Set Free

by Anthony Bidulka

  Trust your gut, she advised herself. Trust your gut.

  In a quivering voice that did little to instill confidence, her gut responded: Keep going.

  Eventually the man came to a halt. With a shove of his shoulder, he forced open a door that, from Katie’s perspective, hadn’t been there a second ago. He shouted something to whoever was inside, then, with another of his beguiling smiles, was gone.

  “Salam?” a man appeared in the doorway. By his smocked getup, Katie guessed he was a restaurant employee—probably a dishwasher or cook.

  “Mehdi Ahmadi?”

  He nodded. He was quite young, just out of his teens at most, very thin, and suffered from a bad case of acne. “You are she?” he asked.

  “I’m Kate Edwards. You called me on the phone. You said you knew something about Jaspar Wills?”

  More nodding. He shot a glance over his shoulder, as if to check whether anyone could overhear their conversation. He moved into the alley, closing in on Katie, but saying nothing. Large eyes dug into hers, as if trying to communicate telepathically.

  “What is it?” Katie asked after an uncomfortable silence. “What do you know about my friend?”

  He cast about nervously, then: “You have money?”

  Now she understood. It was bribe time. Katie had nothing against bribery. She respected both sides of the equation. It was simple market economics. One side was looking for valuable information; the other had it to sell. But here was the rub. She had no idea what she was there to buy. Her boss, her agent, her publisher—they were all right. What story could she hope to uncover in Marrakech that Jaspar himself, the man who’d personally lived the nightmare, didn’t already have to tell?

  Sure, Jaspar could share whatever transcendent, spiritual, or emotional journey he decided to create for his fans. But Katie might just have something better: cold hard facts. Sometimes left buried deep beneath softer, prettier surfaces, facts were the real glittering gold for an investigative journalist. Digging up the truth had always been Katie’s specialty. Packaged the right way, facts can sell just as well, if not better. Jaspar could recount how he’d been taken from the Marrakech airport—but who took him? Why? What was going on in their world to drive them to make such a drastic, reckless move? Where did the kidnappers take him? Where did they hold him? Where did they transport him after the kidnapping was rendered a failure? Who saw something? Who knew something? Were the kidnappers scared? Crazy? Righteous? Were they zealots, greedy, or just plain stupid? All she needed was something real, something factual, something solid, and she’d be on her way to hitting a home run.

  “No,” she told him, forcing her voice to sound authoritative. She couldn’t let this guy get even a whiff of the fear she felt—never mind the nagging doubt. “I have nothing to give you—until I know what you have to give me. Then we can talk about money.”

  She watched his nose quiver, his eyes continue their nervous dance.

  Sensing he needed more goading, she pressed on. “On the phone, you said something about finding Jaspar Wills?” Obviously this couldn’t be true. Jaspar Wills was safe and sound and at home in Boston, about to scoop her with his own version of her story.

  She watched the young man’s right hand drop to his side and dig into a pocket hidden behind his smock.

  “Do you have something for me?” she demanded to know.

  He said nothing.

  “Something worth money?”

  She had to be careful here. The pocket could just as easily hold a gun or some other weapon.

  It was neither.

  With a barely suppressed gasp, Katie’s eyes grew wide as she beheld what young Mehdi Ahmadi had brought her.

  Chapter 34

  “Be calm,” Katie urged herself, as she struggled to stay within the boundaries of a stingy slice of shade. It was the only shade to be found near the café at the southern edge of Jemaa el Fna.

  Le Grand Balcon du Café Glacier was a natural place to meet. Right next to Hotel CTM, its second floor balcony was well known by tourists for providing arguably the best view of the marketplace and nearby Koutoubia Mosque. Ahmadi would know that, unlike many other places within the medina, Katie would have no trouble finding it.

