"Come on," Austyn mumbled.
The driver cursed under his breath but did as he was told. Fahimah was relieved that Austyn didn't ask for a translation.
"I hope they're not planning on doing another switching of drivers," Fahimah told him. "Would your bosses in Washington order that?"
"I hope not."
Two soldiers approached the car this time. Austyn and Fahimah both rolled down their windows. The air-conditioning continued to blast. One of the men poked his head into the window. He was holding on to their documents.
"May we speak to you, sir?" he asked Austyn.
He got out without having to be asked twice. One of the soldiers remained by the car, and the other walked with Austyn to the back of the truck parked on the other side of the road.
The driver opened all the windows and shut off the engine. A soft breeze swept through the car, smelling like water and hills. It was a sweet smell, one that Fahimah remembered from years back.
Fahimah told herself she wasn't worried about Austyn. This had to be very much the same type of inquiry she'd undergone with Ahmad. An American in the car with three Kurds. They probably wanted to make sure that they weren't being double-crossed. Perhaps they were concerned that Austyn was being kidnapped. The articles she'd been given to read on the laptop told of how kidnapping foreign personnel — military and nonmilitary — was the latest rage in Baghdad. It bothered her to think about what had become of the city where she'd taught.
She looked at the mountains. More of the lake was visible from here. The farther they got away from Erbil, Fahimah's anxiety grew. She had so many memories connected with Halabja and with the road leading into it. Every time she went there, or even passed through, her sadness would get the better of her. She'd lost so much there. So much…
Fahimah had to remind herself that she should focus on the happiness of this journey. She was going to see her sister after five years. She wondered how adapted Rahaf had become to having only one leg… whether or not she had been fitted for a prosthetic leg. Whatever she had done about it, Rahaf lived in the mountains and traveled between the refugee camps, so Fahimah doubted the loss of her leg had slowed her down any.
They would both need to make decisions now, once they were together again. Once they were free. A lot of those decisions would be hard. Where would they go? What would they do? Rahaf was the only person in this world that Fahimah had left. She didn't want to be away from her sister anymore. She'd be happy living wherever Rahaf chose to live. She'd teach at the camps if that was her sister's decision.
But a feeling kept gnawing away at her, a feeling that she'd had ever since talking to Ahmad, the Peshmerga leader. It was as if there were something that she didn't know. She'd read it in Ahmad's eyes, the way he would look away when they were talking about Rahaf.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she closed them tight. A headache pulsed at her temples. Fahimah wished she still had the concentration she'd mastered in prison. She tried to meditate, to make herself leave this moment and all the anxiety that was building up, burying her. She wanted to drift off on the warm breeze brushing her face and be carried on the mountain air to Rahaf.
Fahimah heard the BMW start up again. She opened her eyes and looked across the way. Austyn was crossing the road toward them. He'd pulled on his sunglasses. A car going in the opposite direction, leaving the blockade, beeped at him. The backseat was packed with teenage Kurdish girls. They all screamed with excitement as they went by. Austyn was a very handsome man. But what stood out in him, as far as Fahimah was concerned, was the mixture of confidence and gentleness that defined his actions and his words. A couple of the girls poked their heads out the window and continued to scream as the car drove away.
Fahimah didn't remember ever being that free.
Austyn seemed oblivious to it. He said something to the soldier standing by their car and then got in.
"We can go," he told her.
"Boro," she told their driver.
"Chashm," the man said, and pulled out into the traffic. The other car that had been part of their escort was waiting at the side of the road just ahead of the roadblock. They pulled out, too.
"What does chashm mean?" he asked.
"It is another way of saying 'yes.' A polite way. Like 'yes, sir,' or 'yes, ma'am.'" Fahimah motioned over her shoulder at the barricade they had left behind. "What was that about?"
"I've kept the cell phone off. Matt couldn't reach me, but he knew we would be traveling on this road." More bad news?" she asked quietly. There's been an outbreak at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan," he told her.
"Isn't that where we flew in from?"
He nodded.
Fahimah felt an uneasiness grip her middle. She'd been there. They could accuse her of infecting the people at the base before she'd left. But how could she? She'd been in their prisons for five years. But there'd be no trial. Like before, they could just lock her away.
She was surprised when his hand closed over hers. It was warm and strong. Her fingers were freezing, and she hadn't known until now that she was shaking.
"This has nothing to do with you. No one is accusing you of having anything to do with it."
"How did you know what I was thinking about?"
He gave a shrug. "There's not much that you think about that isn't reflected in your face." In your face, either."
We're both pretty transparent, I guess," he said softly. "What a pair."
"How bad is it?" she asked. He was still holding her hand. She fought the urge to pull away. Such human comfort was foreign to her. But now, receiving it, she felt flustered and calmed at the same time. How was that possible?
"Two dead. A third death is imminent. They don't know how many more are infected," he said gravely. 'They pack them in that housing like sardines, so this could be the largest outbreak yet. I don't even know how they'd start setting up parameters for any kind of quarantine. I don't know if they're equipped for cleanup or testing."
"And they have no idea how they contracted the bacteria?"
"A box mailed from the U.S. is their only clue. The airmen were fine until they consumed something that was in the box," he told her. "That's all Matt knows so far. He told me he'd keep us abreast of what's going on. Which reminds me…"
Her hand felt cold again when he took his away. He reached into a duffel bag by his feet, took out a satellite phone and turned it on. "I want to make sure we leave this in Halabja. The last thing I need is to have Iranian border soldiers find it among my belongings."
She nodded in agreement, tucking her hands under her legs.
"Rahaf had nothing to do with what happened in Afghanistan." Fahimah felt the need to remind him again and again, or at least anytime he got fresh news of another outbreak.
He nodded but didn't say anything. She knew he trusted her, but there was so much about her sister that he didn't know. Rahaf had the knowledge, the motivation, and for the past five years she'd been free to act, as far as the Americans were concerned. This would be enough for them.
"You asked me a question before we reached this last barricade," she told him.
He pulled his sunglasses off. His blue eyes focused on her face. "I asked what you were doing in Rahaf's lab."
She nodded. "I was sent there by my sister, with her badge and her keys, to destroy all the documents for this research."
"Why did she want to destroy them?"
"Americans were attacking. Saddam was capable of anything. She was terrified of Saddam or his supporters getting hold of what she'd discovered."
There was disbelief in his expression. "Why work on something that you know you need to destroy?"
Fahimah shook her head. "I don't know every single thing about what she was doing. She can explain that to you much better and in detail. But my understanding was that she was working on something completely different. Finding this microbe was not her intention. Once she had it, though, she knew she had to destroy it."