The Sanctuary

by Raymond Khoury

  The notion of an elixir of life, Boustany went on, embraced the archetypal theory of aging, blaming it on the loss of some kind of vital substance. That was why our bodies effectively shriveled up and shrank before ceasing to function altogether. The Taoists called this substance the ching and described it as the vital breath of life. Aristotle, Avicenna, and countless others since also thought the body, in aging, lost its “innate moisture.” The Viennese physician Eugen Steinach preached coitus reservatus to rejuvenate his patients—a method of preserving the vital fluid that we now call a vasectomy. Another surgeon, Serge Voronoff, believed that since reproductive cells didn’t age as badly as the other cells in the body, they had to contain some kind of antiaging hormone. In a misguided attempt to transfer more of that magical elixir back into the body, he grafted monkey testicles into his patients’ own testes with predictably dire results. Even the fervent belief in a rosy afterlife didn’t seem to deter the desperate pursuit of longevity: In the 1950s, the aging Pope Pius XII kept six personal physicians on hand at all times. A Swiss surgeon by the name of Paul Niehans injected him with the glands of lamb fetuses. Niehans’s impressive roster of clients at his clinic in Montreux, Switzerland, included kings and Hollywood stars.

  “And so,” Boustany concluded, “over the ages, alchemists and quacks concocted all kinds of potions and elixirs, fountains of youth “that could replenish or replace this lost ‘essence’ of life. The hucksters’ wagons have since been replaced by the supplements aisles in supermarkets and by the Internet, the snake-oil salesmen by pseudoscientists touting hormones, minerals, and other miracle cures and promising to restore our bodies to their youthful vigor with little or no hard, scientific evidence—or a highly selective interpretation of scientific data—to back up their claims. But the quest is the same. It’s the final frontier, the only one left for us to conquer.”

  Mia sighed glumly. “So I guess what we’re dealing with here is a madman.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  Mia put the phone down, fighting with the notion that the mad scientist tag that she’d been keeping at bay when thinking of the man who held her mother, probably wasn’t far from the truth.

  Chapter 39

  T he hakeem sank back in the armchair of his study, feeling blissfully invigorated.

  The morning’s treatment, a weekly regimen he had religiously followed for years, had given him its customary boost. He relished the crisp autumn air, breathing it in with big, hungry gulps as the cocktail of hormones and steroids coursed through his veins and made his skin feel as if it were electrified. The rush cleared his head and his eyes and heightened his senses, almost slowing down everything around him. It was the best high he could possibly imagine, especially since it didn’t involve his losing control, something that would, for him, be inconceivable.

  If only people knew what they were missing.

  In addition, the news from Beirut was promising. Omar and his men had grabbed the assistant professor. One of them had been killed, another badly wounded—he would have to be taken care of, as a trip to a hospital, even one in a friendly part of town, was out of the question, and he was apparently too badly wounded to be sneaked over the border—but, all in all, the operation had been successful.

  It was a shame the American hadn’t been killed. The hakeem sensed that the man’s interest was becoming a problem. He was too close to the situation, too…committed. Omar had informed the hakeem that the American had taken the Bishop woman’s laptop, as well as a file, from her apartment. One file. Standard procedure in such an investigation, or was there more to it? Yes, admittedly, an American woman had been abducted, and the Americans took such things more seriously than most, but the man’s stubborn determination hinted at something more personal at work.

  Did he know what was really at stake?

  He’d ordered Omar to take extra precautions from here on. The Iraqi dealer’s phone call was imminent. The book would soon be his.

  Things were looking good.

  Better than good.

  Somehow, with the clarity afforded to him by the fresh dose swirling inside him, he knew that this time, finally, he really was close.

  He shut his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, relishing the prospect of imminent success. With his mind gliding along unhindered, images of home soon swooped into his mind.

  Reminiscences.

  Of the first time he’d taken notice of the chapel’s unusual offerings.

