by James Wolff
– I’ve accepted I’m going to die here. I know I’m not going home. No one’s going to rescue me from here, wherever here is – Mosul, Raqqa. No one’s going to pay a ransom of ten million dollars.
– Don’t say that; only Allah knows what’s going to happen. It’s just a simple statement condemnifying, I mean, what is it, condemning things that are happening. I don’t know about you, for Muslims it’s a sin to despair of Allah’s mercy. Stop doing the everything’s hopeless thing, stop talking about dying. You’re just, what’s it called, playing the thingy.
– Playing the martyr?
– Whatever, just do it for fuck’s sake.
– Since when do you and your friends think playing the martyr’s a bad thing?
– Come on, they’ll think I can’t… Tell you what, just read it through to see how it sounds and if you don’t like it I’ll delete the recording.
– Can I speak to my family?
– What?
– If I read the statement.
– Are you crazy? Quickest way to get yourself killed round here is to pick up a phone. Hundreds of drones in the skies, some of them look just like real birds. They’ll be scraping us both off the floor. Just read it, man. You can put something at the end for your family, let them know you’re okay, how you’re doing, like a DM.
– What about your family?
– What about them?
– Do you talk to them?
– Nah, my family is out here. People in England are nothing to me. My mum kicked me out when I was fifteen. She’s a Christian, my mum – like you. Bet your mum didn’t do nothing like that. She called the feds on me one time, another time she tried to get a priest to do a thingy, what’s it called, like in that film. My dad and my uncle was holding me down, I had to call the brothers round. They sorted that shit out quickly, gave the priest a proper scare, put him in hospital.
– What a horrible experience to go through.
– She’s got type 2 diabetes, has to take medication every day, makes her feet swell up.
– That priest sounds as though he comes from the Middle Ages.
– They’re so boring, priests. Always going on. I used to hate church. Who gets up at that time on weekends? At least you don’t preach at me.
– I think my son feels the same way. He would —
– I only used to go for the girls, to be honest.
– How old are you?
– Nineteen. Twenty next week. Muslims don’t celebrate birthdays though. So, what, you’re not going to do it?
– I’m sorry. I thought I could do it, I thought it would be all right. Like an interview, right? You’ve got everything ready, I’m wearing my favourite shirt. Turns out it’s not that straightforward.
– We’ll see about that when the brothers get here. If you’re not going to do what we tell you then there’s no point in holding back. Chuck you off a building, burn you in a cage – they’ll come up with something that makes a splash. I like my idea. Get one of them young cubs to take your head off. Seriously, do you think they’d show that on the BBC?
– It does feel as though I’m missing an opportunity, that’s the funny thing. That camera there. It’s my chance to say goodbye.
– Here they are, here they are. Finally. As-salaamu alaikum, where you been all this time?
– What’s that light? Turn that thing off, akhi.
3
Dear R.
Firstly, thank you so much for allowing me to see that footage of my father. I am at a loss for words to explain to you what it meant, especially after not having heard any news for so long. It might come as a surprise to hear that I had some doubts at first about working with you. But this has convinced me of your good faith and your ability to help me out of a situation that my own government has failed so miserably to address. Can we meet in person as soon as possible to discuss this? I’d like to do whatever I can to help you, and I’d like to know what other channels you might have access to that could help secure my father’s release.
On to my recent contact with British and American officials. This whole world of private signals and hidden messages and secret reports is completely new to me – you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t focus on the information you want or go on for too long about unimportant things. I’ll try to put down everything I can remember.
The other day Desmond Naseby came to my flat to ask if I would accompany him to the embassy. He took me in the same car I’ve seen him in before, a maroon Audi (the number plate ends with 565, I think – I can try to remember the whole thing next time if you think that would be useful. I don’t know what diplomatic plates look like here but there didn’t seem to be anything official-looking about them, which might support your theory that he’s here in a secret capacity). I noticed a real change in him. He is clearly under a lot of pressure at work and commented a number of times that he hasn’t been getting much sleep. He looks tired, too, for what it’s worth – he kept trying to disguise his yawns. When I asked him about this he said he was being “run ragged” by “some harridan” (I don’t know if it’s useful for you to know the exact language that he used) who had just arrived in Beirut and who was making some of the staff work through the night.
Anyway, he was very apologetic for the way that he had been neglecting “my case” (I know it’s not important, but the language he used really made it clear that he sees me as a work problem and has no real interest in how I am feeling) and put it all down to some crisis (I can’t remember if he used that word – he may have said “emergency”) that has occurred and is taking up all his time. Naturally I asked him what the crisis/emergency was, but he brushed aside my question by saying something in Latin that I think I recognized from my schooldays as “in pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello”, meaning something like “the wise man prepares for war”, which sounds a bit ominous.
