The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (56 page)

“I would have called you if I did. We’ve been around the city twice, up and down this side countless times. We’ve seen nothing, no lights, no vehicles, no movement at all. As if the ruins have gone back to sleep.”

“Well you had best remain awake. Take another sweep around the city. Move slowly. Check for tire tracks. They didn’t come out this way, either. They must be somewhere, but it’s not here. Look closely. We must find them.” His voice lowered, almost to a whisper, as if the words were only for him. “We must.”

The red night-vision lights welded to the front bumper of the Land Rover turned the ruined clay brick walls into a nightmarish landscape as Mike Whalen threaded his way through the most dilapidated and ignored streets of ancient Babylon, south of the palace and Procession Street. The light was low to the ground and illuminated only a small arc around the front of the Rover, but it was enough to guide Whalen and his team along the rubble-strewn streets until they emerged into the unmarked desert.

Atkins watched the GPS screen, hooded with cardboard to minimize the light emitted. Whalen would drive, but it was Atkins’s job to concentrate on the GPS and guide them in the right direction. South, away from Babylon and farther away from Hillah and Baghdad, deep into the desert, where they would not be expected to hide.

6:43 p.m., New York City

After being transformed into the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center, the old PS 160 school at the southwest corner of Suffolk and Rivington Streets on the Lower East Side of New York City got a new lease on life, but little else. It took up half a city block and, except for its community center designation, would have long ago succumbed to the wrecking ball, making way for another modern apartment tower. But neither the community nor the myriad poor arts groups that used it—nor the city itself—had the necessary disposable funds to fix its roof or improve its heating system or to do anything about saving the elaborately carved, but deteriorating, granite façade. Still … it survived.

A small but well-reviewed acting troupe, the American Bard Theater Company, was staging its final performance of
As You Like It
that night. So as the several-dozen friends, fans, and family lingered in the lobby prior to the performance, Rory O’Neill led Connor Bohannon and Stew Manthey around the edge of the theatergoers into a hallway and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. O’Neill turned to his left at the top of the stairs and walked to the front of the building, entering a room that spanned the southwest corner.

Inside the room, two men dressed for the Lower East Side—old jeans, ratty tee shirts, worn sneakers, needing a shave—stood by the windows, binoculars to their eyes as they scanned the streets, both talking into filament microphones that looped over their ears and held receivers in place.

“I think the two of you have suffered enough that you’ve earned the right to be here,” said O’Neill, the New York City police commissioner. “I just don’t want you on the street.”

O’Neill walked to the window on the right, the one that looked down into Suffolk Street, and stood on the opposite side of the officer with the binoculars. He motioned Connor to join him and for Stew to take up station in the other window.

“Try to stay out of sight, but take a look into the street below and tell me everything you see.”

Connor peered around the side of the window looking south, down Suffolk, and then stretched his neck to look uptown. The sun was still an hour from setting, and even though shadows were growing longer, there was still enough light for good visibility on the street. “Two women, Hispanic looking, talking on the far side of the street, shopping carts by their sides. A taxicab, looks like he’s waiting for a fare. At the corner, a UPS truck—double-parked—the driver making a delivery to the corner bodega. And a lot of pedestrians.”

O’Neill nodded his head and looked over at Manthey. “Stew?”

“Mr. Softee truck down below—I’d know that music anywhere—and a corner vendor’s truck selling pita and falafel. Mailman walking down the street. And a—”

“Site two has eyes on Clinton at Stanton. Walking south,” said the officer across the window from Connor.

O’Neill tipped his head toward the window. “Watch.”

Connor shifted so he could watch north on Clinton Street. A bicycle-riding messenger came south on Clinton.

“Messenger, double back and ride west on Rivington,”
crackled out of a radio.

The messenger turned left on Rivington and, halfway down the block, made a U-turn and waited on the sidewalk.

“Postman, north on Clinton.”

The mailman turned left, north on Clinton.

“Ladies to the bodega.”

“Subjects have crossed Clinton to the east side,” said the other officer. “Still walking south.”

Connor watched as the ballet continued outside his window. Then he saw two men walking south on the east side of Clinton. They looked like merchant sailors, sea bags slung over their shoulders. And they looked familiar.

“Hey,” and he pointed.

“Yeah,” said O’Neill, “those are your boys. Keep your eyes open.”

“And joggers south on Clinton.”

The two men approached the corner of Clinton and Rivington, where the bodega was situated.

“Bring up the bus. UPS into the truck.”

Approaching from Rivington, heading east, an Access-a-Ride van—the city’s on-call transportation system for the disabled—slowly approached the Clinton intersection.

The two men turned the corner onto Rivington Street, walking east.

“Ladies out … joggers pass ’em …”

The white-and-blue Access-a-Ride van slowed to a crawl as the joggers ran past the two men, the ladies with the shopping carts came up behind, and the UPS driver came out of his truck.

“Out of sight … take ’em now.”

If Connor hadn’t been keenly watching each move, even he might have missed what happened next. In near flawless choreography, the joggers turned abruptly and ran straight at the two men, who stopped in their tracks and were bowled over by the shopping carts. Before they could fall to the sidewalk, the two joggers latched on to one of the men, the two ladies—who now lost their wigs—manhandled the second, while the UPS man threw open the side doors of the Access-a-Ride van. The two men with the sea bags were inside the van along with their captors, the doors closed, before Connor could react.

