Tom grunted. “Let’s go talk to the man.”
43
Standing in the entrance to the tent, he blocked the light like a robed eclipse. Sheikh Khalid al-Kabir wore the ubiquitous keffiyeh headdress of the Arab male, red-and-white checked, with twin black ropes wrapped around his head to keep it in place, their ends hanging down his back. But the rest of his wardrobe was an anachronism. An open, white muslin robe hung from his shoulders, but it covered a black dress shirt and well-worn blue jeans. A pair of supple, sagging leather boots had lost most of their color to the scoring wind of the desert.
Kabir was taller than Bohannon, his thick, curly, jet-black hair and beard streaked with the gray of leadership and hardship. He was broad shouldered and solidly muscled. Even standing still, Sheik Kabir commanded attention and evoked respect.
Behind the sheikh stood two imposing Bedouin fighters, Kabir’s lieutenants. The three of them created a formidable presence. Bohannon felt a shiver of apprehension.
“Hey, Chief.” Rizzo sidled up to the surprised Arab. “You got any genies stuffed away in your saddle bags? You know, three wishes and we can all be sipping piña coladas in Barbados?”
A smile on his face, Kabir leaned over toward Rizzo. “You are most fortunate to be a friend of Ann’s. Perhaps, I will deal with you later. But first …”
Kabir stepped across the tent and stood in front of Bohannon. He looked at the sling once again encasing Bohannon’s right arm and offered his right hand.
“Mr. Bohannon, forgive me. In our culture, it is an insult to offer the left hand. I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet you. A man worthy of Ann’s love is a man I would be proud to call friend.”
Bohannon searched Kabir’s face for sarcasm. After a heartbeat, he stepped closer and gingerly grasped the sheik’s right hand. A volume of life’s experience could be conveyed in a man’s handshake. True hearts and trustworthy character are communicated in an instant. Or their opposite. Kabir’s hand was rough and calloused, but his handshake was warm, firm, and sincere. In that moment, he won Tom’s trust.
“My men and I are at your service,” said Kabir. “Tell me, how can we be of assistance?”
“How about making breakfast?” Rizzo was straightening his rumpled shirt. “Pancakes would be great.”
Over the next hour, in a surreal summit meeting with the extended members of the team present, Tom and Annie told Kabir and his lieutenants their story of the mezuzah, its secret messages, how it cost some their lives, and why it was still pursued with such violent determination by the Prophet’s Guard and the Muslim Brotherhood. They told him about Aaron’s staff and what they believed they were called to do now that it had been found.
“But why,” asked Kabir, “would God want to remove such a powerful weapon from the garden, where it’s been safe for over two thousand years, and bring it back into a world as unstable as this one, into a country as close to anarchy as Iraq?”
“Good question,” said Rodriguez. “One we’ve been asking ourselves. But over the last couple of months, we’ve been doing a lot of things we didn’t understand. Even a biblical scholar wouldn’t be able to give us a reasonable answer to that question. It’s just pretty clear we’ve been led to this time, this place, and this responsibility … if you can believe that.”
Kabir opened his arms and looked down at the long robe covering his jeans. “Because of my clothes, and where I live, you think me a Muslim. That is understandable. But I am not. I am Coptic.”
Sitting on the floor, propped up against his pack, Rizzo was now cleaning the dried clay out of his fingernails with the smaller blade of his Swiss Army knife. “Another Coptic? Do you know those guys over in Egypt who are bringing pantaloons back in fashion? The Temple Guard. They saved my butt once.”
“Perhaps they had no other choice?”
“Another wise guy. Say, you and Mr. Hilarious Rodriguez should get together sometime for a comedy jam. Slim Jim and the Camel Jockey. Sounds like a fun act. But I’ve got more important work to do,” he said, digging under another crusted nail.
“Most people of our tribe are Coptic Christians,” said Kabir. “Copts are the largest population of Christians in the Middle East. Our ancestors originally wandered into Assyria from Egypt. So I am fully aware of the meaning associated with ritual Jewish sacrifice returning to the Temple. You think the staff has a part to play in this final age?”
