Team Red

by David DeBatto

  Immediately, three men were upon him.

  He saw two men grab Evelyn Warner and hustle her toward the van. Khalil had his arms raised over his head. Someone was pointing a gun at Adnan’s head.

  DeLuca threw one man off him, drove a second into a fruit stand, and had just struggled to his feet when he turned to see a third man with the butt of his rifle raised above DeLuca’s head. He saw the rifle butt just before it struck him hard above his left ear.

  “That didn’t hurt as much as I thought it was going to,” he thought.

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter Ten

  HE WAS IN A CAR.

  The car was moving at a moderate rate of speed on a dirt road.

  He didn’t feel the sudden lateral shifts or roller-coastering that might have told him he was on a mountain road, so his best guess was, they were more likely in a valley or on a plateau somewhere.

  It sounded and felt like a large vehicle with heavy suspension and shocks that were fairly new, probably the black SUV he’d seen. It had been a four-door. He was in the far back. Someone was next to him. He heard a cough. Someone else was on the other side of him. His hands were bound behind his back with the same kind of plastic flex cuffs that U.S. forces were using in the field. His head hurt, and there was a ringing in his ear.

  He heard two men conversing in the seat in front of him. One was angry. They were speaking in Arabic.

  “Athun innak mukhaberat Amreekeyeh,” he heard a man say. “I think you are CIA.”

  “I don’t speak your language,” he heard Evelyn say. “I work for the BBC. I’m a British citizen. My papers will tell you that. I’m a British citizen.”

  “CIA,” the man repeated.

  “I’m a reporter for the BBC,” she repeated. She did not sound scared. “Do you watch Al Jazeera? I’ve been on Al Jazeera several times. You can call the news director there and ask him. If you take this bloody hood off, maybe somebody in your group would even recognize me. I am doing a report on the refugees. I’m trying to let the world know these people need help. If you let me go . . .”

  “Shut up!” the man said. “You are CIA. You are both CIA.”

  “Herr Tischler is an art dealer,” she said. “He is German. Germany is not an ally of the United States in this war.”

  “Shut up now,” the man said.

  The men conversed again in Arabic.

  DeLuca felt behind him for anything he might be able to use to cut the flex cuffs, the edge of a seatbelt latch, perhaps.

  He felt the car turn off whatever road they were on, and then the way became rougher, larger potholes and bumps, curves that threw him from side to side, things in the road that caused the vehicle to come to a sudden stop on several occasions. His best guess was that there were sheep in the road—at one point he thought he smelled some kind of manure.

  The car proceeded slowly. He imagined they were in the mountains. The sunlight strobed through the fabric of his hood. Were they driving through a forest of some kind? It seemed cooler.

  Then the car stopped.

  DeLuca heard voices outside the car, doors opening, including the rear tailgate, and when it did, he felt a breeze. He heard the sound of a second car pulling up behind them. The men on either side of him got out of the SUV. One of them poked him hard in the ribs with the barrel of his gun. DeLuca didn’t move or speak. The SUV’s doors slammed shut, and he heard the muffled voices of men speaking.

  He heard breathing inside the vehicle. He listened intently for another minute, until he felt certain there was only one other person in the car with him.

  “Evelyn?” he whispered.

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered back. “Thank God you’re all right.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t see you.”

  “I can’t see either,” he said. “Sit tight. We’re going to be okay.”

  “I’ve been listening,” she said. “They don’t know I speak Arabic. One of them wants to kill us. The other wants to use us to free U.S. prisoners. And one says they should ask for money, too.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  Before she could answer, the doors opened again. He heard her scream as someone grabbed her and dragged her from the car. Then the tailgate opened and someone grasped him around the ankles, pulling him violently out of the car. He braced himself, landing on his back in the dirt. He went limp.

  He was dragged across the ground by the feet, over a threshold and into a darkened room. The door closed behind him. He tasted blood. His own. The room smelled like goat shit. He felt with his tongue and realized a tooth had loosened. He felt something wet between his fingers, and from the pain, judged that his wrists were bleeding, too. Yet he believed all his injuries were most likely superficial.

  “Herr Tischler,” he heard a woman whisper urgently. “Are you there?”

  He didn’t answer at first, because he wasn’t sure they were alone. He heard yelling outside, and a single gunshot. He listened. Nothing.

  “I’m here,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “Are you all right?”

  “My head feels like I’ve been kicked by a camel,” he said. “Other than that. Are you okay?”

  “My right hand has fallen completely asleep,” she said.

  “What have they been saying?” he asked her. “Who are they?”

  “I don’t quite know,” she said. “I don’t think they’re particularly good at what they do. There’s quite a bit of dissension among them.”

  “I agree,” he said. “I was afraid at first that Ibrahim had made us, but these guys have already made four mistakes. They put us together, they didn’t gag us so we can talk to each other, they didn’t even tie our legs, and these flex cuffs aren’t meant to be used except temporarily. I’m thinking this was improvised.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “One of the first things they did was stop to pick up a man named Hmood. I don’t know his last name. The driver of our car kept asking him who he thought might be willing to pay for us. I think we’re just hostages of convenience. My impression is that they grabbed us when they saw the opportunity, figuring they could trade us to somebody else who might know what to do with us.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “I can run,” she said. “I just can’t see.”

