Did Ashe believe in coincidences? Coincidences happened, but had no essential meaning. If you could see the meaning, then it would no longer be a coincidence. Why was he back in Iraq? Coincidence? Of course not.
Major Richmond turned to Ashe. ‘You’ve been quiet for the last two hours. Silent. We’ve enough graves in Iraq, right now. This road’s pretty boring, y’know.’
Ashe looked about him. The route north from Baghdad through the Sunni heartlands and on to the Kurdish Autonomous Region looked the same as it had on his last visit, but the whole thing felt entirely different. It was as though he had been dreaming on his last visit. Was he a different man?
‘You’re losing your romanticism, Ashe. Happens to all of us.’
‘Temporary, I’m sure, Simon. Just a bit more focused, I think. Keen to get to the point. I’ve just been philosophising. To be honest, you don’t seem the same either.’
‘Tired, Toby. Just fucking tired. It’s been getting worse while you’ve been away. Remember we were trying to plug holes in the western border with Syria? It’s like an open wound now. Not enough men really.’
‘Morale, OK?’
‘Pretty good, Toby. Good things have been happening. But it’s the carnage. I don’t think we expected this kind of civilian death toll. The retribution killings. The strength of the opposition. The bloodlust. Continual murders. It’s unnatural. It’s like a plague’s hit the land. Don’t get me wrong. We’ll win out here. There are elections coming up in the new year. That’s our focus. As long as you’ve got focus, the random events have meaning. When you’ve got meaning, you’ve got purpose.’
‘Funny you should say that, Simon. I was thinking the very same thing.’
Richmond smiled, his taut features softening for a few seconds. He did look that bit thinner, that bit more worn, that bit older. His steely nerve seemed a little frayed.
The Mercedes sped north at 70 to 80 mph. Having passed through the Kurdish checkpoints with little difficulty, Ashe noticed that Richmond reduced his speed. Iraqi Kurdistan had a far better security record than further south. There were even tentative plans to get Kurds to come back to their homeland from Europe. The Kurdish Democratic Party was setting up a website. That sounded hopeful. All the same, Ashe instinctively felt for the loaded SIG pistol beneath his bulletproof vest.
As they headed north, past the spreading city of Mosul, Ashe’s heart warmed.
He looked east, to the Sheikhan, home of the Yezidis.
At the busy T-junction fifty kilometres north of Mosul, Ashe studied the new Kurdish sign: ‘Duhok, 10 km’. He was due to meet Sinàn at a new bar in the centre of the flourishing city. Time was running out.
‘I’ll pick you up in five hours, so you’d better get a move on. I’ve an arrangement to meet an old friend of ours at Shariya, not far from here.’
‘Old friend?’
‘Jolo Kheyri.’
‘Give him my warmest regards.’
‘And er… I believe a certain Princess Laila will be there. Now isn’t that a coincidence?’
‘No, Simon. That is fate.’