The Librarians and the Lost Lamp

  Shirin doubted that, but she saw no choice but to comply. There was a black-market cannister of Mace in her pocket, but it might as well have been on the other side of the Persian Gulf for all that she could reach it before her captor slid the blade between her ribs. She started to turn away from the spice stand, wondering if she would live to see tomorrow.

  “Dr. Masri,” another voice called out to her. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  To her surprise, Flynn Carsen stepped out in front of her, blocking her path. Beneath a traditional white headscarf, the well-meaning American wore an open, guileless expression, clearly oblivious to her plight. Shirin wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for the interruption or alarmed by his interference. Her situation was dire enough without a loose-cannon librarian complicating things.

  “Mr. Carsen,” she said, doing her best to keep a quaver out of her voice. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Well, I guess it’s true what they say. Everybody comes to the Barani Street market.” He nodded at the figure behind her. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Nobody in particular.” The mystery woman discreetly prodded Shirin with the knife. “But we really must be going.”

  “What’s the rush?” Flynn seemed in no hurry to move along. “We haven’t even been properly introduced.” He held out his hand. “Flynn Carsen. New York Metropolitan Library.”

  “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Carsen,” the woman said, not volunteering her own name. “And, if I may say so, perhaps out of your element. The streets of Baghdad are not always safe for lone Americans, not in these troubled times.”

  Glancing around, Shirin saw that the conversation was indeed attracting attention from the merchants and shoppers crowding the marketplace. Suspicious, even hostile glares turned in their direction. Again, she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She suspected that her would-be kidnapper was not appreciating this kind of scrutiny.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Flynn said. “But how could I resist checking out this market while I was in the vicinity? I just had to soak up the atmosphere, you know? Check some of the local color.” He gawked like a tourist at the bustling market all around them. “Did you know that this was one of the very first paved streets in the city, and that there’s been a public market on this site since at least the late Abbasid period back around seven fifty AD or so?”

  Further up the street, where the knife-wielding woman had been steering Shirin, three grim-faced men began to shove their way through the crowd toward them. Indignant protests greeted their progress. Shirin recalled that the other woman had spoken of “we” before. She guessed that the other kidnappers were growing impatient, which could put Carsen in serious jeopardy as well.

  I can’t let that happen, she thought. It’s not his fault that he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Carsen, but—”

  “Flynn,” he corrected her. “Please.”

  “All right, Flynn.” She saw the other kidnappers drawing closer and realized that she needed to get rid of Flynn before he became a target, too. Her mouth felt as dry as the desert. “But my … friend … is right. We really need to get going. Perhaps some other time?”

  “Careful. I’m going to hold you to that,” he began, only to be distracted by the spice merchant’s wares. “Hey, is this turmeric?” He scooped up a big handful of bright orange powder. “Wow. You never see anything this fresh at the supermarket back home.” He held up his palm to show the woman behind Shirin. “I mean, look at that color—”

  Without warning, he blew the powder into the woman’s face. She sputtered and coughed as the spice hit her like a face full of tear gas. Seizing the opportunity, Shirin elbowed the woman in the gut, causing her to stagger backward, gasping for breath. Shirin felt the knife tip pull away from her and sprang forward in the opposite direction, practically colliding with Flynn.

  “Looked like you could use a hand,” he said, over the spice dealer’s strident protests. He grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the stand. “Quick! Come with me. I’ve done this kind of thing before.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “You have?”

  “Trust me.”

  Shirin didn’t think she had much choice. She started to go with him, then remembered something important.

  “My briefcase!”

  “Leave it,” he said, tugging on her.

  “Not a chance!” She pulled her hand free and darted back toward the case, which was still resting on the pavement in front of the spice stand. She grabbed it by the handle, relieved that it hadn’t gotten displaced in the confusion. No way was she leaving the case—and its contents—behind.

  “Stupid girl! You should have run while you had the chance!”

