The Caliphate E-Book

Anna Erishkigal

• Herausgeber: Seraphim Press
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 382

Beschreibung

Eisa McCarthy lives in Caliphate City under the control of the radical Islamic group, the Ghuraba. Seven years ago General Mohammad bin-Rasulullah defeated the United States in a ruthless betrayal and set up their worldwide Caliphate in the ruins of Washington, D.C. The Ghuraba's supreme holy leader, the Abu al-Ghuraba, claims Eisa's father gave him control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, a claim bolstered by the smoldering ashes of many cities and her Syrian-born mother's testimony. But after her mother is accused of apostasy, she learns her father may not be the 'martyr' the Ghuraba claim.
Do the Ghuraba really possess the launch codes for the ICBM missiles? Or did her father 'lock them out' as Colonel Everhart, the rebel commander, wants her to tell the world? If she fights, the Ghuraba will kill her little sister, but if she doesn't, eventually the Ghuraba will hack in and nuke them all. All Eisa has are a string of Muslim prayer beads and a pre-Islamic myth her father told her the night he disappeared.
The fate of the world, and her little sister's life, hang in the balance as Eisa sorts through ancient myth, her Muslim faith, and what really happened the night the Ghuraba seized control.
"The parallels the author draws between the current landscape in Syria and Iraq and a future United States are unsettling, as they portray present-day atrocities with unflinching accuracy…" —Dale Amidei, Jon's Trilogy

Leseprobe

Back Cover Description

Eisa McCarthy lives in Caliphate City under the control of the radical Islamic group, the Ghuraba. Seven years ago General Mohammad bin-Rasulullah defeated the United States in a ruthless betrayal and set up their worldwide Caliphate in the ruins of Washington, D.C. The Ghuraba's supreme holy leader, the Abu al-Ghuraba, claims Eisa's father gave him control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, a claim bolstered by the smoldering ashes of many cities and her Syrian-born mother's testimony. But after her mother is accused of apostasy, she learns her father may not be the 'martyr' the Ghuraba claim.

Do the Ghuraba really possess the launch codes for the ICBM missiles? Or did her father 'lock them out' as Colonel Everhart, the rebel commander, wants her to tell the world? If she fights, the Ghuraba will kill her little sister, but if she doesn't, eventually the Ghuraba will hack in and nuke them all. All Eisa has are a string of Muslim prayer beads and a pre-Islamic myth her father told her the night he disappeared.

The fate of the world, and her little sister's life, hang in the balance as Eisa sorts through ancient myth, her Muslim faith, and what really happened the night the Ghuraba seized control.

"The parallels the author draws between the current landscape in Syria and Iraq and a future United States are unsettling, as they portray present-day atrocities with unflinching accuracy…"

—Dale Amidei, Jon's Trilogy

The Caliphate

A post-apocalyptic suspense novel

by

Anna Erishkigal

Copyright 2016 - Anna Erishkigal

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents

Back Cover Description

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

Join my Reader Group

A Moment of Your Time, Please…

About the Author

Other Books by Anna Erishkigal

Copyright

Dedication

I dedicate this book to the brave Kurdish women who stand and fight while the men abandon their families and run away.

May you drag ISIS into Hell.

Anna Erishkigal

Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank the people who helped me pull this story together.

To Liza Kroeger, who helped me critique the original screenplay version of this story in its most awkward, nascent form. And Ned, who was like, 'what are you, an epic fantasy writer?" Uhmm…yeah? My first non-1000 page book!

To my wonderfully patient husband and children, who don't freak out when I sit at my computer with my headphones blaring epic movie trailer music, shouting 'Yah! Git' them! Gah! Stab! Pew-pew-pew!' while I type out battle scenes at 3:00 a.m. in the morning…

To Robert 'the Hyanimal' Williams, who patiently answers silly questions. I dedicate the epilogue to you.

And to all my friends, who cheered me on and answered really scary-sounding questions about knives and guns and all kinds of things that have probably earned me a spot on the NSA watch list.

To Dale Amidei, who helped me debug some author stuff and tutored me on the proper capitalization of Allah and God.

And most of all, thanks to Sensei Donna Marie Klucevsek at USA Urban GoJu karate who helped me work out the mechanics of several fight scenes. I'm still sporting bruises!

Thank you!

Prologue

He came from Syria, the Father of Strangers, and declared a golden age where those who were faithful would rise up to rule the world. The enemies of Allah struck back against the Ghuraba. They bombed our holy cities and put the Abu al-Ghuraba in prison.

But then a Mahdi came. A holy warrior. General Mohammad bin-Rasulullah turned the infidel's own weapons against them. He slaughtered their leaders in their sleep and convinced their armies to follow him, or die…

Chapter 1

The sound of automatic weapons blends with the call to prayers. The pre-dawn adhan rises and falls along with the gunfire, carried by the loudspeakers which run throughout the city. I throw back my covers and slip across the narrow aisle which separates my bed from my little sister's.

"Nasirah!" I shake her. "Wake up!"

