CHAPTER ONE
Zakho District
Kurdistan Region
Northern Iraq
The sun's blood-red halo framed the Christ hanging from his towering crucifix.
Or so it seemed to Ahmed. He cupped his hands around his eyes to get a better look, his spent RPG launcher heavy on one shoulder and his battered AK-47 on the other.
Not a Christ. A Christian, and a Kurd.
It was a kafir they had crucified, he reminded himself. His limp body hung from a utility pole on top of the hill, his arms tied at the elbows to the crossbar with bailing wire and duct tape. The kafir wouldn't submit, wouldn't renounce his infidel faith.
He crucified himself, Ahmed thought. He spat in the dust at his aching feet. The boots he wore were too small, taken from a dead Iraqi weeks ago.
He glanced back up. The blow flies swarmed around the moist tissues of the pastor's mouth and nose laying their eggs, the orifices caked with black blood. The eyes would be next, he knew. He'd seen it before, in the last village. And the one before. The hatched larvae would begin their grim feast and the pastor's skull would be picked clean in a week. Disgusting. Ahmed spat again.
Brave, this one. Not like the Iraqi soldiers who fled like women when his convoy of pickups arrived in a cloud of dust yesterday, each vehicle crowded with fighters like him, black ISIS flags flapping in the wind. The Iraqis just dropped their gear and ran.
Well, not all of them.
Was it the flags that scared the cowards? Or the head of an Iraqi colonel hanging like a lantern on a pole on the lead truck? The Iraqis were probably Shia. Worse than infidels. Cleansing the Caliphate of all such non-believers was their sacred duty. Only through such cleansing and blood sacrifice will the Mahdi come with the Prophet Isa and defeat the anti-Christ. Has the Caliph not rightly taught that all of the signs are pointing toward the Day of Judgment? And was it not their duty to bring this about, one infidel corpse at a time?
Ahmed turned around. He counted ten more bodies hanging on the utility poles marching down the sloping hill, including three children.
The pastor's children. Children of iniquity.
Dirty work that, Ahmed thought. Glad he wasn't asked to do it. He would have, of course. Allah commands it. And if not, Kamal al-Medina ordered it, and he was more afraid of his commander here on earth than he was of the Exceedingly Merciful on his heavenly throne. He'd never seen Allah behead a screaming kafir with a serrated combat knife, nor listened to him sing while he did it.
Such zeal. It is to be admired, he thought.
A Dodge Ram pickup honked behind him. He turned around as the truck skidded to a halt in the dust. A sharp-faced brother called out from the cab. He was a twenty-five-year-old Tunisian from Marseilles. A French national like Ahmed, though Ahmed was a lily white redhead of Norman stock and only nineteen.
"The commander has called for you," the Tunisian said in French. He threw a thumb at the truck bed. "Hop in."
Ahmed felt his stomach drop and the back of his neck tingle.
"But I'm on guard duty."
"I'll take your place after I drop you off."
"Why does he want me?"
The Tunisian lowered his voice. "Does the Black Prince consult with lowly commoners like us?" He flashed a crooked smile.
The pejorative reference to Kamal al-Medina's royal bloodline would've earned the Tunisian ten lashes with a whip if Ahmed reported the slur. He wouldn't, of course. Ahmed used it too. They all did. And they all admired Kamal al-Medina as much as they feared him. The Saudi had given up everything--palaces, gold, power--to fight for the Caliphate and the Ummah.
"No, he doesn't." Ahmed unslung his RPG launcher and rifle and clambered into the back of the Dodge. He slapped the cab roof and the truck whipped around, speeding toward the center of the small village of squat cinderblock houses, well-kept and brightly painted in hues of red, blue and yellow. Most doors were defaced with a spray-painted red Arabic "N." Nasrane. A slur for Jesus the Nazarene and his followers.
It was also a mark for death.
Their truck sped past still more utility poles with a Christian corpse hanging from each, their sightless, downcast eyes keeping silent vigil over their lost village. The long shadows they cast were quickly fading in the dimming light. It would soon be time for the brothers to wash and for evening prayers.
If only these Christians had submitted, Ahmed thought. Submitted to the will of Allah and signed the Dhimma contract and paid the jizya--perhaps that would have kept them from death. Easier still, they could have just lied to save their lives and fight another day. Was taqiyya not permitted in their Book as well?
He liked this village. It was neat and well-organized and surrounded by fertile fields. A village not much different than the one he came from in Normandy. He wondered how soon before those utility poles back home would be filled with Crusader corpses, too. He hoped he lived long enough to see it and to see even the whole world under the great Caliphate of God.
Inshallah.
#
The pickup skidded to a stop in front of the church guarded by two jihadis, an almond-eyed Kazakh and a graying Uzbek. Both good fighters, Ahmed knew. And zealous.
Ahmed leaped out of the truck bed and the Dodge sped off. Ahmed stood a moment, unsure of his situation. Had he sinned? The commander's zeal for God knew no bounds. Just last week he punished a brother who kept smoking cigarettes in secret. Sharia forbade it. Smoking was haram. "There are no secrets here. God knows all and he will not honor us if we don't keep his law," al-Medina proclaimed before personally delivering the forty lashes to the brother's back with a thick leather whip.
Ahmed weighed his chances against the two guards. There were no bullets in his battered rifle and his RPG had no grenade--not that he could've used either in close quarters combat. He had his grandfather's old folding knife in his pocket but that wasn't much of a weapon either. Both guards were well armed and could kill with their hands. He'd seen it himself. Perhaps he could run but then they would shoot him in the back like a dog.
The Uzbek nodded a dour greeting and pushed open one of the two front doors and signaled him to follow.
Ahmed hesitated before the open door. He hadn't stood in a Christian church since he was a child--his first communion. The small stone church in his village had long since been abandoned by the last Catholic faithful and converted into a bike shop. Still, he wondered what judgment might be waiting for him inside this holy place after a day of slaughter. The sun had fallen beneath the hills and the long shadows had given way to a general gloom.
