Jihadi Bride, page 23
Erik held the phone to his chest and glanced at Walid. “Everything all right?”
“No people.”
Erik scanned out the window. “Are we near the defensive lines?” If he remembered right, the FLOT was another twenty kilometers to the south.
Walid shook his head and then pointed through the windshield. “Checkpoint up ahead.”
Erik followed the direction of Walid’s finger. Two car lengths in front, Chris and Mark’s truck had stopped, and a Kurdish soldier was at the driver’s side window. Almost a block farther, two tan Toyota Hilux pickups flanked the street. Kurdish soldiers stood in the back of both trucks, the one on the right behind a large machine gun, the one on the left behind what looked like the cannon of a tank. Erik put the phone back to his ear.
“What’s going on?” Stephanie asked.
“Going through a checkpoint,” he said. “Everything’s under control.”
Having finished with Chris’s vehicle, the Kurdish soldier approached Walid’s truck. Walid rolled down his window and on request, handed over a set of papers. The soldier flipped through the documents and exchanged a few words in Arabic with Walid. After a minute, the soldier returned the papers and waved them on. Walid put the truck in gear and rolled through the checkpoint.
“He said some Caliphate fighters may be in the village,” Walid said. “Peshmerga are going door to door to find them.”
As if on cue, Kurdish soldiers appeared on the side of the road in twos and threes, their uniforms a mishmash of camouflage pattern and civilian clothes. At a T-intersection up ahead were three more vehicles, two with heavy machine guns mounted in the back, the third with a recoilless rifle pointed down a road that led to the south. The men in the trucks watched Walid and Erik drive past with hard eyes and their fingers on the triggers of their weapons.
“That road leads to Tal Afar and Sinjar,” Walid said as they drove through the junction. “This territory was recently recaptured, and the caliphate may have left cells behind.”
“Is everything okay?” Stephanie asked.
“Fine.” Erik focused on the southern route, which led through an expanse of featureless desert with no obstacle in sight to stop Caliphate forces. “Just getting some ground truth.”
“And? Are you finding what you’re looking for?”
“I have a lead,” he said. “I’m checking it out right now.”
“What does that mean?”
He smiled. She’d transitioned from Stephanie his friend to Stephanie the analyst. “My colleagues think they can introduce me to someone who’ll know where Arielle is,” he said. “They believe this person is a key acquaintance of our mutual friend.”
“Al Kanadi?”
“The one and only. Is there any way you can confirm or deny that information? I was pretty sure he never left Syria.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Abu Yusuf. Supposedly he’s a rebel leader based in Mosul.”
“That’s a common name.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “There might be something there. I can’t get into specifics, but there’s reason to believe Kanadi has been in that part of the world as recent as the past few weeks.”
“That’s unusual.”
“The general consensus is that an upcoming attack may have moved from the planning stage to preliminary movements.”
Up ahead, there was another checkpoint, two more Hiluxes with machine guns mounted in the back. Walid eased to a stop a few feet back of Chris’s truck, itself behind several other vehicles in line.
“He’s never relocated to Iraq during previous attacks,” Erik said.
“I know, but there’s been increased communication between the Caliphate and its affiliates in Africa, and a lot of that activity is in Mosul.”
“Which affiliates?”
“Most of them. Al-Shabab, Ansar al-Sharia. Boko Haram declared fealty, too, you might have missed it.”
“Boko Haram’s desperate,” he said. “They need a big win to remain relevant, and the Caliphate has momentum.”
Walid drove up, close to the bumper of Chris’s truck which was about two hundred feet from the checkpoint and behind two other vehicles that weren’t part of their small convoy.
“Any rumored locations for the attack?” Erik asked.
“Europe is mentioned a lot,” Stephanie said.
“It always is these days.”
“Hard not to. The Caliphate’s foothold in Libya gives them possible access.”
“Across the Mediterranean?” Erik asked. The soldiers at the checkpoint called up the lead vehicle. “Aren’t there easier –”
White light bloomed at the checkpoint and thrust Erik back into his seat. He shielded his face as the shock wave rode through him, unable to hear anything amid the noise. When he opened his eyes, a smoking crater almost ten feet wide blocked the road between the two Kurdish pickups. Both of the tan pickups were charred and bent out of shape, unrecognizable from moments before.
He reached for Walid. “You okay?”
Walid groaned, held a hand to his eyes, and nodded. He reached for the door handle and opened it, then tumbled out.
Erik patted himself all over, the motions disjointed amid muted sound, like his ears were stuffed with cotton. He seemed to be okay. He looked up and through the cracked windshield saw Mark step out of his truck with a rifle tucked into his shoulder. Erik leaned across the truck’s cab and called after Walid. “Walid! Get in the truck!” He flinched as something hit his boot and glanced down and saw his cell. Shit, Stephanie. He stooped for the phone and covered his free ear as he tried to hear.
“– all right?” Stephanie was saying.
