by Nathan Swain
“You’re right. I’m not a four-star general or the prime minister. But I know something those men don’t know.”
“Which is?”
Pearl stretched his bony arm over Dashni’s right shoulder and extended his index finger. “I know what’s buried under those mounds.”
Dashni paused. He twirled the black sunglasses in his hand and smiled wryly.
“I’m not new to this business,” Pearl said. “You’re not the first client to try to muscle me.”
“I’m sure of that.”
“Did you really think I would do business with you without doing my due diligence? What did you take me for, a desk jockey, some kind of data mole?”
“Enlighten me, then. What do you think is buried under those mounds other than worthless shards of Sumerian crockery?”
Pearl stretched the nub of his walking stick and traced three letters in the sand.
“W—M—D.”
Dashni laughed. “Is that right?”
“Weapons of mass destruction.”
“You have a very vivid imagination, Mr. Pearl. Perhaps all that time you spend staring at computer screens has atrophied your brain cells.”
Pearl motioned to one of the paramilitary guys, who brought him a gray, boxy telephone with a long antennae.
“You may recall that my friend Mr. Eastgate is an officer in the United States Special Forces. Say he was to call up his CO right now and tell him about a massive stockpile of Saddam’s chemical weapons that was found here. Do you think his CO would be interested in that?”
Eastgate looked at Pearl in disbelief. Either he did, in fact, have the mother of all cards to play, or he was one hell of a bluffer.
“My guess is we’d see the sky fill with Chinook helicopters in about ten minutes. Maybe less. What do you think?”
Dashni’s smile turned into a scowl. Pearl handed the phone to Eastgate. “Make the call.”
Eastgate started pressing random numbers. He had no idea how to reach his CO on the phone.
“Wait,” Dashni said. “Put that phone down, Mr. Eastgate.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I will give Olivia to you.”
“That’s a good first step.” Eastgate kept dialing. “When?”
Dashni looked past them at the horizon. “Now.”
Chapter 85
Samir lay down on his chest, on the peak of a mound of sand and dirt, and trained the cross-hairs of his rifle on his father’s head, following him as he walked.
I could shoot him dead right now. He has no idea that his life is in my hands. A pathetic little puppet in my game.
Was he going to kill him? Samir hadn’t decided. At the moment, he was using the rifle scope to see what his father was up to.
This was Tell Eatiq, the site of Olivia’s famous discovery. It pleased Samir to be able to bring his lover back here. It was a place she treasured. Now, he did too. It was, after all, the study of Assyriology that had brought them together. And Tell Eatiq was the subject of so much of their dialogues. This was a fitting place to close the first chapter of their lives and begin the next one.
Why his father wanted him to bring Olivia here, he didn’t know. Nor did he particularly care. But he had no intention of giving her up. He and Olivia would confront their father for the last time. Samir was also delighted to see the American appear in his rifle scope. Whatever power he still had over Olivia would fade as she witnessed his cowardice in death.
Samir picked up his rifle. Conical arcs of sand sprayed from his boots as he glided down the slope of the hill. Olivia sat in the passenger seat of an old army jeep parked at the bottom. “Our father is here,” Samir said. “It’s time to say goodbye.”
Samir had told Olivia they were going to Nasiriyah, to Tell Eatiq, to say goodbye to their father. She took it as the rantings of a lunatic. But as Samir diverted the jeep off of the highway, and headed toward the famous archaeological site of Ur, Tell Eatiq’s neighbor, she had no idea what to expect. Her goal was to survive, or escape if the opportunity presented itself.
She hoped that moment would be soon. The British Army had jurisdiction over Southern Iraq. Olivia prayed that they would be stopped by the Army at a checkpoint, or spotted by a satellite. So far, Samir had managed to slip through the Army’s lines.
About two hundred feet in the distance, Olivia could see the trailers from her dig and people milling around. Who are they? Maybe it’s Samir’s father, or other members of the Flaming Sword. But as they walked closer, she began to discern the outlines of people she hadn’t expected to see: her father, standing next to Eastgate and Pearl. Olivia’s heart pounded. Will is alive!
