by Kenneth Eade
From his secret lookout across from Ayisha’s building, Robert had watched her enter the building. His usual assignments involved research, planning, execution and escape. But the length of the current one was making every day he spent in Raqqa more dangerous than the one before and, worse than that, it was wearing his patience thin. He thought about just turning away from this job and going back home, but he was not a quitter. Once he had an assignment, he was like a dog with a bone – he kept at it until the target was completely destroyed. So far, he had not been discovered; even his surveillance perch across from Ayisha’s building was still a secret. Tonight there was no movement outside the building. Ayisha was staying home, and Robert hoped this would not be a pattern or the job may never end. From time to time, his thoughts drifted to Greece and the brief time he had spent with Joelle, but most of his waking hours were spent thinking about the operation. Depending on how many deadly hornet’s nests Ayisha stirred up, she could turn out to be the most precarious part of this job.
***
As Ayisha strained and compromised her principles to compel herself to execute the role of a morality cop, enforcing the bizarre rules of the Islamic State, she pushed her loathing for her ISIS handlers into that special place deep inside she had reserved for the worst imaginable horrors. Day after day, she implemented their unconscionable rules while she used her police briefings for her own intelligence recon. And day after day, those unconscionable horrors were played out before her weary eyes.
She had learned from her investigation there were certain places in the city where fair-skinned women, such as the Yazidis, who had been kidnapped from Iraq and forced into slavery, lived for one purpose only – to satisfy the insatiable sexual needs of the fighters. Every day the fighters of the Islamic State risked their lives battling the armies of the kufar. The dead fighters achieved martyrdom and were rewarded in paradise with 72 virgins. The sex slaves were for the benefit of the ones who remained alive to protect the caliphate; they were communal “wives,” who serviced the needs of hundreds of unmarried soldiers.
Ayisha pointed out to her commanders that these concubines and their multiple “husbands” were also subject to their strict morality laws and that someone should perform surprise inspections on them. Such inspections could lead to fines for numerous laws that were probably not being obeyed. In these places, it was possible to find contraband cigarettes, liquor, and expired ‘certificates of repentance,” required for every non-Shiite or non-Muslim who lived in the caliphate. The renewal fees for the certificates alone could bring in a great deal of revenue for the Islamic State. She had been so prolific in her arrests for possession of contraband and whippings to enforce the dress laws that Shawish gave her and Zurfah the assignment. Now was her chance to do some real investigative work. But it was only the beginning.
That night, she slipped out of the building silently into the dark streets, which were empty, exactly as she had expected. If anyone had been out, it would have been a patrol and she would have had to come up with an explanation for not being inside. She had made up her mind that faced with such a circumstance, she would say she was investigating reports of women going out at night, violating curfew, and she was lying in wait to catch them. She hugged the walls of the building across the street, tucking herself into the darkness. He would be watching, he would meet her there. She was sure of it.
She sensed a presence, saw a shadow. Her heart began to beat faster. It must be him, but what if it’s not? All of her progress could be lost with one misplaced phrase. She took a deep breath and uttered it.
“The streets are dangerous.”
A response came from the darkness.
“One can’t be too careful.”
“Can we speak face-to-face?”
“The less detail you know about me the better, for your own protection.”
“I have a plan.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m going to infiltrate a group of so-called wives who are forced to service jihadi fighters.”
“And do what?”
“Well, first try to find out what happened to my sister.”
“You think she may have been forced into prostitution?’
“Well, it seems that is one of the few options for women who are recruited by ISIS.”
“And then?”
“That’s the part I don’t know yet.”
“Then you don’t have a plan at all. What if you can’t find out what happened to your sister? How long did you plan on staying in this shit hole?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Well, that’s too long for me. Once you have a plan, then we’ll talk. In the meantime, try not to get killed.”
“But how long will you be here to back me up?”
The answer was lost in the wind. The still void in the air told her he had left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ayisha knew raiding the brothels at night would be too perilous and not practical. With the soldiers (and their guns) present, there was too much of a risk that someone would get hurt or even killed. However, if they went in early in the morning and turned the place upside down, the chances were pretty good of getting their hands on contraband that the soldiers had stashed there. But, of course, illicit goods and expired papers were not the only things she would be looking for – her main objective was to find out what had happened to her sister, and to claim her revenge on whomever was responsible.
The first raid was in a large four-room apartment on Faysal Street. It was 10 a.m., so Ayisha didn’t expect to encounter any soldiers, but nevertheless her heart was pounding and the adrenaline tingled her spine. She and Zurfah stood on the side of the door with their pistols drawn while Ayisha knocked.
“Open up! Hisbah!”
There was some commotion on the other side of the door but it wasn’t opening. Ayisha pounded on the door this time.
“This is Hisbah! Open the door or we will break it down!”
