Veil of the Goddess

by Rob Preece

  "The Army should attack in about six hours.” He spoke slowly, using the best Arabic he could muster. “If you haven't been apprehended by then, let the other men know they need to get out of here. Otherwise you'll be bombed straight to paradise."

  The insurgents would be overjoyed to kill Newland and himself, but he didn't want their deaths on his conscience. And they would be on his conscience. Because he believed Newland was right. This Foundation, whatever it was, had called in an air strike on a mosque not because it had been filled with rebels, but because they wanted it leveled to the ground to ease their search for the Cross. He didn't like the locals, but he could sympathize a bit with their situation. If someone bombed his church back home in south Dallas, he would have wanted to make them pay, too.

  Newland had pulled on the desert robe and was swatting the headwrap against an iron bar. “Trying to get rid of the fleas,” she told him when he gave her what must have been a puzzled look. “I won't get all of them, but I'm not looking for perfection."

  He took a look outside. “You'd better hurry. We're about to have company. Again."

  Chapter 3

  The nomad's wool robes and headgear stank and were rich in fleas, but Ivy was glad for the disguise. With his olive skin and black hair, Zack could pass for a local in the dark. Nobody was going to mistake a blond woman for anything but the foreigner she was.

  Fortunately, she was tall for a woman and many of the locals were short. If she remembered to walk like she had a poker up her butt, she might be able to pass as male for long enough to get out of this place. They might be jumping from a frying pan into the fire, but for right now, she'd settle for jumping anywhere.

  The Captain passed her one of the Kalashnikovs and took another for himself.

  She knew the weapon was just part of the disguise, that if she had to shoot, she was already dead, but being armed made her feel more confident. She stuffed an extra magazine into a pocket of the pants she wore under her desert robes and made sure the clip was full before nodding. “Let's go."

  They lugged the Cross out of the shed and left it leaning against the rubble of the mosque.

  It only took a minute of searching to find a couple of crossbeams in the ruins that looked as if someone could have mistaken them for The Cross, and they dragged those to the crypt where Smith had located his treasure. The Foundation wouldn't mistake those for the True Cross, but she could hope they might think that Smith had.

  "Now what?” she breathed as they laid the second of the beams to rest.

  "The insurgents didn't walk here. So we find one of their vehicles. Maybe we'll be lucky and they won't have left a guard."

  They were lucky to be alive now, even if she ignored Zack's claims that she'd been dead. But relying on luck wasn't in Ivy's training. Unfortunately, she didn't have any better ideas.

  Sure enough, they found a truck parked half a block from the mosque complex. Typical of the luck—all bad—they'd had up until then, a couple of guards remained onboard, smoking cigarettes as they waited for the return of their colleagues.

  For just an instant, a heavy flash of other-sight lowered itself on her. Bombed-out buildings stood as hollow shells of what had once been vibrant businesses and apartments. Here and there, kerosene lanterns cast small patches of yellow light into the night like camping fires set by barbarians residing on a conquered city. Mosul, formerly Nineveh according to be briefing her unit had gotten before they'd shipped there, had been a major city a thousand years before Rome had been founded. The heavy hand of war had beaten entrenched civilization back to barbarism.

  She blinked and the city swam back into focus. It wasn't changed, really. The shattered buildings remained. But it was just a city. In that momentary vision, it had stood for more, as if the entire world had become a war-zone, the heavy tramp of occupying boots not just crushing Iraq, but destroying civilization throughout the world.

  "Ready?” She sensed Zack tensing beside her but the truck was parked in the middle of the street. Although the guards weren't especially alert, there was no way they could approach unnoticed. If Zack got brave and rushed them, he'd get shot. Ivy didn't like the situation they were in, but she liked it a lot more than she would if she were alone.

  She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a chunk of the roll of cash she'd taken from Smith's wallet. “Let me handle this."

  "But..."

  She didn't give him time to voice his objection. Instead she spread the money, flashing that wad of hundreds where the guards could see them and where, hopefully, her blue eyes might be hidden from their gaze. There were some blue-eyed Arabs, of course. But they were rare enough to be noticed, and she didn't want these guys looking at anything but the money.

