The Last Prophecy - [Kamal & Barnea 07]

by By Jon Land

  “Wrong again, mademoiselle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The fourth line isn’t missing at all.”

  Flabbergasted, Danielle reached out and tapped the lockbox. “The manuscript is in here. See for yourself.”

  “I don’t have to. How much do you know about Nostradamus, mademoiselle?”

  “A bit. Get back to the missing—”

  “That he was born Michel de Nostredame into a family of Christianized Jews, for example. The religious duality came to typify much of his work since his prophecies are written in a baffling blend of French, Provencal, and Latin. That, together with the purposely blurred meanings of his predictions, is why so much of his work has been passed off as irrelevant through the ages.”

  “I’m not interested in the past. I’ve come here about the future, America’s future. I’ve only got four days to find the final line of the last prophecy.”

  “It wasn’t the last prophecy at all.” Mathieu leaned back in his chair, his gaze drifting. “My father was a caretaker and, in many respects, so am I. A caretaker of history, mademoiselle. I came upon much of what I know while searching for the truth behind Nostradamus. That he never stopped writing prophecies, for example. He continued writing them until the very moment he died.”

  “Monsieur Mathieu—”

  “In 1556 Nostradamus suffered a severe attack of gout. Not that this came as any surprise to him; he had already foreseen his own death. So, knowing it was near, he returned to his home in Salon. He insisted on being moved into his study and had a special wheeled bench built to allow him some freedom of movement. It was enough to reach his desk anyway, and he wrote with, a feverish passion each of his last days until the pain overwhelmed him.”

  “And he died after completing only three lines of his last prophecy.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Which?” Danielle demanded, losing her patience.

  “Yes, he died in the midst of writing it. But, no, it wasn’t his last prophecy.”

  “Make sense!”

  “Nostradamus made two copies of everything he wrote. He was in the midst of copying his final volume when death finally claimed him. It was that copy, the very same one you’ve brought to me today, that my father gave to Erich Hauptman at the abbey. The completed original remains intact.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Because, mademoiselle,” Mathieu told her, “I have it.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 61

  T

  he new Baghdad, al-Asi remarked, was very much like the old, at least in form and function. The major difference, of course, was the continued presence of American servicemen on the streets, posted at regular intervals never far from their Humvees, tanks, or armored vehicles. But the United Nations presence had increased gradually, easing Ben and al-Asi’s passage through spot checkpoints, thanks to the identification Commissioner of National Police David Vordi had returned to Ben.

  “You’re telling me Ibrahim al-Kursami is still in Baghdad?” Ben asked.

  “You’re familiar with the Karada district, Inspector?”

  “Newest and plushest of the city’s residential areas just west of the city on the peninsula that runs between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I watch CNN, Colonel. That’s all.”

  “It’s also where we’ll find al-Kursami.”

  “In hiding?”

  “Under the protection of the Americans, Inspector. They never would’ve been able to capture the bulk of government officials who conveniently disappeared once Baghdad fell, including Saddam himself, without al-Kursami’s help. He provided their locations, their plans and routes of escape. He was also instrumental in saving the lives of several prisoners of war by telling the American soldiers where they could be found.”

  “In exchange for his own freedom.”

  “As I said, Inspector. Al-Kursami is first and foremost a survivor.”

  Many of the city’s streets were still blocked, forcing Ben to take a roundabout route to the Karada district. The road banked sharply and then flattened out through an upscale residential neighborhood of gated stone homes. The yards looked large by Iraqi standards, deep but narrow in width. The overall effect at first glance was an uncomfortably tight cluster of homes that on second glance revealed a high level of privacy. Even more interestingly, this section of Karada looked untouched by American ordnance, making Ben wonder if many of the exclusive residents hadn’t made their deals with the Americans against Saddam well in advance.

  Al-Asi directed Ben to pull into the slot set before a red steel fence. The colonel poked his face out before a tiny camera, smiled and, without any further elaboration, the gate swung mechanically open.

  Ben drove on through toward a two-story stone house behind the steel security gate and inner wall that enclosed the property. As they climbed out of their vehicle, the front door opened and an older man appeared on the top step. Ibrahim al-Kursami’s grin exaggerated the deep wrinkles that looked like narrow craters dug around his cheeks, eyes, and brow. Al-Asi explained earlier that he had gone back to using his old name, allowing him to lay the despicably evil Massoud Takran to rest forever. He must have been about sixty and looked all of it, thanks to a receding hairline he tried to hide by combing his gray hair straight forward and a thick mustache of the same shade. He wore wheat-colored linen pants and a matching silk polo shirt buttoned all the way to the top, both of which fit him to perfection. He held himself strong and erect, charged with confidence.

