Once on pavement again, she increased her speed to two hundred kilometers. There were long stretches that were straight as an arrow, and she urged the bike forward until thirty minutes had passed and any pursuit would have been abandoned.
She stopped and chugged another liter of water, her throat dry as a tumbleweed, and after a few moments’ break to stretch, she was back on the motorcycle and racing south, her robe flapping at her legs like angry birds, the only sound the hum of the engine and the thrum of the knobby tires on the cracked ribbon of pavement.
Chapter 12
Sebha, Libya
An overloaded 1950s-era school bus creaked to a stop on the outskirts of Sebha, and three passengers got off in the darkness. The senile vehicle shuddered off toward the town center, and the two men, laborers from the fields southeast of the city, tottered off in the direction of a collection of shanties, leaving Salma standing alone in the moonlight with nothing but the cold desert wind for company.
She looked around and began trudging down the road, her feet blistered and hurting from her marathon walk from Al Ghurayfah. She’d covered almost forty kilometers the first night in bitter cold before collapsing and sleeping well off the road in a field for half the day, after which she’d continued walking in the late afternoon and through most of the second night. Her feet had been about to give out on the third evening when she’d finally been able to flag down the bus, which carried workers to the agricultural plots, and for the first time in almost three days was able to cover the remaining distance to Sebha on something other than foot.
Salma had gotten word of her plight to Mossad headquarters and was confident that they would do whatever it took to extract her. Now all she needed to do was avoid discovery should Mounir have figured out her deception, and she would soon be home in Israel, more than ready to start a new life that didn’t involve sleeping with an animal she despised. Tomorrow she would go to the main square wearing the distinctive headscarf she’d saved for just such an occasion, and her ordeal would be over.
She rounded a corner and spotted a flickering sign for a hotel. Salma limped toward it before pausing to consider the exterior, which was as shabby as anything still standing. Plaster was peeling from the walls, all the windows had bars on them, and the steps into the reception area were crumbling. She debated continuing into town, but her feet disagreed with that option, so she approached the entryway and pressed a black button at the side.
Two minutes went by, and the desiccated front door opened and a short man with the face of a troll stared out at her. “Yes?”
“I’m looking for a room.”
The man’s eyes roved over her and settled on her face. “Just you?”
“Yes. Only for a couple of days. My husband will be joining me shortly.”
“Well, you’re in luck. We have something available.”
“Not too expensive, I hope.”
The man pursed his lips and inhaled as though considering a great philosophical dilemma. “Twenty dinars. In advance.”
“Per night?” Salma asked, pretending the number was insane.
“For two. You said your husband was coming. Will you want to stay longer?”
“We’ll have to see.” She stretched her neck to look past him at the interior, where a woman was watching over his shoulder from behind a counter. “I suppose it will have to do. Do you have running water?”
“Of course. And if you want, you can have a room with its own bathroom for…twenty-five.”
“That would be best.”
“Then come in. Please. Meet my wife, Fatima, who handles the money. She doesn’t trust me. Can’t say I blame her.”
He stepped aside to allow Salma into the tiny lobby, which was barely big enough to accommodate a sofa and counter. Fatima looked her up and down as she entered and nodded in greeting. “Welcome. You want a room?”
The owner pushed past Salma. “Yes, Fatima. For two nights. One of the ground-floor rooms with bath. Twenty-five dinars for the stay.”
Fatima frowned at the number. “That’s quite a discount you worked out, young lady.” Fatima held out her hand expectantly.
Salma unfolded several bills and placed them on the counter until she’d produced the required sum. Fatima snatched them up and eyed them as though wary of counterfeits, and then turned to where keys hung from a rack. “One C. A lovely room. Quiet. We don’t have many guests at the moment, so you’re in luck.” She hesitated. “What’s your name, for the register?”
“Ben Shaban. Sakina Milad Ben Shaban.”
“Do you have ID?”
“I…I’m afraid I don’t. My wallet was stolen last week.”
The owner made a sympathetic face. “How awful. Don’t worry. It’s only a formality. We can skip it, can’t we, Fatima?”
“Whatever you say, Umar,” Fatima muttered, looking away as she held out the key.
“I’ll show you to the room,” Umar said, taking the key. “Any other luggage?” he asked, eyeing Salma’s backpack.
“No. Just this. I can carry it myself.”
“Very well. This way.”
Umar led Salma down a hall off the lobby to the third door and swung it open with a flourish. He switched on the lights, revealing a whitewashed room with a sagging bed on one wall, a nightstand made from clay beside it, and a dilapidated overhead fan. “Here you go,” he said, handing her the key. “If you need anything, we’ll be in the lobby for another couple of hours.”
“I’m sure this will be fine,” Salma said, her eyes drawn to where a roach was scuttling beneath the bed.
“Well, then. Enjoy your stay,” he said, his gaze lingering on her lithe form evident beneath her robe, which was clinging to her.
“Thanks.”
