The hearing started sedately enough, with the chair of the committee, an old Democratic congressman from New York named Harry Lucas, making a short opening statement about the delay caused by protestors all over the Capitol. Hisami sat alone at the table with a few papers in front of him. Anastasia and Steen were a little to his right, while Tulliver took the chair immediately behind Hisami. As Lucas consulted a member of his staff, he leaned forward and whispered to Hisami, who listened without turning round.
It was the turn of Ranking Member Warren Speight, the representative for the First Congressional District of Louisiana. He had an easy, pleasant manner, but the day before had twice caught Denis out and made him look evasive.
‘Mr Hisami, you told us this morning that you and your wife have spent millions of dollars in the provision of psychological and therapeutic care, is that right? Speight did not look up to see Denis nod. ‘And this foundation of yours was set up in the memory of your sister, Dr Aysel Hisami, correct? Would you care to tell us a little more about her, Mr Hisami?’
‘Yes, she was a dedicated doctor. She worked with children undergoing treatment for cancer. In 2014 she returned to our homeland in northern Iraq to help treat the huge number of battlefield casualties in the war against Islamic State. She was taken prisoner and died in captivity. We don’t know exactly when that was, but her death was eventually confirmed by women who were held with her. My wife and I wanted to keep her memory alive so we set up the Aysel centres to deal with the trauma experienced by refugees – from torture, the loss of loved ones, and the hardship of leaving everything they know behind. My wife is a psychologist and was an aid worker in Greece, and this was an area where we knew we could make a real difference.’
‘And you have started working on the border with Mexico. That’s much more controversial territory. You have come up against ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – right?’
‘It’s a pilot programme. We’re working through the issues with ICE.’
‘Tell me about your sister. You were close?’
‘We went through a lot together. We were also once refugees.’
‘When you were defending yourself against allegations made by ICE, in effect the Department of Homeland Security, in New York two years ago, the court heard evidence about your past as a commander in the PUK – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. That was when you were known by your birth name, Karim Qasim, is that correct? Your sister changed her name, too.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because she was also a fighter with the PUK, a front-line combatant.’
‘Yes, for a short while.’
Anastasia saw the way this was going. Speight was drawing a picture of two fanatical young Kurds who had laundered their reputation in the States but remained committed to the armed struggle for Kurdish independence. The mention of the tiny operation on the Mexican border, which had been her project, was only meant to stoke opposition to her husband. She glanced at Steen, who shook his head and then did something odd. He got up, stretched to the witness desk and grabbed the water carafe that was set in front of the empty chair beside Denis. Harry Lucas looked over his glasses disapprovingly but let it go because Steen looked like he really needed it.
‘And there were photographs shown to the court of you at the scene of a war crime,’ continued Speight, ‘where scores of Iraqi soldiers had been massacred.’
‘Yes, I was in the company of the CIA officer named Bob Baker, who’s in the photographs and gave evidence in court. That was at a time when the United States and the PUK worked closely together. We were allies. Regrettably, on that occasion, we were too late to save those men from being murdered.’
‘It is fair to say that you are a fighting man. You were a successful commander – you’re someone who knows how to handle himself in a war setting.’
‘That was true, yes. But not today . . .’
‘Yet you believe there are times when only aggression – that is to say, military action – will get the job done.’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Like the time when you avenged your sister by killing the men whom you believed imprisoned her. That was in Macedonia, sometime in 2015, right?’
‘There were reports, but they were inaccurate in almost every respect.’
That at least was true, thought Anastasia. The one site that eventually reported the events in the remote farm in northern Macedonia had got almost everything wrong, except Denis’s presence.
A point of order came from the congressman sitting next to Ricard to the effect that this was not relevant to the matter in hand – namely the allegation that Mr Hisami was supporting the military effort in Iraq against America’s allies. The chair overruled him, but the intervention gave Hisami time to pour a glass of water and compose himself. Anastasia saw his face was ashen and one hand was shaking where it rested on his leg.
‘Whether the reports go to the point that Mr Hisami is a man of action,’ said Speight, ‘he has undeniably donated large sums to humanitarian causes. He has used this as a cover to supply money to buy weapons for the Kurdish forces within the last few months.’ He reached down and retrieved some papers. ‘I have documentation here, which I enter in the record, that shows in excess of $50 million of transfers to accounts known to be operated by the Kurds. All I ask Mr Hisami now, is where are the medical centres and hospitals?