My little sister murmurs, a thin red book still clutched to her chest. Thin, grey stripes of light stream through the window-boards to reveal the title: Lozen: A Princess of the Plains.

"Nasirah!" I shake her frantically.

The gunfire comes closer.

Nasirah opens her eyes.

"Eisa?" she smiles. "Is it time to pray?"

"Yes."

I half-drag her down into the aisle between our beds. The brick will protect us from bullets, but the window is vulnerable. I glance up at one of the small, black holes in the plaster. That one tore a hole in the fabric in my hijab.

Shouts erupt outside our window, along with engines in pursuit. The pre-dawn adhan provides a wailing, surrealistic backdrop to the crack of gunpowder and screams of men as they die.

Nasirah slips the book underneath her mattress. I pull up her hijab. In me, the gesture is instinctive, to cover up your bosom. But Nasirah is only nine. She doesn't understand the hijab keeps her safe.

I fumble on the nightstand for my prayer beads, bits of black tektite which fell from the heavens. They are strung into a misbaha of thirty-three small beads, a large bead which connects them, and three silver discs engraved with birds.

Behind them sits a photograph of me, Nasirah and our brother from the time before the Ghuraba. It seems like a dream, me in my pretty pink party dress, Nasirah's golden baby curls, Adnan smiling, and Mama wearing her flowered hijab and white doctor's coat, holding an award for furthering public health. Papa stands between us, his arms stretched wide to encompass all of us, wearing a crisp dress blue uniform with five golden stars.

A prolonged gunfight erupts outside our window. Plink! A bullet flies through the boards and covers us with shattered glass.

"Eisa!" Nasirah screams.

I shove her head down to the floor.

"Pray!"

I clutch my misbaha, praying with all of my might as the call to prayers drones on. I picture Him fervently, standing there between us and the window.

"Oh, Allah, we ask You to restrain them by their necks and we seek refuge in You from their evil…"

Nasirah clings to me as I recite the dua'a for protection. We shake as the voices stop right outside our window.

The gunfire stops just as the morning call to prayer ceases wailing.

Men shout.

One voice speaks, chilling and ominous. A voice I have heard a million times, on the radio, on the television.

In my nightmares…

I know what's coming, but I still weep when the man begins to scream. It goes on and on, rising and falling like the pre-dawn call to prayer. At last it dies down into a sickening gurgle.

And then there is silence…

I clamp a hand over Nasirah's mouth so she doesn't cry out. I want no reason to draw their attention.

The Ghuraba laugh as they get into their trucks and leave.

Tears stream down Nasirah's cheeks.

"Do you think they killed him?"

I get up and peek through the slats in the window boards as the sun finishes rising over Caliphate City.

"No," I lie.

I do not tell her about the blood which mars the snow.

Chapter 2

I remember going to school with her. We used to ride the bus together before they blew it up. I think her name was Becky, before the Ghuraba made her change it to Rasha. All I know is she is three years younger than me, maybe thirteen? If not for Mama's insistence she needs an apprentice, this would be my fate.

"Get it out of me!" Rasha shrieks.

Mama peeks out from the sheet draped across Rasha's knees. Doctor Maryam McCarthy is no longer a physician, but she defiantly wears the same white doctor-coat as she did in the picture beside my bed. Only now it is old and stained. Just like our living room, which is now a makeshift emergency room.

"She's not dilating," Mama says in Arabic. "Eisa, check the baby's heartrate."

I shoo Rasha's sister-wives, two anxious, black-clad blobs, and press my stethoscope against the girl's swollen abdomen. It glistens, bright and hopeful, against my black abaya. If I get caught with it I'll be whipped, but nobody challenges me so long as I only use it in here.

In the baby room. The place where future martyrs are born.

"Thirty-seven beats per second," I say. "It's erratic, and way too slow."

"She's hemorrhaging." Mama holds up a hand, covered in blood. "What's your diagnosis?"

I glance longingly at the cabinet where we keep the ultrasound machine hidden. If we had power, I would recommend we use it, but all we have is the soft, yellow glow of oil lamps.

"Placenta previa?" I guess.

Mama nods, pleased.

"And your recommended treatment, tabib?"

I glance at the Commander's First Wife, Taqiyah al-Ghuraba, the Abu al-Ghuraba's sister and leader of the feared Al-Khansaa brigade. At nearly six feet tall, late-50's and well-fed, she carries a whip to force women to comply with the Ghuraba's strict purity laws. All who stand up to her find themselves publicly whipped. And that's if you're lucky. The unlucky ones find themselves hauled off into The Citadel.

My voice warbles.

"Cesarean section," I whisper.

Taqiyah's eyes grow wide and wild, if it's possible to appear even more fanatical than she already is.

"Surgery is an innovation!" she hisses in Arabic.

"If we don't perform the procedure," Mama says, "both Rasha, and her baby, will die."

"Only Allah can decide which women bear children for the Ghuraba!"

Mama's eyes burn amber like an eagle's. She recognizes Taqiyah's obstinacy for what it is; a dried-up First Wife's attempt to get rid of a younger womb.

"Eisa?" Mama points at the door. "Speak to the Commander."

