She lifted his head, cradled it gently in her arms, and held the cup to his mouth. Bogner felt the cooling sensation on his blistered lips, and it trickle down his burned throat. Despite the pain, he managed several swallows. When he finished, the woman turned the straw pillow over and helped him lay his head down again. Bogner muttered a muted “Thank you.”
When she finished, she crossed the room again, this time to get a candle. When she returned, it was lit. She placed it on the floor beside the bed and sat down.
“You did not rest well,” she observed.
Bogner wanted to tell her that being condemned to death by a council of men he didn’t know, in a land that he knew even less about, wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that contributed to a good night’s rest. The lingering nightmare of the past few days had eroded whatever sense of reality and need to communicate was left in him. Instead he labored to form the words that would inform her that the pain of swallowing the water had lessened — and that he could actually tell he was getting stronger however miniscule that progress was.
As he lay there, he saw her hands were folded and her eyes closed. She was praying again. Finally he asked what she was praying for.
“I am praying for you,” she said.
“I am praying that Allah will embrace you and forgive you.”
As Bogner listened to the woman, his mind began to wander into the same chaotic patterns that it had for the past several hours. There were sporadic thoughts of Joy, of his daughter, Kim, of the tenderness and intelligence of this woman who had cared for him, and even of the fate of Banks and the helicopter pilot. The montage of disconnected thoughts continued until he again heard her soft voice sift through the tangle of his thinking.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” she said.
“I don’t mind.”
“Tell me about your home in Canada.”
At first Bogner was tempted to correct her, to tell her that his home was really in America, and the temptation was even stronger to tell her that everything she thought she knew about him was a lie. Instead he labored to describe the scene at twilight in the Laurentians and the beauty of the river that flowed through them. Finally he said, “I will miss it.”
“And why do you sell weapons to men like Baddour?” she asked. This time there was an edge to her voice.
There was no answer and Bogner knew it. He waited. After a while, he said, “And now it is my turn. Tell me about the one you call the Turk-and the Iraqi officer who stood trial with me today.
What will happen to them?”
The woman turned her head away. When she turned to look at him again, there were tears in her eyes.
“It is the decision of the council that the three of you will die for your crimes against the Kurdish people.”
Bogner tried to wet his lips, slowly trailing his tongue over the blisters and cuts, but the salt burned.
“The — the other two men,” he said, “where are they now?”
“There is a cave, not far from here. Aman and his men have constructed a pit. They will remain there until it is time.”
Before the woman was able to finish, Bogner realized he was losing his tenuous grip on consciousness.
Once more he felt himself sinking into another dimension where the whirling, discordant sounds in his head served only to block out the gentle voice of the woman. He tried repeating her name, trying desperately to hold on to the last vestiges of coherence — but at the same time feeling himself slip beneath the surface of whatever constituted awareness. In the finality of that gossamer moment, he thought he felt her lips brush against his tortured face.
From where he was to where he was going was like sinking in quicksand. Mentally he struggled.
Physically he surrendered.
Lieutenant Kashic Illah was twenty-one years old and a raw recruit in the Iraqi Army when he learned that one of Anwar Abbasin’s senior officers had ordered the execution of his father for crimes against the republic. That night, Illah fled his barracks in Baghdad and joined the rebel force of Salih Baddour.
Now, two years later, he stood beside one of the four largest helicopters in Baddour’s NIMF helicopter wing, while the pilot feathered the two Isotov TV2 engines and gave him the all-clear signal.
Jahin had instructed him to select a six-man squad for the express purpose of investigating the fate of the missing patrol led by Captain Sharif Khaldun. The assignment pleased Illah. He relished the chance to see action and had followed his major’s directive to the letter. Jahin had personally ordered the quartermaster to see to it that Illah’s patrol had at their disposal two Soviet-built 7.62mm SGM medium machine guns and that each man was issued a 9mm FN High Powered Mk 2 automatic. Illah himself carried the NIMF standard officer’s issue, a Soviet 7.62mm AK-47 assault rifle with a thirty-round clip.
Now, with the charred wreckage of the Aerospatiale Gazelle visible from where he was standing, he deployed two-man patrols to scour the outcroppings for Khaldun’s truck, and sent his two remaining men to examine the crash site. The two men had been working their way through the debris at the crash site for less than twenty minutes when one of them signaled him.
“Over here, Lieutenant.”
By the time Illah arrived, the man had used his hands to scoop away enough dirt to reveal the body of one of Khaldun’s patrol.
“His name is Naji,” Illah was informed.
“I know him. We talked together only a few days ago.”
Illah surveyed the site and sent back to the helicopter for shovels. Thirty minutes later they had recovered all six of the bodies that had constituted Khaldun’s patrol and the bodies of both the Gazelle’s pilot and Concho Banks. Now, with the bodies fully exposed, Illah walked away from the scene of the carnage in an attempt to regain his composure. He had trained with three of the men.
It bothered him even more that each member of the NIMF patrol had been shot in the back of the head — just like his father.
He rumbled through his pockets until he found a cigarette, lit it, inhaled, and waited for the warm sensation of the smoke to fill his lungs and distract him. The mountain air was cold and he shivered as he waited for the report. Finally a bearded young corporal approached. The man’s voice was subdued.
“We have identified all the men wearing uniforms. Lieutenant. Those that we could not identify by recognition, we authenticated by their identification tags. They were all members of Captain Khaldun’s patrol.”
“You are certain?” Illah asked.
The corporal pointed to the rocks where the NIMF truck still sat and then at the bodies.
“We are certain, sir, that is Khaldun’s truck, and there are the bodies. Even though there is evidence that some of the men also sustained other wounds, all of the men were shot in the back of the head at close range.”
Illah turned away and slowly surveyed the terrain leading up to the pass. He studied the entire area for several minutes before he turned back to the corporal.
“It would be a simple matter to ambush an unsuspecting patrol from almost any place in these rocks, would it not?”
The young man with the beard agreed.
Illah finished his cigarette, dropped it, and ground what was left of it into the dust with his boot.
“Bury the dead,” he said, “and praise Allah that we were able to find them.”
The corporal hesitated.
“But we have not found the body of Captain Khaldun.”
Illah sighed.
“That is because in all probability it is not here. Corporal. Major Jahin suspected that would be the case if we found evidence of Kurdish involvement. Now we must do what I had hoped to avoid. We will search the Kurd villages in the area.”
“Shall I alert the men. Lieutenant?”