Hunt the Viper

by Don Mann

  “You speak nonsense!” another member of the court shouted.

  “Kasasbeh wasn’t an infidel,” Imam Zabas exclaimed. “He was a devout Muslim who prayed before he took off on the mission that ended with his plane crashing, and his murder!”

  “Traitor!” one of the emirs shouted. “You speak words of treachery!”

  Sheikh al-Sufi, who as commander of Raqqa supervised the court and carried out its rulings, raised his arms and said, “Respect. Let the Imam speak.”

  In a high voice quivering with emotion, Imam Zabas suggested that the execution of a woman, even an infidel from the West, would only bring more questioning of the Court’s application of the law of God, and more defections.

  “We have questioned her,” Imam Zabas said. “We have observed her behavior and collected evidence from the Internet. This woman traveled to Aleppo as a doctor to help heal the sick. It is our duty as men of God to show forgiveness.”

  He quoted from the Quran, “‘Instead of taking vengeance, turn to forgiveness and enjoin the good, and turn aside from the ignorant.’”

  Then he proposed that instead of executing the American woman, a swap be arranged for Sunni militants held in jails in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

  Imam Zabas’s words were met with jeers and hisses. The hardline clerics shouted him down, calling him a fool and a heretic.

  Their leader, Emir Ayub al-Kuwaiti, called on the head of the al-Hisba police—who had conducted the investigation of Ms. Hood—to testify.

  The police chief said, “Our investigations of the subject are conclusive of several areas. Number one, this woman traveled to Syria under false pretenses. Number two, she is not a doctor. Number three, she is impure. Number four, it is our conclusion that she came to Aleppo to spy for the infidels.”

  Sheikh al-Sufi covered his mouth and tried to hold back a yawn. In the last year and a half, he had witnessed many court debates over the proper way to implement Sharia law. The hardliners always prevailed.

  Séverine rode on the back of a motorbike that sped down a narrow asphalt road with her cell phone taped to the inside of her right thigh. A light mist coated her face; the vibration of the engine buzzed through her body. As she held on to Mohammad, she felt his heart beating under his ribs.

  Between the Percodan, hunger, and exhaustion, her mind kept pulling her inward and back to her childhood, when she felt loved and protected, and the world demanded nothing of her but to be herself.

  How did I get here? What brought me to this strange place?

  For the answer, she had to reach way back to a sense of inherent honesty and fairness that she felt as a young child. She’d never been able to lie, even about the littlest of things, and had always been sensitive to the plight of others.

  She wished Mohammad would focus on the slick road and leave her alone with her thoughts, but he kept turning back to her and talking over the engine. She caught only snatches of what he said.

  “All I want…is to take care of my mother and my sister.…You know…women under forty-five are banned from leaving the city.…You don’t know how difficult our lives have become.…Music is forbidden.…Food is more and more scarce.…”

  She’d always been trusting, too. Too trusting, her mother had often warned.

  She drifted off and dreamt that she was flying over the rooftops of a city, steering around black smoke that rose from the chimneys. The smoke curled and formed into the heads of monsters.

  It was too late to turn back. As long as her intentions were pure, she believed good forces in the universe would take care of her.

  “Séverine.…Séverine.…”

  Someone was calling to her. She opened her eyes. Mohammad was slowing the bike. People up ahead were waving electric lamps.

  “Séverine!”

  “Who are they?”

  “Séverine,” he said urgently. “It’s a Daesh checkpoint. Pull down the hood of your burqa.…Remember, you are my wife. You are not allowed to speak to men outside your family. Don’t answer their questions.…Get rid of your phone. Quick! Women are not allowed to carry phones!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone.

  —Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

  Crocker was still reeling from the severe dressing down and threats of court-martial he’d received from Captain Sutter. It’s not that he had expected his CO’s support, but he didn’t need to hear his anger, either. Not now.

  He sat with Doyle, Akil, Mancini, and Commander Kassim, who was questioning a nervous Libyan man who called himself Hamza Jibril and claimed to have spent the last eight months in Raqqa working for ISIS as a civil engineer.

  He’d defected recently and swore that he had never played a military role of any kind.

  Unlikely, thought Crocker, wondering how carefully this man had been vetted, and weighing the possibility that he was an ISIS informant.

  Doyle and Akil were asking the questions and doing the translating. Their main interest was the best way to get to Raqqa undetected.

  Hamza Jibril warned that the main road, Highway 4, was controlled by Daesh and contained many moving checkpoints—teams of two or three pickups traveling together that would stop and block the road at random locations. The Libyan also didn’t recommend traveling to the city by boat down one of the estuaries of the Euphrates River, because many of them, he said, were mined, and others were heavily patrolled.

  “Ask him how he would get to Raqqa, if he had to go there tonight,” Crocker said.

  Hamza chewed his bottom lip as he considered the options. When he spoke, Doyle translated. “He says he would go by foot and walk along the south bank of the river, away from the main road.”

  “What if he didn’t have time for that and had to get there quickly?”

  Crocker watched the Libyan carefully, looking for obvious signs of deception—hands near or covering the mouth, obsessive blinking.

