The story, so far. Tom’s battalion intelligence officer had told her that the men opposing 3/8 in that sector of Baghdad were thought to be refugees from the 2nd Armored Assault Brigade of the 5th Baghdad Mechanized Division of the 1st Republican Guard Corps. Crack troops who melted back into society after the end of the war, mostly from the capital city themselves, so they knew it pretty well. They came together on a strictly ad hoc basis in the southeast sector of the city, where 3/8 had been placed, and began guerrilla operations against the infidel invaders. At first, it wasn’t much: the odd IED, the bungled ambush, the sniper who missed, the constant betrayals, setbacks, mistakes, and sheer incompetence. But they learned fast.

So her first trip—and her second and even half of her third—was to find a veteran of that unit and of that campaign who would talk. Many false leads, much money stolen, many blind alleys in which, at least for the first time, the rape occurred.

Swagger had an image of this middle-class suburban American mom gone native in Baghdad, swaddled in the robes of the believers, knowing that at any moment she could be found out and be raped, beaten, or even murdered, at the same time being hunted by the alliance policemen who must have known she was there. She made mistakes, she got caught, she paid the price over and over, but somehow she kept on. Nothing scared her more than her son’s death going unpaid for.

Finally, she met a man, an ex-captain in the 2nd, now crippled by a gunship chain gun, and needy of money to support wife and family, and, as well, angry at the leadership that had led him to this sorry, provisional life.

“Assiz”—his name—knew. Knew something. Maybe not enough, maybe not all, but something. He told her of the outsider.

“He was from elsewhere,” Assiz told her, and didn’t take money for it. “Brigade Command brought him in. He was said to be skilled with a rifle. We were canvassed for our best shots. I lost two excellent gunners from my IED team. They went off—where, I do not know. Someplace safe, where they could learn to shoot the rifle, not the AK but the other one, the sniper rifle.”