The Syrian Sunset, page 27
Back inside the main building, a strong arm despite his age around Sami’s shoulder, Mitqal propelled him towards Group Cell 2 in the main corridor. Sami was near spilling everything, he thought with satisfaction, like a pitcher of water knocked off a table.
Eyes squeezed, Sami listened to the abrupt quiet, heard only water dripping somewhere and their footfalls. Mitqal nodded at a guard to open the door.
“Sami, you will be woken at five-thirty. You will know the hour as you can hear the Dead Sea Sparrows at first light this time of year. The rock partridges have beautiful necks but they are farther in the hills. Unfortunately, you will only be able to hear the guards shooting at them. However, they are very tasty. I am told if you lack diversion, some here count the tiles in the floor. Or count the broken ones. Man’s ingenuity to pass the time is boundless. You had all the locations of the VX.”
“I’m not the only one,” Sami cried out. “Others do. And anyone down there could enter my office. Or they hacked my computer from another country.”
“Yes, of course. All of that is true. Please enter.”
The talk inside stopped at the swing of the door. Sami shuffled into the cell. In the dark, he saw only a mass of men and some boys, indistinguishable blindfolded bodies asleep standing together, heads reaching for the walls. Most rested on the man in front of them. He never did anything completely right; he feared torture more than death.
Sami felt a sharp pull at the back of the t-shirt, turned and Mitqal hauled him back into the corridor. With a flip of Mitqal’s head, the guard pushed the door closed.
“If I can count on you to say nothing to Kassem, I can take you home. Then none of this has happened. Like the prisoners, you have not been here. And we have not talked.”
In shock, Mitqal’s fist still at the back of his head pulling on the cloth, Sami managed a jerky nod.
“Good. You are like a son to me, Sami. So let us forget this cell. You stay silent and this is over. If you bend, you won’t be snapped.”
Kassem certainly delivered the atropine to Ghouta, a sentimental and not highly effective error but it signaled the boy could go further. Mitqal felt certain he would not do so without his father’s knowledge. If Fuad’s boots trekked in this treason, he would consider Sami’s disappearance a flashing warning light.
✽✽✽
With Kassem beside him, Fuad drove along Fayez Mansour Street, sunlight glaring on the windscreen as he glanced at the three lanes in both directions, cleaved by a grass parkway with lofty palm trees like generals above the battlefield. The Mezzeh municipality of 150,000 in this southwest swath of Damascus reminded Fuad of the European Mediterranean: three and four-story white houses, balconies, terra-cotta roofs. Foreign Embassies clustered here among the prosperous. They were due at General Mitqal’s house near the Mezzeh Military Airport. Fuad felt a reckoning coming but he had many friends and Mitqal could not close a cell door on him or Kassem without incontrovertible proof.
The French had thrown the airfield up during their attempt to tame the heathens after the West, knives sharpened after victory in World War I, carved up the Ottoman Empire; as the Japanese would later, the Turks greatly regretted teaming up with German overreach. The airport had done double duty as the civilian airfield until Damascus International unveiled its runways in the mid-1970s beyond the southern suburbs. Shorn of its duties as the Syrian gateway to the world, Republican Guards and the Air Force Intelligence Directorate found ample room to stretch their legs at Mezzeh Airport. The abandoned terminals offered space for a new prison, a short drive after scooping up city recalcitrants. Old airplanes tires abounded and were rolled in for their traditional role.
Since the uprising, rather than risk the open highway to Damascus International, the Assads flew only from Mezzeh Military, given the field’s proximity to the presidential palace, which commanded the entire flattened top of steep Mount Mezzeh. With its spectacular views of every edge of Damascus, empty rooms of Italian Carrara marble, tinted windows, leafy perimeter trees, security wall and interval of watchtowers, the presidential hilltop was either a gilded cage or the cat’s meow. Maybe depending on which Assad peered from the windows; their two sons and a daughter ranged from ten to fourteen.
A previous Mezzeh Prison had squatted atop a lesser hilltop below the presidential mount, filled with his father’s doubters after Hafez bear-hugged the country in 1970. In 2000, shortly after Hafez died, Bashar emptied those cells of his father’s peers and with early creativity, the prison, after a good deal of labor and new stone, sparkled from those heights as a science center.
