To them, she must’ve looked like a refugee—tired, hungry, and dirty. The hotel man moved toward her. She loosed her bladder. The urine soaked her feet and the cement of the loading dock. The driver’s face pinched in disgust. The hotel man jumped back and began to yell at her in Arabic.
He didn’t dare come at her, for fear of the urine. She jumped down from the dock and ran down the alley, holding her clothes in place against her stomach as if she were pregnant. He yelled curses after her.
Chapter 20
A dust-coated military truck, men with rifles hanging from its slat sides and a group of veiled women huddled inside, rumbled into the burned-out village.
The crumbling walls of abandoned buildings and large piles of debris dotted the landscape as the sun bowed against the blue-black edges of night and relented control of the sky. Sandesh and Salma had been here over fifteen hours. He’d mapped every inch of this place.
The truck pulled to a stop. The driver, a man in his twenties, jumped out and approached. His fellow freedom fighters kept their rifles pointed at the horizon.
Every hair on Sandesh’s neck stood on end. He kept his weapon pointed down. These were the good guys. Back when the war here had started and the resistance was made up of moderate rebels—the secular Free Syrian Army trying to overthrow the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad—he and his team had armed and taught men like these. Men who’d defected from Assad’s own army, disgusted by his treatment of the Syrian people.
That was before the FSA had splintered and those with more radical views had decided Assad going wasn’t enough. They wanted a strict Islamic state. That gave ISIS the opening they needed. They joined with the rebels who were of like mind. Now the FSA, which served as an umbrella name for many moderate groups, fought ISIS and Assad. And too often Assad sat back and watched his enemies destroy each other.
Of course, Assad helped in their destruction. He bombed any hospitals and schools that the FSA or ISIS relied upon. He made no distinction between the two. And maybe the world had forgotten too.
Salma spoke with the man from the truck for a brief moment. They broke off. And then the man turned to the others in the truck and began issuing orders. The truck tailgate was dropped as men jumped off and began helping women out.
Salma turned to Sandesh, “We have to hurry. The traffickers pursue them.”
Sandesh went into action. He began to lead the women from the large military truck into the pickup.
He did a double take on seeing a pregnant woman. Salma saw his reaction and put a hand on his forearm. “No honor among thieves. This Yazidi girl was a favorite of an ISIS commander. His wife, a facilitator on this transaction, was jealous of her.”
Sandesh’s stomach soured.
He gently guided the pregnant woman to the passenger side of the truck’s cab. The moment he opened the door, there were a series of clangs. Bullets hitting steel.
They were under attack.
Sandesh rushed the pregnant woman into the front seat. She was bleeding. Salma climbed in after her. He slammed the door closed.
The other women ran past him and began to climb into the truck as the soldiers provided cover fire.
He pulled his gun from his holster and moved toward the back of the truck to reinforce the other men.
“Go. Go!” one of the Kurdish soldiers yelled.
He jolted, looked into the truck filled with women. What the hell had he been doing? He told the seated women to hold on and pushed closed the heavy steel tailgate. He jogged to the driver’s side, jumped into the cab, hit the gas, and took off.
Chapter 21
Justice arrived on the fourteenth floor shortly after Walid and Aamir’s scheduled dinner. She wore the crisp white shirt, black vest, white gloves, and sleek tie of a maid as she walked down the hallway lined with exclusive suites.
Even if she hadn’t had the room number, she’d have known the room. Two bodyguards stood outside the door.
Her heart sped up. She took in and let out a slow, controlled breath. She tried to appear harmless—just maid service here to shut the curtains and turn down the beds.
She plastered a smile on her face, grateful for the prosthetics that made her nose and chin larger. That, the change of eye color—she’d gone with Egyptian gold—and the addition of braces and wig made a decent disguise.
One of the guards waved her to stop. She noticed the bulk under his jacket. Both guards were armed. In Spanish-accented English, one asked her what she wanted.
She pointed to her mouth. She opened her mouth and showed them her braces and her damaged tongue. The men cringed.