"But he beat her!" I protest.

"Our husband caught her reading!" Taqiyah unwinds her whip and shakes the butt end at her sister-wife on the table. The two lesser wives skitter back.

"I meant no harm, Sayidati Ghuraba!" Rasha weeps. "It was just a book about an Indian princess! Please don't let me die!"

Mama points at the door.

"Eisa? The Commander."

Taqiyah blocks it.

"I said I forbid it!"

She presses the brown leather handle against my cheek, warm from her grip and smelling of other people's blood. I can almost feel it sting my back. I've endured it many times.

"Mama?"

I look between the two warring matriarchs. Taqiyah al-Ghuraba rules the women, but Mama births the babies.

Mama jabs an IV into Rasha's arm. Not a real IV. But one made with recycled glass jars and homemade saline. The room fills with the scent of opiates as Mama fills the jar with a dreamy pink liquid.

"Scream for him if you have to," she says in English. "If he wanted her to die, he would not have brought her to me."

I raise my eyes to meet the Al-Khansaa's furious gaze. I will pay for my boldness later. But for now, I have to be strong. I touch my prayer beads, now wrapped around my wrist.

"Sayidati?"

The Al-Khansaa steps aside, not because she gives consent, but because the Abu al-Ghuraba needs martyrs and she has always given them to him. With her brother's ear, she'll make sure it happens the moment the child turns five.

I slip my hijab across my face to make a veil before I step outside the door. We have no waiting room. Our front hallway serves as our reception.

Commander al-Amar paces back and forth in what was once a tasteful vestibule. He's a six-foot-four giant, Caliphate City's Commander, with short blonde hair, a long, bushy beard and black shemagh worn by the Ghuraba men. I think he might have been handsome once, before a piece of shrapnel took out one of his cool, blue eyes.

I lower my gaze to avoid making eye contact.

"How's my son?" he asks.

"Rasha is very sick," I say. "If she doesn't have help, both she, and your son, will die."

"What kind of help?"

"Surgery, Sir. She needs a Caesarean section."

A long, painful howl filters through the wall. He clenches his fist and whirls to face the boarded-up glass of the exterior door. I almost feel sorry for him, until I remember he beat her.

"Surgery is an innovation, yes?" he asks.

Yes. That is the literal interpretation…

"The Prophet commanded mercy," I say, "especially for a husband towards his wife."

The Commander stiffens.

"Maryam is a woman. The arts of medicine are reserved only unto a man."

"It's forbidden for an unrelated man to touch a woman," I remind him. "No doctor will risk it. The punishment is death, for both the doctor, and the patient."

His voice grows thick.

"So both must die?"

I chew my lip, praying for an answer other than 'Yes. That is what your brother-in-law has decreed…'

I touch my prayer beads.

Please, my Lord? Tell me what to say?

The answer comes to me. Scripture, taken out of context. Something the Commander can take back to his brother-in-law to justify his decision.

"The Prophet gave exceptions," I say.

"What kind of exceptions?"

"He said: 'no soul is ordained to be created, but Allah will create it.'"

I hold my breath. I could be whipped for reminding him he took Rasha against her will, though at least he married her. Usually, they just rape them, the women the Abu al-Ghuraba gives his men as rewards.

The Commander does not turn around.

"I have business with the General," he says at last. "When I return, Allah will surprise me? Whether or not I have a son?"

"God is great!" I say.

"Praise be upon his name."

I wait until he leaves, then slip back into the medical room.

*

I skip into the kitchen, humming the joyful birth adhan I just sang into the newborn's ears. Unlike the front of the house, our kitchen is still our own, except for the oil lamps, added to cope with the frequent blackouts. Our refrigerator is broken because the factories that made parts for it got destroyed years ago, but our stove still works. Natural gas. Which means we can cook even when the rebels blow up the power grid.

"What's cooking?" I ask Nasirah, even though I know the answer from the starchy scent.

"Beans." She gives me a happy smile.

I dump the bloody surgical instruments I just used to stitch up Rasha's womb into the sink and sniff the pot. Reconstituted dried beans, slightly burned.

At nine years old, Nasirah is a sweet-faced girl, almost as tall as I am, but thinner, like a leggy filly. We both inherited freckles from our father, enough to show off the Irish, but her skin is fair, unlike the olive complexion I inherited from Mama. It makes her a target, which is why we never let her leave the house.

It's one of the few things Adnan and I agree upon.

Our brother, Adnan, is the spitting image of our father. He sits at the table, arms crossed, wearing his usual dour expression. At not-quite-thirteen, he bears the gawky awkwardness of a boy caught in a growth spurt. He's a perfect Gharib with his long shirt, white prayer-cap, and perpetual spouting of the Quran.

"Why didn't you make me lunch?" he demands.

I hold out my hands, still covered with blood.

"You know I was helping Mama birth a baby!"

"You mean perform a surgery," he scowls. "The Ghuraba say it's heresy."

I rinse my hands, and then dry them on a clean towel before I answer:

"The Commander gave us a special dispensation."

