The Genesis Plague (2010)

Perhaps they’d determined that his mutilation was punishment far greater than death.

Big mistake.

For hours he lay there, bloodied and beaten, cooking in the sun. Onlookers came and went, going about their business, some stopping to spit on him. All he could think was how he’d given his life to save these people - the great liberator - and not one came to his aid.

Was this how the freedom fighters were to be repaid? he’d wondered.

Finally, when he’d given up hope, one person did come for him: the man who would for ever change Stokes’s life; the man who would confide in him a divine secret protected since the beginning of recorded history … and who would guide him down the path to ultimate retribution.

As Stokes continued to stare in wonderment at the clay tablet, he recalled a second set of playing cards issued to Iraqi ground troops by the Department of Defense - tips on how to sensitively handle Iraq’s archaeological treasures.

He thought about the omnipotent words on the three-of-spades: ‘To understand the meaning of an artifact, it must be found and studied in its original setting.’

Equally telling was the message from the six-of-diamonds: ‘Thousands of artifacts are disappearing from Iraq and Afghanistan. Report suspicious behavior.’

But the Jack-of-hearts seemed to know his future best: ‘Local elders may be a good source of information about cultural heritage and archaeology.’

Indeed, Randall Stokes’s destiny certainly was ‘in the cards’.

17

IRAQ

‘Give it some more gas!’ Jason yelled down to the driver.

The MRAP’s 450-horsepower Mack diesel engine rumbled. The winch’s braided steel cable stretched even tighter, straining to pull free a mammoth mountain chunk that easily weighed ten tons. The rock was wedged in tight, anchoring the debris pile that had slid down to block the cave entrance. Even larger boulders had toppled almost twenty metres down the slope before coming to a rest.

Jason’s thinking was simple: pull this Big Mama out from the bottom of the heap, let gravity do the rest.

While the MRAP continued to pull, Jason monitored the two cable loops that Crawford’s marines had managed to lasso around the boulder, hoping they wouldn’t slip or snap under the extreme pressure.

‘Come on, Big Mama …’

Some gritty scratching.

A sharp pop.

The marines retreated further along the slope’s thin ridge.

‘Come on …’ He kept his hand raised and kept his finger spinning in circles so the driver knew not to ease off the gas.

The first steel loop suddenly snapped and whipped out on a wide arc. Jason managed to duck and weave before it lashed his face.

‘Nice move, Ali,’ Camel called over. He was leaning casually against the cliff face, nipping at his canteen.

Jason flipped him the bird.

More shifting and groaning deep in the rock pile.

The second loop was starting to fray along one of the rock’s sharp edges.

‘Forget it, Yaeger!’ Crawford bellowed up at him. From below, the colonel was monitoring the effort through binoculars. ‘We’ll blast it out!’

Jason had already explained to Crawford that another explosion would only exacerbate the problem by shaking free the loose stone that had yet to fall from the cliff face, compromise the tunnel itself. So he pretended to not hear him, kept spinning his finger.

The MRAP’s engine revved harder.

Finally, Big Mama began to pull free. The rock did a drunken lurch then teetered forward.

‘Everybody back!’ Jason screamed. He motioned for Crawford and the dozen or so marines watching at the bottom to clear off to the sides. Then he yelled to the MRAP driver: ‘Move out!’ This could get messy, he thought.

Once Big Mama got going, the huge pile dammed up behind her erupted into a landslide - huge, sharp rocks bouncing and tumbling end over end.

Watching Big Mama curl down along the steel cable like a retracting yoyo, Jason feared she was going to gather enough momentum to vault the boulders that formed a protective wall at the slope’s base and shoot straight for the plodding MRAP. Even the twenty-ton armoured behemoth wouldn’t stand a chance against the huge rock.

Jason cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed, ‘Move it! Go! Go! Go-o-o-o! ‘ The driver was quick to respond, but Jason could tell that the MRAP wasn’t accelerating fast enough.

Down bottom, Big Mama leapfrogged one of her siblings, connected with another, and did a gravity-defying flip that launched her into a rainbow-shaped arc that crested at five metres. Jason cringed. ‘Oh crap …’

Big Mama came down like a meteor and struck the MRAP’s rear with a huge clang.

When the dust settled, it was apparent that the MRAP had fortunately escaped being flattened. Jason noted, however, a sizable dent in the rear split door and fractures in its small windows too.

Clearly upset, Crawford paced over to the truck with hands on his hips, shaking his head. The driver immediately hopped out, rubbing his neck. He proceeded to the truck’s rear to help Crawford assess the damage.

‘You know Crawford’s probably going to send you a bill for that,’ Camel called over to Jason.

Ignoring him, Jason’s attention went back to the cave. Despite the mishap, what he saw had him grinning. Though some smaller debris would need to be ferried away, once again a wide opening yawned in the cliff face.

18

To avoid reported mortar fire in northern Kurdistan the Blackhawk maintained a westerly flight path high above the Iraqi plain. On approach to Mosul it curled right, keeping the city comfortably to the west, then headed for its next destination, which lay thirty-five kilometres northeast.

As he gazed out towards the distant city, a great sadness came over Hazo. It had been over thirty years since Saddam Hussein’s regime had forced hundreds of thousands of Kurds - Hazo’s family among them - to relocate from Mosul to camps in the desolate southern deserts. Those who hadn’t cooperated were attacked with Sarin nerve gas. Following the first major waves of ethnic cleansing, the fascist Ba’ath Party then seized the tribal lands in a bold attempt to ‘Arabicize’ the region.

While in the resettlement camp, Hazo’s asthmatic mother had been denied access to critical medicine. She subsequently died from the desert’s oppressive dry heat. His father, once a robust, jovial man, and, prior to the displacement, Mosul’s most industrious carpet retailer, had been executed by a firing squad and tossed into a mass grave. Hazo’s two older brothers had been killed by a suicide bomber while travelling by car together to seek work in Baghdad, shortly after the US invasion. Their wives and children moved in with Hazo’s oldest sibling, his sister Anyah.

Now Mosul’s streets were once again filled with Kurds. The tide of discontentment, however, had merely reversed with resettled Kurds staging violent reprisals - restaurant bombings, car bombings, shootings - against resident Arabs. After all that Hazo’s family had endured, how could Karsaz question the fight for a new Iraq? Otherwise how would the cycle of violence ever end? Could it ever end? Hazo wondered. The grim truth, he feared, was that Iraq’s history would continue to be written in blood.

His sombre gaze traced the wide curves of the Tigris to the outskirts of Mosul where mounds and ruins scattered over 1,800 acres marked the site of ancient Nineveh. The Bible said that the prophet Jonah had come here after being spat out from the great fish’s belly to proclaim God’s word to the wicked Ninevites. But long before Jonah’s mission, the city was a religious centre for the goddess Ishtar. Hazo pulled out the pictures from the cave,