The city of Erbil vaguely resembled Abbasid Baghdad, but Yusef had no way of knowing that. A time before the Mongols, before the Ottomans and the British and the Americans and the Americans again. Only the last of those foreign invaders sticks out in his mind; the only one that he knows.

  In the center of the city, the ancient citadel rises high above the rooftops. There sits an ancient castle in the middle built in the early 2080s as a tourism attraction – “Come see the city that’s seven millennia old!” or something – and a smattering of small buildings surrounding the fortress atop the hill. Below the hill is the rest of the Kurdish capital, a vaguely circular layout where flat-roofed skyrises and onion-topped mosques and thin minarets mingle. From the helicopter above, Yusef looks down on the city, sees the vaguely-round palisades and barricades that held out against the Ikhwan years ago and sees buildings whose architects were inspired by a dozen cultures over dozens of centuries – Abbasid and Umayyad, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, excessive American, brutalist Soviet, neon Chinese and Japanese and Korean, but no buildings rose higher than the Palace of Saladin.

  Yusef had been living in the shadow of Nineveh for his entire life. The Palace of Saladin, Salah al-Din, or Yusef ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi depending on who you’re asking, is almost medieval in design, seven stories tall and made exclusively from squares and rectangles, crenellations atop the edges of its rooftops. The helicopter swings around to the front to reveal black iron gates with golden decorative writings on each horizontal bar that just looked like scribbled lines to Yusef drawn with unsteady hands, wide enough for two tanks to roll through, and atop that was the coat of arms of the Kurdish Free Republic, a golden eagle holding the sun between its wings.

  The helicopter did not land atop that building. Instead, it lands on a four-story office building about half the size and a twentieth of the ground area, and deposits ragged Yusef and his saviours or jailors or whatever they were atop it before flying off again, shrinking into a black speck the size of a fruit fly against the red horizon and then disappearing into the rising sun.

  Yusef stands atop beige, sun-stained sandstone without a clue what he was doing here. Whenever he blinks, the abyss of either sleep or death beckoned and threatened to seal his eyelids together with a comatose glue. But the sun shines through his tired eyelids, lighting the blood vessels up red and preventing him from experiencing the comforting blackness. The building’s roof is flat with a tall alcove on the side of the building facing the front of the Palace of Saladin, about the size of a phone booth. The group of six lead him into the shade and down into the guts of the building and Yusef shambles and totters through an open door, grey steel with rust from the oils of human touch, and into a shockingly modern office building.

  Something about it, with its grey tile floors, crimson carpet, drywall painted a dull gunmetal blue, floor-to-ceiling windows and doors of stained wood and paintings of sceneries of far away lands hanging on the walls didn’t feel right. He’s covered in dust, and the others here are in military fatigues stained with soot, the colour of three separate deserts. People walk from office to office, some empty-handed and others carrying books and binders and folders of various documents and didn’t bat an eye at the out-of-place intruders.

  Yusef peers at a familiar-looking circular sigil. Whereas the Kurdish Free Republic’s eagle has one head, this one has two. It’s heads s black, eyes and body and wings golden, the yellow sun emitting triangular rays of red and blue and green. Its legs stand and its talons grip a banner with glimmering gold calligraphy on it, just like the gate. But this time Yusef is close enough for his tired eyes to read it. Three lines, one in familiar Arabic script, the other in an unfamiliar cross between Arabic and Persian, and then in English for the foreign suppliers and investors.

SALADIN SECURITY SERVICES

  Is this guy important or something? He asks himself. He looks around and sees a door close; a businesswoman wearing a grey suit and blue tie and a matching blue hijab walks out, the soles of a pair of black shoes muffled by the carpet. Yusef squints and peers into the sliver between the door frame and wooden door, and swears he can make out the outline of rifles in the darkness.

  <> he asks in Arabic. It’s the only language he knows.

  <> Khawla replies from behind him. He feels as if she could press her handgun against his spine to get him moving, she would. But, she’s in a place of financial importance to her. Decorum is important in a city without a parasite attached.

  <> Alim replies, taking off his bright red beret. His hairline is…far from optimal. Not quite ragged, but the beret hides a bald spot atop his head that looks like a softer version of a medieval monk’s tonsure. <>

  Work?

  <> Yusef asks.

  <> Khawla asks back.

  What’s her fucking problem?

  <> one of the taller men tells her. Rumbly voice. Maybe Majid? He can’t remember any of their names.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  A door creaks open and a short, middle-aged salaryman in a tieless suit stares at the two.

  Khawla fumes silently as Alim continues.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  Yusef doesn’t know what the Americans have.

  <> Khawla hisses.

  <>

  <> Majid asks, brown eyes peering down from nearly seven feet above the ground. They’re close together.

  <> Yusef replies.

  Alim laughs heartily, despite the salaryman glaring at him through his fancy window. The salaryman has a degree but Alim has a handgun. He slaps Yusef on the back with a hairy palm and Yusef almost topples over.