  The first time he became aware of his unique heritage.

  HE’D BEEN INSIDE the chapel before, of course. He’d grown up there, in Naples, a city where, to this day, his ancestor’s name was still whispered in hushed tones. But that visit, at the age of nine, had awoken him to the mysteries of his past.

  His grandfather had taken him to the chapel that day.

  He enjoyed spending time with the old man. There was something solid and comforting about him. Even at that tender age, the young boy—his name was Ludovico, back then—could sense the respect his grandfather commanded from those around him. He yearned for that inner strength himself, especially in the playground at school, where bigger, stronger boys would taunt him because of his ancestry.

  In Naples, the di Sangro cross was a heavy one to bear.

  His grandfather had taught him to stand proud and take note of his family’s heritage. They were princes, for God’s sake, and besides, geniuses and visionaries were often derided and persecuted in their own time. Ludovico’s father hadn’t been interested in understanding what lay in their past, choosing to remain weakly and embarrassingly apologetic about his lineage. Ludovico had been different, and his grandfather had seen it in the young boy and nurtured it. Their ancestor had many startling achievements, he’d taught him. Yes, he’d been called everything from a sorcerer to a diabolical alchemist. Rumors abounded that he’d performed vile experiments on unwitting subjects. Some believed these were related to perfecting the creation of even better castrati, the illegally castrated singers that entranced audiences and drove Italian opera to prominence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some went further, claiming that the prince had ordered the killing of seven cardinals who took displeasure with his interests and had chairs made from their bones and skin.

  As far as his grandfather was concerned, such talk was indicative of the limited intellect and imagination, and inevitably the jealousy, of Raimondo di Sangro’s detractors. After all, their ancestor had belonged to the prestigious Accademia della Crusca, the highly esteemed club of Italy’s literary elite. He’d invented new types of firearms such as a rear-loaded shotgun, as well as revolutionary fireworks. He’d created waterproof fabrics and perfected new techniques for coloring marble and glass. Far more than that, however, he’d created a monument of immortal power: the Cappella San Severo, his personal chapel in the heart of Naples.

  The hakeem remembered that fateful visit with his grandfather. Set low in the chapel’s outer walls, by the entrance, were the barred cellar windows to what was once the prince’s laboratory. Inside, the small baroque church was resplendent with the most unique paintings and works of art. Marble statues, the most famous of which was Sammartino’s Veiled Christ, were mesmerizing in their detail, the features on their subjects’ faces clearly visible under a thin veil of marble. To this day, experts are puzzled as to how such an effect was achieved.

  His grandfather had guided him beyond it, to Queirolo’s statue Disillusionment. Another veiled wonder, it showed the prince’s father trying to free himself from the confines of a net, aided by a winged youth. The hakeem’s grandfather had explained to the young boy how the statue represented man trying to free himself from the trap of false beliefs, aided by his intellect.

  The basement housed more marvels. A narrow spiral staircase led down to the prince’s laboratory, where two glass cases held the infamous “anatomical machines,” skeletons of a man, on one side, and a heavily pregnant woman on the other, the veins, arteries, and organs of their entire circulat
ory systems immaculately preserved using an unknown and still-perplexing embalming technique.

  Over the years, his grandfather had taught young Ludovico more about his ancestor’s mysterious life. The principe had, his grandfather told him, been obsessed with attaining human perfection. The castrati were perfect singers. The anatomical machines were part of his quest to create the perfect human body. His tombstone, fittingly, read, “An admirable man, born to dare everything.” It presided over an empty tomb: His body had been stolen. But at some point in his life, his obsession had taken a dramatic turn. And when Ludovico reached eighteen, his grandfather finally told him what had inflamed his ancestor’s obsession.

  He also gave him Raimundo di Sangro’s diaries, as well as something else that he’d prized above all else: a talisman, a medallion bearing the mark of a tail-eating snake, one the young man would always wear, even to this day.

