by KaLyn Cooper
Married? To someone that high in the fundamentalist regime? No. No way. She was not a woman to hide under an abaya and live as women had a thousand years ago. His Hannah was far too modern to put up with that lifestyle.
When he tuned back in, Alex was talking. “Just see what you can find out and get back to me as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.” Isaac needed answers, too.
Chapter 10
“Hannah, I need you to wake up.” Isaac’s voice seemed to come from far away. It was not the lover’s caress she had expected.
The instant his words penetrated her sleep, Hannah bolted upright. “How close are they?” She threw off the covers and leaped out of bed.
Where the hell are my clothes? Her gaze darted around the unfamiliar room. She tried to put together the pieces of yesterday. Nothing seemed to match up except the fear that had run through every day and every night since she’d landed in Syria two years ago.
“Where the hell am I?” She heard the panic in her own voice.
Isaac stepped to her and wrapped his arms around her. She knew him. He equaled safety. When his hand traced up and down her spine, and he allowed them to just stand there, she knew the danger was not close.
“What’s going on?” She leaned back to look into his eyes.
“Why don’t you get dressed,” he suggested. “Coffee is ready, and I’ll whip us up some breakfast.” Isaac released her and took a step back.
He didn’t seem to be the warm, tender lover from last night. This man was all business. Damn, she hated morning afters. They were always so awkward, but it wasn’t like she could get dressed and make the walk of shame back to her own place. She and Isaac were stuck together for the unforeseeable future.
Resigned, she told him, “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then she reconsidered. “Do I have time for shower?”
“Sure.” Isaac turned and left the room. His one-word sentence told her she was not going to like their next conversation.
Refreshed from a hot shower, dressed in yoga pants that she often wore as long underwear and a turtleneck, Hannah padded into the kitchen, following the smell of food.
From the tight muscles in his face, Isaac looked angry as he stirred cheese into eggs.
Not one to put things off, she jumped right in. “Tell me the bad news.”
She watched the muscle in his jaw expand and contract several times.
“Are you married?” He didn’t even look at her.
“No.” She’d never even been engaged. Although Aziz had often spoken of making her his wife, he had never asked her to marry him. “What gave you that idea?”
Isaac turned the fire off from under the eggs and turned to look at her. “Why does ISIS want you dead?”
Hannah closed her eyes. She knew this day was going to come. She just hated that Isaac was going to be the one to hear her story. He’d realize what an immature child she had been. She hated to look like a fool, especially to him.
“It’s a long story, and one I’m not very proud of.” She opened her eyes expecting to see his condemnation already.
His face was totally unreadable.
“Can we at least sit down for this?” She wasn’t sure if she could continue to stand.
“Grab the plates,” he ordered. “I’m hungry. We’ll eat and talk.”
She sighed at the reprieve and grabbed two plates from next to the sink where they had dried overnight.
She set her plate on the table, and he took the seat across from her. Shrugging, she admitted, “I’m not sure where to start.”
Isaac forked up some eggs and stuffed them in his mouth. He stared at her as he chewed. He was not going to be any help.
“Okay, you know I was in the YPJ, the all-female battalion in the Syrian army. Since I had three years of college—”
Isaac interrupted her. “Exactly how did you end up in the middle of the civil war in Syria?”
A chuckle escaped before her lips drew into a thin line. “In college, I was studying international relations and political science.” She shook her head. “Just like the other night, I saw a news flash where young girls in Syria had been kidnapped from a small town near the Iraqi border. It was very close to the refugee camp where I had been born. I felt this tremendous need to go there and help those girls.”
His brows drew together. “But you’re an American, right?”
“Yes, because my father is a U.S. citizen. He was working in Iraq for the Center for Disease Control when he met my mother who was an ER physician.” Unsure if he knew the history of that area, she explained, “Back then, Iraq was actually a progressive country. My brother and sister were both born there, but they have never claimed dual citizenship.”
Isaac got up and grabbed two bottles of water. “Go on.” He passed one over to her.
Hannah drank deeply before she set the bottle on the table. “When things got bad twenty-five years ago, my family fled in the middle of the night. It took them a few days, but they ended up in a refugee camp in Syria. That’s where I was born.”
“Got it.” Isaac’s fork scraped over his empty plate. “Back to my original question, why does ISIS want you so bad?”
“As I started to tell you, they made me a captain shortly after I had finished my training in the Syrian army.” She looked down at her plate, still filled with food. This was the stupid part. She inhaled deeply and gathered her fortitude. She couldn’t look at the man who had given her such great pleasure the night before as she talked about her former lover. “There was this captain, Aziz al-Habib, who was with the male battalion that usually accompanied us. We…I…I thought we were in love.”
She looked up to see how he was going to take the news but he was feverishly typing with his thumbs.
What the hell? He’s texting?
Here she was bleeding out her soul, and he’s texting.
When his eyes finally met hers, he raised one brow. “Tell me more about al-Habib.”
“When we first met, he was wonderful. Although his English wasn’t great, it was more than passable.” She smiled. “He had kind of a British accent. He’d been educated at Oxford. We had studied many of the same subjects. We had so much in common.” She bit her bottom lip. “When we didn’t want anyone else to understand our conversation, we’d speak in English.”
