The Third Caliph

by Alex Archer

  That surprised MacKenzie. “Then what is it?”

  “Kurdish.”

  MacKenzie closed his fist over the key and glanced at the laptop computer also connected to Sophie’s transmission. The image there showed a magnified view of the key. MacKenzie had sent an image once he’d boarded the plane a few hours ago. “Kurdish.”

  “Yes. My expert tells me it’s an old form used by the Yezidi people.”

  “What do the Kurds have to do with this?”

  “We don’t know yet. Maybe the key has nothing to do with what Thabit is after.”

  “It has to. It was with the scroll.”

  “That doesn’t mean they came together. A lot of things could have happened to those remains Creed and her associates found out in those mountains.”

  “Then why am I headed to Mosul?”

  “Because that’s where the largest percentage of Kurds live these days. And because there is a tie there to the peacock angel you discovered with Creed.”

  MacKenzie had sent her images of those manuscripts, as well. “What tie?”

  “Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir was the man believed to be the first incarnation of the Melek Taus, the peacock angel. His tomb lies north of Mosul, in the Hakkari Mountains. As it turns out, Musafir was also a descendant of the Umayyad caliph Marwan ibn al-Hakim. Abdelilah Karam would have known Marwan.”

  Shifting on the bags of grain that filled a lot of the cargo space, MacKenzie tried in vain to find a comfortable resting spot. “Creed was puzzled over the link between the Melek Taus and Karam. She said four hundred years passed between the two periods.”

  “Yes, and we’re chasing after a scroll that was buried on a mountainside over a thousand years ago because Habib ibn Thabit wants it.” Sophie’s tone carried mild rebuke. “Just so we can get a shot at a terrorist leader right now. I don’t claim to understand these things. I just deal with them. You should be dealing with them, too.”

  “Fine.” MacKenzie tucked the key into his shirt pocket and stared up into the darkness of the cargo area’s upper reaches. “What do you want me to do in Mosul?”

  “Put boots on the ground. I’ll have another retrieval team there waiting for you. If we’re right about this, Annja Creed will be there soon enough.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Then we do what we always do. We adjust.”

  MacKenzie took a breath and stared at the image of the key. The light reflected in Yahya’s dark eyes. “Do we know what the key unlocks?”

  “No. Wait for Creed in Mosul. When she shows up, take her and find out what she’s uncovered.”

  MacKenzie cursed silently. The instructions were simple. Executing them had been anything but. “Are the Brits still along for the party?”

  “They can track that jet as easily as we can. Once it touches down, our coverage becomes spotty. That’s why we want you in Mosul. Let’s get a step ahead of Thabit if we can.”

  MacKenzie broke the connection and leaned back.

  Yahya grinned at him in the darkness. “You know what being ahead of Thabit means, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” MacKenzie’s mood soured. “The man has a gun at our backs.” He blew out an angry breath. “We get down there, we have to look out for each other.”

  Yahya nodded. “Sure. Like always.”

  Chapter 36

  Marsala

  Province of Trapani

  Sicily, Italy

  When Hamez opened the door of the luxury car waiting for them at the Palermo Airport, Annja stepped out into the warm salty breeze blowing in from the Mediterranean Sea. She settled her backpack over her shoulder. The afternoon sun slanted in from over the whitecapped waves.

  One of Hamez’s men brought the box of journals. Together, they walked toward a small coffee shop set back from the port. Annja refrained from asking questions. She knew Hamez wouldn’t answer. He hadn’t talked to her during the past several hours of crisscrossing the island to throw off potential tails.

  The coffee shop was low-end touristy. Fishing nets filled with plastic sea life hung from the ceiling and slow fans stirred the air, serving only to push the aroma of fresh-made coffee onto the boardwalk.

  Habib ibn Thabit sat alone at one of the tables. He looked overdressed for the surroundings, a businessman who had ended up in the wrong meeting place. Several of the men scattered around the room watched Annja, as well, and she knew that Thabit owned them all.

  Thabit smiled when she approached his table. He stood up like a gentleman and waved her to a seat on the inside of the booth.

  “Miss Creed.” Thabit’s smile never touched his eyes. A mask that he wore among polite company.

  “Mr.—”

  He held up his hand and quieted her immediately. “I would rather my name not be mentioned, if you please.”

  “Fine.”

  “My associate has informed me that you have made some inroads to my quest.”

  “We’ve been lucky.”

  “Lucky?” Thabit frowned and looked at Hamez.

  “I didn’t know what you were looking for. Even now, I can only guess.”

  “And what is it you guess?”

  “The discovery of Abdelilah Karam’s body so far from home started all of this, so I’m guessing that it has something to do with his work as a historian of the succession following Muhammad.”

  Thabit’s expression never changed.

  Annja leaned back in the booth. “If that’s not the answer, then I’m ready to order the daily special with a cup of highly caffeinated coffee, because I’ve been up for most of the night shuttling between airports and cars, and call it a day.”

  “You have a cavalier attitude for someone in your position.”

  “My position.” Annja stared at Thabit. “You’ve got the CIA and MI-6 chasing you. You’re one of the most wanted men in the world at the moment.”

