Escape from Baghdad! (15 page)

“Then let us get to the point,” Hassan Salemi said brusquely. “You, shopkeeper, tell me the story. Leave nothing out.”

“We stopped three men who crossed into Shulla,” Amal said. “There was a man preying on us whom we called the Lion of Akkad. It was said he was working for you.”

“That is incorrect,” Hassan Salemi said. “I do not rob people in that fashion.”

“Not by explicit command, perhaps, imam,” Amal said carefully. “But your men—your captains—it is not possible to refuse them, sir, nor to seek clarifications on their demands.”

“I see.”

“Lord, also it is not always money they desire,” Amal said. “I say this to you to show anyways what life is like for us. We are at the mercy of passing wolves.”

“How you live is of no interest to me. Continue,” said Hassan Salemi.

“We asked these men for help,” Amal said bitterly. “These strangers. We asked them for help when our own couldn't help us. And they were honorable men for what it's worth. They tried their best and maybe even succeeded. We made the mistake of calling your son, of betraying them.”

“Now you interest me,” Hassan Salemi said. “What were the terms of this betrayal?”

“There was rumor,” Amal said, “of a renegade Ba'athist; one of the old guard, a vicious man, who had tortured and murdered many Shi'a. We thought one of these men…we thought one was he. We called your son. He was excited. He wanted them right away. He gave no time for planning,” Amal spread his hands. “I warned him. I tried to tell him these men would not go quietly.”

“He was a fool, in fact, my son,” Hassan Salemi said quietly.

Amal paused, startled. “Yes, yes he was a fool,” he said finally. “He came loudly, with trucks full of men, firing in the air. They shot back. It was a fair fight, imam, I swear.”

“Fair fight or ambush, I have yet to decide,” Hassan Salemi said. “Now where are these men hiding?”

“I don't know,” Amal said. “They escaped. The police came. There was a gunfight in the streets.”

“So strangers come to help you, you betray them, and then they kill my son,” the imam said. “They evade my son's men, and our fine national police help them escape. One of them, you say, is an escaped Ba'athist, a wanted man who crosses American checkpoints with impunity. Tell me, Amal, that it is so simple.”

“I swear I know nothing else.”

“Perhaps,” Salemi said.

He signaled, and one of his men left Yakin to go upstairs. Amal stared after him, aghast, and then bulled forward with a cry when he understood. The second gunman intercepted, throwing him to the floor, his gun out. There was a scuffle, and then Amal was flat on the ground, his head pushed to one side, a boot on his neck. The gun swiveled once from the prostrate shopkeeper to Yakin, a lazy circuit, its meaning clear. He was now almost superfluous. He sat absolutely still, willing Amal to desist.

“Hush, hush.” Hassan Salemi crouched in front of the old man.

“Please, lord, we didn't know. Imam, in the name of God have mercy.”

“You have no more answers, you say,” Hassan Salemi said softly. “Be at peace then, old man. I too have lost a son. The pain…passes.”

“No, no!” Amal cried, his face contorted against the floor. “Please, imam, mercy. He is the only one I have left!”

There were sounds of scuffling upstairs, dull, ugly noises, and the sharp screams of an adolescent, painfully high.

“Come, you know nothing else?” Hassan Salemi asked. “These men were not friends of yours? You weren't helping them escape? To ambush my son?”

“No, no, I'm Shi'a! Shi'a! I swear, I don't know them. I don't know any Sunni scum.”

“You truly do not know where they hide?”

“I don't know them!” Amal shouted. “Yakin knows them better than me. For God's sake, he spent days with them!”

“Be at peace then.” The imam walked to the door.

Yakin started to rise, to protest, but two great noises shuddered through the house one after the other, and he sat back down stupidly, stunned. Fat drops of red hit his face, and he thought it was his own. But it was Amal's blood, and the old man thrashed incoherently, his spine ruined. The gunman came down the stairs, pistol slack in his hand, and Yakin understood that the boy, too, was dead.

