The Eighth Day (32 page)

Barzan shook his head. “Only the Imam can grant it—or the Elders.
All
the Elders.”

“And they won’t do it?”

“What do you think? They think Zebek is the living god.”

The two men said nothing for what seemed like a long while. Finally, Danny broke the silence. “Here’s what I don’t get,” he said. “Why? What’s in it for Zebek? Why bother? He’s already the next best thing to God. A billionaire. He’s a master of the universe!”

Barzan chuckled.

“I’m not kidding,” Danny insisted. “He’s got his own jet—”

“It’s for the money,” Barzan said. “He needs the money.”

“What money?”

“The tribe’s money.” Barzan smiled. Weakly. “There’s quite a lot of it.”

“There
is
?” Danny asked, unable to hide his doubt.

“I know what you’re thinking. I know what it looks like,” Barzan said. “Tourists come to the area around Uzelyurt, the few who do, and they see shepherds, farmers planting apricots, women weaving kilims. They see the dusty towns and one-room stores with cheap fluorescent lights. They look inside—and there’s nothing there, really. So they think the Yezidis are poor, but we are not. It’s enough to drive you crazy.”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked.

“I mean at first I was glad to see the old Imam go. There are villages that don’t even have a reliable water supply. Towns that don’t have a way to get produce to market. The Imam could have done something about that, but he didn’t. For forty-seven years, the only checks he ever wrote were for ‘Kurdistan’—which is to say, for C-4, guns, and Semtex. Mostly to the PKK, in other words. What the people need is an on-ramp to the twenty-first century. And the money is there.”

Danny gave him a puzzled look. “So where does it come from?”

“Guano.”

It was a word Danny hadn’t heard before. “What’s ‘guano’?” he asked.

“Bat shit,” Barzan told him. “At least, the money used to come from that. Now, it’s generated by investments. But it wasn’t so long ago that Yezidi caravans came and went from Uzelyurt, traveling the Silk Road to China. Some of the traders returned by sea. And on one of those trips, a Yezidi named Derai exchanged a kilo of saffron for some uninhabited islands in the Sulu Sea.”

“Saffron,” Danny repeated.

Barzan nodded. “The islands were honeycombed with caves, and the caves were thick with bats. So the guano had been piling up for centuries, drying in the dark. It was better than a gold mine. This was the richest fertilizer in the world. It was lightweight, easy to mine, and simple to transport. And these islands were practically choking on it.”

“And the guy who discovered it—”

“Derai—”

“—got rich?” Danny asked.

“No,” Barzan said. “He got cholera. Died on the way home. So the islands became the property of the tribe and produced for nearly a hundred years. Eventually, they played out, and anyway, chemical fertilizers came along. By then, of course, we’d diversified.”

“Through the holding company,” Danny suggested. “Tawus Holdings.”

“Right.”

Layla came in with fresh espressos on a silver tray, and Danny saw that she was indeed Barzan’s girl. The Kurd put his arm around her and drew her close. She blushed, then scurried away with a secret smile.

“Nice girl,” Danny said.

Barzan grinned. “The best. And a huge heart.”

Danny sipped his perfect espresso.

“At first I thought what you thought,” Barzan said.

“What do you mean?”

“Zebek, he’s already a master-of-the-universe! He’s got his own Boeing. What does he need
our
money for?”

Danny shrugged. “Exactly. Doesn’t make sense.”

“Well . . . he needs it.” Barzan stood up, stretched, and rocked back on his heels. “Needs it big-time. Whatever he’s doing at VSS—and they don’t even have a product yet—it’s terrifically expensive. I talked to a friend at Morgan-Stanley. Said I was thinking of throwing some venture capital that way. Two days later, he calls me. Says VSS is three hundred million in debt, has twenty million in cash, and is spending about four million a month.”

“When was this?”

“Couple of months ago.”

“So he’s going under,” Danny suggested.

“He
was
. He
would
. But once he gets his hands on Tawus Holdings—once the Elders give him control—he’ll be fine.”

“There’s that much money?”

“Yes,” Barzan said.

Danny nodded. And frowned.
So that’s what this is all about? The Tech Wreck?
He was vaguely disappointed. And he didn’t believe it, really. It didn’t feel right. He could understand how someone might kill for money, but what Zebek had done went way beyond that. There was real venom in the murders he’d committed. “You don’t bury someone alive,” Danny mused, “just to get a credit facility.” And as he said this, he realized that his suspicion about what had happened in the basement of Terio’s farmhouse had hardened into certainty: Chris Terio had not committed suicide.

“But what made Zebek go after Terio?” Danny asked. “I mean, how did he find out Terio had any interest in him?”

“Remember how you got my name? From the phone records?”

“The ones I turned over to Zebek.”

