Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (17 page)

He stopped all at once and looked at the
four of them, his gaze passing from one to the other as if he had just caught
on to something.

“What happened?” Qassem asked.

“Nothing.” Karma shrugged.

Qassem and Liam exchanged glances. They
both realized that the youngster was under pressure and had been subjected to the
intense interrogation of the past hour and had answered a flood of questions. 
He signaled them to stop and said: 

“Good,
Halas, (that’s enough).”

But Jim did desist.  He was not
satisfied with what he had heard and thought it was important to learn more
about what was happening there, in the distant Turkish Mountains.

“Wait, you didn’t say who the people,
who brought the packages to the last meeting, where or what they talked about
there."

In response, he heard Qassem.

“Commander, I suggest we take a break,
with your permission, Sir!”

Qassem stood up and saluted. Without
waiting for approval, he grabbed Karma’s arm and went out of the room with him. 
Outside, Karma stared at him.

“I’m scared I did something bad,” he
whispered.  “Perhaps I should not have given names and…”

“On the contrary, I want to tell you
that if Hamis or Dugar or Robin had known that you would get here, to the USA,
they would have treated you differently and would have given you a detailed
list of the supplies they need.”

“Is that how you think?” Karma mumbled.

“Listen to me, man, you have no idea how
much you have helped them now.  I think you’ve made their day.  You have contributed
more than any other Kurdish hero who fought the soldiers and their army.” 

Karma stopped and looked at him,

“Are you sure?” He asked hesitantly.

His shaggy-eared dog got to its feet,
sniffed at Qassem’s trousers, rubbed against his master’s leg and wagged his
tail.

It was already dark outside and Karma
turned his face toward the wind.  He tried to cool the storm that had gripped
his spirit, turned away from Qassem, and waved his fist in the air, presuming
that no one saw his enormous excitement.

That night they climbed into a jeep and
set out on their way.

Qassem sat beside him and felt a sense
of ownership over this Kurdish boy. 

He recalled his childhood when he had
also run around between the Kurdish tents in the Iraqi Mountains, an adolescent
boy among abandoned youths and children.  He also wandered to the large cities,
sought work and sustenance.  Just like the boy beside him, he joined the forces
of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq with enthusiasm and full of faith. In his time, they
still operated within the country, against an army that was ten times more powerful
in terms of weapons, fighting forces and organization.

He knew that the boy was right, because
many of his friends were caught and put to death.  They were informed that the
authorities were looking for the runaway fighters, and he decided to get away
and leave the area.  He had run away like many other drifting survivors of the
organization.

Qassem recalled how, under cover of
night, he climbed into a parked truck and hid under a tarpaulin that had been
stretched over mounds of red sand.  When the driver came and the journey began,
he was rocked for hours till the truck stopped.  Qassem peeped from under the
tarpaulin and saw ships anchored at sea.  He didn’t know he was at the harbor
on the Straits of Hormuz.  Here, he climbed down from the truck, wandered
around looking for work and joined a team loading goods on the ships and worked
for a few days.

One day, after offloading a bag of flour
from his back in the vessel's hold, he decided to stay there, and not climb
back on deck.  He sat between the sacks, where he fell asleep and only woke up when
the siren sounded and the anchor was raised.  He didn’t know where they were
sailing to and it didn’t interest him.  When he came out to find something to
eat, his presence as a stowaway was discovered and he was brought before the
Captain.  The man decided that the stowaway would pay for his passage with unpaid
hard labor.  Qassem bowed his head in submission but thought that he had just
been given a free ride to the big world.

He discovered two more stowaways on this
ship, who had fled from Iran’s killing fields.  They also joined the labor crew
of the freighter and worked for humble meals and a brighter future.  After many
turbulent days at sea, the vessel reached the USA and they eventually found
themselves in the training tents of Mujahedin-e-Khalq in the Nevada Desert.

At the end of the training period, they
sent a group of fighters, with Qassem among them, back to their country,
equipped with weapons and plans.  Qassem found himself participating in
guerilla attacks, hiding behind hills and coming out to attack automobiles, in
which, they were informed, Iranian government officials were traveling.

He shuddered as he recalled the stressful
experiences of those days.  He had lived in caves and roamed between rocks and
forests and his reward was to return to the USA, where received higher rank and
a new position.  His job was to enlist recruits to the organization.  Now, he
looked at Karma, happy to be escorting the youth and felt he was reliving and
reviving his adolescence.

They reached their destination at dawn,
got out of the car and Karma stopped.  He saw the sea of dusty tents that
stretched to the horizon and memory threw him back to his childhood.  He pursed
his lips to prevent himself from laughing when he thought he might find Nana
Kahit in one of the tents.  The scent of her embrace returned to him and he turned
aside to conceal his emotions.

This was the training camp for Kurdish and
Iranian exiles, who trained under the name ‘Mujahedin-e-Khalq’ and it was from
here that the trained units set off on their assignments.

From the start, Karma
attracted attention. He had the gifts of intelligence and an impressive
appearance.

“Where are you from?”  Tell us something
about yourself and your life.” 

He solved this by making his life story
very brief and summed up his childhood and boyhood.

“I come from the tents in the Turkish
Mountains, roamed the streets of the city of Wan and took rides with anyone who
gave me work.” 

