His declaration hit Samir like a blow. The Iraqi staggered back, his hands moving nervously. “You-you are not Kismet.”
“I am Nick Kismet. Pretty sure I’m the only one.” Given the unique circumstances surrounding the choosing of his name, he felt safe in the assertion.
“But then you must know. You of all people would know…”
Kismet shrugged. “They didn’t tell me much about the mission, Samir. I didn’t even know that you were the person I’d be meeting.”
He could tell the revelation troubled Samir, but the Iraqi began nodding slowly, as if to clear his head. “I believe I understand. When you have seen it, everything will become clear.”
Kismet stared once more into the cargo area of the truck. His thoughts began to spin out of control. Just what was the secret Samir was delivering to him? The hand of Allah? Had the defector snatched one of Saddam’s much-rumored nuclear weapons? Almost trembling with eagerness, Kismet laid the CAR15 on the deck and pulled himself into the truck.
He had to crouch down under the low hanging tarpaulin, but once inside, his ability to see in the darkness began to improve. He could discern that the cargo bay was empty save for a lone object in the center, secured to a wooden pallet by a single nylon rope that zigzagged back and forth across the bed of the vehicle. Whatever lay beneath that web was further concealed by a heavy blanket of dark material, but he could make out a vaguely familiar silhouette. It didn’t look like any kind of nuclear warhead.
Samir held his light close to the opening. “I would advise you not to touch it, but of course, you would know more about this than I.”
Kismet stared in disbelief at the veiled bundle. He recognized the outline of the object only because it looked exactly the way it had in a motion picture he had enjoyed countless times as a child. “What the…is this some kind of joke?”
Samir’s eyes seemed to dance eagerly in the flicker of lamplight. “Does this not buy freedom for my family and I?”
Kismet spun to face the Iraqi. “If this really is what you want me to believe it is, then how in hell did you get it?”
“President Hussein has long feared that if the Zionists — the Israelis — learned that we possessed it, they would not hesitate to use any means necessary to take it back. And once they possessed it, they would be emboldened to make war with all Arabs. Yet he hesitated to destroy it — what if it truly is the work of Allah? But now with America ready to invade, he can wait no longer. If it is from Allah, then Allah must decide how to save it, or so President Hussein says. He ordered me to have it destroyed. Of course I was supervised, but I managed to switch it with a decoy. It was very costly. I had to find enough gold to fool the others, but I did. And when the chance arose, I sent for you.”
Sent for me? He blinked furiously, trying to process what Samir was telling him. “Hold it a second.” He gestured emphatically at the object. “What I meant was, how did this end up in Iraq? I thought it was in Ethiopia. Or Egypt.” Or some US Army warehouse, he didn’t add.
Samir pondered for a moment, then laughed. He shook his head. “None of those rumors are true. When those who ruled this land before — the Babylonians — sacked Jerusalem two thousand six hundred years ago, they took as spoil all the treasures of the Jews. This also was captured, but King Nebuchadnezzar wisely spread the rumor that it had been taken away by Jewish refugees before their temple fell. As the holiest of the Jewish treasures, it was a trophy of victory over God himself, and the Babylonians hid it in the deepest part of the Esagila — the temple of Marduk. When the Jews returned to their land after the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonians, it never occurred to them to ask for it back. They did not know it was there, and in time, it was forgotten by all.
“Even the first archaeologists to excavate the temple did not find the secret chamber where it lay, but when President Hussein decided to rebuild the glory of Babylon, his engineers — and I was part of that group — did find it.”
Kismet shook his head incredulously, his mind racing. Samir had requested him — personally. How had the defector learned about him? And why had the Iraqi believed he would know, or even care, about some three-thousand-year-old relic? He rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to banish the rampant speculations in order to form a strategy. “All right, this complicates things further. If we’re going to get this out—” he gestured at the covered artifact,“—and everyone else, then we’re going to need at least three helos and probably a shitload of close air support.” He looked thoughtfully at the truck. “Either that or drive out. Think we could make it to Syria in this?”
Samir frowned. “You would risk bringing it so close to Zionist forces? Their agents would know of it the moment we crossed the border. I would think you, of all people, would want to conceal this from the Israelis.”
Once again, Kismet got the feeling that Samir was dialed into some secret and erroneous source of information about him. He decided it was time to disabuse the Iraqi of those notions. Twisting around on the flatbed deck, he hopped backward onto the sand-covered floor to stand face to face with the other man. “Listen, Samir. My orders are to get you out — you. I am willing to risk my life to carry out those orders. I am willing to risk my life to help your family as well. But I am not about to put my life on the line for a… for some movie prop. If you insist on trying to get that thing back to friendly turf, then we are going to use the safest possible route, and if that means we drive through downtown Tel Aviv, well then I just don’t give a shit.”
Samir gaped in disbelief, but before he could even begin to frame a reply, a faint hissing sound distracted both men. Kismet turned toward the source of the noise and saw sand sliding down the face of the dune wall. His reaction was late by a fraction of a second.
He reached for the CAR15, but it was not where he expected, depending from its sling on his shoulder. Suddenly, the sand barrier erupted in a flurry of bodies and movement. Human shapes burst from the dune wall like reanimated corpses summoned from their graves. Remembering that his carbine lay on the deck of the truck, Kismet reached instead for the M9 holstered on his hip, but there was no time. One of the figures reared up before him and something hard and heavy crashed into his jaw. As he staggered back, the sound of Samir’s cries of alarm dissolved into a ringing noise that seemed to originate inside his skull. Hands swarmed over him, stripping away his pistol and restraining his arms. He hovered at the edge of consciousness, vaguely aware that his wrists were being pressed together behind his back, secured with a hard plastic zip-tie. He struggled both against the shackles that bound his hands and the darkness that was overwhelming him, but in the end both battles were in vain.
Kismet awoke with a start, reflexively trying to raise his hands to shield himself from the object that filled his blurry gaze; someone had peeled back his right eyelid and was tapping the sclera of that eye with a fingertip. His hands did not respond, still securely bound behind his back, but the ferocity of his reaction was enough to remove him from the immediate threat.
He now saw the instigator of his torment, a lean lupine individual wearing desert battle dress fatigues similar to his own. The man’s Caucasian features and dishwater blond hair suggested that he was a Westerner, but Kismet did not get the impression that his antagonist was there in order to rescue him. The man flashed a humorless smile, then turned to one of his comrades. The words he spoke sounded familiar, but Kismet didn't recognize the language. It might have been Hebrew, but with his head still swimming from the assault, he couldn’t be sure.