Lion of Babylon

by Davis Bunn

  Even Leyla became surrounded by her own admirers. She gave Sameh a bewildered glance over the head of a gentleman who bowed a formal greeting. Sameh was further amazed when a senior judge offered him the obeisance of a supplicant. The judge was replaced by a total stranger who, in the space of shaking his hand, offered Sameh a month’s work.

  Finally, Hassan’s bodyguard fit himself into the crowd and said, “Effendi, Hassan awaits you in the Records chamber.”

  Sameh courteously levered himself away and followed the bodyguard down the hall and into the chamber where he had first met Jaffar. The memory of how the gathered attorneys and clerks had greeted the imam merged with what had just happened in the foyer. He found the dual images disturbing, as though he were being drawn into an alien world.

  Hassan rose from the bench by the rear wall. He said in a voice meant to carry, “Thank you for coming. I would not have asked, but there is a matter of some urgency.” Hassan indicated the man who had risen to stand alongside him. “Perhaps you know Farouk el-Waziri.”

  “I have not yet had the honor.”

  “Effendi, please,” the man said. “The honor is mine.”

  To have one of the most powerful businessmen in Baghdad salaam him in the ancient manner left Sameh no response but, “This reception I have received today leaves me most uncomfortable.”

  Hassan showed the first hint of his old self, the humor of a man long used to wielding power. “You have become known as a friend of the Americans. You are the man who gets things done.”

  Farouk el-Waziri agreed. “The television shows images of you entering your office. The entire country sees how families reach out to you in supplication. And yet your name is not mentioned. Not even by the justice minister, when he stands so that the plaque on your office building is directly above his head.”

  “I did not see it,” Sameh acknowledged.

  “You were the only one in Iraq who missed it,” Hassan said.

  “Not to mention how the Imam Jaffar is singing your praises and seeking you out,” Farouk noted. “You are the friend everyone needs.”

  Hassam put in, “And who else has managed to rescue a hundred stolen children?”

  “Forty-seven,” Sameh corrected.

  Hassan waved the correction aside. “You are the man who wields power yet chooses to remain hidden.”

  “You care so deeply, you risk your life to bring these children home,” Farouk added. “You put other people’s lives before your own.”

  Hassan said, “You are the Mu-allam.”

  Despite the heat, Sameh shivered. The title was from beyond the reach of time. It meant a venerated man of wisdom. An interpreter of life’s direction. A man to be trusted with the darkest of secrets. Sameh said, “I cannot express how much I dislike all this.”

  Hassan’s humor was a mere glint in dark eyes. “You will grow accustomed to it. But I doubt you will ever like it much.”

  “No man of honor ever does,” Farouk said. “From this day forward, few people will approach you simply because of who you are. Everyone will want something from you. Your every meeting will be charged with the risk that you will have to refuse an entreaty. And thus make an enemy in the process.”

  Sameh managed to put aside his discomfort and study the man standing beside Hassan. He had of course known of Farouk el-Waziri, leader of one of Iraq’s oldest merchant families. The man was small in stature, with a round face and long strands of gray hair combed over a large bald pate. His mustache was wispy, his eyes watery and small.

  Sameh asked, “Why am I here?”

  Hassan pulled a thick envelope from his pocket and handed it over. “Farouk wishes to purchase a tract of land for his new olive oil processing facility. I have agreed to sell it to him. I am asking you to handle the transaction.”

  “It would be my honor.” Sameh inspected the documents. “These seem to be in order.”

  “File them, please, with the registrar,” Hassan said. “We will wait.”

  Bemused, Sameh approached the counter. The senior clerk awaited him with the same eager respect Sameh had last seen when Jaffar had stood at his side. The clerk offered a formal salaam and rushed to do his bidding. Sameh watched the man and two of his aides hurry through the registration process. He felt bewildered and uncertain about what was happening to his life.

  What was more, the presence of the two powerful men behind him was baffling. This was the kind of registration process Sameh would normally have assigned to his assistant, expecting her to be delayed here for most of the day. To have two business owners wait while papers were stamped and the sale recorded made no sense at all.

  Sameh walked over to where the two men were seated in a corner and asked again, “Why am I here?”

  Hassan waved him to the neighboring bench and lowered his voice. “I did as you requested. I inquired around. And now I am being watched.”

  “As am I,” Farouk agreed. “So I suggested we mask this meeting by doing so in public.”

  “Why we are watched, we have no idea. But perhaps your suspicions were correct. There is the possibility the two disappearances are tied together.”

  Sameh asked Farouk, “Have you received a ransom demand?”

  “I heard nothing until yesterday evening. An hour after Hassan visited me, I received a call. On my private line. A man’s voice told me if I stop meddling, my son will be returned to me.”

  Hassan said, “Tell him the rest.”

  Farouk el-Waziri continued, “They said I must order you to stop as well.”

  “But you and I have never met before now,” Sameh quietly protested.

  “Which is exactly what I told them,” Farouk said. “They grew angry and shouted that the life of Taufiq depended upon my doing exactly what they ordered.”

