The Key. Simon Toyne
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The 4x4 bounced over broken ground alongside one of the numerous canals that criss-crossed the landscape to the east of Al-Hillah. The terrain was a striking mixture of barren desert and patches of dense, tropical greenery. It was known as the Fertile Crescent, part of ancient Mesopotamia – the land between two rivers. Ahead of them a line of lush grass and date palms sketched out the banks of one of them – the Tigris – and the Euphrates lay behind them. Between these ancient boundaries mankind had invented the written word, algebra and the wheel, and many believed it was the original location of the Garden of Eden, but no one had ever found it. Abraham – father of the three great religions: Islam, Judaism and Christianity – had been born here. The Ghost had come into existence here too, birthed by the land he now served as a loyal son.
The truck eased past a palm grove and bounced out into the chalk-white desert, baked to concrete by the relentless sun. The fat man grunted as pain jarred through his bruised flesh. The Ghost ignored him, fixing his gaze on a hazy pile of rubble starting to take shape through the windscreen. It was too soon to say what it was, or even how close. The extreme heat of the desert played tricks with distance and time. Looking out at the bleached horizon he could have been staring at a scene from the Bible: the same broken land and parchment sky, the same smudge of moon melting upon it.
The mirage began to take more solid form as they drew closer. It was much bigger than he’d first thought: a square structure, ‘man-made’, two storeys high, probably an abandoned caravanserai serving the camel trains that used to travel through these ancient lands. Its flat clay bricks, baked hard by the same sun almost a thousand years ago, were now crumbling back to their original dust.
Dust thou art, the Ghost thought as he surveyed the scene, And unto dust shalt thou return.
Blast marks became apparent as they drew closer, peppering the outer walls. The damage was recent – evidence of insurgence, or possibly target practice by British or American troops. The Ghost felt his jaw clench in anger and wondered how the invaders would like it if armed Iraqis started blowing lumps out of Stonehenge or Mount Rushmore.
‘There. Stop there.’ The fat man pointed to a small cairn of rocks a few hundred metres short of the main ruin.
The driver steered towards it and crunched to a halt. The Ghost scanned the horizon, saw the shimmer of air rising from hot earth, the gentle movement of palm fronds and in the distance a cloud of dust, possibly a military column on the move, but too far away to be of immediate concern. He opened the car door to the furnace heat and turned to the hostage.
‘Show me,’ he whispered.
The fat man stumbled across the baked terrain, the Ghost and the driver following his exact footsteps to avoid any mines he may try to lure them on to. Three metres short of the pile of rocks the man stopped and pointed to the ground. The Ghost followed the line of his extended arm and saw a faint depression in the earth. ‘Booby traps?’
The fat man stared at him as though he’d insulted his family. ‘Of course,’ he said, holding out his hand for the keys to the truck. He took them and pointed the fob towards the ground. The muted chirp of a lock deactivating sounded somewhere beneath them, then he dropped down, brushing away layers of dust to reveal a hatch secured on one side by a padlock wrapped in a plastic bag. He selected a small key then wrenched open the square trapdoor.
Sunlight streamed down into the bunker. The fat man lowered himself on to a ladder that dropped steeply away into the darkness. The Ghost watched him all the way down from over the barrel of his pistol until he looked up, his one good eye squinting against the brightness. ‘I’m going to get a torch,’ he said, reaching out into the dark.
The Ghost said nothing, just tightened his finger on the trigger in case something else appeared in his hand. A cone of light clicked on in the darkness and shone into the swollen face of the garage owner.
The driver went next while the Ghost did a final sweep of the horizon. The dust cloud was further away now, still heading north towards Baghdad. There were no other signs of life. Satisfied that they were alone, he slid down into the dark earth.
The cave had been cut from rock by ancient hands and stretched away several metres in each direction. Military-style shelving units had been set up along each wall with thick sheets of polythene draped over them to protect their contents from the dust. The Ghost reached over and pulled one aside. The shelf was filled with guns, neatly stacked AK-47 assault rifles mostly, all bearing the scars of combat usage. Underneath them were rows of spam cans with stencilled lettering in Chinese, Russian, and Arabic, each containing 7.62mm rounds.
The Ghost worked his way down the shelves, pulling aside each polythene sheet in turn to discover more weapons, heavy artillery shells, brick-like stacks of dollar bills, bags of dried leaves and white powder, and finally – near the back of the cave on a shelf of its own – he found what he was looking for.
He eased the loose bundle of sacking towards him, feeling the drag of the heavy object inside, then unwrapped it reverently, with the same care he would use to peel dressings from burned flesh. Inside was a flat slate tablet. He tilted it towards the light, revealing faint markings on its surface. He traced their outline with his finger – a letter ‘T’ turned upside down.
The driver glanced over, his gun still on the hostage, his eyes drawn to the sacred object. ‘What does it say?’
The Ghost flipped the sacking back over the stone. ‘It is written in the lost language of the gods,’ he said, picking up the bundle and cradling it as if it were a newborn. ‘Not for us to read, only for us to keep safe.’ He walked up to the fat man and glared into his battered face, his pale eyes unnaturally bright in the dim light. ‘This belongs to the land. It should not be tossed on a shelf with these things. Where did you get it?’
‘I swapped it with a goatherd, for a couple of guns and some ammunition.’
‘Tell me his name and where I might find him.’
‘He was a Bedouin. I don’t know his name. I was doing some business up in Ramadi and he brought it to sell, along with some other bits of junk. He said he found it in the desert. Maybe he did, maybe he stole it. I gave him a good price anyway.’ He looked up with his one good eye. ‘And now you will steal it from me.’
The Ghost weighed this new information. Ramadi was a half-day’s drive north. One of the main centres of resistance during the invasion and occupation, it had been bombed and shelled to rubble, and now had a cursed air hanging over it. It was also home to one of Saddam’s palaces, now stripped clean by looters. The relic could easily have come from there. The late president had been a keen stealer and hoarder of his own country’s treasures. ‘How long ago did you buy it?’
‘About ten days, during the monthly market.’
The Bedouin could be anywhere by now, roaming with his sheep across hundreds of square kilometres of desert. The Ghost held the bundle up for the fat man to see. ‘If you come across anything else like this, you hold on to it and let me know. That way you become my friend – understand? You know I can be a useful friend, and you do not want me as your enemy.’
The man nodded.
The Ghost held his gaze for a moment then replaced the sand goggles.
‘What about the rest of this stuff?’ the driver said.
‘Leave it. There’s no need to take away this man’s livelihood.’ He turned to the ladder and started to climb towards the daylight.
‘Wait!’
The fat man looked at him with confusion, puzzled by his surprising act of charity.
‘The Bedouin herder, he wears a red football cap. I offered to buy it, as a joke, and he became offended. He said it was his most precious possession.’
‘What team?’
‘Manchester United – the red devils.’
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