The Bible of Clay

  Marta came into the house, flopped down in a chair, lit a cigarette, and didn't say a word.

  "Marta, are you all right?" Fabian asked her.

  "Far from it. I've had it. I don't know what's going on here, but this place is turning into a graveyard. I... I think we need to get out of here, today if possible."

  "Take it easy." Fabian tried to soothe her. "We all have to calm down before we start making decisions. And we need to talk to Clara and Ahmed as soon as we can. They have an obligation to tell us whatever they know."

  "That man . . . that man out there is the one who came in with Ahmed," said Marta.

  "Yes, the Egyptian, Yasir. Ahmed said he worked for Mr. Tannenberg," Fabian agreed.

  "Who could do such a thing?" Marta asked him, her eyes filled with terror.

  "I want to see your grandfather."

  Ahmed's tone of voice was that of a defeated, frightened man. Clara was shocked by his condition: his clothes and hair rumpled, his eyes bloodshot—From crying? Clara wondered—his hands trembling.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Don't tell me you've missed the spectacle your grandfather mounted. Was it necessary to profane his body? He's a monster . . . that man is a monster—"

  "I... I don't know what you're talking about," Clara stammered.

  "Yasir—he's killed Yasir and mutilated his body and exhibited him out there in the middle of the camp for all to see, so none of us will forget who is in charge, the lord of us all. . . ."

  Ahmed was now weeping in earnest, oblivious to the contempt of the guards.

  Clara fought back panic. "He won't see you; he's resting." "I have to see him, I want to know when I'm to die!" Ahmed shouted.

  "Not another word! I won't have you spouting this garbage. Get out of here. In fact, I want you back in Baghdad today, where you will follow the instructions my grandfather gave you, to the letter. Now move."

  The Colonel's arrival in the midst of their exchange disconcerted Clara, although she refused to wilt under the man's icy glare. "I wish to see Mr. Tannenberg," he told her.

  "I don't know whether he's up yet. Wait here."

  Clara left him with Ahmed in the living room and went into her grandfather's room. Aliya had just shaved him and Dr. Najeb was about to remove a needle from his arm, leaving him without either plasma or saline solution.

  "I told you he shouldn't exert himself," the doctor said to Clara by way of greeting.

  "And I told you to keep your mouth shut," said Alfred. "Leave us. I told you I need to be strong today."

  "But you're not ready, and I can no longer take responsibility for what you're asking me to do—"

  "Leave me alone with my granddaughter," Tannenberg commanded.

  Dr. Najeb and Aliya left the room without another word. "What's wrong, Clara?"

  "The Colonel wants to see you. It looks serious. Ahmed came in too. He says that Yasir's body is out in the middle of the camp . . . that you had him killed and mutilated. ..."

  "That's right. Does that surprise you? Betraying me has fatal consequences. That was a reminder to both the men here and my friends in Washington."

  "But. . . but what did Yasir do?"

  "He conspired against me, spied on me for my friends, did business behind my back."

  "How do you know that?"

  "How do I know? Really, Clara. Now tell the Colonel to come in and that son of a bitch of a husband of yours to leave—he has his instructions."

  "Are you going to kill him?"

  "I might; it all depends on what happens in the next few days." Clara hesitated a moment. "Please, Grandfather, please, don't kill him."

  "Clara, not even for you would I fail to do something that I think is necessary to keep my affairs running properly. If I hesitate, if I don't show the others what I can do, then they'll do it to us first. Those are the rules. Not even I am exempt from them. Yasir's death has demonstrated to George, Enrique, and Frankie that I'm alive and well; it's also underscored that to my partners here, including the Colonel. They've all understood the message. Now go and do as I tell you."

  "What am I going to say? To Picot, to Marta—they're going to demand answers," asked Clara.

  "Don't say anything. They're not in a position to demand anything. Tell them to keep working, keep excavating, trying to find the Bible of Clay before they leave. Or I may have to prevent them from going."

