Edge of Courage (Edge Security Series Book 5)

by Loye, Trish

  He shook his head. “It’s easier to snag her on the street than for me to rescue her from one of those bloody whorehouses.”

  “Easier for you? We do this together, remember?”

  “What can you do? You’re just…”

  Sarah went cold as anger filled her. She let that anger and coldness fill her voice and her eyes. “You’ve been here too long, Rakin, if you think that I’m not as capable of rescuing this girl as you.”

  He shoved away from the table and stalked into the living room, and held aside the drape covering the front window. He peered out into the early morning light. It was after dawn and the first call to prayers.

  “You’re right,” he said finally. “I have been here too long.” He let the curtain fall back into place. “Did I tell you Ahmed asked me again to marry you?”

  “What?” The change in topic threw her. She went to the front room, her fists clenched at the thought of her slimy neighbor wanting to be with her. “I thought you’d already told him no.”

  “He thinks I’m just driving a hard bargain.”

  “What is his problem?”

  Rakin shrugged. “He’s got an elderly mother and needs a young wife.”

  “A slave, you mean.”

  Rakin sighed and faced her. “I presume you have a plan to rescue Claire?”

  Sarah smiled. Rakin always came around. “Of course.”

  * * *

  The next day, Sarah shuffled with hunched shoulders as she pushed a tea cart through the crowd at the souq. The street market overflowed with tiny shops selling everything from food and spices that scented the air, to clothing and even tools. The colorful displays contrasted sharply with the black-veiled women and their somber men.

  Rakin walked ahead of the cart. He pretended to ignore her, as any good man in Mosul did with his sister, at least the men who didn’t want to attract the attention of the ISIS soldiers patrolling the streets.

  He dropped back a little and didn’t look at her veiled figure as he spoke Arabic. “Follow the plan.”

  Sarah scowled, though Rakin couldn’t see it, and answered him in the same language. “I always follow the plan.” She gave the large cart a shove over a bump in the street. The top held carafes of tea and tins of cookies that clinked together as the cart moved; underneath was an empty cabinet meant to hold extra supplies.

  “Unless the plan doesn’t work,” she muttered.

  “I heard that,” Rakin said. “This girl’s life depends on us. You’re sure you can impersonate the woman?”

  She fairly growled. “I won’t get caught.”

  He grunted and strode to the front of the slow-moving cart. He wore the traditional dishdasha, a long closed robe that went to the ankle on most men, but to mid-shin on him, showing his white linen pants. He walked slowly, but nothing could quite hide his athleticism or the dangerous look in his brown eyes.

  She kept her head tilted, as if she looked down. Her niqab covered her face except for her eyes, but the sheer black veil she wore over it covered her gaze. No one around her could tell that she studied her surroundings as much as any soldier in enemy territory would. Her black abaya draped long and loose over her, hiding her petite but muscular frame, kept in shape by long sessions in their basement.

  Sweat dripped down her back. It was the end of September, and even so, the temperatures in northern Iraq normally went into the nineties. Wearing layers of stifling black clothing, veils as well as gloves, did nothing to help cool her down.

  Maybe Rakin was right. Maybe they’d both been here too long. Because right now, she’d kill for a shower and then to throw on a tank top and a pair of shorts. And she’d finish with a loaded thin-crust pizza and a glass of pinot noir. Her stomach rumbled.

  No. She’d survived the scorching summer here and now more than ever she had to stay. Not only did Blackwell still depend on her, she’d also had a barely functioning underground railroad in place to help enslaved women and children. The network was still too fragile for her to leave. The people she’d recruited were too scared to stay together without her. She needed more time with them.

  As an ex-CIA agent and an E.D.G.E. operator, Sarah had more than enough skill to gather the intel E.D.G.E. and Blackwell requested, but the situation here in Mosul was so much worse than she’d expected. The people so much more in need of help. She couldn’t turn her back.

  Still, she’d love to be home and have that glass of wine, or maybe a cold beer. That would taste amazing right now. And a cheeseburger. Oh yes. A cheeseburger with bacon. Lots of bacon.