  Money has a compulsion all its own. A few thousand dollars could buy a new truck, let an insurgent forget about being a rebel and think about running a business, getting a wife. In occupied Iraq, money was hope and life. Nobody asked too many questions about money.

  One of the guards shouted something to her, but she couldn't make out the words. She waved the cash again, then deepened her voice. “There's more."

  She spoke in Arabic. Her accent wouldn't be right, but there were plenty of foreigners, mujahidin, in Iraq. Strange accents wouldn't be completely unknown and her desert robes marked her as an outsider.

  From the look the guard gave her, she guessed her accent was beyond strange. Still, the money held him hypnotized for just long enough.

  She tossed it into his face, then grabbed him and yanked him out of the truck.

  The second guard started to go for his Kalashnikov, but stopped abruptly when Zack jammed his own rifle in his face.

  "Out,” she ordered. “On the ground.” Her Arabic was plenty good for those expressions. American soldiers had to give that command dozens of times every day as they manned the checkpoints around the tortured country.

  The Arab's eyes were filled with hatred but he obeyed, joining the man Zack had already dumped on the ground.

  "When we leave, take the money and run,” Zack told them. His Arabic was a lot better than hers. “The other rebels will kill you for losing the truck if they find you, so hide from them and from the Americans. They'll kill you too."

  "Na am fahamt,” the first guard said, or close enough. Yes, I understand.

  She patted them down, took an ancient revolver, which looked like it might be a souvenir from the war against the British, and tossed it into the cab. “Let's go.” She kept her rifle on the two men while Herrera fired up the engine, then, as he started rolling back toward the mosque, she jumped into the back.

  Back at the mosque complex, it took less than a minute to load up the Cross. Even that was far too long because a couple of insurgents started shouting at them, probably wondering why they had brought the truck onto the scene. The shooting didn't stop until one of the insurgents they'd knocked unconscious stumbled out of the shed—wearing his underwear.

  * * * *

  "That was fun."

  Newland's eyes snapped with humor and her peaches and cream complexion glowed with health.

  They'd managed to get out of Mosul, avoiding both insurgent and U.S. checkpoints, driving at speeds that ranged up to a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, and into the Kurdish countryside that surrounded the mostly Arab city of Mosul.

  "What next, Captain?"

  "Zack."

  "Whatever. You going to answer the question?"

  He rubbed his eyes. The sun was breaking over the horizon and he hadn't slept in about thirty hours. He guessed Newland was no better off.

  "We find someplace to hide for the day. The Turkish border is only about a hundred miles away, but that hundred miles is filled with CIA-trained militias. If we make it that far, then we've got a border to cross."

  "Why Turkey?"

  "Would you rather go to Syria? We've got to get out of Iraq and Turkey is the only country around here where Americans won't stand out like sore thumbs. It's also got enou
gh nationalistic tendencies that the CIA at least has to lay low there."

  He turned off Iraq Highway 2 into what looked like an ancient ruin but turned out to be an abandoned farmhouse.

  The roof had fallen in, but it was summer in Iraq. It wasn't going to rain and the stone walls would provide shade and some protection. After getting some sleep, they'd be better prepared to make the run for the border.

  "We'd better turn back into Americans now, too,” he told her as he carried Smith's briefcase into the ruin. “Because around here, they kill Arabs even faster than they kill Americans. I guess we can pretend to be CIA."

  "It's encouraging to be so loved,” Newland said. She stripped off the sweaty robe and tossed it on the ground. “Hate to admit it, but fleas and all, that's going to be a better mattress than the stone floor.

  She yanked off her armor and leaned against the stone wall of the abandoned and bombed out farmhouse.

  "You figure we can make it?"

  He was glad she spoke because he'd been distracted by the curves beneath the army t-shirt that she'd stripped down to.

