Bestiary

PROLOGUE

Sand. There was sand in his boots, sand in his clothes, Sand in his armpits, sand in his hair. At night, there was sand in his dreams. Greer swore that if he ever got out of Iraq alive, he was never going to see sand again.

If things went right today, he might get his wish.

Sadowski poked his head under the flap of the tent. “Hasan’s in the Humvee, Captain,” he said. “Cuffed.”

Greer nodded, and finished lacing up his boot. There was sand in his sock, but what would be the point of trying to get rid of it? He’d take off the boot, shake it out thoroughly, then put it back on — and find even more sand inside it than before.

“Load up,” he told Sadowski, glancing at his watch. “We don’t want to lose the light.”

Outside, the sun was beating down so hard it made the ground, if you looked long enough, seem to undulate. Greer adjusted his shades, pulled the brim of his cap down, and walked toward the Humvee, parked in the narrow slice of shade provided by a water-cistern truck.

It was a desert-camo model, tricked out as a communications “rat rig,” with windows tinted almost black, and hillbilly body armor — anything they could scrounge from the salvage depot — covering it from grille to bumper. Greer got into the passenger side of the front seat, without looking back. He knew who was there.

Lopez, cradling his trusty SAW — short for squad automatic weapon. Donlan, with a map, a laptop, and a GPS hookup. And Hasan, right behind him, in plastic cuffs, clutching his pocket-sized Koran.

Sadowski, in the driver’s seat, said, “Captain?”

In reply, Greer simply lifted his chin toward the windshield, a sliver of bulletproof Plexiglas, and the Humvee, its air conditioner roaring, rumbled out of the camp and onto the road past Mosul.

This stretch of road had been officially declared mine-free and under coalition control for three weeks now. But that hadn’t kept a jeep from being blown sky-high by an RPG last Thursday, or mortar fire from leaving fresh pot-holes in what barely passed for a highway to begin with.

No more sand, Greer thought. Ever. Not even on a beach.

“Excuse me? Mr. Greer?” Hasan asked, leaning so far forward that Greer could feel his hot breath on the back of his neck. “Shouldn’t we be having more soldiers, more guns, with us?”

Greer just smiled. What was this guy smoking? Was he under the impression that this was some kind of authorized mission, instead of what it was — a nicely subsidized treasure hunt?

“We’ve got everything we need,” Greer said. “You do what you’re supposed to do, and you’ll be back in time for your next interrogation.”

The soldiers laughed; Hasan didn’t.

For another hour they drove along what had come to be known as the Saddam Expressway, passing not much but bombed-out abandoned villages and the charred hulks of military transports, taxis, and once, improbably enough, a bright yellow school bus. How the hell, Greer had to wonder, did that get here? Lopez, cradling his SAW, zoned out with his eyes closed, while Donlan kept track of their progress.

“We should be approaching the palace,” Donlan finally announced, studying his laptop in the backseat.

“Well, Hasan,” Greer asked. “Anything look familiar?”

Hasan pressed his face to the dark glass and peered out. He’d grown up in this area, he’d owned the best grocery, he’d had a wife and two daughters. Now he had his life — and not much more. “Yes,” he said. “You will come to a… a place in the road that goes two ways.”

“A fork,” Lopez said, from all the way in back.

“Okay, a fork,” Hasan said. He hated them all so much that he was afraid they could hear it in his words, however innocent they might be. “You will turn to the right side. And go ahead for maybe three miles.”

“That road going to be cleared for mines?” Sadowski asked.

Hasan had no idea. None of this was his idea.

And no one else answered, either.

“And then what should we expect?” Greer asked.

“You will see the walls — high walls, maybe ten feet high. And great iron gates.”

“If they haven’t been stolen,” Sadowski said with a knowing smirk.

“They will not have been stolen,” Hasan said with certainty. “People here are too afraid.”

“Of Saddam?” Lopez piped in. “We’ve got him, or haven’t they heard?”

“Not Saddam. They are afraid of the al-Kallis.”

“What’s so scary about these al-Kallis?” Lopez asked.

What could Hasan say to that? How could he explain to these ignorant men, these barbarians, who the al-Kallis were? But he had to tell them. He had to do something to put them on their guard — as they would have to be — or it could cost him his own life, too. “The al-Kallis are the oldest family in Iraq — and the most powerful. This was once their palace. Saddam took it.”

“I guess he took pretty much everything,” Greer observed.

“The al-Kallis will be back. They have been here for over a thousand years.” He glanced down at his hands, where the cuffs were digging into his wrists. “They have been here perhaps forever.”

