Jihadi Bride, page 25
The Kurds oriented on the newcomers. Some sprinted back to their vehicles, others scrambled for the building. Some brave, foolish few fired their rifles at the truck. Amid the staccato-like cracks of rifle shots, tiny pings reverberated off the vehicle, which didn’t slow.
Mark drew a bead with the RPG-7.
“Down!” Chris grabbed Mark’s shoulder and pulled him to the roof. Seconds later, a massive explosion came from the direction of the restaurant. With a clatter, pieces of metal landed in the square in front of the building. Chris stuck his mouth close to Mark’s ear. “Time to get the fuck out of here!”
“What about Petersson?”
“Fuck him!”
Mark nodded and lurched to one knee, RPG-7 at his shoulder. He aimed at the second vehicle, less than 100 yards out and headed straight for his own position, and pulled the trigger. Amid a cloud of smoke, the warhead launched out and struck the hood of the suicide vehicle. Fire spewed from the vehicle as it exploded. Mark ducked and pulled Chris down beside him, and then pieces of shrapnel began to land all around them. They waited a few seconds, then snatched their weapons, sprang to their feet and ran in hunched over positions to the back of the building.
“You think that’s it?” It was hard to hear Mark, even though he was shouting.
“No chance,” Chris shook his head. “Suicide cars are always the lead assault. There’re more troops on the way, I guarantee it. We’ve got to go.”
At the edge of the roof, Chris hopped down to the ground, then caught the rifle and rocket launcher from Mark. Then it was Mark’s turn. The men sprinted for the remaining vehicle, their own black SUV. The vehicle was maybe ten yards away, but it seemed like ten miles. Halfway there, bullets began to hit the vehicle, and tiny pockmarks appeared in the metal as if by magic. The rear window broke into a spider web of cracks, shattered.
“Five o’clock!” Chris yelled. He raised his rifle and engaged a pick-up truck flying a black flag with white Arabic letters that had appeared to their right. A second truck appeared beside it, a soldier behind a machine gun mounted in the bed. Light flashed from the gun’s muzzle, joined by the steady tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk of large caliber bullets.
Beside him, the SUV disintegrated. Something struck Chris in the leg, and he collapsed, his rifle’s barrel grinding into the dirt as he fell. Mark stood over him and returned fire, the single reports of the .338 deafening. Chris fired a burst from his rifle, wild and into the air.
“Get up!” Mark yelled. “Get off the X!”
A Caliphate soldier dropped, then another. A third vehicle rolled up and disgorged six additional fighters, who dashed into a line and then dropped to the ground. All of them took aim, and dust sprayed the street in front of Mark and Chris as bullets ricocheted.
“Back to the building,” Chris yelled. “Covering!” He fired a burst.
“Moving!” Mark took a shot, then sprinted for the building they’d just vacated.
Chris sprayed another burst at the soldier with the heavy machine gun. A hollow thunk sound came from his rifle and the trigger turned to mush. On instinct he canted the weapon, although he already knew he was out of bullets. “Stoppage!” he roared, leapt to his feet, willed himself to ignore the pain in his leg. He twisted, froze.
Mark lay on the ground about ten feet from the building’s entrance, red flecks on his chest. He struggled with the .338, tried to bring it around while bullets sprayed the ground nearby. Chris stumbled as his right leg gave out. Fire bloomed inside his other leg, and he collapsed on the ground to the muffled thud of a bullet striking flesh. He forced himself to half-crawl to Mark. “Don’t let them take us alive.”
Mark glanced at him, nodded.
Chris writhed onto his side and zeroed in on a group of four Caliphate soldiers. While two of the soldiers took aim at Chris and Mark, the other two dashed up three or four steps and then flopped to the ground and began to shoot. When the fire was steady, the first two men rose and sprinted closer. Chris tucked his rifle into his shoulder, lined up one of the men, now fifty feet away and the next time one of the men sprang to his feet, he squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. Fuck. He’d forgotten the stoppage.