“You really liked this guy, didn’t you?”
“No. I thought I loved him.” She grimaced, then admitted, “He was just using me to get the locations of our next raids. The women’s battalion concentrated on finding and freeing children who had been kidnapped by ISIS.”
She shook her head. “I was such an idiot. I don’t know why I never saw it. So many times our teams would arrive hours too late. The girls had already been moved.” Withholding the anger and controlling her voice, she told Isaac, “All those times, if I had kept my mouth shut, we could have saved those girls.”
She grabbed the bottle of water and tried to wash away the lump that was in her throat. “He betrayed me. I trusted him with the lives of those girls and the women I fought next to because there were several occasions when one of my soldiers was wounded or killed.”
With no inflection in his voice, Isaac asked, “So you killed him?”
“No, damn it.” Then she reconsidered. He was dead due to her actions. “I didn’t pull the trigger, but once I found out who he really was, I turned him in.”
“So he’s still alive?”
“No. He died while trying to escape.” She would never forget the pain in her heart when the colonel had told her about his death. Part of her had been elated that she didn’t have to worry about him finding out that she had turned him in. She had seen Aziz’s temper on more than one occasion, although he had never focused that anger on her. She had never imagined that his brother would order his followers to come after her, especially in the USA.
“How did you find out he wasn’t who he said he was?”
“My visa was about to expire, and I really missed my
parents. I wanted to go home and see them.” Hannah swallowed hard. “I wanted to surprise Aziz and get him a visa to come to the United States with me. I thought, like the young fool I was, that our relationship was moving on to the next step. We had even talked about children, although he had never asked me to marry him. I wanted my mom and dad to meet him.”
Isaac simply nodded. “So what happened?”
“I was at the U.S. Embassy and had just gotten my visa renewed so I could come back to Syria after going home. I gave the clerk Aziz’s name. A few minutes later, she spun the screen around so I could see his picture and confirm it was him. Not only was he on the no-fly list, but it also said he was the only brother of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”
“The head of ISIS?” Isaac confirmed.
All Hannah could do was nod her head.
“You were sleeping with the Caliphate’s brother,” he accused.
“I didn’t know that at the time,” she threw back at him. “Look, I was young and stupid. I had dated in college, but all of a sudden I’m halfway around the world in the middle of a war zone and this handsome, intelligent, older man who speaks my native language starts paying attention to me.” She threw her arms up and let them fall back into her lap. “No one knew who he was, least of all me.”
“And because you turned in his brother who got killed during his arrest, al-Baghdadi wants you dead.” Isaac had summed it up quickly.
“Yes.” Tears streamed down her face. “I really fucked things up. I went to Syria to help the kidnapped girls. Sure, we were able to save a few hundred, but my naïveté and big mouth kept hundreds more in slavery. And the things those men do to those little girls makes me sick.” She was crying so hard she could hardly catch her breath. “I don’t give a shit about their civil war. The Sunnis and Kurds have been fighting for hundreds of years. I wish they would kill each other off completely. I just don’t want them harming young girls ever again.”
Isaac came around the table. He picked her up out of the chair and carried her to the living room where he sat in one of the rocker recliners, placing her across his lap. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. You’re safe here with me.”
He knew the truth, yet was still willing to comfort her, protect her.
In that moment, safe in his arms, she knew what love really was…acceptance of her, flaws and all.
Isaac kissed her forehead then tucked her head under his chin.
In that instant, Hannah fell a little in love with Isaac.
Chapter 11
“Snowman checking in. Any news?”
Karl was back on the operations center desk that morning. It had been four days since Isaac had passed Hannah’s information up the chain of command. They’d had four days of honeymoon-like bliss.
Their days were filled with checking the perimeter, finding only fox, moose, and elk tracks in the freshly fallen snow within one mile of the cabin. Mealtimes had become extremely domestic. He always cooked breakfast since discovering Hannah was not a morning person, but that could’ve been his fault. His insatiable morning hard on meant at least an hour of lovemaking before he’d let her come, then he’d allow her to sleep again.
Several times, day and night, Hannah had reached for him, or he for her. They had christened nearly every flat surface, but in front of the burning fireplace had become their favorite. He loved that she was such an adventurous lover, willing to try new things. She’d even suggested several.
“Good news, my friend, you’re headed back to Atlanta.” Karl’s statement shocked Isaac out of his fantasy world.
“What do you mean?” Isaac looked down the hallway to where the woman he realized he’d been falling in love with lay amidst rumpled sheets. He didn’t want to leave the insulated world they had created. He didn’t want to lose her.
“Al-Baghdadi is dead. USSOCOM sent in a SpecOps team six hours ago. We have DNA confirmation. With his brother gone, thanks to your little sweetie, the entire organization is in upheaval.” Karl then added in a casual tone, “I found the greatest bar in the Buckhorn District. These women are off the charts beautiful and looking for nothing more than a good time.”
Isaac couldn’t imagine sleeping with any other woman now that he’d had Hannah. Even the thought felt like an infidelity.
“How soon do you think you can get her down the mountain into Bozeman?”
