Two Sisters

by Åsne Seierstad

  “And I promise you that they’re here to stay. Ismael, this might seem a little random, but have you straightened your hair in your profile picture?”

  “Hahahaha. Yeah. A bit. Nah. Lots of gel.”

  “Not bad. Not bad.”

  Ismael was a handsome young man. Golden skin, an open, still-childish face, and a big smile that competed with the new white sweater he was posing in. He pasted another picture of himself on the thread.

  “Omg! You’ve grown!” Leila wrote.

  Ismael sent her another, where he was wearing a black-and-white singlet, mirrored sunglasses, and headphones. In his profile picture he was sporting a navy blue jacket with a fur collar. Somali straight outta Bærum style.

  “Send me some photos too. I miss your ugly face,” he wrote, adding a red heart.

  “Haha. Some other time. Talk soon inshallah, it’s getting late and I have a child that needs to sleep lol haha.”

  “Remember to do it. You could be dead by tomorrow.”

  “Okay, inshallah.”

  “Sweet. Good night!”

  Leila sent a photo all the same. A headless selfie showing a long, slim body dressed in black pants, a black sweater, with a shawl over her shoulders and a bulge on her stomach.

  “Ur face woman!”

  “Good night. Hahahaha. See ya don’t wanna be ya…”

  “Fuckin’ nigger!”

  “Hey, watch your language.”

  “Sorry, meant sweetheart.”

  “Hahaha, sure.”

  “I’m only kidding. Bye.”

  29

  BOYS FROM NORWAY

  On Sunday, March 1, Sadiq and Styrk Jansen traveled to Hatay. The girls were finally to be rescued. The producer brought along $3,000, a laptop, and the telephoto lens Osman had requested. He was hoping to get a happy ending in the can so they could wrap up the documentary.

  The film crew had become Sadiq’s closest allies, helping with money, applications, and printouts, lending him a car when needed. They stuck by him every step of the way on his rescue plan, through thick and thin. They paid for his plane ticket now, just as they had for the flight to Reyhanlı back in November when they were supposed to meet the Double. They were still shaken by his crucifixion and murder, and hoped that their rescue plan had had nothing to do with it. They believed what Sadiq told them, that the girls were desperate to get out of Syria. That Hisham was the problem.

  Styrk had booked rooms at the Antakya Huyuk, just by the Sugar Palace, arriving late at night during a torrential downpour. Osman came to the hotel the next morning to pick up the money, the laptop, and the camera equipment. Osman told Styrk he needed the camera in order to take better-quality photographs. The ones he took on his mobile phone were not so good.

  The smuggler outlined the plan. The girls were to remain inside the tank truck as long as they were in IS territory. Once clear, they would get out of the tank, switch vehicles, and drive until they crossed the border into Turkey, where Sadiq would be waiting with a rented car at a prearranged spot.

  Osman had contacts deep within the IS system, and he controlled a network of couriers and drivers known to him via family ties in the three northern provinces of Raqqa, Aleppo, and Idlib. Two of his nephews had recently married. The plan was for their wives to try to make contact with Sadiq’s daughters and surreptitiously slip them the note their father had written: “Trust whoever gives you this. I love you.”

  Osman produced his telephone. He spoke into it clearly and concisely, issuing orders, making arrangements, and double-checking he had been understood. After his last call, he looked at them and said, “The operation is under way.”

  Osman crossed back over the border into Syria. Rain was teeming. The streets of Hatay were wet, cars shimmered, and the sky was gray. Sadiq and the documentary makers stayed indoors.

  A carpet of fog covered the entire region, the spring rain had set in over all of northern Syria, subduing the war, quelling the fighting. At the Antakya Huyuk they waited for updates.

  “The regime has closed the road,” Osman wrote the following evening.

  At nine o’clock, Leila, unaware of everything that was going on, sent a message to Ismael.

  “U Alive?”

  “Yeah.”

  It bore the hallmarks of a banal conversation, as though they no longer had anything to say to each other.

  “How are you?”

