Joe stepped into the roadway. She followed him. And walked into an AK-47 barrel. The turbaned man pointed the gun right at her open mouth.
“Take them and shoot them,” a black-bearded man brandishing a lethal amount of firearms yelled.
“I support the Houthis!” Joe leaped in front of her and started speaking in rapid Arabic. The men lowered the guns.
Two feet away, a youth leaned against the rusted side of the truck. He raised a metal bottle to his lips.
Kay stepped closer. “May I have water?”
He glared at her as if she’d just committed some grievous sin.
Kay dropped back as men brandished weapons, and Joe kept talking. Women, apparently not supposed to be part of any Middle Eastern conversation.
The men parted, and Joe scrambled into the pickup truck back. He reached down for her hand. “They’re taking us to their village.”
The black abaya tangled around her legs as she scrambled up. She scooted next to him, her arm scraping against the metal side of the truck as men with guns piled into the vehicle.
Joe handed her a water bottle.
The life-giving wetness rolled down her throat, dribbling over her lips. As the truck lurched into gear, she squeezed Joe’s arm.
Over the next ridge, a little village spread out over the mountainside. Sloping pastureland surrounded mud brick houses
The man with the scraggly black beard pointed to an enclosed courtyard. A black veiled woman stood in the entranceway. Another enshrouded women yanked her into the house.
Joe sprung off the tailgate. He held up his hand to her. “Probably best for you to go with the women.”
Gender segregation, not one tiny bit as beautiful as it had sounded in Cambridge. With a groan, Kay took his hand and jumped off the truck.
Head coverings laid aside, the Houthi women in this house milled around Kay, chatting and laughing. The morning and afternoon had passed and now shadows grew long and still no sign of Joe.
Once again, Kay paced the blue tiles. “Do you know where Joe is? What will the men do to him, to us?”
“I do not know, but you are hungry. Eat.” An older woman smiled, crinkling her wrinkles.
Though she’d offered to help, the women hadn’t allowed it. Middle Eastern hospitality. “Thank you.” Kay bowed her head. The savory smell of murtabak wafted up along with steam from the coffee. She took the omelet-like pancake with her right hand.
“Who is this Joe?” A younger woman with gold hoops in her ears and bangles on her slender wrists moved closed. A baby bump rounded out the red cotton of her dress. “Father? Brother?”
“My husband?” Kay quirked one eyebrow. Hopefully that was the cover story Joe had chosen.
“Do not worry.” The girl laid a hand on her arm. “As the proverb says, if the time has passed, there is no point in preparing.”
Did these women live their entire lives using pessimism to help them accept their imprisonment? Anger flushed through Kay. If she made it back to Harvard, she would expose these gender injustices.
After eating the omelet-like murtabak, she followed the girl to a tiny room.
As the minced meat churned in her stomach, Kay lay on a mat on the tile floor. She counted stars through the peephole.
The curtain parted. Kay startled.
Joe’s shadow fell across her. The mat flew back as Kay leaped to her feet. “What happened? Are they beheading us?”
With a groan, Joe let the curtain fall in place. He sat cross-legged next to her and spoke in whispered English. “The good news is that I used my CIA intel to feed them enough info about AQAP that they believed I was a high up AQAP leader who’d defected. So they’ve accepted me as a brother and offered to get you and me Yemeni passports. They also gave me a cell phone.” Joe held up the Android, the glass screen glistening in the moonlight.
“Wonderful. Wait, can you fly to the U.S. on a Yemeni passport?” She reached for the phone to web search the answer.
Joe let her take it. “The bad news is, I’ve been tasked to lead a raid tonight against the AQAP base we just fled. And I think they’re making me some kind of general. At least that’s what the emir said. They’ve got plans for my next six weeks, and then I’m supposed to lead some kind of invasion against the Saudis, I think?”
Kay grimaced. “Not that the AQAP and the Saudis don’t deserve it after the way they treat women, but—”
“Saudi Arabia is America’s ally!” Joe gestured up through the starlight. “The Houthis are registered as a terrorist group. I’m not even sure I can talk my way out of giving them all that classified info on AQAP.”
