LAS VEGAS.

Finished with cleaning the carpet, Stokes took a breather next to a metre-high display case shaped like an obelisk. The artifact contained in its pyramidal gla.s.s tip captured his attention: a clay tablet, no larger than a hymnal, etched in lines, pictograms and wedge-shaped cuneiform. An amazing work created by the first masters of celestial study - the ancient Mesopotamians.

He'd never divulged to anyone how he'd truly procured this treasure map to the origins of Creation hidden deep within the Zagros Mountains. Even his closest confidants, like Frank Roselli, had clung to the story that he'd recovered the relic from an antiquities smuggler who'd looted it from the vaults beneath the Baghdad Museum after the capital first fell. Amazingly, everyone had accepted the story.

But that explanation - the lie - was far too simple.

This tablet represented Stokes's pledge to those who'd truly bestowed the artifact, and its secrets, upon him. The pledge that had transformed a warrior into a prophet.

And it all began on a calm day in 2003, when Randall Stokes lost his leg ...

While US forces bombed Baghdad, Stokes's Force Recon unit had still been routing out Taliban from the Afghan mountains, just like they'd been doing since October 2001, when Operation Enduring Freedom responded to the terror attacks in New York and Washington. Shortly after Iraq's capital had been seized, his unit had been redeployed to northern Iraq to pursue Saddam loyalists who were fleeing Mosul and heading north over the mountains for Syria and Turkey.

The Department of Defense had issued a deck of playing cards listing Iraq's most-wanted men in four suits, plus jokers. In the first two weeks, Stokes and his six-man unit had captured two diamonds, one heart and one club. By the end of the first month, they'd hunted and killed fifty-five insurgents, without one civilian casualty. The worst injury his unit sustained was a non-lethal bite from a Kurdistan mountain viper whose fangs punctured more boot than skin.

Things had gone smoothly.

Perhaps that should have clued Stokes that his luck was sure to turn.

On an uncharacteristically mild Tuesday in late June, Stokes and fellow special operative Corporal Cory Riggins were heading south to Mosul for a weekly briefing with the brigadier general. Their Humvee was forced to a stop in a congested pa.s.s where a group of Iraqi boys had turned the dusty roadway into a soccer field. The kids made no effort to move.

'I should just run over them,' Riggins said. 'A few less fanatics in our future.'

'Never did like kids, did you?' Stokes said, hopping out from the Humvee. 'I'll take care of it.'

Stokes had made it only four paces from the truck when one of the boys scored a goal that sent the soccer ball rolling up to Stokes's feet. He didn't think much about the fact that the kid playing goalie didn't come running after it. The kids simply jumped up and down, waving their arms for Stokes to kick it back. Grinning and shaking his head, Stokes cranked his leg back and planted a swift kick on the ball.

That was the last time he'd seen the lower half of his right leg.

What Stokes didn't know was that the soccer ball had been packed with C-4 and had been remotely armed the moment it rolled to a stop, waiting for the force of Stokes's kick to compress its concealed detonator.

The explosion was fierce, lifting Stokes into the air and throwing him back against the Humvee. He dropped to the ground at the same moment a combat boot smacked the window above him, spraying blood. The boot plunked into the sand beside him. He remembered seeing the jagged bone and stringy meat sticking out above its laces. Only when he looked down at what remained of his right leg - nothing but peeled raw flesh just inches below the knee - did he realize that the boot was his own.

There was no pain. Just the woozy haze from shock and an overwhelming urge to vomit.

The boys scattered as the trio of militants broke cover to ambush the Humvee. With their machine guns raised up, they shredded the Humvee's interior, before Riggins could escape or return fire.

Then they circled around Stokes, jeered him as he spat bile into the sand. Since his eardrums had been blown out, he couldn't hear what they were saying, and his eyes, coated in blast residue, struggled to focus.

Then came the beating.

The Arabs mercilessly kicked him about the face until he spat out teeth. Next, they simultaneously pummelled his ribs and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. When they began stomping on his b.l.o.o.d.y stump, Stokes pa.s.sed out.

They'd done everything possible to maim him. Yet for some reason, no doubt wicked, they let him live. 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 the great liberator - and not one came to his aid. - 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 la.s.so 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! 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 c.r.a.p ...'

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 a.s.sess 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 ma.s.s 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 Could it ever end? Hazo wondered. The grim truth, he feared, was that Iraq's history would continue to be written in blood. 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 G.o.d's word to the wicked Ninevites. But long before Jonah's mission, the city was a religious centre for the G.o.ddess Ishtar. Hazo pulled out the pictures from the cave, studied the woman who'd been depicted on the wall. Had she been a living being? Or might this be a tribute to the a.s.syrio-Babylonian G.o.ddess Ishtar, as Karsaz had suggested?

