AS SHE SAT TIED TO a chair in the nearly complete darkness, Lucy was aware of the presence of the saint before she heard the voice of her captor, and apparently high executioner, coming for her. But she knew what the appearance by St. Teresa meant—danger and quite possibly death.
At least that’s what Al-Sistani had been promising her all week. Frustrated by the U.S. administration’s delays in meeting his demands, he’d threatened to cut her throat “to show I mean what I say. Perhaps when they have a video of you choking on your own blood, they will give me what I want to spare Mr. Huff.”
“Go ahead,” Lucy said. “But if I die, I know I’m going to be fine. But I will also go to my death with the satisfaction of knowing that my friends will someday track you down and kill you, and where you’ll be going is cold, dark, and alone, and it’s forever.”
Al-Sistani’s eyes blazed at her comment. But then he laughed. “You don’t have any friends,” he said.
Then election day came and went. The incumbent president remained in power. And now she quailed when she heard Al-Sistani enter the basement and speak to the guards.
“Be brave, child,” St. Teresa encouraged her.
“I’ll try,” Lucy replied, though unconvincingly.
After making the video, Al-Sistani had largely left her alone with her hands tied behind her to the wooden chair and her ankles bound to the legs with rough cord. She was fed irregularly, usually some sort of weak gruel that tasted vaguely of chicken broth, and went through long spells with no water. And sometimes she was left to sit in her urine and waste before being brought a dampened rag to wash herself up for a few minutes before being tied again. And there’d been plenty of time to consider her impending death. In fact, through the lonely hours of her captivity she’d heard the guards frequently talking outside her cell, taking perverse delight in knowing she could hear them discuss in broken Russian what it was like to have one’s throat slit.
“The lungs continue trying to suck air in through your gaping windpipe,” said one. “But then the blood from your severed arteries pours in and you can’t breathe. You are drowning in your own blood and dying from the loss of blood at the same time.”
“I saw a beheading once,” said the other guard. “They used a dull knife and it took a long time to saw through the woman’s neck. She kept screaming and then all you could hear was gurgling and choking sounds. It seemed quite painful and a horrible way to die. It can actually take quite a while to lose consciousness, and then your body goes into convulsions, thrashing about on the ground. Just like a butchered animal, no dignity to it at all.”
Now, apparently, she was going to find out; St. Teresa didn’t make appearances for just any reason. “I don’t want to die,” she said quietly. “Not like this.”
“No one knows the hour and place of their death, my child,” the saint responded. “It is not in your hands. Just know that the man who will be appointed your executioner is a friend and you must listen carefully to what he says and obey without hesitation.”
There wasn’t any more time to ask questions before the key was inserted into the lock and the door swung open. Someone turned on the uncovered bulb swinging above her head, causing her to blink repeatedly as the light shot tiny darts of pain into her brain. Her vision was blurry, so at first she was only aware that dark figures had entered the room, one of whom stood in front of her and another who moved behind and began roughly untying her hands and then cut the bonds that held her feet.
“Get up,” said Al-Sistani, the man in front of her.
“I don’t think I can,” Lucy replied. “I can’t feel my legs.”
“Raad, help this infidel whore to her feet.”
Lucy screamed as the giant man behind her grabbed a handful of hair on top of her head and yanked her up off the floor. The moment he let go, her legs went out from under her and she collapsed to the floor.
“Get up!” Al-Sistani shouted, and kicked her in the ribs.
Groaning in pain, Lucy got to her hands and knees and tried to stand up. She got partway up, took one step forward, and then pitched to the stone floor again.
Al-Sistani leaned over until his bearded face was only a few inches from Lucy’s. “You only delay, not prevent, the moment of your death,” he hissed, then stood and glared at Raad. “Carry her!”
The giant grabbed Lucy under her armpits and violently lifted her to her feet and then half-frog-hopped her up the stairs and out of the basement, through a long hall, and into the gated courtyard of the mosque. She was brought over to a wall on which a green banner with white Arabic lettering spelled out “Death to the United States” above “Allahu akbar.”
