The Shroud of Heaven Read online

  From the outside, it did not look like a cave, merely a bruise in the surface of a vertical rock face which might simply have been the product of an ancient boulder collision. Only on closer inspection could Kismet perceive the depth of the cut in the rock and the fact that the stone surface was not stone at all, but weathered bricks of baked clay laid one atop another. It was not a cave, but a structure built by men in the middle of the desert and almost completely hidden beneath the dunes. Samir ducked through the narrow slit without hesitation. An almost blinding flare in the midst of Kismet’s night vision display indicated a light source within. He switched the goggles off and swiveled them out of the way, then crouched down and followed blindly.

  The passage beyond was narrow. His shoulders scraped against brick on either side as he descended along a crumbling staircase. The steps, like the structure itself, were clearly the work of human artifice, but their condition suggested centuries of both use and neglect. They were in an ancient place.

  At the foot of the stairwell, he saw the source of the light. As his guide stepped forward into a large antechamber, he could clearly make out the flickering of several randomly placed oil lamps. It was not until he moved out from the narrow recess, however, that Kismet realized they were not alone.

  Before he could bring his carbine up, or even identify a target, Samir hastened in front of him, arms extended. “No, no, Mr. Kismet. This is my family.”

  Kismet exhaled sharply and lowered the weapon. In the undulating lamp-light he made out several human shapes: an elegantly dressed woman, her head covered by a colorful scarf; a teenage boy who seemed a younger, thinner version of Samir; and several more indistinguishable lumps, hidden beneath blankets on the floor. In all, there appeared to be a dozen people camped out in the hidden structure, possibly representing three generations of Samir’s clan.

  “Family,” echoed Kismet, the significance of the revelation sinking in. “No one said anything about your family.”

  Samir looked shocked. “I could not leave them. When it is learned what I have done, they would be made to suffer. Such is the way with President Hussein.”

  Kismet felt a moment of self-loathing for having questioned the matter. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just…well, we didn’t develop a contingency for exfiltrating more than one person. There won’t be room on the helo for all of us.”

  Samir’s expression fell, prompting Kismet to hastily augment his statement. “What I mean is, we’ll have to make some changes to the plan.”

  The Iraqi seemed pleased at the promise and brightened once more. “Allah is great.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Kismet, loosening the chin strap on his helmet as he surveyed the room a second time. “Say, you didn’t all come here in that one car?”

  Samir grinned. “No. There is also a truck.”

  “Any more surprises?”

  “No more surprises.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you wish to see it?”

  Kismet sensed the defector was no longer talking about the truck, and that whatever he was referring to would indeed be a surprise, but the only way to know for certain was to play along. “Sure.”

  Samir launched into motion again, but did not move toward the stairwell as Kismet expected. Instead, he crossed the antechamber, picked up one of the lamps, and headed toward an arched entryway on the opposite side.

  “The truck is here? Inside this—whatever it is?”

  “These are the ruins of Tall al Muqayyar. We are very near to what you in the West call Ur of the Chaldees. It was the birthplace of Ibraiim; Abraham, the father of Ismail. Our nation takes its name from this place: Uruk. It is the birthplace of civilization.”

  “You don’t say.” He thought Samir sounded like a tour guide. He had studied enough source material about Iraq to recognize the truth of Samir’s words, but ancient ruins held little appeal; he preferred the company of the living. “We are under the ground though?”

  “The sands come and go. The ruins have been excavated several times since their discovery almost two centuries ago, but the sand always returns. In this instance, I have used the sand to conceal the main entrance to the ruin.” He gestured with the lamp, throwing a wavering yellow glow into the shroud of darkness. Beyond the antechamber was a larger room, its ultimate width and breadth beyond the scope of Kismet’s unaided eyesight. He resisted the impulse to swivel the goggles down, electing instead to wait for Samir’s lamp to expose the room’s secrets. As the Iraqi strode purposefully forward, his light cut a swath through the darkness in the middle of the chamber. After only a few steps, the bare floor disappeared beneath an increasingly dense accumulation of desert sand.

  The lamp’s rays soon revealed a vehicle in the buried chamber—what looked to Kismet like a deuce and a half, or 2.5-ton truck—its rear cargo area covered by a low slung canvas tarpaulin. The truck appeared to be a cast-off military vehicle, broken, repaired and mongrelized to the extent that its origins were unrecognizable. Beyond the truck, the sand rose up in a vast dune, completely blocking what must have served as the main entrance to the ruin. Samir placed his lamp on the rear bumper of the truck, but hesitated there.

  Kismet tried to peer into the tent-like enclosure, but saw nothing in the shadows. “Well?”

