The Sanctuary

by Raymond Khoury

  The conversation that followed was far less promising.

  Baumhoff tapped his fingers on the Polaroids, which he’d laid out across the table for her to see. “So you’re saying you know nothing about these?” he asked her again, in a voice that was a touch too high-pitched for his gender.

  Mia sighed and made a concerted effort to calm herself. “I’ve told you what happened. I don’t know anything about these things, these relics, whatever they are. We were having a drink. She forgot her phone. I thought she was being followed. I tried to warn her. These men stuffed her into their car and took her away—”

  “Killing a soldier and seriously wounding another in the process,” Baumhoff interjected, with a knowing glance at the detectives standing behind him, who nodded in solemn agreement.

  “Yes, exactly,” she flared up, “which is why you need to find her, goddammit. She’s probably already locked up in some hellhole while you’re all sitting here playing canasta with these Polaroids.”

  He studied her through tired and jaded eyes, then reached out and collected the photos, picking them up one by one with his lethargic, puffy fingers. “Miss, um”—he seemed to have already forgotten the name he’d written down on the notebook in front of him—“Bishop,” he continued with his nasal drawl, “if your mother has indeed been kidnapped, there’s little we could have done anyway.”

  “You could have put up roadblocks,” Mia protested, “you could have alerted the army, God knows they’re everywhere. You could have done something.”

  Baumhoff glanced at her wryly. “We’re not back home, Miss Bishop. It doesn’t work like that out here. If they want someone, you can be pretty sure they’ll get him. Or her, in this case. They know all the side roads. They know where they’ll be safe. They’ve got it all worked out ahead of time. The thing is”—he shrugged—“this isn’t Iraq. There hasn’t been a foreigner kidnapped here for, oh, at least fifteen years, if not longer. It just isn’t done anymore. Apart from the occasional political assassination, this is a surprisingly safe city, particularly if you’re a foreigner. Which is why,” he added, pausing to reconsider the photos in his hands, “I’ve got to agree with these folks in that this is probably something else. Some kind of trouble your mother got herself into.” His eyebrows arched up and he sucked in his lips and opened his palms quizzically, as if waiting for her to fill in the blanks or come clean somehow.

  Mia looked at him, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

  He studied her for a beat—his little cynical mannerisms were really grating on her now—then held up the stack of photographs. “These,” Baumhoff said. “They’re stolen goods, Miss Bishop.”

  Mia’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  “Stolen,” Baumhoff repeated. “From Iraq. You must have read about the little war going on over there.”

  “Yes, but…” Mia’s daze came back in a rush.

  “Thousands of relics of all kinds have been stolen from museums there. They’re still trickling through, finding their way into the hands of collectors who don’t care too much about their origin. They’re worth a lot of money…if you can smuggle them out, and,” he said pointedly, “if you can find the right buyer.” He gave her a knowing glance.

  Mia’s face clouded as she struggled for words. “You think my mom had something to do with this?”

  He gestured at the photos. “They were in her bag, weren’t they?”

  “How do you know they were stolen?” Mia fired back. “They could be legitimate, couldn’t they?”

  Baumhoff shook his head. “There’s been a ban on exporting any Mesopotamian relics ever since that whole mess started. I can’t say for sure that these are stolen, I haven’t yet had time to have them checked—I won’t know until I make inquiries with our people there tomorrow—but the odds are, they’re smuggled. Which could explain what happened tonight. It’s not a good crowd to mess with.”

  Mia flashed back to her chat with Evelyn at the Lounge. “Wait a second,” she said excitedly. “She said someone came to see her that day. A guy who worked with her years ago. In Iraq.”

  This piqued the detectives’ interest, and they asked Baumhoff for some clarification. Mia filled the three of them in on what Evelyn had told her, and they noted it with interest. Baumhoff shrugged and tucked the Polaroids into his attaché case. “Alright. Well, it’s late, and there’s nothing more I can do here. They’re going to need to keep you here overnight until an administrative officer can take a formal statement from you in the morning,” he informed her casually as he got out of his chair.

