Instead, unease crossed Jessica’s eyes. She lowered her voice, but even her whisper possessed desperation.
What right did she have to sound desperate? Jessica had chosen this life.
“I didn’t know about all the killings before I came to Islamic State. I’m not part of that.”
“You’re Al-Khansaa. You are paid to beat, kill, and torture.” Rosna’s handcuff clanked against the metal bedrail with each movement. The woman deserved to rot in a pit. She only hoped that daesh saw some punishment in the hereafter.
“I do the least violence that I can. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Tears formed in Jessica’s eyes.
How dare the woman pretend to have a heart? She was daesh, Al-Khansaa. Women like that, wives of ISIS fighters, had called her sabaya sex slave and given their approval as their husbands raped her.
A tear rolled down Jessica’s nose. “I don’t have a choice.”
“You are not chained to this hospital bed. You are holding a lethal weapon. You have a choice.” Rosna screeched the words.
Jessica crossed her arms, shifting the gun over her shoulder. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand.”
“Be silent, sabaya.” The sting of Jessica’s blow slapped across her cheek.
Rosna’s jawbone rattled in its socket.
Ring. A corded phone buzzed against the wall. With the long strides of a soldier, Jessica marched across the room. “Hello. Room 421.”
A voice blasted from the phone receiver, loud enough to fill the sterile room. “This is Rosna’s owner. Is she prepared for discharge?”
The pain swept back over Rosna as terror blocked any effect of the morphine. She couldn’t move.
Jessica cast an uncertain glance at Rosna. Chagrin shone in her eyes. “Not really, sir. She should stay here another night at least. The injuries she sustained are severe—”
Anger heated Kamal’s voice. “I am driving over to collect my sabaya now. Have her ready.”
CHAPTER 10
With a flying leap, Ali made the stupidest decision of his life and dove across the barrier separating coalition forces from the daesh line. What the heck was he doing?
A bullet penetrated his leather jacket. Ali touched his finger to the hole that had ruined thousands of dollars worth of leather as he continued darting down alleys, avoiding the main streets in occupied Mosul. He was a smuggler, not some rescuer of the innocent.
No smuggler took on a job like this, well at least not for as little motivation as twenty thousand dollars. Ali ran east over broken sidewalks and past the rubble of what used to be houses.
Where would he take Rosna when he found her? If he found her. He’d never get her out of this city in daylight.
Smoke clouded the sky as the constant noise of gunfire filled the air. Ammo casings and the debris left from mortars covered the bullet-riddled concrete.
Blue and orange painted garages shimmered in the heat ahead. Tens of thousands of houses filled these streets. How was he ever supposed to find Rosna?
The throttle of a car engine sounded in the street ahead of him.
Ali whirled as a daesh police car rolled up behind him.
“Your papers.” A daesh cop rolled down his car window.
Papers? Ali scanned right and left. The man had a gun. He was already zero for two at outrunning bullets today and there was no way that luck was lasting.
The daesh cop stepped out of his car. “Your papers?”
Ali dug forward with his fist. The cop leveled a revolver. Grabbing the man’s wrist, Ali twisted it.
The daesh cop plunged his elbow into his stomach.
Wincing, Ali tried to keep his grip on the gun. The man fought against his grasp.
From the vehicle, daesh chatter came over the police radio. A woman found unaccompanied and beaten, a man stoned for attempting to escape Mosul, an orphan executed for stealing bread. Backup coming this way! Ali drove forward with his elbow.
The cop crumpled and his pistol slid to the ground beneath the car. An open phone lay on the police car’s front seat. Ali dove for the gun and grabbed the phone.
Shots rang out.
Taking cover behind buildings, Ali returned fire. His bullets clipped the pursuing police car’s tires. The car ground to a stop.
Ali’s pistol’s slide locked back. Out of bullets. Dropping the gun, Ali ran.
When he no longer heard pursuing footsteps, Ali held up the daesh cop’s phone. He flipped through the contacts. Every daesh soldier was registered by phone number.
Under K, the name Kamal Al Harbi appeared. With sweating hands, Ali dialed the number.
A voice spoke through the receiver. “Bismillah, this is Kamal.”
