Chapter 5 #2
Within minutes, they came upon a wall of armed guards, forcing them to skid to a stop.
No one approached the vehicle. No one spoke to them.
After a brief discussion, involving a great deal of neck gesturing between the five men, one of them extracted an older model handheld radio.
Thirty seconds later, they parted ways and signaled for the truck to continue.
“Told you,” Father James bragged. “They aren’t going to shoot a priest.”
Less than a mile down the rickety road, it ended in a dusty courtyard.
“Go,” Kayla ordered quietly as she slowly opened her door and stepped outside onto the hard-packed dirt. In a voice louder than needed, she announced, “Girls, I want to look around and figure out the best place for us to start cleaning.”
Ashlin and Piper each jumped out of their doors and started acting like silly girls, camera phones up, seemingly focused on them, recording everything.
“I’m so excited!” Ashlin proclaimed. “We’re finally here.
I can’t wait to get started on cleaning this place up.
And, eww,” she cringed for the pretend camera as she panned the area, “it needs it.” She was getting great video of the camp layout on her side of the SUV.
Three men were watching her, the real camera pointed at them.
She turned her short shorts that barely covered her butt toward them and rubbed her free hand over it.
“My poor butt hurts from all the bumps.” When she was finished, she looked at them and smiled as she clasped her hands together and squeezed her breasts together, enhanced by the push-up bra under her thin T-shirt, declaring her a member of some unnamed NGO.
In character, she trotted over to the men.
“Let’s take a picture together.” Without waiting for their answer, she stood in front of them and held her camera high.
She gave the camera that “aren’t I pretty” smile and took the picture.
With the image still on her screen, she flashed it in front of their faces and gave them a thumbs-up. They smiled and returned the gesture.
Ashlin glanced over at Kayla and the priest who were walking toward a man who wore a black-and-gray keffiyeh rather than the militaristic hats the other men wore. He had crossed swords topped by two stars on his collar, which in the Middle East military often designated an officer.
“Father, what brings you to our humble camp?” the man seemingly in charge asked, his eyes never leaving Father James, totally ignoring Kayla even though she wore a white, loose-fitting, long-sleeved blouse and a long black skirt that collected brown dust as she walked.
Typical, Ashlin thought.
Their voices disappeared once they walked into the building the officer, obviously in charge, had exited.
Piper popped up beside her and nudged Ashlin.
Without a word, they both headed toward a long one-story building.
From the original maps, it was divided into several schoolrooms. Along the way they stopped and seemingly took pictures of each other, but in fact, they were photographing men as they walked to the main quad.
A few men milled around openly discussing the women.
They obviously had no idea that the Ladies all spoke fluent Arabic.
Ashlin was forced to school her face at some of the men’s remarks, pretending she didn’t understand.
One was particularly rude, describing in detail what he would like to do to her body.
Bold as day, Piper and Ashlin let themselves into the building, each taking a different side of every room, fearing they may be stopped at any moment and forced to stop.
The walls were covered in elemental languages, all translated into English as though the students were learning a new language.
In another room, the teachings of the Koran covered every inch of the wall.
In a third room, maps of the United States covered two walls with enlarged topographical maps of Pennsylvania, Washington, Montana, Arizona, and Tennessee on the other two walls.
One glance at Piper showed she was thinking the same thing.
These were the states they had studied before leaving on this mission.
When no men were around, they stopped and attempted to upload the pictures, to no avail. If a man walked by alone, they surrounded him and supposedly took selfies. If there were several in a group, they pretended to take pictures of each other while getting as many of the men as possible.
They had just stepped into what was obviously the barracks and had only taken a few pictures when they heard Kayla’s unmistakable whistle. There wasn’t any danger, but it meant “Come immediately.”
When all five women were back at the SUV, Kayla announced, “Girls, I’m sorry, but we won’t be able to work on this camp today.”
Everybody got back in the vehicle, and Father James started to drive back the same way they came. No one spoke until they were on the main road heading back to Bor, and Kayla gave them the all-clear after checking for listening devices.
“Okay, why did we leave so soon?” Mia asked the question they had all been thinking.
Kayla raised one finger as her satellite phone connected with Homeland Security.
“Ops center. Verifying encrypted call. Verified. Go ahead, Lady Lion”
“Target has already been there. Uploading verification now. Proudly displayed behind General Yousuf al Tunisi was a photograph taken in the encampment we just left of the good general and Adeel bin Laden himself. We’re too late.”
“Fuck.” The feminine whispered word bounced around the SUV.