“Yes. Well, Chris and I didn’t talk regularly. Not at all. My name showed up on that short list because Chris called with big news. He was excited, even elated. He’d heard from Norway. The tests had been completed, he told me, and we were right. Of course we were right! Chris was waiting for the written report, but Rolvaag told him over the telephone that the sample of wood we sliced off the Sanjak was no more than one hundred years old, probably less, and that it came from Yemen. So this was proof: the Sanjak was a fake. Chris told me he’d fired off a letter to the Elders, in care of Tawus Holdings, formally questioning the statue’s authenticity. I suspect that’s what got him killed.”

“But why?”

“Because Tawus only
has
a single employee—a woman named ‘Pastorini.’ She’s new, and you can bet she works for Zebek.”

Danny groaned.

Barzan frowned. “You know her?”

“We met.” Danny eyes wandered up to the bank of TV monitors. “Your friends are here,” he remarked.

Barzan looked up from the computer to the bluish screens on the wall. Most of them showed no activity, but at the gatehouse two men in uniform were getting out of a Jeep. One of the men adjusted his beret, then rapped on the gatehouse door. In the courtyard, the dogs began to bark.

Barzan pushed his chair back from the desk. “Excellent,” he said. “I want to talk to them. See if anyone’s been asking about us.”

It was then, just as Barzan got to his feet, that they heard it—a single shot and then two more, like a cap pistol going off in the distance. Turning back to the monitors, they saw the soldiers standing side by side under the camera, guns drawn.

Barzan swore as he yanked the forty-five from his belt and ran to the door, working the slide. “Stay down!” he ordered, and burst from the room.

Stunned, Danny couldn’t take his eyes off the monitors. The dogs were going crazy now, throwing themselves against the gate, bouncing back, and jumping up again. Layla dashed through the courtyard on one monitor while Barzan crashed out the front door on another. The kid who’d taken Danny to the dentist ran past the fountain with a submachine gun in his hands. Then the gate sprung open. The dogs leapt. All hell broke loose.

SEVENTEEN

Danny’s eyes flicked from monitor to monitor as gunshots crackled in the courtyard. On one screen, a soldier fell to his knees beside the fountain, a black stain on his chest and a look of wonder on his face. On a second monitor, an open truck rocked uphill toward the house, trailing a cloud of dust. In the back of the truck, half a dozen soldiers sat with their rifles pointing at the sky. Other monitors seemed to blink as people and dogs ran past the cameras, flashing in and out of sight in different parts of the house and garden.

He knew he should be doing something besides looking at the monitors. His mind was screaming, but he couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t seem to take his eyes off what was happening on the screens. It was a massacre in soft focus, the underwater blue of the monitors rendering it all as a blur. Shouts and screams cut through the afternoon, seeming to rise and fall independently of the little television screens, while rifles and handguns banged away at one another. Danny saw a soldier buckle and collapse to the ground as one of the Ridgebacks took him by the throat. In an instant, the second dog was on him, burying his muzzle in the man’s groin. Another soldier came running to help the first, firing wildly. Then his head exploded as the kid with the M-16 strode into view, shooting from the hip.

Now Barzan was back at Danny’s side. “Come on,” he said, shoving a gun like his own into Danny’s hands. He stared at it for a moment, feeling helpless, while on the monitors two trucks jerked to a stop at the front of the house. Soldiers jumped to the ground. Getting to his feet, Danny saw Layla dashing into the room on the other side of the atrium. For an instant, their eyes locked—then a burst of gunfire hit her in mid-stride. Like a dancer who has lost her balance, she swam through the air and dropped. Then a second burst of gunfire turned the atrium window into a waterfall of glass.

Danny hobbled after Barzan as best he could, watching the Kurd’s yellow sweater dwindle down the hallway and around a corner.
How many are there?
Danny wondered.
Two trucks plus. Maybe a dozen soldiers, probably more.
And him with his damaged feet and a gun he didn’t know how to shoot.
More Dumbo than Rambo.

Suddenly Barzan reappeared, walking backward, hands in the air, talking quietly to someone Danny couldn’t see. Danny was fizzing with adrenaline now, raising his gun with both hands, the way they do on television. He was waiting for whoever it was that had Barzan in his sights to turn the corner.

But no one did. They just opened fire with some kind of automatic weapon, ripping Barzan up from the pit of his stomach to the top of his chest. He backpedaled into a table, sent a vase full of roses flying, and reeled to the floor. Then the soldier who’d shot him hove into view and with a look of surprise saw Danny.

Danny caught a wave of beginner’s luck—the first shot blew out the side of the soldier’s head. The second and third shots shattered the window overlooking the atrium.

