Chapter 57

Mia climbed out of the Land Cruiser and watched the Australian hand Kirkwood the silver attaché case. Kirkwood turned to her. “Give me a minute, will you? Let me make sure he’s not going to give us any trouble.”

Mia nodded. Kirkwood went into the house with the Australian, leaving her outside with the other hired gun, a South African named Hector, and Abu Barzan’s man. Both men acknowledged her with curt nods — the Arab checking her out a touch more obviously than the South African — before they remembered their day jobs and concentrated on the surrounding streets and buildings instead.

The town seemed to have settled into a typically Middle Eastern midday torpor. The street was quiet, and few people were going in and out of the bazaar. Down a narrow, cobbled side street, a few kids who hadn’t succumbed to the general lethargy played soccer barefoot under some crowded clotheslines. Mia watched as one of the boys bounced the ball repeatedly off his feet, knees, and thighs, to the cheers and taunts of his friends.

Kirkwood’s voice cut through Mia’s momentary distraction and invited her to join him inside the house. The front door led straight into a large living room that was simple and sparsely furnished and reeked of stale nicotine. Their Australian escort was in there, as were three Arab men, all of whom, she noticed, were smoking.

“This is Abu Barzan,” Kirkwood informed her, pointing out a heavyset, triple-chinned man with dyed jet-black hair, a thick matching mustache, and a prominent mole on his left cheek.

“Very nice to meet you.” Abu Barzan smiled, balancing his cigarette off his lower lip while taking her hand into his large, sweaty paws enthusiastically. “This is Kaak Mohsen,” he said, using the Kurdish term for “brother” and gesturing to an older, more reserved man who quietly gave her a welcoming half-bow, “my dear friend who kindly invited us to use his house, at very short notice,” he added pointedly, glancing at Kirkwood, who acknowledged the remark with a nod of gratitude. “And my nephew, Bashar,” the Iraqi concluded, indicating a younger, paunchy, and prematurely balding man.

Mohsen offered her the ubiquitous cup of heavily sugared tea. As she sipped from it, she cast her eyes behind the men and picked out the panoply of guns in the room. Two rifles were on a sideboard by a door that led to the back of the house, and Abu Barzan’s nephew was holding an AK-47 machine gun and packing a handgun under his belt.

She also noticed Kirkwood’s silver attaché case, on the dining table in the corner of the room. Bryan, the Australian hired gun, seemed to be guarding it. On the floor beside it were several wooden crates filled with items wrapped in soft cloth sacks.

Her gaze found Kirkwood. “Does he have the book?” she asked.

“Ah, this famous book,” Abu Barzan chuckled throatily, his girth rippling in tandem with his labored breathing. “Yes, of course I have it for you. Here,” he said, padding heavily over to the table, picking up a small pouch, and holding it up to them knowingly. “This is the one you want, yes?” He unwrapped the protective oilskin cover to reveal the codex and held it up proudly.

Even from across the room, Mia could make out the snake-eater. The entire room seemed to resonate with promise and expectation.

Abu Barzan set the codex squarely on the table. “Please.” He gestured, inviting them over. Kirkwood glanced over at Mia, then approached the table almost reverently. Mia joined him. He reached over to pick up the codex, but Abu Barzan calmly settled his sausagelike fingers over it and flashed Kirkwood a questioning smile. Kirkwood acknowledged it and gave Bryan a signaling nod. Mia watched with a flutter of unease as the man picked up the attaché case and handed it over to a gleeful Abu Barzan, who retreated deferentially.

She wanted to ask what was going on, but her attention was gripped by Kirkwood, who was picking up the codex. He held it up so she could examine it with him.

The cover was in remarkably good condition. The Ouroboros was meticulously tooled into the leather, its scales individually carved out. Kirkwood looked up at Mia, his face radiating nervous anticipation, then, carefully, opened it.

It read from right to left, as with all Arabic writing. Its inside front cover had a blank pastedown, which was common for the period. The first inside page had some Naskhi writing in its center.

As soon as his eyes drank in the words, his face contorted with disappointment.

“What?” Mia asked.

“This is a different book,” he said with a dismayed shake of his head. “It’s called the Kitab al Kayafa,” he read aloud. “The book of principles.”

For a fleeting second, a look of puzzlement crossed her face at the discovery that he could read Arabic. She watched with rapt interest as he turned the pages and gave each one a quick scan.

Whatever he was looking for, it clearly wasn’t there.

She stood in silence as he went back to the first page, and her eyes were quickly lured back by the lines of cursive Latin script that had been added, much later it seemed, in its top corner.

“What does that inscription say? Is that French?” she asked as she struggled to make sense of the highly stylized writing.

“Yes,” he confirmed. He read them to himself, in silence. She scrutinized his face. It was locked in deep contemplation, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist for him. Whatever was written on that ancient sheet of paper seemed to reach deep into his very core.

She waited patiently, not wanting to intrude, then couldn’t subdue her excitement any more. “What does it say?”

“It’s a message,” he told her solemnly. “From a dying man to his long-lost wife.” He paused, clearly still processing the words that he’d just read.

After a brief moment, he spoke. “It says, ‘To my love Thérésia, how I yearn to see you, to tell you how much I miss you, to bask in your warm embrace once more, and to show you what I now know is real, for it is all true, my darling. Everything I hoped for is true. I have seen it with my own eyes, but even the discovery of a lifetime pales when I think of what it has cost me, that is, being with you and with our dear son, Miguel. Farewell,’ and it’s signed, ‘Sebastian.’”

A look of puzzlement played on his face. He cocked his head, as if toying with a notion, then turned the page and started reading. He noticed something, then flipped to the next page, immersed in its contents, and then to the next, and the one after that. His eyes lit up as they scoured the text, devouring the Arabic script, then a broad smile erupted across his face.

“What?” Mia asked, her eyes riveted on him. “What is it?”

“This is…it’s marvelous,” he said, beaming. “It’s real, Mia. It’s real.”

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