Ali looked left and right. Only an old man sat in the empty street. “Well . . . I was calling about the sabaya we all were searching for.”
“I’m not selling.” Kamal raised his voice. “You’re the fifth mujahideen to ask.”
Fortunately, the man hadn’t asked his name. Did Kamal have Caller ID? Hopefully not. How did he get the man’s address? “Let me come to your house and drink tea with you.” Ali stretched out his right hand awkwardly. That sounded lame even to himself.
Kamal yelled through the airwaves, his voice exploding into Ali’s ears. “ It is haram, forbidden for anyone but the owner to use a sex slave. All of you who have asked are as bad as unbelievers. She is in the hospital where she will stay until she comes home to me.”
Hospital. Perfect. Ali clicked End Call and fumbled for the maps app. A document popped up. Addresses of all mujahideen. That would have been useful before he called Kamal.
With a few clicks, Ali got the maps app loaded. The phone spoke. Seven minutes by foot to destination. Sweet.
Soon the towering concrete wall and shining glass of the Mosul hospital complex dominated the skyline. Gray smoke tinged the concrete and ragged glass marked broken and boarded-over windows.
Pulling his collar up higher around his neck, Ali strode to the entrance. The double glass doors opened before him.
An orderly sat in the reception area, nose wrinkled as he slowly chewed the end of a straw.
Lunging across the desk, Ali grabbed the man by the throat. “Rosna Jaziri, a Yazidi. Where is she?”
“I do not know. Please, I pledge I do not know.” The hospital orderly shook in his white uniform. He wore no ISIS badge on his lapel. More than likely daesh had compelled him to serve.
“Look.” Ali stabbed his finger at the computer behind the man. A crack ran down the glass screen, leading to the coffee-stained desk it sat on. The walls of the building vibrated from the never-ceasing mortar fire. A suffocating dust spread over everything.
“The Yazidi girls are only registered by their owner. Tell me her owner’s name and I shall gladly look it up.” The thin man’s knees knocked, his glasses wobbling on his nose as he clenched his ID badge.
Ali gritted his teeth against each other. “Kamal Al Harbi.” Behind him, the glass doors gave a clear view to the street and he had no weapon. How long until someone sounded an alarm?
“Ah yes, the sheik’s son.” The orderly started tapping thin fingers against the keypad as he hunched over the dusty desk.
Surely Kamal wasn’t Sheik Al Harbi’s son? Ali’s hand dropped to the desk. Why would a man give up his people, his wealth, and everything Ali had ever coveted to live in a dirty house surrounded by mortar fire?
“Here, I see her.” The orderly scrambled toward the desk. “Room 421 on the women’s floor. Always happy to help.”
A tiny ding sounded from beneath the desk. Ali threw the orderly against the computer. Underneath the desk, a round panic button glowed red.
No!
The orderly crawled for the sitting area. “I had to. Daesh would kill me!” He scooted himself under the table.
Alarm bells sounded in the overhead speaker.
To the left, a small sign read “stairs, this way.” Ali hurled the metal door open and sprinted
up broken concrete steps.
The orderly’s squeal followed him. “You can’t go up there! Al-Khansaa patrols the unit.”
The stairs curved back and forth as he lunged up them, weaponless. Second floor. Third floor. His lungs burned. How long until daesh soldiers arrived at the hospital?
He grabbed the fourth floor door handle. Past the doorway, a thick blue curtain blocked his view.
He pushed open one side. Women’s robes and face veils hung across the empty hallway. Noises came from the many rooms. The tromp of footsteps sounded around the corner. He flung a robe over his head.
It stopped half a meter before his Gore-tex boots. Would anyone believe that the six foot five inch man underneath the abaya was a woman?
With a glance at him, the Al-Khansaa soldiers patrolling the hallway marched on. Ali sprinted down the hall.
Room 421, the orderly had said, if he could be believed. Ali ripped open the curtain separating the room from the hall.
Inside the room, Rosna lay in a cot hooked up to an IV with bandages winding around her at every angle. A coarse green blanket fell crossways over the rickety bed.
Rosna gasped. She looked in no condition to walk.
