Khorsabad. The chainsaw was designed to cut through pliant wood fibers. Its blade could fracture limestone and destroy the object entirely. Tomas lunged toward him. The man brandished the spinning blade. Ari grabbed his brother, clamping his big arms around his waist, and pulled him back in time. “For God’s sake,” he cried, “they’ll kill you.”
Ari cast around wildly, uncertain where to go. This was his brother’s domain; Tomas knew the museum’s pattern of corridors and rooms better than he. Light-skinned and ginger-haired, Ari stood out, making the two of them all the more vulnerable. Without electricity the galleries were dim, illuminated only by natural light. The place resembled a giant tomb. The largest artifacts, too heavy to move and blanketed with protective wrap, resembled bulky giants awaiting burial.
Through the haze Ari could make out the colossal Lamassu, winged bulls with human heads, forming an entrance arc to the Assyrian gallery. He pleaded with Tomas, “Come this way. Help me. I don’t know where to go.” Forcing Tomas against one of the stone guardians, he held him there. “Take some deep breaths and calm yourself.”
Tomas tried to break free of his grasp. “I’ve got to go back outside. There’s a tank nearby.”
“The director already tried. He’s been to the Palestine Hotel three times pleading with the military for help. They refused. Come, Samuel’s waiting for us. We’re already late.”
“I can’t go through with it. We’ll be no better than these thieves.”
“Would you prefer to leave it here for the looters?”
Tomas made another feeble effort to resist, but this time Ari was adamant. They took a convoluted route down blacked-out corridors to a small and dusty restoration room.
A diminutive older man waited for them, his face tight with anxiety. When he saw the two brothers, Samuel Diakos sighed in relief. “You’re finally here. I was so worried.”
Tomas pressed his lips together in a grim line. “Let’s get on with it then. May God forgive us.” On the floor clay vessels lay broken and in disarray, as if a whirlwind had spun across the room.
Samuel barely heard him. With a much younger man’s agility he rushed over to a row of stacked shelves against the wall. Ari put his shoulder to the last one in the row, pushing it outward to reveal a small, square steel door in the wall. Samuel knelt. “I don’t think the lock has been touched.” He motioned for Ari to bring over a canvas sack and asked him to place it on a long table that held cotton wrap, brushes, and measuring tools used for the few tablets and fragments of engravings lying nearby.
Samuel unlocked the steel door, peering into the shadowy interior. “It’s still inside. We got here in time.” He slid out the heavy basalt oblong and laid it carefully on the table.
A figure dressed in black, the handles of a carryall looped over his shoulder, appeared in the doorway. Samuel, preoccupied with the engraving, didn’t notice at first, but Ari and Tomas rushed to block the man’s way. The thief removed his bag and set it gently on the floor. He motioned toward Samuel. “I’ll take that,” he said.
“Get out of here.” Tomas charged toward him.
The thief powered a kick straight to his groin. Tomas doubled over with the pain and collapsed. The assault knife appeared in the thief’s hand. Ari stepped over Tomas, blocked the forward motion of the man’s knife arm, and sent a hard punch to his chest. The man reeled but twisted his knife so its razor edge caught Ari’s palm, splitting it open. Blood spurted between the ugly flaps of skin surrounding the wound.
The thief held his weapon lightly, ready to make a fatal strike. He believed the knife possessed its own blood scent: just as a divining rod detects water, it could sense the location of an artery and sever it instantly.
“No!” Samuel held out the engraving already sheathed in the cotton wrap. “I’ll give it to you. Take it. Don’t hurt them anymore.”
“You’re old. You couldn’t stop me anyway,” the thief sneered as he picked up his carryall and handed it to Samuel. “Put it inside.”
Samuel complied.
A commotion sounded at the entrance, a group of looters pushing their wheelbarrow through the door. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Tomas on the floor and Ari gripping his hand, losing his battle to stanch the flow of blood.
The thief grabbed his carryall and strode over to the door. He pointed the sharp tip of his knife toward the looters. “Move away,” he said.
Terrified, they dropped their wheelbarrow and backed off.
The thief disappeared into the dark hallway beyond.
Outdoors, night had fallen. People scurried in all directions, white phantoms in the gloom, arms bursting with raffia bags and cardboard boxes. One man carried a computer monitor, cables flapping around his neck like birthday ribbons. Another dragged a couch, its chrome legs carving furrows in the dirt.
When they finally reached their Toyota, Tomas slumped down angrily into the driver’s seat. Ari got in, gripping the rough bandage of cotton wrap that bound his hand.
Samuel took the back seat, setting his canvas sack beside him. “It’ll be all right now,” he said. “The worst is over.”
“What do you mean?” Tomas barked. “It’s been a total failure.”
“You still have your lives. That’s far more important.”
“Listen to him, Tomas,” Ari said. “He’s right.”
“In any event,” Samuel continued calmly, “I gave him the wrong one. Our engraving is in my bag. Start driving. We need to get out of here.”
The sun directly overhead told Hanna it was noon. Heat had turned her body into a limp rag. Her eyelids burned. She dreamt of water—the feeling of cool liquid slipping down her throat, reedy pools at the edge of the Tigris, icy moisture on ancient rock walls. She was cracking and she knew it.
At daybreak the rough hands of the men had dragged her to a hollowed-out pit. They’d pulled her arms back and bound them to a post. The spades and trowels they’d used to dig out the hole, building a pyramid of dirt the height of her waist, had been thrown down in a haphazard pile at her feet.
Hanna watched the three men return and bend down to gather stones the size of a child’s fist, each one big enough to draw blood, but not so large as to bring death quickly. They dumped the stones in a small pile at the crest of the pit.
One of the men detached himself from the group and walked down the incline toward her. He was thin and had a shock of black hair that contrasted with his skin, unnaturally white for someone who’d spent so many hours under the merciless sun. A red-inked tattoo was visible on his left wrist. He pulled off her scarf, letting it dangle around her neck, bent his head until it was inches from her face, and lowered his voice so only she could hear.
“Where did they take the engraving? Tell me and I’ll spare you.”
Hanna said nothing, sensing a lie.
“You feel the heat, Hanna, don’t you?” He reached into a pocket and brought out a green glass bottle filled with water. Pulling off the cap, he touched her lips with the bottle’s wet rim. When she opened her mouth he jerked it away cruelly. “You can have all the water you want—just tell me.”
She rejected this with a sideways motion of her head. Her hands were numb and her body strangely cold given the heat of the day. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Samuel wouldn’t say.”
“That’s a lie. You were one of his most trusted assistants.”
“Not anymore. I’ve heard nothing from him. He suspected me after I tried to steal it the first time.”
“What did he offer you?”
Hanna wanted to spurt out a cynical laugh but her swollen tongue interfered. A dribble of spittle ran down the corner of her lips. She was so very tired. She looked at him and thought of the sand vipers that hide in the dust, waiting to strike the foot that passes too close. His eyes were like theirs: hooded, red-rimmed, so light they looked almost yellow.
Her words came out in a whisper. “Nothing. Why would I agree to join your side if I could get money out of Samuel?”
“How did he know I was coming to the museum then? He was ready for me. That information could only have come from you.”
