Ghadab took hold of the man’s arm and dragged him toward the others, who were watching to see what would happen.
“Tell me,” Ghadab shouted. “Is this man a true believer?”
No one answered. Ghadab took his knife from his belt.
“Tell me,” Ghadab shouted, pointing his knife at a gray-haired prisoner. “Is this man a true believer?”
The man began to shake, but didn’t speak.
“I’ve seen him drink,” said another man.
Ghadab let go of Ari and walked to the man who’d spoken. He pointed his khanjar at his face.
“When?” demanded Ghadab.
“After the Daesh were driven out.”
“You swear this?”
“May God strike me down.”
Ghadab walked back to the fat man.
“The man there says you are a liar,” Ghadab told him.
“With God as my witness, I swear on my children and all that is right—”
His sentence ended in a sputter and cough, his windpipe and throat slit by the fat part of Ghadab’s knife.
“To lie before God is a sin punishable by death,” bellowed Ghadab, turning back to the others. “Who will join the Caliphate?”
It was foolish to resist, and yet the crowd was not unanimous. Only half volunteered, all but two arguably too young to be accepted.
“Put them in the truck,” Ghadab told Yuge.
Yuge and two other men herded them to a pickup they had commandeered. It wasn’t hard; the men went eagerly, thankful to be spared.
Ghadab looked over the others.
“None of you will fight?” he asked.
“Please,” said one of the men. “We have been in our share of battles. We are worn from the fighting. All of us.” He gathered up his long shirt and held it up to reveal a scar on his belly. “The dictator’s troops gave me this scar.”
Ghadab leaned over and with his knife touched the top of the jagged purple gouge on the man’s pelvis.
“You fought on the government’s side?” asked Ghadab.
“I fought against the corrupt dictator,” answered the man.
“I have worse scars,” said Ghadab.
He pushed the knife tip against the wound. To his surprise, the old man remained stoic even as the tip liberated a trickle of blood the pure color of a poppy whose leaves had just burst open.
“Enough,” said Ghadab. And with that he slashed the knife horizontally against the man’s midsection, so hard that the old man folded to the ground. Ghadab knelt and slit the man’s throat, bringing him a quick death — a mercy. The smell of blood intoxicated him and he lingered for a moment, absorbing it.
By the time he rose, the rest of the captives lay on the ground, shot by his men. In the distance, he heard gunfire — the “volunteers” in the truck had all been killed.
“Burn the buildings,” he said. “You can take what women are suitable as slaves. Kill the rest.”
41
With Chelsea gone, Borya had little to do. No one would tell her where her boss and mentor had gone — very likely no one knew — but gossip pointed toward a project that would avenge the Boston attacks. Naturally, Borya wanted in. But no one was going to let a teenage intern get involved in such a thing.
Barely a barrier for her.
Smart Metal’s work computers were tied to a “sterile system”—there was no access to the outside world, one of the more basic precautions that the company used to protect against viruses and espionage. They did, however, have computers that could access the internet without access to the company’s internal system. One day, soon after Chelsea left, Borya decided to use one to find out all she could about the terrorists who had attacked her city. Her first sessions were Google searches primarily, and a lot of reading. From there, she began trolling chat rooms where ISIS supporters hung out, then explored so-called “dark sites” hidden from normal web searches and used for transferring propaganda and untraceable communications.
She found some pretty disgusting stuff. It was fascinating to see how the perverts thought.
This wasn’t what the external links were supposed to be used for, and when she reported to work after school one day and found Bozzone waiting for her in the lab, she knew she was in trouble.
Not that she let on.
“Hey, Beef,” she said, greeting the security chief like an old friend. “How’s it hangin’?”
“Mr. Massina wants to see you.”
“Awesome.”
Borya was an old hand at getting in trouble; she visited the principal’s office at her Catholic school so often the receptionist had nicknamed a chair “Borya’s throne.” But this was different. She loved working at Smart Metal, and the tone in Bozzone’s voice made it clear that she wasn’t being summoned to see Mr. Massina because he had a birthday present for her. But she feigned indifference, slinging her backpack over a shoulder and following Bozzone to the elevator.
“Think the rain will stop in time for the Red Sox game?” Borya asked.
Bozzone turned his head, raised his eyebrow slightly, but said nothing. Deposited in Massina’s outer office, Borya had no time to settle on a strategy as the secretary waved her right in. Massina was at his desk, staring at his computer, chin in one hand, pen in the other.
Was it the right or the left that was fake? She couldn’t remember.
“Ahhhh, Ms. Tolevi.” Massina frowned. “Have a seat.”
“Hey, boss.” Her voice squeaked. She tried clearing her throat, but suddenly her mouth and everything in it felt drier than sandpaper.
“I see that you’ve been doing some extracurricular work on my time,” he said.
Extracurricular?
That’s it! I can claim it’s for a school assignment.
“I notice that you’ve been doing some research on Daesh,” continued Massina. “ISIS.”
“I want to kill those bastards,” she blurted.
“As do we all,” said Massina grimly. “Who told you to do it?”
“No one.”
“No one?”
It was a way out: offer up the name of someone who’d said it was OK. But that was ratting out someone, which would be against her code.
More important, there was no one to rat out.
“I did it myself.”
“And you found something interesting?”
“Not yet.”
“What did you find?” Massina asked.
“They use anonymous servers and some repeaters, like routing things through Ukraine and the Checkers Republic.”
“Czech.”
“That’s what I meant.” Borya felt her face flush. That was a stupid mistake — she knew what the damn country’s name was.
Checkers. Duh!
“There are chat rooms, and they encrypt stuff,” she said quickly. “Like there are a couple of personalities on there that might be interesting to follow through and see.”
“You’re just free-forming?” asked Massina.
“What does that mean?”
“You’re doing all this on your own, without an agenda. Just talking.”
“I want to find out what I can.”
“That’s a good attitude.”
Maybe I’m not going to get fired.
“Smart Metal computers are for work projects only,” said Massina, once again stern. “For various reasons. Including your safety. Even if that weren’t the case, provoking these people, even getting your identity known to them — it’s very, very dangerous. These people are killers.”
“I know that. B-but—”
“There really can be no buts. Is that clear?”
She nodded reluctantly.
“Does your father know about this?”