Jihadi Bride, page 16
“Do you really believe that the important thing is to be good to people?”
“Of course,” she said and closed her eyes. Forgive me. “But you didn’t let me finish. While it is important to treat people well, the need for the Caliphate supersedes that obligation. When the Caliphate is more established, then we can be more concerned about how people are treated.”
“But you said it didn’t matter where you lived.”
“In normal circumstances,” she said. “But these circumstances are anything but normal. We must all be prepared to do our duty.”
“What about the killing?” Pralo said. “My dad says it’s against religion.”
She took a deep breath. “The need for the Caliphate comes above all else,” she said. “Have you thought about making your hijrah to do your part for your religion?”
“I have.”
Her heart sank. “I can help.”
“I’d need to think about it.”
“You’ll be strong, I can tell. Give me a moment.” She flicked the microphone to mute and glanced at Abu Mustapha. “You see, brother?”
He grunted. “I must consider this. Keep working,” he said, and left her alone.
She returned to the monitor and stared at the screen.
“Hello?” Pralo said. “Are you there?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, I am.” She’d been wrong. The Caliphate could indeed take everything from her.
CHAPTER TEN
THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING
Raqqa, Syria
09 May 15 – 1736 Local
Arielle trudged in silence beside Umm Fatima, down empty alleyways festooned with black banners on the way back to her apartment. There were no men to escort them, and so Umm Fatima walked with her, and when stopped by the religious police, Umm Fatima would leverage her status in the al-Khansaa Brigade to talk their way through.
Arielle wondered how long she could keep this up.
It was impossible to know all the rules or evade detection. Umm Fatima cleared most things up, like the time Arielle had been accosted by the Hisbah for forgetting her black gloves, but to Arielle, it felt like a question of time until she felt the lash of the whip. Even worse was her job, how fast the Caliphate propaganda had become normal, and how fast she was able to forget the people she recruited. Soon, perks like the internet and Umm Fatima’s privileged status would be enough of a reward to help her forget her actions.
Almost.
They entered the apartment building, and Arielle fell back. She dreaded the nights, cooped up in the apartment. It should have been welcome relief, but there had yet to be a night when the explosions of bombs hadn’t descended on the city, the main difference being how close and how loud the screams were in the aftermath. She’d try to block them out, would think it impossible to ever close her eyes again, then fall into a fitful, exhausted sleep.
“Come.” Umm Fatima beckoned.
Arielle glanced up and then caught movement out of the corner of her eye. From behind a pillar in the lobby, Mus’ab Saleh peeked out. Her heart leaped, and she stepped in his direction and then stopped when he held a dirty finger to his lips. He gestured at Umm Fatima, who had her back to him. Arielle nodded in return, a nod she hoped Umm Fatima would interpret as intended for her, then followed Umm Fatima into the stairwell.
Umm Fatima accompanied Arielle as far as her apartment, then departed the same way she’d come, her cargo delivered safe and sound. The woman was no sooner out of sight before Arielle tore off her veil. She tried to wait in patience, but the time dragged. The minutes seemed like hours before a quiet knock came at the door. She almost tripped over her feet as she rushed to the door and yanked it open.
Mus’ab Saleh fell into the apartment and slammed the door closed behind him. “Will she return?”
“No.” She watched as he tugged down the blinds to the apartment’s windows. “What’s happened?”
He waited until the room was in near darkness and then came to her, a shadow visible by the hint of late-afternoon light around the edges of the blinds. “It’s been a disaster.”
“Are you all right?” She peered up at him, noticed a cut on his eye and reached for it.
He brushed her hand aside. “We have to go. Gather what you can fit in a bag.”
“Go where?”
“Lebanon. We have to get across the border.”
“Slow down.” She placed a hand on his back and he tensed and flinched from her touch. “Tell me what happened,” she said.
He stood for several seconds and then his shoulders slumped. “My unit was overrun.”
“But you’re okay.”
“I’m the only one who survived,” he said. “Two of our soldiers stopped me, accused me of desertion. They were going to execute me.” He shifted his gaze to her. “I killed them.”
“Did you have a choice?”
He shook his head. “Not that it matters. There will be questions, accusations. It’s no longer safe here, for either of us.”
Gooseflesh prickled on Arielle’s arms and she thought of the Dutch fighters executed the day before, all beheaded in the public square for desertion. Even that had been a blessing of sorts given the rumors among the crowd that deserters would begin to be burned alive.
Mus’ab Saleh stripped off his shirt and headed for the bedroom. “We have to go. Now.”
She followed. “Do you have a plan?”
“We head for Lebanon,” he said. “I can contact my family from there.”
“And if we’re caught?”
