Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Radical Trilogy
Glossary
Dedication
About the Author
Other Books by Anne Garboczi Evans
Copyright 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without express permission from the author except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.
Veiled by Choice is a work of fiction and is set in a fictionalized version of Colorado and Iraq. All characters, names, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, events, organizations, places, locales, religions, religious practices, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental and is beyond the intent of the author. All characters are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Koran quotations courtesy of J.M. Rodwell’s 1876 translation of the Koran.
Scripture quotations taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover Design by iCreateDesigns
Clip art licensed Creative Commons CC-0
Veiled By Choice
By Anne Garboczi Evans
CHAPTER 1
“Well then, Dr. Kaleb—” The woman leaned across his leather couch, her dress riding up her thighs. “What kind of medicine do you practice?”
He didn’t exactly remember the lawyer’s name, but as she touched his knee, her dress falling off cleavage, scarcely seemed a good time to remind her of that. Buzz. His phone vibrated against the coffee table. He reached over the woman’s bare leg and hit Mute.
The woman wiggled her shoulders and her tube dress slid lower. He’d met her at the bar earlier this evening and she’d said yes when he invited her home. “Pediatrics?”
Wipe kids’ snotty noses all day? No way. Kaleb Schlensky shook his head. “ICU.” He’d like to get a position at a research hospital. He’d only just finished his residency.
Thud. Thud. His door shook from the outside.
Who pounded on the door of Uptown Denver’s luxury apartments at midnight-thirty? Kaleb smiled at no-name lawyer. “They’ll go away.”
Her skin felt smooth as he slid his hand across her shoulder. His knee knocked the glass top of his coffee table. At the periphery of his vision, a paper fluttered to the ground—the flier for his little sis’ ballet recital. It was happening over in Littleton this Saturday. He needed to remember to buy her the bouquet of flowers she’d asked for to celebrate finishing 8th grade. He should set a reminder on his phone.
“FBI. Open up,” a voice bawled. Something that sounded like a battering ram slammed against his door. The stained wood quivered.
“Are you a criminal?” No-name lawyer flung herself off of him.
“No.” So why was the FBI at his door? He hadn’t even had any criminal cases at the hospital yet, just sutured up appendicitis and performed emergency colectomies. Kaleb stood and rounded the leather couch in his minimalist apartment. The black and white prints he’d hung in the dining room rattled against sleek walls as the booming continued.
The battering grew louder. His doorbell exploded into noise. His new neighbors were going to hate him for this midnight law enforcement mix-up.
“Coming.” Kaleb twisted the door latch. After he flashed his physician ID, the FBI would feel sheepish about their intrusion.
Three men in black suits shouldered into his doorway. One gripped a Glock and didn’t look averse to pointing it at him.
What the h—? He was a doctor. Kaleb slid up one eyebrow. “May I help you?” With how these men scowled, he half-expected theme music and a movie-style car chase to roar into action.
“Are you Kaleb Schlensky?”
“Yep.” Kaleb brought his chin down then up. Was one of his patients under investigation? He’d done emergency surgery today on an eight-week-pregnant woman who looked like she did drugs. An ectopic pregnancy in the late stages, and he’d almost lost her to hemorrhaging despite wheeling her into surgery within ten minutes of her arrival.
The lead G-man stepped over the metal tread into his apartment. “Is Ava Schlensky, age fourteen, your sister?”
Adrenaline jolted through Kaleb. He jerked his gaze from one FBI agent to the other. His palms slicked as epinephrine poured into his bloodstream. “Yes. Is she okay?”
The FBI agent re-holstered his Glock. “This evening, at ten p.m. mountain time, Ava entered Syria with the stated purpose of joining ISIS. We have some questions to ask you.”
“No!” Kaleb stared at the men. “You’ve got the wrong girl. Ava has a ballet concert in three days. She’s fourteen. ####-ing fourteen. We’re not Muslim, we’re Jewish.” His pulse pounded in his head. He stumbled. He grabbed the couch arm. This was a dream.