  <>

  Then Khawla steps in front of the commander, quick as lightning and escaping the grasp of Masjid and the two others. One’s name is Idris, the other Sajjad, but Yusef can’t recall which is which. He’ll figure it out later.

  <> Khawla speaks, French, accented Arabic. Syrian or Lebanese spices it up.

  <> Alim replies, also in French. But his French is different from hers. Algerian? Who knows. Yusef sure fucking doesn’t.

  <>

  <>

  And now Yusef feels six pairs of eyes peering at him. He hasn’t looked in a mirror for days. But if he looks how he feels, he must look like some sort of cave-dwelling abomination. His face itches from his beard, he needs to get rid of most of it, and he needs a haircut because his hair feels like it’s sticking up at odd angles and clinging to the back of his neck, and he needs something to eat and twenty-five more pounds of muscle on his frame to stop looking famine-stricken and he needs fourteen uninterrupted hours of sleep.

  Khawla looks at him, then whips her head back to face Alim.

  <>

  Alim just sighs deeply, and looks at the younger woman like she’s a misbehaving toddler. Khawla keeps glaring upwards until Alim walks around her and leads Yusef and the rest along.

  <> Yusef asks.

  <>

  Yusef ignores her. She’ll contribute something to this conversation eventually.

  <>

  <> she replies.

  The question was for Alim, but whatever.

  <> Alim replies. <>

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  <>

  <> Khawla asks.

  <> Zahra finally chimes in. If anyone can get her to shut up, it’s her.

  <>

  Didn’t work.

  Zahra freezes, her mind registering exactly what Khawla accused her of. There’s the sound of two people colliding behind Yusef and he hears Zahra and Majid apologizing to each other. Shame it couldn’t be the other one.

  <>

  <> Yusef interrupts.

  <>

  It’s a good point. At least she’s honest. She rushes ahead of Yusef and turns around and walks backwards so she can jut her index finger at him.

  <>

  She backpedals and backpedals as her tirade continues and she walks backwards straight past a wide-open door, one that Alim turns and ducks into and Yusef follows along with the rest of them. Yusef hears the hurried clomping of her boots against the carpet as she rushes into the room but he’s put a few bodies between him and her.

  Out the window of the small office sits the Palace of Saladin. The man sitting at the desk, looking intently at a computer, has a very nice view of it. The small room is cluttered – a pair of chairs in which to sit, bookshelves on three sides and the window on the fourth, a small desk, and a man in a black suit and white and black keffiyeh around his shoulders. Yusef’s stopped listening to Khawla but even he notices when her intangible words are silenced.

  <> the man at the desk asks. His voice is soft but firm. Commanding. Yusef and his hunchback notice everyone else standing up straighter in his sight.

  <> Alim replies.

  <>

  Everyone, even Khawla, clears out. Zahra is the last to leave, and she lingers at the door for a moment.

  <> she whispers to Yusef, then she departs in the hallway, leaving Yusef in the room with this man. The nameplate reads his name – Khalid al-Abbas.

  The room’s trio of bookshelves are stuffed to the brim with books and histories of the colonial times, both past and present. Books are titled like “The Wretched of the Earth” and “The Death of an Arab Dream” and “The Colonialism of Tomorrow.” His focus is hyper specific, but Yusef supposes that there’s no shortage of written material about it. Then his eyes affix on other books. The histories of Sumer, Babylon, Akkad, Assyria; old, begotten cultures, ancient cultures. And above the door is a cross, a man nailed to it. Not just a cross.

  A crucifix.

  <> Mr. al-Abbas tells.

  His legs feel exhausted. His knees want to buckle under him. But he locks his knees and remains steadfast. No weaknesses. Not to anyone. Even in this state.

  <>

  <>

  He turns in his chair. Yusef estimates that he’s in his mid-to-late 60s, hair and beard neatly trimmed and white as snow. His face is leathered dark by the sun, the sand, and time. His face reveals nothing, his eyes hazel. He might’ve been stoic for so many years that he forgot how to express himself.

  <>

  The two stare at each other for some time. Yusef refuses to back down. al-Abbas’ gaze isn’t hostile. He’s just measuring him up. The building is quiet.

  <>

  He reaches behind him and pulls open a drawer. His hand pulls out a manilla folder, with something scribbled on the top in black sharpie. Two names in two languages, English and Arabic.

  ‘Farid Muhammed al-Assad / Yusef el-Haddad’

  Yusef feels his heart rate double. How does he know?

  <>

  Yusef doesn’t speak.

  <>

  He simply puts the folder on the table and lets Yusef rifle through it. Records on him dating back years. A wanted poster from the Twin Rivers Republican Army, ten thousand dollars or the equivalent of for his arrest. Intelligence files on various skirmishes and raids and robberies – battles at Khorsabad and Tell Kayf, Nimrod and Ctesiphon. All stuff that he led for the Ikhwan.

  <> al-Abbas asks.

  Yusef puts the folder back on his desk. Stares down al-Abbas.

  <>

  He opens the folder and pulls out the wanted poster.

  <>

  Yusef looks around the office. His eyes affix on the crucifix.

