by Ann Fillmore
They had not got off free though. The cousin had raped Rané. They’d run again. A missionary family from Seattle had gathered them in and sent them to America. Sounds simple in retrospect. Simple, except for the recurring bouts of terror.
Rané, actually, was all he had left of his family after his father died last year. She had managed to get into University of California at Fresno six months ago and was supremely happy in her college studies. One of the reasons he did the work he did was to have money to send to her. Thus, in every way that counted, he was alone and he hated being alone in the world. He wanted family, he wanted to belong to something, to someone. Maybe he’d take better care of himself when that something or someone became genuine.
Shamsi hurried along the busy sidewalks. It was noon and offices and stores had closed for midday prayers. Allah u abha! came the first call from the muezzin tower and many of the people around him knelt, facing Mecca. Religion was another thing he’d cast off when he cast off Iraqi citizenship.
His cell phone vibrated. He looked at the caller ID. Not one he knew…wait, it was a prefix for the American air base. He answered, confirmed who it was and said in careful measured instructions, “Yes. The alley behind the courthouse, south side. Dress as we agreed.”
This too was good. He’d long wanted to tie in with the EW’s cause, and now it was doubly official. He not only had money committed to him, he had an operative.
CHAPTER 13: SNOW IN THE DESERT
Dinner at the Hanley Arms was always worth the wait. Although Tidewater had palmed some very large currency into the maitre d’s pocket, it still took close on to fifteen minutes to be guided into the smaller of the private dining rooms. The waiter carried their drinks and luckily, taken the meal order as well. Marion stretched, rolled up his cuffs, put his arm around the buxom Lily, and his beeper vibrated.
“Damn!” he groused, looking at the number. It was Norm, his new assistant who had been given strict instructions not to disturb his boss unless the heavens were falling. Marion Tidewater shrugged and said to Lily, “Gotta make a phone call.”
“Have the waiter bring a phone in here,” she smiled.
“Ah, right. You, my dear,” he nuzzled her, “know all about my work anyway. Such a good girl.” Tidewater leaned out the doorway and waved at his waiter. A phone appeared almost instantly. “Norm, this better be…”
“Sir,” the man’s voice was deadly serious, “the agents we had covering the Hermelin castle in Sweden are in lockup.”
“What?” Tidewater could feel the blood drain from his face.
Norm went on in one fast breath, “I just received a request over the Interpol connection to confirm identification of two men. They are our men. They were arrested in Norrkoping and put in jail in Vasteras.”
“Interpol?” Tidewater was having trouble comprehending this.
Norm slowed his speech. “The Swedish equivalent of highway patrol officers arrested both agents outside the little community grocery store in Norrkoping late yesterday, six-thirty Swedish time. That was twelve hours ago.”
Every muscle in Tidewater’s body was in catatonic rigor. “I don’t understand. How could they be arrested? On what charges?”
“I’ve got the booking charges here, Agent Tidewater, and they’re for real.” Norm could be heard changing positions in his chair. “DWIs.”
“Say that again.”
“Drunk driving, sir. It’s a very serious offence in Sweden. Very serious. One step removed from attempted manslaughter.”
“Our agents were driving while intoxicated?”
“From what I’ve pulled up on the booking sheet, which I had to have translated, it seems they were not driving. That is, the automobile they were in was not moving. The grocery store manager was going off shift and when he went to throw out the day’s garbage, he discovered the agents parked by the trash bin in the lot behind the store. He tried to talk to the men to tell them to move on, but they were obviously too drunk to drive so he called the highway patrol. The responding officers found both agents passed out. The officers attempted to wake them up for a field sobriety test but neither agent could stand up. They were put into a paddy wagon and taken to a lockup where both agents were given blood tests and found to have such high levels of alcohol in their system that they were instantly incarcerated at a facility for alcoholics. Do not pass go; straight past a judge, into a dry-out facility.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Believe it, sir. Agent Warwick and Agent Kleinem are in the Swedish equivalent of a Betty Ford clinic with bars. For two weeks minimum stay. Their status and jobs mean nothing. By Swedish law, the failing of the alcohol level test is guilt. It’ll be simpler to have them go through treatment than to go through the paperwork to get them out.”
