The Sanctuary

by Raymond Khoury

  Evelyn still looked dumbstruck. “Is that how long it gives you? Two hundred years?” she asked.

  Kirkwood nodded. “It seems to more or less triple our current life expectancy, if you start taking it once your body’s fully grown. It doesn’t make us immortal. We just age very, very slowly. It slows down the decay in the cells and allows a radically decelerated senescence. Then, eventually, the cells go into free fall.”

  The scientist in the hakeem couldn’t resist asking, “How does it work?”

  Kirkwood shrugged. “We’re still not sure. It seems to act like a supercharged free-radical scavenger. We’ve found that it changes the way DNA normally wraps itself around some chromosome proteins. As a result, some genes are enhanced while others are repressed. One of the genes that are enhanced is an antioxidative stress gene. But for some reason, something about the chromosomal difference between men and women, at a core mitochondrial level, inhibits its effectiveness in women.”

  “It’s like 4-phenylbutyrate,” the hakeem enthused. The drug, recent experiments had shown, had a startling effect on fruit flies, extending their lives dramatically. “Only for humans.”

  Kirkwood nodded reluctantly. “Exactly.”

  Evelyn’s eyes were riveted on him, telegraphing a cocktail of anger, disappointment, wonder, and horror. “How old are you?” she asked, fear gnawing on the words as they slipped out of her throat.

  Kirkwood had already said more than he’d intended, but he couldn’t lie to her. “I was born in 1913,” he reported in a low voice. “Sebastian was my grandfather.”

  He tore his eyes away from Evelyn’s shocked expression and glanced at the others. Corben was staring at him coldly, as poker-faced as ever. The mokhtar had been listening intently too, though, as he rubbed his forearms nervously, he was more visibly rattled.

  “And so that’s what you’ve been doing, all these centuries,” the hakeem accused Kirkwood indignantly. “Using it secretly in your little coven, depriving the world of life, instead of announcing it, sharing it, inviting the greatest minds in the world to help you fix it?”

  “We’ve got some great minds working on it,” Kirkwood protested fiercely. It was a sore point, the source of much guilt. “Some of the most gifted scientists around.”

  “Well, maybe you should have had more people working on it,” the hakeem shot back, stabbing the air viciously with his gun to punctuate his words, his finger still worryingly close to the trigger. “Maybe they would have found the solution by now. Instead, you choose to hide it, to selfishly keep it to yourselves.”

  “You think this is fun?” Kirkwood lashed out angrily. “Never being able to get close to anyone?” As he spoke, he glanced at Evelyn, and his voice softened. “Watching everyone you love, everyone you care about, wither away and die? Besides,” he added, turning back to the hakeem, “what if there wasn’t a fix? What if they’d never managed to make it work for everyone?”

  “Well, clearly, your grandfather seems to think they did,” the hakeem observed, his voice laced with contempt. He nodded to himself, grinding Kirkwood’s words over, thinking things through. When he raised his eyes, a Zen-like resoluteness had spread through them.

  “I want the formula,” he said calmly. “And you’ll give it to me, we both know that. But don’t worry. It’ll only be a temporary measure. Something to keep me amused while my men explore these mountains.” He turned to the mokhtar. “What do you say? You think you can point me in the right direction?”

  The mokhtar lurched back a step, the blood draining visibly from his face as he butted into one of the hakeem’s men. His eyes wide as saucers, he shook his head repeatedly as beads of sweat materialized at the rim of his headdress.

  The hakeem’s features grew dark and threatening as he stepped in closer to him. “An incomprehensible, intriguing man comes down off the mountain, sprouting words in all kinds of languages, carrying a mysterious book in which he writes a final message in a foreign hand. He dies here, in this village. You want me to believe your ancestors weren’t curious about where he came from? You seriously expect me to believe they didn’t go out looking for where he came from?”

  The mokhtar was shaking his head repeatedly, darting glances left and right, anywhere but at the tall, hell-bent foreigner who was breathing down on him.

  “Well?” the hakeem asked. “Jaawib, ya kalb,” he ordered him viciously. Answer, you dog.

  The mokhtar mumbled something. He didn’t know anything.

