Lion of Babylon (10 page)

Chapter Fifteen

M
ajor Lahm did not allow Sameh to enter the compound, not even when seven Palestinians were propped against the front wall, their hands manacled behind their backs. Sameh half listened to the policeman's explanation of it being a crime scene. In truth, he had no real interest in going anywhere. The major said the children had all been found unharmed and were being rescued. The kidnappers were bathed in the light of the two Land Cruisers, which had been pulled up with headlights directed to glare upon where they sat cross-legged along the front wall. Sameh remained on the other side of the street, slightly apart from the cluster of onlookers. Marc Royce stood beside him. The man seemed calm, contained. Sameh might even have used the word
detached
, except for how his attention remained tightly focused on the house's front gate.

Sameh asked, “Do you want to go inside?”

“Lahm ordered me to stay here. He's right. I don't speak the lingo and I can't add anything. Besides which, Lahm and his men are pros.”

Sameh studied Marc. Up close the man revealed an odd aura, like bullets not yet fired. “I did not know a man could move as fast as you did. I saw it, and still I am not certain of what happened.”

Marc nodded, as though he had expected the question. “Back when I was growing up, Baltimore was mired in serious problems. A lot of the city was corrupt, including too many cops. Kickbacks were the name of the game. The kids I ran with, they hated and distrusted the police. I despised that attitude. I decided I was going to grow up and be the one honest cop in town.”

“But you became an intelligence agent.”

“By the time I went to college, Baltimore was changing. The people elected an honest mayor and city council. They asked the feds to come in and shake things up. The corrupt cops were mostly retired, or fired, or locked up. I studied criminology at university, and basically went looking for a challenge.”

Sameh pointed across the street, to where Marc's attack still lingered in his mind. “And that performance I just witnessed?”

“There's a dojo near my church. A gym where you practice hand-to-hand combat. After my wife got sick, I used to slip away whenever I could. Sometimes twice a day. If my heart was in it, I'd go into the church and pray. For my wife, for me, for God to change the lousy hand we'd been dealt. I tried to be honest with myself. If I was too angry to pray, I worked out.” Marc's face tightened. “I worked out a lot.”

Sameh turned back to the house and the empty portal. Despite a lifetime of reservations, he felt a genuine and growing affection for this young man. “Are there many like you in America? I ask only because I lived there for a year and did not meet anyone who resembles you.”

“You were a student.” Marc offered a thin smile. “It takes a lot of practice to get where I am. A lot of hard knocks. Years, in fact.”

Sameh shook his head. Not in denial, but at how the American took a compliment and turned it into a reason for humility. “You are a man of faith. And a man of action. You have suffered great loss. But it has only opened you to the distress of others. You care deeply, it seems, for everyone and everything. Except your own life. You do not seem to have any personal aims. Even the way you come to be here, helping out a vanished friend and the retired boss who fired you. And now a family you don't know whose child was snatched away.”

Marc turned his face away, offering a silhouette carved from stone against the darkness. He did not speak.

“I do not seek to criticize you. I am genuinely curious. Why are you here? What is it you personally want? Not just from this night. I ask because I want to trust you. As you do me.”

Sameh forced himself to stop. He knew he was babbling. But he was still nervous from what had just happened. And his nerves made him edgy. His words sounded confrontational to his own ears. As though he was in court, pestering a reluctant witness. “Forgive me. I should not have spoken as I did.”

“The truth is . . .” Marc stopped and swallowed, the sound so loud he might have been choking. “I basically stopped living when my wife died. Now I feel as though I'm being called back. To do more than just go through the motions. To reenter the world. To accept a real tomorrow.”

He turned toward Sameh. The night and the headlights turned his gaze into what seemed an open wound. “I just don't know if I can.”

Sameh was still searching for a response when Major Lahm appeared in the doorway. Marc said, “Here they come.”

