The Jeep high-centered. The wheels spun. A boulder fell in front of them. Debris hit the windshield. Shatter lines ran through the glass. Jumping out of the Jeep, he shoved with all his might.
“Hit Reverse,” he screamed above the roaring noise. Gunfire exploded somewhere a street or two over.
Jessica leaned over the steering wheel and pulled the gear shifter. Nothing. He drove his shoulder against the Jeep. Behind them, a building collapsed, blocking their path. Jessica hit the gas, but the Jeep’s wheels only spun.
“We’re not making it out of this alley,” Kaleb said. The words thudded against his chest.
Sheets hung overhead and he had no idea where he was. From the sound of gunfire, the coalition lines couldn’t be far, but that didn’t mean they could reach them. Behind him, ISIS soldiers ran toward the Jeep shouting.
An ear-rending explosion shook the ground. Flames flew up from the hunchback mosque. A cry rose, as if the entire city collectively called out in pain. That mosque had been the city’s landmark for almost a thousand years. The hunchback they called it.
The very ground trembled. Debris fell over the road, blocking the ISIS soldiers’ path toward them. Then all went silent, not even the noise of gunfire sounding from the frontlines.
“What just happened?” Kaleb looked at Jessica. Debris fell from buildings, clogging up the road in front of them. Dust and soot blew in the suffocating breeze.
Wide-eyed, Jessica looked at him. “ISIS has killed Mosul.”
This was their chance. Cross the lines now while coalition forces and ISIS were still in shock.
Grabbing the Jeep’s back door, Kaleb threw it open. He grabbed Ava’s arm and looked to Jessica in the front seat. “I’ll carry Ava over the line and then come back for you. Keep the AK-47 close.”
“I’ll walk.” Jessica grabbed the door handle. Her foot hit the ground. Her whole body shook. Pain radiated across her face. She let out a moan.
“You can’t. You’ve got a bullet in your hip and next to no blood in your body.” Kaleb jumped to steady Jessica. He couldn’t carry both of them.
“You try being in labor for three days with no painkillers and an incompetent medical staff, then tell me what kind of pain I can’t make it through.” Jessica quirked half a smile, perhaps the last smile in this life before being gunned down by an ISIS or coalition force bullet.
Hauling Ava up into his arms, Kaleb headed toward the line. One step, two, a dozen. Across the street, men in coalition uniforms stuck rifles over a concrete barricade.
Behind Kaleb, a grenade exploded. Debris flung through the air. ISIS bullets whizzed around them again.
A coalition soldier pointed his rifle at Kaleb’s head.
“We’re civilians. Don’t shoot,” Kaleb screamed above the noise of explosions. He lunged for the line.
The soldier moved his finger to the trigger.
“We’re fleeing ISIS. Fleeing!” Jessica cried in Arabic. She threw the AK-47 to the ground.
The coalition soldier grunted and gestured them forward with his other hand. Jessica dove behind the concrete barrier. Kaleb scrambled over the wall, still carrying Ava. The smell of smoke filled the space as the noise of rifles firing sounded around them. ISIS bullets ricocheted off the barrier from the outside.
“Interrogate them,” a coalition commander said, “See if they are ISIS. They look too well-fed to be civilians.”
A soldier grabbed Kaleb’s arm and yanked him away from Ava. “She needs medical care,” Kaleb yelled. “They both need medical care.”
A coalition soldier clicked handcuffs tight against Kaleb’s wrists.
Jessica tried to catch Ava. Her hip gave out. Ava fell. “She can’t walk,” Jessica yelled in Arabic. What would they do to Kaleb? He was male, and the Iraqi forces were known to shoot first, ask questions later with men suspected of being ISIS. Who could blame them after how many of these soldiers had lost their lives to ISIS men pretending to surrender, then blowing themselves up?
One soldier picked up Ava. “Put these two in the holding cell.” He pointed down the line. Another soldier grabbed Jessica’s arm. Explosions ripped through the air. One street turned into another as fire shot through Jessica’s leg with each step. Fear caught her, constricting every muscle.
