Adventures In The Far Reaches

Chapter 5

FEARING ANOTHER KID might just pop out of nowhere and sprint across the road and send me and Chris crashing again to through the windshield, I moved to the front seat beside Omar where I could secure myself with the seatbelts. My partner sat still in the backseat, tweaking the lens tube of the camera. The damage from the crash turned out to be skin-deep; the zoom mechanism got compromised and he needed to pretty much do an open-heart surgery with it. I detached the Handycam from my shoulders and just kept recording the entire trip, zooming in on everything the editing team might find useful, be it a torn-down tree, a burning pile of tires or a kid waving at me, and talking to the camera as I see them.

The more we drove further, the more struck I got with everything I was seeing. Minus all the bullet holes and craters from bombs and the trash and the thick dust, the city proved to be remarkably modern, far from my expectations of just pure mud and sand. The road was paved with asphalt, the highways pretty complex and the buildings tall and looked sturdy though really compact in places. And the magnificent snow-covered summit of the mountain range would've made the city really astonishing. Maybe I was just exposed too much to the stereotype of American war movies about how the Middle Eastern landscape looked like.

The absence of any audible explosions or gunfire around struck me more. Though the complete lack of people made me pretty uneasy, the surroundings were disturbingly peaceful and calm. I really thought that we're gonna come across some group of rebels fighting with machine guns and AK-47s against the tanks of the American army, all while mortar shells drop from the sky and explode a entire block to dust. But instead, it was all quiet and tranquil.

"It's weird that nothing's going on," I said.

"The fighting usually starts like seven in the morning," Omar said. I looked at my watch – 6:39. "The rebels have this weird schedule that they should only fight during this time to pray and ask Allah for help. They must be resting or praying right now, but soon enough the bullets and missiles will start flying again."

I didn't want to get caught in the gunfire, like anyone would even want that. "How far is your house?"

"It's not really far, ten minutes away from here." Thinking that I had absolutely no right to complain for the ride he rather gladly risked his life for, I tried to hide my growing frustration. The road from the airport went straight, filled with large craters and debris from fallen infrastructure. A few hundred meters down, the sound of helicopter rotors hit my ear. It sounded particularly close to us. I looked through the windshield to find them. If they're in the air, that meant rebels might be nearby, ready to blast those things and most likely all of us too with their rockets to kingdom come.

"Helicopters from the Americans," Omar said. "They fly above the city much more often now."

"No, I just... there might be rebels out here somewhere. I saw them fire RPGs to helicopters passing by earlier before we landed," I said.

"Oh, yes. The rebels shoot the helicopters so that the Americans could no longer send troops and weapons and sup-plies to their military."

"Where is the American army stationed?" I said.

"They're on the other side of the city, at Dosshan Tappeh airfield," he said. "It was once a closed airport, but it was reopened for the military operation. There is another one in Saveh, south of the city but it's too far. I wanted to go there myself but they won't let me in. They don't trust us. I just wanted an interview."

"Well, we trust you man." We had no choice, anyway.

"I will take you there. It's the least I could do."

"Don't tell me you're doing all this for us because of Judd's toys and that cap?"

"Of course I am," he said. "It's the greatest payment I ever got from anyone."