by Schafer, Ben
As the urban landscape turned to barren hillsides, I finally allowed myself a sigh of relief. Then I realized that the hard part had only just begun. We were out of the government’s seat of power and were now entering a lawless wasteland of war, starvation, and cruelty on a scale unimaginable for most people. And, instead of avoiding it, we were headed for a rebel stronghold, putting ourselves in the middle of it all.
It only remained to be seen if Rastan was the quiet eye of a hurricane or ground zero for our destruction.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OMAR was right. The military had no patrols on the dirt roads he had indicated. In fact, I saw hardly any traffic at all. It was a strange change of pace from the busy streets of Damascus. We had to stop for a while as some shepherds guided their flock across the road. I kept one hand on the wheel and the other on my SIG the entire time, but my caution proved unwarranted.
“Hey, Omar, isn’t Rastan just south of the Orontes River?” I asked as we started moving again.
I saw the young activist nod in the rear-view mirror. “Yeah, there’s a dam at the northern edge of town. Why?”
“I was just thinking. I mean, anti-government activity is high in this area. Protests have spread in Rastan, Hamah, and many smaller towns along the banks of the Orontes. Kind of gives the old nickname a new meaning, doesn’t it?”
Omar chuckled. “You know, I never thought of that.”
Jamil looked at me. “Wait, what on earth are you talking about?”
The SUV jumped as we skirted the edge of a pothole that could have swallowed up a compact car. “All the rivers here run north to south except the Orontes. It runs—”
“South to north,” Jamil finished. “What about it?”
“Well, because it looks like it runs backwards, a lot of people call it the ‘Rebel River.’”
“And with all the support for the anti-government movements in this area, it’s become less a quirk of geography and more a description of political sympathies,” Azima said.
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“Catchy,” Jamil said. He looked back at Omar. “Maybe your rebel friends should get it printed on some black flags.”
The back roads may have been more isolated, but they also ate up a lot of extra time. The sun was low in the sky when Jamil alerted me from the passenger seat. “Kyle, slow down. We’ve got something in the road up ahead.”
“I see it.” Blocking the road was the bombed-out remnant of a four-door passenger van. As we drew closer to the hulk in the road, six men appeared and began to flank our vehicle. Each man wore a different outfit, ranging from jeans and a ripped T-shirt to a bloodstained and oversized set of army fatigues. But they compensated for this lack of uniformity with heavy firepower, each man holding at least one assault rifle and bandoliers of ammunition. Every man also had his face covered with a scarf or handkerchief.
“Oh, God, what do we do?” Khamilah shrieked.
“Relax. We’re safe. This isn’t a government checkpoint,” Omar observed. “We should have no problem here.”
Nadir scoffed. “Small comfort that will be if they decide to rob us and leave our bodies beside the highway.”
“Everybody needs to stay calm and quiet,” I said. “We don’t want to do anything that could spook these guys.”
Omar was confident that the rebel group that held Rastan would have complete control of the area, but what if he was wrong? What if the Islamic State had taken more territory than he realized? Worse, what if his rebel friends had sworn loyalty to the Islamic State?
I stopped the Land Cruiser a few feet short of the bombed-out van but did not turn off the engine. I noticed the prayer blankets spread out on the hard desert sand beside the road. We must have interrupted their evening prayers, which meant this meeting was starting out on the wrong foot.
One of the men, acting as the visible leader even though he was only five feet tall, pulled down his handkerchief so I could see his face. He approached the driver’s side window. I rolled it down so we could speak.
The man wore green parachute pants, a garish yellow shirt, and a gold chain around his neck. His face was pockmarked and scarred, the results of poor personal hygiene more than combat. There was an old FN FAL battle rifle slung over his back and an even older Tokarev pistol in his hand. He looked as if an Arab knockoff of MC Hammer had been cast as an extra in Mad Max, and everything about the man’s posture screamed barely restrained violence.
“Why are you here?” the man I dubbed Hammer asked.
“We’re simple travelers. We need to get to Rastan for the night.”
“The road is closed by order of the People’s Army for a Free Syria.”
The tension went out of my shoulders. It wasn’t the Islamic State, after all. “Look, buddy-”
“No! The road is closed.” A glob of spit sailed out of his mouth as he screamed. The rebel pointed his pistol at my face. “Turn off the engine and get out.” He looked in the back and added, “All of you get out!” A handful of the armed men circled around the Land Cruiser and opened the doors.
I did as he asked, and I made damn sure that my hands were visible the whole time. These guys seemed jumpy, possibly from drug use. They wouldn’t be the first men at war to experiment with a few chemicals to boost their stamina and alertness. Of course, the ensuing paranoia and itchy trigger fingers were the results that I cared about at the moment.
The others were dragged out of the Land Cruiser and dumped onto the dirt. Hashim cried out. I looked at the bulky rebel, avoiding any direct eye contact that could be taken as a challenge. “Take it easy. We’ve got women and a kid with us.”
“A devious spy would hide behind a child.” He looked to one of his men. “Search them.”
