by Bryce Adams
“It will,” Celestine said as she rolled up the Syrian man’s sleeve and investigated the gunshot wound on his arm. It was a dark tangle of exploded meat, but there were no blackened veins on his arm indicating full-scale blood poisoning. She wrinkled her nose. “This is going to be disgusting once we get started, and I have nothing for pain. There isn’t any alcohol around here, is there?”
“Stupid question,” Ambrose said in English.
The Syrian shook his head, whispering, “No. We are…were…the Muslims you see on TV; no drinking, lots of praying, waging godly war against a godless government,” he seized up for a moment, but then a fire crackled in his voice, “No peace with a man like Assad, who hides behind Shiite butchers like Hezbollah and Iran. No peace with a man who does not fear God enough to show mercy on his own people.”
Ambrose breathed in his cigarette and scratched at his neck stubble. He’d heard worked-up Muslim partisans start the same rant in half a dozen countries, and generally knew to keep his mouth shut when it happened. They weren’t going to change their minds, and he was content to file it away as in-house Sunni versus Shiite political bullshit that nonbelievers could stay out of. But in this case, Ambrose agreed with the dying Sunni: it took take an especially classless kind of evil to pray in public like Assad did while sending out his military to exterminate people who were allegedly still loyal Syrians. Whatever would stop somebody from doing that, fear of god was probably an apt descriptor for it.
The boy came back with a propane camp stove and a cooking pot. Draped over his shoulder were strips of ripped cloth, and a big knife handle stuck out from his belt. He marched over to Celestine and started giving her orders. She played along, which gave Ambrose a brief moment to further their mission.
He leaned over the dying Syrian. “Friend, the boy says you have a military radio transceiver here. I need you to let me use it for a moment,” he asked.
Celestine and the boy had hunkered over the camp stove and were boiling some water that the boy poured from a five-liter jug. They didn’t hear Ambrose’s request, nor the Syrian’s reply. “It’s in the next room. After you use it to call your allies, you need to do something for me,” he rasped.
“If that machine works, you can assume I owe you something.”
“It works.” The man closed his eyes and didn’t open them again. Fresh redness seeped from his tear ducts and down the care lines at the side of his eyes. When he spoke again, it was barely audible, “I’ll probably die of shock when your woman starts cutting into me. There isn’t much left inside here, trust me. Whatever I have left, God will squeeze it out once that hot knife hits my skin.”
Ambrose said, “Yeah.”
“So that means you must take the boy. He’ll never leave us otherwise. He’ll stay here and try to bury every body himself, facing south towards Mecca the way God demands. He’ll die of heatstroke, or thirst, or just get bitten by some damned snake out in the rock. Even if he manages to get us buried, there’s no way one boy is making it out of these hills alive. Not without being spotted by a rival militia.” The man tried to wipe the drying blood from his eyelids, but his bicep wouldn’t flex, so the arm stopped halfway up like a broken toy. He dropped it and let out another shuddering sigh. “Just…get him out of here. Get him somewhere that he might have a chance.”
Ambrose took the rag and dabbed it over the Syrian’s eyes. He got most of the blood, but the eyelids were stained pink like the makeup on a cheap whore. “We’re probably going west from here,” he said, cigarette drooping out of his mouth, “Are his people west of here? Some village away from the fighting where we can leave him?”
“He doesn’t have people. He doesn’t cry in his sleep. He doesn’t even give a name when people ask. The boy is this war.”
Ambrose didn’t want to look at him any longer. He had fixated on those pinks eyelids, and now he couldn’t stop imagine being hit by chlorine and feeling his own insides leak out from his tear ducts. “So where am I taking him, friend?” Ambrose pressed.
The man’s eyes were leaking again, but this time the blood was watery, mixed with tears. “Take him to our brothers. That’s all he has. The survivors of our militia split two ways. The wounded fled here, to our bunker, because it was closer. The healthier survivors went to the next battleground when they heard Hezbollah had finally launched a grand offensive out of Lebanon.”
Ambrose grimaced. “Qusair. You want us to leave a boy with your gas-stricken, outmatched friends in the middle of a warzone.”
The man responded, “So will you take him back to America with you instead? Will you keep him safe in Wisconsin or California?”