  “He said he would probably use a bike or a motorbike, but a motorbike would attract more attention.”

  “Would he follow the same route along the south bank?” Crocker asked.

  “Yes. He says they are dirt paths. The safest ones follow the south bank. He says the closer you get to Raqqa, the more dangerous they become. These are the paths most people use to sneak out of the city.”

  Everything he said sounded reasonable. No other options came to Crocker’s mind, so he turned to Commander Kassim and asked, “Can you get your hands on some motorbikes?”

  “How many?”

  “Seven, if possible.” Crocker glanced at his watch. It was already 0117 Sunday. They had a little more than an hour.

  “Eight,” Doyle interjected. “I’m going with you.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Commander Kassim answered, his hands folded together.

  “You’d better hurry.”

  Dayna sat in the corner of the dark room surrounded by dirty pillows. Flies buzzed around the untouched plate of hummus, yogurt, and cucumber on the table. A sliver of light entered through a crack near the ceiling and bisected the floor.

  Her mind was on her friends and family back in Savannah, the tree-lined squares, the raw smell of the river, and the riverbank. She focused on one young man in particular, named Austin, who she’d met at church.

  He taught English part-time at a local middle school and sculpted figures out of wax. She hadn’t found him physically attractive at first. But his intelligence and sensitivity had slowly won her over.

  Austin introduced her to art and classic literature—Shakespeare, Flaubert, Dickens, Tolstoy. Her favorite of the books she had read so far had been Great Expectations. She identified with Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter Estella, who was given a great education and all the creature comforts, but lost the ability to return Pip’s affection.

  During th
e three months she spent with Austin, she’d learned that it was possible to be with a man you were attracted to and remain pure. The two of them laughed, prayed, dined, danced, and went on long walks and bike rides together, and parted friends. Only now did she realize how much she missed him, and even loved him. It pained her that she hadn’t told him, and might never get the chance.

  She didn’t want to remain friends apart, like Estella and Pip. Or end up entrapping and marrying someone she didn’t love, if she ever got that chance. Or die in a foreign place and be forgotten.

  On her knees with her hands clasped in front of her, she prayed out loud. “God, please come close to me and heal my heart. I would love to be with Austin again. If I get that chance, I will open my heart to him. I promise this, and I trust you. Whatever you want for me, I will do with gratitude. You are my Lord and savior.”

  She tensed up upon hearing steps in the hallway, and then remembered what she had just said—Whatever you want for me, I will do with gratitude. A key turned the lock. The door groaned open and Rasul’s full face shone in the light from an electric lamp.

  Concern creased his narrow forehead. The pounding of a hammer echoed in the distance.

  “Is something wrong?” Dayna asked.

  He pointed to the plate of food. “You did not eat.”

  “I lost my appetite and I don’t think it will come back anytime soon.”

  He grinned. “Are you making a hunger strike?”

  “No. I just don’t feel like eating.”

  He draped an orange jumpsuit over the chair. “This is for you to wear. I’ll come back for you in ten minutes. Put this on first.”

  “Rasul,” she said. “Are you taking me somewhere?”

  Halfway out the door, he stopped and shrugged. “I think so.”

  “Can you tell me where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Rasul, please. Can you stay just for a minute…and talk?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “You’re scaring me, Rasul. Do you mean to scare me?”

  He looked at her hard, then shifted his gaze to the floor. “No.”

  Everything was happening so fast that it was hard for Séverine’s brain to catch up. Guttural voices snarled at her in a foreign language; Mohammad pleaded with the IS soldiers, then turned and whispered assurances in her ear. Rain water dripped off his wide face.

  “They have to check. It’s their job. It’s a precaution. I told them you’re my wife and you lost your papers. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

  Then why do I detect fear in his voice? Everything seemed dark and unfocused. There was no one to appeal to. She couldn’t even speak. Then she felt rough hands exploring her body and feeling under her arms and breasts.

  What are they looking for? What do they want?

  She pushed them away. Someone slapped her and she hit the ground. The fabric grill over her eyes shifted so she couldn’t see.

  Mohammad’s voice became more desperate, as he pleaded in Arabic. Hands reached into her pockets. She felt one squeezing between her legs.

  She wanted to scream, Stop! Stop! What are you doing? But she didn’t dare.

  Men shouted at one another. They pulled her roughly to her feet. They started shaking her shoulders violently.

  Mohammad whispered into her ear, urgently, in Kurdish, which she barely understood. “They found your phone. Give it to me! I told you to get rid of it.”

  She passed it to him.

  Something hit the back of her head. Hands pulled her so her feet dragged across the pavement.

  Mohammad whispered in Kurdish, “I will follow you. You are my wife, remember. They’re going to punish you, or maybe keep you in jail overnight.”

  Why? she asked herself.

  They pushed her violently toward the back of a truck. She lost her balance and hit her face. Warm blood dripped from her nose onto the front of the burqa. An engine growled and the vehicle lurched forward.

  Her mind flashed to the story of Jonah being swallowed into the belly of a whale.