The police followed the major out. Each held one child or two. The young ones blinked in the headlights' glare like it was full daylight. Most of them were scarcely more than toddlers. They clung like limpets to the police. They appeared fearful and exhausted and afraid to believe their ordeal was over.

Then one more policeman stepped through the doorway, carrying another little boy in his arms. Just another frightened little stranger. Only this boy recognized Sameh, or perhaps it was simply the way Sameh rushed over, arms outstretched, a caring face in a terrible time. The boy wailed and reached out. All the terror and pain of captivity were held in that cry.

Sameh swept the boy into an embrace. They were both crying. It did not matter whether the boy recognized him or not. His comforting arms and caring heart were all the child required.

———

All three females in Sameh's household were still awake when Major Lahm dropped him off late that night. They met him with more questions than he had breath to answer. Thankfully, his exhaustion saved him from needing to explain precisely what had occurred. He wanted to avoid all such details in front of Leyla's young daughter, Bisan, who was eleven. All he said was, they had found Abdul, and the boy was now back with his family. Oh, and a few other children had been rescued as well. How many? Sameh was asleep on his feet as he replied. Forty-six.

Chapter Sixteen

T
he next morning, Sameh awoke feeling weary in a manner that went far beyond needing more rest. He had known many such times in years past, when chaos ruled and the darkness did not scatter even when the sun rose to its fiercest. But this morning was very different. As he rose from his bed, his mind flashed back to the reunion between Hassan's family and their small son. Their joy had been so deeply overwhelming, Sameh had felt his chest threaten to explode. Even now, as he padded wearily about the bedroom and dressed, his spirit sang. He even had to shave around a smile.

To his surprise, the women did not feel compelled to pester him with more questions when he joined them in the kitchen. Which was extremely unusual. Miriam, his wife, was the most gently ferocious interrogator Sameh had ever known. She could winnow the truth from a cadaver. But she asked just one question, and that was on the drive to church. “This American, he will be joining us?”

“He said he would.” Several times each week, Sameh attended the morning prayer service. He had invited Marc while still at the hospital, where they had ferried all the rescued children save Abdul. Afterward, he could not say why he had done such a thing. Only that it had seemed right at the time.

The previous night, Major Lahm had called a hospital administrator, who was also a friend, alerting him to their arrival. The hospital staff had responded with tender zeal. A ward had been evacuated. The rescued children had been checked over and comforted and settled two to a bed, in some cases three. Lahm had asked for volunteers from his exhausted men to stand guard. All had wanted the duty. Sameh had watched the policemen argue with quiet intensity over who would hold the honor, and felt his own composure finally unravel. He was unaccustomed to so many miracles in the space of one day.

That had been the moment when he had asked Marc to join him for the next morning's service. Marc had seemed to find it difficult to respond, his voice sounding rather strangled to Sameh. Or perhaps it was just that he too felt the day's strain. Marc had thanked him, calling the invitation a gift.

Which was what Sameh related to his three women as he drove through the early morning light. The American, Sameh told them, had called his invitation to wake up and find a taxi and travel across town for a dawn service a gift.

Bisan, Leyla's daughter, declared from the back seat, “He is nice. I like him.”

Miriam replied, “You have not met him.”

“Mama has. She says he is nice too.”

Leyla said, “Bisan, shah, it is not proper.”

“Well, didn't you say so last night?”

Sameh asked, “What else did your mother say?”

“Uncle, please. Don't encourage her.”

Miriam said, “Bisan does not need encouragement. She takes after Sameh. She has all the encouragement she will ever need built inside her. She is like the battery bunny, no? She goes and goes and goes.”

“Mama says the American looks like Omar Sharif.”

“I did not say that.”

“You said he was tall and handsome and had eyes like the Egyptian. I know which Egyptian you meant. There is only the one for you.”

“Now you have embarrassed your mother,” Leyla said.

Miriam chuckled. “What is the embarrassment in this? We all know you moon over Sharif. Someone says his name, she can't breathe.”

“You go like this.” Bisan sucked in a huge breath through pursed lips.