She could only assume that Dashni was there to arrange her release.
But why here?
A chime sounded from Samir’s wrist watch. He grabbed Olivia by the forearm. “OK, my love, this is it. It’s time to say goodbye.” Samir carried his pistol in his right hand and with his left guided Olivia another fifty feet toward their father.
“Father!” Samir bellowed, raising his arm toward Dashni. “I’ve brought Olivia with me.”
Samir was deranged, but Olivia knew Dashni could handle him. He had probably read a dossier on Samir provided by MI6 and positioned sharp shooters on the mounds around them to take him out.
“Good. Samir, it’s time to let her go,” Dashni said.
“No, that’s not why we’re here,” Samir said. “Your plan worked father. We, your children, have fallen in love. We’re here to say goodbye.”
“You’re right Samir. The plan worked. You have done well. But now you must let Olivia go.”
What did he say? Why was daddy playing along with Samir’s sick fantasy?
“Daddy, what are you talking about?” Olivia asked.
Eastgate looked at Pearl in astonishment. Pearl returned his glance with a slight nod.
“Olivia,” Dashni said. “I was trying to protect you.”
“From what Daddy? What do you mean?” Samir would not let go of Olivia’s hand.
“You were just too stubborn,” Dashni said. “Too much like me.”
Dashni’s shoulders sloped forward and he put his hands in his pockets. His boundless energy had suddenly drained from his body. His face, which normally glowed with vitality, looked gray and tired.
“About a year and a half ago, well before the invasion of Iraq, a piece of intelligence crossed my desk. It wasn’t from MI6 or the CIA. It was from someone directly employed by me. Someone in Mr. Pearl’s profession. Though thankfully not Mr. Pearl himself.”
Dashni cleared his throat. “That intelligence provided conclusive evidence that a massive stockpile of chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, had been found near Nasiriyah. In fact, Olivia, it was found underneath a mound right here, at your beloved Tell Eatiq.”
Olivia put her hand to her mouth. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Chapter 86
Dashni looked over at Olivia and paused. He reached for the pocket square in his sport coat, as if to offer it to her, but quickly brought his hand back down to his side.
Eastgate shook his head. “Saddam stored his WMD here? At an archaeological dig? That makes no sense.”
“Just listen,” Pearl responded.
“Saddam had apparently cleared out his chemical weapons factories shortly after 9/11 in fear of a new round of inspections. It turns out he was prescient. Why he buried them here I’ve never been able to find out. He must have thought the mounds would be ignored, as they had been for the past 6,000 years. He hadn’t anticipated my intrepid daughter, or her insatiable ambition.
“Of course, the weapons were impossible to move while Saddam was in power. There was a brief window of opportunity just after the invasion began. Your dig was on hold. The British Army had swept north from Basra and established some minimal security. I assembled a task force—employed directly by me—to find the weapons and remove them. That effort failed, primarily because of meddling from your go
vernment, Captain Eastgate.
“These circumstances were not all that bad. From one perspective, the weapons were in the perfect hiding place. Neither the US nor the UK ever considered looking for WMD here.”
“But then you intervened, against my constant objections and counsel,” Dashni said, shooting Olivia a withering glare. “You doggedly lobbied the UN to provide protection for the continuation of your dig. You convinced them that ‘the exigencies of the present did not obviate the need to investigate the past.’ It was something like that, wasn’t it? So, the UN began establishing a perimeter of security around the site. And any opportunity for moving the weapons was lost.”
“I don’t understand,” Eastgate said. “You would have been a hero for locating the WMD. Isn’t that why our armies came here in the first place?”
“Exactly right, Mr. Eastgate. The belief that Saddam possessed WMD and would use them against the West was the main reason for invasion and occupation. It was never the fact that Saddam was a brutal dictator and that he and his predecessors had massacred and displaced millions of Kurdish people. The fact that the Kurdish people would be freed from this monster, and that they would have the chance to establish their own homeland—that was never your government’s reason for invading.”