  Crocker stood on the same field where the helicopter had landed hours earlier. He faced a woman with thick, dark eyebrows and a large nose. His men waited beyond with an odd collection of motorbikes and motorcycles. He wondered what she wanted.

  “Why are we stopping?” he asked Doyle.

  “Her name is Dr. Sahari. She used to run the museum.”

  In his head, he was running through a checklist of equipment—suppressors, C-4 charges, grenades, radios, cell phones, medical kits, GPS…“I’m sorry. But we don’t have time for this now.”

  “Crocker…listen to what she has to say. It’s important.”

  “This can’t wait?”

  The woman spoke English with a thick accent. “I know you have a deadline. If you show me a map of the city, I can show you the location of the tunnels.”

  “What tunnels?” Crocker asked. “We still don’t have a target. Do you know where the American woman is being held?”

  Dr. Sahari looked confused. “The tunnels under the city. They were dug by Daesh. I don’t know anything about the American woman or where she’s being held. I can tell you about the tunnels.”

  “There are tunnels under Raqqa?” Crocker asked, his attention suddenly riveted on the small, dark-eyed woman standing before him.

  “Yes. They’re linked to a three-thousand-year-old Assyrian temple made to honor the Babylonian god of wisdom—Nabu.”

  Crocker wiped the rain from his forehead. “I don’t care about the temple or its history. Please tell me about the tunnels.”

  “The tunnels, yes.…”

  He called to Akil. “Bring a map of the city!”

  Akil brought up a satellite feed of Raqqa on the Garmin device. Doyle, Dr. Sahari, and Crocker leaned into it.

  “They use them to move around the city without being seen from the air,” Dr. Sahari explained.

  Akil said, “That’s why we saw nothing on surveillance.”

  She pointed to a section at the south of the city, where Crocker remembered the main buildings were located. “Here and here,” she said. “The tunnels start at the museum.…The Raqqa Museum. It was built over the temple.…Much of the collections have been looted. Incredible vases, art, and jewelry. The loss is inestimable, unimaginable…”

  “We need to get from the river to the museum,” Crocker instructed. “How?”

  “There’s a way. You can enter the tunnels. You enter here. I’ll draw you a map.”

  Doyle handed her a pad he kept in his backpack. One of Kassim’s men provided an umbrella. She drew a web of six vectors that originated from a central point.

  “That’s the museum,” she said, indicating the central point.

  “Where’s the river?”

  “It runs along here…to the south.”

  “We need a point of access,” said Crocker.

  “There’s one here, near where the main avenue intersects with the river.”

  “Which side of the river?” Crocker asked.

  “North. Yes, the north side.”

  “We’ll be coming up a path on the southern bank.”

  She pointed to the Garmin screen again. “Okay. See…there’s a footbridge, here.…The entrance to the tunnel is near these cypress trees…here. Last time I saw it, there was a sheet of corrugated metal that was used as a cover.”

  “Was the entrance guarded?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Should we expect soldiers nearby?”

  “I would. Yes.”

  The first lash felt like a hot wire burning into her skin. Séverine bit down so hard her gums started to bleed. An image popped into her head of her father pouring red wine from a decanter into a glass.

  Cold air tickled her back and she realized it was exposed and her feet were strapped to the floor. The fabric of the burqa covered her chest and hung around her ankles. Her hands were strapped down so tightly that the device she was tied to cut into her breasts
.

  In her brain she searched for a way to prepare for the abuse that she was sure would follow as black boots and shadows crisscrossed the concrete floor. Light spilled from a doorway ahead.

  The second hit came like a bolt of lightning. The pain was so acute, it blinded her. Warm urine dripped down the inside of her thighs.

  She felt anger and shame. A long pause followed, as her father stared at the glass of wine. She counted in her head. One, two, three, four….

  It was the only way she could establish any kind of control of herself. At the count of eight, her vision cleared, but her back felt like it was on fire.

  Ten, eleven, twelve…

  BAM!!!!

  The third lash cut even deeper. The violence behind it seemed immeasurable.

  How can they hate so much?

  Her father lifted the glass to his mouth, and the fourth blow followed right behind it. Something exploded in her head and she passed out.

  Mancini had done everything he could to dampen the sounds of the motorbikes—wrapping pieces of blanket around the mufflers and pipes and securing them with gaffer’s tape—but the noise was still too loud for Crocker’s comfort as they bore down parallel paths that ran along the south side of the Euphrates River. The wet wind in their faces, they rode eight feet from one another, Crocker and Akil in front, CT and Mancini in the rear, Dez, Rollins, Oliver, and Doyle in the middle.

  They were in ISIS-controlled territory with no location on Dayna Hood. No news had come from Tabqa or DC. He wasn’t sure HQ was even talking to him anymore.

  They’re probably operating under the assumption that we’re dead, or will be soon.

  All eight of them had shed all signs of identification, even the plastic chits that identified their blood types. They’d agreed to take their own lives if injured or about to be taken prisoner. They were going in completely black—no backup, no plan, no sense of the level of resistance they would encounter, or how they would get out.