"He's waiting for you," the Uzbek said. "Follow me."
Inshallah, Ahmed said to himself again with a shrug. He followed the Uzbek in. The old fighter limped heavily on his left foot into the broad expanse of the sanctuary and down the rows of mostly empty pews. The aisles were littered with chunks of broken plaster, half-melted candles, torn hymnals and spent cartridges. A few of the brothers were passed out on the long benches, snoring from exhaustion. Three unit sub-commanders stood on the raised platform and used a communion table to study a map they had laid upon it. A few dim bulbs in a chandelier overhead threw a sickly yellow light around them. A black ISIS flag hung from the rafters.
Ahmed's eyes drifted to the smashed ceramic Christ crunching beneath their feet, broken into a dozen pieces and tossed like garbage around the floor. This pleased him. A false Christ these kafir worship, and an idol at that.
The Uzbek led Ahmed to another door to the side of the sanctuary. He knocked on it. "Enter!" boomed from the other side. Ahmed recognized al-Medina's commanding voice.
The Uzbek nodded curtly to Ahmed then hobbled away.
Ahmed took a deep breath then pushed open the door.
Kamal al-Medina sat behind a small wooden desk, and his two senior commanders sat in a worn leather couch against one wall near him. The room was spacious and lined with crowded bookshelves. A small side table was dedicated to framed photographs of the pastor, his wife and three children. The wife was stunning. This must have been the pastor's office, Ahmed concluded.
"Brother Ahmed!" Al-Medina stood. A wide grin spread beneath his dark wooly beard. His lieutenants rose as well, also smiling.
Al-Medina came around from behind the desk and wrapped Ahmed in a bear hug. The other two commanders did likewise.
"Emir?" was all Ahmed could muster in his confusion.
Al-Medina laughed and spoke to him in French. "No need for the formalities. We're all brothers here, yes?"
Ahmed nodded, tried to answer him in faltering Arabic. Al-Medina held up a hand.
"I attended a private school in Switzerland, so French is no problem for me. But we can speak English or German if you prefer."
"I like, eh, want the language of the Prophet, peace be upon him," Ahmed insisted in broken Arabic.
"But I prefer to practice my French if you don't mind," al-Medina insisted.
"Ça va," Ahmed said.
"Excellent! Can I get you something to drink? Water, coffee?"
"No, sir. I'm fine. How can I be of service?"
Al-Medina clapped him hard on the shoulder. "You already have, my young lion. I heard what you did yesterday." Al-Medina pantomimed holding an RPG on his shoulder and firing it. "You killed those three Iraqis barricaded in the house firing their machine gun. They had the front echelon pinned down with their murderous weapon. But you jumped into the street and put a HEAT round right into their window. BOOM!"
Al-Medina clapped his hands when he said the word and laughed. The others laughed too.
Al-Medina switched back to Arabic. "You saved many brothers that day. I just wanted to take the time now to properly thank you, and reward you. Do you understand?"
"Yes, a little," Ahmed said, embarrassed by his poor Arabic skills.
Al-Medina signaled with his hand. "Follow me."
Al-Medina led Ahmed and the other commanders to an adjoining room. Stacks of American rifles, grenade launchers, ammo boxes and even fresh Iraqi uniforms still in their plastic bags lined the walls.
"Take your pick. All courtesy of the United States government," al-Medina said with another laugh.
"For me? Anything? Truly?" In his excitement, Ahmed fell back into his French. He snatched up a brand new M-4 carbine still glistening with lubricant.
"Anything you need or want." Al-Medina opened up a box. "Here, brand new boots if you need them."
"Boots!" Ahmed set his new weapon down and raced over to the box of boots and began sifting through them looking for his size.
"But there's something more for our young hero," one of the commanders said, chuckling.
"Ah, yes. I almost forgot," al-Medina said through a wide grin.
Ahmed looked up.
"Come, boy. Something better indeed."
The other men laughed.
Al-Medina led the nineteen year old to yet another door that opened to a great room. A dozen women sat cowering on the floor, their faces covered by hajibs. But their downcast eyes told all, dazed and red with tears. Some were even blackened.
"Take one."
"Sir?"
Al-Medina shouted an order. The women all jumped to their feet as one, startled by the harshness of his voice. They immediately pulled off their hajibs. Some were younger than Ahmed. Two were blonde. Al-Medina saw Ahmed's gaze fall on one particular girl a few years older than he. Her dark blue eyes were wide with terror. She covered her bruised mouth with one trembling hand.
"That one is an American. An aide worker. The trucks are coming first thing in the morning to pick them all up and take them to market. But you can have her until then." He nudged Ahmed. "She's good, I can tell you."
"And it is not haram?" Ahmed had been taught that sex outside of marriage was forbidden by the Koran.
"It is Mut'ah. A temporary marriage for your pleasure," al-Medina assured him. "The imam will bless it."
Ahmed's face flushed crimson, matching his thin beard. He couldn't believe his good fortune. He'd never been with a woman before.
The three older jihadis laughed at the boy's innocence.
"That one, then" Ahmed said, pointing at a dark-eyed beauty in the back, trying to hide her face.
Al-Medina pounded Ahmed's shoulder. "The pastor's wife! Excellent choice."
#
He prayed to God before he raped her. They all did.
So did she.
Not the same prayer.
Not the same God.
The red-haired boy lay next to her sleeping. He looked more child than man in the light of the single bulb when he first took her. But he was no child. More like a rutting pig. He stank of his own urine and sweat after days in the field. Too eager to care to bathe before the filthy act.
She had wiped herself clean of him with the sheets after he had finished but otherwise didn't move. He passed out soon afterward. She lay in the dark with her eyes fixed on the invisible ceiling praying for the strength she'd need in the coming hours. She counted his breaths again, deep and long. Satisfied he was fast asleep, she reached for the razor blade she'd hidden in her garment folded neatly on the floor next to the mattress. Everything in her wanted to slit his throat and let him bleed out in his "marriage" bed. But there was too much at stake, and too many other lives hung in the balance. Her husband, she knew, was watching too. He wouldn't have approved of her killing him even though the boy had raped her in his own bed. Her husband was a true Christian.
