“In the Land Cruiser. Do you have your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He took her hand, gave it a squeeze, aware that others might be watching. “You’ve done all you can. Try to rest.”
She shook her head, looking defeated. “I’ve done nothing.”
He wasn’t going to argue with her. “Get inside where it’s warmer.”
Derek parked the Land Cruiser so that it blocked the gate to the home. If those Daesh fuckers wanted to get inside again, they’d have to go through him.
He checked in with the team in Mazar-e-Sharif. “Cobra, this is Tower. I’m going to get some shut-eye. Over.”
“Tower, this is Cobra. Sweet dreams. Out.”
Then Derek checked his weapons, unzipped a sub-zero sleeping bag, and tilted the seat back, using the open sleeping bag like a blanket. But sleep was slow in coming.
* * *
Jenna lay awakein the darkness, the day’s horrors stuck in her mind. Bruised and swollen vulva. Teeth marks on budding breasts. Vaginal lacerations.
The youngest victim had been only seven.
From the other side of the room came the sound of quiet weeping.
Jenna’s heart broke.
* * *
Jenna stoodin the back of the cemetery with Derek, tears in her eyes, the cold pinching her cheeks and biting through the soles of her shoes. Hamzad and his men joined with men from neighboring villages to say the funeral prayers for those who’d been murdered, the victims’ grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters standing in the back in burqas and sobbing in their grief.
Life in this tiny village would never be the same.
The women of the village had woken early this morning, made breakfast for themselves, their guests, and their children, looking dazed by terror and grief. Then, while Hamzad and his men had dug thirty-six shallow graves through the snow, the women had washed the bodies of their loved ones, weeping over them and wrapping them in whatever cloth they had on hand that could act as a shroud.
By late afternoon, relatives from neighboring villages had begun to arrive, and Jenna had been relieved to see the survivors embraced by loved ones, who’d made food and cared for them. They’d spoken of the slaughter, but no one had said a word about the violence the women had suffered. Rape was a taboo subject here.
Hamzad had insisted they stay for the funerals out of respect.
Derek hadn’t been happy. “The longer we stay out here, the more dangerous it is.”
He stood beside her now, his gaze never resting, tension rolling off him, earpiece still in his ear.
In the cemetery, the bodies were lifted and placed by male relatives on their right sides in the graves so that their faces were turned toward Mecca. Then dirt was thrown in to cover them, first in ceremonial handfuls and then by the shovelful.
When at last the burials had ended, Derek started back toward the Land Cruiser. “Let’s go.”
As before, Hamzad and his men led the way, Derek following at a distance.
Exhausted,Jenna fought to stay awake, the motion of the Land Cruiser lulling her to sleep. She jerked awake when the vehicle came to a sudden stop.
“Hang on!” Derek shouted.
He threw the Land Cruiser into reverse, slammed on the gas, and drove backward—fast.
“What’s happening?”
“The drone spotted a reception committee waiting for us up ahead—several large vehicles blocking the road.”