A Cold Day In Mosul (6 page)

A second detour forced him onto another dirt road, and after overtaking several slow-moving semis, Ethan finally turned onto Highway 1, which led directly to Mosul. There were two more checkpoints on the way to the city, but the mujahadeen on duty quickly waved Ethan forward: apparently they had instructions to look for something specific, like a pile of mortars or rocket propelled grenades in the backseats. No one bothered to check their IDs.

At the city limits another checkpoint awaited. The AK-wielding teenager had Ethan and company produce their passports, then he wrote their names on a large pad of paper.

"What is the purpose of your visit?" the young militant asked.

"Visiting relatives. And perhaps we'll look for work."

The teenager smirked, probably thinking the three of them wouldn't be finding employment any time soon.

"Where will you stay?" the militant said.

"With the relatives."

The teen had Ethan pop the rear hatch, and after a quick search of the packs stowed in the cargo area, he allowed them on their way. He hadn't bothered with the glove compartment.

After the checkpoint, Ethan took an off-ramp from Highway 1, and drove into Mosul proper.

Three hundred fifty kilometers northwest of Baghdad, Mosul, or
Al Mawsil
as it was known in Arabic, literally meant "the linking point," or Junction City, not so much because of any geographical features, but because it was considered a city of intersecting cultures and values, a place where Christian, Sunni, and Shia could live and work peacefully, side by side. As the capital of Nineveh province, almost two million people had lived in the city before the Islamic State invaders arrived. One million had fled since then. Mostly it was only the Sunnis who remained—many of those recent converts.

Geographically, the city stood on both the eastern and western banks of the Tigris river; the original city was located on the west side, but in modern times had expanded to the east, engulfing the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh in the process. Agatha Christie had lived in Mosul at one point, while her archaeologist husband was involved in an excavation at the ruins of Nimrud thirty kilometers to the southeast—how sad both of them would be to learn that the Islamic State had bulldozed the priceless ruins to the ground.

The squat, two-story buildings around Ethan were all made of either brick or stucco, and tinted the same faded-sand color, as though they had baked too long under the sun and all hue had long since boiled away. A subtle layer of dust floated in the air, further choking the color from the landscape.

Some of those rooftops had crenellations, the kind found at the tops of medieval castles. There was also graffiti scrawled on many doors: either N or R. Ethan later learned that N stood for
Nasrani
, the Arabic word for Christian. And R stood for
Rafadite
, which meant rejector—the Sunni slur for Shia. The Islamic State had spray-painted those letters on the houses of those belonging to said religions, and if the residents paid a protection tax of four hundred and fifty US dollars a month, they could stay. Since most obviously couldn't afford that, they had fled. On a wall near one of the branded households, someone had written an anti-IS slogan in support of the prosecuted:
We are all Christians.

In the taller four-story apartments, shops often dominated the lower levels, though few seemed open. Balconies were invariably covered in sunblinds, mostly to prevent outsiders from seeing the faces of any women who might live inside. Minarets stabbed the skyline here and there, with mosque domes beside them. One sprawling, boarded-up building appeared to be an Assyrian Christian church, though the cross had been broken down. On the side of the structure, Arabic graffiti read:
Real estate property of the Islamic State.

Ethan had operated motor vehicles in the Middle East several times before, and he was used to the aggressive driving style necessary in that part of the world. The traffic wasn't orderly, not in any sense of the word. Motorcycles and mopeds constantly weaved in and out of traffic. Many road signs and traffic lights seemed optional: vehicles would routinely drive through red lights and stop signs outside the main thoroughfares. When merging, he had to force the Land Cruiser in and pray that the other drivers slowed down. He had to constantly watch for pedestrians; they stepped in front of the vehicle at random moments, expecting him to stop—whenever he heard the squeal of tires nearby as some driver slammed on the brakes, invariably it was in response to a jaywalker. Horns were used often, mostly to alert other drivers when approaching intersections, and while passing. In areas where the traffic was backed up, drivers often swerved into the oncoming lanes to skirt the mess, a particularly dangerous habit likely picked up from American security contractors during the war.

