Earlier that evening, inside the Jihad Nation compound
“Did you do well at your lessons today, Havi?” Hassan al-Hassan asked, scooping lamb stew up with a piece of pita bread, stuffing it in his mouth. He wore a black robe with a tan shoulder holster, seated cross-legged on the floor at the low table. Havi sat next to him, wearing a beige Kufi skull cap. He looked down at his plate, picking at his food.
Besma and Abeer sat quietly on the other side of the room, watching, waiting their turn to possibly eat. But what was more important to Besma was getting hold of that phone of Abeer’s she had secreted under the bed.
“I asked you a question, Havi,” Hassan al-Hassan said. “Speak up when I talk to you. You’re going to be a Muslim now, not one of the sheepish people you left behind. Be proud. That means looking a man in the eye when he talks to you.”
“Yes,” Havi said, looking up, stealing a glance at Besma before returning Hassan’s gaze.
“That’s better,” Hassan said. “Now, how are your lessons?”
“Good, God be praised, Hassan al-Hassan.”
“Of course. You are a cub of the caliphate now. A star pupil. And what did you learn today?”
“Shooting pistols.”
“Shooting!” Hassan nodded multiple times. “Excellent. Did you enjoy it?”
“Actually, it hurt my hand, Hassan al-Hassan.”
Hassan laughed and slapped Havi on the shoulder. “Oh, it does at first, my boy. That’s because your hands are soft. We’re going to change that. You need to practice. And practice. Allah will give you the strength you need.”
“Yes, I know. But Hassan al-Hassan, the gun is so big.”
Hassan laughed again. “You grow into the gun!” He took a quick sip of tea, spilling some on the carpet. Then, as if something just came to mind, he said, “Here.” He reached under his left arm, pulled his pistol, a 911 style semi-automatic, making Besma’s heart jump. He racked the gun’s slide back and forward with a practiced hand, yielding a noisy ratchet sound. Then he handed the big gun to Havi.
Besma’s nerves shot into high gear.
“Take it, boy,” Hassan said.
Havi eyed the gun.
“Come on! Take the gun!”
Havi grasped the pistol with both hands. He examined the weapon. “The safety is off.”
“I never use them, boy. Allah protects us. He protects all of his warriors. Just as he now protects you.”
Besma could only hope that was the case. Allah’s protection, as much as she doubted it, would be welcome in Havi’s situation.
“It’s loaded?” Havi asked Hassan.
“Of course it’s loaded, boy. You saw me rack it. Now, stop stalling and show me how you shoot.”
“What?” Havi screeched. “In here?”
Besma was beginning to feel faint.
“You don’t always get to choose where you must shoot, boy. Or when. Do you think a battle will only happen where you wish it? Yes, in here.”
Havi blinked in confusion as he held the gun, which looked enormous in his small hands.
“But what do I shoot at, Hassan al-Hassan?”
Hassan stroked his long beard as he gazed around the room. His wild eyes seemed to settle on something above Besma’s head.
“There!” He grinned, pointing above Besma and Abeer’s heads. Besma turned to see the fat Teddy Bear on top of a cluttered bookcase. “Shoot Teddy!”
Besma gulped back her nerves, noting that Abeer seemed just as uneasy. The thought of a six-year-old firing an automatic pistol in an enclosed space near their heads was not normal, she gathered, even for this place.
“But my sister . . .” Havi said.
“That’s why you must shoot well, eh?” Hassan said, laughing. “So you don’t shoot your sister. It will be a good incentive for you. Go on, now. Fire.”
Havi clasped the pistol in both hands, raised it, his small arms quivering under the weight. He closed one eye, squinting with the other. Abeer ducked down to the floor. Besma did the same.
Minutes seemed to pass. In another part of the house Besma heard laughter.
“Go on, boy!” Hassan said. “Don’t take all night.”
“I’m aiming, Hassan al-Hassan.”
“Yes, yes, I know you are. But in real life . . .”
Bang! The gun went off, sounding like dynamite in the enclosed room, accompanied by Abeer shrieking, followed by the clatter of something heavy hitting the floor.
“You got him, boy!” Hassan shouted, laughing with glee. “You got Ted! Excellent shot!”
Besma and Abeer sat back up. Besma glanced at the Teddy Bear, now turned askew on top of the bookcase, stuffing hanging out of his round tummy. A direct hit. She looked across the room at Havi, who seemed to be as surprised as she was. The gun was no longer in his hands.
“Where’s the gun, boy?” Hassan said.
“It flew out of my hands, Hassan al-Hassan.” Havi held his hands up, shook them loose. “They’re buzzing.”