“I’m not going to America.” Ambrose rubbed at the cut on his brow. “I guess that means I’m going to Qusair.”
He walked down the hallway towards the radio transceiver, hoping the French-speaking, god-fearing Syrian economist would be dead by the time he got back.
* * *
Ambrose knelt in front of the battered radio transceiver and blew some dust off the front knobs. The boy said he’d used it recently, but grit must have accumulated quickly down in that shaft. He wasn’t sure how it could get any kind of signal, buried halfway down a mineshaft, but enough wires connected to the transceiver box to give him faith that at least one of them snaked off to do something useful beneath open sky. He hit the button marked ‘power’ in Russian and turned it on; Ambrose didn’t speak Russian per se, but he was a quick study who had lived in places where a bit of Russian went a long way. A promising crackle came out of the box.
He reached into his ugly bag and pulled out his moleskin notebook. Ambrose had carried a notebook like that since he was nineteen years old, when he admitted to himself that he had a terrible memory for phone numbers and his ever-increasing drinking regimen wasn’t likely to sharpen that memory over time. Seventeen years later he was on his ninth moleskin, and since this was one of his field operations notebooks, most observers would have taken it for pure gibberish. That’s because Ambrose took all of his notes in Thai. Thai had seventy-odd letters, was only spoken in and around Thailand, and was even less phonetic than English. If someone bested him, took his red notebook, and managed to decipher Thai shorthand, Ambrose reckoned they were welcome to whatever he’d jotted down.
The latest Thai entry was a set of radio coordinates more than twenty numbers long, along with a list of call signs and code words. He’d transcribed them from Wayne’s dossiers on the long boat ride from Cyprus to Latakia. Ambrose turned the knobs on the transceiver back and forth, listening to vacant sub-frequencies crackle and whir until finally the ambient noise evaporated into a pure silent void.
He picked up the handset and spoke into it, “God Almighty, this is Seraph. I have Cherub, and we’re flying to Heaven.”
Wayne, this is Ambrose. I have Celestine Lemark, and we’re going to get Tuva.
A velvety hiss-crackle told him a human was fiddling with whatever companion device had picked up his signal. If that human didn’t answer back in English, things would get much more complicated.
“Seraph, this is God Almighty. Good to hear from you.” Wayne Shenzo sounded tired. Ambrose could imagine him sitting at that map-covered table, surrounded by half-finished whiskey bottles and sleeping on his arms as he waited to hear the message Ambrose had just sent him. Bosses came worse.
“Good to be heard, Sir. Copy my last message.”
“Copy, but request clarification. Do you know where Heaven is?”
Ambrose flipped to another page of the moleskin, where he had painstakingly attempted to reproduce a randomly numbered grid map of western Syria from Wayne’s dossier. “Cherub believes it is close to the heart of Zebra-Three,” he said.
Lemark thinks it’s near the city of Homs itself.
Background noise came through Wayne’s end, which meant he was talking to someone. When Wayne responded he said, “Seraph, be advised that Mormons have gathered in Romeo-Ten. God Almighty does not think you can pass unmolested from…
where are you?”
Hayes, Hezbollah is crawling in the area south of Homs. No fucking way you’re getting through there to reach Homs itself.
Ambrose passed a bloodshot eye over his map. He answered, “Seraph and Cherub are in Echo-Eight, I thinks. Seraph was tortured today, though: his faculties are sub-optimal.”
Ambrose and Lemark are who-the-fuck-knows-where in the desert east of Homs.
Wayne didn’t bother covering the handset this time when he started whispering to someone on his side of the connection. Then he responded, “Seraph, God Almighty just conferred with Underworld, and Underworld advises the following: from Echo-Eight you cannot safely make it to Zebra-Three, because Mormons have amassed a full congregation at the heart of Romeo-Ten, and are going door-to-door converting the neighbors. If you pass through Romeo-Ten, Underworld believes you and Cherub will be converted also.”
Gideon Patai says an entire Hezbollah battalion has gathered south of Homs, killing everything in sight. Try to get through there, and Gideon says you and Lemark are dead.