  Mia went ballistic. “I just witnessed my mom being kidnapped and you’re leaving me here?”

  “They won’t release you before they get that statement,” Baumhoff reported glumly. “It’s part of the French bureaucracy they inherited, and it can’t be done this late. You’ll be fine here. They’re going to let you stay in this room overnight, it’ll be more comfortable for you than a cell, believe me. They’ll get you some food, and a pillow and some blankets. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “You can’t leave me here,” she burst out at him, clambering to her feet. The ferret spread out his arms in a calming gesture and blocked her off. “You can’t do this,” she insisted.

  “I’m sorry,” Baumhoff said with clinical detachment, “but a man’s been killed, another’s fighting for his life, and, like it or not, you’re part of it. We’ll clear it all up tomorrow. Don’t worry. Just try and get some sleep.”

  And just as he gave her a parting, helpless half-smile, a cell phone warbled somewhere in the room.

  Baumhoff and the detectives instinctively went for their phones before quickly realizing that the ringer wasn’t any of theirs. The ferret—no surprise there—was the first to sniff it out. He reached into Evelyn’s handbag and pulled out two cell phones, Evelyn’s and Mia’s own. Mia didn’t recognize the ring tone. It was Evelyn’s phone.

  The ferret instinctively hit the call button and picked it up. He was about to say something into the phone, then stopped. He stared at it for an instant and glanced up at Baumhoff. The embassy’s man shot him a quick and low “Give it to me.” The ferret turned to his partner for direction. The taller detective nodded and said something clipped that obviously allowed it, before Baumhoff, anxious not to lose the call, grabbed the phone and pressed it to his ear.

  “Hello,” he ventured with a forced, casual tone.

  Mia watched Baumhoff’s face tighten with seriousness as he concentrated on the call. She could hear faint echoes of the voice on the other end of the line—it was definitely a man’s voice, and sounded American. Baumhoff listened for a moment, then said, “No, Ms. Bishop isn’t available right now. Who is this?”

  Mia heard the caller answer briefly, and when it wasn’t to Baumhoff’s liking, he then said irritably, “I’m a colleague of Ms. Bishop. Who is this please?”

  The man on the phone said a few more words, which caused Baumhoff to take on a surprised expression. “Yes, of course, she’s fine. Why would you think otherwise? Who is this?” His patience eroded quickly, and he suddenly raised his voice huffily. “I need you to tell me who you are, sir.”

  The room froze into silence for a second or two, then Mia saw Baumhoff frown and move the phone away from his ear. He stared at it with an annoyed expression, then looked up at the detectives. “I don’t know who that was. He hung up, and there’s no caller ID number showing.” He used hand gestures to confirm what he meant.

  He glanced at Mia. She gave him a look that said she was clueless about it too. The ferret reached for the phone. Baumhoff handed it back to him, nodded, and turned to Mia. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  Mia glared after him, but it was pointless. The detectives walked out, locking the door behind them. She paced around the room, staring at its grim, bare walls. The anger that had swept through her and cleared away her physical discomfort was subsiding, and with it, the fatigue and the nausea
came rushing back.

  She slumped down to the floor and shrank back against the wall, clasping her face in her hands.

  Her no-brainer was turning into Midnight Express.

  Chapter 10

  P ain seared through Evelyn’s head with each bump in the road.

  The trunk of the car was lined with several folded blankets, but that didn’t help much. Not only was the road surface rough and riddled with potholes that felt like veritable crevasses at times—more of a mountain trail than a paved road, Evelyn imagined in her fleeting moments of lucidity—the journey itself felt like an unending series of tight bends that veered left and right and climbed up and down hills and mountains, tossing her body around without warning like a bottle adrift in a storm, and squashing her against the insides of the trunk with each change of direction.

