The Panic Zone jg-2

by Rick Mofina

  “Why not meet here, or at your location?”

  “I ran into trouble in Benghazi. I’d prefer to be cautious. I’ve got your mobile number, here’s mine.”

  Gannon noted Corley’s number then asked, “How will I know you?”

  “I’ve got your picture online, so I’ll recognize you.”

  Before going out, Gannon shut down his laptop, tidied his files, then hid them in his room. The concierge was happy to sketch directions for him on a preprinted tourist map. “Very simple. This way, then that way, sir, simple, and you are at the Sun and Moon. Very simple, sir.”

  To Gannon, Rabat’s medina was a step back in time. As he followed a network of cobblestoned streets, he saw a group of boys roasting a goat’s head on an open grill. Artisans displayed their handmade wallets, necklaces, lanterns and wood carvings on mats on the ground.

  Small cooking fires created haze and seasoned the air. He saw old men bent over antique sewing machines under bare lightbulbs inside storefronts hidden in the market’s shaded narrow alleyways. The medina was choked with people, haggling at stalls and shops over jewelry, leather crafts, vegetables, fruit, pottery, baskets and carpets.

  The Sun and Moon was a darkened open-front cafe with six tables and a counter displaying meats, mixed salad and rice dishes, fish and pastries. Gannon ordered a Coke. He pressed the sweating can to his forehead and sipped slowly.

  By the time he’d ordered his third Coke, Corley had still not arrived. The calls Gannon had made to his cell phone had not been answered.

  He was hungry and ordered a chicken shawarma.

  As time passed he was approached by boys offering to give him private tours of the medina, or find him drugs or women. A withered man with an agitated monkey in a cage offered to have his animal perform tricks for him. A one-eyed beggar with rotting teeth put his hands together in an elaborate thankful prayer gesture after Gannon gave him a coin.

  Nearly three hours later as the sun sank, Corley was a no-show.

  Gannon gave up waiting. He returned to his hotel, where he sent Oliver Pritchett a terse e-mail before reviewing his files in bed.

  Gannon did not remember falling asleep.

  For a panicked moment he did not remember anything and his torpid brain struggled to give him information as his phone rang.

  “Hullo.”

  “Jack, Oliver Pritchett in London.”

  Gannon’s memory ignited and he recalled his anger.

  “Hey!” He sat up, cradling his head with his free hand. “What the hell’s going on? Your guy stood me up! The WPA spent a shitload of money to send me to London then here, and Corley doesn’t show!”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe something came up. This is unlike Adam. I can’t reach him.”

  “So what now?”

  “I’m going to do something we never do with our people.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “I’ll give you his private address. You can go bang on his door.”

  “That’s a start.”

  Gannon ordered a small breakfast to his room, showered and shaved. When his breakfast arrived he ate as he dressed, then got a taxi.

  According to Pritchett, Corley lived on a tiny side street off of Rue Calcutta, in the district l’Ocean, not far from the Kasbah des Oudaias.

  The neighborhood was quiet.

  Gannon asked his driver to wait, then walked down the narrow zigzagging street. It was a bright, clear morning.

  The quarter was deserted; the only sounds gulls overhead. The ancient square houses were small, neat, built of stone. Many had parapets. They were painted white with blues, pinks and greens, their windows covered with wrought-iron bars. Some had flower boxes and planters with palms near the entrance. Others had rooftop gardens or clotheslines laden with garments drying in the sun.

  A gull shrieked just as Gannon reached Corley’s address: number 104, a small white house trimmed in coral-pink. He knocked on the wooden door, dark and heavy with its ornate design. A full minute passed without a response. He knocked again, harder this time.

  Nothing.

  He pressed his ear to it.

  Nothing.

  He tried to look through the windows, but the ironwork made it difficult. He went around to a small sun-warmed patio. Fragrant from the dozen or so flower boxes, the patio gave him a view over rooftops to the sea.

  When Gannon came to the back door he stopped.

  It was slightly open.

  What the hell?

  He blinked, thinking. Then he leaned into the doorway.

  “Hello!”

  The weather-worn door creaked as he pushed it open to a small kitchen. It was clean with a sand-colored linoleum floor, white shelves, white tiled walls and a gas stove.

  “Adam!”

  The house was silent as Gannon continued to the living room. Two small sofas with print designs faced each other over a coffee table. Everything was bathed in yellow from the sunlight filtered by the closed yellow curtains.

  Everything was in place. He checked the bedroom, the single bed, the quilted spread, the desk, dresser, goatskin lampshade. All in order and tinted blue from blue curtains.

  “Adam?”

  Gannon moved on to the bathroom.

  At least that’s what he figured the next room to be, given the white door was ajar and he glimpsed a mirror. As he reached out his hand to open the door, he hesitated.

  The house was too still.

  He swallowed.

  As he slowly pushed the door open, a prickly sensation shot up the back of his neck. A shoed foot was hanging over the lip of the bathtub. He then saw a hand, an arm, blood splattered over the white tiles, before he met Adam Corley’s eyes.

  Staring into him from a wide-eyed death mask.

