by B K Thomas
“Sergeant!” He calls out across the room.
“Yes, sir?” The Sergeant turns to see what the Major wants.
“Any intel on the location of the General, any sightings of him anywhere?” The Major was itching for more detail.
“No, sir. Nothing yet.” The Sergeant answers.
“Ok, let me know.” The Major is impatient. It is one of his weaknesses, but it serves him well when he’s on the hunt.
***
Baghdad, Iraq
The sun is beginning to set as they walk out of the warehouse. The General looks around to catch a glimpse of something that might indicate his family is near. The building looks empty from the outside. The area is silent as there is only one vehicle in the courtyard. The General climbs into the SUV and sits between two men. They are probably the guys from the interrogation room. Their build is similar. He wonders if he just left his family behind as they drive onto the road. He tries to look back, but the car turns, and the building slips out of sight as they drive away.
The General continues to look out of the window at the buildings as they pass by. The men in the car say nothing to each other or him as they drive out of the city. A wave of nostalgia washes over the General. He thinks about his son and how proud he is of him. His son has great hopes of becoming a professional soccer player. He is good at it. It always pleases him to watch his son play. He is very proud of him and takes great pride in his son’s success on the field. He will not let these men destroy his son’s future. One way or another he will find a way to set his son free. The General played soccer as a child but didn’t find time to develop any real skill. The hard life of a farmer did not provide the time or expertise to hone his talent. He had other talents, so he pushed himself to find a way to use them to get off the farm.
The hard work he put into his dream of leaving the farm as a child paid many returns. He has achieved success beyond his wildest dreams. He had risen to serve the president and enjoyed a level of success in his country that was dangerous to any man. He was able to manage the challenges into a position of unquestioned confidence of the president. When the president lost power and was eventually executed, the General was able to parlay his talents to the new government and still retain a role of leadership in his country. It is ironic that after all he has been able to accomplish, he is now captive to a group of random terrorists. Sophisticated as they are, they do not have a vision for his country. They do not cherish the life that is possible to create. They did not understand the enjoyment and fruit of labor. They only understood destruction and blind obedience. He has served with men like this before and knows movements like this attracts them. He knows ultimately, they will not last. He has always been able to outlast them, but this time wonders if he has any chances left. He lets out a sigh. The night speeds by as his mind grapples with the situation. His thoughts grow as dark as the sky.
He looks to his left at the man with glasses. The darkness in the truck makes his face seem soft. His youth and zeal are obvious, but the depth of the truck makes the darkness deep. Mashal’s face matches the ugliness buried within him. The jagged shadows in the truck are like a broken mirror reflecting the evil buried within his heart. The General sees the same cruelty in Mashal’s face he has seen in the faces of many of the president’s men. The General knows he holds a terrible plan for great destruction within him and the General’s mind is racing to find a way to avoid it.
Chapter 5
ASG, Jordan
“Major, we got a hit.” The Sergeant calls out to Westbrook.
The Major looks up from his screen. “Talk to me, Sergeant.” The Major stands up and starts toward the Sergeant.
“Yes, sir.” The Sergeant boasts. “I contacted my buddy over at the CIA and he told me our guy was moving Saddam Hussein’s WMDs before the invasion. He says our guy was a key player getting them out of Iraq and transferring them to Syria. He told me Saddam had an agreement with Assad and when the heat was off, he was supposed to get his stuff back. When things went South and Saddam didn’t make it out, Assad kept the goods. Our General, slick as a snake, stayed low for a while and made his way back into government work.”
“I like what you’ve got so far Sergeant, keep it coming”. Westbrook adds with a slap on his shoulder.
The Sergeant smiles; they both know when they are on to something. “So, it looks like someone knows what he did for Saddam and they are trying to get to Saddam’s WMDs.” He concludes.
“I knew it!” The Major exclaims and starts back to his desk. “Now this is big. If we can nab these guys before they get to those WMDs we’re in business. The brass is going to eat this up.” The Major sits back in his chair and drums his fingers against each other. “The only problem we have is that we have no idea where these guys are.” He says aloud to no one in particular. “So, we know that they are in Baghdad, or at least they were this morning. We need to plot the routes to Syria from there and find out if anyone has seen the General or any unusual traffic.”
“Roger that sir. I’m on it.” The Sergeant replies. He taps a Private First Class next to him and tells him to start plotting the possible routes, put them on a deck and get them on the screen at the front of the room ASAP. The Private acknowledges the order and begins tapping away on his keyboard.
Major Westbrook pulls up a map of Iraq and starts looking at the roads himself to see if there is anything that he should have his people looking for. Crossing into Syria is not difficult. There are plenty of places to do that. If they are in a hurry, there are only a few major ones that they will take. It won’t be long before the trail will run cold, so he has to act fast.