  “Forgive me. I am a coward. President Hussein says it is not the hand of Allah—that it is a Zionist trick—but he does not touch it. No sane man dares touch it.”

  “The hand of Allah?” Again Kismet sensed that he was expected to know more than he did. He decided to end the charade. “I’m sorry, Samir, but I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of you and I haven’t the faintest idea why you think I’d care about what’s in that truck.”

  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 ta
ke 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.

  The wolfish man leaned close again, thrusting something against his jaw. The object was frigid but yielding—an instant cold compress. “I told him he is lucky he didn’t kill you,” the man volunteered in English.

  Kismet couldn’t fathom why. He thought about Samir’s words. “Israelis?” he croaked.

  The man chuckled, again without a trace of humor. “Do you think you can stand?”

  “Not without help,” he replied, honestly.

  Grasping the front straps of Kismet’s combat harness, the man shifted his weight backward, lifting him from his supine position. Pain radiated from Kismet's bruised jaw and stabbed through his head. Bright sparks of light swam in his field of vision and for a moment, Kismet feared he would lose consciousness again. The man continued to hold him erect as his legs buckled, his head swooning, until the fog gradually receded. The ice pack slipped away from his cheek, but remained tucked in the space between his neck and the stiff collar of his flak jacket.

  He saw that he was once more in the antechamber where he had first encountered Samir’s family. They were all there, including the defector himself, lined up against one wall of the room in a classic hostage pose: kneeling with fingers laced together behind their heads. Some of them, mostly the children, were weeping and ululating. Half a dozen men in desert-pattern uniforms were spread throughout the room, each wielding a small submachine gun. Kismet easily recognized their arsenal: Heckler & Koch MP5Ks, the first choice of hostage rescue and commando teams worldwide. Unlike the man who held his load straps however, the rest of the combat force wore camouflage mesh screens over their heads, obscuring their faces, and soft boonie hats that matched their fatigues. One of the men also had Kismet’s carbine slung over a shoulder.

  He returned his gaze to the man before him. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  His captor, judging that Kismet now stood on his own, relaxed his grip on the LBE straps. He maintained his silence a moment longer, reaching out to grasp the hilt of the Ka-Bar knife which hung from an inverted sheath on the front of Kismet’s harness. As he drew the blade, Kismet shifted his eyes downward, surreptitiously checking the rest of his equipment. He immediately saw that, in addition to the knife, his other defensive weapon, the M9 Beretta pistol, had been removed from its holster. There was no sign of his helmet or night vision goggles, but every other piece of gear he carried seemed to have been left alone.

  “Since I have no doubt that you and I will eventually meet again, and since it will not benefit you in any way, I will give you my name.” He spoke with a faint accent that Kismet couldn’t pin down.

  The man circled behind him, deftly cutting through the zip-tie with the razor-sharp combat blade. As Kismet’s hands bro
ke free, the man resumed talking. “I am Ulrich Hauser. And lest you take the wrong impression, I am not a member of the Bundeswehr, or any other recognized army. I am not, I might add, an Israeli. Be thankful for that.”

  Kismet did not question why this distinction was important, but took note of it; Samir had made a similar statement. He turned his head, following as Hauser continued his orbit, but resisted the impulse to massage his wrists, letting his hands hang loosely at his hips. “Should I take from your comments that you’re not going to kill us?”

  Hauser returned to his starting point directly in front of Kismet. He held the Ka-Bar contemplatively between them for a moment, then slipped the naked blade into his own belt. At that instant, for no apparent reason, Kismet felt raw adrenaline dumping into his bloodstream, a premonition of something terrible about to happen, perhaps already beginning.

  Hauser took the CAR15 from his accomplice and turned toward the line of hostages. It seemed to Kismet that he was moving in slow motion, but that was simply a trick of hyper-awareness. He didn’t even have time to open his mouth in protest.

  The carbine erupted in a spray of fire and noise. Hauser moved it from side to side, hosing Samir and his family with an unceasing torrent of 5.56 millimeter ammunition. Kismet felt hot bile flash into his throat and he involuntarily jerked toward Hauser, hands reaching for the gun even though he knew it was too late. Three of Hauser’s men intercepted him, locking their fists around his biceps. He knew the air must be filled with the screams of the dying but all he could hear was the endless roar of gunfire. A chaotic pattern of gore and pocked brick now decorated the wall of the chamber, a carpet of corpses spread out beneath, yet Hauser did not relent until the last round was fired. Only when the final brass cartridge was ejected, landing with an inaudible tinkling sound in the eerie silence of the aftermath, did Hauser raise the barrel of the weapon.