  The hakeem’s eyes narrowed, then he turned to the gunman who was standing guard over the mokhtar’s family and nodded disdainfully at the children. The guard herded them over roughly.

  Kirkwood felt his pulse quicken and he instinctively inched forward, but the gunman standing next to him stopped him with a firm hand.

  The hakeem raised his gun towards the children. “Which one goes first?” he asked the mokhtar. He aimed at the teenage boy. “The boy? Or maybe”—he swung the gun around recklessly at one of the little girls—“her? Choose one,” he ordered.

  A tear streaked down the mokhtar’s cheek, and he muttered, “Please,” as he dropped to his knees.

  “Which one?” the hakeem shouted fiercely, his eyes blazing with manic determination.

  “Tell him,” Kirkwood yelled out angrily.

  The mokhtar shook his head.

  “Tell him,” Kirkwood repeated fiercely. “It’s not worth their lives,” he added, glancing at the man’s terror-stricken children.

  The mokhtar mopped his face with his hands, then, without looking up, nodded his acquiescence and mumbled, “I’ll take you. I’ll take you where you want to go.”

  Just then, something struck one of the hakeem’s men squarely in the chest, yanking him backwards, a red cloud erupting. The man dropped heavily to the ground as the rifle shot’s report echoed in the hills around them.

  Chapter 68

  S everal other rounds crackled around the cemetery, scattering the gunmen and their hostages in a panicked frenzy.

  Kirkwood darted for Evelyn, but the hakeem was closer to her and snared her just as three rounds struck a nearby gravestone. Kirkwood ducked for cover and could only watch as, with a handgun pressed against Evelyn’s head, the hakeem dragged her to the low wall of the graveyard. The bullets seemed to be coming from behind a house at the edge of the village. One of the hakeem’s men was with him and was intermittently rising from his cover and peppering the source of the gunfire with carefully placed rounds.

  Kirkwood tried to go after Evelyn, but another of the hakeem’s men was firing back from behind the mazar, and the fire directed at him was also pinning Kirkwood to his cover. He glanced to the far end of the cemetery and spotted Corben, hustling the mokhtar and his family to safety and helping his children over a kink in the wall. The hakeem spotted him too and barked at the man crouched with him to stop them. Corben also heard the shout and turned. The gunman raised his weapon, looking for the shot. Corben pushed the mokhtar over the sag in the wall and leapt over it himself just as a couple of bullets bit into the bricks behind him.

  More rounds crunched into the markers around Kirkwood, looking for the shooter sheltering behind the small monument. To his left, the hakeem was still huddled against the low wall, his arm clasped around Evelyn’s throat, but he was inching his way to the opposite, downhill side of the cemetery, pulling Evelyn along with him. Beyond the wall lay a forest of tall poplars. Kirkwood swallowed hard. They were at the far end of the village, and whoever was firing at them was coming from the opposite direction. They weren’t surrounded. And that meant the hakeem could potentially escape.

  Kirkwood couldn’t allow him to take Evelyn again. But right now, he was helpless to do anything about it. He watched with roiling frustration as the third surviving member of the hakeem’s squad, who was huddling behind the wall by the entrance to the graveyard, sat up and sprayed a cartridge-load of bullets at his attackers, ducked and reloaded, then rose again and spat out some more rounds before lurching
backwards violently, the back of his head blown open. The shooter who’d gotten him then made the mistake of leaning out of his cover recklessly to check out his success. The gunman escorting the hakeem rose up and dropped him with a single bullet to the chest.

  The hakeem and Evelyn reached the edge of the cemetery. Kirkwood saw Evelyn try to make a run for it, but the hakeem lashed out and pinned her down ruthlessly. Kirkwood’s blood was boiling. He couldn’t sit back anymore. He saw the gunman close to the hakeem get hit while returning fire, saw the hakeem’s attention snagged by the squirming man beside him and darting terror-stricken glances over the wall, and decided he would make his move.

  He bolted across the cemetery, head low, fists clenched, eyes laser-locked on the hakeem and Evelyn. No bullets came his way, and he kept rushing. He was ten feet from them when the hakeem noticed him.