  The revelation inspired Ludovico beyond his grandfather’s greatest dreams—or worst nightmares.

  It had started off well enough. Ludovico had excelled in his studies and had gone on to the University of Padua, where he obtained a doctorate—with honors—in geriatric medicine and in cellular biology. By now a brilliant biogeneticist with a solid reputation, he ran a well-funded research lab at the university, exploring stem cells, hormonal pathways, and cellular breakdown. But, with time, he started to feel the constraints of acceptable science. He began to push the envelope and to challenge the accepted boundaries of bioethics. His experiments grew more adventurous. More extreme.

  In a bitter twist of fate, his grandfather died at around the same time. His parents had tried to raise Ludovico as a good Catholic, and he’d been taught, at home and in church, that death was God’s wish for us, and that He was the only giver of immortality. His grandfather had tried to lessen the effects of their teachings, and in his death, in that single, passing event, his words would come to pass. It made Ludovico realize that it was not in his nature to accept death, nor to be defeated by it. He wouldn’t go down without a fight. The grave—his own, and that of his loved ones—could wait.

  Love wouldn’t conquer death. Science would.

  And so, with that mind-set, his experiments became less acceptable.

  They soon became illegal.

  He was hounded out of the university, chased away by the imminent threat of legal action.

  No laboratory in the West would touch him.

  Baghdad University would, however, offer him a way out. And, eventually, lead him—or so he now hoped—to the elusive discovery that had taunted his ancestor.

  WITH HIS MIND SPURRED by the chemicals whirling inside him, he found himself going over the events of the last few days, turning them upside down and examining them from fresh angles. Despite his almost rapturous exhilaration at the prospect of getting hold of the Iraqi dealer and the book, he couldn’t avoid going back to the American archaeologist’s long-lost lover. The notion kept ambushing and undermining his serenity, as if a sensor somewhere inside him had been tripped.

  And in his heightened state, another piece of the puzzle, a delicious epiphany, burst from the outer reaches of his consciousness.

  How could I not have seen it before?

  He ran a quick mental calculation. From what Omar had told him about her daughter’s age, the fit was certainly feasible.

  More than feasible. It was perfect.

  That sly bitch, he mused. She had actually kept that little gem to herself.

  He sprang to his feet and strode across his study, flying across the tiles as he barked out an order to be escorted down to the cellar.

  EVELYN BOLTED UPRIGHT as soon as she heard the key jangle in the door’s lock.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been in there, or even whether it was day or night. All sense of time and place had receded into irrelevance in the brutal isolation of her cell. The one thing she did know was she hadn’t been in there that long, and that, if previous kidnappings in Beirut were anything to go by, she still had a long, long way to go.

  The door swung open and her inquisitor stepped in. He wasn’t wearing a lab coat this time, which Evelyn found faintly reassuring. He gave the small cell a quick scan, like a stern hotel manager surveying a guest room, then sat down at the edge of her bed.

  His eyes were alive with a manic energy that was deeply unsettling. “I think you forgot to mention a small detail during our last little chat,” he told her playfully.

  She wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but whatever it was, he was way too delighted at having uncovered it for it to be good.

  “This roving Casanova of yours,” he said, glowering with irritating condescension. “Tom Webster. I’m amazed you still feel so strongly about him, so protectively. Given how he left you.”

  He leaned in, eyeing her with relish, as if savoring her apprehension at his little mind-game, and as he did, she spotted the medallion through the folds of his buttoned shirt. The brief glimpse was all she needed to recognize the Ouroboros symbol on it, and right then, she knew there was a lot he—and Tom—had been keeping from her about the long-lost occupants of the chamber in Al-Hillah.

  “Pregnant,” the hakeem rasped. “I’m not mistaken, am I? Mia…she’s his daughter, isn’t she?”

  Chapter 40

  A man’s voice broke through Mia’s dour thoughts.