Sadowski and Greer exchanged a smile. It was just this kind of mumbo-jumbo that made these people such easy pickin’s.

“So what?” Greer asked. “So they’ve been around awhile.”

“There are stories,” Hasan said, knowing full well that they were mocking him. He tried to turn his hands to increase the circulation. “The al-Kallis have… powers. Strange things happen there. You have to be very careful.”

“Who you gonna call?” Lopez sang out, shaking his weapon. “GhostBUSTERS!” The soldiers laughed, though Hasan had no idea why. It crossed his mind, for an instant, that if he could just find a way to kill them all himself — and he wouldn’t hesitate — he could commandeer the car and escape.

But to where?

The Humvee rumbled on, over a road covered with so much windblown sand that at times it was impossible to see. Sadowski leaned toward the windshield and stared through the glare. He couldn’t get the question of land mines out of his head; two of his pals from the 3rd Infantry Division had been in a nineteen-ton Stryker armored combat vehicle that had been hit by a roadside bomb just the week before, and each had left a leg behind.

Far ahead, unless he was imagining it, he thought he saw some whitewashed walls rising like a mirage out of the desert sands. If these were the walls Hasan had been talking about, his estimate was way too low — these walls were more like fifteen or twenty feet high, if he could judge from this distance. And they went on for what looked like a quarter of a mile, on one side alone. Sadowski had already “liberated” two of Saddam’s palaces — they hadn’t really seemed all that much more spectacular than the houses he saw on MTV’s Cribs, and nothing like what he thought of when he heard the word “palace”—but this place looked like something else.

“Should be dead ahead, about a half mile due west,” Donlan reported.

“I can see it,” Sadowski replied.

There were towers, too, narrow white columns set far back from the walls and rising like gleaming needles into the air; the whole compound had to be enormous. Even the roadside began to change. There were date palms lining both sides of the road, along with the desiccated remains of other plants that had died from lack of water. Sadowski could imagine that this was once a very grand entryway.

Captain Greer picked up a pair of binoculars and scanned the walls ahead for enemy activity. But the only sign of life he saw was a flock of evil-looking crows, lining the parapets above the main gate. The gates themselves, as Hasan had predicted, were intact; no telling whether they were locked or not. Just in case, he’d brought along a couple of plastic explosives charges.

“Stop about fifty yards short,” Greer told Sadowski, then added, “You’ll stay with the vehicle, and keep the motor running.”

The Humvee ground to a slow halt on the sandy road, and Hasan said a silent prayer. No one he knew had ever penetrated the al-Kalli palace walls; no one he knew had ever wanted to. For generations, mothers in the region had warned their unruly children that if they didn’t behave, they would be sold to the al-Kallis. And whenever anyone went missing, it was darkly hinted that they had strayed too close to the al-Kalli palace.

On some nights, when the wind was right, local villagers claimed that they could hear strange and savage cries.

While Sadowski waited in the Humvee, the others all got out.

“Looks like nobody’s home so far,” Greer announced as he approached the gates with his Beretta in hand. Donlan stayed a few feet behind Hasan, who had nothing to protect him but the Koran pressed between his cuffed hands as if his life depended on it.

Greer went to the gates, which were also at least twenty feet high, and although they were stiff from disuse, their hinges choked with sand, they weren’t locked; he was actually able to push one a few feet back; to work so well now, they must have been made with fantastic precision in their day. There was a design of some kind, elaborate flourishes of metalwork that looked like writing. He turned to Hasan.

“Does this say something?”

Hasan nodded.

“Well?”

How could he translate this properly? Hasan wondered. It was archaic, a few lines of verse that even he could not entirely make out. But the gist of it was clear. “It’s a welcome, and it is a warning.”

“That’s what I’ve been hearing ever since I got here,” Donlan said.

“Just tell me what it says,” Greer said.

“It says, ‘Welcome to the traveler of good…’” He couldn’t come up with the word. He’d studied English in school, and he’d even once spent a summer with an uncle in Miami, but he couldn’t find the equivalent now.

“Go on.”

“‘Such a traveler may stay the night inside these walls. But the traveler who does not have a heart so… good, he will regret his mother ever gave him milk.’”

“Not exactly ‘mi casa es su casa,’” Greer remarked before slipping through the opening between the two gates.

Hasan looked up at the fat crows above the gate. Their wings fluttered and their hoarse cawing was carried down to him on the hot desert wind. How, he thought, had he come to be in this place, with these men? One night, bombs had landed all over his village; he’d been at the soccer field. By the time he’d run home, his house was a pile of swirling dust and broken bricks — with his wife and children inside. And then he’d been arrested. For what — not dying?