Beside him, Mark dropped the .338, drew his pistol and fired. One soldier dropped, hands clutched to his abdomen, then the head of another exploded. “Stoppage!” Mark yelled. His hands were a blur as he reloaded.
Chris went for his own pistol, holstered at his waist. It stuck, pinched between the ground and his body. The remaining two men had closed to thirty feet away, and both were on their feet. Beside him, Mark grunted in pain. “Come on, come on, come on,” Chris said. He twisted to free his pistol, got it, raised it, and looked up to see the butt of an AK-47. The lights went out.
* * *
Guinea, Africa
23 May 15 – 0805 Local
The isolation partition of the half-dome shelter was small, so small Arielle could have touched both walls by extending her arms. Except for the moment, her hands were pinned to her side, held by a man clad in a head-to-toe yellow plastic suit, his hands covered with blue rubber gloves and a mask on his face. He and Arielle stood in front of a transparent plastic door. Six feet behind them stood a similarly clad man, this one with an assault rifle. As small as the partition was, Arielle was in no rush to leave as the plastic barricade was all that separated her from the tent’s main compartment, where four patients lay on four cots, all covered with thin, white blankets that stood in sharp contrast against their dark skin.
The guard who held her fiddled with a control panel on the partition wall, and the door opened. From within the main compartment, one of the bedridden men lifted his head, but the effort seemed too much. With a groan, the patient sank back onto the cot. The guard tugged on Arielle’s arm.
“No.” She shook her head. Unlike her escorts, she wore a tattered t-shirt and light pants. She pulled back, her bare skin slippery with sweat under the plastic touch of the guard’s gloved hand. “I’m not going in there.”
The guard tugged again, more forceful this time. She struggled, dug her feet into the plastic covered wood that was the floor of the shelter, but he was much bigger. He heaved and dragged her into the room. The guard with the rifle closed the door behind them.
The smell struck her first. At least one of the bed-ridden patients must have defecated where they lay and she crinkled her nose at the stink. But there was something else as well. Even with the hum of forced air fed through vents in the ceiling, there was a malevolent undertone that made her skin crawl and break out in goose bumps. Bile rose in her throat, and she covered her nose with a hand, tried her best to block out the reek.
The guard shoved her to a corner of the room, where she fell to her hands and knees. He pointed to a small table that held a metal bowl half filled with water. A filthy rag lay on the bowl’s edge, dripping over the side. The guard said something, the words indecipherable through the gas mask and whatever language he spoke and then he pointed again, this time to one of the patients.
Arielle swallowed and avoided the guard’s gaze. He put his foot on her shoulder and pushed her, pushed her again and then she was in front of the bowl. A tear fell from her eye. She wiped it, flinched as her fingers came in contact with her eye. She needed to be smarter than that.
Stupid. How long did she think she’d stave off infection? She got to her feet and picked up the bowl and carried it to the nearest person, a man. She set the bowl on the edge of the mattress and sat on a stool beside the cot and then got her first good look at the patient.
The man’s eyes were closed, his arms on top of the thread-bare sheet that covered the rest of his body. Dark purplish sores discolored the skin from his elbows to his wrists and blisters bulged on the inside of his forearms, some of which had burst to stain the sheets deep red with blood. Arielle covered her mouth with a hand.
As if he sensed her presence, the man opened his eyes, the whites discolored to a deep red. He ran a blistered tongue over his swollen lips and tried to speak, but all that came out was a hoarse groan from deep in his throat, then a weak, hacking cough. The scent of disease grew more intense, like the man’s breath itself contaminated the air.
Arielle stood and moved away from the cot with her hands over her face, backed into something solid and unyielding. The guard pushed her and she stumbled toward the cot and caught herself on the stool. She whirled, kept the stool between her and the patient, and the guard advanced on her, his outstretched hand pointed at the man, then at the bowl, then to herself. She shook her head, unable to see through moist eyes. “I won’t.”
The guard spoke louder, harsh commands accompanied by more pointing.