Mus’ab Saleh paused, half dressed. The unspoken answer in his face was plain. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“Of course not.” She was ready to leave – wanted to leave – but faced with the choice, it occurred to her that while her life was miserable, she was at least alive. If caught, she would take her place in the public square. “Would it be better for you to go on your own?”
Mus’ab took her by the shoulders. “If you stay, you’ll be killed.”
“If I go, I’ll be killed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I could turn you in.” Umm Fatima’s words in her mouth. Shame colored her cheeks.
He stiffened. “You could.”
She gazed into his eyes and wondered how it had come to this, how she was able to consider trading his life for hers. He wasn’t some nameless person but her husband, however it had come to pass, a man she’d felt connected to, even if their time together had been short. This was the worst part about the Caliphate, how it turned people against each other and forced them into total subservience. She wrapped her arms across her chest and looked away. “That’s what the Caliphate would want.”
“It is,” he said, his voice steady. “The Caliphate wants lots of things.”
Like her. The Caliphate wanted her, body and soul. Abu Mustapha didn’t value her as a sister or as a person, he wanted her ability to use social media to support the Caliphate. Likewise Umm Fatima, whose most important concern was that Arielle would submit, which was, after all, the meaning of the word ‘Muslim’ – one who submits. But if she submitted in this, it was more than Mus’ab Saleh’s life at stake.
“Why didn’t you flee when you had the chance?” she asked.
“You would have still been in danger,” he said. “I came back for you.”
“What?”
“I made a vow.” He took her hands in his own. “I know our marriage was rash. And it was forced, but it’s important in Islam, and it’s important to me. As it is said, the most perfect in faith amongst men are those who are kindest to their wives.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I feel like we’re on the same path and I believe you feel it too. That’s more important to me than even my own life.”
His words touched her in a place she’d done her best to wall off and she looked away, but he guided her face back.
“If I’d fled across the border, you would have been executed in my place. Now, you have choices. Turn me in, and you should be safe, and I’ll have accomplished my goal. Or come with me and take a chance on a life together.” He sighed and pulled his hand from her cheek. “Whatever you decide, it needs to happen soon.” He released her and continued changing.
She watched him shed his pants and disappear into the bathroom, fought to control her breathing. As the sound of the shower filled the room, she struggled with her thoughts. In her short life, Mus’ab was the first man who didn’t view her as an object to protect, a possession to order around. She could submit to his love, because in coming back for her, he had already submitted to hers. She knelt beside the bed and began to pack clothes into her bag.
* * *
Ottawa, Ontario
09 May 15 – 1942 Local
The punching bag swayed at the edge of Erik’s reach. He shuffled about the dusty floor of his garage and then lashed out. His fist connected and the bag rocked back, and the chain from which it hung rattled. Twinges of pain bit into his back, and he grimaced and then threw another punch. This was stupid, but he didn’t care. He had no other release.
Well, there was one other way. He glanced at the two bottles he’d placed on the stairwell that lead into the house. The one, plastic and filled with water. The other, glass and filled with whiskey, a friend he hadn’t touched for eight years. He wasn’t sure which one he’d pick.
He grunted and jabbed again and then stepped back to adjust the straps on his gloves while his thoughts drifted. I promised I’d keep her safe. He shook his head and kept punching and his knuckles whined through the thin gloves as the skin frayed, but he didn’t stop. Let it come, he thought. I promised.
At the time he’d made that promise, Audray had been dead a few weeks. He’d been coming off a bender – how long had that one been? – and had left Arielle with Audray’s sister yet again, the one who’d taken her in when he’d stormed out of the funeral. When he’d picked her up, Arielle had stared at him with the innocent eyes of an eleven-year-old. An eleven-year-old he’d deserted.
“Where did you go, Dad?” she’d asked.
“I had some things to do,” he’d mumbled. He couldn’t look at her. The reek of alcohol hung over him, he saw it on her aunt’s face. “I’m sorry.” Christ, he’d needed a drink.
“Don’t leave me again, okay?” she’d said and fell into his arms. “I was scared.”
“I won’t,” he’d whispered into her hair as he held her close. Eyes clenched shut, he’d mouthed a silent prayer. I’ll do better, Audray, I promise. I’ll keep her safe.
But he hadn’t.
He’d been so stupid. He realized now what an ideal candidate Arielle had been for recruitment. He’d been too wrapped up to notice the signs, like with Audray, but they’d all been there. It had started early October, around the time Mary-Beth had described. The short phone calls. The increasingly rare visits, how hard it had been to get in touch. He’d thought she was adjusting to college and then it was late-October, the Parliament Hill shooting happened, and his every waking moment was spent either at work or thinking about it.