***
Damascus, Syria
Sahila wanders about the city in a daze. Her phone rings endlessly beyond her hearing. She was married for less than a year and now she is married no more. Life has been chaotic for years since the revolution but now it has all come apart. He was the one bright spot in her future, and he was taken away in an instant. A whirlwind of anger, sadness, grief, despair and a horde of other emotions beat against her relentlessly as she wanders about the city. She cannot help but ask why? But knows there is no good answer. She doesn’t know who to blame but she knows she should blame everyone. They are all guilty, from the revolutionaries that crippled the country, to Assad who refused to back down, to the ISIS fighters and other thugs that infiltrated and usurped the revolution. They all bore part of the blame.
Her phone rings again. Family members are calling to see if she is okay. They are calling to find out about her and Aahil. They hope they have both been spared. She doesn’t answer the phone calls at first but the endless notifications from her phone finally pull her out of her stupor. She looks down at her phone. She can imagine they will want answers to the same questions that are rolling around in her mind. Why? Why him? He was a gentleman. A philosopher and a friend to everyone. He was liked by everybody and had a wonderful smile that made people feel comfortable. People were drawn to him just like she has been. His wisdom and kindness were rare to find in such a hard world. The phone keeps ringing and she looks around for someone to answer the phone for her, but no one is around. She is alone.
She has wandered the city for hours unable to comprehend what has happened. The shock is too much to comprehend. The chaos of the civil war has always surrounded her but had not touched her directly. Today her world changed, and she is unable to do anything about it. She feels weak and helpless as she keeps replaying the day through her mind. If only she has been there sooner, at least they will have gone together. It is so unfair. Now she has to go on alone without him.
The years of strain have taken their toll. She is tired of the stress of surviving. She has been able to keep moving on because Aahil was here. The more time she spent with him the brighter her world became. He had been a huge encouragement to her. She started to see possibilities where she had not before as the world opened up to her. He was her hope. He was the sun in her sky. Now, there is no more light
in her world. The darkness settled in as the hours passed. Her phone keeps ringing endlessly. She doesn’t answer. She is still numb. What can she say? What can she talk about at a time like this? Her world is a vacuum of darkness now. Nothing exists anymore, it is just emptiness. She is not sure she even knows how to speak anymore. How do you form words that have meaning? How do you make them have substance? I will never hear anything of value again. I will never hear from him again.
It is well past dark when she finally returns home. Her sister, Yaqeena, and her parents are there. Her mom and sister rush to her with shouts of joy and relief. They ask about Aahil and she shakes her head no. No, he did not make it. No. They hug her and cry with her. Her father joins in and hugs her but is uncomfortable with the moment. It is too much for him, so he excuses himself before long and leaves the women alone consoling Sahila. After a time, her mother leaves Sahila and Yaqeena in the living room. She returns once in a while with tea or bread but Sahila isn’t interested and Yaqeena is caught up in the emotions of the event herself and shows little interest. Yaqeena consoles her sister and just when Sahila thinks she is empty of tears another wave of emotion rolls in and she loses herself again. Yaqeena cries with Sahila as they sink into the living room floor. She does not have to speak. Her sister knows there are no words that will soften the pain that Sahila feels. She knows the only way forward is through it, so she opens herself to the pain and joins her. Sahila falls asleep on the floor on a pile of pillows. Her sister covers her with a blanket and crawls onto the couch and falls into a deep sleep.
Sahila’s sleep is fitful. She keeps finding herself running to the market to warn Aahil. Sometimes she will arrive before the explosion, but she cannot find him. She is never in time to see his face and never in time to warn him. One time, she sees him from the side as she comes running to the stand. He starts to turn her direction only to have darkness erupt and wipe everything away. She awakes with a cry of pain. Her sister is there to comfort her immediately. She looks into her sister’s compassionate eyes and for a moment feels better until she remembers why her sister looks like she has not slept. Her heart sinks and she feels empty once again. She does not want to move. She does not want to do anything but knows the rest of her family will arrive in the morning to share in the grief. Their grief will be as real as hers and felt deeply but she knows it will not change anything. She has seen too much death already at her young age. She tosses and turns unable to fall back asleep. Yaqeena drifts off to sleep again as Sahila stares at the ceiling. Friends had been the victims of random acts of violence and terror. She has even witnessed the death of complete strangers during this war. She has grieved and will grieve more but it will not be enough. The more she reflects on it the angrier she grows. She knows the pain she feels will not go away. She knows it never will.
The ache in her heart makes her stomach sink as she realizes that she is truly helpless. She wishes she can do something about it. What? What can I do? I am no one. She has no weapons to fight with. She has no government to back her. There are too many governments to fight anyway, she cannot fight them all. She has no army to command. She is powerless against the forces that have assembled against her people and their peace. They have turned her country into their war game and her people into pawns in a live or die, winner takes all match. But these powers aren’t sacrificing their own families. They aren’t bleeding on the streets or in the markets like her people are. They care nothing for her or her people. She grows angrier by the moment. They care nothing for her husband and his murder. Her lip trembles and tears start to roll down her cheeks. These are not tears of sadness but ones of anger and hatred. Anger for all the suffering she and her people have endured and for the suffering that still lay ahead. Her hatred is for the evil that causes such death and destruction. Hatred for those that allowed such things to go on when it is in their power to stop them. Hatred for those that fuel the chaos by endorsing it with money, power, and deceptive words. Hatred for those who know all of this and do nothing to stop it.
