General Tehrani’s body heat warmed the inside of his snow cave, and the temperature became almost comfortable. The general smiled. An officer fights to become a general, and when he succeeds, he spends the rest of his career protecting his rank. In 1979, Iran executed eighty-five senior generals and expelled the majority of its junior generals. Officers like Tehrani who were loyal to the regime were promoted to general. In 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, but during the Iran-Iraq War, General Tehrani repelled Saddam Hussein’s army from Iran and commanded human-wave attacks through barbed wire, machine-gun fire, and chemical weapons attacks—taking over land in Iraq. Finally, a truce was called between the two countries, and Iran told General Tehrani to give the Iraqis back their land. He beat the Iraqis, and now in his ice cave, General Tehrani was beating the Americans. I cannot be defeated.
He heard two people outside his cave speaking English, a man and a woman. The woman said, “General Tehrani.” They’re looking for me. Although he wanted to put snow in the cracks of the entrance to his snow cave to better conceal himself, he dared not move for fear of alerting the Americans to his location. Also, his body heat quickly warmed the snow inside his cave to water, which froze into ice, so it was becoming more difficult to scrape together a handful of snow anyway. Fortunately the wind drove the heavy falling snow into the cracks of his cave, cloaking the general in darkness. Now they’ll never find me. If I stay here until morning, they’ll be gone. When I hear the Russians come to unload the crude oil, I can ask for help.
General Tehrani’s knees weren’t as strong as they used to be and the soft snow beneath him had become ice. He shifted his body from a kneeling position to sitting. Because he couldn’t sit up straight in the cave, his neck ached from bending over. The aching slowly traveled from his neck down his spine, but he’d rather have an aching spine than be dead. I can recover from an aching spine. Soon his ass ached from sitting on the ice.
The air inside his cave became stale, and he loosened the top button on his collar so he could breathe more easily. After a while, he lost track of time, and the air became more uncomfortable to breathe. It occurred to General Tehrani that he might not have enough oxygen, and if he didn’t let some oxygen in soon, he might suffocate. He used his finger to try to poke a hole where the snow had filled the cracks at the top of his cave’s entrance. If the hole was small enough, he could let air in without being seen from the outside. In spite of his effort, his finger couldn’t poke through. He tried other locations, but the snow had frozen solid.
I could be trapped in here. General Tehrani pressed his hands on the cave’s entrance, searching for a soft spot to break through, but he found none. He searched the rest of the cave—ice. Now he feared suffocating in the ice cave more than he feared the Americans.
General Tehrani hoped the Americans had left the area. He pounded on the cave’s entrance, hoping to beat a hole through to the outside, but the harder he pounded it, the harder he packed the ice. The pounding made his hands and fists sore, and he expended more of his precious oxygen, making it more difficult to breathe. He pressed his shoulder against the entrance, but the ice didn’t budge. He kicked at the entrance until his feet became too sore and weak to kick anymore.
He reached for his cell phone, but it was missing. He’d dropped it somewhere. “Help! Somebody help me! Can anyone hear me?! I’m suffocating!” General Tehrani remembered his metal belt buckle and took it off. Then he used it to scrape the ice, but he expended too much oxygen for a small amount of progress that would take days to complete. “Help! Please help me from this tomb!”
After screaming for help for as long and as loud as he could, he ran out of energy and breath. “Help! Please, help!” He curled into a fetal position, and his voice became faint: “Help. Please, somebody . . .” General Tehrani could no longer speak. Dizziness gripped him and the edges of his vision began to gray and then darkness overcame him.