  A sound.

  Something moved fast behind Gannon.

  39

  Somewhere in Morocco

  Nearly two hours outside of Rabat a convoy sped along a dirt road, cutting across a vast stretch of forgotten territory.

  The sun hit the chrome on the first two cars; both were government-owned Peugeot sedans out of Temara. The last vehicle was a late model Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen that had been dispatched out of Ain Aouda. Only a few of the men involved were members of the DST-Direction de la Securite du Territoire-the Moroccan secret police.

  No one knew the identities of the others.

  Dust clouds billowed from their trail, forming a rising curtain that concealed their destination and intention.

  The man lying on the back floor of the G-Wagen, under a canvas tarp, stripped naked, shackled and blindfolded was Jack Gannon. His brain throbbed and his mouth tasted as if it had been stuffed with burlap and he recalled an overwhelming smell.

  Chloroform?

  The last thing he remembered was discovering Adam Corley’s corpse amid a bloodbath in his Rabat home.

  Gannon forced himself to cling to the drone of the wheels, to breathe deeply and calmly. He concentrated on the murmur of French coming from his captors at the front of the vehicle. He tried to pick up any information, a tone, a word he might know.

  A cell phone rang, and the man who answered spoke in a language Gannon didn’t recognize. The vehicle slowed to a halt, and he heard muted shouting through the closed windows. Dread gnawed at the edges of his mind and he tried not to imagine what awaited him.

  Had he been able to see through his blindfold he would have discerned the high chain-link fence topped with razor wire securing the low building, which was half-submerged in the earth. It was a secret facility that did not exist. Not officially. In intelligence circles, it was known as a black prison.

  For several years, the building had received suspected terrorists transported on ghost flights from countries that denied knowledge of activities conducted within its walls. It was undocumented work performed by contractors expert at obtaining information from any resistant subjects delivered to them. Some of the interrogators had extracted intelligence on the attacks in Casablan
ca, Madrid, London, Bali and on September 11. They had also thwarted a number of planned attacks that remained unknown to the world beyond its barbed-wire gates.

  A sudden blast of 110-degree heat overwhelmed the SUV’s air-conditioned interior as the doors were opened.

  Gannon was yanked out.

  Stones pricked his bare feet and the ground burned his soles as he hobbled with his captors a short distance before they pushed him indoors. The air was cooler but he was nearly overcome by the stench of urine and excrement. The drone of flies was alarming and he feared he was among corpses. As Gannon was shoved along the building’s reeking corridors, he found his voice.

  “I’m an American citizen. I want to call my embassy.”

  A sharp pain exploded in his buttocks from the kick of a large steel-toed boot. Gannon’s knees buckled and he was dragged into another room.

  Distant shouting and screams echoed. The floor was wet as he was positioned with his feet spread apart. Chains clinked and steel collars were clamped to his ankles.

  His plastic handcuffs were replaced with steel ones that were fastened to chains. The cuffs gouged him as his wrists were hoisted over his head. He had to stand on his toes to touch the ground.

  “What have I done?”

  A fist drove so fast and deep into Gannon’s gut he felt his organs squeeze against his spine and reflexively vomited. The hot contents of his stomach flowed over his skin.

  He wheezed through tears.

  “The question for you,” said a voice in English, with an accent Gannon could not identify, “and it is a question you must ask yourself, is, Are you going to cooperate with pain, or without it?”

  Gannon continued gasping.

  “Because in the end, you will cooperate.”

  For a moment, Gannon swore he heard a male American raise his voice in another room. The American sounded like he was talking urgently to someone over the phone.

  “Yes! Gannon, run his name again! I need everything on him now!”

  Gannon’s attention shifted back to the accented voice before him.

  “No one knows you are here. No one can help you. We will bury you and poof-you will vanish.”

  There was the snap of a lighter then the smell of a strong cigarette.

  “By the time I finish my smoke, you will be broken.”

  A table rattled with the tinkling sounds of small metal tools on a tray.

  “You can save yourself.”

  Gannon’s stomach quaked. His arms burned.

  “Did you murder Adam Corley because he knew of the operation?”

  “I want,” Gannon gasped. “I want to call my embassy.”

  Gannon’s face was slapped.

  “Did you murder Adam Corley because he knew of the operation?”

  “No.”

  “What do you know of the Avenging Lions of Africa?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you know of Said Salelee of Dar es Salaam?”

  “Nothing.”

  Gannon heard a slight shuffle then felt a point of pressure under his chin. It felt like the tip of a steel blade.

  “What do you know of the operation?”

  “Nothing.”

  The blade’s point traveled slowly down his throat to the center of his collarbone, tracing a pressure line without breaking the skin.

  “Why did you travel to Rabat?”

  “You have my passport. I’m an American journalist.”

  “You are lying.”

  “Call the World Press Alliance in New York.”

  “Why did you come to Rabat?”

  The blade’s tip traveled down Gannon’s chest and over his lower stomach to the top of his groin.

  “Why were you in Adam Corley’s home?”

  “To meet him for a story.”

  “A story on the operation?”