The world does not care about her pain. The world does not care about her loss. A thought crosses her mind and lingers. She ponders it for a while and shifts her weight on the floor. Her brow furrows as she considers the idea. It may never amount to anything, but I will be heard by someone! She looks around the room. Her sister is asleep on the couch. She doesn’t want to wake her, so she goes outside on the balcony into the cool night air.
She takes her phone and slides her finger across the screen to open it. She opens the camera and looks around out of habit to see who might be watching, but she is determined. She casts aside self-preservation, takes a deep breath, then hits record and start to speak,
“I am nobody. I am alone. I have no one. No one has me.” Her face reflects her deep sorrow. “My husband,” she chokes on the words, “was murdered at the market today. He was killed living a simple life.” Her voice becomes stronger. “Since that is all we have left now in Syria is a simple life because of the never-ending war here. He was doing his best. He struggled each day to live and survive. He was more than a survivor just getting by in life. Together, we had started a business. He wanted to build something here in our city for us and for our people. But he was killed by an evil person for no reason. My husband did not support the government and he did not support the mostly terrorists that call themselves freedom fighters. He did believe in freedom and was trying to live as free as he could in this war-torn home, we call Syria.”
She continues, “Who do I blame for Syria today?” She let out a huff and rolls her eyes.
“Who do I blame?” She says again grows angry and her face tightens. “The Revolutionaries? Assad? ISIS? The Russians? Iran? The United States?”
“I blame Assad. He is too proud to let us be free and see that the times have changed.” A tear rolls down her cheek. “He is greedy, and he has brought us misery for years.”
“I blame the Revolutionaries.” The volume of her voice grows. “Our life wasn’t perfect but there was stability.”
“I blame ISIS and the Al-Nursa Front.” Her voice grows tighter. “Their hatred for life and their love of death is a disease upon the Earth.”
“I blame the Russians. They support the war and rain death on us from above. Their planes scream’s fill the sky while ours flood the streets.” More tears flow down her cheeks.
Her voice intensifies. “I blame Iran. They have used our land to kill their enemies and increase their power. They spill our blood with no regard for our people.”
“I blame the United States of America.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “They pour money into the rebellion blindly. They give the enemies of peace weapons and teach them how to kill with no thought of the consequences. They dismiss us as collateral damage. They have learned nothing from Vietnam and Iraq. They walk too proud on the earth to see the destruction they leave behind them.”
Tears are flowing down her face in succession now, “Who do I blame?” She pauses for a moment, “I blame them alllllllllll!” She yelled into the camera as she falls apart unable to hold herself together any longer.
She drops the phone and crumples up into a ball sobbing. Her heart releases all the pain that is pent up inside. It has built over time. The tragedy that life has become because of the war has overtaken her finally. Her sister runs onto the balcony to see what has happened only to find Sahila’s heartbroken body in a pile. Yaqeena moves to comfort her sister. She sits next to her and wraps her arms around her and holds tight till the sobs grow softer and eventually fade into the night. Darkness has enveloped the city. Sirens can still be heard breaking through the night’s silence. Workers continue to respond to the destruction that has been unleashed upon the city as the war continues at home. Sahila will cry about the pain tonight but she promises herself she will not be helpless against the world ever again.
Chapter 6
Highway 12, Iraq
The hum of the road makes the General relax. In his relaxed state, he starts to
feel the pressure of the day. He is not as young as he once was. He is still in good shape for a man of his age. He can still outperform men half his age physically. He has stayed in shape over the years. He is determined not to be outdone by his soldiers. He has been proud of his fitness though it is not needed in his job anymore. But the strain of the journey has snuck up on him and worn away at his strength. The adrenaline has worn off and his eyes grow heavy. He is determined to stay awake for the drive as long as possible to retain his situational awareness but knows he is only fooling himself. It is a long trip and he will not last through the night. He tries to make himself comfortable because he knows he will fall asleep quickly once he allows himself. He looks over at his young captor. The man is at ease and sleeping in peace. He wonders at the type of man that can sleep so easily as he plots the death of so many. The General does not know where they are going or how long they will be on the road, but he knows eventually they will end up in the heart of the Syrian conflict. The General knows if he is going to stop the zealot, he will need to get some rest. He lets out a sigh and sinks back into the seat. He closes his eyes and it isn’t long before he is sound asleep.
It is the middle of the night when they came to a stop. The stillness of the vehicle awakes the General. He is groggy at first, but his mind clears quickly. They have pulled into a neighborhood in Al Qaim near the border. Mashal is already outside the vehicle. He waves for the General to join him.