Recovering Commando Box Set

by Finn Óg

  “He’s got a daughter to look after,” said Sinead.

  “And the rest,” muttered Áine, who was heard but ignored. “Sure, you know what sort of a fella he is. He’d fight his way out of a firing squad.”

  But there was no way to fight his way out of the circle of shit he’d landed at the centre of. At all points of the compass stood a man with a rifle, invariably a Kalashnikov. Sam could tell from the way the soldiers rested their fingers along the weapons that they weren’t trigger-happy excitable idiots. These were calm, well-trained professionals, possibly part of a special unit. What was more, they knew to address him in a broken, faltering but educated English, which told him immediately that they knew he was coming.

  “Lie down, lie down,” barked the leader.

  Sam did as he was bid.

  “Hands back to air.”

  Sam got the gist of the orders and was cuffed. He was struck by the nervous nature of the soldiers, as if they were confused by him. The body search was correspondingly cautious – they had scissors to hand and cut the back of his T-shirt, gently peeling the cotton away as a nurse might the bandage of a wound. The men seemed preoccupied with his torso but, eventually placated, they patted him down and checked his legs and stomach and lifted him to his feet. His phone was gently taken from his pocket, as was his passport, which wasn’t examined but handed back to him.

  Something very strange was going on.

  They took his pack of gum, handling it as if it might pose a danger. In reality it simply passed as Sam’s travelling toothbrush. He was shuffled into a rather opulent hotel lobby and guided to a small room behind reception where chemicals were stored on one side and the accoutrements of room service on the other. He was told to sit on the floor and secured by a second set of stainless steel handcuffs to a painted metal pipe.

  There he spent two hours alone panicking that he wouldn’t be home in time to collect Isla from her grandparents. He wondered how on earth he would explain to them that in the space of a few days he’d managed to get arrested and jailed in Egypt while they’d been on a roller coaster.

  Finally a dishevelled man entered the room. Despite his creased appearance and two-day growth, Sam was immediately aware of his authority. This was a confident leader accustomed to having his questions answered. Sam somehow felt he was dealing with an equal, which could be an advantage but could be a disaster.

  “You sink-ed a ship,” the man stared down at him, speaking in clearly understandable but sketchy English.

  Sam saw no question, so offered no answer.

  “What is name?”

  “Sam.”

  “Two names?”

  “Ireland.”

  “Not country. Name.”

  “My second name is the name of a country. It’s a bit odd.”

  “You name is Ireland, and you also are from Ireland? Passport?” he said.

  Either this bloke was good with accents or he was good at his job. Sam saw no point in lying, and rolled to his right. “Arse pocket.”

  The man flipped through the pages of the passport but didn’t look up as he spoke. “Why you sink-ed ship?”

  Sam felt that was a fair question but it also alarmed him. How did the man know so much about him – that he was Irish and he’d been to Nuweiba? Sam opted for silence, so the man held out Sam’s phone and shook it a little in demonstration. He then withdrew his own mobile phone and tapped the play button on the screen. Sam heard snippets of the conversation he’d had with Áine.

  “Is you, yes?” The man’s question wasn’t really a question – more of a statement. “You are terrorist in Sinai to attack hotel.” The man gestured to the salubrious surroundings of the storeroom.

  “What?” Sam asked baffled.

  “You are here to attack-ed hotel,” repeated the man.

  “No? No!” said Sam, shaking his head furiously. He suddenly realised that the soldiers had been frisking him for an explosives vest.

  “Then why sink-ed ship?”

  Sam realised he was quite deep in the shit, so he had no choice but to talk. He knew that if he didn’t, the likelihood was that he would end up forgotten in an Egyptian jail and Isla would suffer.

  “The ship’s captain was abusing his crew. Also, the ship was dangerous.”

  “Is now very dangerous. Is sink-ed in harbour. Is not possible to move.”

  “Good,” said Sam.

  “You coming from Ireland to sink-ed ship?”

  “Yes,” said Sam.