As usual, Toyota, Hyundai and Kia ruled the gray roadways. SUVS were the most popular—Land Cruisers, Hiluxes, Tucsons—followed by pickups—L200s, Bongo Frontiers, H100s—and sedans—Ceratos, Sonatas, Elantras, Accents. There were also some Omegas and Vectras from German carmaker Opel, and he even spotted a few American and British SUVs—a Range Rover, a Chevrolet Tahoe and a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Most of the vehicles were surprisingly pristine, given the dusty environment.

Everything seemed normal, and other than the checkpoint at the city limits, Ethan wouldn't have guessed Mosul was occupied. But the signs of the invader soon began to present themselves.

A large billboard displayed a black ghost, with several bullet points explaining the new laws applying to women's fashion: full veils must be worn at all times outside; no skin may be shown anywhere on the body, even around the eyes; the fabrics must be colorless, loose, thick and free of perfume.

Islamic State flags waved from the rooftops of some buildings. Their banners hung from the apartment balconies of supporters. Kia 4000S cab overs were periodically parked at intersections, with masked mujahadeen attending to the ZU-2 anti-aircraft guns in the beds. Black garbage bags were piled to the height of small trucks on the shoulder of some roads.

The sidewalks were dominated by males wearing winter caps, jackets and slacks. Most wore mustaches, a few cropped beards. There were the occasional women among them, clad in black abayas and full veils, and they always had at least one male chaperon.

Black-robed mujahadeen with Kalashnikovs moved like royalty among the inhabitants. The jihadists regarded the surrounding civilians with obvious contempt, as if possessed of special knowledge or powers that nobody else could ever dream to attain.

Up ahead, another Islamic State checkpoint had been arranged across the road, and Ethan queued the Land Cruiser at the back of a long line of vehicles.

"Man," William said. "I remember back in the day when we used to be the ones setting up the checkpoints. You think nothing of it at the time, but you never really know how much of a hassle it is for ordinary citizens. This is what, our seventh today?"

"Ninth," Ethan corrected him.

"My point exactly."

Ethan watched other militants funnel pedestrians through a sidewalk checkpoint beside the road. The jackets and winter caps of the males were searched for hidden cigarettes, while the IDs of women were checked to confirm their relations to their chaperons. Ethan had done similar work for the Islamic State when he served in their ranks. It was a tedious, boring task, and the militants invented creative ways to entertain themselves at the expense of the passersby. He watched one muj make a woman in full niqab do knee pushups on the pavement while the militants drank from an obviously confiscated milk container. The husband observed helplessly nearby.

"Good old Mosul," William said. "She's exactly as I remember her. Hasn't changed a bit. And to think, back during my deployment I actually thought I was making a difference when I helped retake the city."

Once past the checkpoint, Ethan spotted several citizens, all male, standing on a hill. From the way they were holding out their cellphones, Ethan thought they were trying to find network carrier signals.

Ethan saw William fetch his own smartphone in the rear-view mirror.

"Anything?" Ethan said.

"Nope," William replied. "Hardly surprising, notwithstanding the clueless civilians. We've been operating without cellphones since we arrived in the region. When is the vaunted Caliphate going to get with the program? I mean come on, cellphone towers; it's not that hard. It's called basic infrastructure."

"Did you check Firechat?" Ethan asked.

Firechat was a mesh networking app that used Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Apple's Multipeer Connectivity Framework to create an off-the-grid, ad-hoc network between smartphones. The maximum range of each cellphone with the app installed was seventy meters, so Firechat worked best in crowds or cities with a high population density. It also worked well in barracks and battlefields. It was one of the most downloaded apps in Iraq.

"Shows no one nearby," William said. "No wait: I'm getting messages now. The 'Everyone' tab is full of locals trading supplies: water, kerosene and the like. There aren't any obvious messages from mujahadeen, like we saw in Kobane. They've probably all switched over to Serval by now."