“No.”
The guard waved for the man with the rifle to join him. The other guard opened the door and stepped in, then walked to the foot of the cot where Arielle stood and aimed the rifle at the patient. The first guard grabbed Arielle and forced her nearer the cot, held her elbows behind her back. He yelled into her ear, shoved her toward the man on the bed.
“No.” Her body trembled all over.
The rifle fired, and the man’s lower jaw disintegrated. Blood shot from the man’s eyes and nose, tiny droplets that splattered Arielle’s face. Beneath the remains of the man’s head, the pillow stained deep red as blood dribbled down to reach the mattress. Yet somehow, the man managed to breathe, clung to life while air bubbled through the red soup at his throat.
Arielle’s breath came in gasps, and the room spun. “Why are you doing this?” she cried. They’d won already, they didn’t need to force her to care for these people or hurt them more than they were already suffering. In a daze, she felt herself dragged to another cot, the patient in this one a woman, her eyelids swollen into grotesque bulbous protrusions.
The metal bowl was jammed into her hands, and she took it, barely aware of the guards, unable to block out the horror that filled the room. She closed her eyes and relived the man’s face exploding and then she blinked her eyes open and stared at the woman in the cot, focused on her wounds, her suffering, willed herself to feel nothing.
The guard with the rifle moved to the foot of the cot and pointed his rifle at the woman’s chest. The other guard dragged over the stool and shoved it at Arielle’s feet, then pointed to the metal bowl. When Arielle didn’t move, the guards exchanged words, and the rifle’s muzzle lowered to point at the woman’s stomach.
“No more,” she said, and sobbed. “No more.”
She sat, picked up the bowl and set it beside the pillow, then dipped a hand in and felt for the rag, the water lukewarm against her numb skin. She’d gotten her chance to care for wounded after all. She wiped her nose with the back of a hand and took up the rag. Best to forget whatever dreams a stupid girl had once had, best to forget that girl had ever existed.
The woman moaned, struggled to open her eyes and failed. Her head rocked from side to side, and her bug eyes seemed to stare up at the ceiling as if she could see through the bloated horrors that obscured her sight.
The girl who had once been Arielle Petersson pulled the rag from the bowl, drained it, then lowered it onto the woman’s forehead. Held the filthy cloth against the woman’s feverish skin and wondered if the woman saw God in the ceiling, or Allah, or anything at all. Coughs racked the woman’s body, deep hacks that sent red-flecked spittle onto her cheeks.
The girl looked away, eyes shut. When the coughs subsided, she faced the woman again, her eyes dry, never to shed tears again. The two guards forgotten, she rinsed the woman’s face.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE RECKONING
Mosul, Iraq
23 May 15 – 2010 Local
It was cold. Erik shivered, scrunched up his face to fend off the light. The darkness had been warm, and now he was being dragged up and out, and he was cold, and his face was wet. A drop fell onto his forehead, and he flinched, twisted his head, and the droplet ran along his face into his ear.
Arielle.
He gasped and woke to the world. Harsh light seared his eyes, and he blinked, tried to move his head and could not. He tried to block out the light with a hand, but his arms were held fast beside him. He thrashed in the shackles and they made an empty rattle that echoed hollowly in the small, dark room that had formed in his vision.
“Hit him.”
Erik didn’t recognize the man’s voice. He started to ask where he was and then fabric stretched over his face, damp cloth that molded to his features and bound his head to the hardness he lay upon. He shook, fought his unknown assailants, but the material pulled tighter. It occurred to him that he lay at a slant, his feet higher than his head.
Then the water came.
A dribble at first, followed by a gusher. Into his mouth and nostrils, filling his throat. He snorted and blew out through his nose, spat, anything to get the water out, but the cloth held tight. The water stayed in his mouth followed by even more. He gagged and flailed against his restraints until a ragged, gurgle sounded deep in his throat, and darkness began to overwhelm him once again.
“Enough.”
