by Chuck Dixon
“I’m a Chechen drawn to Daesh to kill Russians.”
“Do you speak Chechen?”
“No. My Russian is fluent.”
“And if we happen to encounter any Chechens?”
“You always think of the worst.”
“That is why I am alive,” Bazît said.
“I’ll let you know when it’s dark enough to move.”
The night above was streaked now and then by arcs of glowing tracers chasing one another against the stars. The ripping sound of small arms punctuated by the freight train chug of heavier weapons. There were no sustained engagements. The rounds were going off along the sky to the north and south without rhythm or reason. Just random bursts of fire sent out by the anxious or bored.
Hejar knew the country best and moved ahead on point. Levon and Bazît followed at intervals. The boy led them on a path that kept to the lowest parts of the terrain for minimum exposure. Sometimes crouched, sometimes crawling, they passed within yards of fixed positions of gunners dug into improvised bunkers of earth and rubble. Within a few hours they were well behind the fluid eastern border of the caliphate.
There were rooftops visible ahead. Levon let out a low whistle. Hejar turned to see the American pointing to the south toward the highway.
At a casual walk they approached a place on the highway blocked by an improvised barricade constructed from sheets of corrugated metal and a bullet-scarred bus. The road surface was littered with empty shell casings. Hejar’s head was on a swivel, turning left and right. His hands were tight on his rifle. Levon drew alongside him.
“Walk as though we belong here,” Levon said. “Act like you would when you came to Mosul with your father.”
The boy turned to him, beads of sweat gleaming silver on his brow beneath the keffiyeh that rested on his head.
Levon threw an arm around him and drew him close. He put his mouth close to the boy’s ear and spoke low.
“There are eyes on us. Guns too. Do you have balls of steel or balls of cheese?” he said.
“Steel,” Hejar said through clenched teeth.
Levon laughed aloud and slapped the boy across the back of the head. Bazît turned at the sudden sound. He barked a laugh at the unusual sight of his friend’s open amusement. Even Hajar was smiling as a voice called to them from the barricade.
“What is so funny?” A high pitched voice from the makeshift barricade. The accent was Egyptian Arabic.
They kept on toward the barricade at an effortless walk. Bazît nodded his head toward Hajar.
"The boy said he is hungry. My friend said he would feed him soon. Then the boy said he was horny as well. My friend said, ‘then eat the ass of the goat last.' " Bazît wore a broad grin.
“Why is the boy not laughing?” the voice called.
“I guess he doesn’t like goat.” Bazît shrugged.
There were chuckles from behind the barricade. A man climbed to the roof of the rusted bus and waved them to the left of the barricade toward a ditch at the side of the roadway.
The way to Mosul was open.
The sun was up and baking the concrete surface of the highway from Gogjali. Vultures perched on power lines that paralleled the roadway. The ragged remnants of bodies hung from wire nooses slung over the bars of the towers. They wore signs about their necks proclaiming them to be enemies of the caliphate, heretics and traitors to the Word of the Prophet.
Levon, Bazît and the boy walked in a column along the dusty verge. The city lay before them, the buildings shimmering in the growing heat haze. A column of black smoke from a recent air sortie rose into the sky. As they neared the eastern edge of Mosul they were challenged by men who stepped from behind a pickup truck.
It was Bazît who told the men that they were separated from the rest of their unit during a firefight along the frontier.
"Who are you with?" The man's voice was muffled by a black mask drawn over his face. The others wore black headscarves covering all but their eyes.
“The Nahawand Brigade. Have you seen any of us who have returned this way?” Bazît said.
“Not this morning,” the black mask said.
“Maybe they will come along later.”
“Or they are martyrs.”
“Inshallah.” Bazît bowed his head. “It is God’s will.”
The masked men offered them a ride into Mosul. Levon and Bazît exchanged a look. Levon nodded.
