The Mirage

by Matt Ruff

  “The prisoner they took with them,” Mustafa said. “Can you show us the recording of Farouk’s interview with him?”

  “No. I checked. They erased it and took the backup disk.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Abdullah described him. “He talked like he knew you . . .”

  Amal had finished her phone call. “Abu Naji says we missed Bin Laden at the hotel,” she told them. “According to the staff, the senator and his bodyguards checked out right around the time we arrested Idris. They were supposed to fly back to the capital this evening, but they haven’t checked in for their flight yet, and now it looks like the planes are all grounded anyway.”

  “I doubt Bin Laden would leave Baghdad now even if he could get a flight,” Mustafa said. “What he wants is here . . . OK, let’s assume the dead men outside are Al Qaeda, sent to grab this . . . person of interest. Would anyone care to guess who their killers are?”

  “Umm Dabir told me she looked out the window after she heard the shooting,” Abdullah offered. “She said she saw police cars pulling up and driving away again . . .”

  “Baghdad PD,” Amal said. “Saddam.”

  Samir looked at Mustafa. “You think they’d take him to the Adhamiyah estate?”

  “They might, especially if Saddam were in a hurry to start making wishes.”

  “That’s simple, then,” Amal said. “Let’s get some more people together and head across the river.”

  “We could do that,” said Mustafa. “But if the cops outside see us assembling a raid team, they might call ahead and warn Saddam.” He considered. “The three of us ought to be able to sneak away unnoticed, however.”

  “And what are the three of us going to do against the whole Republican Guard?” asked Samir.

  “Scout the territory,” Mustafa said. “Amal, call Abu Naji back. Tell him to get over to the Baghdad ABI office and round up as many agents as he can for a raid on Saddam’s Adhamiyah estate. Tell him to be careful not to let the police know, and tell him to hurry. Oh, and he needn’t bother with a warrant.”

  “Exigent circumstances?” Amal smiled. “Whose life shall I say is in danger? The missing prisoner’s, or ours?”

  “That all depends,” Mustafa said, “on what the prisoner is really made of.”

  Saddam Hussein waited at the turnaround in front of his mansion, dressed in an authentic Iraqi military uniform purchased off eBazaar. Oversized mirror shades allowed him to gaze unblinking into the storm. He was grinning broadly in anticipation and every few moments had to turn and spit sand from between his teeth.

  Presidential Secretary Abid Hamid Mahmud stood to Saddam’s right, looking significantly less jubilant. To Abid’s right was the sorcerer Mr. Rammal, his expression hidden beneath the cowl of his robe. Forty Republican Guardsmen were arrayed on the mansion’s front steps, weapons at the ready. Their faces were impassive: They might have been awaiting the arrival of a head of state, a shipment of gold bullion, or a battle.

  Behind the Guard, sheltering beneath an overhang by the front door, were Tariq Aziz, Uday Hussein, and a small group of male servants. Aziz and the servants looked nervous; Uday, sullen. Uday was furious at having been kept home from the mission to retrieve the jinn. He was also bored: All the women of the house, from his mother down to the lowliest maid, had been sent away.

  The police cars arrived and were waved through the front gate. They came up the drive and pulled to a stop at the turnaround. Qusay got out of the lead car. He nodded to his father, then opened up the car’s back door and reached inside.

  As the prisoner’s feet touched the ground the wind whipped up violently. Abid and Mr. Rammal were staggered by it, and the Guard had to struggle to maintain their ranks. Aziz threw up an arm to shield himself and the servants covered their faces in fear. Uday, remembering how he’d shamed himself earlier, balled his hands into fists and leaned into the wind.

  Saddam stood his ground. He waited for Qusay to pull the prisoner upright, then removed his sunglasses and peered squinting into the prisoner’s eyes. “Welcome to my home!” he said, shouting to be heard above the wind’s howl. He tugged playfully at the chain between the prisoner’s wrists. “Welcome to my service!”

  Halal Enforcement had a boat dock on the river one block east from the Homeland Security building.

