Gun drawn, Maggie stepped out into the hallway, which was lit by one bare bulb now the generator had kicked in. She could hear the women in the dormitory room around the corner talking at ninety miles an hour.
When she turned the corner, she saw two of the women standing outside the room, clearly in a state of agitation. They saw her approaching, gun in hand.
One woman shrieked.
“Stay calm,” Maggie said in Arabic, lowering her weapon. “None of you are going to be harmed.”
Sergeant Kaminski appeared at the other end of the hall, with her M4A1 carbine. She gave Maggie a nod. Maggie returned it.
“Who are you?” an older Arab woman said to Maggie. She was in her early forties, with long gleaming hair and dramatically arched eyebrows.
While Sergeant Kaminski stood, rifle ready, Maggie explained to the women that the Americans were taking over the compound, but that the women were going to have to leave. One or two expressed disbelief but most got dressed quickly, gathering up belongings, packing them into any kind of bag available—carry-ons, plastic bags, anything.
“No time for that,” Maggie shouted. “Let’s go, ladies.”
“Where’s Besma?” another asked.
“She must have already left,” said another.
“You’re sure we’re free to go?” one young woman said in English, taking Maggie by surprise. She was American, a heavy teenager with acne.
“If you leave now,” Maggie said. “We can’t guarantee anyone’s safety. Especially once we start dealing with those jihadis out there.”
The girl grimaced, pulling on big camouflage fatigue pants. Others filed out under Sgt. Kaminski’s watchful eye.
“Where are you from?” Maggie asked the girl.
“Milwaukee.”
“What on earth are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” she said.
Maggie bet it was. The girl was probably a jihadi bride, recruited over the Internet.
Behind the building, the jihadi fighters were shouting anew. Maggie went out into the hallway. The women hurried out. Maggie followed, counting them off. She was one short.
“Where did that American girl go?” she said, turning back to Sergeant Kaminski. “The one in the camo?”
Sergeant Kaminski ducked into the room just as a shot rang out, a tight snap followed by Kaminski bolting back into the hallway, slamming against the wall, more surprised than anything else it seemed. She’d been hit. She raised her carbine and, gritting her teeth, fired a burst into the room. The narrow hall echoed with shots. Shell casings clattered on the floor.
“You OK?” Maggie said.
“Yep,” Sergeant Kaminski said, patting her rib cage. “Kevlar. Just hurts like a mother. Hopefully didn’t break a rib.”
Maggie followed her into the room. The American girl was sprawled across a bed, her arm hanging down to the floor. A Tokarev pistol lay by her motionless hand. Maggie kicked it away.
“What the hell?” John Rae said over the radio.
“Unexpected resistance,” Maggie said. “It’s over.” She turned to Sergeant Kaminski. “Go out and cover the women. They have to leave the camp.”
“Got it.” Kaminski jogged down the hall.
“Are the front gates open?” Maggie asked over the radio.
“Ten four,” one of the PJs said.
A few minutes later Sergeant Kaminski contacted Maggie. “Two of the women won’t leave. They think we’re getting them out of here.”
“We don’t have room—do we?”
“We do not,” P One interrupted.
Damn. “We deal with it later.” Maggie headed down the hall, turning right. She found John Rae and one of the PJs outside Hassan’s room.
“No movement,” John Rae said. “Door’s locked. He’s lying low. Coward.”
Maggie knocked on the door, hard. She announced herself in Modern Standard Arabic. “This is a United States military mission. We’re here for Akram and Fadila Tijani. Tell your men to hand them over to us and we’ll leave—no one will be harmed.”
“Death to America!” a man yelled.
That’s what she was afraid of.
“We don’t have a lot of time, Hassan al-Hassan,” she said. “Last chance.”
“I’ve got the boy!” he shouted.
Maggie stood back, eyed John Rae. “I’m going out back to talk to those guys. Maybe when they see the women have left, they’ll follow suit.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No more than you.”
“Maggie,” John Rae said, “there’s a window out front to this very room. We shoot a grenade through it, take out Hassan al-Hassan. With him gone, those jihadis will be a lot more pliable.”
“There’s a kid in that room, though, right? The little brother of the girl who helped you, told you where Kafka’s parents were?”