  “Hang on,” he said. “If you can. They’re going to need more information before they can figure out what to do with us. I’ll go first if I can and try to stop them from interrogating you, but I’m only going to get over for as long as it takes one of them to call a buddy in Hamburg to see if the real Jan Tischler is in his shop, and there are plenty of Arabs to call in Hamburg. I wouldn’t count on more than twenty-four hours. Maybe not even that. I’ll tell them you were trying to do a story on me after meeting me at the hotel. When I get back, I’ll get the cuffs off you.”

  “What makes you think . . .” she began, but stopped when she heard the door open. DeLuca heard two or three men enter the room.

  “I must insist on speaking with your leader,” he said, mustering the best German accent he could. He tried to get to his feet. “I am a German citizen. I am a guest of the government of Iran. I have a visa.”

  Two men suddenly grabbed him, one on each arm, and hustled him out into daylight. He walked perhaps thirty or forty meters before entering a second building, where he was forced to sit in a chair. He felt someone tie his ankles to the legs of the chair, and then his hood was removed, another amateur mistake. There were six men in the room. Only one appeared to be over the age of twenty. The five younger men were armed with rifles, one sporting a pair of ammunition belts crossing his chest in front like some Islamic Pancho Villa, though DeLuca recognized this to be something of a fashion accessory, given that the bullets in his ammunition belts were not going to fit the gun he was carrying, an old Israeli Uzi with a stock extension. DeLuca guessed that the older man was Hmood, the one they’d stopped to get after the abducti
on. Hmood appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties. He wore dark sunglasses, and he was smoking a Kool cigarette.

  The house appeared to be some kind of farmhouse, though the shades had been pulled, preventing DeLuca from assaying the surrounding countryside.

  “Shoe ismak?” Hmood said in Arabic, repeating himself in English, walking slowly until he stood behind his prisoner. His body odor could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon, and his breath was worse than his body odor. “What is your name?”

  “Meine name ist Jan Tischler,” DeLuca said, laying his German accent on thick. He probably sounded like Sergeant Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes, but what would Hmood know? “I am from Hamburg.”

  “I did not ask you where you are from,” his interrogator said, shouting at him and slapping him across the back of his head with his hand.

  “I’m sorry,” DeLuca said.

  “Where are you from?”

  “I am from Hamburg,” DeLuca said.

  “Shoe btishtaghel? La min ebtishtaghel?” he said, translating, “What do you do? Who do you work for?”

  “I have an art gallery,” he said. “I specialize in Middle Eastern antiquities. That is why I am here.”

  “And who buys these things from you?” Hmood asked.

  “Many people,” DeLuca said. “Museums. Collectors. Japanese. Saudis. Many people.”

  “So you are here to assist in the looting of my country?” Hmood asked. “You are here to buy artifacts stolen from museums during the war. Is that not correct?”

  “Not at all,” DeLuca said. He saw the opening he was hoping for. “I had simply heard from my sources that during times of economic hardship such as these, people often seek to raise money, to feed their families, by selling heirlooms and family treasures that they might otherwise wish to hold on to. I’ve come simply to help those families and to make sure they get a fair price.”

  Hmood laughed.

  “A fair price?” he said. “So you are here, out of the goodness of your heart, to help the Iraqi people. You are noble humanitarian, is that it, Herr Tischler?”

  “I admit that current market forces . . .”

  “Market forces!” Hmood interrupted angrily, slapping him again. “You are lying to me. You are here to take advantage. To participate in the plunder of my country. You are here to rape the Iraqi culture.”

  He glared at DeLuca, his nostrils flaring rhythmically, then gave a command in Arabic, and the five younger men left the room.

  Once they’d gone, Hmood pulled a chair closer to DeLuca and spoke in a low voice, leaning in.

  “I think, Herr Tischler, that you are an unscrupulous businessman, yes?” he said. “Perhaps the CIA pays you to tell them what you learn when you go on these buying trips . . .”

  “No,” DeLuca said. “I have nothing to do with them. I have nothing to do with politics. I am an art dealer.”

  “An art dealer,” Hmood said. “And just what kind of art is it that you were hoping to find?”

  DeLuca hoped he was remembering his cover story accurately. He’d done his best to memorize the fact sheets that MacKenzie had given him, and she’d done a thorough job, but he worried about slipping up.

  “I want what anybody else would want,” he said. “Sumerian. Elamite. Babylonian and neo-Babylonian. I have a buyer in Kuwait interested in anything from the period of al-Ma’moun the Great, anything from his House of Wisdom, but especially Arabic translations from Greek and Latin.”

  “And for these things, you think you can pay money and take them out of the land of their origin?” Hmood said.

  “I can pay a fair price here and make my profit on the other end,” DeLuca said. “Everyone is too afraid to come here at the moment. I’m the only buyer in town. I was not afraid to come. I know the Arab peoples are good businessmen, so I came.”

