Clandestine-IsaacHooke-FreeFollowup (9 page)

The minibus drove to the Islamic State stronghold of Al-Ra'i, where the passengers transferred onto a bigger bus, joining graduates from other border camps. There wasn't enough room for everyone, so the group was split. Ethan bid farewell to Ibrahim and those other graduates who were separated.
 

Ethan, William and Aaron overnighted with the remaining recruits in a mosque guesthouse, then set out again in the morning. They headed southeast across land that alternated between dry steppe and desert, passing other Islamic State-controlled cities on their journey, including Al Bab and Manbij. The bus stopped several times to traverse mujahadeen checkpoints. At least the roads were decent, with only the occasional pothole. Highway traffic was minimal.

At one point during the ride, a recruit excitedly announced that he'd connected with the phone network. Ethan turned on his Android and sure enough obtained a signal, albeit a very weak one. After dismissing the MTNSyria welcome message, which encouraged him to "feel at home while he roamed on the MTN network," Ethan emailed Sam an encrypted update. The weak signal faded shortly thereafter.

The dry grassland became more prominent as they neared the Euphrates, and the scenery soon turned green, at least for a while. The bus crossed the river via the Tishrin Dam, passing another checkpoint, and then the desert consumed the countryside once more.

The sandy landscape eventually gave way to bedrock, and bedrock to farmland as they approached the Euphrates again. The occasional abandoned village came into view—white-washed homes with blast-damaged walls and bullet-riddled windows. Burnt out pickup trucks and other vehicles sometimes strewed the roads. The small mosques Ethan saw weren't immune to the damage, and many were partially collapsed.
 

Roughly four hours from Al-Ra'i the bus approached a city whose stooping buildings covered the landscape from horizon to horizon. Road traffic had picked up, though Ethan thought it was less than what it should have been, that close to a major city.

When the bus reached the outskirts it slowed down, coming to a rolling stop as it neared another checkpoint.

The two young mujahadeen on duty immediately waved them through.

"Salaam my brothers!" one of them shouted. "Welcome to Al Raqqah! Welcome home!" He fired his AK-47 into the air.

He was answered by a chorus of "Allahu akbars" from the passengers.
 

Ethan had arrived at the de facto capital of the Islamic State.

The heart of the enemy.

Raqqa, Syria.

F
rom his vantage point on the bus, the first thing Ethan noticed was how deceptively normal Raqqa appeared. Traffic was heavy, with vehicles and buses sometimes moving at a crawl. Bumper stickers proclaimed "I love jihad" and "Fight The Zionists"—much later Ethan discovered that cars owners were compelled to cover existing bumper stickers with jihadist slogans.
 

Syria was the domain of the Korean car. Hyundai and Kia ruled the roost: on the packed streets Ethan picked out an array of compacts, SUVs, and trucks belonging to the Korean companies: Elantras, Accents, Tucsons, H100s, Cerato Fortes, Rios, Santa Fes, Bongo Frontiers. The German car manufacturer Opel deserved an honorable mention for the rusty Omegas and Vectras Ethan saw; he also spotted two Japanese pickups in the mix, a Mitsubishi L200 and a Toyota Hilux, plus a few Honda motorcycles, and the occasional groups of men riding Chinese electric bicycles and scooters.
 

Everything would have seemed normal were it not for the garbage littering the roadside, with black bags sometimes piled to the height of three men on certain street corners. Then there were the Kia 4000S cab overs periodically parked at the intersections. These trucks sported Soviet ZU-2 double-barreled anti-aircraft guns in back, with masked mujahadeen standing watch beside them.
 

Citizens walked to and fro on the sidewalks, carrying out their lives. Their paces seemed quick, and most people avoided looking at one another. The men wore ordinary t-shirts and slacks, without headgear, though the clothing was loose, and their hair short and unstyled. They were all unarmed. Many had beards—Ethan later learned the usual style was to go about cleanshaven or with a Saddam-style mustache, but apparently the morality police were less likely to hassle those with beards, who were considered more devout.
 