  Her stomach knotted, not just with hunger, but with regret. She had teased Dylan often about his love of bacon. It had been her last meal with him. She’d convinced him to skip the fancy restaurant for a quick dinner and an evening spent at his place. She’d laughed so much that evening, before he’d made her melt in his bed.

  Her good-bye note had burned a hole in the pocket of her jeans the whole time. After a night of passion, she’d slipped out in the early morning and left the note behind.

  It was for the best, she reminded herself.

  She almost missed seeing Rakin’s fingers twitching on his right hand. She hunched further. Maybe it was time to get out. If she didn’t focus and get her head straight, then she could easily lose it. She squashed all thoughts of food, her apartment, and the man who haunted her dreams.

  Her heart rate accelerated when she saw what—or rather, who—Rakin had signaled about. Two men dressed in white dishdashas and turbans, sporting long beards, stopped by her cart. They were members of the hisbah, the male version of the al-Khansa.

  These men could definitely put a damper on the rescue plan. The house where the girl was being kept was still two blocks away.

  She did a quick check of her clothing, ensuring none of her skin showed and her veils were in place. Members of the hisbah had the capacity to beat or detain her or Rakin for not complying with the ISIS mandate for dress and decorum. The men shouldn’t have any issues with them, considering she had no skin showing and Rakin acted as her mahram.

  “Chay for us both,” the taller one said in Arabic. “And some of your hajji badah cookies.”

  Rakin took the men’s money while she brought out two istikans for the tea. She scooped raw sugar into the bottom of the small glass cups, and then poured a cardamon-scented black tea into them. She set the istikans down on the cart’s top where the men could reach them, and then offered the almond and cardamon cookies from the batch she’d baked yesterday.

  She fidgeted with putting away the tin of cookies and checking the canisters of tea while Rakin spoke with the men about the weather. When the men set down their empty istikans, she began to push the cart again.

  They made their shuffling, meandering way to their target. They’d borrowed the large tea cart from a neighbor, one who never sold in this souq. Rakin had told him he’d wanted to supplement his measly income. Everyone had a measly income now that ISIS had taken over.

  They eventually reached the large sand-colored, flat-roofed house with the eight-foot-high stone wall. Pillars of white marble framed the double-doored front entrance. Sarah had worked at this particular house before, guarding the girls inside. ISIS gave its fighters the captured non-Muslim women and girls, the sabaya, as sexual rewards. This was the place where the men received their reward.

  It sat on the edge of the souq, within blocks of both the al-Khansa headquarters and the main ISIS headquarters. Men entered and left the building by the front gate; most spoke with excitement, nodding at the soldiers on guard there.

  Sarah took a large metal carafe in one hand and a metal pail lined with cloth and full of cookies in the other. She nodded at Rakin and left him selling tea and gossiping.

  She walked along the stone wall to get to the back alley and the women’s entrance. As she walked, she added a slight limp and rounded her shoulders more. She became just like the tea woman who came to this place every day.

  Trash was piled almost as high as th
e wall, with flies buzzing around it. She lifted the latch on the gate and entered, nodding at the guard on the inside who had his AK-47 slung over his shoulder. He didn’t bother to look at her. No woman came to this place who didn’t belong.

  Sarah had studied the tea woman’s routine when she’d been on duty here before. She knew how the woman walked, talked, and acted. Yesterday, Sarah had slipped something into the woman’s own tea to make sure she stayed away. The poison mimicked food poisoning. The woman wouldn’t be able to leave her bed today.

  Sarah continued to limp through the dusty patch at the back of the house that held a stone bench and a dry, tiled fountain with a statue in the middle. It had been of a woman holding an urn, but its head and chest had been smashed. Dahab had said it was forbidden to have a statue of an unveiled woman.

  The house itself must have once been a fine home for a rich Iraqi. It had fallen into disrepair since ISIS had taken the city. The owners had either fled or been executed. Now it housed one of the worst atrocities of the Islamic State.

