big Cajun turned away from the jet, his eyes widening as he took in the Range Rover’s smashed rear end, the slashed leather seats, the wine-splashed, gasoline-soaked interior.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” he said, peering through a window. “What the hell did you do to this thing, Jax?”

  Tareq punched down his window. “Get them away from here. Quickly. Before they wreck what’s left of the car.”

  “Come on. It could have been worse,” said Jax, closing the passenger door with infinite care.

  “Next time you want to borrow a car, go see the Kurds or something,” said Tareq, tires squealing as he floored the accelerator and took off.

  “Thank you,” October called after him.

  “I don’t think that’ll help,” said Jax. He turned to Bubba. “How soon can we be out of here?”

  “Ten minutes.” Bubba’s smile faded. “Why?”

  “Well . . . we might be getting some company.”

  “Holy shit.” Bubba took off for his cockpit at a lumbering trot. “We’re outta here now.”

  Jax waited until they were airborne before telling Bubba they needed to make a little stop in Spain.

  “Spain!” bellowed Bubba. “I’m supposed to be on my way to Berlin! Do you have any idea what’s in my cargo hold?”