  “Thank you.” Thabit adjusted his tie.

  “If I stand up and start yelling your name, it’ll be a footrace for you to get out of Sicily before someone puts you down.”

  “Perhaps. But first, all of these people will die.” Thabit nodded at her. “And you will die, of course. I will kill you myself. And the footrace? You would be a fool to wager against me. I can get out of this country anytime I wish. Just as easily as I got in.” He paused. “Do you wish to yell?”

  Annja waited a beat just to be difficult. “No. But if you expect me to find what you’re looking for, I need to know what it is.”

  Thabit sat quietly for a moment. “You were close when you thought it was Karam’s scrolls.”

  Annja’s heart sped up. So the scrolls did exist. She checked herself. Thirteen hundred years had passed since they’d been written. At one time, those scrolls had existed.

  Thabit reached inside his jacket and took out a flat metal box not much larger than a cigarette case. “My family has been looking for Karam’s books since the man went missing.”

  “Missing?”

  Thabit shrugged. “Karam bolted from the country ahead of an assassin. One of my ancestors almost caught up with Karam in Morocco, but he disappeared.”

  “He was killed. I saw the body. Someone crushed his skull.” Annja could still see the broken bone.

  “My ancestor would have killed Karam if he was able, but that did not happen. Otherwise, those scrolls would not still be hidden.”

  Annja filed that away. That was a mystery that might not be resolved. More than likely, the old historian and his party were ambushed by bandits who had taken horses and provisions and left the gold because it might have marked them as thieves. Or maybe the gold had been buried nearby to prevent such a theft. Or it had been sewn into Karam’s garments for emergencies and left loose when that clothing had rotted away.

 
“The trail turned cold.” Thabit tapped the metal case, then pushed it across the table. “Except for this.”

  Gently, senses tingling, Annja lifted the lid off and found a folded piece of vellum inside. It felt soft and pliant in her fingers as she unfolded and spread it over the tabletop.

  She knew at once it was a map. She recognized Abdelilah Karam’s signature across the bottom. The writing was in Kufic.

  “What does this say?”

  “‘The way to knowledge is paved in gold.’”

  “Karam had a treasure?”

  Thabit shook his head. “He was a poor man, only privileged in the caliphs’ courts.”

  The symbol of the peacock angel stood out on the thin skin.

  Annja studied the ink for a moment and knew that it wasn’t the same quality. The image of the peacock angel was slightly faded.

  She looked up at Thabit. “This is not part of the original document.”

  “We believe it was added in Mosul, during the reign of Adi ibn Musafir. A sign of ownership, perhaps.”

  “If you have a map, why haven’t you been able to find Karam’s scrolls?”

  “Because no one knew what area to use that map on.”

  “There’s only one place you can find the Melek Taus.”

  “That is not precisely true.”

  “Only one birthplace of the religion,” Annja amended.

  “My ancestors searched across Mosul. Nothing.”

  “Where did they get this?”

  “From a tomb robber in Mosul a thousand years ago. It has been in my family ever since.”

  Staring at the vellum, Annja tried to make sense of it. Points were marked on the map, as well as symbols that looked like Arabic letters. Those had half circles traced around them in very light ink. The marks were exactly uniform, each having small imperfections, but they were all about the size of—

  Annja took a deep breath as the pieces fell together in her head. She looked at Hamez. “When you took the scroll from Mustafa, he also had coins. Did you get those?”

  “Yes.” Hamez scowled at her.

  “Do you have them?”

  Hamez reached into his jacket and took out a small manila envelope.

  Once she had the envelope, Annja dumped the heavy gold coins into her palm. “I thought it was unusual that a man like Karam would be traveling with gold coins. He would have been playing the part of a pauper, a poor merchant hoping to improve his fortune. Flashing gold coins would have ruined his chances of that and made him a target for bandits or even thieves within the group he traveled with. He wouldn’t have traveled alone. But he had these coins. And they were freshly struck, no signs of usage.” Annja ran her fingers across the coins and felt small ridges across the raised surfaces. The last time she’d seen them, it had been night and she hadn’t had time to examine them.

  Working carefully, Annja put the coins on the vellum, matching the Arabic letters marked in the half circles to letters on the coins. While doing that, she discovered that the coins also fit together with small ridges on the edges, forming an interlocking puzzle.

  Thabit stared at her.

  “This is why Karam was carrying the coins.” Annja fit the last one into place. “They’re the map.”

  Thabit studied them. “I see no map.”

  Annja reached into her backpack and took a sheet of paper from her journal. She laid the paper over the coins, then delicately rubbed graphite over the surfaces.

  Slowly, the unmistakable image of a path lifted from the other designs stamped on the coins. The map Karam had been carrying on him when he’d been killed.

  “He must have been headed to Tetuan. That city was old back when Karam was alive, and he could have lived there in peace among the Berbers. With his skills as a writer, he could have even lived out his days in comfort as a scribe for traders.” Annja thought of the skeleton they had taken from the ground. “Only that didn’t happen.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the coins. “Karam lived through some of the most pivotal events in all of Islam. He knew he was leaving behind a legacy in historical documentation, and he intended to preserve it and wanted it found. Those coins were the key to that legacy.”

