Acts of War

Iraq. He asked for unity. And the charismatic Walid al-Nasri, leader of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, agreed to help provide it.

Over the past few months, Ibrahim had spent all of his free time in Haseke, a quiet city to the southwest, working with the local patriots in the PKK of which his brother was an officer. As he made sure printing presses and cars were working as they were supposed to, Ibrahim had listened eagerly to Mahmoud's views about establishing a homeland. As he helped carry guns and bomb-making material under the cover of night, Ibrahim had listened to their bitter debates about unification with other Kurdish factions. As he relaxed after helping to train small groups of fighting men, he'd listened as arrangements were made to meet with Iraqi and Turkish Kurds, to plan for a homeland, to select a leader.

Ibrahim put his sunglasses back on. The world became dark again.

Today, the only reason most people cross al-Gezira is to travel to Turkey. That was true for Ibrahim, though he wasn't most people. Most people came with cameras to photograph the bazaars or the World War I trenches or the mosques. They came with maps and picks for archaeological digs, or with American jeans or Japanese electronics to sell on the black market.

Ibrahim and his team came with something else. A purpose. To return the waters to al-Gezira.

TWO

Monday, 1:22 p.m.,

Sanliurfa, Turkey

Attorney Lowell Coffey II stood on the shaded side of a nondescript, six-wheel white trailer and touched the hem of his red neckerchief. He dabbed away the sweat that was dripping into his eyes. He silently cursed the hum of the battery-powered engine that told him the air-conditioning was running inside the van. Then he stared across barren terrain, which was dotted with dry hills. Three hundred yards away was a deserted asphalt road that rippled beneath the afternoon heat. Beyond that, separated by three barren miles and more than five thousand years, was the city of Sanliurfa.

Thirty-three-year-old biophysicist Dr. Phil Katzen stood to the attorney's right. The long-haired scientist shielded his eyes as he looked toward the dusty outline of the ancient metropolis.

'Did you know, Lowell,' Katzen said, 'that ten thousand years ago, right where we're standing, is where beasts of burden were first domesticated? They were aurochs — wild ox. They tilled the soil right under our feet.'

'That's great,' Coffey said. 'And you can probably tell me what the soil composition was then too. Right?'

'No.' Katzen smiled. 'Only now. All of the nations in this region have to keep records like that to see how long the fanmlands'll hold out. I've got the soil file on diskette. As soon as Mike and Mary Rose are finished, I'll load it up if you want to read it.'

'No, thanks,' Coffey said. 'I have enough trouble retaining all the goddamn information I'm supposed to learn. I'm getting old, y'know.'

'You're thirty-nine,' Katzen said.

'Not much longer,' Coffey said. 'I was born forty years ago tomorrow.'

Katzen grinned. 'Well, happy birthday, counselor.'

'Thanks,' Coffey said, 'but it won't be. Like I said, I'm getting old, Phil.'

'Don't knock it,' Katzen said. He pointed toward Sanliurfa. 'When that place was young, forty was old. Back then most people lived to be about twenty. And not a healthy twenty at that. They were plagued by rotten teeth, broken bones, bad eyesight, athlete's foot, you-name-it. Hell, today the voting age in Turkey is twenty-one. Do you realize that ancient leaders in places like Uludere, Sirnak, and Batman couldn't even have voted for themselves?'

Coffey looked at him. 'There's a place called Batman?'

'Right on the Tigris,' Katzen said. 'See? There's always something new to learn. I spent a couple hours this morning learning about the ROC. Helluva machine Matt and Mary Rose designed. Knowledge keeps you young, Lowell.'

'Learning about Batman and the ROC aren't exactly things to live for,' Coffey said. 'And as far as your ancient Turks are concerned, with all the planting and sowing and irrigating and rock-hauling those people did, forty years old probably felt like eighty.'

'True enough.'

'And their life's work was probably the same job they'd been doing since they were ten,' Coffey said. 'Nowadays we're supposed to live longer and evolve, professionally.'

'You trying to say you haven't?' Katzen asked.

'I've evolved like the dodo,' Coffey said. 'Stasis and then extinction. By this time in my life I always thought I'd be an international heavy hitter, working for the President and negotiating trade and peace accords.'

'Ease up, Lowell' Katzen said. 'You're in the arena.'

'Yeah,' Coffey replied. 'The nosebleed seats. I'm working for a low-profile government agency nobody's ever heard of—'

'Low-profile doesn't mean lack of distinction,' Katzen pointed out.

'It does in my end of the arena,' Coffey replied. 'I work in a basement at Andrews Air Force Base — not even Washington, D.C., for God's sake — brokering necessary but unexciting deals with grudgingly hospitable nations like Turkey so that we can all spy on even less hospitable nations like Syria. On top of that, I'm roasting in the freakin' desert, sweat running down my legs into my goddamn socks, instead of arguing First Amendment cases in front of the Supreme Court.'

'You're also starting to whine,' Katzen said.

'Guilty,' Coffey said. 'Birthday boy's prerogative.'

Katzen pushed up the back of Coffey's felted wool Australian Outback hat so it covered his eyes. 'Lighten up. Not every useful job has to be a sexy one.'

'It isn't that,' Coffey replied. 'Well, maybe just a little it is.' He removed the Outback hat, used his index finger to wipe sweat from around the band, then settled the hat back on his dirty blond hair. 'I guess what I'm really saying is that I was a law prodigy, Phil. The Mozart of jurisprudence. I was reading my dad's statute law books when I was twelve. When all my friends wanted to be astronauts or baseball players, I was thinking it'd be cool to be a bail bondsman. I could've done most of this stuff when I was fourteen or fifteen.'

'Your suits would've been way too large,' Katzen deadpanned.

Coffey frowned. 'You know what I'm saying.'

'You're saying you haven't lived up to your potential,' Katzen said. 'Well, ditto, ditto, and welcome to the real world.'

'Being one disappointment among many doesn't make it sit any better, Phil,' Coffey replied.

Katzen shook his head. 'All I can say is, I wish I'd had you at my side when I was with Greenpeace.'

'Sorry,' Coffey said. 'I don't hurl my body off ship decks to protect baby harp seals or stop six-foot-six hunters from setting out raw meat to draw out black bears.

'I did both of those once,' Katzen said. 'I got my nose broke doing one and scared the hell out of the harp seal doing the other. The point is, I had these pro bono slackers who didn't know a porpoise from a dolphin. What's worse was they didn't give a shit. I was in your office when you negotiated our little visit with the Turkish ambassador. You gave it everything and you created a handsome piece of work.'

'I was dealing with a country that's got forty billion dollars of external debt, most of it to our country,' Coffey said. 'Getting them to see our point of view doesn't exactly put me in the genius class.'

'Bull,' Katzen said. 'The Islamic Development Bank holds a lot of Turkish chits as well, and they expert a lot of pro-fundamentalist pressure on these people.'

'Islamic law can't be imposed on the Turks,' Coffey replied, 'not even by a fiercely fundamentalist leader like the one they've got now. It says so in their Constitution.'