The Shroud of Heaven Read Free Page A

clan.
    “Family,” echoed Kismet, the significance of the revelation sinking in. “No one said anything about your family.”
    Samir looked shocked. “I could not leave them. When it is learned what I have done, they would be made to suffer. Such is the way with President Hussein.”
    Kismet felt a moment of self-loathing for having questioned the matter. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just…well, we didn’t develop a contingency for exfiltrating more than one person. There won’t be room on the helo for all of us.”
    Samir’s expression fell, prompting Kismet to hastily augment his statement. “What I mean is, we’ll have to make some changes to the plan.”
    The Iraqi seemed pleased at the promise and brightened once more. “Allah is great.”
    “Yeah,” muttered Kismet, loosening the chin strap on his helmet as he surveyed the room a second time. “Say, you didn’t all come here in that one car?”
    Samir grinned. “No. There is also a truck.”
    “Any more surprises?”
    “No more surprises.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you wish to see it?”
    Kismet sensed the defector was no longer talking about the truck, and that whatever he was referring to would indeed be a surprise, but the only way to know for certain was to play along. “Sure.”
    Samir launched into motion again, but did not move toward the stairwell as Kismet expected. Instead, he crossed the antechamber, picked up one of the lamps, and headed toward an arched entryway on the opposite side.
    “The truck is here? Inside this—whatever it is?”
    “These are the ruins of Tall al Muqayyar. We are very near to what you in the West call Ur of the Chaldees. It was the birthplace of Ibraiim; Abraham, the father of Ismail. Our nation takes its name from this place: Uruk. It is the birthplace of civilization.”
    “You don’t say.” He thought Samir sounded like a tour guide. He had studied enough source material about Iraq to recognize the truth of Samir’s words, but ancient ruins held little appeal; he preferred the company of the living. “We are under the ground though?”
    “The sands come and go. The ruins have been excavated several times since their discovery almost two centuries ago, but the sand always returns. In this instance, I have used the sand to conceal the main entrance to the ruin.” He gestured with the lamp, throwing a wavering yellow glow into the shroud of darkness. Beyond the antechamber was a larger room, its ultimate width and breadth beyond the scope of Kismet’s unaided eyesight. He resisted the impulse to swivel the goggles down, electing instead to wait for Samir’s lamp to expose the room’s secrets. As the Iraqi strode purposefully forward, his light cut a swath through the darkness in the middle of the chamber. After only a few steps, the bare floor disappeared beneath an increasingly dense accumulation of desert sand.
    The lamp’s rays soon revealed a vehicle in the buried chamber—what looked to Kismet like a deuce and a half, or 2.5-ton truck—its rear cargo area covered by a low slung canvas tarpaulin. The truck appeared to be a cast-off military vehicle, broken, repaired and mongrelized to the extent that its origins were unrecognizable. Beyond the truck, the sand rose up in a vast dune, completely blocking what must have served as the main entrance to the ruin. Samir placed his lamp on the rear bumper of the truck, but hesitated there.
    Kismet tried to peer into the tent-like enclosure, but saw nothing in the shadows. “Well?”
    “Forgive me. I am a coward. President Hussein says it is not the hand of Allah—that it is a Zionist trick—but he does not touch it. No sane man dares touch it.”
    “The hand of Allah?” Again Kismet sensed that he was expected to know more than he did. He decided to end the charade. “I’m sorry, Samir, but I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of you and I haven’t the faintest idea why you think