“Kamal, you don’t have to do this,” Joe said, in Arabic. “Can’t you see the God of the heavens above couldn’t wish you to take innocent lives? You’re fighting on the wrong side.”
“What do you know of Allah?” Kamal spit on the ground. “You have denied the faith. Allah will send you to burn.”
As Kamal restrained her, Abdullah dug his thin fingers into her chin, raising her gaze. She kicked against him. Her boots flopped around her ankle.
“I could shoot you with a Kalashnikov.” Abdullah glanced to the weapon.
Kay wrenched against Kamal. Terror burned through her lungs.
“Shooting is too good for you.” Abdullah turned to a shelf behind him and held up a metal can. It smelled like gasoline. “I will light you aflame and watch you burn, just like after death you will burn in Allah’s wrath.”
He couldn’t! Kay’s breath stopped. Abdullah tilted the black metal gas can above her. It dribbled down over her hair and clothes. The scent of gasoline rose up around her.
“Isn’t this wrong in your religion?” Kay screamed. “Allah’s got to have something to say against murder.”
“Allah commands jihad against the infidels. We follow in the footsteps of our prophet, peace be upon him, by killing you.” Abdullah struck a wooden match against the sandy cover of a matchbox. The tiny sliver of wood burst into flame.
“You have no understanding of the Islamic religion.” She fought against him. Kamal’s fingernails slit her skin as he bound rope around her wrists.
“And you do, you kafir?” The flame of Abdullah’s match glittered in the dusty light. He took a step closer.
“I defended you. I love your culture. The music, the hospitality, the lovely tapestries.” Kay’s breath came in gasps. In seconds, that gasoline in her hair would light afire.
Her camo pants rode up as she kicked back. Kamal held her fast.
Abdullah moved the match toward her.
CHAPTER 27
Saturday, October 15th, 10:28 a.m.
With the sizzle of combusting chemicals, the flame licked out from the match toward Kay’s face.
Kamal pinned her arms behind her back. Her screams stuck in her throat.
Abdullah raised one strand of her gas-soaked hair and stretched it toward the match. An acrid smoke rose as the flame heated her hair.
Joe’s fist collided with Abdullah’s face. The man crumpled. The match sputtered against the cement block floor. Kay drove her foot back against Kamal.
“Kafir,” Kamal yelled. He slammed her head against the wall. A dizzy feeling shot through her. The boy grabbed for the rifle.
“Don’t you ever touch a woman like that.” Grabbing the youth by the shoulders, Joe threw him. The kid crashed against the concrete and Joe grabbed the rifle. “Quick, the drone.”
She glanced at her hand, the keys still frozen between her fingers. The oversized boots flopped around her ankles as she dove for the car. She shoved the keys into the ignition. Joe vaulted over the passenger door.
She shoved the clutch and wrenched the keys. The engine sputtered. Nothing.
Gas? The dash said full. The red letters on the car clock read 10:34. Joe pointed the gun toward the hill where terrorists swarmed.
She cranked the key again and stepped in on the clutch. Nothing. She ground the key. One sputter. With a jerk, the engine went dead. Steam rose from the hood. No!
Inside the shed, Abdullah stirred.
Reaching over her, Joe yanked a lever. The hood of the Jeep popped up. Joe shoved the gun at her and launched himself over the passenger side. Shoving up the hood, he fumbled with hot metal and hotter wires.
With a groan, Abdullah passed his hand over his eyes.
“Dead battery.” Joe held up a corroded metal box. She’d never spent a day in shop class, but even she knew a car wouldn’t start without a battery.
Abdullah grabbed his knife.
“Move over.” Joe hurled the battery at the man and leaped into the driver’s seat. Yanking the Jeep out of gear, he threw the door open and shoved with his boot. The Jeep started to roll down the mountain toward the precipice below.
Kay screamed. Bullets sprayed the Jeep’s tailgate, making a sound like popcorn as they pierced metal. She tried to steady the AK-47. How did one shoot this thing?