He felt a rifle poke him in the back. “Come on, Hasan,” Donlan said, “you might still come in handy.”

With Greer leading the way, they entered the palace grounds. First, there was a tunnel, big enough to drive a truck through, which appeared to end in another iron gate, this one with sharpened spikes at its base, raised high above their heads. Their footsteps echoed around them.

“Yo-de-lay-e-hoo!” Lopez crooned softly, and Greer whirled around with his gun pointed straight at Lopez’s head.

“What the fuck?” he whispered angrily.

Lopez stood, chastened, the gun still aimed at his forehead. He’d just wanted to make a joke — you know, lighten things up a little. It was the way he’d always been.

“You out of your mind, Lopez?”

“Sorry, Captain.” He kept his eyes down; he knew Greer was right. He’d been told before that his mouth would wind up getting him killed. “Won’t happen again.”

“Next time I just shoot.”

Greer turned around again, and one by one, instinctively spreading out, they emerged from the tunnel and into what looked like a huge forecourt to the palace. It must have been several acres of land, all covered with something under all the sand that felt as smooth and hard as marble. In front of them, at the top of a wide set of steps, was a huge and very grand palace of pale yellow stone, several stories high, and topped with the kind of dome Greer normally associated with a mosque. He pulled from the inside pocket of his jacket the folded map, sealed in a plastic sheath, that he’d been sent when he accepted this gig. He oriented himself quickly, and determined that this was indeed the main house — there were others in the compound, for servants and the like — and that what he was looking for lay somewhere behind it, off to the right.

He turned and gestured for the soldiers, and Hasan, to follow him. The soldiers looked puzzled for a moment and glanced longingly at the palace, as if to say, “Aren’t we busting in there?” and Greer understood their impulse. God knew what stuff might still be lying around inside, especially if Hasan was right, and the locals were too scared to set foot in there — but that wasn’t what he’d come to do. He’d come to find, and retrieve, one thing, and once he had that, he was out of here.

It was a long walk around the side of the palace, but fortunately there was a sort of colonnade that provided some shade from the rays of the late afternoon sun. The heat was still nearly unbearable and, apparently, it had been too much for a couple of birds, whose bodies lay sprawled in the dust, their tail feathers spread like fans around them.

“Peacocks,” Hasan said. “It was the al-Kallis’ favorite.”

But these looked like they’d been picked clean with a knife and fork. All that was left were brittle bones and a spray of flattened feathers, a faint vestige of their purple and blue iridescence glinting in the sun.

Greer motioned for the men to keep moving, his eyes swiveling from one side of the grounds to the other. They passed several smaller buildings — in one they could see the dust-choked grillwork of a Rolls-Royce, in another what looked like horse stalls — before coming to a short bridge spanning what was now a stagnant stream of green water. Greer tested the wood, pressing down with his boot, but it seemed solid. They crossed over, and into another vast courtyard, surrounded on all sides by towering palm trees. Underfoot, there was a length of fine meshed chain; Greer bent down to lift it up, but realized then that it was under both his feet — and under the feet of all his men, too. The chain was everywhere.

“What do you think they were trying to catch in this net?” he wondered out loud.

Nobody answered.

Greer look at Hasan, who lifted his cuffed hands to point toward the top of one of the trees. “You see the hook?”

Greer turned to see, and damned if Hasan wasn’t right — way up toward the top, there was a large iron hook driven into the trunk of the tree.

“They all have such hooks,” Hasan said.

“I still don’t get it,” Donlan said.

“The net was not used to catch anything,” Hasan explained. “It was tied to those hooks and used to keep something in.”

“Oh, you mean the birds? The peacocks?”

Hasan shrugged. If that’s what they chose to think…

“What are we looking for, anyway, sir?” Donlan asked. “It’s going to be dark soon.”

Greer was studying the map; they were close. Straight ahead, there was a row of what had looked like little boxes on the map, but which he could now see were, in reality, cages, with loose straw thrown around their wooden floors. Some of the cages were small enough to hold a pair of rabbits; some were big enough for a couple of rhinos. All were enclosed at the top, too — and most of them were oddly dented, as if the creatures inside them had been banging their heads against the iron bars. On the last one in the row, the gates had been bent forward so far that they hung open on the twisted hinges.

“What’d they do — keep a zoo?” Donlan said.