  Carefully, Thabit picked up the coins and put them in the metal case. “You have done very well, Miss Creed. I am impressed.” He laced his fingers. “Now, I want you to tell me where in Mosul those scrolls are.”

  Excited, but still aware of the grave danger she was in, Annja reached into her backpack. Hamez trapped her hand.

  “I’m getting my computer.” Annja stared at the man. “If you want me to find that location on that map, I’m going to need access to the websites I set up for researching these documents. Otherwise, I’m going to have to start all over again.”

  Thabit nodded and Hamez took his hand away. “Remember. We are watching everything you do,” Thabit said quietly.

  “Go ahead. But I bet you get bored. Poring over maps isn’t for the faint of heart.” Placing her computer on the table, Annja powered up and set to work.

  Chapter 37

  Mosul

  Ninawa Governorate

  Republic of Iraq

  Wearing khaki pants, a loose-fitting shirt and a keffiyeh, Garin had no trouble passing among the people who continued to struggle for survival in Iraq’s war-torn city. It broke Garin’s heart to see the city in such disarray. Mosul had never been one of his favorite places to do business, but he hated to see so much loss.

  Broken people squatted around small fires in the shattered buildings. The smell of cooking fish and spices trickled through the gentle breeze that floated in from the Tigris River. Small fishing boats still trolled the water on both sides of the slow-moving current of greenish-brown water.

  The river split Sunni and Shiite Muslims displaced during the war, as well as Assyrians, Kurds, Turkmen and others. Too far away from the river, on the wrong side of the bank, violence would break out between the groups and bodies would hit the ground. But here on the river, the violence seemed more contained. The river was life to everyone who lived on it, and the people here respected that.

  The Iraqi military still maintained tenuous order in the city. Garin had passed a few outposts filled with armed, nervous men. Despite the downfall of Saddam Hussein and the efforts of the Americans, peace had not returned to the country.

  Garin doubted the city would ever know prosperity or harmony again.

  As he passed a narrow alleyway flanked by buildings reduced to rubble, a shadow separated and came toward him. Garin closed his hand around the pistol in his pocket. Before he could pull it out, a sharp blade rested at his throat.

  “Too slow, mon ami,” a rough voice whispered in Garin’s ear. “If I wished, you would now be dead.”

  “So would you, old man.” Garin made his point by pressing the tip of the Spyderco tactical fighting knife through his attacker’s shirt and coat. “With my dying breath.”

  “Touché.” The old man sounded delighted. “You have learned a lot.”

  “And if you had any sense, you would have tried to kill me without engaging me.”

  “That would draw the attention of the local militia. Something neither of us can afford. Also, your bodyguard would have killed me.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t.”

  “Nonsense. I knew he was there. He wouldn’t shoot me.” Roux stepped back, removing his knife from Garin’s throat.

  Roux looked like a man in his sixties, but he moved with a young man’s speed and strength. Under the hood of his ratty coat and keffiyeh, his gray hair brushed his shoulders. His blue eyes glowed in the darkness. Like Garin, he’d dressed in clothing that fit the neighborhood.

  “You couldn’t know he wouldn’t shoot you.” Garin returned his weapons to their hiding places. Qurtubi must not have
been as good as his father if he let Roux get so close.

  “Of course I did.” Roux turned and lifted his voice. “Qurtubi, come on out.”

  The young man, dressed as they were, emerged from the shadows with a sheepish grin on his face.

  Garin frowned. “You were supposed to keep me safe.”

  “I did. Roux gave me his word he would not hurt you.”

  Garin looked at the old man. “You know Qurtubi?”

  Roux embraced the younger man. “I’ve known several generations of Qurtubis. All fine men.” Qurtubi didn’t appear at all disconcerted by Roux’s seeming ability not to age. “You couldn’t do any better for personal protection out here.”

  “Except, it seems, when it comes to safeguarding myself against you.”

  Roux strolled toward the river. Since electricity was being rationed, the full dark of evening was settling over the city.

  “I’m the exception, Garin. I’m always the exception.”

  Reluctantly, Garin fell in behind the old man the way he’d done for so long so very many years ago. Sometimes it felt as if they’d never put their past relationship behind them, and at other times it seemed as if their relationship would never be the same again.

  Their bond was...complicated...even without the sword and Annja Creed.

  “I take it since you’re here, Annja is here.”

  “Not yet.” Roux waved to a passing fisherman who poled his boat over to the bank. “But she will be soon. Her research has pointed to this place. Well, not exactly to Mosul, but to the mountains north of the city. She and her captors are coming. You and I will deal with them there.”

  “The mountains? What’s in the mountains?”

  “A hiding place, for starters. Perhaps some very old scrolls that, for some reason, have some bearing on the events that have placed her in danger.” Roux took a few coins from his pockets and gave them to the fisherman.

  The fisherman smiled and thanked Roux in his tongue, then he handed over a stringer of fish. Qurtubi took the fish and appraised them.