Casting a disgusted glance at him, no-name lawyer yanked her dress straight, then walked out the door. The lead G-man shoved the door shut, closing the other agents inside his apartment.
The lead agent approached to within twelve inches of Kaleb. “What do you know about your sister’s conversion to Islam?”
“What conversion?” Kaleb’s senses pounded. The overhead lights flickered in the daze of his mind. He struggled to make his adrenal glands stop pumping fight-or-flight hormones into his cardiac muscles. “Why are you guys wasting time here? We’ve got to go find her!” He fumbled for his car keys.
Thumbs shoved into the pockets of their black suit pants, the agents just stood there.
Kaleb grabbed his phone. “You should be calling somebody! Interpol?” He floundered to unlock the phone. His fingers slipped off the glass keyboard. For crying out loud, he did emergency surgery, where a millimeter off-center would cause a patient’s death, with a steady hand. He needed to recapture the ability to focus and save his sister.
A gray-haired FBI agent stepped around the lead agent. He laid his hand on Kaleb’s shoulder. “She’s already crossed into ISIS territory. Sit down, son.”
Kaleb yanked back. His head slammed into a framed print. “When? How?” His lungs burned, his legs unsteady. Last month, Ava and he had spent two hours eating 7-Eleven slushies and nachos by City Park while she mocked the fashion taste of every passerby.
Feet spread, the FBI agent spoke in a monotone. “Your mother called in Ava as a missing endangered person at seven p.m. tonight. We discovered she had used her passport to get out of the country.”
Seven p.m.? At that hour, he’d been at the bar making small talk with no-name lawyer. He’d missed some calls from Mom, but hadn’t bothered to pick up his phone. Even the hard granite countertop beneath Kaleb’s fingertips felt surreal. This couldn’t be happening. “It’s only been a few hours. Ava can’t have reached Iraq yet.”
“Your mom said she thought Ava was at a Girl Scout camp for the last two weeks and only discovered her absence today during camp pickup.”
What?
“Your mother has fully cooperated.” The lead FBI agent slid a digital r
ecording device out of his breast pocket. “For the purpose of our investigation, however, we must question both of you about the extent of your involvement with radical Islam.”
“We’re not terrorists!” Kaleb shouted the words. His hands shook.
“Your sister is.” Lead FBI agent took a seat on his couch, crisp black suit indenting the brown leather.
“My sister’s not a terrorist.” The men’s faces blurred before Kaleb’s eyes. He’d pronounced fifteen patients dead this month, and sewed up patients with injuries so grisly they put horror movies to shame, but this couldn’t be happening to his baby sister.
“Your sister met a jihadist fighter online. Please sit.” The lead FBI agent gestured to the hardback chair across from him. “The jihadist’s name is Raja Khan, age thirty-one, unknown country of origin, current city, Mosul. We have taken over control of all Ava’s social media accounts. A female recruiter introduced her to radical theology over the period of three months, then Ava started communicating with Raja. Two weeks ago, she stole your mother’s credit card and bought airline tickets to enter ISIS territory and become the wife of Raja Khan.”
“His wife? She’s fourteen years old.” Kaleb stumbled into the chair. He gripped the black chair spindles. The wood cracked beneath his grasp.
The FBI agent screwed up one side of his mouth, half apology, half shrug.
“We’ve got to get her out before she meets the pervert!” Kaleb jumped to his feet. His loafers slammed into the gray-tiled carpet. “What’s FBI protocol? Have you contacted Homeland Security? Do you have choppers? I have a friend from Army infantry days. He’s CIA now. I’ll call him.” Kaleb sprinted to the kitchen for his laptop bag.
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Schlensky.” The lead FBI agent looked up, his skin drawn tight around his pointed chin. “Your sister joined ISIS of her own freewill. Not only is rescuing her unfeasible, we’ve no plan to attempt it.”
