by Nathan Swain
All that was recognizable from the blast was a tiny figurine, a cherubim, Samir was carrying in his pocket. It came to rest, intact, at Eastgate’s feet. He picked it up and threw it high into the air, on top of the flat peak of the ancient mound in front of him.
“Welcome home, old boy.”
Chapter 88
The first news report by the BBC came out the next day.
“British Foreign Secretary Dashni Nazarian was shot and killed in Southern Iraq yesterday in a random, roadside mugging by highway thieves.” Pearl had placed an anonymous call to the British central command in Basra, tipping them off to the location of Dashni’s body, which he left in a ditch off of a highway near Nasiriyah.
Dashni had not reported his trip to anyone at Whitehall, and Downing Street suspected that there was much more to Dashni’s death than a simple roadside mugging. Months ago, the prime minister had received a tip from MI6 that Dashni had been living a double life. He was actively plotting an unknown conspiracy centered near Nasiriyah. Nothing good would come from an investigation, the prime minister decided then. The same was true now.
Pearl simultaneously leaked the story to the media, and they appeared to accept his version of facts at face value—just another tragedy in what was turning out to be a disastrous war.
The government turned to Olivia to decide what kind of funeral to plan for Dashni. He would be buried in Oxfordshire, next to his adoptive parents and Olivia’s mother in the Lewin-family cemetery plot. That had been decided years ago. But the contents of the ceremony—the readings and music and whether to include any elements of Kurdish culture—were considerations too confusing for Olivia to sort through. In the end, Dashni had died fighting for his homeland and people. That was the only honor that mattered to him, she decided, and perhaps the only one he deserved.
The more difficult decision was what to do about the WMD. Pearl wanted to leave another anonymous tip. “That would be a fun call to make,” he said, as they sat in the Humvee, waiting for nightfall. “Maybe the most important call of the twenty-first century.” Pearl thought the coalition had no business being in Iraq in the first place. “The longer they stay, the worse it’s going to get for everyone,” he said. The best thing to do was to lead them to the WMD.
But Olivia disagreed. “My father weaved deceits and intrigues,” Olivia said. “He had a dark, conspiratorial view of the world. I don’t condone what he did. In fact, I may never be able to forgive what he did. But the reason he did it, I don’t disagree with it.”
“He was right about the WMD,” Eastgate said, supporting Olivia. “The second it’s found the coalition will declare mission accomplished and get the hell out of here.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Pearl asked. “This is a terrible war.”
“I agree,” Olivia said. “But this may be the last chance for Iraq to be rid of Saddam and for the Kurdish people to create their own state. That’s what daddy was fighting for, and I think he was right.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Pearl said.
“I’ve ignored my heritage for too long, but I can’t anymore.”
“Jane, talk some sense into her, please.”
“Not your call, Pearl. Besides, don’t you owe me one?” Eastgate asked, drawing Pearl’s thoughts back to that night in Charlottesville when Eastgate saved his life.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Consider us even then.”
“So, you aren’t going to continue with your dig?” Pearl asked, turning to Olivia.
“To the contrary, I’m going to be running it personally. But there are certain areas that will remain off limits and under my close supervision.”
“I hope you’re prepared to live with the consequences of your decision.” Pearl said.
“History will judge us, Pearl,” Eastgate responded. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Chapter 89
Two weeks had passed since the bloody afternoon at Tell Eatiq. Although reticent from her brutal last days of captivity with Samir, Olivia was glad to have spent almost every minute with Eastgate.
From Nasiriyah they went to Istanbul. For the first time in months, they traveled under their own passports. It was a luxury they had taken for granted before, but never again.
Olivia called Cambridge and told them she was taking a year-long sabbatical, whether they liked it or not. In light of her father’s death, which came fast on the heels of Allison’s murder, they could hardly protest.
No one in the US government had been working against Eastgate, Jarrett’s investigation concluded, with help from Pearl. Dashni had contacted the US Secretary of State directly about tasking Eastgate with recovering the artifacts from the Slemani Museum. Eastgate was the son of a friend, he had explained, and he thought he would be a good choice for the mission. It was a favor to Dashni. The Secretary of State was happy to oblige him, and his request to keep Dashni’s role confidential.
Pearl had arranged for the CIA paramilitary guys to clear the checkpoint the day of the ambush and Hadi’s death. Someone at Langley owed him a favor and ordered it done.
Eastgate touched base with McQuistad. They were concerned about him but willing to give him more time. After all, he had fifteen months of unused vacation built up. “Use some of it, damn it,” McQuistad said. “Get back here ready to kick some ass.”
Eastgate planned on it. At the same time, he knew he could never be the same soldier again. Playing the role of pawn in Dashni Nazarian’s game of global political chess had pushed his body and mind to the brink, there was no doubt. But what most troubled him were the daily reports in Iraq of mosque bombings, deaths from IEDs, and endless nighttime raids. The war was going nowhere. It was always going nowhere. Yes, it turned out there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But according to Pearl, the weapons had been defunct for years and were no longer operational. Eastgate wondered if the Pentagon knew it all along, if it knew the WMD wasn’t a real threat, but pushed aside the facts as a pretext for invasion.
Who were the real chess masters who brought the US to war, and why did they do it? Eastgate wondered. He doubted he would ever find the answers.
Determined to clear their heads, Eastgate and Olivia chartered a sail boat in the Mediterranean off the coast of Southwest Turkey and floated in its cobalt-blue waters for days. Eastgate went spear fishing and dived for shell fish in the afternoon. At night, they dined on seafood and French white Burgundies.
