“A software package on my phone can do that in no time.” He forwarded the file to his own phone, punched a few buttons, and said, “Saudi Arabia.”
“You’re sure?” Wojciechowski said. “Couldn’t have been faked?”
“Someone tried to hide it with a random number, but one hundred percent it’s from there.”
“Think you deserve the rest of the night off, Pranav.”
“Oh, come on, Detective. Repeat after me, Chak-rah-bar-tee.”
“I’ll work on it.”
CHAPTER 92
Shinar
In spite of himself, Terah carried Belessunu’s encouragement with him to the palace the next morning. How indeed could his son become an exalted father unless he escaped execution by the throne?
King Nimrod-Amraphel greeted Terah with a huge smile. “This is the way life should be—my chief officer in the court!”
“An honor to see you, my lord,” Terah said, bowing.
“And it’s good to see you getting around much better!”
“Thank you, oh Great King. I expect to return to my duties in just a few days.”
“Excellent! Your selfless devotion and worship have endeared you to me and to the realm as never before. I know it could not have been easy.”
“It has been difficult. In fact, Belessunu has not forgiven me.”
“I pray she will come to see that my stargazers are never wrong, and I will also beseech the gods to favor her with yet another child, this time either a daughter or a son without designs on the thro—”
“Begging your pardon, Excellency, but my wife has left me.”
The king scowled. “That is an outrage! How dare she? Where has she gone?”
“I do not know, sir. I suspect back to the land of her people.”
“Abandoning a marriage contract with a member of the royal staff is an act of treason punishable by—”
“I pray mercy for her, sir. She is heartbroken and not thinking.”
“You believe she will come to her senses and return.”
“I pray so.”
“In the meantime, as I promised, you have access to my entire concubinage. Enjoy as many as you need for as long as you wish.”
“Thank you, my lord, but just now I am in mourning.”
“For?”
Does the king mock me or is he stupid? “For the loss of my son, sir, and the absence of my wife.”
“Well, yes, but I have just awarded you the remedy!”
Terah bowed again. “Deep gratitude, sir.”
“Unfortunately, I have more sobering news for you, my friend.”
“My king?”
“The body of one of the guards you hired for me some years ago has been found in the wilderness, though it took some time to determine it was he. Ikuppi appears to have been devoured by wild beasts and his carcass picked clean by vultures.”
“How tragic! I had heard he was missing, but I had hoped for a more pleasant outcome.”
“Because you knew him, I have decided that you should take charge of his memorial. Spare no expense and laud him with every honor due such a faithful servant of the throne. I have every confidence in your ability to bring esteem to the crown through this celebration. And when it has been accomplished, and you are back to your usual post, I have a most interesting challenge for you.”
“A challenge?”
“The most extensive and ambitious project in all the decades you have been with me. When your time finally comes and the gods welcome you into the heavenlies, this will be what you are remembered for.”
“Humbled, Your Highness. And curious.”
“All in good time, Terah.”
CHAPTER 93
Vietnam, 1973
Friday, January 26, Ben appropriated a Jeep late in the afternoon and raced into town. He found Charm leaving her apartment for work, leapt out, and ran to her. She froze and her eyes grew wide. They were seeing each other only on Mondays and Thursdays by now, and he had just spent the previous night with her.
“I’m not to see you until Monday,” she said, a cry in her voice. “Tell me you are not leaving!”
“Just got word,” he said, breathless, and pulling her into a fierce embrace right there on the street. “They’re going to sign the peace accord in Paris tomorrow and announce an immediate ceasefire.”
“They’ve been saying that for years,” she said, her lips at his ear. “It’s always going to be tomorrow.”
“This looks legit. I have to be back at the hospital in twenty minutes. We’re on high alert.”
“For a ceasefire?”
“We’re likely going to be the only ones observing that,” Ben said, “because we’ve had it here and want out. And our guys think the VC is mobilizing right now to get in their last licks before it goes into effect.”