I kept my hands on top of my head and my eyes on the Tokarev as calloused hands began patting me down. “Just to avoid any nasty surprises, I want to let you know I have a pistol holstered on my right ankle and a knife in my jacket.” A set of gnarled fingers reached into my jacket and pulled the Spyderco knife out of the internal pocket, then snatched the satellite phone. I felt the right leg of my trousers slide up as the rebel took my handgun.
Now I was unarmed and out of contact while way outside the parameters of the original mission. It was the most dangerous situation I could imagine. Then they got personal and reached into my pants pocket, withdrawing my reliable iPod and earbuds. Now that hurt, and I wasn’t the only one receiving such treatment.
“Hey, that’s my watch!” Nadir shouted. I twisted my head to look. Sure enough, one of the insurgents was sporting a bright new Rolex on his wrist. And he was wearing it upside down, which just struck me as spiteful.
Hammer grinned, revealing that his war against personal hygiene continued with his gums and the few teeth that remained. “Such trinkets are too expensive for just anyone to own. I think you must work for the government. You must be spies.”
I laughed in his face. Not the brightest idea when a man has a gun to your head, but it had just been that kind of day. “Buddy, you have got things turned around.”
The women were not spared from harsh treatment by the rebels. If anything, the fighters took extra time searching every inch of them for contraband. Azima stood in stoic silence as the men ran their hands over her body.
Fury blazed in me as I saw rough hands linger on places of her body they had no right to touch. But I knew I had to keep a level head if I wanted us to survive. Azima stared at the horizon in stubborn refusal to let such indignities upset her. I expected to see my fiery rage matched in her expression, but instead her face was a mask.
Khamilah, of course, was not taking this quietly.
“How dare you touch me, you brute!” she yelled, slapping the hand of the first man to approach her. Another came up behind her and held her arms while the first man continued to search her with greater force, tearing her garment with his efforts.
That was enough for Nadir. With a burst of speed that caught the rebel fighters unaware,
Nadir grabbed the first man and slammed his head against the side of the Land Cruiser with enough force to crack the glass. The assault had barely registered with the second insurgent when Nadir tackled him and drove him to the ground.
The air was filled with clicks as the rebels switched the safeties on their rifles off. Nadir didn’t seem to notice, his eyes filled with a murderous rage and his hands wrapped around the throat of the man beneath him. The insurgents licked their lips and eyed their commander for permission to kill the attacker.
Tense seconds of silence followed. Then Omar stepped forward and shielded Nadir from the other rebels. He had been silent this whole time, though whether from a sense of self-preservation or shame was not apparent. “This has gone far enough,” he said with steel in his voice. “We have been granted safe passage by Sharif.”
At the mention of that name, the rebels looked at one another in bewilderment. Hammer opened his mouth, but Omar cut him off. “We are not spies, we are not soldiers. Now if you could stop acting like animals for a moment, we are expected in Rastan.” He swept his gaze around the circle of armed men surrounding us, steadily meeting each man’s gaze. “Unless you would like to explain to Sharif why you harassed people who were here as his guests. Guests who are under his protection. Because I am sure that is a conversation that will not end well for you.”
No one spoke. I had a hard time believing this was the same Omar who had been playing games with Hashim in the back seat all day. Among his own people, the nervous kid had transformed into a confident young man willing to place himself in the line of fire to protect others. For the first time, I could see why the Syrian government considered his broadcasts such a threat to their power.
They weren’t just afraid of his message. They were afraid of him.
Hammer, meanwhile, was terrified of Sharif. At first, I thought that Omar was just pulling a common name out of the air hoping that there would be someone of the same name among the rebel forces in Rastan. But from Hammer’s reaction and Omar’s rock-steady stare, they both knew the same man and his temper. Nadir’s warning about trusting the rebels echoed in my memory, but it was too late to turn back now.
The big thug lowered his Tokarev but did not place it in its holster. “Guests usually do not attack their hosts.”
“Hosts usually do not dishonor their guests or their wives,” Omar countered.
Hammer let out a mirthless chuckle. “Sharif did not mention that he was expecting anyone.”
Omar gave the man a condescending look. “Was I misinformed? You see, I thought that Sharif still ran things here in Rastan. But clearly that cannot be the case if he has to run every decision by you, can it?”
“Uh,” Hammer stammered.
Omar nodded. “That’s right. ‘Uh.’ Now I suggest that you have your men move this wreck out of our way so we can see Sharif sometime today.”
Hammer gave a hand signal and his men lowered their rifles. Nadir didn’t move, still fixated on the man who had touched his wife, until Jamil shook his shoulder. The former bureaucrat blinked a couple of times, then wobbled to his feet.
“Go,” Hammer said to me. “Before I change my mind.”
“Thank you for being so gracious,” I mumbled.
I took Nadir’s arm and dragged him away from the rebel fighters. He whispered, “I want my Rolex back.”
“Nadir, we’re lucky to be getting out of this with our lives. Let’s not push our luck.” Despite my admonition, I understood Nadir’s point. Hammer never offered to return my weapons or my satellite phone. I found the absence of their familiar weight unsettling.
As I returned to the Land Cruiser, I watched as Hammer put a familiar pair of earbuds into his ears and began bobbing his head to music. My music. I clenched my fist, but took a deep breath and kept moving.
