There was, he decided, something totally elegant about the woman. Something utterly dignified. He would have been hard put to explain his thoughts.
She gazed out over the water. He watched her through the glasses, ten times magnification, and there were moments when he believed she looked straight at him, must see him. The heat in the suit sapped him and he fought to maintain his concentration. He had to make his water last – and in his ears were the sounds of the ripples against the pier’s supports and the scrape of the dinghy against the planks. He reckoned, couldn’t be certain at two hundred metres plus, that tears ran down her face.
Badger could not, in truth, take his eyes from her. He didn’t know how her husband, assuming a surgeon could work a miracle, would respond to the approach.
They had done more war games at the camp. Through the morning there had been a theoretical headquarters-command scenario of an American invasion pushing in from Iraqi territory on a front south of al-Qurnah and north of Basra. The Engineer’s role had been to describe the new generation of explosive formed projectiles, their deployment, and effect against the enemy’s armour, and the forces of any ‘poodles’ that the Great Satan could whip into line. They had not stopped for lunch, but took a break for coffee.
When would he be away?
Again, he found himself alongside the brigadier who had responsibility for this sector.
He grimaced. He had the suitcase, and they awaited final confirmation of the itinerary… very soon.
After the refreshment stop, they would move on to the area of counter-attack, and the Engineer had prepared a paper on the value of deflecting armoured convoys to specified roads where the bombs could be more effective and more concentrated. He would speak of the value of choke points into which armour would be drawn. He would quote the disproportionate success of the defenders of a Croatian city, two decades before, who had ambushed main battle tanks, hit the first in the convoy simultaneously with the last and then, at leisure, destroyed the wallowing beasts that could not manoeuvre. He would say this could be done by civilian fighters if they had only rudimentary skills in warfare. He would tell his audience of the effect that the explosive devices – manufactured under his direction with minimal metal parts, instead incorporating plastics, ceramics and moulded glass – had on units’ morale, and give them, as a rallying cry, the conclusion that one casualty, without a leg or an arm, needed four men to bring him back from the explosion and a helicopter to fly him to the rear. Ultimately when one man hobbled down the main street of his home town and the civilians living there watched him, sympathising, support for the war would drain away. ‘Let them come, let them face us, let them know the smell of defeat,’ he would finish.
He was not an easy public speaker, and he tried to memorise what he would say and how he would deliver it, but the brigadier broke into his thoughts. Did his wife approve of the case?
She had not looked at it, had refused to open it, would not discuss with him what clothing she should take – whatever destination was chosen for them. She had sat in her chair in the kitchen for much of the evening after the children had gone to bed, when he had told them more about Prince Korshid and his brothers: the time he had gone to the bottom of the deep well and had found there a girl of unmatched beauty. On her lap was the head of a deav, a serpent, that snored foully. The prince would rescue the girl, but that was for the next evening. He did not say that tension cut the mood in his home, or confide that she had thrown back at him the riposte: ‘If God says it will happen it will happen. Do you attempt to obstruct God’s will with temporary relief? Better to die quietly, with love and in peace, than to chase a few more days of life. Are we justified in fighting it?’ Her mother had watched them, silent, and he had not answered but had gone to tell the story to the children.
‘My wife thought it a very fine case.’
‘Her morale? Her attitude?’
‘Very positive. She is focused on getting treatment she needs for recovery, and is most grateful to those who give her the chance of it.’
It was rare for the Engineer to talk on personal matters with a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. He knew this man’s importance in areas of military responsibility, and also because the papers regarding Naghmeh’s illness would have needed his initialled acceptance. Just as this officer procured for him the most sophisticated and recent electronic equipment from the USA, reaching him via Dubai’s container port, so he had the power to arrange the funding of such a journey and subsequent medical attention.
‘You are important to us, brother.’
Others, in uniform, stood patiently behind the brigadier, waiting for an opportunity to speak with him, but he waved them away. It was a short, clipped movement but unmistakable.
‘I know much about you, brother.’
‘Of course. I accept that.’
‘You live by the water, close to the border.’
‘It was the home my wife chose, before the diagnosis, and a place of rare beauty, near to a command post. It is very peaceful, and-’
‘May I offer advice, brother?’
‘Of course. I would be honoured to receive it.’
Which was the truth. Advice would not be given lightly, or be ignored when offered by a man of such seniority.
Blunt words, the veneer of concern stripped off. ‘You cannot return there.’
‘I am sorry, did I misunderstand you? It is where my wife is-’
A searing interruption. ‘Whether your wife is alive or dead, whether she is happy there, whether she likes to view the water and count mosquitoes is, brother, not of importance. A man of your value should be better protected. You will not go back there.’
This brigadier had been in place for some four months. The Engineer did not know him well. He could not argue, remonstrate or dispute. If she survived, she would be devastated. It was unthinkable that he should challenge a decision by so senior an officer.
‘Of course.’
A wintry smile. ‘I would suggest that if the Americans invade you go to the deepest hole you can find that a fox has dug and settle in it. Hide for as long as you can, and emerge when you have a new identity. If the Americans come, the shockwave will likely bring down the regime of the Islamic Republic. Revolution will rule. Do you watch CNN, brother? You do not. You are good, patriotic and disciplined. I watch CNN and I see the demonstrations in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashhad. We attack the websites and the mobile-phone links, but we cannot prevent the images escaping our borders. We can hang people, abuse them and lock them away, but when revolt has taken hold it cannot be reversed. There is an expression, ‘a house of cards’, and I fear that is what we will be. We conceive martyrs, we shoot at unarmed crowds but we do not cow the masses. When their time comes, when our authority is fractured, they will rise up, as the crowds did in the last days of the imperial family. The officials serving the Peacock Throne were shot by firing squad, butchered with knives or hanged in the Evin gaol. If our regime collapses and I am still here, I imagine I will be led out to the nearest streetlight and a rope will be thrown up. I will be hanged, as will most of us gathered here today. We appear invulnerable but strength is often illusory. You, brother – maybe you would be on the streetlight beside me. If the Americans come, brother, how many will face the prospect of a rope over the arm of a streetlamp and will trade information to save their neck from being stretched? What better piece of information to give up than the identity of the man who designed the bombs that crippled the Great Satan’s war effort inside Iraq? An American said once, of Serbs who were hunted and accused of atrocities, ‘You can run but you cannot hide.’ It was a popular phrase. It frightened men, intimidated them. You would be named, I would be named and most of the men in this room would be named.