  Two hours later, the camp had returned to a strained, false calm. After a heated encounter with Picot, who demanded answers, Clara had gone out to the site to excavate with Gian Maria and a contingent of laborers.

  Neither Picot nor anyone else on his team would go with her to the temple, and they couldn't understand how she could just go on with her routine after what had happened. She ignored their reproaches. Otherwise, she'd collapse altogether.

  She was preparing to descend to the new chamber they'd found when she heard helicopters taking off in the distance. Ahmed was leaving, and that calmed her. She no longer loved him, but she couldn't have borne it if her grandfather had had him killed; that would have broken down the last of her shaky defenses. She much preferred him gone.

  She persuaded Gian Maria to remain above while she went down and explored first. Tied in a sling to the rope that dangled from the pulleys above, she slid down into the blackness until her feet hit the ground. It smelled musty, almost putrid, forcing her to fight off a moment's nausea. She was determined to explore the room the others had discovered, the door Fabian and Picot thought might lead into other spaces in the temple.

  She untied the lanterns she'd lashed around her waist, turned them on, and set them out in the most strategic areas. Then she started to feel around the walls and the floor, tapping them for indications of hollow spaces on the other side.

  She lost all sense of time, although she periodically tugged at the rope so that the workers up on top would know she was all right. But she didn't give the signal for Gian Maria to join her. She'd made it clear that he was to come down only if she called for him.

  She wasn't sure how it happened, but as she tapped at some rock with the handle of a spatula, a whole wall came down, covering her in dust and rubble. When she opened her eyes, she stood frozen, terrified, feeling the loose rubble shifting around her feet. The seconds seemed an eternity; she didn't dare even look down, and she stood so still that she felt nailed to the floor. Suddenly, a light flashed in her face and firm footsteps came toward her.

  "Clara, are you all right?"

  In the semidarkness she made out the face of Gian Maria; she realized that she'd never in her life been so happy to see another human be

  ing. Then the light he was holding shone beyond where she had been working.

  "Clara, let's get out of here. It's not stable."

  "Gian Maria, look. It's another room! Help me, we've got to look at this. Call some of the workers to help us clear this rubble. We need to get some light down here."

  Lion Doyle read the fax from the director of Photomundi, clearly relayed straight from his boss, Tom Martin, president of Global Group:

  We haven't heard from you in quite a while, and our clients are getting impatient. What's happening with the report you promised? If you can't complete it, assignment will end; the media will not continue to pay for random photos. I want news, or else return immediately.

  Tom Martin was pressuring Lion because the clients were pressuring him. Those who wanted Alfred Tannenberg dead weren't willing to wait any longer, and Martin was telling Lion that if he didn't kill the old man soon he'd cancel the contract and demand the return of the advance.

  Lion made his way to the storeroom that doubled as an office, where he found Fabian giving instructions to Ante Plaskic about making backups and packing up the computer equipment.

  "I need to send a fax," Lion told them.

  "No problem," Ante said. "Leave it in that tray."

  Lion's reply to his "boss" at Photomundi was short and to the point: You'll have the report this week.
br />   43

  tom martin read doyle's brief message —by way of

  the Photomundi director—and tore up the paper. He'd call Burton right away; the man's patience was wearing thin, as he'd made clear to Tom in no uncertain terms when he'd phoned a couple of days ago. He'd paid a very large advance, he reminded Tom, and he wanted to see results. If the man Tom had sent to Iraq had already located Tannenberg and his granddaughter, if he'd already infiltrated and made contact with them, why weren't they dead?

  The president of Global Group had explained that if his man hadn't carried the mission off yet, it must be nearly impossible and he was waiting for his moment. Tom asked Mr. Burton to be patient, but patience was the one quality the gentleman refused to exhibit.

  "Do you have news for me, Mr. Martin?" Burton asked as soon as Tom reached him via the British cell number he had provided.