“Yeah, about that. How are you going to return to America after the CIA tried to drone you?” Guilt churned around the minced meat. She’d gotten Joe into deep trouble. Without his sacrifice, she’d be dead.
“One problem at a time.” Joe leaned against the mud wall. Neither of them had slept last night.
“Well, let’s go obliterate this AQAP base. We can escape from the Houthis on the route. Steal another Jeep, a few AK-47s?”
“What is this we, kemosabe?” Joe grabbed for the phone. “Terrorists don’t let women in battle.”
“ISIS has the Al-Khansaa brigade.” Rubbing her hand over weary eyes, she lowered herself to the mat. Her heart pounded less with him beside her. Flakes of dirt fell off his boots onto the tile floor. The edge of his jacket brushed her.
He rolled onto his elbow and looked down at her. “Yeah, to beat the women. Not get the glory of the battlefield and the ‘spoils of war.’ ”
“I’ll dress in fatigues. Pretend to be a man.” She reached for the phone he held.
“The penalty for cross-dressing is death!”
She let out a groan. Life as a Middle Eastern woman sucked.
“Besides, you don’t even look like a man.” He flicked her unconditioned, less-than-clean hair. A weary smile moved his mouth up.
A cold feeling clenched her throat. “What will they do to the AQAP women? The children?” Had Alma and Rosna survived that blast?
Joe raised his shoulders in a shrug. “They send the children out, you know, before the airstrikes. Set up their camps in hospitals and elementary schools so the drones will hit them.”
She clenched his hand. “Get out of there alive, ok?”
He tugged her into a hug. His breath blew across her face. She could smell the desert on him as the brambles on his jacket scraped against her arms.
Pushing away from him, she looked up into his eyes. He was going on a land mission against a terrorist base. Every month the New York Times featured a story about a Special Ops guy getting killed in one of those despite all the firepower of the U.S. military. Joe had no backup.
Resting one hand on the mat, he leaned over her and kissed her. The taste of metal clung to his mouth, dust ingrained in every ridge of his lips. She gripped the edges of his open jacket, digging her fingernails into canvas cloth as she returned his kiss. Joe had to come back alive.
His heart beat against her, louder in this silence than any crowd-filled rock concert at Wolf Trap.
“It’s just a few hours by road. I’ll be back for you by tomorrow evening.” He touched her hand, his grip tight, then stood and walked out the doorway. The curtain fell shut behind him.
The moonlight danced on the pallet as she forced herself to lie down. Tugging a blanket over her, she lay there, in this tiny room, in a Houthi encampment, alone.
CHAPTER 28
Three Freaking Days Later
Rain spattered one drop at a time, splashing against dust. Not that she stood outside in it. Oh no. That would require covering, and even when wearing a garbage sack, leaving the four jail walls of one’s house without good reason was considered slutty.
Washing clothes apparently wasn’t a good reason. Kay scrubbed the table linen across the washboard.
“You need not work. You are a guest.” A graying woman smiled at her. A lovely embroidered pattern decorated the trim of her dress.
Kay rolled up the sleeves of the dress the kind Houthi woman had given her. The soap suds rose around her fingers as she plunged the tablecloth back in. “I wish to help.”
“Kay.” A man stuck his head through the opening. Joe!
With a cry, the women scattered and grabbed for coverings. Kay ran toward him.
Drops of water clung to his stiff hair. Mud streaked his camo, burrs knotting the laces of his shoes. Specks of blood clung to his cheekbones.
“What happened?” She clutched his hand and pressed up close enough to him that the English words wouldn’t carry through the air.
He looked at her, pain in his blue eyes. “Most of the camp had fled. Abdullah wasn’t there.”
“What will happen to Alma, Rosna?”
“I think they died in the drone attack.” Sorrow lingered in Joe’s gaze.
Pain pierced Kay’s heart. The girls were both so young. They’d lost everything to the terrorists.
Joe’s eyes hardened. “I saw more documents at Abdullah’s house. I don’t think the attack’s in Denver.”
She couldn’t even begrudge Alma the betrayal. Who knew what Abdullah had threatened her with? “What attack?”