“When I saw the staff in the garden, when it was still implanted in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it was alive, budding,” said Tom. “It glowed and shimmered—pulsed, really—like the entire tree around it. But when it flew out of the tree and into my hand, it deteriorated into a weathered old stick. Our rabbi friend back in Jerusalem said Jewish tradition believed Aaron’s staff would become the ruling scepter of their Messiah in the Millennium. For me, that’s just too far off, too much to consider. All I know is, after all we’ve been through, all that’s been revealed to us, I believe—we believe—that we’ve been called to find the staff, to bring it back to Israel, and to leave it someplace safe. We think the Israel Museum. They’ve kept the Dead Sea Scrolls safe; they should be able to keep this safe.”
Sheik Khalid al-Kabir nodded his head. “Then we need to get you to Israel as quickly and safely as possible. Do you have a plan?”
“Our plan ended when the Baghdad airport closed to us,” said Tom.
“Then we need a new plan.”
Gamal clutched the Russian-made machine gun close to his chest, the oil smell from the gun barrel competing for supremacy with the dry, desert dust that clogged his nostrils. He felt out of place with these warriors, certainly awkward, because his knowledge of the terrain made him their de facto leader, which increased his unease. He had no trouble directing the efforts of the poor and ignorant local Iraqis who joined their cause. But these men, a dozen heavily armed agents of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Special Apparatus unit, professional killers who were flown into Baghdad last night, were trained in terror and torture. Last night, they had ambushed Naouri and beaten out of her the location of the Americans. Normally, the Apparatus operated in smaller teams. But his leader had brought these men together because of the urgency of the moment and the demands of the one who guided them all. The Americans must be found. He had failed last night. He must not fail today.
Naouri didn’t hold up long under the beating, and her directions to the Americans’ camp, farther east than he would have imagined, were clear and precise. Even in the barren wastes of the desert, without roads or signs, Gamal and his men had no difficulty following the landmarks Naouri remembered and the direction she mapped out.
His men moved in the shadows at the base of the high-desert dunes, dark within dark evolving across the face of the sand. These Americans must be stopped, but not before they revealed what they knew or surrendered what they had discovered.
They rounded the end of a dune. A huge, hulking shape appeared to Gamal’s left. A massive, sandstone pillar, it looked like a giant of a man about to strike a blow. In spite of himself and the directions that led him to this place, Gamal stopped and took a step back. Left from here, she said. Down the wadi between the dunes.
He inclined his head to the left and stepped around the rock, the black-clad assassins in his wake.
Whalen pulled a rolled-up pack of maps out of his Land Rover and spread two out over the vehicle’s hood. Rizzo clambered up onto a fender by using the tire as a ladder. Kabir laughed and motioned him closer. “Over here, my feisty friend.” He bent over the maps as the others gathered around. He pointed to the large map of the central Middle East. Iraq was an irregular triangle, pointed down—its bottom edge the border with Saudi Arabia, the bottom right point at the Persian Gulf, its right flank bordered by Iran, its left flank bordered by Syria, and Jordan at the blunted lower left point.
“This is the Euphrates, slicing diagonally through Iraq from northwest to southeast and the gulf. On the east, fertile land. On the west”—Kabir’s han
d moved across one-third of the map—“all the way to the Jordanian highlands and the Lebanon Mountains is the great Anbar desert.” He pulled the bottom, more detailed map, to the top.
“You have a few options—none of them good,” said Kabir, glancing up at the others. “There are over ten thousand ISIS fighters north of here around Fallujah and Ramadi, and the army is massing a force up there for a counterattack. Obviously, we can’t get to Israel by going east into Iran, and traveling south into Saudi Arabia would double the distance for no rational reason. So one possibility is to go west through the desert. Al Anbar is vast and lifeless, larger than the state of California. Crossing that desert in a camel caravan is the safest way. We will never be discovered.”
