He breathed hard then rocked slowly on his feet before slipping the strap of the carrying case over one shoulder and the loop of the rucksack over the other. His shadow leaped from the assault rifle on the wall towards the children shivering on their bed. He wondered if any of those in their cars at the end of their day’s target shooting knew the true force of fear. But it had been his choice to come, his decision… Without a backward glance he went out through the door.

The men were around him. The wind gripped at the hessian straps and caught the billows of his gillie suit. He thought of the Lee Enfield No. 4 Mark 1 (T) in its secure cabinet at home, and the collection of silver teaspoons, awarded for competition marksmanship, in the sideboard drawer. He walked towards the lights of the vehicles.

Close about him was the darkness, the smell of fighting men and the scent of struggle

… It had been his own decision, his own choice.

It is a place that is an afterthought of history.

The Tarus and Zagros mountains are the kernel of this region and its people. The natural limits, recognized only by the inhabitants of a harsh, wind-stripped land, are the plains below the mountains to the south and east, the upwaters of the great Tigris river to the west, and the Black Sea shores to the north. The modern frontiers, created artificially by long-dead diplomats in faraway chancelleries, have divided up the territory with a confluence of boundaries scarring that kernel. The present-day nation states of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq now have uncertain stewardship of the towering mountains, the razor-edged ridges running between them and the cliff-faced valleys below, and jealously guard their sovereign rights with aircraft, artillery pieces, armoured vehicles, infantrymen and the shadowy agents of the secret police.