Sarah stepped up to the counter and peered through the glass at the different baked goods while Aaron shuffled around the small showroom with his hands in his pockets and noted the layout. One open door to the back of the store, he noted. Looks like a small office just beyond the door and another closed door that probably goes to the living quarters. Most of the showroom counters are glass about shoulder height. There’s one area near the office with a wood counter and a counter door about waist high. He walked along the window front. No blinds. Just a metal gate that closes all the way across the front of the store.
The middle-aged woman finished her purchase and left the store. Sarah stepped up to the counter and Abdul-Aziz asked, “May I help you?” in Spanish.
“I’m sorry,” replied Sarah with her slight British accent. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes, of course.”
Abdul-Aziz smiled at Sarah as Aaron stepped to the counter behind her. The baker’s teeth were cigarette stained and his small, beady eyes were fixed on Sarah’s V-neck.
“Do you have any fresh baguettes?” asked Sarah.
“Yes. I baked them myself just this morning,” replied Abdul-Aziz.
He stepped to his left and Aaron made eye contact with him as he did so.
Abdul-Aziz’s glance flickered, then he turned his gaze toward Sarah. “The baguettes are right here.” He then looked at Aaron with a menacing glare.
Aaron picked up a glint of recognition in his eyes. Shit, he made us.
Abdul-Aziz made a quick move toward the door behind the counter and Aaron took three steps to the left, placed his hand on the counter and vaulted over. Abdul-Aziz was a few steps ahead of Aaron and he reached the desk in his small office and opened a drawer and reached in.
Aaron reached the desk while the baker’s hand was in the drawer and slammed it shut. Abdul-Aziz turned his head toward Aaron; his mouth was open and his eyes were widened. Aaron placed his hand on the back of Abdul-Aziz’s head and slammed it into the desktop, then pulled him away from the desk and threw him to the floor.
“Oh my god.” Sarah had stepped behind the counter after Aaron and stood in the doorway to the office.
Aaron gazed toward her. “Sarah, go turn the sign on the door to say ‘closed’ and lock the front door.”
Sarah nodded and turned quickly to do what Aaron had directed.
Abdul-Aziz struggled to his hands and knees on the floor and looked up at Aaron. His nose and mouth were bleeding. He glared angrily at Aaron.
Aaron reached under his jacket and un-holstered his pistol and pointed it at Abdul-Aziz’s forehead. “Stand up,” Aaron calmly demanded.
Abdul-Aziz wiped his arm across his face under his nose and his forearm was covered in blood. “You broke my nose,” he said angrily.
Aaron pushed the desk chair to the other side of the small office away from the desk where a large handgun sat in the open drawer. “Go sit in that chair.”
Abdul-Aziz remained on all fours on the floor. Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out the silencer and attached it to the barrel, then re-aimed it at Abdul-Aziz’s forehead. “I’m not going to tell you twice.” With his thumb, he flicked the safety switch off.
Abdul-Aziz crawled to the chair and sat just as Sarah walked back into the room. She turned her head away when she saw Abdul-Aziz’s face.
“Why did you do this to me?” Abdul-Aziz groaned as blood continued to ooze out of his nose and mouth. “What do you want from me?”
Sarah found a dirty towel behind the bakery counter and was walking toward Abdul-Aziz. Aaron stopped her. He took the towel and threw it to him. “Don’t allow yourself to get close enough to be vulnerable,” he cautioned.
Abdul-Aziz held the towel up to his mouth to stem the bleeding as he sat in the chair. He stared at Aaron with a glint of hatred in his eyes.
“Is there anyone else in the back?” Aaron asked. He tilted his head toward the door to the back of the store. Abdul-Aziz did not answer. Aaron rolled his eyes and raised his voice. “You think I’m kidding?” He stepped over and punched him and opened up a cut under his right eye. “This can only go one way. You’re going to cooperate with me and answer my questions.”
“There is no one back there,” he wheezed.
“Good,” Aaron replied calmly. “That’s better. Now stand up.”
Abdul-Aziz complied and Aaron said, “The problem is I don’t believe you. So now we’re all going to walk through that door. You first.”