Certain the pig was out for the night, she carefully extricated herself from the tangled sheets. She stood slowly, then bent over to fetch her garment.
Suddenly he stirred.
No! She caught her breath. But he just rolled over and fell back into the deep rhythms of exhausted sleep.
She uttered a silent thanks and dressed quickly. It was pitch black but this was her bedroom and she knew every square inch of it, so there was no need to turn the lamp back on. She stepped blindly but carefully toward the small night stand and reached behind it. Her groping fingers found the hidden cell phone. She listened again for the jihadi's breathing. He was still asleep. She opened the phone. One thirty-five. She panicked. Was there still enough time? The signal showed only one bar and less than ten percent of charge left on the battery. She prayed it would be enough.
She prayed she wasn't too late.
She texted her message, hit send, and prayed again. She touched the blade in her garment, a small comfort. She would use it on herself if tonight failed. Tonight would be the last humiliation, one way or another, she told herself.
God forgive me.
CHAPTER TWO
Troy Pearce stood in the dark on the gravel mountain road marking the border between southern Turkey and northern Iraq. He reminded himself that not too long ago he was in the East China Sea.
Literally.
President Lane called him a hero for stopping a war with China. But standing here on the edge of another killing ground, it didn't seem to matter much. He didn't feel like a hero. He was just doing his job. And the cost he paid was high. Too high. He pushed the thought away.
Pearce wore black tactical gear with an olive drab shemagh wrapped around his neck. His dark hair was flecked with silver and his pale blue eyes were tired. He rubbed his beardless face to push away the fatigue.
The tablet in his hand read "03:48:21" in the top right-hand corner but his eyes fixated on the strand of ghostly white shapes on the black screen meandering steadily in his direction. The lead figure was a burly Kurdish guide and the thirteen others were the women he was helping escape on foot through the moonless night up the steep grassy hills that lay between them and freedom. The image on his tablet was broadcast from a Heron TP medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAV. It was being piloted remotely via satellite by his number two man in the company, Ian McTavish.
"Got a visual?" Pearce asked Ian in his comms.
"Not yet. They're still on the other side of that ridge." Tariq Barzani had a pair of night vision goggles pressed against his worried face. A woolen cap covered his bald head. Pearce noticed that his bushy mustache had grayed considerably since he last saw him years ago, but he looked tough as ever.
"Just five kilometers. They've still got time," Pearce said. "But they need to hurry." He handed Tariq the tablet. The Kurd studied it closely.
Pearce worried about the Turkish border guards. The Gendarmerie was heavily gunned and as brutally efficient as the rest of Turkey's armed forces. They patrolled this area regularly with armed vehicles and overhead drone surveillance, but a ten figure bakshish placed in the hands of the regional commander bought Pearce a non-negotiable four-hour window. That window would slam shut in just seventy-two minutes. The women were making good time, but if the Turk border patrol suddenly decided to show up early the whole operation would be blown.
Or worse.
"They know the danger, trust me," Tariq said. His sister's text earlier confirmed their departure from the village, but nothing more. His cousin leading the way confirmed their arrival at the rendezvous point, but for security reasons they all agreed beforehand to maintain communication silence until the group arrived at the border.
Five pickups were parked on the gravel road, a Kurdish driver and gunner in each. Plenty of room for the women and two friendlies who tagged along, Carl Luckett and Steve Rowley. They were ex-Rangers who had served under Mike Early, Pearce’s closest friend during the war on terror, now dead. Early had brought the two of them along on a mission he and Pearce had run a long time ago in Iraq--the same mission where he had first met Tariq, their translator. When Pearce picked up the phone twenty-four hours ago the only thing he had to say was "Tariq needs us." The Kurdish peshmerga fighter had saved all of their asses and never asked so much as a thank you at the time. So when Tariq came hat in hand to Pearce's place and begged for help, Pearce dropped everything and pulled together a plan. They had a very narrow window and this was the best Pearce could do on short notice. But all things considered it was a better play than others he'd made in the past, and he was still vertical and breathing after those. Besides, he hated ISIS, and anything he could do to frustrate them was a good day's work as far as he was concerned.
Pearce checked the screen again. With any luck, they'd be loaded up and rolling out of here with the women in the next forty minutes and be landing in Beirut within three hours at the latest.
God how he missed Mikey. There was no safer place on the planet than standing next to the big hulking Ranger when the bullets started to fly. He hoped it wouldn't come to that tonight.
Pearce's private Bombardier 5000 corporate jet was waiting on the tarmac at an airfield nearby in Cizre. A few more well-placed bribes and a couple hard-pulled strings generated all the necessary paperwork and travel permits they needed to fly unmolested in and out of Turkish airspace on a supposed business trip. Pearce Systems was an international security company but much of his drone-based business was connected to commercial enterprises so his cover wasn't too much of a stretch, especially with former President Margaret Myers working the phones on his behalf. Fortunately, the military contracting side of his business was running the Canadian army's Heron TP operations in Afghanistan. With the Heron's range and endurance it wasn't any trouble to reroute one for tonight's mission, and Ian had become a crack UAV pilot. Pearce couldn't imagine running any kind of mission anymore without eyes in the sky.
Tariq handed him back the tablet. Pearce resized the image.
"Shit!" Pearce tapped his earpiece. "Ian, we've got Deltas coming in hot."
A speeding convoy of trucks was racing toward the women.
"I see them," Ian said. "But--"
"No time to talk!" Pearce shouted at the others, "Saddle up!"
Luckett and Rowley leaped into their pickup as Tariq barked orders in Kurdish. He hardly needed to. Truck engines fired up and machine guns racked.
"You've got company!" Ian shouted.