  The three of them had donned goggles before setting out, and Mustafa and Samir had tied rags over their mouths and noses, while Amal used her headscarf. They looked like bandits, and as they approached the guard shack at the dock entrance Mustafa expected to be challenged. But the shack was deserted, and though the gate was locked the keypad entry code had not been changed in a decade.

  They boarded a motor launch with an enclosed cabin and set off upriver. The sandstorm was getting worse. The sky had turned a dull orange from the amount of dust floating above the city, and visibility dropped until it was down to less than fifty meters. Mustafa used the onboard GPS to navigate, while Samir and Amal kept a sharp lookout for approaching vessels. Fortunately most of the other river traffic seemed to have pulled off to wait out the storm.

  After about fifteen minutes they rounded a bend in the river and spotted a string of lights that, according to the GPS, marked Saddam’s private dock. The dock spanned nearly a hundred meters of waterfront and terminated at its east end in a riverside party and guest house that was larger than most people’s primary homes. The house also contained a guard station, so Mustafa steered well clear of it, continuing upriver past the dock’s west end before killing the launch’s running lights and doubling back. He brought them in on the lowest throttle setting, finally cutting the engine entirely and coasting into an open berth beside a yacht named Bint Zabibah.

  “Now what?” Samir said, after they’d tied off the launch.

  “You remember back in ’97, when Halal was planning to raid this place?” Mustafa asked.

  “I remember the judge denying us a warrant after our informant turned up in a cement mixer.”

  “Yes, but before that, when the mission was still a go, I had a good look at the blueprints and reconnaissance photos. The main way up to the estate is through there”—he gestured towards the party/guard house—“but there’s also a separate gate above a slipway at this end, for putting boats into and out of the water—and loading liquor onto trucks. That gate’s not so well guarded, and at the time it was secured only with a padlock and chain.”

  Amal was already rummaging in the launch’s toolbox. “Will this do?” she said, holding up a pair of long-handled bolt cutters.

  They put their goggles and face masks back on and stepped out onto the dock. The gate was where Mustafa said it would be, but unlike Halal, Saddam had upgraded his security since the 1990s. A video camera had been mounted above the gateway, and the gate itself was now a solid sheet of metal, barred and bolted from the inside.

  “What about going over the wall?” Amal suggested, as they huddled out of the camera’s view. “We can use the bolt cutters on the barbed wire.”

  “It’s got to be at least four meters high,” Samir said. “You have a grappling hook, too?”

  “If we can pile up some boxes or something for you to stand on, you can give me a boost.” Reading their silence as discomfort rather than skepticism, she added: “Pretend you’re my brothers.”

  No one had a better idea, so they crept along the dock looking for some boxes or crates strong enough to bear their weight. Just past the Bint Zabibah they found a small, wheeled dumpster chained to a post. They cut the chain and trundled the dumpster back to the slipway.

  Mustafa was the tallest of them, so he stood on the dumpster lid and let Amal climb up on his shoulders. Samir stayed on the ground trying to hold the dumpster steady. This circus act would have been difficult even in perfectly calm weather and under these conditions should have been impossible, but the wind was oddly cooperative. More than once, as she stretched to cut the strands of barbed wire, Amal felt herself starting to overbalance, only
to have a sudden gust like a firm hand push her back against the wall. She worked as quickly as she could. When the last strand parted, she tossed the bolt cutter to the ground and said, “OK!” Mustafa placed his hands under the soles of Amal’s shoes and pushed up, hard. This maneuver proved too much for the dumpster lid, which buckled beneath him and sent him tumbling back to be caught by Samir—but when they looked up, Amal had vanished over the wall.

  Five long minutes later, the light on the security camera went out and the gate opened. Amal, now armed with an assault rifle, waved them inside. They passed through a short tunnel. At the other end was a guard shack, inside which a Republican Guardsman lay, bound hand and foot with plastic zip-ties and blindfolded with his own jacket. Mustafa turned to ask Amal a question but she was already forging ahead.