Dashni turned to Olivia. “But that was my reason for invading.”
Shaking, Olivia looked away. “I’ve protected you, Olivia, from our past, from the horrors of my childhood. I wanted you to look forward, to be a strong daughter of the Commonwealth. And you didn’t fail me. But I have never stopped seeing in my mind the image of those young boys, my brothers and cousins, and hearing the cries of my mother, as the bombs fell. For them, I had to ensure that the WMD was never found.”
“What makes you think we would leave after finding the WMD?” Eastgate asked.
“Have you been watching what is happening in this country, Captain Eastgate? It’s descending into civil war. American and British blood will be spilled here every day. Both of our countries know this. Given the opportunity to declare success, they’d be gone in a week. That’s the political reality.
“But with the consensus now being that there is no WMD in Iraq, our governments have retrenched and looked to save face. They’ve engaged in a wonderful sleight of hand. According to our leaders now, WMD was never the sole reason for invading Iraq. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and unpatriotic. No, an equal if not more important reason was to bring democracy to the Arab world and establish a bulwark against authoritarianism and anarchy.”
Dashni began smiling again, enamored with his own stratagems.
“The wonderful thing about democracy building is that it takes time,” he said, punctuating the last three words. “It will require dislodging Saddam once and for all. And by giving the Kurds access to the ballot box, it could mean self-government for them. And a homeland at last.
“That is why I did what I did, and I would do it again.”
“What did you do, daddy?” Olivia asked.
“He fabricated everything,” Eastgate said.
“I don’t understand?”
“The tablet wasn’t real. The man I spoke to in Baghdad, who told me to take it to you, he wasn’t real either. He was an actor, hired by Pearl.”
“The tablet is real,” Olivia said. “It was carbon dated. I saw the results myself.”
“Those results were apparently fabricated by your father, and given to Samir to plant on Professor Allison’s body. Isn’t that right, Samir?” Eastgate asked, striding a few paces toward Olivia.
“It was his idea, his plan,” Samir said, pointing at Dashni. “He told me to put the paper in Allison’s jacket after I killed him. I didn’t even know what it was.”
Olivia’s eyes filled with tears. “Is it true?” she asked, looking at Dashni.
He stared at the ground. “Allison was a regrettable but necessary loss of life. I know you were close to him. I’m sorry.”
Olivia fell to her knees. She realized long ago that Dashni was ruthless. He would admit as much to her. “This world is a ruthless place, O. Only the ruthless survive.” But she never would have believed he was capable of murdering an innocent man.
“It was necessary to prevent you from discovering the chemical weapons. You needed to believe in the tablet, to believe that the real Garden of Eden could be found by interpreting it, and that your lives depended on it.”
Dashni approached Olivia until Samir raised his gun at him.
“Stop,” Samir said, unlocking the safety.
“I knew all too well how you would respond to adversity,” Dashni continued, looking at Olivia. “If I tried to stop you from digging here, you would dig in your heels even more. And if you caught wind of my involvement, that your father was taking steps to block you, well, then, you would have become obsessed with thwarting me.
“Consequently, I made up an adversary, using the folklore of the Flaming Sword. I wrote you letters to deter you, with the seal of the Flaming Sword stamped in wax. But it wasn’t enough.”
Dashni looked at Samir. “I needed my son to complete what his father could not.”
Olivia tried to break free from Samir’s grasp, but he pulled her more tightly, thrusting his forearm underneath her rib cage.
“And you must admit, it worked rather well,” Dashni said. “Look at this place. It’s shuttered. The dig is over. The WMD will be buried forever. You’ll pardon me for pointing out, but the ends justify the means, once again.”
Chapter 87
Samir couldn’t have been happier witnessing Olivia’s emotional collapse. She needed to see their father for the monster that he was. It was necessary to make a clean break from him, and embrace her new life.