  He shrugged. “Not dressed like that. I doubt the CIA has any female field agents in Kurdistan. But if you go male, we might be able to. Even if some of our friends back in Mosul decide to become informants, but what could they tell? That we said we were going back to base? That we stole a white truck? Want to guess how many battered old Renault trucks there are in Mosul?"

  She shrugged her shoulders, looking about as far from being male as anyone Zack had ever seen. “I can do the male thing."

  "Then I figure we can get out of Iraq."

  She looked at him. “Okay. Then what?"

  He sighed, then stood and looked out at the highway, maybe a quarter of a mile away.

  With sunrise, the locals would be moving around. There would be traffic on the road, but not much.

  In the distance, a battered jeep cut off the road and headed into the hills.

  Iraq was supposed to be the location of the Garden of Eden, the birthplace of Abraham and Jonah. But up here at least, it was desolate hilly country.

  "Once we're out of Iraq, I'm clueless. If we can believe what Smith told you, we've got one of the most historic artifacts in history in the back of a farm truck. We already know that the U.S. government is going to do whatever it can to get the Cross from us. From the way Smith turned on you, I'm guessing they won't want witnesses. If we're lucky, they'll disappear us to some CIA torture camp. I don't think we'll be that lucky. They won't want us to talk to anyone."

  Newland ran her hand over the scar on her throat when he mentioned Smith. Zack didn't have problems buying into the miracles in the Bible, and from the Saints. But he had a lot more trouble seeing miracles happen with his own eyes.

  "Sorry I had to remind you about that, Newland."

  She shook her head. “If I have to call you Zack, you can call me Ivy. And the way I figure it, the U.S. Government doesn't have any special right to the True Cross, if that's what it is."

  He was perversely glad that she'd invited him to use her first name. “I'd have to agree with that. If anyone has a claim to it, it's the Church."

  "Maybe that's what the Foundation is. A Church."

  He hadn't thought about that but it made sense. “Maybe. But what kind of church would it be? I'm thinking we need to give it to the Church that's been around since the last time The Cross was in public. The Church that traces its roots back to the apostles."

  "Orthodox? That why you want to go to Turkey, Zack?"

  "The Greeks might have owned the Cross for a while, but the last Christians who had it were Crusaders. They would have been Catholic. I'd admit I might be prejudiced since I'm a Catholic myself."

  Everyone in Iraq remembered the European Crusaders as if they'd just been through a generation before instead of hundreds of years earlier. Saladin was a hero to Turks, Kurds and Arabs. Even Saddam had claimed some sort of descent from him. And he'd been the one who'd captured the real True Cross.

  "Speaking of crusades, if The Cross got turned over to modern-day crusaders, it could really bust things open. The entire Middle East would become even more of a battleground than it is now.” Ivy shuddered. “I wonder if that's what my vision was supposed to mean."

  "Hmm?"

  "Back there.” She waved in the direction of the city, a cloud of smoke and the distant crunch of explosives marking it on the horizon. “It seemed like I could see the whole world stretched out. And it was all like Mosul—bombs and fires and death."

  Zack wasn't a philosopher and had never put much credence in visions—except in ancient visions by saints, of course. But now, all the rules were getting torn up.

  "I'm pretty sure nobody is going to send crusaders in here."

  "Oh, yeah?” Ivy looked around. “What, exactly, do you think we are, then? Christian occupiers in the heart of the Moslem world, that's what. One thing I agree with. The Catholic Church is a better bet than the Foundation. The former Pope spoke against this war. I figure the new one wouldn't turn the Cross over to crusaders, whether they're us Americans or anyone else."

  Newland was right. The modern Catholic Church wasn't going to call for any crusade against the Moslem world. “So we somehow get the Cross to Italy and turn it over to the Pope. No problem, huh?"

  As if.

  * * * *

  Ivy woke up suddenly. Although she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, the artifact hummed with a strange harmonic, sending subsonic disturbances that had blasted her from her sleep.

  "We've got to move."

  "Huh?” Herrera was awake, but he seemed groggy, almost drugged.

  "Grab the Cross. Move."

