Path of Jen: Bloodborne (20 page)

Jen looked down at herself.
“I can’t keep
going in these clothes."
She took the knife from Broken Nose’s
neck, and cut her hands free. Next, she looked at the clothes the
men on the ground were wearing. “Well, they sure don’t need these
anymore,” she whispered. After checking all of their pockets, Jen
took the shirt from one and the jeans from another. She quickly
changed into the new clothes, keeping an eye on the opening to the
alley. She stuffed several bills of Iraqi dinar into her front
pocket, slung her rifle, and fastened a hijab out of the black
shirt she had been wearing. She tucked the pistol back into her
waist and dropped the knife into her pocket.

As Jen turned to walk out of the alley, she
stopped.
“I can’t leave them here for somebody else to
find,”
she thought.
“I don’t want anyone else to get
sick."
Jen retrieved a can of gas and poured it over each of
the corpses. She made a trail of fuel connecting all three bodies.
Then for good measure, she dumped a bucket of black waste oil on
them too. There was a lighter in the pocket of the jeans she put
on, so she used it to light a knotted rag. She let it catch fully
and as she walked past the two closest to the street she tossed it
on them. The gasoline ignited in a “Whoosh!” and black smoke rose
into the air. The fire quickly spread to the third man. Jen
shouldered her rifle and patted the buttstock. As she walked to the
east, she glanced toward the sky and whispered, “Thank you
Lord."

After a couple of blocks, Jen looked back and
saw thick black smoke still rising into the air. At first Jen
thought it was like a beacon screaming “Jen was here! Come and get
her!" She kept her head down and walked quickly, zig zagging
through side streets to avoid being visible for too long. A while
later she looked back and saw the smoke thinning out in the
distance. Instead of a beacon, she saw it as more of a warning,
“Jen was here. Watch out."

She steadily worked her way east, and
eventually the buildings began to spread farther apart and shrink
in size. Before long, she reached a definite edge to the city and
she turned to look over her shoulder. The black smoke was gone, and
as she searched the skyline for lingering traces of the hospital
fire or the smaller fire in the alley, she realized for the first
time that she was not afraid. “Yeah though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art
with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Jen patted the
buttstock of her rifle. “Thy rod,” she said. She placed her hand on
the grip of the pistol in her belt. “Thy staff.”

Jen walked away from the city of Mosul and
away from the setting sun. In addition to the rifle, she had a jug
of water hanging from a piece of rope, and a canvas sack with snack
crackers, a piece of flat bread, and two glass bottles of warm
orange soda that she bought from a street vendor, slung over her
shoulder. Jen knew she had many miles to go before she was past the
area of Iraq under ISIS control, but she also knew she was strong
enough to make it.
“Mom,”
she thought.
“I am coming home.
I am not the same girl I was two years ago, and I don’t even know
if I’ll be welcome…but I’m coming."

Fouzia sat at her desk and scanned the news
feeds diligently. She and Najid made watching for news updates in
the middle east a priority within their busy schedules. Over the
past few weeks they had not found anything else in the news about
Jena, but the FBI brought them in a week prior to watch another
video. The new video was directed at Muslims across the globe. It
was not a call to arms like the one featuring Jena, but it was just
as disturbing. Up until the new video was intercepted, the FBI and
Homeland Security were convinced Jena would be used as a suicide
bomber carrying a dirty bomb. The new video confused the analysts.
It spoke of a secret vaccine, and warned all Muslims to get it as
soon as possible. Fouzia and Najid were brought in because at the
end of the clip, directly after the warning, an image of Jena
flashed across the screen.

“There is no vaccine against bombs,” stated
Agent House. “We think Jena is going to sneak a virus into the
country. How do you think she would do that? Is there anything that
you can tell us that might help us stop her?”

Fouzia shook her head, rejecting the idea and
looked at her husband. Najid clenched his fists and stepped forward
as if he would hit the agent. Fouzia took hold of his arm and
begged him to stop. “Please, Najid! We can’t help her by
fighting!”

