CHAPTER

THREE

 

 

           BURN DOWN THE SKY

 

  

 

19

 

 

 

 

In the morning he flew to Istanbul feeling trapped by a fate which played him like a pawn, and which seemed to have little regard to his feeble assertions of freewill. From Istanbul he flew on to the dusty town of Diyarbakir in Anatolia. The tortured geography of eastern Turkey hinted at a history stained with blood old and new. The land transcended those feuds, the rise and fall of empires, religions and the perennial boundaries of nations, all of it making Alan feel infinitesimally small and insignificant. To the faithful this land was Eden, and to others who knew this land as the first steps for man out of the African continent and the birthplace of civilization it was a metaphor.

Diyarbakir’s ancient black basalt walls rose dramatically above the ochre plain. The fortress walls were stark and strong against a brilliant blue sky, as if they had been created for one another. At a glance the fortresses ominous battlements looked much the same as they had when first built during the reign of the Emperor Constantine in A.D. 349. The modern town spilled from the massive gates of the old citadel. A twelfth Century Mosque, grown from Greek ruins only hinted at the five thousand year history of the town. As the taxi bumped and bounced over the uneven road Alan felt a certain sense of longing as the town faded in the distance. It was as if ancient echoes of those who lived and died here over the eons still resonated inside him somewhere

His driver was a chatty Turkish fellow named Suleyman. He was a hefty fellow, built short and strong from living a life in this hardscrabble land. There had been a line of taxis waiting at the curb at Diyarbakir’s tiny airport, but most of the drivers, a curious and suspicious mix of characters, laconically watched as Alan emerged from the tiny terminal. None of them were interested in taking Alan to Iraq for any amount of money, except Suleyman, who was more than happy to take him, and for a very fair price. The jolly little Turk spoke in adequate but terribly broken English

“ My mother is Kurdish and my father is Persian, but I am a Turk by birth. I have family in four countries,” he said as they pulled away from the airport. Suleyman had to shout to be heard above a broken tailpipe. “In Syria lives my mother’s sister and her family. In Iran is my father’s family, and in Iraq I have too many cousins to count. As you can imagine, family reunions are quite an event!”

Content he had made the right choice in drivers, Alan settled against the worn black vinyl seat for the long ride. The road wound over barren hills to the forgettable town of Baykan, which seemed to sprout all of the sudden from the golden hills. The ground there was empty, but for the occasional village. In places the land was so unspoiled that it was still possible to imagine it before man arrived. He tried to imagine all of the souls that had crossed this plain, and all of the billions who had lived and died since the beginning of time. Where were they now? Where were their bones if not in the dusty haze that lay upon the far horizon? The thought led him inescapably back to Donna, which was precisely where he did not want to be at that moment.

“You have traveled a long time, arkadash?” The driver looked at Alan through the cracked rear view mirror. Alan did not answer immediately. “Arkadash is Turkish for friend. I consider you my good American friend.”

“Traveled?” Alan sighed. “Yeah, I’ve done some.”

“This is your first time in Iraq? I can see things in your face. You are thinking somewhere else, yes?”

Alan leaned up against the seat close to Suleyman. “You are not afraid to go there?”

“What is there to be afraid of? I know every way into Iraq.”

“Is it better now? Now that America is there?”

“Eh, who can say? Some things are better, and some things stay the same, always. Maybe more bandits on the road now than before. It is safer when we are close to American soldiers, but there was more control under Saddam.” The Turk shrugged. Governments come and go, but families here will go on. We must reach the border before dark though.”

“What happens after dark?”

Suleyman drew a line across his throat with a finger. “Very bad.”

“Taxi driver is a good living out here?”

“How do you say, so-so? I could make much more money in Ankara or Istanbul.”

“One day you will go there?”

“No, it is a good life here. Pure and simple.”

Suleyman’s little Russian built car rattled and banged, even over smoother stretches of road. Suleyman was pushing the gas pedal all the way to the floor, but the car vibrated so badly over sixty kilometers per hour that Alan worried the car would shake to pieces. If it acted up too much Suleyman would stroke the dash and talk to the old car as if it was a lover. Every so often it was necessary to stop and let the engine cool. It turned a six-hour trip into an all day adventure. The Turk kept several jugs of water in the trunk to refill all the water that escaped through the patched up old radiator and hoses. Alan found it amusing that every place that Suleyman stopped there was a small café where everyone seemed to know him.

