Prologue

 

 

November 29, Abbadi Neighborhood

Northeastern Mosul, Iraq

 

“Mommy, what are you doing with that rifle?”

The woman stopped and turned her head. She gave her five-year-old son Naim a bittersweet smile. He was sitting at the edge of his bed a few inches off the floor and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Go back to bed, my son,” the woman said over the gunfire erupting in the alley, just underneath their bedroom windows. “And stay there. No matter what happens or who comes through the door.” She took a few steps toward Naim and knelt near the bed so she could be at his eye level. “Mommy loves you very much.”

Naim nodded then scratched his head. “But I’m not sleepy. The noise—”

A bullet shattered the window across the room. Naim screamed in a high pitch, and covered his ears.

“Quick, in the closet.” The woman took him into her arms and placed him inside the large wardrobe. She handed him the pillow and the blanket. “Stay down there, son.” Her voice wavered, and her tears welled up, but she needed to be strong for her child. “Don’t come out unless I call you.”

“But . . . but what are you going to do, Mommy?”

“I’ll . . . I’ll come back, my son. I’ll come back.”

The woman sniffled and got to her feet. She gave the small bedroom a sweeping glance. A couple of bullets broke what was left of the window. Glass shards flew all around her, but she did not flinch. She was not terrified. Instead, rage was boiling in her blood. How dare someone attack my home? Don’t they know who my husband is? No one would risk their lives and the lives of their families and attack the house of a top ISIS commander, even now that he was not in Iraq. He had gone to Europe to recruit new fighters, but his reputation, his fame, and his men protected his house and his family in his absence. Could this be an American infidel team of soldiers? The woman shook her head. No, we would have heard about it. Someone would have warned us.

She stepped into the hall, where she was met by her sister and her cousins. “Aaliyah, what’s going on?” asked one of the cousins, while loading her AK assault rifle.

“I’m not sure who this is,” Aaliyah said. “But we’re going to make them pay.”

The cousins nodded.

Aaliyah gestured toward the left. “Take the back of the house. Both of you.” She nodded toward her cousins. “Don’t let anyone set foot inside.”

“How’s Naim?” asked Aaliyah’s sister.

Aaliyah flinched. “Scared, but safe. For now. Let’s go.”

Her sister nodded. She held her assault rifle—the same make and model as her cousins’, the ubiquitous Russian-made Kalashnikov—tight in her hands. “We’ll kill them all, inch’allah.” If Allah wills it.

Aaliyah ran through the hall, followed by her sister. Gunfire erupted outside, and it seemed to be drawing closer. Maybe the soldiers have gotten inside the courtyard. That means . . . it means they’re just outside the door.

She stopped and listened. No sounds of rushing footsteps or pounding heavy boots. She tiptoed through the hall on her bare feet, making as little noise as possible. Aaliyah’s rifle was cocked and ready. Her trigger finger rested on the worn-out trigger guard.

Aaliyah reached the corner and stopped again. A staircase was to her right, leading downstairs. Whoever was attacking her home would rush in from that direction. Unless they came from the back. But my cousins have that covered. They’d rather die than let soldiers come in.

Aaliyah dropped to her knee, then looked over her shoulder at her sister. She had also taken a position on her knee, following Aaliyah’s moves and pivoting to the left and to the right. Aaliyah smiled at her sister. I’m glad those weeks at the training camp paid off.

A loud thud came from downstairs.

Aaliyah heard the metal door being thrown open. Then came a couple of strong men’s voices she assumed were speaking English, followed by heavy boots stomping through the first floor.

She quickly glanced at her sister, gesturing to her that someone was going to come up very soon. Her sister nodded her understanding.

Aaliyah whispered a short prayer for Allah to give her a steady hand and a sharp eye, so she could kill all the infidels. She wiped her sweaty palms on her robe, then climbed to her feet. She stepped around the corner, reached over the cement parapet, then fired a long volley at the two targets.

She was unsure if she had hit any of them, for her hand had trembled and the room was dimly lit. Aaliyah fell back around the corner, expecting the soldiers to toss a grenade, as she had been taught in the training camp and had often seen in American and European movies. But it did not happen.

Aaliyah frowned, wondering if the soldiers were out of grenades or if these were not the typical American soldiers. Could they be Shiite militias? But they were speaking English or whatever that foreign language was. She could feel her heart beat faster, harder in her chest. She drew in a deep breath, then nodded to herself. She retightened her grip around her rifle, then crept closer to the corner. And listened.

Hearing nothing, she peered again.

