by Jan Coffey
Just then, Philip went past them without saying anything. He was already dressed in his wetsuit with the hood up and the gloves and boots on. David thought he was walking awkwardly.
“It must be tough coming up that ladder with all that gear on,” he said confidentially to his son.
“I think I have what Philip has,” Josh said out of the blue. “He’s doing pretty well without all the drugs. I’ll kick it myself, too.”
David decided there was no point in arguing with the twelve-year-old now. Perhaps the downside of this trip, what with hanging out with people like Philip and his crew, was that Josh would naturally be influenced by their alternative medicine attitudes. Another week and he could have a complete natural-healing nut on his hands. The past two nights Josh had refused to have any kind of meat with dinner, just because he heard Philip say he was a vegetarian.
Whatever, David told himself. Just so long as Josh got everything he needed now. He could fight the rest of it out with his mother when they got home.
“Are you okay?” David heard Kirk ask the other diver. “You don’t look too good.”
Philip was pulling the oxygen tanks on his back with the help of one of the parents. David saw him wave at Kirk to go in.
The younger man waited until Philip joined him at the railing. A few words passed between them that David couldn’t hear. There didn’t seem to be any reason for concern, though, as the two flipped backward into the water together.
Some of the kids rushed to where a small TV hung on a portable mount next to a cabin door.
Josh was shivering.
“Come on, Captain Jack,” David joked encouragingly. “Let’s get it done before them there barnacles grows on us.”
The boy shook his head. “I think there’s something wrong with you, Dad.”
David laughed. “You’re probably right, but we can do this before the video feed comes up. We run inside, you get another sweatshirt, and I’ll take a second and check your throat.”
“Okay,” Josh replied, reluctantly pushing to his feet and following David downstairs.
Twenty-Six
Erbil, Iraq
The shouting match between the two Americans and the Kurd in charge would have been comical, if it weren’t for the fact that the little Peshmerga kept tugging gently on the handle of the pistol in a holster beneath his coat. If Ken even reached for his pistol, Fahimah had no doubt someone would be killed.
“La darawa.” The first soldier, who’d taken their papers, spoke to her in Kurdish and motioned for Fahimah to get out of the van.
“Dabe safar kayn bo Halabja,” she replied, telling him they were traveling to Halabja. He nodded, but motioned again for her to move. She decided to do as she was told. She didn’t like the look of the other soldiers who had joined the leader. They were holding their guns on the two Americans, and they looked as if they would just love to blast them away.
“Na tirsinok.” Don’t be afraid, the soldier told her quietly. We just want to talk to you.
He looked older than the rest of the Peshmerga. She hesitated, but he nodded reassuringly to her.
She turned around to the argument that hadn’t eased at all.
“I’ll be all right,” she said loudly over the hood of the van to Austyn. She called out a second time to get their attention.
Austyn spun around and started back toward her. The Peshmerga leader was now screaming at him to stop. Ken was looking at her, as well, and ignoring the little Kurd. The Kurd pulled out his pistol, Fahimah knew he would shoot Austyn in the back.
“Stop,” she said to Austyn, holding up her hand.
He stopped.
Fahimah looked at the Peshmerga leader. “If you want to talk with me,” she said in English. “I will. But there is no need to hurt these Westerners.” She pointed to Ken. “You do not want to fight with an American soldier, do you, with all these people watching?”
She nodded with her head at the line of cars that had stopped by the checkpoint. The little man stared at her for a moment, then swaggered a little as he put his pistol back into its holster.
“You are a woman of great wisdom,” he said in Kurdish. “But we will talk to you.”
She pointed across the way. “I’m only going with them that far.”
They both seemed reluctant…especially Austyn, who tried to come around the car to her, but the barrel of an AK-47 against his chest stopped him in his tracks.
“Will you stop?” she said to him directly. “I’m a Kurd. They won’t hurt me.”
Fahimah believed what she said. She turned to the soldier.
“Aya?” she asked where she should go to.
The man looked at his superior, who in turn nodded toward a small building behind the man’s car across the road. The soldier next to her then directed Austyn and Ken to move the car farther off the road. She was thankful when Ken got behind the wheel and did as he was told.
“Hatin,” the little leader said.
She gave one last look over her shoulder at the van. Ken was already on his phone. Austyn had one hand on top of the van, his eyes glued to her as she crossed the road. She had no doubt that if she showed any sign of fear, he’d come charging across that road, gun or no gun.
The leader was no more than twenty-five, but he had regained his composure and again exuded authority in the way he walked and talked.
A rustic, white brick building, no larger than three meters square, sat on the side of the road. One small, unshuttered window and an open door faced the roadway. Remembering the frigid winters in Erbil, she decided this had to be a very popular place for the soldiers manning this checkpoint during the cold months.
Fahimah followed the Peshmerga leader. There was no one else inside. A couple of chairs and a table stood against the far wall. A large flag of Kurdistan had been pinned to the wall above the table.