Rizzo looked over at the camels, which the sheik’s men were attending. “Hundreds of miles on one of those things? I’ll stay here and get chopped into baba ghanoush, thank you.”
“How long will that take, by caravan?” asked Annie.
“Two or three weeks, perhaps more.”
“Do we have that much time?”
“If you’d ask me, I’d doubt it,” said Whalen. “So far, we’ve been lucky, but it can’t last. I think you need to get outta here now, and get as far away from here as possible, as quickly as possible. And I don’t think those camels will do it.”
Sheik Kabir looked over at Bohannon. Someone would need to decide.
“The longer we possess the staff, the longer we’re in danger,” said Bohannon. “We get the staff to the museum, and it’s over. We’re done.”
“Very well,” said Kabir, “then we do one of two things—we drive west, through the desert, eight hundred kilometers, through Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, try to navigate the Karak Gorge and cross the Israeli border illegally, south of the Dead Sea.”
Rizzo twisted around on the fender and looked at Kabir as if he’d just spoken Japanese. “Are you a loon? Why don’t we just shoot each other in the head?”
Nodding his head, Kabir placed a hand on Rizzo’s shoulder. “And you won’t like the next option, either.” He looked over his shoulder at Bohannon. “Your friend’s private jet … is it still in Baghdad?”
Startled for a moment, Bohannon shook his head. “I don’t know. He said he would send it back if he could.” He looked at the powered down satellite phone he’d received from Sam Reynolds strapped to his left wrist. “But if I can reach him with this …” He held up his arm.
A quizzical look on his face, Kabir shrugged his shoulders. “Then, here is what I propose. About 250 kilometers northwest of here is the abandoned Al Asad air base. The air base is massive—twenty-five kilometers across with six runways. It was the headquarters of the Iraqi Air Force and, after the second invasion, the primary land base for Allied air forces. It’s been abandoned since 2011, but the runways are in perfect shape. There is a small unit of Iraqi defense corps whose primary job is to patrol the perimeter fence. They have been known to turn a blind eye in the past, for the right consideration. If you can get your friend’s jet to Al Asad, it will have no trouble landing on the runway farthest from the tower.
“To reach Al Asad, the most direct route would take us on the main highways, along the path of the Euphrates, through the middle of Fallujah and Ramadi. Not a good idea.”
“So far,” said Rizzo, “all of your ideas are registering a zero on the Rizz-Man meter. What else do you have up your burnoose, Ahab?”
Kabir looked at Rizzo his eyebrows arched high, and his hand on the curved dagger that he incongruously kept tucked in his belt. “What was it you wanted to be chopped into?”
“Hundred dollar bills? Okay, okay. I get the point.”
Kabir nodded and a grin slowly spread to his eyes. “There are two bridges over the western branch of the Euphrates, one north of us at Hindiyah and another about twenty kilometers south. Instead of going north, we’ll run south to that bridge, then cut due west, cross country, another twenty kilometers.”
He pointed at two vertical lines running north and south along the length of the river on the west bank, opposite Babylon.
“This is the Najaf road,” he said, pointing to the road closest to the river. “It would be a good route north. But too obvious and too well-traveled. Over here”—he pointed to the line further west—“is a road with no name, no number. Not a bad road, but less traveled. It passes west of Karbala, east of Lake Razzaza, bypassing both Fallujah and Ramadi. It is our best chance.
“Altogether, over three hundred kilometers—two hundred miles—give or take. With good luck, we should cover the distance in six hours.”
“Great,” said Rizzo. “Good luck has been as plentiful around here as pickled cobra venom.”
“With your permission,” Kabir said, nodding toward Whalen, “we make a trade. My camels for your Land Rovers. Two Rovers we send back to Baghdad. One takes Ms. Naouri to get medical attention. The other, with your photo equipment, goes to the airport—in case Tom’s magic phone doesn’t work—and finds out if the jet was sent back. Tom, can you give them a way to identify themselves that would get your friend to send the plane to Al Asad?”
“I can do that.”