  "I've been assured that the contract will be fulfilled this week."

  "Do I have your guarantee on that?"

  "I'm telling you what my man has told me."

  "When will we know that our instructions have been carried out?" "I said this week I hope to have further news for you—good news." "I want proof; news is not enough. It's stipulated in our contract."

  "I fulfill my contracts, Mr. Burton. I'll be in touch." "I'll be waiting."

  Hans Hausser looked down again at the book he'd been reading before Tom Martin's phone call interrupted him.

  It was late, past seven, but he had to call the others. They were impatient to know what was happening in that godforsaken village where the monster seemed to have taken up residence with his granddaughter.

  He got up, took his raincoat off the hook in the foyer, and opened the door, trying not to rouse his daughter, Berta, who was feeding her children in the kitchen. But Berta had sharp hearing, and she came out to the hall.

  "Papa, where are you going?"

  "I need to stretch my legs."

  "But it's so late, and it's raining."

  "Berta, please! Stop treating me like one of your children! I've been cooped up all day and I feel like taking a walk. I'll be back soon."

  He closed the door without giving her time to respond. He knew he was upsetting her, but he couldn't help it; it wouldn't be fair to his friends if he made them wait to hear what he'd learned.

  He walked for a long while, until he found a public telephone well away from his home.

  Carlo Cipriani was still at the clinic, assisting at the operation of a friend of his whose kidney Antonino was removing. Maria, his secretary, assured Hans that Dr. Cipriani would call him the minute he returned to his office.

  The next number he dialed was Bruno Miiller's cell phone, which Bruno had been keeping within arm's reach for days.

  "Bruno ... I have news: I've been assured that the job will be done this week."

  "Are you sure?"

  "That's what they told me, and I hope they keep their word." "We've waited so many years for this; I guess we can wait another week."

  "Yes, although I have to say I'm more impatient than ever. I just hope it'll be over soon."

  Bruno Miiller sat for a second or two in silence. He was enduring the same heavy weight in his chest that he knew his friend was feeling. They shared the same burning desire to know that Tannenberg was dead at last. That day, as Hans said, that glorious day they would live, they would live differently than they had ever lived before.

  "Have you talked to Carlo and Mercedes?"

  "Carlo was in the operating room. I'm going to call Mercedes now. I always dread how frantic she is."

  "When you talk to Carlo, don't ask him about his son. He still hasn't had any news from him; he's going crazy."

  "I think Antonino is with him in the operating room right now."

  "No. His other son. The other day when we talked, Carlo told me he hadn't written or called, and that all they could tell him was that he was all right, but they didn't know where he was. Only that he was going through a profound personal crisis. Carlo feels that he's to blame, but he wouldn't say why—he just says he's to blame for it all."

  "And your friend at Security Investigations—he can't do anything to help him?"

  "I'm afraid the kid said that if his father tried to get in touch with him, he'd never see him again." "Children can be such a joy." "What would we be without them, though?"

  "I know, my friend, I know. Well, I'm going to call Mercedes, and as soon as I hear anything further I'll let you all know."

  After he gave Mercedes the news and reassured her that he'd call as soon as he knew more, Hans hung up the phone and walked in the rain until, soaked through, he decided to hail a taxi and go back home. He was freezing, and he had a cough. Berta would never forgive him—or let him out of the house again—if he'd caught a cold.

  The doorbell rang incessantly, and finally, after what seemed an eternity, Robert Brown answered. Paul Dukais was standing there impatiently, and impatience was not something that usually characterized the president of Planet Security.

  "Is everyone here?" Dukais asked Brown.

  "Ralph's in the study, and I called George to tell him you had news. I told him I'd call back as soon as you tell me what's so urgent."

  Dukais went into Brown's luxurious den, where Ralph Barry was sitting with a glass of whiskey. Paul had insisted he be here for this too, since as one of the directors of the Mundo Antiguo Foundation he was part of the operation.

