She let the body fall to the ground, and she screamed for a long time, hours perhaps. She screamed like if she screamed hard enough it might breathe life back into him. The flames nearest to her had burned themselves out, but the fire itself was spreading rapidly.

She was crying now, the screams having turned into heaving, weeping sobs, and she wrapped her arms around his chest. She pulled him closer, his head falling back in a way that was almost unnatural, and she pressed her face to his. It was already growing cool.

He’s already gone.

She sucked in a breath of air, but it was more smoke and heat than air, and burned her throat, and she coughed violently. She became aware of how truly surrounded she was, they both were. She thought she heard a helicopter, perhaps saw a spotlight overhead, but it was becoming difficult to see. She pulled Kaveh’s corpse toward her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and dragging him to the middle of the small clearing they were in. The exertion made her body demand more air, and she breathed in fire. She looked at the armored car, half thought that it might provide some respite, but knew that would only cook her alive faster.

She let Kaveh go, rolling onto her back next to him. She looked into the sky and thought she saw a light shining down on her, but the heat burned her eyes, burned her nose, burned everything. She couldn’t breathe.

He’s gone.

April 20, 2008

Los Angeles Times

Reward Offered for Information on Whereabouts of Etis

BY JACKIE SCOTT

SAN BERNARDINO—A $500,000 reward is being offered for information that will lead to the capture of the amygdaline ETIs Nikola Sassanian and Jude Atheatos, one or both believed responsible for the killings of anti-government protesters Paul Bird, William David Kovacevich Jr., Brendan Mooney, and Aaron Gittelman.

Kovacevich’s wife, Margaret, said she feels “inconsolable.”

“I didn’t understand how this could happen,” she said. “He warned us about the capabilities of the ETIs. We didn’t believe him.”

She said she still can’t wrap her mind around Kovacevich’s killing.

“Dave was always smiling,” she recalled, saying he was a family man with a great sense of humor. His children did not respond for comment.

The four protesters all died from gunshot wounds that federal investigators believe were caused by their own bullets, which were reappropriated by one or both of the ETIs after the men fired on them.

Author and award-winning journalist Kaveh Mazandarani was also killed in the shoot-out, although FBI investigators believe his death was caused by one of the gunmen and not either of the two ETIs. Cora Sabino, who went missing after her shocking Senate testimony on April 16, survived the altercation.

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