“A terrorist attack is occurring this Saturday on U.S. soil and we have no leads. I was supposed to stop it.” Joe coughed, a depth of anguish in his eyes.
Saturday, the same day she was supposed to meet her parents for a presidential debate. When would she see her parents again? She squeezed Joe’s hand. “You did your best, Joe. You saved me.”
“Not yet I didn’t.” A small amount of the anguish faded from his eyes. “I’m hoping you slept the last three days, because we’re breaking out of this joint.”
“Tonight?”
“I got the Yemeni passports.” Joe touched the pocket on his sleeve. “Booked tickets to Cairo, Egypt, because basically no other airport accepts Yemeni visas. Now we just have to get out of here before I get dragged to meet the generals in Sana’a.”
“Generals?”
“They’ve made me an honorary Houthi and decided I’m their El Cid, the man who will unite their nation and kill all their enemies. In an effort to save our lives, I may have overplayed the whole ‘I’m an AQAP emir and can help you wipe out AQAP bases’ spiel.” He grinned, that same expression shining through the caked dirt and bloody scabs as when he’d looked at her in Cambridge.
A lightness sparked inside her, chasing away the days of fear. “What happens if the Houthis catch us leaving or discover we’re Americans?”
“Judging from what went down in that AQAP camp, I’m thinking beheading. But a firing squad or being run over multiple times with a tractor’s harvest equipment is also an option.”
A footstep sounded behind them. Men spoke.
Turning, Joe switched to Arabic. “As-Salamu Alaykum. Yes, I’d be delighted to break bread with you.”
More men filtered into the room. With a cry, the Houthi grandmother gestured her back into the inner recesses of the house where mangy rats and women belonged.
Forget Dr. Benson’s cultural sensitivity. She hated Middle Eastern gender roles.
Wednesday, October 19th, 6:19 p.m.
Muhammad shoved another date cake into his mouth as Abdullah droned on for the third hour. Had he invited the man to his house?
No way, but here Abdullah sat on his black leather couch. “We had a setback in our Yemen base, but in three days we shall bring the infidels to their knees.” Abdullah took a precise sip of tea. Stray leaves floated in his sugarless tea cup, just like the prophet, peace be upon him, had drunk it, so Abdullah said.
Muhammad shifted on leather and fantasized about casting that tea cup at the man’s head. Abdullah had already made him miss his favorite bodybuilding class at the gym.
“October 22nd is the last American presidential debate before their election. It will be held at Harvard University. When we kill both participants, they will disintegrate into anarchy and we will overtake them like Muhammad overtook the Arabian Peninsula. We have a suicide bomber.”
“Oh.” Muhammad ran his hand across his eyes. He needed a drink. Or a smoke. Also, Abdullah needed to leave.
“The man is a Harvard student and a homegrown terrorist. He wanted to blow up a fertilizer bomb in the basement. Idiot. I’ve put him in touch with our sleeper cell in Massachusetts and funneled him C-4 explosives.”
Why was the man telling him all this?
“Saeed will detonate himself, which will explode the other bomb. The entire Harvard hall will go up in smoke, killing thousands.”
“I have work to do.” Muhammad stood. He was done with terrorism. Now to show the man out the door.
“His professor helped him bypass security and plant the bomb in the foremost seats in the hall.”
Muhammad coughed. “I don’t want to know this.”
Anger flashed across Abdullah’s narrow face. He clenched the couch arm as he spat out words. “You are part of this. If you leave now, I will kill your family. Behead you.”
Muhammad swallowed. The chair gave way to his weight. He’d seen enough gruesome images on TV to know Abdullah spoke the truth. “Yes, Emir. Behold, Allah is great.”
CHAPTER 29
Wednesday, October 19th, 9:01 p.m.
The Houthi patriarch launched into another story as other men piled more food on Joe’s plate, despite his protests. Joe flicked his gaze to the curtain that hung between this men’s dining area and the women’s quarters.
With a steady plunk, rain fell on the roof, only darkness visible outside the window.
“You are a great hero. You will lead the Houthis to victory.” The patriarch raised his withered arm, graying flesh hanging from bone.
