Cindy Gerard - The Way Home

“Did they name names?” J.R. wanted to know.

“I’m afraid so, yeah,” Mike said. “It hit the AP wire earlier today. It’s going to hurt, but you’d better turn on the TV. It’s all over the news.”

Jess scrambled toward the TV, turned it on, and switched to a twenty-four-hour news station. She muted the sound and kept one eye on the TV, watching for coverage of the story while Mike talked.

“You’d better be prepared. There’ll be reporters from every local and national outlet clamoring at your door anytime now.”

“Rabia?” J.R. asked, looking ill.

“The press got a hold of her picture, man. I’m sorry. Apparently, they found it in a roster of teachers in her school in Kabul.”

“My God.” Jeff dropped his head into his hands. “She’s dead. Now that the word’s out, the Taliban will find her, and she’s as good as dead.”

“We’re not going to let that happen. Between me and Nate Black, we’ve been on the phone nonstop to the brass at DOD, chewing ass and pointing out the facts. They’re going to have egg all over their collective face if something happens to her and they know it. As news spreads, any American who’s seen and heard about her part in your rescue will call her a national heroine. Hell, if she was a Catholic, she’d be canonized for what she did for one of our own.

“So trust me,” Mike continued emphatically. “Every U.S. asset available in Kabul is currently on the hunt for her. They’ll find her and get her out of the country long before the Taliban can close ranks and get to her. They’ll get her out of there just like we got you out. I want you to believe that, OK? You need to believe that.”

J.R. didn’t look convinced.

Jess sat down beside him and put an arm around his waist. “When will you know something?”

“It doesn’t matter,” J.R. interrupted dismally. “Her father won’t move again, and she won’t go anywhere without him.”

“The old man left before when he thought it would save his daughter’s life, right?” Mike pointed out. “As soon as he knows she’s in danger, he’ll agree to go with her. Look, guys, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. The minute I hear something, I’ll call, OK? Hang in there.”

The line went dead.

Jess stared at her phone, then at J.R. “Mike won’t let her down, J.R. He’ll do what he said. He’ll get her out.”

But J.R. had tuned out. He had that look in his eyes. The thousand-mile stare. He’d gone to that place in his head where he went sometimes when life became too difficult to deal with.

Only in this case, he was staring thousands of miles away, where the fate of the woman he loved was in the hands of faceless, nameless strangers.

Kabul, Afghanistan, mid-December

THE OPEN-AIR MARKET TEEMED WITH life and scents and colors. It was the life that Rabia needed. She had mourned long enough. It was time to renew the process of living again with an open heart and get past the grieving.

She pulled her heavy coat tighter around her to ward off the December chill and, with a small basket handle looped over her arm, browsed through the market. Taking her time, she soaked it all in as she walked among the vendors, searching through racks of dresses and lovely, colorful scarves. She even stopped at the food vendors and bought loaves of fresh-baked bread and tender nut meats. Kabul markets had one hundred times as many vendors as Salawat.

Thoughts of the little village where she had spent time with Jeffery and her father came unbidden, reminding her of what would never be again.

Not only had she lost Jeffery; twenty days ago, she had lost her father.

“It is his heart,” the doctor had said, after her father had collapsed and she had rushed him to a hospital. “His condition has been left untreated for too long. I am sorry. There is nothing we can do but make him more comfortable.”

Two hours later, her father was gone.

Her last link to Salawat had died with him.

So Allah wished it.

As Allah wished for her to go on. Her life was rich here. She could walk freely without covering her face and hands, drive her car without fear of punishment. She could teach. The imminent threat of the Taliban was far away in Kandahar Province.

And here she had family and friends. She had renewed her ties with the Afghan women’s movement and worked to reach out to outlying villages to encourage more fathers to allow their daughters to attend school.

So yes, she must look toward the future now. This she reminded herself daily. For while the past held her heart, the future held her promise.

She added a daily newspaper to her basket, then stopped and stared in disbelief when she saw her own photograph on the front page.

Heart slamming, she looked up and around to see if anyone was watching her if anyone had recognized her as the woman in the news. Then she ducked into a small alcove and quickly scanned the article. Each word accelerated the beating of her heart and added to her sense of doom.

It was all there. How she had harbored Jeffery, alerted the Americans of his existence, and helped them with his rescue and that she now taught school in Kabul.

Panic, huge and breath-altering, stole the blood from her head. Sent it all to her heart, which pounded so hard she felt it in her fingertips. She swayed on her feet and would have fallen had someone not reached out and taken her hand.

“You all right, ma’am?”

Through her racing thoughts, she recognized the voice as that of an American.

She looked up and into his eyes, just as he glanced away and nodded to someone behind her shoulder.

She followed his gaze. Another American. And another. She quickly counted six in all.

“Ma’am,” the first one said, nodding to the photograph of her in the paper. “We’ve been turning this city upside down looking for you.”

IT TOOK A little convincing before Rabia accepted that they had been sent by Nate Black to help her. It took little persuasion, however, to make her realize that her only option was to get out of Kabul.

The next thing she knew, she was in a vehicle. Shortly after that, she was on a plane.

Everyone treated her well and kindly. They provided her with food and a pillow and a blanket and told her it would be a long flight, so she might as well sleep.

She was going to America. Where she would be safe, they assured her. Where she could start a new life. She would not be on her own. She would have help. She would have support.

Yet there were certain truths that could not be ignored. She was a woman, a Muslim, in a foreign land. There was no war in America. Not with guns and bombs. But there was a culture war. She had read of it. Because of the Islamic jihadists, Muslims were often regarded with suspicion and ostracized in the United States. She understood why that would be so. As she understood that no matter what they said, she was alone.

But she was alive. Something she would not be in Afghanistan.