  “And look where it got you,” Hmood said.

  “It has allowed me to meet a man of intelligence and tact,” DeLuca said, “unlike the little boys he has working for him. I think a man who can see how useful someone like myself might be, able to change artifacts into cash that might be used to buy things of greater utility. It’s one thing to suddenly come into possession of a family heirloom and quite another to know how to sell it in such a way as to get the greatest value from it, and in such a way that the seller’s identity might be protected. I understand of course how some of my sellers do not want their names attached to the transaction, and I can arrange for that as well.”

  Hmood glanced toward the door, then leaned in closer.

  “Is there a particular Sumerian dynasty that you’re interested in?” he asked. “Because I might know a man who might have found something from the tombs at Ur.”

  “The tombs at Ur?” DeLuca said. “Hmm. I would, of course, prefer first or second dynasty. I can sell third but it’s usually not as valuable. And of course, if I could find someone able to give me a good supply of artifacts or references to other customers, I would include that person in the transaction and pay them a finder’s fee. Ja? A percentage. What might the object from the tombs be—can you describe it?”

  “It’s a golden harp,” Hmood said. “With the head of a bull, carved in gold, mounted at the front.”

  DeLuca had used up all the backstory Mack had supplied him with. He knew about the tombs of Ur, but he’d never heard of any golden harps. From this point on, he would have to get over with pure bullshit.

  “I believe there may have been a similar item in the museum in Baghdad before the war,” he said. He’d guessed correctly.

  “There was,” Hmood said. “Terrible thing. And this harp is so similar that I’m afraid it could be mistaken for the other. I think it must be handled just so.”

  “That is something I would understand completely,” DeLuca said. “Bear in mind that we Germans are particularly sensitive to art objects that may change hands during times of war. Both my father and my grandfather had some experience in such areas.”

  “I will discuss it with my colleagues,” Hmood said. “I think you could be more useful this way. They want to take you to Abu Waid and hold you for ransom. I think this could be wiser, if you can prove what you say.”

  “I assure you that I can,” DeLuca said. “But if you do decide to discuss it with your colleagues, remember that the finder’s fee is going to be a finite sum. They may wish to share in it. I also think it would be best if you did not tell the woman about our conversation. It often helps to have the assistance of a journalist in creating a provenance for such objects—a story that makes them easier to buy and sell. People see it written down and they think it must be true. I was thinking of this when I met her at the hotel. She knows nothing of my private transactions.”

  “She says she is BBC.”

  “She is,” DeLuca said. “I think she could be quite useful to us, if you allow me to convince her. We might be able to tell her this was nothing more than a misunderstanding.”

  Hmood looked at him a moment longer, then summoned the others and directed them to take DeLuca back to where he’d been held. They put the hood back over his head, but not before he was able to peek quickly out the door. He saw a mountain in the distance. That didn’t tell him much.

  The first order of business was to get the hood off his head. The flex cuffs his captors had used on him were designed to serve only as a temporary restraint, made out of a double-looped strip of nylon, tougher than the plastic twist-ties used back home to close garbage bags, but that only meant it would take a bit more time to saw through them. His captors also didn’t know any better than to leave two prisoners in the same room. He and Evelyn Warner could help each other.

  He instructed her to kneel on the floor, then turned his back to her and worked at the hood over her head with his bound hands until he’d loosened and freed it. She then did the same for him.

  “That’s better, then,” she whispered. “At least now we can . . . oh, dear. Are you all right? You’ve got blood on you,” she said.

&n
bsp; “It probably looks worse than it is. If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, “there’s a chain around my neck. If you could loop your finger around it and pull it over my head . . .”

  He felt her fingers tickling his neck.

  “You’re going to use your crucifix to pick the lock,” she said. “The critics at the Times literary supplement are going to be all over that for clumsy symbolism, but whatever works.”

  She extracted the chain and felt the object attached to it.

  “Good God—what is that? That’s not a crucifix.”

  “That’s a P-38,” he told her. “It’s a can-opener. Turn around and I’ll cut you loose.”

  “Why do you have a can-opener around your neck?”

  “Old soldiers’ habit,” he explained, using the can-opener’s blade to saw at the cuffs holding her wrists. “All the old C rations came in tin cans, so every soldier before 1990 or so got a P-38. It only takes once, getting caught starving to death with a tin can full of food you can’t open, before you learn to have it with you at all times. With MREs, you don’t really need ’em anymore, but every once in a while, they come in handy.”

  “Do you think he believed your story?”

  “I think he wanted to believe it,” DeLuca said. “All the same, I think it would be better if we left tonight.”

  “You make it sound like a fait accompli,” she said.

  “That always sounded like some sort of fancy dessert,” he said. “Like Bananas Foster or Friendly Fribbles.”

  “Rather you not talk about food right now,” she said. “Feeling a bit peckish.”

  “Sorry,” he said. They heard the sounds of Arab television coming from the main house. “Being a hostage has its drawbacks, but it’s also a very low-carb experience. They never tell you that part.”