  For the first time, Shirin got a look at her attempted abductor, although the other woman’s irate face was obscured by tears, snot, and spice. Shirin got a quick impression of a twentyish young woman wearing a traditional black cloak and headdress. Kohl-lined eyes and a golden nose stud adorned her natural beauty. She lunged at Shirin with her knife held high.

  So much for taking me alive.…

  Years of living in a combat zone had honed Shirin’s reflexes and taught her how to defend herself if she had to. Thinking fast, she swung the briefcase up to deflect the knife attack, then kicked the other woman in the knee, causing her to stumble backward, cursing.

  You had that coming, Shirin thought. Witch.

  “Wow,” Flynn said, reappearing at her side. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

  Shirin would have liked to get a few more licks in, but she knew they couldn’t linger. Glancing north, she saw the woman’s accomplices getting nearer. The murderous looks on their faces left no doubt whose side they were on.

  “We have to go,” Shirin warned Flynn. “There are more of them.”

  “You mean those bruisers heading toward us?” he said without looking. “Already on my radar.”

  He took hold of her hand again and they made tracks toward the southern end of the market, away from the oncoming kidnappers. The bustling crowd impeded them, so that Shirin felt as though she was swimming up the Euphrates against a heavy current. She held on tightly to her attaché case with her free hand, terrified of losing it in the crush. She could only pray that the tightly packed throng was slowing their pursuers as well.

  “Excuse me!” Flynn shouted, in alternating English and Arabic. “Coming through!”

  They had almost reached the end of the street when Shirin spotted four more men, looking equally hostile, pushing their way through the crowd toward them. One of them pointed at Shirin and shouted to his accomplices. “There she is! Don’t let her get away!”

  She and Flynn came to an abrupt halt, briefly causing a pedestrian traffic jam. Looking behind her, she saw their original pursuers gaining on them. They were less than half a block away and eating up that distance quickly. Any hope of escape was fading fast.

  “How many of these goons are there?” she asked out loud.

  “Best guess?” Flynn replied. “Forty, tops.”

  His glib reply caused her to stop short and stare at him in bafflement. “Huh?”

  “Granted,” he said, elaborating, “I suppose that not all of the Forty are muscle. That number is bound to include bosses, spies, smugglers, safecrackers, assassins, and other criminal types. Maybe even an inside man—or woman—at your museum. Which probably cuts down on the number of personnel actually employed in a simple kidnapping operation like this.…”

  She couldn’t believe he was babbling like this—in full paragraphs, no less—while they were running for their lives. She looked about desperately for another escape route.

  By now, the commotion was beginning to register on the crowd around them. Worried shoppers, not entirely sure what was happening, clutched their burdens close to them and tried to distance themselves from Flynn and Shirin, at least as much as possible amidst the press of the crowd.
Wary shopkeepers looked on with concern. Braver souls raised their voices in objection to the scowling kidnappers rudely forcing their way past the shoppers. A foolhardy young man, inspecting a display of pots and pans, refused to get out of the way and was roughly shoved aside, smashing into the stall. Copper and cast iron clattered onto the pavement, adding to the clamor.

  At least they’re not opening fire, Shirin thought. Maybe to avoid attracting the US patrols and helicopters?

  But the men were still closing in on them. Shirin extracted the Mace from her pocket, but she doubted it would do much good against an entire gang of kidnappers. She and Flynn were outnumbered and underequipped.

  “They’re all around us,” she whispered. “They’re not going to let us get away.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Flynn tightened his grip on her hand. “Stay close.”

  “Wait. What are you going to do?”

  Instead of explaining, he cupped his other hand around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted a single word in decent Arabic:

  “BOMB!”

  Pandemonium erupted in the marketplace. Frantic vendors and pedestrians stampeded away from Flynn, bowling over the goons who had been converging on him and Shirin. For a moment, she feared that she had merely traded being kidnapped for being trampled, but, letting go of her hand, Flynn grabbed her by the waist and swung her up onto the table in front of a coppersmith’s stall, away from the panicked mob. Dislodged pots and pans clattered noisily onto the pavement as he sprang up after her.

