Traffick Stop, an American Assassin's Story (Paladine Political Thriller Series Book 3)

by Kenneth Eade

  Robert became a part of the countryside surrounding him. He moved patiently and fluidly as he approached them from behind. He continued his pursuit, from shadow to shadow, from rock to rock, creeping low to the ground, getting closer and closer to them with each advance. Then one of them moved his rifle and Robert froze behind an olive tree. They were about 20 meters away. The man turned his back to Robert, who continued his pursuit until he was behind a tree about five meters from them. There was nothing between them and the tree except for empty space, so he would have to pounce quickly, or he would surely be shot taking the first step.

  He rushed the back of the jihadi closest to him, grabbing his gun with one hand and putting his head in a lock with the other. He pointed the gun at the other one and shot him, while still choking off the air of his first victim. Before the driver had a chance to react, he riddled both him and the car with automatic fire and the driver fell to the ground, just as the fourth man began shooting at him from the ravine. Robert fell to the ground with the first man and finished choking the air out of him until his body convulsed and then stopped moving. He waited to see the muzzle flash from the man who was firing on him. Once he saw it, he locked onto it and shot at it on automatic. He grabbed a magazine from the body of the downed man and reloaded. Then, he saw more muzzle fire and fired at it again. This time there was no return fire. It was silent. The man was either dead or reloading. Robert waited and then shot again in the same direction. No return fire. He was definitely history.

  He slowly stood up, and then slung the AK-47 over his shoulder, took the rifle and utility belt of the other downed militant, and collected all the extra magazines he found in the truck into a little pile, as well as the driver’s rifle, field glasses and a fairly decent set of night vision goggles. In the truck, he also found a little extra gift – a rocket propelled grenade launcher with a full box of ammo. He packed all the smaller items into a backpack he found in the cab of the truck and disappeared into the morning light.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Ayisha’s day started early. She showered in the women’s shower and was given a small towel to dry off. Then she dressed in a black dress and covered it with her black abaya, black hijab and black niqab covering her entire face except for her eyes that she also masked with a thin double veil, in accordance with the strict ISIS dress code. In the Islamic State, it was considered haram for a woman to even reveal her eyes to any man but her husband.

  Robert watched with his new field glasses as another woman, dressed in black, exited the apartment building. But this one did not meld into the others in black on the street. She headed for the compound and was admitted through a door next to the main gate.

  It has to be her. I hope it’s her.

  After a modest breakfast of stale bread and dry cheese, Ayisha was directed to her first class. Three other anonymous students were sitting in old student desks that reminded her of the kind she had in middle school. She sat in a desk in the first row in front of a blackboard and an empty teacher’s desk. At exactly 8 o’clock a woman dressed in a black abaya entered and stood in front of the class.

  “Good morning. I am your teacher. You will refer to me not by name but by my profession, ‘mudarris.’ It is my duty to teach you Sharia law.”

  She turned and wrote on the blackboard: 1. Jarima and 2. Hudud, and turned around.

  “There are two parts to this class. In the first, you will learn what is a crime – what is forbidden by Sharia law. In the second, you will learn the appropriate punishment for the crime. Some punishments, such as minor infractions of the dress law, you will administer yourselves. In more serious cases, you will arrest the offender and he or she will receive the appropriate punishment as prescribed by the court.”

  During her full days in class, Ayisha learned the simple rules of crime and punishment in the Islamic State. Minor offenses were punished by whipping – 80 lashes for slandering, 80 for drinking. Theft was punished by cutting off the hand, and the more serious crimes, such as adultery, sodomy, banditry, or blasphemy, were all punishable by death. How death was administered depended on the offense. Adulterers were stoned to death; accused homosexuals were thrown off a tall building; murderers were crucified; military spies were shot; and civilian spies were decapitated.

  By nightfall, she was awakened by explosions, the 23mm blasts of anti-aircraft guns followed by bombs, dropped from the invisible, high flying Russian and Syrian planes. She heard the screams of people in the corridor and followed them to the bomb shelter. Huddled in a damp corner of the basement, she covered her ears to protect them from the deafening blasts, which rocked the walls. If there was a hell on earth, this was it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  By the light of day, things had returned to normal, but the scars of war were visible everywhere. Ayisha walked to her class through the bullet-pocked and shelled entrance of her apartment building and into the street, where several bombed-out cars smoldered in front of the ruins of a building that had been intact upon her return from class the day before and now looked like it had just been destroyed by a drunk with a wrecking ball.

  Class was only interrupted by prayer five times a day. Since she would be enforcing religious law, she figured that she had better follow the rules herself. No matter where she was, when it was time for prayer, she would set her prayer rug down and pray, even if it was in the street. Her main job would be policing women, but that didn’t mean the punishment would be any less severe or the enforcement any less strong.

  On her third day of school, the girls were taken to the shooting range. First, Ayisha’s skill in shooting was evaluated on an indoor pistol range. She was given the choice of a Glock 17 or a Beretta M92. To the surprise of her instructor, she chose the Glock. He smiled a curious smile and nodded his head to her.

