“I’m no one’s errand boy,” Mustafa said. “But I have a mission, and Saddam has information I need. This is a one-time deal.”
Iyad looked skeptical—and reproachful. “So what is it anyway, this stolen property of Saddam’s? Drugs? A weapon of some kind?”
“An antique battery,” Mustafa said.
“A what? You mean like for an old car?”
“More antique than that. It’s from an archaeological site, near Al Hillah. Saddam didn’t have any pictures, but I was able to find a sketch of a similar artifact on the Library of Alexandria.”
Mustafa showed him the printout. “That’s a battery?” Iyad said. “It looks like a vase.”
“It’s a clay jar, about fifteen centimeters tall. There’s a cap with an iron rod attached to it, and a copper cylinder that goes around that, and you fill the jar with acid—vinegar or grape juice—and the iron and copper generate a current.”
“And then what? You attach it to the headlamps on your war chariot?”
Mustafa shrugged. “The Library said something about electroplating. Or maybe Nebuchadnezzar’s court magicians used it to do tricks, who knows?”
“What sort of tricks does Saddam want to do with it?”
“He claims he wants it for his private art collection. My own guess is he means to sell it on the black market.”
“Which black market?” Iyad sniffed. “Grape juice . . . It’s probably full of heroin.”
“If it is, we’re dumping it in the Tigris,” Mustafa said. “I already promised Saddam as much, and I’ll promise you too. But if it’s just a stolen antiquity, I’m willing to let Saddam have it in exchange for his cooperation. We can always confiscate it later.”
“You really want this thing? Let me put a bomb inside. Then I’ll get it for you gift-wrapped.”
“Sorry, no bombs . . . Now are you going to help me, or not?”
Iyad sighed. “I suppose I can make some calls, see which faction of the Army has this thing. But if it’s possible to get it at all, it’s going to be expensive.”
“I can get money.”
“You’ll need a good cover story, too. And a better front man wouldn’t hurt.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Mahdis don’t trust feds any more than they do the Baghdad PD. I’ll vouch for you of course, but if they get the notion that cutting off your head might ruin Saddam Hussein’s day, well . . .”
“Ah,” said Mustafa. “I would like to avoid that.”
Iyad looked at the stitches again. “I hope that’s true, cousin, for both our sakes . . . In any event, I think it would be safer to have someone else play the buyer. Do you know anybody with a public grudge against Saddam?”
“I believe I can find someone who fits that description,” Mustafa said.
Several nights later Iyad picked the three of them up outside headquarters. Mustafa and Samir wore matching suits, while Amal had gone full ninja, donning an abaya and niqab she’d acquired some years ago for a Bureau assignment in Medina. Something about Amal’s costume—maybe just the self-possessed way she moved in it—caused it to have the opposite effect it was supposed to. As she approached the taxi, several men passing on the sidewalk turned to look at her.
“Nice hijab,” Iyad said archly. But then he chuckled and held up the copy of the Baghdad Gazette he’d been reading. “Nice PR stunt, too.” The front page of the paper had a picture of Amal’s face, unveiled, under the headline SENATOR’S DAUGHTER RECOGNIZED FOR HEROISM IN ANTI-TERROR FIGHT. After her mother pinned a medal on her, Amal had spoken movingly about how her late father’s stand against evil had inspired her own career; it was this invoking of Shamal, the Gazette speculated, that had motivated a mysterious assailant crying “Saddam! Saddam!” to take a shot at her as she left the stage.
“So who’s the mystery shooter?” asked Iyad.
“Abdullah al Hashemi,” Mustafa said. “A colleague. We were just going to have him throw a shoe at Amal, but he decided a cap pistol would be more dramatic.” The senator’s security detail, overplaying their own part in the charade, had dislocated one of Abdullah’s shoulders in the course of subduing him. “It got a little out of hand.”
“Well, the Mahdis ate it up,” Iyad said. “You could get a meeting with Muqtada al Sadr himself now, if you wanted to . . . Although for the guys we’re actually going to see, it was probably overkill.”
“Who are we going to see?” Amal asked.
“A bunch of wannabes. Not proper Army, more like junior auxiliaries. The sense I got from the one I talked to is that they were freelancing when they hijacked the truck—which is good for us, because it means they’re anxious to fence the goods. God willing, the deal should go down quickly.” He looked at the briefcase Mustafa was carrying. “You have the cash?”
“Yes.” The riyals in the case had been requisitioned, by presidential order, from a larger stash of drug money recently seized by Halal. It was rough justice, the ransom for Saddam’s property to be paid with Saddam’s own ill-gotten gains.
“Good. Let’s get going, then.”
Samir cleared his throat. “Right,” said Mustafa. “Samir would like the address of our destination, so we can leave word of where we’re going.” In fact, Samir had been pestering him nonstop about this.
Iyad regarded Samir with suspicion. “Who do you want to leave word with?” he asked. “Your mother?”
“Yes,” Samir deadpanned. “If something goes wrong, I’d like her to know where to pick up the body.”
“If it comes to that, you can trust the Mahdis to dispose of your body properly,” Iyad said. “But don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”
“One other thing,” Mustafa said, making a quick check of the other vehicles on the street. “There’s a possibility we may be followed. Not by our people,” he clarified. Or by the Mukhabarat, whom Saddam had promised to call off. “By agents of Al Qaeda.”
“Al Qaeda, trying to enter Sadr City?” Iyad chuckled again. “If only God were that generous . . . Now come on, let’s not stand here all night.”
On maps it didn’t look like a neighborhood that would be hard to get into: a five-by-six kilometer rectangle extending northeast from the canal that ran like a moat between it and Rusafa. What the maps didn’t show, but what could be glimpsed in satellite photos on the Internet, were the clusters of black-clad Guardian Angels who stood watch all along Sadr City’s borders, on every thoroughfare and side street, profiling the incoming traffic. More Angels flocked on the El train platforms, ready to help as well as hinder. The station elevators rarely worked, but a wheelchair-bound El rider could count on being carried down to the street—unless the Angels pegged him as a Baath spy in cripple drag, in which case he’d make his descent even more swiftly, and headfirst.
The most closely watched entry points were those along the City’s northwest boundary, which it shared with the Adhamiyah district. Angels assigned to that border were especially vigilant, and they were matched on the Adhamiyah side by a neighborhood watch of off-duty cops and Baathist street thugs. The two groups of border guards catcalled one another across Safi al Din al Hilli Street, and these exchanges of verbal insults sometimes escalated into physical fights or even full-blown riots.
Iyad approached Sadr City from the southeast, detouring through the New Baghdad suburb and coming up Jerusalem Boulevard. At Habibiya Circle, where the boulevard crossed Port Said Street, the Guardian Angels were encamped on the central traffic island, at least three score men in black sitting on or standing around the civilian-model Humvees they used as interceptors. Inbound traffic entering the circle tended to slow down, the drivers hoping to avoid being singled out, but Iyad kept the cab rolling at a steady speed and waved at the border guards. Several waved back, including one particularly brawny Angel who’d traded his uniform top for a T-shirt that said MAY I READ YOU YOUR RIGHTS, OFFICER?