Pearce was already in the bed of his truck and pounding the roof to take off when the roaring whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopter blades came thundering over the hill behind them. The sound was deafening as two T-70 Black Hawks swept overhead. One hovered directly above them and poured a blinding searchlight on the convoy. Grit and dust from the rotor wash stung Pearce's face. The other chopper dropped thirty yards on the Iraqi side of the border, blocking the way forward with it's heavily armed fuselage and another blinding searchlight.
"Stay or go?" Luckett shouted in Pearce's earpiece. Tariq's anxious eyes asked the same thing.
Pearce checked his tablet. The ISIS convoy was less than a mile from the women, who hadn't changed course or speed. They clearly didn't know that they were being hunted. It was now or never but--
The other chopper landed just a few yards behind them, the blades dangerously close. A squad of Turkish special forces leaped to the ground and charged toward them, weapons forward, shouting. Pearce's instinct was to turn the machine gun around and open up but his mind checked his gut--they'd be cut to pieces in a flash.
The Turks surrounded the trucks just as a middle-aged American woman in civilian clothes and a Kevlar vest jogged up. Her name was Hyssop, the embassy trade attache. The slowing rotor wash fanned her short thinning hair.
"What the hell is going on, Pearce?" Hyssop demanded. "I didn't authorize any of this!"
"I don't have time to explain. Call your dogs off and let us through--"
"Not going to happen! You're supposed to be on a trade mission, not an armed incursion!"
"We've got lives on the line out there!" Pearce said. "You've got to let us go. Now!"
The Turkish army commander, a captain, shouted orders to his men. They raised their weapons to fire.
"Troy! The women!" Ian's Scottish brogue shouted in Pearce's ear.
Hyssop grabbed Pearce's sleeve. "These guys aren't screwing around. Stand down now and I can still get you out of this--"
A truck engine gunned. Tariq's pickup leaped forward, scattering the two Turkish soldiers standing in front of it. Before the others could open fire, the captain shouted another order and the squad lowered its weapons.
"Tariq!" Pearce screamed.
Pearce watched as Tariq's pickup made a suicidal charge straight at the other helicopter. The chopper lifted off before the truck reached it but as soon as it passed underneath the Black Hawk's door gunner opened up with a salvo from its Vulcan machine gun, shredding the Toyota's thin steel and erupting the gas tank in a fiery explosion.
The Turks gathered around Pearce's vehicle howled with laughter.
Pearce shouted as he swung his size fourteen combat boot. It cracked into the braying face of the soldier standing closest to him with a sickening thud. Pearce leaped down and crashed into the next Turk, driving the surprised trooper into the ground. Pearce lifted a fist to smash the second soldier's face when a pistol exploded just behind his head. Pearce's ears rang with the shot as red hot ice picks stabbed his ear drums.
Pearce's fist froze in mid air. He turned around. The captain's pistol was six inches from his face.
"Pearce, you asshole!" Hyssop sped over to him, throwing herself between him and the captain as she hauled Pearce up to his feet.
The Turkish soldiers man-handled the Kurds, seizing their weapons and cuffing them with Plasti-Cuffs. Two more soldiers dragged Luckett and Rowley out of their truck and hauled them roughly over to Pearce.
"You are in violation of Turkish law and Turkish national sovereignty. I have every legal right to execute the three of you right here as foreign invaders," the captain said. He glanced with disgust at his two fallen men, one still clutching his broken jaw and moaning through bloody fingers. "And for assaulting my men."
"Give me ten more minutes and I'll finish the job," Pearce said.
The captain held out a gloved hand. "Your comms."
"I'm sorry, I can't hear a word you're saying--"
The captain's face hardened as he raised his pistol again.
"Idiot!" Hyssop snatched the earpiece out Pearce's ear and tossed it to the captain. He pocketed it, then pulled out a pair of Plasti-Cuffs.
"Just try," Pearce said.
"Pearce, it's not just your ass on the line. You're about to make this into an international incident. There's a lot more in the wind than you're aware of here."
"Those shit bags just killed my friend--"
She got in his face. "And a lot more people will die if you don't shut this down right now."
Pearce glanced at Luckett and Rowley. The Turks were cuffing them behind their backs. But the ex-Rangers were still dangerous men, even tied up.
Luckett read Pearce's mind. He grinned.
"You call it, boss. We're with you all the way."
It would be a stupid move, Pearce decided. Gotta get back to the plane. He held out his wrists. The captain zipped them the cuffs tight, then yanked the tablet out of Pearce's pants pocket and the pistol out of its holster.
"Let's get out of here. Now," Hyssop said, pulling him toward the first chopper.
"What about them?" Pearce nodded in the direction of the Kurds already being marched toward the other chopper.
"That's none of your affair," the captain said. He barked an order to the sergeant standing nearby who signaled two others. The three armed Turks prodded the four Americans back toward the first helicopter.
A minute later, Pearce, Hyssop, Luckett, and Rowley were airborne. Pearce watched the Kurds get thrown into the other Black Hawk, their hands bound behind their backs. Pearce knew the bloody history between the genocidal Turks and the hapless Kurds. He assumed the Turks would toss them out of the chopper like sacks of garbage as soon as they reached altitude.
Maybe the four of them, too.
As they pulled away, Pearce's eyes fixed on Tariq's truck down below, still burning in the dark. He swore.
Jesus, what a goat fuck.
As soon as they were airborne, the Turk captain opened up Pearce's tablet. He pressed buttons until an image pulled up. He stared at it. A feral grin spread beneath across his face in the red cabin light. He turned the tablet around and held it close to Pearce's face.
Pearce's heart sank. The ISIS trucks and men were on the women like a pack of wolves. But instead of rounding them up they were killing them. A half dozen bodies already lay scattered on the ground as the rest fell in a dead run, one by one.
The captain's grin grew wider.
Pearce grunted with rage and launched at the captain, aiming his skull at the Turk's jaw. But the captain saw it coming and clocked Pearce across his ear with the butt of his pistol and Pearce crumbled to the steel floor, knocked out cold.