“God is great,” Lucy mumbled.
Raad spun her around so that she was facing a video camera with the wall and its banner behind her. He let her drop painfully to her knees and took up a position behind her with his arms crossed over his bare chest.
Squinting against the glare of the setting sun, Lucy found herself looking across the courtyard toward the wide gate in the mud wall that ran around the mosque. Loitering inside the walls were armed men, most with full beards and wearing the small round black caps and quilted coats popular among Dagestani men. Beyond the guarded gate she saw some of the locals going about their business, apparently unaware of, or unmoved by, what was going on inside the walls. An old man led a donkey piled high with firewood past the open gate. Beyond him two young bearded men dressed as farmers trudged down the steep road that ran up a hill overlooking the mosque.
Another door opened in a different part of the mosque and Lucy saw David Huff being escorted out into the courtyard by a man on either side of him. When he saw Lucy, the banner, and the camera, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and tried to back away from his escorts, who grabbed his arms. “Nooooooooo,” he screamed. “No, please, I don’t want to die!”
Huff’s captors ignored his pleading and dragged him forward while forcing him down upon his knees next to Lucy. He looked at her, his eyes wide in terror, tears running down his cheeks and snot dripping from his nose as he whimpered. “I’ll do anything,” he screeched, turning his head to face Al-Sistani, who was standing next to the video camera. “Please, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Shut up, Huff!” Lucy snarled. His cowardice had somehow rekindled her courage, which had been failing until the moment she heard his first wail. “Be a man.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“They’re not going to kill you, David,” she said, fixing his darting eyes with her own steady pair. “You’re still worth something to them. But they are going to kill me to make a point. So if you don’t mind, I’d like a little dignity for my final moments.”
Huff’s eyes bugged out for a moment and then they cleared of fear. His terror was replaced with a look of shame. “Kill me instead,” he said to Al-Sistani. “It will have a bigger impact. Get the headlines, then they’ll deal to get the girl back.”
Al-Sistani’s response was to grin sardonically. “Suddenly brave, Mr. Huff?” he mocked. “That vaunted Western chivalry toward women? You’re deluded; they’re nothing but whores to be used and thrown away like garbage.”
“Then that’s why you need to kill me,” Huff replied. “Otherwise you’re wasting your time. No one will care if she dies.”
Al-Sistani shrugged. “It would seem that no one cares if either of you dies,” he said. “Your government has pulled out of our negotiations that might have spared your lives. Perhaps they think I won’t go through with my threat. So I need to make an example. But the whore is right; you, Mr. Huff, may still have some value alive once the American public has been shown our little film. Then your people will be forced to make a deal with me and hand over Sheik Abdel-Rahman.”
“What’s in that for you?”
“Me?” Al-Sistani repeated, obviously enjoying this bit of theater. “Why, I will be an instant hero in all of Islam. The jihadists will rally to my banner, and I will be the number-one man in Al Qaeda. I will be the first caliph of all Islam in more than two hundred years, and all Muslim governments soon will swear fealty to me. I will be Islam’s champion in the ultimate battle against the West, and when it is over, Sharia will be the law of all the lands and I will be their ruler! That’s what is in it for me!”
“You’re insane,” Lucy said mockingly. “No one is going to give in to your stupid demands!” She laughed with as much sarcasm as she could muster. “You hit the nail on the head, genius. They don’t want us back; we’re an embarrassment. They’ll just move you up the list and someday, you’re going to wake up in the dark and one of the good guys will be standing over you itching to put a bullet in your fat head.”
Lucy said that to rattle Al-Sistani. But when the words came out of her mouth, she knew that part of what Al-Sistani had said was true. No one came to help, she thought. I know some of those messages had to get through. They had a drone. Fighter jets could have been there in minutes. They fucked up, then left us to die to cover up Huff’s little illegal arms deal and play out their political deception. And now the administration just wants it, and us, to all go away.
