There he found Medina. She was asleep. The light on the small table beside the bed was still on. She had been writing a letter, in English, as he had urged her to do.
“Someday, you will write the memoirs of Baddour,” he had promised her.
“Then the imperialists will know the heart of the true Baddour. But,” he cautioned, “they will read it only if it is in English. The enemies of Baddour are too arrogant to study in other than their own language.”
The letter was addressed to Medina’s mother.
Salih idly wondered if the woman, who Medina claimed was a nurse at a small hospital in the town of her birth, could read English.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and loosened his tunic. He was still in the process of undressing when the telephone rang.
“Baddour,” he answered. Despite the hour and the length of his day, there was no evidence of fatigue in his voice.
“Captain Oman,” the voice on the other end of the line said by way of identification.
“Colonel Fahid left instructions to report when Captain Nayef returned from patrol.”
“Excellent,” Baddour said.
“Tell Captain Nayef to report to my quarters immediately.”
Baddour hung up, rebuttoned his tunic, and checked to see if Medina was still sleeping. Now her eyes were open and she was smiling. Baddour bent down and kissed her gently on the forehead.
“Go back to sleep, my dove,” he whispered.
“I left word with the base duty officer to contact me if any of our patrols encountered evidence of Kurdish activity. He just called. I will return soon.”
Even in the darkness he could see her inviting smile.
“You will wake me when you return?” she asked.
Baddour smiled, traced the tip of his fingers down her soft cheek, turned off the light, and stood up.
“I will return,” he promised.
Captain Isaile Nayef had long been regarded as one of Salih Baddour’s most trusted officers. He was the lowest-ranking officer on Baddour’s staff, but held in the highest regard because of his military background — a background that included meritorious service in the Iraq-Iran war. Now he was standing before Baddour still attired in his flight gear.
“Have a cigarette. Captain,” Baddour urged.
“There is no problem. The base operations officer was instructed to have anyone report immediately if they encountered Kurdish activity. That is the case?”
Nayef, a lean, hard man with thinning hair, exhaled a haze of gray-blue smoke and settled into a large, overstuffed chair directly across the desk from his general.
“There was an encounter,” he admitted.
“We discovered a Kurd helicopter in the Koboli region. We asked it to identify itself, but it made no effort to respond. We fired warning shots, but it still did not make an effort to comply.
When it continued to try to evade contact, we destroyed it.”
Baddour was smiling.
“Most efficient, Captain Nayef. Were there any survivors?”
Nayef shook his head.
“None, General. We conducted a thorough post-encounter surveillance. I can assure you there were no survivors.”
“This area you refer to as Koboli, Captain — I am not familiar with it. It is remote? Thinly populated?”
“You are wondering whether or not the U.N. inspection team is likely to learn of the incident?”
“I am,” Baddour admitted.
“Extremely remote,” Nayef said.
“An area laced with canyons. We were fortunate to discover it.”
Baddour was pleased. He stood up, walked around from behind his desk, and stood in front of the officer.
“My congratulations. Captain. Perhaps there will be a day when the Kurds will finally understand the futility of their fight.”
Nayef smiled.
“The general is most kind,” he said.
Baddour waited for Nayef to leave, then went to the telephone.
“Tell Colonel Fahid to meet me in my quarters, first thing in the morning.”
Bogner felt something. That was all he knew.
Something or someone had touched him. He was in an altered state of awareness, searching for a word, any word, that he could call out to let them know he was alive. He knew his inability to think clearly had something to do with pain — and something to do with confusion. The sounds, discordant and unduly loud, created patterns in his head — patterns without dimension, leaving him with little more than a montage of baffling and befuddling minds capes
Somewhere in the distance he thought he heard voices. Not real voices, more like made-up voices.
They talked in tones too hushed to hear and used words that had no meaning. Suddenly, though, one voice became clear. Only vaguely he thought he had heard the voice before, but he had no recollection of where or when.
Finally he managed to open his eyes, but when he did there was nothing to see. He was surrounded, blanketed, wrapped in a cloak of surreal darkness. He had assessed that much and no more when he felt the pain again.
“Stop kicking him!” the voice demanded.
“Can’t you see? He’s hurt.” It was a woman’s voice. Then he heard a man’s laugh, throaty and derisive. The man said something. As before, it was unintelligible, but there was the sound of more male laughter. The latter sounds were distant from the first, but equally contemptuous.
He felt something trying to work its way under his chest. Whatever it was, it was blunt and determined — prodding, pushing.
“Quit kicking him,” the woman’s voice repeated.
“Roll him over, let’s see how bad he is injured.”
When the male voice responded, it was with words Bogner failed to comprehend.
“Why are you making such a fuss over a damned Iraqi?” another voice said. His voice alone among the others, however many there actually were, came back at the woman in English.
Bogner felt himself being rolled over on his back, and a light was suddenly thrust down at him. He wanted to open his eyes, to tell them he wasn’t “a damned Iraqi.” But the words clawed their way up into his throat and stopped there.
The only sound he could make was some kind of unintelligible, garbled babble.
“Bury him along with the other ones,” the same male voice intoned.
“He would not survive the journey back to the encampment. He is too broken up. It is a waste of time. He will be dead by morning.”
Now Bogner realized that the sound he had been hearing was that of shovels gouging out the soil. There was an inconsistent rhythm to the sound. Sometimes they were in unison, sometimes not.
“Bring him over here,” the man said.
“Throw him in hole with the other two.”
“You can’t bury a man who is still alive,” the woman protested.
“If we do, then we are no better than the Iraqis.”
Bogner’s senses were slowly working their way back to him. He could smell the remnants of fire, of burned oil and flesh, of things charred — metal and wiring and… something else, but he was unable to hold the thought.
“Listen to me,” the woman shrieked.
“If we do this thing we are no better than our enemies.”
There was an uneasy silence before Bogner finally heard the shuffling sound of footsteps. They were coming toward him. When they were close by, they stopped. He felt unsympathetic hands work their way under his shoulders and feet. Then he felt himself being lifted up. The men had already made their concession. They were allowing him to live at least a while longer. He choked back the inclination to cry out, and moments later he was laid on the coarse board flooring of what had to be a cart or wagon of some type. He had been holding on too long. There was nothing he could do. Slowly, but inevitably, he began to sink back into the world of the unthinking and unfeeling.