Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary

It was a secluded spot, cool from the dense tree cover that was occasionally pierced by ethereal rays of sunlight. It was also deathly quiet, save for the mating song of countless cicadas that echoed around them.

Farouk scanned the trees, then turned to Corben, confused. “Why are we stopping here?”

“I don’t want to make the call from the embassy.”

Farouk seemed bewildered. “Why not?”

“I’d rather get this sorted out before we get there,” Corben said calmly. “Don’t worry about it. We’re two minutes away. We’ll be there before you know it.”

He checked his watch. It was time. He picked up his phone, logged it back to the second-to-last dialed call, and hit the green button. A few seconds and it started to ring.

He handed the phone to Farouk as he heard Abu Barzan pick up on the first ring.

Farouk listened for a moment before turning to Corben, his face contorted with pain and dismay.

“His buyer’s offered six hundred.”

Corben expected as much.

He knew it would be pointless to counterbid. The relics weren’t worth anywhere near as much, which meant the buyer was definitely after the same thing he was and was probably prepared to pay what it took to get them. Still, he thought of bidding up. Whether he’d ever have to come up with the cash was a different matter. But before he could even answer, he noticed that Farouk still seemed to be listening intently to Abu Barzan.

The expression on the Iraqi’s face darkened even more. “He’s saying there’s no need for you to offer more money,” Farouk relayed, his breathing labored. “He’s saying his client’s known he was getting the pieces all along, which means that if anyone’s killing people for them, it’s obviously not his buyer. And he’s more than happy with the price. He thanks us for ramping the price up, but the deal’s done.”

Corben frowned. It was slipping away. He needed an advantage, and the only card he could play was weak, one that could work as much as it could backfire, depending on Abu Barzan’s politics, which he had no time to assess, and his propensity to be intimidated.

He decided to give it a shot. “Does he speak English?”

Farouk nodded.

“Give me the phone.”

Farouk mumbled a brief introduction, convinced Abu Barzan to stay on the line, then handed the phone to Corben. It was sticky with blood.

“I can’t outbid your client,” Corben told him, “but I’d like you to reconsider my offer.”

“I’m sorry, my friend,” Abu Barzan chortled. “I know my buyer’s real, I know I’ll have my money tomorrow, and I’ll go back to Mosul a very rich man, but I don’t know anything about you. Besides, you have an expression in America, no? Something about money talking and bullshit walking?”

“I just need you to think about a few things,” Corben told him calmly. “It’s not all about cash. I work for the U.S. government, and I can think of worse things than having us owe you a big favor. The way things are shaping up in Iraq, we’re not gonna be out of there for a while. And you might find that having a friend in the system could come in handy one of these days, you know what I’m saying?”

Abu Barzan went silent for a beat. When he came back, the relaxed mocking in his tone was gone, replaced by an icy disdain. “You think telling me you work for the American government is going to make want to help you? You think you can do things for me in Iraq?”

The politics were clear. “Better to have us owe you than be pissed off at you, that’s for sure,” Corben countered flatly, knowing that wasn’t going to work either.

“Now you’re threatening me?” Abu Barzan spat back, following it with a torrent of inspired abuse. He was on his second “Fuck you” when Corben hung up.

Farouk was staring at him with round, baffled eyes. “What did he say?”

Corben shook his head slightly. “He’s not interested.”

Farouk sighed heavily. “Then you have nothing to trade for Sitt Evelyn.”

Which was true. But he knew who had the book. And he now had his phone number.

Abu Barzan had told Farouk that he was on his way to deliver the goods, and he’d added that he’d have his money “tomorrow evening.” That gave Corben a little over twenty-four hours to track him down. If Abu Barzan was traveling and needed to stay in contact with his buyer, he wouldn’t probably have time, nor would he risk, changing phones. Corben felt reasonably confident that Olshansky would nail down his position.

Thinking about it now, Corben realized things hadn’t gone too badly. Sure, the discovery that another buyer was out there did complicate things. On the other hand, it also drew out someone Corben was just as interested in finding, someone who’d been hiding in the shadows successfully long before Corben had even gotten wind of anything. And that, in itself, was a welcome development.

Which left Farouk.

Sitting there, wheezing and groaning and bleeding all over Corben’s borrowed embassy car.

Corben knew wounds like this. He knew that on TV, people who got shot were always told they were lucky it was “just” a flesh wound and would be bouncing around a few days later with nothing more to show for it than a big white bandage. The reality was very different. Most shots needed hospitalization and IVs. Infections set in easily and were commonplace. And a wound such as Farouk’s would require, at best, a month of serious hospitalization. It was also highly likely he’d feel its effect, in some way, for the rest of his life.

And that was a problem.

As he had told Farouk, a hospital wouldn’t be safe, not from the hakeem, given his contacts in the Lebanese police force. Besides, the last thing he wanted was for the hakeem to know Farouk had been shot. And even if the hakeem didn’t grab Farouk outright, he’d find out what Corben now knew, and any leverage Corben had over the hakeem would be lost.

The Fuhud detectives would get involved. The head of station. The press too, probably. Every move, every choice Corben made, or wanted to make, would be poured over with a microscope. The ambassador and the Lebanese government would also get sucked in. If they found out about Abu Barzan’s pieces and managed to get hold of them, they might set up an exchange with the hakeem and trade them for Evelyn. The hakeem would have what he was after, he’d recede into the shadows, and Corben would be left with nothing but frustration and tons of paperwork. And if the hakeem couldn’t get to Farouk, or if no exchange went through, he’d also disappear.

That ruled out the hospital.

He couldn’t keep Farouk at the embassy either. They didn’t have the medical facilities there. It would be bad enough if Farouk died while in hospital, but if he died while he was at the embassy…The ambassador was a principled, honorable guy who wouldn’t keep Farouk’s presence a secret, not from the State Department, nor from the local authorities. Farouk’s death on U.S. soil would create a shitstorm that would ruin everything.

He wouldn’t get what he was after.

Thinking it through dispassionately, he couldn’t see that Farouk was of any further value to him. The man had only gotten drawn into this accidentally, and now that Corben knew what Farouk knew about Abu Barzan, the Iraqi had become obsolete.

More than obsolete.

He was a liability.

Whichever way he turned, all Corben saw coming out of bringing him in was questions, obstacles, complications, and grief.

Which didn’t really leave him much choice.

He turned to Farouk. The wounded Iraqi looked like a mauled animal, curled up and drenched in blood. His face glistened with sweat and looked even more ashen in the pale, diffused light of the forest. His whole body was shivering, and his trembling hands, caked thick with blood, still pressed down meekly on his wound. He was staring at Corben with scared, half-dead eyes that were barely managing to stay open.