By late afternoon they had reached the border with Iraq. Before the border, under the passive eye of Turkish soldiers there were markets where all sorts of contraband items were sold. Suleyman bought cigarettes and some things that were far more expensive in Iraq. Though he said that it was for family who could not afford such things after the war, Alan noted he bought far more than a few gifts for family and figured he was doing a little more than simply driving a taxi to make a living. From the market they crossed to a shaded cafe and waited for the car motor to cool. Suleyman ordered them each a shot of whiskey.

“A man after my own heart,” Alan remarked. He spied two men cross the road from the direction of the border. They seemed out of place and reminded him of Afghan tribesmen he had known during the Soviet occupation. They were gone in an instant, and Alan, preoccupied by a great many other things, quickly forgot all about them.

“Sherehfeeneeza!” To your health, said the Turk. They downed the whiskey in a single swallow. When the motor had cooled enough they crossed the border into Iraq. Shadows were growing among the hills as the sun sank low in the blue afternoon sky. Suleyman noticed it as well, and motioned to the deepening shadows. Worry over traveling the road at night was fully evident in the Turk’s face. Just outside of the town of Zaklo they came upon a checkpoint manned by American and Iraqi National Army soldiers. An American Sergeant cautiously approached the car.

“Misa’ il kheer, Basbor min fadlak.” Good afternoon, passports please, he said politely.

“Sergeant, I’m with the Chicago Post,” Alan handed over his passport and Press credentials.

“Where are you headed, sir?”

“Karkuk.”

“My advice is to turn back. Lot’s of bandits and other nasties on the road between here and there. Especially after dark, sir.”

“I appreciate that, but I have urgent business, Sergeant.”

“Very good, sir, you’re an American citizen and free to go where you wish. Just be forewarned. Whatever you do don’t leave the road. The Iraqis and us have occasional patrols between here and Mosul. If something bad happens at least someone will find your body.” He handed back Alan’s things.  

“Thanks for the heads-up, Sergeant.”

The soldier tipped his helmet courteously. “Your funeral.”

In the days since the war began the border area had become a much more dangerous place. For decades Kurdish fighters shared the frontier with smugglers and human traffickers, often working hand in hand. This had always been one of the preferred routes for Central Asian Heroin coming into Western Europe and North America. In the months since Saddam Hussein’s government collapsed the borders had become lawless, where the ruthless and quickest with a gun set the rules. The Afghans and Uzbeks were producing record amounts of heroin since the Taliban were gone, a windfall of profits every scumbag from Peshawar to Florence Italy was happy to cash in on. Those profits paid for guns for the Kurdish Peshmerga and Kosovar Albanians, and made very wealthy men of Greek arms dealers, Italian Mafioso, and various politicians throughout the Balkans. It paid debts in Copenhagen, caused a mother of two in Biloxi to overdose and led to the shooting of a cop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. For those who cared it only underscored how small the world could be and how easily laws and international boundaries could be subverted.

 

 

They reached Karkuk around ten that evening and went to the home of Suleyman’s cousin. After a late meal of roasted lamb, cucumber salad, goat’s cheese and pan-fried bread Alan curled up on a small couch and went quickly to sleep. In the morning he went to the city’s main market square in search of Byars’ contact. At last he came to a small market stall where an old man sold curative teas for various afflictions and dried fish from the Euphrates River. The old man was smoking a long pipe and seemed quite content, despite not having sold a thing all day. There was a nasty scar across one cheek. It was old, as the lines of his deeply tanned face had grown through the crooked scar.

“Do you speak English?” Alan asked. The old man did not answer immediately, but seemed to leave Alan hanging for a suspenseful moment, as if something in that moment would give the old man some clue to Alan’s true intention. The old Kurd nodded slowly and blew out a great cloud of bitter white smoke.   

“A little.”

“A little?” Alan was afraid he hadn’t heard the man correctly.