Al-Sistani stared at her for a moment. “Hear how the whore and the coward stall to prolong their miserable lives. The West is weak! Allahu akbar! Death to the infidels! But first, bring out our special guest.”
Still on their knees, Lucy and Huff looked when more men walked out of the front door of the mosque. Four large men surrounded a fifth as they crossed the courtyard. Although the man in the middle walked freely and confidently, and his escorts carried their AK-47 rifles loosely over their shoulders, it was clear that he was a prisoner—or at least being watched very carefully. Behind the five men walked a sixth man whom Lucy recognized, Bula Umarov. The traitor.
“Ah, my old enemy and new comrade in arms, Lom Daudov, the Lion of Chechnya,” Al-Sistani said sarcastically as he gestured to the man in the middle.
Lucy took a moment to study the man she’d come to Chechnya to find. He was not particularly big, though he carried himself like a larger man; he moved with the smooth strength of a natural athlete and held his head high. His hair and beard were the color of copper and when he walked up to stand next to Al-Sistani she could see that his eyes were an almost unnaturally bright shade of sea-green.
Al-Sistani grinned. “Surprised?” he asked Lucy. “Isn’t this the man you wanted to meet? The man you were going to give weapons to if he would help hunt me down? . . . What, no answer? But that’s what my man Bula told me before we attacked the compound, and I can always trust Bula. Come here, my faithful lapdog.”
The short, skinny man with the pockmarked face did as he was ordered, smiling when he glanced at Daudov, who glared at him with hatred. Al-Sistani saw the looks and tsked. “Yes, it apparently came as a surprise to the Chechen lion that his most trusted adviser was working for me.”
“I don’t care about that worm. I came to you in good faith today,” Daudov growled. “I have offered to lay down our old enmity to fight the Russians together for the good of Chechnya!”
“Ah, yes, the good of Chechnya,” Al-Sistani said. “But are you willing to swear allegiance to me and see Chechnya as an Islamic state under Sharia law and my rule?”
“Inshallah,” Daudov said. “As God wills. Anything would be better than the bloodstained Russians.”
Al-Sistani turned to Lucy and Huff like a college professor about to make a point. “You see, Lom and his partisans were blamed for the attack on the mission, and the Russians have made their lives very uncomfortable, and, indeed, hazardous, ever since. So now he’s offering to join his Hands of God brigade with my Al Qaeda jihadis, all under my command. The question is can I trust him?”
“I bring more to the table than just myself and my men,” Daudov said. “Or have you never heard of Ajmaani?”
Al-Sistani looked confused. “Of course, I know Ajmaani,” he said. “She worked for me when I nearly destroyed the New York Stock Exchange. She’s dead.”
“She’s alive,” Daudov corrected him. “She crossed into Chechnya a week ago, and my men intercepted her. She is my prisoner.”
“You lie!” Al-Sistani snarled.
“I can prove it. She is here.”
“Where?”
“With two of my men in a truck at the top of the hill.”
Al-Sistani whirled to look up the hill and then back at Daudov. “Have them bring her,” he said. “If you are telling the truth, you will be my right-hand man and rule Chechnya when I am caliph of the world. But if you lie, you will suffer the same fate as these two infidels!”
Daudov turned to one of his escorts. “Shoot your rifle in the air,” he demanded.
The man looked at Al-Sistani, who nodded. Raising his gun, the man let off a burst. Almost immediately, a small truck at the top of the hill began to make its way down.
“Bula, do you know Ajmaani by sight?”
“Yes, I was involved in the attack on the school that she planned.”
“Then go to the gate and stop the vehicle,” Al-Sistani said. “Make sure it is her.”
“Yes, my sheik.”
“And Bula, the men in the truck are to leave their guns at the gate with my men.”
“Yes, my sheik.”
Bula trotted over to the gate, where the two guards stepped in front of the truck. He walked up to the driver’s-side window, which was rolled down, and looked at the passenger in the back.
“It’s her! It’s Ajmaani!” he yelled back.
“Bring her,” Al-Sistani shouted back. “Allahu akbar! This is a glorious day!”