  Ismael, afraid of giving anything away, refrained from writing more. If the girls found out about the planned kidnapping, it would fail.

  Sadiq received another message from Osman on Wednesday evening: “The road was re-opened this afternoon. The boys have left for Raqqa.”

  Sadiq could not relax. On Thursday morning, he wrote back to Osman: “Give me some encouraging news, what’s going on?”

  Osman rang him in the afternoon: “We’ve run into difficulty.” The car was stuck in the mud and the continuing rain meant it would not be moving anytime soon. “Be patient, my friend. There have been reports that al-Jolani has been killed in an air strike,” he added.

  The head of al-Nusra was the last thing Sadiq cared about. He sat motionless in the room, browsing the internet on his phone. Later the same afternoon, Osman reported, “I can’t get hold of the boys. All telecommunications are down where they are. ISIS is communicating by walkie-talkie, we have to wait for the rain to stop and the net to be up and running.”

  It was still bucketing down in the Turkish border town. Styrk Jansen was bored. He thought about something Sadiq had told him the previous night, about Hisham having taken two new wives since Ayan had run away from him. Chechens. Hisham had already forgotten Ayan, Sadiq had said.

  Osman rang on Friday morning. The route they were planning to take out of Raqqa after picking up the girls had yet to be decided upon. “I suggest going via As-Safirah, the road is longer but safer, we could also take a route through Kurdish-held territory, but the Kurds are troublesome, I don’t trust them, and we run the risk of running into Ahrar al-Sham on the way, what do you think…?”

  “What?” Sadiq responded.

  “… the Kurds are in Ain Issa, the truck is ready, the girls are … al-Nusra is fine … avoid IS … before it gets dark … ambush, danger of that … driving without lights on … what do you think, brother?”

  Sadiq had no clue.

  The shortest route was through the area under Kurdish control, by way of Kobane, which IS had lost in late January. If the road was clear, you could be in Turkey in a couple of hours. The other road, the long one, meant an eight-hour drive—assuming you did not run into any obstacles.

  Kurdish forces were only a few miles outside Atmeh. They were vying for control of the important border area currently divided among themselves, IS, and al-Nusra. Osman had said that the Kurds owed him a favor. Some time ago he had found a dead Kurdish soldier on al-Nusra land. The common practice was to leave enemy combatants lying where they fell, throw them in an unmarked grave, or sell their remains back to the family. Osman had called the commander of the closest Kurdish battalion. “I’ve found the body of one of yours. I can drive him to you.”

  Now it was payback time. He got in touch with the Kurdish officer, reminded him that he had delivered the soldier’s remains, and asked for free passage through his area of control.

  His request was granted. With that, the last part of the plan fell into place—they would take the road through Kobane.

  A scout car was to drive a few minutes ahead of the tank truck to check the road was safe, that no new checkpoints had been set up or fighting had broken out.

  By the time Osman sent word that they would soon be leaving for Raqqa, Sadiq and the film crew had been waiting in Hatay for five days. “They executed a man here in Atmeh after Friday prayers today because they believed him to be a spy,” he told them.

  Sadiq waited. Styrk waited. Veslemøy had arrived from Iraqi Kurdistan and was preparing to film the girls. They had production meetings in Sadiq’s room. Sadiq drummed his
fingers on the table. He went in and out of the room. Paced up and down the corridor. Walked down to reception. Went outside to smoke. But never far away. His mobile phone stayed close to his heart in his breast pocket.

  Osman did not ring until the early hours of Sunday morning.

  The car had been approaching Raqqa. Then all hell had broken loose. There was an air raid, bombs had pounded the ground around them. Buildings and cars had been hit. The driver had put the car in reverse and sped back in the direction they came.

  They had waited an hour and again driven in the direction of the city. The bombing started again. They turned around. They tried a third time. And beat a retreat for a third time.

  “Get some sleep,” Osman wrote to Sadiq. “We’re headed into an area without mobile coverage. Save your strength, you’ll need it when you have your girls back. You’ll hear from me tomorrow.”