  Last night, she’d given her young informant four hundred dirhams—about forty bucks. An outlandish price, but this wasn’t just any driver’s license he’d pulled from his pocket. It belonged to Jaspar Wills. She had promised him another six hundred if he met her the next day. She wanted the rest of Jaspar’s belongings, which he claimed to have, and for him to show her exactly where he’d found them. If he actually came through, she thought, the bounty would be worth immeasurably more than that. When their negotiations were complete, Ahmadi had found her a cab and she had gratefully returned to the hotel.

  Katie was excited that she’d actually found something important, something Jaspar Wills didn’t have—at least not anymore. She’d spent a restless night considering how best to use the license to her benefit, and a restless morning nervous about this meeting. Would Ahmadi show up? Did he really have more to sell her? Should she have offered a greater sum?

  Through a blur of crisscrossing traffic that included beasts of burden, racing motorbikes, and scooters, Katie was relieved when she caught sight of the young Moroccan. He was standing next to a vendor stall hawking fresh orange juice and dates. Gone was his restaurant worker attire, replaced by a white hooded kaftan and a pair of woven leather sandals. Despite the heat, Katie shivered as she felt his dark eyes boring into her. Was the look predatory? Sexual? Threatening? How long had he been standing there, watching her?

  He wasn’t making a move, so, collecting her gumption and regretfully abandoning the shade, she carefully navigated her way through the melee of people and animals and speeding machines.

  “Mehdi, hello. Did you bring more of Jaspar’s things?” she asked when they were face to face.

  “You don’t tell people, yes?” he stuttered, his eyes hard brown marbles in quaking bowls of vanilla pudding.

  “Tell who what?” Katie was confused.

  “About me. You don’t tell people about me.”

  “Of course not,” she lied. But it wasn’t a big lie. She would eventually tell the whole world about him, along with everything else she’d discovered in Marrakech. Certainly, if she believed he was in danger from being publicly exposed, she’d change his name to “protect the innocent.” But as of right now, she was far from convinced that Mehdi Ahmadi was any kind of innocent. Especially since he had yet to tell her exactly how it was that he had come to be in possession of Jaspar Wills’ personal effects. For all she knew, he was the kidnapper. Her heart thrilled at the thought. How great would that be?

  “Follow,” was all he said before suddenly scampering away.

  “Oh shit,” she muttered.

  As Katie feared, the young Arab was heading into the no-man’s land of the souks. Fast. She needed to half-run just to keep up, all the while frantically searching for signs or anything at all that would help maintain her bearings. The likelihood was high that she’d need to find her own way back. As quickly as they passed, she recited the markers in her head: Souk Roseaux. Rue Des Banques. Chez Chegrouni on the right. Left at Mosque Karbouch. Olive stalls. Right at Souk Smarine. Left into another alley. Left again. Right and left again. Squeezing between two cement walls. Another frickin’ nameless narrow alleyway. Really bad smell. Bunch of places selling fabric and stuff. Right at place selling something that looks like animal heads in steaming bowls… Oh, who the hell am I kidding? I’m done for. In under two minutes she was hopelessly lost.

  Much to Katie’s relief, Ahmadi stopped just shy of her point of no return. He looked at her expectantly. Wiping perspiration from her eyes, she was glad for her choice of lightweight cotton clothing and running shoes. She returned the stare.

  “It’s here,” he said.

  “What’s here?”

  Ahmadi dug into his pockets and pulled out a wallet, a set of keys, and
a pair of sunglasses. He handed them to her like they were hot potatoes.

  Searching the wallet, she asked, “Did all of these things belong to Jaspar?” She didn’t need his answer. The wallet, although without a single dollar bill or credit card, contained several pieces of identification. The keys and sunglasses could have been anyone’s, but the wallet—or at least its contents—definitely belonged to Jaspar Wills. Every piece represented a precious visual aid for her upcoming breaking news story. “How did you get these?”

  “It’s here,” he repeated.

  Katie studied the area. Then she understood. She approached a dumpster shoved up against a corrugated metal wall. “You found these things here? In the garbage?”

  He nodded. “In the suitcase.”

  “Suitcase? You found these in a suitcase? Jaspar’s suitcase? Where is it?”

  His reply was two nods and a shrug.

  “How big was this suitcase?”

