“Probably not. I’ve been out of circulation for several days. What is it?”
“I don’t know much yet, this just came in. It’s a news item out of some little town in northern Iraq.
Hold on, I’ve got the name of the town here somewhere…”
Bogner wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear and waited. He could hear Joy rustling through papers. At the same time he could hear the rain hammering his window.
“Here it is… the name of the town is Shaqlawa. According to this, a man by the name of Kemal Gursel reported that he had gone into a Kurd settlement just inside the Turkish-Iraqi border three days ago and discovered that everyone in the settlement was dead. He reported his discovery to the Iraqi authorities in Shaqlawa. So far the Iraqis are reporting a body count of one hundred seventeen. Apparently the Shaqlawa officials have contacted the Red Crescent, but you and I both know this is out of their jurisdiction…”
Then came another pause, this one even more pregnant than the first. It was pure Joy Carpenter theater, the inevitable prelude to an inevitable question. Bogner congratulated himself; he could still see the curve ball coming even if he knew he couldn’t hit it.
“I thought maybe you might know something about it…”
“Sorry to disappoint you. Like I said, I’ve been sweating it out on some beach in Honolulu the last few days. Haven’t heard and don’t know anything about it.”
Bogner was surprised his former bride hadn’t come back at him with one of her patented zingers.
He had certainly given her an opening. Instead, she stuck to her guns.
“Does it strike you as a bit curious that this town of Shaqlawa isn’t all that far from Nasrat Pharmaceutical in Ammash?” Bogner knew she had intended the question to sound like an afterthought.
“Remember back in the early nineties when we went in and…?”
Bogner remembered, and if he had been in any other frame of mind than to grab a shower and crawl between the sheets, he would have played her game.
“Who doesn’t?” he said.
“I damn near ended up over there.”
“If you had heard anything would you tell me?”
Joy pressed.
“You know the rules. Joy. If Clancy says it’s hush-hush then we don’t talk about it. The bottom line in this case, though, is I haven’t heard anything about any Shaqlawa.”
Having said as much, Bogner waited for what he assumed would be a terse thank-you and a quick disconnect. With Joy, round two was always less veiled than the first. This time, however, she surprised him.
“Honest, Tobias, I really was thinking about you,” she said.
“How about getting together for a drink soon?”
“You’re on. When?”
“The sooner the better. But you call me. That way I’ll know I’m top priority and not the damn Navy.”
Bogner heard the phone click in his ear, smiled, picked up his towel, and headed for the shower.
He was pleased with himself on two counts. He had declined Joy’s invitation, and he had resisted the inclination to check in with the night desk at the bureau to inquire about Shaqlawa. He turned on the shower and started to sing. Then he stopped. He was singing one of their songs.
Naval Captain Peter Langley was known in Washington social circles as one of the best amateur tennis players in town. But insiders in the intelligence community knew him differently. He was regarded by many in N1 and even the Pentagon as one of the best situation analysts in the capital. Even an old pro like Clancy Packer, the Washington bureau chief of the ISA, considered Langley without peer when it came to assessing developing situations in both the former Soviet Union and the now-turbulent Middle East.
Seated around the table in the windowless briefing room was a galaxy of faces including Langley.
There was Clancy Packer and Robert Miller of the ISA, Oscar Jaffe of the CIA, Bob Hurley and Lattimere Spitz, two of the President’s aides, and a host of other support personnel. Included among the latter was Dr. Henry Stanhouse and Chief Petty Officer Bet Crimmins.
Langley himself, still sporting a middle-of-the-summer tan, waited until everyone had their coffee before beginning.
“All right,” he said, “let’s get started. We’ll start with you. Bet.”
Robert Miller was finally able to put a face with the name. She was not only attractive, she was bright and articulate. She stood up, waited for everyone to get settled, and cleared her throat.
“Captain Langley thought it would be a good idea to refresh everyone’s memory before we get into the heart of our presentation. I’m certain you are all aware the problem isn’t a new one. Our best guess is that there are approximately three million Kurds, or about twenty percent of the population of Iraq, clustered along the border between Turkey and Iraq. We should also keep in mind that these two factions, the Kurds and Iraqis, have been at each other’s throats for centuries. The situation, however, becomes even more complicated and disturbing when we start analyzing the players.
Some Kurds have allied themselves with the current administration of Anwar Abbasin in Baghdad, some have joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and others have become involved with the PUK, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
“Needless to say, most of the time these factions don’t see eye to eye on even the simplest of matters.
“Finally, most everyone in this room is equally familiar with the 1988 chemical weapons attacks by Saddam Hussein’s forces on the Kurds in northern Iraq. Those attacks only added fuel to a long-burning fire. At the same time, you may recall, despite requests for intervention and our awareness of the situation, the United States and the U.N. did little to support the Kurds.
“Since that time Turkey has maintained a border guard unit of almost seven thousand soldiers, stationed at various points along the border to keep the Kurds from fleeing Iraq and swarming into Turkey. And even though we estimate that the Kurd opposition force of some forty-five thousand armed soldiers maintains a reasonably high state of readiness, the U.S. government readily admits the Kurd militia is no match for the some four-hundred-thousand man army maintained by Abbasin or the seventy-thousand-man army maintained by the Northern Iraqi Military Force, also known as NIMF.”
“Where does Iran fit into all of this?” someone at the far end of table the table asked.
Crimmins had done her homework.
“I checked with the State Department. They tell me this time around Tehran isn’t saying much. But they also have troops poised at the border just like Turkey, ostensibly to keep the Kurds out.”
Crimmins looked up and down the length of the table and waited.
“All right then, if there aren’t any more questions, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Stanhouse.”
Henry Stanhouse, bald, taciturn, and wearing glasses, stood up, turned down the lights, and turned on the wall-mounted projector. Clancy Packer found himself looking at the same photos Stanhouse had shown him earlier.
“I would assume that most everyone in the room is familiar with what is called the Gehenna effect,” Stanhouse began, “but for those of you who aren’t, it stems from the Greek word geenna. meaning hell.
The Hebrew equivalent is called gehinnom, which is the name of a valley outside of Jerusalem where the bodies of the dead, along with a lot of other things, were burned and disposed of in times past.
In the New Testament, Gehenna is referred to as the place of unspeakable torment.”
Lattimere Spitz shifted in his seat as he listened.
Impatient as always, he leaned toward Packer, looked at his watch, and whispered, “I’m afraid our boy Henry has a tendency to ramble. Is he conducting a history lesson or do you think he’ll eventually get to the point?”