“I am Ahmad,” he told her in Kurdish, with far less bluster than he demonstrated outside. He left the door open. “And I know who you are.”
He was holding on to her ID, so naturally he would know who she was.
“You are Firishte’s sister.”
Firishte meant ‘angel,’ but he used it like a name.
“You know Rahaf?” she said, relieved.
“Yes, I know her very well. I worked alongside of her at Saryas and Jwanro refugee camps. You are brave, like her.”
She shook her head in modesty, never comfortable about receiving compliments.
“How is my sister? I’m on my way to find her, to see her. It has been so long. Do you know where she is now?” Fahimah had hundreds of questions, but she had to give Ahmad a chance to answer the ones she’d already asked.
“We have no time,” Ahmad said. “The American soldier is calling his people. In ten minutes, a truck full of them will swarm around here. We have to get you out.”
“Get me out where?” she asked, perplexed.
“Rahaf told me in strict confidence that you were in their jails.” He motioned to her hair. “You suffered in taking the place of your sister.”
“She was innocent. I could not let them find her. She was very sick when I was captured, and they would not have understood. But those two men outside—”
“They are still holding you prisoner,” he interrupted her. “Yesterday, the word spread quickly that Firishte’s sister was in Erbil. I heard also that American soldiers were guarding you. When I heard, I knew I had to act. I owed that to Firishte.”
Yesterday, she made sure to use her name every place she’d called and with everyone she’d seen at the hotel. She knew how the news traveled in Kurdistan. It was more effective than any modern communication system.
“I thank you, Ahmad,” she said. “But I am not their prisoner.”
He wasn’t listening to her. “We can bring a car to the back and have you taken away before their soldiers arrive. We can have our people drive you to the border.”
Fahimah shook her head.
“That won’t be nec
essary,” she said more forcefully. “I want Rahaf to meet the younger American. It is important for her to meet him.”
Ahmad looked at her blankly.
“He needs my sister’s help. He is a scientist, as she is. He is the one that saved me. He freed me from the prisons,” she explained.
She looked out the window at the van across the road. Austyn was standing straight as an arrow beside the vehicle and staring across at the building. Ken was still speaking on the telephone. She turned back to the Peshmerga leader.
“A terrible disease has struck America.”
“This is nothing to us. We have disease here, as well. I like the Americans, khanoom, do not misunderstand me, but what of it. They have many doctors in America.”
“Ahmad, this is the same disease that caused Rahaf to lose her leg. But now, people are perishing every day. Children are dying painfully. I know my sister, my friend. Rahaf would want to help.”
“They did you wrong,” he reminded her, still not sounding completely convinced.
“Yes, they did,” she replied. “But they did that wrong to me. And I have not forgotten that it was because of the Americans that our own people were not wiped from the face of the earth by Saddam Hussein.”
“Nothing will ever destroy the Kurdish people. The Peshmerga have—”
“The Peshmerga have had Americans fighting at their side since 1991.”
Ahmad said nothing for a moment, so Fahimah took advantage of his hesitation.
“That man out there had nothing to do with my imprisonment…nor did the people who are dying,” she said passionately. “You call my sister an angel. Do you think she would want to see anyone die when she has the knowledge to possibly help them?”
Fahimah could tell she had him. The man’s dark gaze looked out the open door at the van across the road. A Peshmerga soldier with his weapon drawn still guarded the two Americans, but the traffic was once again flowing. Fahimah could not believe that these people would go to all this trouble to find her…to free her. For so many years, she had felt so alone.
“What about the American soldier? Why do you need him?” Ahmad asked.
“He is only driving us to Halabja. From there, Austyn Newman and I cross the border into Iran on our own.”
“He is American. How will he cross the border?”
“His passport is forged,” she said, deciding on honesty. These were her people. They were here to help her.
He looked across the road again. Ken was out of the van now and looking anxiously down the road. Fahimah knew he was hoping his reinforcements would arrive soon.
“If you are no prisoner, then the Peshmerga will take you to Halabja,” Ahmad said adamantly. “You will not travel with the American soldier.”
Fahimah thought about that for a moment. She’d feel safer traveling with these Kurdish soldiers over an American soldier anytime. She’d already learned that Americans were a target across Iraq, regardless of the region. And in going with them, the Peshmerga leader would save face.
“Very well…but Austyn Newman comes with me,” she reminded him.
He agreed. “We will take both of you there. And in Halabja we have contacts with some of the Iranian border guards. We will arrange for you to cross over when there will be the least trouble.”
It was all too good to be true.
“Okay?” he asked in English.
“I want to say yes, but let me talk to them first,” she told him.
He shrugged. “Firishte never asks anyone’s permission. She is in charge. She does what she thinks is right. You should do the same.”
“I am not asking their permission, I’m going to tell them,” she told him. “But I do not want American helicopter gunships chasing us through the mountains.”
He smiled. Fahimah noticed his top four teeth were missing. This close, she could also tell that the unshaven face hid old scars. He was a young man, but he had obviously earned his position of authority.
