happen. “You are certain?”
“I am.”
Farouk said, “You understand how angry this has made the extremists.”
“Of course.” The religious extremists were also exclusionary. They only wanted to deal with like-minded Iraqis. Everyone else was classed as enemies. “It also explains something that happened to me recently.”
Sameh described his walk past the Persian market, being accosted by the young clerics. When he was done, Hassan said, “You must hire bodyguards.”
“For your family as well,” Farouk said. “I have a security company. I will handle this.”
“It was my idea,” Hassan protested.
“You will let me do this one thing. I wish-”
“Friends, please.” Sameh lifted his hands. “I am grateful for your concern. But this is not-”
“Not what? Not necessary?” Hassan looked injured. “What will you say to Leyla when Bisan does not return home from school?”
Sameh clutched his chest. “You will not speak such words again.”
“May it never happen,” Farouk said. “May you never endure what I and my family have been forced to suffer.”
Hassan said, “These conservative clerics do not make idle threats. Have you told your wife about your encounter?”
“Of course not.”
“Or the American? Or Leyla?” Hassan revealed a trace of the iron will behind his success. “You will do this. Tonight.”
“Agreed.” Sameh wiped his face. “Please, may we return to the matter at hand?”
“We have never left it,” Hassan said. “The extremists are worried. They have attacked several politicians tied to this new Alliance. They have kidnapped our sons. They have ordered you off. All these are facts.”
Sameh struggled to release himself from the sweaty terror. Bisan. His jewel. “But why go after your son?”
“Taufiq is a supporter of the Alliance. I gave him my blessing.”
Hassan said again, “Tell him the rest.”
“The Imam Jaffar shares my son’s views.”
“But how can this be? Jaffar’s father is closely tied to the religious party.”
“But his son, Jaffar, is not.”
Sameh looked from one to the other. “This is true? The son will go against the father?”
“Softly, softly,” Hassan said. “And with the father’s quiet blessing.”
“Son and father do not agree on the nation’s political future. But the father approves of the son, and the son is his own man.” Farouk el-Waziri shrugged. “How could I not do likewise?”
“I did not know any of this.”
“Why should you? Only a few of their closest supporters are aware. I only know because Taufiq told me. In strictest confidence.”
“I will honor your secret.” Sameh rubbed his face hard. “I am sorry. I still do not see the connection. It was not just your son they took. There were three Americans.”
“My son met occasionally with people he never identified to me. These meetings happened once a week, perhaps twice. When I asked, he merely said they were tied to the Alliance, and he was being careful.” Farouk hesitated, then added, “There was a note in his calendar. For tonight. I assumed it was another of these meetings.”
“Do you have an address?”
Farouk el-Waziri handed over a slip of paper made damp and worn by hands trembling in terror. “I dare not go. If the extremists see me…”
Sameh accepted the paper. “Of course I understand.”
Hassan said, “And you will speak with your wife and family about guards?”
“Tonight,” Sameh agreed. “After I investigate this meeting of Taufiq’s.”
Hassan offered Sameh his hand. “We should perhaps not see one another again unless it pertains to something of great importance.”
“Yes, I agree.”
Farouk started to follow Hassan from the room, then turned back to murmur, “Jaffar told me to place the life of my son in your hands. I did not understand his instructions until now.”
Chapter Thirty-One
S ameh led Marc into the church’s gloomy interior. He already regretted coming. The Assyrian church resembled a cave, dismal and dank. It was anyone’s guess how the place had survived the destruction inflicted upon so many Christian houses of worship.
The ancient structure was one block off a main thoroughfare that ran from the Green Zone to Sadr City. Baghdad’s largest slum was a hotbed of extremist activity. Sadr City bred a very special type of Shia fanaticism, one that Sameh quietly abhorred.
Saddam Hussein had filled the area with his spies and his secret police and his oppressive terror. Now that Saddam was gone, the powerful mullahs of Sadr City shouted their angry impatience.
The religious leaders of Sadr City wanted a return to a fabled past, a religious state that enforced strict sharia, Islamic law. They wanted women confined in head-to-toe blackness, viewing the world through tiny bars of thread. These mullahs were backed by people who had lost all hope, who viewed the future as just a repetition of the unjust past, and so wished to bring all the world down to their level.
Following the Assyrian tradition, the church hall was a large and empty space. Parishioners stood throughout the services, which were mostly spoken in dialects no one but the priests understood. Two oil lamps burned to either side of a smoke-scarred icon. The walls were adorned with prayer medallions left by penitents claiming miracles. These metal circles glittered in the candlelight.
The footsteps of the two men echoed off the stone floors and towering peaked roof. Sameh fit himself into an alcove with a marble bench to the left of the doorway and muttered, “I fear this is a waste of time.”
“Tell me why we’re here.”
Sameh described the meeting with Farouk and Hassan, and explained about the note in Taufiq’s diary for a meeting at this church. Marc settled onto the bench beside him and asked, “Why did they warn you about protection now?”
It was typical of the American to identify the one unfinished strand. “Something happened the other day.” He described being accosted outside the Persian market.
“You should have told me this before.”
Sameh merely sighed.
“Farouk is right. This is serious business.”
Sameh leaned his head against the cold stone wall. “When my family hears of this, my freedom to decide about America will be lost.”
“Not as completely,” Marc replied, “as if extremists kidnapped your-”
“Don’t say it.” Sameh’s bark echoed through the otherwise empty nave. “Not ever.”
It was Marc’s turn to sigh.
“My family will not say anything directly to me.” Sameh shut his eyes to the gloom. “They respect my wishes too much. They know how important it is for me to feel I am doing all I can to help my nation. But their concerns will grow and grow until the unspoken desires seep into my bones and ruin my nights. And my days.”
Marc was silent so long that Sameh could almost hear the arguments the American was no doubt developing. But all Marc said was, “I understand.”
Sameh opened his eyes.
Marc stared at the floor by his feet. “Every time I left on assignment, Lisbeth filled the air with everything she