  “Do you want me to discontinue the search?”

  Farouk exchanged a glance with Hassan. “I have no reason to trust them. I have every reason to trust you.”

  “I am deeply touched by your words. But you must understand, your son and the three Americans have been missing now for over a week, and we have no evidence…” Farouk’s expression forced him to stop. “Forgive me.”

  “No, no, you merely give voice to the fears that plague my every waking hour.”

  “Can you describe the voice?”

  “Male, young, brutal, harsh.” His expression turned queasy with the memory. “Perhaps he was not an Iraqi.”

  “He had an accent?” When Farouk hesitated, Sameh gently pressed, “Was it Persian?”

  “Yes. Perhaps.”

  Hassan said, “I approached my closest ally in the government. He wriggled like a fish on a hook, but it appears that the disappearance of these four may somehow be related to the current struggles within the government.”

  “In what way?”

  Hassan leaned closer. “It appears the opposition may be ready to form a new coalition.”

  This was enormous. Since the fall of Saddam, Iraq had been governed by a cluster of religious parties, all of them Shia. As a result, both the Kurds in the north and the Sunni minority had felt excluded from governing and sidelined from doing business with the regime. Extremists within both groups had begun fomenting rebellion.

  Two years earlier, a new political party had been formed, one that sought to reach beyond religious and tribal boundaries. They sought to duplicate the American system, with a clear separation between religious bodies and the government. This new Alliance had done far better than anyone had expected in the recent elections, coming in second by less than a hundred thousand votes.

  To have the new party form a government was something Sameh had yearned for but never thought would happen. “You are certain?”

  “I am.”

  Farouk said, “You understand how angry this has made the extremists.”

  “Of course.” The religious extremists were also exclusionary. They only wanted to deal with like-minded Iraqis. Everyone else was classed as enemies. “It also explains somet
hing that happened to me recently.”

  Sameh described his walk past the Persian market, being accosted by the young clerics. When he was done, Hassan said, “You must hire bodyguards.”

  “For your family as well,” Farouk said. “I have a security company. I will handle this.”

  “It was my idea,” Hassan protested.

  “You will let me do this one thing. I wish-”

  “Friends, please.” Sameh lifted his hands. “I am grateful for your concern. But this is not-”

  “Not what? Not necessary?” Hassan looked injured. “What will you say to Leyla when Bisan does not return home from school?”

  Sameh clutched his chest. “You will not speak such words again.”

  “May it never happen,” Farouk said. “May you never endure what I and my family have been forced to suffer.”

  Hassan said, “These conservative clerics do not make idle threats. Have you told your wife about your encounter?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Or the American? Or Leyla?” Hassan revealed a trace of the iron will behind his success. “You will do this. Tonight.”

  “Agreed.” Sameh wiped his face. “Please, may we return to the matter at hand?”

  “We have never left it,” Hassan said. “The extremists are worried. They have attacked several politicians tied to this new Alliance. They have kidnapped our sons. They have ordered you off. All these are facts.”

  Sameh struggled to release himself from the sweaty terror. Bisan. His jewel. “But why go after your son?”

  “Taufiq is a supporter of the Alliance. I gave him my blessing.”

  Hassan said again, “Tell him the rest.”

  “The Imam Jaffar shares my son’s views.”

  “But how can this be? Jaffar’s father is closely tied to the religious party.”

  “But his son, Jaffar, is not.”

  Sameh looked from one to the other. “This is true? The son will go against the father?”

  “Softly, softly,” Hassan said. “And with the father’s quiet blessing.”

  “Son and father do not agree on the nation’s political future. But the father approves of the son, and the son is his own man.” Farouk el-Waziri shrugged. “How could I not do likewise?”

  “I did not know any of this.”

  “Why should you? Only a few of their closest supporters are aware. I only know because Taufiq told me. In strictest confidence.”

  “I will honor your secret.” Sameh rubbed his face hard. “I am sorry. I still do not see the connection. It was not just your son they took. There were three Americans.”

  “My son met occasionally with people he never identified to me. These meetings happened once a week, perhaps twice. When I asked, he merely said they were tied to the Alliance, and he was being careful.” Farouk hesitated, then added, “There was a note in his calendar. For tonight. I assumed it was another of these meetings.”

  “Do you have an address?”

  Farouk el-Waziri handed over a slip of paper made damp and worn by hands trembling in terror. “I dare not go. If the extremists see me…”

  Sameh accepted the paper. “Of course I understand.”

  Hassan said, “And you will speak with your wife and family about guards?”

  “Tonight,” Sameh agreed. “After I investigate this meeting of Taufiq’s.”

  Hassan offered Sameh his hand. “We should perhaps not see one another again unless it pertains to something of great importance.”

  “Yes, I agree.”

  Farouk started to follow Hassan from the room, then turned back to murmur, “Jaffar told me to place the life of my son in your hands. I did not understand his instructions until now.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  S ameh led Marc into the church’s gloomy interior. He already regretted coming. The Assyrian church resembled a cave, dismal and dank. It was anyone’s guess how the place had survived the destruction inflicted upon so many Christian houses of worship.

