The Unknown Soldier

by Gerald Seymour

  Other than in the few minutes when the sun came up in the east, the entrance to the cave was hidden. A man emerged from it and blinked as the sun's brightness blinded him after a night in the dim interior. Behind him, in the depth of darkness, a petrol-driven generator started up and coughed before the engine engaged. He spat out the waste between his teeth and lit the first cigarette of the day.

  Staring out over the expanse, he saw the single sentry squatting in a cleft below the cave's entrance, a rifle held loosely in his lap. He ground out the cigarette, then placed the butt in a small tin box; later it would go with other waste into a pit dug in the sand, then be covered up. He whistled to the sentry, who turned his head, smiled grimly, then shook it. Only the desert confronted them, not danger.

  He called back into the cave quietly.

  Others emerged.

  When the cave had first been found, when the decision had been made that it burrowed far enough into the escarpment for their needs, a compass had been used to determine the direction of the holy city of Makkah. A line was fixed in the memories of each of them as they came in the half-light away from the cave and on to a small square of beaten dirt between the rocks. In unison, they knelt.

  Among the five pillars of their faith was the requirement that they should pray five times each day. The fajr was the first obligatory prayer, at dawn. They were silent as they knelt, each man wrapped in his own thoughts, but common among them was the pleading to their God that the opportunity be given them for revenge, the chance to strike back against the embracing power of their enemy. And common among them also was the appearance of hunted men, drawn-faced, thin-bodied, exhausted in spirit.

  Very few knew of the cave. A satellite telephone was inside it, but gathered dust and was not used. The generator was capable of recharging the batteries of a laptop computer but that was also left idle. Once a week, or less frequently if the security situation was difficult, trusted couriers came across the desert with messages, food and water. All of those in the cave, hunted, harried and condemned, knew that their photographs and biographies were listed in Internet sites for the Most Wanted, and they knew the size - millions of the accursed dollars - of the reward that would be paid out for information that pinpointed the location of their lair, for their capture or for their deaths.

  In a few minutes, as the sun rose, the shadow of the cave's entrance would be lost.

  Many hours later, the same dawn rose, this time a slow-growing light that seeped through dark gun-metal cloud that was thick enough for a second heavy fall of snow. It was the last day of their rental on the cabin and in three hours Jed Dietrich would be loading the vehicle and turning his back on the wild Wisconsin lakes. It was too late in the year to have a real hope of hooking a decent muskie but it was what he had dreamed of for the last eight months of duty far to the south. He took Arnie Junior with him and left Brigitte to pack the bags and clean the cabin. The night cold had left the first snowfall as frozen slush on the ground and the water around the pontoon piers where the boats were moored was thinly crusted with ice.

  He checked his son's life-jacket, then his own, and he saw that the five-year-old child was shivering in the cold. They would not be out long but he could not have given up the year's last chance of a good fish.

  In the boat, Jed smiled reassurance at his son, tugged the engine to life and sped out for deeper water, the ice crackling at the bow.

  Where Jed Dietrich worked, unaccompanied by Brigitte and Arnie Junior, there was sunshine, warm water and ideal conditions for good-fighting sport fish, but recreational boats were not permitted out of harbour by the patrolling coastguards and the beaches were out of bounds to servicemen and civilians because the shoreline was covered by infra-red and heat-seeking surveillance beams. There he could only gaze out at the sea, not fish in it . . . they'd tried for more children, a brother or sister for Arnie Junior, but had not been fortunate, reason enough to have the kid with him for every one of the precious hours it was possible. He slowed the engine to little more than idling speed, tossed out the lure and let out line with it so that it would go deep. Then he dropped off the small spoon, with little hope that a wall-eye, perch or sucker would be any hungrier than a muskie, and winked encouragement at the boy. As they trolled across the lake, under the thick and darkened cloud, they talked fish talk - as Arnie Senior had to him when he was a kid - of big-mouthed monsters with rows of slashing teeth and record weights, sunken reefs and rock walls where the muskie might gather, their habits and lifestyles. The little boy liked the talk. When Jed was away, and he had only the photograph of Brigitte and Arnie Junior for company, and the phone calls when the kid seemed forever tongue-tied, he would savour the memory of these moments.

