by Isaac Hooke
The more zealous among the lot seemed almost happy about the predicament. Suleman's eyes, for example, shone with a particularly bright fervor, and whenever a shell landed too close, he was always the first to laugh it off.
"This is real glory, my brothers," Suleman said. "This is what it means to fight jihad! The time of our promised martyrdom is at hand. Our whole lives have been but preparation for this moment. Bask in it, my brothers! Bask in it!"
Suleman led them in some religious song, and the group crooned until hoarse.
The shelling continued all that day and into the dark. It soon became obvious that no one would be eating supper that night.
The main battle sheik broadcast a speech over the two-way radios about an hour after sunset. He identified himself as Abu Khattab Al-Kurdi—a Kurd. Ethan found it more than ironic that the Islamic State had chosen a Kurd to lead the extermination of his own people.
Al-Kurdi paused after each sentence so that translators could convert what he was saying into the native tongues of the foreign fighters.
"We are doing well, my brothers!" the sheik exclaimed. "And we will prevail, despite the enemy arrayed before us. We control sixty percent of Kobane. Sixty! From the hill of Mistenur, past the industrial district, to that area they call 'security square.' We are raining hell fire down upon them, and inflicting the wrath of Allah. We are conquering for Islam, my lions! Be strong now, during this time of trial, when Allah chooses to test us most. Be brave!"
The rhetoric continued like that for a few minutes, but Ethan tuned out after the first few sentences. It was hard to feel enthusiastic for bombast when shells were raining down around him.
About thirty minutes after the sheik finished his speech, the shelling abruptly ceased. Ethan and the others stayed awake the entire night, expecting the Kurdish house clearing squads to follow up the artillery bombardment.
But the squads never came.
In the morning, news came over the radios. The Islamic State had retaken Tall Shair Hill.
Wolf Company erupted in exuberant, if weary, shouts of "Allahu akbar." Similar cries broke out over the two-way radios. Ethan yelled along with the best of them.
They had served their four days. It was time to return to the forward camp.
Wolf Company marched with slumped shoulders from the front. Suleman and Fida'a helped Abdullah walk, as the emir could no longer place much weight on the leg.
Ethan was completely benumbed by that point. He considered turning around and making a run for the Kurdish lines right then.
Just one more day, he told himself. Return to the new forward camp, record its position, then get the hell out when we come back to Kobane.
The group passed the mosque Ethan had visited the day before. Glancing up, he saw the minaret. Was that... yes, the black tip of a muzzle protruded very slightly from the banisters of the upper balcony, pointing toward the Kurdish lines. Something seemed off about the angle of that muzzle. Maybe he was imagining, but it seemed pointed too high.
On a whim Ethan decided to check it out. Though he was bone-weary, the potential reward was too great to ignore.
"One second!" he told the others, then swerved into the mosque and bounded up the spiral stairs.
At the balcony of the minaret he found Osama, glued to the same spot, his M24A2 jammed between the stone banisters. The skyward-angled muzzle definitely wasn't positioned for proper firing.
Keeping low, Ethan approached. The first thing he noticed was the abhorrent stench, a mixture of rot and fecal matter.
The mujahid had a large black exit wound in the back of his head, where the flies had gathered around the matted hair.
Scrunching up his nose, Ethan grabbed the M24. It seemed undamaged. As he examined the weapon, his captivated mind no longer registered the smell of the corpse. H-S Precision PST-25 fiberglass and carbon-fiber reinforced polymer foam stock with adjustable length of pull and cheek height. 416R Stainless Steel barrel with 5-R rifling. Leupold Mark 4 LR/T 10x40mm fixed magnification scope with DiamondCoat 2 ion-assist lens coating for higher light transmission and greater ruggedness. Detachable ten-round magazine. Top and side Picatinny rails for accessory mounting. Fold-down Harris bipod with RBA-3 rotapod adapter, allowing for target tracking without bipod repositioning. Maximum effective range, eight-hundred to a thousand meters.