“Come, peacock,” Hassan Salemi said. “This is your lucky day.”

13: ROOTS OF THE LION

H
OFFMAN WOKE UP IN DISARRAY, HIS EYEBALLS TURNED INSIDE
out, his throat raw from smoke, and a midget triphammer gunning in his cortex. His first instinct was to reach for his cigarettes, which were gone from their usual place beneath his pillow. Half awake now, he fumbled for his 9 mm, which also was not under the pillow. His Navy MK III knife, won at cards from a disgraced admiral, was not in his boot, where it normally spent nights. For that matter, his boots were not there on the floor beside his bed either.

A slow reconnaissance was in order, and he performed this with due stealth. The room was unfamiliar and elegant. The sun streamed in from an open window, and it was this brutal light that had woken him. He got to his feet, found his way into a dressing room. Propped up on a stool was the full complement of his gear, his clothes pressed and folded, the knife sheathed to the boot, his holster and gun placed thoughtfully on top.

He dressed, lit a cigarette, winced at the drumming in his head, and started to wander out. Avicenna's house, he vaguely recalled from last night, was a series of deliberately confusing passages. He caught the smell of black coffee and followed it blindly, reaching the courtyard eventually, where a small table had been laid in the shade.

A dark-haired lady sat under the stunted olive, sporting oversized dark glasses and a floral patterned Hermes scarf tied loosely around her neck. She was drinking coffee from a glass and smoking a thin, elongated cigarette, flipping through some glossy magazine, one slim Chanel enclosed foot tapping impatiently against the flagstones.

This sight was so incongruous that Hoffman stood slack jawed for several moments, the cigarette hanging from his lip like a hook from
some kind of giant idiot fish. She deigned to notice him after a minute, looked up, and scowled at him.

“Don't stand there like a damned fool,” she said. “What's the matter with you? Are you autistic?” Her voice was gravelly, attractive. Not least because, Hoffman had to admit, she didn't look at all like a mustachioed elephant draped in black, the standard of Iraqi ladies he'd normally met during his rounds on the streets of Ghazaliya.

“What? No.” Hoffman shuffled forward, trying to avoid the sun.

“I heard many Americans are autistic,” she said. “Some kind of genetic defect, I think.”

“I'm just hung over,” Hoffman said. He paused at the edge of the table and offered a snap salute, marred somewhat by his misshapen posture. “Sergeant Hoffman at your service… er, ma'am.”

“We were introduced last night, idiot,” she said. “You were drunk.”

“Ah well, Avicenna offered me a whole bunch of bottles,” Hoffman said. “You must be his…girlfriend? Nurse? Fourth wife?”

“My name is Sabeen. Granddaughter,” she said. She pointed at the coffee pot with one manicured finger. “Help yourself. You look like something unpleasant died in your throat.”

“Thanks,” Hoffman said, pouring some into a chipped white mug. “I don't remember anything from last night. Did I do anything embarrassing?”

“Well, you ate and drank like an ill-bred buffoon. And then near the end, you puked and passed out,” Sabeen said. “So, no, you simply reinforced my view of uncouth Americans. I'd say you behaved perfectly.”

Hoffman tried for a winning smile and failed. “I hope I didn't offend you in any way.”

“Not specifically, no,” Sabeen said. She went back to flipping the pages of her magazine.

Hoffman said after some time. “Could I speak to Avi, maybe?”

“No,” Sabeen said.

“Er, ok,” Hoffman said. “Behruse then?”

“I sent that oaf out to work,” Sabeen said, not looking up.

“Doing what?”

“None of your business,” Sabeen said.

“Listen, I really don't remember about last night. I'm sorry if I pissed you off,” Hoffman said, extending his hand. “Can we start over?”

“You probably think that's charming,” Sabeen said, not moving an inch.

“Your English is really good,” Hoffman persevered.

“I was at Oxford,” Sabeen said.

“What did you do there?”

“Studied English.”

“What do you do now?”