  “You must be Mia Bishop.”

  She turned. The man standing before her extended his hand. “Bill Kirkwood. I was looking for Jim?”

  As she met his hand, she took in his features. He was a pleasant-looking guy, but there was something aloof in his manner, a reserved hesitance, that discomforted her. “I don’t know where he is,” she said. “He left me here about an hour ago.”

  “Ah.” He seemed to hover for a moment before adding, “I’m sorry about what’s happened to your mom.”

  Mia wasn’t sure how to answer that. She went with “It comes with the territory, I guess.”

  “Not lately, it hasn’t. Not in Lebanon. It took us all by surprise. Still, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  Mia nodded and let an awkward silence settle between them.

  “So I hear you had another Wild West adventure,” he ventured.

  Mia shrugged. “I seem to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “You could look at it that way. Then again, the fact that you were there that night and that you reported what happened to your mom could end up saving her life.”

  Her face brightened. The thought brought her a hint of solace. “I hope so. You knew her?”

  Kirkwood nodded. “A little. UNESCO. We’ve been funding some of her digs out here. She’s a great lady, we have nothing but the highest of respect for her, you know. And this whole thing is just so…awful. Tell me, Mia—may I call you Mia?”

  “Sure.”

  “How did she seem to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were the last one to see her before she was kidnapped,” Kirkwood reminded her. “Did she seem nervous about anything? Worried, maybe?”

  “Not particularly. She was a bit rattled by Farouk—you know, the Iraqi dealer—his showing up out of the blue took her by surprise. But otherwise…” Her voice drifted as she noticed that his eyes had wandered to the desk and settled on the writing pad. It was covered with notes she had scribbled during her calls and littered with doodles of the Ouroboros.

  Kirkwood cocked his head to one side, intrigued. “The symbol on one of the books,” he half-noted, half-asked. “From Iraq.”

  Mia felt slightly rattled. “Yes,” she answered, somewhat surprised that he knew that.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “It’s called an Ouroboros.” She wasn’t sure how much to say and settled for “I don’t know much about it.” She forced a smile, which she knew didn’t reach her eyes. She wondered if he noticed.

  “You think that book is what the kidnappers are really after?” he asked.

  She
felt conflicted.

  Kirkwood must have seen it, as he preempted her unease. “It’s fine. I’m working with Jim on getting Evelyn back. He told me about your chat. Said you took him to her apartment.” He paused. “We’re all on the same side here,” he added with a hint of a smile as he leaned in and studied her notes.

  She relaxed and nodded. “It’s the one thing that links Evelyn, the cabal’s chambers, the book, and the hakeem. It’s got to mean something.”

  A puzzled look clouded his face. “The hakeem?”

  A knot formed in her throat. She knew she’d screwed up the second she’d said it. She fumbled for the right words to get her out of her spot, but they wouldn’t announce themselves. “He’s…you know, in Baghdad,” she mumbled. “Maybe you should ask Jim about that.”

  Just then, mercifully, Corben showed up.

  Another man was with him, younger than Corben, someone she hadn’t met before. He had short chestnut hair, a thick-set neck, and wore a navy blue suit with no tie. Corben seemed surprised to see Kirkwood here and gave him a small nod. As Kirkwood acknowledged him back, Mia caught a barely perceptible unease in Corben’s expression as he glanced down at the desk, where her doodles were in view.

  Corben motioned to the man with him. “This is Greg,” he said to Mia. “He’ll take you to the hotel whenever you’re ready and he’ll stay with you. We’re going to put you up at the Albergo. It’s a small hotel in Ashrafieh”—the Christian side of town—“you’ll be fine there.”

  “Okay.” Mia nodded to Corben.

  “It’s where I’m staying,” Kirkwood added, before turning to Corben. “Anything on that phone tap?”

  “Nothing yet,” Corben said matter-of-factly.

  “So what are you going to do?” Kirkwood asked.