The Sanctuary

by Raymond Khoury

  He opened his cracked, dry mouth to say something, but Corben calmly gestured to him to stay quiet. He leaned over to him and said, “I’m sorry.”

  Farouk looked at him with faint puzzlement.

  Corben’s arms lashed out towards him. One hand went behind his head, holding it in place. The other slammed onto Farouk’s face, squeezing tightly, clamping his mouth and nose shut.

  Farouk’s eyes rocketed wide and his arms flailed upward, but there was no strength left in them. Corben swung an arm down and darted a punch right next to Farouk’s wound, causing him to exhale in a muffled howl of pain as he bent forward. Corben shoved him right back against the seat and kept the lock on his breathing. Farouk started coughing and wheezing with a heavy, gurgling sound, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets as he stared at Corben in primal horror. Corben increased his vise grip on him, feeling the Iraqi’s strength drain, feeling the last wisps of life abandon his battered body until the futile resistance stopped altogether.

  Chapter 46

  T hrough the window of her room in the press office, Mia noticed the Pathfinder driving past the annex, headed for the rear of the compound. The driver’s-side window was down, allowing her to spot Corben as he guided the SUV into a parking slot in a covered bay that was kept away from the main building as an additional safety precaution against booby-trapped cars.

  She sprang to her feet and looked out, her pulse racing as she concentrated her gaze on the car. The angle hadn’t allowed her to see anyone in the passenger seat. Interminable seconds crawled by before Corben finally appeared from behind the bay’s bunkerlike shelter.

  Mia’s heart sank. He was alone.

  Even worse, he was covered in what could only be blood. And as if that weren’t enough, the grim scowl that darkened his face said it all.

  Mia felt her knees buckle. She slid back into her chair, feeling a great tearing deep inside her.

  No Farouk.

  No way of getting the book.

  Nothing to trade for her mom.

  CORBEN SHUT HIS EYES and let the torrent of hot water flush the weariness out of his aching body. The embassy’s gym was a windowless, isolated haven tucked deep into the basement of the annex, and right now, its shower cubicle afforded Corben a momentary respite from the blood and the grime of what had become his most intense day since being posted to this unsettled city.

  He’d thought carefully about what he would tell his bosses—the station chief and the ambassador—before calling in and giving them a heads-up while driving back to the embassy. Farouk had been shot. Mortally. He’d died before he could get him to a hospital. And at that point, there was only one option open to him: He needed to make sure the kidnappers didn’t find out Farouk had been killed. If they did, they might assume that the relics’ location was lost with him, and if so, there’d be nothing to trade for Evelyn.

  He couldn’t bring his body to the embassy, which was technically U.S. soil. He couldn’t hand him over to the cops either. Given how pervasively they seemed to be penetrated, the kidnappers would find out Farouk was dead long before his corpse went cold. He had to make him disappear. For a while, anyway. To buy himself some time to come up with another way to get Evelyn out.

  So he’d driven deep into the pine forests east of the city and dumped his body there, off a small trail that was hardly used. No one had been around. If and when the body was eventually discovered, Corben and the embassy had total deniability. Yes, Corben had driven off with him, but the man had been wounded in the shoot-out and had bolted out of the car when it got stuck in traffic and run off. An entirely plausible theory would be that the men who were after him, and who had killed the assistant professor, had caught up with him. By then, the whole affair would probably be done and dusted, and no one would be too concerned with the fate of an illegal alien, let alone one from Iraq.

  Corben didn’t really have a choice. It was a tough decision he had to make, there and then. It was either that or jeopardize the whole endeavor. Which he wasn’t about to do. The brass ring he was reaching for was far too momentous for that.

  He shook his misgivings away, and his thoughts soon migrated to something more productive. Olshansky had gotten a preliminary hit on Abu Barzan’s cell phone. It wasn’t in northern Iraq, as assumed. The phone signal was roaming somewhere in eastern Turkey, close to the Syrian border. Olshansky would need a bit of time to get a tighter lock on it. He’d told Corben that he was confident he’d be able to track down the man for him, but that working backwards to trace whomever he’d been in touch with would be harder, adding some technobabble about incompatible network systems that Corben tuned out.