If only she could fall to the ground and curl in a fetal position, but the coalition soldiers spurred her on.
At last, the sound of gunfire faded, though a haze still covered the air, and the boom of explosions sounded to the west.
“What’s your name?” A soldier yanked her face veil off. Jessica’s headscarf fell from her hair, her face exposed to the sun as dozens of soldiers looked on.
Another soldier came up and grabbed the man who carried Ava. He said something and the man turned left with Ava.
“Where are you taking her?” Eyes squeezed almost shut, Jessica tried to block out the blinding light of the sun as her head pounded. “She just had surgery,” Jessica said, her voice weak as she struggled for breaths through the fog of pain.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” the coalition soldier looked down his crooked nose at her, “but her brother had some kind of pardon for him and her. We’re turning her over to the Americans.”
Relief swept through Jessica. Ava would get medical care and go home with Kaleb. They were both alive and safe. Soon the Schlenskys would be returning to America. Tears streamed down Jessica’s face.
The soldier shoved her forward.
Her leg gave out. She grabbed the soldier’s arm. He hustled her on.
At the side of the streets, newly-liberated civilians gathered. They cat-called at her as the soldier drove her on.
A rotten piece of fruit smashed against her torn robes. More projectiles launched through the air. Rancid tomato bits splattered across her uncovered face.
Civilians cursed in Arabic. “You beheaded my father,” a man screamed.
The people looked emaciated, their skin sagging from hollow cheeks. How many years would it take for these people to rebuild Mosul?
She couldn’t blame them for hating her. She could only hate herself. Jessica’s hair fell around her shoulders. She walked head bent as the slurs pounded against her harder even than the rotten vegetables the citizens of Mosul slung.
A woman hurled a stone. It smashed against Jessica’s stomach. She doubled over. Her knee hit the concrete.
“You made my daughter marry an ISIS soldier,” the woman screamed. “Now her two children are illegitimate and she’s counted as a prostitute by our neighbors.”
ISIS marriage certificates were not recognized by any country, Kaleb had said. And in Iraq, the penalty for extra-marital relations was often death. Jessica struggled to her feet. An AK-47 drove into her back.
On and on the civilians listed the crimes of ISIS, not things she’d personally done, but things she’d become responsible for by joining ISIS. Blood trickled through the gauze on Jessica’s leg as the bullet wound reopened.
Bringing her hands up to her face, Jessica tried to block the projectiles. If only she could block her ears from hearing the tales of all the suffering these people had endured because she and others like her joined ISIS. She slid on a rotten fruit peel. She fell onto the broken road surface.
She shoved one hand against the concrete, attempting to stand. She screamed, but her leg refused to move.
Rough hands touched her. A coalition commander threw her over his shoulder. “Hurry, get the ISIS widow behind bars before she’s lynched.”
“Does it matter?” Another soldier wrinkled his nose as he stared at her uncovered hair. “She’s getting executed for joining the terrorists anyway.”
“Unlike the terrorists, we shall follow the law.” The commander drew half his troops to the side, physically blocking the civilians as the commander sped on, half-carrying, half-dragging her through the light of the setting sun.
Jessica’s body went cold. She could barely move her arms. Fear consumed her. The coalition forces
threw her in a cell.
A soldier shoved a plate of vegetables and rice through the bars. “More food than you allowed our people in Mosul. My sister and her husband are dead because of ISIS.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jessica whispered. Gaze on the hard stone, she tried to gag down the food and water.
The jail cell flung open. Another man walked through the door, wearing an official-looking jacket. His voice blared against her ear. “What’s your name and nationality? Look at me, girl.”
She grabbed the wall and tried to stand. Her feet slid against reeking slime. “Jessica Walker. British.”
“Did you come to ISIS territory of your own free will?” The man spoke rapidly, no time for delays.
“My boyfriend invited me, sir. I only came because he told me to.” Jessica held her breath, blocking out the stench of the many unwashed bodies who had spent time in this cell before her. Where were they now?
“Court adjourned. Verdict guilty.” The man turned on his heel.
That was the judge? Jessica’s heart pounded in her throat. “But, sir,” she cried.