There was the smell of a zoo, too, in the air. Although no animals were to be seen, the fetid scent of manure, rotting hay, and mangy fur still lingered. Behind a row of eucalyptus trees, and nearly concealed by dead vines and wilted flowers, Greer saw what he’d been looking for — the structure that was highlighted on the map with a yellow pen. It looked like an oversized mausoleum, made of the same yellow stone as the palace.

“Follow me,” he said, striding up its steps and stopping at a pair of massive wooden doors, studded with iron bolts; with his gun still drawn, he pushed his way inside.

The place was built like an atrium — circular, with ladders and rails made of olive wood running along all the sides. There were hundreds of shelves, many of them with old leather-bound books still on them, spiraling upward toward a domed ceiling; in its center, there was a stained-glass window that cast a pale purple light over everything below.

“Nothing but books in here,” Lopez said. “I say we go back to the palace.”

“I say shut up,” Greer said, folding up the map and slipping it back into his pocket; from here on in, he knew what to do.

Mounted on the front wall was a big iron bird — okay, a peacock — with its wings spread wide. “Come here, Lopez,” Greer said. “And take hold of one of these wings.”

Lopez looked confused, but he leaned his rifle up against one of the bookshelves and did as he was told. The bird was about six feet high and four feet wide, and the metal was warm in his hands. Would this thing be worth anything, he wondered, back in the States?

“When I say so,” Greer told him, “press the wing forward.”

“You want me to break it?” Now it’d be worth nothing.

“Just do it. Now.”

As Greer pressed on his side, Lopez pressed on his, and after some initial resistance, the two wings began to give way.

“Keep pushing,” Greer said.

Gradually, the two wings began to come together, and as they did so, dust began to crumble from the wall just below the peacock’s feet.

Lopez, seeing the dust, started to ease up, and Greer said, “No, that’s what’s supposed to happen.”

“The whole place is supposed to fall down?”

Donlan, though he kept his rifle loosely trained on Hasan, was rapt.

As the ends of the two wings touched, a narrow space below the peacock’s feet was partially revealed. According to his instructions, something should have opened up completely, but this was close enough for Greer. He crouched down and dug his fingers into the wall. Loose bits of brick and sand fell away, enough finally for him to reach inside — the slot was no more than ten inches high and perhaps a few feet across — and touch something. It was a metal box, covered with dust, and it was what he’d come for. When he pulled, he could hear the crunching of the sand underneath it, but moving it from this angle was tough. He pulled his hand out, brushed it clean, then reached in again and pulled the box another inch or two forward; it must weigh twenty or thirty pounds, he guessed.

“You need some help, Captain?” Lopez asked eagerly. Maybe Greer knew what he was doing, after all. Maybe this was the treasure!

Greer didn’t need any help — not now. Leaning back on his heels, he pulled the box out of the hole. It was matted with grime, and for all he knew, the damn thing was made of lead. Huge iron clasps were sealed on both sides, with antique padlocks that looked like they took a key the size of a fist.

Lopez looked at the locks gleefully and said, “We can pop those — no problem.”

Greer stood up, cradling the box in his arms. “Time to go.”

Lopez and Donlan just stood there. Hasan was afraid of what might happen.

“What do you mean, sir?” Donlan asked. “You mean, we open it back at camp?”

“I mean, we go. Now.”

Greer stepped around them, giving Hasan a shove toward the door. Donlan and Lopez traded a glance—what gives? — then slouched behind.

Outside, the shadows were lengthening. The sun had fallen to the height of the walls, and a night wind was already beginning to kick up.

Greer was marching Hasan past the rows of empty cages, then onto the wooden bridge. Hasan was only too glad to go. He didn’t know what those cages had once held, but he did not want to find out. Nor did he wish to know why the al-Kallis would have needed a fine mesh net large enough to have created an aviary a hundred feet high and ten times as wide.

As they passed the garage with the Rolls parked inside, Lopez cast a covetous glance inside. What if the thing still ran? Why couldn’t he drive it back to camp, right behind the Humvee? Wouldn’t that be something?

But then, he could swear he saw something move inside the garage. No, not that he’d actually seen something, but the light in there, the shadows, had changed. He glanced ahead at the others — was it worth calling out an alarm? He looked again, his rifle leveled at the front of the Rolls. But now there was nothing, and the others were even farther away.

He picked up his pace, his head turned to keep an eye on anything behind him. He was sorry he’d listened to all that bullshit from Hasan. Strange cries in the night, people disappearing. But he was even sorrier that he’d listened to Greer. What was all that crap about a treasure hunt? The only treasure he’d seen — and who knew what was inside that box? — was now gripped in Greer’s loving arms.