Fuad believed Bashar and Asma had longed to reform and revitalize Syria after decades of Hama rule. Meek, unproven and unsure of himself, Bashar had been unable to rise toe to toe with the military elite who considered Hafez as visionary who calmed the country. Bashar’s vast hurt as the afterthought son drove him to prove his toughness, even after his father was in the earth and still not listening. Bashar grandstanded and Fuad was unclear whether these stunts were designed to buck up the people or himself.
Weeks before, a hundred and sixty helmeted cyclists in shorts and white t-shirts, insisting that “Syria Pulses with Life” as the event was called, commenced at the Mezzeh Communications Center. Soon they pedaled past another life-size poster of Bashar, this one growing from the sidewalk before a tall, elegant rose-colored apartment building fronted with palms. With a seemingly limitless wardrobe, this time Bashar donned military camouflage and matching cap. Small MiGs rose into the blue yonder behind him and painted missiles blasted from just above the pavement, the gold script: “Syria Glorious in Victory.” Given the ubiquity of these varied likenesses, nobody bothered to look. After twelve kilometers, riders pushed down kickstands at the Mariamite Greek Orthodox Cathedral, which rose first in the 2nd Century and had endured the pain of multiple successful facelifts. The bikers crowded in through the Bab Sharqi, the Roman Gate of the Sun, the eastern portal to the Old City and the Street Called Straight, where Paul the Apostle lodged in search of Saul of Tarsus. It was called the Gate of the Sun because morning rays first brightened that stone entrance ahead of the other six perimeter arches.
Syria leaped ahead at the same time it was blown backwards. Women pedaled, long hair flowing freely with their overall momentum. The crush of cyclers including teenage boys, smiled in front of the white stucco church providing a photo-op for the restless international media walled away from the regime’s regular operations. In November 2012, Free Syrian Army mortars struck a 10-story Mezzeh residential building here for no readily discernable reason, other maybe than it was in the presidential palace arena and the opposition controlled most of the Dariyya suburb farther to the southwest. Then too the launchers may merely have been desperate. They had good reason with what was to happen in Dariyya.
In silence, Fuad and Kassem walked along a towering mosaic wall that earned the Guinness Book of Records award for the longest mural of all recycled material, 720 meters, a mile-and-a-half. Maybe three times Kassem’s height, it was a tour de force, with pieces of every rainbow color, tiles, dinner plates, car parts, bicycle wheels, ceramics, mirrors, soda cans. It signaled beauty and hope. In the midst of the war, if not often in their ears here everywhere on the international broadcasts, housewives had ransacked cupboards to contribute.
“It’s saying,” Kassem said excitedly. “Creating beauty from debris means we can rebuild our broken country. It’s something I want to be part of.”
“It’s wonderful and optimistic,” Fuad said quietly, as they headed up several steps with pastel blue railings to a door in the decorated mosaic wall, newly planted at the sidewalk’s inner edge. Each stair face boasted a colorful mosaic. Small blue, orange and yellow tiles, old keys and spark plugs festooned the door in the wall to Mitqal’s building beyond. “Even true. Most everything is eventually rebuilt.”
“But you’re not impressed, Dad?”
“It’s graffiti. Rooted in the schoolboy’s courage on their school walls in Daraa. It’s the most extreme statement someone can make here without ending up inside a tire. But it won’t save a single life. Stop a single barrel bomb.”
“It matters how people feel.”
Not really, he declined to say and while at it, said nothing. After a clandestine lifetime, he had reluctantly come to see that in the grander scheme, rarely did operations matter. From a drone, the Americans had splattered Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemini-American imam, across Yemen; traffic to his sermons surged and his pronouncements carried greater authority today. Intelligence continued their work out of a kind of inertia. He’d been at it a long time, felt worn down like a car tire too long on the road.
“I got atropine and a decontamination tent into Ghouta before the attack,” Kassem said quietly, fearing his father’s disapproval.
“Sentimental.”
“It saved lives.”
“Without doubt. But how many? At what risk?” Fuad’s voice did not divulge his displeasure. He understood the carousel of emotions circling inside his son, that he felt he had to do something. Anyone can build a mosaic wall to feel they are not betraying by sitting idle. He felt waiting was a higher art, which he realized he had failed to impart to his son. Fuad spoke quietly, “Is this why we’re here? Does Mitqal know?”
