‘She’ll walk. But she’ll never be a dancer.’
Lee inhaled sharply, looking back out of the window. No one danced here anyway. It was almost perverse to think of music and laughter and dancing when the sky was bright with fires, the country burning.
‘Anyway, that’s background,’ he said tightly, not wanting to dwell on what the little girl had lost; she was alive – that was all that mattered. ‘Moussef, like I said, is his cousin. The village has been overrun with people escaping Kobanî. You’ve no doubt heard ISIL have been ramping up the number of attacks there recently.’
Of course she’d heard, and Lee squeezed her jaw in anger, already knowing the stories she and Cunningham would hear when they got there, already knowing how this would play out; the jihadists’ strategic aim wasn’t just about gaining control of the city, but the entire canton. They had overrun the region in recent weeks and had already taken control of hundreds of villages. Nowhere was safe. With the city under siege – there were reports of the electricity and water supplies already being cut off – it was no better on the outside either for the tens of thousands of displaced citizens fleeing from one toppled village to the next, straight into the arms of their enemy.
Hadn’t these people been through enough? When would it end? There were already no more houses to live in, no shops to shop in, no people to rule – millions of Syrians had been displaced by this war already. What were they even fighting for any more? Dust?
‘But that’s not the story,’ he whispered, leaning towards her.
Being first in on an ISIL insurgence wasn’t the story? She arched an eyebrow in surprise, seeing his excitement fizzing below the surface, his eyes burning. Instinctively, she picked up the camera and snapped him. In his element. She rarely took pictures of him, scarcely ever recorded the fleeting moments of brightness, but occasionally those moments felt as necessary as the dark ones, and right now, more than ever, she felt impelled to grab it, to remind herself that life was about more than just staying alive. She didn’t need to check the viewfinder to know she’d nailed the shot.
‘You remember those two teenage girls who left Lyons to become jihadi brides – about two years ago?’
She watched him, waiting for the reveal. ‘. . . Vaguely.’
‘According to Abbad, they’ve fled ISIL and are hiding out in Khrah Eshek, trying to get to the border. Their husbands were killed in a drone strike; one of them’s got a kid, the other’s pregnant. They’re trying to get back to France but getting to the border camps is risky – ISIL have put a high price on their heads and they’re paranoid as hell they’re going to be sold out.’
‘That’s not paranoia. They will be.’
He nodded.
She frowned. ‘How does Abbad know this if he’s almost a hundred miles away?’
‘Moussef is helping them.’ Cunningham’s eyes glittered as his plan became clear. ‘Abbad thinks I could help swing the international spotlight on them. He’s offered Moussef to be our guide, and translator, if needed.’
‘Oh, I see. You can help get those girls out of there – and you also get a world exclusive?’ A sardonic note coloured her words.
He shrugged, not denying it. ‘We get a world exclusive. An insider’s view of life within ISIL? It’ll be the pinnacle of both our careers.’ He glanced over, eyes shining, his body already primed with adrenaline, and she knew that whatever his motivations – glory, compassion or common, decent humanity – he never felt more alive than this. ‘You speak French, don’t you?’
‘Un peu.’ She sounded like she was spitting out a fly.
‘Good. Could be useful.’
‘I doubt it,’ she scoffed. ‘Unless they’re giving me directions to the bakery to buy two baguettes and a croissant. Or need to know the time. Or my daily routine when I was at school.’
The first faint signs of the destroyed city that was Kobanî emerged on the horizon and they both flinched as a mortar flew out across the sky, miles from here, and yet close enough for them to feel the vibration in the ground as another building was levelled. More lives lost.
Lee saw his grip tighten around the wheel. ‘And you’re sure you can trust him, this Moussef guy?’
‘I saved his family, Fitch.’ He stared dead ahead at a horizon that had, somewhere along it, two terrified young women, far from home. Being hunted by some of the most dangerous individuals on the planet, they couldn’t know that right now their tickets to safety were hurtling towards them in a clapped-out pale-blue Toyota with a Canon 5D Mark III as their only defensive weapon. ‘. . . We’re going to do some good in this godforsaken hellhole today,’ he murmured, although whether for her benefit or his, she wasn’t sure.
‘Right.’ Lee shifted position, feeling the old familiar fear begin to pitch in her stomach as they drew ever closer to the red zone. She had hoped there would be some time at least before they ran headlong into the maws of war, even if it was just twenty minutes in a room with her feet on the ground, instead of endlessly bumping along hard, stony roads.
He glanced over again. He could read her better than any other person on this planet. He instinctively knew when she was uncertain, afraid, unsure. ‘Hey, you trust me, don’t you?’
She stared back at her old friend and sighed, her hands on the camera, all ready to lift and point. ‘God only knows why I do.’
He grinned his prize-winning grin again. ‘Then what could possibly go wrong?’
Chapter One
Bloemgracht, Amsterdam, 14 November 2020
‘I can see him!’
‘Really? Yay!’ Thank God. Lee shifted her weight against the railing as Jasper wriggled on her shoulders, barely able to contain his delight. The parade was now coming into view, the growing cacophony of the crowd and the increasing din of a brass band telling her the great moment was finally upon them. Every under-ten in the city had been waiting for this moment all year, although she had begun praying hard for it herself about twenty minutes earlier – her neck was stiff from being bent forwards and her shoulders were screaming for relief from her beloved son’s jiggling, kicking weight as they stood awaiting Sinterklaas’s triumphant arrival in the city. Not to mention it was f-f-f-freezing. She had spent the past few minutes watching her own breath make lacy patterns in the air.
‘There’s Zwarte Piet!’ Jasper yelled, waving a red plastic flag excitedly above his head as the first boat in the flotilla passed by. It was laden with bewigged men and women dressed in brightly coloured velvet costumes, with puff sleeves and ruff collars, tossing sweets and gingerbread to the children on the banks. Their very presence here marked the start of the festive season and every child along this canal’s edge believed that, as of now, they – Sinterklaas’s helpers – would be scooting down their chimneys each night for the next few weeks, leaving small gifts for the good and well-behaved, in the build-up to Pakjesavond (or ‘present-giving evening’) on the 5th of December and St Nicholas’ Day on the 6th, the highlight of the Dutch festive calendar. Christmas came a distant second here, although having an English mother meant Jasper reaped the benefits of visits from both Sinterklaas and Santa Claus.