  For now, Jed Dietrich was at peace. He was thirty-six years old, a HumInt specialist on the staff of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

  In the sunshine, beside the clear Caribbean sea where he could not fish, the same peace eluded him.

  He was tall, well-built, looked after himself, and he thought Arnie Junior would soon shape up after him, would be useful at football or softball, and would soon be able to handle a boat like this on his own.

  Arnie Junior was his ongoing obsession, a point of focus in a workload that was now tedious, pointless, boring. Too often, down in the distant south, as the translator's voice whined in his ear, he thought of his kid and found his attention sliding away from his target.

  Out on the water, with the quiet about him and only the child's chatter and the engine to listen to, he had felt the tension drain from him. He felt good. No matter there were no fish . . . and then his son squealed, his rod arching. They were both laughing and shouting, and reeled in a nine-inch smallmouth bass, then returned it to the water, because Jed taught his boy to respect the prey. They fished another hour. No more takes, no more bites, but it did not matter -

  the peace was total. They would fly down to DC and stay a few days with Arnie Senior and Wilhelmina, then Brigitte would go back to the one-bedroom apartment they rented near to the Pentagon, and he would take the feeder flight down to Puerto Rico and on to Guantanamo.

  Brigitte broke the peace. She stood on the dock in her windcheater, waved and called them in . . . The holiday was over. Ahead of him were the camp, the prisoners, the monotony, the cringing answers, and the stale routine of going over ground already exhausted. The camp seemed to call him, and he turned his face away from his son and cursed softly, but the kid wouldn't have seen his irritated frown or heard the obscenity. Camp Delta dragged him back.

  *

  A day had passed, and a night. Another dawn, another day, another night, and then the sun peeped up.

  He woke. Caleb felt the sharp tugging at the arm of his overall, jerking and persistent. Hot breath splayed over his cheeks. He opened his eyes and flailed with his hands.

  The dogs backed off. They were thin but their eyes were bright with excitement, their hackles up. The teeth menaced him. He rolled from his side on to his buttocks and they retreated further, all the time snarling at him. One, bolder than the others, darted towards his left ankle and caught the skin below the hem of the overalls, but he lashed out and the heavy sandal hit its jaw hard enough for it to lose courage. Then the oldest of the dogs, fangs yellowed, fur greying, threw back its head and howled.

  In the night he had seen the dull lights of the village. He had staggered to within a hundred yards of the nearest building, then collapsed. He had lain down on the dirt and stones, beside a fence of cut thornbushes, had heard voices and known that he did not have the strength to go the last hundred yards from the fence to the nearest building - and he had slept. The sleep had killed the pain that eked from each muscle in his body. If it had not been for the dogs pulling at him, Caleb would have slept on through the dawn, until the sun was high.

  He could see a dozen low-built homes of mud bricks, flat-roofed, beyond a maze of small, fenced fields. The dogs watched him, wary of him, and the warning howl had not been answered: the doors
stayed shut. To the side of the community's homes, separated from them, was a compound walled with stones and bricks - new, he thought - and above the walls bright flags of white and red and green fluttered from poles, and Caleb knew that it was a recently constructed cemetery, a shrine to men buried as martyrs.

  If he were to find his family, Caleb needed food, water and clothes, and he needed help.

  He pushed himself up but his knees gave under him and he sprawled back on the ground. The second time he tried he was able to stand. His legs were in agony, and his arms, shoulders and chest.

  He had no choice but to approach the village. He bent and picked up a stone, hurled it at the oldest dog, the pack leader. His decision was made: he must approach the village. In all the life he knew - two years and then twenty months - decisions had never come hard to him. He was too weak to skirt the village, to put off the crisis moment of contact. He had to trust and hope.