They rode in the bed of the truck seated upon the uneasy cargo of ammo crates and boxes of RPG projectiles. The truck plowed ahead at top speed, winding a serpentine course around craters in the road surface and scorched piles of wrecked vehicles. To the north were walled and gated compounds of mini-mansions with white rooftops set well off the highway. To the south the close-packed apartment houses stacked cheek by jowl to the edge of the road.
The morning call to prayer could be heard through the cones of loudspeakers slung along the roadway atop utility poles. The rising and falling of the muezzin’s voice was punctuated by the honks and squeals of feedback.
Riding with them was a skinny kid with an iPad knockoff held against his knees. Only his eyes were visible through the slit of the headscarf tied about his face. The comic book villain effect of the mask was spoiled by a pair of eyeglasses perched on his nose. An unpopped zit the size of a corn kernel in the fold of his nose. His fingers danced over the screen with a life of their own. He glanced up at Levon.
“You are not Arab,” the skinny kid said.
“I am Chechen. Argun Varyev is my name,” Levon said.
“You came to fight for the Islamic State?”
“Alhamdo lillah. It is the duty of all the faithful.”
The kid's eyes dropped to the screen as he stabbed at it with a finger. Levon looked sideways to Bazît riding across from him. The Yazidi's face appeared to be disinterested in the conversation. The grip on his rifle tightened, the skin across his knuckles stretched thin. Hejar looked from the skinny kid to Levon with eyes narrowed to slits.
“What does this fight mean to a Chechen?” the skinny kid said.
“What does it mean to you? To kill infidels. To bring glory to the Lord. To make a land from which the word might spread to all the world.”
“You hate infidels?”
“I hate Russians.” Levon hawked and sent a gob of spit over the side of the truck.
“There are no Russians in Iraq.”
“I hope to go to Raqqa. There are Russians there.”
The kid’s fingers tapped at the screen on his knee.
“You are with Nahawand?” the skinny kid said.
“We fight for Yarub al Khattoni. We die for him if he so asks.”
“Where in the city are you going?”
“The Nineveh Governate. But you do not need to drive us that far, my friend.”
The skinny kid tilted his head and shifted the tablet in his hands to draw his finger down the screen. Levon pretended to be interested in a shelled-out apartment block. Children in filthy clothing were sorting through rubble.
“You are lying,” the skinny kid said, eyes large behind the thick lenses.
He returned the tablet to an open pouch on his ammo vest. With the flat of his hand he drummed on the fender and called out to his brothers in the truck cab.
35
Merry got up extra early in the morning to eat breakfast, a bowl of Raisin Bran, and prepare her lunch. A peanut butter and honey sandwich and a banana. The house was quiet. It wouldn’t be for long. Merry started up the stairs to take her bath and dress for school. She met Carrie coming down.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“Getting ready for school?” Merry said.
“You won’t be going to school today.”
“Why not? What happened?”
“Nothing happened. You’re sick.”
“But I feel fine.”
Carrie, face crimson, came down the stairs toward her. Merry stumbled back a step, gripping the banister. Carrie took her
by the arm.
“You’ll do as you’re told. Go to your room.” She released Merry’s arm, leaving pallid finger marks on the skin. Merry ran past her and up the steps.
Lisa was in the room getting dressed for school. She was picking clothes from an array spread across her bed. She had on jeans and a bra and was in the process of deciding between a blouse or a t-shirt.
“What did you do? Carrie’s mad at me too,” Lisa said.
“Are you really not Blaine’s girlfriend?” Merry said.
“What?”
“Are you in love with him?” Merry leaned back on her bed and rubbed her arm where Mrs. Knox had gripped her.
“I told you about that. Why are you still asking me?” Lisa flushed red from her neck until her face was scarlet.
“I told the lady at foster care what happened.”
“Jesus!” Lisa looked stricken. She turned away.
“But if he’s your boyfriend then I’m sorry and—”
“Shut up! Shut your mouth!” Lisa shouted. She scooped up a top and her bookbag and rushed into the hall.