I squeeze past him into the mud room where we keep our burqas hung on coat hooks. I wrap a black cloth on top of my hijab, little more than a square of gauze, and then pull on my gloves to hide my hands.

They get stuck on my prayer-beads, leaving exposed my wrist. I know I should take them off, especially with Taqiyah on the warpath, but I need to feel them against my skin. It's hard to explain, the way they make me feel invincible. As if Allah is looking out for me. As though he whispers which part of each scripture is the truth, and which part the Ghuraba twisted into lies.

I leave them on. It is only an inch of skin.

"Where are you going?" Adnan asks.

"Mama needs medicine for the baby."

"You know it's forbidden to go without an escort."

I take down his winter coat and toss it to him.

"Then hurry up. Because if the Commander's son dies, you will bear the consequences."

Adnan rises from his chair, furious, as though he wishes to strike me.

"You can't talk to me that way!" His voice gives a pubescent warble. "I'm the man of this house."

"Not for two more weeks," I retort. "You're still only twelve."

I pull the black gauze down to cover my face, and then take the black burqa from the hook. I drape it over my entire body.

"Are you coming?" I ask. "Or would you prefer I get caned again?"

Adnan crosses his arms and pouts.

"I should make you."

Just to infuriate him, I tousle his hair like I did when he was still a little boy. He swats at my hand. I unlock the deadbolts and step outside to our tiny backyard. Adnan scrambles after me, still pulling on his coat.

"One of these days, you'll get what's coming to you!" he says.

"But I have you to protect me," I say in my sweetest voice.

It mollifies him, this tyrant-in-the-making. He wasn't always this way. Mama has faith he remembers enough about our father to become a good man.

We unlock the back gate and slip out of the safety of the fence. Snow falls gently from the sky, or maybe it's nuclear ash? The air smells dirty, not clean like snow should, and sometimes it falls in the middle of summer. The Ghuraba swear the nukes only did minimal damage, but we see too many miscarried babies for that claim to be entirely truthful.

"You should wrap your shemagh around your face," I tell Adnan. "To keep the ash out."

"It's only snow!"

He leads me out of the alley, over the wreckage of a house gutted out by a mortar shell. It's hard to tell if it was our shell or the rebels who did it. In the early years it was us versus them, but then the rebels ran out of weapons, so now it's all just us. Anybody who was not-us was killed in the purges.

Out in the street our demeanors change. Adnan steps in front in a cocky swagger, while I follow behind, my head bowed, just far enough back to make it clear he is in the lead, but not so far anyone could mistake I have an escort.

The streets are empty except for the usual patrols: men on foot wielding automatic weapons and a Hummer which circles the neighborhood with a machine gun. A man stands in the back, next to the gunner with a megaphone, shouting: "If anybody sees a stranger, report it to the secret police.' A black flag flies mounted on the bumper with white Arabic letters, an ICBM missile and a scythe, the Ghuraba flag.

Adnan waves.

"Greetings, brothers!"

The Ghuraba men stare down at him with bored disdain. One of them stares at me. I can feel his hungry eyes, sizing up what's hidden beneath my burqa.

I finger my prayer beads.

"Our Lord, keep me safe from prying eyes."

The patrol car keeps moving. Only then do I dare breathe.

Adnan leads me through streets that used to be storefronts. Old, peeling signs proclaim there used to be shoes or clothing or sports equipment for sale. Everything smells of decay. Most of the buildings have plywood nailed across the windows to provide a place to paste the propaganda posters posted in Arabic and English.

"There is no god but Allah!"

It depicts a Gharib riding an ICBM missile as though he is riding a bull.

"Praise to our glorious Mahdi!"

These posters show General Muhammad bin-Rasulullah in a variety of heroic poses. His red beard flows from his face as though it is a river of fire, while behind him; ICBM missiles take off into the sky.

The last poster depicts a man in a U.S. Air Force uniform with five golden stars on his chest handing a key to the Abu al-Ghuraba. A penumbra of light radiates out of the key. Atop the poster, it proclaims "Praise the Gatekeeper for his conversion."

Behind him is an ICBM missile launching.

I kiss my gloved fingers and press it against the man.

"I miss you Daddy."

Adnan beckons. He leads me toward the bombed out U.S. Capitol building.

Chapter 3

As we approach the government-run shops, I begin to see other women, always led by an escort. It's difficult to identify which woman is who. We're forbidden to socialize, and the burqas cover everything, including our eyes, making it difficult to see. We can wear no colors or identifying jewelry, so we have to rely on other senses.

"Assalamu Alaikum!" I whisper softly as a trio of women pass.

"Inshallah," one whispers back.

That would be Sarah, judging by her escort, an angry-looking man with a bushy black beard. We treated her six months ago for internal injuries. She hurries away. I do not put her at risk for another beating by speaking to her further.

We pass several more groups of women, all of them laden down with supplies. Their escorts walk in front of them, empty-handed, greeting the other Ghuraba men. They stand like patient pack mules, waiting for the men to take them home.