Unlike Firechat, where everyone could see everybody else's messages, Serval allowed for private messaging and even voice calls if the mesh was able to find a route between two given participants. It would make sense for the militants to switch to Serval, if only to prevent enemies from spying on their ad-hoc communications. Then again, the foreign fighters still used unencrypted radios for most of their communications, even on the battlefield, so Ethan wouldn't have been surprised to find Firechat still in use among them.

He turned onto the Old Bridge, which crossed the Tigris, and then drove along the eastern bank of the river. A diverse variety of greenery flourished riverside: terebinths, hawthorns, wild pears, mugworts. Hawkers had erected canopied stalls along a broad paved section, forming an impromptu souk.

Something drifting near the middle of the cloudy waters drew Ethan's eye.

"Look at the river," he said.

At first Ethan thought those were small logs floating past, but his stomach turned when he realized they were bodies. Hundreds of them.

"Men and women," William said quietly.

"Probably Yazidis or Shabaks," Doug said, sounding disgusted. "From villages upriver. Part of the IS ethnic cleansing program. People we gave our lives to protect during the war."

Ethan turned the Land Cruiser away from the river and headed toward the public library. Or rather, what was left of it: only a charred husk remained. The place had once contained over eight thousand priceless books and over a hundred thousand rare manuscripts and documents. All irreparably lost. He remembered receiving very specific orders during the war. Allied troops were to preserve all culturally important buildings and sites, if they could. For the people, the men had been told.

For the people.

The Islamic Caliphate didn't give a damn about the people. Their ideology didn't allow for contradicting beliefs. Books, statues, buildings, and any other cultural symbols of the infidel, no matter how priceless, had to be burned to the ground.

Ethan drove past an open souk; near the middle, a throng had gathered around a stage. Several black-clad women stood on the platform, hands bound and veils lifted.

"What the hell is going on there?" William said.

"Slave auction," Doug said bitterly. "Yazidi women captured from the outlying villages. Only the finest stock."

William cursed under breath.

Ethan was careful not to look too long. He knew it would only anger him, and he might end up doing something that would put the entire mission at risk. He was there to save Sam, and had no time to waste on springing some slaves. As much as he might want to, he couldn't save everyone.

"It's frustrating," William said when the slave market was behind them. "We spent so much time, so much money, so much
blood
to liberate these people. And now all our hard work in the country is unraveling. Our friends died for nothing."

Ethan didn't have anything to say to that. Because William was right.

six

T
he pedestrians and street traffic thinned out as Ethan drove into a more industrial-looking area. There were factories of some kind there, probably plastics and textile. Smaller apartments also occupied the area. Many of the buildings showed signs of abandonment: windows and doors were boarded up, and stucco had fallen in clumps from the walls, revealing the sand-colored bricks underneath. The potholes were terrible, and he had to steer past the outflows from open sewers. Mangy, slat-ribbed dogs explored piles of garbage.

Ethan slowed near two boarded-up apartments. The buildings were far from any Islamic State flags, and shared a common courtyard enclosed by a cinder block fence. Across the street was another apartment building, four stories tall. It was occupied, judging from the cars parked in front, and the lack of wooden boards. Those cars were relatively new and in good shape, despite the rundown neighborhood. That was a good sign, as Ethan didn't need people breaking into the Land Cruiser. Then again, the reason why he saw only new cars could be because the older ones were easier to steal.

"That looks like a suitable spot," Ethan said, nodding toward the courtyard of the abandoned buildings.

"It's as good as any," Doug agreed.

After circling the block in a surveillance detection run, Ethan parallel parked between the cars in front of the occupied apartment. The three of them got out, retrieved their backpacks from the cargo area, and the spare network cameras from the glove compartment.

They crossed to the abandoned apartments and made their way around back. When no one was around, they climbed the cinder block wall that enclosed the shared courtyard and dropped down into the dry grass within.