Olivia was quiet much of the time. She spent afternoons sunbathing on deck. Evenings before dinner she looked out at the setting sun as it dissolved into the sea, turning the water indigo. She was still trying to process what had happened. The details no longer mattered to her. What roiled her mind were personal questions. Who was her real father? Was he Reso Zana? A Kurdish man who felt most at home in the village of his youth, raising a family of children to fight for Kurdish independence. Or was he Dashni Nazarian? The phoenix who rose from the ashes of a life of death and poverty in Kurdish Iraq and transformed himself into an icon of British power. Had the man she had known been real, or only a persona fashioned to deceive her and the rest of the world? She too had no answers.
To her surprise, she also thought often of Samir. He was a monster, and she had no wish to recall her time alone with him. But she couldn’t help consider how he had turned into the man who ruthlessly murdered Professor Allison and sought to marry the same woman whom he kidnapped and assaulted. Olivia realized that Dashni shielded her from the same part of his life that had shaped Samir: the anger and fear of a rootless people who had no safety because they had no home; the trauma of a boy who saw his family die before his own eyes.
She always knew that her family’s history was complicated, and that she would have to contend with it someday. But she kept putting it off, allowing Dashni’s instruction to “always look forward” guide her decisions, even as an adult. For that reason, Olivia decided, she was culpable in Dashni and Samir’s deceit. Not to the same exten
t as them, but not blameless either.
By the time she and Eastgate left the Mediterranean, she was sure that her decision to keep the WMD secret was correct. It was the first of many steps she intended to take to advance the cause of the Kurdish people. Someday in the future she might write about what happened, and the public would decide whether she had been right.
For the time being, she and Eastgate had unfinished business in the present. They took the train to Elazığ and stayed in a hotel next to Lake Hazar, gazing at the moonlit waters from their bedroom. In the morning, they held hands while walking down to the lakeshore.
Before their return, Olivia had wondered if the cave had been an elaborate set constructed by her father, like an amusement park ride, to perfect his grand deception. She and Eastgate slid into wet suits, as they did before. They wondered in awe at the basalt monolith, with its sketches and cuneiform script depicting ceremonies that took place thousands of years ago. When the water rose again to Olivia’s chest, they swam through the darkness together, like Rich, unaided by equipment.
The light pierced the murky water as a tiny beam at first. They swam toward it quickly, and with air in their lungs to spare, pushed through a narrow tunnel through which the light continued to grow. A suction force took over and pulled them through to the other end.
They surfaced in a deep pond, somewhere on the other side of the cave. Before them lay a meadow of wild grass and flowers the color of the rainbow. Eastgate and Olivia walked slowly out of the pond. The meadow was suffused with a shining, bright light and warmed by the afternoon sun. They shed their wet suits to cool down.
They walked toward a small plateau in the distance. There stood an enormous cedar tree as large as Rich had described, and in the center was the lemniscate, two perfect ovals, each breaking apart only to join with the other in eternal embrace.
“They’re just as Rich had drawn,” Eastgate said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Your father did not skimp on the details.”
Olivia gazed at the tree in astonishment, placing her hand against its brittle skin. “Genesis chapter 2, Verse 9,” she said. “ ‘Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.’ ”
“Is this the tree of life, or the tree of knowledge of good and evil?” Eastgate asked, looking at the massive trunk surge upward into the faultless sky. Olivia let the question pass.
From the plateau, underneath the tree, Eastgate and Olivia could see the whole expanse of the meadow, and a bubbling spring of water that opened into the pond and flowed into the cave.
Dashni admitted carving the symbol into the tree to match the tablet and Rich’s journal. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t on the tree when Rich was led there, Olivia noted. “Even daddy couldn’t have fabricated Rich’s journal. It’s been the subject of scholarly study since the late nineteenth century.”
Olivia peeled a sinewy, ochre string of bark from the tree and twirled it between her fingers. “The story of the Garden of Eden keeps giving life to new questions. Questions with multiple answers, or maybe no answers at all.”
Could that be what the ancients who compiled Genesis intended? Eastgate wondered. A puzzle to be pondered but never solved? Understanding, but only partial? Knowledge amalgamated with doubt, bafflement with the truth? Was it all by design? For weeks now, Eastgate had wanted to know: what is the truth? Now, he could only laugh at the truth.
Either way, real or not, for the first time since they had met each other in Cambridge, Eastgate and Olivia felt at peace together.
The meadow vibrated in a chorus of locusts. The kaleidoscope of flowers shouted and laughed in the glaring light of the sun, quieted only by the deepening blue of the afternoon sky.
Eastgate took Olivia by the hand and gazed across the meadow. “It’s time now,” he said, and they disappeared into the horizon.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several people helped make this book much better. Elizabeth Paul provided detailed comments about one of the early drafts and was a regular source of advice and counsel. Doug Paul also reviewed an early draft and offered kind feedback and support. Elizabeth, Doug and Phebe Paul were helpful and reliable resources on many topics related to the book cover design and publication process. With her excellent copy editing work, Sheree Winslow turned a shambolic manuscript into an organized, presentable text. The author Rob Blackwell kindly helped me navigate some of the uncertainties of publication. Cheryl Prentice read one of the last drafts in detail. In addition to her keen insights and comments about the story, Cheryl identified numerous typos and grammatical errors, the reversal of which has made the reader’s work much easier. I am grateful to each of them.
Nathan Swain
Oak Park, Illinois
February 2020