Tidewater pounded the table with his fist spilling his drink of whiskey and soda all over the tablecloth. “How could they be drunk? They were on duty. They know we’d fire their butts if they were drunk on duty. Then you say the car wasn’t moving? How can they be charged with drunk driving when the car was parked?”
“The Swedes don’t quibble about such details,” Norm laughed harshly. “If you are behind the wheel of an automobile, whether it’s moving or not, and you are legally drunk, you land in jail. Drunk, sir, is one glass of wine with dinner the night before testing.”
“My God!”
“Furthermore, if you are drunk while riding in the car and you can’t take over for the driver if he’s caught, you go to jail also.”
“Unbelievable!”
“Not only that, but you get sent direct to dry-out. Zap! No discussion, no appeals.” Norm explained, “In addition, the Agency will be billed for the treatment and it’ll be expensive!” He slowed his words down again and continued, “The only bright light in this tunnel, sir…?”
“You mean there is one?”
“Yessir. The Arab agents were also convicted of DWI and put in drunk tank, sir.”
“No!”
“Yep.”
“Muslims don’t drink alcohol. Conservative Muslims, that is, and agents of the Iranian Security Force don’t touch the stuff.”
“Our agents will need to do a lot of explaining, sir,” said Norm, “their agents will have to plead for their lives. Oh, and,” he paused for the effect, “they were all put in the same room in the same lockup so it seems they were all picked up together.”
Many scenarios went through Tidewater’s mind, images of the agents being rolled out of their cars, trying to explain what had happened, and Tidewater was convinced EW was somehow behind this. He would have to ask the dirty tricks guys downstairs how inebriation can be achieved in unwilling agents. It was done all the time to civilians the Agency wanted compromised. Tidewater hung his head and muttered to Norm. “I suppose it’s much too late to assign other agents. Our birds have flown.”
“The last message we had from Kleinem was that the Hermelin son was seen driving down the highway to Stockholm and a reservation had been made on a flight out of Vasteras for two people under the name Ixey. Kleinem assumed Bonnie and Trisha Ixey were on their way home.”
“Well, thanks for the update, Norm. Go to bed. Get some sleep. Nothing more we can do from here.”
“No sir.”
Tidewater clicked off and laid the phone on the table. “Lily, let’s have a great evening. We are celebrating the demise of a powerful EW agent and that hasn’t changed. Nothing worse could possibly happen.”
“Oh, Marion, you are such a charming man,” she cooed.
The small jet’s wings were being heavily doused with anti-icing compound and would continue to be right up to engine ignition. Bonnie looked askance at the black runway barely visible through the blowing snow. Vasteras was a middling size city about halfway to Stockholm on the same Lake Malaran. As any large lake did, Lake Malaran generated its own nasty weather.
The captain of the plane seemed not the least concerned. Bonnie had seen her walk completely around the plan
e, patting it down like a horse and chatting with the refuelers before climbing onto the onramp. At the moment, she was chatting nonchalantly with the navigator as they walked ahead of the passengers. Both officers paused to greet their human cargo. The captain did a semisalute as Carl-Joran came up to her.
“Hur ga det, min herre baron?” she asked.
“Mycket fin,” he responded with a smile. “Sshh, jag ar inte har. Jo?”
“Ja so,” the captain agreed and waved them to their seats at the front of the plane.
“What did you tell her?” asked Bonnie as they sat.
“That I wasn’t here,” said the big man, grinning.
“Okay,” said Bonnie, buckling up. As much as she wanted to be calm about this, there were still butterflies in her stomach. Her knuckles were a glowing white.
Carl-Joran took her hands in his. “Captain Johanneson was a fighter pilot in our military before she came to this airline. Don’t worry.”
“Women’s equality, eh?”
“Women’s superiority,” He chuckled. The jet engines roared to life. “The Swedes have known for fifty years that women tend to be as good, maybe better fighter jet pilots as men. Same for Navy work. You see, the Swedes are far more practical than you Americans. If a thing works, use it.”
Bonnie gulped as the little jet neatly pulled onto the runway. “I think it has to do with prejudice, my dear. Americans can be terribly small minded.”
With a whoosh! the jet skimmed the icy runway and seemed to be lifted by the swirling white snow into the black sky.
“Well, I am glad you said that and not me,” he smiled and curled into his seat for the short flight over the high mountains to Oslo.