Sameh decided it was a good time to change the subject. “I am astonished that no one has asked me anything more about what happened last night.”

Bisan, not so easily diverted, added, “Mama said something else about the American. She said he has sad eyes.”

“That I did say,” Leyla agreed. “He carries great sorrow from the death of his wife.”

“When did this happen?” Miriam asked.

“Three years ago. She had a stroke,” Sameh said.

“I thought he was young, this American.”

“He is. His wife was only twenty-nine. He took a leave of absence from his work. He was with the government then. Intelligence.”

“He told us he was an accountant,” Leyla said.

“He is. The director of his agency fired him. He went to night school while taking care of his wife.”

Miriam said, “He told you all this?”

“I asked, he explained.” Sameh hesitated, then added, “I think he's nice too.”

“I am glad to hear this, since you have never before invited an American to join us for church.” Miriam glanced over at Sameh. “He is truly a Christian?”

“He attends the same church in America as the missing man, Alex Baird. Marc agreed to come this morning. More than that, I cannot say.” When the traffic came to a stop, Sameh looked at Miriam, then again into the rearview mirror. “Why do you not ask me more about last night?”

“First, because you are exhausted. Second, because it is everywhere.”

Bisan announced, “Uncle Sameh is a hero to his people. That is what he said.”

“Who says this?”

“The justice minister.” This from Miriam.

“The justice minister called, and you did not wake me?”

Bisan said, “It wasn't the justice minister on the phone.”

“And you know this how?”

“He was on television this morning. With Major Lahm.”

“They wanted you on the television with them,” Leyla explained. “I told them what you have always said to tell people who want to interview you. You are successful because you are not in the spotlight. You live to serve. I told them this. They did not like it. But after the second time I said it, they stopped calling.”

“But they talked about you,” Bisan said. “They say you are a great man.”

“Major Lahm phoned as well,” Leyla said. “He and his men are to be reinstated to their previous positions. He wants you to know he owes you a lifetime debt.”

Miriam said, “We are here, husband.”

“Eh, what?”

“The church. Don't miss your turn.”

Bisan jammed one finger against the window. “There on the top step. Is that the American?”

“Yes, that is Marc,” Leyla softly replied.

———

Marc descended the church steps as Sameh's car turned into the parking area and was inspected by the guards. When a trio of women emerged, Marc watched them adjust the brightly colored silk scarves around their heads. The little girl could only be Leyla's daughter. She possessed the same poise as her mother, the same finely sculpted features, the same eyes holding depths of emotion at which he could only guess. Marc felt his chest constrict and could not name the reason. He feared his attention on them would be considered improper, so he focused on his host, Sameh. Yet the three tugged at the periphery of his vision like magnets.

Sameh seemed to fumble for words. “You are here.”

“Thanks again for your invitation.”

“I would like to introduce my family. This is my wife, Miriam. Leyla you already know. And this is Bisan, her daughter.”

“It is an honor.”

Miriam had the same beauty as her niece and the girl, only in Sameh's wife it had been softened by age. She was still slender and held herself as erect as the others. She said, “It is you who honors us, Mr. Royce.”

“Come,” Sameh said. “I dislike being late.”

As they crossed the parking area, Bisan asked in her careful English, “You are a secret agent?”

Leyla said, “Bisan. Is this proper talk for church?”

“We are not inside yet, Mama. Can he just tell me that?”

At Leyla's nod, Marc said, “The correct term is operative. And yes, I was. For six years. But most of the time I rode a desk.”

“Please, you ride on a desk?”

“It means I stayed in headquarters. I wasn't in the field.”

“You liked this?”

“Sometimes. Other times it was awfully boring.”

“But safe, yes?”

Marc took a careful look at her. “May I ask how old you are?”

Leyla replied, “My Bisan is eleven. Going on thirty.”

“Your English is excellent, Bisan.”

“I learned it from Uncle Sameh. For my papa. He was very good with English.”

“And many other things,” Sameh replied. “He was a judge. And a giant among men.”