  “You really know the difference?”

  Ayisha shrugged her shoulders. “I just prefer the Glock.”

  She took it in her hand, racked back the slide and checked the chamber. The instructor nodded his head silently. He was cleaner than most fighters she had seen. His hair and beard were trimmed neatly. She figured he was probably a defector from the Iraqi Army.

  “You’re the one with the military training.”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Because I can see you know how to handle a gun. Let’s see if you know how to shoot it.”

  Ayisha took her shooting stance, with both hands on the pistol, aimed at the distant paper target, and squeezed the trigger, popping off four rounds in rapid succession. She flicked on the safety and placed the gun down. The instructor reeled in the target, unhooked it and examined it. Shots to seven, eight, nine and just off to the right of dead center.

  “This is pretty good. We’ll do a few more and then let’s see how you do with a rifle.”

  Ayisha shot at a few more targets, in between reloading. When he was satisfied that he had observed enough of her small arms shooting, the instructor led her to an outdoor range. It was a large open field bordered with barbed wire. Paper targets in human form were attached to dummies made from railroad ties a couple hundred meters away. At her instructor’s command, Ayisha sprawled on the ground with her AK-47 propped on its bipod, looked through the sight and fired four rounds. There were other students shooting as well. The instructor called out to all of them.

  “Put down your arms!”

  When it was clear, two boys ran into the field, gathered the spent targets and brought them back to the instructor. He examined a target, made a stern face, and then handed it back to one of the girls.

  “This performance was miserable and shows your obvious lack of knowledge. You will spend two hours a day here training.”

  He thrust out the hand that held Ayisha’s target.

  “Yours was not too bad.”

  Ayisha smiled under her veil. Her eyes turned away. She reminded herself this was a bloodthirsty killer and she shouldn’t receive his compliments with any kind of joy.

&nbs
p; ***

  Robert felt like a Boy Scout, camping out every night, making his meals over an open-pit fire. He was cut off completely from the outside world, not that this type of life didn’t suit his fancy. But hiding from jihadi patrols was not his idea of fun. He had no information on Ayisha, who was probably still in training, and no way to get it. At night, he lay on the ground under an olive tree and listened to the sounds of supersonic aircraft make their latest assault on Raqqa. By day, he wandered the landscape, blending in and becoming a part of it. He was as bored as a lonely cowboy wandering the range, and was aching to get into the fight.

  Finally, the fight came to Robert one night as he roasted an open can of beans over the coals of a small fire. It reminded him of his days in the Army, and after he had left the service, when he had served as a mercenary for hire in the desolate theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan. He saw the flickering headlights of an ISIS patrol in the distance and shoved a mound of dirt with his shoes across the fire, snuffing it out.

  Too late. They saw me.

  There were only two primary rules for a lone man under attack. Escape if you can, or stand your ground. Robert gauged their speed.

  Too fast.

  There would be no escape. He set up his assault rifle on its bipod on a small berm of dirt he had constructed when he had set up camp. He focused his eyes on them through his night vision glasses. They were coming on fast.

  Robert loaded a grenade into the RPG-7 and pulled off the safety cap. He crouched on one knee and mounted the launcher on his shoulder. He spotted the patrol truck in the optics at about 400 meters and kept following them as they approached.

  300….200…That’s close enough!

  Robert aimed, braced for the kick and fired, hearing the whoosh of the rocket as it shot out of the weapon at full speed. He watched through the sight as it connected and exploded on impact, blowing the truck into fiery pieces. He set the weapon down and kicked at his still warm can of beans with his boot.

  Full of dirt. Great.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Every day, Ayisha attended class in the mornings and shooting training in the afternoons. Her instructors, mostly former soldiers for the Iraqi army, trained her in all types of weapons: pistols, assault rifles, RPGs and grenades. She learned how to use the biter, a pair of metal prongs designed to take chunks of flesh out of women who violated the dress laws and how to give lashes with the whip. Every evening she dined in the communal dining room of the compound in a separate room behind a black curtain that separated the men from the women. Tonight’s meal was the usual: bread, rice and a strange lamb stew. After dinner, an Imam preached a speech and then Shawish took the floor.

  “Tonight, you will take the oath of the Hisbah, to serve Allah in the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice, pursuant to His word in the Quran.”

  The program continued, separated only by evening prayer, after which each of the women took the oath to enforce the moral tenets of the Quran and the morality laws of the Islamic State. Ayisha and the three other women, Badai, Attoosa and Zurfah, stood, and Shawish presented them, one by one, with the tools they would need to enforce the morality laws. Each was assigned a whip, a biter, a pistol and an AK-47 assault rifle. Ayisha was paired with Zurfah as a partner, and they were given a neighborhood to patrol downtown.

  When Robert observed Ayisha coming home with all her toys, he knew from that point on, her routine was going to change.