  Dukais fixed himself a whiskey and looked at the two men, imagining their reaction to Alfred's latest missive.

  "Alfred Tannenberg has had Yasir killed. But that wasn't enough— he had his hands, feet, and ears cut off and his eyes pulled out, and he put it all in a box and sent it to us. I also have a letter from Alfred to George and his associates. And I've talked to one of my men in Cairo, who spoke to Ahmed. This has all pretty much finished him—you'll see why..."

  As he finished speaking and his two companions watched in horrified silence, Paul Dukais opened a metal box he had brought with him. He took out another box nestled inside and flipped it open. A pair of eyes that were beginning to dry and shrivel stared up at them, perched on top of a bloody mass of flesh and bones.

  Brown shot to his feet. His face had lost all color and was distorted by revulsion, his mouth open, his eyes bulging. Barry, too, was in a state of shock, and both men remained speechless. Neither of them seemed able to speak a word. Suddenly, Barry bolted from the room, covering his mouth.

  "Close that up!" Brown screamed. "Jesus Christ! He's a flicking lunatic!"

  Dukais didn't say anything as he returned the grisly gift to its container, but he was struck by the thought that Brown was no less a monster than Tannenberg; he took part in the same business of stealing and murder, except he did it at a distance, to keep the blood from spattering his nice white shirt. The difference between him and the men he hired to kill people was that hired killers put their lives on the line; Robert Brown sat in a leather-lined den and drank twenty-year-old whiskey from a crystal old-fashioned glass, wielding his telephone as a weapon.

  His face pale, Ralph Barry came back, wiping his mouth.

  "You son of a bitch!" he said angrily to Dukais.

  "You think / liked seeing that?" said Dukais, jerking his thumb at the box containing the carnage, which he'd put on a table near the sofa. "I wasn't going to be the only one, you can be damned sure of that. You two get to see all the reports." He laughed humorlessly.

  Then he got up and poured himself another drink. "Whiskey'll take that bad taste out of your mouth."

  "What did Ahmed have to say?" Brown asked.

  "Ahmed and my people in Safran seem to agree that Alfred is dying. Last week they were giving him only days, but they were clearly wrong. Alfred's just demonstrated that to us very convincingly. We still have to go through him for everything—that's what this box says. My man in Cairo says the only thing Ahmed wants now is out. Which doesn't mean he won't hold up his end. We've made it clear to him that nobo
dy gets out of this until it's over. So now all we have to do is wait. It won't be long until this damned war starts." "And what about Clara Tannenberg?" Ralph Barry asked. "According to her husband, she's turned into a she-devil. I guess she takes after her grandfather." "Have they found the tablets?"

  "No, Ralph, they haven't. But from what Ahmed says, Clara still wants to move a few more tons of dirt. Oh, and he also reported that Picot has talked Clara and Alfred into letting him take everything they've found out of Iraq, for some sort of traveling show they're putting together. They're going to tour seven or eight European cities with it, possibly even here, so sooner or later they'll be calling you. You're a friend of Picot's, right?"

  Ralph Barry took a long drink of his whiskey before he answered Dukais.

  "We're acquaintances. In academia, everybody at a certain level knows everybody else."

  "So the Safran pieces won't be arriving with the rest of the stuff," Robert Brown murmured.

  "No, that's one of Clara and Alfred's little surprises. Apparently Alfred isn't opposed to selling some of the pieces, but not until his granddaughter has sashayed all over the world with them."

  "He's crazy," Robert Brown said contemptuously.

  "Crazy like a fox," Paul Dukais said, grinning wryly. Then the president of Planet Security opened his briefcase and took out three manila folders, which he handed to Robert Brown.

  "These are the reports, with a detailed chronology of everything that's happened in the last few days in Safran, including the death of a nurse and two guards."

  "What's happened?" asked an increasingly agitated Barry. "Why haven't you told us about this?"