“Good.” Alex, Sam and Casey pulled on the thawbs. The loose fabric concealed most things, but not that each of them was oversized.
Adira looked at them and then shook her head. “Shizza. Both of you bend forward slightly. The only ones to stand so cockily upright are the fighters. Everyone else should be bent, humble, and permanently living in fear.”
The HAWCs rounded their shoulders and hung their heads.
“Better,” she said. “We meet back here at 1200 hours. That will give us plenty of time to observe from many different perspectives. There are numerous coffee shops still open — better to be seated in one, than to be loitering.” She looked at each of their faces, her eyes narrowing behind the niqab. “If you hear gunfire, screams, anything, you ignore it; it is a common thing here. You will see things that will frustrate you and horrify you, things that will demand your intervention, but do not engage. We have a priority mission, and that is not to spend our time rescuing individuals.” She waited. “Got it?”
“Got it,” Alex said.
She held his eyes. “I mean it.” She turned back to the table and pulled on a pair of black gloves. “Pull your cowls over your heads.” She leaned forward onto the table. “And one more thing; don’t get captured. The last high-value foreign fighter they managed to take prisoner ended up locked in a cage and burned alive for the pleasure of the online wanna-be jihadis still scattered around the world. The more barbaric the act, the more it works as a recruitment tool.”
Alex’s jaws worked as he remembered the brave Jordanian soldier. He ground his teeth. Inside him something stirred, whispering for revenge, wanting to obliterate, to crush and butcher the butchers. He shook it away; they had bigger fish to fry this day.
Adira pulled up her sleeve and checked her watch one last time. Her dark eyes found Alex. “Don’t be taken alive. Being beheaded would be a mercy compared to what these animals would do to you.”
“It won’t be us that dies this day,” Alex said evenly.
She nodded and then turned. “Reid, hunch over more, you’re still as big as a mountain. Let’s go.”
The groups left at their allotted times, and entered the sprawling city from different roads.
Alex kept his head down, but marveled at the mix of new and ancient structures. He also noticed how quiet it was, and worse, saw there were huge patches of rust-brown in the dusty streets, and knew it for what it was: old blood. Mosul was an age-old city first mentioned by the Greek historian Xenophon in 401 BC. At its peak just a decade ago, it had nearly two million residents. Now over a million had fled, and the modern city was rapidly sliding back to being a medieval stronghold, complete with torture, stonings, and beheadings.
New military hardware was stationed everywhere — ever since the Iraqi armory in Kirkuk was overrun and around a billion dollars of American equipment was stolen, each barbaric terrorist now had modern weaponry, anti-aircraft batteries, and tanks and armored vehicles were parked at strategic places in the streets. Alex had no doubt that many of the rooftops would have surface-to-air missiles and heavy RPG launchers ready in the event someone was brave enough to try and drop in. And a full airborne strike, the preferred option, would be impossible while there were still so many inhabitants living there.
They continued along Jalba Street, moving swiftly along its rubble-strewn pavement, close to the industrial area and the gas power plant. There were a few people moving around now, and a few sullen-looking soldiers glared from vehicle windows, but a woman, seeming old and bent over, accompanied by perhaps her son, should not have raised suspicions. At least that’s what they hoped.
They turned into Al Shazani Road and spotted the flat two-story building they needed to examine. At the far end, coming in the opposite direction, was a pair of figures in brown shawls, their size unmistakable to Alex.
“Your Franks and Eli, — don’t even look at them,” Adira said.
Alex grunted his acknowledgement, and just kept his head down. He allowed his eyes to move over the streetscape.
“Here, Café Jaralqmar.” Alex nodded to a shop entrance where a roller door had gone up. An old man was placing chairs on the pavement, and wiping down tables.
Adira half turned, her expression impossible to gauge behind the heavy head covering. “Good, but too early; we don’t want to be the first in. We’ll circle the block.”
Alex spoke softly into his throat mic as Casey Franks came abreast of them. “Franks, on your left; target is flat-topped building with the green paint.”
“Got it, boss,” came the immediate reply.
“And we already called the café.” Alex smiled within the hood.
“Shit, I need my caffeine hit,” she growled.
Adira stopped, and pulled a packet of cigarettes from a slit in her niqab. She turned and handed them to Alex. “Light one, take your time.”
Alex nodded and took the pack. “I thought it was banned.”
“It is. Like a lot of other vices it has been declared haram. But men can flout the rules.”
Alex opened the red and white pack and first took the small plastic lighter out, then one of the filtered cigarettes. He put it in his mouth. Adira stood facing him, but her eyes wandered over the rooftops, windows and dark door entrances of their target building.
“Seems abandoned,” she said. “Big enough for a chopper to land on the roof, but if it is some sort of bomb factory, then it should be heavily guarded.” She looked along its façade. “Its ground floor is fortified, steel grills across windows and doors, but the second floor is wide open.” She frowned. “Those symbols painted on the walls and door are strange. It’s very ancient Arabic, in fact I think it’s an extinct dialect of Northern Arabic — not spoken by anyone anymore.”
After a moment she said, “Hard to read, doesn’t make sense.” Alex saw her frown as she concentrated on a translation. “It says something like, praise those who choose, or are chosen, to become the fire of god.” Adira spoke softly. “Maybe a jihad reference, but why write it in a language that is mostly forgotten?”
There was a flicker of movement in one of the windows.
“Time to go,” Alex said. “Seems there is somebody home after all.” He flicked the cigarette away, and together they ambled down the street and turned the corner.
Casey walked beside Eli. Both were looking at the street, assessing, searching for anything that would hint at danger or higher risk. She spotted Sam and Moshe at a far intersection but ignored them. Theirs, Alex’s, and also Sam’s risk assessment would all feed into the coming night’s insertion plan.
“Fucking graveyard,” Casey muttered. There were a few people about but behind the walls and doors, there was silence.
“Music is banned, singing is banned, secularism is banned.” Moshe snorted. “Welcome to paradise under Hezar-Jihadi rule.”
“Yeah, real fun place,” Casey growled back.
They turned into an alley, this one more decrepit, with a few of the buildings looking abandoned. Doors hung open or teetered on bent hinges, and beyond their entrances was nothing but darkness. From further down in the alleyway there came a squeal, like that of a hurt animal.
“We should go another way,” Moshe said.
“Why? If there’s a risk, I want to see it and assess it now, rather than tonight.” Casey lifted her pace.
“Hey… ach.” Moshe scurried after her.