Dixon never screamed, never became violent. He would only lay there as his mind raced along like a runaway train. When Fay was with him, she would wake him gently, ever so gently. When he was alone, as he was tonight, he merely rolled and tossed until the nightmare passed, its images disappearing into the hazy shadows of his subconscious. There they would wait patiently, ready to creep back into Dixon's dreams.
He took his hands from his eyes and opened them. He lay there for a moment, listening to his own breathing as it came in short, rapid gasps. He began to shiver as the cool night air hit his body, now soaked with sweat. Still, he did not move. His first conscious thought this morning, as it always was after the nightmare, was the same: I'm alive. It was a dream. I'm alive. And, as always, that thought brought an immediate feeling of shame and guilt, for he could never forget that he, the man who had ordered and led the attack that day, was alive, while many of those who had obeyed and blindly followed were not.
Finally free of his sleep, Dixon began to orient himself to his surroundings. The only noise in the room was that of the air conditioner. He rolled his head to one side, his eyes falling on the lit figures of the digital clock he used for travel. It was still too early in the morning to get up, but he knew he had no choice. The wet sheets he was wrapped in were becoming uncomfortable, and he was suffering from jet lag. Further sleep would be impossible. Besides, there was always the lingering fear that if he went back to sleep, the nightmare would return.
Reaching over, Dixon felt around for the switch to the light on the nightstand. His fingers fumbled about until he turned it on. Once his eyes had adjusted to the light, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. The room was cold: the air conditioner had been adjusted during the hottest part of the day. Mechanically he rose from the bed and moved over to the window. He opened the curtains and stood there motionless, looking out from the sixth story of the Sheraton down onto the Nile. He gave no thought to the fact that he was clad only in a white T-shirt and boxer shorts. His mind was elsewhere, wandering aimlessly, stopping only momentarily to focus on a random thought before discarding it and moving on. Since Iran, Dixon's life had been like that, aimless and almost random — no fixed points to grasp, no pattern. Aimless, random, loose.
The serenity of the Nile flowing to the sea began to calm his troubled mind. Dixon stood there transfixed, watching. The three-quarter moon shone brilliantly off of the glassy surface of the river as it slowly wound its way through the sleeping city. For a moment there were no thoughts, only peace, as he allowed himself to become enmeshed in the scene before him. As he stood there and watched the gentle river, all thoughts of war slipped away. How fortunate you are, Dixon thought as he looked down on the water. You know your place and have a purpose. All you must do is follow the river banks and you will find your goal. I envy you. No thoughts, no dreams, no worries, no fears, no yesterdays, no tomorrows. Only now, only here. You know a peace I never will.
Dixon felt a shiver. The moment of peace was over. His thoughts left the river and turned to the day ahead. There would be a great deal to do and many people to meet. Most of them would ask the same questions he had been pelted with so many times before. And those that didn't ask out loud would do so in their minds. So few understood, really understood, that he could not answer them even if he wanted to. For, like his nightmare, the answers to their questions were locked away somewhere in the dark corners of his mind, mixed and twisted with the horrors of the past and the uncertainty of the future.
Along the river bank a lone figure moved. His steps were mere shuffles, his pace halting. Though he was wrapped in the robes of a fellah, even at night it was clear that he was no peasant. The erect carriage and square shoulders belonged to a soldier — or, more correctly, to an officer.
Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hafez often came to the banks of the Nile when he wanted to think. When he was a boy, he and his friends had spent many happy hours playing along the banks of the ancient river. And when he was a young man growing up in the turbulent 1960s, Hafez had turned to the river for comfort and peace. It was a place where he could reflect on the troubles of the day. As he wandered along its banks that morning, he could not remember a time when he had been more troubled, more confused. Even the mighty Nile could not wash away the thoughts that befuddled his mind that night.
After evening prayers at the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, Hafez had been approached by Muhammad Sadiq, a childhood friend and a member of the Brotherhood of the Book. Hafez had once belonged to the Brotherhood, during the years following Egypt's defeat at the hands of the Zionists in 1967. Wounded and captured during the rout across the Sinai, Hafez had felt betrayed by an incompetent government and its leaders, to whom he had pledged his loyalty and had so freely offered his services. The swiftness and totality of their defeat, compounded by the supreme arrogance of his country's enemy, came as a shock to the young Hafez. Rather than being welcomed or comforted by his countrymen when he was exchanged, he was scorned for the shame the army had brought down on the once mighty Egypt.
In his moment of supreme despair, his friend Sadiq and the Brotherhood offered a solution to the woes that seemed to plague Egypt. Unquestioning belief in Allah, strict adherence to his Word, and total devotion to the True Faith seemed to provide Hafez something that he needed then — a reason for carrying on and the hope of a better life for his country. Believing that the government and its inept leaders had betrayed the Egyptian people, Hafez threw himself into the arms of the Brotherhood with complete and careless abandon. At that moment in his life, there was only one answer, one way: that of the True Faith.
Like all things, that too changed. His enthusiasm for the Brotherhood waned. Time, the great healer, passed; and with its passing, a new, dynamic leader came forward and brought Egypt out of despair and shame. Hafez's mind, educated and trained to analyze the world around him, soon began to dissect the Brotherhood. He asked questions and searched the dark corners of the Brotherhood, which reminded him of the places where they met. Like a thunderclap, it dawned upon him that he had surrendered his loyalty to a cause that was not founded in the Word of the Book but, instead, in the same petty politics that had brought so much misery to his noble country. The leaders, most of them, were not wise and holy men driven by God to save Egypt but only humans like himself. Unlike him, they had the vision of power in their eyes. They wished to rule Egypt and remold the government into one that fit their image. True, their visionary government was based upon strong and uncompromising Islamic faith. But Hafez wondered if such a government was right for Egypt, the mother of all civilizations. A devout Muslim, Hafez was nevertheless an Egyptian, the product of a civilization that spanned four thousand years.
The discovery that the Brotherhood was being manipulated by people from other countries was the final factor in turning Hafez away from it. True, the Brotherhood preached unity throughout the Islamic world. Hafez, however, had seen that unity coming from common consent from each nation, willingly given by its people when they saw that belief in Islam offered them the only true way. The thought of working for a foreign power against his own nation was repugnant to Hafez. Unable to wholeheartedly embrace or support such men, he eventually rejected them and their cause. Again, as he had been after the '67 war, he was lost and cast adrift. Though he never officially broke with the Brotherhood, he never went back.
Fortunately for Hafez, the army left little time for him to ponder his fate or drift about. After the death of Nasser and the ascent of Anwar Sadat to power, the army, and Egypt, changed. During Sadat's "corrective revolution," the army began to prepare for the day when it would strike to defeat the Zionists and retake Sinai. Reorganizing and reequipping the army, coupled with intensive training, absorbed Hafez's time and energy. As a brigade staff officer responsible for plans and training, he threw himself into his tasks with an enthusiasm and energy that soon came to the attention of his superiors. It did not matter that his efforts were those of a desperate man trying to escape his problems by submerging himself totally into his job. What mattered was that they were rewarded by his selection to command a tank company, a company that he trained and ultimately led into battle in 1973. His skill as a soldier and ability as a leader resulted in two stunning victories over Israeli tank units, a medal for valor, and a wound sustained during a desperate counterattack at a place called Chinese Farm.