The Sanctuary

by Raymond Khoury

  “I already know you haven’t been completely forthcoming on the matter of who you’ve shared your little fascination with. Our eyes and our voices can betray so much more than we imagine, if one knows what to look for.” He squirted out any air bubbles left in the needle and turned to her. A glaze of cruelty shimmered in his eyes as they settled on her again. “I do,” he warned, before reaching over, pinning down her arm, and emptying the syringe into her, adding, “and this is a small taster of what you can expect if I feel you’re not being entirely truthful with me again.”

  Fear tightened around Evelyn’s heart like an iron fist as she watched the liquid disappear into her body. She looked up at her captor, her mind swamped by panic, her eyes searching his impassive face for clues, her breathing coming short and fast. Her mouth opened to form a question, but it was cut short by a strange burning sensation that flared up around the needle’s entry point. It held there for a moment before it started to spread in both directions, making its way down to the tips of her fingers and up towards her chest, and as it traveled in her blood, it quickly increased in intensity, growing from a prickling pain to a scorching, excruciating torment until it felt as if every vein in her body were on fire, as if her entire cardiovascular system were a pipeline of burning fuel.

  She was shaking now, her body rigid with pain, her vision blurred, her lips quivering, bubbles of sweat coalescing on her forehead and trickling down her face.

  She felt as if she were being fried from the inside out.

  The man in the lab coat just sat there and watched. He held the vial up, in front of her face, and seemed genuinely impressed by it. “Interesting little substance, this. It’s called capsaicin. We get it from chili peppers, although biting into an enchilada’s not quite the same as having this concentrate pumped into your blood, is it?” His wry smirk went all fuzzy as she blinked away her tears and shuddered from the searing pain.

  “The chili pepper’s such a great little fruit,” he went on matter-offactly. “It tells us a lot about human nature. I mean, think about it. The reason it burns so much when you bite into it is, in evolutionary terms, a defense mechanism. It’s how the plant wards off animals and avoids getting eaten. Which works fine for all the other animals, but not for us humans. No, we’re different. We take this little red fruit and we don’t stay away from it. We seek it out, we farm it, and we derive pleasure from it. Perverse pleasure. For one thing, we actually add the stuff to our food. Willfully. By choice. We enjoy the pain it causes us. But that’s nothing compared to the perverse pleasure we get from using it to cause pain to others. Did you know that the Mayans used to punish wayward girls by rubbing it into their eyes, and, when the girls’ virginity was in question, onto their genitals? The Incas used to position themselves upwind from their enemies and make massive bonfires of chili pepper before battles. Even today, the Chinese use it to torture Tibetan monks. They tie them up around raging fires and dump chili in the flames. It makes their burns much more intense, to say nothing of what it does to the monks’ eyes. Pepper spray or chili con carne? It’s the blowfish of fruit. And you know what’s most surprising? We’re now discovering it’s got huge potential as a painkiller. A painkiller. Talk about human ingenuity.”

  His words were wasted on Evelyn. She could see his mouth moving and hear snippets of sentences, but her brain was swamped and had lost its ability to process them. The wave of pain raced through to every neuron in her body, ravaging her down to her very core. She tried to cling to something hopeful, some image or thought that would somehow counterbalance the pain, and her mind latched on to Mia’s face, not the screaming face from the alley, but the beaming, smiling face she was more used to. She was on the verge of blacking out when, just as suddenly as it had swept through her, the burning started to recede. She took some deep breaths, tensing up for another wave of pain, waiting for it, fearful of its return, but it didn’t come back. It just died out like a flame.

  The man in the lab coat was watching her with grim interest, as if she were a caged test animal. His arctic eyes didn’t register the slightest glimmer of concern. Instead, he casually slid a glance to his watch and nodded almost imperceptibly to himself, as if making a mental note of her reaction and how long it had lasted.

  His last words to her before he’d administered the injection swooped into her mind. He’d called it a small taster of what she could expect.

  She shuddered at the thought.

  Not just a taster.

  A small taster.

  She couldn’t even begin to imagine what a full course would feel like.

  He watched her regain her senses and nodded to the ghost behind her. Without a word, the ghost gave her another sip of water, then receded into the shadows. The man in the lab coat tilted his head and leaned in for a closer look.

  “I believe you have things to tell me?” he asked crisply.

  Chapter 18

  M ia felt an unfamiliar vulnerability as she and Corben exited the hotel and crossed Rue Commodore. It was an odd sensation. Every pore in her body was tingling with discomfort, and she found herself scanning the faces in the busy street suspiciously, searching the surroundings for hidden threats, even eyeing the clutch of waiting taxi drivers with unease.

  She stuck close to Corben as he stopped by his parked car and retrieved a small leather pouch from its glove compartment. Glancing at him, she noticed that he was also keenly focused on the people and movements around them. She didn’t know whether to take solace from that or whether to feel even more worried. Instinctively, she inched a bit closer to him as they headed back down the sidewalk towards the entrance of Evelyn’s building.