On his left, he saw what he took to be the stables — there were empty stalls and unidentifiable pieces of harness hanging from the half doors. Lopez was from Santa Fe, and he’d actually worked summers at a ranch, but he’d never seen tackle like this. Maybe the al-Kallis kept those famous Arabian stallions he’d heard so much about.

As they approached the back of the palace, he scanned the many narrow windows, wondering what lay behind them. Christ, did people really live like this? The palace reminded him of pictures he’d seen of places like the Taj Mahal. By joining the army he thought he’d see some of them. But so far, this was it.

There was a cry, a loud, prolonged cawing from somewhere in the distance. It sounded like a baby being strangled.

“Jesus,” Lopez exclaimed. “What was that?”

They’d all stopped in their tracks.

“It was a peacock,” Hasan said. “They cry for rain.”

Lopez swallowed hard — his mouth was suddenly as dry as the desert. “They ever get it?”

“Not often.”

In the colonnade, the shadows made a kind of zigzag pattern on the floor. The sun had fallen now to just below the top of the outside walls. Their footsteps echoed here, too, but Lopez knew enough to make no Ghostbuster jokes this time. He pulled the damp collar away from his neck, and as he did so, he thought he heard breathing behind him, a low rasping sound. He whipped around, his finger on the trigger of the rifle, but there was nothing but a row of stone columns, glowing like burnished gold in the dying sun.

“Hey,” he said, and the others stopped and turned toward him.

“What?” Donlan said.

“I thought I heard something.”

“Hasan already told you — it’s peacocks.”

“No. Something else.”

Greer wedged the box under one arm and took out his gun. “Let’s keep moving.’”

The back of Lopez’s neck tingled, and it wasn’t the drying sweat. He felt as though he were being watched. Tracked. He thought of the coyotes he’d shot back in New Mexico — and he felt like one of them.

“When we get around front,” Greer said, “spread out in a—”

And then it was on top of Lopez. A running shadow, a huge black stain, it lunged out from behind one of the columns and snatched him like a wolf picking off a stray lamb. Donlan panicked and sprayed a burst of automatic fire around the colonnade; Hasan flattened himself against the inside wall, but Greer suddenly felt something like a splash of hot water on his left leg. He knew he’d been hit by a ricochet, but he didn’t have time to look. He needed to get himself, and the box, out of there.

He tried to run, but his leg was barely able to hold him up.

Donlan was still firing as they fell back. Hasan was probably hiding somewhere back there. Screw it — who needed him anymore?

Greer hobbled across the marble forecourt, leaving, he knew, a trail of blood. Whatever the hell that thing had been, it would sure as hell pick up this scent. He forced himself to keep moving — the adrenaline, blissfully, was keeping the leg from exploding in pain, but that wouldn’t last much longer. He could hear Donlan reloading. Night was falling fast, the way it did here — he could just make out the gates.

Keep moving, he told himself. Keep moving.

He dragged himself into the tunnel, shouting ahead to Sadowski, “We’ve been hit!”

But he doubted his voice would carry into the closed Humvee.

Donlan was firing again — was he shooting at something, Greer wondered, or just shooting?

The headlights were on, and Greer careened into their glow, waving one arm.

Sadowski spotted him, and leapt out of the vehicle.

“Help me!” Greer shouted.

Sadowski tried to take the box from him, but Greer said, “Just open the damn door!”

Sadowski threw open the passenger door, and Greer tossed the box onto the floor.

There was another crackling round of shots, and then Donlan raced up to them, panting.

As Greer clambered, bleeding, into the front seat, Donlan jumped into the back as if there were a tiger on his tail.

“Where’s Lopez?” Sadowski shouted, and Greer said, “He’s gone. Let’s move.”

Sadowski slammed the door after Greer, then ran around to the driver’s seat. Lopez was gone? Dead?

He threw the Humvee into gear. “What about Hasan?”

“I said move!”

As the vehicle started to turn in a wide circle, the headlights picked up something else — a figure running toward them, arms extended as if in supplication.

Hasan, in the handcuffs.

Sadowski glanced at Greer for his orders. Surely he didn’t plan to just leave him here?

But a second later, something descended upon Hasan like a frenzied black cloud. Sadowski heard a scream, saw Hasan’s terror-stricken eyes widen in the glare of the headlights, before the thing had yanked him off his feet and into the night. All that was left in the headlight beams was that little black copy of the Koran.

Sadowski’s hands were frozen at the wheel.

“Drive,” Greer barked at him, wincing and clutching at his leg. “Can’t you see I’m bleeding?”