One day, his three recruiters, Qassem, Bill,
and Liam, came to see him.  They were accompanied by two other people, a man
with slanted eyes that peered through frameless glasses and a tall woman in a
galabiya and abaya, whose huge, almost colorless eyes attracted everyone’s
attention.  Karma was called to this meeting and this was the second time that he
heard the name ‘Mossad’ in the same breath as that of the ‘Mujahedin-e-Khalq’,
as well as that of the State of Israel.

The woman introduced herself as a
tourist guide and suggested tour sites and San, with the slanted eyes, raised
subjects for discussion.  He listened more than he talked and tried to get
information from Karma, of whose name he had already heard.

That evening, a car awaited him and took
him away.  When they reached the neighborhood where he was living, they stopped
and Karma looked at the high rise buildings he saw now for the first time.

The elevator was also a novelty.  It
went up to the third floor.  Two people were waiting for him.  San and a woman
shook hands with him.  Karma did not recognize that she was the woman, who had
accompanied San in the morning.  Her hair was uncovered and she was dressed in
trousers and a shirt.

            Karma
was not accustomed to meeting women and her beauty stunned him.  He blushed to
the roots of his hair and was embarrassed by the touch of her hand.  When she
smiled, and her two dimples deepened in her cheeks, his mouth hung open in amazement.
San could not stop grinning and signaled to Abigail to withdraw, understanding
Karma’s confusion yet amused by his response. Karma cleared his throat and
coughed lightly then said something that stole San’s heart.

            “Oh,
I have just discovered my weakness,” He said.  “But, you, madam, are more
beautiful than should be legal.”

            Abigail
laughed as she said: 

            “Admit
it; you almost got caught in the net, my dear.”

            “That’s
right,” he admitted.  “But I remember that my grandmother, who brought me up, told
me that if I trip up, I must remember how it happened so I wouldn’t let it
happen again.”

            As
they both laughed, they looked at one another and he added:

            "But,
I think in some cases it is worth repeating the mistake and this seems to be
one of them.”

            The
atmosphere was light-hearted and had nothing to do with topics of war and Karma
wondered what the purpose of the meeting could be.  At some point, Abigail got
up and went out of the apartment and the expression on the face of the man
sitting opposite him grew serious.  In the minutes that followed, Karma
listened to details of where they intended sending him.

            “Initially
you will return and be placed with the combat forces and you will fight with
them, after which…”

            “Will
that take a long time?” Karma inquired.

            The
youth’s over-enthusiastic response actually helped San assess that he had not grasped
the intensity of the danger involved in organization’s assignments. He wondered
if it would not be better to wait for longer than had been planned before
sending him out.

            “Look,
it isn’t something that is going to happen tomorrow or the next day.”

“Okay, I would only like to know whether
I am designated to remain a combat soldier or whether I will be in command of a
group of them.”

“We shall see,” San replied.

He could not have known
how long it would take till this youth would be revealed in all his greatness
and strength many years later.

Two days later, Karma set out on an
assignment together with a group of the organization’s fighters.

They secretly infiltrated the Iranian
State, arranged themselves into small units and dispersed to different points. 
Their goal was to hit out and strike everything they could.

One out of the many assignments and
ambushes he participated in that was indelibly marked in Karma’s memory was the
last one, which stayed with him for many days.  A cell of five young men, led
by Talabani, was selected for this unique assignment.

They had information of a convoy of cars
traveling that evening.  Dignitaries in the cars would include members of the
“Majles” and senior Iranian government officials.  The cell was to lie in wait
for the convoy and wipe out everyone in the cars.

The members of the cell gathered for a
briefing in the evening.  They heard precise descriptions and instructions of
the security
detail that would be accompanying
the convoy, including the weapons at their disposal.  Talabani explained the
methods used to protect the vehicles in which they were traveling.  The way he
spoke made Karma understand that they were in especially great danger on this
occasion and it was the first time that he was frightened.

The truth was that Karma wanted to
fight, had always wanted to participate and be a hero among men but till that day
had not given much thought to the possibility of injury or even death.  Until
this event, he related to the assignments he joined as getaways and the flight
to hide afterward in places he found was an experience or an adventure for
him.  He was especially excited by the gathering of the men before and after
the assignments.  The danger involved was not part of what captured his
attention or occupied his thoughts. 

This time, two cells combined forces,
which added to his sense of suspense.

“Your task today is to reach the point
we selected, close to the route.  Those, whose names I call, will go down to
the road and set anti-tank mines and other explosive devices.  The rest of you
will fire from a distance at the remains of the vehicles after the attack.”

He stopped talking, looked at the men
before him and then continued speaking quietly.

“I am going to check that you’ve
organized your equipment, assembled it
and fixed the bullet
casings in the weapons so that you won’t be delayed when you are there.”

This was also the first time that the
person in charge came to them to check the dependability of their equipment. 
He wanted to ascertain that each of them knew exactly what role he was to play that
day and that is what heightened Karma’s tension.

They set out at 10 o’clock.  The
location of the planned ambush was not far away, but it was so dark that they
were compelled to stop several times to check they were moving in the right
direction.  As soon as they reached the selected location, the men split up
according to their tasks.

Karma was in the group of four that were
to go down to the paved road and set the explosives in place.  They slid down
the steep dirt path, sliding between the rocks, as they slipped and were caught
by the stinging branches of the undergrowth until they came to a stop at the
side of the highway.  One of them crossed to the other side and stood there to
watch out for the approaching vehicles and warn them.  The other three laid the
explosives on the shoulder of the highway and pulled the wires to the center of
the road so that the cars would drive over them.  All that was left now was for
them to climb back up to where they would set off the explosives by remote
control.