The Sanctuary (44 page)

A look of utter mystification washed over her face.

“Because I’m pretty sure I’m your father,” he added desperately, feeling as if his soul had been sucked out of his body there and then.

Another loud thump and this time, the trapdoor gave.

Kirkwood
and Mia both turned in tandem as the pockmarked killer burst out of the opening and clambered onto the roof.

“Go now!”
Kirkwood
ordered her.

Mia looked down to the dark passage below, raised her glance to the man who had just told her he was her father, and nodded. She was too numb to speak, her mind submerged under a deluge of questions. She simply took a few steps back, charged forward, and flung herself into the air.

The ordeal lasted less than a breath as her legs flailed in the air in big, rotating sweeps before she tumbled heavily onto the roof of the bazaar, rolling on its dust-swept surface. She righted herself and sprang back to her feet, her teeth rattling and her head spinning from the harsh landing, and rushed back to the parapet.

Kirkwood
stood there, his face breaking into a radiant smile of relief as he saw her straighten up unscathed.

A shadow was rushing up behind him. The same pockmarked man she’d seen in
Beirut
each time the madness started. He had a gun in his hand.

“Behind you,” she shouted.

Kirkwood
glanced back, turned to her, dropped his eyes and slid one last glance at the book he gripped in his hands, and in one fluid motion, he flung it to her.

It twirled in the air, spinning around
itself
, a priceless ancient Frisbee, before landing in her arms just as the killer reached the parapet. She saw him raise his handgun at her, she saw death about to reach out from its nozzle and rip the life right out of her, only the man she knew as Bill Kirkwood lunged at him from the side and tackled him, pushing his arm away and sending the bullet careening into dead air.

“Run,”
Kirkwood
yelled as he struggled against the armed killer.

And despite every yearning, every emotion, and every instinct gluing her feet to the ground, she did.

IN THE DARKNESS at the bottom of the stairs, Corben watched the nervous shooter guarding him as they both listened to the repeated blows echoing down from above. It sounded as if Mia and
Kirkwood
had locked themselves into a room. Omar would break through soon, of that Corben had no doubt.

It would soon be over. If he was going to try something, he had to do it now.

Only one man watching him.

A nervous wreck, at that.

Time to party.

Kirkwood
’s dead gunslinger was blocking the stairs. Further down the hall, one of Omar’s dead shooters was sprawled on the ground. Something of interest was lying by his arm.

Corben’s eyes snared his guard’s nervous look, then
glanced
sideways, down at the body of Omar’s man, and turned to his guard in mock surprise.

“The book.
It’s there, look.” Corben pointed down at the bloodied floor. And he took a step towards the dead shooter, keeping an eye on his guard, testing his reaction.

The shooter yelled at him, warning Corben off, but Corben stared him down and kept moving, his voice even louder. “It’s the book, asshole, you understand?
Al kitab.
”

And he took another step, raising his cuffed hands in a gesture of helplessness,
then
pointed downward.
“Al kitab,”
he repeated. “It’s what your
mu’allim
wants, numb nuts.”

The shooter kept shouting and raised his gun, his eyes darting nervously up the stairs after Omar, unsure what to do. Corben was committed
now,
he was in a zone and wasn’t going to back out. He kept reaching down, yelling, “The book,
okay
?
Al kitab,
you understand?” And with that, positioning his back to the gunman, his fingers grabbed the fallen man’s silenced gun and he spun to face the wide-eyed Arab and pulled the trigger, hoping to a God he didn’t believe in that its magazine wasn’t empty and undergoing a small conversion in matters of faith as several rounds drilled into the man’s chest and punched him backwards before dropping him to the floor in a bloody mess.

ON THE ROOF, Omar shoved
Kirkwood
off him with a vicious head butt and pushed himself to his feet. He held him at bay with his handgun as he scanned the roof of the adjacent bazaar.

There was no trace of Mia or of the book.

He grabbed
Kirkwood
by the neck and pulled him to his feet. He took one last look across the roof, then gave up and yelled at
Kirkwood
to move. He pushed him through the trapdoor and herded him down the stairs, prodding him in the back with his handgun.

He was livid.

He’d lost the book, when it was right there, within reach. But he had what the hakeem wanted even more: the buyer.
Unscathed.
Ready for questioning.
But it wasn’t a success, not by any means. Apart from the book, he’d lost several men.

He had to get out of there fast. The Turkish police would, no doubt, be rushing over, alerted by the gunfire.

He followed
Kirkwood
down and saw Corben’s back as they reached the bottom of the stairs. He barked out angrily to the man he’d left guarding the American.

Corben turned to face him slowly, unthreateningly, his expression a blank sheet.

And in the darkness of that dusty hallway, Omar didn’t see the gun in Corben’s hand, not even when it spat a 9mm round that spun out of its nozzle and cleaved a path straight through his forehead.

K
irkwood
watched Omar fall to the ground beside him and tumble down the last few steps, headfirst, until he lay still in a mangled, splattered heap by Corben’s feet.

Corben looked up the stairs. “Where’s Mia?” he asked urgently.

Kirkwood
studied Corben’s eyes. He was still processing the eruption of the last few minutes. The killers were Arab and had to be the hakeem’s men—only Corben was with them.
Which didn’t compute.
“What are you doing here?”

