The pilot, watching the camera feed, spoke next: “The taxi just turned off the boulevard. I think they are approaching their destination.”

In front of a mosque at the corner of a block of tenements, a group of kids were playing in the water from an open hydrant. An imam’s assistant with a wrench stood watch from the sidewalk; despite his efforts to come off like a stern lifeguard, Amal detected a certain wistfulness, as if what he really wanted was to throw off his robes and join in the splashing.

Iyad drove another block to a vacant lot surrounded by more tenements and a small factory that had been turned into an auto shop. A sign said FAWZI’S CAR REPAIR, but the true nature of the business was hinted at by the stripped chassis littering the lot.

A gang of young men, too motley to be Angels, loitered outside the chop shop’s garage entrance. As the taxi approached they came alert, brandishing an assortment of firearms.

Iyad parked next to the rusted carcass of a minibus. “Wait here until I signal you,” he said. He walked up to the garage and spoke to a fellow whose AK-47 had what looked like four ammunition clips bound side-by-side with duct tape. “Somebody must like war movies,” Amal observed. “Or maybe he’s just compensating for something.”

“Yeah, that’s great,” said Samir. The guy with the AK-47 was nodding now. He sent one of the other gang members into the garage and Iyad turned towards the taxi and raised a hand.

Mustafa and Samir exited the cab first, Mustafa coming around to open Amal’s door. After she got out, they fell in step beside her, making like bodyguards, Mustafa doing the better job of projecting professional menace.

Not that it mattered much: The gang members only had eyes for Amal. As she neared the building she heard a whistle and glanced up to see two teenage boys peering out a window on the factory’s second floor—and almost directly above them, another guy with a rifle leaning over the parapet of the roof. Amal resisted an impulse to wave.

The group in front of the garage door parted to make way for their boss. He was older than the others but still young, at least five years Amal’s junior.

“Fawzi bin Taymullah al Walid,” he introduced himself. “At your service.”

“Amal bint Shamal,” Amal said. She undid the lower half of her niqab so he could see it was really her, the sudden exposure of her face causing the gang rank and file to collectively drop their jaws. You Sadr City kids, Amal thought, you really need to get out more. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

“The honor is mine,” Fawzi said. “Please, come inside.”

In the large open space beyond the door, four different cars were in the process of being cannibalized. The mechanics all put their tools down to gawk at the visiting celebrity. One guy with a lit blowtorch on the ground by his feet held up a copy of the Baghdad Gazette and waved it like a groupie hoping for an autograph. Amal politely ignored this, her attention drawn instead to the only intact vehicle in the chop shop, a sedan with a bar of flasher lights mounted on its roof.

“Our secret weapon,” Fawzi said grinning. He didn’t elaborate, but Amal could figure it out for herself: Out on the highway at night with its flashers on, the sedan would easily be mistaken for a police car. This must be how they got their inventory. Amal wondered what sort of arrangement these guys had with the Mahdi Army, and how much of their gross they had to pay in protection money.

“This way, please,” Fawzi said. The back half of the ground floor was a warren of industrial shelving. The shelves nearest the chop shop were filled with auto parts, but those deeper in were stacked with consumer goods—electronics, small appliances—that must have come from hijacked trucks. The boxes on one shelf carried the mark of the Red Crescent and were labeled ANKARA EARTHQUAKE RELIEF. Of these, Fawzi quipped: “Could I interest you in some cheap medical supplies?”

A space at the center of the warren had been furnished as a parlor: stolen carpets and chairs, a sheesha pipe, even an espresso machine. Fawzi, Amal, and Iyad sat down, while Mustafa, Samir, and Fawzi’s lieutenant with the AK-47 remained standing.

“So,” Fawzi said, after an abbreviated exchange of pleasantries, “I understand you’re interested in something I may have in my possession.”

“Actually, it’s my mother who is interested,” Amal said.

“Oh? Not that I’m not flattered, but I wonder how such an important senator would even know about my business here.”

“My mother has many friends in the intelligence community. As a personal favor, they keep tabs on certain people for her. One of these people has been doing a lot of talking on unsecured phones lately about an item that was stolen from him. He’s a very unhappy man.”

Fawzi shrugged, as if it were no big thing to be an object of Saddam Hussein’s displeasure. “Not all unhappiness is a curse.”

“My mother agrees wholeheartedly,” Amal said. “She’d like to increase this man’s unhappiness. So she asked me to see if I could track down the missing property. With my local contacts, it didn’t take long.”

“Well, we aren’t exactly hiding out here,” Fawzi said, a hint of unease breaking through his cool. “And of course, you are welcome in Sadr City . . . So the unhappy man, I assume he’s looking, too.”

“Oh yes,” Amal said. “High and low. But he’s still a few steps behind me, and my hope is to take the object off your hands before he gets any closer.”

“And then what? Your mother will let him know she has it?”

“That’s the plan.”

“And what will your mother do with the object? Destroy it?”

“She considered that. But once she heard the item was an antiquity, she decided it would be more fitting to donate it to a museum.”

“A museum?”

“Yes, in Persia,” Amal said. “Or perhaps Kurdistan . . .”

“I see,” said Fawzi. “And once it’s behind glass in Tehran or Kirkuk, what, you wait for the unhappy man to come visit it?”

“If only God were that generous . . . But my mother will see that he gets an invitation and let him know that a warm welcome awaits him if he accepts.”

Fawzi was grinning now. “I like how your mother thinks. And I believe we can do business.” With a measured note of regret, he added: “Of course, since it is business, I’ll have to ask for payment.”

“Of course,” Amal said. “I’m ready to pay a reasonable price. May I see the item?”

“Absolutely.” Fawzi turned to his lieutenant. “Shadi. Go get the crate.”

The guard on the roof was listening to Green Desert’s “I Pray by Myself” on a pair of headphones, snapping his fingers and swaying to the music. The helicopter, now in whisper mode, had descended almost to the rooftop before he noticed it, and what drew his attention was not the muted shussing of its rotors, but the downdraft, which made the smoke from his cigarette dance as if it too had caught the tune.

When the guard looked up, a Qaeda commando shot him between the eyes with a silenced submachine gun.

“Right side clear,” the commando said.

“Left side clear,” said another.

“Go,” said Idris. The helicopter touched down on the roof just long enough for the six men to jump out; then the pilot increased power and took it back up to five hundred meters. The commandos sprinted across the roof to the stairwell.

A hallway ran the length of the building’s top floor. A man was just coming out of a bathroom near the middle of the hall, adjusting his belt as he walked, when the lead commando reached the bottom of the stairs. The silenced SMG made a flat sound that might have been mistaken for a cough; the fall of the corpse was louder and more distinctive.

“Ali?” a voice called, through an open door midway between the bathroom and the stairs. “Did you trip over your pants again?” This was followed by laughter. The commando stepped quickly to the doorway. Inside the room, three men sat around a card table. The commando killed them all, then paused, listening. When no one else called out or came into the hallway to see what was going on, he returned to the stairs and exchanged hand signals with his men.