Veiled by Choice (Radical Book 3)

by Anne Garboczi Evans

  The glory of jihad faded before Kamal’s eyes along with the Mosul airstrikes that still echoed in his ears and the acrid smell of smoke that he couldn’t shake even now that he’d crossed over the Iraqi border to Saudi Arabia.

  He hadn’t achieved martyrdom like so many of the other glorious mujahideen. A mist formed in Kamal’s eyes. All this last year, he’d dreamed of achieving that blessed state of martyrdom, dying for Allah’s glory, and being caught up to jannah paradise and the great rewards of the hereafter.

  Oh well. Kamal straightened his back and swung his rucksack over his shoulder. Islamic State had veered far from Allah’s will. That’s why they had lost the Battle of Mosul. His friends in Al Qaeda like Imam Othman and Abdullah El-Amin had it right after all. Allah’s people were not ready for a caliphate.

  First, the umma of Muslim brethren must seek virtue and work on eliminating the Great Satan. Before launching another caliphate, Allah’s warriors must hide away in places like Yemen and create bombs and sleeper terrorist cells. Someday the black flag would fly over the Washington Monument and Big Ben, but not yet.

  Allah’s work began at home, killing off those Muslims who claimed to worship Allah, but were actually idolaters. Shia Muslims, all Muslim women who only wore a hijab, but let their naked cheeks and nose show, Muslims who took a drink of water during the Ramadan fast, and Muslim children who did not memorize the Koran in its entirety in the original Arabic.

  Accomplishing all that took time though. Now that, unlike the Western ISIS recruits, he’d used his native Arabic skills and Middle Eastern complexion to slip out of Mosul without coalition forces discovering his ISIS ties, he had a different plan.

  Unbuckling his grenade belt, Kamal let it slip through his fingers into the oasis of water that Bedouins frequented here on the Saudi border. The belt sank beneath the dark depths, submerging his identity with it. He tugged out a razor and started shaving by his shaky reflection in the pool of water.

  Tugging off his camo patrol hat, he threw that into the water too and started off toward the nearest town where he could catch a bus to his father’s house. Saudi sand spread around him, making his footfalls uneven as cars sped down the roadway, unhindered by ISIS roadblocks. Everywhere he turned, he saw the disgusting sight of women with only their hair and neck veiled, their eyes, nose, and mouth plainly visible to tempt men to lust after them.

  A purple sheet draped over a wire frame at the edge of a little village. A few other bazaars cropped up around it, marking one of the little Bedouin markets he often went to with his family as a child.

  Another half hour and the call to prayer would sound. Under his breath, Kamal cursed the infidels. He should be honoring this call to prayer at a Mosul mosque with his ISIS brothers. How dare the infidel coalition forces bomb ISIS and drive the holy warriors out of Mosul?

  Islamic State had been peacefully ruling Mosul—after killing off all the Shia Muslims, and Christians, and Jews, of course—while planning how best to conquer the rest of the world and bring Allah’s merciful and just laws to every shore. Islamic State had been planning how to bless the world!

  Then the evil coalition forces had bombed, persecuted, killed, and driven out Islamic State in as bloody a massacre as the Christians’ Inquisition. And people called ISIS the murderous ones?

  Coalition forces were the murderers. A tear formed in Kamal’s eyes as he thought of all the good friends he’d lost—Omar, Raja, the emir. They were all martyrs now, sitting up in paradise with the prophet, peace be upon him. Kamal felt his heart fill with an overwhelming sense of peace.

  Anyway, Allah’s caliphate had fallen, and now was not the time to regain the land. No, now was a time to build bombs and train mujahideen in the secret spaces of caves and isolated villages as Allah’s chosen waited for the day when the caliphate would be restored.

  First, though, he would marry a wife or two and have sons to raise in Allah’s cause as he planned for the next caliphate. Meanwhile, he would reconcile with his father and use his father’s money to defeat the West.

