Free The Sanctuary by Raymond Khoury Page A

were limited to the Middle East . In the disturbingly brutal new world order of the twenty-first century, pretty much all countries—except for, maybe, Liechtenstein—were wielding them with abandon, and they all seemed to treat their victims with an unrepentant savagery that made Ivar the Boneless’s demented practices seem lame.
    “They kept her outside while the two men talked to him,” Farouk added dolefully, “then she heard some shouts. They wanted to know where the pieces were. They hit him a few times and then they dragged him out of the shop, bundled him into a car, and drove away. They took him, just like that. It’s a common occurrence in Iraq these days, but this wasn’t political. Before they left, Ali’s wife overheard them talking about the pictures. The photocopies I gave him. They were the buyers,
Sitt
Evelyn—or, more likely, they were there on behalf of the eventual buyer. And one of them told the other, ‘He just wants the book. We can sell the rest ourselves.’ Just the book, Sitt
Evelyn. You understand?”
    Evelyn felt a searing nausea rising in her throat. “And they killed him?”
    Farouk couldn’t quite bring the words out. “His body was found that evening, thrown in a ditch by the side of a road. It was…” He shook his head, wincing, clearly haunted by the thought, and let out a pained breath. “They’d used a power drill on him.”
    “What did you do?”
    “What else could I do? Ali didn’t know about Abu Barzan. I didn’t tell him where the pieces came from. Although I knew him well, times are desperate right now, we live in a state of constant fear and paranoia, and I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t trust him enough to tell him about Abu Barzan so that he wouldn’t deal with him behind my back.”
    Evelyn saw where this was leading. “Which means Ali could only tell them about you.”
    “Exactly. So I ran. I packed some things as soon as I put the phone down and I left my house. I had some money there—we all keep whatever we have at home, the banks aren’t safe anymore. Not a lot, but enough to get me out of Baghdad , enough to bribe the men at the border posts. So I took it and I ran. I hid at a friend’s house, and that night, after Ali’s body was found, I knew for certain that they’d be looking for me. So I left the country. I took buses, paid for rides on trucks, anything I could find. First to Damascus —it was the less obvious route than through Amman , and it’s closer to Beirut , which was where I wanted to reach. To see you. I asked at the university, and they said you were in Zabqine for the day. I couldn’t wait. I had to see you.”
    Evelyn hated the question she just had to ask. Despite feeling sick to her stomach over the horrific fate that had befallen Ali, and her deeply felt grief for Farouk—not just for his ghastly current predicament, but also for the nightmare he must have lived through during the last few years—she couldn’t push the image from the Polaroid out of her mind.
    She put her warring emotions in check. “What about the book? Did you see it? Do you know where it is?”
    Farouk didn’t seem to mind. “When Abu Barzan came to see me, I asked him to show me the collection, but he didn’t have anything with him. It was too dangerous for him to travel with them. Too many roadblocks and militias. I imagine he must have kept them in his shop, or at his home, somewhere safe. He only needed to move them once he had a buyer, across the border into a safer place to conclude the deal, in Turkey or Syria — Turkey would be more likely, it’s not that far from Al-Mawsil—without having to risk coming through Baghdad .”
    More questions were swamping Evelyn’s mind. “But how did he get it? He didn’t say where he found it?”
    Farouk didn’t answer. He was looking beyond Evelyn, and all of a sudden his eyes lit up with fear. He grabbed her hand. “We have to go. Now.
”
    For the briefest of moments, his words didn’t