CHAPTER ONE
Zakho District
Kurdistan Region
Northern Iraq
The sun's blood-red halo framed the Christ hanging from his towering crucifix.
Or so it seemed to Ahmed. He cupped his hands around his eyes to get a better look, his spent RPG launcher heavy on one shoulder and his battered AK-47 on the other.
Not a Christ. A Christian, and a Kurd.
It was a kafir they had crucified, he reminded himself. His limp body hung from a utility pole on top of the hill, his arms tied at the elbows to the crossbar with bailing wire and duct tape. The kafir wouldn't submit, wouldn't renounce his infidel faith.
He crucified himself, Ahmed thought. He spat in the dust at his aching feet. The boots he wore were too small, taken from a dead Iraqi weeks ago.
He glanced back up. The blow flies swarmed around the moist tissues of the pastor's mouth and nose laying their eggs, the orifices caked with black blood. The eyes would be next, he knew. He'd seen it before, in the last village. And the one before. The hatched larvae would begin their grim feast and the pastor's skull would be picked clean in a week. Disgusting. Ahmed spat again.
Brave, this one. Not like the Iraqi soldiers who fled like women when his convoy of pickups arrived in a cloud of dust yesterday, each vehicle crowded with fighters like him, black ISIS flags flapping in the wind. The Iraqis just dropped their gear and ran.
Well, not all of them.
Was it the flags that scared the cowards? Or the head of an Iraqi colonel hanging like a lantern on a pole on the lead truck? The Iraqis were probably Shia. Worse than infidels. Cleansing the Caliphate of all such non-believers was their sacred duty. Only through such cleansing and blood sacrifice will the Mahdi come with the Prophet Isa and defeat the anti-Christ. Has the Caliph not rightly taught that all of the signs are pointing toward the Day of Judgment? And was it not their duty to bring this about, one infidel corpse at a time?
Ahmed turned around. He counted ten more bodies hanging on the utility poles marching down the sloping hill, including three children.
The pastor's children. Children of iniquity.
Dirty work that, Ahmed thought. Glad he wasn't asked to do it. He would have, of course. Allah commands it. And if not, Kamal al-Medina ordered it, and he was more afraid of his commander here on earth than he was of the Exceedingly Merciful on his heavenly throne. He'd never seen Allah behead a screaming kafir with a serrated combat knife, nor listened to him sing while he did it.
Such zeal. It is to be admired, he thought.
A Dodge Ram pickup honked behind him. He turned around as the truck skidded to a halt in the dust. A sharp-faced brother called out from the cab. He was a twenty-five-year-old Tunisian from Marseilles. A French national like Ahmed, though Ahmed was a lily white redhead of Norman stock and only nineteen.
"The commander has called for you," the Tunisian said in French. He threw a thumb at the truck bed. "Hop in."
Ahmed felt his stomach drop and the back of his neck tingle.
"But I'm on guard duty."
"I'll take your place after I drop you off."
"Why does he want me?"
The Tunisian lowered his voice. "Does the Black Prince consult with lowly commoners like us?" He flashed a crooked smile.
The pejorative reference to Kamal al-Medina's royal bloodline would've earned the Tunisian ten lashes with a whip if Ahmed reported the slur. He wouldn't, of course. Ahmed used it too. They all did. And they all admired Kamal al-Medina as much as they feared him. The Saudi had given up everything--palaces, gold, power--to fight for the Caliphate and the Ummah.
"No, he doesn't." Ahmed unslung his RPG launcher and rifle and clambered into the back of the Dodge. He slapped the cab roof and the truck whipped around, speeding toward the center of the small village of squat cinderblock houses, well-kept and brightly painted in hues of red, blue and yellow. Most doors were defaced with a spray-painted red Arabic "N." Nasrane. A slur for Jesus the Nazarene and his followers.
It was also a mark for death.
Their truck sped past still more utility poles with a Christian corpse hanging from each, their sightless, downcast eyes keeping silent vigil over their lost village. The long shadows they cast were quickly fading in the dimming light. It would soon be time for the brothers to wash and for evening prayers.
If only these Christians had submitted, Ahmed thought. Submitted to the will of Allah and signed the Dhimma contract and paid the jizya--perhaps that would have kept them from death. Easier still, they could have just lied to save their lives and fight another day. Was taqiyya not permitted in their Book as well?
He liked this village. It was neat and well-organized and surrounded by fertile fields. A village not much different than the one he came from in Normandy. He wondered how soon before those utility poles back home would be filled with Crusader corpses, too. He hoped he lived long enough to see it and to see even the whole world under the great Caliphate of God.
Inshallah.
#
The pickup skidded to a stop in front of the church guarded by two jihadis, an almond-eyed Kazakh and a graying Uzbek. Both good fighters, Ahmed knew. And zealous.
Ahmed leaped out of the truck bed and the Dodge sped off. Ahmed stood a moment, unsure of his situation. Had he sinned? The commander's zeal for God knew no bounds. Just last week he punished a brother who kept smoking cigarettes in secret. Sharia forbade it. Smoking was haram. "There are no secrets here. God knows all and he will not honor us if we don't keep his law," al-Medina proclaimed before personally delivering the forty lashes to the brother's back with a thick leather whip.
Ahmed weighed his chances against the two guards. There were no bullets in his battered rifle and his RPG had no grenade--not that he could've used either in close quarters combat. He had his grandfather's old folding knife in his pocket but that wasn't much of a weapon either. Both guards were well armed and could kill with their hands. He'd seen it himself. Perhaps he could run but then they would shoot him in the back like a dog.
The Uzbek nodded a dour greeting and pushed open one of the two front doors and signaled him to follow.
Ahmed hesitated before the open door. He hadn't stood in a Christian church since he was a child--his first communion. The small stone church in his village had long since been abandoned by the last Catholic faithful and converted into a bike shop. Still, he wondered what judgment might be waiting for him inside this holy place after a day of slaughter. The sun had fallen beneath the hills and the long shadows had given way to a general gloom.
