She knew he would be furious, however, if she lingered in the airport hoping to meet his flight. For one thing, she would have no idea where his flight would be coming from--he was wont to choose very odd itineraries, so that he could very easily be on a flight from Cairo, Moscow, Algiers, Rome, or Jerusalem. No, it was better to go to a hotel, check in under an alias that he knew about, and--
"Mrs. Delphiki?"
She turned at once at the sound of Bean's mother's name, and then realized that the tall, white-haired gentleman was addressing her.
"Yes." She laughed. "I'm still not used to the idea of being called by my husband's name."
"Forgive me," said the man. "Do you prefer your birth name?"
"I haven't used my own name in many months," said Petra. "Who sent you to meet me?"
"Your host," said the man.
"I have had many hosts in my life," said Petra. "Some of whom I do not wish to visit again."
"But such people as that would not live in Damascus." There was a twinkle in his eye. Then he leaned in close. "There are names that it is not good to say aloud."
"Mine apparently not being one of them," she said with a smile.
"In this time and place," he said, "you are safe while others might not be."
"I'm safe because you're with me?"
"You are safe because I and my...what is your Battle School slang?...my jeesh and I are here watching over you."
"I didn't see anybody watching over me."
"You didn't even see me," said the man. "This is because we're very good at what we do."
"I did see you. I just didn't realize you had taken any notice of me."
"As I said."
She smiled. "Very well, I will not name our host. And since you won't either, I'm afraid I can't go with you anywhere."
"Oh, so suspicious," he said with a rueful smile. "Very well, then. Perhaps I can facilitate matters by placing you under arrest." He showed her a very official-looking badge inside a wallet. Though she had no idea what organization had issued the badge, since she had never learned the Arabic alphabet, let alone the language itself.
But Bean had taught her: Listen to your fear, and listen to your trust. She trusted this man, and so she believed his badge without being able to read it. "So you're with Syrian law enforcement," she said.
"As often as not," he replied, smiling again as he put his wallet away.
"Let's walk outside," she said.
"Let's not," he said. "Let's go into a little room here at the airport."
"A toilet stall?" she asked. "Or an interrogation room?"
"My office," he said.
If it was an office, it was certainly well disguised. They got to it by stepping behind the El Al ticket counter and going into the employees' back room.
"El Al?" she asked. "You're Israeli?"
"Israel and Syria are very close friends for the past hundred years. You should keep up on your history."
They walked down a corridor lined with employee lockers, a drinking fountain, and a couple of restroom doors.
"I didn't think the friendship was close enough to allow Syrian law enforcement to use Israel's national airline," said Petra.
"I lied about being with Syrian law enforcement," he said.
"And did they lie out front about being El Al?"
He palmed open an unmarked door, but when she made as if to follow him through it, he shook his head. "No no, first you must place the palm of your hand..."
She complied, but wondered how they could possibly have her palm print and sweat signature here in Syria.
No. They didn't, of course. They were getting them right now, so that wherever else she went, she would be recognized by their computer security systems.
The door led to a stairway that went down.
And farther down, and farther yet, until they had to be well underground.
"I don't think this complies with international handicapped access regulations," said Petra.
"What the regulators don't see won't hurt us," said the man.
"A theory that has gotten so many people into so much trouble," said Petra.
They came to an underground tunnel, where a small electric car was waiting for them. No driver. Apparently her companion was going to drive.
Not so. He got into the backseat beside her, and the car took off by itself.
"Let me guess," said Petra. "You don't take most of your VIPs through the El Al ticket counter."
"There are other ways to get to this little street," said the man. "But the people looking for you would not have staked out El Al."
"You'd be surprised at how often my enemy is two steps ahead."
"But what if your friends are three steps ahead?" Then he laughed as if it had been a joke, and not a boast.
"We're alone in a car," said Petra. "Let's have some names now."
"I am Ivan Lankowski," he said.
She laughed in spite of herself. But when he did not smile, she stopped. "I'm sorry," she said. "You don't look Russian, and this is Damascus."
"My paternal grandfather was ethnic Russian, my grandmother was ethnic Kazakh, both were Muslims. My mother's parents are still living, thanks be to Allah, and they are both Jordanian."
"And you never changed the name?"
"It is the heart that makes the Muslim. The heart and the life. My name contains part of my genealogy. Since Allah willed me to be born in this family, who am I to try to deny his gift?"
"Ivan Lankowski," said Petra. "The name I'd like to hear is the name of the one who sent you."
"One's superior officer is never named. It is a basic rule of security."
Petra sighed. "I suppose this proves I'm not in Kansas anymore."
"I don't believe," said Lankowski, "that you have ever been in Kansas, Mrs. Delphiki."
"It was a reference to--"
"I have seen The Wizard of Oz," said Lankowski. "I am, after all, an educated man. And...I have been in Kansas."
"Then you have found wisdom I can only dream of."
He chuckled. "It is an unforgettable place. Just like Jordan was right after the Ice Age, covered with tall grasses, stretching forever in every direction, with the sky everywhere, instead of being confined to a small patch above the trees."