Joe shoved the car into gear. The engine sputtered to life.
A lurching movement threw Kay against the dashboard. She gripped the seat with both hands as the Jeep sped at full speed over the rocky terrain. “How did you do that?” She yelled above the wind.
More bullets. Men screamed in the background.
“Stick shift trick.”
“Who drives stick shift?” Dust stuck in her throat as wind screeched by her ears along with the whiz of shrapnel. She aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger. It exploded against her arm as the bullet whizzed off.
Yanking the steering wheel, Joe drove the car left around a hillock of pines. “A sixteen-year-old with no money and twelve siblings.”
The Jeep bounced wildly as they took boulders at full speed. Joe swerved right and left up the hillside.
A shout came from the other side. Men waving guns over the bed of a pickup truck tore around the corner at racing speed. More bullets. A grenade detonated to their left. Gray smoke poured around scrappy pines. With a yank of the steering wheel, Joe jerked the Jeep left, back toward the encampment.
“Where’s the road?” Kay screamed above the dust and wind. She squeezed the trigger again and again, but the men only drove faster.
“I have no idea.” The tires screeched as Joe headed toward village streets and the pickup truck blocked off their escape.
Noise filled her ears, the shaking of glass panes, the roar of unmuffled engines, the rattling of car doors. She dropped the empty ammunition case.
Beneath her, something exploded. The Jeep swerved right of its own accord.
“What was that?” Kay yelled.
“I think we lost a tire,” Joe shouted above the arid wind and the whiz of bullets as the truck drew closer.
Above them a buzzing noise sounded. Kay jerked her chin up. The buzzing increased. Three fiery spots of light appeared in the sky. They circled the encampment. “Drones,” Kay screamed.
Fingers tight against the steering wheel, Joe thrust down harder on the gas pedal.
To the left, Abdullah’s house exploded in flames. Rosna! Alma!
The corrugated metal prison the two women lived in turned into a mass of light and heat. Behind them, people screamed and black clad figures ran out of buildings.
The buzzing noise increased in volume. How many hellfire missiles did those drones carry?
The truck behind them increased its speed. The edge of the village turned to dirt. Joe whipped the wheel. She slid into him as he balanced the Jeep on three wheels.
Louder buzzing. Ahead of them, youths in camo waved guns. Bullets spattered through the sky, but the dust and wind and noise obscured the sound.
“Who are the drones targeting?” Kay screamed above the wind.
“Me.” Joe swerved right. The car wobbled, the wheels more unsteady with each rotation. Dead-looking pines lined the incline. A dirt road spread out in front of them, swerving left and right in switchbacks down the mountain.
More bullets.
“Get your head down,” Joe yelled. The truck behind them gained on them.
Smoke rose from their engine. Deep inside the hood, something exploded. Flames leaped up.
The Jeep trembled to a halt. It rolled backward down the switchback. Gunfire hit the bumper, bullets penetrating metal.
“Run.” Joe bailed out of the Jeep. He pointed to the rocky incline, his voice obscured by the buzzing overhead.
Over rocks, around boulders, Kay stumbled down the mountain, her legs carrying her pitifully slowly compared to the speed at which the truck of armed men hurtled toward their broken Jeep.
Only thirty feet separated them from the road, pointblank firing range.
Bullets peppered the ground at her feet, raising dust. A few seconds more and one would pierce her heart.
Death stared him in the face. Joe’s muscles burned as he tried to lead Kay in a zig-zag path. SERE school had taught him the skills to escape that embassy detention cell, wrench free of the last of the duct tape bindings, but no training could help one escape a firing squad at point-blank range.
A youth loaded a strip of bullets into his AK-47.
Something roared overhead. With a blaze of light, a hell-fire missile descended. The truck exploded, throwing dead men into the air as the truck turned into a fiery grave.
Shrapnel flung out from the Jeep, red-hot metal shards digging into dirt. The smoke singed his face.
Then all went silent. Joe stopped, feet rooted in the briar-covered soil.