The Peshmerga forces had been around since the advent of the Kurdish independence movement in the early 1920’s, following the collapse of the Ottoman and Qajar rulers who ruled jointly over the area always known as Kurdistan.
Being a Peshmerga, ‘those who face death,’ was a great honor, but it was an honor that was not easily won. The Peshmerga did not lead easy lives. Many fought and died young. Many suffered brutally at the hands of Saddam’s torturers. From what she had gathered from Ken’s words and from what she read on Sutton’s laptop, many of the Peshmerga had only left the mountains and their long decades of guerrilla warfare after Saddam’s fall.
She started out the door, and he walked out behind her.
“I need to talk to them alone—as you wanted to talk to me alone—so they do not feel that you are pressuring me to do this.”
He smiled again. “Baleh, Dr. Banaz,” he said with a salute.
It was touching, in an odd way, to have so tough an individual as this young fighter be so respectful.
Fahimah crossed the road, weaving between the cars that were stopping at the road block security check on their way into Erbil. Both Austyn and Ken ignored their armed guard and met her in front of the van.
“What was that about?” Austyn asked.
“First, let’s get out of here before they change their mind,” Ken suggested. “We’re so short-handed around here that no backup to speak of will be coming.”
“There is no need for backup, as you say,” she said to Ken before turning to Austyn. Some new arrangements have been made for us.”
She explained the reason for the stop and how Ahmad and others believed she was still their prisoner. She also told them about the offer to have Peshmerga fighters escort them to Halabja and from there to arrange for them to cross the border.
“That’s crazy. We don’t need their help,” Ken said, stunned by her words.
“But we are better off with it,” she said flatly. “The Peshmerga are worried about me. Considering my past treatment at the hands of Americans, they have every right to be concerned.”
“I don’t like it. I was given the task of taking you both to Halabja, and frankly, I don’t—”
“Ken, this is nothing personal against you, but we will be safer with them than with you.”
“How do you know they’re not going to drive you into the mountains and cut your throat?”
“How many years have you been here?” she asked him quietly.
Ken looked over his shoulder, avoiding her gaze.
Fahimah spoke gently but firmly. “These fighters see it as their duty to protect the Kurdish people. You know that. They stopped us because they were worried about me.”
“Yes, but—”
“Besides, you were taking us only as far as Halabja. We still need to find a way to cross the border. This man, Ahmad, will take care of that second leg of the trip.”
Ken didn’t say anything more. She looked at Austyn.
He shrugged. “You trust them. That’s good enough for me,” he said. “Did he tell you that he knows where Rahaf is?”
“He mentioned two of the camps where he worked with her,” she told him. She thought for a moment. “Another thing. The last time I crossed the border, I was a teenager. There is so much that I don’t remember. It will be a relief to have a guide who knows the area.”
Austyn patted Ken on the shoulder once and went to the van to get their bags.
“You’re still upset,” Fahimah said consolingly. “I appreciate your concern, Ken. And I am grateful for your help. But Austyn is in charge and he does not seem to have a problem with this change in plans.”
“That’s fine. I follow orders.” He shrugged.
He looked at Austyn and then kicked the dirt a couple of times with the toe of his boot. He finally looked up at her.
“So, will you come back with him or are you going to stay in Halabja?” he asked, looking a little like a teenager.
The realization was slow in coming, but she finally got it. K
en was attracted to her. Fahimah didn’t know how she should feel about that. She couldn’t really decide if she liked him or not…as a romantic interest, that is. Sometime during the past five years, all thoughts of this kind simply disappeared. She never thought anyone would ever look at her this way again.
“I haven’t had time to think what I will be doing or where I will be going. Up to a few days ago, I would not allow myself to think of tomorrow or next week or the week after. And since my release, other matters have been pressing.”
“If you decide to come back to Erbil, will you let me know?” he asked.
She frowned. “Pardon me for saying this, but you never answered Austyn’s question about being married.”
Ken actually blushed. “No. No wife.”
“So you’re not married?” Not that it made a difference, but Fahimah sensed that he was not being entirely truthful, and she found herself getting some enjoyment out of seeing him squirm.
“We’re separated.”
“Naturally,” she said. “You are here, and I assume she is in the United States.”
“No…no…We were separated before I came over here. It just works better this way, as far as benefits and all that.”
“I have our bags,” Austyn said, joining them.
Fahimah was relieved. She shook Ken’s hand and thanked him before crossing the road and allowing Austyn to make whatever arrangements he needed to make with the other man.
The peculiar feeling of having someone show this kind of interest in her tugged at something within Fahimah. The last time she’d actually dated someone had been when she was twenty-four years old and in graduate school in England. Her last offer of marriage had been when she was twenty-eight and teaching at the university. A Kurdish physician who worked in Toronto, and whom she’d never met, had asked for her hand in marriage by sending a delegation to her house. The delegation had consisted of his mother and sister, who was a student of Fahimah’s at the university. Fahimah’s answer had been no, and that had been the extent of her love life.