  With his hands, Ahmadi made a shape of about twenty-four inches wide by eighteen inches tall. Katie nodded her understanding. Jaspar’s carry-on bag had been tossed into this dumpster. According to his story, the kidnapper, pretending to be a taxi driver, had abducted him right from the airport. He’d still have had all of his luggage with him. Ahmadi had found the carry-on, but where was the rest?

  “Was there a bigger suitcase too?” Katie asked.

  Ahmadi’s narrow shoulders bounced up and down and he looked away, watching a passing family bickering about whatever it is that Moroccan families bicker about. He was a rotten liar. Katie figured he probably wouldn’t cop to having found anything he’d already used or sold, like Jaspar’s clothing and whatever other valuables he may have found in either piece of luggage. She couldn’t fault the guy. He was merely trying to capitalize on an unexpected payday as best he could.

  Slowly tracing a circle around the immediate area with a reporter’s eye, Katie took in every bit of detail. They were in a passageway that was probably used solely as back alley access for various souk stalls and stores, and maybe as a shortcut for locals with an impeccable sense of direction. Although not yet 10:00 a.m., the temperature was already hovering in the eighties. At either end of the alley, Katie could see buyers, sellers, and innumerable varieties of con men, all of them zipping back and forth in hard pursuit of commerce, getting as much done as possible before the even more punishing heat of afternoon.

  “More money now.” Ahmadi was getting jittery again, hopping from foot to foot as if standing on a bed of burning coals.

  Katie mindlessly pulled out the promised sum. Even the bills were limp and damp. As she handed them to the young man, her mind was elsewhere, busily trying to imagine what must have transpired in this exact spot on the day of the kidnapping. Jaspar had said that when he finally figured out something was fishy, he was already in the car. When he confronted the driver, he’d been hit and fell unconscious, still in the car. Which meant he had no way of knowing what happened next.

  No. Way.

  Katie felt a physical jolt. Exhilaration. Everything she was seeing now, everything Ahmadi was showing her and telling her—this entire part of the story—was hers, only hers.

  Although much of the souk area was off limits to large motorized vehicles, she’d seen delivery trucks and even a small minibus squeeze down nearby streets. The fake taxi could have made it to this spot, or at least close by. The kidnappers would have wanted to drive Jaspar as near to where they planned to stash him as possible. Then what?

  Jaspar had told her, and everyone who’d watched them on TV, that when he woke up he’d already been moved to the room where he was initially imprisoned. Since Jaspar was not moving under his own power, it meant the taxi driver/kidnapper would have had to carry him. Could he have managed that on his own, or did he have an accomplice waiting here to help him? Either way, he wouldn’t have wanted the extra burden of a suitcase and carry-on. He would have disposed of them. In this dumpster.

  Voices in Katie’s head began to shriek. It wasn’t definite…but there was a very good chance that Jaspar had been held somewhere near here!

  “Ahmadi,” she asked, not bothering to disguise her excitement, “which of these businesses use this dumpster?”

  But she was too late. The young man had taken his money and run.

  Chapter 35

  Exploring the souks of Marrakech is like a tumble backwards in time. In hidden fondouks and courtyards, traditional craft makers and trades thrive in ways that have barely changed since Andalusian refugees first introduced them over a thousand years ago. Within the ramparts of the medina, peddlers and purchasers haggle over everything from hand-knotted, vegetable-dyed carpets and rugs, to exotic edibles, spices, nuts, herbs, olives and local sweets. Endless varieties of argan oil products compete with leather goods, ranging from satchels and belts to the distinctive pointed-toe babouche slippers worn by most men, and jewelry made of silver and semi-precious stones. There’s marquetry of cedar, thuya, oak, and earthenware ceramics, from the gaudy and touristy to the extravagant pieces created at pottery centers in Safi, Fez, Meknes and Salé. Casks of perfume smelling of musk, orange flower, patchouli, and amber sit alongside precious—and not-so-precious—works of art. The bounty is endless. But as Katie Edwards trudged through the constricted passageways, the ground worn smooth by millions before her, her body broiling and growing sluggish, feet ablaze with blisters, shirt soaked through with sweat, her focus was on the one item proving almost impossible to find: information.