The reason he had brought me into the embassy, it turned out, was to sign some legal documents related to the repatriation of British nationals after their death. He insisted it did not mean they thought my father was dead, but that it was merely a detail that needed to be cleared up. (A detail! My father’s death is a detail! I’m sorry, but it just makes me so angry.) He said they had no new information about my father’s status, health, location or prospects. The British government, he said, was in exactly the same position it was several weeks ago. It’s clear to me now that what you said is true, that he hasn’t been working on this at all, that he doesn’t really care – that no one in government does. You have made me see things in a completely different light.
He left me in an office – I don’t know whose – to read and sign the documents. I was in the middle of doing that when the older woman whose picture you showed me came into the room to collect a book from the shelf. (I wasn’t able to see the title but it was next to a Who’s Who of Lebanese politics and a map of the border with Israel.) I know that you are interested in her and so I tried to engage her in conversation by asking if she could answer a question about the documents I was reading. She couldn’t, but she did tell me that her name was Meredith and that she was with the Department for International Development (I don’t know if this means that she isn’t a spy after all) and that she had just arrived in Beirut. She told me that she wasn’t here on a posting but had come to “coordinate a project”. When I asked her what her field was she said it was “international water disputes”, and we spoke for a while about the disagreement with Israel over rivers in the south of the country. I thought she sounded very knowledgeable on the subject – she mentioned various international treaties and UN resolutions about the right to water, although at one point she referred to Nahr el Kalb (she said it meant Dog River) being in the south of the country whereas my map shows it as being north of Beirut. But I probably misheard her.
When Desmond Naseby came back, soon after she had gone, I told him I had met his “harridan” and he looked at the door she had come from and gone back through, which suggests t
o me that she is the one making him work all hours.
A few other scraps, finally: they’re short on desk space in the embassy because of new people who have come out; apparently the Americans are just as busy as the British (I asked after Harvey), but Desmond wouldn’t say whether they were dealing with the same crisis or something different; and Meredith is staying at a hotel (she didn’t say which one).
I’ve been thinking about what to do next. It seems to me that Desmond doesn’t like Meredith – do you think this will make him more willing to speak about her behind her back? If I invite him for a drink, do you think he might tell me more about this project she’s forcing everyone to work on? Also, I realize now that there may have been an opportunity to look through the drawers in the office. If I get the chance next time, should I do this?
Please write back soon. I’d really like to meet up in the next few days to hear what I can do for you and to discuss any other information you might have about my father. Thank you too for the money. It’s been much appreciated.
Yours,
J.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
That same night Jonas checked into a cheap hotel on the other side of Beirut under the name Clive Dashwood. When asked for his passport he told the receptionist that his girlfriend had suddenly flown home to Sydney after learning that her grandmother had taken a turn for the worse and in the confusion of packing in a rush had taken his passport as well as her own, but it was currently with DHL and would, he had been promised, be back in his hands within a matter of days. As proof of his identity, instead of a driving licence or a bank card, he offered up a letter on headed notepaper from the Australian embassy confirming that he was the holder of passport number M6395629, issued on 11 August 2011 and expiring on 11 August 2021, and a tea-stained, dog-eared copy of his flight booking that looked as though it had sat untouched in his back pocket for several weeks. They had taken well over an hour to prepare; the man barely glanced at either. If he looked suspicious at all it was only because of Jonas’s implausible claim that he’d never met a single one of the man’s five cousins, who between them owned a car showroom, a juice bar and a series of successful dental practices all along the Gold Coast.
Over the next few days Jonas kept himself busy. He bought new clothes and had his hair cut by a barber around the corner from the hotel. He pored over maps of Beirut and the border with Syria. He rediscovered his appetite and ate five or six meals a day. He slept every afternoon and woke up each time to see in the cracked mirror that his bruises had healed a little more. He exercised morning and evening with the same unhurried attention to detail that a prisoner on death row might bring to their workout, and climbed up to the hotel rooftop before sunrise each day to do pull-ups from a rusty pipe that fed into the water tank and look for cars that had been parked overnight with a view of the hotel entrance.
And after dark he would go out, wearing a baseball cap, a pullover beneath a loose shirt to change his shape and a pair of glasses he had bought from a local pharmacy. He used taxis and buses and followed carefully planned routes that skirted busy areas. Unable to check the lamp post near his apartment in case the surveillance team were lying in wait, he would visit the lighthouse to see whether Raza had left him a message and then find an internet cafe – a different one each night – to check the email accounts he used with Tobias and the kidnappers. He couldn’t understand why they were taking so long to respond.
One evening there was an email waiting for him.
OK, listen, we want that stuff but there is no way of knowing if its real or not, send half now, when you come over to us bring the other half. We’ll settle for that.
Jonas replied immediately:
I’m pleased that you want to exchange my father for me and for the documents. This is good news – you will not regret your decision for one single moment. You will understand that I cannot send you half the documents now. That is not how an exchange of this kind works. But I have all the documents with me and I am ready to place them in your hands and surrender myself to you on whatever day and in whatever location along the Syrian–Lebanese border you choose. But you must understand that as a fugitive from my government I am under significant pressure. I cannot hold out much longer. They know the significance of what I am planning to do and are trying everything in their power to stop me. I need to know what you want me to do. Time is running out.