Kay caught up to him. Her chest heaved with breaths. The camo pants hung low on her hips, the jacket flapping around her wrists. Her black hair whipped in the parched wind, dirt streaked across her ruby lips. “Was that the drone that hit them?”
Joe nodded. “Quick, back to the cars.”
Kay stared at the smoking metal carcasses where a Jeep and pickup truck had stood. “Neither of those vehicles is going to run.”
“We might be able to drain some water from the Jeep radiator though and maybe find a blanket.” Joe headed up the hill.
The sun scorched the earth, creating a sheen on the dirty ground. Wordlessly, he made a pile of what could be salvaged from the vehicles. A woman’s covering thick enough to be used as a blanket, a single canteen. Their water would run out long before this day’s sun set.
One couldn’t forage berries in a desert and precious few streams existed in the Yemeni mountains.
How long could he keep Kay and himself alive? A week? Two?
They’d not last more than two days if he couldn’t find some kind of stream. He didn’t have a compass or phone so they were going blind. Joe shoved what he’d salvaged into a backpack and swung it over his shoulder.
“This way.” Joe moved off road, through brambles, down the mountain face. Streams were more likely on low ground.
Kay followed him. The smell of gasoline still permeated her clothes and hair. “How could that kid look me in the eye and say that his god demanded death?”
Joe raised his shoulders, shifting the backpack.
“They almost killed you, too. How can you not see the danger of religious thought?”
He jerked to a halt. Resting his boot on a rock, he looked over the desert sand that blew around him across the shrubs and weeds that clung to the rocky ground. No sign of water. Should he tell her the truth? The truth about his life wouldn’t inspire anyone to convert. “I lived the dangers of religious thought.”
Kay stopped mid-stride, his boots flopping around her ankles.
He passed her the canteen. The water would keep them hydrated a few more hours. A dry wind blew around them, yanking at the camo they both wore. He looked out to the sun haze etching across the mountain peaks. If they were dying anyway, he might as well tell her the truth. “The church my family went to growing up was crazy. The teens were brainwashed. They’d probably have done awful things if the pastor told them to.”
“Were you a Westboro Baptist?” Kay stopped mid-swig. A single drop of water dribbled down her red lip.
Thus the judging began. Why did he even tell her this? She’d probably write it into some research paper, one more reason to despise Midwestern Christians. He glanced back up the mountain. Whoever survived the drone attack might very well be headed after them. “The so-called pastor was a failed realtor. He had sex with my sister when she was sixteen. She started drugs after that.”
“Your pastor raped your sister?”
An ache pounded through his head. Years of memories best forgotten shoved into his brain. How many times had Charity called his phone asking for money these last ten years? “It’s not considered statutory rape at that age if the minor consents.”
Motioning to Kay, he started walking across the mountain ground. The delirium of fever still beat against his forehead, a slick sweat sliding over his pulsing back.
With a pounding noise, Kay caught up to him. She held the canteen between two hands. “What happened next?”
“No one but my parents believed her. That’s when they left that church, gave up the polo shirts, stopped the denim jumper thing. All our old friends shunned my sister.” He looked ahead to the valley that stretched out below before another mountain started. One patch of brambles gave way to another in front of them. They had perhaps another five hours of daylight.
“I’m so sorry.” Kay circled her fingers around his hand, but she felt a thousand miles away as he looked on to the mountains stretching out in front of them.
Would Charity still have turned to the drugs if their church had come around her and offered support rather than condemnation? Who knew? Charity had created at least as many of her own problems as others created for her.
“That is so messed up. Why are you still a Christian?”
Thus it began. Good luck ever converting Kay now. He’d gotten her out of a terrorist camp only to die in the desert. He was about as good of a rescuer as a Christian witness. The ground gave way, and he half-scrambled, half-crawled down a ravine. The steep walls would give them some cover if AQAP drove down that road looking for them. He turned back and extended his hand to Kay. “Because of Jesus.”
