And to think, this mission was supposed to be “so simple.” I sigh, then jog out of the building, on the search to find a needle in a stack of needles.
2
Natalie Westbrook
I often feel like a fish out of water on the streets of Baghdad, but it’s a feeling I welcome. I love to be challenged. I love new experiences. I love having to rely only on myself to get by.
I’m trying to remind myself of this love as I barter impatiently with a street vendor, who, rightly identifying me as a Western woman beneath my hijab, is trying to scam me into paying triple the price for a bag of fresh kleichas on his stand.
“No, no,” I argue in Arabic. “These are three times as expensive as the booth down that way.”
The vendor looks amused. “Your Arabic is good for an American.”
I hold up a ten-thousand dinar note. “You know what else is good? My money.”
He chuckles, handing me the bag. “Enjoy. You come again tomorrow.”
I step away, feeling satisfied. One of the reasons I was eager to come to Baghdad for my internship—aside from being closer to my dad—was to practice the language. It’s an international business internship…or at least, that’s what I’m telling people.
In all actuality, I recently took a job with the NSA—yes, the NSA—as a foreign language advisor. For experience, I’ve been deployed to the American Embassy in Baghdad. Of course, the NSA knows who my father is and where he is. And there’s nothing wrong with me telling him where I work now. But he’s discouraged me from working for the federal government for as long as I can remember. As I grew up, however, I realized it’s my calling. My aptitude for foreign language—I can speak eight of them apart from English—cemented that, and it wasn’t long until they came to recruit me.
It’s only a matter of time before I cross paths with my father professionally. And that will be the moment I tell him the truth.
No pressure, right?
The apartment I live in is the perfect walking distance to the embassy and also to this market I instantly fell in love with. I haven’t purchased real groceries since I’ve been here. It’s either takeout or a hodgepodge of street-food goodies I pick up after a long day at work.
I head back toward the apartment. My cream-colored, wide-leg linen trousers flow around my ankles and sweep up drafts of dust on the ground as I walk. It’s unfathomably hot here, but even in long pants and sleeves that come down past my elbows, I’m not drowning in sweat. My deployment is a month. In some respects, that sounds like a long time. But I know how quickly the time will go by. I already feel settled into my routine. I’ve always been relatively adaptable—
Boom.
An enormous explosion up ahead rattles the very earth I’m standing on, and I go down to a knee. Around me, screams and shouts fill my ears. For a moment, I think it is an earthquake.
But the ground is still.
I lift my gaze. Up ahead, the roof of the embassy is on fire.
“Oh my God,” I mutter, rising, my bag of pastries forgotten on the ground. “Dad!”
I don’t think. I just start moving.
I shove through the throng of panicking market-goers and around stalled vehicles in a mad dash for the embassy. All I can think of is getting to my father.
Ahead, a car swerves in front of me to get around a crowd of people, and I dodge into an alleyway to avoid being hit. The alley is short and opens to a street that will still take me in the direction of the embassy. The short detour won’t keep me from my father.
But as I near the other side and another vehicle pulls up, blocking me, I realize this might.
Three men wearing masks step out of the car. One of them holds a long, huge, wicked-looking knife.
“Get in the car,” he tells me in Arabic.
I back away. “There’s some mistake. I’m not who you think I am.”
“NSA,” he hisses, stepping toward me. “Am I wrong?”
Shit! How the hell could they know that?
I spin to run down the other side, but I’m not quick enough to avoid his strong, grasping hand. Before I know it, I’m pressed to his front. One hand grips my forehead like a vise, while the other holds the knife to my throat.
“Get in the car,” he says in perfect, nearly accentless English. “Don’t make me tell you again.”
“Then maybe I’m the one who needs the refresher.”
A new male voice, an American, draws all our attention.
The car that nearly hit me is stopped halfway down the alley. A tall, muscular military-type strides toward us. He’s wearing all black, plus a bulletproof vest.
He points a gun at us. Well, not at me, but my captor. “Let her go.”
The man holding me spews some truly awful insults in Arabic at him.
“That hurts,” the soldier says, never lowering his gun. He pulls the trigger. I scream and squeeze my eyes shut. The man holding me tenses, but he’s still fully alive when I glance at him a second later.
There’s a hole in the brick wall next to his head, though, not two inches away.
“Just so you know, I’m an expert marksman,” the soldier says calmly, still holding the gun up. “You’re alive right now because I let you live. If you don’t let her go, I will blow your brains out. I doubt you could throw that knife at me before I put two in your forehead. And your friends didn’t bring guns either, or else they’d have them on me.”
There’s only a beat of hesitation before the man holding me shoves me from behind, knocking the air out of me. I stumble forward into the soldier’s arms as the men who attacked me jump into their car and peel off.
I gaze up at the soldier.
His brown eyes study me back. “I’d love to say I have good news for you, Natalie, but I don’t.”
He knows my name?
“…Dad?” is all I can muster out weakly.
“Get in the car,” he replies, opening the passenger door. When I don’t move, he bodily picks me up, sets me inside, and shuts the door.
By the time he climbs in behind the wheel, I’ve already burst into tears.
3
Murphy
Dealing with beautiful, crying women was never something the AFE trained for. So when Natalie doubles over in her seat, sobbing, I am at an utter fucking loss.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to comfort her.
“Is your building secure?” I bark, wrenching the car around in an irresponsible hairpin turn. Dismayed, terrified citizens scamper out of the way to avoid being hit a second time, but I need to get us out of here. My car is bulletproof, but not IED-proof. Or rocket proof, which is what was shot at the embassy earlier.
“W-what do you mean?” Natalie cries. “Who are you? Where’s my dad? What’s going on?”
That is way too many questions for me right now. I maneuver through the packed market crowd to reach the main street, then head two blocks down to her apartment building. I’m relieved to see the locked, steel-reinforced glass doors at the front.
“Let’s go.” I park across the street in an empty stall, help her out of the car, then propel her by the elbow toward the front door. I press the buzzer for her. Then a voice asks in English for her to identify herself. She faces a mounted camera and complies, tears still streaming down her cheeks, but the door opens anyway.