He named the rifle Beast.
He looked into the scope, peering through one of the banisters, being careful not to get too close to the balcony's edge. Built into the lens was the standard Mil-dot reticule, with beads placed at intervals along the cross-hairs to aid in range calculation. The 10x magnification was slightly high for urban combat, but he could always resort to the Dragunov as a backup.
Beast had a "Quick Cuff" rifle sling specifically designed for the US army by Tactical Intervention Systems. It consisted of a cuff that was worn on the bicep, and a sling attached to the rifle. Most people thought of slings as merely something used to carry a rifle, but for the professional marksman, it was something far more. With the Quick Cuff sling, one could quickly assume an "unsupported" or freestanding firing position and shoot with reasonable accuracy. This was useful during ambush situations, when there wasn't time to fold down the legs of the bipod. Bipod-supported shooting was more precise, but nonetheless the Quick-Cuff improved accuracy in a bind, providing a more stable unsupported shooting platform. Some marksmen used both the bipod and Quick Cuff together.
Ethan opened up the Velcro fasteners on the Quick Cuff and removed it from the corpse, sliding the contraption onto his own left bicep and adjusting it. He slung Beast over his right shoulder and the Dragunov over his left.
He collected the spare ammunition from the corpse, securing it to his harness. A quick search of Osama's pack revealed a clip-on PVS-22 Night Vision scope. Ethan immediately pocketed it. Unfortunately, there wasn't an infrared WeaponLight or PEQ-2 illuminator to go with it.
Can't win them all.
Ethan returned downstairs and discovered the others hadn't waited for him. Ethan had to rush to catch up.
"Nice find," Raheel said, looking with obvious envy at Beast.
The survivors of Wolf Company reached the extract area, where they waited alongside those others who had completed their four-day shifts. He spotted William and Aaron standing a short distance away with their respective units; the two of them looked just as exhausted as Ethan felt.
Pickup trucks came, offloading the mujahadeen who had come to relieve the front line fighters. In a few minutes Ethan found himself in the bed of one of those trucks with the remnants of Wolf Company. They no longer had enough members to necessitate two vehicles.
The pickup drove into the empty area between the southeast of Kobane and the nearest town. Overhead, shells screamed past, launched from the Islamic State heavy artillery in the village to the southeast.
He looked at the exhausted faces of the survivors and wondered if any of them were experiencing second thoughts about the jihad and its so-called glory. Even Suleman and Fida'a were too tired to meet his eyes, and like everyone else, stared at the floor of the truck bed.
The pickup reached the shelter of the village, where the smoke from the rooftop blazes blotted out the sun. The truck continued onward, stopping half an hour later in a town that apparently served as the new forward camp. It looked almost exactly like the old one, but there were subtle differences in the placement of the buildings. Just to be sure Ethan checked his offline map. Definitely another village.
Suleman and Fida'a carried Abdullah to the field hospital, while another mujahid arrived to show them to their quarters. It was Curly Beard. He'd survived the bombing of the old forward camp, then.
He led them to a single-story home near the center of the village. Six fighters were already lodged there.
"Meet the new members of your unit," Curly Beard said. The man revealed their names, but Ethan wasn't listening. In a daze, he proceeded to the closest corner, set down his belongings, closed his eyes and fell
asleep.
Ethan awoke four hours later at the call to prayer. Afterward, the company devoured a lunch of nuts and rice, which one of the new members had apparently retrieved. As they ate, Suleman explained that Abdullah had appointed him acting emir while he recovered from his injury. As proof, Suleman showed off Abdullah's US-made M16A4 assault rifle, replete with 4x32 RCO scope and PVS-22 NV clip-on.
"You are the best group of mujahadeen I have ever served with," Suleman said. "It is truly an honor, an honor, to lead you in Allah's great war. I love you all." He actually seemed teary-eyed.
Ethan could only shake his head.
After eating, he wanted to check on William and Aaron, but the sudden influx of food only doubled his weariness, and it was all he could do to stumble back to his sleeping area and collapse. He understood then how William and Aaron must have felt that first day when Ethan had so rudely roused them.