  He knew that his arrival would cause panic. At Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta, the interrogators had told him that the power of A1

  Qaeda was broken, for ever, in Afghanistan, and he had believed them, and that the leaders of his family were in flight; it had been the story they told to encourage him to confess involvement and contacts

  .. . but he was just a taxi-driver, Fawzi al-Ateh, and he knew nothing.

  To return to his family he must go to the village and hope for help.

  The dogs trailed him. Half-way to the village, staggering, unable to walk with a steady stride, he saw a woman's face at the window of the nearest house. She ducked away and the nearer he went to the house, the greater the cacophony of barking. A door opened.

  A man, half dressed, roused from sleep, was framed in the doorway, a rifle raised to his shoulder.

  Caleb's life, at that moment, hung by a thread.

  He knew that in some villages the Arabs of the 055 Brigade had been detested, seen as arrogant foreigners. Now he might be shot, or he might be bound and sold back to the Americans. He straightened his back, and smiled. He spoke in the language he had learned, the language he had used in Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta, that of Fawzi al-Ateh.

  He greeted the man who aimed the rifle at him. 'Peace be on you.'

  The response was suspicious and grudging. 'On you be peace.'

  Caleb knew the weapon. He could have stripped it blindfolded in daylight or darkness and reassembled it. The safety catch was off, the finger was on the trigger, not the guard. He stood his ground and held out his arms, scratched and scraped from the times, beyond counting, that he had fallen; he showed he had no weapon. The rifle barrel lowered, then dropped. He ducked his head, a pose of humility, but he showed no fear. Like the dogs, the man would associate fear with deceit. Quietly, Caleb asked for hospitality, shelter and help.

  Without taking his eyes off Caleb, the man shouted instructions to the older child. Caleb understood him. The child led, and Caleb followed, the man behind him. The store shed was of brick, with mud daubed over it. The child opened a heavy door, then ran. Caleb went inside. He saw goats, and their fodder, long-handled spades and . . . The door was slammed shut behind him, darkness closed round him, and he heard the fastening of the door. There were no windows. Outside, the man would now be squatted with his rifle, watching the door while the child went to bring the village elders.

  He sat on a carpet of hay and the goats nuzzled against him. They might kill him and bury his body in the village's rubbish tip, or sell him, or they might help him.

  He slept.

  Later Caleb was woken by the sound of the door scraping open.

  He staggered out into the brilliance of the sunshine, and sat cross-legged on the ground in front of a horseshoe of the village men. The oldest men were in the centre. He told his story. They might hate the Arabs of Al Qaeda, they might have fought alongside them. He spoke the truth as he knew it. His voice was soft, gentle and without hesitation. Their faces were impassive. As he spoke, a helicopter flew high overhead. His presence endangered the village. The village would have wealth beyond the dreams of any of the tribesmen if they sold him on. From the moment he held out his right arm and showed them the plastic bracelet with his photograph on it and the name of Fawzi al-Ateh, and the reference US8AF-000593DP, he knew he was believed. He was tall for an Arab, but had swarthy coloured skin, and in his time in their country he had learned their language well. They listened, were spellbound, but it was not until the end of his story, when he ducked his head to show he acknowledged that his life lay in their hands, that he knew he would not be shot or sold.

  The oldest village man came to him, lifted him, then walked him to the cemetery.

  A year before, fighters had been killed a day's walk from the village, caught on foot and in the open by helicopters. The younger men of the village, with mules, had brought their bodies here. They were buried with honour . . . The fighters were Shuhadaa, martyrs in the name of God. Their bodies lay in the cemetery, their spirits were in Paradise.

  That afternoon a messenger left the village with the name of Abu Khaleb carried in his mind, along with the name of the Chechen, to travel into the mountains to the encampment of a warlord.

  That evening a kid was killed, gutted and skinned, and a fire was lit. Caleb was fed and given juice to drink.

