by Isaac Hooke
After the search he was led to a small questioning room. Ethan sat on one side of a steel desk, an airport official the other. The man possessed a handlebar mustache that made him look strikingly similar to Saddam Hussein. A laptop and landline phone rested on the desk in front of him, beside Ethan's travel documents and hotel reservation. Ethan's backpack lay on another table nearby, its contents rudely strewn across the surface.
Another official, this one clean-shaven, leaned against the back wall, overseeing. Both of them wore white dress shirts with dark ties.
"What is your reason for traveling to Turkey?" the seated official began in accented Arabic.
"I am here for my cousin's wedding."
"What is your cousin's name and where does he live?"
"Aadil Al Zahrani. He lives in the city of Gaziantep."
The official made Ethan supply an exact address.
"Where is this wedding to take place?" the man asked.
"Boyaci Mosque, Gaziantep."
"Are you going to meet anyone else other than this cousin?"
"No."
"Is anyone picking you up at the airport?"
"No. I'm taking a taxi."
"Where was your passport issued?"
"Saudi Arabia, of course."
"When was your last visit to Turkey?" The official flipped through the blank pages of the passport.
"This is my first time," Ethan said.
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Consulting. Information Technology."
"Are you an employee, or do you own this business?"
"It is my business."
"Give me the website."
"I don't have one."
The official frowned. "You work in Information Technology and do not have a website?"
Ethan shrugged. "Most of my business is word of mouth."
"Where is the wedding taking place?" The official repeated the earlier question, trying to catch Ethan off guard.
Ethan held back a smile. "Boyaci Mosque," he said.
The man asked many of the previous questions again, and Ethan gave the same answers.
"Are you going to Syria?" the official finally asked.
"No."
"Are you a terrorist? Are you affiliated with Al Qaeda or Islamic State? The PKK?"
"No to all."
He glanced at Ethan's meager rucksack on the table. "Do you always pack this light?"
Ethan shrugged. "Is it illegal to bring a small bag?"
"You pack like you don't expect to return."
Ethan glanced at the printouts in front of the man, which included his flight information. "I have a return ticket."
A flicker of a smile formed on the official's lips. "A return ticket." He shoved the landline phone toward Ethan. "Call your cousin."
Ethan entered the number he had memorized.
The official pressed the speakerphone button and Ethan set down the handset.
"Allo?" came the voice over the line.
"Salaam, Aadil, it is Emad," Ethan said in Arabic.
"Ah, Emad, it is good to hear from you!"
"Yes, well, I'm stuck in secondary screening at Atatürk. They wanted me to call you."
The official lifted the handset, canceling speakerphone mode, and proceeded to grill "Aadil," asking the same questions. Ethan had complete confidence in his contact. Even so, because he was unable to hear the responses, he couldn't help the nervous sweat that trickled down his ribs. When the official switched to Turkish, which Ethan didn't understand, his discomfort only increased.
The man abruptly hung up and shook his head. He looked angry, disgusted.
Ethan held his breath. Had his contact contradicted any of his answers?
"You guys are getting good," the official said in Arabic. "Too good." He folded his arms.
"What do you mean?"
"He corroborated your story perfectly."
Ethan found it difficult to hide his sense of relief.
"But let's cut the bullshit," the official continued. "The man is obviously your Islamic State contact. Someone you met over an online forum. If I try to call that number back tomorrow, I'll get a dead connection. It's a Burner number, isn't it?"
Burner was a cellphone app anyone could install to get disposable phone numbers for texting and calling purposes. Ethan shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"On the jihadist forum, your contact promised you that everything you were searching for, you would find in Syria. That the so-called Islamic State was a chance to be part of something new. Something big. A chance to find God. That Raqqa, the capital, was a city of pure Islamic Law, a place of prayers, peace, and hope."
Ethan crossed his arms. "As I said, I don't know what you're talking about."
"The jihadist is lying to you," the official said. "If you go to Syria, you will not find peace. Or hope. Or even God. You will find war and death. And do you know what you'll be fighting for? A repressive regime whose interpretation of sharia law is... brutal, to say the least. There are at least two beheadings a day in Raqqa, the capital. Stonings are a weekly occurrence—for the local populace, it's like going to the cinema. Women are whipped for dressing the wrong way. There's no music. No smiling. No laughter. It is a place of repression and sorrow. Is that really something you're looking forward to?"
Ethan remained silent.
The official sat back. "You seek purpose in your life. You think jihad will help you find it. You want to be a martyr, fighting to defend your fellow Muslims. But as you murder the so-called infidels in the villages you conquer, and watch your companions brutally rape their widows, eventually you'll realize that every word I spoke is true. That this so-called state is perverting everything you believe in, and that you have made a very grave mistake. But by then it will be too late to get out."
Ethan stared at the official calmly. You're preaching to the choir, dude, he thought. Still, he had to give the man credit for trying. He likely gave the same speech to every suspected jihadi. Too bad it probably always fell on deaf ears.
Ethan forced a smile. "I am here for a wedding."
