She shut her eyes and imagined Corben and Kirkwood driving off without her, and the thought suddenly horrified her. She couldn’t face being left behind.
She subdued her warring emotions and, with the fear of making a huge mistake throttling her stomach, rose to her feet.
Sitting in the Land Cruiser, Kirkwood felt a surge of anxiety wash over him as he listened to Corben’s calls.
He had to do something. He was sure Corben wouldn’t want Mia around once he got his hands on the book. She knew too much.
He had to warn her.
He reached out and flung the door open and bolted from the car.
“Mia, don’t come out,” he yelled, scanning the roofs around him. “Stay away.”
Corben dashed after him and tackled him a few yards from the Land Cruiser. He grabbed him by the collar and stuffed the gun in his face.
Kirkwood scowled at him defiantly. “What are you gonna do, shoot me?”
Corben held him there for a breath, seething with anger and frustration. “Get up,” he ordered, pulling him to his feet and shoving him towards the Land Cruiser. He stopped at the car, cast one last glance up at the roofs, then pushed Kirkwood into the car and climbed in behind him.
Mia’s breath caught as she spotted Kirkwood dart out of the car and run down the street. Her whole body stiffened as Corben caught up with him, floored him, and manhandled him back to the car.
She sank back to her cover and watched as Corben climbed into the car, and her heart sank as she heard its engine churn to life before it screeched off and disappeared around a corner.
She pushed herself to her feet, the blood draining from her face, feeling dizzy. She looked down at the quiet street. The Land Cruiser was well and truly gone, leaving a plume of dust and the two dead bodies in its wake. Stunned and curious people were cautiously emerging from the adjacent houses and from the bazaar.
She glanced at the old book in her hands and noticed that her nails had clawed deep into its leather cover. She felt like ripping the damn thing to pieces and screaming her lungs out in rage, but instead, she looked around, saw what looked like the overhang of a stairwell, and made her way towards it.
Chapter 62
Mia ducked out of a side entrance to the bazaar and into the cobbled alleyway from which Corben and Kirkwood had emerged. She could see increased activity in the main street outside the house as people realized the threat was gone, and she snuck the other way, heading back into the alley.
As she turned the corner, she saw a hulking figure stumbling out of the house. It was Abu Barzan. The big man was slowly inching his way out, all hunched over, one hand pressed against his thigh, his trousers drenched with blood. The alley was strewn with several dead bodies. He stopped at one of them and crouched down, running his hand over the dead man’s face. Mia realized he’d found his nephew’s body.
She edged up to him. He turned to her, sucking in deep, laborious breaths. He had pained, half-shut eyes, and his jowly face glistened with sweat.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, avoiding looking too closely at the fallen man by his feet.
Abu Barzan just nodded stoically, his expression bristling with anger and defiance.
“Let me see it,” she said, pointing to his wound.
He didn’t react. She reached out hesitantly and ripped his pants open around the wound to uncover it. She could see an entry puncture as well as an exit one in the thick flesh of his thigh. Noting that the bleeding wasn’t intense, coupled with that he was standing and breathing, she thought that his femoral artery probably hadn’t been severed by the bullet or by bone fragments. This negated the risk of his bleeding to death, but the wound needed to be dressed quickly to lessen the blood loss and avoid infection.
“I don’t think it’s shattered any bone,” she observed, “but it needs cleaning.”
A high-pitched siren wailed faintly in the distance. Abu Barzan looked at her with anxious eyes. “I have to go,” he grumbled, and started to limp away.
“Wait.” She followed, stepping over the fallen gunmen. “You need to go to a hospital.”
He waved her off. “A hospital? Are you crazy? I’m half-Kurd,” he spat back. “How do you think I’m going to explain this?”
Mia nodded somberly. “I’m not sure I know how I’m going to explain this myself.”
Abu Barzan studied her for a beat, then said, “Come.”
She put an arm under his shoulder and helped him keep the weight off his injured leg as they slipped away into the dark back alleys of the old town.
Corben kept a close eye on his rearview mirror as he guided the Land Cruiser out of the city and headed south, towards Mardin.
He had a big decision to make, but the more he thought about it, the more he believed he could pull it off. He had Kirkwood, who could unlock the mystery if properly motivated, and Corben was, if anything, an expert on inspiring. He had a window of opportunity during which he could misbehave: He’d been abducted in his sleep, the front door of his apartment would testify to that. He would say he was a prisoner of the hakeem. Everything he did was with a gun to his head. Enough said.
The problem was Kirkwood.
He couldn’t be allowed to walk away from this. Not with what he knew. Mia — that could be finessed. Kirkwood was more complicated.
“You really with the UN?” Corben asked him. His handgun nestled in his lap.
“Last time I checked,” Kirkwood answered flatly, staring ahead blankly.
Corben nodded, impressed. “Six hundred grand. Not exactly chump change.” He waited for a reaction, but none came. “How many of you are there?”
He detected a flicker of confusion in Kirkwood.
“What are you talking about?”
“How many of you are there looking for this thing? I mean, there’s you, and there’s Tom Webster, right?” Corben fished. “You’re able to fly in at the drop of the hat with a case full of cash. I’m thinking you guys have some decent resources to draw on.”
Kirkwood ignored the comment. “Where are we going?”
“We’re both after the same thing. I say let’s see it through all the way.” Corben paused, glancing over at Kirkwood. “Besides, I miss the mountains. Clean air up there. Good for the lungs,” he deadpanned.
The Iraqi border was a couple of hours’ drive away. He debated whether to call in, inform his station chief that he’d been kidnapped, say he’d managed to get away and was now shadowing the Iraqi smuggler behind the kidnapping, and get them to call ahead and make sure he was allowed through the border crossings unhampered. He decided against it, preferring to keep his cohorts in the dark a little while longer. And although he didn’t have a passport or any ID on him, he had a far more effective travel document in the back: a case full of dollar bills. In that desperate land, he know a few of those greenbacks would open most doors. From there, it wasn’t far to Al Amadiyya. If everything went smoothly, they’d make the village Abu Barzan had spoken of by nightfall.
“What are your plans for it, if it’s out there?” Kirkwood asked bluntly. “Can’t imagine our government’s anywhere near ready to deal with something like this. Preserving the status quo and all.” He turned to face Corben. “’Cause that’s the plan, isn’t it? Bury it — along with anyone who knows about it?”
Corben smirked and let out a small chortle. “Probably. But it’s not mine.”
Kirkwood raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Corben glanced at him, a wry smile crinkling the edge of his mouth. “Let’s say I have a more entrepreneurial approach to life.” He paused. “Question is, what are you guys planning for it?”