“Sami knew atropine was missing. Mitqal walked him through Saydnaya, threatened him. He was told not to tell me. Though he is terrified, we walked on the mountain, and he did. He saw me near the atropine storage facility. So he gave Mitqal that. Felt it could be explained.”
“Only that? He said nothing more?”
“He swears.”
“You believe him? Everything is on the line for him. Mitqal could leave him at Saydnaya.”
“He was ashamed, felt he was weak. I told him he was terrific. He was.”
They were speaking softly. Through the mosaic, they had stopped outside the residential building with its high pillars, shelter for cars to enter from the rear and rest.
“How much influence does your friendship have with Mitqal?” Kassem asked, unburdening the high tide of fear inside him to his father.
“I am not certain. I have known him a long time. He prefers not to slam doors shut. If he believes I can be of use to him, even later, I may have some room to maneuver with him.”
“He suspect you?” Kassem asked. “Of anything.”
“Everybody watches everyone. More than that, I don’t know. Even Manaf Tlass defected.” Brigadier General Tlass was the first Republican Guard commander to walk away from the violence. In July 2012, with two dozen disgusted officers, Tlass disappeared and surfaced in Paris with his family. Former Deputy Prime Minister of Syria, Abdullah Dardari, with degrees from the University of Southern California and the London School of Economics, materialized in Kabul. After being accused of ambiguous ties with both the Syrian government and the rebels, he now stood atop the United Nations Development Program in Afghanistan. Syria was boiling, its great talent evaporating, and leaving a residue of thugs.
Margaret had recently sent a postcard explaining she was now in remission from the breast cancer she had not mentioned. Stunned, he had sat unmoving for a long time holding the photo of the yellow and orange buildings in the Saint-Jean Quartier in Vieux Lyon. Crazily it felt like holding her. Terrified to lose her, he had wondered if their memories would still sustain him if she passed. He wanted to flee and rest forever but he would not leave Kassem in Damascus without his protection.
“Mitqal attempted to negotiate with the revolutionaries early on,” Kassem said, by nature hopeful. “In many cities.”
“Then, yes. We are a long way from those early days. Sides have hardened. With America turning her back, the great chance for the FSA is over. Mitqal will think the same and act accordingly.”
Kassem threw an arm around his father’s lower shoulder. “If I haven’t caused you enough trouble, father. Lilia, I’ve never met anyone like her.”
Fuad laughed, though excitement and dread for his son mixed together inside him, like the lethal sarin components combined.
“In what way?”
“She’s terribly vulnerable but afraid of nothing.”
“High recommendation. Does she love you the way you love her?”
“Yes,” he said immediately, then hesitated. “I believe so. There are things about her I don’t know. But I think you do.”
“You will have to ask her, Kassem. I cannot tell you if now is the right time. You will have to decide but also accept her wishes and her timetable.”
His arm still around Fuad, Kassem hugged his father tighter.
Upstairs on Mitqal’s balcony, they sat around a small chiseled brass tray table with intricate Moorish designs. The removable tray rested on six narrow folding legs, mosaics in oak. Handle-less frothy cups of Turkish coffee rested in brass holders, the muddy grounds sunk to the bottoms. The hot breeze, in its familiarity, comforted Fuad.
After the requisite pleasantries, Mitqal lifted the hot cup with thumb and forefinger. He turned to Kassem. “What have you learned?”
Again, Kassem felt surprisingly calm. “I have spoken to Sami. He is my closest friend. I ask you to honor that bond between us. He shared that he told you about the missing atropine. A decontamination tent was also taken. I know because I removed both.”
“You gave it to widows and orphans, I presume. You have your father’s heart with none of his common sense. Smaller men would consider this a betrayal.” Mitqal brushed this confession way with a swipe of his hand. “I want to know how the Americans knew last year we were sending the sarin to bases across the country.”
“I cannot find anything further. Satellite surveillance? Paying off truck drivers? Any one of hundreds of people on our bases? Inflation topped 120% recently, due to present circumstances. Makes it far easier to pay off maybe a lot of people to take photos with their phones.”