  The hakeem spun around just as Kirkwood tackled him, his left arm lunging out at the handgun in the madman’s right hand. A round went off just as he hit him, jarring his senses and sending a flash of pain erupting across his left shoulder. He heard Evelyn scream as he rode the adrenaline wave and butted a knee into the hakeem’s chest. The hakeem wheezed out heavily. Both of Kirkwood’s hands were now clasped around the hakeem’s handgun, fighting desperately to keep it clear. Another shot rang out, but the gun was aimed downward and the bullet harmlessly kicked up some dirt as it burrowed into the ground.

  “Move away,” Kirkwood shouted to Evelyn, unable to take his eyes off the hakeem to judge her proximity.

  The hakeem elbowed Kirkwood’s jaw, bone crunching against bone heavily, sending a bolt of pain searing across Kirkwood’s head. His grasp on the hakeem’s hand weakened, and the madman used the moment to wrestle the gun free. He swung it around at Kirkwood, but Kirkwood didn’t blink and just lunged at him with total commitment, slamming him against the wall with all of his weight and sending the handgun spinning out of his fingers and biting into the ground.

  Their eyes locked in a split second of unmitigated and absolute loathing. Their eyes darted within nanoseconds of each other at the fallen weapon. Then Kirkwood sensed movement to his side. He turned to see the surviving gunman, the one positioned behind the mazar, spinning his weapon toward him. His heart missed a beat before a couple of rifle rounds punched the stonework of the monument, forcing the gunman back into cover. Kirkwood dived at Evelyn, pulling her to the ground before turning to face the hakeem, who gave him one final leer before clambering over the low wall and disappearing behind it.

  “Come on,” Kirkwood yelled to Evelyn as the last surviving gunman returned fire feverishly. He crawled forward, shielding Evelyn, trying to put more gravestones between him and the shooter. The pain in his shoulder flashed angrily with every move. He’d managed a few feet when the gunman turned his attention to them again and leaned out to take another shot at them, but before he could make the kill, several rifle rounds plowed into him, knocking him backwards savagely, a burst of wild bullets from his submachine gun cutting up the still air over the cemetery before dying out with him.

  An eerie stillness descended on the cemetery. Kirkwood eyed Evelyn, his shoulder burning, his mind racing, wondering if they were finally safe.

  “Hello?” he shouted out to no one in particular, hoping that whoever had intervened was friendly.

  The voice he heard back blew through him like a gale of joy. “Kirkwood? Mom?” Mia was yelling. “You okay?”

  He looked at Evelyn, his face bathed with relief. “We’re fine,” he hollered back. His eyes scanning the hakeem’s fallen men and watching out for any unseen threats, he got up carefully, wincing from the pain in his shoulder.

  Evelyn stood with him. Mia and a few armed men were racing down from the village.

  Evelyn reached out to check his shoulder. He pulled back as she touched it, the wound throbbing with a deep, burning pain. “It’s alright,” he assured her before glancing towards the forested hill that dropped down from the cemetery.

  The hakeem was still out there.

  Evelyn saw it in his eyes. “Tom,” she cautioned him.

  He was already striding towards the hakeem’s fallen man.

  “Tom, don’t,” she urged as he leaned down and picked up the dead shooter’s submachine gun. He checked its magazine, found a couple of fresh ones on the dead man’s belt, pocketed one and rammed the other into place, and chambered a round just as Mia and Abu Barzan’s men reached them.

  “Stay with your mom,” Kirkwood told Mia before rushing to the wall. He climbed over it awkwardly, trying to protect his injured arm, then darted a quick look at Evelyn and Mia before he disappeared down the hill.

  “What are you waiting for?” Evelyn shouted at the men with Mia. “Go with him. Sa’idoo,” she insisted in Arabic. Help him.

  They nodded and bolted after him.

  Chapter 69

  K irkwood ran through the silent, darkening forest, the ragged bursts of his breathing pumping deafeningly in his ears, the pain in his shoulder blazing with every heavy step, his eyes scouring the trees for any sign of the hakeem. The urgent, determined footfalls of Abu Barzan’s men chased after him.