  “Why you coming to hotel?”

  “To stay. Before leaving.”

  “I am not believe-ed you. This woman on phone – she tell you to come to hotel.”

  He had a point. Sam sighed. “Another job,” he conceded.

  “What is another job?” said the man.

  “What is your name?” countered Sam, teasingly, as if with give and take he might talk.

  The man stared at Sam for a few moments, then his forehead creased and his eyebrows arched a little. “Waleed,” he said.

  Sam looked at Waleed, cool as a breeze, well informed and full of natural authority. He took a risk. “It’s nice to meet you, Waleed. I’ll tell you what I am here to do because you seem like the sort of person who might understand.”

  Waleed stared at Sam, curious. There was something about this prisoner, manacled to the floor, that intrigued him. His understated confidence, perhaps. He shrugged, gesturing for Sam to try him.

  “I’m here to find a people trafficker.”

  Waleed snorted and shook his head – not dismissively but in serendipitous recognition. Of course you are.

  And in that one shake of his captor’s head, Sam saw a chink of light.

  The doctor had some cash and decided to use it. In preparation for the journey to Europe, he’d exchanged what he could for euros at his bank in Alexandria. The bank hadn’t held a huge stock and so rationed them to one hundred per customer, but like many things in Egypt sticky processes could be lubricated with moderate financial reward.

  He approached one of the guards during his allotted exercise time in the yard outside the holding-centre warehouse.

  “If I pay you, can you make a call for me to Egypt?”

  “No,” said the guard.

  “Why?” asked the doctor.

  “No,” repeated the guard.

  The doctor walked on in his circle until he passed the static guard again.

  “I have one hundred euros,” said the doctor.

  “No,” said the guard again, whose vocabulary was either limited or his dedication to his job absolute.

  The doctor performed another tight circle.

  “Two hundred euros?”

  “Who do you wish to call?” asked the guard.

  “The police station, Alexandria,” said the doctor as he wandered beyond earshot.

  On the next loop it was the guard who spoke.

  “Three hundred and I will provide a phone for a short time.”

  The doctor nodded.

  Waleed had brought one of his men into the room and ordered Sam be uncuffed from the pipe and sat up on a chair. He was wary of Sam’s physique, so he left the shackles on his wrists behind his back.

  “Why come to Taba hotel?”

  “It’s a bit of a long shot.”

  “I do not know what is this,” said Waleed.

  “The reason I came here. It is …” Sam struggled to explain, “not likely to work out,” he tried.

  Waleed shrugged his lack of understanding.

  Sam filled the silence. “There is a man who is sending people into the sea. He is a people trafficker. People pay him money to escape to Europe.”

  “I know people trafficking.”

  “Right, well, I was sailing – I sail. I live on a boat with my daughter. I picked up some of his victims. They were drowning.”

  Waleed’s interest appeared to grow.

  “Where you pick up?”

  “One hundred miles north-west of Libya approximately.”<
br />
  “Ok,” said Waleed warily.

  “I took them to Ireland and this woman, she told me about the man who sent her to sea. For money. I am looking for him.”

  “You take to Ireland?” Waleed couldn’t hide his surprise.

  “Yes. Long story.”

  “Long journey,” Waleed said dryly.

  Sam was starting to like him. “You have no idea, Waleed. One of the longest of my life – and I’ve had a few brutal marches.”

  “Why you here in Taba? Why at hotel?”

  “That’s the long shot,” he said. “This man, he had a device. A Global Positioning System. Like a phone, really. A GPS?”

  Waleed visibly stiffened, which distracted Sam a little.

  “It was an old yoke.”

  Waleed shook his head.

  “It was – like – out of date.”

  Blank look.

  “Anyway,” Sam continued, “I have a friend in Ireland,” he overstated the relationship immeasurably, “who can tell – from a computer – that a device just like it was updated on like a computer right here at this hotel.”

  Sam watched Waleed grow angry, which was confusing and worrying – something he was saying was touching a nerve and he couldn’t understand what that might be.