Merry lay back on her bed and tried to read one of the books Ms. Booth loaned to her. She read the same page over and over again but it made no sense to her. She gave up and set the paperback aside to stare at the ceiling. There was a breeze moving the branches of the tree outside the window. Overlapping shadows in shades of gray played across the plaster. The breezes made a brushing sound against the screen.
A clicking sound made Merry sit up from the bed. She’d dozed off without realizing it. Her stomach growled and she thought of the sandwich and banana she’d left downstairs on the kitchen counter. She was surprised to see the bedroom door was shut now. Even more so to find it locked. She bent to look into the keyhole. No light came through from the hallway. There was a key in the hole. The clicking sound she heard.
Merry lay back on the bed and wondered what Philip Marlowe would do. Probably, he’d take a drink and ponder his place in the universe. She thought Mike Hammer might be more useful right now. He’d rush the door with his shoulder and smash it open.
Tires crunched to a stop at the curb out in front of the house. Merry went to the window. Miss Nussbaum’s car. Merry stepped back from the window to watch Miss Nussbaum step from the car, a leather case under her arm, and walk out of sight to the front door. Merry dropped down to press an ear to the carpet. The bell rang below. Footsteps. The door opened. Muffled voices. Carrie and Miss Nussbaum.
Merry found a copy book on Lisa’s nightstand and tore a page from it. There were some hairpins on the vanity they were supposed to share but mostly Lisa used. Merry knelt by the door and pushed the sheet of paper out into the gap under the door until it was beneath the doorknob. She bent the hairpin straight and fished it into the keyhole. If the key was turned in the lock she was stuck. But she felt it begin to give. She poked gently until the key dropped from the hole onto the hall floor outside the door.
With her fingertips flat she drew the sheet of copy paper back toward her under the door. A copper-colored key was resting on the paper. She took it and unlocked the bedroom door and, slow as she could, pushed the door open to creep into the hall on stocking feet. At the banister at the top of the stairs she stopped. The voices of the two women came up to her from the living room below.
“—there’s no foundation for what she told me?” Miss Nussbaum.
“She made something out of nothing. That’s all it is.” Carrie’s voice.
“She was light on details.”
“Like I told you, Lisa borrowed a CD from Blaine and he came in the room to ask her to return it. Merry was asleep. She woke up and saw them talking and thought—I don’t know what she thought.”
“You understand that I need to respond to these calls.”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s a sensitive situation. You have a teenage boy living at home. And a female foster child around the same age.”
“I know. Hormones, right? But we keep a strict house here. There’s nothing between Blaine and Lisa. I would know.”
“And Merry is in school right now?”
“Yes. She is. I’m leaving in a half hour to pick her and Lisa up to bring them home.”
Merry’s hands tightened on the banister rails.
“Okay. I guess there’s no need to talk to her again before my scheduled visit next week.”
“I’m sure she’s sorry she’s caused you so much trouble.”
The women were moving now, the words they spoke lost to Merry as they both moved to the front door. Merry was up and running, as fast as she could without making noise, back to the bedroom. She reached the window in her room as the front door shut below her. She watched Miss Nussbaum walk down the pavement to her car. Merry shoved the window open.
“Miss Nussbaum,” Merry said through the screen.
There was a hitch in Miss Nussbaum’s step. Her shoulders went rigid.
“Miss Nussbaum, please,” Merry said again through the window.
Miss Nussbaum kept on to her car.
“Up here,” Merry said, louder this time.
Before getting in her car Miss Nussbaum turned for a second, her eyes fell on Merry pressed to the screen above. She turned back and slid behind the wheel and drove away.
“Haven’t you made enough trouble?” Carrie Knox was in the doorway, eyes slits and her mouth a cruel lipless line.
“You lied,” Merry said.
“You lied first.” Carrie took the key from the inside lock and closed the door. The lock clicked closed and Merry heard the key slide from the cylinder.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“You have to know when to throw in a shit hand.”