  “Are the girls in the car??” Styrk asked while Sadiq texted with Osman. “Are they in the car?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know!” Sadiq said, almost shouting.

  “Ask him, then!” Styrk urged.

  But by then Osman’s phone had lost its signal.

  * * *

  The filmmakers said good night to Sadiq and left the room. Osman would be calling in the morning. It was best to get some rest; none of them had had much sleep. The waiting kept them high on adrenaline.

  Back in their room, the camera bags were packed and ready. Extra battery packs were charging. Early in the morning Mehmut was going to pick them up and take them out to get some shots of the surrounding area, unless Osman let them know he was approaching the border with the girls. In that case, Mehmut would drive them all there.

  It was just before midnight and the couple were already in bed when there was a knock on the door. Styrk got up.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  A man’s voice answered. “Norwegian Police Security Service. PST. Can we come in?”

  What was this? Styrk slid the door chain off its track.

  Two men were standing outside. They were tall, broad shouldered. One of them had a shaved head and snus under his lip, the other was dark-haired with pale, almost white skin.

  “Hope we didn’t wake you,” one said.

  “No, you didn’t wake us,” Styrk replied, looking at the two Norwegians in surprise.

  “The rescue plan is in the final phase and we’re here to see it through,” the other one said.

  “What?”

  “We’re cooperating with the Turkish authorities and are taking over from here.”

  “Huh?”

  “That means the two of you need to head home.”

  Veslemøy, who had hurried from Kurdistan to get the girls’ border crossing on film, reacted with anger.

  “You don’t have the authority to send us on our way!”

  However, the Turkish authorities do, the policemen pointed out.

  “If you fail to leave, it could put you in a very unpleasant situation.”

  “The girls could be here tomorrow! We’re filming it. We’ve arranged it all with Sadiq,” Styrk exclaimed. He stood, hands on his hips, glaring at the two policemen.

  “Sadiq stays with us,” one of the policemen said. “He’s taken care of.”

  The documentarists were told that filming at the border was anyway and under all circumstances out of the question.

  “If you turn up at the border with cameras, you will be in serious trouble,” one of the policemen said.

  “We’ve been planning this for months! Now you turn up and ruin it, just so you can take credit for saving little girls from IS!”

  Veslemøy, still in her nightgown, saw the film, their final scene, slipping away.

  “This is Turkey,” one of the policemen said. “Turkish rules apply.”

  The air went out of them. Fear set in. The Turkish authorities were not known for sympathetic treatment of journalists filming without a permit.

  “So you do it, then!” Styrk said. “You film it for us.” He held out a spare video camera.

  “We’ll see what we can do,” the policeman answered, taking the camera. “Have a safe trip home!”

  As soon as they left, Styrk rang Sadiq.

  There was no answer. He sent a text. He tried calling again. Still no answer.

  Styrk and Veslemøy stood in the room talking things over. The policemen had said something about Sadiq being taken into custody, hadn’t he? That they had him under supervision. Was that how they had put it? The documentarists weren’t sure. Taken into custody by the Turkish authorities? Was he under arrest?

  The couple discussed what the best plan of action was. Should they stay and try to find out what had happened to Sadiq, was that the right thing to do? Or should they do as PST advised them and clear out?

  At one in the morning Styrk texted a colleague in Oslo.

  “We were just woken up in our hotel room by two PST men at the door. We have been requested to stay away. They are taking over the operation.”

  * * *

  After Styrk and Veslemøy had said good night and retired to their room earlier that evening, Sadiq had quickly packed his few possessions and left the hotel.

  He had been in touch with the two policemen, whom he knew as Nils and Bjørn, the previous day.

  Sadiq had sought assistance from them long ago. He had first asked if PST could help in getting the girls out of Syria. That was not something they were willing to take on. But following discussions at the top level, and since Leila was a minor, the decision was made to assist on Turkish soil, something they had not done with other jihadists. As far as PST was concerned, what happened in Syria was Sadiq’s business, what they referred to as “a private rescue operation.” The Norwegian police would make the Turkish authorities aware of the situation so the girls did not end up in prison for crossing the border illegally. Sadiq and the policemen, who were both from the local PST office in Asker and Bærum, had had several meetings over the course of the last year, and in February, Sadiq had informed them that the plan was soon to be put into action. He asked them to be prepared for the girls’ impending extrication.