It was still daylight when he awoke three hours later for the next prayer call. Wolf Company groggily went through the motions, and when prayer was done, most of them went back to sleep. The new members stayed awake, talking quietly among themselves. Suleman was conspicuously absent.
Though he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and let the peaceful oblivion of sleep take him again, Ethan forced himself to stay awake. For one thing, he badly had to take a dump. For another, it was time to find his fellow operatives.
The toilet and bathtub of the house were already filthy from those mujahadeen who had relieved themselves before him, so he used the backyard as a latrine instead. When he was done splattering the flowerbed with diarrhea, he pulled out the USB stick and recorded the position for the B-1B Lancers. The irony wasn't lost on him. When the bombers flew overhead tomorrow, that spot would serve as ground zero for the shitstorm.
He went in search of William and Aaron. Eventually he tracked down Curly Beard and the man told him where to find their respective units.
When he reached Aaron's barracks, he discovered most of the unit asleep. There were three who were awake, however. Likely new members. They seemed excited.
"Is Abu-Aadil here?" Ethan asked, studying the sleepers. He didn't recognize his friend among the lot.
"He has been captured," one of the awake fighters said eagerly. "Along with that Saudi associate of his. They are spies!"
"What?" Ethan blinked in disbelief. "Where are they now?"
"The sharia court, I would think." That was essentially the camp prison.
"And where's that?"
The fighter shrugged. "I don't know. They are friends of yours?"
"No," Ethan lied. He thanked the man and left.
He asked around for the sharia court and finally someone pointed him in the right direction. On a whim, he stowed the modified USB stick and TruPulse range finder behind a pile of rubble along the way, making sure no one saw him do so.
Near the center of the village he came upon a large building. A wide, circular structure topped by a three-story pyramid. He thought the place might have been a Kurdish church at some point, but the bronze characters above the entrance had been chiseled away, leaving behind only a dark imprint.
Two Kalashnikov-carrying guards stood on either side of the entrance. At his approach, the left sentinel raised a halting hand.
"What do you want?" the fighter inquired.
"Is this the courthouse?" Ethan said.
"Yes. Why?"
Just then the main doors banged open and Suleman, of all people, emerged.
"There he is," Suleman said. "The final traitor. Arrest him."
thirty-two
FIVE HOURS EARLIER
Habib had feared his American masters at first. For some reason he had thought their drones and satellites could observe his every movement. And he had half believed the Americans had implanted some sort of tracker in his body when they had violated him.
But slowly, very slowly, he began to realize they really had no clue regarding his whereabouts and those he interacted with, or about anything at all, really. The Americans weren't all powerful.
They were fools.
He had fed them a constant stream of disinformation. He had lied about the number of brothers in the training camps, what the instruction involved, who the trainers were. He had lied about the electrical and power situation in Raqqa, about his whereabouts and duties therein, about the name of his emir. He had lied about everything. And they had believed it all.
The Americans had given him a Facebook account to use. He was to post encrypted text to a private group that had the nonsensical name of Al Husseini. When he had told the Americans he was headed northwest to a city without Internet, Akhtarin, they had believed that, too. He almost wished the forward camp had Internet available so that he could continue feeding them misinformation.
Habib had done well in Kobane. With Allah's help he had distinguished himself among the fighters, so that when his emir was gunned down Habib had been immediately promoted to commander of Bear Brigade. When Habib died in jihad, which of course he must, he hoped Allah might look back at his many valiant deeds and allow him to enter the bliss of paradise. It was a feeble hope, but he clung to it.
His unit had completed another rotation on the front, and he sat with the survivors in the bed of a pickup truck on its way back to the forward camp. There were only two brothers from his original brigade there with him. The others had gone to jannah, replaced by new fighters.