Aaron pushed Abdul-Aziz toward the door and into the small kitchen of the residence. He pointed at a table and chairs and told Abdul-Aziz to sit.
“You’re a recruiter for ISIS and you have recently used the name Arbab to recruit a young woman named Yasmin.”
Abdul-Aziz sat quietly with his hand holding the blood-soaked towel under his nose.
“Who pays you for your recruits?” Aaron asked.
Abdul-Aziz did not respond so Aaron stepped closer and coiled his arm with the gun in his hand, ready to pistol-whip him.
“Alright.” Abdul-Aziz raised his hand in defense. “I’ll tell you.”
Sarah walked away and wandered around the rest of the residence.
“I transport them to Paris,” Abdul-Aziz began. “There I turn the girls over to a man whose name I do not know.” He looked directly at Aaron. “That is the truth.”
“Continue,” Aaron demanded.
“This man takes the girls to Syria, I think by boat. In Syria, the girls are auctioned off. The money is deposited in my bank account after the auction is complete.”
“The money is deposited in your local account?” Aaron asked.
“The account is held in the Cayman Islands. I have to transfer the funds from there to my local account.”
“What currency do you get paid in?”
“Usually euro, sometimes the dollar.”
“If you don’t know his name, what does the man you meet in Paris look like?”
“He is tall and thin. He has a beard.” Abdul-Aziz was quiet for a moment. “Soft hands.”
Aaron thought about his next question, then asked, “Where are all the recruiters?”
“Too many places to name. London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Minneapolis. Recruiters are everywhere.”
When he heard this, Aaron stood straight and balled his fist. “Did you say New York and Minneapolis?”
“Yes,” Abdul-Aziz answered. Los Angeles, too.” He chuckled and spit up blood. “You did not know this?”
Aaron’s face flushed. “Do the girls recruited in America get sent to the caliphate and auctioned off?”
“Some. But most stay in America.”
“What do they do in America?”
“I don’t know.”
Aaron put his gun barrel up against Abdul-Aziz’s temple. “What do they do? And why are they recruited?”
“I do not know,” replied Abdul-Aziz. “But I do know the day will come when you will find out, and when the day comes, your nine-eleven will seem like a minor incident!”
“Aaron!” Sarah stood stunned in the back doorway.
Aaron turned his gaze toward her.
“I have to talk to you.” Her eyes glistened.
“You move an inch and I’ll kill you,” Aaron calmly told Abdul-Aziz before he backed toward Sarah. His gaze and weapon were trained on Abdul-Aziz the whole time.
“There are girls in a room down the hall,” whispered Sarah.
“I’m not surprised,” Aaron replied without turning toward her.
Sarah sniffed and whispered, “One of the girls killed herself while he was gone.”
Aaron turned his head and faced Sarah.
“Aaron, the girls are frightened and hysterical.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “They said he raped that girl last night.”
Aaron heard movement and saw Abdul-Aziz move toward the door. He squeezed the trigger of his sound-suppressed pistol and the bullet hit Abdul-Aziz in the right hip and sent him stumbling to the floor. A small p
ool of blood began to form on the floor where he fell. “You son of a bitch,” shouted Aaron.
Abdul-Aziz pushed himself to his hands and knees as Aaron quickly crossed the room. He futilely lifted his hand to cover his face as Aaron sent three successive blows to his head and knocked him unconscious.
Aaron turned toward the doorway. Sarah’s hand covered her mouth.
“Have you talked to the girls?” Aaron asked loudly. “Have they seen you?”
“Yes, they’re back here.” She pointed toward the hallway and started to move in that direction.
Aaron faced her and grabbed her shoulders with his hands and felt her trembling.
“Sarah. Look at me. I need you to be calm,” Aaron said softly. “Together we need to slow down and make smart decisions now.” Aaron waited quietly for a few moments, then leaned in and hugged Sarah. He felt her relax in his arms and she put her head on his chest. After a few moments, he pulled back and looked her in the eyes.