Two bullets whizzed barely four inches away from her head. They bore into the cement wall, sending a spray of slivers at her face. Aaliyah’s vision grew blurry. Some of the mortar dust got into her eyes. She shouted in pain, then bit her lip and crouched back, trying to clear her eyes. “I can’t see. Cover me, cover me!” she called at her sister.

“Yes, yes, I got it.”

Aaliyah blinked to clear her watery eyes. She used a fold of her headdress to wipe off the dust. She looked up. Her sister’s silhouette was still hazy. But at least Aaliyah could make out shapes of people.

Then came the explosion.

A thick plume of dust filled the hall. Her ears rang so loudly Aaliyah felt as if they were bleeding. She could not hear anything, not even her screams. The force of the explosion threw Aaliyah onto her back, in the middle of the hall. She grunted, then gasped as pain zipped through her body. She tried to get back to her feet, but her right leg did not respond. Aaliyah tried again, before realizing she had been hit by shrapnel.

She lifted up her head, searching the hall for her sister. In the thinning dust, Aaliyah found her sister lying on the floor, motionless. Aaliyah called out to her, again and again.

Her sister did not respond.

Aaliyah cursed the soldiers, the attackers, the infidels, the Shiites, whoever it was that had killed her sister. They took her, but they’ll never get to my son. No, Naim is not going to die tonight. She groped with her hand and found the assault rifle. She held it upward with both arms, then struggled on her elbows to crawl backwards, away from the staircase, to a safer position.

Her ears were still ringing, but Aaliyah thought she heard footsteps and loud shouts. She glanced down the hall, then fired a short burst. “Die, infidels, die,” she shouted and fired again.

A bullet pierced her chest. Another tore through her lungs. Aaliyah gasped for breath. Blood bubbled in her mouth. Her rifle fell out of her hands, and she felt her entire body shutting down. “Naim, I’m . . . I’m sorry, son.”

Aaliyah tried to draw in another breath, but she could not. She sat there, with her mouth and her eyes open, as the last fragment of life left her body.

 

* * *

 

Kenneth “Kenny” Collins was the first member of the CIA’s Special Activities Division—better known as SAD—team to climb the stairs and reach the second floor of the house. He pointed his M4 carbine at the two women’s bodies lying on the floor in the hall. They were not moving, but Kenny double-checked, to eliminate any uncertainty. His night vision goggles brought a green grainy image to his fully alert eyes. He nodded to himself. They’re dead, all right. But where are the men? If this is a safehouse, terrorists wouldn’t have women securing it.

“Hall entrance’s clear. Moving toward east,” Kenny whispered into his throat mike.

“Copy that,” came the reply from Dave “Zac” Zachary, the second SAD operative, who had just reached the hall.

Kenny took a couple of steps and reached the next door. He pushed it with the tip of his combat boot, then fell back behind the cement wall. No bullets erupted from inside the room, and no gunfire echoed from anywhere else in or around the house. Kenny felt the adrenaline rush through his body. His mind and all his senses were on overdrive. He could see, hear, feel better.

He inched inside the small bedroom, clearing it in a matter of seconds. “First left, clear,” he whispered.

“Copy that,” Dave Zac said. “I’ve got the next one.”

“Roger,” Kenny said.

Dave Zac rushed through the hall, squeezed past Kenny, and pushed the next door open with his rifle’s muzzle. Again, no gunfire came from the room. Three seconds later, Dave Zac’s firm voice came into Kenny’s earpiece, “Room’s clear.”

“Roger. Going for the last one,” Kenny said.

He stood up from his kneeling firing position and dashed toward the third door, just six steps ahead. The door was open, so Kenny took a quick peek from behind the rifle’s sight. It was another bedroom, with two beds set on the wall opposite the shattered windows. Kenny checked inside the closet. No one was in the room.

“Clear,” he said and came near the window.

He glanced at the narrow back alley. A small dark silhouette was running toward the east. Is that a short man? A child? “We’ve got some movement at the back. Possible target moving east. No visible weapons.”

“Copy that,” replied one of the team members covering the back entrance to the safehouse. “Got it.”

Kenny heaved a sigh of relief, then drew in a deep breath as he unstrapped his helmet. The mission seemed to be complete, as the rest of the team had already taken control of the first floor. But a sliver of doubt remained in Kenny’s mind. The CIA assault team had encountered very little resistance when breaching the safehouse. There were no men defending it. No overwatch. Very unusual for any safehouse. A frown darkened Kenny’s face. Do we have the wrong house? Did we get bad intel? Are these . . . did these innocent women die defending their houses, fighting against robbers?

He peered in the night’s darkness. His eyes could no longer find the small silhouette. He exhaled and sighed again. I hope we catch him and find out something good that will save this mission. Otherwise, we’re all in deep trouble.