by Loye, Trish
Ever since the Islamic State terrorist group had taken over Mosul, they’d begun enforcing a medieval version of Sharia. The rules of the Islamic law restricted everyone, but the most visible results could be seen in the women literally covered from head to toe in black. Well, the women and the decomposing heads attached to the fences outside any ISIS building.
Her cover was Sarah Al-Dahwi, a widow and member of the all-female police unit, the al-Khansa Brigade. Being a Latina woman helped. If someone did see her unveiled, her dark hair and eyes, as well as her light-brown skin, made it easy for people to believe she was an Iraqi woman who’d moved to Mosul with her brother.
She’d been in Mosul for the last five months and joined the Brigade at the behest of Colonel Blackwell, head of E.D.G.E. operations. The unit would let her access needed information and allow her an ease of movement most women didn’t have under the ISIS regime.
The Brigade helped deal with women who didn’t obey ISIS’s strictures. The women in it almost fanatically enforced its rules. At the moment, Sarah sweated inside her black abaya while standing with other women of al-Khansa as they waited outside in the hot sun. The women all wore a headband with the name of the brigade in script.
Her partner, Rakin, was part of the Secret Intelligence Service, though Sarah still thought of them as MI6. His high cheekbones weren’t quite hidden by his dark beard, but that and the brown skin of his Indian background helped him blend right in. She appreciated having him as a partner most of the time. Rakin had the stereotypical dry wit of his British homeland that made the tedious days go by faster.
He posed as her brother, sent on this mission to gather information for the British government. They were under orders from their agencies to work together and cooperate.
Today, Rakin had escorted her to the main square near ISIS’s headquarters on the west bank of the Tigris River that bisected Mosul. The square was in the downtown district not far from the Old Bridge, one of five bridges connecting both sides of the city. He stood not far from her with a group of other men, all waiting. The area in front of the headquarters was clear except for two large piles of rocks, each about the size of a baseball.
Sarah suppressed a shudder at the sight of them. She would not think of what they meant.
“This one will finally get what he deserves,” one of the women close to her said. She wore her AK-47 slung over her shoulder.
Sarah knew the voice, and the anticipation in it sickened her. “Isn’t it a little early to be this bloodthirsty, Dahab?” she asked.
“I just want the kuffar to die, insha’Allah, like any good Muslim woman.” Dahab’s voice turned accusatory.
Behind her veil, Sarah compressed her lips. She should be used to Dahab’s fanaticism but it still angered her.
“Of course, sister.” Sarah kept her voice neutral, but couldn’t quite insert a pious tone into it that she needed. More and more lately she’d had a harder time keeping her cover as a zealous Muslim woman. More and more, Sarah Ramirez came out. Had she been in-country too long?
A few ISIS fighters, identifiable by their black garb and beards, stood on the rooftop of the six-story building beside ISIS headquarters. She’d spent quite a few nights on that same rooftop, watching the comings and goings of the people in the HQ and tracking possible informants and assets. Today it was the site of the execution everyone waited for.
“What are the crimes these two committed?” she asked Dahab.
“They are homosexuals,” Dahab hissed. She jostled forward a bit so she stood in the first row of watchers, closer to the pile of rocks.
Sarah didn’t follow. She didn’t want a front-row seat to what was coming. Instead, she scanned the crowd, noting who looked queasy, or nervous, or who looked excited, the sheen of fanaticism in their eyes.
Of course, these were just the men she watched. Sarah couldn’t judge the women because of their abayas, niqabs, and face veils, but she did judge their movements, postures, and the tones of their voices. Having to deal with covered women all the time had strengthened her skills at reading body language and the nuances of speech. If nothing else, this assignment was making her a better operator.
A better one, but with each passing day she lost more of her compassion and soul, living up to the Agent Ice nickname she knew some of the other E.D.G.E. operators called her. What would Dylan think of her now if he saw her? Would he still be interested or would he turn from her in disgust?
She sucked in a breath and forcibly shoved thoughts of Dylan down and away. It didn’t matter anyway. She’d already turned from him. Her bittersweet memories of their last month together were all that she had left, and she didn’t want anything to tarnish them, so she hoarded them and kept them safe from the evil surrounding her daily, only to be taken out on the darkest of nights to relive the feeling of being cherished.
And cherish her, he had. But it couldn’t last. It never did. Everyone left her eventually. Her father left when she was six. Drugs had stolen her mother; even her best friend in high school had chosen a gang over her. She’d made a pact with herself a long time ago to not let anyone get close. It hurt too much when they left.
Dylan had gotten too close too fast. It was part of why she’d agreed to this long-term assignment in Iraq. She needed distance and time from him.
She’d run away.
No. She’d been smart.
A loudspeaker squeaked, pulling Sarah from her thoughts to the scene before her. Her heart thudded and she braced herself. An imam began to speak into a microphone, telling of the glory of Allah and how ISIS was the one true path to His glory. He stood near the entrance to the building under a stone awning.