  Ben gazed at al-Asi in the passenger seat. In twenty years, the colonel would likely resemble this man to an uncanny degree. The colonel had indeed learned much from his mentor, the coiled tension and power that lurked beneath the surfaces of both men further exaggerated by the striking way in which they presented themselves.

  Al-Asi climbed the steps and embraced al-Kursami, kissing him on both cheeks.

  “You’re looking well, Ibrahim,” al-Asi greeted.

  “As do you, Nabril. Apparently, political life agrees with you.”

  “I am the minister of interior of a country that has none. Call me a champion of low expectations.”

  Ibrahim al-Kursami brushed al-Asi’s comment off with a wave of his hand. “One day you will have your state and things will change. Who knows, you might even need to hire an old fossil like myself to help you.”

  “I doubt you’d want to leave all this.”

  “I doubt the Americans would let me anyway. I have apparently become invaluable to them. Still, to stay in their good graces, I’m forced to turn over one of my former associates from time to time.”

  “What happens when the list of former associates runs out?” al-Asi asked him.

  “I’ll make up some new ones,” al-Kursami explained, flashing a devilish grin almost identical to al-Asi’s. Finally the eyes of the former head of the Iraqi secret police turned toward Ben who was still standing at the bottom of the stairs. “And this must be the man you’ve told me so much about.”

  “Bayan Kamal,” Ben greeted, extending a hand toward al-Kursami as he climbed the stairs.

  Al-Kursami clasped both his hands over Ben’s almost reverently. “You’re an impressive man, Inspector.”

  Ben glanced at al-Asi. “The colonel has a tendency to exaggerate.”

  “My former pupil has nothing to do with the esteem in which I hold you.” Al-Kursami paused, seeming to size Ben up. “I followed your investigation into the bombing of the U.N. compound very closely.”

  “My investigation.”

  Al-Kursami nodded. “They should have listened to you, Inspector. You were the only one who had things right.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 62

  Y

  ou’re talking about my theory that elements of the former Soviet Union were responsible for the bombing,” Ben said once they were inside, seated in a spacious sitting room to the right of the main ent
rance. He and al-Asi sat on a couch, al-Kursami across from them on a divan covered in a black and tan printed fabric. “To hide something stored beneath the compound when it was the Canal Hotel.”

  “It’s much more than a theory, I can assure you of that.”

  “How?”

  “Because I supervised the process. Late 1991, I think, but the process stretched on for several months.”

  “You became caretaker of the material,” Ben said.

  “And nearly forgot about it myself until the bombing.” Al-Kursami looked toward al-Asi. “When the colonel first contacted me, I figured that must be what this meeting was about. It wasn’t, of course, but it might yet be.”

  “Still a man of riddles I see, Ibrahim.” Al-Asi smiled.

  “Indeed, Nabril. Now let’s move on to the reason for your visit.”

  A maid entered the room with a tray holding three cups of sweet mint tea. She gave each man a cup and quickly took her leave.

  “Dead Iraqi Special Republican Guardsmen who have risen miraculously from the grave,” the colonel said when she was out of earshot.

  Al-Kursami laid his tall glass of tea back onto the silver tray. The mint leaves poked up from the top, wrapping themselves over the edge. “A simple process when you think of it: all we had to do was leave their papers on other corpses’. The Americans were indiscriminate about who they killed and didn’t pay much heed when it came to properly identifying the bodies, so there was never any question that the ruse would work.”

  “Toward what purpose?”

  “Revenge. The operation, known as Black Sands, was conceived to punish America after the inevitable fall of Saddam’s regime as one of the primary components of Al Awdah, the Return.”

  “You told your American inquisitors the truth of what became of the soldiers of Black Sands?” al-Asi wondered.

  “I did better than that. I gave them the name of the man in charge of the operation, the only one privy to all its details: Sharif ali-Aziz Moussan.”

  “The Americans have him in custody,” al-Asi said.

  Al-Kursami’s eyebrows flickered. “But if the plot ended there, you wouldn’t have come to see me, would you?”

  “The soldiers of Black Sands were responsible for a massacre in a Palestinian village,” Ben said.

  “The question, then, becomes on whose behalf?”

  Colonel al-Asi sipped his tea leisurely. “Your riddles are starting to try my patience, Ibrahim.”

  “Did I not teach you to push as far as your adversary will allow before he pushes back, Nabril?”

