The Black Widow

THEY DROVE EASTWARD INTO THE rising sun, along a ruler-straight road black with oil. The traffic was light — a truck ferrying cargo from Anbar Province in Iraq, a peasant bringing produce to market in Raqqa, a flatbed spilling over with blood-drunk ninjas after a night of fighting in the north. The morning rush in the caliphate, thought Natalie. Occasionally, they came upon a burnt-out tank or troop carrier. In the empty landscape the wreckage looked like the corpses of insects fried by a child’s magnifying glass. One Japanese-made pickup truck still burned as they passed, and in the back a charred fighter still clung to his.50-caliber machine gun, which was aimed skyward. “Allahu Akbar,” murmured the driver of the SUV, and beneath her black abaya Natalie responded, “Allahu Akbar.”

She had no guide other than the sun and the SUV’s speedometer and dashboard clock. The sun told her they had maintained a steady easterly heading after leaving Raqqa. The speedometer and clock told her they had been barreling along at nearly ninety miles per hour for seventy-five minutes. Raqqa was approximately a hundred miles from the Iraqi border — the old border, she quickly reminded herself. There was no border anymore; the lines drawn on a map by infidel diplomats in London and Paris had been erased. Even the old Syrian road signs had been removed. “Allahu Akbar,” said Natalie’s driver as they passed another flaming wreck. And Natalie, smothering beneath her abaya, intoned, “Allahu Akbar.”

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.