They were supposed to leave now? No. He needed more time with Hannah. He didn’t want this to end. Sometime in the last week, he had fallen in love with the most interesting, gorgeous, wonderful woman with the biggest heart he’d ever known.
Maybe he could delay at least another day. Neither had dared think about the future with ISIS so hot on their tails. But, now, their possibilities were wide open. They would return to Atlanta together. She could move in with him, just to be sure this thing they had worked in the real world.
“Hey, Snowman, you still with me?” Karl’s voice broke into his thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m here.” With this mindset, Isaac told his best friend, “It’ll take us at least forty-eight hours to work our way to Bozeman.”
“Work faster,” Karl insisted. “Alex already has a jet headed your way. It seems Homeland Security wants to talk with Ms. Kader.”
Well, damn. He had no choice but to go wake up Hannah. It would take at least an hour to close down the cabin and another few hours to ski down to the main road. The wet snow they had gotten over the past two days would make the going slow.
“Give me four hours and send a vehicle toward Ennis on State Route 287.” Isaac hated the fact they had to leave immediately, but now he and Hannah could have a future together. “I’ll ping our location when we reach the highway.”
“Let me know when you switch to field communications. In the meantime, call if anything changes. Atlanta Center out.” The line went dead.
Phone still in his hand, Isaac walked to his bedroom. He stood in the doorway staring at Hannah. In sleep, she looked so peaceful. Now she could wear that expression all the time. The threat to her life was gone.
Unfortunately, they were now on a timetable.
He sat on the edge of the big bed and ran his fingers through her silky brown hair. “Hannah, sweetheart, you need to wake up. I have good news.” He bent over and kissed her, wanting to crawl back in the bed and take her one more time…but he couldn’t.
He smiled at the thought that the next time they made love, it would be in his bed in Atlanta. Hurrying toward that mental picture, he brushed the hair from her face and watched her awaken.
An hour later, clean sheets folded back in the linen closet, every dish scrubbed and placed in cabinets, Isaac walked through the cabin that would forever hold so many special memories. Once he was back home, he would have to call his uncle Samuel and thank him for the use of the secluded home. Given that he was still in work mode, he could not take the time to thank the man in person.
All power off, Isaac reset the battery-operated house alarm system and closed the keys inside the secret log panel. He turned to find Hannah strapping on her skis.
“As soon as you have your gear on, switch on your earpiece.” Isaac tapped the button then screwed his small communication unit into his ear.
Before he had a chance to confirm connection with Atlanta Center, three men in winter camouflage stepped from behind large pine trees with mini submachine guns pointed at him. His pistol was at the small of his back, but he’d be dead before he could even reach it.
In English, one of the men called out, “Hannah, it’s time to go home.”
Her jaw dropped and her eyes grew huge. “Aziz?”.
“Yes, my dear.” He chuckled. “You didn’t really think I was dead, did you?”
“But…but the colonel told me you were shot while trying to escape arrest.” Hannah’s face passed from confusion to anger and finally calculation.
Mockingly, Aziz asked, “Did you mourn for me?” He stared at her for a moment. “You did.” His smile was not one of pleasure but of sat
isfaction. “Good. I prefer my wives to love me.”
Anger flashed in her huge brown eyes. “I am not your wife.”
“The ceremony is only a formality. I claimed you over a year ago.” His gaze swept over her helmet, down her ski jacket to the snow pants. He shook his head. “You will need to learn to set aside Western ways. No man is allowed to look at my wives. It’s a good thing I brought you an abaya and niqab.” His gaze swept the area. “I will allow you to ski off this mountain in those clothes, but you will change into appropriate clothing before my men pick us up. We need to return to Iraq so I can properly bury my brother and take his place as Caliphate.”
Isaac watched in horror as the future leader of ISIS planned to kidnap the woman he loved.
Hannah shook her head. “That’s not going to happen. I’m not going anywhere with you, certainly not to Iraq. And you may think you have some claim on me, but you have none. I could never marry a man like you. My biggest regret in life was ever falling in love with you and, yes, I thought I loved you.”She looked directly at Isaac. “That was before I knew what real love was.”
Did that mean Hannah loved him? His heart swelled.
“Snowman, Atlanta Center, what the hell is going on?” Karl’s voice sounded like controlled panic in his ear. “Do you have company?”
Isaac didn’t dare speak. Although he had guns pointed at him, he certainly didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than necessary.
“Blow once for yes, twice for no,” Karl ordered.
Through tight lips, Isaac expelled one burst of air.
Hannah’s hands were still in her pockets, and he saw the move. He needed to be ready for anything. They would take out the enemy and escape down the mountain.
Aziz slowly moved his head side to side. “Oh, my sweet, innocent Hannah. You don’t understand. I will give you a choice, come back to Iraq with me. You see, as my wife, you can help me unite Syria and Iraq, and eventually, the land all the way through Afghanistan. No one over there needs to know about your American citizenship. That will be our dirty little secret, but one we will use to get arms and billions of dollars in support from the United States to help establish my new government. Your politicians can all take credit for bringing peace to the Middle East, but we will both know it was you.”