Every girl over ten wore a black abaya and full niqab so that not even the eyes were visible. He saw a white billboard with the Islamic State banner in the upper left, depicting a fully veiled, wraithlike figure in the center. The Arabic text below read: "My niqab is my might and my glory." All the women had at least one male chaperon.
 

The occasional jihadis in black robes or desert digital fatigues roved the streets, moving like royalty among the citizens. They wore AK-47s or AKMs slung over their shoulders. Their beards were well trimmed, and some wore black turbans or balaclavas. Several carried scarves—probably repurposed keffiyehs—around their necks, which could be raised to shield the lower halves of their faces.
 

Sand-colored, boxlike buildings, two to three stories tall, crowded either side of the road. Shops dominated the lower levels, though only a few seemed open. He saw a clothing store with photos of male models dressed in business suits on the windows—the models' heads had been blotted out by big red circles. Islamic music and revolutionary anthems blared from some stores, always in male voices, and always unaccompanied by instruments. The upper levels were
reserved for residents, and the balconies were invariably covered in sunblinds, partially to keep out the sun, but mostly to prevent outsiders from espying their women. Some of the rooftops had crenellations, the kind found at the tops of medieval castles. Those would make good sniper hides.
 

Ethan glanced down a random side street and saw a city block that was completely devastated. Rebar jutted out of gutted, bomb-ravaged buildings like bronze bones. Smashed vehicles in the street below lay buried underneath chunks of concrete. The apocalyptic vision quickly receded, replaced by ordinary life again.
 

Ethan checked his cellphone. No network carrier. He was able to use his offline map application to follow along with the driver, as GPS still functioned thanks to a few tweaks Aaron had applied to the phone. Ethan marked off obvious Islamic State buildings on the map as points of interest to report to Sam later.
 

The driver soon turned onto a traffic circle with a clock tower at its center. The base of the rectangular tower was covered in the black standards of the Islamic State: at the top of each flag white text proclaimed the first part of the Shahada in Arabic.
la ilaha illallah
. "There is no God but Allah."
In a white circle below it, black text completed the Islamic creed:
Muhammadun rasul allah
. "Muhammad is the messenger of God." Cresting the clock tower were the statues of two peasants, a man and a woman both dressed in traditional robes. The man held a torch to the heavens. The heads of both statues had been ominously decapitated.
 

As the bus moved deeper into the city, the black flag of the Islamic State became more prevalent, showing up everywhere: on street corners, markets, electricity poles. The walls of markets were painted black, as were certain buildings guarded by jihadists. So much black. It was on their soldiers. Their women. Their flags. Buildings. Black. The color of the Islamic State. The color of fear.

The bus driver spoke into his two-way radio, apparently asking for permission to drop off the recruits. The word "full!" echoed loudly from the speaker, followed by another location to try.

The bus was waved through a security checkpoint manned by young militants, and then turned onto a traffic circle labeled
Na'eem
on the offline map. The word meant paradise. At the center of the circle was a wrought iron fence with heads mounted on its spikes. The decapitated bodies of the owners lay beneath each head.
 

The bus circumnavigated the circle and turned south. In moments the vehicle arrived at a gated complex, stopping in front of a Soviet-era Ural-4320 6x6 military truck. Beyond the tall stone fence, Islamic State banners waved from the top of what appeared to be repurposed government buildings.

Four mujahadeen with AK-47s stood guard at the main gate, and after a quick exchange with the driver, they opened the iron barrier. These men didn't bother to greet the passengers. When the gate shut behind the bus, Ethan had a hard time shaking the feeling he'd arrived at a prison.

The driver opened the doors at the main building, a three-story, pillared monstrosity. There were about twenty arches held up by long piers, with a colonnade supported by six more pillars above the entrance. The roof was flat, and beyond the upper railings dark-clad mujahadeen patrolled with Kalashnikovs.

A bored young jihadi greeted them at the entrance and led the twenty recruits to an office, where an older man, an administrator of some kind likely hired from the local Syrian populace, sat behind a desk with a larger model two-way radio. He wore a well-trimmed religious beard,
and had no headgear of any kind.
 