But Dashni had left out the best part.
“You’ve skipped over so much, father,” Samir said. “Before he instructed me to kill your friend Professor Allison, he ordered me to seduce you. He thought I could keep you in Cambridge if I did. And he didn’t care that we were brother and sister.”
“Samir is my adopted son,” Dashni said. “As I mentioned, I tried to protect you from that part of my life.”
“But it’s all worked out now, despite his selfishness,” Samir said. “We’re in love.”
Olivia pushed Samir aside. “I’ve never loved you, Samir—and I’ll never marry you. You’re as deranged as your father.”
“But you said we would be together.”
“I said that so you would let me go. You need help, Samir, and you need to go to prison.”
Samir’s face contorted into a fierce scowl. He took a handful of Olivia’s hair in his fist and pulled her upright.
“You ungrateful bitch! You will obey me,” Samir said, resting his pistol on the crown of Olivia’s head.
Dashni walked purposefully up to Samir. “Don’t do this, my son.” But Samir had heard enough. He turned the gun that had been aimed at Olivia on Dashni, and fired.
The bullet went straight through Dashni’s chest, exiting into a mound of sun-scorched sand. Dashni stood for a few seconds, staring blankly at Samir. Eastgate could see the gaping exit wound expand and pool with blood. Concentric rings of crimson saturated Dashni’s shirt.
“Daddy!” Olivia screamed, reaching for him. Dashni wrapped one arm around Olivia’s shoulder and fixed his gaze at her, attempting a smile. He fell to his knees with a gasp and collapsed onto the desert floor. He was dead.
The blast from the gunshot continued to echo off the mounds of sand in the distance.
Eastgate drew his M11 and pointed it at Samir. “You’ve done enough killing now, don’t you think?” he said, walking straight at Samir.
“No,” Samir responded. “I have one more to kill.” Samir pushed Olivia to the ground and aimed his gun at Eastgate.
Olivia stood up and ran toward Pearl’s security detail.
Eastgate had attained his primary objective—freeing Olivia.
“You think you can best me, Samir?” Eastgate asked, separated by only a
few feet.
“I know I can.”
“Then why not settle this like men? Drop your weapon, I’ll drop mine.” Eastgate squeezed the fingers of his right hand around his thumb. His knuckle popped like a bottle cap.
Samir smiled. “Good,” he said, letting his gun fall to the ground.
Samir raised his fists and came at Eastgate with a left cross, sending him crashing into the sand.
Eastgate scrambled backward toward the mounds behind him.
“Running already?” Samir asked.
Olivia looked at Pearl. “Shoot him,” she said. Pearl raised his hand. “Wait a minute.”
Eastgate looked behind and checked his footing. Samir charged at him again. And again, he struck first, landing a right jab. Eastgate stumbled backwards, but quickly righted himself.
“This is too easy,” Samir said.
But his next punch landed in Eastgate’s open right palm. Eastgate forced Samir’s right arm down and delivered a vicious blow with his left fist to Samir’s midsection. Samir doubled over. Eastgate pinned his right bicep against Samir’s chest and hoisted him over his back, sending Samir crashing into a warning sign displaying a skull and cross-bones. A plume of dust rose from the ground.
Samir blacked out for a moment, but then a rush of air seemed to fill his nostrils and revive him. His head clattered like a rattle as he shook away the fog. He regained his feet.
Eastgate bent down, as if he was preparing to rush at Samir. Samir stepped backward, preparing for Eastgate’s charge.
Eastgate put his head down and jerked forward. Samir continued to shuffle backwards. Suddenly, Eastgate stopped and let his hands fall to his sides.
He smiled. “Goodbye, Samir.”
A full second passed—long enough for Samir to see the landmines at his feet and understand that his troubled life had run its course. A deafening blast shot up from the ground, cutting Samir’s body into pieces and sending them flying across the sandy desert floor.