36
Levon hit the skinny kid with a double tap to the chest. The kid spilled over the side of the truck and tumbled on the concrete, limbs flailing.
Bazît fired his rifle at the same time, sending a long burst into the rear wall of the truck cab. The figures inside jerked forward under the impact. The truck slewed to the left, hopping a sand median, slowing as the driver’s lifeless foot slipped from the accelerator. The engine choked and the truck rolled to a full stop with the nose pointing down into a ditch that ran along the foot of a block wall.
Bazît had leaped clear as the truck died and Hejar just behind him. They dragged gear and packs with them as they spilled to the dust. Levon stayed in the truck until it came to rest. He climbed out, his backpack slung loosely over one shoulder. He waved them away. The Yazidis ran along the wall to a gate and ducked inside. Levon backed away from the truck. He pulled the pin from an HE grenade and tossed it in an underhand loop into the bed of the truck.
He was nearly to the gate in the wall when the grenade went off with a pop followed by the deeper boom of an RPG exploding. More rounds went off in near-simultaneous succession creating a concussive ring of force that knocked Levon to his knees. His backpack swung to slap him across the side of the head. Spinning bits of molten metal made whistling sounds over him. He continued at a crawl and was helped through the open gateway by Bazît and Hejar’s hands pulling at his clothing. A new detonation sent the stalled truck skyward in two pieces. This blast raised dust off the rooftops of the homes behind the wall. The men were up and running by then, vanishing into the warren of closely packed apartment buildings.
Automatic fire erupted immediately from all around them. Tracers arced through the morning sky. The blast started a blocks’-wide fusillade of return fire at an imagined enemy. The jihadis’ buck fever was in full effect and every finger found a trigger, firing without question or reason in any and all directions. Tracers soared into the morning sky in search of imagined infidel aircraft.
Taking full advantage of the noisy chaos, Levon led his friends in a charge down alleys and across courtyards and gardens. When faces appeared at windows and doorways he shouted warnings in Arabic that the infidels were here. The final fight was upon them and Allah be praised.
The noise of one-side
d combat died away behind them as they emerged from the maze of backstreets into an open area that might have been a pocket park at one time. Now it was just dust with patches of grass scorched brown by the sun. Stumps dotted the ground; all that remained of trees cut down for firewood. Some kids were kicking a partly deflated soccer ball across the trash-strewn lot. Pedestrians moved along the walks, deaf to the sounds of war only a few blocks north. The foot traffic was all one way. It was also populated by men only. Many of these were armed. Levon and his comrades fell in with the flow. The human tide would take them to a market place or mosque where they could more easily blend in.
The walk to the market took a winding path around streets choked with the rubble of buildings collapsed by months of pinprick air strikes by the coalition. The wet ash smell of smoldering fires was everywhere. And under it the corrupted stench of rotting flesh. No one was working to find the dead under the ruins of apartment blocks and storefronts. Some of the homes they passed were marked in spray paint with a symbol that looked like a one-eyed smiley face.
“What does that mean?” Levon said.
“It is how Daesh marks the homes of infidels or undesirables,” Bazît said.
“What happened to them?”
“They convert to Islam, to Sunni. Or they pay the jizya, the tax paid by unbelievers.”
“What happens if they can’t pay it? Or run out of money?”
“They die. Their women are taken away to be brides of the faithful. Their children are slaves,” Bazît said.
There were posters and paintings, some comically crude, of the new caliph on the walls of buildings. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s face was everywhere, scowling down from under his ever-present black cap. His was the face of power and oppression. He was the mahdi of this new malignant movement. Not for a moment was the population of the city allowed to forget this. In addition to his constant image was his voice echoing from speakers and radios everywhere, a reminder that the people of Mosul were prisoners in their own homes. These were taped harangues that ran on loops day and night. They offered the faithful the pleasures of paradise in Heaven and the satisfaction of justice on Earth. They promised apostates a dishonorable death followed by an eternity in hell.