They burst though the doorway and looked quickly inside. The bedroom was empty. The bed covers had been thrown on the floor. The window was open and a cool breeze blew the curtains back.
• • •
Omar grabbed the princess and pulled her over the brick wall. She held to her son, grasping him in her arms. The boy cried and the princess pressed her mouth to his ear, whispering to him silently, “Don’t be afraid. Go to sleep!”
Rassa followed, and then Azadeh. All five were over the back wall.
Omar glanced at the stranger and the young child in her arms. “The princess, I presume?”
Rassa nodded, pressing his body against the rock, then started crouching toward the old barn.
“There,” Omar hissed as he nodded toward the trail that led up to the mountains.
Rassa stopped and looked up at the rain-shrouded peaks that rose over the village, studying the rocky trail that disappeared in the cold mist. He heard voices, then the crash of gunfire as the soldiers shot the front door. He threw a desperate look toward Omar. “You have to save them,” he said. He nodded to the princess and her son who was clutching to her arms. “Take them,” he whispered. “Go to the mountains. You know that trail as well as anyone. The mist is heavy. It will hide you. Now go! Get away!”
Omar didn’t hesitate. He motioned toward the young stranger. “Come,” he hissed and she moved to his side. Omar reached for her young child and took him in his arms. Crouching, he ran through the orchard and slipped behind the barn. Rassa listened for a moment, hearing their footsteps fading away as they moved up the rocky trail. Then he turned to Azadeh. “Stay here!” he said.
“Please don’t leave me, Father.”
“Do as I tell you. Stay here. Out of sight.”
“Father, you can’t leave me!”
“It is the princess they are after; the princess and her son. They don’t want you or me. I think that we will be all right.”
“But Father . . . what are you going to do?”
There came a loud crash from the house as one of the bedroom doors was kicked open. They heard the banging of footsteps and then the soldiers curse.
Rassa turned back to Azadeh. “I have to give them time to escape.”
“But Father, if you leave what am I supposed to do?”
“Stay here, like I told you. Everything will be OK. They aren’t going to hurt me, it is the royal family they want.”
Rassa glanced toward the mountains. Omar and the princess had disappeared in the mist. Another crash sounded from their house, this time from Azadeh’s bedroom. More cursing, more yelling, and Rassa stood up. He glanced quickly to Azadeh. “I love you,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll be fine. But stay out of sight.”
Rassa jumped the fence to his courtyard, then ran toward the house. Azadeh peeked over the fence, then started to cry. She reached out toward him, but she didn’t call his name.
Azadeh crouched against the wall a moment, then sprinted to the orchard and hid in the mist. She heard her father’s footsteps and the guards calling out, then a warning shot being fired before the guards dragged her father down.
• • •
The guards worked quickly. They were brutal, but well-trained, and they knew what to do. First, they searched Rassa’s house, tearing it almost to pieces, knocking holes in the walls and tearing up the floors, looking for a hiding place or a secret trap door. Other soldiers gathered Rassa’s neighbors, everyone who lived on the hill, herding them like sheep into a circle. The guards stood over them, sneering at their countrymen, ready to shoot the first one who dared to move. Other guards spread out. It only took minutes to search every house on the hill. They found Azadeh hiding in the orchard and they dragged her to the circle of cowering villagers.
Azadeh looked down on the village. The streets were deserted. The market was empty and every shade had been pulled. “Soldiers in the village!” The call had gone out. The village looked like a ghost town. Everyone knew what to do.
Azadeh cried in her heart. “Please, help us!” But Azadeh had lived long enough to know that help would not come.
The captain of the guard approached Rassa. “Name!” he demanded.
Rassa swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Rassa Ali Pahlavi,” he said.
The captain nodded, his brown teeth protruding from receding gums. “The woman!” he demanded. “We want to know where she is!”
Rassa stared at him blankly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The captain smiled a sick grin. “Someone came here last night,” he demanded in a raging tone. “They brought a young woman and a child. That much we know. Now tell us where they are if you have any hope to live.”
Rassa shook his head weakly. “I don’t know, my Sayid.”
The officer turned to the group of women and children that had been herded into the circle. He studied them carefully. Most of the women were old, the young ones having left the village for a better life somewhere else. A few children cowered at the back of the crowd, the older women gathered around them like mother hens. The foreigner was not among them. And neither was the child.
He turned to the captives. “All right,” he said. “We are looking for a young woman and a boy. It is very important we find them. Do any of you know where they are?”
The villagers were silent. The silence was heavy and long.
“If you do not help us find them, we will have no alternative.”
Again, only silence. The villagers kept their heads low.
He turned back to Rassa as he considered what to do.
His instructions from the general were simple. Find the woman and child. Make sure they were dead. Who they were or why they had to die did not matter, for he was not even curious. Following orders was all he had been trained to do. And he had seen what had happened to other officers who had dared question the general’s commands. It was ugly, painful and far too long had they lived the process.
He would not make the same mistake. He would not think too much. Find the targets and kill them. It was a fairly simple job. But there were only a couple ways that he could do it. He thought awhile, then turned back to Rassa. Although he kept his head low, Rassa stuck out his chest. “Rassa Ali Pahlavi,” he said, “you know why we are here?”
