The Wicked Witch of the Middle East

[Celine Jules]

Outskirts of Haditha, Iraq - July 1990



It was a wonder anything survived in this landscape. Celine had once thought herself childish to believe that deserts were simply open expanses of sand, dust, grit, and rock as far as the eye could see, and yet, when she could manage to pull one of her eyes open and ignore the stinging of the dust whipping into them, to take a look outside the jeep, such a scene was exactly what she was witnessing. Not a single identifying landmark, the oppressive heat beat down upon her like a roomful of border guards had done on her way through Jordan. In the distance a crow circled, but this was the only sign of life for miles around. There were plants, but they all looked just as dead as the sand itself- brown and withered, clinging close to the ground, trying to eke out the few drops of water they required each day from the parched soil.

She and her fellow passengers had come from far and wide, two Kurdish explosives experts, a Persian radioman, and herself, a Libyan assassin, all with a singular goal in mind- they would stop at nothing to kill Saddam Hussein. As the dictator had made his foolish- but in his words, unavoidable- first opening threats against Kuwait, there was not going to be a more opportune time to set their plans in motion for years to come, she was sure of it.

They were here to meet their contacts in the Kurdistan movement, the base of the revolt that was soon to come against the tyrant Hussein's rule, hiding in plain sight, as it were, in the loyalist Al-Anbar province. Despite the province's reputation for a hostile anti-Shi'ite populace there was no better place in Iraq to disappear into when the situation called for it- and when your compatriots knew the desert far more intimately than the sons of the lands between the rivers.

At first it seemed to be a mirage, but as they grew closer, it became clear that they were heading toward an abandoned airbase, one that the British had hastily set up and just as hastily torn down in the course of World War II. Decrepit, moldering hangars and a control tower that had split in half and collapsed were the main landmarks of the place, though there were a few barracks and guard towers as well- there was hardly any metal remaining on the base, the place having been thoroughly looted by the locals.

The jeep, a Soviet model based on the American Willys, screeched in protest as its brakes were applied to dust-covered wheels, and the underinflated tires wobbled to a halt on the sand-whipped earth as Celine stepped out and wrapped her scarf tighter around her nose and mouth. On the other side of the runway was a troop transport, and at the sight of the fact that it bore Republican Guard emblems on the canopy, she instinctively reached for her Browning Hi-Power at her hip. This had better not be another setup. For such a foolish bastard, Hussein was very clever at being one step ahead of his traitorous countrymen... or expatriates, as it were...