  “Yes, he had information.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The blade slowed as it traveled lower.

  Gannon swallowed.

  His blindfold was yanked off, light burned into his face and he sensed the silhouettes of several people outlined in the darkness. Standing before him was an unshaven, swarthy, muscular man about six feet four, sweating under a sleeveless T-shirt.

  He wore combat pants.

  His cigarette, half gone now, sat in the corner of his mouth. He dragged heavily on it, enveloping Gannon in foul smoke. Suddenly large hands reached from behind and gripped Gannon’s head. Fingers reached around to his eyes and held his lids open.

  “Why were you in Adam Corley’s home?”

  “He never showed up for our meeting.”

  “You are lying. What do you know of the operation?”

  The man moved his cigarette closer to Gannon’s right eye until the glowing tip was all Gannon could see. It burned like the sun as the man held it to within a hair of touching him.

  Gannon felt its heat.

  “No, please!”

  “What do you know of the operation?”

  “Corley was going to tell me more. Please!”

  “More about what?”

  “The connection between his research and a law firm in Rio de Janeiro. The firm may be tied to a global child-smuggling network and the bombing of a cafe that killed ten people.”

  “Is it tied to the operation?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do know!”

  “No.”

  “Who killed Adam Corley?”

  “I don’t know. He was dead when I arrived.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No, I swear!”

  “I’m finished my smoke.”

  The man stepped back.

  “Up!”

  Chains clanked.

  Racking pain shot through Gannon as he was pulled up by the wrist cuffs until he was suspended inches from the floor.

  He struggled to breathe.

  “Now you will become intimate with agony.”

  40

  Gannon’s tormentor rolled a tray bearing a set of surgeon’s instruments before him.

  The man put on a blood-stained butcher’s apron, a face shield and tugged on white latex gloves. Then he selected a scalpel.

  Gannon’s breathing quickened.

  The blade reflected the light just as a commotion spilled from another room. Someone had entered but remained at the edge of the darkness.

  “Major, I respectfully request you release the prisoner now,” an American voice said firmly.

  “On whose authority?” an older voice said.

  “My people have spoken to the ministry. Here is a fax authorizing you to surrender him to me.”

  In the dim fringes, someone shuffled a few pages of paper.

  “As you can see by the summary,” the American said, “Rabat police and the pathologist confirm Corley had been deceased prior to the prisoner’s arrest at Corley’s residence. And witnesses confirm the prisoner’s whereabouts in the market and his hotel. He could not have killed Corley.”

  A long tense moment passed.

  “Should we obtain any further information,” the American continued, “we’ll share it with you.”

  More time passed before a voice in the darkness muttered a command. Then Gannon’s interrogator grunted, the chains jangled and Gannon dropped to the floor.

  He did not know how much time had passed before he was unshackled and taken to a bright, clean room. It appeared to be a medical examination room. He was left alone to take a hot shower. His body shook and he had to stop several times to lean against the wall and breathe.

  He could not stop his tears.

  When he finished he wrapped himself in a towel and sat on the only furniture available, a padded examination table.

  What was happening?

  He struggled to think.

  Afterward, a doctor with white hair and a kind face under a few days of salt-and-pepper growth entered the room. Without speaking, he tended to Ganno
n’s wounds then returned his belongings, his passport, wallet and his clothes. While the doctor watched, Gannon was allowed to dress, as if the nightmare had never happened.

  Everything was intact.

  Except Gannon.

  He couldn’t stop shaking. Tears filled his eyes.

  “This will occur for some time,” the doctor said in accented English. “You will experience some bad nights, bad dreams. But you will be fine, I assure you. I have seen worse.” The doctor patted Gannon’s shoulder compassionately before starting to leave. “Return to America immediately, if you can. Say nothing of your experience.”

  “Doctor?”

  The older man stopped at the door.

  “Where are we and who controls this place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who was the man who intervened-he sounded American.”

  “I don’t know and I don’t wish to know.” He removed his glasses. “I don’t know anyone here. I do as I’m told since they took me from my home in Kurdistan six months ago.”

  After the doctor left, Gannon stared at the white cinder block walls and battled to understand what had befallen him. His emotions swirled. He was angry at the violation but thankful someone had saved him from the horror that was coming from his captor.

  Don’t dwell on what he was going to do with that scalpel.

  Now, as Gannon tried to recover, he faced question after question.

  Why was Corley murdered? What was the information Corley had about this story? Who was the American who’d intervened? What the hell is going on? Is any story worth my life?

  Gannon gripped the edges of the examination table.

  He would never give up. He would never surrender, being a reporter was all he was. He had nothing else in his life.

  The door opened and a stranger entered: a man in his early fifties with short brown hair. His eyes were black ball bearings. They glared with an intensity that bordered on fury, above a grimace chiseled into a face of stone. He was just under six feet and wore khaki slacks and a blue golf shirt over his solid build. He held a slim binder with a file folder tucked inside. After assessing Gannon, he said: “Are you good to walk out of here?”

  Gannon recognized the voice of the American who’d saved him.

  “Walk to where?”