  The ancient structure was one block off a main thoroughfare that ran from the Green Zone to Sadr City. Baghdad’s largest slum was a hotbed of extremist activity. Sadr City bred a very special type of Shia fanaticism, one that Sameh quietly abhorred.

  Saddam Hussein had filled the area with his spies and his secret police and his oppressive terror. Now that Saddam was gone, the powerful mullahs of Sadr City shouted their angry impatience.

  The religious leaders of Sadr City wanted a return to a fabled past, a religious state that enforced strict sharia, Islamic law. They wanted women confined in head-to-toe blackness, viewing the world through tiny bars of thread. These mullahs were backed by people who had lost all hope, who viewed the future as just a repetition of the unjust past, and so wished to bring all the world down to their level.

  Following the Assyrian tradition, the church hall was a large and empty space. Parishioners stood throughout the services, which were mostly spoken in dialects no one but the priests understood. Two oil lamps burned to either side of a smoke-scarred icon. The walls were adorned with prayer medallions left by penitents claiming miracles. These metal circles glittered in the candlelight.

  The footsteps of the two men echoed off the stone floors and towering peaked roof. Sameh fit himself into an alcove with a marble bench to the left of the doorway and muttered, “I fear this is a waste of time.”

  “Tell me why we’re here.”

  Sameh described the meeting with Farouk and Hassan, and explained about the note in Taufiq’s diary for a meeting at this church. Marc settled onto the bench beside him and asked, “Why did they warn you about protection now?”

  It was typical of the American to identify the one unfinished strand. “Something happened the other day.” He described being accosted outside the Persian market.

  “You should have told me this before.”

  Sameh merely sighed.

  “Farouk is right. This is serious business.”

  Sameh leaned his head against the cold stone wall. “When my family hears of this, my freedom to decide about America will be lost.”

  “Not as completely,” Marc replied, “as if extremists kidnapped your-”

  “Don’t say it.” Sameh’s bark echoed through the otherwise empty nave. “Not ever.”

  It was Marc’s turn to sigh.

  “My family will not say anything directly to me.” Sameh shut his eyes to the gloom. “They respect my wishes too much. They know how important it is for me to feel I am doing all I can to help my nation. But their concerns will grow and grow until the unspoken desires seep into my bones and ruin my nights. And my days.”

  Marc was silent so long that Sameh could almost hear the arguments the American was no doubt developing. But all Marc said was, “I understand.”

  Sameh opened his eyes.

  Marc stared at the floor by his feet. “Every time I left on assignment, Lisbeth filled the air with everything she didn’t say. I hated how the unspoken became a barrier between us. But there wasn’t anything I could have told her that would make things better. I lived for my work.”

  “And yet, in the end, you gave it up for her.”

  Marc’s nod was almost lost to the church’s shadows.

  Sameh glanced at his watch. They had been at the site going on an hour. “Perhaps we should-”

  Marc touched Sameh’s arm. “Someone’s coming.”

  Perhaps it was just his fatigue that kept him from noticing. Or his greater burden of years. But Sameh thought it was probably the American’s honed sixth sense. Because even after Marc silenced him, Sameh still heard nothing. Then, after a breathless eternity, there was the soft scrape of quiet footsteps.

  Marc melted into the shadows. Sameh had seen him in action before, yet still he felt a momentary panic. He was mistaken to assume he understood this American, or could claim to grasp what had shaped him. Or what he was doing now.

  A yelp at the church’s far end drew Sameh forward. An Iraqi protested in high-pitched
Arabic for Marc to let him go.

  Instead, Marc drew the man through a side door which, until that moment, Sameh had not known existed.

  The side alley was fetid as only a poor Baghdad street could be. It had remained unswept for weeks, perhaps longer. A series of dark puddles were no doubt fed by some leaking sewage pipe. Inhabitants of neighboring tenements had added to the stench by piling refuse by their doorways. Clearly there had not been any garbage collection around here during Ramadan.

  If Marc noticed the odor, he gave no sign. “Ask him what he’s doing.”

  The man was in his late thirties and outweighed Marc by fifty pounds. Even so, he plucked futilely at Marc’s hold on his arm. “Tell him to let me go!”

  Sameh replied in Arabic, “I will ask him to loosen his grip, but only if you are still.”

  The man only struggled harder. “This is an outrage! I entered a house of peace!”

  “Tell us why, and we will free you.”

  “Why do you think? To worship!”

  “I have lived in Baghdad all my life. I know this church and its priests and its congregants. I know them better than you do.” Sameh kept his voice calm and steady, as though there was nothing to suggest a reason for panic. “I ask you again, what were you doing here, in an empty church, in the middle of the week?”

  The man was in the process of forming another protest when a truck passed in front of the alley’s mouth, splashing its headlights down to where they stood. The man studied Sameh’s face and said, “I know you.”

  Sameh was fairly certain he had never seen this man before. “I am known to many.”