  “I know,” he tried to placate his darkening captor, “it was a long shot.”

  “Long shot is gamble, yes?” Waleed finally spoke.

  “Yes,” said Sam curiously, “exactly.”

  “Pier-haps not so much long shot, maybe.”

  It didn’t take long to identify the culprit. Waleed stomped outside and got on the phone. He spoke to the duty officer in the interrogation suite back at his desert headquarters. The man told him which military unit had been sent to Nuweiba. From that information Waleed was able to call the unit’s sergeant, who told him exactly who had been ordered to drive Big Suit’s kit east and destroy it. Waleed told the sergeant to send a photograph of the offender. As he spoke Waleed paced the marble floor of the foyer, passing the various tourist excursion desks that advertised day trips. None of them was doing any business. He had cruised each twice by the time he finished the call and was readying to return to the Irishman when he noticed the car-hire desk to his right.

  “How much for a car?” he asked.

  “For how long?” the clerk perked up from his boredom.

  “Depends. Can I have one with a GPS?”

  The clerk did all but breathe on his knuckles and rub them against his lapel.

  “Yes, sir. You can have a GPS—”

  “Show me,” Waleed interrupted.

  The clerk pulled open a drawer and with pride revealed Big Suit’s device. Waleed’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he ripped it out to view the picture message he’d just received. He turned the screen towards the clerk.

  “Did this man sell that device to you?”

  The clerk stared at the image in fear – fear of having the GPS confiscated and what his boss might say to him as a result. “No,” he lied.

  “I am head of military intelligence,” said Waleed, which he rarely had cause or desire to tell anyone but he was in a rush, “so think carefully. If you lie to me, you will struggle to imagine what might happen to you.”

  “Yes, that’s the man,” said the clerk in a gush.

  “Did that man also sell you a phone?” Waleed revealed his real concern.

  “No, sir, no.”

  “That could be a life-changing lie,” warned Waleed.

  “It is not a lie, sir, really. It is true.”

  “Did this man offer you a phone?” he asked instead.

  “No, sir, just GPS. This is all.”

  “Did you update the software on this GPS?” Waleed asked.

  “Yes, sir, but still nobody wants to rent this. It is so old. It is not for vehicles really. It is for travelling across mountains or the sea.”

  Or the desert, thought Waleed. “Give it to me,” he said.

  The clerk relinquished the device willingly. “Please, sir, can you give me a receipt for my boss?”

  “I will send a man to issue you a receipt,” Waleed said.

  He took no pleasure from discovering this lead. His real worry was that Big Suit’s phone was still at large, and trackable.

  The Egyptian burst into the room, quietly furious. He placed the old GPS on the table.

  “Is this what you look for?”

  “Could be …” Sam began, utterly confused. “It’s the right make, the right sort of age.”

  Apparently that was enough for Waleed. He walked around behind Sam, who assumed he was about to be attacked and braced. Instead, he felt his handcuffs being unlocked.

  “Come with me, Meester Sam Ireland,” said Waleed.

  Free for the first time in hours, Sam was cautious but happy and curious enough to shrug his big shoulders, shake his heavy arms and tag along.

  For one whole hour Sam sat at Waleed’s side feeling the heat of the man’s rage emanate from the driver’s seat. They said nothing to one another but Sam listened intently as Waleed made call after call on his mobile phone. It was clear that Waleed was a leader, and an effective one at that. He could hear both sides of each conversation through the Bluetooth system in the car and each man on the other end was subservient and respectful and Waleed didn’t need to shout or scream to get his answers. Every call was in Arabic, but other than a tiny clutch of pleasantries Sam couldn’t follow what was being said. Finally there was a conversation with a woman called Tiye, and Waleed’s conversation took a softer tone and he offered all the thank yous.

  Sam stared at the road. He could tell from the sun that they were headed west. Whatever the perfect snake beneath them was made from, it appeared able to endure the heat as it slithered through the rocks and dirt of Sinai – the surface of which was garnished with only an occasional brittle shrub surviving against the odds and craving libation.