"Salaam, brothers," the man said in formal Arabic. He sounded... resigned. "I am Akeem al'Shaam, the administrator of barrack twelve. There is no one here to receive you now. Please, have a seat and rest." He repeated the word for sit in other languages, and the recruits settled in for what would prove a long wait.
 

About three hours later Akeem's radio squawked to life; after a muted conversation, he spoke to the recruits again. "Please, Arabic speakers, stand on the right."

Ethan and those others who spoke Arabic moved where Akeen indicated.

"Speak English, stand here," Akeem said in broken English. Four British recruits strode to the center of the room.

"Parlez Français, tenez ici," Akeem said. Four more men moved to the left.
 

Two recruits remained. "Chechen?" Akeem said.

Both men nodded.

Akeem made a note on a pad of paper, then turned toward the Arabic speakers. "Are there any of you who would prefer to remain together?"

Ethan exchanged a glance with William and Aaron, but neither of the operatives raised a hand.

He remembered Sam's words.
When you're surrounded by brainwashed fanatics whose sole purpose in life is death by glorious jihad, it's good to have normal people to ground you.
Despite how she felt, he knew it would be better if they separated. The three of them were lone wolves, and they'd simply get more done if they were apart. It seemed as if they were going to be lodging in the same barracks anyway, so they could probably communicate in the cafeteria and so forth after hours. And if not, they always had their clandestine RF devices.
 

Akeem repeated the question in the other languages, and the English, French, and Chechen recruits all raised their hands in turn, apparently wanting to stick together.
 

The administrator spoke quietly into his two-way radio and
a
few minutes later a man with the look of a hardened general arrived. He was dressed in green-black fatigues with a camo baseball cap, and sported a trim Abe Lincoln beard. He carried an American M16A4 assault rifle over one shoulder—the weapon used NATO 5.56x45mm cartridges, a powerful round that should be scarce in Syria, but the militants probably had a steady supply courtesy of the munitions captured in Iraq.
 

"I only need one recruit," the man snapped at Akeem in Arabic. Ethan knew he was an Afghan immediately by the accent.
 

The administrator hurriedly pointed at Ethan.

The Afghan glanced at him; those steely eyes studied him in appraisal. Then he waved curtly. "Come."
 

Ethan followed the man out of the office.

"I am Abdullah Hazir," the Afghan said. "Emir of
Al-Dhi'b Suriya
." Wolf Company. "And what are you called?"
 

"My name is Emad," Ethan answered.

"You have made your hegira from Saudi Arabia?" Abdullah said, guessing his accent.

"Yes," Ethan said.

Abdullah flashed him a wolfish grin. "I have fought side by side with many Saudis in my time. You are savage fighters."

Ethan smiled, doing his best to appear proud of the compliment.
 

Abdullah led him through the pristine government hallways. The floor was waxed to a polish, the walls seemed to have a fresh coat of paint, and every light fixture was in working order.

The emir took him to a processing room of sorts, where a few laptops had been placed on desks. He sat down at one of them and powered up a laptop. "Belongings on the desk. Give me your passport."
 

Glancing at the A4 slung over the man's shoulder, Ethan complied.
 

The Afghan took a picture of Ethan's face with his built-in webcam and then keyed in his passport information, just as emir Haadi had done at the border camp. That the so-called state didn't have interconnected networks to share the information came as no surprise to Ethan.
 

Abdullah paused to review the training scorecard Ethan had inside his passport. "An expert marksman?"

Ethan nodded.

The emir rifled through his belongings and didn't bat an eye at the USB stick or the lockpick set. He smirked when he discovered the TruPulse laser range finder, and peered through the eyepiece. "You came here well prepared. I admire the initiative." He made Ethan unlock his smartphone and proceeded to skim through the contacts, messages, and media.

Apparently satisfied with what he had seen, Abdullah allowed Ethan to repack his stuff. He sent a job to the room's network printer and signed the resultant official-looking document. It specified Ethan's barracks location and emir. Abdullah told Ethan he was to present the document at the main gate whenever he wanted to leave or return.