The Deadliest Strain

Chapter Thirty-Three

Austyn ended the call and dropped the phone into his bag on the backseat of the BMW. Both vehicles had stopped in the middle of the dirt road. The four doors were open, allowing the breeze to blow through. Their Kurdish escorts were huddled together near the front vehicle. There was no other car in either direction as far as he could see. While he'd been on the phone with Faas Hanlon, he'd seen Fahimah reach over and tell the driver something in Kurdish. Shortly after, they pulled off the main road onto the winding dirt path that took them here.

Austyn didn't know why they were here, but he trusted Fahimah. She'd been robbed of her homeland for five years. Despite the crisis that everyone at home was dealing with, he would not rob her of the right to take a few minutes to herself.

He looked straight ahead. Fields of green grass were bisected by the two worn dirt tracks of the road. Across the flat landscape, in the distance he could see the Zagros Mountains. Fahimah had been generous in answering his questions, and as a result he had a good sense of the geography of the area.

Planting one elbow on top of the BMW, he watched Fahimah moving inside a fenced-in area in the distance. He saw her crouch down. Two large tricolor Kurdish flags had been planted in the ground by the opening in the fence. Even from here, Austyn could see the broad horizontal stripes of red, white and green, with the golden sun in the center. The two waving flags stood in bright contrast against the increasingly clouded sky. He knew this place had to be a memorial of some sort.

The wind whipped at his shirt, pushing the open door of the car against him. Though the breeze earlier had been comfortably warm, there was now a chill in the air that he hadn't felt since arriving in Kurdistan.

The place had an eerie feel to it. It was lonely, with nothing in sight but the mountains and the sky. Even so, there was a stark beauty here. He remembered the saying that he'd heard a few times since arriving here. The Kurds have no friends but the mountains.

Austyn saw their driver step away from the other three in his group and walk over to him. He wished he spoke Kurdish.

The driver said something in rapid Kurdish. Austyn shook his head. He searched in his pockets and took out a piece of paper. He'd asked Ken to write some must-know sentences down for him.

"Ez ji te te nagehim." Austyn looked up. This was supposed to mean that he didn't understand. He hoped Ken had been right.

The driver nodded encouragingly. "Okay… okay…" he said in English. He pointed to where Fahimah was. "Bra… Bra…" He held out one hand and counted off three fingers.

"Brothers?" Austyn asked. Suddenly, the reality of this place came through to him. He remembered what she'd told him about losing her three brothers before the Anfal campaign.

The driver nodded gravely.

This was one of the killing fields. One of the mass graves that Saddam's people used to bury scores or hundreds of innocent victims.

He looked at her in the distance, crouched on the ground, one lone human being against the mountains. Austyn felt his throat close. There was something extremely sad about this scene, about what her life had become.

"Boro," the man told him.

Austyn looked at him in confusion.

"Boro." He tapped Austyn on the shoulder and motioned to where Fahimah was. "Hari."

Austyn decided he was telling him to go to her. He didn't have to be asked again.

Against the majestic backdrop of the mountains surrounding them, with each step Austyn felt smaller. His past, his life, all seemed so insignificant. The beauty of the place was magnificent, and the tragedy that these hills had witnessed was devastating.

He remembered reading that new mass graves had been discovered almost on a daily basis after Saddam's fall. Some sites contained hundreds of bodies, while some were so full of human remains piled on top of one another that no one could keep count of the victims. The broken bones and skulls, the scraps of clothing, told a horrifying story. The Kurds said 300,000 had died during Saddam's twenty-four-year rule. Some said there were more, others less. Austyn couldn't understand those who argued numbers. One life lost was too many.

She didn't see him until he reached the opening of the fence. She'd wrapped a scarf around her head. When she lifted her face to the wind, the edges of the scarf fought to fly free. He saw the tears.

She didn't move. He went to her and crouched down next to her.

There were no headstones. No individual names, only a small plaque with writing in Kurdish.

He pointed to the plaque. "What does it say?"

"Killing field. The bodies of one hundred and twenty-two men from Halabja were found at this site. The plans for a monument are in progress."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "When did you find out about this place?"

"The friends I saw in Erbil told me that while I was away this mass grave had been found. My three brothers' remains were among the hundred and twenty-two bodies that they'd found."

Her fingers continued to take fistfuls of the dirt and hold it up into the wind. Austyn watched the clouds of sand fly off.

"How old were your brothers?"

"Twenty, eighteen and twelve when they were taken," she said. "Aref was the eldest. He was smarter than all the rest of us. Studying extra hours on his own, he skipped three grades. He was hoping to save enough money and perhaps someday go to the university."

Austyn understood her need to talk about them. She'd never had closure. He thought of his own family. He still had his parents, had never lost a sibling, and had enjoyed a comfortable life for all his thirty-eight years. He'd never felt inclined to marry and have children, because that constituted too much responsibility. How different and privileged a life he'd led, compared to how Fahimah had lived.

