Edge of Courage (Edge Security Series Book 5)

by Loye, Trish

  “Take off the brigade’s headbands,” she told the girls. “We have a mahram now and need to blend into the crowd.”

  Dylan hit their sidewalk just as they did. “Gathered a few more, eh?”

  “I had to bring them.” They walked with the crowd away from the sabaya house, but not fast enough for her liking.

  “Letting your emotions affect your judgement?” Dylan asked.

  “No.”

  “Easy, Sarah. It would take a heartless person to leave them behind. They— Shit.”

  Dylan stared straight ahead.

  “What?” Sarah said. Then she saw the group of men that people cleared the sidewalk for. A group of hisbah strode toward them. The men had long beards, and wore turbans and black dishdashas to their ankles. They spoke with one another but their gazes roamed the street around them. An air of power surrounded them: not physical or protective power, but a corrupt, slithering kind of power that didn’t bode well for anyone standing in their way.

  “It’s okay.” Sarah’s heart beat too hard. “We just need to be calm.”

  Sarah and the girls followed Dylan down the sidewalk in the direction of the truck and right into the path of the hisbah. The men slowed. Dylan didn’t stop walking, so Sarah kept the girls moving and studied the men. About ten paces away.

  She sucked in a silent gasp. Hisham was one of them. His full beard emphasized his thick lips. His dark gaze roamed over Sarah and the girls, who instinctively huddled behind her and Dylan.

  Maybe he wouldn’t notice Dylan.

  * * *

  Dylan led the girls down the sidewalk. Sarah walked at his side, or at least he assumed it was her, because of her height and walk. Damn, he hated these fucking capes and veils the women had to wear.

  Dylan kept his gaze slightly lowered. He’d have preferred to cross the street, but with five women trailing him, any movement in the open would lead to scrutiny. At least on the sidewalk there were others who might take some of the attention off him.

  They were ten paces away. His muscles tensed. He felt the gaze of one of the men, but he kept his own gaze forward, ignoring the pull to look.

  One of them stopped and spoke Russian. “Dalkhan?” He knew that voice and his muscles tensed for a fight. He needed to get these girls to safety.

  Sarah went still beside him.

  Fuck. Maybe he could talk his way out of this.

  “As-salamu alaykum, Hisham,” he said.

  “Wa-alaikum salaam, brother,” Hisham replied. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be training?”

  Sarah looked back at the sabaya house. That made him curse silently again. If she was nervous about what was going on in the house, then they hadn’t had a clean exit. His heart pounded. They needed to leave now.

  “My wife and her sisters needed—”

  “You did not go to training because your wife needed something?” His voice sounded incredulous and Dylan wanted to split the man’s lip.

  “No,” Dylan said slowly. “I asked for time off—”

  “Our new recruits don’t get time off.”

  The man wasn’t letting him speak or explain. A small crowd had started to gather around them. The leader gave a glance around and then straightened to his full height. Shit. The man was going into a full-on power trip.

  “Why do you have so many women with you?” Hisham then said something in Arabic.

  “He repeated the question to the crowd,” Sarah murmured in Russian. “He’s looking for a show.” Her head turned again to the house.

  What had happened in there to make her so worried?

  “My wife,” Dylan said. “And her sisters.”

  “Do they all live with you?”

  “No, some live with my in-laws.”

  “So you are just a nice husband to use his day off, which we don’t give our new recruits, to take the women shopping.”

  “I’m just trying to keep my new wife happy.”

  Hisham nodded and smiled. “It is Allah’s wish for us to keep our women happy, is it not?”

  Dylan nodded and relaxed fractionally. He’d connected with the man. Finally. They might just get out of this.

  The door to the sabaya house banged open and a soldier rushed out. “Murder! A sabaya killed a fighter,” he yelled. The front guards rushed inside.

  Hisham’s eyes widened as he watched the soldiers. “Wait here,” he barked out in Russian to Dylan. He signaled one of his cronies and they strode to the front gate. The other three blocked their path on the sidewalk.