  The location didn’t surprise Corben. A foreign buyer wouldn’t risk venturing into Iraq to take delivery of the pieces, and Mosul—where Abu Barzan was coming from—wasn’t far from the Turkish border. Corben knew the area reasonably well. It was predominantly Kurd, on either side of the border, as was Mosul. He guessed the buyer would have arranged for the transaction to take place in Batman, Mardin, or Diyarbakir. All three had airports that were serviced by regional flights and private charters, and all were within a few hours’ drive from the Turkish/Iraqi border.

  It was an exchange Corben didn’t want to miss.

  Farouk’s revelation of a buyer paying over the odds for Abu Barzan’s little trove threw all of Corben’s plans into question. Up until that point, the hakeem had been Corben’s main target, the only man on his radar whom he knew to be chasing the dream with ruthless abandon. This mystery buyer was now at least as interesting to Corben as the hakeem. Somehow, he’d managed to hear about the book’s availability before the hakeem. He’d trumped him into securing it. Hell, he could well know more about it and its significance than the hakeem. The question was, was what he knew enough to make the hakeem irrelevant to Corben’s plans, or was his work incomplete? Did he have the treatment figured out already, or would he need the hakeem’s extreme resources and facilities to turn the dream into a reality?

  Two targets were now in Corben’s crosshairs. One would inevitably contact him: The hakeem would assume Corben had Farouk—and the book—and would want to trade. The other would be making his way to a quiet rendezvous somewhere in eastern Turkey. Corben needed to be there for it, but he had to find a way to do it on his own terms and without involving his colleagues at the embassy. At this point, apart from the mystery buyer and Abu Barzan himself, no one else knew about the imminent transaction. He wanted to keep it that way for now, at least until he could set up his trip to Turkey on his own terms. He needed to choose his words carefully if he was going to pull it off without attracting undue attention.

  Either way, the endgame was near.

  KIRKWOOD STUDIED Corben’s face as he listened to the agent’s briefing with deepening unease.

  Things hadn’t gone according to plan. Admittedly, Corben had been winging it. There were never any guarantees that they’d be able to intercept the call to Ramez, much less actually beat the kidnappers to Farouk. Corben had done remarkably well to get hold of the Iraqi before them, and he’d almost pulled it off, if it hadn’t been for an unlucky round that had found its way into Farouk’s side.

  He scanned the other faces around the room. The ambassador and Hayflick, the station chief, were also listening intently as Corben presented his thought process with impressive clarity.

  “So what are we left with?” the ambassador asked. “Do we know where he stashed the pieces Bishop’s kidnappers are after?”

  Corben shook his head. “I didn’t have time to get that from him. He was in shock, just rambling incoherently in Arabic before his body gave up on him.”

  The ambassador nodded glumly.

  Kirkwood kept his eyes locked on Corben. He wondered if Corben also knew that there was no stash to be found. The call from Abu Barzan had raised some troubling questions in Kirkwood’s mind, and since Farouk hadn’t been grabbed by the kidnappers, the other bidder wasn’t one of them. Which meant it was someone else
. And the timing was too coincidental to discount the possibility that the other bidder was linked to Corben, if it wasn’t actually him.

  Which threw up some disturbing realizations.

  One was that Corben was, quite possibly, well aware of the forthcoming Turkish transaction. The other was that, given the ulterior agenda he seemed to be pursuing, getting Evelyn back safely might not exactly be a priority for him.

  “You think the kidnappers will get in touch?” Kirkwood probed.

  “They’ve got to,” Corben speculated. “Right now, they think we’ve got Farouk, which means they’ve got to assume we also have his stash. And that’s what they’re after. I’ve got to think they’ll make contact and offer to trade Evelyn for it. At least, I’m hoping they do. Right now, it’s looking like our only chance of getting her back.”