As well they should; that bit of F/X hurt like hell. The steel wires holding down her tongue pinched her gums at the metal bracers attached to her teeth. Still, it didn’t hurt as badly as her Arabic. And even if she’d known they understood English, she wouldn’t have wanted to be remembered as someone who spoke English.
One of the guards commented to the other that it was “disgusting.”
The other guard nodded as he patted her down, thoroughly. In some countries, probably this one, that pat down would have been enough to consider them married.
He waved toward the door. “Go.”
Stepping forward, she used the key card Momma had provided.
One of the guards, touchy-feely, walked in behind her. Expected.
He called to the interior guard, and they exchanged information. The inside guard had a Russian accent. Okay. Did anyone in this country still speak Arabic? The hall guard exited.
The thin, angular interior guard watched her move across the central room, the living area. It was opulent, even by Parish standards. With thick velvet drapes that extended floor to ceiling, a large chandelier, velvet couches, a dining table, and a full bar.
She closed the drapes, found the engraved silver lighter behind the bar, and lit the candles along the dining table, then moved into the bedroom.
The guard didn’t follow her but told her to leave the door open. She did.
The guard’s interest flitted from her to the other bedroom and back to her. She turned down the bed, then, spotting a pair of brown shoes on the floor, she shook her head as if lamenting men and their barbarous ways. She walked the shoes into the closet.
Once inside, she reached under the wig and pulled out the slim packet that contained the poison. She handled the pod with care, though she knew it would take more than just squeezing it to open. It required something sharper.
She left the closet and slipped into the bathroom. Fiddling with her braces, she removed the metal wire. Her hands, covered with the traditional white gloves with rubber gloves underneath, began to shake.
Instinctively, she held her breath, though the poison needed to be ingested. She squeezed a small drop on the only toothbrush present. It seeped quickly into the bristles.
Now came the hard part. She palmed the wire and the packet and moved to the bedside table, careful to keep her back to the man. She finished turning down the bed.
One more.
She walked into the living area. The Russian guard now sat at the bar. He turned to her as she crossed to the other bedroom. “Be quick in there,” he said. She nodded.
It wasn’t until she was in the room that she realized why the guard wanted her to be quick.
The shower was on. It went off while she stood there. Justice’s heart lurched forward and began to pound. The bathroom door opened. Steam wafted out along with Aamir followed by a girl with long, damp, blond hair.
Hope?
No. Not Hope. Hope was dead. And the man who had killed her, who had raped and murdered her, stood here now. Naked.
And the girl. She couldn’t have been more than twelve. She was naked too. She shook, kept her eyes down. Aamir smiled when he saw Justice, smiled as if shame and evil didn’t really exist. He strutted past Justice and told the gi
rl, who hesitated at the bathroom doorway, to get into the bed. The girl made a small, despairing sound, then obeyed.
Aamir didn’t cover himself. Justice didn’t move. He raised one eyebrow. He passed close enough that she could see the water droplets on his eyebrows.
In Arabic, with his creepy British accent, he said, “It’s okay. We’re married.”
Mother. Fucker.
She grimaced. All teeth and temper.
Chapter 22
The glimmering restaurant was dull to Walid. The expensive meal, oysters heavy with cream and exotic truffles, tasted empty, like regret in his mouth. He was not proud of himself, not proud of his anger or of taking Aamir’s best men out of spite.
Although spite wasn’t the right word—more a need to validate, prove that, despite his dismissal, Aamir still cared for him.
It was Aamir’s rejection that stung.
He’d watched Aamir, watched the way he’d folded the girl’s hair over his hand, as if it were spun gold. And then noticed the distinctly annoyed tension at the corner of his brother’s eyes when Walid had asked him why he was not yet ready for dinner. “I am on my honeymoon, Walid. Surely, you have some appreciation for that?”
Walid had had to stop himself from stamping his feet like a child. “We have such a short time together. There is much to discuss.”
“We spent the day discussing things. We have seen to the shipment, met with the smugglers, and secured the routes.”
“I had hoped to discuss the threat to us.”