They plunged eastward for another twenty minutes or so, the terrain growing drier and more desolate with each passing mile. It was still early—seven twenty, according to the clock—but already Natalie’s window blazed to the touch. Finally, they came to a small village of bleached stone houses. The main street was wide enough for traffic, but behind it lay a labyrinth of passages through which a few villagers—veiled women, men in robes and keffiyehs, barefoot children—moved torpidly in the heat. There was a market in the main street and a small café where a few dried-out older men sat listening to a recorded sermon by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph himself. Natalie searched the street for evidence of the village’s name, but found none. She feared she had crossed the invisible border into Iraq.
All at once the SUV turned through an archway and drew to a stop in the court of a large house. There were date palms in the court; in their shade reclined a half-dozen ISIS fighters. One, a young man of perhaps twenty-five whose reddish beard was a work in progress, opened Natalie’s door and led her inside. It was cool in the house, and from somewhere came the soft reassuring chatter of women. In a room furnished with only carpets and pillows, the young man with the thin reddish beard invited Natalie to sit. He quickly withdrew and a veiled woman appeared with a glass of tea. Then the veiled woman took her leave, too, and Natalie had the room to herself.
She moved aside her veil and raised the glass tentatively to her lips. The sugary tea entered her bloodstream like drug from a needle. She drank it slowly, careful not to scald her mouth, and watched a shadow creeping toward her across the carpet. When the shadow reached her ankle, the woman reappeared to reclaim the glass. Then, a moment later, the room vibrated with the arrival of another vehicle in the court. Four doors opened and closed in near unison. Four men entered the house.
It was instantly apparent which of the four was the leader. He was a few years older than the others, more deliberative in movement, calmer in demeanor. The three younger men all carried large automatic combat rifles of a model Natalie could not identify, but the leader had only a pistol, which he wore holstered on his hip. He was attired in the manner of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—a black jumpsuit, white trainers, a black keffiyeh tied tightly to his large head. His beard was unkempt, streaked with gray, and damp with sweat. His eyes were brown and oddly gentle, like the eyes of Bin Laden. His right hand was intact, but his left had only its thumb and forefinger, evidence of bomb making. For several minutes he stared down at the lump of black seated motionless on the carpet. When finally he addressed her, he did so in Arabic, with an Iraqi accent.
“Remove your veil.”
Natalie did not stir. It was haram in the Islamic State for a woman to reveal her face to a male who was not a relative, even if the male was an important Iraqi from the network of Saladin.
“It’s all right,” he said at last. “It is necessary.”
Slowly, carefully, Natalie raised her veil. She stared downward toward the carpet.
“Look at me,” he commanded, and Natalie obediently raised her eyes. He regarded her for a long moment before taking her chin between the thumb and forefinger of his ruined hand and turning her face side to side to examine it in profile. His gaze was critical, as though he were examining the flesh of a horse.
“They tell me you are a Palestinian.”
She nodded her assent.
“You look like a Jew, but I must admit all Palestinians look like Jews to me.” He spoke these words with a desert Arab’s disdain for those who lived in cities, marshes, and seacoasts. He was still holding her chin. “You’ve been to Palestine?”
“No, never.”
“But you have a French passport. You could have gone very easily.”
“It would have been too painful to see the land of my ancestors ruled by Zionists.”
Her answer appeared to please him. With a nod he instructed her to veil her face. She was grateful for the garment’s shelter, for it gave her a moment to compose herself. Hidden beneath her black tent, her face obscured, she prepared herself for the interrogation she knew lay ahead. The ease with which Leila’s story flowed from her subconscious to her conscious surprised her. The intense training had succeeded. It was as if she were recalling events that had actually occurred. Natalie Mizrahi was lost to her; she was dead and buried. It was Leila Hadawi who had been brought to this village in the middle of the desert, and Leila Hadawi who confidently awaited the sternest test of her life.
Presently, the woman reappeared with tea for everyone. The Iraqi sat down opposite Natalie, and the three others sat behind him with their weapons lying across their thighs. An image flashed in Natalie’s memory, a condemned man in an orange jumpsuit, a Westerner, pale as death, seated with his hands bound before a choir-like formation of faceless black-clad executioners. Beneath the shelter of her abaya, she deleted the dreadful picture from her thoughts. She realized then that she was sweating. It was trickling down the length of her spine and dripping between her breasts. She was allowed to sweat, she told herself. She was a pampered Parisian, unused to the heat of the desert, and the room was no longer cool. The house was warming beneath the assault of the late-morning sun.
“You are a doctor,” the Iraqi said at last, holding his glass of tea between his thumb and forefinger, as a moment earlier he had held Natalie’s face. Yes, she said, laboring with her own glass of tea beneath her veil, she was a doctor, trained at the Université Paris-Sud, employed at the Clinique Jacques Chirac in the Paris banlieue of Aubervilliers. She then elaborated that Aubervilliers was a largely Muslim suburb and that most of her patients were Arabs from North Africa.
“Yes, I know,” said the Iraqi impatiently, making it abundantly clear he was familiar with her biography. “I’m told you spent a few hours caring for patients in a clinic in Raqqa yesterday.”
“It was the day before,” she corrected him. And obviously, she thought, gazing at the Iraqi through the black gauze of her veil, you and your friends were watching.
“You should have come here a long time ago,” he continued. “We have a great need for doctors in the caliphate.”
“My work is in Paris.”
“And now you are here,” he pointed out.
“I’m here,” she said carefully, “because I was asked to come.”
“By Jalal.”
She made no response. The Iraqi sipped his tea thoughtfully.
“Jalal is very good at sending me enthusiastic Europeans, but I am the one who decides whether they are worthy of entering our camps.” He made this sound like a threat, which Natalie supposed was his intention. “Do you wish to fight for the Islamic State?”
“Yes.”
“Why not fight for Palestine?”
“I am.”
“How?”
“By fighting for the Islamic State.”
His eyes warmed. “Zarqawi always said the road to Palestine runs through Amman. First, we will take the rest of Iraq and Syria. Then Jordan. And then, inshallah, Jerusalem.”
“Like Saladin,” she replied. And not for the first time she wondered whether the man known as Saladin sat before her now.