Hamah, at the foot of the mountain to the north, olive groves.
The fifth day.
Brigadier General Hassan knelt beside the seventeenth pit, his hands already dug to shreds. His nails had peeled back, blood mixed with dirt smeared in the crevices of his fingers, like a coat of cheap red paint. He didn't care. What he cared about was the face in the pit.
The face was very young, in his early twenties, eyes closed as if sleeping.
But the hole in his chest told Hassan he was not sleeping. The bullet had entered from the back and exited through the chest, leaving a wound the size of a baby's fist. The blood had dried, blackish-brown, smeared on the gray sportswear, like a puddle of melted asphalt.
He knew this person. Not because he had seen him before, but because he had seen his name.
On that list, twelve names after Malik Hassan. Named Abdul Karim Hassan. His cousin's third son. Malik's brother.