Danny ran to Barzan’s side, slipped in a pool of blood, caught himself against the wall, and took a deep breath. His friend was dead. He could see it in the eyes, which, open and unmoving, had the bright, stony look of marbles. He could still hear shooting in the courtyard, but not as much as before, and now he also heard the sound of soldiers going room to room, kicking in the doors.

There was nowhere to run, really. Nowhere to go. They were coming down the hall from both directions, heading toward him in a sort of pincer movement. Once either contingent turned the corner . . .

Instinctively he grabbed a kilim-covered cushion from the bench along the wall and crossed to the window he’d shot out only moments before. Using the cushion to protect his hands, he brushed away the larger pieces of glass that clung to the sash and looked down.

It was a ten-foot drop—painful under the best of circumstances, but with his feet the way they were . . . He draped the cushion over the jagged glass at the bottom of the window and tried to summon the gumption he needed, or maybe just wait for the gumption to find him.

He heard soldiers running down the hallway. He glanced at Barzan lying in a pool of blood, climbed through the broken window, crouched on the ledge—and vaulted to the ground.

He hit the ground flat-footed, and for an instant he could have sworn he’d landed on a bed of nails. Pain geysered up from the soles of his feet, exploding behind his eyes like a barrage of Roman candles. Instinctively he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth in a silent cry, then staggered across the atrium to the surrounding arcade.

The arcade was a series of arches, supporting the second floor of the house—its living quarters—and was itself a chain of utility rooms that alternated with passageways into the courtyard. A bank of washing machines lined a wall to Danny’s right, where a fat woman in a white dress and head scarf stood quaking beside a tub of laundry. Behind her, he saw plastic drying racks, festooned with bed linen, and a tub of bottles, waiting to be recycled.

Putting a finger to his lips, Danny stepped past the woman and edged closer to the courtyard. Bodies everywhere. Four soldiers. A woman he didn’t recognize. The kid who’d driven him to the dentist. One of the dogs. And behind the bodies, the wall of honey-colored stone that surrounded the villa and its grounds.

The top of the wall glittered with shards of broken glass. There was no door that he could see. The only way out was up and over, or through the gate at the other side of the house—a gate he felt sure was crawling with soldiers. A calico cat drowsed in the sun near the drying bedsheets, rolling onto its back as he approached.

The wall was six feet tall, with the broken glass adding an extra inch or two.
It’s do-able,
Danny told himself. A high jumper in high school, he’d cleared six-one in the regionals. But that was then. It had taken him three tries, and he’d never done it before or since. So it wasn’t really do-able—not by him, anyway. Not without leaving his back in ribbons. Danny turned away from the wall just as a gunshot broke the stillness in the house.

For a moment, he thought that he’d been seen—that someone was shooting at him and that others would soon come running. But no. The first shot was followed by a long pause. Then a second shot and a second pause. Then a third. The cat spooked and slunk off toward the wall, low to the ground. This didn’t sound like a gunfight. It was more like someone taking target practice. Then it hit him. Someone was going from body to body, delivering a coup de grâce, making certain everyone was dead.

I’m outta here,
Danny told himself. Crossing the courtyard to the wall, he tried jumping up to see what lay on the other side, but with his feet the way they were, his vertical leap was practically nil. The best he could do was a half-assed hop. (So much for his fantasies of clearing the wall with the Fosbury Flop.) All he could see was the twilit sky and, off to the right, the plumed tops of the willow trees that lined the gravel drive.

Returning to the laundry room, he jerked the mattress off the cot, eliciting a mewl of protest from the woman in the head scarf. Was this where she slept? The little sound was enough to break his heart. “C’mon,” he said, and beckoned for her to follow. But no. That was not going to happen. There was no way this terrified woman was going over the wall with him.

“They’ll kill you,” he told her.

She shook her head violently, uncomprehendingly.

By way of explanation, he drew a finger across his throat and pointed toward the house. This terrified her even more, so that she squeezed her face shut against him, as if to make him disappear. There was nothing he could do.

So he grabbed a straight-backed chair and strode into the courtyard, dragging the mattress behind him. His back tingled with anticipation. He could imagine a bullet slamming into his spine, sending splinters of bone through his chest, the slug tumbling through his lungs. He could imagine . . .

Shut . . . up
.

He pushed the chair against the wall, stepped up on it, and took a look.

The gravel drive was to his right. Although he didn’t see the military truck (it must have proceeded through the gate after the guard was gunned down), a Jeep idled outside the guardhouse, which was maybe thirty yards away. Close enough so he could hear the staticky noise of its radio. One soldier sat in the driver’s seat, a walkie-talkie clapped to his ear. Two more leaned against the guardhouse, smoking, indifferent to the body at their feet.