A young, fair-haired woman who could not have been more than 18 opened the door. She was wearing western clothes and her head was uncovered. Ayisha pushed her in and they entered. Zurfah started in on the young woman.
“Why do you answer the door uncovered?
“Inna assif!”
“I don’t care if you are sorry. It’s against the law. Show me your I.D. card.”
The woman nervously thumbed through her purse and presented her I.D. card.
“Her name is Narin. She is fifteen years old.”
“Write her a citation. You are Yazidi, yes?”
The girl nodded. She started to cry.
“Don’t cry. We are just enforcing the law. Do you have a certificate of repentance?”
“Yes, yes, right here.” She withdrew another paper from her purse and handed it to Ayisha, who examined it.
“This certificate is expired. Zurfah, add that to the citation. Your husband will have to come with you to court to take care of this.”
Ayisha motioned to Zurfah. “I will search her sisters.” She stood in the middle of the room and called out, “Everybody line up here now and bring your documents!”
Four more girls lined up for them. As she had suspected, the girls were all young, all fair-skinned, and none of them were Muslim. Their certificates were all out of date. A search of the apartment revealed even better treasures – stashes of alcohol and cigarettes were found in a bedroom shared by two of the “sisters.” Ayisha arrested them and bound their hands with flex cuffs. She imagined Zia being in a situation similar to these young women and felt a little guilty, but shrugged it off to collateral damage in pursuing her ultimate goal.
“You, Jinan, where is your husband?”
“He’s not my husband. He’s a fighter they just gave me to.”
“They gave you to him? Was a marriage performed?”
“I suppose, but not of my free will.”
“Marriages are arranged for many in our country.”
“Don’t you understan
d? Aren’t you supposed to be the police? I’m a slave. They gave me to a soldier as part of his payment for military service. I’m only fifteen years old!”
“Fifteen is a reasonable age for marriage. The legal age is nine.”
Robert watched from the shadows as Ayisha and Zurfah exited the building with their prisoners, two other women covered in black from head to toe. As he did, he saw a militant dressed in camouflage fatigues and a black headdress run up to them. Across the street, Robert flicked off the safety of his Glock and racked the slide.
The fighter pushed Ayisha aggressively, screaming at her. He put his hand on her shoulder.
“Where are you taking these girls?”
“Take your hands off me.” She wrenched herself out of his grip. “They’ve been arrested because their certificates are out of date and they’re going to court.”
She turned the tables on the fighter. “Who are you to these women?”
He pointed to Jinan. “This is my wife.”
“Then give me your I.D. card. You will have to come to court also or we’ll arrest you, too.”
The fighter laughed. “Arrest me? You can’t arrest me!”
He lifted his AK-47 as Robert took a bead right at his head. Ayisha struck quickly, pushing against the muzzle of the gun and forcing it upward as she kneed the soldier hard in the testicles. While he went down, she wrenched the gun out of his hands, and stepped back, pointing it at his head. Zurfah also pointed her weapon at him.
“I’m going to tell you one more time. Give me your I.D. card or you’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ayisha’s experiment was a great success. The arrests she and Zurfah made resulted in a revenue increase plan for which Shawish claimed all the credit, and he gave them a green light to continue the raids on the brothels. To the extent he was able, Shawish praised Ayisha.
“You have done well with this experiment. I want you to continue the program.”
“Yes, Shawish.”
He handed her a piece of paper.
“Here is a list of all the facilities to raid. Good luck.”
“Thank you, Shawish.”
She turned to go, but then turned back. “You know, these are not real marriages.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Some of these girls have reported they have more than one husband.”
“Polygamy is legal. So long as they were married by an emir, there is no problem.”
“But I thought the point of polygamy was to reproduce. Why would a woman have more than one husband? She can only have one baby every nine months. It makes sense that the men have multiple wives. But it doesn’t make sense for women.”
“Yours is not to question the wisdom of the caliph, Ayisha. You are simply to enforce the law. Don’t worry about anything that is not illegal.”
“Yes, Shawish.”
***
Ayisha was guarded in her meeting with Robert in the shadows that night. Quietly, she snuck across the street while he watched every winged insect and dust devil in the streets. She was the only soul out. She slipped in between the walls of the bombed-out building until she was sure that she could not be seen from the street and waited.
“The streets are dangerous.”
“One can’t be too careful.”
“So, do you have a plan yet?”
“No, too early to tell.”
“What’s the next step?”
“I’ll be going on more raids.”
Robert was silent. She wondered a second if he was still there. Then the silence was broken by a sigh. “Alright. Keep me posted. And next time, don’t try any hero stuff.”
“That guy had a gun on me!”
“And it was a lucky break that you got out of it. That won’t always happen.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Then I guess you won’t need me anymore.”
Ayisha panicked. A shiver ran up her spine. She was in over her head already and she knew she needed help, especially the kind he could give her.