  They made for the lights of the main house. They’d covered about half the distance when the wind dropped almost to nothing, and they heard, somewhere off to the left, the asthmatic roar of a lion. This was followed by another, softer wheezing sound. A Republican Guard staggered out of the haze, gasping for breath, and fell facedown in front of them.

  While Amal kept watch for the lion, Mustafa and Samir bent down over the Guard. The man hadn’t been mauled; he’d been stabbed. A handmade plastic blade had been driven into his upper back, piercing a lung. Mustafa pulled it loose and squinted at the legend on the side of the shiv: XBOX 360.

  From behind them they heard the sound of a pump shotgun being cocked. “Don’t move!” said a voice. The words were Arabic, but the voice was American . . . and familiar.

  Mustafa spoke without thinking: “Captain Lawrence?”

  “Stand up slowly,” the voice said. “Now all of you turn around. Slowly.”

  The captain’s T-shirt was torn and bloody, and a chunk was missing from his left ear where one of his dying jailers had bitten him. Looking at him, Mustafa experienced a curious sense of doubling. He felt like he knew this man, had worked with him for years. He knew that he didn’t know this man; they’d never met before. Not in this life.

  Without waiting to be told, Mustafa lifted his goggles up to his forehead and tugged down the rag that covered his nose and mouth. The captain lowered the shotgun. “Mustafa?”

  “Hello, Captain Lawrence,” Mustafa said. “How is Operation Iraqi Freedom coming?”

  The window of the prayer room had been shuttered against the storm and the sand pattern on the floor had been redrawn. A chair of hammered black iron held the captive jinn at the center of the circle. Saddam stood facing the jinn, while Mr. Rammal orbited them both. The sorcerer had donned a peaked cap of densely woven silver thread, and as he walked around the circle with the brass bottle held before him, he muttered incantations in the dead language of Babylon.

  Bearing witness to the ritual, their faces lit by flickering torchlight, were Qusay, Uday, Abid Hamid Mahmud, Tariq Aziz, and a half-dozen Republican Guard. The Guardsmen remained impassive—all except for one, who grew increasingly uncomfortable with the blasphemy being committed here and finally opened his mouth to protest. But Uday silenced him with a glance.

  Mr. Rammal completed his ninth circuit. He removed his cap and gave the bottle to Saddam, who hefted it in both hands, weighing it like a newborn.

  Saddam Hussein addressed the jinn: “Are you ready to do my bidding?”

  The jinn stared back at him placidly. “Tell me what it is you want.”

  Saddam passed the brass bottle back to Mr. Rammal and snapped his fingers. Abid Hamid Mahmud came forward and handed him a globe. Saddam showed it to the jinn; black marker had been applied to the globe’s surface, changing borders and renaming nations. “I also have some notes,” Saddam said, patting the breast pocket of his uniform. “Perhaps you’d like to study them.”

  The jinn flexed his wrists beneath the iron bands that held him to the chair. “That’s all right,” he said. “I believe I understand. You wish to be a ruler again. Arabia will be the seat of your power. From there, your armies will march out, victorious, over Persia and India, Europe and America, and all the rest of the world. Your old enemies will be found and brought to you in chains, to be humbled before you. And you will be the king of all kings, now and forever. Does that about cover it?”

  Saddam Hussein grinned. “That will do for a start.” He tossed the globe back to Abid and spread his arms to embrace his future. “You’ve heard my wish,” he said. “Now give it to me! I command you!”

  “Very well,” the jinn said. “My answer is no.”

  The three Guardsmen stood shoulder to shoulder at the window of the front gatehouse, peering out into the storm.

  “It’s not natural,” said the first Guard.

  “Fuck you, it’s not natural,” said the second.

  “Look how dark it’s getting!”

  “It’s a fucking sandstorm, asshole!”

  “Yes, and that creature they’ve got up at the house is responsible! Abu Ramzi told me—”

  “Abu Ramzi is a fool!”

  “Be quiet, both of you!” said the third Guard, who was looking not at the sky but at the road. “Someone’s out there.”

  “Where? I don’t see any headlights.”