Sarah tuned out his speech about the evils of homosexuality, instead watching the crowd again. Only the people in the front row seemed eager to be there. The men standing behind had stoic expressions, while the women, watching in a separate group, stood silent, most of their veiled faces downturned rather than lifted to the roof.
“For these crimes against Allah, you have been sentenced to death,” the imam intoned.
Shouts sounded from the roof. Involuntarily, her gaze went up. Two ISIS fighters held each bound man by his arms while other guards pointed their rifles at them. Sarah clenched her jaw and held still, though inside she screamed against what was going to happen.
She forced herself to keep watching—one, because her cover dictated that she act exactly like the other members of the brigade, all of whom now stared upward, one or two swaying in anticipation. And two, because the convicted men deserved more than for her to look away. If she did, then she could almost pretend it hadn’t happened. Each death needed to be chronicled, even in a small way. She promised never to forget. And more importantly, to help bring about the defeat of ISIS in any way she could.
Even though with each innocent death she witnessed, each death where she stood by and did nothing, another little piece of her soul died.
With a shout, the guards pushed the first man from the roof. It took only a few seconds, but felt like a lifetime while she watched him flail helplessly. She gripped her hands together in front of her to control their trembling, barely resisting the urge to scream or gasp. The man hit the ground with a bone-breaking thud and lay still.
Dahab streaked from her spot in the front row and snatched up a rock, raising it to throw, waiting to see if the man showed some sign of life. If the fall didn’t kill him, then the decreed stoning would.
Sarah’s stomach churned. She prayed the man was dead. She’d seen only two people survive the fall and it was something she hoped never to see again.
Dahab lowered her arm when the man didn’t move. Within moments, the next one had been thrown from the roof.
This man screamed as he fell.
The blood drained from her face and seemed to pool at her feet, making her lightheaded in the heat. She bit her lip to keep from crying out against the tragedy.
She had killed before, more times than she cared to remember, but
being forced to watch executions of innocent people each week was slowly destroying her.
She took several deep breaths to calm her pounding heart. Dahab crowed her excitement over the deaths.
Sarah caressed the hilt of the knife hidden under her sleeve. She would kill them one day.
A short woman wearing the al-Khansa headband walked with a quick stride to the front of the group.
“Al-Khansa!” she yelled in a Russian-accented Arabic. It was Asqa, the leader of her squad in the brigade. She called them to formation.
Time for Sarah to get back to work. Colonel Blackwell expected a report this evening and she wanted to be able to give him some information. This hellish cover had to be worth something other than nightmares.
She nodded good-bye to Rakin and fell into one of the two columns of women lining up. Women weren’t allowed to go anywhere in Mosul without a mahram, a male chaperone, except when members of the al-Khansa Brigade came together. As long as they had more than four women, they could walk without a man. Some women joined just to be free of the house, though most came to regret the decision as they were forced to reprimand, fine, and even beat their own friends and family.
Sarah marched in line with the ten others toward the HQ of al-Khansa. Most of the women either had an AK-47 slung over their shoulder or a short whip attached to their belt. Sarah had been given a whip, though she would have preferred the rifle.
People made way for them on the wide sidewalk. The women walked tall, pleased with the power the brigade gave them, and the fear they could see in people’s eyes as they walked by. It was the only bit of power any woman could have in this regime.
The distance to their building wasn’t far, maybe the equivalent of six blocks and past the entrance to a lively souq. The street they marched on wound like a vine with narrow shoots of alleys and streets branching off it with little logic behind it. Sarah could easily imagine that this city had been the fourth Assyrian capital in 700 BC. It was unlike any city in the States.
The buildings snaking along the winding streets were a dichotomy of ancient and modern. Office towers stood next to shops, apartments, and dome-roofed mosques. Tall, narrow windows, inset under arches, decorated both the sand-colored stone and the more modern concrete. The city of two million teemed with life, though ISIS’s dictates slowly choked it.
They turned down a narrow side street. The unit filed past a bombed-out building. Weathered stones and dust spilled and tumbled over the sidewalk. A pebble crumbled to dust under Sarah’s foot. The building, a former art gallery, had probably been hundreds of years old before ISIS had destroyed it.
“Al-Khansa!” Aqsa yelled when they neared the brigade’s headquarters. “Halt!”
The women shuffled to a stop with no military precision. None of them had truly been trained. Sarah moved sloppily with the others, not waiting for Aqsa’s order before turning to face her.
“Dismissed!”
Sarah trailed the others to their building. It was their headquarters, so they were allowed to walk in the front door, not typical anymore under ISIS. The brigade had appropriated a two-story office building. She worked on the first floor as a simple admin clerk. Others in her unit worked upstairs in interrogation. Each of the squads within the brigade rotated between working at the office, roaming the streets looking for offenders, and working at one of the sabaya houses. The last was the duty that stained Sarah’s soul each time she went, but she had to stick with her cover if she wanted information.
Most of the women loved hauling other women back to their office to berate and whip them for the offenses of not wearing gloves, for their veils being too sheer, for having abayas—the long black overdresses—that were too tight, or for any number of minor infractions of the laws that ISIS demanded they follow.