John Rae grimaced. “It’s called ‘collateral damage,’ Maggie. Yeah, it’s a euphemism, but the bottom line is, we get Kafka’s parents out, you can break Abraqa Darknet, your Yazidi genocide comes to a halt.”
“No, John Rae. I’m not ready to go that route. Not with a kid’s life at stake.”
“You know what? One school of thought says we could have shipped Kafka off to Guantánamo, got the information we needed out of him there. Without being so damn nice.”
“I must’ve missed school that day.”
Sergeant Kaminski broke in. She was up front by the garage, with Besma and the two women who wouldn’t leave. “God damn, Maggie! One of Jihad Nation’s finest just took off. Some guy with a red beard. Must be a foreign fighter. Ran right through the gate like a bunny. Look at him go!”
That was what Maggie wanted to hear. “Let’s hope others follow,” she said. She looked at John Rae. “Where’s the emergency cash?” Rescue operations carried reserve funds, for repairs, bribes, what have you.
“P One has it on board,” John Rae said. “Bad can get it.”
“Did you copy that, Bad Allah?” Maggie said. “P One?”
“Ten-four,” both parties replied.
“Think you can buy them off, Maggie?” John Rae said, jerking his thumb toward the back of the building. “Jihadists?”
“One is already gone. One or two more are probably thinking about it. If we can buy them off, that leaves fewer to deal with. The guy on the roof is a good shot, I take it?”
“He’s the best,” Sergeant Kaminski interjected on the radio.
“I’m going round there to talk to those jihadis,” Maggie said to John Rae. “Bad, get me that cash, please.” She looked back at John Rae, who was giving her the red stare. “JR, if this doesn’t work, you can storm Hassan’s quarters. But give me a shot at it.”
John Rae seemed to think that over. “I’ll go out and talk to them.”
“How? You can’t speak Arabic. You can barely speak English.”
“So come with me. Translate.”
“No. This is one case where being a woman has its advantages.”
“I can think of a few more. But I’m going with you, at the very least.”
“No. They’re too jumpy. It’s less intimidating if I go on my own.”
“It’s also a hell of a lot more dangerous for you.”
“I’m hoping Sharpshooter on the roof has me covered,” she said.
“You got that right, Ma’am,” one of the PJs said, presumably the one stationed on the roof.
“Do you know the Arabic phrase ‘alhamdulillah’?” Maggie asked him.
“Doesn’t it mean ‘Praise be to God’?” Sharpshooter replied.
“Indeed it does,” Maggie said. “When I say that phrase, it will be your cue to open fire on the jihadis. But only then and not until.”
“‘Praise be to God’,” Sharpshooter said in Arabic. “Got it.”
“In that case,” John Rae said, “I’m getting on the roof, too.” He turned to the PJ guarding the door with him. “You good here, keeping an eye on Hassan’s room?”
The PJ returned a nod. “I’ll call Kaminski if I need help.”
John Rae turned back to Maggie, gave her a softer look. “I’m going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble if you don’t come back, Maggie.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” She gave him a wink, and their eyes met for a moment. Maggie turned, went back outside.
A few minutes later, armed with ten thousand in hundred dollar bills, Maggie headed down the side of the main building toward the back, where the jihadis were holding Kafka’s parents. John Rae had clambered onto the roof and joined the PJ up there.
As she approached she caught a glimpse of the five remaining fighters, who had lost some of their bravado. One man sat on the ground, smoking a cigarette. The others stood in a circle around Kafka’s parents. The tension in Maggie’s body tightened so that her strides became shorter and slightly jerky.
“Stop!” a man shouted at Maggie in Arabic, followed by the unmistakable sound of an automatic rifle being racked into firing position. Her nerves responded appropriately, making her shake.
She raised her hands above her head. One held the thick wad of currency.
“I’m unarmed,” she shouted back in Arabic. “I just want to talk.”
The tall gunman, wearing a black afghan turban, saw the cash. People could spot that a mile away.
“Come,” he said, keeping the weapon trained on her. It had a large round magazine. Gas powered no doubt. She pushed away the thought of a hundred bullets riddling her body in seconds.
She took a deep breath and pressed on, hoping that her scheme would pay off.