  “Not in a vehicle. Men on foot.” He grabbed his rifle. “Call the main house and the other guard stations and tell them we may have intruders trying to get over the front wall.” On his way out the door, he hit a switch that brought up extra floodlights.

  There was someone out there: Just beyond the gate, a figure was crouching to place something against the base of the wall. “Hey!” the Guardsman shouted. “Freeze!” But the figure jumped up and ran back into the storm. The Guardsman continued forward, his eye drawn to the object the figure had left behind: a canvas satchel with a blinking red light on its side.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” Saddam Hussein said. He glanced sharply at Mr. Rammal, who threw up his hands in supplication.

  “Don’t be too hard on your magician,” the jinn said. “His Akkadian isn’t bad. A few thousand years ago, his incantation might have worked. But I’m afraid you’ve both failed to appreciate what it is that I am.”

  “What you are?” Saddam said. “I told you what you are: You’re my servant!”

  “Once upon a time I was the property of kings,” the jinn demurred. “But during my long imprisonment I heard, from afar, the words of the prophets: Ibrahim, and Jesus, and last of all Mohammed, peace be unto him. Now I’ve said the words of the shahada and become a Muslim, and pagan enchantments no longer have power over me.”

  “That’s not true!” Mr. Rammal said. “My spell drew you in! It forced you to reveal yourself!”

  “My pride did most of the work, there.” The jinn shrugged apologetically. “But there is no pride in being a slave of Saddam Hussein—and though I really should stop presuming to know the mind of God, I can’t imagine the All-Compassionate would want me to serve such a wicked person.”

  Saddam trembled with rage. He unsnapped the holster on his belt and drew out a huge revolver. Thumbing back the hammer, he pivoted and took aim at the sorcerer.

  “No!” Mr. Rammal cried. Then the gun roared and he toppled over backwards onto the sand-strewn floor.

  Uday stepped forward, eyes fixed on the jinn. “Let me hurt this one, father,” he said. “I’ll get him to do what you want.”

  “Shut up,” Saddam said. He pointed the smoking gun muzzle at the jinn’s temple. “I could kill you, too.”

  “You could,” the jinn agreed. “And then when I am dead, I must go before God who will judge me for all eternity. Whose wrath should I fear more?”

  Saddam began to tremble again. But before he could pull the trigger a second time, there was an explosion somewhere out on the grounds. “What was that?”

  The jinn tilted his head, listening to the wind. “A tall man,” he said. “More princely than you, but no less wicked. He means to make a sacrifice of your entire household.”

  More noise: the clatter of assault rifles. It see
med to be coming from multiple locations.

  “Qaeda,” said Qusay. He was holding a transceiver to his ear. “They’ve blown the front gate, and they may be coming up from the river as well.”

  “You, and you!” Saddam said, gesturing with the revolver at two of his men. “Stay here and guard my property! Qusay, Uday, Abid, and the rest of you, follow me!” He went out into the hall, which was noisy with the shouts of the Republican Guard.

  After the others had gone out and the door was shut behind them, a pale Tariq Aziz stepped forward from the shadows and stood wringing his hands over the body of the sorcerer. “This was not my doing,” he said. He looked at the jinn. “I didn’t do anything!”

  “I will not have an evildoer for a friend,” the jinn replied.

  “I don’t actually remember you,” Mustafa said. “I feel as though I should, but I don’t.”

  “Nobody remembers me,” the captain replied. “Nobody but Saddam even knows who I am. It’s made the last couple years kind of difficult . . .”

  They had entered the mansion through a back door, overpowering two more Guards in the process. Their goal was the converted prayer room, which Captain Lawrence had learned about from Saddam during one of their late-night sessions, and where he’d guessed the jinn would be taken. But they were still on the ground floor, searching for an unguarded flight of stairs, when all hell broke loose. Now they were hiding in a room just off the chamber that held the Nebuchadnezzar statue. It was the same side room where Mustafa had encountered the English boy; he could still see some toy cars and trucks underneath the furniture.

  “You do remember, though,” Mustafa said, careful to keep his voice low. “Why? Because you’re the one who made the wish?”