by Finn Óg
Sam had heard of it. “Special forces.”
“Yes.”
The pair remained quiet for a few miles before Waleed broke the silence. “You also?”
Sam knew what he meant. “Me also.”
“Special sailor?”
“Special Boat Service,” Sam said.
“Ah-hah!” said Waleed, suddenly remembering the name.
“Briefly,” Sam clarified. “Quite brief, really.”
“Why?”
Sam found himself opening up a little about Shannon and how they’d collided in Gaza. He didn’t elaborate on anything operational, just that he’d been on a job. Sam made a vague allusion to getting into trouble as a result of something he’d done for her and then deflected attention back onto Waleed.
“You said your family had been affected by the persecution of Copts?”
Waleed hadn’t married, in part because he hadn’t known how to unravel his lie about his religious background. He explained how difficult it would be to become part of a wider Muslim family given that he had no point of reference. Sam could identify with that and his less than basic knowledge of the sacraments in the Catholic Church, and how awkward he’d felt going through the motions with Shannon despite their religions having the same origin. He had no idea how Christians and Muslims could find a way to unite in matrimony in an increasingly tricky environment like Egypt.
“Did you never meet a Christian girl?”
“If I meet Christian, I cannot marry and stay in job unless she become Muslim, which is crazy as I not even Muslim!” He laughed at the ridiculousness of what he might have to ask a future partner to do.
Sam warmed to Waleed enormously.
And then from the laughter came a sad note.
“There was a woman back home,” he said, “but we lose-ed contact.”
“Deliberately?”
“How you mean?”
“Did you lose contact on purpose?”
“She is asking me, do not join-ed police. Is dangerous.”
“She was right.”
“But I think, how can change Egypt if good people not joining police? So much corrupt in Egypt. Is no good.”
“What happened to her?”
“I try to find her, one year.”
“One year?”
“Yes, one year pass-ed.”
“One year ago?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I think, maybe is no use. Sinai is lost. Maybe she is right. We cannot defeat jihadist. They will come and come and from everywhere – Iraq and Syria. This is where they will settle.”
“You think they’re going to win?”
“One year pass-ed I think maybe. Now, not certain.”
“Did you find her?”
Waleed fell into an awkward silence. “I think, yes,” he conceded after a period. “Some of her family killed in bomb at church. Suicide bomb.”
“But she was ok?”
“Yes, I think. Police did good job that day.” He shook his head in wonder. “They stop-ed suicide bomber outside church.”
“Yet some people were killed.”
“Yes, many,” Waleed said.
“So what became of her?”
“I believe she leave Egypt.”
Sam had a sinking feeling as to where this was going. “I think I can guess how,” he said.
“She cross-ed to Libya,” Waleed said. “I believe she take boat to Europe.”
“Did she make it?”
“Nobody know.”
Sam found himself trying to give Waleed hope. He described his night with Isla and how they’d rescued the women in the water. Waleed listened with a solemn resignation and appeared to take no solace in the story.
“Tell me about your daughter,” he said instead.
Against his better judgement Sam found himself talking about Isla and what they’d been through. He confessed that she was the reason he had to get back to Ireland quickly.
“One day, for me, pier-haps, children. I would like very much,” Waleed said dreamily.
“I reckon you’d be a great dad,” Sam said, and he meant it.
“I hope,” said Waleed.
The long-range team set out from Benghazi twenty minutes after the order had been issued. The estimated journey time was fifteen hours. The terrain looked lumpy, the destination nondescript.
The eight men couldn’t understand the point of the exercise. Their vehicles were aged, the fuel they were burning would be costly and they stood every chance of blowing out more tyres and wheels than they could replace. Besides, such journeys were brutally uncomfortable.
There was nothing else for it, though, but to lie as flat as possible in the big wheeler and try to rest until it was their turn to drive. The lower a man managed to get onto the bed of the vehicle, the less the strain on the neck from the judder and spring of rubber on rock.
Something was going on.
The analyst hadn’t seen as much interest from friendly intelligence agencies since Gaddafi had been killed. Every hour there was an update request. The analyst had decided against making his boss aware of every demand – it only brought wrath upon the messenger. He opted instead to answer himself with polite courtesy: the team is on its way. We shall advise as soon as we know anything further.
“Why did you want the big cop’s phone and GPS destroyed?” Sam asked, the notion occurring to him as the road rolled by.
“I do not want police to know I arrest him,” said Waleed. “I think they may be tracing phone.”
“Why didn’t you want them to know?”
“I have no reason to arresting him. My job is intelligence. Jihadi information. Is not my business to arresting police officers.”
“So why did you arrest him?”
“Is good question,” said Waleed. “He once friend at academy.”
“You said before.”
“He call-ed me from desert. He tell me he see fire in front of him. I thinking maybe he is looking at ISIL camp or some jihadi, so I track-ed his phone and I see I have unit of soldier one mile close to him. So I send.”
