“Ambassador Frey wishes you a good morning, sir. He wants to know if you might come for your green cards.”
“What, now?”
“He has made arrangements for someone to assist you. It will mean you don’t have to wait.” The woman sounded as though she was reading a prepared script. “It would be better if you could come as quickly as possible.”
Sameh had an Iraqi’s experience with conversations meant for listening ears. “We will leave immediately.”
Chapter Forty-Five
T he first bus lumbered around a rocky cleft and stopped as an ancient stone hut came into view. The Iranians had constructed a rough front porch, little more than a raw-plank veranda with a canvas overhang. The porch held a bunk with woven leather straps and a table with one chair. A lone cup steamed on the table. When Josh and his men slipped back in through the bus’s open door, Marc asked, “The guards?”
“Not going anywhere for a while. Locked up tight inside.”
Marc thumbed his comm link. “Hamid?”
“I am here.”
“We’re good to go. Give your men the final check.” He said to their driver, “Move out.”
Eons ago, an earthquake had dislodged a portion of the cliff face. The road threaded its way around boulders larger than the bus and descended to the riverbed. Beside them, the meandering stream flickered in the early light.
Duboe said, “Target is eleven hundred meters ahead.”
Marc said, “Any more guards this side?”
“Nothing moving between us and the perimeter.”
“Check the entire village one last time.”
While Duboe was silent, the buses passed behind yet another giant boulder and entered a narrow sandy patch. Marc keyed his comm link and ordered, “We stop and prep here.”
As the vehicles halted, Duboe said from his screen, “Two guards patrolling near village entrance. Got another on roving patrol, the fourth either asleep in one of the houses or is off the grid.”
Josh muttered, “Not good.”
“We can’t worry about that now,” Marc said. “Keep your eyes open. What else?”
“I make one guard standing to far side of the target building. My guess is the entrance is in the alley and not on the front of the house. A second guard appears to be seated where the building meets the cliff. Legs splayed out, maybe asleep.”
They off-loaded and gathered behind the rear bus. There was no chatter. When they were geared up, Marc keyed his earpiece and said, “Comm link check.” He got a forest of thumbs-up.
Then Hamid said, “We also want to blow up missiles.”
Josh grinned. “My man.”
“This threat is to our country,” Hamid insisted.
Marc said, “Josh and his men are prepared for this type of sortie.”
Hamid bristled, but softly. “What, you think we do not train? We are not ready?”
Josh stepped between them. He clapped Hamid on the shoulder. “Who is your top guy in the field?”
Hamid did not hesitate. “Is me. Then Yussuf.”
Marc said, “I need Hamid on point for the retrieval. Especially now that we’re after kids who don’t speak English.”
“You heard the man,” Josh said. “Tell Yussuf to lock and load.”
Hamid jerked a nod. “Is good.”
Marc said, “I need one of your team with me to balance things.”
“I’ll switch,” offered Duboe.
“That works.”
Josh said to Hamid, “I want a favor in return. Hannah Brimsley.”
“The missionary,” Hamid acknowledged.
“We’re engaged to be married.”
Hamid and Duboe both stared. Hamid asked, “Is true?”
“Anything happens, you tell the lady I loved her to the end and beyond. You got that?”
“End and beyond. Is nice. Warrior’s poetry.” Hamid settled his hand upon Josh’s neck. “Go with God, my friend.”
They stood like that for a moment, Iraqi and American, then Josh stepped back and motioned to Marc. “Maybe you want to step over here with us.”
Seven of them gathered at the border of the pine forest. The air was hushed, the only sound that of water trickling down the stream. Marc fit himself into the circle, and Josh said, “Join up.”
The seven men linked arms around shoulders. Josh started, “God, we’re about to enter the valley, and we ask that you make the shadows our friends.”
Josh kept it short. He hesitated at the end, then offered a special prayer for the lady, but his voice broke over saying the name. So Marc said it for him. Hannah Brimsley. As they disbanded, Marc heard other names being whispered. He added Alex.
Duboe was standing close enough to hear. He started to speak, then shook his head and turned away.
Marc said, “Let’s move.”
Chapter Forty-Six
I needed until this morning to fit it all together,” Sameh told them after they had dressed and climbed into the car. “When I woke up, two memories had bonded. One was of Marc battling with the ambassador’s aide on our behalf, protecting us against future risks that I would never have imagined even existed. The other was of standing in the underground church, holding the hand of Marc on one side and a Sunni or a Shia on the other. I don’t even know which.”
They followed Sameh’s new bodyguards, who drove a navy blue Hyundai. The women’s security detail remained tight behind them in another vehicle. Sameh had insisted on driving himself so they could continue their conversation in private. The three women watched him with a singular intensity. Leyla said, “Tell us why this was so important, Uncle.”
“All my life, my first instinct upon meeting a person has been to identify their background. It is so ingrained as to be subconscious. I name them as American, Sunni, Shia, Persian, Kurd. But that moment in the church, we were all simply people in need. Imperfect and wounded and broken. And I saw the answer was Jesus.” They slowed for a traffic circle, which was good, for the recollection left Sameh with blurred eyes. “It seems so simple, speaking these words. But I feel as though barriers have fallen from my mind. From my heart.”
They were silent as Sameh steered the old Peugeot into the stream of early morning staffers approaching the first Green Zone checkpoint. The traffic crawled forward, making slow but steady progress. Roving guards walked between the lines of cars, inspecting each through the windows. Sameh said, “In that moment, there was no religion. No creed. Just the fact that Jesus lives. I feel…”
When he hesitated, Bisan pressed, “Tell us, Uncle.”
“When I look back, I feel I have used my heritage and my church as a means of keeping others at arm’s length. I am Sameh el-Jacobi. I uphold an ancient Christian tradition. I am this. I am that. But as I look back upon that moment, holding hands together, I realize that I need to spend more time simply being a servant of Jesus.”
Miriam said, “I would like to go with you to that underground church, husband.”
“And I,” Leyla said.
“Me too, Uncle,” Bisan said.
“Nothing would give me more pleasure than to share this experience with my family.” He reached over. “Passports, everyone.”
The Iraqi soldier accepted their papers, then astonished them all by coming to attention and snapping off a salute. “Mr. el-Jacobi. You and your family are expected, sir.”
“Pardon me?”
“Your escort is that Jeep.” The soldier fitted a whistle to his lips and blew a sharp blast. The barrier that was lifted only for presidential convoys rose into the clear dawn air. “Your guards can wait in the small lot there to your right. Proceed, sir.”
Sameh drove his family into the Green Zone. It was such a simple thing to say, but normally impossible to do. Most Iraqis could not enter the Green Zone at all. Bisan leaned out through the open window and gaped at everything. The towering palms, the barricaded guard stations, the Jeeps on patrol, the hurrying officials, it all seemed fascinating to her. Miriam and Leyla murmured as one palace after another came into view, all fronted now by sandbags and sentries and checkpoints.