“Do it again?” she asked.
“Not in a million years.”
72
Ghadab smelled the destruction before he could see it. It was the scent of sand pulverized and burned in a pit of old, dry wood soaked with kerosene.
The sun had gone down, but the sky beyond seemed even darker than normal as they crested the last hill above the plain where the city sat. A jumble of black lumps pockmarked with red flares and ribbons of yellow lay across the horizon.
“Take the west highway,” Ghadab told the driver.
“That way may not be safe,” said the man. “The apostates’ attack—”
“It’s faster.”
The driver complied, his foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor nearly the entire way. Yet even as they neared the city, Ghadab knew in his heart that the worst had occurred. He could feel the loss already, even as he fought against acknowledging it.
He also knew the outcome of the battle had been decided, though for now the city remained in the hands of the faithful. Caliphate fighters trudged north along the barren fields at the north end of the city, heads hung low, weapons gone.
“Traitors!” he yelled.
He took out his pistol and rolled down the window of the car, shooting at several as they passed. Two fell.
The driver hurried on. A row of houses in the northern residential area had caught fire after one of the bombing attacks. Now out of control, the inferno blocked off part of the road, flames shooting sideways, scorching two abandoned trucks. A small crowd milled around the edges of the flames, watching their homes being incinerated. The reddish-yellow hue of the fire made them look like aliens, marooned on a planet unfit for life.
They took a shortcut, picking a way around debris and burned-out cars before getting back to the highway. A few minutes later, they came across a pickup truck parked across the road. As they stopped, a dozen men surrounded their vehicle.
Ghadab jumped from the car and started yelling, demanding to know who their leader was. A slim youth parted the crowd. He was a brash sort, displaying the anxious but cocksure bravado of someone who’d never actually tasted battle.
Ghadab did his best not to sneer in the boy’s face.
“I am Ghadab min Allah,” he said. “I have business at the town center.”
“Prove you are the Prophet’s favored son,” said the young man.
Ghadab glanced at the others. They were even younger.
“And what proof would you accept?” demanded Ghadab.
The kid held his ground. “Where was your last target?”
“Anyone could answer that,” snapped Ghadab. “What is your name?”
“Saed. From Tunisia.” Finally, there was a note of humility in his voice.
“We attacked Boston,” said Ghadab. “Before that, Paris, Belgium — I was fighting when you were in shorts.”
“I recognize you now, Commander. Forgive me.”
“Have the apostates reached the city yet?” Ghadab asked, softening his tone.
“No, Commander,” said Saed. “They’re not yet at the ruins. We are planning a counterattack.”
“Good.”
Ghadab got back in the car.
“Do you need an escort?” asked the man, following him.
“We know the way.”
“God is great,” replied Saed.
His heart is in the right place, thought Ghadab, deciding not to hold the young man’s youth against him. If we had a thousand more like him, things would be different.
No one stopped them the rest of the way. In the meantime, the government shelling increased, until at last a fresh shell shook the city every ninety seconds. Ghadab could not see where the shells were landing, but if experience was any guide, the Syrian army would systematically destroy the residential areas, aiming to weaken the resolve of the fighters as well as produce as many casualties as they possibly could. That meant the attack would be aimed first at the south and the west, gradually moving east.
Ghadab agreed with the strategy. The only way to defeat an enemy was to wipe him off the face of the earth; extinguish him and remove all trace, so that others would not follow his apostasy. This was a thing Westerners didn’t understand. Wars didn’t end until the last enemy was vanquished. Generations might die in the meantime.
A bomb had landed near the entrance to the hotel, cratering much of the road. Ghadab’s driver saw it only at the last minute, stopping so close that the front-right tire was poised over the edge.
“Be careful, Commander, when you get out,” he told Ghadab.
Ghadab grabbed his AK-47. “Find a better place to sit and wait for me.”
The guards who normally manned the front door were not here. Ghadab strode inside, steeling himself against what he might find. Night was falling and the power had been cut in much of Palmyra, but here a backup generator powered enough lights that the interior, though a gloomy yellow, could be easily navigated.
Ghadab walked through the lobby, holding the gun by the grip as if he were planning to fire, his finger against the trigger. The khanjar was sheathed in his belt below his shirt. He felt for it as he approached the stairs. He stopped, shouldered the rifle on its strap against his back, and took out the knife. He held it in his right hand as he started upward. It felt heavy and strong, warm.
A body lay folded across the rail at the top of the stairs. Ghadab pulled up the face and recognized the man as one of the guards from the front. His clothes were soaked with blood, his eyes the vacant orbs of a man whose soul had fled to heaven.
Another body lay a few feet away. Ghadab stepped over this one and continued to his room.
The door was open. He stopped and closed his eyes.
Later, he wished he had said a prayer before opening them. But that would not have changed what he saw, what he knew he would see: Shadaa, lying in a pool of blood, dead.
His love’s destiny, dead.
Ghadab stood in the room, shoes in his lover’s blood, for several minutes. Finally, he backed out, walking like a robot down the hall and down the stairs. As he reached the landing, he heard something moving behind him. He spun and came face-to-face with one of the waiters who had served him.
“Who did this?” Ghadab demanded. “Who killed the woman?”
The man shook his head.
“Who were they?!”
“Intruders—”
Ghadab sprung at him, pinning him against the wall. He put his knife to the man’s throat. “Who?”
“I hid in the closet,” stuttered the waiter. “They spoke English.”
“Americans?”
The waiter didn’t know.
“Where is the video?” demanded Ghadab. “To record.” He pointed to the camera at the far end of the hall. “Where is it? Show me.”
The man didn’t move. Ghadab withdrew the knife, then grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the wall. The waiter looked toward the stairs.
“Is it upstairs?” demanded Ghadab.
“Y-yes.”
Ghadab threw the man toward the steps. The waiter was not small, but Ghadab felt as if he had gained the strength of a dozen men; he could have hoisted him with one hand.
“Don’t stop! Go!” yelled Ghadab.
Still tentative, the waiter moved up the stairs slowly, delicately stepping around the dead man and pulling a frame of a decorative textile off the wall, revealing a tape machine. The vacant eyes of the guard stared at them both.
The waiter started to leave. Ghadab grabbed him before he took a second step.
“I have to go to my family,” said the waiter.
“Go to them all,” said Ghadab as he slit the man’s throat.