  When Evelyn had first arrived in Beirut, the city was still dusting itself off after years of what the locals stoically referred to as “the troubles.” The central government was only there in name, and basic amenities such as electricity and phone lines were hard to come by. Living across the street from the Commodore was as good as it got. The hotel’s uninterrupted supply of services to its guests also extended to its camped-on neighbors. The university managed to secure Evelyn a decent apartment on the third floor of a gray stucco building literally across the street from the hotel, and she’d called it home ever since. It might not have had the best view in town—not the sea and its flaming sunsets, nor the monumental mountain range to the east—but at least she didn’t have to huddle by a little gas lamp to read after those same sunsets had burnt themselves out behind the horizon. Plus the hotel’s barmen could shake up a pretty decent martini, and the wine list was decent and fairly priced.

  Mia had visited her mother there several times over the years. The apartment had become a holiday home for her until she’d gone to college. She’d been there a couple of times since taking up her posting in Beirut, but somehow it hadn’t felt the same. She knew it wouldn’t feel the same on this visit either.

  As they reached the building, Mia pointed it out to Corben. He cast a casual glance up and down the street before leading her through the glass-and-iron doorway, which was open, and into the ground-floor lobby. The building was a typical 1950s, six-story structure with solid balconies running along its façade. It had a modernist, Bauhaus feel to it—which also meant that it didn’t have the electronic buzzers and other security trappings found on more recent constructions. The doors into the lobby would be locked at night, but were kept open during the day. A concierge was typically to be found sitting outside, playing backgammon or smoking a hookah while inevitably discussing politics, but he wasn’t around.

  They got into the elevator, an older model with a creaking metal grille that had to be manually shut before the cabin would move, and rode it up to the third floor. The landing was dark with only a small, high window giving out to an internal well, but there was a light switch on a timer that Mia clicked on. There were two apartments per floor, and Mia directed Corben to the one on the left. He stood by the door and examined the lock for a brief moment. He looked across the landing towards the other a
partment’s front door, then beckoned Mia over to it.

  “Do me a favor and stand over here, will you?” He positioned her so her back was turned to the door.

  “Like this?”

  “Perfect.” He listened for a beat and, satisfied that they were alone, walked back over to the door to Evelyn’s apartment.

  Mia didn’t quite get his little request. She watched as he unzipped his small leather pouch, from which he pulled out some thin instruments. He then casually started to pick the front door’s lock.

  Mia turned her head cautiously and noticed that he had placed her so that the back of her head was blocking the peephole in the door behind her. She looked back at Corben, staring at him with curious amazement. “I thought you said you were an economic counselor,” she finally whispered.

  He glanced sideways at her and gave her a nonchalant shrug. “That’s what it says on my business cards.”

  “Right. And breaking and entering is part of what business degree exactly?”

  He screwed up his face in a final tweak of concentration, and the lock clicked open just as the overhead light clicked itself off. He flashed her a hint of a self-satisfied grin. “It was an elective.”

  She smiled, rousing slightly from her unease. Any relief was welcome at this point. “And here I was thinking no one ever remembered anything they studied in college.”

  “You’ve just got to pick the right courses, that’s all.”

  She looked at him uncertainly, then the realization dropped into place. “You’re CIA, aren’t you?”

  Corben didn’t rush to answer.

  She studied his silence, then added glumly, “Why do I suddenly feel like things have gotten a lot more serious?”

  His expression darkened alarmingly. “You already know it’s serious.” The words, and the way he said them, carved themselves into her mind. He seemed to sense her dread, as he then added reassuringly, “You’re in good hands. Let’s just take things one step at a time.” He looked for a nod of acceptance, which she eventually managed.

  He slowly pushed the door open. It led into a small entrance hall, beyond which the living room was visible. He glanced inside. The apartment wasn’t overly bright, being on a narrow street and surrounded by taller buildings, and it was morbidly quiet.

  He stepped in and motioned for Mia to follow him.

  The living room was spacious and had a window and a pair of sliding glass doors that led onto a balcony that overlooked the street. It was as she’d always remembered it, comfortably furnished with deep sofas and Persian rugs. It bore the clutter of a lifetime of travel and exploration: framed manuscripts and etchings on the walls, relics and artifacts on small stands scattered along shelves and sideboards, and stacks of books everywhere. She cast her eyes across the room, drinking in its rich layers. Everything about it spoke of Evelyn’s full life, of her devotion to her chosen path. It had that cozy, slightly musty, cocooning feel to it and reeked of personal history, all of which made Mia’s last home, her sparse rental back in Boston, feel positively bleak. Her current accommodation—the room at the Commodore—didn’t even bear mention.

  She wandered around the big room in a blur, dazed by the memories that swamped her mind. She paused in front of the framed manuscripts, drawn to their unusual depictions of the human body and the swirls of lettering surrounding them, then saw Corben moving farther into the apartment. She followed him and saw him emerge from her mom’s bedroom, glance into the guest bedroom and the bathroom, and head back out, past Mia, towards the living room.