  Nodding to himself, Kamal walked up to the purple bazaar surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds of his home, Saudi Arabia. He would not go back to Yemen. No, he needed to get his university education and learn more about how to assemble weapons and plan a caliphate. He would live the same as his father for the time being in luxurious Western style homes, enjoying all the decadence of Western nations. Someday though, when a true caliphate arose, then he would join the mujahideen again and finally become a martyr in Allah’s cause.

  Tonight though, he wanted a heaping meal of Mother’s shwarma and baklava. Kamal smiled as he gestured to the shop owner who displayed his goods beneath the purple tent. He also needed to dust off his old computer systems book. Had he lost all his levels on his home Xbox yet? Father better not have given the Xbox to one of his brothers!

  Kamal yanked his AK-47 out of his rucksack and laid it on the bazaar’s table.

  The Saudi Arabian trader handed him a shiny new Android in exchange for the weapon. The old man ran his gaze over Kamal’s badly-shaven beard and sunburned skin, then looked in the direction Kamal had come. “You were one of them, weren’t you? An Islamic State soldier.”

  Kamal shrugged. If you admitted to stuff, you risked being sent to Riyadh for brainwashing camp. With Dad paying bribes and throwing around his wasta power though, any sentence could probably get thrown out.

  The trader leaned forward, his ghutra turban falling over his cheeks. “I see Iraq and Islamic State on the news every night. Do you ever feel guilty for what you did over there?”

  Guilty? For trying to make the world a better place? Duh. No. Kamal laughed. “Can I have one of those too?” He pointed to a shiny metal soda can. Man, he’d missed Coca-Cola since he joined the jihadists.

  Epilogue

  Two years later

  The Uptown Apartment Complex

  Denver, Colorado

  Independence, that’s what her mental health therapist had harped on her to attain these last two years. With a sigh, Jessica laid her books by the microwave in the second bedroom in Kaleb’s flat. An envelope containing her first job offer protruded from the cover of her blue Human Physiology and Anatomy textbook.

  It was a good job at Children’s Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, on the NICU wing. She started Monday and she was excited. Outside the window, a flock of geese flew toward City Park. On clear days, she could see the Rocky Mountain range to the west.

  Two years had passed since ISIS and the nightmares had stopped, though she’d needed meds at first to get through the terror. Two years had passed since she’d last felt Kaleb’s lips against her, though she saw him every day.

  Jessica stared at the screensaver on her phone. In the picture, Kaleb laughed as he tried the failed potato latkes she’d promised his mum she’d bring for Ava’s sweet sixteen birthday party.

  True to his word, Kaleb had not made so much as one romantic advance toward her in the last two years. He hadn’t dated anyone else either.

  Tears ran down her cheeks as she clenched the letter she’d received in the mail this morning—the divorce papers she’d requested from city hall. Two years had now passed since their green card marriage, fulfilling the requirements of Customs and Immigration, and Kaleb deserved to have his freedom back.

  Pain stabbed into her heart, then through her second intercostal space, and past her rhomboid major muscle groups as she’d learned for that killer Anatomy and Physiology final. What insane person had told her taking eighteen credits plus clinicals this semester would be totally doable?—oh yeah, Kaleb of the photographic memory. She’d have failed Anatomy and Physiology if he hadn’t tutored her.

  She loved Kaleb, much more now even than two years ago. She loved the way he quirked up one side of his mouth trying not to sound pompous when he explained a difficult textbook passage to her.

  She loved the way he sounded pompous anyway and how he always missed the same hair when he shaved the right
side of his face. Every time she tried to watch a medical thriller on TV, he tore into the factual inaccuracies until she had to switch the channel to National Geographic or PBS. Annoying as it was, she loved that habit of his too.

  None of those things really meant anything though when Kaleb had only married her to save her from getting beheaded.

  A sigh slid through Jessica’s chest, shifting the white button-down top that revealed her neck, chin, and ears, let alone her braid of hair, which slapped against her waist, unencumbered by a headcovering or face veil. Independence, the counselor had told her to strive for. Maybe this aching in her heart was the beginnings of independence.