  <

  Khalid turns in his chair and faces the man on the wall. He closes his eyes and gently exales through his nostirils, gathering his thoughts.

  <>

  A second passes. Two.

  <>

  <> Yusef asks.

  He rubs his tired eyes.

  <> he asks. <>

  <>

  The man speaks with an air of finality. Yusef lets his eyes rest, just for a moment. The sun is finally gone, he sees nothing but darkness, his eyelids blackout curtains. In the darkness his hands find the back of the chair, wooden and cushioned only on the bottom. He figures he can’t back down now, even though this al-Abbas guy is something else. He’s never done it before. Maybe he was too brave, or just too stubborn, or just too stupid, or maybe all three. But he never dealt with an academic.

  <> al-Abbas speaks, and Yusef opens his eyes. A book sits open on the desk. The End of All Holy Things: A History of Italian Organized Crime. An author with the last name of Robustelli. It’s an Arabic translation, but the way al-Abbas has it positioned forces Yusef to read it upside down and Arabic isn’t a language suited to be read upside down.

  <>

  <> Yusef’s done a lot of bad. He’s never once touched a prostitute. Most of them aren’t there by choice either.

  <>

<>

  <>

  Yusef thinks for a few seconds. There were a lot of big words in there and he never went to high school. The only reason he learned to read was one of his first Ikhwan commanders. Ali bin, something or other. He was just Ali. He lets his eyes close, and then feels his elbows buckle and they snap open again and he catches himself. His eyes shoot back to al-Abbas. He’s smiling, thin and bemused. Is he having fun?

  <>

  He points to his wall. He has a doctorate from some university. Baghdad, probably.

  <> he continues.

  <> Yusef asks back. If someone likes to talk, give them more excuses to talk.

  <>

  <>

  He just looks at Yusef. Then he laughs, warm and genuine and caught off-guard. He has deep laugh lines etched into his cheeks. Yusef figures he never expected him to be anything more than some dumb Ikhwan. Which he is, fine, but he likes to keep a few surprises up his sleeve.

  <>

  <>

  al-Abbas is silent, but a thin smile still creases his lips. Maybe he’s having fun.

  <>

  <>

  If Yusef wasn’t bone-dead exhausted he’d glare at him, his brown eyes furious and merciless. But now he just wants a nap. He wants to stop listening to the man who says too many fucking words.

  <>

  <>

  And, against all odds and all logic of the universe, Khalid al-Abbas waits.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  al-Abbas says it with such firmness. Never back down. But al-Abbas was never Ikhwan, or never American. What would escalating possibly get?

  <> Yusef finally retreats.

  And then al-Abbas smiles again.

  <>

  Yusef stares blankly at him. What language was that?

  <<’Due time’ will certainly be after you get rest. Your hour of judgement is far from this moment.>>

  Hour of judgement? Is he going to execute me or something?

  Yusef stands still. His eyes are focused on the book on his desk. What does the Italian Mafia have to do with the Ikhwan? What’s the connection? Besides an academic stretching the truth to better suit his thesis statement?

  A phone rings in his office, loud and shrill. Yusef snaps back to reality.

  <> al-Abbas says. He smiles, and Yusef turns and exits his small office, looking at the dying man on the cross above.

  Waiting for him are Zahra’s blue eyes with those haunting golden rings around her pupils. She stands, leaning on the wall opposite to the door, her small frame fitting underneath a painting of some mountainous landscape. Her straw-blonde hair is tied into a braid, around her left temple and falling off her left shoulder. She’s ditched the entirety of the shawl and cloak she wore in Nineveh; underneath is a thin girl of maybe twenty. Maybe twenty-one. Yusef can’t remember if he’s older or younger than her. He fell through the cracks, just like so many other Mosuli.

  <> Zahra asks. Her eyebrows are raised in anticipation. She’s wearing camouflaged cargo pants with pockets aplenty and tan kneepads and a loose-fitting long-sleeve Henley as grey as the tile underfoot. She’s pretty, the kind of person who looks like a tourist. Very out-of-place amongst the olive and tan skin and brown hair of the rest of this part of the world.

  <>

  Zahra cracks a smile.

  <> Her Arabic is flawless, if not accented. Yusef’s been trying to put it together, but with a name like Demirovic she smacks of Balkan. Bosnian, maybe. Kosovan, perhaps. Does it really matter?

  <> Yusef replies. Then he yawns, deeply. Collapses on the wall next to her. His knees are finally protesting his refusal to sit down.

  Zahra yawns too, putting a hand over her mouth to try and hide it. She looks up at him. She’s definitely on the short side, but so is Yusef. The difference is only a few inches between them.

  <> she says, and she puts his arm around her shoulders. Yusef feels like he’s sleepwalking.

  <>

  Dormitory?

  What is going on here? What do they want with me?

  But Yusef is too exhausted to even ask those questions now. al-Abbas took all the remaining energy and adrenaline from him. Now, he’s just a sleepless shell being helped into an elevator.

  Zahra presses the button for the second floor and the elevator descends.