Rassa shook his head in terror. “No Sayid,” he lied.
“We will find them, Rassa. They have to be here somewhere. We will tear down your entire village if we have to. All of your friends will suffer if you don’t tell us what we need to know.”
Rassa lifted his eyes. “Sayid, I swear . . .”
The captain swung violently, striking him on the head. “Don’t lift your eyes to me, pig!” he screamed in a rage.
Rassa forced his head down to his chest. The officer stepped to the side, clearing a visual path between the terrified man and the group of huddled women and children. “Rassa,” he asked, “do you have any family in this crowd?”
Rassa shuddered visibly, his shoulders slumping now. He looked across the clearing toward the huddled group from his village. Azadeh cowered, seeking refuge behind the wall of human flesh, but she still caught his eye and Rassa turned away. “I have no family, captain,” he lied again.
The captain snorted. “We know you do, Rassa Ali Pahlavi. We just don’t know who it is. But it doesn’t matter. We don’t care. You see, Rassa, there are other ways that we can do this. Now this is your last chance. Where is the man-child?”
Rassa lifted his eyes, knowing it mattered not what he said. The officer had made his decision and his fate was now sealed. He knew from experience, from watching others die, that there was nothing he could say now that would change the outcome. Yet he felt almost calm, as if a blanket of peace had settled over him. He lifted his head and looked at the captain, staring him right in the eyes. “Look around you,” he taunted. “You can see he’s not here. And I doubt you will find him. He is gone. You have failed.”
The captain snorted in rage, then turned and scr
eamed to his sergeants, “Tie this man to the tree!”
Four of the conscripts came forward and pulled Rassa by the arms, dragging him through the wet mud as he struggled to stand. Lifting him by the neck, they threw him against the nearest tree. The groups of villagers were quiet as Rassa was tied and bound.
There was no trial, no words, not even a condemnation of death, nothing to mark the decision that had already been made. The captain walked to the army truck that had carried him to the village. Reaching behind the front seat, he pulled out a small leather flask. He had come prepared for something new, something different today. The liquid sloshed in the flask as he approached the condemned man. Pulling the soft cork, he doused Rassa with diesel fuel. After soaking his hair, head, shirt and trousers, he poured the last cup of fuel around on and around Rassa’s bare feet.
A young lieutenant came forward, his rifle in hand. “What are you going to do?” he hissed under his breath.
The officer didn’t answer.
The lieutenant stepped between the captain and Rrassa. “This was not our instruction,” he said.
The captain reached into his trouser pocket. “Step aside, lieutenant,” he sneered, “or you will find yourself also tied to the tree.”
The captain pulled out a small box of matches, then heard a faint cry of despair. Turning, he saw a wide-eyed girl. He smiled at her happily, cocking his head to the side. “Your father?” he mouthed to her.
Azadeh stared in terror, then nodded her head.
The captain extracted a match from the box and struck it against the knife sheath strapped to his thigh. The wooden match sizzled to life and he let it burn a moment, staring at the flame, then looked at Azadeh and dropped the match at her father’s feet.
The fuel was slow to catch for the diesel had mixed with the rain and soaked into the mud. Several seconds passed before anything happened. Then a thin stream of black smoke began to billow from the ground. A yellow flame flickered, quickly catching Rassa’s clothes.
Azadeh screamed. An old woman cried from the back of the crowd. Rassa took a deep breath and turned away from his daughter. The flames caught at his trousers, then the coattails of his shirt. Deep yellow, almost orange, the flames began to lick higher. Every eye, every head, was turned to the fire now. Smoke began to waft through the low trees.
Rassa cried out in anguish and Azadeh bolted from the crowded, running desperately toward him. A conscript stepped forward, but she pushed through his grasp, tears streaming down her face as she ran toward the tree. Tripping on a low stump, she fell at Rassa’s feet. “No, Father! NO! You promised you would not leave me!” she sobbed.
The fire grew higher and she was forced to back away from the heat. The flames crackled and burned, reaching ten feet into the sky. She reached again for her father, leaning into the flames. “I want to come with you!” she cried. “Don’t leave me, Father. Please, I want to be with you.”
Rassa looked at her, let out a faint scream, then closed his eyes. The officer watched, a satisfied evil smirk on his face. The fire burned with a bright yellow flame.
Azadeh rolled onto her back, swallowing the sickness inside. The captain looked down and their eyes met briefly again. She lay there, unmoving, tears brimming her eyes, then moaned once in anguish and curled into a tight, little ball. She pulled at her knees and her eyes slowly closed. Her breath became heavy, as if she were asleep.
The captain turned to his men. “All right,” he yelled. “There is a young boy in this village. Our instructions are clear. Find every boy in the village who is younger than five. Round them up and shoot them, then let’s get out of here.”
• • •
Thirty-nine children were murdered in the village that evening. Those who opposed the soldiers saw their homes and property burned. Those who fought them were murdered along with their sons. Those who sought to hide their children were eventually found. The carnage was sickening to even the most bitter heart, the smell of death and smoking buildings filling the dim, evening air.