The water stopped. Then the cloth came off his face and his body tilted up as if he lay on a rotating plank. Water trickled out of his mouth, and he coughed in deep, hacking barks.
“Look at me.”
Erik struggled to open his eyes, had iron fingers dig into the flesh under his chin to force his head still. He looked up and a face with a light beard swam into view, and he recognized Abu Noor al Kanadi. Fatigue filled him, weighed down his limbs not with the expectation of what the hours and days to come would bring, but with the knowledge he’d failed Arielle.
“You know who I am?” al Kanadi asked.
Erik nodded. “Yes.”
“Good,” al Kanadi said. He was seated, one leg crossed, hands rested on his knees. A stainless-steel watch decorated his wrist, its large, polished case showing both digital and analog data.
“Where am I?” It hurt to talk.
Al Kanadi smiled. “Classified,” he said. There was a concrete wall behind him, where electrical wires hung in haphazard fashion. “Your partners are here also, although not in as good condition as you. For the moment, anyways.”
“What do you want?”
“Shut up.” It was Chris’s voice, hoarse and broken.
“One of your colleagues.” Al Kanadi nodded to his side. “The first he’s said in twelve hours. That’s good, we’re making progress.”
“Fuck you,” Chris said. A muffled thud came from his direction, followed by a hissed intake of breath.
Erik glanced over. Beside him, tied to two separate chairs, were Chris and Mark. Chris leaned against his restraints and glared at al Kanadi. Bandages stained in red were tied about Mark’s shoulders and abdomen, and his head lolled onto his chest.
Al Kanadi rose, addressed Chris. “Consider that one a mistake,” he said in a soft voice that died in the small room. “But don’t worry, the other ones won’t be.”
“Leave them alone,” Erik said. “These men are helping me find my daughter.”
“Is that what they told you?” al Kanadi asked. He knelt by Chris’s chair, just beyond arm’s reach. “The lies never get old, do they?”
Chris raised his head to glare at al Kanadi.
“Why don’t you tell him the truth?” al Kanadi said. “It gets easier the more you do it.”
Chris spat. “It’s like he said. We’re helping him get his daughter back, and we know you have her, you fucking traitor.”
Al Kanadi gazed over Chris’s shoulder and then nodded. A dark-skinned fighter with a shemagh half-wrapped around his face came and stood behind Mark’s chair. The man reached over and dug his fingertips into the top of Mark’s eye sockets, used the leverage to wrench back the head. A serrated hunting knife appeared in the fighter’s other hand and found its way to Mark’s neck.
Chris glanced over and then struggled against his restraints. “Get away from him!”
Mark’s eyes popped open, and he yelled, beat his fists against his legs. “Do it yourself you cowardly fuck!”
Al Kanadi nodded again, and the soldier started to saw. Mark screamed, and his cries rang in the tiny room until they were cut off with an empty gurgle that competed with the echoes of his yells. Chris looked away and al Kanadi wrestled his head back and forced him to watch as blood trickled down Mark’s neck, a slow dribble at first and then spurts. The knife stuck, and the soldier wrenched it, paused, jerked the blade free. Mark’s shoulders slumped, and as his body went limp, the soldier moved around the chair to hack and saw from a different angle. His shemagh slipped down off his face, and Erik sucked in a breath of air as he recognized Farah Roble Xarbi.
“The spine is always the worst,” al Kanadi whispered into Chris’s ear.
Erik watched as Mark’s grimace of pain gave way and his eyes and lips drooped and sagged. Part of him howled, the part that smelled the warmth of the blood, the part that felt sick as the final resistance in Mark’s neck gave way and the knife cleaved through the remaining flesh. The head teetered for a moment and then tumbled into Mark’s lap, and Xarbi scrambled to snatch it up before it rolled onto the floor and then placed it on Chris’s lap.
Chris screamed and strained against his restraints. “You sick fuck! I’ll kill you!”
“Warm, isn’t it?” al Kanadi said. “There’s life there yet, for a few moments more. He may even be able to hear you if you have any last words.”