Please confirm you have not detained the man who delivered my message to you. He did it as an act of kindness and is not connected in any way with this.
Jonas found another internet cafe and waited for a reply until it closed at midnight. He followed a foot route that took him in the opposite direction to the hotel before looping round through a number of quiet residential neighbourhoods; he crossed the road to avoid street lights and bright shopfronts; and when he heard the whine of a scooter he stepped into a doorway until it passed. Nobody paid him any attention. He might have been Lebanese, with his dark hair and beard and his skin browned from long hours in the spring sunshine. As he neared the hotel he focused on parked vehicles – at this late hour there would be nowhere else for a surveillance team to lie in wait. He stood in the shadows and listened for whispered conversations or mobile phones or car doors and tried to catch the smells of coffee, cigarettes and fast food. It took him over an hour to cover the last few hundred metres.
The next day there was a message from Raza in the dead letter box.
Go to the McDonald’s restaurant in Ain El Mreisseh this evening. Eat a meal. At precisely 7.15 according to the clock above the counter leave through the main exit. Stand on the street as though you are looking for a taxi. The vehicle that approaches you will be a light blue Mercedes and the registration will end with 892. Ignore any other vehicles. Say to the driver that you want to go to the American University and get inside. If you are one minute late the vehicle will not be there.
If anything, Jonas was early. It worried him to be out before dark, and in such a public place. An overweight fair-haired man playing a game on his phone joined the queue behind him. Jonas ordered his food, checked that his watch matched the clock above the counter and carried the plastic tray upstairs to a corner table with an oblique view of the street. Three taxi drivers waited with their cars. He picked at his food. A row of scooters painted with the McDonald’s logo were constantly arriving and departing, like cards being shuffled, and at any one time up to five cars were nosed in towards the entrance to collect takeaway orders, slowing the passing traffic to a crawl. The blonde man walked off down the street, the game on his phone briefly audible.
At 7.14 Jonas stepped outside and saw almost immediately, still about fifty metres away, a pale blue car slowly making its way towards him. To pass a moment or two and make it all seem as natural as possible he asked one of the drivers how much it would cost to be taken to the American University and then smiled and shook his head at whatever price was suggested. He stepped away from the renegotiations as the Mercedes rolled into position, and stuck out his arm, said his line and found himself being driven away more quickly than he would have thought looked natural.
The meeting took place thirty-five minutes and two vehicle changes later inside a blue Ford Transit van in the far corner of an underground car park. It was empty apart from a car blocking the entry ramp and a group of three men who stood smoking about fifteen metres away from the van. They didn’t look at Jonas once. When the door had been pulled shut only the weak watery glow of two electric lights allowed him to see Raza, seated opposite with a pink blanket folded over his legs. The black doctor’s case was by his side.
“We do not have much time,” he said. “Please, tell me again about the embassy and the woman called Meredith.”
He pronounced her name as though it was French. Jonas repeated his account of the meeting. Nothing could be less convincing than an identical version to the one he had put down in writing and so he left out some details and added others, such as his impression that Naseby might b
e a drinker and a description of the clothes Meredith had been wearing. Raza was quiet. Jonas could hear the three men speaking in low murmurs outside the van. He had to tread carefully. Despite the gifts of money and the footage of his father they would be viewing him with suspicion, they would be considering the possibility that he was a dangle. If they judged this was the case they would look to send back a strong signal that such games carried a price.
“The item she removed from the shelf. Was it a book or a folder?”
“I don’t know,” said Jonas.
“She would have been holding it in her hands throughout your conversation with her. You looked at her closely – you recalled the clothes she was wearing without any difficulty.”
“Maybe it wasn’t very big. That’s probably why I can’t remember it.”
“The Latin phrase that Mr Naseby used. What was it?” Raza tilted his head as he asked the question. He was wearing a grey shirt and a green knitted tie. The scarring down the right side of his face made Jonas think of heat and machinery and the surface of the moon.
“The man who prepares for war is wise, something like that.”
“In Latin.”
“Oh. I can’t remember exactly. It starts ‘in pace, ut sapiens’ and then something about ‘bello’,” said Jonas.
“I am impressed by people who know Latin. You are very fortunate. Do you know it well?”
“Not particularly.”
“But well enough to recognize the exact phrase that Mr Naseby used.”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“So if he had used any number of Latin phrases you would probably have understood him. It was not mere good fortune that he used the single phrase you knew. Please tell me which other Latin phrases you know.”
“Non omne quod nitet aurum est. That sort of thing?”
“What does that mean?”
“All that glitters is not gold.”
“What else?”
“Delphinum natare doces.”