Women enforcers?
Chelsea had a pistol strapped to her leg beneath her dress. Closer was the knife in her pocket. She pushed her hand between the folds of her robe and took hold of the hilt.
“Wawaqf,” said one of the women. “Stop.”
Chelsea kept walking.
“Sister, stop,” repeated one of the women.
A man appeared at the other end of the little street she’d turned onto. The passage was narrow, little more than an alley: a good place for a trap.
“Sister!” yelled one of the women.
Chelsea spun. “Madha?” she said harshly. “What do you want?”
“That man, was he bothering you?” asked the woman who had been calling out to her. She was nearly a foot taller than Chelsea and at least twice as wide.
“Was he trying to attack you?” asked the other woman, pulling her veil away from her mouth. Her voice was gentle.
“No,” she said. “He had vegetables.”
The taller woman frowned. Chelsea glanced over her shoulder toward the man who’d come up the alley. She pulled her veil closer, as if worried about her modesty.
“Don’t be ashamed, sister,” said the younger woman. “There are perverts and sinners everywhere.”
Act frightened, Chelsea told herself. Not hard to do.
The man passed them. Chelsea watched him and saw Johnny appear at the far end of the alley, walking swiftly in her direction.
“Thank you,” Chelsea told the women. She wanted to say she was OK, but couldn’t find the words and didn’t trust the suggestions the translator was giving her for conversation.
“Are you certain you are OK?” asked the taller woman.
“Fine, yes,” said Chelsea. “Thank you.”
Johnny kept his pace steady as he walked past the two women. When he came to the street, he crossed, then turned back on the sidewalk to make sure they hadn’t followed.
Chelsea was walking down the block.
“What did they want?” he whispered as he passed.
“They’re some sort of women’s patrol or something. They asked about the guy who bothered me.”
He kept walking. When he reached the corner, he turned and put his hand to his ear to use the radio. “They said something about your accent. They thought you were from Lebanon.”
“Good.”
“Target is just turning onto the block.”
“I’m going.”
Ghadab’s slave was a few inches taller than Chelsea and a good forty pounds heavier, though that was hard to judge from the bulky clothes and long veil. She walked with her head down, arms close to her body, modest or timid; it was hard to tell.
“You’re on her,” said Christian as she fell in behind the woman.
Chelsea took the bead in her fingers, getting ready.
The woman paused at a cart where they were selling oranges and lemons. Chelsea sidled up next to her, picked up a lemon, and as she did, dropped the bug from her hand. It rolled down the side of the woman’s dress, catching below her hip.
Done.
Chelsea was about to turn away when the woman abruptly moved back from the cart and blocked her way.
“Min ’ant?” asked Ghadab’s woman. “Who are you?”
Chelsea put up her hand. “No.”
The woman said something else but between the speed of her voice and its accent, the translator was baffled; it gave no translation. Chelsea started to leave, then noticed the two women who’d accosted her earlier staring a few feet away.
“I was a stolen one,” said Chelsea, using the phrasing she’d memorized. It meant that she was a slave, now assigned to someone; it was dangerous to associate with her. “You must not speak to me.”
Ghadab’s woman nodded. “My name is Shadaa.”
“Baidda,” said Chelsea. She saw sympathy in the other woman’s eyes — she was talking to a fellow slave, another woman who might be disposed of in a week or a day or an hour.
Until that moment, Chelsea had felt nothing for the woman. Now she felt a surge of pity.
“Goodbye,” she said gently. She moved to the next cart, pretending to look at the tomatoes. They were large and ripe, a rare find, but prohibitively expensive.
Chelsea looked over and saw the women talking to Shadaa. She shook her head and moved over to another stand.
“The bug’s not moving,” whispered Christian.
Shit, thought Chelsea. Realizing it must have fallen to the ground, she walked over to retrieve it. As she got closer, her way was blocked by a sudden gaggle of girls. By the time they passed, Shadaa was no longer in sight.
Chelsea scooped up the bug. Its spiky arms had been crushed by someone’s feet.
“Bug fell off,” whispered Chelsea. “Which way did she go?”
58
“We have a lot of traffic on the Russian commo lines,” Krista told Johansen. “The air force AWACS just sent an alert that they have a full squadron of fighter bombers heading for the runway at Latakia. Su-35s.”
The Su-35 was an updated attack version of the Su-27. As Russia’s most advanced aircraft in the conflict, it had a starring role in the intervention: the Russians used it for the biggest battles. If the planes were coming this way, a full-on ground assault against Palmyra would surely follow.
Sure enough, there was a dust cloud near the Syrian artillery camp. They were on the move.
59
Chelsea made her way through the crowd as quickly as she could without running, aiming to cut Shadaa off as she walked home. Sweat rolled down her collar, soaking through the light underlayers. The heavy robe made her feel as if she was encased in a sauna.
“She’s a block away, coming toward you,” said Christian.
Chelsea stopped. She was alone on the street, save for a lone man at the other end.
Turk.
Johnny was nearby, too, a half block away, out of sight.
Guardian angels. But what good were angels in the bowels of hell?
Chelsea adjusted her scarf and then started walking again, back to Shadaa as she passed.
“Oh,” she said loudly. “You.”
The Arabic flowed from her mouth. Shadaa stopped and turned, confused.
“You,” said the woman, echoing her thoughts. “Do you live near here?”
It took a few seconds for Chelsea to process the translation and the suggested phrase, “next block: kutlat almuqbil.” That wasn’t a safe answer — what if she wanted to go with her there? — so Chelsea simply shrugged.
“You are a slave,” said Shadaa.
Chelsea couldn’t think of an appropriate answer quickly enough. But in this case confusion was just as appropriate.
“Come, we are sisters,” said Shadaa, taking her arm.
“What the fuck’s going on?” asked Turk over the radio.
“She asked if she was a slave,” said Christian.
“I’m about fifty yards behind them,” said Johnny. “I’m going to get closer.”
Johnny leaned forward as he walked. He saw the women cross the street. Shadaa, taller than Chelsea, had clamped her arms around Chelsea’s and bulled ahead. She was talking: Johnny could hear her through Chelsea’s open mic, but he couldn’t understand the Arabic without turning his translator on.