Читать книгу The Istanbul Puzzle - Laurence O’Bryan - Страница 20

Chapter 15

On the rounded top of a salt hill, an outcrop of the Zagros Mountains, a black-cloaked shepherd sat. His flock, fourteen thin black sheep, was foraging among skeletal dwarf oak trees. In the distance a layer of dust and pollution marked the location of the city of Mosul.

The Zagros mountain chain is a natural barrier between Iran and Iraq. It extends from north of the Straits of Hormuz all the way into Turkey. It’s a thousand miles long and its peaks are snow-capped. Its foothills resemble the hills of the US South West or the Highlands of Scotland. The city of Mosul, in the north of Iraq on the Tigris river, is near the ancient site of the city of Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian Empire. Uncounted armies have battled in this area.

The shepherd watched the white trail of a plane as it rose from Mosul airport. He thought about the warning he’d heard the night before. The evening star of Ishtar had risen late. The wizened crone who slept in a cave at the bottom of the hill had come into the village square to speak to them for the first time in ten years.

‘Not since Jonah warned the Ninevites has such a thing happened,’ she’d said in the pale evening light. Then she’d coughed for almost a minute.

Finally she’d continued, ‘Remember Jonah’s warning.’ She’d looked at every face. ‘Another great city will be destroyed.’