“Whoa!”

“Not over yet,” said O’Neill.

“Postman, take the door. Messenger, the back alley.”

“Halfway up the block on Clinton,” said O’Neill, “Keep an eye on the building they came from. C’mon over to this side.”

Connor switched to the far side of the window and looked up Clinton.

An old black car with a Domino’s Pizza sign suction-cupped to the roof pulled up in front of the same building the postman approached. A very big man jumped out, reached in the back of the car, pulled out a stack of pizza boxes, and bounded up the steps of the five-story walkup.

The taxi pulled up Clinton Street and stopped in the middle, blocking traffic. Two men in Mr. Softee uniforms ran up the sidewalk. The taxi driver and the ice-cream peddlers rushed up the stairs behind the pizza delivery.

“Con Ed, cover the back. Third floor.”

A high-flying helicopter materialized from someplace west and stopped, hovering over the building.

“Go.”

Connor looked at O’Neill. “Who are these guys?”

The officer on the far side of the window looked over at Connor and smiled. “We call ourselves the Army of the Invisible,” he said, turning his attention back to the operation taking place up the street. “You see us every day, but you don’t know we’re there. NYPD has thirty-five thousand uniformed officers. There are almost—”

The officer put the binoculars up to his eyes. He must have been getting a message.

“There were five. Con Ed, we’ve got one on the loose. Be careful. All units, cordon off the area.”

Connor watched as individuals he hadn’t noticed before came out of the community center, out of the bodega, out of an auto garage on the far side of Rivington Street. They all converged on the center of Clinton Street, taking different routes.

“Two in hand, sir. One running … no … got ’em coming down the fire escape. All five in hand, sir.”

“Good job, Captain,” said O’Neill. “Split ’em up. Different cars. Take them to the holding center, separate cells. I think we got them all, but bring in the interrogators, just in case.”

O’Neill turned from the window, put his hand on Connor’s back. “That’s it. Not your TV cop drama, but efficient. You don’t have to worry about the Prophet’s Guard anymore, at least not here in New York.”

Manthey fell in alongside them as they left the room and walked into the hall. “How did you find them?”

“A tip. We got the word out again after they attacked the two of you in the taxicab. Those two were planning to leave the country. They contacted somebody for help. That individual has helped us out before.”

The theater lobby was empty as they crossed to the front door of the Clemente Center. “Now what?” asked Manthey.

“Now they go to jail for a very long time.”

T
UESDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
1

6:12 a.m., the desert, south of Hillah, Iraq

Under the flaps of the black tent, morning light was a dim intention yet to express itself. Annie Bohannon sat on the edge of a canvas stool, holding the hand and strengthening the soul of her friend, Latiffa Naouri, who had stumbled into camp in the last darkness of night, battered, bruised, and bewildered. But alive. Holding Latiffa’s hand, Annie allowed her fingers to linger over her wrist. Her pulse was heavy, rugged, and irregular. But calmer than ten minutes ago.

“I didn’t expect to live. I don’t think I understand why they let me live.”

“Take deep breaths,” said Annie. “Tell me what happened.”

Latiffa was on her way back to her apartment in Baghdad when the road was blocked by two black SUVs. A third closed from behind when her driver slowed down. “They wanted to know where you were, where your camp was,” said Latiffa, as slim fingers of sunlight began to transform the dusky desert floor into subtle hues of tan and blue. “That’s all they cared about. I think I gave them directions to the dunes south of al Qasim. I believe … I don’t know. It’s all so blurry. But I didn’t want to give you away. I don’t think I told them the Wadi Defenneh. I hope not.” Her eyes glazed over as she stared into the distance.

“They stopped hitting me. That’s when I thought—”

“Shh … here, drink some water.” Annie handed Latiffa a canteen and used the moment to assess the damage in the growing light. The left side of Latiffa’s face was ruined. Wide purple-and-red welts were interspersed with sickly yellow streaks of puffy, swollen skin. Her left eye had been pummeled closed, the eyelid bulging out beyond her left eyebrow. Her nose was traveling in a new direction, and her upper lip had been ripped into two gashes. Annie held a wet cloth to a golf-ball-sized bump, with a bleeding cut, just above Latiffa’s temple.

The beating had shattered Naouri’s face, but not her resolve.

“One of them must have gotten a message because he came back and told the others that you were in Babylon.

“The men, they left quickly when they got the message. One stayed. But there was a fight. My driver, I think, tried to rescue me. I passed out. There were two bodies by the side of the road when I became conscious.” She buried her battered face with shaking hands. “My driver—he had three children. Somehow, I drove here.”

“It’s a good thing you came back here and not back to Baghdad,” said Annie. She pulled a gauze pad and a roll of bandage from the first-aid kit by her feet and carefully cared for the wound above Latiffa’s temple. “I don’t think you would have made it home.” Annie fastened the bandage. “Do you have any idea who these men were?”

Latiffa closed her eyes. The movement of her head back and forth was nearly imperceptible, as if avoiding any further damage. “Special Apparatus … the Brotherhood … agents from the Prophet’s Guard—I don’t know. Whoever it is, they are determined to find you. And I’m afraid I may have put you in even more danger. It’s possible now they know where to look.”