“An agreed time isn’t set in stone, not like in Norway,” Sadiq said. Everything was approximate, anything could happen, everything could change. Welcome to the real world.
Finally, Monday afternoon, the mobile phone lit up. It was a text from Osman. Sadiq read the messages aloud.
“Air strike. Today. They took out al-Nusra’s HQ. Where you were. My friends are dead.”
“Oh … God!” Sadiq wrote in response. “What about the girls, and the ones who were to get them? Have they left? Tell me about the operation!”
“I’m finding it hard to collect my thoughts, I’m talking to you but I’m not awake. It was a large strike. All the Nusra buildings were leveled. Thirty dead so far.”
“May God receive them … But what happened to the men who were to drive the girls?”
“Abu Ismael, we’re burying the martyrs. I’m at the grave site now.”
Sadiq did not relent. “I need the last confirmed information about our operation. Is it proceeding as planned or has there been any change? Have they left Raqqa or not? If they have left Raqqa, where are they now?”
“The father and brother of one of the drivers we sent to Raqqa have been martyred. I have not been able to reach the drivers.”
So the girls would not be coming today.
* * *
“Leila,” Ismael wrote.
“Yes?” she answered.
Ismael was wondering how the rescuers would manage to get his sisters to come along. He knew that Leila and Ayan lived in their own apartments, each with her husband. Would they be picked up when the men were out, or would they be coming along too? He tried to sound things out.
“How are things with Ayan?” he asked.
“Alhamdulillah.”
She was using Praise be to Allah as a sort of shorthand to refer to all being well with Ayan.
During their last conversation around Christmas, Ayan had written that she wouldn’t talk to him until he stopped talking trash about Allah. But he had not believed she would make good on her threat and punish him, as if she had not ruined his life enough by going off to die. He had to fish for more information from Leila.
“Do you have any news about Ayan? When did you talk to her last?”
“Last week.”
“Is she pregnant?”
“Ask her.”
“You’re lying. You met her last week?”
“Don’t call me a liar, I chatted online with her last week.”
Ismael was fed up with the shadow play, the affected airs, the arrogance. Rescue operation or not, he wrote down some points he called “Tutorial on how to get to Paradise”:
FOR WOMEN:
1. Marry a guy who is most likely to die in war
2. Get pregnant
3. Husband dies
4. Profit
5. Repeat until you die for max profit
FOR MEN:
1. Go to place where it is Jihad
2. Get bitches pregnant cuz bitches love martyrs
3. Die in war
4. Profit
5. You are dead so there is no step 5
“Watch your blasphemy!” Leila replied. “Please watch your language when you’re talking to me. Do you really think it’s nonsense? Or are you trying (and failing btw) to be funny?”
“It’s a joke. Borderline blasphemic.”
“Well, drop it.”
Ismael contented himself with sending a picture of the three wise monkeys holding their hands over their eyes, ears, mouth. And typed in “soon-to-be Uncle Ismael.”
* * *
The next morning Osman wrote to Sadiq.
“I haven’t heard from the lads. I’m worried about them. I’m extremely anxious, and I’m dreading what to say to Hussam who lost both his father and brother. I want the girls, the men, and the vehicle back safely. In that order.”
Meanwhile, the diplomats and the PST men sat in Hatay waiting. Sadiq assured them that the girls were on their way and would soon reach the border.
As the week progressed, the texts from Osman grew gloomier.
“The lads have had an accident on the way to the girls,” he wrote. “Hussam was driving. His wife was accompanying him to make it look like a family trip, they were both injured. They’re in the hospital in Gaziantep.”
“I’ll pray for them. How are you planning to proceed?” Sadiq asked.
A Kurdish soldier had come across Hussam and his wife and given them first aid, stopping the bleeding and thus saving their lives. He had taken their valuables and given them to the local Kurdish militia, the YPG. Their mobile phones had contained photos of the girls in Raqqa, taken from a distance, and the pictures Sadiq had sent so the kidnappers would recognize them, in addition to telephone numbers of people high up in Nusra. When Osman paid the Kurds a visit to reclaim the items, he learned that it was now they who wanted a favor in return.
“They wanted Hussam, they think he’s a central figure in Jabhat al-Nusra,” Osman wrote. “When I refused they demanded payment before they would hand over the belongings. Again I refused. Then they asked me for something that could land me in deep trouble. They wanted ammunition. If I get hold of it for them, and it comes to light, I’ll be judged a traitor. Then I’m finished. Oh these Kurds, they’ve got me over a barrel!”
“Any other news?” Sadiq asked.
“The driver’s brother died in the attack on al-Nusra’s headquarters. His other brother is in a coma. My head feels like it’s going to explode. I took five headache pills today.”
“Have a sixth!”
“At the moment it feels like I need Viagra to stand upright, my friend!”
In Hatay, Sadiq and the cops sat twiddling their thumbs. How long would the embassy keep their people there? How long would the police wait?
“Hussam is in a really bad state, both his father and brother were killed. I’m trying to find a new driver. But the repairs to the car are going to be costly. I don’t know why all this misfortune and all these mishaps have befallen us! I really want to help you,” Osman assured him. “But I’m terribly afraid of Daesh. They have spies everywhere. Believe me. Every time I solve one problem another one crops up.”
The tank truck had left Raqqa