A pile of keys from the AQAP vehicles they’d captured lay in a basket by the door. Matching the keys to a vehicle would take time. Joe stood. “I must retire.”
“Tusbih ‘ala khayr.” The Houthis said traditional goodnights, then led him back to a tiny room.
He pushed aside the curtain.
Kay sprang up from a half-eaten bowl of food. “When do we go?”
Reaching into his pocket, Joe pulled out a stolen car key. The metal glinted in the moonlight. He nodded to the window. “Now.”
A quarter hour later, he and Kay stood in a locked courtyard full of vehicles. Once more, he tried the key into yet another car lock. It fit. He slid into the dilapidated driver’s seat.
Kay slipped through the non-existent passenger door and he twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life. He shoved his foot against the gas. Too loud.
Shouts rose.
Time to test how strong that gate was. Joe gunned the engine. The hood slammed against the gate. The metal chain groaned. The hinges creaked, but the gate held fast.
Behind them, the metal of Kalashnikovs reflected moonlight. Yelling, the Houthis ran toward them.
Joe hit reverse. Shoving the Jeep back into gear, he thrust his foot against the accelerator. The hood smashed against the gate. Metal crumpled. Sparks flew.
The gates broke from their hinges.
The Jeep zoomed down the dusty path.
Behind them, headlights flipped on and engines whirred into life.
Gunshots rang out as the Houthis started in full pursuit.
Joe veered away from a tree, then yanked left away from a boulder. Without his headlights on, he could hardly make out the curve of the road.
“I’ve got directions to Sana’a.” Kay held up the Android.
He slammed the gas to the floorboard and veered around some kind of carcass. Ahead, the road twisted and split, dirt changing to pavement on the higher road.
“Right,” she yelled as she gripped the phone like death itself.
He rolled the steering wheel, veering the Jeep left. “Shortcut.”
“Abandoning the main road risks us running out of gas in a desert.” Kay yelled over the roaring engine and blistering night wind.
“We’ve got an entire village
of armed Houthis on our trail,” he yelled back. “Sticking to the main roads will get us killed.”
Minutes ticked by as he swerved around cactus by the light of the moon. No blaze of headlights or noise of bullets.
Joe drove on as the gas in the fuel gauge sank from full tank, to half tank, to quarter tank.
Overhead, the moon rose higher.
“When’s our flight take off?”
“Five a.m.” Joe turned the Jeep up a rocky incline. The main road stretched out ahead, painted lines separating the two lanes. Below them, a city spread out.
Kay looked at the phone. “It’s 4:40 a.m. How long are airport security lines in Sana’a?”
“Here’s hoping shorter than stateside.” Joe shoved harder on the gas. The road turned into city streets.
A truck rolled around the curve. The glare of headlights blinded him. With an explosion of gunpowder, shots rang out. The Houthis!
“Faster,” Kay screamed.
The red line on the fuel gauge slid past empty. Joe shoved his foot against the accelerator.
Buildings cropped up around them, metal construction intermixed with more traditional brick. Heavy water pipelines and electric wires ran across the city. More gunshots.
He veered down a side street. Tires squealed. The rearview mirror revealed Houthis waving Kalashnikovs. The graying patriarch raised his weapon to eye level. Joe yanked the Jeep right as he ground the accelerator into the floorboard.
With a sputter, the Jeep’s engine died.
Thursday, October 20th 4:57 a.m.
Kay’s dress flew around her legs as she leaped from the Jeep. She hit the broken asphalt with a thud. Gunshots sounded a few alleys down.
Joe pointed to where an airport sign trembled in the wind. A concrete structure spread out not two hundred feet away. She ran.
Her legs burned, breath stuck in her throat. Truck engines revved behind them. The automatic glass doors of the airport grew large in front of her. She slammed to a stop.
With a grating sound, the doors began to open, one inch, two inches. She slid through sideways. Sweat dripped around her loose hair, her headscarf fallen around her neck. She thundered to the departures desk. Beyond her, a few sleepy travelers waited in front of airport gates.
Veiled By Privilege (Radical Book 1) Page 30