Agent House stiffened and half-stepped toward
Najid. He looked angry and ready to fight. Fouzia held a hand up
toward him and pleaded silently for him to stop. Agent House stood,
unflinching and waited for their reply.

“We don’t know anything! We are just as
confused as you,” said Fouzia. “We just want to help her get home
safely. Please, she is not the enemy! Do you know any more about
where she is?”

Agent House shook his head and looked
disappointed. “We honestly have no idea. Look, I know this must be
hard. I can only imagine how you feel right now, but the best way
for you to help your daughter is to help us. We’ll try to keep her
safe, I promise, but the first priority is protecting the citizens
of this country from a legitimate threat. I don’t know how your
daughter got mixed up in all of this, but…well, she is. If you
think of anything, or if she tries to contact you, please, call me
right away."

Fouzia shook her head and continued browsing
news headlines. Anything related to the middle east caught her eye
and she looked at it closer. Unfortunately there was nothing that
she could connect to Jena. She saw a story about new and horrific
executions of civilians by ISIS in Iraq. There was another about
retaliatory executions of ISIS soldiers by a Shia militia.
“Where are you Little Bird?"
She rubbed her eyes and sat
back in her chair.
“Whatever happens, whatever you’ve done, I
still love you. Just come home.”

There was a loud repeating tone over the
intercom and Fouzia sighed. She pushed back from the desk and stood
up. She rushed out of the office toward the nurse’s station, while
pulling her hair back into a pony tail. She tied it with the hair
tie resting on her wrist and looked at the electronic map on the
wall. The light associated with room 32 was flashing red, and
Fouzia saw nurses and orderlies running down the hall. She took a
deep breath and as she hurried toward the emergency, she prayed
that she would be able to help the patient in room 32.

Staff Sergeant Dustin “Deep South” Parks,
hunched over a wooden crate to look through his rifle scope and
scan the horizon. He was a big man. He stood a full head taller
than most, and his shoulders were massive. His team was currently
assigned to an Iraqi Special Forces unit probing a perceived
weakness in the ISIS stronghold in Mosul. He looked over his right
shoulder at the two ISF soldiers sleeping against the wall behind
him and shook his head.
“Damn Hajis don’t give a lick, why the
heck do I?"
In answer to his own question, he looked to his
left at his battle-buddy, Sergeant Mason “Preacher” Ricks. There
was a man he respected and would gladly lay down his life for. “Hey
Preach,” he said in a low voice. “What’s the ETA on Skinny and
Frankie?”

Preacher was a short tempered, tattooed
soldier from Missouri that Deep South had known since his first
tour in Afghanistan. They were polar opposites but completely
inseparable. Preacher was scrappy and quick to fight with a medium
build; while Deep South had a long fuse, talked slow, and was just
plain big. Preacher shrugged his shoulders and answered without
looking up from his scope, “Shoulda been here by now. Probably
stopped for a beer." Deep South could see his shoulders shaking as
Preacher laughed at his own joke.

Deep South grunted and looked through his
scope. After a minute, the back of his neck started itching and he
turned again to look at the ISF soldiers behind him. He stretched a
long leg out and tapped the boot of the nearest one. “Hey,” he
said. “Get yer ass up and watch our six like you’re supposed to."
The ISF soldier looked at him with sleepy eyes, but didn’t move. He
gave the soldier’s boot a harder kick and pointed at the eastern
window for emphasis. The soldier immediately turned and kicked his
partner. He spoke harshly as if blaming the situation on him, and
the two of them got up and moved back to their position to watch
the eastern approach.
“Unbelievable,”
thought Deep South. He
turned back to the west and looked through his scope at the city
skyline. They were three miles out, observing from a small
abandoned stone building set off of the main road by another
quarter mile.

Through his scope he watched the same lone
figure walking east from the city near the road that he had been
watching for the past few minutes. Whoever it was, carried an AK47
and not much else.
“They probably belong to one of the rural
villages or farms outside the city,”
he reasoned. It was not
out of the ordinary for a person to carry an AK47 in Iraq. Many
people carried them for protection, and it didn’t signify an
alliance to any particular organization, or indicate hostile
intent. That was a problem.