He was tired, like his men, but he wore a brave face. As their leader it was his job to boost morale in whatever ways he could. The airstrikes were demoralizing enough—without those, the yellow faces would have fallen long ago. In his heart he knew Allah was on their side, however, and in the end the city would cede. Even if the Islamic State had to blow every last building to hell.
The pickup arrived at the forward camp and he jumped down from the truck bed with the others.
Habib stopped dead in his tracks.
Another pickup had arrived only moments before his own, and a different unit had unloaded. Treading along nonchalantly among the brothers was the man he could never forget.
* * *
Aaron was rudely awakened by three militants he didn't know. They disarmed him and dragged him from the house while the rest of his unit watched—those who were awake, anyway.
"What's going on?" Aaron said.
"Silence!" One of the militants jabbed him in the ribs.
Another spoke into a two-way radio. "We got him."
They brought him to the former Kurdish church that served as the sharia court and camp prison. He was searched; the cellphone, range finder and USB stick on his person were confiscated. He was brought to a small, white-painted room where five men awaited. Three of them were militants like Aaron. The other two, dressed in snowy robes and skull caps, were seated before a table with a Quran and a laptop on it.
"That's him," one of the mujahadeen said.
The man seemed familiar somehow, but Aaron couldn't place him.
"He was carrying a USB stick, judge," one of the militants who had escorted Aaron said. "As well as a cellphone and a range finder. Abu-Osama is looking at them now. And we also found this among his personal belongings." He placed a fist-sized metal object on the table. "We're not sure, but we think it's some sort of communications device."
The judge pushed up his eyeglasses and picked up the device to examine it. "Do you know who I am?"
"No."
"I am Judge Mohamed Al'Sharia. Everything you say from this moment forth will be used as evidence. Do you understand?"
"What am I accused of?"
Mohamed ignored him, his attention glued to the metallic artifact. "What is this?" He unfolded the black metal panels.
It was a portable, solar-powered Internet hotspot. Military make. Aaron had acquired it after rendezvousing with a member of JSOC in Kobane a couple of days ago. He hadn't had a chance to properly hide it yet.
Aaron shrugged. "I don't know, I found it on the streets of Kobane."
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The vaguely familiar mujahadeen stepped forward. "You lie, American." Such venom in his voice. Such hatred.
Then it hit Aaron.
Habib.
The foreign jihadist the contractors had raped in Turkey. Aaron still hadn't gotten over the guilt he'd felt in that moment. He should have intervened. He wished he'd had the courage to stand up to those fools.
At the time he'd been so angry at them and himself that he'd taken off his balaclava and stormed from the hotel room. Removing his mask had been an outward symbol of his defiance, almost an instinctive reaction to the repulsion he'd felt. It was a stupid thing to do, in hindsight, because although Habib had had his back to him, apparently the jihadi had seen his face somehow.
"American!" Aaron sputtered in feigned outrage, struggling to recover. He felt slightly dizzy, and had to set a hand on the table to steady himself. He blinked a few times and then, realizing all eyes were upon him, he said, loudly, "How dare you call me by that name!"
Habib smirked. "Do you see, judge, how he almost fainted at the accusation?"
"It's because of the sheer rage I felt," Aaron said. "It took all my will to keep myself from smashing in your face. I'm not an American kaffir!"
"Really?" Habib purred. "Then why do speak English so well?"
"I don't know what he's talking about," Aaron told Mohamed. He kept his voice calm, measured. "I've never seen this man before in my life. You must believe me. He has confused me for someone else." Aaron placed his hand over the Quran on the table. "I swear by the sacred book."
Habib slapped him in the face. "Don't touch the Quran, infidel! I have confused you for no one! I can never forget you, not after what you did!"
Aaron feigned outrage, as would be expected of one so indignantly accused, and made a grab for Habib. The other militants intercepted him, restraining Aaron.
He pretended to calm down. His mind was racing. His only hope was to poke holes in whatever fabricated story Habib might have come up with. And it was a fabrication—Habib would never admit to being on the receiving end of an act of sodomy. He would probably refuse to swear on the Quran. Aaron could use that.