  Not that they posed much of a physical threat to Dylan, but he wasn’t sure of the shape of the girls behind him. Could they run?

  Sarah herded the girls closer to Dylan. She murmured in Arabic to them. She stepped away, and a sense of alarm went through him. He tried to grab her arm, but she twisted away, almost as if she expected it.

  “What are you doing?” he said quietly, urgency straining his voice. He tried to go after her but the girls and the hisbah blocked him.

  “Something that needs to be done. Get the girls out,” she said in Russian.

  His gut twisted with an ugly premonition. “Sarah, whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it. Together, we can—”

  She moved away from them, striding down the sidewalk. The three hisbah growled in Arabic and followed her.

  She turned back to face them and took off her veil, exposing her bronzed skin and dark eyes to the sunshine.

  The hisbah gasped and then began shouting at her.

  Her gaze held Dylan’s for a moment, a proud woman, courage shining through her eyes.

  Hisham came back from the brothel’s entrance and grabbed her by one arm, shaking her while he shouted. Other men, passersby and gawkers, stopped and shouted at her as well. She stood passively. Hisham then raised his hand to strike her.

  Anger blazed through Dylan and he moved toward her. She shook her head.

  Go, she mouthed to him. Run!

  Hisham slapped her face. Dylan tensed, waiting for her to defend herself and ready to jump in. But she didn’t fight back. The man slapped her again. Dylan’s fists clenched. Damn her. She didn’t fight back. She didn’t try to get away.

  The four girls crowded around him, tugging on his sleeves, urging him away. Away from Sarah.

  There were no hisbah around them; Sarah had created the perfect distraction, but he couldn’t go. He couldn’t leave her. Not like this.

  Both men and women from the street now surged around Sarah and her uncovered face. Dylan kept eye contact with her for as long as he could.

  Fight back, Sarah!

  But she wasn’t. There had to be another way than her sacrifice. If she changed her mind and lifted even a finger to defend herself, then he’d rip apart the crowd to get to her. He would kill them all if he had to.

  Save them! She might have shouted it or just mouthed the words, but her eyes demanded he do this. That he save the girls. If he fought for her, then her sacrifice would be in vain.

  She turned her head, breaking eye contact with him, and huddled in on herself. She pulled her veil up to finally cover her face, shielding it from the angry mob. But the crowd still swarmed her, pushing and shoving, screeching insults.

  The hisbah controlled them, barely. They focused completely on Sarah and the surrounding crowd. Dylan and the girls had been forgotten. The leader had a grip on Sarah’s arm. There would be no escape for her right now. But at least they were no longer beating her.

  A car of soldiers, horn blaring, drove up the street. The girls’ voices held panicked notes. It was time to leave. He had to get them out.

  “Stay alive, Sarah,” he whispered. “I’m coming for you.” And then he led the girls away.

  * * *

  Sarah fought the clawing panic as enraged faces surrounded her: men screaming about her loose morals and covered women yelling just as loud, anger vibrating their voices.

  Dylan had left with the girls.

  She was alone. He’d left her.

/>   Because she’d ordered him to go, she told herself. She’d yelled it at him in Russian, her words lost in the frenzy of voices. She’d known the hisbah wouldn’t let them go. Dylan wouldn’t have survived an encounter if he’d been taken. They’d have accused him of being a nonbeliever and killed him. She needed Dylan and the girls to be safe and had done the only thing she could think of to create a distraction.

  Hands plucked at her abaya, tugged at her hijab. If she lost her headscarf, the crowd would go insane. She could feel the murderous intent of it swirling around her like a hungry wolf ready to rip and claw into her. She tried to cover her face with the veil, but the crowd wasn’t happy. Hands grabbed her arm and the veil slipped. Fingers pulled at her clothing, almost as if they wanted her to lose more of it, so the circling anger could swell again and be fed with her death.

  She held on to her veils and ducked away from a reaching hand, only to be confronted by a man. Spit flew from his lips as he screamed at her for being a whore.

