The Girl in Green (35 page)

The sharpness of the pain is giving way to a debilitating throb and tenderness. He fears the coming of the next wave more than the experience of the pain itself — like stepping on a tack and waiting for the mind to register what the eyes have already understood.

‘We're different, all right,' Benton says, catching his breath and regaining himself as he puts pressure on the wound. ‘We have done terrible things. But we've responded by trying to make a more humane world. And we see our failures in the light of what we're trying to achieve. To make a better way of life.'

‘The only way of life,' Abu Larry says, ‘is the Koran.'

Herb Reston is on the phone, speaking with the Iraqi government. Herb has historically been diplomatic and has a reputation for having a steady temperament, but reason has its limits. Herb's personal philosophy for getting things done has always been a linear one that starts from the head and works its way down. First, use your brain. Then, trust your heart. If that doesn't work, trust your gut. And when all else fails, it's time to use your balls.

The primary reason for his current sinking feeling is that, though well educated in the tenets of Christian charity by his mother, Herbert Reston does not suffer fools lightly.

And he is talking to an idiot.

‘Kasim, if you tell me where you're going to attack, I'll know if my people will be safe when you do, because I know their location. All I need to know is the time and location of the planned assault. I know it's classified, so give me a window and a zone. That's all I need. I need to see if my people are inside it or outside it, and then I can devise a strategy.'

‘Yes, yes, Mr Herbert, but if you tell me where they are exactly, I will be able to tell you if they will be safe.'

‘I don't want to tell you where they are, because someone in your military might choose to bomb them, since they are probably located in a terrorist safe haven, and the whole purpose of your operation is to strike them. So how about you tell me where you're planning to attack?'

‘Unfortunately, Mr Herbert, it is a military operation, and I cannot share the specifics of the operation, as these are very secret. Very, very secret. So it is better if you tell me where they are. I will tell people the coordinates.'

‘Well, the thing is, Kasim, I've seen the Iraqi military in action, and I know a thing or two about how you share information and coordinate. I also know you're mostly staffed by Shiites, and my people are probably being held by Sunnis who used to run this country under Saddam, and they slaughtered the Shiites. So forgive me if I err on the side of caution here—'

Kasim turns it around again as though they are bartering over pirated CDs at the market. After five minutes of this, Herb gives up on specifics and tries for generalities.

‘Are you attacking into Ninawa?'

‘Oh yes, definitely.'

‘South of that?'

‘Hard to say.'

‘North of that?'

‘I'm not sure.'

‘In the mountains?'

‘Maybe in the mountains. Maybe not.'

‘Will you be using helicopters?'

‘Helicopters are very effective.'

‘So are friends,' Herb says, and hangs up.

Tigger asks Herb what Kasim said, and Herb gives Tigger a look that means Kasim will not be receiving a Christmas card from the IRSG this year.

‘This Iraqi government is useless,' Herb says.

‘Would you rather have the last government, this one, or the next one?' Tigger asks.

‘The last one was hanged by its neck and deserved it; this one is corrupt, tribal, and hapless; and the next one will make Iraq the world's first terrorist caliphate. Personally? I think we should bring the troops back in, stop worrying about what the liberals say, and recognise we're at war with jihadist Islam and that we need to win like we won against the Communists,' Herb says.

‘You want to fight more wars?'

‘America will do what it has to do. Because that's the American way.'

‘Let me tell you a story, my friend. In the thirteenth century, a Spanish scholar named Don Juan Manuel referred to his country's occupation by the Muslim Moors since 711 AD as the
guerra fr
í
a
. The cold war. It was not a war of swords, but a war of ideas. We are still in this war. But we are winning it, no matter the momentary gains of these ISIL people. You know why? Because they are surrounded by ideas they cannot fight, because they are ideas they cannot answer. On one side are the real teachings of the Prophet — love, kindness, tolerance. And on the other are Western ideas so deep, so significant, we don't even notice them. They are the air we now breathe. And the most significant of these ideas? Romantic love. It is the most disruptive and transformative power in the history of the world. Terrorists are powerless against it. We support love, and they will lose.'

‘That is dreamy bullshit.'

‘No, no. Consider it. Think of Romeo and Juliet. “Two houses, both alike in dignity,” we are first told. Why? Because the houses are the power, and dignity is the currency of that realm. We need to know this so we can understand that what keeps the lovers apart is not a higher justice, but a higher power. And then, here come these two children who defy and disrupt the underlying social order, and who die for their efforts because their humanity cannot survive in concert with that world. The moment Shakespeare makes our sympathies go to them, the system is overturned. Personal love is very disruptive to tribal thinking. And what of Juliet? A young woman? Romantic love empowered her to be equal to a man, to choose her own destiny, to make her own choices, to be in absolute control over her own body and her own heart. It is the first truly feminist story. It validated love, and fuelled a revolution.

‘These people, this ISIL, we should fight them, yes. We can bomb them, yes. But that's not a strategy for victory. This is a
guerra fr
í
a
. Victory lies in replacing their social order, which is why they are afraid, and they should be. And our secret weapon? It is not drones. Quite the opposite. It is women. We should free them, educate them, give them power — put a Juliet in every village. They will change the world. This is why Boko Haram is so afraid of the girls and abducts them, why the Taliban will not educate them, why ISIL murders those in Western clothes and who think freely. Women. They are how the West will win. They are how love will prevail.'

‘You are so relentlessly French.'

‘Thank you.'

‘I hate this waiting.'