And what did he have to show for all his precious time at work? In the past three years, he’d stopped almost fifty people from heading to the Middle East. He’d helped prevent three attacks on Canadian soil, including a plan to explosively derail passenger trains in the Greater Toronto Area, an attack that would have killed hundreds of people. In return, he’d lost his daughter, who was in the one place he’d worked to keep people from going. He would trade everything he’d accomplished, everyone he’d saved to have Arielle back.
He yelled and launched a flurry of blows on the bag. His back throbbed and ached and he pictured the bag exploding under his fists and punched harder and then it was too much. The bag swung back and bumped into him, and he clung to it and held on, his legs weak, his lungs burning for air.
What now?
He didn’t know. He clawed off the gloves, grimaced as they rubbed against the sores on his knuckles. He sat on the stairs and reached for the plastic bottle, then paused and picked up the glass bottle instead. The cap came off with an easy twist, and the bottle was halfway to his lips when his cell phone rang. He stared at it and then picked up the handset to cancel the call and saw that it was Stephanie. Checking up on him. Anger gripped him, and he answered in a voice hoarse from yelling. “You can tell Wiggins I’m at home.”
“I’m more concerned with how you’re doing,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said and stared at the bottle of whiskey. “Nothing a little ice won’t fix.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk to me,” she said. “There are others, though.”
“That’s not it.” He set the bottle down and fingered the ring hanging from his neck. “I just...I don’t know where to begin.”
“I understand.”
He swallowed. “All I’ve done is make things worse.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“If that’s what you think, maybe you should try something new.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “talk to your family, read a book. Take up religion.”
“I’m not the praying type.” It was easier to talk about that then explain his rare talks with his parents or brother back on the family farm. He’d been gone for 26 years, been in the army, had a family of his own, yet his mother and older brother still treated him like he was a sixteen-year-old kid waiting to become a man.
“Sorry, I’m a lapsed Roman Catholic, so religion always comes up in heart-to-hearts,” she said with a light laugh. “Priests can be good listeners if you find the right one. Maybe you should go see one. Or an Imam.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Erik,” she said, “I know you’re struggling with why Arielle did what she did. Maybe you need to stop looking at this through your lens and put yourself in her shoes.”
His chest tightened. “I –”
“Just think about it,” she said. “And whatever you do, try not to get run over.”
“I promise,” he said.
“Whatever happens, call if you need something.”
“Thank you,” he said, then hung up. Maybe Stephanie was right, maybe he’d been going about this the wrong way. He’d tried finding Arielle as if she was another case at work, with logic and analysis and everything he’d been trained to do. He needed a new approach. The Imam wasn’t a bad idea, but it would have to be –
The phone buzzed with a text message, and he glanced at the screen.
Erik,
Seeking to establish comms. Heard about your situation and thought we might have a mutually beneficial solution.
Check out what we do, at www.1MEIB.com. When you’re ready, talk to Chris Lewis clew@gmail.com.
Best Regards,
MDK
Erik snorted. Talk about timing. Like he told Wiggins whenever the subject of MDK came up, he hadn’t heard from Matt de Kalb in almost ten years. They’d served in the same infantry battalion in the Nineties, lost touch when Erik switched to intelligence analyst. They’d deployed together to Afghanistan in 2004 but drifted apart after Audray’s death. Erik knew de Kalb had retired from the military and formed a private security company based in the United States, one that helped Westerners fight the Caliphate with the Kurds, but that was it.
He shook his head. He wasn’t sure what mutually beneficial solution meant, but if anyone knew about Syria and Iraq and how to get there, it would be MDK. He set the phone down, and his hand brushed the whiskey bottle. He hesitated, then took up the other bottle and squirted water into his mouth. His hands stung – more than his back – and they’d be painful for the next week or so as the scabs took hold. But when the scabs fell off, the new skin would be tougher than before, more durable.
This fight was far from over.
* * *
Manbij, Syria
10 May 15 – 0807 Local
Arielle listened to the bus driver cry out the destinations.
“Al-Bab! Homs! Beirut!” the man called.
She tugged on Mus’ab Saleh’s sleeve and glanced around the bus station. “Do you really think this will work?”
He nodded, eyes sunken in his haggard face. They’d gone over the simple plan multiple times. Drive to Manbij, then get on a bus and ride to Lebanon.
“Wouldn’t it be better to drive the whole way?” she asked. As hard as it was to believe that buses still operated, it was harder to believe they wouldn’t attract more attention.
“We’d never make it through the checkpoints,” he said. “In a group, we can blend in.” The group meant the ten or so other passengers waiting to board the bus. He took her hand. “I have my Lebanese passport, which will get us through.”
“And me?” she asked. “All I have is the temporary card I was issued in Raqqa and my Canadian passport.”
“I know there’s risk, but this is our best chance. We’ll make it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I have to believe in something.” He smiled and gazed into her eyes through the slit of her niqab.