  When Waleed spoke it came as something of a surprise out of the silence.

  “I am not arrest-ed you.”

  Sam thought for a moment, but only one question came to mind. “Why not?”

  Waleed laughed gently. “You can hel-ep me,” he said. “Pier-hap-es I can also hel-ep you, Meester Sam Ireland.”

  Sam quite liked Waleed’s use of English and was mildly amused at the constant use of his full name.

  “So how can I help you?” Sam inquired.

  “I have responsibility here,” Waleed gestured around him, “in desert. ISIL, Daesh, militant, jihadi, very strong here in desert.”

  Sam took that at face value. He decided just to shut up and listen.

  “You from nowhere come to my jurisdiction and are problem. I no have time to deal-ed with you.”

  Sam tried not to get excited or worried about what that might mean.

  “I also have other problem. Many peoples, they are attack-ed every day. No one care.”

  Sam stayed quiet.

  “In Cairo, in Alexandria, here in desert. Many innocent peoples. Immigrant, Sufi, Copts. They attack-ed.”

  Sam knew next to nothing about denominational politics in Egypt, but he was Irish and as such had at least a point of reference for groups that to the outside world seemed identical but could find no end of issues to dispute behind closed doors.

  “These are peoples who want leave Egypt,” Waleed went on. “They want be safe for families and go look to refuge.”

  “I understand,” said Sam.

  “Some peoples, they go to sea. They are desperate peoples. They pay for men to take to Italy, to Greece. Some peoples they come from Jordan, from Iraq, from Syria, from far away. Then they pay money and go to sea and they die.”

  Waleed was becoming increasingly agitated and expressive as he ranted about the problem. Sam watched his gesticulations head towards anger and decided to try and inject a tone of sympathy, of kindred experience.

  “Has this happened to people you know?”

  Waleed shot a hard look at him and Sam began to w
orry he had taken the wrong tack.

  “Because I have direct experience of this,” Sam scrambled a little, trying to keep his tone moderate. “I used to help people who had been trafficked.”

  “How?” Waleed snapped back, curious.

  “I used to rescue people. Women mostly, sometimes men from ships. Who were being abused. Used. Made to work for no money. People who had paid bad men to take them to better places for a new life and instead were made to work as prostitutes or slaves.”

  “Hookers?” Waleed asked.

  “Yes,” said Sam.

  “Exact-ally!” Waleed slammed his hand down on the wheel. “Many of my people pay money and leave-ed Egypt.”

  “Do they?” Sam inquired, and earned himself another icy glare.

  “Egyptians,” said Waleed oddly, after a long silence.

  Sam let it slide, but Sam got the impression there was more to Waleed’s story than he was prepared to discuss. Not that Sam was one to care. All he wanted was to finish what he’d come to do, avoid arrest and get out of Egypt quickly. “I just want to stop this bloke,” Sam said, his palms open in an easy, boy sort of a gesture.

  “I no have time to deal-ed with traffick problem.”

  “You’re some sort of boss out here – a military commander?”

  “I am head military intelligence in jurisdiction.” Waleed swept his hand as if brushing away a butterfly, without pride or fanfare. Sam liked that. “Is difficult bloody job,” he remarked, arid as his beat.

  Sam laughed. “It sounds it,” he replied.

  “Every day, more problem from jihadis. Every day, more problem from Gaza. Every day, more problem from tourist. I think you know this.”

  “How would I know?” asked Sam, genuinely curious.

  “I think-ed you are solider some time.”

  Sam was silent, which Waleed took as confirmation.

  “I am think this man, he sink-ed ship, steal-ed car. This man can tracking GPS from other country. This man he thrown person into harbour and scare-ed crew of big ship – solo. This man travel alone from Jordan. So this man, may be army.”

  “Not army,” Sam corrected, remembering the trained killer comment from Áine.