“Last licks?” she said.
“Another idiom, sorry. The North won’t likely honor a ceasefire anyway, but they know it’s coming tomorrow. This is their last chance to attack without facing war crime charges. I gotta get going right now.”
“Will I ever see you again? … Ben?”
He clung to her, trembling. She forced him back and searched his face. “Promise me I’ll see you before go.”
“If I can, of course!”
“Promise me, Ben.”
“You know I will if there’s any way …”
“Promise!”
“I promise,” he said and kissed her hard and long, as if imprinting herself onto him for the rest of his life.
Ben sprinted to the Jeep and sped off with a wave. Before his last left toward the hospital, he heard gunfire and spun in his seat to see outnumbered South Vietnamese troops engaging the VC. He hadn’t ever seen Cong troops in the city—at least that he was aware of. He U-turned too fast, tipped up onto two wheels, and nearly threw himself from the vehicle. The Jeep bounced down, and he floored the accelerator back toward Charm. She stood frozen at a corner.
“Was that gunfire?” she cried.
“Get back home, now! Go! Lock yourself in and stay low! Go!”
“Be careful!” she yelled, and he was relieved to see her running back toward her apartment. He would never make it to the hospital on time, but all he cared about now was getting there in one piece.
Ben stayed clear of the regular route and bounced through ruts and high grasses to go wide around where he had seen VC. He grabbed his M14 from the back and laid it across his lap, clicking off the safety. Would his last day in this god-forsaken country be the one that saw him fire his weapon other than on the target range?
Ahead maybe a half mile he saw where he could reconnect with the road to the hospital, but already coming his way were US trucks he knew would be packed with navy and marine personnel, barreling toward town. Ben made a beeline toward them, planning to fly up onto the road just as they passed and head straight to his post.
He was within a hundred yards of the road when a dozen or so VC burst from the tree line to his left, firing at the trucks. Too late to avoid them, he kept the accelerator to the floor and bounded wildly through the grass. Ben propped his weapon in the crook of his left arm and opened fire. They’d not even seen the Jeep coming and several dropped in the grass. He had dreaded this moment, forced to kill enemy troops, and had worried what it would do to him. But in the moment he had no choice. He was protecting his mates and hopefully thwarting an incursion into the town where his beloved had barricaded herself. And anyway, his barrage was sure to cost him his life. He couldn’t hold off all of them, and he’d driven right into their line of fire.
Ben knew his only hope was to keep firing and keep heading directly for the road. The hospital loomed less than half a mile away, so he only hoped if he was hit, he could keep the Jeep going straight until he wound up there. Once he thought going home whole or in a bag would make little difference. Now all he wanted was to survive.
Bullets clanged off the Jeep chassis, and he quickly abandoned the plan to aim straight for the
hospital complex. He zigzagged, still with the road in sight. As he soared up onto the shoulder, the second truck passed and comrades waved at him and pumped fists as they took aim at the VC. Ben saw no other traffic and so burst onto the pavement, but before he could steady the Jeep, a rear tire blew and now he was all over the road, skidding, sliding, and about to roll. He fought the wheel with both hands, and just when he thought he had steadied the vehicle, his rifle slid off his lap, and two VC popped up from the ditch. He would pass within inches of them, unarmed.
Both had weapons raised. Ben grabbed his from the floor, raised it, and fired, hitting the first man in the Adam’s apple and seeing him drop. The other opened fire as Ben instinctively threw up his hand, dropped his rifle again, and yanked the wheel to the right. The explosions from the VC’s weapon deafened him, and he had driven through the hail of bullets. The Jeep tumbled and rolled, throwing Ben and his weapon clear. He wound up on his back on the other side of the road, unable to move.
