A space at the center of the warren had been furnished as a parlor: stolen carpets and chairs, a sheesha pipe, even an espresso machine. Fawzi, Amal, and Iyad sat down, while Mustafa, Samir, and Fawzi’s lieutenant with the AK-47 remained standing.
“So,” Fawzi said, after an abbreviated exchange of pleasantries, “I understand you’re interested in something I may have in my possession.”
“Actually, it’s my mother who is interested,” Amal said.
“Oh? Not that I’m not flattered, but I wonder how such an important senator would even know about my business here.”
“My mother has many friends in the intelligence community. As a personal favor, they keep tabs on certain people for her. One of these people has been doing a lot of talking on unsecured phones lately about an item that was stolen from him. He’s a very unhappy man.”
Fawzi shrugged, as if it were no big thing to be an object of Saddam Hussein’s displeasure. “Not all unhappiness is a curse.”
“My mother agrees wholeheartedly,” Amal said. “She’d like to increase this man’s unhappiness. So she asked me to see if I could track down the missing property. With my local contacts, it didn’t take long.”
“Well, we aren’t exactly hiding out here,” Fawzi said, a hint of unease breaking through his cool. “And of course, you are welcome in Sadr City . . . So the unhappy man, I assume he’s looking, too.”
“Oh yes,” Amal said. “High and low. But he’s still a few steps behind me, and my hope is to take the object off your hands before he gets any closer.”
“And then what? Your mother will let him know she has it?”
“That’s the plan.”
“And what will your mother do with the object? Destroy it?”
“She considered that. But once she heard the item was an antiquity, she decided it would be more fitting to donate it to a museum.”
“A museum?”
“Yes, in Persia,” Amal said. “Or perhaps Kurdistan . . .”
“I see,” said Fawzi. “And once it’s behind glass in Tehran or Kirkuk, what, you wait for the unhappy man to come visit it?”
“If only God were that generous . . . But my mother will see that he gets an invitation and let him know that a warm welcome awaits him if he accepts.”
Fawzi was grinning now. “I like how your mother thinks. And I believe we can do business.” With a measured note of regret, he added: “Of course, since it is business, I’ll have to ask for payment.”
“Of course,” Amal said. “I’m ready to pay a reasonable price. May I see the item?”
“Absolutely.” Fawzi turned to his lieutenant. “Shadi. Go get the crate.”
The guard on the roof was listening to Green Desert’s “I Pray by Myself” on a pair of headphones, snapping his fingers and swaying to the music. The helicopter, now in whisper mode, had descended almost to the rooftop before he noticed it, and what drew his attention was not the muted shussing of its rotors, but the downdraft, which made the smoke from his cigarette dance as if it too had caught the tune.
When the guard looked up, a Qaeda commando shot him between the eyes with a silenced submachine gun.
“Right side clear,” the commando said.
“Left side clear,” said another.
“Go,” said Idris. The helicopter touched down on the roof just long enough for the six men to jump out; then the pilot increased power and took it back up to five hundred meters. The commandos sprinted across the roof to the stairwell.
A hallway ran the length of the building’s top floor. A man was just coming out of a bathroom near the middle of the hall, adjusting his belt as he walked, when the lead commando reached the bottom of the stairs. The silenced SMG made a flat sound that might have been mistaken for a cough; the fall of the corpse was louder and more distinctive.
“Ali?” a voice called, through an open door midway between the bathroom and the stairs. “Did you trip over your pants again?” This was followed by laughter. The commando stepped quickly to the doorway. Inside the room, three men sat around a card table. The commando killed them all, then paused, listening. When no one else called out or came into the hallway to see what was going on, he returned to the stairs and exchanged hand signals with his men.
They began a careful sweep of the entire floor. At one end of the hall, a commando opened a door on a roomful of machine tools and saw a teenage boy standing in front of a row of windows. Rather than shoot him immediately, which might have broken the glass and alerted others outside, the commando gestured for the boy to put his hands up. The boy did so, and the commando made him come closer to the door and kneel down facing the wall. Then he shot him in the back of the head. As the boy slumped to the floor, the commando made a quick visual scan of the room, but he didn’t actually walk around the machines, so he didn’t see the second boy, down on one knee behind a lathe, his trembling fingers gripping the laces of an untied sneaker.
The commandos completed their sweep, killing three more people in the process. They regrouped at the top of another stairwell. The lead commando keyed his headset and spoke to Idris in the helicopter: “Top floor is secure. We are ready to go downstairs.”
“Proceed,” Idris said.
“Is there a problem?” Fawzi said.
Amal was frowning. “Are you sure this is the right object?”
“But of course.” Fawzi picked up the lid of the little wooden crate and showed her the attached label, which bore the crest of the University of Iraq at Al Hillah. Scrawled by hand beneath this—rather haphazardly, Amal thought—were the words PARTHIAN BATTERY, 2ND C. BCE. “There, you see?”
“Yes, I see. It’s just, this doesn’t look like what I was told to expect.”
Instead of a terracotta urn, the object Fawzi had pulled from the crate was a crude brass bottle, about fifty centimeters tall. The vessel was a flattened sphere with a long tapered neck; its surface, unadorned by any decoration or pattern, was pitted and tarnished, thickly encrusted with grime, except for one small area where someone had tried to rub it clean, exposing a dull shiny spot the size of a half-riyal coin. The bottle mouth was open and the vessel was empty. Amal had a hard time seeing how it could function as a battery.
“You’re sure this was the only object?” she said. “There weren’t any other crates?”
“Not like this one.” Fawzi snorted laughter. “Not unless the Parthians also made home theater systems.” Sobering, he continued: “I hope you aren’t suggesting I would try to cheat you.”
No, never, Amal thought. She wanted to consult with Mustafa, but knew that that might spoil their charade.
But then Mustafa spoke up on his own: “Was there a stopper?”
“What?” said Fawzi. Amal turned around. Mustafa was staring at the bottle with a hypnotic intensity; he was also leaning heavily on Amal’s chair, as though to keep himself from falling.
“Was the bottle sealed?” Mustafa said. “Was there anything inside it?”
“Inside it?” Fawzi gave another snort. “Like what, a double-malt whiskey?” Mustafa didn’t answer, but after a moment he looked at Amal and gave a firm nod.
“Very well,” Amal said. “Let’s talk about payment . . .”
But now Fawzi was frowning. “I’m sorry, I am confused,” he said. “I thought I was dealing with you.”
“You are,” said Amal.
“And this man? Your bodyguard? He’s an antiquities expert as well?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“No.” Fawzi shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s a bodyguard, either. He looks stoned. And this one”—turning to Samir—“this one looks scared.” He focused on Iyad next, saying nothing, only staring, then looking back at Mustafa as he noticed the family resemblance. “What is going on here?”