BANGKOK April 1, 2003
The rest is, well as they say, history. A history that can't be told too factually because revealing those facts might prejudice events still unfolding in that region of the world. And besides, I'm not so sure of a lot of those facts anyway. The fog that descended over me during that period is thinning in spots, but still thick as gravy in others, leaving the half lucid glimpses of reality few and far between. Time may make it all clear, but I doubt it. The doctors think that the events that jolted me into this new fantasy world may have been so traumatic that I'll never completely return. But it's not fantasy. At least not to me.
The abortive raid, senseless in a way because they didn't know they were targeting the wrong mark. The unnecessary loss of life, 3 SAS operatives and untold Iraqi police. An unwilling mark, too drugged and unfocused to offer any help. A liability, actually, who may have added to the failure, more attached to the other side than to those who trained him and put him on this road in the first place. And the aftermath of the raid, with the complete collapse of the operation and withdrawal to safer quarters, leaving me and Anthony completely on our own at that point.
And the Iraqi Army involved now, tearing through Ossira's organization, indeed Ossira himself, with a vengeance as they followed orders to "rid my country of these queers and those who have brought them". Later reports verified the intensity and inhumanity of this effort as the special police tracked us down and took steps to eradicate any threat we might pose.
Apparently I was one of the first picked up, somewhere between the power plant and Ossira's yacht, during the raid that went terribly wrong . Apparently I was strung out on drugs and offered absolutely no help in the attempt to rescue me, running half naked down a side street to elude my rescuers. Crowds formed and they were slowed to the point that the police had time to react. The resulting firefight didn't go well at all. And of course there was no challenge in capturing me, a child could have accomplished that given my state. I don't remember my interrogation at all Apparently I was detained in first one jail then another while the security service tried to ascertain my background. My carefully crafted cover came apart in no time, and when they made me as an agent life went downhill fast.
I don't even know the names of the prisons I was held in after that. I do remember the beatings, the torture, and the rapes. When they were satisfied that I no longer posed a threat, and when they had all the information I had to give them, the beatings and torture stopped. Or at least abated. My social status as an American and as a homosexual still made me the prime outlet for their frustration and they took every opportunity to strengthen their self esteem by reducing mine. I was an easy, and as time wore on, a willing target for them. The rapes that followed were much less rapes for me than willing submission to them. I had long ago unwittingly divorced myself from my mission, my country, my dignity. With the help of drugs and my own hedonistic propensities I had let myself be degraded to the point that, except for sex, nothing mattered. Absolutely nothing. I was aware of nothing else. And, as the doctors would later theorize, that one thing may have been what allowed me to survive with sanity.
Although I didn't know it at the time, I crossed paths with both Jon and Anthony during these prison crawls. Once they identified Anthony, he was quickly spirited out of the country, to a more obscure and religiously fanantic group to the east. He eventually ended up in Kashmir where he was repatriated to the UK.
Jon was identified and taken to the border with Iran, where he was released and told never to re enter Iraq on threat of death. He has never been heard from since.
I was castrated at Al Rasad, a mental institution in Baghdad, my signature forged on a medical release statement. It says that I respectfully request sexual reassignment surgery and authorize the medical staff to carry it out.
They had absolutely no intention, or ability, to finish the procedure, but that of course didn't matter. I had been rendered 'safe'and that was all that mattered. The recuperation was long and painful, made livable only by the drugs they kept me on.
How I ended up in Bangkok is beyond me. The debrief must have been as frustrating for my rescuers as it was obscure to me. Snatches are all that remain of the months in Iraq, and hopefully are all that will ever remain.
My career as a agent is, thankfully, over and done. Life, as I knew it, is over. The talented Thai doctors have done wonders with the botched castration, but nothing can undo it. The next step was by my own, conscious decision, and I don't intend to look back. They're experts at SRS here, and with that and the help of the hormones I intend to look forward and live life to the fullest as a complete woman.
To be honest, it's probably the role I've been seeking all my life anyway.
The end