An eight-pointed star was Ishtar's mythological symbol, and the woman depicted on the cave wall wore a wristband bearing an eight-petalled rosette. Close. But close enough? He tried to remember if Ishtar was ever portrayed carrying a radiating object in her hands. Nothing came to mind.

Like most Iraqis, he could recall bits and pieces of the G.o.ddess's lore: how the cunning seductress would cruelly annihilate her countless lovers; how after failing to bed the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, she'd persuaded the supreme G.o.d Anu to release the Great Bull of Heaven to deliver apocalyptic vengeance upon the Babylonians; how the Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal, had been so infuriated by Ishtar's antics that she'd imprisoned the harlot and inflicted sixty diseases upon her.

Could this really be Ishtar? he thought Nineveh faded in the distance and the chopper began tracing a white pipeline that ran north towards the Tawke oil fields. Crude was once again flowing out from Iraq, and making Hazo think that it wasn't only Ishtar who'd been a prost.i.tute.

Back to the pictures, he flipped to an image that showed a warrior presenting the female's disembodied head to an elder. He couldn't recall anything about Ishtar being executed so cruelly. Too many inconsistencies. Though if this wasn't Ishtar, then who could she be?

The fact that these images came from inside a cave raised even more questions. It was a.s.sumed that beneath every earthen mound in Iraq lay remnants of a civilization come and gone. To find such evidence tucked away beneath a mountain, however, seemed highly unusual. Ancient cults were were known to practise secret rituals in caves, so maybe the cave was linked to those who worshipped Ishtar. known to practise secret rituals in caves, so maybe the cave was linked to those who worshipped Ishtar.

The chopper dipped and began its descent.

Ahead Hazo spotted Mount Maqloub jutting skywards along the fringe of the Nineveh plain. Only as the chopper closed in over the craggy sandstone mountain did the angular lines of the multi-storey Mar Mattai monastery seem to materialize from the cliff face. Its only architecturally significant features were an Arabian-style loggia running along its top level and an onion dome marking the main entrance. Nestled behind the modern facade, however, was one of the world's oldest Christian chapels, founded in AD 363.

The Chaldean monks who resided within the monastery's walls proclaimed to be direct descendants of the Babylonians. They were the earliest Arab Christian converts; the preservers of Aramaic, 'Christ's language'. Here they safeguarded the world's most impressive collection of Syriac Christian ma.n.u.scripts and ancient codices chronicling Mesopotamia's lesser-known past.

None knew ancient Iraq better.

And like the Kurds, the Chaldeans had suffered their share of persecution in northern Iraq. The Chaldean community was still reeling from the execution of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, who'd vehemently dissented against the proposed inclusion of Islamic law into the Iraqi const.i.tution. On February 29, 2008, he'd been kidnapped at gunpoint by Islamic militants. The body turned up two weeks later in a shallow grave outside Mosul.

The pilot manoeuvred over the empty visitors' parking lot and expertly set the Blackhawk down.

Hazo removed his flight helmet, unbuckled his harness, and hopped out from the fuselage. The copilot, already outside, motioned for him to stay low while scrambling under the slowing rotor blades.

Climbing the monastery's precipitous front steps, Hazo pulled the olive wood crucifix out from beneath his galabiya to display it prominently on his chest. Beneath the onion dome he tried opening the main door, but it was locked.

Before he could knock on the door, a bespectacled young monk with a long black beard and opaline eyes appeared on the other side of the gla.s.s and turned the deadbolt. The monk was wearing a traditional black robe with white priest collar, an elaborate Inuit hood and msone msone ceremonial sandals. ceremonial sandals.

'Shlama illakh,' the monk said, peering over at the unorthodox sight of the Blackhawk plunked down in the parking lot. He turned and glanced at Hazo's crucifix. Switching to English, he said, 'How may I help you, brother?'

Hazo introduced himself, apologized for his late arrival. Then he explained, 'I was hoping that one of your brothers might help me. You see, I have these pictures ...' He held out the photos.

The monk kept his hands folded behind his back as he examined only the top photo.

'And I've been asked to determine what these images mean ... who this female might be, here,' he said, pointing.

'And this is of interest to them?' He motioned to the Blackhawk.

'That's right.'

The monk hesitated, weighing the facts. His lips drew tight. 'You must talk to Monsignor Ibrahim about these things. I will bring you to him. Please, come,' he said, and set off in a steady shuffle.

The monk remained silent as he led Hazo through the modern corridors of the main building and out a rear door that fed into a s.p.a.cious courtyard boxed in by two storeys of arcades.

The humble stone building they entered next was much, much older. They pa.s.sed through a barrel vaulted corridor, redolent with incense and age, into an ancient stone nave with Arabian design elements - pointed archways, spiral columns, mosaic tile work.

The original monastery.

Hazo noticed that the inscriptions glazed into its intricate friezes and mosaics were not Arabic; they were from a language that the world outside these walls considered dead - Aramaic. There were plenty of carved rosettes adorning the archways too.