Aaron assessed the problem. Five girls. I expected there would be a few but now one of the girls is dead. That’s going to get the Barcelona police force fired up. Sarah has talked to the girls so they will be able to give a description to the police and they will certainly want to talk to her. “Tell me what happened,” Aaron asked.
Sarah explained that she had walked to the back of the hallway and that she heard sounds coming from behind the door. She had tried to open it but it was locked. She saw a key hanging from the wall and used it to unlock the door.
“Jesus, Sarah, you could have been killed.”
She nodded. “I know. It was dumb.”
Aaron took her hand and led her to the small kitchen table and pulled out a chair for her to sit in far away from Abdul-Aziz. “Go on. What happened next?” he asked.
After she had opened the door, the four girls sat on the beds and held each other tightly. They thought Abdul-Aziz was coming in the room and they were frightened. “I asked if they were alright. One girl spoke some English and she told me they were afraid of Abdul-Aziz. She asked if I was his wife or his sister. I told her I was someone that could help them. Then she showed me a girl alone on a bed. She had slit her wrists while the others slept. She told me Abdul-Aziz had raped her. I told the girls to wait and that I was going to get help.”
“So they are still in the room?”
“There’s no other way out.”
Aaron paced the room. Well, we’ve been exposed; there’s no way around that. The smart play is to cut and run but I won’t do that. He stepped over to Abdul-Aziz who had started to wake and with one hand lifted him onto the desk chair in the room. Blood still trickled from his mouth and nose. Abdul-Aziz glared at Aaron angrily. I’ll sanitize the place, then we’ll let the girls go, and we’ll get out of Dodge. He opened the desk drawers and eventually found a role of duct tape he used to bind Abdul-Aziz to the chair.
“Are you going to let me bleed to death in this chair?” asked Abdul-Aziz.
Aaron ignored him while he continued to search the desk drawers. He found some documents with Arabic writing and Abdul-Aziz’s passport, which he slipped into his backpack. He also found some towels, and with a spray bottle of water Sarah retrieved from the bakery, they washed all surfaces they had touched. When the sanitation was complete, Aaron asked Sarah to go to the storefront and bring the cashbox to the office. “Use the towels so you don’t leave prints.” He turned Abdul-Aziz to face the wall.
Sarah returned with the cashbox and Aaron explained, “Split up the cash in the box. Give that to the girls and tell them to take that money and go back to their homes. Then let them out the back door.”
“What if they don’t go home? What if they run to the police?” asked Sarah.
“That’s out of our hands. I’ll finish up here and then we have to leave Barcelona.” He turned and faced Sarah. “Go. Get the girls out of here.”
Aaron watched Sarah walk down the hall and disappear into the darkness. When he heard the backdoor open and close he stepped over to within a few feet of Abdul-Aziz. He inhaled and raised the Sig Sauer, aimed it at the back of the chair Abdul-Aziz sat in and double tapped the trigger. The bullets ripped through the gabardine fabric of the chair and then shredded the aortic valve and pulmonary artery as they passed through his chest. Abdul-Aziz’s body went limp and his head leaned to one side.
Aaron turned toward the back door and made eye contact with Sarah who stood in the entrance to the hallway. Her shocked gaze stopped Aaron cold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BARCELONA, SPAIN
SATURDAY, JUNE 18TH
4:55 P.M.
Aaron grabbed Sarah’s wrist as he quickly walked through the backdoor. He pulled her along through the shadowed alley behind the bakery and to the side street that led to Carrer del Clot. It was still two hours before sunset and the streets were crowded with commuters returning from work and couples out for a pre-dinner stroll.
Sarah was quiet and occasionally unsure of her footing as she walked. Aaron held her hand tight and felt her hands were colder than normal. She trembled occasionally. There was no way I could have prepared her for what just went down.
“What about the other girl?” asked Sarah softly. “You just left her there.”
Aaron saw a boarded-up storefront a few meters ahead and nudged her toward it. He stepped into the outdoor foyer and held both of her hands in his and gazed into her eyes. “The police will deal with her and notify her family. Under the circumstances, there was nothing else we could do. We need to think of ourselves now and make our escape.”
“You just executed that man,” said Sarah as she backed away. “Cold-blooded.”
