As the insurgency spread, the couple took elaborate precautions to avoid being spotted as embassy employees. They would drive partway to work, always by different routes, before parking and finishing the trip by taxi. They wore their shabbiest clothes to look unemployed and inconspicuous. Early this year, the embassy’s Iraqi employees were finally promised U.S. visas, based on seniority. The couple promptly filed for theirs.

On the morning of May 21, they took a particularly dangerous route. A friend who had left the country had asked them to withdraw some money from his account at a bank. U.S. officials say the two had left the bank and were driving out of the area when a gang stopped their car. The men grabbed Hanna and let Meskoni go.

She was asked to pay a ransom. Her son says the kidnappers told her to come alone with the cash to a spot near the 14th of July Bridge at 10 in the morning sharp. “If you come at 10:30, he will be killed,” the voice warned. Meskoni was not seen again.

About a month later, police found their two bodies and took them to the morgue. There are unconfirmed accounts that an Iraqi guard was killed and another was wounded trying to protect Meskoni. Her son is convinced she would have faced the kidnappers with or without armed backup. “At a certain point she decided, ‘To hell with it. I am going down the grave with him’,” the son says.

... contd.