"He's waiting for you," the Uzbek said. "Follow me."
Inshallah, Ahmed said to himself again with a shrug. He followed the Uzbek in. The old fighter limped heavily on his left foot into the broad expanse of the sanctuary and down the rows of mostly empty pews. The aisles were littered with chunks of broken plaster, half-melted candles, torn hymnals and spent cartridges. A few of the brothers were passed out on the long benches, snoring from exhaustion. Three unit sub-commanders stood on the raised platform and used a communion table to study a map they had laid upon it. A few dim bulbs in a chandelier overhead threw a sickly yellow light around them. A black ISIS flag hung from the rafters.
Ahmed's eyes drifted to the smashed ceramic Christ crunching beneath their feet, broken into a dozen pieces and tossed like garbage around the floor. This pleased him. A false Christ these kafir worship, and an idol at that.
The Uzbek led Ahmed to another door to the side of the sanctuary. He knocked on it. "Enter!" boomed from the other side. Ahmed recognized al-Medina's commanding voice.
The Uzbek nodded curtly to Ahmed then hobbled away.
Ahmed took a deep breath then pushed open the door.
Kamal al-Medina sat behind a small wooden desk, and his two senior commanders sat in a worn leather couch against one wall near him. The room was spacious and lined with crowded bookshelves. A small side table was dedicated to framed photographs of the pastor, his wife and three children. The wife was stunning. This must have been the pastor's office, Ahmed concluded.
"Brother Ahmed!" Al-Medina stood. A wide grin spread beneath his dark wooly beard. His lieutenants rose as well, also smiling.
Al-Medina came around from behind the desk and wrapped Ahmed in a bear hug. The other two commanders did likewise.
"Emir?" was all Ahmed could muster in his confusion.
Al-Medina laughed and spoke to him in French. "No need for the formalities. We're all brothers here, yes?"
Ahmed nodded, tried to answer him in faltering Arabic. Al-Medina held up a hand.
"I attended a private school in Switzerland, so French is no problem for me. But we can speak English or German if you prefer."
"I like, eh, want the language of the Prophet, peace be upon him," Ahmed insisted in broken Arabic.
"But I prefer to practice my French if you don't mind," al-Medina insisted.
"Ça va," Ahmed said.
"Excellent! Can I get you something to drink? Water, coffee?"
"No, sir. I'm fine. How can I be of service?"
Al-Medina clapped him hard on the shoulder. "You already have, my young lion. I heard what you did yesterday." Al-Medina pantomimed holding an RPG on his shoulder and firing it. "You killed those three Iraqis barricaded in the house firing their machine gun. They had the front echelon pinned down with their murderous weapon. But you jumped into the street and put a HEAT round right into their window. BOOM!"
Al-Medina clapped his hands when he said the word and laughed. The others laughed too.
Al-Medina switched back to Arabic. "You saved many brothers that day. I just wanted to take the time now to properly thank you, and reward you. Do you understand?"
"Yes, a little," Ahmed said, embarrassed by his poor Arabic skills.
Al-Medina signaled with his hand. "Follow me."
Al-Medina led Ahmed and the other commanders to an adjoining room. Stacks of American rifles, grenade launchers, ammo boxes and even fresh Iraqi uniforms still in their plastic bags lined the walls.
"Take your pick. All courtesy of the United States government," al-Medina said with another laugh.
"For me? Anything? Truly?" In his excitement, Ahmed fell back into his French. He snatched up a brand new M-4 carbine still glistening with lubricant.
"Anything you need or want." Al-Medina opened up a box. "Here, brand new boots if you need them."
"Boots!" Ahmed set his new weapon down and raced over to the box of boots and began sifting through them looking for his size.
"But there's something more for our young hero," one of the commanders said, chuckling.
"Ah, yes. I almost forgot," al-Medina said through a wide grin.
Ahmed looked up.
"Come, boy. Something better indeed."
The other men laughed.
Al-Medina led the nineteen year old to yet another door that opened to a great room. A dozen women sat cowering on the floor, their faces covered by hajibs. But their downcast eyes told all, dazed and red with tears. Some were even blackened.
"Take one."
"Sir?"
Al-Medina shouted an order. The women all jumped to their feet as one, startled by the harshness of his voice. They immediately pulled off their hajibs. Some were younger than Ahmed. Two were blonde. Al-Medina saw Ahmed's gaze fall on one particular girl a few years older than he. Her dark blue eyes were wide with terror. She covered her bruised mouth with one trembling hand.
"That one is an American. An aide worker. The trucks are coming first thing in the morning to pick them all up and take them to market. But you can have her until then." He nudged Ahmed. "She's good, I can tell you."
"And it is not haram?" Ahmed had been taught that sex outside of marriage was forbidden by the Koran.
"It is Mut'ah. A temporary marriage for your pleasure," al-Medina assured him. "The imam will bless it."
Ahmed's face flushed crimson, matching his thin beard. He couldn't believe his good fortune. He'd never been with a woman before.
The three older jihadis laughed at the boy's innocence.
"That one, then" Ahmed said, pointing at a dark-eyed beauty in the back, trying to hide her face.
Al-Medina pounded Ahmed's shoulder. "The pastor's wife! Excellent choice."
#
He prayed to God before he raped her. They all did.
So did she.
Not the same prayer.
Not the same God.
The red-haired boy lay next to her sleeping. He looked more child than man in the light of the single bulb when he first took her. But he was no child. More like a rutting pig. He stank of his own urine and sweat after days in the field. Too eager to care to bathe before the filthy act.
She had wiped herself clean of him with the sheets after he had finished but otherwise didn't move. He passed out soon afterward. She lay in the dark with her eyes fixed on the invisible ceiling praying for the strength she'd need in the coming hours. She counted his breaths again, deep and long. Satisfied he was fast asleep, she reached for the razor blade she'd hidden in her garment folded neatly on the floor next to the mattress. Everything in her wanted to slit his throat and let him bleed out in his "marriage" bed. But there was too much at stake, and too many other lives hung in the balance. Her husband, she knew, was watching too. He wouldn't have approved of her killing him even though the boy had raped her in his own bed. Her husband was a true Christian.