“You were doing him a favour?”
“Pier-haps. Then I question him. Hard. I threat him. Is not normal for policeman from Alexandria to be in Sinai. He tell me he on way to pick up boat for traffick people. Then I get mad and I leave him in compound.”
“So you didn’t want the police to come sniffing around your area?”
“Sniffing?”
“Hunting for him, looking for him.”
“Exact. Sinai is already dangerous. No need for police also to be cause problems.”
“I’m not going to kill him, Waleed,” Sam said, rushing out what had been on his mind for miles. He didn’t know what Waleed expected of him but he hoped it wasn’t that.
“Good, Sam Ireland,” Waleed said. “I like-ed that big fool very much, long time ago. He is idiot, but he is like hammer. It is carpenter is real problem.”
The doctor watched with horror from his shared mattress as the guard he’d paid for the use of a phone was shackled and slapped and led away.
Of course his concern wasn’t the guard’s welfare, but his own. Had someone seen their transaction? Other inmates had no doubt spotted him using the mobile phone but surely such transgressions were commonplace – this was a kind of prison after all.
The doctor lay back and tried not to panic but he knew it was only a matter of time.
Sam had literally sailed through many borders but the ease with which Waleed negotiated the Egyptian–Libyan checkpoints was impressive. He’d made a number of phone calls well ahead of time. When they came to the militarised zones he simply redialled a number he’d stored on his handset and handed the phone to the soldiers as they stooped down to ask for ID. Each heard whoever was on the other end of the line issue brief instructions before the mobile phone was respectfully handed back to Waleed and the car waved on.
“Your counterpart?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” said Waleed, his mind focused on the road in front, wary of what lay ahead.
The doctor turned to find a boot testing the spring of his mattress. His head was being gently coaxed up and down. He shuddered when he saw the boot belonged not to one of the centre’s guards but to a solider who was flanked by another. Both were armed with rifles.
They’ve got me, he thought. My cousin, the dog, has told them what I did in Egypt.
“Get up.”
The doctor was a bleeder not a fighter. He was never going to resist. He rose meekly and with his head hung in guilt was escorted between the two soldiers to the door.
They made their way through a warren of corridors but all the doctor could do was stare at the heels of the solider in front. The boots halted and moved to the side, another door was opened and he was propelled inside by the shoulder.
He was astonished at the first person he set eyes on. Big Suit, a shadow of his former self, sat in an ill-chosen plastic chair with all the ease an adult might sit in a primary school chair.
Exhausted as Sam and Waleed were, they noticed the mutual recognition.
“I see you know one another.” Waleed tested the detainee’s English.
A flicker from the doctor showed he’d understood. Big Suit looked as vacant as ever.
“Sit down, please,” Waleed remained polite, and the doctor settled nervously into his seat as if convinced it would be whisked from behind him by one of the soldiers.
“I am head of Egyptian Military Intelligence in the Sinai region. This gentleman is from Europe,” he gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. “And you know this man.” Waleed pointed to Big Suit. To his amazement the doctor nodded to confirm their acquaintance.
Waleed’s anticipation grew as the dynamics of the situation ricocheted around the room like a pinball. He decided to coax out the story by giving the impression he knew what was going on.
“I will be very clear. We do not have lot of time. For you, is good if you tell us truth fast. Understand?”
The doctor nodded vigorously.
“You tell us truth, we try to hel-ep you.” It had crossed Waleed’s mind that this refugee might simply be some unfortunate victim of the trafficking ring. “Tell us how you know this man.”
The doctor looked at Big Suit and then at the ground. “I used to do work for him. For his boss, really.”
Waleed tried to hide his surprise and remain collected. Sam was taken with the man’s obvious grasp of English.
“What work please?” Waleed asked.
“They … they used to torture people in the jail. I am a doctor. They used to hurt people and I would help them.”
“Hel-ep them hurt people?” Waleed asked.
“No!” said the doctor. “Help the people they injured. He was dangerous,” he nodded to Big Suit. “I’m amazed he is still alive.”
“Why?” Waleed asked.
“Because the last time I saw him he was donating blood to one of his own victims. Too much blood.”
Everyone looked at Big Suit who had no idea what they were saying and was rather abashed to be observed in triplicate.
“Continue,” said Waleed, eager not to betray his ignorance.
“He had cutters for breaking chains and locks.” The doctor made a motion as if pruning a hedge.
Big Suit sat up a little straighter suddenly understanding what the doctor was saying. A look of alarm crossed his face.
“The last man, he cut him terribly. I had to seal the wound.”
“Cut him how?”
“He snipped off his toe and then …” the doctor spoke more softly, “his testicular area.”
Both English speakers scrunched up their eyes and tightened their lips.
“He is an animal,” said the doctor.
Sam leaned forward and whispered in Waleed’s ear.
“What was name of victim?”