“Never mind,” Hassan said, looking around. “Ah, there it is! Behind that cushion, Get it, will you, Havi? There’s a good boy.”
Havi retrieved the gun, handed it back to Hassan, who reholstered it. Besma had been entertaining a wild fantasy of getting hold of the gun herself somehow.
Hassan clapped his hands at Besma and Abeer. “Time for bed, you two. You are dismissed.”
Besma was hoping beyond hope that she could stay a while and chat with her brother. But she knew better than to ask such a thing.
Abeer stood up, stormed to the door in silence, obviously not happy with being relegated to the women’s room for the night.
Besma stood up as well.
“May I congratulate my little brother’s fine shooting with a good night kiss, Hassan al-Hassan?”
Hassan sat back, resting on his elbows. “I don’t see why not. Havi, go give your sister a kiss. Be quick about it. It doesn’t do to be a mama’s boy.”
Havi hopped up quickly, stepped around the low brass table, came over to Besma. He wore a fine beige linen robe, which fit him well, and good leather sandals.
“Look at you!” she said. “So handsome! Give me a hug.”
She reached down and embraced her brother, holding him for as long as she could, terrified for him. She kissed his neck and whispered in his ear in Kumanji, their Kurdish tongue, “There’s a phone, Havi. Under the bed. When Hassan’s not looking, get hold of it. Hide it in the toilet. On top of the cistern. Got that?”
He nodded quickly into her neck.
“Good boy, Havi,” she said in Arabic now, louder, “I love you.”
“That’s enough of that,” Hassan said, clapping again. “Don’t mollycoddle him.”
“Where’s my phone, bitch?” Abeer shouted, grabbing Besma by her robe, holding her so close that her spittle hit Besma’s face.
“How should I know?” Besma said, recoiling, her arms up.
“I know you took it!”
Besma threw Abeer off. “It’s not my fault you lost it! Hassan forbid you to use it anyway.”
“Stop fighting!” another young woman said. “If Mustafa comes in and reports us, it’ll be beatings all round.”
“She’s right,” another said.
They were standing in the middle of a stifling hot room. There were bunk beds, a pair of twin beds pushed up against the wall, mattresses on the floor, and more than a dozen women to share it all. One small window with bars on it was all they had for ventilation, the curtain draped over it barely moving with the cool night air that didn’t come fast enough. A pair of dusty fans sat still, the generators turned off at night to avoid attracting the Yanki drones. There were clothes everywhere. And the smell, the smell of so many bodies, so close together, bodies compressed by space, by heat, by desperation.
“If I find you took my phone, you whore,” Abeer said to Besma, storming back to her bunk. “I’ll kill you.”
An older woman by the name of Gala, a dark-skinned Egyptian who had obviously once been a great beauty, spoke up. “You need to be careful, Ameriki,” she said to Abeer, pronouncing the last word as if it were something profane. “Besma here is destined to be a wife of the caliph.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled. “She might just put in a bad word for you.”
Abeer grabbed her pillow, fluffed it angrily. “And I might just put in a bad word for her,” she snapped. “With Hassan al-Hassan. And he’s right here. Right now.”
“Not quite, Ameriki,” Gala said, sitting down on a bed next to another woman who was reading a well-thumbed copy of Cosmopolitan in Arabic by a battery-operated lantern. “He’s way over there.” She pointed to the other side of the house. “And you’re right here.” She smiled, not a nice smile. “With the rest of us. He doesn’t want you as much as he used to, does he? There’s nothing special about a fat Ameriki.”
“Shut up.”
“Maybe you should stop stuffing your face, Ameriki,” another one said.
“You’ll all be sorry,” Abeer said, throwing her pillow down on the lower bunk of a bed, climbing in, turning her back to the room. “You’ll all be sorry.”
Middle of the night, Besma awoke, not that she had been sleeping well to begin with; other women were snoring, talking in their sleep. She climbed off her bed—she now rated a single bed since she was destined to be a bride of the caliph—and pulled on her abaya. She stepped carefully over the sleeping bodies on the mattresses on the floor, maneuvering her way to the door of the woman’s dormitory. The door had been left open a foot or so, to let some badly needed air into the room.
Craning her neck she peered out. Mustafa the guard was asleep in his chair, head slumped forward over his big belly as if dead. If only.
As quickly as possible, she tiptoed out into the hallway, around him, so as not to wake him, and made her way down the hall. Her nose stung as she approached the toilet. She went inside, shut the door silently, trying to forget the poor girl who had slashed her wrists. Besma would never forget having to wheelbarrow her body out to the pit. She stood, adjusting her eyes to the darkness. She stopped, listened. Distant snoring. An action film played on a laptop computer somewhere. During the day when the generator ran, they charged the computers back up.