“Okay, okay, I’ll tone it down. Violence in cases of self-defense only.”
“That’s better. Use your badge and your power of intimidation instead of your gun. It’s less dangerous.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damn right it’s yes, sir. This is a job, Ayisha, one that I think you may be too emotionally involved in. Emotions can get you killed in this line of work, which means your emotions can get me killed.”
“I promise, I’ll be careful.”
She had held out on him. If she had disclosed Shawish had given them a list of facilities in advance, he may have insisted on executing the assignment – killing whoever was running the brothels and getting out. But she still had to find out what had happened to her sister. As she made her way back to her apartment for the evening, she wondered: Is she even still alive?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The more raids Ayisha went on, the more she began to assimilate into her role as a morality policewoman. She had to hide her feelings for these girls, some of whom had been repeatedly raped by different men, and some who had to satisfy the prurient needs of other men while their “husbands” were away at war. Being the wife of a fighter didn’t mean you were safe unless you were pregnant, so a lot of them had become pregnant just to survive. Ayisha looked at them with the stern face of a Hisbah enforcing Sharia law, a devout Muslim staring down a female kufar, who was less than human, an animal who was lucky to have a place in the caliphate at all.
The raids continued and the arrests piled up. Since the fighters were constantly away fighting the infidels, when they came home, all they had a mind to do was to have sex and eat. Paperwork, like renewal of their wives’ repentance certificates, was never on their minds. And the arrests for illegal liquor and tobacco were even more penalizing. Ayisha and Zurfah would arrest the women for possession of cigarettes and drugs that the men used to put their sex slaves under submission for gang bang parties, and the men would have to come before the court and pay heavy fines. It was becoming so frequent the military began to complain.
As Ayisha and Zurfah stepped up the raids, they became more aggressive and were assigned more personnel. Acting on a tip they received from one of the women they had arrested, they stormed a building that used to house a tannery.
Commanding a team of four heavily armed Hisbah, Ayisha gave the order to break in the door, which Zurfah did by shooting off the lock. Ayisha kicked in the metal door, which slammed against the side of the building with a loud clank.
“Hisbah! This is a raid!”
She fired her gun in the air. When they entered, they ran into four militants coming up the stairs from the basement in various stages of undress, but with their AK-47s trained on the girls. Ayisha yelled out.
“Take cover!”
Zurfah and the others hit the ground, keeping their weapons aimed at the fighters.
“We are Hisbah! Drop your weapons!”
Thankfully for Ayisha, the men complied.
“Get up against the wall, all of you!”
Ayisha and Zurfah trained their rifles on the militants as the two other officers disarmed them and frisked them for additional weapons.
“I will need to see your I.D. cards.”
The men complied, grumbling, and handed their cards to Ayisha.
“Who lives in this place?’
One of the men, with dirty underwear and a mud-pasted, sweaty face, spoke up. “No woman tells me what to do.”
“We are the law speaking. I will ask you again, who lives here?”
“Nobody lives here.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
The men stared forward; an apparent code of silence existed among them. Another man, a little less worn and dusty than the others, spoke up. “I work here.”
“You work here? Doing what?”
“Cleaning up, mostly.”
“We have information there are undocumented aliens here
. All of you will have to come with us.”
The two other officers confiscated their weapons and they followed the men down the stairs to the basement as they protested.
“We are soldiers. We fight for the caliphate! We don’t have to take any shit from women!”
“We are the law and until we’re done with you, you will do as we say. Any problems, you tell the judge in court.”
“We have the right to be here!”
“Yeah, we have paid to be here!”
“Paid? Paid for what?”
The men’s protests suddenly turned to silence.
When Ayisha saw what was in the basement, she immediately felt like she was going to gag. There were metal pens, like the ones used to keep animals, but instead of animals, there were naked women inside them. Each pen contained a dog bowl filled with dirty water, the remnants of food on the concrete floor, and a stained and smelly blanket and pillow. Spent condoms scattered the floor. Ayisha choked back the urge to vomit.
“What’s going on in here? Whose wives are these?”
The men would not answer. One of them turned and started to run away.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Ayisha aimed her AK-47 at the man, who stopped immediately.
“Back down the stairs. Now, who has these women’s papers?”
Still no answer from any of the men. Ayisha directed Zurfah and the others to interrogate them while she interviewed the women.
“Where are their clothes? These women should be covered!”
A fair-skinned girl, looking no more than 16, spoke up. “We have no clothes.”
She was the first to be interviewed. Ayisha untied her and handed her a blanket she had found to cover up her nude body. The girl draped it around her breasts, tying it behind her.
“What is your name?”
“I’m Karina.”
“What are you doing here, Karina? Where is your husband?”
She looked down in shame.
“I have no husband. They’ve been holding me here forever. Men come here, night and day – different men – and they blindfold me and rape me. They make me give them oral sex.”