“It’s me,” he said. “I’m okay.”
“Thank God,” she said, relief in her voice. “What’s going on?”
“I think a vehicle bomb just went off.”
Mark’s mouth opened in a yell, the tendons taut on his neck, but no sound reached Erik.
“What?” Stephanie said, her voice urgent even through his dulled hearing.
“We’re good,” he said and then stopped and considered that he was stuck in the middle of a highway, visible for miles. And since a huge bomb had just gone off, everyone in the area was no doubt watching. Ahead, Mark stalked about, rifle pointed in all directions.
“– get out of there,” Stephanie said, and he knew she meant Iraq itself, but her words applied in this situation as well.
“I have to go,” he said and hung up. He pushed open his door and almost fell out of the truck, and then recovered and went to check on Walid. The Kurd’s eyes were vacant, and he stumbled as if drunk and Erik steered him into the passenger’s seat.
Kurdish troops rolled up in several pickup trucks and disgorged soldiers onto the south side of the road. Several opened fire, lone pot shots that didn’t draw return fire. From the back of one of the trucks, a Kurd yelled, and the firing stopped and then started again, accompanied by the shouts of the soldiers.
He got Walid into the truck, and then hands gripped him by the shoulders, and he whirled and found himself face-to-face with Mark.
“Get back in your fucking vehicle!” Mark yelled.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Erik yelled back. “Get back in your own truck!”
Mark’s eyes widened, and he stepped back, made a circular motion in the air with a raised finger. “We’re outta here.”
Erik shook his head as Mark headed off, then raced to the driver’s side. This was crazy and yet, Ziad had said he needed to have faith in something. Maybe this was what faith felt like, the belief he’d accomplish something when the best information showed no proof whatsoever. He crawled into the driver’s side and kept up with the convoy as they drove through the ruined checkpoint.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE SHIFTING SANDS
Border Near Guinea and Mali, Africa
22 May 15 – 1420 Local
The camp appeared from nowhere.
The convoy had barely left the savannah for the treed hills when they came upon a chain link fence stretched across the road. The vehicles sped through an opened gate so fast that Arielle almost missed the two men with chest rigs and assault rifles. Then they were through, and the men had closed the gates. They parked outside a two-story prefabricated building, like two oversize sea containers placed on top of each other, and Arielle’s new driver, Nassir, got out. Arielle used the opportunity to scan the camp, though her right eye was swollen shut and her neck was so stiff she had to twist her whole body to peer around.
Several smaller buildings occupied this area of the gravel lined compound. Deeper into the facility was another chain link fence that made a compound within a compound. Tied to this inner fence was a sign, a red triangle with three pincer-like semi-circles in black, layered on top of a smaller circle. It looked familiar, but before Arielle could examine the sign further, Nassir yanked open her door.
“Get out,” Nassir said. When she didn’t respond, he undid her seatbelt and pulled her from the vehicle.
She let herself be dragged up the corrugated steel stairs that led to the second floor of the prefab building. She took her time as she climbed and tried to see as much of the compound as she could, noticed how Nassir’s gaze was also drawn to the fence inside the compound. Then Nassir pulled her and she tripped up the stairs.
“Stop looking around,” Nassir said in a growl.
At the top of the stairs, she followed Nassir through a pair of double doors and into a hallway. Nassir shoved her through the first door they came to and into a small, white, room and then pulled the door shut. The room was empty except for a few folding chairs and a window and as she wondered what was going on, she moved to the window.
She peered out through a crack in the blinds and once again saw the inner fence. From this vantage point, several of the signs with the red, pincer-like circles were visible. They bothered her, like hazard signs, but why would they be posted inside the camp? And then the image came to her, so vivid she wondered how she could have forgotten.
Biohazard.
Before she’d left Canada, the Ebola outbreak in Africa had been all over the news. Even in Raqqa she’d heard reports of the worsening epidemic, and in most of the clips, the same pincer-like circles. Her hand trembled, and the blinds made a rattling sound as they shook. It wasn’t possible. The Ebola outbreak had been in West Africa, and they’d landed in Libya, and then headed south. Or had it been south-west? It was so easy to get turned around in the desert and Reza had never answered what direction they were going.
Reza. He’d said he was scared, but not of anything human. And on the ship, he’d told her to be brave, when the men had said, ‘marad.’ Disease.
“This has to be a mistake,” she said. Her breath quickened, and she held the blinds aside to see more of the inner compound, but all that was visible was the corner of the fence and one small, shack-like building. “This has to be a mistake,” she said again. “I’m taking a message to Canada.”
Except that hadn’t been quite what al Kanadi had said.
Steps passed in the hallway and she dropped the blind and stepped back from the window. The footsteps went past the door, and she held her hands to her head, still able to see the fence with its hazard signs outside. Still able to hear al Kanadi’s voice and she repeated his words out loud. “He’d said I would be a great carrier of the message,” she said and then she knew that she had to get away and that she wouldn’t get another chance.
