For the most part the face was hidden by a thick, black beard and an equally threatening mustache. He had deep-set opaque eyes and a thick nose. In the long shadows of the room he gave the appearance of being some kind of brutish animal. It didn’t take Bogner long to determine the man was both big enough and disagreeable enough to pose a problem. Even worse, he was glaring down at Bogner as if he had a grudge to settle.
Bogner tried raising his head, looking around the room, and quickly decided it wasn’t worth the pain. What little light there was emanated from a bank of dying embers in the fireplace on the far side of the room — and the only thing he could think of was he had no idea where he was or what was happening.
He waited several moments before trying to push himself up on his elbows again, but the man planted a hand in his chest and pushed him down again.
“Okay,” Bogner muttered weakly.
“It’s no contest.
You win.”
Husri Aman leaned close enough for Bogner to feel his breath.
“Stay,” he growled. He had one hand pinned against Bogner’s chest and the other was brandishing a wicked-looking knife. Under the circumstances, it didn’t take Bogner long to make his preliminary assessment. Whoever the guy was, he was big, smelled bad, and was obviously in a foul mood. The animal hissed his command a second time.
“You — stay.”
Bogner was still eyeing the six-inch blade and pondering his next move when he heard the woman’s voice. There was evident alarm.
“Aman!” she shouted.
“Leave him alone. He is still too weak to interrogate.”
The voice came from somewhere across the room and conveyed the tone of a reprimand.
When she came close enough for Bogner to see her, he recognized her as the woman who called herself Andera. She was wrapped in a blanket and the boy was with her.
“We should put him in pit with others,” Aman fumed.
The woman came close, knelt beside the bed, and laid her hand on Bogner’s forehead.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked.
“A lot better now that you’re here.” Even though it hurt to talk, Bogner was surprised by the renewed strength in his voice.
“I don’t think your friend here likes my looks.”
Andera looked up at the hulking figure standing beside the bed.
“Forgive him. He seeks only to make certain you bring us no harm.”
“Tell whatever his name is that I’m in no condition to do anyone any harm. And while you’re at it, you can also tell him to keep his big meat hooks off of me.”
The woman smiled.
“His name is Aman, Husri Aman, and while he has made an unfavorable first impression on you, he is the reason we were able to save you and your friend after your helicopter crashed.”
Bogner closed his eyes and opened them again.
He had forgotten about Ozal.
“My friend,” he said, “how is he?”
“He is better off than you are,” the woman replied.
Bogner tried to sit up again, and without the one she called Aman pushing him back down, he was finally able to make it.
“Move slowly,” she cautioned, “you are weak.”
Once again the boy was standing behind her, periodically peeking out from behind his mother’s skirt. Aman had relented and stepped back for the moment, but he was still glowering. She hesitated even longer before she said, “Aman believes that you are with the man who supplies Baddour with weapons. Is that true?”
Bogner started to deny it, then realized that all they knew about him was what they had learned from going through whatever they had salvaged from the wreckage. With that realization, another piece of the puzzle tumbled into place. As far as these unfortunate Kurds who had saved his life were concerned, he was a weapons merchant-not exactly what he wanted them to think. Someone in the village, probably Aman, knew what Jade was. No wonder Aman was ready to cut his throat. As far as any of the villagers knew, he was a weapons merchant to Baddour, a big contributor to their misery.
Bogner waited while Aman spoke. From the tone of his voice and the way he said it, he sounded as if he was both asking the woman a series of questions and making demands. Most of the conversation took place in what Bogner assumed had to be Kurdish. Banks had indicated there were over 130 regional dialects among the tribes. No doubt Koboli’s guerrilla leader was speaking in his native tongue so that Bogner couldn’t understand him.
When Aman finished, Andera turned to Bogner.
She worded her question carefully.
“Aman wants to know if you are selling weapons to Baddour.”
Bogner knew he had to be careful. He shook his head.
“Tell Aman I have never even met the man.”
Andera relayed the answer, and was about to repeat Aman’s next question when a young man Bogner estimated to be no more than fourteen or fifteen years of age appeared at Andera’s door. His face was flushed with cold and he was out of breath.
“Haja,” the woman said.
“What is the matter?” Even before the boy finished blurting out his message, Husri Aman had started toward the door. He shouted something back at Andera and was gone. The woman’s facial expression betrayed her.
“What’s happening?” Bogner asked.
“You had better rest,” she said. Her voice was strained.
“Lie down. I must go now. There is much to do.”
Bogner grabbed her arm.
“Not before you tell me what’s happening.”
“Haja is one of the men who—”
“What do you mean, one of the men? Hell, he’s just a kid.”
“Nevertheless, he is one of the lookouts at the pass. He has come all the way down to the settlement to warn us. An Iraqi patrol has been spotted.
He believes they are searching for the crash site.”
“Let ‘em find the damn thing,” Bogner said.
“If your people found our papers, there isn’t anything to worry about.”
Andera steeled herself.
“I am afraid there is much to worry about. If the patrol makes it to the crash site, they will surely be able to follow our tracks and discover the pass that leads to Koboli.”
At age thirty, Captain Sharif Khaldun had on numerous occasions wished for an assignment that would take him far from the inclement weather of the high country in the predominantly Kurdish territory along the Turkish-Iraqi border. He had twice requested such a reassignment, and each time that request was denied by Major Jahin himself.
“There will be a day when we return to the mother city in triumph,” Jahin had promised him, “but until that day our mission is here in Ammash.”
Now Khaldun, who could claim no family and no real reason for his melancholia other than the loneliness and cold of his seemingly endless patrols, was again waiting. If Nayef’s calculations were right about where he had engaged the helicopter and shot it down, Khaldun’s patrol was no more than two, perhaps three miles from the site of the wreckage. But with daylight fading and an occasional spit of snow to contend with, the question in Khaldun’s mind was whether to press on to the site or set up a temporary camp and wait for morning light. His situation was further compromised by the fact that the spot where Nayef indicated he would find the wreckage was in an area where there were no roads. For the last several hours their Russian-built Kamikov Mt-4 had been forced to forge its way over terrain that was little more than a goat path. Moreover, his six-man patrol had wearied since their departure — a fact that was evidenced both by their slowing progress and their intermittent bickering.
Khaldun had halted his patrol on the pretense of rest, but his real purpose had been to insure the patrol’s safety. There had been repeated reports of Kurdish guerrilla activity in the desolate Koboli Pass region — and Khaldun had dispatched a two-man patrol to determine the advisability of continuing in the unforgiving darkness.