Off to the left, Danny could see the little shed in which he’d been beaten. Beyond it were other sheds, corrals, and animal pens. Maybe he could get to one.

He laid the mattress over the glass, stepped up on the chair, and threw his leg over the top of the wall. Rolling off the mattress, he dropped to the ground as quietly as he could, this time landing on his toes. Then he pushed the mattress back over the wall behind him, left it where it lay, and took off, running in a crouch.

Instinctively he headed for the shed where he’d been held—then remembered that it was hooked up to a closed-circuit camera. Veering right, he slogged through a sheep pen, spongy with dried manure. On the other side of the pen was a small barn with a sliding door that was half-ajar.

The first thing he noticed as he entered the barn was the smell—a fruity odor that seemed entirely out of place. Standing in the darkness, he listened to his heart pound while his eyes adjusted to the light. Soon a neat array of shovels and rakes came into focus, leaning against the wall. A box of rags, a tiller, an empty trough, and a stack of plastic jerry cans. On each of the cans, written in neat block letters, was the word
ACETONE.

Danny leaned against the wall and slowly slid to the floor.
This is not where I want to be found,
he thought.
Not here. If they find me in an open field—it’s over in a second. A shot to the head, and . . . that’s it. I’m gone. Not good, but not . . . protracted. They find me here, they see the acetone—maybe they’ll think,
Let’s have some fun
.

Time to go.

Struggling to his feet, he stepped to the door and, looking out, saw a car winding up the drive toward the house.
Big car,
Danny thought, and then went cold when he realized what kind of car it was: a Bentley. Drawing closer to the house, the big black car came to a stop.

A soldier ran down the drive from the direction of the house, rifle thumping against his side. Halting beside the car he placed a hand on the roof, leaned over, and waited for the backseat window to roll down. A brief conversation ensued, with the soldier laughing and gesturing toward the house. Then he stepped back from the Bentley and executed a crisp salute.

The car stayed where it was, idling quietly. After a moment, the back door opened and Zerevan Zebek stepped out. With a glance to his left and a glance to his right, he unzipped his fly and began to pee in Danny’s direction. For a moment Danny was sure he’d been found, the gesture meant as an insult. But no. His mission accomplished, Zebek rezipped, got back in the car, and continued on his way toward the villa.

Which was when Danny saw the soldiers moving through the fields with their eyes on the ground, rifles at the ready. Looking for someone, anyone,
him
.

Turning, he cast a frantic eye around the barn, looking for a place to hide. Seeing a crudely made ladder leaning against an overhang, he crabbed his way up to a loft, where bales of hay were piled. As he pulled the ladder up after him, he saw in the corner of his eye something skitter, vanishing into the hay. A mouse, he hoped, but from the way it moved, a snake.

Danny didn’t like snakes.

Seated where he was, well back from the edge of the loft, he noticed for the first time that his leg was wet. The nice linen pants that Barzan had loaned him were plastered against his skin, just below the right knee. Reaching down, he pulled the pant leg up by the cuff and saw that his calf was covered with blood. Reaching for a handful of straw, he wiped the blood away, revealing a deep gash.

When did
that
happen?
he wondered.
On the wall, maybe, or maybe not.
It didn’t matter. The important thing was to close the wound and stop the bleeding. Removing the braided leather belt that he wore around his waist, he wound it around his calf, just above the cut, and pulled tight. The bleeding stopped.

He lay there for nearly ten minutes, fearful of the soldiers, worried about the snake, terrified of Zebek. Every so often, he released the pressure of the tourniquet he’d made, then pulled it tight again. It occurred to him that he must have cut himself when he climbed through the atrium window. Or maybe on the wall. Either way, he’d been bleeding for quite a while, really. There was probably blood on the ground, blood on the wall—a
trail
of blood.

With a moan of unhappiness, he rolled over and looked at the floor below the loft. Unlike the barn itself, the floor was concrete, and, sure enough, he could see splotches of blood from the door to where the ladder had been. He might as well have left a sign with an arrow pointing to the loft.

By now, his eyes were adapted to the twilight of the barn. Leaning over the edge of the loft, he searched the building with his eyes, looking for a source of water. Spotting a length of coiled hose attached to a spigot on the side of the barn, he lowered the ladder and climbed to the ground. Then he went to the spigot and turned it on. The water emerged with such force that the end of the hose bucked and slapped at the concrete.

He lowered the pressure with a twist of his wrist and sluiced away the blood. Had anyone heard him? How could they not? The hose was like a tin drum. And now that he thought about it—too late—what would the soldiers make of the wet floor, if they came in?

I’m not cut out for this shit,
Danny thought, turning off the water and re-coiling the hose. Then he clambered up the ladder, pulling it after him when he reached the top.
As soon as it’s dark,
he promised himself,
I’m out of here.