Adnan greets the men, eager for attention. Two gun-toting Ghuraba tousle his hair and ask him about his Quran lessons. I stand behind him, trying my best to not be noticed while he chats excitedly about friends who became the latest martyrs. I don't dare remind him about the medicine. If he's perceived as weak, not only would that be bad for him, but even worse for me.

At last he breaks away.

"This way," he says.

He bolts toward the green, renamed Medina Park. I hurry after him, terrified I'll be left without an escort.

Built on top of the wreckage of the old Lincoln Memorial stands the stage where the Ghuraba hold their executions and pre-battle rallies. Every single day, people get executed here: heretics and apostates, rebel sympathizers, feminists and queers. There are always people gathered, but today there appears to be an extra-large crowd.

"Testing? Testing?"

A sound tech taps the microphone while the cameramen adjust the booms.

"A little more to the left!"

Two more Ghuraba walk across the stage, carefully marking each spot with a bright orange dot. The cameramen track them and display the shots on the two enormous video screens which flank the stage while a third video screen behind them displays special effects.

"Adnan!" I hiss. "We have to get the medicine."

"But the rebel executions are today!"

I grab his arm to tug him back to the street.

"I said we will watch!" he shouts.

Men wielding machine guns all look in our direction. One of them starts walking over. Oh drat! Oh drat! I put my head down and feign obsequiousness, slumping my shoulders so I appear no larger than a child.

"Is there a problem?" The Gharib walks around me, sizing up my burqa.

Adnan waits until he sees me tremble before he lets me off the hook.

"No. It's fine."

The Gharib walks away, his M-16 slung casually in his arms. I keep my mouth shut, rather than upbraid my brother. When he was younger he would listen to reason. But now, he thinks it's all a game.

An Imam takes to the stage and begins a sing-song dua'a of vengeance. It's a song we all know well. Loudspeakers amplify the hymn as the spectators sing along. They press against me, thousands of bloodthirsty men. I cling to Adnan, praying we don't get separated.

The dua'a grows louder as eleven prisoners are led out, dressed in orange, each escorted by a Gharib wearing a black shemagh which covers their face except for their eyes. Unlike the Ghuraba, the prisoners are all clean-shaven. It's odd to see grown men without a beard. The executioners force the prisoners to kneel on the orange dots.

These are our enemies…

Enemies of Allah…

The crowd cheers as a red-bearded man walks onto the stage, General Muhammad bin-Rasulullah, carrying a green plastic garbage bag. He wears a former U.S. military uniform, enhanced with studs and extra weapons. On his chest glisten five crooked stars which mark him as the Mahdi. The crowd cheers in a joyful zhagareet as he flexes his shoulders, and then holds up one arm in a victory 'V'.

"This morning we intercepted a plot to free these prisoners." He leans forward. "I wouldn't want to deprive you of Allah's judgment, now would I?"

The crowd shouts: "No!"

"If you want something done right, you should always do it yourself." He reaches into the bag. "You have my word there will be no more attempts at escape."

He holds up a severed head.

The cameras zoom in, capturing the dead man's expression. They project it onto the two video screens, as well as broadcast it live to the propaganda stations around the world.

The crowd cheers.

"Allahu-Akhbar!"

I cling to Adnan. Please! Let's just get out of here?

He cheers along with them.

Rasulullah throws the head out into the crowd. The men kick it. They pass it back and forth like a soccer ball.

Adnan chases after it. The head comes to rest at my feet.

My Lord! My Lord!

My stomach clenches. I clamp my hand over my mouth to prevent myself from vomiting. The dead man stares up at me, his mouth frozen in a silent scream.

"Eisa! Kick it to me!" Adnan laughs.

A Gharib intercepts it and kicks it towards him.

On the stage, General Rasulullah shakes his fist into the cameras, his every action broadcast larger-than-life on the video screens which flank the stage.

"Did you really think you could beat me, Colonel Everhart?" he screams. He points to his five crooked stars. "You forget, I learned military tactics from the Gatekeeper!"

At the edge of the stage, a tall man appears surrounded by bodyguards. The crowd goes quiet. All three television cameras pan to film the man ascending the steps.

He's a tall man, the Abu al-Ghuraba, even taller than his sister, mid-60's, with a black robe to hide a heavyset figure. On his head he wears an enormous black turban, the one he wears in all the propaganda posters. He has stern features, a bushy grey beard, and intense, black eyes that look as though they might steal my soul.

Even General Rasulullah bows to the Abu al-Ghuraba. He bows his head reverently.

"Peace be upon you, Father of Strangers."

The Abu al-Ghuraba places his hand on Rasulullah's head.

"May Allah bless you for bringing His enemies to justice."

"I am Allah's most loyal servant," Rasulullah murmurs.

The crowd grows silent as the Abu al-Ghuraba turns to address us. He peers from one row of faces to another, and then he looks into the cameras.

"Today is a joyous day in paradise, for Allah's Mahdi found the place where the infidels took shelter!"

He gestures to the prisoners, almost forgotten.

"We have brought you their highest-ranking leaders so you may witness them stand judgment for their crimes."

A prisoner shouts: "You didn't get the Colonel!"