The VC approached to finish him off, but he saw the man fall under a fusillade of gunfire. Ben knew he’d been hit himself though, because something had splashed all over his face and blood covered his camos from his shirt to his boots. He reached to feel his face but had no feeling in his hand. Held before his eyes it was twice its normal size—fingers splayed like those on an old-time baseball mitt, and his palm look like raw hamburger. Lightheaded and losing blood, Ben could make out corpsmen running toward him. The men in the first truck had obliterated what was left of the Cong he’d driven through, and those in the second had taken out the one who shot him.
Fading fast, Ben believed beyond doubt he was dying. Comforted that he was not alone, he imagined four faces hovering over him and realized they were the only people in the world he cared about. Charm, Mom, Dad, and Red.
Ben realized he was still alive when he heard American voices saying Communist troops had attacked four hundred villages in a South Vietnam land grab. “They take town?” he mush-mouthed, trying to force open his eyes.
“Well, look who’s decided to join us for breakfast,” Red said.
“You sound gorgeous,” Ben said.
“You haven’t looked at me yet, Marine. Nobody looks good this time of the morning.”
“Time is it?”
“A tick after oh four hundred, buddy.”
“I been out since sixteen hundred hours?”
“You deserved the rest, hero. You may be the reason this town is still out of the hands of the North.”
“Charm safe?”
A pause. “Haven’t heard otherwise.”
The bright lights forced Ben to open his eyes only in stages. Red leaned over him to block the worst of it. “You do look gorgeous,” he said.
“Great,” she said. “Gorgeous to a busted-up corpsman young enough to be my son.”
“How busted up, Red?” He held up his left hand, wrapped in gauze and the size of a volleyball. “Looked pretty bad when it happened.”
“Everything else will heal, Ben. Bumps, bruises, contusions, sprains. But you know we don’t give you any bull here. There’s not much left of that hand.”
“Am I gonna lose it?”
“You’ve already lost most of it. Sorry. In layman’s terms they saved your thumb and your big knuckles. In therapy you’ll be hearing the medical term for what’s left. You’ve still got your metacarpal bones up to the heads. Where your hand meets your fingers, that’s the MCP joint. The metacarpophalangeal.”
“So, no fingers.”
“Have to scratch your rear with your right hand. You are right-handed, correct?”
“Well, if I wasn’t I am now.”
“You were. I’d have noticed if you weren’t.”
“When can I get back to town?”
“You’re not going back, Ben.”
“Got to. Promised.”
“Sorry. They’re trying to get you on a Freedom Bird before noon. Doc doesn’t like moving you this fast, but you can rehab close to home, and there’s no telling what’s gonna happen here.”
Tears rolled from the sides of Ben’s eyes.
“You shouldn’t feel any pain yet,” Red said. “You okay?”
“Not that kinda pain,” he said.
Ben was suffering both kinds of pain when he was loaded onto an evac plane at eleven hundred hours. A morphine drip could barely keep up with the throbbing hand, and he knew better than to make any decisions in that state. And yet he did anyway. He made a difficult one he wasn’t entirely sure of, except that he was determined not to change his mind. He was glad he couldn’t make it back to town, because he didn’t want Charm to see him this way. She’d only worry. He was never going to see her again, he knew that. And writing to her? Maybe it was selfish, but that would be too painful.
Charm would have to become what she had once predicted she would be to him. A cherished memory from a land he never wanted to visit again.
At a layover in Frankfurt, Ben caught wind of rumors about a direct hit on the hospital they left that morning. “Massive casualties,” someone said.
“Staff?” Ben asked an officer.
“’Fraid so.”
“Can you check on a name?”
“I can try.”
And it hit Ben that he never knew Red’s real name. She’d become one of his dearest friends, a parent in the wilderness, and he’d never asked her name.
“Rank? Serial number? Anything?”
He shook his head.
“That’s gonna make it awful hard, corpsman.”
“A nurse named Red, that’s all I know. Early forties maybe.”
“I’ll do my best. No promises.”