A pair of jets slowed noisily low overhead, descending to Mezzeh Military, a MiG-25 and MiG-23 delivered decades ago, second hand and dented then, Mitqal thought angrily, and never a match for the Israeli F-15 and F16 pilots. In the last month alone, they lost two Su-24s and an L-39 to Turkish-backed rebel missiles. Syria under Bashar was a hapless third world power. They never dared rise to challenge the Israelis who flashed over their air space as if it was Tel-Aviv. Ten days ago, the Zionists decimated multiple installations and trucks laden with missiles in Al Bukamal near the border crossing with Iraq, the chief Iranian supply route into Syria and across the country to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The same night black clouds billowed over arms depots in Deir al-Zour, an Iranian militia and Iranian Republican Guard center on the M20 Highway in the Syrian northeast. They knew everything, he thought enraged.
“I want answers, Kassem,” Mitqal said barely above a whisper. “And I don’t want them next week. Or I’ll bring Sami over to the airport facilities and introduce him to the main hall. Why drive to Saydnaya?”
Kassem did not know what Mitqal meant and looked at his father.
Fuad was shaken and not surprised that ripping apart flesh affected him in a way it had not when he began his career. Age had peeled away blind ambition and left a soft caring for loved ones.
“Seven hundred people, no room to lie down. Open wounds, moaning, children, rebels, elderly. No ventilation. In the heat, the expected odors. Supervised by criminals from Adra Prison with electric wands. They avail themselves of the teenagers in front of the full audience. Then everyone is screaming. Word spreads and it keeps people at home.” Fuad was dropping his mask that he could participate in the regime in the hope of producing better days.
Kassem did not shudder. He was not playing with colored mosaics on a wall which he now saw as infantile. Whatever allegiance remained for the regime was now ripped from him, like gauze and tape from a wound still bleeding. He came from and was one with those inside that horrible hall.
“The Americans are the most arrogant people on the planet. Worse than the French.” Mitqal drained his cup too quickly and tasted the muddy residue which stuck to his moustache. He wiped it hard on his sleeve. “Obama’s red line speech filled the rebels with hope. It is a lesson, son, not to emotionally promise. After Ghouta, they believed with all their hearts that the American missiles were coming. For sure America would enter. If not toss Bashar down his mountain, at least create their celebrated “no fly” zone. To ground the barrel bombs. Their honor demanded it.”
Kassem now understood. “The rebels saw no help was coming. That they were completely alone.”
“Exactly,” his father said. “We are seeing a tsunami of recruits joining the Islamic State and al-Nusra. The Jihadis love Obama’s red line retreat. It is a smile from Allah for recruitment.”
In his deeper voice, Mitqal took up the thread and pulled hard at the unraveling American garment. “They’re telling everyone who will listen, and who wouldn’t? The Americans lied. They’re don’t care about you. You are brown, not like them.”
“It’s true,” Kassem said, his broken and patched heart bleeding anew.
Fuad stood, moved to the railing and looked out at the traffic moving casually in both directions on Fayez Mansour Highway. No matter the tragedy, whoever succumbed, pauper or patron, the world sped ahead without slowing, other than to momentary dim lights. Activists had spilled across the globe to tell their tales of imprisonment. Released by Mitqal’s underlings, the gaunt Mazen al-Hamada clambered onto a boat bound for Greece and docked ultimately with asylum citizenship in the Netherlands. Over and over again, al-Hamada recounted Air Force Intelligence receptions. Spoke to audiences, recorded video testimony of wrists broken by chains holding him as he dangled from the ceiling, of leaping guards who snapped his ribs, of electric current charged through a pole up his rear. Tears always escaped from the dark eyes that seemed receded into his skull. Before his arrest, he had documented the cases of detainees and fed them to the news media. He drove and snuck food and infant formula to the starving in the rebel volcano of Dariyya, where 3000 FSA soldiers held the municipality. The population of 130,000 was shrinking rapidly. Last month, two massacres over four days, two hundred and beyond executed, mostly dragged to basements of vacant buildings never to climb the steps out. Another fifty rose atop each other near a mosque; people packed and ran. Eight kilometers from the city center, they would empty Dariyya and relocate everything that could still move to the far north.
