The Babylon Idol

by Scott Mariani

  ‘You look fine,’ he had to say at least six times before they reached the car.

  Now that that task was taken care of, it was time to make their way to their destination, Harran. The road from Sanliurfa seemed at first to be taking them due south, straight towards Syria; then just a few kilometres before reaching the border town of Akçakale it veered eastwards. The ancient site that had been the stopping point for Abraham in the Old Testament was a sprawl of ruins scattered over an arid plain of semi-desert scrubland, encircled at a distance by the modern town of Harran. Like a couple of sightseers, Ben and Anna trekked on foot across the barren scrubland of the plain and spent a while wandering about the ruined sandstone walls and archways and towers that were all that remained of the place. It was like Olympia, but with none of the serenity and little of the mystique. The only intact buildings on the plain were the clusters of beehive houses that had been built a lot more recently, centuries rather than millennia ago, from the stones of the ruins. Incongruously surrounded by pylons and wires that hummed in the cold desert wind, some of the beehive houses appeared still inhabited – until it turned out that they were strictly used as a tourist trap by locals ever-ready to exploit the unwary for all they could get. The children were less subtle about it, crowding around Ben and Anna everywhere they went like a cloud of mosquitoes, clamouring for money. Ben noticed that some of the kids were speaking Arabic. Refugees from over the Syrian border, just twenty-five kilometres away. He felt pity for them, until one of the little urchins pulled out an imitation 9mm Beretta realistic enough to have caused most tourists to soil their pants, pointed it at Ben and yelled ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead!’ Ben replied to him in Arabic. The kid lowered the gun, stared at Anna in horror and then beat it along with his crowd of friends.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I told him you were a Seventh Dan Karate master, and you were going to break both his little arms and shove his gun where the sun doesn’t shine.’

  ‘This is a dismal place. There’s nothing for us here anyway. We should be looking for Ashar’s fortress.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘It’s getting late, and we wouldn’t know where to start. I suggest we get a place to rest up for the night, a shower and a meal.’

  The modern town of Harran wasn’t much less dismal than the ancient one, but had a motel handily situated right on the edge of the plain. Anna wasn’t impressed with their adjoining rooms, and even less so with the shared bathroom. ‘There are cockroaches.’

  ‘It’s winter.’

  ‘They’re hibernating. But they’re here. Don’t tell me you’ve seen worse, because such a thing isn’t possible.’

  ‘Except maybe in summer,’ he said. ‘When the cockroaches all come back out to play.’

  The narrow street leading up from the motel was crowded with tawdry gift shops, coffee bars and a handful of restaurants that looked more or less in the same league as the motel, but within a five-minute walk they found a café that was a little better than the others. Over dishes of Urfa kebab and chicken and rice, they talked about the possibility of hiring a local guide to help them locate the fort, or at any rate the site where it had once stood. ‘There must be dozens of them in this town, with little work during the low season,’ Anna pointed out. ‘And in a place like this, where everyone knows everyone, it’s just a matter of asking.’

  ‘What are the chances that some local guy just happens to know where this fort is?’ Ben said.

  ‘I’ve used guides before, on research trips. It’s surprising how knowledgeable some of them can be.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Ben said. ‘But assuming we even find anything out there, it could be a long trek. And the terrain will be rough as hell. I could go alone. I’ve spent a lot of time in places like that.’

  ‘You think I’d let you find the golden idol of King Nebuchadnezzar without me?’ she fired back. ‘I’ve survived this far. I’m ready for anything.’

  Chapter 45

  Anna survived the night, as well, with no cockroach sightings to report when morning came. Breakfast was a cup of Turkish coffee so strong you had to chew it, taken in the empty dining room. ‘I think we’re the only guests here,’ Ben commented.

  ‘What a surprise.’

  Ben left her to finish her coffee while he went over to the reception desk to enquire about hiring someone local to show them around the surrounding area. As it turned out, Anna had been right about everyone knowing everyone in Harran, but wrong about the abundance of suitable tour guides.