  Her cheek throbbed where Hisham had slapped her twice. She breathed short and fast, trying to get air. Too many people surrounded her, pinching her, yelling and screaming.

  She was losing it. She had to hold on.

  Someone shoved her and she stumbled. A hand pushed down on her shoulder, wanting her to go to the ground.

  No! If she fell they’d kick her again and again, until she never rose. She stayed upright—barely. More people pushed her and she moved with the crowd. She had to think, to stop them.

  She hung her head and fumbled with her face veil. She had to cover her face. People ripped at her arms, trying to tear the veil away. She had to get the veil on before the crowd went over the edge.

  A viselike grip caught her one arm. Hisham. He yanked her to him through the crowd.

  “Put on your veil now,” he hissed at her. “Or I won’t be able to stop them from killing you.”

  “Why? So you can kill me later?” She tugged her arm, but he didn’t release her. She pulled her veil up over her face, leaving her eyes exposed. She couldn’t fix the face veil with only one arm. Covering up as if she wore a niqab was the best she could do.

  She kept her eyes off the people surrounding them and her head tilted down. The crowd’s surging momentum against her slowed.

  The four other hisbah started yelling for everyone to disperse.

  “Where is your husband?” Hisham demanded, shaking her arm. “Why did he leave?”

  Sarah didn’t say anything, letting him shake her. She focused on breathing, on drawing air deep into her lungs and slowing her heartbeat.

  Had she bought Dylan enough time to get the girls out? There was no sign of them anymore.

  The people who only moments ago had been yelling at her now all hung outside the stone walls of the sabaya house, trying to glimpse beyond the gate. Men yelled from inside and a few women wailed.

  Grim satisfaction thrummed through her. They must have discovered the bodies. She wished she’d been able to kill more than one soldier.

  Hisham dragged her to the front gate and handed her off to a guard. Hope sparked inside her. She could take care of one guard. He only held her by one arm. But he brought her inside past more soldiers who all milled around, angry and looking to strike at something. She kept her face down, not wanting to give them a target, pretending to be docile.

  The soldiers milling around spoke of a murder-suicide. A sabaya had gotten hold of a knife and killed a soldier and then herself. Others couldn’t believe a woman had killed the soldier and insisted another man must have gotten into the house.

  They barely spoke of the missing girls. They were unimportant to the men, who focused on their dead friend and how the al-Khansa had let a sabaya have a knife.

  The women of the brigade who’d been stripped hadn’t made an appearance yet. She smiled. Maybe they still hadn’t found any veils to wear.

  It was only moments later that Hisham charged down the stairs and strode to her. “What do you know of this? Did your husband kill the soldier up there? Did he steal sabaya from us? Where is he?”

  Sarah didn’t say anything and didn’t look up from the floor, going over her cover story in her mind. She knew nothing. She was just a simple woman who’d lost her veil. Nothing more. She repeated that out loud.

  She sensed the blow just before it struck and was able to turn her head enough to take a bit of the power from it. But it still stunned her for a moment, while pain seared her face.

  Hisham’s backhand made her ears ring and split her lip. The metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth. Bastard had been wearing a ring.

  She wanted to spit out the blood, but she was a simple woman who’d lost her veil. “I know nothing,” she repeated.

  She catalogued the escape routes. Front door had too many soldiers. The back probably had less, but still too many. The windows would need a chair or body to break them. The stairs were unguarded, but with the upstairs windows locked, she’d be stuck.

  She would have to keep playing her character and wait for her moment.

  “I don’t believe you,” Hisham said.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Hisham’s eyes narrowed. “My men are headed to your home. If we don’t find your husband, then things will not go well for you.” He looked to his soldiers. “Take her to the holding cells at headquarters. Yusef will want to speak with her.”

  Her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. Yusef. The Executioner. Her chances of escape were rapidly disappearing.

  The headquarters crawled with soldiers during the day, inhibiting any plan she might come up with. Not only that, but it was one of the locations scheduled for a drone strike this evening.