  A sobering silence descended on the room.

  Not good enough, Kirkwood thought. He wasn’t comfortable with the wait-and-pray strategy, nor with the potential danger of a bluff trade if they did call. He needed to instigate things. “We need to send them a signal,” he suggested. “A message. Let them know we’re ready to trade.” He turned to the ambassador. “Maybe you could make a statement to the press. Something along the lines of ‘We’re waiting for word from the kidnappers so that we can work things out and give them what they need to bring this matter to a mutually beneficial conclusion.’ That kind of thing.”

  The ambassador’s expression clouded. “You know our policy on negotiating with terrorists openly. You want me to go on TV and invite them to make a trade?”

  “They’re not terrorists,” Kirkwood reminded him. “They’re antiquity smugglers.”

  “Come on, Bill. It’s a nuance no one’s going to pick up on. For most people who’ll be watching, they’re one and the same.”

  Kirkwood frowned with frustration. “What about the Bishop girl? A daughter making an emotional plea for the return of her mother.”

  “I don’t see a problem with that,” the ambassador conceded. “Okay. I’ll set something up. But it’s going to be tricky to pull off a bluff like that, given that we don’t have the pieces.”

  “If we get that call and they want to trade, we’ll get her back, regardless,” Hayflick assured him. “We can set it up so it’s to our advantage.”

  Kirkwood turned to Corben. He thought he spotted a hint of discomfort in his hardened expression, but the agent’s face wasn’t giving much away. He just acknowledged Kirkwood’s suggestion with a small, thoughtful nod.

  At the back of Kirkwood’s mind, something else was vying for attention. More and more, he was feeling it would be inevitable. He and his partners were all in agreement on this. Do your best to get Evelyn out without exposing the project. But if you have to, then use the book. Not having seen the book yet, he wasn’t sure that giving it up would expose anything, but it could jeopardize their work and put a legacy that was hundreds of years in the making at risk.

  It wasn’t a decision he had to make just yet. It was irrelevant as long as the kidnappers hadn’t made contact.

  He felt a silent vibration in his pocket and fished out his phone. He glanced at the caller ID. It was his main contact at the UN. “I’m sorry, I have to take this,” he apologized to the others as he got out of his seat and stepped away from the table.

  The blunt voice on the other end went straight to the point.

  “That thing you asked me about,” his contact at the UN said. “This hakeem. I think I’ve got something for you.”

  THE CONTRITE WORDS coming out of Omar’s mouth inflamed the hakeem.

  “He got away, mu’allimna. The American has him.”

  The hakeem seethed with disbelief. How could Omar have failed him—again? The man had all the necessary advantages. He had the resources, the contacts, the firepower, and still he failed.

  Omar rattled off his explanation and his excuses, but the hakeem silenced him with a ferocious rebuke. He didn’t need to hear the details. He only cared about results. And he needed people who could provide him the ones he wanted. When this was over, he’d have to see about having Omar replaced. They’d need to get him someone more reliable. More capable. Someone who would get the job done.

  He allowed his breathing to settle and focused on his next move. He knew he still held a trump card. They’d give him what he was after in exchange for the woman, he didn’t doubt that. But the trade would carry risk, and given Omar’s track record of late, pulling it off without leaving a trail was by no means assured. The hakeem was loath to take unnecessary risks, but Omar’s ineptitude had made a big one unavoidable. Hostage exchanges were never foolproof, not for either party.

  Something else was coursing through his veins, something far more poisonous than the looming threat of the exchange: The American had humiliated his men yet again, which meant he’d humiliated him. It was a personal affront, a grave insult, one that the hakeem found intolerable and unforgivable. The transgression had to be punished. Order needed to be restored.

  “Call your contacts. Do it now. I want to know everything there is to know about this American,” he rasped. “Everything.”