  ‘There’s only one man I know of who might be able to help you,’ the manager said. ‘Wait a minute.’ And kept Ben waiting for several of them while he took his time looking up the number in a grubby old diary. ‘Here he is. Diya Sharifi.’ The manager scribbled the name and number down on the back of a scrap of paper and showed Ben the way to a payphone.

  An hour later, Diya Sharifi was sitting with Ben and Anna in the empty motel dining room, over more of the chewy coffee. He was an ethnic Arab, about thirty years of age, who said he’d lived in the area all his life and knew every inch of terrain from Gaziantep to Batman. His manner was relaxed but his eyes were sharp and his English fluent, even though it had been learned from American TV. He confirmed that he could make space in his frantically busy schedule to help them out, and listened as Anna outlined to him what they were looking for.

  ‘The place we’re trying to find would be very, very old. It was already a ruin in ancient times, possibly the remains of an Assyrian fortress dating back four thousand years. There might be virtually nothing left now, except a few scattered pieces of rubble. Yet it’s vitally important that we find the right place. Do you think you can help us?’

  Sharifi considered the request. ‘Most tourists, they want something they can take a picture of, you know? You’re asking me to take you someplace that doesn’t even exist any more?’

  ‘It would be on high ground,’ Ben said. ‘Somewhere right up in the hills, a good vantage point where you could see an enemy approaching miles away. The kind of place a lightly equipped guerrilla force would have had no problem slipping in and out of, but regular infantry would’ve found difficult to access, even harder to attack.’

  ‘Do I look like a military tactician to you?’ Sharifi said, then broke into a grin. ‘Relax, man. Happens I do know a place that kind of sounds like what the lady was talking about. You could say it was a fort, or was once, what’s left of it. Might be the same one you’re looking for, maybe.’

  ‘You can take us there?’ Anna asked, leaning forward in her chair.

  ‘It’s a long way up in the hills. Kinda hard to reach, but I have a good truck. Sure, I can take you there. Gonna cost you a little extra, though. It’s real close to the border. Lots of trouble still going on in some of those places. You hear stories of ISIS fighters slipping across and killing folks.’

  Ben and Anna exchanged glances. His, dubious. Hers, flashing with excitement. ‘It’s as good a place as any to start,’ she said.

  ‘I still think it’s best if I go alone,’ Ben replied.

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to avoid.’

  Anna dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. ‘You have the job, Mr Sharifi,’ she said.

  ‘The price will be five hundred lira,’ Sharifi said. ‘And please, call me Diya.’

  ‘That’s fine, Diya. We’re anxious to reach the fort as soon as possible. How quickly can you be ready to leave?’

  ‘Let me go fuel up the truck,’ Diya said, knocking back the dregs of his coffee and getting to his feet. ‘I’ll meet you outside in one hour, ready to rock. You should bring some food and water. Gonna be a long day.’

  Ben watched him go, then turned to look at Anna, saying nothing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to play it this way?’ he asked her.

  ‘You heard him. It sounds as if he might be able to take us to the right place. And for
a good price, too.’

  ‘I don’t care about the money,’ Ben said.

  ‘It’s just that you don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘I trust myself.’

  ‘But you don’t know where the fort is. You said so, remember?’

  An hour later, Diya Sharifi screeched up outside the motel in a Dodge Power Wagon pickup truck that looked as though it had spent the last thirty years hauling rocks over the desert, complete with enough ancillary lighting to fry a camel crossing the road and knobbly tyres so oversized that Anna could barely clamber up inside the crew cab.

  ‘You can dump your bag in the back, boss,’ Diya said. The rear bed was filled with a clutter of various junk. One big steel jerrycan for fuel, a plastic one for water. A crammed metal tool box with all the paint knocked off it. A spare wheel, wearing the same pattern of knobbly tyre, tethered to the side of the flatbed with rope. Some shovels and other well-worn wooden-handled utensils carelessly rolled up in a frayed bit of canvas tarp tied in the middle with a length of twine. Ben always found it interesting what people carried with them for travelling in the wilderness.

