She was sitting near the back of the vehicle, so she had to wait for the passengers up front to disembark. As they began to line up on the side of the road, documentation in hand, Rebeka saw a rare opportunity and decided to take it. The soldiers seemed to be unusually wrapped up in their task, so she dug out her camera—a Canon EOS-1V with an 85mm lens already affixed—and carefully lifted it above the ledge of the window. She took a few quick shots with the flash disabled, hoping to capture her fellow passengers’ frustrated expressions. It wasn’t part of her assignment, but she happened to know a freelance writer who was doing a story on corruption in the Pakistani army, and she thought she might be able to get some mileage out of the photographs.

Once she’d fired off a half-dozen shots, Rebeka quickly lowered the camera and checked to see if anyone had noticed. It didn’t look like it, but either way, she had run out of time; the front of the bus was nearly empty, and a young soldier was striding toward the open doors.

Rebeka quickly ejected the film, dropped it into a spare tube, and slipped it into her pack. She had just gotten to her feet when the soldier reached the back of the bus and gestured toward the camera. Shouting something she didn’t understand, he grabbed her free arm with his left hand, then reached for her camera with the other. She pulled it away instinctively, but he leaned in and managed to knock it out of her hand. Then, as she watched in disbelief, he kicked it toward the back of the vehicle.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted in English, tugging free of the soldier’s grasp. “Do you have any idea how expensive that was? As soon as we get back to Islamabad, I’m going to—”

She never got the words out. The soldier slammed a fist into her stomach, then slapped her hard across the face. Rebeka’s knees banged against the edge of the seat as her body followed the blow.