The Iranians were working through the last few blocks of the village when they heard the echo of helicopter blades bouncing off the steep mountain walls. They looked up to see American Blackhawks coming over the hills to the south. Black machines. Door gunners at the ready. Twin machine guns protruding from each open door. Their escorts swooped before them, Blackhawk gunships that were armed to the teeth. One of the gunships let off a quick burst, sending .50 caliber bullets bursting into the ground around one of the APCs.
The Iranian captain froze, his mouth open, his eyes wide in shock. He wiped the blood from his hands, then shading his eyes. Some of his men gathered around him as his mouth grew tight with fear. “American soldiers,” one of the conscripts cried. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
The officer didn’t move. Americans! In Iran! This was their homeland! Their homeland! It simply couldn’t be!
The conscript screamed again, his voice piercing the air. The sound shook the captain into action. “Go!” he cried. “They are Americans! We’ve got to get out of here!”
The spell broken, the NCOs turned to their soldiers and started shouting instructions. “Load up. Leave your gear. Evacuate the area. NOW!”
The Iranian security forces in their special black uniforms, those brave men who killed children while in their mother’s arms, the highly trained soulless attack dogs of General Sattam bin Mamdayh who had so valiantly walked and strutted among the civilians barking orders just a few minutes before, fell into a panic as the American helicopters passed over their heads.
The killers ran to their armored carriers. The engines started, spewing diesel fumes, and the troops ran up the small ramps into the machines. The sound of helicopters beat against the canyon walls as the U.S. helicopters set up to land. The APCs revved their engines and lurched away, moving toward the narrow road that led through the mountains, away from the village to the plains in the west.
FIFTEEN
Army Special Forces Captain Samuel Brighton moved slowly through the village dressed for battle: black fatigues, tan leather boots, leather gloves, full flak gear, belts of ammunition, a first aid kit, grenades, radios, GPS receivers, emergency rations, binoculars. He wore a Velcro nametag, but no other insignia identified him as being from the United States. The sun had set now, and the light had grown dim. He looked slowly around him, feeling the contents of his stomach rise to his throat. He had seen combat and death, he had seen destruction and loss, he had seen blood and horror in close up and gory detail, he had seen men that he loved blown to bits before his eyes, but he had never in his life seen anything equal to this. He had never imagined such a scene straight from hell—the burning buildings, the smoke, the smell of spent rifles and blood. And the carnage concentrated on the children! His mind tumbled and reeled.
He held a gloved hand to his nostrils and prayed he would one day forget. He counted the bodies, most of them young boys. Young boys and their mothers. It was a gut-wrenching sight. His heart ached, twisted in two. He stopped and looked down, hearing a muffled cry at his feet. A young mother, her face revealed from the thin veil that had been pulled away, held a child who had been shot in the chest. The boy was no more than three, with tangled hair and fat cheeks. He appeared to be sleeping, but Sam knew he was dead. His mother rocked back and forth in the grass that lined the road and sang to him softly between her deep sobs. Sam didn’t speak Farsi, though he understood a bit, and the tune was familiar, for he had heard it before. She sang slow and in rhythm, so he picked up most of the ancient words.
“I have loved you so deeply
I have held you so tight
Go to sleep little baby
Rest in God,
Close your eyes.”
Sam turned away, gripping the handle of his rifle, the barrel pointed up, his thumb on the safety. He turned his back to the young mother, listening to her cry. He wanted to help her, to comfort her if he could, but what does one say to someone holding a dead child in her ar
ms? How does one explain something so utterly evil, so utterly useless, so utterly cruel?
All the dead children? How could he ever explain?
But he wanted to listen; he wanted to hear her soft cry. He wanted to remember the pain she suffered, he wanted to share it and keep it, like a hot flame on his chest.
Whoever shot these children, he would find them one day. He swore that he would. He didn’t know when or how, but he would find them one day. Then he would remember this tormented mother and the song that she sang.
A soldier didn’t fight battles for personal reasons or revenge; it was a job, a duty, defending freedom was a call. But this scene of carnage, it drove him. He was a different man now.
Finally, he turned and walked toward his team leader who was making his way from a small field on the south side of the village where the helicopters had set down. The other captain came to a stop before him and the two men stared grimly, measuring the displeasure in each other’s eyes. “Report?” the team leader asked, his voice businesslike.
Sam shifted his feet. “A lot of dead babies.” He gritted his teeth. The other officer was his best friend, a man he trusted with his life, but he was angry at him now, and it showed in his eyes.
The leader nodded to his right, toward a hill on the western side of the village. “It started up there,” he said. “The locals said there were soldiers . . . .”
“I told you!” Sam shot back, his voice seething with rage. “Bono, I told you I saw old Russian APCs. We could have gone after the soldiers and taken them down in their tracks. But no! That’s not our mission, you said! We are here for the child. Well, what is our mission now? You want us to bury these children? Is that why we’re here? We could have taken the soldiers, but what can we do now?”
“Sam,” the leader answered calmly. “I’m not the enemy here.”
(Wrath-02)-Darkness of This World (2012) Page 13