“You’re leaving Ava with an ISIS pedophile?” Kaleb dropped his laptop. It cracked against the marble kitchen tile. “You can’t do that. My sister’s an American citizen.”
“Actually, that’s a matter of doubt. There’s precedent for revoking citizenship when an American joins a terrorist organization.” The lead FBI agent laid his thin hand on the pressed crease of his suit pants.
All the air left Kaleb’s lungs. He stared at the men.
The lead FBI agent stood. “We’ll be in touch later in the week. Don’t leave town, Mr. Schlensky.”
Mosul, Iraq
An ISIS Barracks
With the AK-47, which only women of the feared Al-Khansaa brigade were permitted to wield, Jessica Walker gestured through the doorway.
A single girl stepped over the broken concrete threshold into the dark women’s barracks. Last year, dozens of Western female recruits had joined Islamic State every week.
Jessica tore off the three veils she wore, allowing a breath of air across her eyes. Now that these tall walls blocked her from the view of the ISIS men who guarded the perimeter of this city, allowing no one to exit, she dropped the ugly gun and started unwinding her head-covering. Her red hair spilled out over her shoulders, down to her sweat-soaked jeans.
Bunk beds lined the room behind them, a desk and some bits ’n bobs the only decoration in this area. The new girl rested one foot on top of the other. She chafed her thumb against her finger. The pale glint of lip gloss heightened her childish pout.
Poor thing. Jessica leaned her AK-47 against her bunk. The leader of this branch of Al-Khansaa, Umm Sultan, had already arranged the girl’s wedding.
Even indoors, the heat of Iraqi summer scorched the air, yet the girl shivered in the darkness of low ceilings and blacked-out windows.
“It will be all right.” Jessica dug under her bunk and extended a plastic water bottle. “The mujahideen holy warriors fighting for Allah make the most considerate husbands.”
Except for her martyred husband. Hope he was enjoying his houris concubines in paradise after that roadside bomb. She’d not jealously begrudge the houris her husband, for she still had flashbacks to when he’d been alive. With a shiver, Jessica tucked her knees up to her chest as she perched on her bed.
“I saw a beheaded man. He was all bloated and rotting.” The teen girl shivered inside her black abaya. Her mousey brown hair spilled out from under her headcovering. “I want to go home. I have a ballet recital this weekend.”
Pain tore through Jessica’s heart. That had been her reaction too those first twenty-four hours after she’d joined ISIS and realized the sadism of Islamic State. That day, three years ago, she had realized her boyfriend’s talk of a wonderful religious paradise where they could own a home and raise their unborn child together was all lies. By then though, she’d been trapped.
“Ava, is that your name?” Jessica patted the seat beside her on her bunk.
The girl nodded. Her feet dragged as she moved toward the bed. Rolls of baby fat covered the girl’s heavyset face and a volcano eruption of a pimple swelled up her left nostril. This girl had really been in ballet?
“You need to stop talking about going home. Death is the penalty for even talking about turning traitor and going home.” Otherwise, she’d have left ISIS right after she’d arrived. Jessica leaned her aching head back against the still-cool concrete wall.
The bed jounced as Ava belly-flopped her ample weight onto it. The girl’s tears exploded across the pillowcase. “I have to go home. I have to!”
Guilt churned inside Jessica. She’d spoken to Ava on the recruiting computers months ago. She should have warned the girl about what life was really like here in ISIS-occupied territory.
Umm Sultan would have killed her for that. She’d never expected Ava to actually come, not now as the Battle for Mosul grew fiercer every day and thousands upon thousands died.
Fumbling under her pillow, Jessica pressed a can of biscuits into the girl’s hand and laid a worn blanket across her trembling shoulders. “Ava, I’m going to give you a piece of advice I wish someone had given me when I came to Mosul.”