She walked to the door, paused, and then poked her head into the hallway. A few meters to her right were the doors she’d walked through onto the second floor. In the other direction, about ten yards down was another set of doors, and for the moment the hallway was empty. She rearranged her niqab and then entered the hallway and walked toward the doors she’d come in. When she reached the doors, she paused with her hand on the door handle.
What exactly was the plan?
She shook her head. It didn’t matter, she’d have to improvise. She eased the door open and peeked out and at the bottom of the stairs were the vehicles. Then a man yelled from behind, and she looked back and locked gazes with Nassir at the other end of the hallway, his eyes wide. He raised his hand to point at her and opened his mouth and then she leapt onto the landing and hiked the hem of her niqab and raced down the steps toward the SUVs.
* * *
Kisik, Iraq
22 May 15 – 1652 Local
Erik looked through the binoculars and rotated the focusing knob and a one-story building came into view. The building lay on the far side of an empty village square strewn with bricks and refuse, and there were several trucks parked outside, a mixture of Toyota Hiluxes and Landcruisers.
“That’s where we’re meeting your contact,” he said.
“Yup,” Chris said from his side, both of them hunched over the hood of Walid’s vehicle.
Erik lowered the binoculars, but kept the rubber eyepieces on his cheekbones. “It’s safe?” Ever since the VBIED attack, he’d been unable to shake a feeling of impending dread.
“As safe as anywhere around here,” Chris said. “Think you can remember what to do?”
“Tell me again who these guys are?” He raised the binoculars for another look.
“We’ve been over this before,” Chris said.
“One more time.”
Chris snorted. “Free Iraqi Army.”
“They’re fighting the Caliphate.”
“Not really,” Chris said. “They both want the same thing, but they’ve had differences over methods.”
“And about who’s calling the shots.”
“Of course. Fucking country,” Chris said. “Hell, two years ago all these shitheads were serving together in the Iraqi military.”
“And you think they can find Arielle?” Erik asked.
“I know it, man,” Chris said. “People smuggling is just a line of business for these guys, and they’re well connected with al Kanadi’s network. They’ll either know where your daughter is or be able to find out. All you need to do is convince them to help.”
“They’re going to want money,” he said. “Smugglers don’t do anything for free.”
“Cross that bridge when you get to it. The important thing here is to make contact,” Chris said. He placed a hand on Erik’s shoulder. “Walid will make the introductions. We’ll be back here ready to ride to the rescue.” He nodded at a building beside them, where Mark had disappeared a few minutes before. “Mark’s your top cover, and we’ve got another ten guys who can handle anything up to a hundred Caliphate shit-heads. But it won’t come to that.”
Erik handed over the binoculars and joined Walid in the truck. In silence, the Kurd eased the truck across the square toward the building. Every bump jarred Erik, and the minute-long drive seemed to take an hour, and then Walid had parked.
“Tawakkaltu Ala-Allah,” Walid said. He put his hand on the door handle and looked at Erik. “Ready?”
Erik met Walid’s gaze and nodded. “Ready.” He exited the truck and trailed Walid to the door of the squat building. Walid pulled open the door and entered and Erik followed the Kurd into a dim room. His eyes were slow to adjust to the dark, and his hearing tried to compensate, but except for the scrapes of chair legs on tile, the room was silent. He stayed close to Walid as the Kurd walked across the room toward a table with two men. The men looked up and nodded, and then Walid sat down, and Erik sat beside him.
While Walid and the men exchanged words in Arabic, Erik scanned the room. There were several other tables in the large, open space of what he took to be a restaurant, despite the look of abandonment from the outside. A massive pillar dominated the center of the room, and several televisions hung from racks in the ceiling. Tucked in one corner was a set of double doors, one held open by the body of a man on his phone. Beyond the doors was the kitchen.
Walid tapped him and then nodded to the swarthier of the two men sitting at the table. “This is Abu Yusuf,” Walid said. “He says he can help.”
Abu Yusuf smiled, and his teeth were misshapen and yellow. “I have many contacts in Mosul,” he said.
Erik frowned. “Don’t you want to know what’s involved first?” he asked. It was strange not to spend more time on pleasantries. He’d had more than his share of sketchy meets in the Middle East, and they almost always started with small talk. “Besides, my daughter’s in Raqqa.”
Abu Yusuf shrugged. “Mosul, Raqqa, it is of little consequence.”
Light poured into the room, and Erik squinted at the door, where three additional men had entered the restaurant. Two of the men held AK-47’s and their gazes searched the room and when they saw Walid and Abu Yusuf, they stopped looking around and began to walk forward.
Walid stiffened and began to stand up.
“What’s going on?” Erik asked. A chair scraped on the floor behind him, and he looked over his shoulder, and Abu Yusuf smiled back through his thick beard and began to laugh. “What is this?” he asked.
