extremely dark, and the thick beard hid most of the lower half of his long face. The salt-and-pepper expanse was broken only by a long, diagonal scar that ran from the left corner of his mouth to just behind his chin. It was a memento of the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when his was one of over eighty Syrian planes shot down in the Bekaa Valley. Ibrahim felt humbled to be with him and deeply honored to be serving under him.
'The trunk of your automobile,' Walid said. 'It appears light.'
'Why?'
'American satellites,' Mahmoud said. 'Our man at the palace in Damascus says that the satellites can see everywhere and everything in the Middle East. Even footprints. We have crossed sand in many places, and these satellites are able to measure the depth of tire tracks.'
'They dare to be like unto the Mighty One, the Merciful,' Walid said. He turned his face toward the skies. It was a face eroded by the hot sun and years of stress. 'Allah's eyes are the only ones that matter!' he cried. 'But we are told to keep vigil against our enemies,' he said to Mahmoud. 'You've acted wisely.'
'Thank you,' Mahmoud replied. 'Also, the sentries on our own border might have noticed the weight. I didn't want them to move against them.'
Walid regarded Mahmoud and his companions. 'Of course not. We are peaceful, as the Koran teaches. Murder is forbidden.' Walid raised his hands toward the heavens. 'But killing in self-defense is not murder. If an oppressor lays violent hands upon us, are we not obliged to cut them off? If he writes ill of us, do we not sever the tips of his fingers?'
'If it is the will of God,' said Mahmoud.
'It is the will of God,' Walid confirmed. 'We are His hand. Does the hand of God shy from an enemy, however great his numbers?'
'Is it not inscribed in the Celestial Plate, and thus inerrant? 'There was a sign for you in the two armies which met on the battlefield. One was fighting for the cause of God; the other was a host of unbelievers. The faithful saw with their very eyes that they were twice their own number. But God strengthens with His aid whom He will.' Is God not offended by our treatment at the hands of the Turks?' Walid asked, his voice rising. 'Are we not the chosen instruments of God?'
Ibrahim's response was quieter than that of his companions. He was no less devout than Walid or Mahmoud. But he believed, as did most, that the Koran advocated justice and not retribution. It was a matter of some debate between Ibrahim and his family, just as it was throughout Islam. Yet the Koran also taught devotion and fealty. When attacks against the Kurds had begun to intensify and Mahmoud had asked him to join the group, Ibrahim could not have refused.
Walid lowered his hands. He regarded Mahmoud's team. 'Are you ready to move on?'
'We are,' said Mahmoud.
'Then let us first pray,' said Walid. Acting the role of the
As Walid spoke, the men removed their prayer rugs from the cars and placed them on the ground. The
The prayers consisted of several minutes of private recitations from the Koran as well as personal meditations. When they were finished, the men returned to their cars. A short time later they were driving northeast toward the small, old city. As they did, Ibrahim reflected that they were one more caravan among the countless caravans that had passed this way since the beginning of civilization. Each had had its own means of travel, its own personality, its own goals. That thought gave Ibrahim a precious sense of continuity, but also of insignificance. For each set of footprints lasted no more than a moment in the impermanent sands of al- Gezira.
Qamishli passed quickly. Ibrahim paid no attention to the ancient minarets and the cluttered market. He ignored the Turks and Syrians who mingled freely in this border city. His mind was on the job and on his faith, not as separate things but as one. He reflected on how the Koran speaks of Judgment Day, the final fulfillment of both God's threat and His promise. He thought about how those who live according to the holy words and commandments will join the other faithful and the alluring, virginal
After they passed through the village, the cars moved on toward the Turkish border. Ibrahim rolled down his window.
The border crossing consisted of two sentry posts, one behind the other. One was Syrian, the other Turkish. There was a gate arm beside each booth and thirty yards of roadway between them. The road was weed-strewn on the Syrian side, clean on the Turkish side.
Walid's car was in the front of the caravan, Ibrahim's in the rear. Walid presented the visas and passports for his car. After the clerk examined them, he signaled an armed guard beside him to raise the gate arm.
Ibrahim began to feel the weight of destiny on his shoulders. He had a specific goal, the one Walid had selected for them. But he also had a personal mission. He was a Kurd, one of the traditionally nomadic peoples of the plateau and mountain regions of eastern Turkey, northern Syria, northeastern Iraq, and northwestern Iran.
Since the middle 1980s, the many guerrilla factions of the Kurds living and operating in Turkey had fought repression by the Turks, who feared that Kurdish autonomy would lead to a new and hostile Kurdistan comprised of portions of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. This was not a religious issue, but a cultural, linguistic, and political one.
The undeclared war had claimed twenty thousand lives by 1996. Ibrahim did not become involved until then, when water became even scarcer in the region due to Turkish operations and his cattle began to die of thirst. Although Ibrahim had served in the Syrian Air Force as a mechanic, he had never been a militant. He believed in the Koran's teachings of peace and harmony. But he also felt that Turkey was strangling his people, and the genocide could not go unavenged.
In the two years that Ibrahim had been part of the eleven-man band, the work had taken on an importance all its own. Acts of terrorism and sabotage in Turkey were no longer just a matter of vengeance to him. As Walid had said, Allah would decide whether there was ever to be a new Kurdistan. In the meantime, the rebel actions were a way of reminding the Turks that the Kurds were determined to be free with or without a homeland.
Typically, two, three, or four of the men would sneak into the country at night, elude the border patrols, and disable a power station or pipeline or snipe at soldiers. But today's objective was different. Two months before, Turkish troops had taken advantage of a spring thaw and a unilateral cease-fire with Turkish Kurds to begin a massive offensive against the rebels. Over one hundred Kurdish freedom fighters had been killed in three days of relentless combat. The attack had been designed to quiet the western regions before Turkey turned its attention to the east. There, territorial disputes with Greece as well as tension between Christian Athens and Islamic Ankara were becoming more and more intense.
Walid and Kenan Demirel, a leader of the Turkish Kurds, had decided that the latest aggression could not go unpunished. Nor would the strike be small, worked by a team that snuck over the border. They would enter the country boldly and show the enemy that acts of oppression and betrayal would not be tolerated.
The caravan passed a black wooden stake stuck in the side of the road. They were in Turkey now. When they reached the Turkish gate, an armed guard poked the barrel of an M1A1 submachine gun through a small opening cut in the glass. His companion emerged and walked over to Walid's car. He wore a 9mm Capinda Tabanca in a crisp new holster.
The agent bent and looked into the car. 'Your passports, please.'
'Certainly,' Walid said. He slid the bundle of small orange documents from a pocket in the visor. He smiled as he handed the documents to the official.