“Ready to break out of this place?” The black cloth fell off Ali’s shoulders as he ran and grabbed her.
The metal of a handcuff pulled her short. Her wrist puckered beneath the too-tight metal.
“Where’s the key?” Ali jerked the bedrail the handcuff locked around.
The metal held fast.
“I don’t know.” Rosna’s voice quavered.
Something clicked. Rosna gasped. Ali spun around.
In the doorway, stood a black-clad woman holding a Kalashnikov. The woman pointed the rifle square at Ali’s head. She moved her finger toward the trigger. She stood too many paces away for him to lunge for the Kalashnikov.
Death stared Ali in the eyes. He’d come back to Mosul to die. He should have stayed away. Go and do likewise the man robed in light had said. He’d tried.
Terrible idea. He shouldn’t have listened to the blasphemous dream.
Thanks a lot, Jesus. I knew you were just some lower prophet, not actually the son of God who could save my life from daesh.
The Al-Khansaa woman dropped her hand from the Kalashnikov. “Here,” she tossed a key through the air. “For the handcuffs. Escape quickly, Rosna.”
The key clanked. Rosna threw off the chains.
Ali leaped for the Kalashnikov before the woman could change her mind.
The woman shoved the rifle into Ali’s hands.
Throwing the Kalashnikov’s sling over his shoulder, Ali ran to the window and fumbled for a latch. The pane held fast. He slammed the butt of the AK-47 against the glass. Shards sprayed across the tile.
Rosna glanced back at the woman. “Will they kill you, Jessica?
The woman’s voice trembled. “I don’t know.”
Crack. Ali swung the butt of the Kalashnikov down. Blood spurted from the woman’s temples as she fell. This Jessica’s head thudded against the tile.
Rosna gasped. Bruises covered her lovely skin, a sunken look in her vivid blue eyes.
“I did her a favor. If she’s unconscious, daesh is less likely to kill her.” Ali strode back to the window. Three stories lay below him.
Ring. The hospital phone vibrated against the wall. They had to get out of here! Ali fumbled with the bed sheets. The thin sheet slipped against the coarse blanket, refusing to knot. In the hallway, footsteps sounded.
Rosna placed her hand in his, her skin as smooth as a flowing brook.
“We’ve got to climb down.” Ali pointed to the narrow concrete outcroppings that a man might be able to get a foothold on. “You’ll need some strength to keep from falling.”
A wheezing noise issued from Rosna’s lungs. She clasped the bandages that surrounded her chest, covering who knew how many broken ribs. “I can’t even breathe.”
Time to collect his sabaya. Kamal tromped up the concrete hospital stairway toward the fourth floor. His gun beat in rhythm against the grenade at his belt as he whistled. With any luck, Rosna should be in a much more submissive state of mind after that beating and she’d willingly convert to Islam, earning him jannah paradise.
The staircase gave way to long hallways. The metal curtain hooks jangled as Kamal shoved aside the hospital partition to room 421.
A woman lay prone on the floor, her face uncovered, strands of red-hair peeking out from her head-covering. Where was Rosna?
He kicked the prone Al-Khansaa woman in the ribs. She should have her skin burned to the bone for her dress-code infraction. “Where is my sex slave?”
With a groan, the woman rolled over. She rubbed her fingers across her eyes. Gasping, she jumped to her feet and threw a black cloth over her face. The woman wrung her bare hands, which should be separated from her wrists for the immorality of displaying them uncovered before an unrelated male. “A black man came. He struck me. She escaped.”
That infidel had his sex slave! Kamal grabbed the strap of his Kalashnikov and swung it off his shoulder. His boots made a slamming sound as he sprinted for the hospital stairway.
The metal exit door gave way to his shove. On the street in front of him, white police vehicles patrolled, bearded men milled, and young boys played in the streets, no woman, cigarettes, or alcohol in sight. All was as it should be in this haven of Allah’s law on earth.
Only, somewhere on the streets of this city lurked an infidel thief who had stolen the sex slave Allah had given him.
Kamal gripped the forestock of his Kalashnikov. With the strength of Allah, he would find her.