Miriam murmured, “God keep his soul at peace until the final day.”

“Come,” Sameh said. “The service is about to begin.”

The year before his wife had suffered her stroke, Marc and Lisbeth had attended a wedding in an Orthodox church in Washington, D.C. That structure had been relatively new. But there had been an unmistakable aura of age about the place and the service and the rituals. Marc had loved the feeling of being connected to his faith's ancient heritage.

The sensation he had known in Washington only hinted at what greeted him here.

The church's exterior was typical Baghdad. Whatever color the stucco might once have been was now reduced to grime and raw brick. Power cables were nailed to the wall above the entrance. The steps were cracked and pitted. The entry had once been tiled with mosaics, but all that remained were a few gritty flowers around the edges.

Inside, however, all this changed.

The smell was just as Marc remembered, a patina of old incense. It surprised him just how cool the church was, as though the city's heat was barred from entering, along with so much else.

The priests were tonsured, their remaining hair forming a circle around their scalps. They were robed in white and gold. The chants were sung without accompaniment, the priests' voices deep and resonant. Marc felt the words in his chest, in his heart. He rose, knelt, and sat with the four. When the priest began his brief homily, Marc let his mind drift back to the last time he had been in church. How he had cupped Lisbeth's photograph in his hands, stared at the photograph and wondered about his life. He truly felt that he had come to the turning point, finally recovering from his loss. Ready to move on. And yet, there was that question that had lurked in the shadows: move on to what?

Now here he was. Seated in the middle of an ancient church, in a land that predated history. Staring at his empty hands. And asking himself the same question. Move on to what?

When the service ended, Marc remained standing at the end of the pew. The central aisle was blocked. It seemed as though the entire congregation wanted to greet Sameh and shake his hand. The man was clearly uncomfortable with the attention, and yet he handled it well. He was every inch the gentleman, a true aristocrat in his slightly rumpled suit and the dusting of gray in his hair. He had a smile that invited confidences, and a gaze that promised neither judgment nor condemnation. Marc wondered if this was an Iraqi ability, to say so much in silence. But he thought not. He suspected it was more the measure of this man. Marc found himself watching Sameh and the three women who stood around him, hoping they might one day call him friend.

He was so intent in his reflections that he did not notice the girl's approach until Bisan stood at his side. “Does church make you sad?”

“No, not at all.”

“You looked very—what is the word?” She tugged on Miriam's sleeve and asked a question.

Miriam glanced back at him, then said in English, “Distressed.”

Marc found himself not the least bit uncomfortable about having to explain. Which surprised him. Talking about himself had always been difficult. But this ancient church, and the sharing of a ritual two thousand years in the making, left him not merely vulnerable but willing to confess, “Sometimes I need a place to ask myself impossible questions.”

For some reason, his words turned them all around. Even Sameh, though Marc would not have thought the man could hear him. Leyla spoke directly to him for the first time that day. “My husband, God keep his soul in peace, used to say the same thing.”

“I don't remember that, Mama.”

“How could you. You were not yet two when he died.”

“I think I remember things. Or you tell me, and I make them my memories.”

Something about the child's words caused Leyla's eyes to well up. “You are my heart's delight.”

Marc wished there were some way to thank them for speaking so openly, in English, so as to include him in the secrets and the love. He said, “Lisbeth used to say I was made to run. But even runners needed a place to stop and think and listen. Even warriors.”

“Lisbeth was your wife?”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry for your loss. So sorry.” Her voice was soft, melodic. “May God grant her eternal peace. And you.”

Miriam asked, “Please tell me, Mr. Royce. I find it very curious, you see, what troubles you this morning. If you would ask me, today is a day for celebrating. What is the most difficult question you have asked yourself this day?”

Marc found it impossible to be anything less than honest. “What I should do with the rest of my life.”

Miriam glanced at her husband, then said to Marc, “I cannot tell you that, of course. But, please, you must join us for dinner, yes?”