  ***

  At 8:00 a.m. the next morning, Ayisha joined Zurfah outside her apartment building, where they were met by Bua, a senior member of the morality police who was to serve as their on-the-job trainer and would be their supervisor after training. Bua approached them impatiently. It was obviously not a job she had volunteered to do. Both girls greeted her with the customary greeting, “As-Salaam Alaikum.”

  “Wa-Alaikum Salaam. We don’t have time for pleasantries, so shall we get to work?”

  The three made an impressive show of power, three heavily armed black ghosts strutting the streets of Raqqa. Bua led the way as they headed toward Naeem Square.

  “As you learned in training, you are charged with the responsibility of enforcing infractions of Sharia law. You must always keep your eyes open and be observant for violations.”

  She led them into the souk, the central market, past a few stands of bread, some with rice and staples, but nothing like the pictures Ayisha had been shown of the caliphate paradise with overflowing vegetable and fruit carts. The sun bore down onto a cart of apples, turning them into baked apples. A female shopper in front of the apple stand raised her double veil to wipe the sweat from her face.

  “There! You see!”

  Bua pointed toward the woman and, before they could realize what was happening, she ran toward her, with her rifle extended. The woman began to scream when she saw her and dropped to her knees, bowing and begging.

  “You have broken the law!”

  Bua slid her rifle back onto her shoulder and loosened her whip from her hip belt, unfurling it behind her. She raised the whip in her hand and cracked it against the woman’s back. The woman screamed in pain as Bua raised the whip and cracked it down again. Then she lifted the crying woman up by the arm and interrogated her.

  “Where is your husband?”

  “He is at work.”

  “Then where is your mahram?”

  “There is just my husband and his other wife. No other male members are in my family.”

  “It is against the law to go outside without a male escort. Where is your identification card?”

  The woman fished in her abaya for her card and presented it to Bua, who copied the information from it onto a citation in her ticket book.

  “I am citing you to come to court for a violation of being unescorted. You will bring your husband with you to court or he will be arrested.”

  As they walked down Tal Abyaz Street toward Naeem Square, Ayisha realized she had been assigned the worst neighborhood that she possibly could have. Just outside the square, flies swarmed around the bloody body of a crucified man hanging from plastic twist-ties wrapped around a metal cross. Severed heads hung from the spiked fence around the plaza, their contorted faces frozen in their last moments of agony. In the middle of the square, ISIS soldiers were burning a mountain of confiscated cigarettes. It was the center of a world gone mad.

  Bua instructed the two girls to detain two women who were crossing the street alone. Ayisha took the lead, confronting them.

  “You, there! Stop!”

  The women froze immediately. Ayisha could see the terror in their eyes.

  “Why are you not at home?”

  “We’re going to wash clothes for the family.”

  “Where are the clothes?”

  The women both opened their purses, exposing soiled laundry.

  “Ask them why they are not with a male escort,” Bua demanded.

  “Where is your mahram?”

  “We couldn’t get one to come with us.”

  “That is an infraction. You should always have a male escort when you leave the house.”

  “Whip them!”

  The younger of the two pleaded with Ayisha, her hands grasped together as if in prayer. “No, no! Please! We’re sorry!”

  Ayisha withdrew her whip, unfurled it behind her, and slashed, first at one and then the other. With each scream of pain, she winced. Thankfully, Bua did not see. The two women sobbed and cried as Ayisha gave her final command.

  “Now go directly home and don’t come out again without an escort!”

  On the fringes of chaos, Robert watched as the three armed black ghosts drifted through the city, jumping over school walls for surprise clothing inspections, searching black marketers for contraband, and making sure the Islamic State’s strict clothing rules were being followed.

  The parks, where the laughter of children once filled the air, were now as silent as graveyards. The streets, once teeming with pedestrians, were almost bare. Because o
f lack of electricity, police had taken the place of signals to control the sporadic flow of traffic. The water pipes were dry, so ISIS water trucks rumbled the streets in between bombing raids, making deliveries of fresh water from the Euphrates.

  Raqqa was a city that had taken a giant step backwards in time. Even her memory had been wiped out when the Islamic State had obliterated all the historical landmarks. All its Catholic churches, all its Shiite mosques, Assyrian sculptures, and the ancient statue of Abu Tammam – all destroyed. Ayisha had been searching for a sister who had been sold into slavery and, instead, had discovered an entire city that had been violated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  After her first day of on-the-job training, Ayisha closed the door to her apartment, tore off her hijab, niqab and abaya, and collapsed onto the floor. She curled up in a fetal position on her blanket and all of her pent-up emotions escaped her in an explosion of sobs and tears. Life was difficult enough to bear, but all the needless suffering and cruelty she had witnessed and had been a part of these past days was wearing her down.

  As a member of the infamous morality police, she had more opportunities than most to move around and to investigate, but finding Zia was a task that felt more unlikely and insurmountable than she had previously imagined. She knew her protector was out there, somewhere, watching and waiting, which gave her a ray of hope, but she was the one who had to figure out what had happened to Zia and come up with a plan. In an attempt to tighten her resolve, she told herself, over and over, that, if she never gave up, she would succeed. These were her last thoughts as exhaustion pushed her into sleep.