“Oh, great Allah,” he raised his free hand high. “Deliver this woman my right hand possesses back into my grasp.”
Dropping his hand, he slid his cell out of his back pocket and opened up the group text icon. Soon every ISIS mujahideen in the city would be on the trail of his sex slave and this black infidel. The two would be trapped in the streets with nowhere to hide, for all the Mosul residents knew that to defy ISIS’s godly role by harboring a fugitive meant death by execution.
Yes, within the hour, Rosna would be in his hands again. A feeling of power surged through Kamal’s veins as he imagined what he would do then.
Rosna stumbled behind the dumpster. Each breath burned. She glanced up the three stories that Ali had somehow helped her scramble down from. A tear ran down his leather jacket where it had caught against a window ledge as he’d carried her.
Blackness wavered at the edges of her vision as the glorious breeze fluttered against her skin and she drank in Melek Taus’s sunshine. “Where are we going?”
“This way.” Ali’s voice carried clearly to her bare ears.
The comforting sunshine turned to the burn of acid. She wore no veil! Panic pierced Rosna. Daesh would find her. They’d not even need a search party to arrest the only woman without a veil.
A siren sounded. A police car zoomed down the street that connected to the alleyway. With a shout, the daesh police opened fire.
Ali’s hand struck her as he flung her behind him and pulled the trigger of Jessica’s Kalashnikov. Bullets pinged off concrete all around her.
The smell of smoke and flash of flying bullets mixed with the roar of gunfire. Rosna huddled behind the makeshift barrier of the trash can as more sirens sounded, bringing ever more daesh soldiers to the scene.
The clip of Ali’s Kalashnikov fell to the ground. Eyes wide, he looked toward her. “I’m out of bullets.”
She froze.
“Run,” Ali yelled.
Her arm strained in its socket as he half-carried, half-dragged her on. Her knees trembled as she tried to muster the strength to keep up.
Ali ducked into an alley. The stench of bodies rose around them. Severed heads lined the gutter, decaying blood streaking the pavement to send up a stink.
Laundry hung in the backyards and the dry breeze whipped at the linen. A sheet hung above them, the white fabric
obscuring the sky.
Bullets tore through the fabric. A makeshift fence shook with the impact. Children cried out from yards. Ali ran left. More sheets hung from clotheslines.
Fire fell from the sky as the sound of daesh firepower echoed behind them. Rosna tried to sprint. Ali tore through a sheet.
Her knees wobbled. Her weak lungs burned. Bullets nicked her dress.
Big hands swept her up. Ali bounded across uneven pavement as he carried her. Her cries stuck in her throat as she twisted her fingers in his jacket. They’d never outrun daesh. Ali would die because of her.
Sheets blew in the wind, blocking alleys from coalition fire, and giving them a tiny piece of cover.
Her broken bones grated against each other as Ali ran on. Her back slammed against his rib cage with every jolting pace. Twisting her arms around his neck, she clasped her fingers around her own wrists. Melek Taus save us! Every day she’d prayed that since ISIS had appeared and Melek Taus had never answered.
A buzzing noise started. It grew louder and louder overhead.
“Airstrike.” Ali kept up his pace. Ahead of them, streets emptied. Behind them, the daesh police dove for shelter behind the broken foundations of houses.
She huddled against Ali’s chest as the noise grew. His fast breaths blew on her hair, his dark skin darker even than the scorched earth around them.
Iraqis said that those with black skin had hearts the same color. It couldn’t be true though. This man was risking his life to save hers. Ali sprinted through empty streets.
Bloated bodies lay on the concrete, their skin darkening to black. The smell suffocated her. Shells exploded to the right and left. Still, Ali ran on. Light exploded in a dilapidated apartment building. Debris flew through the air as the roof caved in.
Ali stumbled. Oomph. Blood ran down his arm where a jagged piece of concrete had hit him. His arm fell by his side, limp. Rosna slid to the ground. “Ali.” Each breath burned. She grabbed his hand.
He stifled a grimace.
“What now?” Her heart pounded in her throat. The buzzing overhead died to a faint murmur. Any minute daesh police cars would once again zoom down this street.
Veiled by Coercion (Radical Book 2) Page 9