Aaron saw a reflection of a middle-aged couple in the window behind Sarah. He turned his gaze toward the street just as the couple walked by and studied Aaron and Sarah with unnerving interest.
“Sarah. We have to go,” Aaron declared. He turned back to face her. “I had to do that. We can talk about this at the hotel but right now our number one focus is to get out of this area.” He stepped closer to Sarah and in a soft, low voice asked, “Do you understand?”
Sarah nodded.
Aaron led Sarah by the hand through a row of parked motor scooters, across the narrow side street, then went another fifty paces and emerged onto Carrer del Clot. There he walked with her at a leisurely pace toward the metro station on the boulevard de Meridiana Avenue.
The rush hour metro ride back to the Gothic Quarter was crowded, so Aaron stood next to where Sarah sat. They both remained quiet during the trip, and several times Sarah wiped a tear, which gave the impression of a recent lovers’ quarrel. Along the way, Aaron perused the faces of the other passengers for any hint of discomfort because of Sarah’s distress. Most passengers embarked and disembarked with their attention glued to their smartphones. A few older passengers read the Spanish newspaper El Pais and left their copies on the seat as they left. No one paid any attention to the pretty woman with the occasional tear.
Sarah’s mood hardened as they walked from the Gothic Quarter metro station back to the hotel room. Aaron picked up his suitcase and placed it on the king-size bed. “We need to pack and check out.” He unzipped the case and opened it, then turned toward Sarah. She sat in the desk chair. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest. He stepped over to the side of the bed nearest her and faced her.
“Baby, I know what just happened was a shock. You seem upset so let’s talk about it.”
“You killed that man. Bang,” she pointed her finger and flipped her thumb to imitate the act of shooting a gun. “No hesitation. Cold-blooded.”
“Sarah. Look at me. I had to do that. I’m already concerned one of the girls may identify us to the police. If that happens we might have to evade the Spanish police or maybe even Europol.” He reached over and touched Sarah’s knee. “I’m hoping that doesn’t happen. But if that isn’t good enough for you, then understand this: If I didn’t kill him, he would have identified us to his people and we would alm
ost certainly have an ISIS hit squad to deal with.”
“I understand, but . . . ”
“Sarah. He deserved to die. You told me yourself he raped one of those girls. Remember the videos you looked at and the manifest that described how those girls would be treated? These people are evil.”
“Yes. I know they are. But, what you did. I guess I wasn’t ready to see that.”
“No, I don’t think you were. I’m sorry you did, but remember, I wasn’t in favor of you being here with me in the first place.”
Sarah raised her glare angrily toward Aaron. “You had to bring that up! I don’t know what to think.”
Aaron put his hand on her shoulder. “Look, we still need to pack and get out of here. Let’s do that right now and go to Paris.” He lifted her out of the chair and embraced her. “Maybe it would be best if we book you a flight back to New York out of de Gaulle.”
Sarah nodded, then stood and placed her suitcase on the bed next to Aaron’s. “That might be best.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BARCELONA, SPAIN
SUNDAY JUNE 19TH
11:55 A.M.
The black and yellow Volkswagen minivan taxi with Aaron and Sarah in the back seat stopped at the bustling drop zone of the Barcelona Sants railway station. The sky was overcast and dark, a storm imminent.
The station was located in the heart of the business district, and for a Sunday morning, Aaron was surprised by the amount of activity on the streets surrounding the station. There was a steady stream of taxis and private vehicles picking up and dropping off passengers. Except for the cavernous terminal area, the large, box-shaped gray office building was mostly dark. Across the street from the drop zone stood fountains and Gaudi-style steps that led down to the lake of the Spanish Industrial Park.
They both wore jeans. Aaron wore a gray shirt and a blue sport coat. Under his coat were his two shoulder-holstered Sig Sauer’s. Sarah wore a white halter-top tied off at the back of her neck under her pony tail. They each carried one mid-size roller bag and a backpack. The driver stepped around to the back of the minivan and opened the hatch, then handed the luggage to Aaron. He paid the driver with cash as he stepped back and stood next to Sarah.
The Monroe Decision Page 8