Day Zero

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Emiko Miyagi was not accustomed to wearing so many clothes. Considering the deeply conservative Islamic practices in this part of Pakistan, the muscular little Japanese woman was fortunate to be wearing her head. Defending herself was not normally a problem she worried about. At forty-four, she could have killed any three men in the village at one time without batting an eye. Still, she knew that enough wild dogs could bring down even a powerful lioness, so she covered her body — and kept her plans to herself.

Tugging at the heavy, earth-colored robe she wore over her slacks and long-sleeve cotton shirt, Emiko pulled her black head scarf tight against the breeze and heaved a five-gallon plastic water jug onto the uneven wooden bed of a donkey cart with a dull thump. In truth, forty pounds of water was nowhere near too heavy for her, but she had to keep up appearances.

She used the back of her arm to mop the drops of sweat from her forehead and paused from her work at the communal well to gaze through the crystalline air of the broad river valley. She could have been in Montana were it not for the slumping stone houses and terraced green fields. Dark stands of spruce and oak spilled down the boulder-strewn mountains that rose up on either side. The ever-present smell of wood smoke, human waste, and burned trash, common to underdeveloped countries, also provided a clue that she was a long way from any amber waves of American grain.

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