He looked at her profile. "What did he do?"

"He was an electrician. He could fix anything. That was another thing that he'd taught himself. Later on, he made good money doing odd jobs for people. Many hired him." More tears fell on her pale cheeks. "Then came Mohsen. He was eighteen. He liked to play the part of big brother to me and Rahaf. He always worked well with his hands. He would never say no to someone needing his help. He was loved by everyone who met him, even if they'd had only one meeting with him. People remembered him. Rahaf and I were very close to him. He took great enjoyment in watching over us. He was a great joker, too."

A gust of wind threatened to steal her scarf. She grabbed it and tied it around her neck.

"Of the five of us, many thought Mohsen and I were twins. We had the same eyes, the same color hair. We were only two years apart in age. Mohsen wasn't much of a student, so we were even in the same grade." She touched her left ear. "We even had a mark in the same place."

She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. Austyn searched in his pockets, but he had no tissue. 'Tell me about your youngest brother."

"Arsalan." A gentle smile broke across her lips. "He was destined to live the meaning of his name."

"What does Arsalan mean?" he asked.

"Lion, brave. At the age of twelve, he was taller than all of us. He had the build of a man and the courage of a lion. He felt he was the protector of all of us."

"They took away a twelve-year-old?"

Fahimah sat up straight, bent her head back and lifted her face to the sky. Austyn watched her eyes close as tears rolled down her cheeks. No sounds came out of her throat. She displayed no anger at the hand fate had dealt her family.

He never remembered a time that he'd felt more useless than at this moment. He wanted to gather her into his arms, comfort her, but he knew she needed this. After a moment, though, he couldn't stop himself. He reached out and gently touched her arm.

"Tell me about it," he said, hoping that the more she talked, the easier it would be later.

She struggled to bring her emotions under control. Austyn waited, finding the patience that he'd been missing for all his life. He sat next to her, realizing he could sit here with this woman for a very long time, perhaps for the rest of his life.

"It was a winter day," she started raggedly, "when the Iraqi soldiers swept through some of the neighborhoods in Halabja. We'd heard about the arrests, but our corner of the world in Halabja had never been a target for anything… until that day. Rahaf and I were away with our parents, visiting a cousin. One of the houses the soldiers raided was ours. Their instructions were to collect all men between the ages of fifteen and fifty for questioning. But there was no rigorous check of identity documents. A neighbor, who was taken away with my three brothers, later escaped. He told us when they shoved Arsalan in with everyone else in the back of the truck, our two older brothers spoke out, saying he was only a child of twelve. Arsalan denied their words. He told the soldiers he was old enough to carry a gun for Kurdistan and insisted on being taken away with his brothers."

She tugged at the scarf at her neck and wiped her face with it.

"We never saw them again."

"Did you know they were dead?" he asked.

"The same neighbor told us that all of them were taken to a detention center where trucks rolled into a central courtyard. He called it the parade ground. Other trucks would come in with women and children. The process was brutal. The men would be divided by age. Small children would be kept with their mothers. The elderly and infirm were sent off to their own corners."

She wiped at a new wave of tears.

"Men and teenage boys considered to be old enough to use a weapon were herded together."

Austyn watched her take a deep breath. She was having a hard time talking without becoming overcome with grief. So much of what had happened during Saddam's Anfal campaign had been little more than a news flash that ran across the screen for the people of the West. At the time, in 1988, he doubted that more than a few people in the U.S. realized the extent of this genocide, which included ground offensives, aerial bombing, the systematic destruction of settlements, mass deportation, concentration camps, firing squads and chemical warfare. All of it created to kill innocent people, simply because of their ethnic background.

"Our neighbor told us that the male detainees were hustled into an overcrowded hall, where they were exposed to constant beating and torture for several days. And then, without an exception, the men were trucked off to be killed in mass executions." She broke down again.

Not able to stop himself, Austyn gathered her into his arms. She was shivering violently but forced herself to keep speaking.

"Our neighbor saw my brothers taken away in the truck ahead of him. He told us he heard the sound of the gunshots, people screaming. The truck he was in carried him to another site. There was a long trench there filled with dead bodies, like sardines. He was made to stand up with the others, shoulder to shoulder, next to the trench, before Iraqi soldiers fired their guns at them. The bullets wounded him badly, but he didn't die. He was one of two men who crawled out of the mass grave after being buried alive. It took him a long time to be well enough to return to Halabja. By then, we were all gone."

He could feel her tears soaking into his shirt. He rested his chin on her head, gathering her against him with all of his strength. She'd been suffering with the pain of this loss for too many years. And even here, at this sacred site, he knew this ground was only a symbol of all the other places where people had lost their lives.

Austyn knew why there were no names on that plaque or on so many others like it. Many people remained unaccounted for.

Still, people needed closure. Fahimah needed it, as well.