She got within ten feet. The man who had been sitting on the ground stood up. She stole a glance at Kafka’s parents. His mother’s worried eyes followed her every move. His father, an older, heavier version of Kafka, with a wisp of hair on his crown, stood next to her, a smear of blood on the side of his face where he had obviously wiped his wound, as evidenced by the red smudge on one of his shirttails.
“You have two minutes,” the man in the turban said.
“What we have here is a stalemate,” Maggie began, digging for Arabic that was not in dialect but would convey her meaning well enough. The more she spoke the language the easier it became. “We want those two,” she continued, nodding at Kafka’s parents. “That’s all we want.”
“And why should we give them to you?” he said with an ugly smile.
Maggie gave her hand, the one that held the money, one half-twist above her head. All eyes were upon it.
“We could take that money from you,” he said. “We could kill you. Easily.”
“You could,” she said. “And then in practically no time at all, the chopper strikes. This camp will be nothing but a smoldering pile of rubble. Well, just between you and me, friend, that’s what’s going to become of this place anyway when the drone strikes arrive. Very soon. Very soon indeed. But you still have an opportunity to avoid that and fight another day. Provided you lay down your weapons and leave now. Most of the women have already left. Hassan al-Hassan is cornered in his room, hiding. He won’t be getting out of here. But the rest of you—well, we don’t care about you. I count five of you. I have ten thousand dollars. You do the math. Some of you have families. Two thousand dollars for any one of you that wants to put down your weapon—right here, right now—and leave.” She knew what that kind of money meant in a country where a man made a hundred euros a month—if he could find a job. It was life-changing. Already she could see the deliberation in the eyes watching her intently.
“We just lay down our guns?” a short man at the back said.
“On the ground,” Maggie said. “And I pay you. And then you leave. That’s it.”
“How do we know someone won’t shoot us?” another said.
“If we wanted to kill you,” Maggie said, “we would have struck this camp with drones and been done with it. We just want those two.” She nodded again at Kafka’s parents. Then she looked at the tall man in the turban. “May I lower my hands, please?”
The cash had made them all curious.
“Go ahead,” the tall man muttered, gesturing with the rifle. “Just don’t try anything.”
“Very well.” Maggie lowered her hands and counted off twenty one hundred dollar bills, making eye contact with the short man.
“Do yourself a favor.” She held the cash out. “Lay down your gun. You’ll be out of here in minutes, a man with money in his pocket. Real money.”
Tense silence hovered in the cold night air.
“Step aside,” the short man said, pushing forward. He came up, laid a battered Kalashnikov at Maggie’s feet, then stood up.
“No, Ahmed,” the tall man in the turban said, “I won’t allow it.”
“You don’t speak for me. Hassan al-Hassan is my chief. And where is he now? Hiding in his room with his Ameriki bride. I have a wife and six children in Saudi Arabia.” He put his hand out. “Pay me.”
Maggie counted off the bills.
“Allah will punish you, Ahmed,” the tall man said.
“Allah can punish me when I’m dead,” he said, folding the money, putting it in his robe. He turned and, without looking back, walked toward the open gate, his arms swinging. He walked through the gate, the others watching him, and disappeared into the night. No shots were fired.
“Who’s next?” Maggie said.
“Me,” a light-skinned young man said, unslinging his rifle.
Minutes later two jihadis were left—the tall man in the Afghan turban and a scary-looking man with a big nose and one good eye. But they seemed more concerned with watching Maggie’s money and each other than Kafka’s parents, who hovered nearby.
Maggie counted her money. She prayed that the PJ and John Rae on the roof had her covered.
“Who’s next?” she said again.
“No one,” the tall man said.
She had expected as much. But now there were only two of them to deal with. Her heart pounded in her ears all the same. She took a breath, made eye contact with Kafka’s mother, repeating a telegraphed look that said run when the opportunity presented itself. She had been doing the same with Kafka’s father during the interactions with the men. It seemed they understood what Maggie meant.
“It’s your decision,” she said to the tall man, folding the rest of the money. She cleared her throat. “Praise be to God.”
A shot rang out from the rooftop and the tall man bolted sideways, his turban blown away, brain matter flying as he collapsed to the ground in a heap, landing on his weapon. Kafka’s mother screamed and ran, her husband following. The one-eyed man spun to fire at the two of them but before he could raise his gun, his head disappeared as the crack of another shot reverberated from the roof.
Maggie ran to Kafka’s parents.