Corben seemed to be busy processing things himself. “They grabbed me last night.”

“How did they know about this rendezvous?”
Kirkwood
pressed.
“Through you?
You’ve been keeping tabs on Abu Barzan?” His tone had an overtly accusing tone to it.

Which didn’t faze Corben.
“We don’t have time for this,” he countered bluntly. “Where’s the book?”

“Mia’s got it. And trust me, she’s long gone by now.”
Kirkwood
watched Corben for a reaction. “Can’t blame her, really, what with all the bullshit she’s been hearing about how getting her mom back’s your top priority.”

Corben glanced up the stairs after Mia, then confronted
Kirkwood
’s gaze. “Clearly, it’s yours too,” he shot back, his voice laced with cynicism. “I mean, that’s the only reason you’re here, right? Nothing to do with tracking down the formula your ancestor was after.”

The mention tripped
Kirkwood
’s mind. Corben couldn’t have known about that—not unless he’d been listening in.
Which had to mean that he wasn’t here as a prisoner.
He was already working with the hakeem—only something about his plans had evidently changed, given that he’d just killed the man who seemed to be the leader of the hakeem’s hit team.

Corben glanced towards the front door, then bent down to Omar’s body, pulled a knife from one of his pockets, and cut his hands free. He rubbed the blood back into his wrists, then retrieved his cell phone from the fallen Arab and quickly checked its battery. It was fully charged. He took its battery out and put it away, then turned to
Bryan
’s body, picked up his submachine gun, which he slung over his shoulder, and rifled through his pockets. He found some extra magazines, which he took, as well as the Land Cruiser’s keys, which is what he was really after.

Kirkwood
saw him cast his eyes to the back of the house, as if wondering about something.

“Come on,” he ordered
Kirkwood
as he stepped over Omar’s body and stole deeper into the house.

“Where are we going?”
Kirkwood
asked.

Corben didn’t answer.

Kirkwood
followed him into the kitchen. Corben gave the alleyway that ran behind the house a quick check,
then
stepped back inside. Abu Barzan was lying in the corner of the room, facedown,
a
dark pool of blood under him. By his feet was the attaché case.

Corben picked it up. He turned.
Kirkwood
stood there, facing him. He looked at the agent quizzically,
then
held out his hand for the case.

Corben shook his head slightly. “I think I’ll hang on to this. Make sure it gets back to the UN safely. Wouldn’t want them to miss it now, would we?” A thin, mocking smile broke through his stern expression.

Kirkwood
held his gaze for a moment,
then
nodded with silent frustration. The gloves were off, clearly. There was no point in dissembling. He looked down, and his eyes fell on one of the Iraqis’ weapons, a handgun, on the floor beside him. It was tantalizingly within reach.

Corben had seen it too.

Kirkwood
’s muscles went rigid. He locked eyes with Corben. It was as if they could read the thoughts etched across each other’s face.

“Not a good idea,” Corben cautioned.

“There might be more of them out there,”
Kirkwood
bluffed. “You could use another shooter.”

Corben shook his head dismissively. “They’re all accounted for.” He waved the gun towards the back of the house, motioning for
Kirkwood
to head out. “Let’s go,” he ordered.

MIA’S FINGERS CLUTCHED the codex tightly as she huddled behind the parapet on the roof of the bazaar.

She kept darting nervous glances back at the house she’d escaped from, but no one seemed to be coming through the trapdoor after her. Not that it made her feel any calmer. Her heart was still pounding feverishly as she tried to make sense of what had happened and, even more pressingly, of what Kirkwood—or whatever his real name was—had told her.

Because I’m pretty sure I’m your father,
he’d said.

Which didn’t make sense.

He couldn’t have been with Evelyn at Al-Hillah. That was thirty years ago, and he didn’t look as if he was even over forty.

The only possible explanation was one she wasn’t yet ready to entertain.

Besides, he’d also said that his ancestor was looking for the complete formula for the elixir. That it was incomplete. And if it was incomplete, then it didn’t work, and he couldn’t be using it.

She shook the whole notion out of her mind. It simply wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. He was lying to her, he had to be.
Which was the safe and comforting conclusion to cling to, except that she couldn’t do that.
She’d looked into his eyes as he’d said those words, as he’d explained about his ancestor Sebastian, about the codex, about who he was. Everything about him screamed of sincerity. She’d had that same feeling when they’d spoken on the plane, and earlier, at the rooftop bar of the hotel. He wasn’t lying. For some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, she was sure of it.

Which meant that everything she considered impossible had to be revisited, questioned, and—if her instincts were right—reclassified without the
im
prefix. And that included the impossibility of his being her father.

She heard movement below and peered over the lip of the parapet. She froze as she spotted
Kirkwood
, heading down the narrow alley at the side of the house. Another man was following him. She craned over the edge to get a better look, and her heart turned over when she realized it was Corben.

What’s he doing here?

She wasn’t sure it mattered, and her spirits rose at the sight. He’d managed to save
Kirkwood
from the hakeem’s men, and they were both safe.

She was about to spring up and
make
her presence known when she noticed something as they moved into the street, past the dead bodies of Abu Barzan’s man and
Kirkwood
’s other bodyguard. Corben was walking behind
Kirkwood
. He had a submachine gun slung over his shoulder and was carrying the attaché case. He also held something in his other hand.
A handgun.