  She made her slow way to the back door, emphasizing her limping gait before knocking timidly on the door. A double-veiled woman answered; she wore her gloves even inside. Sarah catalogued her quick movements, straight posture, and her position at the back door.

  Dahab.

  “You’re late,” Dahab snapped. “Fill the trays in the front room.”

  Sarah nodded like the tea woman would, keeping in character. She hurried her stride as she walked through the kitchen, throwing more sway into her walk as if to accommodate a leg that didn’t fully bend or straighten and couldn’t support her full weight.

  A young girl, maybe ten years old, washed dishes in a bucket at the sink; by her uncovered face and the bruise on her cheek, Sarah knew she was one of the Yazidi sabaya kept here. Thousands of women and children had been captured by ISIS and used or sold as sex slaves.

  Sarah hadn’t seen this little girl before. The Yazidi people were kuffar, or infidels, who lived in Kurdistan and northern Iraq, whom ISIS targeted and systematically exterminated. Most of the female prisoners in this house were Yazidi.

  The girl’s gaze found Sarah’s and her blue eyes, not uncommon among the Yazidi people, reminded her of another’s eyes, those of a man she’d left behind. Her heart broke at the fear and desperation she saw on the child’s face.

  “What are you looking at, girl?” Dahab’s short whip whistled and struck the girl across her shoulders.

  She cried out and went back to washing dishes, her head bowed.

  Sarah’s gut tightened with the need to react but she stayed her hand, again vowing to kill this woman before she left Iraq.

  “Stupid girl,” Dahab muttered. “Soon you’ll be moved upstairs where you belong.”

  The blood drained from Sarah’s face. The girl was too young. But according to the Islamic State’s interpretation of Sharia, a girl as young as nine could be married or used sexually. Sarah kept her eyes lowered and her mouth shut, though she wanted to throw her dagger into Dahab’s eye.

  But no. The girl was not part of the mission. Though Sarah knew leaving her in this hellhole would carve out another piece of her soul.

  Sarah moved down the hall to the front of the house. Men’s laughter and excited rumblings came from the front room. When she entered, the noise level didn’t dim in the slightest. The jihadist soldiers sat on the couches around the room and ignored her completely as she made her way to the low table in the center of the room. Most wore black, and some had turbans or kufis on their heads. Their bearded faces were wreathed with smiles; their weapons of choice, whether AK-47s or machetes, lay across their laps or beside them. A picture window overlooked the front dust patch and the guards stationed at the gate.

  She couldn’t see Rakin over the stone wall but she knew he was there. Not that he could help her if something went wrong. Her heart beat harder at the thought and she took a deep, calming breath and focused on the task at hand. She became a simple tea-seller.

  She laid out the hajji badah on a platter already on the table for that purpose and filled the teapot from her carafe. The men waited until she was on her way out of the room before reaching for the cookies and tea.

  They must keep up their energy for what was to come. Her hands tightened on the carafe and pail. She expelled her breath harshly and forced herself to relax. Saving the English girl Claire was her top priority. She made her way to the kitchen again.

  Dahab wasn’t at the back door. The girl at the sink didn’t look up from washing, her skinny shoulders hunched in. Sarah was secretly glad she didn’t have to see the girl’s sad eyes again.

  She set the carafe and pail down by the table and walked to the stairs at the end of the room.

  Time for a character change.

  The tea-seller would never go upstairs and Sarah needed to. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and moved up the stairs with purpose, leaving the limp behind. Aqsa, Russian-born and high-ranking within the brigade, had the right to go anywhere she wanted and that was who Sarah became next. On the way up the steps, she pulled the al-Khansa headband from under her abaya and put it on.

  The hall at the top had three doors on one side and two on the other. It led to a wider set of stairs at the other end, going down to the front door. That was the staircase the men used.

  The muffled sounds of crying and grunts made bile rise in her throat. She pushed all thoughts of what was happening on the other side of those doors away. She had to stay focused.

  Sarah walked tall, swinging her arms just so, portraying an arrogance that came with the absolute power Aqsa held over the women in this house.

