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  For my father, Bob Tata, my mentor and role model in life.

  —A. J. Tata

  For my son, Kayden—you’ve widened the view of the world and expanded its universe.

  Forever dream big, son.

  —Nicholas Irving

  CHAPTER 1

  Sassi Cavezza

  Alessandra Cavezza knelt in the dirt road that smelled of burnt tires and urine as she brushed away the grime from the young girl’s bleeding face. Big doe eyes stared back at her, unblinking.

  Who could do this?

  On only her third month in Syria with the United Nations, Sassi, as her friends called her, had resettled hundreds of families that had fled to Europe and were now returning home. These were peasant kids, cannon fodder in the riptides of war that crisscrossed this country. Ten miles north of Damascus in al-Ghouta, a shantytown filled with tin roofs and adobe huts, Sassi had methodically worked her way through the village with her interpreter, Hakim. Now she was bandaging the shrapnel wound on Fatima’s forehead.

  Standing above her, Hakim said, “Sassi, we must go.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. Hakim’s outstretched hand pointed at a dust plume in the distance, coming from the east, out of the hills. Two T-72 Russian tanks were rolling toward them from about a quarter mile away. The lead tank commander stood tall in the hatch like a conquering hero parading his recent victory.

  Russians? Syrians? Turks? Americans? Hezbollah? She knew the differences between the forces, but they were all singularly unhelpful to the olive-skinned girl in the potato sack dress with matted black hair standing in front of her. Several of them used the Russian T-72, which made the equipment less of a clue than she might hope.

  “Help me,” the girl whispered, looking over Sassi’s shoulder. “I can’t find Aamina.”

  The tanks were returning, it seemed. Today she was operating in the Russian sector, but the lines were always changing. She did her best to keep abreast of the political and military shifting winds in this once vibrant country. Fights raged back and forth. Peace treaties came and went. UN resolutions and orders were issued from on high quicker than they could be printed and disseminated. What was the current status? Well, for today, Russia maintained this sector, but it wouldn’t be long before even that changed.

  What Sassi cared most about was human dignity and serving the oppressed, such as the young girl standing before her with her face full of mud, dried mucus, and salty tears.

  “What’s your name?” Sassi asked.

  “Fatima is her name,” Hakim said impatiently. Then, “Sassi, this is not good.”

  “Fatima, what happened? Who is Aamina?”

  Fatima pointed over Sassi’s shoulder at the tanks. Tears bubbled from her eyes.

  The UNHCR had assigned Sassi and Hakim this sector as part of the resettlement plan, placing families back into the abandoned dilapidated neighborhood. Three months ago, it was a ghost town, fresh off the heels of the UN chemical cleanup after Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s troops dropped sarin gas in the neighborhood. Sassi had been here in a hazmat suit two years ago, men, women, and children dead in the streets, dried blood and mucus running from their noses; sarin gas didn’t discriminate. It was the single most lethal tactical weapon of mass destruction.

  Now thirty-two families were hiding in their homes with intermittent electricity and only communal potable water that Sassi had established with water trailers dotted throughout the neighborhood. She had contracted with a company to haul in fresh, clean water from Damascus daily. Fatima had been drinking from the faucet when a mortar round exploded twenty meters away. Shrapnel had sliced her forehead. In one sense, she was lucky. In another, of course, not. Fatima’s misfortune ultimately was that she lived here.

  Sassi had served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans over the last fifteen years. She understood the hardship that came from being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a fresh college graduate from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, her idealism had propelled her to Iraq, thinking she could make a difference in the wasteland of Anbar Province. Sunni warlords had detained Sassi and thrown her into a dank basement for days with just bottled water, until American forces rolled through and claimed the land in what eventually became a vacant Hollywood set. Fallujah was unlivable for the most part. But she had dusted herself off and then began executing her mission during the Sunni Awakening, moving families back into the city of rubble. Day by day, she had helped restore services, coordinate with American forces, and especially secure clothes and books for the children, to help them read and learn about something beyond the war-torn walls of the city. Today she was a weathered and rough-hewn veteran of military action. Sassi knew firsthand war’s human toll, and she had stood up to larger forces than two tanks.

  Fatima shook as the tanks squealed to a stop behind them. Hakim’s hand was on Sassi’s shoulder, but Sassi’s eyes remained fixed with Fatima’s.

  When she glanced up, two fixed-wing drones flew circular routes in opposite directions. Sassi didn’t know her drones, but she tried to memorize all the new technology she saw when entering a location so that she could report it to headquarters upon return. These unmanned aircraft had about fifteen-foot wingspans and looked like stealth B-2 bombers. Some type of munitions hung below each wing, perhaps miniature rockets.

  “Take me home,” Fatima begged.

  “In just a minute,” she whispered. Sassi pulled the girl close, pressing Fatima’s frail chest against her shoulder, and then stood and turned toward the leering tank commander, blocking Fatima’s small body with her own.

  “What is it today?” the commander shouted in broken English. “More al-kalb?”

