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“Where’s Nijaz?” his guide asked, waving him over to where he was crouched in a bush.
“Not far behind.”
The least athletic of the three, Nijaz huffed audibly as he climbed. Finally, he made it over, and at that moment all three of them had achieved something no one in their right mind would attempt—to smuggle themselves into Syria.
“Come! We hurry!”
They started south, with Ahmet in the lead and Nijaz puffing away at the back. Rapp made it a point to move a bit unsteadily over theterrain, trying to counteract his display of athleticism on the ladder. These men likely would do their best to forget this night ever happened, but still it made sense to stay in character. Not only would it be catastrophic for him to be identified, but he was also eager to be labeled the effete Canadian lawyer. After spending most of his career living in the long shadow of his accomplishments, he was looking forward to being written off as harmless.
The air felt unusually heavy as they climbed. Usually slipping across borders was a bit anticlimactic. They were nothing more than lines drawn on a piece of paper that didn’t have much meaning on the ground. Syria seemed different.
Maybe its long history gave it a weight that many other places lacked. This was the home of one of the most ancient civilizations in the world. It had been controlled at one time by just about everyone who was anyone in history—Sumerians, Persians, Greeks, Romans. Alexander the Great had fought there. As had Rome’s Pompey.
After breaking away from French rule following World War II, it had become a relatively secular state built on a foundation of iron-fisted government control. Supported by the Soviets and later the Russians, Syria had managed decades of the kind of oppressive peace that people tended to confuse with stability. Beneath the surface, though, it had been boiling. Building pressure until the smallest spark could cause it to explode.
That spark came in the form of an anti-government slogan painted on a wall south of Damascus. The schoolboys responsible were quickly rounded up and tortured by the secret police, causing citizens to take to the streets in protest. The government pushed back hard—a strategy that had always worked for them before. For reasons that historians had yet to fully grasp, this time was different. The country exploded.
It was part of a series of uprisings across the Arab world, each feeding off the other. Strongmen were deposed and their subjects, intoxicated by their sudden freedom, attempted to rebuild based on democratic principles.
The problem was that they quickly discovered that democracy is hard. It’s a political system built around the idea that people you hate will inevitably have their turn at the reins of power. In countries with deep sectarian divisions and entrenched corruption, chaos ensued. The West tried to help, but its institutions had never been good at discerning the difference between an underdog and a good guy. Americans and Western Europeans tended to think that oppressed people just wanted to shake off their chains and breathe free. The truth was a bit darker. Most had no interest in freedom or peace. They just wanted to be the ones inflicting the pain as opposed to the ones feeling it.
Movement to the east pulled Rapp back into the present. Still distant, he couldn’t quite make out what it was. At first, he assumed a small group of people being smuggled toward the border. Their movements seemed a bit random, though. Individuals huddled together and dispersed. They proceeded hesitantly through the moonlight and then reversed themselves. For a moment he considered the possibility that it was a herd of unattended livestock, but that didn’t seem right, either.
Rapp grabbed the pack of the man in front, forcing him to a stop.
“You tired?” he said. “Do need water? Five kilometers more and need to—”
“What’s that?” Rapp said, pointing into the shallow ravine next to them.
“What?” Nijaz said, coming up behind. “Why are we stopping?”
Rapp reached out and turned Ahmet’s head so he could use his light-sensitive peripheral vision. A moment later, the Turk grunted his understanding.
“Many smugglers here. This is why we walk the ridge. The territory below is for criminals. We have many problems with them. They do not do business correctly. They harm their people and steal from them. They want this entire territory alone even though there is enough for everyone. They have killed for it.”
The group stopped again, this time breaking in two with about half starting back the way they’d come.
“They look lost,” Rapp pointed out.
“They are idiots,” Nijaz said. “And too far to be danger for us.”
Ahmet nodded. “A man is waiting for you and we are slow. We must—”
“What do you mean they’re idiots?” Rapp said.
“I do not understand,” Nijaz responded.
“They traffic people through that corridor regularly, right?”
“Yes.”
“How often do they get lost?”
“Why does this matter? We have been paid to take you to your people. We must go.”
Rapp didn’t budge. It mattered because these two dipshits were falling into the same trap that he’d laid in Afghanistan the week before. They wanted to believe their enemies were morons despite all evidence to the contrary.
“If those people are lost, their guides aren’t with them. And if their guides aren’t with them, where are they?”