Certain the pig was out for the night, she carefully extricated herself from the tangled sheets. She stood slowly, then bent over to fetch her garment.
Suddenly he stirred.
No! She caught her breath. But he just rolled over and fell back into the deep rhythms of exhausted sleep.
She uttered a silent thanks and dressed quickly. It was pitch black but this was her bedroom and she knew every square inch of it, so there was no need to turn the lamp back on. She stepped blindly but carefully toward the small night stand and reached behind it. Her groping fingers found the hidden cell phone. She listened again for the jihadi's breathing. He was still asleep. She opened the phone. One thirty-five. She panicked. Was there still enough time? The signal showed only one bar and less than ten percent of charge left on the battery. She prayed it would be enough.
She prayed she wasn't too late.
She texted her message, hit send, and prayed again. She touched the blade in her garment, a small comfort. She would use it on herself if tonight failed. Tonight would be the last humiliation, one way or another, she told herself.
God forgive me.
CHAPTER TWO
Troy Pearce stood in the dark on the gravel mountain road marking the border between southern Turkey and northern Iraq. He reminded himself that not too long ago he was in the East China Sea.
Literally.
President Lane called him a hero for stopping a war with China. But standing here on the edge of another killing ground, it didn't seem to matter much. He didn't feel like a hero. He was just doing his job. And the cost he paid was high. Too high. He pushed the thought away.
Pearce wore black tactical gear with an olive drab shemagh wrapped around his neck. His dark hair was flecked with silver and his pale blue eyes were tired. He rubbed his beardless face to push away the fatigue.
The tablet in his hand read "03:48:21" in the top right-hand corner but his eyes fixated on the strand of ghostly white shapes on the black screen meandering steadily in his direction. The lead figure was a burly Kurdish guide and the thirteen others were the women he was helping escape on foot through the moonless night up the steep grassy hills that lay between them and freedom. The image on his tablet was broadcast from a Heron TP medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAV. It was being piloted remotely via satellite by his number two man in the company, Ian McTavish.
"Got a visual?" Pearce asked Ian in his comms.
"Not yet. They're still on the other side of that ridge." Tariq Barzani had a pair of night vision goggles pressed against his worried face. A woolen cap covered his bald head. Pearce noticed that his bushy mustache had grayed considerably since he last saw him years ago, but he looked tough as ever.
"Just five kilometers. They've still got time," Pearce said. "But they need to hurry." He handed Tariq the tablet. The Kurd studied it closely.
Pearce worried about the Turkish border guards. The Gendarmerie was heavily gunned and as brutally efficient as the rest of Turkey's armed forces. They patrolled this area regularly with armed vehicles and overhead drone surveillance, but a ten figure bakshish placed in the hands of the regional commander bought Pearce a non-negotiable four-hour window. That window would slam shut in just seventy-two minutes. The women were making good time, but if the Turk border patrol suddenly decided to show up early the whole operation would be blown.
Or worse.
"They know the danger, trust me," Tariq said. His sister's text earlier confirmed their departure from the village, but nothing more. His cousin leading the way confirmed their arrival at the rendezvous point, but for security reasons they all agreed beforehand to maintain communication silence until the group arrived at the border.
Five pickups were parked on the gravel road, a Kurdish driver and gunner in each. Plenty of room for the women and two friendlies who tagged along, Carl Luckett and Steve Rowley. They were ex-Rangers who had served under Mike Early, Pearce’s closest friend during the war on terror, now dead. Early had brought the two of them along on a mission he and Pearce had run a long time ago in Iraq--the same mission where he had first met Tariq, their translator. When Pearce picked up the phone twenty-four hours ago the only thing he had to say was "Tariq needs us." The Kurdish peshmerga fighter had saved all of their asses and never asked so much as a thank you at the time. So when Tariq came hat in hand to Pearce's place and begged for help, Pearce dropped everything and pulled together a plan. They had a very narrow window and this was the best Pearce could do on short notice. But all things considered it was a better play than others he'd made in the past, and he was still vertical and breathing after those. Besides, he hated ISIS, and anything he could do to frustrate them was a good day's work as far as he was concerned.
Pearce checked the screen again. With any luck, they'd be loaded up and rolling out of here with the women in the next forty minutes and be landing in Beirut within three hours at the latest.
God how he missed Mikey. There was no safer place on the planet than standing next to the big hulking Ranger when the bullets started to fly. He hoped it wouldn't come to that tonight.
Pearce's private Bombardier 5000 corporate jet was waiting on the tarmac at an airfield nearby in Cizre. A few more well-placed bribes and a couple hard-pulled strings generated all the necessary paperwork and travel permits they needed to fly unmolested in and out of Turkish airspace on a supposed business trip. Pearce Systems was an international security company but much of his drone-based business was connected to commercial enterprises so his cover wasn't too much of a stretch, especially with former President Margaret Myers working the phones on his behalf. Fortunately, the military contracting side of his business was running the Canadian army's Heron TP operations in Afghanistan. With the Heron's range and endurance it wasn't any trouble to reroute one for tonight's mission, and Ian had become a crack UAV pilot. Pearce couldn't imagine running any kind of mission anymore without eyes in the sky.
Tariq handed him back the tablet. Pearce resized the image.
"Shit!" Pearce tapped his earpiece. "Ian, we've got Deltas coming in hot."
A speeding convoy of trucks was racing toward the women.
"I see them," Ian said. "But--"
"No time to talk!" Pearce shouted at the others, "Saddle up!"
Luckett and Rowley leaped into their pickup as Tariq barked orders in Kurdish. He hardly needed to. Truck engines fired up and machine guns racked.
"You've got company!" Ian shouted.
