depravities remained to break her heart. Until the barrel bombs had started falling from the skies. Even now, the sight of a helicopter, the sound of its distinctive drone, made her blood stand still in her veins.
And what was it for? Why did she and Cunningham put themselves through this, dismantling their own souls, putting their lives on the line when it didn’t change anything? Words on the front page of a newspaper weren’t enough; a photo of a child’s terror, a mother’s desperation, wasn’t enough to stop those bombs from falling, because still they fell, and harder than ever. But she was drawn back here – against her better judgement, against all reason – for the very simple reason that if not her, then who? People only believed what they could see; she had to be their eyes. These stories had to be told. These people had no one else. And neither did she.
Cunningham reached over and squeezed her thigh. ‘It’s good to have you back, Fitch. I missed you.’
‘Yeah, I guess I missed your ugly mug too. Although I’d have appreciated you telling me to meet you here, instead of a hundred miles away,’ she said with a sarcastic smile. ‘That was three nights’ sleep I’ll never get back.’
He chuckled, his fingers tapping lightly on the top of the steering wheel. ‘Gotta go where the stories are, Fitch.’
‘There’s stories all over this hellhole. You can’t move for stories. There’s not a person in this country who doesn’t have a story.’
He looked across and winked. ‘Not like this one.’
Something in his body language caught her attention and made her antennae twitch. ‘Oh God,’ she groaned. She had seen that look only a handful times over the course of their partnership but she knew exactly what it meant. ‘What have you got?’
‘A tip-off.’
‘Uh-huh,’ she mumbled, waiting for more. Cunningham prided himself on his network of contacts; it ran across the country, criss-crossing regions like a gossamer spider’s web, unseen but for a tiny vibration in the wind.
‘There’s a small village, Khrah Eshek, eight miles west of here. There’s a guy there I want to talk to. Name of Moussef. I helped his cousin, Abbad, in Raqqa—’
She watched him as he talked, seeing how burnt his skin was, the dust in his hair, fatigue as worn upon his body as that shirt. Did he even notice any more? She had only been gone six weeks but her perspective was fresh again. She saw this place with new eyes.
‘—get his three kids out of their house when it took a direct hit. His little girl was pinned beneath a lintel. We managed to get her free but both her legs were crushed.’
‘How old was she?’ She winced, already seeing it clearly in her mind’s eye. How many other little girls had she photographed in the same anguish?
He shrugged but she saw the little ball pulse in the corner of his jaw. ‘Six?’
‘Will she walk again?’
‘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