The crowd mutters as the Abu al-Ghuraba moves to stand in front of the man. Tall, clean-shaven and blonde. The kind of man that used to grace the pages of superhero comics before the Ghuraba burned them. He puts his finger beneath the prisoner's chin.

"But I have his son. Did you think we wouldn’t find out who you are, Lionel Everhart?"

He grabs the prisoner by the hair and yanks his head towards the cameras.

"Now he shall watch you die!"

I feel a familiar chill as the Abu al-Ghuraba gestures to the black-hooded men who stand behind each prisoner. In well-rehearsed coordination, all eleven pull their curved khanjar knives out of their belts and hold the knives up to the cameras.

"Allahu-Akhbar!" they shout.

The crowd cheers as General Rasulullah steps behind the brazen prisoner and takes the knife from the executioner who guards him.

"Now I shall take vengeance on the last man alive to betray me!"

He presses the knife against the prisoner's throat.

The prisoner makes eye contact with me. The only woman in the crowd.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," his words vibrate through me, "I will fear no evil…"

His fellow prisoners pick up the Christian prayer as the Abu al-Ghuraba holds up his arm.

"…for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…"

I grip my prayer beads.

No. No. No. No. No.

"May your souls forever burn in hell!"

The Abu al-Ghuraba brings down his arm.

The executioners begin sawing through the prisoner's necks.

I clamp my hands over my ears, sobbing, as the prisoners scream.

It goes on and on and on. Just like outside the window this morning, the man whose severed head lays somewhere, forgotten, now a soccer ball. Their agony tears into my gut as their screams turn into gurgles.

I turn away.

"Sister!" Adnan grabs my arm. "Don't you shame me!"

"I can't watch!" I cry out.

"Only the unfaithful look away!"

The cameras zoom in as the executioners prolong the prisoner's agony for as long as they can. The crowd grows wild with a banshee-like zhagareet. I can feel their bloodlust. Smell it. Taste it. It vibrates through my soul like a wild, hungry animal. I can feel the power the Ghuraba devour every time they kill.

At last the screaming stops. I force myself to look at the eleven decapitated bodies.

I touch my prayer beads and say a dua'a for their spirits. I meet General Rasulullah's gaze. I say the words openly, but softly.

"May Allah have mercy on their souls."

I grab Adnan's arm.

"Come. Mama will be angry we didn't get the medicine."

"But…"

I break away from him and push my way through the crowd.

He calls after me, "Eisa! Eisa!"

I have to get away from him! This brother, who enjoys watching men commit evil.

The crowd begins to thin. I break into a run towards the street at the edge of the green. A tall, black shape materializes in front of me and grabs my arm.

"I can see your eyes."

Fear clenches in my gut as Taqiyah al-Ghuraba and her al-Khansaa brigade block my escape. They run in packs of six, just like hyenas. Six pants-wearing women who wear combat fatigues and whips beneath their niqabs and chadors.

I immediately lower my gaze.

"I wear two black veils beneath my burqa, Sayidati," I say aloud.

Taqiyah unfurls her whip.

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"No, Ma'am. Perhaps it's a trick of the sunlight?"

My entire body shakes as Taqiyah grabs my wrist and pushes back the sleeve of my burqa.

"I can see your skin." She grabs hold of the beads wrapped around my wrist. "And you're wearing jewelry?"

It feels like something sacred is being violated as she touches my prayer beads, worn smooth by the touch of countless prayers.

Don't touch them, you bitch! I have to fight the urge to say it or strike back at her.

"These are my misbaha, Ma'am," I say meekly instead.

The crowd parts. General Rasulullah strolls towards us, still wielding his beheading knife.

"What appears to be the problem, Sayidati Taqiyah?" he grins.

"This woman dares come to the execution awrah!"

I tremble uncontrollably as Rasulullah grabs my wrist.

"Prayer beads are an innovation. Yes?"

He touches the simple, black beads, the same way that Taqiyah did, only his fingers linger on my bare skin. His green eyes bore into my face-veil.

"M-m-my father said such beads were worn by blessed Khadija, may peace be upon her," I stutter.

Rasulullah gives me a cruel grin as he slides my glove down to expose my entire wrist. A crowd begins to gather. Men. Curious about whatever woman fell amok of the al-Khansaa's purity rules. They enjoy watching us get whipped. Especially when Taqiyah tears our clothing off our backs to expose our skin, leaving us naked except for our anonymous faces.

"Do you know what happens to a woman who exposes her skin?" Rasulullah slides one hand up to touch my breast.

"Hey! Unhand my sister!"

Like a prayer, my brother finally appears.

Rasulullah turns to Taqiyah.

"Leave us. I shall exact the punishment myself."

"You'll do no such thing!" Adnan rips my wrist out of General Rasulullah's hand. "I'm the man of the family. It is my job to beat her. Not yours!"

"You won' be a man for two more weeks." Rasulullah's voice gains a dangerous undercurrent. "You are only twelve."

Adnan sticks his chin up, the same haughty expression he wore at lunch.

