Chapter 27

Chaman, Pakistan

Chaman is a city of 200,000 or so, on the Pakistan / Afghan border, about halfway between Qandahar, Afghanistan and Quetta, Pakistan. It’s at the north-west end of the Khjoak tunnel – a 3.2 mile long railroad tunnel through the mountains, and on the edge of a great desert in southern Afghanistan.

On the Pani Taqseem Road, about 6 km from the center of Chaman, is the home of the Zimri family: father, Musqafar Abin; wife, Alamensara; daughter, Alama; and son, Mohammed Abu. The daughter was 16, the son was 15.

One night, last March, Mohammed Abu Zimri raped his sister while his parents were in town. On the return of Mr. and Mrs. Zimri, the young woman was shunned by her parents and sent to live with her widowed aunt, about half a kilometer down the road. In the eyes of her parents, the daughter was responsible for the rape – by being female, apparently.

About two weeks later, young Alama Zimri went to meet her mother near the marketplace. On the way to the meeting, Alama was abducted by her brother and her father. They took her to a vacant field, where they proceeded to cut her throat. They sawed on her neck, over and over, until the head was severed from her body. The men left her there after kicking some dust over her body.

All this was established by the statements that father and son gave during the trial before a religious court. The mother, Mrs. Alamensara Zimri, was complicit in the assassination of the girl. The mother, of course, did not testify – no woman had ever testified in that particular court. The shame to the family honor was just too great to be borne.

They came back after a two day trial with ‘Not Guilty of a Crime.’

The subject of what to do to the Zimri family had been under discussion by Armis, Io, the mercenary group, and pair of SEAL officers. One thing they were unanimous about: send the women of the team. The final action was the one suggested by Zeus’ personality – although it was translated by ‘Michael Lenti.’ The other suggestions were more extreme.

Two days later, Armis, Avis MoKenna, and Carolyn Osgood were waiting in the kitchen/living room of the home when the Zimri family woke for the morning. All three wore camo fatigues, and black hoods over their heads. The mother was first and she was easily subdued and tied to a chair. The father was the next to arrive and he was the next to be captured. He would have preferred to be executed by the women warriors, but they weren’t using guns. The son was easy, he was a slight boy and was wrapped up and forced into a chair. All three were tied by plastic ties at wrist, elbow, knee and ankle to their chairs, and gagged.

The men were stripped naked; the mercs simply used knives and cut the clothes from them. They were furious – to be stripped and handled so easily by ‘mere women’ was outrageous!

Then Armis came out of the corner where she’d stayed out of the way. She said, “You have shunned and then killed you daughter for the ‘crime’ of being raped by this piece of offal.” She gestured at the boy. “I am the hand of Mohammed. You have shamed the Prophet you claim to follow. The Prophet said to simply kill you, but I argued that, though it would provide justice, it would not balance the shame.”

She lifted the penis of each and taped it to the abdomen of each man. A small block of wood was placed beneath the son’s balls and then they were simply smashed with a metallic ball peen hammer that Carolyn had brought in her belt pack. The boy, of course, fainted from the pain.

Armis said to the father, “No real man would force himself on a sister.” The father shook his head ‘no’ as if in agreement. Armis moved the block of wood and placed it under the father’s balls. He shook his head more violently ‘no, ‘ pleading for his manhood to be spared.

“And no father would punish his daughter for the infraction of his son.” Carolyn handed the hammer to Avis.