  Chapter 47

  C ocooned inside her hotel room, Mia watched herself on TV with subdued detachment. She stared through the screen as her own face loomed bizarrely back at her, reciting the carefully worded plea that Corben had given her before handing her over to the embassy’s press attaché. The image on the screen wasn’t registering. It felt like an alternate reality, a surreal parallel universe that she was watching through a tear in some Matrix-like continuum, except that it wasn’t. It was real. Starkly, unquestionably real.

  With a heavy heart, she’d called her aunt’s house back in Nahant just before the news conference. Her aunt had picked up, her sunny voice indicating that she hadn’t yet read anything about the kidnapping. Mia built up some courage with a brief exchange of banter, then, with great care, she told her aunt what had happened. It was a hard conversation to have, but her aunt was a strong woman who, though hugely concerned, took it stoically. Mia alerted her to the press conference while assuring her that every effort was being expended to find Evelyn and get her back safely, adding that, yes, she would be careful too. She’d hung up, feeling a constricting ache in her chest.

  She turned the volume down and brooded over Corben’s grim update. With Farouk dead and his stash missing, there was nothing to trade for Evelyn. Which was really bad news. She’d thought about going back to Evelyn’s apartment, looking through her stuff, seeing if she could find another book, something with the tail-eater symbol on it that they could use, something to entice the kidnappers into a barter, but Corben had shot that idea down pretty quickly. He’d been there, done that. He’d found nothing in her apartment that they could substitute for the book.

  Besides, it was all moot right now. The bastards hadn’t made contact.

  She silently hoped—prayed—they would. They had to. What was the point of taking her, if it wasn’t to trade her for something?

  The news moved on to some other uplifting event. She clicked the TV off and looked around the room. She hated the utter loneliness of it and thought back to the previous night, to being at Corben’s apartment. Even though she barely knew him, his presence was comforting. She realized she’d been through more with him, in the brief hours she’d known him, than she had with most men she’d dated. She wondered whether to call him, to see if there was anything new, but she buried the thought, certain that it would be a bad idea.

  She glanced at her bed and knew that sleep, if it was to come, needed to be coerced, bribed, enticed.

  She picked up her key card and her cell phone and headed for the door.

  IN HIS DARKENED LIVING ROOM, Corben switched off his TV and made his way to his bedroom. It had been a ferocious day—probably his most challenging, ever. He’d been fueled through it by a torrent of adrenaline, but that well was now bone-dry. He felt the weariness of battle in every pore of his body, which was cryi
ng out for a respite. He wasn’t about to argue with that.

  He climbed into bed and killed the lights. The blackout blinds blotted out the outside world, and he let his mind drift. It resisted for a while, stubbornly churning over the tasks ahead.

  His thoughts settled on Evelyn Bishop’s call to Tom Webster. Corben had asked a data-mining analyst at Langley to feed the name into the system. There were too many hits—the name was surprisingly common. Corben had given the analyst an estimated age and some target backgrounds to narrow the field, but pinning the name to an identity, if it happened at all, would take time.

  He moved on to the more pressing matter at hand. The last update from Olshansky showed the Iraqi dealer to have settled in for the night in Diyarbakir, a small town in southeast Turkey, around fifty miles from the Syrian border. Corben had thought the man would go for Mardin, which was a couple of hours closer to the Iraqi border. Both had airports, but Diyarbakir’s was larger, the town bigger, and visitors didn’t risk drawing as much attention. Using triangulation, Olshansky had the dealer pinned down within a radius of fifty yards, which, in a remote place such as Diyarbakir, was as good as it got.

  Corben needed to figure out how to get there without alerting his colleagues to what he might find there. The Agency had people in the general area, but he didn’t want to delegate this. He wanted to be there himself and didn’t want Hayflick or anyone else, for that matter, to know the real reason. He thought he would use Olshansky’s phone tracking to justify the trip. Say it was someone Farouk had called from the café. A person of interest. Diyarbakir was only three hundred miles away. It wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to fly there in a small plane. He’d need to arrange it first thing in the morning if he wanted to get there in time for when his mystery buyer showed up.

  The thought of that encounter pleased him and lulled him into a desperately needed sleep.