"She is the Gatekeepers' daughter," he says. "If you want her, you can pay her bride price and marry her. But I will kill her myself before I let you take her in-hand!"

For a moment it looks as though Rasulullah will kill him, but then he laughs. He lets go of my wrist and tussle's Adnan's hair with his bloody fingers.

"Ahh, this is your sister, eh?" His smile looks like a wolf baring its fangs. "I should expect no less from the Gatekeeper's son, should I!"

He and Taqiyah laugh, as though this is an inside joke.

"Very well, then," he says. "Beat her yourself. But come by to see me later tonight? We shall discuss how much it will cost to make you my brother-in-law?"

Adnan grins like an idiot.

"Sir! It would be an honor."

He grabs my arm and drags me away from the al-Khansaa brigade before I can do something stupid, like tell Rasulullah I'd rather be dead.

"You are not marrying me off to that butcher!"

"I can and I will!" Adnan says. "You are well past the age when you should have taken a husband!"

"Mama needs me. She is training me to be a doctor."

Adnan whirls to face me, his expression hateful.

"I am tired of being embarrassed by Mama's heresy! All of my friends say she is a djinn!"

We cross the street to avoid walking in front of the enormous concrete block building that makes even him tremble. The Citadel. Home of the Ghuraba's secret police. Across the lintel, the name, J. Edgar Hoover Building, still bears witness it was once a hall of justice. Now, few people who go in ever come out alive.

We reach the apothecary. We step inside to buy the medicine.

Chapter 4

The scent of roasting meat slips underneath my bedroom door where I am ostensibly praying. That's what we always tell Adnan. What I'm really doing is studying. The Ghuraba burned all of the books, but Mama hid some so we'd all have something to read besides the Quran.

The smell grows stronger as I go into our kitchen, savory and gamey, with just a hint of rosemary and something else? Maybe garlic?

The electricity is on as judged by Adnan glued to the small television we keep on the counter. Nasirah sets out a bowl of peas while Mama hums an old Syrian folk-tune, stirring a pot filled with rice.

"Lamb?" I sniff. "Where'd it come from?"

"The Commander sent it over," Mama says.

"For saving Rasha's baby?"

Mama scowls.

"I'd rather he didn't beat his wives."

We both look at Adnan and change the subject. I need to have a talk with her, but not with Nasirah in the room to defend him and cry when I call him cruel. She's never been out there, never seen the world except for our carefully constructed lies and the images of paradise broadcast on the television.

The show changes. It's time for the evening news.

"Look!" Adnan points at the television. "Eisa! Look at your face!"

My 'face' is actually my hands, held over my black-veiled mouth to stop the vomit as the severed head rolls to rest at my feet. A man kicks it away from me. In the scuffle, Adnan chases after the head.

Mama and I give each other a worried look.

"Adnan?" She points at a mathematics textbook she left for him, laying on the table, unopened. "Did you do your studies?

"The Ghuraba say learning isn't important." He crosses his arms. "Only to memorize the Quran."

"When will I be allowed to go to the madrassa?" Nasirah asks innocently.

Adnan gives her a condescending look.

"Girls are too stupid to read."

"I can too r—"

Mama cuts her off.

"Adnan! That's enough!"

Adnan stands up.

"General Rasulullah says I'm the man of this house!"

Mama gets that same amber-eyed expression she had this afternoon when she tangled with Taqiyah. A fierce bird of prey, stuffed into a cage with her wings clipped, but Mama still remembers what it was like for an eagle to fly.

"You're not thirteen yet,"she snaps. "Until you are, this is my house and my rules!"

Adnan's voice takes on a chilling tone.

"I'll be thirteen in two more weeks, and then you won't have a choice. You'll obey me, or else!"

He throws down his napkin and storms out of the kitchen.

"Adnan! Adnan!" Mama calls out. "Come back here!"

The front door slams. Nasirah begins to weep. Mama sits down at the table and puts her forehead down into her hands.

"Turn that thing off." She gestures at the television.

Nasirah complies.

I sit down next to her.

"Why do you let him talk to you like that?"

She touches the scar which runs down one side of her face. She never talks about how she got it, but a few days after Daddy disappeared, the Ghuraba came to the house and took us to The Citadel. For three days we sat in a room and did not see her. The guards told us she was dead. But then she came back and announced Daddy was a martyr.

"It's God's will." Her voice warbles.

I reach across the table to take her hand.

"Allah doesn't condone a son being disrespectful to his parents."

Mama sighs.

"Allah doesn't condone many things. All you can do is keep your head down, your heart open and your mouth shut if you want to stay alive."

We eat the lamb in silence, its decadent juices tasting like acid as we force ourselves to chew and swallow. Adnan doesn't come back. I consider telling Mama about this afternoon's behavior, but she looks so despondent, I decide now just isn't the time.

We wash up the dishes quick before the electricity flickers out. The Ghuraba blame the rolling blackouts on the rebels, but it happens too regularly to be anything but deliberate.

The lights go out at 7:10 p.m., ten minutes after the television stations go to static. We already have a lamp lit, just in case. Although 'just in case' is nearly every night.

