Marduk sat on a plastic folding chair in the middle of a brown desert, under a raging blue sky. It was midday. His feet were in the sand. His knee was screaming at him. Sweat and grime coated his face. His clothes stuck to his body. There was no air in this godforsaken place.
To left and right, men toiled. They knew they had to be in and out of this land – Iraq – quickly and unobtrusively. Marduk had been hard at work, quickly pulling together a small army of ruthless mercs who would obey any order, no matter how depraved, to get their cut of a decent payday. Now, they were working to put together a makeshift shelter in the lee of a mountain. Guards ranged the nearby hills with orders to hide and warn rather than challenge if anyone appeared. The air was sultry, the wind warm and full of sand particles. Marduk found that the pain in his knee meant he could barely move, not that he wanted to help anyone.
The men laboured hard. They wanted their payday as fast as possible. And there was only one way they were going to get it …
Marduk was playing a dangerous game. He’d almost run out of money, yet here he was, hiring fifteen ex-soldiers and retaining the services of Cassadaga and Ivana. Worse, the latter two knew he was short on cash. They knew this trip was an all-or-nothing kind of affair.
Marduk remained confident. The Tower of Babel – or more properly, the Etemenanki ziggurat – would provide him with all the riches he could ever desire. Which, for Marduk, was saying something. His tastes bordered on the truly lavish.
For now, though, the discomfort beat at him like a cat-o’-nine-tails. He rubbed his knee, dry-swallowed painkillers and drank bottles of water. He asked a man to set up an umbrella over him. He sat there and brooded and thought about all the good things this momentary suffering would revive.
Marduk surveyed the landscape. It was barren, brown, and lifeless. They had two good local guides who assured them nobody would bother them out here. They were less than a twenty-minute hike away from Babylon.
For a soldier, at least. Marduk would need far longer and might even need to be carried. He’d deal with that when the time arrived. For now, he watched the mercs work, listened to their cursing, and looked for Daga and Ivana.
They hadn’t been seen for a while and had offered no help to the mercs. Marduk was under no illusions about how far he could control them. He couldn’t. They lived on a violent appetite, by a compass that pointed only towards the most bloodstained inclinations. But they were useful. He hoped he would soon feel confident enough in his domain to point them in the direction of his enemies.
But for now, he had to endure all this.
The mercs knew what they were doing and worked efficiently. Marduk felt the painkillers kick in. He saw the tent that would be his taking shape. The shade would be blissful. He passed the time by reviewing the plan in his head.
For thousands of years, the Tower of Babel had been part of Babylon’s and the Amori’s rich history. It was called Babel, according to one of Marduk’s hated scriptures – the Book of Genesis – because it was there that the Lord confused the languages of the earth and scattered the people far and wide. The Creed – Marduk’s own bible – attested that it had been a wonder of the world with a summit raised to heaven, a gift to their gods.
But Babel was also the Hebrew name for Babylon. And the tower of Babylon was the Etemenanki ziggurat. Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon himself, had had inscribed on an ancient monument excavated in 1917 that he had made one of the greatest constructions in the history of man, a true marvel. In 1880 another inscription had been found that stated: ‘its foundations I laid out in gold, silver, gemstones from mountain and sea.’ Marduk knew this to be a reference to the great riches that were secreted under its base, riches that had never even been guessed at, never mind discovered.
But Marduk was the monarch of the Amori. He knew more secrets than most of the elders. He was a man who worshipped Babylon and the icon it had become for the world. The great Babylon. The dynastic wonder and example it presented. The Amori had turned it into the region’s holy city, eclipsing Nippur. The largest city of the world, site of the Hanging Gardens, wonder of ancient times, home to Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great, its name meaning the very ‘gate of the gods’, and home to the famous Ishtar Gate, Babylon had always been the home of the Amori and the Amori were a civilised society two thousand years before the coming of Christ.
All of that meant everything to Marduk, but the stark fact was that it also meant very little if he couldn’t locate the riches in question.
Through the shimmering heat haze that hung over the desert, Marduk saw two figures approaching. Even blurred as they were, he could recognise Cassadaga and Ivana, walking together and headed straight for him. There was a strange look on Daga’s face, something born of viciousness and, strangely, uncertainty.
‘I see your tent is almost ready.’ Ivana cast an appraising glance over Marduk’s seated form and the nearby canvas structure, pointing out the fact that he clearly wasn’t helping.
Marduk studied her. Ivana was a tall, broad-shouldered powerhouse, with attractive Eastern European features. She was an expert safecracker. More than that, she was a cruel killer who delighted in the murder of innocents and happily assisted Daga in his goal of killing more people by hand than anyone else alive.
‘Currently,’ he said, ‘I work better out of this heat, and preferably loaded with painkillers and alcohol and anything else drug-related you might be able to procure for me.’ He gave her a long look. ‘And, believe me, for the next few days, you want me at my best.’