Chills shook Jessica’s body. Even now, three years later, she could remember her wedding morning like yesterday. The scent of rotting corpses had blown through the open courthouse door as the judge had sealed the wedding papers. She’d longed to scream “no!” and run when the ISIS judge asked if she wished to marry her boyfriend, but she was trapped.
“Yes?” Ava turned big, brown eyes up to her. The girl belonged in a primary school, not a war zone.
“You do whatever your husband says, and you pretend to like it. Things will go easier for you that way.” Jessica surveyed the girl’s flabby arms and pudgy hands, which didn’t contain one quarter of the strength of her soon-to-be-husband. “A lot easier.” Wish she had known that three years ago on the morning of her wedding.
Ava grabbed the edge of Jessica’s blanket in a death grip. Tears dribbled down her freckled face.
An agony scarcely dulled by three years of feeling it pierced Jessica the same as every time she saw another victim of ISIS. She could have embraced Ava. She could have wrapped her arms around the shaking girl and spoken words of comfort, but that would only make her soft. Per Umm Sultan’s order, Ava would marry in thirty-five minutes. If her soon-to-be husband was anything like Jessica’s martyred husband, Ava would need all the strength she had to survive marriage.
“Pretend?” The Al-Khansaa brigade leader, Umm Sultan, a fearsome woman of undisclosed age, glided into the room. She towered over the bunk bed. “You do not pretend to obey your husband. It is your sacred duty. He is your master and lord. The Noble Koran says—”
Did Allah hate her for her weak-willed obedience? Would he bar her from jannah paradise? Jessica’s heart pounded. She’d defied Allah only weeks ago by helping a captive Iraqi sex slave, whom she was supposed to be guarding, escape. If Umm Sultan ever found out, she’d kill her. Jessica tried to still her shaking hands.
Umm Sultan grabbed Jessica under the chin, h
er thick fingers digging into Jessica’s flesh. Only the woman’s eyes showed behind the black cloth she wore. “You shall marry today, too. Have a mujahideen holy warrior fill your womb with sons, cubs for the caliphate.”
Terror streaked through Jessica. Though she loathed working for Al-Khansaa, it had allowed her to dodge marriage for nine months now. For nine months she’d brought in her own bread. Jessica’s heart pounded in her chest. “Thank you, Umm Sultan, but I must continue to mourn my husband as I serve Allah in the Al-Khansaa brigade, enforcing His law.”
Umm Sultan crossed her thick arms. “The emir has already chosen a husband for you.”
Jessica’s entire chest contracted. “I refuse.” Her voice came out as a squeak. She could still feel the terror she’d experienced every time her late husband had entered their house. Sense the thud of his hand across her cheek when he grew angry. Hear him yelling that she wasn’t fit to live. Feel the cold sensation of his knife blade pressed against her throat as he threatened to kill her. And she’d known her Somalian-British husband pre-ISIS back in England. Who knew what a stranger might do to her?
“It is Allah’s will. Your opinion does not matter.” Umm Sultan’s gun thudded against her belt as she moved past Jessica.
“Who?” Jessica breathed.
“The emir is in charge of that.” Umm Sultan grabbed Ava by the wrist and threw her off the bed. “Get into your wedding clothes.”
The concrete floor skinned Ava’s knee. The girl cried out.
Umm Sultan cuffed the girl across her face. “Hurry. You shall not make the mujahideen holy warrior wait.”
A whimpering noise came from Ava’s fat lip as she moved to obey. The sound of rending zipper carried through the room as Ava opened her Hello Kitty suitcase. With a sniffle, Ava looked up from the concrete floor. A tulle dress in bridal white spread around her legs. “Isn’t it beautiful? Raja said it was. I sent him a picture on Snapchat after I bought it.”
Looking up as her own tears splashed against her tank top, Jessica tried to focus on the girl. A ringing noise sounded in her ears. Umm Sultan couldn’t force her to marry now after nine months in Al-Khansaa!
Veiled by Choice (Radical Book 3) Page 1