“Jesus?” The blonde highlights in her dark hair fell around her shemagh. Smoke stained her neck. Even bloody, her lips had a sheen like no other. She gripped his hand and slid down the rocky incline into his arms.
Joe touched her hair, his fingers catching in each strand. Now that she’d heard his story, she’d never convert. They’d never have a future together. Actually, chances looked good for them dying this day.
“Go ahead, tell me about your faith that is so strong.” Hand on his, she clung to him. A noise sounded from above the switchbacks. Gunshots? She stiffened and glanced to the crest of the ravine’s walls. “I could use a little faith right now.”
“My faith strong?” Joe made a guttural noise, half snort, half sigh. “You look at the world. Heck, you look at your own family. If God’s real, why doesn’t my sister believe? She got raised the same way I did.”
“You do have doubter tendencies. Perhaps I can convert you to atheism after all.” Raising her gaze to his, she gave him a wobbly smile. Tears streaked the dirt on her cheeks.
“Sure I doubt. Then, that happens.” Joe pointed over the crest where the incinerated AQAP vehicle gave evidence to the fact that a drone strike had pre-empted their firing squad by mere seconds. “And I think, I’d be dead right now if there wasn’t a God.”
“Chance.” Kay tugged the camo jacket down over her wrists.
“I prefer to call it providence.”
“Prefer all you want. Doesn’t make it true.” A single drip of water dribbled down Kay’s cheek, her eyes moist yet. She clenched her fingers so tight her knuckles whitened.
“We’ve got no more water and miles of arid mountains to traverse with no map. Maybe save your Dawkins speech for another day?” He cinched the backpack tighter across his shoulders.
“You think we’ll die up here?” Kay pressed closer to him, her shoulder rubbing against his chest. The masculine clothing flopped around her feminine frame, those over-sized boots likely to give her blisters long before this night ended. Mere hours remained before the canteen ran dry. Based on this wind, the temperature would fall below freezing tonight.
He touched the pocket of his pants, but felt no familiar knife, all purpose tool, or loaded gun. An entire terrorist camp tracked them so they’d have to avoid the
road. He looked to the scorching sunrays that swiftly turned their precious water into perspiration. “It’s going to take a miracle for us not to.”
Sunday, October 16th, 6:19 a.m.
The coldness of death surrounded her. Only hours ago, the sun had seared her and now the cold penetrated to her bones. Kay’s throat burned.
The morning sun glimmered on the horizon as they trudged on, up one ridge, over a hogback.
Her throat felt too dry to make sound. Her feet swelled inside the too-large boots. No sign of water. They mounted another mountain pass. Her calves burned.
The sound of a motor churned. Kay jerked her gaze down to the mountain pass. In the distance, a truck curved around a mountain switchback. No trees or rocks to duck behind, they stood in plain sight. Besides, they had run out of water.
This truck would be their salvation or their death.
“Quick, cover.” Joe jerked black cloth from the backpack.
“I’d rather dress as a man.” Kay tucked her hair behind her ears, though she had no ghutrah.
“The penalty for cross-dressing is death.”
“How will they even discover I’m a woman?” Kay moved toward the road. Her boots slid on pebbles, scraping against her blistered feet.
“Maybe when those guys search us?” Joe pointed down to the men holding AK-47s who swarmed toward them. “Veil.” He shoved the black cloth at her.
Ugh. Bidding farewell to her last sight of sunlight and the feel of breeze against her hair, she threw the black prison over herself.
Rocks flew here and there as the men charged. Joe raised his voice, one hand held high, as he walked toward them. “Behold, Allah is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.”
“Say what?” Kay hissed in English through the layers of black. Thirst burned her throat with every breath of parched air.
“It’s the Houthi motto. They have a Houthi flag in the back. And shh,” Joe shoved his finger against his mouth. “Best way to get us killed is for them to figure out you’re American.”
“I’m American? You’re American too.” She gestured up, flinging the shroud of black up to her elbows. Oh, she hated veils.
Veiled By Privilege (Radical Book 1) Page 29