“My grandfather controls numerous assets,” Sabeen said. “I am his chief of security. I make sure no one bothers him.”

“Hey, Behruse brought me here,” Hoffman raised his hands in the air. “I'm not a hostile.”

“I know. Grandfather sent me to protect you,” Sabeen said. “He finds you interesting for some reason. He's finally gone senile I think.”

“Protect me? Ma'am, I'm a United States Marine.”

“Marine?” Sabeen smiled genuinely for the first time. “Your uniform is infantry, and your sergeant's stripes look pretty new, so either they're fake, or some other moron saw fit to actually promote you.”

“There is a Humvee full of extremely dangerous men at my beck and call,” Hoffman said. “I am a death dealing machine, armed to the teeth.”

“Have you actually looked at your gun?” Sabeen asked.

Hoffman pulled his prized desert eagle out with a flourish and cocked it theatrically. The sound was hollow, decidedly wrong. A closer inspection revealed that the clip was empty, as was his ammunition pouch. His face fell.

“I'm pretty sure I didn't shoot anyone,” he said.

“No. But you passed out with your gun aimed at your crotch and the safety off,” Sabeen said. “Anyone that moronic doesn't deserve to play with bullets.”

“Heh, you'd love the other guys in my squad.”

“Thank God I won't have to meet them.” Sabeen stood up. Hoffman tried to rise and leer at her at the same time; blood rushed to his head, and he fell backwards, sending his chair sprawling.

“Sorry,” Hoffman said, climbing to his knees. “I feel like I've been run over by a truck.”

“No need to apologize,” Sabeen said, helping him up. Her hand was surprisingly strong. “You've been poisoned. The head spinning is a common side effect.”

“Eh? Poisoned?” Hoffman said.

“My grandfather is somewhat of a savant when it comes to chemistry,” Sabeen seemed amused. “Or alchemy, if you prefer.”

“Ohmigod my throat is seizing,” Hoffman said. He clutched at his face convulsively. “I can feel my eyeballs popping. Are my eyeballs popping? Help me!”

“Relax, that's probably the alcohol,” Sabeen said. “The poison
is
real, of course. It's slow acting, however.”

“What kind of lunatics are you?”

“Stop whining,” Sabeen said. “You don't think I'd just let you loose around my grandfather without any insurance, do you?”

“I just wanted to know about the Druze watch,” Hoffman said. “I'm going to kill Behruse when I see him.”

“Don't cry,” Sabeen said. “I'll give you an antidote. It binds with the chemical compound currently in your blood. It should neutralize it in a week or so.”

“A week or so? Should? Don't you know?”

“Well, it's not an exact science, is it?” Sabeen said. “Just tell me when you start feeling ill, and I'll give you a pastille.”

“I'm feeling ill
now
,” Hoffman moaned. “This isn't fair. What kind of person poisons an innocent stranger?”

“Really?” Sabeen said. “What kind of person makes up ridiculous lies about a random country, invades it, destroys all its civil institutions, brands all its citizens as terrorists, causes a civil war, and then pretends everything is alright?”

Hoffman glowered with righteous indignation but said nothing.

“Right. We have to go now,” Sabeen said, adjusting her scarf around her head in one practiced motion. “Behruse is waiting. I'll drive.”

There was a nondescript Toyota up front, which had the unnaturally scrubbed appearance of a car straight from the lot. En route, Sabeen informed him it was part of a fleet of “dead cars” they maintained. With the huge, unrecorded number of civilian deaths and migrations in the city, perfectly clean, registered cars were floating around with no legal owners. A cadre of bureaucrats from the General Directorate of Traffic with ties to the Mukhabarat had started a quiet side business of selling these “safe” cars. For a premium, one could borrow the identity of the deceased owner too: doctored licenses, registration papers, fitness records, even parking fines. Then too, there were many people who had to commute through Sunni and Shi'a strongholds and thus needed two separate identities. Anbar license plates, in particular, were anathema in Shi'a areas, where death squads, often the police themselves, hunted and shot motorists from that locality.