  That night, his orange overalls were thrown on to the dying fire and they burned bright. He wore the clothes of a young man from the village.

  That week he was the protected guest of the village while the elders waited for instructions on how the journey to return Caleb to his family could be achieved. And he did not know how long that journey would be, or where it would take him, or to what fate - but he knew that he would make that journey.

  Chapter Two

  Caleb's body and face were flooded by the light. The men around him scattered.

  The week in the village had passed quickly. He had rested, then he had worked at his strength and gone into the hills above the village to exercise his leg muscles and expand his lungs. He had eaten well and had known that the villagers used precious supplies of meat, rice and flour to feed him. When he had left the village, armed men had accompanied him; he was never out of their sight. The code of these people, he knew, was pukhtunzvali and it had two principles: the obligation to show hospitality to a stranger, without hope of a return favour, was malmastiya; the duty to fight to the death to protect the life of a stranger who had taken refuge among them was nanawati.

  Twice in that week, formations of helicopters had flown high above them. Once, in the distance, he had seen a moving dustcloud and thought it would be a fighting patrol of the enemy's personnel carriers. The tribesmen had stayed closer to him - they would fight to the death to save his life because he was their welcomed guest. An old man, blind, sitting astride a donkey led by a boy, had come to the village in the afternoon of the seventh day with the answer to the message. On that last night in the village, they had feasted again, used more of their precious stores. No music and no dancing, but two of the older men had told stories of the fighting against the Russians, and he had offered his of the fighting against the Americans. The fires' flames had lit them, and the old man, the blind traveller, had recited a poem of combat that had been listened to in silence. He had realized at the end of the last evening, the fire dying, that all eyes had been on him, and he had seen in the shadows the furtive movements of the women and knew that they, too, watched him. He had been given a robe of pure white and he had stood and lifted it over his head, over his shoulders, and had let it fall so that it enveloped him. He had not known his own value to the family, but the village men recognized it, and the women, and they stared at him as he stood in the robe while the fires' last flames showed their awe of him. Each of the village men came to him, hugged him, kissed his cheeks. He was the chosen one.

  The next morning, the old man had taken Caleb a half-day's walk from the village. At a point where a path into a mountain pass climbed away, he had held Caleb's hand in a skeleton's grip. Tears had run fro
m his dead eyes, and he had left him. He had sat for an hour on a rock, then watched the little column of men and mules emerge from the pass. A few words spoken, a few sour gestures, and he had gone on with them. For nine days he had been with them as they led him with great caution away from the village and to the west. They hugged the foothills, but had also gone higher where the night air was frosted. From the beginning he had known what cargo they guarded in the bulging sacks strapped to the mules' backs. He could smell the opium seeds. They were villainous men, he had seen no charity in their faces. They carried curved knives at their waists with which they could have mutilated him. From the moment of their reluctant greeting, Caleb had doubted that they acknowledged the code of pukhtunwali. They shared food grudgingly, they did not talk to him or show any interest in his identity. If he had fallen back he did not think they would have waited for him. He had never complained, had never lost the pace of the march, had never feared them.

  But on the eighth day he had seen the slightest softening - an extra morsel of dried meat, beyond his own ration, had been tossed at him during the evening halt, and a water-carrier just filled in a mountain torrent had been passed to him; later, an extra blanket had been thrown in his direction as he had lain between rocks trying to shelter from a fall of sleet. He sensed, that last night, he had won their respect. When the grey light under the sleet's clouds dipped, he saw that the four of them watched him, as the villagers had - as if something set him apart. He did not know by whom he was set apart, or for what reason. That ninth morning he had sensed the tension among them. In the afternoon they had gone more slowly and one of the four had been a quarter of a mile ahead, the furthest distance at which his shrill all-clear whistle could be heard. That evening they had cocked the rifles in readiness, and had told with new nervousness of the dangers ahead as they came close to Iranian territory.