The official glanced at the man behind him with an exasperated expression that Ethan interpreted as, "Why do we bother?" He returned his attention to Ethan. "You're not even Saudi, are you?" He held up the passport. "This is a forgery. A good one, I admit, but you would have been wiser to use your real passport. We are going to arrest you."
Ethan said nothing. He knew the travel document was perfect. Not some passport made in a seedy backroom somewhere, but issued by the Saudi government itself. The official was merely trying to rattle him in some last ditch attempt at extracting a confession. Either that or he was looking for a bribe.
On cue the official snapped his fingers and the second man reached for the wallet that was laid out with the rest of Ethan's belongings on the side table. He handed it to the first official, who counted the money and removed a crisp purple bill: two hundred Turkish lire. "This is your jihad entry fee."
A female aide entered the room, placing a shoebox on the table. Inside was Ethan's phone. He knew they hadn't found anything incriminating on the device—he'd issued a hard reset before landing and wiped all the data. Even so, they had probably imaged its contents anyway.
The official exchanged a few words with the aide in Turkish, and then he sighed, switching to Arabic once more. "You are free to go."
ETHAN TOOK the shuttle to the domestic terminal and passed through security control. He picked up a chicken wrap from the Tadında Anadolu restaurant in the food court and met up with William, who was engaged in an animated discussion with a man who appeared to be Jordanian.
There was no reason for him and William to pretend they were on individual journeys anymore—the Turkish officials didn't have the manpower to tail Ethan throughout the airport, and even if someone did confront him, he would simply claim he'd met William for the first time in the departures lounge of Riyadh's King Khalid airport.
H
e took a seat and let William introduce him to the Jordanian, who apparently worked as an importer of ripoff goods from China. The newcomer excused himself a moment later, saying he had a flight to catch. William expressed interest in distributing the bogus goods, and he wouldn't let the Jordanian go until he'd obtained his contact details. When the man was gone William continued tapping at his cellphone screen, likely making notes about his new asset.
Ethan retrieved his own phone while he ate the wrap. He issued a hard reset and wiped the data again, in case the airport officers had installed some trackerware app while he was in custody.
"Well that was fun," Ethan said, putting the smartphone away.
William looked up from his cell. "What?"
"My little adventure in passport control."
"Oh." William returned his attention to the smart device. "How much did they take?"
Ethan shrugged. "Two hundred lire. You weren't detained?"
"Nope. I slipped the deskman ten lire when I saw what happened to you. He didn't even glance at my passport."
"Bastard."
William arose. "I'm getting a snack."
He returned a few minutes later with a kebab. "Ah, goat meat." William bit into a chunk. "I developed a taste for the stuff back in Iraq. Remember that game we used to play with the locals? What the hell was it called again? The game with the dead goat."
"Buzkashi," Ethan said. "And that was Afghanistan, not Iraq."
"That's right," William said. "It's all a blur these days. Anyway, who but Afghans could come up with a game that involves dragging around a dead goat from horseback and trying to get it between two goal posts? I mean come on. They must have been standing around playing soccer when someone unleashed their AK-47 at the ball in a fit of rage after a bad goal. And then they thought, well shit, how the hell are we going to play now? Then a goat bleated nearby, and all their heads turned toward the animal at the same time. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' Joe Afghan said to his friends. Then they all leaped onto their horses and ran the goat down, cut the fucker's head off, and then started playing Buzkashi with its decapitated body. Brings new meaning to the phrase 'playing with your food.' Imagine what the game would be like with announcers. He goats, he scores!"
Ethan finished his wrap. "It was certainly an... interesting game."
William grinned; goat juices trickled down his chin. "You can't tell me you didn't enjoy bashing those Afghans from their horses while dragging that damn goat around. You were a badass out there."
"Yeah, it was a real joyride," Ethan said sarcastically, though in truth he liked the game. It was surprisingly fun, mostly because of the novelty factor.
William finished the last chunk of meat. "What the hell did they call the dead goats used in the game again? Cock something."
"Kokpar," Ethan said.
"That's right! Cock part. Gonna drag my cock part around the field and score myself a goal! Ahh, I miss the good old days. Still, you have to wonder about a society whose favorite pastime is dragging around dead goats."
"You do indeed." Ethan stood, and the two of them proceeded toward the boarding gate for the next flight.
6
The domestic Pegasus Air flight landed in Gaziantep a few hours later. Ethan and William shoved their way past the pitchmen in the arrivals area and boarded a taxi. It smelled of vomit and sweat, but at least the air conditioning worked.
Gaziantep was the center of pistachio production in Turkey, and in fact the latter syllables of the city's name were derived from the Turkish word for pistachio, antep fıstığı. With a population of over a million people, Gaziantep was a modern, clean city with well-maintained streets. The twin minarets of the Grand Mosque were the tallest structures in the city and jutted above the skyline like two gleaming swords ready to fight for the faith.
As the foul-smelling vehicle moved into the town center, the buildings became crowded. The two-level structures were made of the more traditional calcareous stone, and their close proximity to one another reminded Ethan of the Old City in Sana'a, though the bland white-walled structures lacked the quaintness of the latter city.
