Hassan grabbed her hand, hard, as a siren began to wail.
Aliyah looked up, amazed at how dark the sky had gotten.
Oh, mama, papa, she thought, I am in so much trouble. She got up, ready to run back to their neighborhood, to the shelter, and Hassan said, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘To the shelter. With my parents.’
He held on to her arm as other sirens began to wail. ‘No, it’s too dangerous. You have to stay here.’
‘Hassan, no, I—’
Hassan’s voice changed from that of a smiling young man, flirting with a beautiful young girl, to that of an armed militiaman, charged with a duty. ‘No! It’s too far! You’ll come here with us.’
He started dragging her away as his two companions joined him. They went through a narrow alleyway, past a squealing cat, and down one set of concrete steps, then another. The sirens seemed louder, and then there were two loud thuds as the evening’s bombing began. A metal door was unlatched and lights were switched on. Another, longer flight of concrete steps led to a further metal door, which was open. Hassan led the way, followed by Aliyah and the two other men. Electric lights in the shelter flickered and glowed. There was a family there, father and mother and four children, bundled together, their eyes really wide, and Aliyah wondered if she had looked so scared and innocent during the last war.
She sat next to Hassan on a metal bench and said, ‘My parents. They will be so cross with me, they told me to go to the shelter and—’
Hassan interrupted her, his voice so brave. ‘Then I will take the blame. I will say that I was on patrol when the sirens sounded, that I brought you here to keep you safe. That is what I will do.’
Aliyah slipped her hand into Hassan’s and squeezed it tight, thinking that yes, this would work so beautifully. She would present Hassan to mama and papa as a hero, a man who bravely took her in and comforted her. Surely mama and papa would see what a wonderful young man he was!
The lights flickered. More thudding. The children started whimpering.
Hassan raised his voice. ‘It will be fine, just you wait and see. It will be fine. Our air defenses are the mightiest in the world. All will be fine.’
Aliyah squeezed his hand again. There was another thud in the distance, and the lights went out.
More whimpering from the children. It was so dark that she couldn’t see anything, nothing at all.
But she could feel just fine, and in the darkness she felt the tentative touch of Hassan’s hand upon her face. She kissed his fingers and then his lips were upon her again, and in the darkness of the bomb shelter, despite the whimpering of the children and the thudding noises still coming in regular waves, she had never felt such pleasure, such joy, as Hassan kissed her, again and again, and then… his hand was upon her breast, gently squeezing, and her breathing quickened, as she felt a man’s hand upon her for the very first time, my God, how pleasurable and how wickedly naughty, to be touched and kissed and loved in darkness and—
WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!
There was screaming, loud screaming, and Aliyah realized it was her. She closed her mouth, found that she was on the concrete floor of the bunker. The floor was…something was wrong. It was tilted. It was still dark and there was a flare of light, as the father in the corner lit a cigarette lighter. Hassan was standing over her, his face a mix of concern and fear, and she got up. ‘I have to go, I have to go now!’
‘It’s not safe!’
‘I don’t care! I want my mama and papa, and I want them now!’
Aliyah staggered over to the door, tried to get it open. It seemed jammed. She pulled and pulled, and something wrenched free. The sirens were still screaming. She ran up the stairs, knowing that Hassan was following her, not caring.
Up and up she went, crying now, the sirens louder as she got closer to the surface. She broke free, out into the alley. Other sirens were sounding as well, ambulances and fire engines. She went out to the street, kept on running. The shelter. She would go to the shelter and find mama and papa and bury herself in their arms, and promise to be a good daughter, never again to leave their side, if only the sirens and shrieking would stop, if only it would be quiet and the war would stop and papa would work at saving sick children and mama would teach her French, and all would be safe and quiet and beautiful…
The shelter. Where was the shelter?
She ran up one block, and then took a left. More sirens from the distance, and then an ambulance shrieked by, and then another. She took another corner and—
Smoke. Chaos. Aliyah brought both fists up to her head and beat at her ears.
The shelter was across the street, but she could not get any closer. There were ambulances and fire trucks and masses of people, crowding in and around the structure. There was a barbed-wire fence around the concrete edifice, and people were tearing at it with their bare hands. A large plume of smoke was billowing from the rooftop, rising higher and higher into the night sky as if from a chimney venting the output of some horrible fire going on underneath the concrete and steel and—
A group of men emerged from the crowd, carrying a stretcher. They were chanting and screaming, and each held a fist up in the air as their other hand held the frame. An Iraqi flag was draped over the burnt body, barely concealing it. And another stretcher emerged, and another, and Aliyah was on the ground, prostrate, beating her forehead against the asphalt, praying to her savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save her and her mama and papa, and she stayed there all night long, as the hundreds of burnt bodies were dragged out of the destroyed shelter, her mama and papa among them, charred pieces of flesh and bone, and save for a distant aunt she was now all alone in the world, and when she finally stood up and saw the useless fire trucks still there in the morning, pouring water into the shelter, she was still sixteen, but she was no longer a young girl.
Hassan held no interest for her anymore nor did much of anything else. Not even her Lord Jesus Christ, who had permitted the Americans to come here and kill her family.
All that mattered now was revenge.
Revenge to make the Americans pay for what they had done to her and papa and mama.
And eventually that day, Aliyah returned home, and started to think and plan and work very, very hard.
CHAPTER NINE
In the conference room, Adrianna Scott could feel the greasy chill of despair come over her Tiger Team, but she would not allow it to get out of hand. She looked around the room and said, ‘You know the weakness of scenarios. They assume the very best chances for our enemies, the very worst response by our agencies. But Final Winter was a war game. It was horrible. But it was just a game.’
The police detective said, ‘A hell of a game, Adrianna. Jesus Christ, I thought weaponized anthrax was hard to produce, especially in quantity. Where the hell is this stuff coming from?’
Adrianna said, ‘Darren?’
The NSA man said, ‘Before the second Gulf War, the Secretary of State said that Iraq had produced hundreds of pounds of anthrax. Still hasn’t been found yet. Not hard to figure out that the stuff was either sold or given away before the Third Infantry Division plowed into Baghdad.’