"And they're using it to stop the violence from creeping in from the south?" Austyn asked.
"Seems to be working. Cars on the road heading north are stopped at a series of checkpoints. ID cards are checked. Vehicles are searched. Smugglers, insurgents and terrorists who try sneaking into Kurdistan through Iraq's wilderness areas are ambushed by border patrols."
"And that's enough? A few guards and there's no violence?"
"No," Ken said, looking around him at the faces of people on the street. "They have a second line of defense. The Kurds themselves. Out of necessity, these people have forged one of the most vigilant antiterrorist communities in the world."
"A kind of regional neighborhood watch, huh?"
"Exactly." Ken nodded. "Anyone who doesn't speak Kurdish with a native accent stands out. Kurds are famous for being hospitable, especially to foreigners… obvious tourists, contractors, the military. But if they think you're a problem, watch out. As a group intent on protecting itself, they can be pretty… uh, decisive. And then, there's the Peshmerga."
"I know about them."
"You should. They've fought alongside us since '91. Peshmerga means 'those who face death.' Not a bad name for their armed forces group. Peshmerga is really the group in charge of security. They do a pretty remarkable job of it."
Two fresh cups of black tea appeared before them. Again, Ken's had two sugar cubes on the saucer.
"This tastes good. What kind of tea is it?" Austyn asked.
"Whatever kind they're brewing today." Ken smiled. "I guess… today's tea is Ceylon… from Sri Lanka. That's what most of the hotels in the city seem to be serving these days."
Austyn sipped his tea and looked down the road. In the distance, mountains rose up, rugged and forbidding. His mind locked back on Rahaf Banaz. They needed to find her.
"How big is the region?" Austyn asked, feeling inadequate about his lack of knowledge of the area. But, he told himself, when he left Washington, no one could have foreseen that his mission would take him here. Luckily, Ken Hilliard was a walking encyclopedia, and Austyn was grateful that he was their escort.
The first tea glasses were snatched off the table by a boy who couldn't be more than ten or twelve. He had the incredible ability to carry some twenty or so sets of teacups and saucers, one stacked on top of the other, without a tray. Wearing a long white T-shirt, pants and sandals, he flew between the tables, taking care of everyone sitting outside.
"Iraqi Kurdistan covers about 36,000 square kilometers, or almost 14,000 square miles, an area slightly smaller than Switzerland. It's home to about 3.5 million of Iraq's 25 million people."
"I recall the president referring to Kurdistan as an example of what has gone right in Iraq since 2003," Austyn commented.
Ken leaned back, looking around the street. "I thought the same thing when I was first sent here. But after all these years, I know better."
"What do you mean?"
"The relative peace they have here is not a result of the U.S. invasion. This region has been self-governing since the end of the first Gulf War in '91," Ken explained. "This was all a no-fly zone patrolled by U.S. and British aircraft after that war, and that pretty much freed the Kurds of Saddam Hussein's grip. At least, north of the thirty-sixth parallel. Since then, Kurds who fled Saddam's Iraq decades ago have been returning to take posts in the government and private sector, and in the universities here. They've had time to stabilize and rebuild."
This explained what Austyn had read about Rahaf sending so much of her income to this area. Homeland Security didn't have a file on Fahimah, but he wouldn't be surprised if she had been doing the same thing. It also made sense why she would come here to look for her sister.
"Despite everything I've just told you, this area hasn't been entirely peaceful. We had a couple of attacks on the offices of Kurdish political parties in the city a few years back. I think about sixty or seventy people were killed. But that was it. Nothing compared to the rest of this country," Ken continued.
"That would be an average day in Baghdad," Austyn replied, frowning.
"Exactly."
The two men were silent for a moment, and Austyn watched the traffic and sipped his tea. The drivers in Erbil were as crazy as they were in any other city, and maybe a little more so. Surprisingly, nobody was laying on their horns the way they would be in New York or Cairo or Rome.
A street vendor selling watches came by, stopping at each table. When he came to their table, Ken spoke to him in Kurdish, and the man replied politely before moving along. Austyn put his glass on the saucer.
"It's more than just time or roadblocks or the Peshmerga or even foreign investors," he commented. "You can't buy this kind of stability, and God knows we've learned you can't really force it on people long-term, either. This comes by people making all of it work together. You've got to want it to work."
Ken nodded. "I agree. People are the main ingredient. I heard one of their commanders say that the Kurdish people identify with their regional government. They feel they have a stake in maintaining peace. He told me if you try to rule a country with oppression and force, you have to surround it with fortresses. But if the people are on your side, they become your fortress."
"Not a bad philosophy. Something we could keep in mind when we—"
Austyn stopped mid-sentence, surprised to see one of the guards he'd left outside Fahimah's room appear at the door of the hotel. Immediately behind him, Fahimah followed with the other guard in tow. She had pulled a Nike cap on her head, and she was still wearing the white cotton shirt and camouflage pants she'd put on back at the Brickyard. Although extremely thin, she drew everyone's gaze when she stepped out. Austyn realized that she was definitely a head-turner. Those green eyes in the pale face never ceased to startle him. She came directly to their table.
Ken and Austyn both stood up.
"I'm sorry, sir," one of the guards started. "She wouldn't wait in the room until we could ask you if—"
"I'm not a prisoner," she said in a low but clear voice before sitting down at the table with them.
Austyn motioned to the two soldiers to wait by the front of the hotel. He immediately saw the error in that. Everyone — from those at the tables to the people in the cars or on the sidewalk — was looking at the soldiers.
"There's very little U.S. military presence in the north," Ken explained. "People say they don't feel occupied. They're not used to seeing armed soldiers."
"I warned him of that when we were still in Afghanistan," Fahimah said.
Austyn wasn't about to let her sit out here without protection. He carried no weapon. Ken seemed way too relaxed to be counted on to draw the pistol he wore at his belt. Just then, an argument broke out across the street between a shop owner and the watch vendor who'd stopped in front of his store. For a few minutes, anyway, everyone's attention was focused in that direction.
He looked at Ken, who was studying Fahimah's profile intently. Interestingly, the red-haired soldier seemed to have a crush on her. Austyn noticed it at the airport, where Ken had met them. The British accent and the green eyes must have done it, he supposed.
The boy appeared with more tea. He put one in front of Fahimah.
"Supas… mammon." She nodded to him.
The boy shot her a surprised look, glanced at the men, and then asked something. She answered him. The boy smiled and walked away.
"What was that all about?" Austyn asked.
She didn't answer. He noticed that there were three sugar cubes on her saucer.
"What did he ask you?" Austyn asked Fahimah again.