11

Baghdad, Iraq

Najjar Malik heard the screeching tires and turned to look.

He was about to cross Al Rasheed Street in downtown Baghdad and fully expected to see a major car wreck. Instead, less than fifty yards away to his right, he saw a white Mercedes swerve and narrowly miss a delivery truck whose driver had just slammed on his brakes in the middle of rush-hour traffic for no apparent reason. Blocked from going forward, the driver of the Mercedes now tried to back up but suddenly found himself cut off by a green Citroën. Just then, a minivan screeched to a halt beside the Mercedes. The side door flew open. Three masked men armed with AK-47s jumped out and surrounded the car.

“Get out! Get out!” one of the gunmen screamed at the terrified man in the driver’s seat.

Najjar knew he should run for cover, but for some reason he just stood there and stared. He could see a veiled woman in the passenger seat, presumably the driver’s wife. He could also see a small child in the backseat, shrieking with fear.

Two of the gunmen started pounding on their windows, still demanding they get out. Terrified, the family complied, their hands held high in the air, the young child—a little girl not more than four or five years old—crying all the louder. The gunmen forced the woman and the child to lie facedown on the pavement while their husband and father was smashed over the back of the head, bound quickly around his hands and feet, and thrown in the back of the minivan.

Then one of the masked men aimed his machine gun at the child and fired. The girl’s cries immediately ceased, but now the mother began screaming for her dead child. At that, the gunman shot her in the back of the head as well.

The street suddenly grew quiet.

As the gunmen turned to get back in the vehicles and make their escape with their new hostage, one of them glanced toward Najjar, and Najjar found himself staring into the kidnapper’s eyes. The two of them just stood there for a moment, seemingly frozen in time and space. Najjar wanted to bolt but couldn’t move a muscle.

The masked man raised his weapon and pointed it at Najjar’s chest. Najjar tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound. The man pulled the trigger. Najjar shut his eyes. But he heard nothing. He felt nothing.

He opened his eyes and realized the gun hadn’t gone off. The man cleared the chamber and pulled the trigger again. Again, Najjar involuntarily shut his eyes. But again he heard nothing, felt nothing.

When he opened his eyes the second time, he found the man desperately fiddling with the magazine, then raising the weapon over his head and pulling the trigger. This time the weapon fired perfectly. Now, he lowered the machine gun, aimed it at Najjar’s face, and pulled the trigger for the third time. Najjar instantly shut his eyes and held his breath.

Nothing happened.

His eyes still shut and still holding his breath, his lungs about to explode, Najjar heard the gunman cursing. He also heard the other terrorists shouting at him to get in the car and get moving. A moment later, he heard screeching tires, and when he finally opened his eyes, the gunmen were gone.

Najjar collapsed into some bushes and began to vomit uncontrollably. He had never been so scared in all his life.

He lay on the pavement, holding his head in his hands and losing all track of time. He didn’t hear the ambulance sirens approaching, didn’t see the flashing lights of the police cars. He didn’t remember being taken to the hospital and treated for shock. He barely remembered being interrogated at length, not just by the local police but by agents of the Mukhabarat, one of Saddam’s thirteen intelligence agencies, and certainly the most feared. “Who were the gunmen?” they demanded. “Have you seen them before? Could you identify them? What kind of vehicles were they driving? What were the license plate numbers?” The questions went on and on, but Najjar was of little help. He truly didn’t recall much, and later that afternoon, the police and doctors released him.

Exhausted and still somewhat disoriented, Najjar left the hospital and saw a row of taxicabs waiting out front. The first driver in the line rolled down his window and shouted, “Where are you going? Can I help you?”

Najjar stumbled down the front steps and got into the backseat of the cab, only to realize he had no wallet on him and thus no money. Worse, before Najjar could say anything, the driver pulled into traffic and Najjar realized he had no idea where he was going, either.

“You look like you’ve seen an evil spirit,” the driver said, staring at him in the rearview mirror.

“Just watch the road,” Najjar said, more gruffly than he had intended.

“Where to?”

Najjar couldn’t think. He felt foggy, drugged. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember where he lived—what street, what building. Where was his wallet? Had someone stolen it? Had he just left it at the hospital? It had his ID. It had his only picture of his mother and father. It had . . .

Without instruction, the driver began heading east, across the Tigris River toward Sadr City, a district of nearly a million Shia Muslims.

Where are we going? Najjar wondered. How does the driver know where to take me?

Ten minutes later, the driver pulled up in front of an apartment building that looked familiar. As did the neighborhood. As did the people.

“Najjar? Is that you?”

Najjar instantly recognized the voice of his aunt, calling to him from across a courtyard.

She ran up, pulled him out of the cab, and kissed him on both cheeks in greeting. Then she paid the driver and, sensing that Najjar was not well, led him up to their apartment.

“Are you okay, Najjar? Why did you take a cab home from the university? Why didn’t you take the bus as usual?”

As they stepped onto the elevator and his aunt pushed the button for their floor, Najjar was struck with the oddest thought. How had that driver just gotten him home, when he himself had not remembered where he lived?

Najjar’s aunt tucked him into bed, and he slept for the entire afternoon.