We piled into the vehicle as fast as we could without spinning our legs in the air like cartoon characters. When we closed the doors, three of the rebels pushed the twisted pile of metal out of our way. It moved with ease, which made sense. It had been designed to be installed and removed in a hurry. The checkpoint wasn’t set up to halt all traffic, after all, just traffic considered to be a threat to the rebel cause.
A little over a kilometer north of the checkpoint, Omar asked to stop. I was hesitant, but we were working out of his playbook here so I did as he asked. Before the wheels even stopped turning he hopped out of the SUV.
And promptly threw up all over the pavement.
I slid the Land Cruiser into park and looked back to the rest of the group. “Stay here.” I exited the vehicle and walked around to Omar. “Omar, are you okay?”
He wretched a few more times. Once he was finished, he looked up at me. “Do I look okay?” he shouted. “We almost died back there!”
“Well, yeah.” I shrugged. “But it’s not like it’s the first time that’s happened today.”
“Are you crazy? Nadir was three seconds from getting riddled with bullets. And these guys are the ones who are supposed to be our friends!”
“Speaking of friends, why didn’t you mention this Sharif guy earlier? Like when we were first stopped?” Omar avoided my gaze and mumbled something under his breath. “I’m sorry, what was that?” I asked.
“I lied.”
Oh. My last meal tried to claw its way up my throat, too. I forced it down with an act of will. “You lied?” It was the only thing I could think of to say.
Omar’s head bobbed. “Just think about it. We’ve been together this whole time. When would I have contacted Sharif to tell him we would be coming? As Nadir so helpfully pointed out, I wasn’t even sure if my . . . if Sharif was still alive.”
“It seems we have an answer to that question, at least.”
Omar barked out a laugh, then groaned. “Yeah. If I had mentioned Sharif and he wasn’t still here, those goons would have assumed we were spies. We would have been executed on the spot. Though I have to say, I was surprised to see such an overtly militant action as that roadblock.”
“Sharif’s more of the non-violence type like Ghandi?”
“Not even close,” Omar chuckled. “But he’s smart. He knows that harassing random drivers like that will only isolate the people, not to mention the unwanted attention from the government a stunt like that could attract.”
I considered the implications for a moment. “So we know that Sharif is alive and kicking somewhere in Rastan, but he has no idea we’re on his doorstep. Not only that, but he’s acting out of character and sending goons to shake down local drivers. Do you think he’ll take us in?”
“It depends on who is really in charge. The Sharif I grew up with was a strict traditionalist who would never turn away a guest in need. But his house has always been a hotspot for the local anti-government crowd. I’m not sure how welcome we would be at a time like this. If the mob rules the city, we may be in trouble.”
“It’s still the best chance we have.” I studied him for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” he growled. He wiped his mouth. “Let’s just get going before we lose the light.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
SHARIF’S house was on the southwestern side of town, only a few minutes away from the checkpoint. Rastan was modest for a city of tens of thousands. We drove through several neighborhoods consisting of flat, gray houses constructed primarily out of cinder blocks and corrugated metal. There were no other cars on the road and very few pedestrians. All the homes we passed had the curtains drawn and every business was shuttered.
That caught my attention. Even at this time of day people should be out shopping or drinking coffee, enjoying their lives. At the very least, we should have run into someone coming home from work. But the streets were deserted.
“Where is everyone?” I whispered.
“Something must have them spooked,” Jamil replied.
“Are we still safe here?” Azima asked.
Nadir smirked. “We were never going to be safe here.”
I expected Sharif’s place to be just another in a long line of these squat structures, but I was wrong. Our destination wasn’t a house. It was a small fortress, completely surrounded by a twelve-foot tall cement wall topped with barbed wire. The only entrance was through a steel gate. Fortunately for us, the gate was open as we approached. A man in black trousers and a matching windbreaker appeared and waved us into the compound.
What looked like a Third-World version of Fort Apache from the outside was actually a cozy setup once we were inside the walls. The largest building was the two-story main house constructed from large stone blocks. A few people were gathered on the small balcony overlooking the whole compound, but if Omar recognized any of them he didn’t mention it. To the left was a two-car garage, and to the right sat a collection of smaller metal outbuildings.
Our guide helped us slide into one of the open spaces on the far side of the compound next to the house itself. I was surprised at the number of cars that were crammed into this space, mostly battered European models from the ’80s and early ’90s. “Is it normal to have this many people gathered here?” I asked Omar.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been here in months. It feels like it’s been years. But at first glance, I can see that Sharif has made some big changes to the place since my departure.” He pointed to a large shed to our right. “That’s new, and so is the barbed wire. Something big must be going on here.”
I stopped the vehicle. “There’s only one way to find out.”
The man who helped direct us into the compound was waiting for us. “Come. I will take you to Sharif,” he said.
“Uh, okay.” Rapier wit, that’s me. I followed him.
“How did you know we were coming?” Khamilah asked.
Our guide kept his eyes on me as he replied. “The patrol radioed ahead. You are a rather distinct collection, I must say.” He shifted his gaze to the bullet-ridden Land Cruiser. “And your choice of transportation is interesting, to say the least.”