  Most of the guys Ivy knew would have argued. Herrera picked up Smith's cash-filled briefcase, the assault rifle, and his section of Cross then jogged toward the truck.

  That didn't feel right. And Ivy's hunches had kept her alive before. “Leave the truck."

  "But we'll never make it to the border without transportation."

  "Run."

  She grabbed the crosspiece and took off, heading straight up into the mountains. It wasn't the shortest way toward the Turkish border, but it felt right. Today, she intended to follow her gut.

  A sudden wiggle tore the Cross from Ivy's hands. She dropped into a narrow gully washed into the hillside by a bigger rainstorm than she'd seen since she came to this desolate country. Zack joined her, ducking deep into the wash. He looked at her quizzically, obviously trying to figure out whether she'd gone crazy.

  "I felt some kind of warning from the Cross,” she explained. It sounded idiotic, out loud. Even if the Cross was supernatural, why would it waste its time warning her? She was just a National Guard Sergeant who was at least as woo-woo as she was Christian. Why not warn Herrera. From the way he talked, he had to be a lot better Catholic than she was.

  "If you're wrong, no harm done. If you're right, I'm grateful,” Herrera said. He peered over the edge of the gully, looking for any enemy.

  It took her a moment to realize that the hum she heard wasn't all coming from the Cross. A small plane flashed overhead and circled around the farmhouse.

  "Predator,” Zack whispered.

  The Army was stingy with these unmanned flying weapons. There had been plenty of times Ivy wished she'd had better intelligence from above, someone looking down and spotting insurgents before they started shooting—it had been a wish that had never been realized. Clearly someone in charge thought finding the Cross was more important than saving a few uniformed lives. Ivy wasn't sure they were wrong.

  The drone circled the abandoned farmhouse again, then a white flash temporarily obscured it.

  She barely made out the streak of light that plunged from the drone—into the truck that had carried them so faithfully away from the burning city.

  A second flash and the abandoned farmhouse where they'd hidden disappeared into rubble.

  The drone continued to circle, watching perhaps, to see if there w
ere any survivors. The missiles made it more likely that the drone was CIA rather than military since the army used its Predators mostly for surveillance rather than attacks.

  Ivy swallowed hard trying not to vomit. She'd known they would be hunted, but knowing and seeing were different.

  "Crap.” Zack pointed to the west where twin lines of dust rose toward the sky.

  "Oh, great. Looks like we're about to have company."

  It figured that the CIA would attack first from a distance, then send in resources to pick through the pieces. Unlike the army, the CIA couldn't stand the heat of real battle.

  "Think we should move?” she asked.

  Herrera glanced at the Predator, then at the approaching Kurdish militia.

  "If we stay here, we're dead anyway."

  She picked up the crosspiece and set off up the wash, trying to take advantage of what cover this land offered.

  Fortunately, there was a fair amount of it.

  Low shrubs, scattered windswept olive trees and multiple rocky outcroppings made their journey higher into the Kurdish foothills a challenge, but at least it would be largely inaccessible to the wheeled vehicles the Kurdish militia and their CIA sponsors used.

  At first, Ivy thought carrying the Cross would slow them. Even the shorter crosspiece she carried had to weigh fifty pounds and the bulky timbers were awkward, with a tendency to dig into her shoulders. As they struggled deeper into the mountains, however, she realized that she wasn't growing tired as she normally would. Could the Cross provide energy to her? She wasn't prepared to believe that, but she could no longer doubt that something weird was going on.

  Whoever was operating the Predator kept that drone circling over the farmhouse until the militia arrived, then set it off in widening search patterns. It hovered over the gully where she and Herrera had hidden, then continued on.

  "Maybe it can sense the Cross,” Herrera suggested.

  Ivy nodded, then flung herself down in a rare patch of grass. “Maybe. Or maybe it's something a lot more mundane."

  "Like..."

  "Like the briefcase.” She took the case from Herrera, jerked it open, yanked out the cash and papers, then stared at the Cross that Smith had used to douse for the True Cross. “Can you think of any reason we should take this with us?"