She straddled herself, one foot either side of the Turkish toilet, and reached up, touching the very top of the cistern, praying.
Her fingers brushed the edge of something square and plastic.
The phone!
She marveled at how resourceful her little brother was. To get it way up there. So brave.
She couldn’t have asked him to call father himself. She’d already put him at far too much a risk. He had done more than his share.
She grabbed the phone, stood down, gave it a quick once-over, made sure the volume was muted. She didn’t need some silly music to give her away. Concealing the phone within her robe, she left the bathroom.
She went back out into the hallway.
Mustafa was still asleep in his chair. The others made fun of him behind his back. “The harem guard,” they called him. “Mustafa makes his money the easy way,” Gala had told Besma, “escorting women to the toilet. Fetching a midwife now and again. No beheadings or gunfights for him.” She doubted if his gun even worked anymore, Gala told Besma with a wicked grin, winking. Besma blushed, getting the joke although she had no experience with men. She hoped she never would, not in this hellhole. She knew it didn’t matter whether a jihadi guarded women or wore a suicide vest. They were all just as deadly. Mustafa had eyed her in a way that made her nervous, as if she were naked. She knew what he was capable of.
Besma looked at him again, sitting there, and realized the time to call her father was now. The blood in her ears roiled.
She turned around, padded down the dark hallway to the door leading to the outside, where she stood for a moment, the brilliant stars piercing the sky over the compound. The training facilities were to the left, the open garage to the right. A Toyota pickup covered in netting and camouflage was parked along the wall. Two trucks were parked inside the garage. That looked like a safe place to call her father. Perhaps he could try and raise ransom money to buy her and Havi back. The thought of being the caliph’s wife terrified her as much as being Hassan’s toy.
She darted across the packed dirt of the courtyard, dodging shell casings and stones, getting to the garage quickly, nestling herself between the two trucks inside.
She checked Abeer’s phone. So many text messages for the American Terror Bride. In English.
Dear Traci—please call home. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Please call. Please let your father and I know you’re all right.
What did it mean?
She dialed a number she had memorized.
Crouched between the pickup trucks, Besma listened to the ring drone on. And on. Four rings. Five. Six. Where was her father? It had been days since they had been taken. Was he still at the refugee camps, looking for the lost women?
Was he safe?
The call rolled over to voicemail.
She left the clearest message she could, trying not to break down into tears like a little girl, telling him that she and Havi were alive, along with others, being held by Hassan al-Hassan. She told him where they were, as best as she knew how. Near the Zab river, off highway 80, near a town. An old school of some sort, a Jihad Nation compound now. She had been collecting this information over the last two days, eavesdropping, listening to the women, and she had rehearsed the speech.
When she was done, she told her father that she loved him.
She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that Mother had been killed. Perhaps he already knew.
She hung up, powered down the phone, noting that it had very little battery left. She went to a dark corner of the garage and found a cinderblock on the cement floor against the wall. She slipped the phone in one of the two holes, covered it with an empty paint can.
Then she thought she heard something. She shuddered in fright.
The slapping of sandals against feet. She jumped up, darted into the dark garage, stood at the back behind a pickup truck. She peered out into the yard.
Mustafa! Walking around the courtyard with a flashlight lighting his way, the silhouette of his AK-47 over his shoulder outlined by moonlight behind him, his big belly sticking out. Had someone—most likely Abeer—told him she’d slipped away? Abeer would have.
Mustafa would be in serious trouble if the caliph’s new bride disappeared. It might be more than his fat head was worth.
He turned, headed her way, straight for the garage. She ducked to avoid the beam of light.
The truck’s tailgate was down. Besma climbed into the back as quickly and quietly as possible. The hard metal bed hurt her knees as she inched forward. She lay down between a pile of rope and an old tarpaulin. Ever so quietly, she reached over, pulled the tarp over her. Her nose reeled with the stink of oil and manure.
Mustafa came plodding into the garage, mumbling. Wait ’til I get my hands on that little bitch.
Besma lay there frozen. The only part of her moving was her heart, hammering away.
Mustafa went back out to the courtyard. Her breath escaped in a torrent of relief. She heard him wandering around, patrolling the rest of the compound. It seemed to take forever.
And then, when she thought he might be done, she heard him, still beseeching Allah to let him find the girl Besma, as he headed toward the gates.
She heard him pulling the bar that locked the gates.
Opening them.
Mustafa was going outside, to continue his search.