  She curled her lip, knowing a sneer would enter her Russian-accented Arabic when she spoke. She’d practiced mimicking Aqsa’s voice last night. The woman believed herself better than most Iraqis: pious, arrogant, a true zealot.

  And a complete bitch. But one who could go anywhere in the house without question.

  She opened the first door on her right and assessed the situation in a split second. Six Yazidi women and four girls who couldn’t have been more than fifteen huddled on one side of the room, their bare faces streaked with tears and bruises, while two veiled women in abayas and gloves held thin iron rods. Sarah knew how much those rods could hurt when handled correctly. She had been taught by the Brigade how to inflict maximum pain.

  They turned to her.

  “Where is the kuffar woman?” she demanded, her voice pitched slightly higher and her Arabic tinged with Russian. “Yusef wants her.”

  One of the women nodded. “She is in the next room, Aqsa,” she said.

  Sarah didn’t thank her; she just strode from the room as if everyone in it were beneath her, just like Aqsa would do.

  She went to the next room on the right, knowing from the sounds she heard that the ones on the left were being used by some of the ISIS soldiers from downstairs. She threw open the door, just like before.

  Dahab, by her wide-legged stance, stood there speaking with two members of the brigade. In this room, along with the complement of women and girls huddled together, was a girl lying on her side, seemingly unconscious. Her face was uncovered, and one eye was swollen almost shut.

  Claire Hayden.

  “Wake her up,” she ordered, pointing at the girl. “Yusef wants her.”

  “He does?” Dahab said. “I wasn’t informed.”

  “Do you think Yusef al-Basri tells you of everything he decides?” Sarah said.

  “Of course not, Aqsa.” Dahab bowed her head. She marched to the girl and hit her across the back with her whip. The girl grunted and her eyelashes fluttered. Dahab pulled her arm back for another strike.

  Sarah stepped in. “We know you’re awake, sabaya. Get up or you will be beaten until you do.”

  The girl’s gray eyes opened, vivid against her bruised skin. She glared at them all. Sarah wanted to wring her neck. As much as she admired the girl’s willingness to fight, she needed her meek and compliant for
the plan to work.

  “This is not Islam,” Claire said in a low, hoarse voice, her English accent making her Arabic clipped.

  Dahab’s whip whistled down on the girl. “Blasphemy!” She struck the girl again. And again.

  “Enough,” Sarah said. “She will be punished, Dahab. But first she needs to be able to walk.” She looked at the girl. “Follow me or I will let Dahab beat you to death.”

  Dahab almost vibrated with anticipation. Sarah wanted to strike her down for that, but held in all feelings. She had to be Aqsa in every thought and action. If she let Sarah the E.D.G.E. operator show at all, then it wouldn’t be just the girl getting beaten, raped, and executed.

  “Perhaps I should come with you, Aqsa, to help with this kuffar.”

  “No, Dahab,” she said. “You have your duties. There is an escort waiting outside for us.”

  She left the room, praying it worked and that Dahab didn’t follow. She wouldn’t mind killing the woman, but it would interfere with the plan.

  Only the slow, plodding footsteps of the girl sounded behind her. She didn’t turn, but started down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “What are you going to do with me?” the girl asked quietly.

  Sarah glanced behind her. Dahab had shut the door to the slaves’ room. For the moment, they were alone.

  “I’m here to rescue you, Claire,” Sarah whispered in her own voice. “Your father sent me.”

  “My father?” The girl’s voice trembled.

  Sarah lifted her own veil so the girl could see her eyes, and the truth there. “You must be strong right now if we are to escape. You must do everything I tell you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she whispered back.

  “Good.” She pulled a tightly folded package from under her abaya. It was an extra black cloak and head covering for the girl. She threw the abaya around the girl’s shoulders and then pulled the niqab over her head. Now only her gray eyes could be seen. Last, she brought the face veil down so that even her eyes were covered. “Keep your hands hidden and your eyes down. Don’t speak. Follow me.”

  She went down the last few steps into the kitchen. The only person there was the girl. She’d stopped washing dishes and stood in the middle of the kitchen. “Please,” she whispered. “I heard what you said. Take me with you.”