“You will be beheaded tomorrow at sunrise.” Moonlight streamed through the high window, into the makeshift jail cell, falling against the man’s clean shoes.
Fear shook through her. She wanted to vomit. Her bowels upended. “I want to talk to the British embassy! I want to be extradited.” She was a U.K. citizen!
“Sure.” The judge twisted and yelled into the next room. “Ambassador.”
Footsteps sounded and a man entered. He wore a collared shirt and pressed dress trousers.
“Another one from your country.” The judge pointed to her.
“Good evening.” The man spoke in native British.
“You’re from the embassy?” Jessica’s breath caught.
The British man nodded. His wrinkled his nose as the stench of the cell greeted him. “Were you married to an ISIS fighter?”
“Yes, a British citizen. He died last year.” Jessica’s lower lip trembled. “I swear I only came to ISIS territory to marry him. I never would have otherwise. We had a baby.”
“What did you do after your husband died?” The embassy worker rattled off the questions in a monotone, as if he’d spoken to dozens of British citizens who’d joined ISIS today. He raised one shoe and scraped the sole against the stone cell wall.
“She joined Al-Khansaa. We questioned the other ISIS wives and they all confirmed it.” The judge took off his sweaty hat and mopped a handkerchief over his brow.
The embassy official twisted to the judge. “We don’t want another terrorist back in Britain. Let your court system work justice.” He marched out of the room.
“Please sir, I never meant to hurt anyone.” Jessica’s unwashed hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her thigh burned where the bullet dug into muscle. “I saved lives in Mosul! I let a captive Yazidi woman go. I saved a civilian child. I helped an American spy call in airstrikes against ISIS!”
“Silence.” The judge slammed the cell door shut. He stuck his nose through the bars in the door’s window. “Make your affairs right with Allah, if you can. You die at sunrise.” The tromp of his shoes striking concrete echoed through the jail cell as he disappeared from sight.
Outside the bars, away from the stench of human excrement, the brilliant Iraqi moon dropped down toward the horizon. Jessica shook. Her little boy would have turned three this summer if he’d lived. Would she join her baby tomorrow morning in death? Where would she go for the afterlife? Terror numbed her fingers.
“Allah, Allah,” she called, prostrating herself on the fecal-matter-stained tiles. She bowed and prostrated herself, bowed and prostrated herself.
No answer. Allah didn’t promise to take one to paradise. You had to work hard enough, do good things. She hadn’t even kept the Ramadan fast, let alone done good things. She’d joined ISIS, worked in Al-Khansaa, been responsible for so much human suffering. Her own little boy had died because of her choice to take him away from medical care. Jessica’s hands slid out from under her as mire spread up to her elbows.
At dawn, she was going to meet her maker. Her heartbeats turned to rapid palpitations. Her clammy skin became so cold she couldn’t feel her legs. Jessica scooted to a seat on the rancid floor and hugged her knees to herself. She shook on the concrete pavement. The scent of urine clogged her senses.
“Jesus,” she called out, voice tiny as she prayed to a God she hadn’t talked to since age seventeen. “Are you listening?”
Evening wind whipped through the high window.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for everything I did. Is there forgiveness with you?” If there wasn’t, she had nowhere else to turn.
Silence hung in the cool air. Her head pounded as she longed to lose consciousness, but couldn’t.
“Can you welcome me into your arms the same as my innocent son despite everything I’ve done? Can your blood wash me clean? I want your salvation. I want it!” Her voice came out like a scream. She dug her nails into the floor.
A pile of dung soiled her robes as the scent of filth and disease overpowered her and rotten fruit pieces clung to her prostrated body. Her throat stung.
Then, water like the Tigris in flood stage swept over her, the fresh scent of churning brook and fragrance of daffodils in spring filling her senses as the water cleansed the filthy locks of her hair and washed away the sweat and grime and stains until her rancid black robes shone a piercing white.
A Bible verse a children’s teacher had read to her another lifetime ago in that little white-washed church rang in her ears. Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest.