  The Norwegian embassy in Ankara had also been involved for some time. Cooperating with Turkish intelligence had not been all smooth sailing; in Turkey, do as the Turks say. Everything was carried out in the strictest secrecy. The legal attaché at the embassy had worked hard to get assurances from the Turkish authorities that the girls would not face arrest when they got to the border. There was still paperwork to be taken care of.

  When Nils and Bjørn had arrived in Hatay, they were notified by the Turks that they would not facilitate matters unless the film team left. PST had no knowledge of any film team. If the team neared the border, the cooperation would be stopped, the Turks said.

  “Do you have a camera crew along with you, Sadiq?” the policemen had asked when they met him on Saturday afternoon.

  Sadiq confirmed that he had.

  “They need to go home,” the PST men had said.

  Sadiq had gulped down some water to calm himself. That was the film down the tube. And what was he going to say to Styrk and Veslemøy? He had to be careful not to rock the boat.

  * * *

  It was late at night, the sun would soon be up. Styrk and Veslemøy were looking into flights to Oslo. Sadiq sat in his new hotel, in a room provided by PST, looking at the telephone that lay charging. It made a ticking sound for each new message coming from Styrk.

  He did not pick it up.

  What a mess. Mehmut would be coming to the Antakya Huyuk in the morning as arranged. Should he call and tell him he had changed his hotel, that PST and the Turkish security authorities had taken over running things inside Turkey? No, best not complicate matters. If he told Mehmut, he would relay the news to Osman and he might call the whole thing off. He would just not turn up, not answer the phone, lie low.

  Sadiq had been caught unawares. Losing control was not something he had considered. He had believed
he could handle it all, get all the help offered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from the embassy, from PST, from the Turkish authorities, and still call the shots. He had thought he could let Styrk or Veslemøy, who also paid all his bills, film while he, in effect, was the director. Now all of a sudden it was a police operation.

  He lay in bed thinking about Osman on the other side, about the driver who was going to pick up the girls in Raqqa, get them in the vehicle, and drive them out. The secret operation had to be kept under wraps. The driver might face arrest when they made it to the border. The last thing Osman—a smuggler of weapons, ammunition, people, anything—wanted was to come to the attention of the Turkish police. Should he let him know? Or just let the driver be taken by the Turks?

  He would have to see how it panned out.

  He lay thinking about something he was constantly trying to put to the back of his mind: When the vehicle made it to Raqqa, how were they going to get the girls in?

  The driver had asked Osman the same thing. The note from their father was not going to be of much use if they did not want to go home.

  Osman had just replied, “Figure it out.”

  He switched on the TV, zapped to the al-Jazeera news channel. Aleppo. Civilians, children among them, lay dead after a rocket strike. The reporter said something about Raqqa being hit, but there were no pictures. Maybe the girls were killed before they got out?

  He watched the footage of the war taking place just over the border. Syrians dying.

  We want to help Muslims, his daughters had written. But there was only death in their wake.

  Sadiq had told PST that it was now a matter of days. The policemen had passed the message on to the Norwegian embassy in Ankara. The following day the two PST men met with Sadiq for an update on how the rescue operation in Syria was proceeding. Were the girls en route?

  Osman was impossible to reach. The day was spent waiting.

  The PST men were in regular contact with their superiors back home, who in turn were in touch with the Turks. The embassy in Ankara had dispatched two employees to help in Hatay. Being mindful of the girls’ attitudes toward interaction with men, they had taken care that one of them was a woman. Then, was homesickness the reason the girls wanted to leave, or were there others? The embassy had taken security precautions in that respect, but what was most important was to try to attend to the girls’ needs; the diplomats had seen to it that an ambulance would be standing by just in case. After all, there was no way of knowing what state the girls would be in.