by Henry Porter
He took some photographs with his phone, most of which weren’t very good because the insects came out as yellow squiggles, but one was clear and he decided he would send it to Munira as soon as he could because it was just the sort of thing she loved. He remained watching for a long time as the fireflies pulsed in the night, eventually going to sleep covered by his sleeping bag and leaning against the wall beneath the overhang. He slept for three or four hours, dreaming many fantastical stories, but then someone intruded by repeatedly calling his name. He woke up with a start and looked around. Dawn had broken; birds were calling and mist hung in the treetops.
‘Naaaajiiii,’ cried the voice, extending the syllables of his name for a few seconds.
‘Naji, we are your brothers. We want to help you,’ came another voice.
‘Tell us where you are,’ came the first voice, ‘we’ve brought you food and Coca-Colaaaa.’
‘Naaaajiiii . . .’
‘Naaaajiiii . . .’
He reached for the knife he’d left out on the rock and dragged the corner of the sleeping bag towards him so it couldn’t be seen from the ground. The voices circled him slowly and seemed to be getting nearer. He prayed they didn’t come across his footprints or any signs of his movement in the undergrowth the night before. The men kept on checking each other’s position between shouting his name, and once or twice he heard Al-munajil’s instructions – the cracked call of a crow sometimes rising in response to the executioner’s terrifying sing-song voice.
This went on for twenty minutes, until Naji heard one of them moving right beneath him. He had approached the rock and was now urinating – he let out a groan of pleasure and a fart as he relieved himself. It was Usaim and he was with Ibrahim. After Usaim had zipped himself up, he started bellyaching about being kept up all night without any food to look for a treacherous piece of infidel shit.
‘Our brother is obsessed, but what is the boy once we’ve completed our mission?’ said Usaim. ‘The boy is nothing! We should concentrate on our mission.’
‘You tell him that,’ said Ibrahim. ‘He won’t like it.’
‘But it’s the truth,’ said Usaim.
‘Tell him and see what happens,’ said Ibrahim. ‘There’s plenty we don’t know about our mission. Understand that, my short, fat friend.’
For one moment, Naji considered pushing the boulder that was balanced on the edge of the outcrop over the side, but thought better of it. He’d make too much noise shifting it, and besides, he probably wouldn’t hit them. Instead, he shrank into the shadow beneath the overhang to wait them out. If they scaled his rock, he would fly at the first man to show himself and try to stab him in the heart with the knife.
The two men eventually ambled off to meet up with Al-munajil, who was shouting from the other side of the valley. They called Naji’s name as they went, but they didn’t bother to hide the frustration in their voices now. He peeked through the crack under the boulder and watched them make for a stream at the bottom of the slope, about seventy metres away. He could tell by the way they were moving that they were tired and had had enough of looking for him. He found himself loathing them, as he never had before, hating the swagger and terror they’d brought into the forest, which only a few hours before had been a paradise for him.
For a few seconds he gazed up at the boulder, trying to work out its weight and whether he could shift it. Yes, he murmured to himself, he would do it. He silently folded the plastic sheet and rolled up his sleeping bag, secured both to his backpack with the elastic tie and looked through the crack again. Usaim and Ibrahim were still at the bottom of the slope, waiting for Al-munajil, One of them was chucking stones into the stream; the other scratched his balls and looked up at the sky.
Naji slipped his arms through the straps of the backpack, placed both hands against the boulder and started rocking it. It was several times his weight and at first it barely moved, but after five or six good shoves above its centre of gravity it began to roll a few millimetres back and forth, in the process making a crunching noise on the rock beneath it. He timed his pushes to give the mass momentum as it moved away from him. Suddenly the shelf on which it was balanced gave way and it fell, hitting the ground with a soft thump. Very slowly – almost without a sound – it began its journey to the bottom of the valley.
He’d have given anything to watch, but he grabbed his stick and scrambled down the other side of the outcrop. In no time at all, he was moving quickly towards the path he’d found the evening before. He dodged the thickest undergrowth beneath the trees so as to make as little noise as possible, and very soon he’d reached the point where he knew they wouldn’t catch him if they set off up the hill after him: he was fast and they were tired. He stopped to listen, but heard nothing except the feathering of the wind in the pine trees. He thought that maybe the boulder had become stuck on the way down, or perhaps it had veered off course.
He dropped to his haunches, hoping to catch any sound.
And then came a cry and several shouts and a further cry of pain. All three men were now shouting and cursing. He wished he could see what was happening below him. He listened for a few seconds, slapping his thigh, then turned and made for the crest of the hill that was now lit by the rising sun. He clapped his hands, laughed to the sky and took off through the forest.
Seven
Early next morning, Chris Okiri, who had worked through much of the night, and Sonia Fell were summoned, with a number of other intelligences officers, to Nyman’s office to review the boy’s story. Things weren’t adding up.