  Sassi knew enough Arabic to know the Russian-inflected voice had just called Fatima a dog, a high-order insult to Arabs of any stripe. Sassi could tell that Fatima had heard and understood the word by the way her small hands clutched Sassi’s cargo pants and how her frail body pressed into Sassi’s hamstring.

  “This is a child, not a dog, Commander. And what it is today is to make sure she has enough water and food to survive.”

  “Survive? No one survived this village after Assad’s attacks. Everyone left. And now you bring back. Better to leave them where they were in Turkish refugee camp.”

  Their one common language was English. Sassi was mildly surprised at this low-level tank commander’s English proficiency but was glad to pursue communication.

  “What is it you need today, Commander?” Sassi asked.

  The commander leered at her from his hatch. His smile showed a couple of chipped teeth. He removed his tank crewman’s helmet and set it on the turret holding the long tank bore. She wasn’t sure of the size of the tube or the ammo it shot. It could spit flame and destro
y buildings, and that was all that mattered to her.

  “You, gorgeous,” the commander said.

  A spider of fear crawled down her spine. Hakim was not a fighter. The families she had helped resettle couldn’t afford a public squabble with the Russians. These eight men might have been weeks or months without a woman, and she had witnessed the horrors and excesses of combat visited upon women, though she had never been violated in that manner herself.

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said.

  The tank commander cocked his head and laughed. “Now you’re calling me the dog?”

  “Interpret that however you wish,” she said.

  A harsh breeze was blowing from the north. Along with the smell of diesel, the wind carried the rancid body odor of the tank crew.

  The commander pushed himself up onto the hatch and sat on the top of the turret, then swung his legs onto the deck of the chassis and stood.

  “If we are all dogs, then we shall be in heat. No?”

  “Sassi,” Hakim said.

  “You smell worse than a dog, Commander.” Sassi laughed and retrieved a knife from her cargo pocket, flicked open the blade. “And you’ll have to fight like a dog for it, too.”

  “Tough woman. I like it.” The commander began walking down the chassis, his hand along the smooth tank tube, a phallic gesture if she’d ever seen one.

  The radio inside the tank squawked with something unintelligible to her, but obviously not to him. He stopped, looked over his shoulder, and then turned to stare at Sassi. He had a worried look on his face, and Sassi could only imagine it was some higher-level commander complaining about something. Nonetheless, she sensed for the moment she was spared.

  “Saved by bell,” he said. “But I’ll return to kiss that beautiful face.”

  “You can kiss my ass,” she said.

  “That, too.”

  He scurried into his hatch and the tanks quickly Y-turned, their tracks chewing up the road, spitting gravel at them, as they departed to the north. The drones circled high and lingered, as if covering their retreat. One of them swooped low along the middle of the street, buzzing just above them. Both then lifted into the sky and darted ahead of the tanks, leading the way back to their base camp.

  “That was too close,” Hakim said.

  “Another day, another tax-free euro, right, Hakim?” Sassi joked. Their pay as UN members was not taxed when working in hazardous duty zones, such as Syria.

  “Not funny, Sassi. These Russians are serious. And those drones. I’ve never seen those before.”

  “It’s all part of the show. Intimidation.” Sassi shrugged and looked at Fatima. “Show me what you wanted me to see, Fatima.”

  The girl grabbed Sassi’s hand and walked her through a series of narrow alleys between adobe huts with tin roofs. Entering one maybe four blocks off the main road where they had been, Fatima let go of Sassi’s hand and pointed.

  It took a moment for Sassi’s eyes to adjust from sunlight to the dim interior, but eventually her pupils dilated enough to let her see again.

  “Aamina,” Fatima said, pointing.

  Tilted against the back wall of the home was a hinged wooden trapdoor. Sassi walked carefully toward the hole in the floor and shined a light into the darkness below. The beam skidded across the face of a doll, and Sassi smiled.

  Aamina was Fatima’s security blanket, comforting her amid all the chaos and confusion. She swung her legs over the hole and searched with her feet for a ladder, found a sturdy wooden rung, eased her weight onto it—fully clothed and soaking wet, she was barely pushing 120 pounds—then lowered herself into the basement. It smelled of urine and grease, which she found unusual. Kneeling, she lifted the doll and began to stand up.

  A light flickered to her right. It was a brief flash like a strobe. Aiming her flashlight, she saw the beam disappear into a long tunnel. With the doll in one hand and the flashlight in the other, she began crawling through the low tunnel, which was maybe three feet high and across. After traveling about twenty meters, she reemerged into another basement, probably that of a neighboring house.

  “Sassi?” Hakim’s distant voice floated into the tunnel.

  Poking her head into the room, she saw a naked light bulb shining from the ceiling of a cavern similar to the one she had left behind. This room was different, though. Maps and diagrams were tacked to the walls. A dozen chairs in a circle were facing inward toward what looked like a child’s sandbox.

  Her curiosity propelled her forward. She crawled from the tunnel and stood in the room, the ceiling nearly touching her head. When she took a step, her shoe rolled over a pebble, causing a slight scraping noise.

