“In 2000,” continued Cohen, “old Assad dies, to be succeeded by his surviving second son, the ophthalmologist without a chin or a scruple.”

“What happened to his first son?” asked Bob.

“Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies,” said Gold.

“Well, that’s assuring,” said Bob.

“Assad Two’s first priority is to repair the enmity his father created by siding with the coalition and invading Kuwait in ’90. Thus, in 2003, after the destruction of the Iraqi army and the occupation of Iraq by the Americans, he authorizes sending military advisors to the insurrection. At that point, he has the largest, most well-trained and -equipped army in the Middle East. Among the technicians and tacticians he sends is our Grim Reaper, Sergeant Alaqua.

“There seems to have been no initial plan to turn him into a legend,” said Gold. “But he found the ruins of Baghdad an excellent place to practice his craft, he found these disgruntled ex-soldiers of the Iraqi Republican Guard highly motivated students. They were blooded, they were aggressive, they had no fear of death. They were the worst kind of patriots: they lived to kill or die, and it didn’t much matter to them which. We could cite numbers and show you the marine reports, if you wish—”

“I’ve picked up enough from the fellows I know,” Bob said.

He didn’t like to think of it. The kids were fine as infantrymen when they had lots of high explosives a radio signal away, the American way of war. But the shattered wilderness of a city, all confusion and confinement, where the bad guys knew the streets so much better, the kids—at least the first rotation of them—were just so many sitting ducks.

Bob thought sourly that Tom McDowell had been one of those ducks.

“Against the sacrifice of Iwo Jima, Baghdad is nothing,” said Gold. “But of course America—and the West and Israel—has lost the will to sustain casualties on a steady basis. When the numbers begin to rise, the parents begin to panic and the media begins to notice. It shows that the true realpolitik of the world is demographics.”

“But we did turn it around?”