 “Arai!” Yes, he repeated, annoyed. “A little.”

“Have you some Baltic caviar?”

“Na. Na Bal-teek cav-ee-ar.”

“Shame, I needed three jars.”

“What makes you believe that I have Baltic caviar, when you can plainly see I only sell fish and some kinds of tea?”

“A friend thought that I should ask you, but perhaps he was wrong.” There was a long silence as the old man’s eyes fixed on Alan’s. “Sorry for the trouble,” said Alan as he started to turn away.

“I know one guy who can help you. Best caviar.”

He quickly scribbled an address on a bit of paper and pushed it across the table towards Alan. Alan studied the paper without taking it.

“The best, huh?”

The Kurd withdrew the paper and burned it to ashes with a match.

“Qat,” absolutely, he nodded sharply. “There is a bakery there. Wait beside the bakery in one hour and he will find you.”

Alan found the bakery with some difficulty. It stood near the heart of a rough part of the city, a place where foreigners stood out like a sore thumb and where they were less than welcome. The streets were dusty and poor. Veiled woman reminded Alan that Al Qa’ eda was far more welcome here than he was. Children scurried home from school, keeping a wary eye on streets that were known to erupt in gunfire without warning. Two old goats watched stoically from a nearby balcony, and a pack of mangy dogs searched for a meal across the street. Alan might have drawn far more attention if smoke from the bakery wasn’t so heavy in the street. It burned at people’s eyes and kept their faces to the ground as they hurried through the neighborhood.

A hand fell on Alan’s shoulder. He turned to find Byars dressed as a Kurdish merchant. He wore dull green trousers and a tan jacket. His deeply lined face was tanned and he was growing a thick mustache that was brushed with streaks of silver. Alan knew better than to draw undo attention and tried not to act surprised or relieved to find a familiar face. Trying to appear as casual as possible he drew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered Byars one.

“I need a favor, John,” he said quietly.

Byars took the cigarette and turned away to light it. “I figured that’s why you were here. We’ll go somewhere where we can talk.”

They crossed the street to a narrow alleyway. There was an old man leaning on his haunches. Byars greeted him in excellent Kurdish and offered him a cigarette. The old man slipped it behind his ear.

“Anything of interest today?” Byars asked.

The old man pointed back across the street at the balcony and the goats. His bony fingers shook terribly with age.

“Munira was beating her husband again. She called him good for nothing and threatened to throw him out for good. The third time this month.”

“She outweighs him by forty kilos,” Byars quipped.

“Forty-five,” he offered a toothless grin.

“Must make her goats nervous.”

“Rue the day when they no longer give milk.”

“We will know if she gains another fifty kilos, eh?”

The old man chuckled. “Indeed.”

“See you, my friend.”

Alan followed Byars down the dark passage. After a short distance they came to a door. Inside Alan discovered Byars’ modest two-room flat. The floors were covered in thick hand woven carpets. The place was filled with history, and smelled of rot, stone, cooked garlic and spices. The walls were modestly adorned with cheap tapestries and a photograph of Mecca. There was a second room to one side. A blanket covered the door.

“I’m impressed,” Alan said. “Your Kurdish is excellent.”

Byars bent before a small stove. He shoved some wood and bits of paper inside and lit a match. The flame caught inside the stove, throwing a warm light across the floor. He put a kettle on to make some tea.

“Getting better. A lot of people refer to it as dirty Persian. It’s similar, but it borrows a lot from Turkish and Armenian. The thing about Kurdish is it gets affected by a thousand influences; English, Western Pop music, everything. It adapts, like a living thing. Makes it a tricky language to master.”

“The old man seemed to understand well enough.”

“He’s a little deaf, but he knows everything that goes on in the neighborhood. Something new happens or someone strange comes sniffing around and he will know.”

Byars poured them both a cup of tea. They sat on cushions facing one another.

“He doesn’t wonder about you?”

“He’s my coffee buddy. He thinks that Saddam killed my family back in 1991 and that I escaped to America. I told him that America isn’t a real place, that it is a circus, and now I’m here to fight with the Peshmerga for an independent Kurdistan.”

“Good cover.”