‘The BND in Stuttgart have drawn a blank so far,’ Nyman said to the room. ‘They’ve been to all the obvious people in the Muslim community and can’t find anyone who’s expecting a boy to turn up. No one can think of a distant relation even remotely like Naji. The description of his family rings no bells. No one knew anyone at Hajar Saqat and what’s odd is that we have found no matches in the Turkish camps for a family of the correct configuration – teacher father, mother who worked in Syria’s northern governorates, three daughters and a son. Maybe the registration process is far from perfect in Turkey. There are millions of refugees and of course people lie about where they’ve come from and what they were doing, but we would have expected to find that family by now. The Turks have gone the extra mile, because they’re as keen to locate these operatives as we are, so it isn’t for want of trying.’
‘Let’s look at this a bit more,’ said Peter Nyman, levering the lid off a tin and spraying coffee granules onto the conference table. ‘Obviously he’s telling the truth about the men who are pursuing him, because Samson has come across three men looking for the boy in Greece. We also have the match of the boy’s description of the individual with the speech impediment and our own information about one of the killers at Hajar Saqat. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Okiri. ‘But we aren’t seeking to undermine the importance of the boy. Rather, our conclusion is that he may be even more important than we previously thought.’ Sonia Fell nodded as Okiri continued. ‘We believe that he has lied about his family because he’s protecting them and is anxious that no one finds out where they are.’
‘To protect them from IS,’ concluded Nyman.
‘The question is why, when the family is apparently in Turkey, are they still at risk from IS?’ asked a Middle East expert named Lehan. ‘The answer could be that Naji and his family were more entangled with IS than we thought, or maybe that his family is still in Syria.’
‘Evidence?’ asked Nyman.
‘Nothing hard,’ said Sonia Fell. ‘I had a conversation with Anastasia Christakos in Lesbos yesterday. I wanted to follow up on some things Paul spoke about. Her thinking about the boy has developed somewhat. She believes there are areas where he’s lying and areas where he’s underselling the truth. She thinks he may be lying about his family – its composition, the professions of his p
arents, their place of origin and so forth, but that he’s telling the truth about the men. She spoke about the burden the boy is carrying with him. She thinks that he witnessed something or was party to something terrible. So, quite apart from the responsibility of bringing his family to Europe, which is part of the story there is no reason to doubt, there is something else – some knowledge or experience which may be relevant.’
Nyman looked unimpressed.
‘I wonder,’ she went on, ‘if it is perhaps better to deal with what we know is true, rather than speculate about his family?’
‘Go on,’ said Nyman.
‘What we know is true,’ Sonia said, ‘is that these men were in the camp in Lesbos during the boy’s confinement there. We know they must have registered as Syrian refugees, and that they would have to do so at the camp in order to get off the island legitimately and travel through Greece to Macedonia. That’s the start point for us. Somewhere in the registration files for the period are the fingerprints and photographs of the men we’re looking for. We’ll have access to photographs later today. Obviously there’ll be thousands of faces in these records, but we can develop some processes of elimination.’
‘And this is where Turkey comes in,’ said Okiri.
‘How so?’ Nyman asked.
‘We can check registrations in Turkey against the ones from Lesbos for the relevant period and begin to refine the list of likely candidates,’ said Okiri. ‘For example, those who’ve been in Turkey for a considerable length of time are not the ones we’re looking for. We’re searching for men who registered in Turkey soon after those phones were dumped – then moved quickly to register in Lesbos.’
‘That works,’ said Nyman. ‘You’re aware that the Security Service has a very useful resource in the shape of half a dozen or so people who were in Syria and Iraq and have returned to this country disillusioned with IS. These individuals have not been prosecuted because we make use of them on occasions like this. You can get MI5 to sit them down with the photographic record for the relevant period from Lesbos and see if they recognise anyone.’ He looked around. ‘Good! This all sounds like it’s coming on well – is there anything else?’
‘His phone,’ said Okiri. ‘We know the boy has got himself a phone and we have been trying to trace his calls, texts, Internet usage et cetera. We need the number so we can track him when he’s got the phone on.’
Nyman swivelled away from them to look at a large seagull that had landed on the ledge outside with something in its beak. ‘I’ve been rereading some material – a report from an organisation that campaigns against the use of child soldiers. It’s gruesome reading but I think it offers some clues as to the psychological impact on children exposed to, or compelled to participate in, extreme violence. I’ll have it distributed to you all and, Sonia, you might run it past Ms Christakos and ask her opinion. Reading her email, it seems to me that young Naji may have seen a lot in his life. Why does this matter? It may explain Naji’s relationship with the men. My hunch is that he’s more involved with these people than he let on to Christakos, and that this is the reason he’s protecting his family. Like you, I have reached the conclusion that the family is, for the moment, irrelevant in tracking down these men, even though he is propelled to risk so much to bring them to Europe.’ He stopped and turned to face the conference table. ‘I agree with your thinking about the start point being Lesbos; and we know something else about these men – we know they passed through Athens.’
‘Yes,’ said Okiri, ‘so they must be on CCTV somewhere.’
‘Exactly. Obviously you had all thought of that,’ said Nyman, slightly mischievously. ‘If you read Samson’s report from Athens, you’ll see that the boy bought a ticket for the train but went by bus to Thessaloniki. Why would he do that if he has little money?’
‘Samson said there were delays on the train that day,’ said Fell.