  “And cover her up before you take her out. We don’t want her killed.” He smiled. “Yet.”

  20

  Dylan shepherded the girls the two blocks to the truck, barely keeping them from running, their panic almost tangible. He didn’t need to attract any more attention. Though his body yearned to run. Back to Sarah. He wanted to kill anyone, anything in his way.

  He’d left her in a crowd that wanted her blood. Damn her for making him make this decision. He couldn’t escape the image of those angry men surrounding her and Hisham slapping her. Why had she done it? Why had she sacrificed herself?

  Logically he knew why. She’d taken the attention off him and the girls. If he hadn’t been there to take the girls, the chances of their escaping would be slim. This way they had a good chance of making it to the exfil.

  But without Sarah.

  The pickup was parked where he’d left it. “Get in the back, girls. Under the canvas, by the crates. Don’t move until I tell you.”

  As soon as the girls hid, he drove from the lot and headed right back to the souq. He pulled up not too far from the sabaya house and parked. He studied the crowd that lingered in front, but he couldn’t see Sarah.

  His gut clenched and a wave of panic froze him. Was she dead? Had he left her to be butchered by these crazed fanatics?

  No. He gripped the steering wheel. Sarah wasn’t dead. If she was, the crowd would be insane and they’d be burning her body somewhere close by.

  Control. He needed to control his emotions. He wouldn’t be able to help her if he wasn’t at his best. Fear and panic were the enemy. He pushed them down. Even so, a trickle of fear leaked into his thoughts, keeping him on edge, but that was okay. Having no fear made one reckless, and he couldn’t afford to be reckless. He had to be controlled. Sarah and the girls were counting on him.

  He watched the house. Soldiers ran into and out of it. Something big was happening inside. And he bet Sarah had something to do with it.

  A white van pulled up. Two soldiers came out of the house, carrying a body. Dylan’s heart stopped before he realized it was the body of a man. Maybe a fellow soldier. Had Sarah killed him?

  Next, a struggling person in an abaya with a sack over their head was hauled by three soldiers to the van and thrown in just like the body.
/>
  Sarah.

  The soldiers climbed in and shut the doors. Dylan started up his truck. Time to see where they were taking her.

  * * *

  Sarah paced the small room. Ten paces to a side. The only furniture was a narrow cot with a metal frame and a thin mattress stained with dark-brown spots. She didn’t look any closer.

  She didn’t have her face veil on, because the windowless room felt suffocating. She’d twisted the doorknob a few times. Locked, and not only that, but a soldier pounded on the other side of the door, yelling at her to get away from the door.

  She still had her knives on her; she just needed the guard to open the door and then she could get rid of him. As she debated how to accomplish this, the door opened.

  Yusef al-Basri, the man known as the Executioner, walked in with his hands folded together. Her heart stopped. She’d tracked him for weeks in Syria. His beard was longer and his air of power more corrupt. Two soldiers accompanied him, AK-47s slung over their shoulders.

  “Hisham tells me your husband Dalkhan is missing,” he said in Arabic.

  Sarah didn’t speak.

  He gave a little half smile. “Is there nothing you want to say? I would suggest you start talking now; otherwise I will get Dahab to persuade you, and once she starts, she doesn’t like to stop.”

  Her heart rate picked up, but she didn’t speak. She’d known men like this. They would believe nothing she said until after they’d tortured her anyway.

  “Lie down on the bed,” Yusef said.

  “Fuck you,” she said in a soft voice.

  He smiled. “This might become interesting.” He nodded at his soldiers.

  She sank into a crouch, ready to attack, when Yusef pulled his gun.

  He only stood ten feet away. Two soldiers faced her and more stood in the hall. She slowly straightened and put her hands up.

  “Very good,” he said. “Now get on the bed.”

  She sat on the bed. The two soldiers pushed her back and held her arms. She couldn’t help but struggle against their hold. Panic tried to overtake her and had her panting. The thought of any of these men overpowering her and touching her in any way made it difficult to breathe.