  “Keep your head down,” he advised, as they dived into the stall, which had already been abandoned by some terrified vendor. They crouched down behind the upset display, taking refuge in the stand. “But be ready to run when I say so.”

  She gaped at him again, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  “What kind of librarian are you?”

  “The kind who ends up in this sort of fix more often than you’d think.” He poked his head up long enough to peek at the street. Agitated voices and pounding footsteps implied that the panicky exodus had yet to abate. “The market’s clearing out fast. We’re not going to be able to hide here for long, since I don’t think we can count on your ‘friend’ and her colleagues to give up anytime soon.”

  Shirin saw his point. She didn’t want to get stuck in an empty market with nobody but the kidnappers, who were surely still after them. “My apartment is only a few blocks away.”

  “Forget it,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s the first place they’ll look for you, if they haven’t got it staked out already. Same with the museum.”

  “What about that hotel where you’re staying?”

  She wasn’t in the habit of visiting strange men’s hotel rooms, but she was willing to make an exception in this case. Her life—and her work—were more valuable than her reputation.

  “That’s no good, either,” he said. “They may be onto me already … or will be soon.”

  Shirin didn’t understand any of this. “‘They’?” she echoed. “Who are ‘they’ anyway?”

  “The Forty Thieves, presumably. Out for Aladdin’s Lamp.”

  Her jaw dropped. Of all the answers and explanations possible in these turbulent times, that was probably the last thing she’d expected to hear.

  “You can’t be serious. That’s just … insane.”

  “Do I seem crazy to you?” he asked. “On second thought, don’t answer that.” He began to creep out from behind the stall. “Anyway, we can talk about that later. Right now we need to get you away from the Forty.”

  He indicated an alley opening across the street. “I don’t suppose you know where that goes?”

  “No, not really.” She spent most of her time commuting between her office and her apartment; she didn’t pretend to know every back alley and side street in Baghdad. She wasn’t sure anybody did. “I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll have to risk it anyway,” he said. “You ready to make a run for it?”

  She swallowed hard and made sure she still had a tight grip on her case, which she was not letting out of her sight again. “I think so.”

  “Good,” he said. “Go!”

  Breaking from the shelter of the stand, they dashed across the now empty street into the waiting alley. She thought at first that maybe they were free and clear, but then she heard a furious female voice cry out: “Over there! After them! Kill the man, but leave the woman alive … if you can!”

  Shirin didn’t find that particularly encouraging.

  Dashing through the narrow alley, which was barely wide enough for them to pass through side by side, they found themselves in a bewildering labyrinth of unmarked streets and alleys. Heaps of rubble littered the streets. Stray dogs, rooting in the trash piles, barked and fled from their approach. Shirin heard sirens in the background along with the whirr of vigilant Black Hawk helicopters.

  “Maybe we should try to connect with the security forces?” she suggested.

  “Or not,” Flynn said. “To be honest, I’m not in a big hurry to explain why I started a bomb scare in a historic market. And we don’t really have time to be detained by the authorities, not if we want to beat the Forty to the Lamp.”

  The Lamp, she thought. Aladdin’s Lamp.

  “Please tell me you didn’t just say what I thought you said, because I really don’t want to think that I’m trusting my life to a lunatic.”

  “What can I say?” he said with a shrug. “If it’s any consolation, you’re not the first woman to feel that way.…”

  They came to a dead end and had to double back to an intersection that was partially blocked by loose debris. Shouts and pounding steps echoed through the warren of dusty alleys surrounding them, so that it sounded as though the kidnappers were around every corner.

  What was it that Flynn had said about there being forty of them?

  “Spread out!” shouted the woman with the knife, possibly from less than a block away. “Find them, or there will be hell to pay!”

  Flynn glanced up and down the alley ahead, clearly uncertain which way to go. Shirin knew how he felt. Another dead end could be the death of them.

  “Any suggestions?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid not. Too bad we don’t have Aladdin’s Lamp after all,” she quipped, trying to keep her spirits up. “We could just wish ourselves to safety.”