‘Then why did everyone else get on the train?’
‘Presumably they weren’t especially bothered about the delay.’
‘Exactly, and why would Naji be bothered about a delay, if no one else was? I know the boy was in a hurry, but no more so than anyone else. Maybe he saw someone at the railway station and decided at the last moment to change his plans. We should have our friends in Athens do a search for any relevant CCTV from its station and its environs and see if we can find the boy and then look for other faces in the footage. Maybe we’ll find matches with faces from Lesbos.’
‘I’ll get onto it,’ said Okiri.
‘Good,’ said Nyman. ‘Now, what else is there? Oh yes, I have a name for you. Actually, it is a nickname used by his IS comrades – Al-munajil. It means machete. Our source – actually a very important asset developed recently in collaboration with the Americans – suggests that this is the name of the man who was driving the vehicle with that black mark. Our source has never seen him, but worked it out from reports within IS of this man’s actions. Like all truly evil regimes, IS keeps scrupulous records on its barbarities, so that has helped us identify him. The asset is ninety per cent sure that we’re searching for Al-munajil. So, we have a voice and a name. Surely it won’t be long before we get the image.’ He stopped and looked out of the window again. ‘The boy is important, but these men are the priority. We’ll put our major European partners in the picture this afternoon. Sonia, you will prepare a brief. We’re going to need people along the route – eyes and ears at the border crossings, registration points and main transport centres looking for a man with a pronounced speech impediment. We’ll need help from local intelligence services in the Balkans as well, and that must be handled delicately. The Chief is of the opinion that an interception is undesirable, unless Al-munajil presents an immediate danger.’
‘What about Paul?’ Fell asked.
‘He should stay looking for the boy. By the way, have we heard from him today?’
‘I had a text very early on to say he was going to meet Vuk Divjak.’
‘And?’
A flicker of doubt passed across her face. ‘We’ve heard nothing from him.’
‘He didn’t meet Divjak? Does that suggest to you he’s in some trouble?’
‘No. Paul is always okay. It’s probably a communications problem. We’re working on finding him.’
‘Well, get hold of him.’
*
Thousands upon thousands of feet had beaten the path smooth and even the recent rain had made no impression on its surface. On either side, the bushes and ditches were strewn with litter – the broken shoes, plastic bags, food containers and discarded water bottles that marked the migrant route from the Greek islands to the Alps and the Schengen area.
Naji was in an elated mood, and even when he looked up and took in the size of the mountains ahead – many of them already capped by snow – he experienced the same thrill that had run through him when he witnessed the fireflies in the forest. The mountains were indeed intimidating. From west to east, through 180 degrees, they dominated the landscape and appeared to Naji like a massive wall, erected to keep people like him out of Europe. Had he not been walking with his new band of friends, he’d have felt too frightened to undertake the journey. But now he knew anything was possible. Despite the terror he’d felt when Al-munajil and his killers had come so close to finding him in the forest, he was not afraid.
He had crept into town that morning feeling that everyone was looking at him, but he soon realised nobody was giving him a second glance. The town was overwhelmed with a new influx of legitimate migrants who had been allowed to enter Macedonia to ease the strains in the transit camp in Greece. This would make it much harder for anyone to find him and also gave Naji the cover he needed for buying provisions for his journey.
He hovered for a while at a fruit store, where there were bananas for sale, which he hadn’t seen for as long as he could remember. He bought three and laid them out on his special cle
an cloth, which was much less clean than it used to be, and took a photo with his phone and sent it to Munira. Then he remembered the photographs he had taken of the fireflies in the forest and scrolled through them to choose the best one, which he sent with the caption ‘Alyiraeat’ – fireflies – and a message: Sweet sisters. I am in a country called Macedonia and these are the insects that light up the way for your loving and respectful brother. I am well and happy and safe. I send my love to you and our revered parents. Naji.
The other reason for Naji’s good mood was that he’d grabbed as much food as he could eat and carry in his pack from the feeding station at the Macedonian registration centre, which was jammed with families and wailing children. As well as eating to the point that his stomach was hard and protruded slightly beneath his T-shirt, he’d managed to wash himself and scrub the worst of the dirt of the forest from his clothes. With his mother’s voice in his ear, he’d even washed his hair with the cheap apricot-scented shampoo provided by a charity. He had emerged into mid-morning sunlight feeling a new person. It was then that he ran slap into Joseph and his friends.
Joseph asked anxiously what had happened to him. He said he’d been worried and thought he might never seen him alive again, for at the fence he had been questioned by three men who’d threatened to beat him up and, later, another guy, who was much more polite and seemed to be concerned for Naji’s safety. Naji would have brushed the whole thing off with his usual bravado, but the news of a fourth man, who spoke good English, had two phones and somehow did not seem like a migrant, concerned him and he asked Joseph to tell him everything he had noticed about the man. Joseph hadn’t been able to see much in the dark, but the one thing he was sure about was that the fourth individual had nothing to do with the first three – he was polite and educated and, Joseph added, he didn’t smell like a donkey. Naji smiled, but the news of the fourth man worried him.