Umar pulled the door closed behind him, and Salma frowned at the cheap deadbolt that hung broken on the doorframe. She twisted the lock on the doorknob and tried it, and the knob didn’t turn, so she tossed the key on the bed and sat on the edge to remove her shoes. Skin came off with them, and she winced at the pain and then pulled the robe over her head and tugged on the fan cord. It began orbiting with a hum, and air began circulating in the dank room. She backed toward the bathroom to switch on the light, and then killed the one in the room as she took in the tiny shower and cracked basin.
“Better than nothing,” she muttered, and twisted the shower lever. A gush of warm rusty water spurted from the head, but it turned clear after twenty seconds or so. A tiny sliver of soap was stuck to the ledge in the corner of the shower, and when the water was bearable, she stepped beneath the stream and set to scrubbing the road dust from her, beginning with her hair and finishing with her brutalized feet, which burned like fire from the soap.
Salma shut off the water, dried herself with the paper-thin towel, and then padded gingerly to the room and ferreted through her backpack for a pair of cotton sweats and a long-sleeved blouse; the cold in the desert night was bitter at this time of year in spite of the day’s extreme heat. She pulled her things on and then tossed the bag to the side and lay down.
The mattress was hard as a rock, in keeping with the rest of the lodging, but felt like heaven after long days sleeping on dirt. Her feet throbbed with each beat of her heart, and the fan was doing little but making noise, but it was still better than anything she’d experienced since leaving Mounir’s squalid home, which was only slightly better than the hotel.
She burrowed under the blankets and eventually drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of running across burning sand, chased by some massive dark form just out of view, but whose stink was as rank as a sewage trench. Her heart rate spiked and she moaned in her sleep as it transformed into a gargoyle with Mounir’s face, its claws clutching at her as she barely kept out of reach.
Salma tossed and turned on the hard slab, each nightmare worse than the last, all involving pursuit by malevolent forces too powerful to escape.
She jolted awake and looked around the room in a panic, and then fatigue leached the fr
ight from her and her eyes closed. Soon she was back on the broiling sand, Mounir now a pterodactyl screeching hate as it dove at her, jaws snapping with razor-sharp teeth as she twisted out of its reach.
The sound of a poorly muffled engine outside the inn jarred her from her uneasy sleep, and the pounding of running boots on the street drifted from the window. She tried to orient herself and remember where she was, and after a few seconds she realized she was far from Mounir, safe in a hotel where nobody knew she was staying. Whatever was happening outside had nothing to do with her and was probably just more of the endless brutality that she’d witnessed since taking this cursed assignment.
A rush of footsteps from the hall made her rethink her assessment, and Salma was struggling to throw off the blankets and rise when the door burst open, kicked in by a tall figure. She screamed in shock as four men entered, two with rope and a cloth sack, the others with rifles hanging from shoulder slings. They rushed toward the bed in the dim moonlight from the window, and Salma shrank from the intruders, instinctively pulling the blanket up to her chin.
“Wha–” she cried, but the nearest intruder slapped her so hard her head whipped against the wall behind her. Dazed, she tried to fight back, but the men were too strong. One stuffed a dirty rag in her mouth, and the other pulled the sack over her head and bound her wrists. The sour stench of dried perspiration from her attacker overpowered her, and she tried to kick at him, but a punch to her solar plexus knocked the wind from her. She gagged inside the sack as the men hog-tied her, working in silence, the only sound the rasp of their breathing and the rhythmic squeak of the fan. When they finished binding her, she felt herself hoisted over a shoulder, facedown, and carried down the hall, her moans of protest and panic unanswered. One of the men called out in the lobby, and Umar answered with something unintelligible before Fatima hushed him, and then they were moving again, Salma bouncing against her kidnapper like a sack of potatoes.
Out on the street, the man tossed her roughly into the bed of a truck, and she nearly blacked out when her temple slammed against metal. She winced at the starburst of pain that lanced through her head and gasped as she tried to regain her breath. Her abductors piled in with her, and then they were bouncing down the street, the men laughing and arguing over who would get her belongings as they rummaged through her backpack. The truck made a hard turn and bounced over a pothole, and the last thing Salma registered before a blow from the bed knocked her unconscious was that she was soon going to wish she’d never been born.
Chapter 13
Sebha, Libya
Jet arrived in Sebha as dawn was breaking, having grabbed what sleep she could in one of the orchards north of town, well out of sight of the road. The wind chill was only somewhat abated by the multiple layers of her pants and shirt and all three of her robes. She’d been somewhat prepared for the extremes in temperature between daytime and night from her prior mission in Libya, but even so, the cold had been shocking after baking in unbearable heat until the sun had set.
Now, dressed in her Berber garb, with her pants and shirt on beneath the flowing abaya, and sporting a hijab with the ends wrapped around to cover much of her face, she walked from where she’d concealed the motorcycle inside the remnants of a bombed-out shack to the mosque where Salma had set the rendezvous, where she would find somewhere to sit and watch for Salma to appear at ten a.m. She shivered as she made her way along a dusty street to the mosque and pulled her abaya closer around her, although already the cold was transitioning into warmth that she knew would soon turn into blistering heat.