“Explains my laziness with the language. Peasants. They are a unique culture that is utterly beyond the American experience. It’s beyond the Mexican and South America experience as well. Transcends national boundaries from Eastern Europe to South Asia. It is ancient, the basic social and cultural fabric for half the world’s population, and yet it is totally alien to us. It’s how Al Qa’eda managed to pull off the September attacks. Anyway, so much for that history lesson, let’s talk about this favor you needed?”

“I went to Sarajevo.”

Byars’ eyes narrowed for a moment. His whole demeanor seemed to change, and not for the better. “Did you find him?”

“He didn’t come, which to me was as good as a confession.”

Byars nodded. “Hard to argue with that one.”

Alan fell silent. He boiled with anger, a deeper anger than he felt with Maria’s death in Argentina, and more than the blind reaction he experienced in the ditch in the A Shau valley. This rage was more resolute, more purposeful, more calculated. And something about the unique character of that anger made Alan feel utterly evil.

“He was a friend,” Alan said, his voice heavy with emotion.

“I doubt that he knew Donna was…”

“I thought of that, but it really doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

“What were you expecting, Al?”

“I wanted to know why.”

“The Muslims think they’re under attack by us, and we think all Muslims are out to get us. An endless circle, man. It’s a sick dance that will lead to the end of the world, but second guesses in the middle of the fight will get you killed. Right or wrong, if you pick a fight then you had better see it through.”

Alan stood. He was clearly torn over what to do. The stress was clearly evident as a weight upon his shoulders. Alan ran his fingers through his hair and groaned.

“Shit!” he said. “I just wanted him to know what he had done. I wanted him to…to say that he was sorry.”

“And then what?”

“And then I could understand, I think. I could start to put all this behind me.”

“There’s a war on, man. Welcome back to the frontlines, Al.”

“I never wanted any part of this war, not a religious war.”

“Listen to yourself. Al, you’re living in the philosophical world. Unless humanity comes to some great catharsis the tiny group of religious freaks on both sides will have their day. We’re getting sucked in, and each person has to decide when to abandon society and choose sides for the coming war. Maybe it can all be avoided. As for me I’m already in the fight, whether I like it or not. But one thing is certain the time for hope is running out.”

“And the earth will burn in the process, right? Who stands against the fanatics?”

“You saw for yourself that only a fraction of the population participated in the Vietnam War. The rest were like reeds swept by the winds of hate. There were a lot of Germans who opposed Hitler in the thirties. When the Nazis rounded up the loudest among them the rest fell silent. They had been a weight against the Nazis, but not enough when push came to shove. It wasn’t until he became a bigger problem that the world rose against him. Fact is, most folks are afraid to be that opposing weight. Until that changes we are where we are.”

Alan felt a heavy darkness come over him. It was a sense that resisting the tide of the world was futile. It was a dirty, vulgar feeling. As he gave himself over to it, Alan felt as though his soul would never be clean again.

“You can take care of it?” he asked finally.

Byars didn’t answer at first, though he was expecting the question all along. Already he had someone in mind for the job, and a scheme that would benefit his interests as well.

“You need not worry about it any longer, Alan.”

Though the full scope of what he asked of Byars had not yet hit him, Alan could not let Donna’s death go unanswered. He wondered if the proper answer to that was the death of a man, of a friend, of a sovereign soul. Alan went to the door, unable to look at Byars. He was drowning in the moment.

“Is this wrong, John?”

“I’ve lived a life on the edge of wrong. I can’t answer that for you. I lost the ability to tell right from wrong in the A Shau.”

Alan felt sick. Adnan and Donna’s faces competed for dominance in his mind. He could see her eyes accusing him, and knew that she would find all of this so wrong. He pushed out that image of her in favor of the image of her burned and brutalized body. It made all of this much easier.

“I can’t bring myself to thank you for this.”

“Bury your dead, my friend.”

He looked at Byars one more time. He was still sitting there on the floor, looking more as a demon that an old friend.

“I just want to look Donna’s children in the eyes and tell them that their mother’s killers met their justice.”

 “Go home and tell them.”

