Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(46)
A city the size of Austin would have a designated team of police and fire personnel trained as first responders. These people would get the proper protective precautions in place to, at the very least, isolate and contain the damage as much as possible. Minutes mattered a whole lot, seconds almost as much. Even a one-hour delay in enacting the proper procedures could cost tens of thousands of lives, according to Caitlin’s instructors at Quantico, and she was of no mind to dispute their estimates at this point.
She parked her Explorer in a makeshift lot of other first responders’ vehicles and was waved through to a third checkpoint. This one was erected behind layered strips of hazard tape. Hazmat suits hung from hangers on portable racks inside the kind of tent people rent for backyard parties. Caitlin found Jones, already draped in one, waiting for her at the front flap of the tent, looking truly scared and uncertain for the first time she could ever remember.
“The shit has really hit the fan this time,” he greeted her. “Why am I not surprised you’re right in the middle of things as usual?”
“Come again, Jones?”
“Your old friend Daniel Cross, Ranger … The kid you took under your wing, remember? This is exactly what he promised ISIS he could pull off.”
40
RAS AL-MAA VILLAGE, IRAQ
“I have decided to be merciful to you today,” Hatim Abd al-Aziz, supreme military commander of ISIS, announced to the villagers gathered in the dusty central square, which smelled of goat shit. “I have decided not to repay your disrespect in kind.”
He continued walking amid the rows of men, women, and children, even as more villagers who’d been found hiding, and children whose parents had stashed them beneath blankets or within crawl spaces, were herded into the square. Al-Aziz stopped and patted the head of an especially frightened-looking boy.
“They’ve told you stories about me, child, haven’t they? Made up tales of the evil monster who came here once before and killed the men who would not swear allegiance to the caliphate and pledge their faith to Allah. They told you how I cut off their heads and made their families witness the act, how I gouged out the eyes of any who tried to close them.
“Can you believe they would say such things about me, Seyyef?” al-Aziz asked the towering figure who walked in his shadow.
Seyyef gave no reply other than a grunt and a shrug. He wore black combat fatigues that made him seem even larger, but no mask, because he’d been unable to find one large enough to fit over his simian-like skull. His cheekbones were ridged and elongated, beneath a forehead that protruded so much it seemed packed with putty. His face and head were so absurdly large that his eyes looked tiny by comparison, giving the giant a perpetually blank stare that made him appear utterly thoughtless.
“The truth is,” al-Aziz continued to the villagers, “I did none of those things. God did them, with me serving merely as His vessel, stripped of my own will in lieu of a higher power’s. I live to serve Him. That is where we differ, you and I. I live to serve God, while you would besmirch His name and disrespect His greatness with your blasphemy and disloyalty.”
Al-Aziz couldn’t tell how many of the villagers grasped his words, but soon they’d all understand the intent that had brought him back here, the example that needed to be set.
“I gave you a chance the last time I came, in spite of all your indiscretions. I warned that if you continued serving as a way station and support center for the forces of the West, I would send all of you to the realms of hell, instead of just your leaders. But even that, I fear, will not be enough to turn you from the darkness to the light we are shining on the new world. What sets the caliphate apart is our belief that there can be no compromise. Conquering the world starts with a single village, for that world can be no stronger than the weakest link, represented by that village and all the others.”
He stopped and patted another child’s head. She shrank back from his touch, clutching her mother, leaving al-Aziz wishing he could wipe the unclean stink of her off his hand. Around him, the sense of fear and desperation rode the air like a cloud, a fine mist of hopelessness sprayed by the weak willed and weak minded. Somewhere near the back of the dusty square, a young child was shrieking. Others, more children and adults, were choking back sobs or wiping their eyes free of tears.
“Today this village ceases to exist,” he resumed, walking on. “Today we burn your homes, your crops, your animals, your possessions. Today we take everything that defines you in the evil you have chosen embrace instead of giving yourself to the one true God. But He is a merciful God and has willed me to treat you in that vein. The last time I came here, I took the heads of twenty men identified as leaders. Today, being merciful and compassionate, I will take none. I will spare your lives and let you remain in your homes.”
Al-Aziz paused just long enough to give the villagers of Ras al-Maa a semblance of hope. Then he snatched the gift back from them.
“On one condition,” al-Aziz continued. “Each parent must take the life of their oldest child. Refuse, and your entire family dies.”
The villagers’ hope vanquished with the stiff wind that blew through the square, whipping the dust into miniature funnel clouds. The villagers dropped to their knees, begging, pleading, screeching, sobbing. The sounds were so joyous to his ears that al-Aziz could barely contain himself from smiling.