"You are a poet," said Petra. "And also a very old man, to remember the Ice Age."
"The Ice Age was my father's time. I only remember the rainy times right after it."
"I had no idea there were tunnels under Damascus."
"In our wars with the west," said Lankowski, "we learned to bury everything that we did not want blown up. Individually-targeted bombs were first tested on Arabs, did you know that? The archives are full of pictures of exploding Arabs."
"I've seen some of the pictures," said Petra. "I also recall that during those wars, some of the individuals targeted themselves by strapping on their own bombs and blowing them up in public places."
"Yes, we did not have guided missiles, but we did have feet."
"And the bitterness remains?"
"No, no bitterness," said Lankowski. "We once ruled the known world, from Spain to India. Muslims ruled in Moscow, and our soldiers reached into France, and to the gates of Vienna. Our dogs were better educated than the scholars of the West. Then one day we woke up and we were poor and ignorant, and somebody else had all the guns. We knew this could not be the will of Allah, so we fought."
"And discovered that the will of Allah was...?"
"The will of Allah was for many of our people to die, and for the West to occupy our countries again and again until we stopped fighting. We learned our lesson. We are very well behaved now. We abide by all the treaty terms. We have freedom of the press, freedom of religion, liberated women, and democratic elections."
"And tunnels under Damascus."
"And memories." He smiled at her. "And cars without drivers."
"Israeli technology, I believe."
"For a long time we thought of Israel as the enemy
's toehold in our holy land. Then one day we remembered that Israel was a member of our family who had gone away into exile, learned everything our enemies knew, and then came home again. We stopped fighting our brother, and our brother gave us all the gifts of the West, but without destroying our souls. How sad it would have been if we had killed all the Jews and driven them out. Who would have taught us then? The Armenians?"
She laughed at his joke, but also listened to his lecture. So this was how they lived with their history--they assigned meanings to everything that allowed them to see God's hand in everything. Purpose. Even power and hope.
But they also still remembered that Muslims had once ruled the world. And they still regarded democracy as something they adopted in order to placate the West.
I really should read the Q'uran, she thought. To see what lies underneath the facade of western-style sophistication.
This man was sent to meet me, she thought, because this is the face they want visitors to Syria to see. He told me these stories, because this is the attitude they want me to believe that they have.
But this is the pretty version. The one that has been tailored to fit Western ears. The bones of the stories, the blood and the sinews of it, were defeat, humiliation, incomprehension of the will of God, loss of greatness as a people, and a sense of ongoing defeat. These are people with something to prove and with lost status to retrieve. A people who want, not vengeance, but vindication.
Very dangerous people.
Perhaps also very useful people, to a point.
She took her observations to the next step, but couched her words in the same kind of euphemistic story that he had told. "From what you tell me," said Petra, "the Muslim world sees this dangerous time in world history as the moment Allah has prepared you for. You were humbled before, so you would be submissive to Allah and ready for him to lead you to victory."
He said nothing at all for a long time.
"I did not say that."
"Of course you did," said Petra. "It was the premise underlying everything else you said. But you don't seem to realize that you have told this, not to an enemy, but to a friend."
"If you are a friend of God," said Lankowski, "why do you not obey his law?"
"But I did not say I was a friend of God," said Petra. "Only that I was a friend of yours. Some of us cannot live your law, but we can still admire those who do, and wish them well, and help them when we can."
"And come to us for safety because in our world there is safety to be had, while in your world there is none."
"Fair enough," said Petra.
"You are an interesting girl," said Lankowski.
"I've commanded soldiers in war," said Petra, "and I'm married, and I might very well be pregnant. When do I stop being just a girl? Under Islamic law, I mean."
"You are a girl because you are at least forty years younger than I am. It has nothing to do with Islamic law. When you are sixty and I am a hundred, inshallah, you will still be a girl to me."
"Bean is dead, isn't he?" asked Petra.
Lankowski looked startled. "No," he said at once. It was a blurt, unprepared for, and Petra believed him.
"Then something terrible has happened that you can't bear to tell me. My parents--have they been hurt?"
"Why do you think such a thing?"
"Because you're a courteous man. Because your people changed my ticket and brought me here and promised I'd be reunited with my husband. And in all this time we've been walking and riding together, you have never so much as hinted about when or whether I would see Bean."
"I apologize for being remiss," said Lankowski. "Your husband boarded a later flight that came by a different route, but he is coming. And your family is fine, or at least we have no reason to think they're not."
"And yet you are still hesitant," said Petra.
"There was an incident," said Lankowski. "Your husband is safe. Uninjured. But there was an attempt to kill him. We think if you had been the one who got into the first cab, it would not have been a murder attempt. It would have been a kidnapping."
"And why do you think that? The one who wants my husband dead wants me dead as well."
"Ah, but he wants what you have inside you even more," said Lankowski.
It took only a moment for her to make the logical assumption about why he would know that. "They've taken the embryos," she said.