Deep South needed to know if the person he
was watching approach their position was a bad guy or not. They
didn’t wear the typical black uniform of ISIS jihadis, but it was
not exactly the type of organization that issued everyone a uniform
either. Many of them wore what they could get, and no two were
outfitted exactly the same. Another confusing thing was that they
usually travelled in groups. Thugs don’t like traveling alone and
making themselves vulnerable. The word was that here on the eastern
side of the city, ISIS wasn’t so popular anyway.
“Maybe this guy
had enough, and he’s just trying to make it to someplace
better."
Until he knew for sure, Deep South wasn’t going to let
him out of his sight.

A few minutes later, Preacher made a clicking
noise with his tongue. “They’re here,” he said in a low voice. Deep
South didn’t look up from his rifle.

Two sets of boots could be heard approaching
from the south. When they finally made it into the building, Deep
South glanced over his shoulder and nodded at Captain Jim “Skinny”
Denny, and Sergeant First Class Frank “Frankie” Banner. He went
right back to his scope. Something new had caught his attention and
he was waiting for the Haji to get a little closer so he could see
more detail. There was something about the way the person was
walking and how they carried themselves that just seemed…off.

Skinny dropped his pack behind Deep South and
squatted next to him. “Gimme a weather report,” he said with a
Brooklyn accent.

“Just a drizzle, sir. I got a singe adult
male walking this way from the city. He’s walking light, with a
rifle and a few supplies. That’s about it. No black baddies
marching around or chopping off heads in my sector."

Skinny tapped him on the shoulder and said,
“Alright, switch out with Frankie. I want you up top with your long
gun. Gimme a shout if anything changes.”

Deep South stood up with a grunt and headed
out the back door on the eastern side of the building. He tossed
his pack up onto the flat roof and climbed up the ladder after it.
Up on top, he kept a low profile and pushed his pack toward the
western edge of the roof. He laid the barrel of his rifle on top of
the pack and crawled up behind it. He lay prone on his stomach,
with the butt of the rifle in his shoulder pocket, and his cheek
resting on the comb of the buttstock.

Frankie set up in the western window down
below. He heard Frankie start laughing, and wondered,
“What the
heck is going on down there? Skinny probably crop dusted him."
He smiled at that thought. Their Captain was known for childish
pranks, especially if they involved flatulence.

In his ear, on the team channel, he heard
Frankie say, “Deep, you big gay moron. Your perp is a woman! Dang,
she’s pretty good lookin’ too!”

“Really?” asked Deep South. “I knew something
was off, but it’s so hard to tell sometimes, you know? Some of
these Hajis ain’t exactly John Wayne, if you catch my drift." They
both chuckled.

Deep South repositioned his rifle to look at
the woman approaching just above the road. “Why isn’t she walking
on the pavement?” he wondered. He switched to maximum magnification
and held his breath. “Well, hello there,” he finally said with a
smile. “Frankie, she’s better than pretty good. That girl wants to
meet my mom." Frankie chuckled again, and then the Skinny
interrupted.

“Deep, don’t go proposing just yet. Unless
she starts waving a black flag, we need to let her pass by. We have
a job to do first. I’ll call her in and somebody else can pick her
up for intel while we push closer. Don’t you worry cowboy, I’ll
make sure they get her phone number for you.”

Deep South ignored the friendly barbs, and
watched her through his scope. Her head turned sharply, and she
looked back toward the city. Deep South traced his scope in the
direction she looked and switched to lower magnification. The scope
was self stabilizing, but the higher the magnification, the less
effective the stabilizer became. For quickly acquiring a target, a
lower magnification setting was better.

On the road, about a mile back, was a pick-up
heading east. It looked like a driver and a passenger with a light
load in the back. As they got closer he could see a young boy
driving, and an old man riding in the passenger seat. He swung the
scope back to where he last saw the woman. “Huh,” he said. He swept
slowly right and left, up and down. “Where the heck?" He clicked to
a higher magnification and held still. “Gotcha,” he said, smiling
again. She was laying prone, in a slight depression with her rifle
held tightly to her chest. “What’s got you so spooked honey?” he
whispered.