He had been introduced to Ahmet as Siddiq Jara’a, a nom de guerre if ever there was one. Siddiq meant truthful. Jara’a meant daring. But Siddiq wasn’t really supposed to be used as an actual name. It was an honorific, first conveyed on men of high integrity by Muhammad himself.

This man, calling himself Siddiq, was an idiot.

“Yes?” Ahmet said.

“Do you have a satellite phone?” the man said in Arabic.

Ahmet stared at him. Siddiq was mostly a silhouette looming in the doorway, as day slowly turned to night. Ahmet was not certain how to answer that question. He hesitated to say anything. No one had asked him this before, and he had not volunteered any information.

“Do you?” Siddiq said.

“Yes. Do you want to borrow it?”

Siddiq shook his head. “You fool.”

Without warning, he marched into the room. He took the rifle from his back, turned the butt of it to Ahmet, and struck him hard in the ribs.

The girl screamed.

Ahmet raised a hand. “Wait!”

Siddiq pulled the rifle back and struck him again. Then again.

Ahmet curled into a ball, and Siddiq hit him in the back. The hit was harder than the others, and Ahmet felt a searing pain. The man had broken something, maybe a rib. Ahmet rolled onto his side, breathing heavily.

Siddiq hit him again.

“Uhnh.”

“Stop!” the girl said. “Stop! You’re going to kill him.”

Again Siddiq hit him, in the side this time. Something else broke. The pain was unreal. Siddiq hit him yet again.

He leaned in close.

“I should smash your skull, you idiot. Do you not hear the helicopter buzzing the hillsides? Of course you don’t. You are not a warrior. You don’t hear anything. You don’t see anything. You know nothing.”

He grabbed Ahmet’s jaw in one viselike hand.

“Look at me.”

Ahmet turned his face to Siddiq’s. The man’s hard, bloodshot eyes glared at him. They almost seemed to give off their own light. They were like lasers.

“A runner came up the mountain with news from our spies in Baghdad. He risked his life to come here. The Americans are dropping commandos on the lower slopes. Why? Because they know we are here. They traced a satellite call from your parents’ house to this very spot. Your parents are dead. Are you happy? They were killed by the Americans. You have destroyed your family and jeopardized everything with your own stupidity.”

Ahmet didn’t respond. He simply stared at the man. Was it true? Of course it was. He saw now how this mission, this adventure he had gone on, could never have turned out any other way.

His beloved parents…

“Give me the phone.”

Ahmet reached into his pocket. It hurt to move. His hand came out with the satellite telephone in its black plastic casing.