  His head was feeling cloudier, his eyes heavier, as the blood loss was starting to undermine the basic functions of his body. He clenched his jaw and drew deeper, plundering his last reserves of energy, allowing his anger and his revulsion to push him on.

  At the very edge of his consciousness, he heard a slow whine, an engine coming to life. It grew louder and more frenzied with each step he took, the blades of a rotor cleaving the air with increased ferocity.

  The realization summoned a desperate jolt of adrenaline that carried him farther down the slope. He pictured the chopper before he saw it, imagined the hakeem waving, leering down at him as it took off and ferried him to safety, and the thought propelled him even faster.

  He couldn’t let him escape.

  He couldn’t even let him live.

  Through the confusing interplay of light and shadow of the poplars, he caught a glimpse of the hakeem climbing into the monstrous machine. He burst out of the cover of the trees, and the full ferocity of the rotor wash and the turbine’s ear-piercing scream hit him head-on as the chopper lifted off.

  The chopper, a Mi-25, was facing him. It looked like a horrific mutant wasp, its fuselage disfigured by a rash of glass cockpit bubbles and gun turrets, two small wings sticking out of its side and laden with rocket launchers and other pods. Two pilots, sitting in tandem, were at their controls, facing him through the glass, urging the chopper into a quick ascent.

  Kirkwood raised his gun and started firing.

  Full auto.

  One full magazine, then another.

  Everything he had.

  Each round found a searing echo in his shoulder, but he kept a firm grip on the machine gun, emptying its load mercilessly, showering the lumbering vulture rising before him with a torrent of bullets. He watched as they sparked off the chopper’s metal skin like darts bouncing off a tank, but he kept adjusting his aim, and a few of them managed to find the forward pilot’s bubble, the first of them drilling into it and splintering it, the next few evidently cutting into flesh and bone as a red puff gruesomely splattered the inside of the cracked windshield.

  The huge chopper lurched to one side, its engine groaning into a sudden frenzy just as Abu Barzan’s men reached him and joined in. It titled at a severe angle as it sideslipped through the air, and its rotor clipped the edge of the grove of poplars. The massive blades hacked into the tips of the tall trees, and for a moment, the forest seemed like a giant web that had snared a prize catch. Kirkwood watched, grim-faced, his feet edging instinctively backwards, his mind fast-forwarding to the explosion that would consume the hillside and obliterate him, and he thought of Evelyn and of Mia as the Mil teetered precariously. It looked as if it were about to tilt sideways and plow into the trees, but just when it seemed terminal, the copilot seemed to regain control. The machine pitched back violently and rolled
the other way, extricating its blades from the trap of the trees before rising into clear air.

  It rotated as it rose, snubbing its attackers with its tail as it banked around before heading away from the mountain. Kirkwood watched it recede with a reeling horror, the rage and utter frustration flooding through him, then he heard something from behind, coming from higher up, from the village. It sounded like a loud snap, something he hadn’t heard before, and was quickly followed by a whooshing sound that sliced through the air above him. He looked up to see the thin contrail of a narrow, white tube that was streaking across the patchy sky, arcing its way towards the chopper, rushing forward and catching up to it. The contact triggered a small explosion that was almost immediately followed by a massive fireball, the blades of the big rotor detaching themselves and spinning off wildly in all directions, the hulking fuselage somersaulting over itself before plummeting to the ground and erupting in a gargantuan cloud of fire.

  EVELYN AND MIA raced down the hill and found Kirkwood resting against a tree. His face was beaded with sweat, his skin pale and sallow, his eyes barely able to stay open, but he perked up somewhat at their sight. Two other men were with them, one of them still clutching his SA-14 shoulder-held missile launcher. The men—Abu Barzan’s Kurdish friends, as Mia explained—whooped with delight and exchanged hearty backslapping hugs with their two buddies. In the distance, the black smoke still billowed upwards into the dying light.

  Evelyn watched over Kirkwood as Mia quickly went to work on stemming the blood loss from his wound.

  He didn’t know where to start.

  “Evelyn,” he told her faintly, the last vestiges of strength abandoning him, “I never…” He broke off, the sheer weight of his regret catching in his breath.

  She met his gaze straight on. “Later,” she told him.