Men on their way to work in the fields eyed her as she passed, but the traditional clothing had its intended effect, and they quickly averted their eyes when she caught them looking. A beggar with a diseased stump of a leg sitting in a pool of filth with a swarm of flies for company extended a clawed hand to her and displayed a toothless smile, and she tossed him a coin, the flush of infection on his face and bloodshot eyes telling her that he wasn’t long for this world. Two boys, perhaps five or six, kicked an empty can between them in a simulated soccer match before school, and Jet smiled behind her veil at the innocence of youth.
Most of the men she saw carried rifles, and she felt little comfort at the pistol in her waistband or the knife in her pocket. Sebha had an atmosphere of active danger more palpable than in most of the worst places she’d been sent, and there was a definite sense that anything could happen at any moment, a feeling of potential catastrophic violence lurking behind every corner. Jet chewed her lower lip as she walked, wondering what it must be like to live like the natives did, at the whim of whatever the local Islamic militants decided constituted justice or the criminal gangs that infested the country felt like doling out.
The briefing file had mentioned the lawless state of the city and had pointed to several open-air slave markets, where for the price of a few liters of gas, migrants were bought and sold to labor in the nearby fields until they died. Looking around her surroundings, Jet had no problem believing the dossier’s most dire warnings, and again wondered to herself at her foolhardiness in taking an assignment that put her in such peril. With no backup and no plan other than to find Salma and call in a distressed extraction request, she was flying blind in a territory where the slightest miscalculation could be lethal, and she reminded herself to stay hyper-alert for threats as the heat rose to stupefying levels.
She rounded a corner and spied the minaret and dome of the mosque. Looking around, Jet spotted a tiny café across the street, where two men were seated at a small circular table on the sidewalk, sipping tea, seemingly unconcerned by the clouds of dust being thrown up by passing cars. In no hurry and with hours to kill, she ambled around the area by the mosque, looking for any other promising places to linger. Finding nothing, she continued past the mosque into a commercial district, the shops all closed but a few restaurants open, serving breakfast to early bird customers.
Jet entered one and took a seat at a table near the rear, and a man approached with a menu and asked what she wanted to drink. Jet ordered tea and, after skimming the menu, selected the shakshouka – eggs poached in a tomato and spice base that was also a popular dish in Israel. When it arrived with her tea, she sampled a bite and smiled to herself; the chef wasn’t going to win any awards, but it was a reasonable rendition, given her low expectations.
She took her time eating and sipped the tea, and at 8:30 paid the tab and retraced her steps to the mosque. There were more pedestrians on the sidewalks now, but the heat was already increasing, and the café across the street had put out large umbrellas to provide some slim relief in the shade. The men were gone and the area seemed empty, so she crossed to the café and sat outside, where she would have a full view of the mosque entry. If all went well, shortly after Salma appeared at ten, they would be riding away to safety, or at least less danger.
Jet’s tea was unremarkable, and as the sun continued its arc across the turquoise sky, she adjusted her robe to allow better ventilation, the pistol uncomfortable but welcome at her hip. Her gaze roamed over the few figures who were braving the blaze, mostly men with headdresses, some with guns. That was a constant in modern Libya since the fall of the regime, although before the weapons had rarely been seen in public, and certainly not as a standard wardrobe item.
At ten, Jet’s pulse quickened as a pair of women made their way across the square, but neither wore the headscarf Salma had described, so she remained seated. More pedestrians appeared from around a corner and walked slowly to where a street vendor had set up a cart and was selling tagine – a Berber stew that had originated in neighboring Morocco but migrated west over generations. Jet studied all of the women in the vicinity of the mosque, but as minutes turned into an hour, Salma failed to show.
Jet resisted the urge to check her watch too often, but by 11:40 it was obvious that Salma wouldn’t be putting in an appearance as promised. She paid for her tea and considered her options, which amounted to either hanging around the mosque dur
ing the worst heat of the day or attempting to find a decent hotel, preferably with air conditioning, and contacting Leo for further instructions. She wound up opting for the hotel, reasoning that it was possible that Salma had contacted headquarters again with word of some complication that had kept her from the meet, and asked the proprietor of the café what the best place in town was.
The woman pointed at a multistory edifice perhaps a kilometer away and named it, but looked at Jet doubtfully. “That’s as nice as anything built before the crisis, but expensive. And it caters to a different kind of clientele than many of the other hotels here.”
“Is it safe and clean?”
“I’ve heard it’s very nice. But I’ve never been inside.”
A cry went up from the mosque, announcing dhuhr, the noon prayer time. Jet thanked the woman and set off in the direction of the hotel, moving slowly to avoid overheating. The already bad neighborhood deteriorated as she walked, and after several blocks she registered a trio of men following her and an old station wagon matching their pace on the street.
She ducked around a corner into a narrow alley as the sound of the car’s engine increased, and drew her pistol. Jet thumbed off the safety and shrank back into an indentation between two buildings, a round in the chamber, her hand steady.
The sound of running footsteps reached her, and the three men appeared at the alley mouth. Their clothes were sweat-stained and soiled, and two carried rifles, with the third wielding a knife. Their eyes widened when they saw Jet peering over the pistol at them, and the one with the knife muttered something to the others, his stare never leaving Jet’s face.
“No point trying to fight us off with that popgun. Put it down and we won’t hurt you,” he growled.
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