"C'mon, Nasirah," Mama says. "It's time for bed."

We stand together in the narrow aisle between the beds; me and Nasirah and Mama, facing Mecca, which also happens to be the window. I unwind my prayer beads. We all praise Allah and kneel to give him praises. They soothe me, the adulations to our god. It makes me feel as though Allah watches over me, safe as I kneel and press my forehead to the floor.

We finish the prayer together, and then rise and put away our prayer mats.

"Alright, you!" Mama touches Nasirah's shoulder. "Into bed."

She tucks her in. It's the one thing Mama insists on, even with her work. That somebody always sits with the patient while she comes upstairs to tuck all three of her children into bed.

"Read me a story?" Nasirah asks.

Mama kisses her forehead.

"You know it's forbidden for girls to read."

"Please, Mama! Let's read the story Papa left?"

I reach between the mattress to pull out the book she hid this morning. Lozen: A Princess of the Plains. It's not a particularly thick book, slender and red, but it's not a children's book, either. The Foreword claims it was somebody's doctoral dissertation, but the text inside, the carefully inked illustrations, all allude that the storyteller wished to tell the story to his own little girl.

I hand the book to Nasirah. The last gift Daddy ever gave her. She hugs it to her chest. Even she, with all her naivety, understands the book is something we must keep from Adnan.

I laugh.

"You've read it so many times, I think we have it memorized."

She cracks open the book and reads her favorite chapter about the time Lozen, an Apache maiden, took to the saddle to fight beside her brother against the U.S. Army.

"And chief Victoria said: Lozen is my right hand, strong as a man, braver than most, and cunning in strategy. Lozen is a shield to her people."

She gives Mama a thoughtful look.

"Was she really as strong as a man?"

"I don't know." Mama's expression becomes guarded. "I don't think Lozen had children to protect."

"I'd like to be like Lozen," Nasirah says. "Strong enough to defend you and Eisa."

Tears well in Mama's eyes as she kisses Nasirah's forehead. Her voice grows thick.

"You know such talk is forbidden, little dove."

She tucks my sister in, and then meets me at the door with the oil lamp.

"Now it's time for your lessons, tabib McCarthy."

With an eager smile, I follow her downstairs to the hospital room. One of the reasons Mama's been able to forestall my betrothal is she insists only a virgin can help her make the diagnosis. The older Ghuraba don't buy it. But the younger converts, the ones raised without an education, will believe anything. Even superstition.

Mama goes to the medical cabinet and unlocks it with the key she keeps on a chain around her neck. The light scent of vinegar drifts out, what we use to sterilize things whenever we run out of alcohol.

"This morning you diagnosed Rasha's baby as placenta previa," Mama says. "What led you to make that diagnosis?"

"Intuition," I say.

Mama lays her textbook: Surgical Procedures, onto the examination table and flips it open.

"You have good instincts, but you need to rely on learned knowledge. Not just prayer."

"It was scripture which persuaded the Commander to let you perform the surgery," I say. "Not a medical diagnosis."

Mama snorts.

"It was his first-hand experience that -I- would save her! His sons are all martyred, so now he's desperate for one to carry on his name."

"You've saved his other wives?"

"I saved the Commander himself!" She gestures at her eye. "Though back then, he was just an airman."

I lean forward.

"Did the Commander know Papa?"

Mama cuts me off.

"Focus! We don't have long before Adnan comes home to lecture us about the heresy of reading." She points at the medical textbook. "Let's go through the post-operative procedure again."

We repeat the steps she led me through this afternoon. She cut into Rasha's womb. But I lifted out the baby while Mama cut the umbilical cord. Taqiyah al-Ghuraba glowered at us with hateful eyes as Mama handed me the curved needle and taught me how to stitch Rasha's uterus back together again. I've stitched many wounds, but today was the first time I've ever pieced back together a woman's reproductive system.

A loud knock comes from the back of the house. Two loud. One soft. A pause. And then it repeats two more times.

Mama's expression turns worried.

"Did Adnan lock himself out?" I ask.

"Stay here."

She gestures at the medical cabinet. I hide the book as Mama hurries to the kitchen. Through the open doorway, I hear hushed voices.

"I told you to never come here," Mama says.

"We had no choice," a woman's voice says. "The safe house is compromised."

"You know they watch me!"

"If he doesn't get help," the unknown woman says, "we're going to lose him."

Somebody groans in pain as the visitors drag them through our house. She calls herself Humnah, the washwoman who comes each week to boil the sheets, along with her escort, her brother, Sadik. Between them shuffles a barely conscious man, dressed like a Ghuraba, but he possesses no beard.

"How long ago did this happen?" Mama asks.

"Early this morning," Sadik says. "We removed the bullet from his leg, but the ones in his stomach need a real doctor."

Mama lifts up the patient's head.

"What's your name, soldier?"

"Lionel, Ma'am. Lionel Everhart."

Both she, and I, freeze to hear that name.

"Colonel Everhart's son?" Mama says, breathless.

"Yes, Ma'am." He gives her a pain-filled smile. "We met once. Back when your husband was still alive."