“Habid,” said the doctor.
“Bingo,” said Sam.
The analyst ran through to his boss with a piece of paper fresh from the printer.
“Message from America, sir. The two men – they are here!” he spluttered excitedly.
“What men, where?”
“The British naval officer and the Egyptian chief,” he said. “They are in Tobruk.”
“I know,” said his boss.
“You know?”
“I secured their entry at the border,” said the boss.
“Why?” asked the analyst, keen to show he was eager to learn.
“Because it is useful to know where people are. If they tell us, then it is easier to track them and see what they are up to.”
“I see,” said the analyst, but he didn’t see at all.
To the minute, it took one hour to empty the doctor’s head of all he knew about Habid’s trafficking route. He gushed out the details – how the rat had a list and biographies of wealthy Gaddafi insiders. How he’d hidden them somewhere and how he rationed their departures. He told them about his evil little cousin and how the rat had outfoxed him to make him a labourer in the scheme rather than the leader of it. He issued dire warnings about the rat’s cunning and intelligence. The doc described the route as best he could – the different border crossings and the pickups performed by his cousin with the help of some corrupt police officers.
“So,” said Sam, still pinching himself that they’d made such progress, “where can we find him?”
For the first time the doctor looked blank. “I do not know,” he said, mildly shocked at his own answer.
“Then we cannot hel-ep you,” said Waleed almost regretfully.
The doctor began to panic. “You have all the information. Everything. This is all I know. You must be able to find him from what I have said!”
“All you have told is that he keeps people in desert. Do you know how big desert is?”
The doctor was truly lost for words.
Waleed nodded to the solitary soldier. The man rose and made for action.
“Shukran,” Waleed said, and then the screaming and pleading started and the doctor was hit a thump and dragged from the room.
Waleed turned to Sam who shrugged.
“I think we know where he keeps them.”
“Yes, I think we do.”
“Wonder if there’s room in the desert for a large one?”
Both men looked at Big Suit who was utterly zoned out.
“No,” said Waleed. “I have enough of dragging him around behind us. We have just heard from doctor what this man has become. He was prepar-ed to send peoples to drown – to make refugee. Let us now make him refugee. We will leave him here.”
Áine was more than halfway to blind drunk when Sinead got the text:
Am low on battery. We know the trafficking route. Going to try to track down the man that sent Alea to sea. Does Áine know any more about why she was sacked? Could be important.
“Áine, it’s Sam. He’s asking do you know any more about the hack, or who it might have been?”
Her twin turned to her and enunciated her vowels very clearly for a woman so smashed.
“Tell Sam to go an’ fuck himself,” she said.
Not really, Sam, Sinead typed. Then she thought a while. Then typed again.
Take care, let me know.
“So now we have problem,” Waleed said to Sam.
“How to get into the desert? I know,” said Sam.
“No. Other problem.”
“What?”
“Libyan intelligence know where we are.”
“Sure they’ve known since we came into the country. You told them, didn’t you? That’s how we got through the roadblocks, aye?”
“Yes, they also know why we are here.”
“How?”
“If I have Libyan intelligence in my country, I bug room. Also, we have phone in pocket. You have phone in pocket. They know.”
Sam reckoned he had a point.
“Is big problem, really,” said Waleed, who seemed remarkably
relaxed given the magnitude of what he was about to describe. “We take a walk.”
They led Big Suit like a bear on a chain at a circus, opened the door into the warehouse at the end of the corridor and pushed him inside with all the other refugees. They then left the way they’d come, emerging onto a not very busy street. Waleed took his phone from his pocket and placed it on a windowsill, Sam followed suit and they both walked thirty yards up the road.
“New government in Libya,” Waleed said.
“Yes.”
“Not like Gaddafi or Gaddafi people.”
Sam was following the drift. “They will want to find Habid themselves.”
Waleed shook his head. “They will not care about rat. They will want Gaddafi’s people – his circle. They will hang them in the streets.”
Sam could see that. “Then we need to get there first.”
“They will follow us.”
“Does that matter?”
Waleed swayed his head. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“It’s worth a go,” Sam suggested.
“Ok. We will need map, GPS. Good vehicle.”
They looked at Waleed’s Mazda.
“Better vehicle.”
“Yes,” said Sam.
“Easy way is to do with Libya.”
“What do you mean?”
“We tell them what we plan.”
“But we only want Habid?”
“So we make deal.”
“They give us Habid and what they do with the others is their own business?”
“Yes,” said Waleed.
Sam thought of Alea and Sadiqah. “No, Waleed. There are women and children there. Wherever there is.”
“Ok,” shrugged Waleed. “What is plan?”
“We hedge.”
The analyst scribbled the information from the long-range desert group with widening eyes. His skin stretched around his skull as more and more detail was relayed. He hung up the phone and ran through to his boss’s office.
“I have the latest from the team at the coordinates you gave me.”