More than a day later they landed in Washington, DC, where patients would be treated until they were stable enough to be assigned to facilities closer to their homes. The process of disembarking proved laborious, with several still on stretchers. The officer Ben had asked to check on Red approached and handed him a folded sheet of paper. “I’m sorry, corpsman,” he said.
Ben had to shake it open with his good hand.
CASUALTY REPORT
US Navy Nurse Lieutenant Lucinda Bishop, DOB May 15, 1930
DOD 1620 HRS, January 26, 1973, Vietnam (exact location classified).
CHAPTER 94
Shinar
Only a slight limp remained from Terah’s night of terror with the dogs. Without it he’d have had a bounce in his step from the praise Nimrod lavished on him for the success of the Ikuppi memorial pageant. It had begun with a parade led by Ikuppi’s wife and three children followed by his remains in a coffin—most unusual for a commoner. Terah had had the bones wrapped in a reed mat, and just before burial the box would be opened and a bowl of water placed near the mouth of his skull. Terah had considered placing the Marduk idol in with him, but that seemed such a waste.
Royal singers, instrumentalists, and dancers accompanied the procession—which was populated by hundreds of citizens assigned by edict to join and mourn aloud. The parade paused briefly at the palace, where the king himself appeared under an elevated portico and delivered a tribute Terah had written. It brought the assembled to tears, or at least they pretended it had.
Belessunu urged Terah to allow the truth to pierce his heart during the festive march to the cemetery and not forget that it had been he who had pushed Ikuppi to take his own life. “But I cannot let on that this was how he died,” Terah said.
“True,” she said. “But you know.”
Throughout the day, despite that Ikuppi’s widow thanked Terah over and over for so honoring her late husband, Belessunu’s admonitions affected him. In fact, all the decisions he had made since hearing of the king’s intentions for Terah’s son stabbed at him in moments of reverie. So much so that Terah tried to busy himself every hour of the day so his mind and conscience would be occupied and he could evade the truth.
And finally King Nimrod-Amraphel summoned Terah for a private audience, at which he was to learn of the project he was to superintend�
��the one the king promised would become his eternal legacy. This meeting was not at court but in an antechamber where Nimrod normally met with his top military leaders or his stargazers. Today it was just the king and Terah.
He had bowls of figs, quinces, and pomegranates delivered and urged Terah to try these along with olives “for a delightful contrast of tastes.” The king imbibed wine while Terah enjoyed a rich, dark beer. He was careful not to have so much that it clouded his judgment, because Terah rather savored the nectar of prestige.
It seemed Nimrod was at the peak of his power and glory and influence, and he revelled in it. It wasn’t typical of him to dress in his royal finery for private meetings, but today he was resplendent from his heavily bejeweled crown to his thick, colorful, flowing robes to even his embroidered shoes. Terah thought the royal scepter appeared out of place too, but there it stood, propped against the king’s chair—itself nearly as ornate as his great throne.
Nimrod had stationed outside the door an obsequious adjutant even older than Terah. Shamash was known around the palace as a fawning sycophant who groveled for any chance to serve the king. And Nimrod seemed to love barking his name. “Shamash! Wine!” “Shamash! Bread!” Today it was, “Shamash! The tablets from the engineers!”
Shamash would toddle in, humming as if he could barely control his ecstasy at serving. He bowed and scraped and always retreated by backing out. Age had cost him some of his agility, however, and often he backed into the doorframe, which sent him reeling into the door—which he grabbed to keep from slamming into the wall. He would bow some more, begging a thousand pardons, and ever so quietly close the door, waiting for his next summons.
Nimrod stood and carefully arranged the thin cuneiform plates on the table before Terah. Elaborate sketches had been pressed into the now hardened clay, depicting various stages of a colossal building project. The king crossed his arms and appeared to wait for Terah to fully comprehend each rendering. Finally, as if he could no longer contain himself, he said, “You see?”
“It’s beautiful, my lord.”
“Isn’t it?”
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