  Mia hesitated at the door, then entered her mom’s room. The afternoon light wafted in through the net curtains, suffusing the room with an inviting softness. She hadn’t been in there for years. As soon as she stepped inside, an unmistakable scent came rushing at her, vivid and warm. She felt as if she were ten again, padding into the room late at night, curling into her mother’s bed, cuddling up beside her. She took hesitant steps over to the dressing table. Pictures of her, at all ages, were pasted all around its mirror. Her eyes settled on one of them that showed her, in her early teens, with Evelyn, smiling among the ruins at Baalbek. She remembered that day well. She felt an urge to take it with her, but felt bad at the thought and left it there.

  She felt a sudden sadness at being an uninvited guest in her mother’s sanctuary, and a spasm of worry about her mother radiated through her. With a heavy heart, she left the room and headed back to the living room. Corben was there, checking out Evelyn’s shelves. Wrapping her arms around herself for comfort, Mia edged over to the window at the side of the balcony and looked down into the busy street, watching the people idling by, willing Evelyn to reappear among them, safely and in one piece.

  What she got instead was a navy blue Mercedes E-series sedan that glided unobtrusively past the building and pulled over slightly beyond the hotel.

  Chapter 19

  C orben sized up the room with an expert eye and realized another vist—a longer, more thorough one—would be necessary, as soon as he could get Mia settled somewhere safe.

  He would also need to look in Evelyn’s office on campus as soon as possible. The local detectives would be checking out both places soon—they didn’t move as swiftly here as they did back home, which, on this occasion, suited him perfectly. He had a window of opportunity and he knew he had to make use of it.

  It had all come about unexpectedly, and yet, ironically, he could just as easily have missed out on it altogether. He wouldn’t normally have gotten involved with a situation like Evelyn’s kidnapping, at least, not once he had ascertained that there wasn’t a political angle to it, which was pretty obvious to him from the outset. That he was here now, in her apartment, was due to something entirely different. He’d positioned himself, within the embassy and among his CIA colleagues, as the Iraq specialist. As such, anything having to do with that country would inevitably wind up on his desk. He’d made sure that everyone there knew it. Which was why Baumhoff had—in a cavalier manner, initially—told him about Evelyn’s kidnapping that morning and shown him the Polaroids.

  The trail that had begun in that underground lab in Iraq had gone cold for more than three years. He’d changed countries and worked on several other assignments since then, but he’d kept a careful eye on that elusive ball, hoping that when a clue, a hint, something, popped up, he wouldn’t miss it. And now, his diligence and commitment that had paid off. With a bit of luck, maybe—just, maybe—the trail was warming up again.

  Life turned on a dime. He’d been around long enough to know just how true that was.

  He saw Mia standing by the window and headed over to the oak desk that sat in the far corner of the room. It was stacked with files, textbooks, and course materials. Corben was more interested in the laptop that sat to one side. As he unplugged it, he noticed Evelyn’s thick, weathered personal organizer. It was open to a two-page spread that encompassed that week. A slightly tattered, old-fashioned business card was lying on it. He picked it up. It was the card of some archaeologist out of Rhode Island. He used it to mark the page the organizer was open at, which he then closed and placed on top of the laptop. He’d want to go through that too.

  He noticed an old jacket file under the organizer. Something about it drew his eye, and he pulled it out.

  Its position on the desk suggested that Evelyn had been going through it just before leaving her apartment the night before. The first image, the woodcut of a snake-eater that leered out at him when he opened the file, sent a jolt of adrenaline through his veins.

  The trail had suddenly heated up considerably. And right at that moment, a sudden outburst from Mia snuffed out his excitement with brutal efficiency.

  “It’s them,” she blurted out, turning to Corben, her eyes alight with fear. “They’re here.”

  Corben rushed over to the window and looked out. Mia was pointing out three men who were walking down the sidewalk, towards the entrance to the hotel. The blood had drained from her face.

  “They�
�re already coming after me!” she exclaimed.

  “They’re the guys you saw last night?”

  Mia nodded. “The one in the middle’s the creep from the hotel bar. I think the one to his left was with him when they were chasing Mom downtown. I’m not sure about the last one.”

  Corben took stock of the three men. His trained eye caught barely discernible hints in their body language that pegged the middle one, the one with the jet-black hair, as the gang’s leader. They moved fluidly along the narrow sidewalk one after the other, sliding discreet glances around the street, acutely aware of their surroundings. He scanned their bodies for signs of weapons, and even from the third-floor window, his practiced eye could make out a bulge under the lead man’s jacket.

  Mia’s eyes were glued on them. “They’re just going to walk into the hotel and look for me? They can do that? In broad daylight?”

  “They can if they have Internal Security IDs. Which they could well have. Every militia was given its own quota of agents. They could be tied to any one of them.” A more worrying scenario was playing itself out in his mind as he reached for his cell phone and punched a number on his speed dial.

  He had a dozen or so local “contacts”—a sampling of ex–militia members mostly, who had their own “circles of trust,” as well as a few officers of the Lebanese military intelligence, past and present—that he could call for muscle, if and when he needed it. Each contact had his own sphere of influence and was useful in a specific area.

  After two rings, a man’s voice answered.

  “It’s Corben,” he announced flatly into the phone. “I need some backup at the Commodore. I’ve got three guys moving in, maybe more. They’re armed.” He looked out, then added, “Hang on.”