Pearce was already in the bed of his truck and pounding the roof to take off when the roaring whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopter blades came thundering over the hill behind them. The sound was deafening as two T-70 Black Hawks swept overhead. One hovered directly above them and poured a blinding searchlight on the convoy. Grit and dust from the rotor wash stung Pearce's face. The other chopper dropped thirty yards on the Iraqi side of the border, blocking the way forward with it's heavily armed fuselage and another blinding searchlight.
"Stay or go?" Luckett shouted in Pearce's earpiece. Tariq's anxious eyes asked the same thing.
Pearce checked his tablet. The ISIS convoy was less than a mile from the women, who hadn't changed course or speed. They clearly didn't know that they were being hunted. It was now or never but--
The other chopper landed just a few yards behind them, the blades dangerously close. A squad of Turkish special forces leaped to the ground and charged toward them, weapons forward, shouting. Pearce's instinct was to turn the machine gun around and open up but his mind checked his gut--they'd be cut to pieces in a flash.
The Turks surrounded the trucks just as a middle-aged American woman in civilian clothes and a Kevlar vest jogged up. Her name was Hyssop, the embassy trade attache. The slowing rotor wash fanned her short thinning hair.
"What the hell is going on, Pearce?" Hyssop demanded. "I didn't authorize any of this!"
"I don't have time to explain. Call your dogs off and let us through--"
"Not going to happen! You're supposed to be on a trade mission, not an armed incursion!"
"We've got lives on the line out there!" Pearce said. "You've got to let us go. Now!"
The Turkish army commander, a captain, shouted orders to his men. They raised their weapons to fire.
"Troy! The women!" Ian's Scottish brogue shouted in Pearce's ear.
Hyssop grabbed Pearce's sleeve. "These guys aren't screwing around. Stand down now and I can still get you out of this--"
A truck engine gunned. Tariq's pickup leaped forward, scattering the two Turkish soldiers standing in front of it. Before the others could open fire, the captain shouted another order and the squad lowered its weapons.
"Tariq!" Pearce screamed.
Pearce watched as Tariq's pickup made a suicidal charge straight at the other helicopter. The chopper lifted off before the truck reached it but as soon as it passed underneath the Black Hawk's door gunner opened up with a salvo from its Vulcan machine gun, shredding the Toyota's thin steel and erupting the gas tank in a fiery explosion.
The Turks gathered around Pearce's vehicle howled with laughter.
Pearce shouted as he swung his size fourteen combat boot. It cracked into the braying face of the soldier standing closest to him with a sickening thud. Pearce leaped down and crashed into the next Turk, driving the surprised trooper into the ground. Pearce lifted a fist to smash the second soldier's face when a pistol exploded just behind his head. Pearce's ears rang with the shot as red hot ice picks stabbed his ear drums.
Pearce's fist froze in mid air. He turned around. The captain's pistol was six inches from his face.
"Pearce, you asshole!" Hyssop sped over to him, throwing herself between him and the captain as she hauled Pearce up to his feet.
The Turkish soldiers man-handled the Kurds, seizing their weapons and cuffing them with Plasti-Cuffs. Two more soldiers dragged Luckett and Rowley out of their truck and hauled them roughly over to Pearce.
"You are in violation of Turkish law and Turkish national sovereignty. I have every legal right to execute the three of you right here as foreign invaders," the captain said. He glanced with disgust at his two fallen men, one still clutching his broken jaw and moaning through bloody fingers. "And for assaulting my men."
"Give me ten more minutes and I'll finish the job," Pearce said.
The captain held out a gloved hand. "Your comms."
"I'm sorry, I can't hear a word you're saying--"
The captain's face hardened as he raised his pistol again.
"Idiot!" Hyssop snatched the earpiece out Pearce's ear and tossed it to the captain. He pocketed it, then pulled out a pair of Plasti-Cuffs.
"Just try," Pearce said.
"Pearce, it's not just your ass on the line. You're about to make this into an international incident. There's a lot more in the wind than you're aware of here."
"Those shit bags just killed my friend--"
She got in his face. "And a lot more people will die if you don't shut this down right now."
Pearce glanced at Luckett and Rowley. The Turks were cuffing them behind their backs. But the ex-Rangers were still dangerous men, even tied up.
Luckett read Pearce's mind. He grinned.
"You call it, boss. We're with you all the way."
It would be a stupid move, Pearce decided. Gotta get back to the plane. He held out his wrists. The captain zipped them the cuffs tight, then yanked the tablet out of Pearce's pants pocket and the pistol out of its holster.
"Let's get out of here. Now," Hyssop said, pulling him toward the first chopper.
"What about them?" Pearce nodded in the direction of the Kurds already being marched toward the other chopper.
"That's none of your affair," the captain said. He barked an order to the sergeant standing nearby who signaled two others. The three armed Turks prodded the four Americans back toward the first helicopter.
A minute later, Pearce, Hyssop, Luckett, and Rowley were airborne. Pearce watched the Kurds get thrown into the other Black Hawk, their hands bound behind their backs. Pearce knew the bloody history between the genocidal Turks and the hapless Kurds. He assumed the Turks would toss them out of the chopper like sacks of garbage as soon as they reached altitude.
Maybe the four of them, too.
As they pulled away, Pearce's eyes fixed on Tariq's truck down below, still burning in the dark. He swore.
Jesus, what a goat fuck.
As soon as they were airborne, the Turk captain opened up Pearce's tablet. He pressed buttons until an image pulled up. He stared at it. A feral grin spread beneath across his face in the red cabin light. He turned the tablet around and held it close to Pearce's face.
Pearce's heart sank. The ISIS trucks and men were on the women like a pack of wolves. But instead of rounding them up they were killing them. A half dozen bodies already lay scattered on the ground as the rest fell in a dead run, one by one.
The captain's grin grew wider.
Pearce grunted with rage and launched at the captain, aiming his skull at the Turk's jaw. But the captain saw it coming and clocked Pearce across his ear with the butt of his pistol and Pearce crumbled to the steel floor, knocked out cold.