  She had a lease for a new place. It wasn’t in the best area of town. With Denver’s housing prices exploding, she couldn’t afford even a moderately nice part of town. When she web searched the crime statistics, the numbers had scared her. But hey, it had to be safer than ISIS.

  Thanks to Kaleb cosigning the loan, she had her own car, a Honda Civic with maroon seats, front wheel drive, and only two doors—no back door to lean in over babies’ car seats or make room for diaper bags.

  Something pinched inside of her. She’d hold babies in NICU. The Children’s Hospital position was her dream job and she was independent.

  Ring. A text from a guy she’d met on campus. Ryan. Want to go out for drinks?

  Kaleb had insisted she not wear a wedding ring or introduce herself as married in classes. Even though he’d honored the U.S. Customs and Immigrations Office’s expectations by not dating, he’d told her he wanted her to have as normal a college life as possible.

  No. Jessica shook her head. Ryan didn’t want marriage, didn’t want a family. That’s what she wanted. What she wanted before the trauma of war and what she wanted after the trauma of war. No matter how independent she became, she still had that dream. Tears formed in Jessica’s eyes.

  Ring . A text from Brad, the guy whom she’d sat next to during the last year of nursing classes and to whom she’d actually explained her time in ISIS and the weird situation with Kaleb. She’d showed Brad the city hall divorce certificate last night at her nursing school cohort’s graduation party. He’d told her that she was doing the right thing. Want to have dinner at my parents’ place this weekend? Brad’s text read.

  Brad was a sweet guy, a regular churchgoer too. She’d gone to his church a lot this last year, along with chapel services at her school. Brad probably did want marriage and a family.

  With a sigh, Jessica clicked Close on the texting app. She loved Kaleb. Getting over that would take time. She sniffed back tears as she flipped to her favorite website, an international adoption index. The phone screen filled with picture after picture of kids who needed a second chance in life. A nine-year-old little girl’s picture popped on the screen. Her brown eyes were as dark as Fatima’s. More tears stung Jessica’s eyes. Poor Fatima. If only she could have saved her.

  Perhaps she could adopt this little nine-year-old and give her the life that she only wished Fatima could have had. Her shifts at Children’s Hospital roughly corresponded with school hours. She’d make enough money to pay for after school care.

  Grabbing a tissue, Jessica swabbed at her red eyes. She needed to act normal this last day before she moved out. Kaleb had saved her life at great personal cost and devoted two years to helping her get back on her feet. She certainly didn’t want to make him feel responsible for all the emotions she was feeling.

  No. Jessica blinked into the mirror as she applied new mascara to her eyes. She’d cook cheeseburgers tonight, Kaleb’s favorite, and bake up some brownies and they’d have a good time laughing and being chums as they signed the divorce papers.

  No matter what, she’d not let him see how her heart was breaking over this goodbye.

  The papers sat on the clipboard as Kaleb stared at the surreal image of his own signature crossing the white page.

  “It was a great price. You’ve made a good choice, Dr. Schlensky.” The real estate agent turned the key to the little yellow house and pushed the door open. A few paces down the sidewalk stood a rustic wooden mailbox. Red roses clung to the trellis that arched over the mailbox.

  He hadn’t started out to buy a house today, but here he was.

  He typed in Jessica’s name in his texting app. She popped up first on his frequently contacted list. Can you meet me in Aurora? I just texted you the address.

  In the last two years, he’d gotten to know every annoying quirk of hers, including the way she never screwed the ketchup lid on tight enough, used up all the hot water before he got home from his hospital shift, and watched really dumb TV shows. Despite two years of living under the same roof, they still liked being around each other, which was kind of astounding if you thought about it.

  Jessica’s laugh could light up his most boring day, and he’d had a lot of boring days these past two years taking whatever PRN position he could get after that hospital blacklisted him for so little a fault as disappearing to the Middle East for five weeks with no advance notice. He’d just gotten offered a research position though at Children’s Hospital in their Radiology division. He’d be operating on children with rare forms of cancer and researching cutting edge cures.

  His texting app beeped. Jessica’s number. Sure. Did your car break down?