  Her suffering was intensified by the duct tape across her mouth and the cloth sack around her head. The sensorial isolation would have been bad enough without the long and winding road from hell. She could hardly breathe, struggling to suck in faint wisps of the dank, stale air through her nose. She worried about what would happen if she got sick. She could suffocate on her own vomit, and they wouldn’t even hear her. The thought sent a bracing shot of anxiety through her veins. Her bones ached from the constant battering of the ride, and the zip-tie nylon cuffs around her wrists and ankles chafed against her thin, wrinkled skin.

  She wished she could find relief by losing consciousness. She could feel herself spiraling into the darkness, but each time, just as she was on the verge of blacking out, another bump would send a jolt of pain quaking through her and jar her awake.

  The car hadn’t traveled far from the downtown area when it had pulled into a deserted lot behind a heavily damaged building in the southern outskirts of the city. Evelyn had been dragged out of it, tied, gagged, hooded, and stuffed into the trunk of a waiting car with practiced efficiency. She’d heard her abductors discuss something briefly, their words unclear in her confused and muffled state, then the doors were slammed shut and the car had lurched onto its journey. She couldn’t begin to guess how long she’d been in here, but she knew that hours had already passed.

  She had no way of knowing how much longer it would take.

  Her mind was besieged by a tangle of blurred images. She saw herself running mindlessly through the downtown arcades, out of breath, her legs burning from exertion. Following Farouk. His terrified face.

  Farouk. What happened to him? Did he get away? He wasn’t in the car with her. She thought she remembered seeing him slip away from their kidnappers and run down the alley, past the car. Right after someone had screamed out her name.

  Mia. She didn’t dream it, did she? Was her daughter really there? She flashed to the surreal image of Mia, standing there, frozen in shock, yelling out from the far end of the street. She was reasonably sure that had actually happened. But how? What was she doing there? How did she get there so quickly? She remembered having drinks with her. Leaving her at the hotel. Why was she in that alley? And, far more important, was she safe?

  A fist of grief punched through her and throttled her heart. There had been deaths. She was sure of it. The gunshots rang in her ears. The soldier, mowed down by the car. The deafening, horrifying thuds, the body slamming against the windshield like a crash-test dummy, shattering it. She tried to concentrate, tried to remember more clearly, but every bump shook her to her roots and sent her thoughts scattering.

  She tried to let herself go, to force the blackout, but it wouldn’t come. The discomfort and the pain were unyielding. With a burgeoning horror, she started to focus on the specifics of her journey. Hours. It had taken hours. That didn’t sound good. Not in such a small country. Where were they taking her? She plowed through dissonant memories, back to newspaper reports she remembered from years ago, from the “dark days” of Lebanon. The kidnappings. The journalists, the random hostages who had been plucked off the streets. She remembered how they’d described their journeys—wrapped in duct tape like mummies, stuffed into crates, hidden in trucks. A growing sense of dread gripped her as she visualized their captivity cells. Bare. Cold. Chained to radiators that didn’t work. Surviving on scraps of vile food. And then the scariest thought of all came rocketing blindingly out of the darkness.

  None ever knew where they were held.

  Years of captivity. The most efficient intelligence services in the world. Not a clue. No informants. No ransoms. No rescue attempts. Nothing. It was as if they’d been wiped off the face of the earth, only to reappear years later—if they were lucky.

  The car must have then hit a serious pothole, as her head snapped back and bounced up against the sheet metal of the trunk’s lid. The burst of pain was enough to finally send her over the edge and into the merciful peace of a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 11

  F arouk gazed blankly into the chaotic patchwork of shelters and makeshift tents. He could feel the suffering and the despair in the stillness around him, even in the oppressive darkness that was only broken, here and there, by the faint glimmer of a gas lantern. It was eerily quiet, except for the muted sounds of scattered radios that wafted through the trees. Most of the refugees had finally succumbed to sleep.

  The garden square of Sanayi’ was one of the rare patches of greenery in the concrete maze that was Beirut—green being a generous term, given how parched and unkempt its grounds were, even in normal circumstances. With the onset of the war in the south of the country, hundreds of refugees had made it their home. As had Farouk, since arriving in the city where he had no one to turn to. Not anymore, that is.