  After a moment, a footfall shuffled above her. Someone was in the house. There was a ladder to her right leading up to the floor above. The layout was similar to the house Fatima had led her into. She looked at Fatima’s doll in her hand, remembering her mission to get Fatima back to her home.

  The map on the wall, though, was intriguing. It was a picture of the entire world with several stickpins in Syria, Lebanon, and around the world. There was a single string from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon strung to Lebanon’s Port of Tripoli. Another string was taut between Tripoli and Cyprus. Even more strings spiderwebbed out from Cyprus to multiple locations along the East Coast and in the Midwest of the United States and Canada. The map alone was inert. There was nothing untoward about it. It could be a kid’s geography lesson. The Port of Tripoli was Lebanon’s second-largest port. Cyprus was a well-known transshipment and logistics hub. The rest were shipping routes or ports. Maybe this was homework. Or better yet, perhaps the people who once lived here were merchants and endeavored in the shipping industry. Maybe they sold carpets, cotton, or grains, which Syria was renowned for producing, and these were the trade routes. Perhaps they were targeting American markets. This could be a business plan on the wall. Though Syrians would most likely use the port of Latakia. Why Tripoli? she wondered. Lebanon’s biggest port was Beirut.

  Pinned to the map was a ragged sheet of white paper with a list of words written in Arabic characters. Most she did not understand, others she could decipher if she had some time to think about it, which she didn’t. The word Sieg! was written in large print with the alphanumeric designation: Hunter 5X. Sobirat 2X. Then the word Tankian. Maybe that was a business? She’d heard it before but couldn’t place it. Below that was an oval, like an American football, which they played in Italy. Inside the oval, someone had drawn stick figures. Sassi turned her head, trying to comprehend. It almost looked like pictures of the slave ships used centuries ago. The stick bodies and arms lay head to toe.

  Curious, she removed her smartphone and took a few quick pictures and uploaded them to the cloud, or at least tried to. Underground, she had no signal. She blacked out the phone, hoping they would upload when she got a signal, and turned toward the tunnel.

  The hatch in the ceiling opened without warning. The hinges squawked, metal against metal. Her heart leaped. She reached for her knife and flicked it open. The muzzle of an AK-47 appeared in the opening and began spraying randomly, bullets raining everywhere, ricocheting around like pinballs. The noise was deafening. A constant metallic clang, clang, clang like a hammer on an old-time trash can lid.

  Fire spat from the flash suppressor, and the noxious fumes of spent gunpowder permeated the small room. Miraculously, Sassi had not been struck by a bullet yet. She scrambled into the tunnel, low crawling and scraping the twenty meters back to her original point of entry.

  “Sassi!” Hakim was still calling her name. She’d been gone less than five minutes, but in Syria, those moments could be a lifetime, literally.

  Scrambling up the ladder, she pocketed her knife and popped into the daylight. She looked at Fatima, who saw the doll and threw her hands up, shouting, “Aamina!”

  “Let’s move,” she said. Clasping Fatima’s hand, she jogged through the streets to their white UN vehicle. The sound of men running echoed through the alle
ys. She was fast and decided to carry Fatima as she ran. Hakim’s skinny legs pumped as hard as they could.

  Their white SUV with the blue UNHCR letters painted on the side was parked where they’d left it. She opened the back door, dumped Fatima in the SUV, and jumped in the driver’s seat. The vehicle was moving as Hakim jumped in the other side, yelling, “Wait! Wait!”

  Three men with AK-47s tumbled into the street two blocks ahead. She turned the car around and spat gravel at them as she raced toward the UNHCR base camp in Turkey.

  She would return Fatima to her home tomorrow, though Sassi was never one to retreat. While she never wanted anyone to mistake her good intentions for a lack of skill, with the child’s safety at risk, she chose to fight another day.

  Sassi carried compassion in her heart and a .22-caliber Beretta Bobcat in her cargo pocket. This combination was a metaphor for Sassi’s life—caring and tough.

  Her family was close with Italian gun mogul Franco Beretta, perhaps the only man to give her any advice when she’d decided to join the United Nations.

  After she had made this “regrettable decision” as her father labeled it, Beretta had been kind, in a fatherly way—a manner her father could never duplicate. For Luigi Cavezza, appearances were everything. His ties with the upper echelons of Italian society were more important than his ties with his children. Accordingly, they had socialized with the Berettas and Machiavellis of Italy. Beretta’s headquarters being in Milan, it was a short two-hour drive from the Cavezza estate on the outskirts of Florence to the Beretta compound. When Franco Beretta learned that she was embarking on her UNHCR mission, he flew in his helicopter to Florence, picked up Sassi, and took her to the private Beretta firing range outside Milan. For two days, she fired everything that Beretta made, including shotguns and rifles.

  “Which do you want?” he had asked her.

  “None, Franco,” she had said. “My job is to help families. There’s too much of this in the world already.” She had waved her arm across the firing range, where men and women tested different weapons. The pop, pop, pop was as constant as the ticking of a clock.