Was that why all the Christians she’d met were so complacent? Because the price had already been paid and there was nothing left to do.
Slowly, Jessica rose to her knees in the barred space that reeked of human stench. The cell wavered in front of her as her aching brain struggled to process the sentence she’d been given.
She was coming at dawn tomorrow.
CHAPTER 25
Phew. Breath whooshed from Kaleb’s lungs as he stepped into the hotel room in liberated Mosul where the annoying hum of outdated air-conditioning sent luxuriously cold air over his face. Moonlight shone through a crack in the curtain as he soaked in the feel of peace.
Across from him, a snoozing noise emanated from beneath the flowered bed cover, proving that his sister was alive, not hemorrhaging from a teen pregnancy, nor married to a pedophile. Ava should be in a hospital. He took out a blood pressure cuff and leaned down to check Ava’s vitals.
“It hurts.” Ava rolled over and groaned, but her vitals were stable.
“Where’s Jessica?” Kaleb felt his hand tense. He’d asked all over for her, but no one had spoken English.
“The guards took her somewhere else.” Ava let forth a sleepy yawn. He’d obtained Percocet for her and a prophylactic shot of antibiotic. Ava curled into a tighter ball. “I think a hospital maybe.”
“Which hospital?”
Ava opened her mouth and made a sleep-filled noise. “I don’t know. They split us up by our countries. There were people from all the countries’ embassies there before the soldiers brought me here.”
Jessica had already made contact with the U.K. embassy then and was working on extradition. Laying the blood pressure cuff on the TV table, Kaleb sat on a lumpy couch.
His shoulders slumped against the worn fabric as a sigh passed through his lungs. He would have liked to say goodbye to Jessica and thank her before she returned to British soil. She had a remarkable spirit and she’d survived three years of ISIS with her sense of compassion still intact, which took guts. He and his sister would both be dead if not for Jessica’s quick thinking and self-sacrifice.
Speaking of which, perhaps it was for the best that he wouldn’t have the chance to say goodbye to Jessica. She had some weird PTSD-motivated ideas about the two of them having a future together just because a terrorist organization had thrown them under the same roof. She was pr
obably in surgery tonight for that bullet wound.
Tomorrow’s light would see Ava back on a plane to Mom and who knew how many thousands of hours of necessary therapy. He’d land in Denver with her and set about buying a new truck, salvaging whatever water-damaged furnishings his landlord might have neglected to throw in the dumpster, and seeing if he still had a job. His position at ICU paid well and he had a med school loan and a credit card bill due next week.
Wait, Kaleb stared at the date on his phone. Those bills’ due date had already passed while he’d been racing around occupied Mosul with unsanitary sharps memorizing Koran pages.
How much interest did he now owe? He needed to call the loan office. How much of a late fee did they charge? Had his bills gone to collections?
His phone, his real phone that Joe had returned, which contained email, GPS, and ATM capacities, which he’d already overextended buying his and Ava’s plane tickets, beeped. You have 475 new messages. An email with his employer’s name popped into his inbox.
The peaceful feeling drained from Kaleb into the lumps in the couch cushions as he sat bolt upright.
Was he fired? He hovered his thumb over the Open Email icon and swallowed hard.
The email popped up on his phone’s screen. His gut wrenched. He was fired, like “we’re putting you on a blacklist and telling all the hospitals around here to never hire you again,” fired.
He threw up both hands. His phone bounced against the couch cushions. He had bills to pay. He glanced to his little sister. Ava rolled over, pulling the flowered bedspread up over the sheet.
Ava was worth losing his job over, absolutely worth that, but he also didn’t care to starve in the streets this winter. All the deadlines for his research applications had passed by now too, and he’d only gotten that first application in for the dream position he’d never get.
Glumly, Kaleb stared at the backlit screen as the blue light flickered off the dark walls. Another emailed popped on the screen. What?
He’d gotten a job offer, better than that, he’d gotten the research job offer he never imagined he’d be offered. The premier hospital in Taiwan wanted him to join their staff for a year. He’d have access to the best technology of the East as well as the West.
Veiled by Choice (Radical Book 3) Page 20