It was visible that the Colonel was afraid when he asked him these questions inside the airport. "He has every reason to be!“, Rayan thought without any compassion.
The Colonel had hoped for a festive welcome and to make a good impression of his team: now it was a disaster. He promised to put his best men on the investigation. As if that would lead to anything! Rayan calmed himself down a bit: they still had the assassin – this guy was going to tell them every tiny bit of detail, one way or the other. Sooner or later. If he wanted to or not. But it would by no means be the staff of the Colonel that would interrogate him, oh no! This was a matter of his own tribe, his own loyal men. Rayan had already seen to it that everything necessary was being arranged.
1987 - Zarifa – Break-up
The sun stood almost vertical in the blue sky and was burning down on them with brutal force. Everyone was happy therefore, as soon as they could find a place in the shade.
Breathing heavily, Rayan looked back on the running track he had just covered. He was content with himself: he had succeeded to finish the course faster than any of the other kids.
This was his personal best time. Surely his father, the Sheikh Sedat Suekran, would be proud this time.
The running track was about five kilometres and was originally built for training the fighters of His Excellency.
It consisted of several obstacles that had to be surmounted: there was a steep face, then a rope to be climbed up, in order to swing over to a tree and a wooden frame which you had to crawl under by using your elbows and things like that.
But most of all your time was critical, so you had to cover the distance by running. This was made more challenging by several obstacles that had to be jumped over.
There was also, and not to be forgotten, the four break points, at which a variety of weapons had to be used for training purposes: throwing knives, archery, handguns and rifles.
It started some time ago with only two exercises, but it had grown over time and had resulted in the now existing running track.
Within two years the Sheikh introduced the rule that all boys together, once a month, got a day off from lessons at school in order to prove their ability on the running track.
Officially it was something you could choose to do voluntarily.
Yet all the boys felt compelled to participate so that they would not be the target of mockery from the others afterwards.
Rayan looked forward to it every month; he just loved the track as he was able to run fast and he was agile.
It was not as if he would have a choice anyway. As the son of the Sheikh he had to participate, no matter what. Additionally to these monthly competitions, his father insisted that he trained daily.
Rayan was 13 and for his age he was relatively tall at almost 1,70 m and the training had already provided him with some muscles .
With his dark hair, which was almost black and only shone dark brown in direct sunlight, and his dark blue eyes he was a fairly attractive guy. At this point you could figure out already that when grown up he would be able to twist lots of women around his little finger effortlessly.
His Excellency himself was also slim and tall. The colour of Rayan’s hair had clearly been inherited from him, but his father had deep black eyes, which had already taught many people to fear him. He might have been 50 or even a little bit older: it was difficult to estimate his age because the skin on his face had a leathery consistency due to being tanned by many hours in the sun. Still sweating heavily and with a bright red face from exhaustion, Rayan ran over to his father, who waited near the entrance of the running track, together with all the other men, for the arrival of the boys.
The moment he saw the expression on his father’s face he grew nervous. He did not have to wait long, as instead of the proud greetings Rayan had expected, the words of the Sheikh caught him like a hammer:
"What exactly was that supposed to be? You have just hit two out of 14 targets. Why do you never take any single task seriously which is assigned to you? You are not a child that can afford to fool around anymore! You will go right now and train for one hour at the shooting range. And tonight you will muck out the stables. No dinner for you.”
Rayan stood there thunderstruck. Instead of being praised like he had expected, he was told off – again – this time in front of all his friends and – worse – in front of all the men.
And to have to clean up the stables? His father was well aware that the boys from his group were planning to go out tonight on an excursion to the little pond outside of the valley. Well, it seems like he could forget about that, again! His father seemed to be an expert at picking out all the occasions he was bound to have some fun; it was just like he wanted to deliberately prevent him having enjoyment.
This thought raised his anger and all he felt was burning rage. It was so unfair. Before he realised what he was about to do, he had started yelling. He had no clear idea what he was calling at his father, but for the first time ever, he just had to let off steam.
It should have been a warning that the face of his father was getting darker with every word he said.
But he just could not stop. It was like a raging flood as soon as the dam was down. He had suffered too long already from frustration; too much was piled up all inside of him.
Then, suddenly, the smack hit him. In the middle of his right cheek and with a force that tossed him to the ground.
At first he did not know what had happened to him, but then he realised that his father had slapped him with all his might.
Warm blood ran down his cheek, his father’s ruby ring seemed to have cut into his skin, right underneath his right eye.
"You will do exactly what I tell you to do. And tomorrow morning we will talk about this behaviour of yours.”
“To talk” would mean that he was going to order his personal servant to hit Rayan with the leather belt - that much was clear to him immediately. The cold rage in his eyes promised him that this time it was going to be worse than ever.
Shortly some doubts welled up inside of Rayan – had he gone too far this time? His father had never hit him before, that is what the servants were here for.
While he was thinking his options through, he suddenly felt a hatred so strong, that he was shocked by his own emotions.
He could never do anything right, no matter how hard he tried. He was never praised, as what he did was never good enough. Everything had to be even better or faster.
For too long already he had outperformed all his friends in many of the sporting exercises; even in weaponry like archery, throwing knives and setting up of traps he was one of the best. Especially when throwing a knife, no one had a chance against him. But it was still never enough!
In spite of his extremely good results he always had to do extra laps, do additional exercises, and, on top of this, he was punished.
Pondering about that, he was already getting nervous thinking about the next morning. It was another of the treacherous punishments of his father, to always have to wait for the next day to come. This left you one long night to “prepare”. It would not be the first time that Rayan would lay in his bed without sleeping, dreading the dawn. In this moment he knew exactly what he had to do. He lifted himself up from the ground and cautiously shook his head, in order to get his vision clear.
His father had already turned away from him and gone back into the house. For him all was said and done.
Rayan did his hour of training as he was told to do, but after that he was free to go inside as well. He started to pack a few things into his backpack. He would