Ambrose looked over the map, momentarily pretending he hadn’t understood the code. He nodded, pursing his lips before he spoke. “Seraph copies, God. Thank Underworld for the intelligence, but be advised: Seraph and Cherub are passing through the heart of Romeo-Ten. Seraph is compensating for new mission parameters.”
The response came almost immediately from Gideon Patai’s clear, carefully enunciated voice slicing through the crackle of the radio. “Underworld here. Mission parameters have not changed, Seraph. Underworld concurs that Zebra-Three is a promising location for Heaven. You and Cherub must proceed there immediately, bypassing Romeo-Ten and all Mormons en route.”
“Copy, Underworld, but there has been one change in mission parameters. Seraph found a new asset, and that assets needs dropping off at the heart of Romeo-Ten,” Ambrose said, getting tired of speaking in code.
“Seraph, Underworld did not copy that message. Repeat.”
“I’m going to Qusair, Underworld. I promised someone I would, and I also doubt we can make it overland through the wilderness to reach Homs directly. If Hezbollah is in Qusair, that also increases the odds we’ll run into Sorcerer in that city.”
Gideon’s voice cut like a knife, “God Almighty and Underworld strongly advise against that, Seraph. Electronic intelligence suggests that Heaven is indeed closer to Zebra-Three, and Romeo-Ten is a deathtrap. Strongly advise against current course of action, repeat.”
“Acknowledged, God Almighty and Underworld. Seraph isn’t happy about this either.” Ambrose took his finger off the hand piece for a moment and held its cool metal against his forehead. He needed to sleep; four fitful hours in a sweltering train car hadn’t done the job. Then he turned the handset back on, asking, “Underworld, assuming that Seraph and Cherub are whole, request advice on how to navigate Romeo-Ten and proceed onward to Heaven.”
Gideon answered with more of an accent that normal. His composure was slipping. “Seraph: Underworld believes that an Elder commands the Mormons. He may know the whereabouts of Heaven as well as Sorcerer. Suggest you ask politely.”
A senior Hezbollah commander is at Qusair. He may be able to find Tuva and Jamsheed Mashhadi. Torture him for the information if you can.
“Seraph copies, Underworld. God, are you still there?”
Wayne’s voice came through the speaker. There was a storm around Cyprus, he thought—Wayne was breaking up. “God Almighty here, Seraph. Make it quick.”
“God—Wayne—I need you to answer something honestly for me: how long do I have before Underworld’s contingency plans activate?”
“God Almighty is unaware of any Underworld contingency plan, Seraph...but get to Heaven soon.”
Gideon’s voice took over. “Soon, Seraph. My regards to Cherub.”
Then the other end went dark.
He walked back to the barracks chamber, where Celestine was on her knees talking to the boy. The Syrian men were dead.
Chapter Thirty-One
Wayne Shenzo watched Gideon hang up on Hayes, annoyed that the Israeli had dropped the connection before he had another chance to communicate with his operative. Gideon sat down the receiver quickly enough to suggest that he was upset at something and trying not to show it. Ambrose Hayes could have that kind of effect on people. Then the Israeli lit a cigarette, pulled out his cell phone, and walked onto the veranda speaking in Hebrew without so much as an “excuse me” to his American counterpart.
While Gideon Patai schemed in Hebrew, Wayne sipped on scotch and looked over the big map of western Syria that they’d laid across the table. His eyes flitted back and forth between the city of Homs and the small town of Qusair, roughly thirty miles south of it. The bitch of it was, really, that Hayes and Gideon were both right: an entire Hezbollah battalion had amassed at Qusair and turned it into a virtual death trap, as Gideon had said. But at the same time, that meant a high ranking Hezbollah commander would be in Qusair to lead them, and Wayne would have bet every B-2 bomber on Guam that such a commander would be a prime contact for Jamsheed Mashhadi. Between the two of them, someone would know the location of Tuva. Hayes, stubborn motherfucker that he was, had intuitively set himself on the right course; he and Lemark were going to Qusair, and Qusair was a milepost on the way to their end game…if nothing intervened.
He walked onto the veranda overlooking the dark Mediterranean night and tapped at Gideon Patai until the man got off his phone.
“I’ll take a cigarette, Gideon.”