  No, in fact, his pickup truck stood idling in the driveway in perfect operating condition, thanks to his excellent new, not-a-criminal mechanic. Yes, let’s go with that.

  Be there in a few. Jessica’s avatar showed on the text app. Her hair framed her face, her green eyes sparkling, but no picture could do justice to the amount of life in those eyes. He stood in the driveway, feet spread across a crack in the concrete as he waited for the moment that two years ago he never could have envisioned.

  Twenty minutes later, the revving of a car engine sounded on the suburban street. A Honda Civic pulled into the driveway. The car door creaked and Jessica jumped out of the vehicle.

  Her flip-flops slid under her bare feet, her toenails the same sea green color as her fingernails, but her face drew in his gaze. Light freckles spotted her cheeks now that they were no longer sunlight and Vitamin D deprived. Mischief shone in her bright eyes, the kind of mischief he wanted to spend a lifetime getting to know better.

  For the last two years, she’d been forced to remain married to him in order to avoid being sent back to Iraq and beheaded, so it hadn’t seemed right to say anything to her. Besides, one needed time to make sure one truly wanted to make a lifelong commitment. But today marked the end of those two years, and he was more than sure of what he wanted.

  ####, he’d forgotten the flowers. That’s what he’d intended to purchase when a hawk of a real estate agent had stepped out from the greenhouse and convinced him to buy a house as a proposal gift instead. Also, his apartment lease expired in two weeks. After his landlord had thrown all his belongings in the dumpster while he was in Mosul, he really wasn’t a fan of renewing the lease, which had made the real estate agent’s aggressive marketing even more convincing.

  Crossing to the open car door, Kaleb stood in front of the woman whom he’d fallen in love with these past two years.

  She grabbed her purse off the front seat.

  “Jessica. I want to stay married to you. I want in sickness and health and a lifetime with you. What about it?” She wouldn’t expect him to create a flowery speech or kneel or anything, would she? That was so nineteenth century. He really should have remembered the flowers though.

  Jessica just stood there, one hand on the rolled-down car window.

  A sickening feeling jolted through his consciousness. What if she said “no?” Whipping around, he looked back at the yellow house he’d bought for her, never even considering the fact that she might not want to stay married to him.

  In two weeks, he’d be moving into a house with three bedrooms too many for bachelor life and a ridiculously large backyard.

  “I know this is sudden, but will you think about it?” And no
t hate him that he’d bought a house for her without even showing it to her first. A sinking feeling descended through him. What if Jessica did say “no?”

  She laughed, the sound bubbling up from inside her. “I don’t need to think about it.”

  Despair fell over him. He’d lost his chance. Her weekly counseling sessions had finally kicked in and she’d decided to embark on a normal twenty-something life rather than her crazy dreams of a house and a family before she even turned thirty.

  He was too late. Perhaps she’d already found an undergrad boy her age at nursing school who had asked her out on a normal date with no U.S. Customs and Immigration inquisitions involved. If only he had known what he’d been given that day a terrorist shoved a bride through his door, and pursued Jessica then. He’d missed his shot.

  How fast could he sell a house? He couldn’t live here and go crazy thinking about her every day. Thinking of how her wavy hair framed her face, or the times she put the weirdest toppings on homemade pizza, or how she—

  “I’ve wanted to build a life with you ever since you held me in your arms that day in the Mosul house with airstrikes exploding overhead.” Jessica beamed at him.

  “I thought you got over that in your therapy.”

  She scowled. “It’s not dependent personality disorder to fall in love or want a family. I don’t have to be Margaret Thatcher just because it’s the twenty-first century.”

  “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make you mad. That would be kind of against my best interests right now.”

  She reached out and touched his hand. The fire of her hair fell around his fingers. She was saying yes!

  “I can’t give you a wedding because of U.S. custom officials, deceiving the govvies and all that, and I already gave you a diamond, again to deceive custom officials, but may I buy you a house instead?” Actually, he’d already bought her a house, without asking. Denver real estate agents were more pushy than used car salesmen.