When Alan had gone Byars picked up the telephone. In flawless Pushtu he told the man at the other end to bring a friend around at dusk. Byars told him that they should best be prepared for a party. He hung up the phone and took a sip of tea. Unlike Alan there was no remorse, and no ruminations over this moral question or that ethical dilemma. The decision had been made and all that remained was the mission. He began to run over the details in his head.

 

 

 

 

The police station overlooked the meeting of five streets. The wedge shaped jail stood as an island in one of Karkuk’s poorest and most dismal neighborhoods just a few blocks from Byars dingy little flat. The streets were still crowded despite the late hour. Passersby bustled over market stalls, browsing, bickering and bartering over last minute goods before the good people of the city surrendered the streets to insurgents and criminals. Between rattling old cars, rickety ox carts and all the rest there was a terrible racket. Byars and two others, looking like mountain herdsman, stood across from the jail waiting until the setting sun had cast long shadows over the streets. They took note of everyone who came and went from the tiny jail. They fell into the rhythm of the neighborhood.

When it was time Byars went first, crossing to the jail without hurrying. At the curb he shrugged away a bit of tension in his shoulders and took several cleansing breaths. Golden light spilled from the small jail onto the sidewalk. He made himself smile and went through the open door.

Inside he found several civilians standing at a long counter. The two policemen behind the counter gave Byars’ credentials hardly more than a cursory check. They knew better than to challenge Americans. This was the only decent paying job in the country. That hundreds risked sniper fire, death threats and car bombs to line up for it was incentive enough for the skittish Iraqis to mind their manners and their own business.

He went around the counter and back through the crumbling brick walls of the jail. There were several small offices along the way. As he strode confidently along the hall he made mental notes of the location and number of policemen he found. Byars checked his watch and hoped his men would act as coolly as he felt at that moment. Other missions, many of them far riskier and more complicated that this one reminded him that he could. There could only be two outcomes to the mission. One was, of course, success, and the other Byars simply refused to consider.

Two more policemen stood at the open door to the last cell. The scent of blood and urine and vomit was heavy in the air. He assumed that after a good long beating the prisoner had pissed and vomited himself, as they were prone to do. Noticing Byars the Iraqis snapped smartly to attention.

“At ease, gentlemen,” he smiled and threw his arms around them as if they had been friends forever. Byars looked into the small, dark cell. A naked man knelt on the stone floor at an odd angle. His forehead was against the wall, pressed against his own blood and puke that ran together to the filthy floor. His hands and feet were tightly bound. To either side two beefy American security contractors stood drenched in sweat, their shirts spattered with the prisoner’s blood. Byars thought that he recognized one of the men from another place and another war. For one of the Americans, the prisoner’s intransigence was proving too much.

“Shoot the fucker and be done with this asshole!” his voice cracked with emotion.

 “Does he understand English?” asked Byars, stepping into the cell.

“He understands good enough,” the other man replied. “Who the fuck are you?”

The men were menacing in appearance. They were so pumped up with emotion that they were itching for a fight. Byars flashed an identification card and winked. “Let’s just say that I’m with the oversight committee.”

“Fuck you,” the emotional one spat. “He’s our prisoner. We caught him running suspected Al Qa’eda operatives across the Turkish frontier.”

Not wanting any part of this squabble the Iraqis backed away from the cell. Byars shook his head. He had wasted enough time already.

“Fine,” he said, “Fuck me.”

As the Americans turned back towards the prisoner Byars drew two P226 revolvers and blew both men’s brains against the wall. They were still falling as Byars cut the plastic ties binding the prisoner’s wrists. He let the knife fall and moved quickly towards the cell door.

“Get dressed, Ahmad. Can you walk?” he snapped in Pushtu. At that instant gunfire erupted at the front of the building. They were single pistol shots rather than a gun battle. Byars could tell that everything was going as planned and concentrated on his part of the job.

“I can,” Ahmad spit out blood and snot and bits of teeth.

In the hallway Byars cut down the two terrified and confused Iraqis, pausing briefly to be certain they were indeed dead. There could be no witnesses. Quickly Byars and his Afghan helpers made quick work of the rest. It was all over in a matter of minutes. Out in the street Ahmad collapsed and had to be carried by the others. In an instant they were swallowed by the dark Iraqi night.