The Israeli nodded and gave him one of those shitty-tasting French coffin-nails. Wayne borrowed a light from him as well, then sucked in slow. He hadn’t smoked since 2002, and it tasted like shit going down. He hadn’t even meant to ask for a cigarette, but ex-smokers often have a way of surprising themselves.
Gideon broke the silence with a chuckle, saying, “You look terrible, Colonel. If you’re trying to bring something up casually, stop wasting my cigarette and just ask.”
Wayne handed the cigarette over gladly, and Gideon took a drag like he’d never lent the thing out.
Head swimming with nicotine, Wayne said, “Seraph made a good point, Gideon—“
“Seraph is an idiot, and he is going to get one of my favorite people killed by Hezbollah.”
Wayne talked over him, “Gideon: what kind of contingency are you planning if this doesn’t work? If you make me guess, I’ll assume the worst.”
The Israeli spy leaned forward on the balcony railing and stared seaward. The back of his balding head looked yellow in the porch light. “Nothing fancy, Colonel. Just an F-16 strike on the weapons themselves, to make sure all of Tuva is destroyed. High explosives after any air defenses are removed, then back to Cypriot airspace,” he said casually.
Wayne wished he had that cigarette back. “Gideon,” he stretched out the –n- with singsong intonation, “There’s a high probability that’ll mean an Israeli airstrike on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer. That’s what this whole thing was meant to avoid, remember?”
The Israeli nodded, looking out at the water. “Colonel—Wayne—do you know why my English call sign is ‘Underworld?’”
“Because you’re a sinister son of a bitch, Gideon?”
He looked at Wayne over his shoulder and smiled, choosing to take that for the compliment it wasn’t. Gideon said, “It’s a reminder to myself of how things are. The ancient Hebrews didn’t believe in a heaven. When they died, they went to a cold grey pit full of nothing but other ghosts. They never saw God or had any kind of afterlife we would imagine. They were just gone. Forever. Many Jews still think that way, more or less. So for us, this life is all that we have, and there are no second chances.” He flicked his cigarette off the balcony. “For you Americans, supporting Israel is a hobby. Sure, your right wing Christians and American Jews like my country, but when the day finally comes, America will just leave the Middle East for good, washing its hands of the whole damned place. You’re already doing it, with Obama’s r
edeployment of so many forces to confront China in the Pacific,” he shrugged in a surprisingly human gesture of fatigue, “And I don’t fault you for it; your homeland is five thousand miles from Jerusalem, so you have the right to take your ball and go home whenever you want. I don’t have that option. Israel doesn’t have that option. Because for us there is only this life, then the underworld of the Hebrews. We don’t float up to see Jesus, or go to some green paradise like a Muslim martyr when he detonates a suicide bomb. There is only this life, and I will do everything in my considerable power to protect it.”
“What does that mean, Gideon?” Wayne asked.
“It means I just ordered four Israeli F-16s to arrive at a Cypriot airfield, fully armed, in preparation for a strike into Syria. It will take most of a day to assemble my squadron quietly. In the meantime, your man Seraph will die in Qusair and almost certainly take Celestine Lemark down with him.” He rubbed at the scar tissue beneath his dead eye. “Instead of dwelling on that, I’m going to spend the intervening hours trying to piece together where Tuva actually is, and I’ll direct the planes accordingly. Then they will vaporize the location, regardless of whether Jamsheed Mashhadi or any other Iranian is at the scene. If Iran strikes back, we will respond appropriately, even if it means turning every one of their cities into black glass, along with Beirut if Hezbollah joins the attack.”
“You’re talking genocide.”
Gideon stabbed a finger at Wayne’s chest and said, “They are talking genocide. That’s the difference between us, Colonel, and I wish you Americans would acknowledge it: we in Israel have the power to kill all of our enemies tonight, yet we refuse to do so. If Iran had a nuclear arsenal and an air force to match ours, do you think they would show such restraint?”
Wayne snorted. “I think that’s what you Israelis tell yourselves so that you’ll all feel better if you do attack preemptively to stop the Iranian nuclear program. I think Khamenei and his ayatollahs are five times saner than you want to believe, and they’re playing you into looking like the aggressor if Iran and Israel ever do start a war.”