"The security guard received a rise in salary from a third party, and in return he allowed someone to remove your frozen embryos."
Petra had known Volescu was lying about being able to tell which babies had Anton's Key. But now Bean would know it, too. They both knew the value of Bean's babies on the open market, and that the highest price would come if the babies had Anton's Key in their DNA, or the would-be buyers believed they did.
She found herself breathing too rapidly. It would do no good to hyperventilate. She forced herself to calm down.
Lankowski reached out and patted her hand lightly. Yes, he sees that I'm upset. I don't yet have Bean's skill at hiding what I feel. Though of course his skill might be the simple result of not feeling anything.
Bean would know that Volescu had deceived them. For all they knew, the baby in her womb might be afflicted with Bean's condition. And Bean had vowed that he would never have children with Anton's Key.
"Have there been any ransom demands?" she asked Lankowski.
"Alas, no," he replied. "We do not think they wish to trouble themselves with the near impossibility of trying to obtain money from you. The risk of being outsmarted and arrested in the process of trying to exchange items of value is too high, perhaps, when compared with the risk involved in selling your babies to third parties."
"I think the risks involved in that are very nearly zero," said Petra.
"Then we agree on the assessment. Your babies will be safe, if that's any consolation."
"Safe to be raised by monsters," said Petra.
"Perhaps they don't see themselves that way."
"Are you confessing that you people are in the market for one of them to raise to be your boy or girl genius?"
"We do not traffic in stolen flesh," said Lankowski. "We long had a problem with a slave trade that would not die. Now if someone is caught owning or selling or buying or transporting a slave, or being in an official position and tolerating slavery, the penalty is death. And the trials are swift, the appeals never granted. No, Mrs. Delphiki, we are not a good place for someone to bring stolen embryos to try to sell them."
Even in her concern about her children--her potential children--she realized what he had just confessed: That the "we" he spoke of was not Syria, but rather some kind of pan-Islamic shadow government that did not, officially at least, exist. An authority that transcended nations.
That was what Lankowski meant when he said that he worked for the Syrian government "as often as not." Because as often as not he worked for a government higher than that of Syria.
They already have their own rival to the Hegemon.
"Perhaps someday," she said, "my children will be trained and used to help defend some nation from Muslim conquest."
"Since Muslims do not invade other nations anymore, I wonder how such a thing could happen?"
"You have Alai sequestered here somewhere. What is he doing, making baskets or pottery to sell at the fair?"
"Are those the only choices you see? Pottery-making or aggressive war?"
But his denials did not interest her. She knew her analysis was as correct as it could be without more data--his denial was not a disproof, it was more likely to be an inadvertent confirmation.
What interested her now was Bean. Where was he? When would he get to Damascus? What would he do about the missing embryos?
Or at least that was what she tried to pretend to herself that she was interested in.
Because all she could really think, in an undercurrent monologue that kept shouting at her from deep inside her mind, was:
He has my babies.
/> Not the Pied Piper, prancing them away from town. Not Baba Yaga, luring them into her house on chicken legs. Not the witch in the gingerbread cottage, keeping them in cages and fattening them up. None of those grey fantasies. Nothing of fog and mist. Only the absolute black of a place where no light shines, where light is not even remembered.
That's where her babies were.
In the belly of the Beast.
The car came to a stop at a simple platform. The underground road went on, to destinations Petra did not bother trying to guess. For all she knew, the tunnel ran to Baghdad, to Amman, under the mountains to Ankara, maybe even under the radioactive desert to arise in the place where the ancient stone waits for the half-life of the half-life of the half-life of death to pass, so pilgrims can come again on haj.
Lankowski reached out a hand and helped her from the car, though she was young and he was old. His attitude toward her was strange, as if he had to treat her very carefully. As if she was not robust, as if she could easily break.
And it was true. She was the one who could break. Who broke.
Only I can't break now. Because maybe I still have one child. Maybe putting this one inside me did not kill it, but gave it life. Maybe it has taken root in my garden and will blossom and bear fruit, a baby on a short twisted stem. And when the fruit is plucked, out will come stem and root as well, leaving the garden empty. And where will the others be then? They have been taken to grow in someone else's plot. Yet I will not break now, because I have this one, perhaps this one.
"Thank you," she said to Lankowski. "But I'm not so fragile as to need help getting out of a car."
He smiled at her, but said nothing. She followed him into the elevator and they rose up into...
A garden. As lush as the Philippine jungle clearing where Peter gave the order that would bring the Beast into their house, driving them out.
She saw that the courtyard was glassed over. That's why it was so humid here. That's how it stayed so moist. Nothing was given up to the dry desert air.
Sitting quietly on a stone chair in the middle of the garden was a tall, slender man, his skin the deep cacao brown of the upper Niger where he had been born.
She did not walk up to him at once, but stood admiring what she saw. The long legs, clad not in the business suit that had been the uniform of westerners for centuries now, but in the robes of a sheik. His head was not covered, however. And there was no beard on his chin. Still young, and yet also now a man.