  “That would be a very bad idea,” he replied, seemingly in all seriousness. “Trust me.”

  Hearing bodies approaching from the left, they ran right. Shirin’s heart pounded along with her feet as they raced blindly down yet another nameless side street. The sun was sinking in the sky, and people were retreating indoors in anticipation of the curfew. She envied them for actually having somewhere safe to go.

  We can’t just keep running forever.…

  All at once, Flynn skidded to a halt, so abruptly that he yanked her backward like an anchor. Turning to see what the matter was, she found him staring, transfixed, at a run-down, hole-in-the-wall bookshop that looked as though it might have been there since the glory days of the caliphs.

  “No way,” he murmured. “It can’t be … can it?”

  Following his gaze, she saw that he was focused on a pair of shiny gold-colored bookends in the front window of the shop, fashioned in the shape of lounging lions.

  “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

  Was it just her imagination or were the footsteps behind them sounding louder and louder? She tugged on his arm, trying to get him moving again. “Come on, Flynn! They’re getting closer!”

  But Flynn seemed to have another idea in mind.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I feel a sudden need for reading material.”

  Without bothering to explain, he dragged her toward the bookshop. She was half convinced he had lost his mind entirely, but she followed after him anyway.

  What else was she supposed to do?

  7

  2016

  Ali Baba’s Palace was a deluxe
new casino and resort nestled right on the Strip, the gaudy, neon-drenched stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard that pretty much defined Sin City as far as the rest of the world was concerned. Gold-tinted domes and minarets, glittering in the sunlight like a sultan’s treasure, crowned the main casino, which was obviously going for an Arabian Nights theme. A long Persian carpet led from the sidewalk to the imposing Moorish arch where buff doormen sporting turbans, scimitars, and open vests “guarded” the palace. Live camels and actors dressed as Bedouins trudged through mock sand dunes on either side of the crowded walkway. Throngs of excited tourists, out for a good time, flowed in and out of the casino, nearly swamping Ezekiel and the others as they passed through the archway.

  “All right,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “Now we’re talking.”

  He was in his element. Easy money, fun, style, and a total lack of responsibility … who could ask for anything more?

  “You sure this is the right place?” Baird asked him. “There’s no shortage of ritzy casinos on the Strip, not to mention elsewhere in Vegas. The Bellagio, the Excalibur, the Luxor, et cetera. Plenty of places for Dunphy to gamble his new fortune away.”

  “Please!” Ezekiel placed a hand over his heart, as though mortally wounded that she would even think to doubt him. “Trust me, I know the security systems of every big casino like the back of my hand.” He flaunted his customized smartphone. “Took me all of ten minutes to hack into their databases and find out that an Augustus Dunphy was checked into a penthouse suite here at Ali Baba’s.”

  “Doesn’t mean he’s not cruising the Strip,” Stone pointed out, “hitting all the other hot spots.”

  “True,” Baird said, “but this is best lead we have at the moment. Good work, Jones.”

  “You expected anything less?” he replied. “This is Ezekiel Jones you’re dealing with.”

  “So you keep reminding us,” Stone said crankily.

  Ezekiel shrugged off Stone’s remark. Why shouldn’t he show off how awesome he was? Modesty didn’t become him.

  Leading the way, he followed the crowd into Ali Baba’s Palace, where some poor bloke dressed in a plush camel costume greeted guests and posed for pictures; rolling his eyes, Ezekiel guided the others through the palatial lobby to where the spacious gaming floor offered no end of eye-popping diversions and games of chance, all served up with a faux Arabian flavor. Slot machines, roulette wheels, and blackjack tables sprouted amidst the exotic decor. Cocktail waitresses dressed like harem girls, complete with gauzy veils, wound sinuously through the packed casino, delivering drinks to the gaming tables. Flashing lights and ringing bells added to the hubbub and laughter, nearly drowning out the piped-in Middle Eastern Muzak. Framed posters advertised an “adult” belly-dancing revue, playing twice daily.