‘You got that right,’ she said quickly.
‘Excuse me?’
Daga waved a hand. ‘You have a problem,’ he said.
Marduk was highly aware of the phrasing of Daga’s statement. The word you told him that Daga would never be solid backup.
‘What problem?’
‘Ivana and I took a stroll.’ Daga was talking easily and, Marduk noticed, showed no strain from the walk out into the desert and, it appeared, wasn’t even sweating.
‘To where?’
‘To your ziggurat, your Tower of Babel. We borrowed some equipment, survival rations and a satnav, and made our way about twenty-five minutes in a northerly direction. The guides are right. This area has no life, no signs of people, no rebels, nothing.’
Inside, Marduk was seething. The first approach to the Etemenanki ziggurat should have been cautiously controlled and under cover of darkness. The success of his plan counted on risk avoidance.
‘So what is the problem?’ he asked shortly.
‘A village has sprung up close to the site of the ziggurat, assuming your coordinates are accurate,’ Daga told him. ‘We counted several tents and some wooden structures, at least two dozen people. Men, women, children.’
Marduk let the news sink in for a moment. ‘That is a setback,’ he said finally. ‘How close?’
‘Well, put it this way,’ Ivana said, ‘if you’re planning on taking all fifteen men with you, they’ll be seen and heard. Just Daga and I, however …’
Marduk ignored her smiling face. He would need everyone for the initial dig. There would be noise. Nothing spectacular, but enough to wake two dozen sleeping villagers. ‘Are they dug in?’ he asked. ‘I mean – do they look like they are there to stay?’
Ivana gave him a wicked smile. ‘For now,’ she said.
Marduk didn’t really understand her meaning and didn’t care. The problem was immense. If he couldn’t excavate at the ziggurat, he couldn’t extract the wealth. If he couldn’t extract the wealth, all these mercs were liable to kill him, with Daga and Ivana cheering them on. He watched the two killers watch him, saw them savouring every worry line that creased his face.
‘Then we must take care of them,’ he said. ‘There’s a reason I asked for mercenaries with no scruples.’
‘You knew this might happen?’
‘It was always a possibility. They’re drawn to the old ruins like moths to flames.’
‘The villagers?’ Daga asked.
‘Yes, the fucking villagers. They have put roots down on sacred land. They are defiling consecrated ground. That is the Etemenanki ziggurat they are corrupting with their filth – a holy, blessed relic of the Amori and of Babylon. How dare they!’
‘And when you say, “take care of”?’ Ivana questioned.
‘I want our mercenary friends to kill them. Move on the village and kill every man, woman and child.’
‘I’d bet they don’t know they’re on your ziggurat,’ Ivana said.
‘I don’t care,’ Marduk all but squealed, rising to the bait. ‘Nobody crosses me and gets away with it. You hear me? Nobody. I will see them all butchered, murdered, torn limb from limb.’ He rose to his feet, unsteady on his bad knee. ‘We will send in the mercenaries. And when they are done, not a soul will remain to tarnish the eminent site. The best thing they can do is to nourish it with their blood.’
‘And nourish it they will,’ Daga said. ‘I like the way your mind works, Marduk.’
Several mercenaries were listening to the rant, got the gist of the conversation, and wandered over. One of them looked Marduk dead in the eye.
‘These are innocent people,’ he said. ‘Villagers, I hear. You could work with their knowledge. You could ask their consent, maybe.’
‘Consent?’ Marduk’s voice rose several octaves and fresh sweat popped out across his forehead. ‘Consent? I do not need consent. I am the monarch of the Amori. This is our land, our land. Do not speak to me about consent.’
Marduk was breathing heavily, heart racing. He could barely control himself. His initial impulse was to smash the merc’s nose and then stab him through the heart, but this wasn’t an Amori HQ. It was the middle of a roasting desert hell, and Marduk needed all the help he could get.
‘I didn’t sign on to kill innocent civilians,’ the merc continued.
Marduk resisted the impulse to lash out once again and fought to find the right words. Before he could open his mouth, Daga spoke up.
‘And yet you did,’ he said. ‘This job was offered at a substantial rate of pay, only for those willing to follow orders to the letter. For those willing to get the job done no matter what. Those were your terms, soldier, and it’s now up to you to stick by them.’
The merc narrowed his eyes, appraising Daga. The man beside him shrugged as if to say, ‘no skin off my nose’. Daga didn’t move a muscle, but Marduk could see that he was ready to fight, that in fact he was hoping the merc made a move.
Maybe the merc saw it too. After a few moments, he shrugged and said no more, turning away. Which left Marduk staring after him, wondering what his intentions were.
‘Keep an eye on that one,’ he said.
‘Always do,’ Daga said.
‘When do we execute the next stage?’ Ivana said with a grin at her own clever wording.
‘Tonight,’ Marduk said. ‘We will kill them all tonight.’