The call to prayer issued as the vehicle passed a mosque. The driver didn't react at all, nor did the other vehicles, or the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Perhaps their behavior wasn't all that surprising, considering how secular Turkey was. So much for fighting for the faith.
The taxi arrived at the Princess Hotel in the downtown core. Ethan paid the fare and emerged into the steppe climate. After the air-conditioned car, it felt like an oven out there.
Ethan checked them in. By the time he climbed the stairs and dropped off his backpack in the generously decorated suite, both he and William were covered in sweat. An air conditioner furnished the room—but when Ethan set the fan level to full, all the device did was recirculate the air at the same temperature. He opened the window but the heat from outside was worse so he closed it and pulled the shades shut.
Fighting the weariness wrought of sixteen hours of traveling, he wedged a rubber doorstop from his backpack beneath the entrance. Then he grabbed the versatile radio-frequency detecting SK199 ink pen from his gear and proceeded to go over the place with William. As he worked, Ethan thought vaguely about Sheik Jasir Al-Khayr, who had likely used similar off-the-shelf equipment to find trackers.
It took almost half an hour—and all his remaining energy—to search the room from top to bottom with William, and when they were both satisfied that there were no bugs, they flopped down on their respective beds for some well-deserved shut-eye.
A knock at the door awakened Ethan a few hours later.
"Open up you sons of camels!" someone shouted in Arabic from the hall outside. The accent was Yemeni.
Ethan recognized the voice immediately. It belonged to the same man who had vouched for him over the phone during secondary screening at Atatürk airport. He groggily hauled himself upright and kicked aside the rubber wedge.
A tanned, bearded individual stood in the entryway. He looked like a younger version of Al-Khayr. He was dressed in traditional Yemeni garb, with a lavender thawb matching his tribal headgear. He wore an ornate jambiyah dagger in front of his navel. On his back was a small rucksack, and tucked under one arm was a silvery MacBook Pro.
Aaron.
Ethan warmly clasped the hand of his friend and teammate, then led him inside.
The smell of fried dough permeated the air, and the stains at the bottom of the brown paper bag Aaron carried beneath the MacBook promised greasy delights. Aaron dropped the bag on a nearby table. "Baklava?"
Ethan grabbed an odd-looking bun from the bag and examined it. The top was sprinkled with the region's famous pistachios. "Baklava? Looks like a samosa gone bad." He bit into the honey-soaked, layered pastry. "Pretty good," he admitted.
"Clean?" Aaron asked, gesturing at the walls. He was referring to eavesdropping devices.
"It's clean," William answered, snatching a baklava from the bag.
The three of them took seats around the table.
"Last time I saw you," Ethan said between mouthfuls. "You were headed down to the Yemen highlands to team up with the Houthis."
Aaron frowned. "I had a helluva time convincing them I wasn't an Al Qaeda spy. They never really brought me into their inner circle. Too bad, because they're going to be running the country soon. Long story short, Sam pulled me and sent me here."
"You've filled out a bit since the last time I saw you," William said.
Aaron shamelessly grabbed a baklava from the bag. "I figure I might as well stock up on the fat stores now while the getting's good. Once we cross the border, it's going to be lean times, baby."
Ethan nodded at the jambiyah dagger at Aaron's waist. "Tracking device?"
Aaron shook his head. "We're going in black. No trackers. Sam doesn't want to give the Islamic State a reason to chop off our heads."
"Myself, I'm kind of glad we're going in black," William said. "I'd prefer not to have the DIA breathing
down my throat."
"That's not Sam's style," Ethan said. "Too bad about the trackers, though. If we could find a way to smuggle them in undetected, they could prove useful during an emergency extract scenario."
"Yeah, except there will be no emergency extracts," Aaron said. "If you get in shit, you're looking at the quick reaction force."
A buzz came from Aaron's robe. He fetched a cellphone from his pocket and read the on-screen message.
That reminded Ethan of something.
"Sam mentioned the cellular coverage in Syria might be nonexistent," he said.
"You got that right," Aaron said, replacing his smartphone. "According to my contacts, there's no coverage at all these days. At least not in the areas we'll be operating in. But we do have this." He retrieved a small black object from his backpack. It had a thick, foldout antenna and a digital display.
"Satellite Internet?" Ethan said.
Aaron nodded. "Ground Control's Iridium Go model. It'll probably be confiscated at some point, though. Might be better to leave it behind."
"What's the plan on maintaining contact with Sam, then?" William said.
"The same way every other muj keeps in touch with his family: Internet cafes, which use their own satellite hotspots. We have reports that the Islamic State has seized hotspots from private owners to install in their own compounds, so we might not even have to leave home."
"That's good, because I don't think there will be many Internet cafes where we're headed," Ethan said.
"There are actually quite a few in the capital. Raqqa."
"You're assuming we'll even be assigned to Raqqa," William interjected.
"We will," Aaron said. "For a short time anyway. That seems to be the path most foreign jihadists take. After training, the militants bring the new recruits to the capital to show off what the Caliphate is capable of. Kind of a dog and pony show to make them feel good about their decision to join before the emirs ship them off to the war zones to serve as cannon fodder."