  ‘You coming, boss?’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ Ben said. He shoved a few things aside to make space for his bag, made sure it was secure and then walked slowly back towards the front passenger side. He paused at Anna’s window. ‘Last chance to change your mind.’

  ‘I told you, I’m coming. I wish you wouldn’t keep asking.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Ben said. He pulled open the front passenger door and hauled himself in. The dashboard was covered by a colourful patterned cloth to protect it from melting in the summer sun. An Islamic ornamental pendant dangled behind the windscreen from the mirror stem. Less traditional was the sat nav device suckered to the inside of the glass.

  Diya grinned at his passengers. ‘Hang on tight, folks. I drive real fast and we’re taking the road where there is no road. Let’s go.’

  Chapter 46

  They set off, quickly leaving Harran behind as their guide sped out into open country, talking and joking animatedly as he drove. From March through October, it would have been the kind of unbearably hot, dusty trek that Ben had endured a thousand times before. In winter, it was just unbearably uncomfortable as Diya charged up into the barren hills, never slowing down for a rock or boulder smaller than a watermelon or bothering to avoid a rut unless it threatened to engulf the entire truck. Ben wedged his feet against the door and transmission tunnel to prevent himself getting too badly thrown about. Behind him, Anna was being bucked out of her seat at every bump, but she was too excited to complain.

  The landscape was an arid panorama yellowed by sand and sun, dotted here and there with sparse vegetation. They passed through the outskirts of a village where feral children came out to throw stones. Deeper into the wilderness they had to slow for a sheep herder leading his flock across their path. Further on again, they passed the bleached-white skeleton of a camel; then the carcass of a wrecked and overturned car, blackened by fire and peppered with large-calibre bullet holes, a silent witness of the warfare that now and then strayed over the border into south-eastern Turkey.

  ‘In your line of work I’d carry a weapon for self-defence, Diya,’ Ben said in Arabic over the roar of the engine. ‘What with all the trouble in these parts.’

  Diya glanced at him in surprise that he could speak the language, then shrugged and replied, ‘Forget it. That’s a sure way to get yourself killed, around here.’

  ‘I’d take the risk, personally,’ Ben said.

  ‘Rather you than me, chief.’

  ‘So you don’t have a gun?’

  Diya shook his head, all the way left, then all the way right, in an exaggerated motion for emphasis. ‘Never wanted one, never needed one, never will.’

  ‘Sorry I asked,’ Ben said. ‘Just wondered, that’s all. So, are you really the only guide in Harran?’

  ‘Only one worth his salt.’

  ‘Nice little monopoly you have there. No competition. You make much money?’

  Diya shrugged and grinned wider. ‘A man has to earn his crust. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yeah, I think I do know how it is,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll bet your phone never stops ringing, does it? I’ll bet it was ringing even last night, sometime after she and I got into town.’ He pointed a thumb back at Anna, who was gazing out of the window and oblivious of the conversation.

  Diya looked at him uncertainly, the grin wavering. ‘You ask a lot of questions, chief.’

  ‘Bad habit of mine,’ Ben said.

  Soon afterwards the terrain began to climb. Diya took a winding hill path up and up through all sorts of spectacular ravines and canyons and escarpments. Anna was watching it all roll by, gazing out of the window in fascination. Ben was watching Diya. For the last few kilometres the guide had stopped smiling and talking. He kept glancing at his watch, biting his lip. Peering this way and that as though checking for landmarks, then consulting the GPS reading on the sat nav.

  Ben asked him, ‘What’s the matter, Diya? Lost your way?’

  ‘No chance,’ Diya replied. ‘I been coming out this way all my life, chief. Nobody knows it better than me.’

  ‘Maybe you’re in a hurry because you have a plane to catch later, or a hot date.’

  Diya threw him another uncertain look. ‘No worries, man. Almost there. Just a couple more minutes.’

  ‘This’ll do,’ Ben said. ‘You can drop us off here.’

  Diya stared at him. ‘You crazy? This is no taxi ride.’