“Good. Then the other two vehicles we transform.” Kabir turned to his men and spoke a few words of Arabic. They immediately left the tent. He turned back to the assembled team. “We make them disappear. Let’s get to work.”
While Whalen’s team struck camp, breaking down the tents and packing their gear in the two Land Rovers, Kabir’s men were vigorously working with a concerted purpose, transferring wildly diverse material from the camel caravan to the Land Rovers. Tents and carpets were piled on roofs and hoods, pots and tent poles hung from the sides, making the Rovers look like a Bedouin camp on the move.
“By the way, how did you find us?” Bohannon asked.
“You were given something before you left Jerusalem. Something from an old friend. So you wouldn’t get lost.”
“Fischoff? You know Fischoff?”
“Well, let’s just say the sergeant and I have fought together against the same enemies,” said Kabir, “and at times on the same soil. He contacted me after you disappeared from the Tel Aviv airport and asked if my men would watch for your arrival. I told him of the phone call from Ann. That’s when he asked if I still had the transponder. We’ve been closing in on your signal since yesterday.”
“I would like to take as many of my men as possible,” said Kabir. “They know the desert, and they know the way. If anything should happen—”
“It would be best to have as many men as possible,” Whalen interrupted. “I know … I understand. But I don’t think that’s the wisest course.
“This isn’t a military operation,” said Whalen, “it’s an escape. Our job is to help get Bohannon, his team, and his package safely out of the country. It’s not our mission to take on the Iraqi militias, or ISIS, or anyone else with a gun. If we have to fight our way through to Al Asad we’re in big trouble, no matter how many men we can squeeze into those Rovers.”
“But these people who are pursuing us, pursuing the staff, will not give up,” said Bohannon. “They are determined and ruthless.”
“And they will probably pick up our trail, sooner or later,” said Whalen. “But I think our best chance is to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible, to blend in, look anonymous, and move as fast as we possibly can—outrun them to Al Asad and hope that the plane is waiting for us when we get there.”
Whalen turned and checked the location of the sun, then looked back at Kabir. “I don’t think it’s healthy for us to hang around here.”
“I understand,” said Kabir, “but it would be prudent to cross Highway One, the road that connects Fallujah and Ramadi, after the sun goes down.”
Bohannon regarded the other two men, the serious but determined looks on their faces. “So, when do we leave?”
Whalen looked at his watch. “Five minutes. We worry about Fallujah when we get there.”
Gamal knew it wasn�
�t far now. They were close, perhaps over the next dune. He held up his right hand and turned to the men behind him, putting an index finger to his lips. Twelve heads nodded in response.
The desert here was more pounded grit, tawny brown sandstone ground to coarse pebbles, than the white sand of the Sahara. Gamal split his men into two groups. One group he sent around the dune to approach the Americans’ camp from behind. His group would go over the ridge. But they needed to be very careful with their footing.
He checked his watch again. Enough time. He started up the dune, the machine gun held aloft in his left hand, his right hand helping keep his balance on the loose gravel. As he got near the ridge, he knelt on the ground and ventured a peek over the edge. And he could see … nothing.
He hoped the woman wasn’t dead yet so he could crush her throat with his own hands and watch the light fade from her eyes.
44
11:10 a.m., Al-Kifl, Iraq
The speed—or lack of it—wasn’t the driver’s fault. Kabir had told him to keep the speed down as they traveled south on Route 70. But the relatively slow pace was eating away at Bohannon’s nerves like fingernails on a blackboard. The bridge they were heading for crossed the western fork of the twin-branched Euphrates between Al-Kifl and Qaryat Aqtab, about twenty kilometers south of Hillah. Route 70 was a well-traveled road compared to most in western Iraq, and Kabir made it clear that an extended Bedouin family traveling from one location to another would be in no hurry.
They looked the part of Bedouin nomads.
Each of the men in the Land Rovers wore the ubiquitous keffiyeh. Kabir’s bodyguard was driving the lead Land Rover, with Kabir riding beside him. Whalen, Vordenberg, and Atkins were squeezed into the back seat.
The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) Page 36