  After young Ahmadi had abandoned her, Katie was left with only two options. The first was to find the restaurant where she’d first met him and drag him back to the medina to help her. But that, she knew, was a fool’s errand, only for those who had time to waste getting hopelessly lost. Even if she did happen to locate the restaurant, she couldn’t count on Ahmadi being there.

  The second option, no less difficult but with some potential for success—slight as it might be—was to canvass the businesses nearest the dumpster where Jaspar Wells’ personal belongings had been found. With any luck, she’d find someone who saw or knew something.

  So far, option two was proving fruitless.

  Exhausted and hot and growing increasingly irritable and dejected, Katie found a store that sold bottled water—she’d run out an hour earlier—made her purchase, and squeezed into the shade of a nearby alcove. She hoped that hydration and a few minutes of rest would revive her before she tackled the next parade of stores.

  After downing several gulps of water in the ersatz coolness, Katie was surprised to realize that she was enjoying herself. The sights and sounds and smells of the bustling marketplace were nothing short of intoxicating. For the first time since arriving in the African city, she was allowing its charms to wash over her instead of actively resisting them.

  This place, at first blush, was aggressive, frantic, perilous, overwhelming, moving at hysterical speed. If you allowed it to, it would crush you down and grind you into powder, like a stone pestle against a dry, brittle, hot pepper. But Katie was beginning to see that there was undeniable beauty here, too. Placid, tawny shades harmonizing with effervescent hues. Ancient tranquility awash in modern vitality. Bins overflowing with spices. Carts laden down with heavy bolts of woven fabric. Tapestries hanging from wires strung twenty feet overhead. Riotously colored scarves, tunics, and headpieces. Aggressive aromas of something old mixed with something zesty, piquant, sickly sweet. The swirl of languages, arguments and haggling, laughter and harassment and persistence, was heady, sometimes gruff, sometimes humorous, always intense. But, my God, Katie thought to herself, spending time in the souks of Marrakech, one couldn’t help but feel alive-with-an-exclamation-point.

  With her mind let loose, like a flower floating aimlessly down a fragrant rosewater river, now a part of her environment instead of battling against it, Katie suddenly found her eureka. She knew what to do next.

  Like the peddlers around her, each an expert in the wares they sold and how to put them int
o the hands of others, journalists were also professional tradespeople. They collected information—reams and reams of it. Most of it left unused. The best bits were repackaged for public consumption, hung out with a big For Sale sign. But smart reporters, like Katie, didn’t forget about the stuff that never got used. Because every so often—like right now—that was the stuff that put you on the right path, the perfect yellow brick road leading straight to Oz.

  Pulling her iPhone from her pants pocket, Katie was grateful to see that her heavenly slice of shade was also a free Wi-Fi spot. She connected and accessed her iCloud account, where she’d stored all her files relating to Jaspar, Jenn, and Mikki Wills. Sweaty fingers and the small screen hindered her search, but soon enough she found what she was looking for: background information on Qasim Al-Harthi. The young man imprisoned for his role in the Marrakech café bombing. The man whose release Jaspar’s kidnappers had demanded in return for setting him free.

  Her heart beating double time, Katie scrolled through the digital article looking for the exact trinket of information she hoped she was remembering correctly.

  Finally, there it was. A stray strand among the facts that had been patch worked together in an effort to identify Al-Harthi’s closest friends, known associates, and relatives. Details were sparse, which was probably why she and the news station—and the police, for that matter—hadn’t focused on this data when investigating the kidnapping. But one name on the list had stuck in Katie’s mind. Until now, it had meant nothing to her. For all anyone knew, it could have referred to anyone or anything.

  Katie’s face lit up as she read the name on the screen.

  Heat and fatigue long forgotten, excitement bubbled up in Katie. Quite possibly, she was the only person in the world to figure this out. There’d be no stopping her now.