  “You did at that.”

  “Another lesson learned well. I must’ve been a better teacher than I thought.”

  “Tell us more about these soldiers of Black Sands.”

  “We were able to get several hundred of them out of the country before the war began. There was a rendezvous point, a base from which they were to await further instructions.”

  “And this base?” al-Asi prodded.

  Ibrahim al-Kursami remained silent.

  “It is I asking the questions today, Ibrahim,” al-Asi said, his voice taking on a threatening edge. “Tomorrow it will be the Americans. I think they would be most disappointed to learn that a small army trained to act against their interests was still loose in the world. They might have no choice but to deal harshly with the man who kept that information from them.”

  Ben had expected al-Kursami to lash out at al-Asi’s thinly veiled threat. Instead, though, the former head of Saddam’s secret police smiled.

  “It seems I taught you too well, Nabril.”

  “These men murdered innocent Palestinians, Ibrahim, in the guise of Israeli soldiers.”

  “But I don’t recall ever teaching you to care.”

  “No, sidi. That I learned on my own.”

  Al-Kursami nodded indifferently. “Black Sands was to be based in France, in Marseilles. But you’d better act fast if you expect to find them there.”

  “Why?” Ben asked.

  Al-Kursami looked back at him. “Because Moussan’s capture didn’t end the plot. I didn’t realize that for sure until now, until you told me about the murder of these Palestinians.”

  Ben felt a chill slide through him. “This has something to do with the bombing of the U.N. compound, doesn’t it?”

  “If only they had listened to you, Inspector. . . .”

  “What was it the Russians had you bury under that hotel, Ibrahim?” al-Asi wondered.

  “Relics, Nabril, relics of the Cold War and another age entirely. Only one of these relics is of any concern to you in the form of a plot to plant moles in high-level positions in governments, seats of power, all over the world.”

  “A wives’ tale, Ibrahim.”

  “A wives’ tale that took up several crates of documents. The agents were real, but after the Soviet Union fell they became pariahs. Unable to return to their homeland, stuck in the sham lives they had made for themselves. Still no doubt loathing the way of life they had been charged with eventually helping to destroy.”

  Ben set his tea down on the glass table before him. “You mean they’re active again?”

  “They never stopped being active, any more than they stopped hating. Given the opportunity, I expect they would most willingly complete their mission. Given the opportunity.”

  “You’re saying somebody gave it to them.”

  “No, Inspector, you are. I realize that now. I should have seen it before, of course.” Al-Kursami leaned back comfortably and took a deep breath. “But this sort of lifestyle tends to make a man soft.”

  “You never told anyone about these Soviet moles, about the files hidden beneath the Canal Hotel?”

  “No one ever asked,” al-Kursami told Ben. “And, besides, I didn’t think they posed any real threat. The threat came from the soldiers of Black Sands and I made sure to tell one of my inquisitors everything I knew about them, which was everything that existed.”

  Ben and al-Asi exchanged a taut glance.

  “Then how could they still be at large?” the colonel asked.

  “Because the inquisitor was one of the high level moles left stranded with the collapse of the Soviet Union,” al-Kursami said and turned toward Ben. “Someone you’re well acquainted with I believe, Inspector.”

  The former head of the Iraqi secret police said the name and Ben felt his blood run cold.

  “What are you going to do, Inspector?” Colonel al-Asi asked when they were back in their SUV.

  “Go to Marseilles.”

  “I meant about—”

  “I know what you meant, Colonel, and the answer’s the same. Marseilles is the only place where this can be stopped once and for all.” Ben leaned back and massaged his eyelids, contemplating the task before him, made even more complicated now. “But I can’t do it alone.”

  “I only wish I could accompany you myself,” al-Asi said apologetically.

  “I understand.”

  “I wish I did,” the colonel sighed. “But in my new position . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Colonel. I’ve got a new ally I think will be more than happy to assist me.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 63

  M

  athieu refused to elaborate on where they were going, suggesting they drive across town in his car since Danielle’s was pinned on a street blocked by a parade of floats crawling by. They finished their meals, Danielle enjoying the bread and salad as much as the mullet Mathieu had ordered for her.

  He promised the distance to their destination was short, but the street celebrations constantly stalled their progress, turning the drive into a maddening series of stops and starts. Finally Mathieu pulled into a handicapped space directly across from Musée Archéologique et d’Histoire Naturelle, Nimes’s Museum of Archaeology and Natural History.

  “We’ll have the whole place to ourselves,” Mathieu explained. “The spring festival has closed it for the week.”