Bula spoke briefly to the driver and two rifles were passed out of the windows to the guards. He then jumped up on the sideboard of the truck and rode triumphantly back across the courtyard.
The truck stopped next to the camera crew. Two men stepped out, their faces partly obscured by scarves. The tall man on the passenger side flipped a switch and shoved his seat forward; he then reached into the back of the truck and hauled Ajmaani, aka Nadya Malovo, out.
Al-Sistani strolled up to the woman. “Ajmaani,” he said slowly. “It’s been a long time. We heard you were dead.”
“I am hard to kill,” Malovo replied, regarding Al-Sistani coolly.
Al-Sistani chortled. “Still the same woman, as hard and cold as steel.” He looked at her bound wrists and frowned. “This won’t be necessary,” he said, and pulled a knife from a scabbard in his belt. Cutting her bonds, he said, “We have much to discuss.”
“More than you know,” Malovo replied.
Smiling broadly, Al-Sistani turned back to Daudov. “Perhaps I have misjudged you, my friend,” he said. Then a sly expression crossed his face. “You have reunited me with someone I consider very valuable. But there is one last task I would ask of you to prove your loyalty once and for all.”
“What is that?” Daudov replied cautiously.
Al-Sistani looked at the man standing behind Lucy. “Raad, give my new comrade your knife,” he said. “Then he will cut the throat of the infidel woman.”
“No! The Koran forbids making war on women and children,” Daudov argued.
“This is not war,” Al-Sistani replied, his face and eyes growing hard. “This is a test of loyalty. Once you are on film murdering this agent of the United States, you will be committed to our cause. There will be no turning back.”
Al-Sistani nodded to Daudov’s escorts, who raised their rifles menacingly. “It’s that or you and your men will die here, and I will still have Ajmaani and the hostages.”
“Please don’t do this,” Huff pleaded.
“Bula, take him inside,” Al-Sistani ordered. “I wouldn’t want her blood on his shirt; he already has enough of it on his hands.” His men grabbed Huff and, led by Bula Umarov, dragged him back inside the mosque. Then the terrorist leader turned back to Daudov. “So, what will it be? Prove your loyalty, or die in Dagestan.”
Daudov looked hard at Al-Sistani for a moment, but then nodded. He walked over to Lucy and held out his hand for Raad’s large curved knife, before assuming the large man’s place behind her. Meanwhile, Raad pulled a handgun from the waistband of his pants and stepped back as he pointed it at the back of Daudov’s head.
Clapping like an excited Hollywood director, Al-Sistani nodded to his videographer and then stepped out in front of the camera. “Today is a glorious day for the Islamic revolution in Chechnya,” he announced grandly. “I, Sheik Amir Al-Sistani, have accepted the sworn allegiance of Lom Daudov, the Lion of Chechnya, who will join me in the holy fight to overthrow the Russian occupiers and their puppet government and create the Islamic Republic of Chechnya. Today, we renew our dedication to the cause of an Islamic world by taking the life of an infidel American foolishly sent to kill me, only to watch her companions die by my hand. Let this be a warning to the West; we will spare no one who opposes us in our holy fight. We demand the release of Sheik Abdel-Rahman or Deputy Chief of Mission David Huff will share the same fate! Allahu akbar!”
Al-Sistani stepped out of the picture and nodded at Daudov. “Inshallah! God’s will be done,” he shouted offscreen.
Lucy braced herself as she felt Daudov grab her hair and pull her head back, exposing her neck. “I’m sorry,” he said as he placed the knife at her throat.
As she looked up, Lucy heard another voice in her head. “Your executioner is a friend . . . listen carefully . . . obey without hesitation.” “I forgive you,” she said aloud.
“Then fall to the ground, now,” Daudov told her, his voice even but urgent.
Lucy threw herself forward and felt Daudov land on top of her. It wasn’t so much what he’d said that kept her from hesitating, but the language he’d used. The Lion of Chechnya was speaking Navajo.