  ‘You heard me. This is far enough.’ Ben reached out and yanked the handbrake. The truck skidded to a halt at an angle across the track. Anna was thrown forwards against the front seats.

  ‘Ben, what are you doing?’

  The engine had stalled. Diya clutched the wheel and kept staring at Ben. He was sweating. Ben said nothing, either. Before Diya could speak or attempt to restart the engine, Ben threw open his door and jumped out. They had stopped in a shallow canyon that a million years ago could have been the bed of a fast-flowing river. Its banks sloped upwards on both sides in a wide V. Here and there, landslides had brought part of the canyon walls down to form piles of boulders around which scrubby bushes had sprung. Ben hit the stony ground with both boots and started striding fast towards the rear of the truck. Stepped up on the tow-hitch, reached into the pickup bed among the wooden-handled utensils carelessly wrapped inside the piece of frayed canvas tarp, grabbed something solid and heavy and slid it out of the roll with a sharp tug.

  Ben always found it interesting what people carried with them for travelling in the wilderness. Especially when one of the items in their tool roll wasn’t a shovel or a pick, but rather a clumsily concealed bolt-action Mauser main battle rifle of the sort that had flooded Turkey by the million during and since World War Two. And even more especially when the same rifle’s owner insisted he carried no weapon. By anyone’s standards, the 8mm Mauser was a hell of a weapon, as lethally effective now as when it had rolled off the assembly point at the Steyr-Daimler-Puch factory in Austria, 1943, and into the eager hands of the Waffen SS.

  Diya was clambering out of the truck. Anna peered open-mouthed from the dusty window. ‘Let me guess,’ Ben said, clutching the rifle. ‘This old thing has been bumping around so long in the back of your truck, you forgot it was there. Is that right, Diya?’

  Diya made no reply. Ben cracked open the bolt and saw the big, long, bottlenecked rounds stacked on top of each other in the receiver. He pulled the bolt all the way back, then pushed it all the way forward, feeling that famous slick Mauser action, and locked it down tight. Now there was a round in the chamber.

  ‘You really shouldn’t leave firearms lying around like that,’ he said. ‘Too many nasty, dishonest people around. The kind of people who might point a loaded rifle at you when they pretended they were unarmed.’

  ‘Ben, what’s happening?’ Anna called from the truck cab.

  Diya took a step towards him. I
n one fast motion Ben swivelled the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and fixed the battle sight right on Diya’s centre of mass. The 8mm Mauser cartridge was good for over a thousand yards and could penetrate light armour at half that distance. At this range it would blow a man in two.

  Diya presumably knew that, it being his rifle. He took a step back and raised his hands.

  Ben said to him, ‘Let’s have a little bit of truth, Diya. You can start by emptying out your pockets. Nice and easy. If I thought you had a pistol in there, I might get really nervous. And nervous folks have twitchy fingers.’

  Diya moved slowly, partly because he didn’t want to get shot with his own rifle, and partly because he was understandably reluctant for Ben to see what was in his jacket pocket. More precisely, what was in his wallet, which he left until last to pull out. The worn leather was stuffed as thick as a double burger.

  ‘Open it up so I can see inside,’ Ben said.

  Diya’s eyes bulged. He held open the wallet. A fat wad of banknotes fell out, scattered and caught the wind and swirled about his feet like autumn leaves, but he made no move to pick them up.

  ‘Business really has been good for you, hasn’t it?’ Ben said. ‘Looks like another couple of thousand Turkish lira, on top of the five hundred you stood to get from us. Why don’t you go crawling after it, before it all blows away? Wouldn’t want you to have sold us out for nothing.’

  Anna’s door opened and she peered out. ‘Ben, please tell me what’s going on here.’

  ‘What’s going on is that there is no ancient Assyrian fort anywhere nearby,’ Ben told her, still keeping the rifle pointed at Diya. ‘And if there were, our deceitful friend here wouldn’t care one way or the other. Because he didn’t drive us out into the middle of nowhere for an archaeological excursion, but for a prearranged rendezvous with a certain someone. Isn’t that correct, Diya?’