  He took a final drag from a cigarette before stubbing it out on the ground beside him. He patted his pockets. The pack of smokes he found was empty. He crumpled it and tossed it away and shrugged to himself. He pulled the lapels of his jacket up against his neck and shrank back against the low wall that ran along the edge of the square.

  This was what his life had come down to. Alone in another war-torn country. Homeless. Squatting on a patch of dried-out mud. His morning was looking even less promising than that of the wretched souls piled across the wasteland before him.

  He wrapped his shaking hands around his head and tried to shut the world out, but the rush of the last twenty-four hours wouldn’t go away quietly. He rubbed his face, cursing himself for remembering Evelyn’s interest, for interfering with a sale that was all but agreed, for instigating this whole disaster…then stared out into the shadows, wondering what to do next.

  Leave? Go back home, to Iraq? Go back…to what? A demolished country, ravaged by a brutal civil war. A land of mass kidnappings, death squads, and car bombs, a place of unmitigated chaos and suffering. He shook his head. There was nothing to go back to, and nowhere else for him to go. His country was gone. And he was here, now, a stranger in a strange land, his only contact and friend taken away.

  Because of him.

  He’d dragged her into this, and now they had her.

  The thought was like a dagger to his heart. He shook his head again and again. How could he have let that happen? It was his fault, there was no escaping it. He saw them, he knew they were coming for him, and yet he still led them to her, got her taken in his place. He shivered as he remembered Hajj Ali’s tortured body. His old friend—Sitt Evelyn—in the hands of those monsters. The thought was too horrific to imagine.

  He had to try to help her. Somehow. Let people know what he’d gotten her into. Help them find her, point them in the right direction. Warn them about what they were dealing with. But how? Whom could he talk to? He couldn’t go to the cops. He was in the country illegally. He was trying to sell stolen goods. Even with the best intentions, the cops wouldn’t take too kindly to an illegal Iraqi smuggler.

  He thought of the young woman in the alley. If it weren’t for her, he’d have been taken along with Evelyn. He’d be…he imagined the power drill, its spinning tip digging into his skin. He pushed the thought away and focused on the woman again. A
t first, he thought it was pure luck. Just some stranger who wandered into the wrong street at the wrong time. But then he remembered the woman screaming out. He thought she might have said “Mom,” which puzzled him. Was she her daughter? Regardless, why was she there? Had Evelyn arranged to meet her there, or was it just a coincidence?

  It was academic either way. He didn’t know who she was or where to reach her. He hadn’t stuck around after his escape. He didn’t even know what had happened to the girl. For all he knew, they’d taken her too.

  A face crept out from the jumble in his mind. The man Evelyn was with, in Zabqine. Ramez—that was his name, wasn’t it? What had Evelyn said? They worked together. At the university.

  He could find him. He’d been to the Archaeology Department. Post Hall, on campus. Ramez had seen him with Evelyn. He could tell him what he knew. She might even have told him what Farouk had told her. He’d be worried about her. He’d listen.

  That was it. It was the best he could do. Thinking it through even further, the idea grew more appealing. He needed money. His cash had almost run out, and his plight was now much more desperate. It wasn’t about settling into a better life somewhere more sane than his homeland. It was about survival, plain and simple. He had to disappear, and that would take money. He had to find a buyer for Abu Barzan’s collection. He hadn’t spoken to Abu Barzan since leaving Iraq. The bastard could have found a buyer himself by now, and if he had, then Farouk would be left with nothing to sell. Evelyn’s colleague had to have contacts in that world. Wealthy Lebanese collectors. Maybe Farouk could interest him in helping to sell the pieces. Give him a cut. The divide between rich and poor was a veritable canyon in this town, and most people weren’t exactly flush these days. Money was tight. And even the virtuous and the principled had to eat and pay the rent.