‘I feel the same. But the silence upsets me more. I would rather argue with you.'

‘What do we know from Sharo?' Herb asks.

‘He made the drop, and got back safely. Beyond that, we're in the dark.'

‘What do we know from Clip?' Herb asks.

‘I gave them some names, and after doing some checking they've agreed with my recommendation for a communicator. He's a professor of dentistry at Hawler Medical University in Erbil. He's from a village not far from the Sinjar Mountains. He's Sunni, and his wife is a Kurd. Clip said that if we protect his identity, his voice will not implicate him. Apparently, his accent is so hypnotically generic that some of his patients pass out without anaesthesia.'

‘Why did he agree to do it?'

‘He hates the jihadists, and Firefly is going to pay him. It's a win-win for him.'

‘We trust him?'

‘We trust him to convey information responsibly, yes.'

‘When are we supposed to hear from him?'

‘As soon as he hears from the hostage-takers.'

‘Any other news?'

‘I learned recently that the can opener was not invented for a full eighty years after the invention of the can.'

‘What's your point? That nothing is inevitable?' Herb asks.

‘Maybe. Or that even the inevitable takes time.'

31

Märta has returned to the house. She is sitting on the red thinking chair, hoping it'll live up to its name. Herb is leaning against the countertop where Märta stood last night, and Tigger is sacked out on the sofa. Clip is on the speakerphone.

Tigger has heard from the dentist. There are decisions to be made.

‘What did he say?' Märta asks Tigger.

‘He said he'd been contacted. He said the man on the other end of the phone did not sound Iraqi. He sounded foreign, perhaps Yemeni. He wasn't sure. The dentist said the man was calm and professional, and therefore very scary. The dentist explained to this man — who has no name — that he is only our communicator. He said he does not work for any party, is doing this as a favour, and he has no power to make decisions. After he said this, the man on the other end said that he will not speak with a go-between and will speak only to the decision-maker himself. Our dentist explained that this is not a better solution, because the organisation forbids such direct contact. It is beyond his control. This way, with his own involvement, the path is more clear for a settlement. Then he asked if the hostage-takers had any requests or demands they wanted him to pass on. The kidnapper said yes, that he is to explain that if the decision-maker does not meet him face-to-face, he will kill everyone to help fill his quota. The dentist asked for proof that our people are alive. The man ignored him, and said that we are to come to the village on Sinjar. The market we used for the letter drop, he explained, also serves tea. We should come there, and then they will talk further. That was all. He gave us the day to make a choice.'

‘What does that mean,' Märta asks, ‘about making a quota?'

‘ISIL,' says Herb, ‘have apparently become Terrorism, Inc. They actually put out reports of the number of people they've killed, how, and when. In August, they published one detailing their attack metrics. I don't even remember the categories, but they're keeping numbers on their assassinations, bombings, suicide-vest attacks, cities taken over, IEDs, houses burned — you name it. That was from the 2011–2012 period, when most of us had barely heard of these guys. And there's PR material now in English, profiling suicide bombers, giving bomb-making instructions, explaining the best places to kill the most civilians, and quotes from the Koran explaining why all this is a grand idea. It's never been easier to step into their minds and lose your own.'

‘What are we going to do?' Tigger asks, his leg bouncing slightly on his knee. ‘We go to the meet, we probably die. We don't go, our people almost certainly die.'

‘If we show up,' Herb says, ‘we are giving them more hostages or more bodies. Going there is out of the question. Clip, you still on the line?'

‘I'm here, Herb,' a voice confirms from the loudspeaker on the computer. ‘You're right. You can't go. Maybe we can offer them money.'

‘We don't negotiate with terrorists,' Herb says to Clip. ‘And that's not just my opinion. UN resolution 1373 was passed after September 11, and we're supposed to comply with it. It explicitly prevents the financing of terrorist organisations. We're not supposed to pay them off. We're not supposed to negotiate with them.'

‘Everyone is paying these people off,' Märta says.

‘You used to be Red Cross,' Herb says. ‘They have never once paid to get someone back. And their people are safer for it.'

Tigger makes a wildly exaggerated arm movement and blows a raspberry through his lips that could have filled a balloon. ‘We are negotiating with terrorists! We're aggressively doing our very best as a team to negotiate with terrorists. No, we don't want to give them money or more hostages, that much is true, but please, spare me the high-level legal rhetoric. This is the real world. Here in the dirt.
Merde.
'

‘I'm meeting with them,' Märta says.

At which point, the three men fall silent.

‘That is out of the question,' Herb says.

‘That's right. You can't possibly,' Tigger says. ‘And you are a blonde woman. They would love to kill a blonde woman after raping you to death.'

‘I just sent a motorcycle medic into the lion's den, and he's home again,' Märta says. ‘The Kurds will not deliberately fire on us. Neither will the military. That leaves Sunni tribesmen, who might, and ISIL. If ISIL are extending the invitation and think they might get something out of it, it makes sense to conclude that we have negotiated access to them. The best protection would be to use a marked vehicle and to let everyone know who we are and why we're there, and make sure they're OK with it. You boys are missing the big move here. We have negotiated access.'

‘If the ICRC has better access,' Tigger says, ‘why not use them?'

‘Louise won't let us in one of her vehicles until we have an agreement with the kidnappers. We have an invitation, not an agreement. This step belongs to us. It's only one step away.'

‘I'll go,' Herb says.

‘No, I'll go,' Tigger says. ‘It makes more sense.'