At least half the women disliked working with the sabaya, but not for the same reason as Sarah. Most in the brigade believed the enslaved women and girls were infidels and therefore almost less than human.
She’d volunteered to work in admin because it allowed her access to records—her primary mission here in Mosul. E.D.G.E. had sent her to gather information on ISIS and its plans, and then passed it on to the coalition forces fighting ISIS.
She sat at a desk in a small room just off the front door. It held only a desk with her computer and a phone. Today, she was the receptionist for the headquarters, there to direct visitors to the unit. Not that they had many.
A hot breeze blew in through the open windows, ruffling her veils. She wished she could lift them, even for a moment, and draw a breath of air, but to accidentally expose any skin carried a harsh punishment of twenty lashes. And to do it on purpose? The woman foolish enough to do that would probably be murdered in the street.
She powered up the computer and, with a quick glance out into the front hall, typed in Dahab’s password, something that had been easy enough to glean from watching the woman. Within moments, she’d accessed the records from the main ISIS headquarters. The brigade network linked to the main network and it was easy enough for her to get into the prisoner database.
She kept alert, listening for anyone approaching. Most of the women had gone to the break room for tea. She bit her lip as she surfed through the records searching for the names Blackwell had given her in their last communication.
A scuff of noise from the front door jolted her upright. She clicked out of the database just as two ISIS fighters strode through the main door of the building. They didn’t acknowledge her as they walked by her little room.
She knew them. They were drivers for the al-Khansa. They went down the hall toward Asqa’s office. Sarah breathed out and opened the database again. Blackwell had asked her to locate two different people. One was a CIA agent who’d gotten swept up by a standard ISIS raid. He’d been in ISIS custody for three days now.
And one was Claire Hayden, the beloved daughter of a British MP, one who’d been enticed to join the holy movement of the Islamic State to fight the imperialism of the West.
Stupid girl.
Sarah stiffened. There was the agent’s name. Malik Zerjawi was William Patel’s cover name. Dammit, he was being held in the main HQ building. That didn’t bode well for him. It was where they interrogated prisoners. She memorized the location and continued to search for the girl.
A commotion sounded farther inside the building. She logged out of the system and went to the hallway. The two drivers dragged a woman between them. Her veil had fallen off, exposing her face. She had a split lip, a bruised cheek, and pale gray eyes. When she yelled at the men, it was with an English accent.
Sarah smiled under her veils. Luck was on her side today. She’d just found Claire, her next mission from E.D.G.E.
2
Dylan’s arms tightened around her, bringing her closer to his hardness. They lay entwined under his sheets. Heat curled through her, making her smile as she blinked awake.
“I like when you smile at me,” Dylan said, his voice deep and rough from sleep. He leaned close for a kiss.
A crash sounded.
Sarah bolted upright in bed, alert and ready to fight.
And alone.
The pang of loss distracted her for only a moment as she took in her sparse bedroom in Mosul decorated only with a bright quilt and an overflowing bookshelf.
She slid a knife out from under her pillow and cracked her door open, listening hard. She and Rakin lived in a house just on the edge of the crowded downtown district. It wasn’t a large house, more like a two-bedroom apartment with a basement. A basement with a hidden and locked room.
Moving soundlessly into the short hall, she peered into the kitchen. Rakin knelt on the floor, a tin by his side and a pile of white crystals in front of him.
Anger lanced her as she stepped forward. “Did you just dump my sugar? Do you know how much that costs?”
“I’m cleaning it. Relax. I saved most of it.”
She grit her teeth and went to take a shower. It was just spilled sugar. Th
ey could get more. But she couldn’t get the anger to diminish. She turned the water on for the shower. Cold again.
She stood still under the stream of icy water, letting it cool her heated skin. It wasn’t the sugar. She knew that. It was the dream. It was always the same. Their last morning together. Before she’d decided to end it. For her sake as well as his.
In the shower, she tried to scrub all thoughts of Dylan away, forcing herself to focus on the problem at hand: how to rescue Claire Hayden. Work always helped her get herself under control.
By the time Sarah was dressed and sipping tea in the small kitchen, she had herself under control. Agent Ice reigned.
She pressed her lips together at the thought of the name and set her cup down on the scarred table. She shifted her feet when Rakin sat so he wouldn’t bump them.
“Why didn’t you follow Claire yesterday?” he asked quietly.
She sighed. “I told you, I didn’t have to,” she said. “I found her in the brigade’s database, listed under the sabaya. I know where they took her.”
“I know, but I hate the thought of her with them.” Rakin’s British accent started to show. It always did when he was pissed about something. His accent showed more and more of late.
“Why are you angry? Is it because she’s British? Does that make what they’re doing worse somehow?” Sarah asked.
He seemed to deflate. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Sarah crossed her arms. “Try me.”
“She’s from home,” he said softly, but his gaze challenged hers. “And I don’t think you really know what that means.”
She didn’t move, though she wanted to hunch from the verbal blow, but she didn’t think Rakin had really meant to hurt her.
“Fine,” she said in a neutral voice. “But you know I couldn’t just walk off my post. I could have blown my cover. We know where she is; we can get her out.”