Devi had managed to convince Russ that they should stop for lunch on the way back from computer shopping. He stood next to her and Taqi in front of the open café and drank in the smell of low tide, oiled pilings, the harbor, the odors of frying fish and strong coffee. It was his body that finally sent the message to his brain that the breeze he felt was warm, blessedly warm. He realized again that the water lapping at the dock nearby was of the Mediterranean. It was true. He was in Israel.
Lunch, consisting of gyros and salads, in hand, the three of them with their precious load of computers arrived back at headquarters. Taqi helped carry stuff. Russ had decided to buy several computers, one of which he would take with him to whatever place he would use as a residence. He set one up in Devi’s office and ran cables to a neighboring room, unused except for storage, and in there he constructed what would be his onsite tech cubby. The lack of windows was a nuisance, but he understood the need for complete security that obviated any windows anywhere in the complex. Taqi stayed to help push tables, shove cabinets, and carry boxes. Meticulously, the installation evolved. Every so often they had to shoo an anxiously hovering Siddhu from the area. Finally, around eight o’clock in the evening, Siddhu stomped his feet and decreed that it was suppertime, that they’d skipped right over teatime in their obsession to work, and that they bloody well better stop to eat supper.
“We’re ready to rock and roll anyway,” Russ said.
“Really?” Siddhu clapped.
“Really.”
“Wait, I will fetch Halima.” Off he raced. Moments later, as Devi and Taqi were laying out the boxes of Chinese curry that Siddhu had ordered, Dr. Legesse strode into the front office. “We can have a toast!” said Siddhu, holding up a champagne bottle in one hand and tonic water in the other.
Devi passed around small paper cups. She and Russ and Dr. Legesse took some champagne. Siddhu and Taqi took tonic water. The cups in the air, Russ reached over and pushed the first button. His main computer lit up and hummed. Devi stepped out and turned hers on. The beeps and whines and hums announced that all was well.
“Next, a webpage!” proclaimed Russ and Halima almost choked on her drink. Russ laughed and toasted, “To Emigrant Women!”
Devi, Taqi, and Siddhu echoed this. “To EW!”
“To EW!” exclaimed Halima, catching up. “You are exactly right, Mr. Snow. Next you make us a webpage, although God help us, we do not need more business at the moment! After that, your assignment is to convince Lama Kazi Padma-Lakshmi in India to obtain e-mail.”
“Done!” Russ promised. “Do I have to go there to do it?”
“Maybe,” Siddhu warned.
“Hand me a ticket to ride!” the tall dark man laughed happily. “Now, all of you except Devi, scram. It’s time to get the Internet connections done. As soon as we’re online, I can do some serious work.”
“Those photos, please,” begged Halima.
“Yes, those are first on my list,” he promised and while the others dug into the Chinese curry, Russ took his plate and sat down in his own very small, but very high tech cubby. He’d been pleasantly surprised at the ease with which he could get absolutely fresh gear from Haifa stores. In fact, the selection was from a worldwide market: Japanese, American, Russian, French, Dutch, British, even Chinese and some places he had never heard of. Kid in a candy store, he was content. Before he logged on, he pulled the beaded headband from his pocket—the infamous headband that had started his move to Israel. He put it firmly over his scalp. He was home.
A warmth suddenly hung over his shoulder. He glanced up. The gawky tallness of Dr. Legesse bent to tell him, “Captain Maxwell at the American air base in Kuwait called me just before I came in here to tell me that Tahireh Ibrahim is not there. She has put on a disguise and has left to join the man we know as Shamsi Granfa.”
Russ breathed in, and out slowly. “Get me Maxwell’s e-mail address. Immediately. And Granfa’s.”
“Captain Maxwell I can get. Granfa is a complete puzzle to us.” Dr. Legesse straightened up. She turned to Devi. “Give Russell what he needs.”
“Of course,” Devi scurried to her desk.
With a shake of his broad shoulders, Russ said, “If Granfa has e-mail, it’ll be in my file before midnight.”
Dr. Legesse poured herself some more champagne. “We hope Tahireh can tell us she is safe before midnight.”
“We can do more than hope,” said Russ firmly and sent out the first search order. It took only seconds to show a website in Granfa’s name. “I got a hit.” Russ announced. The others gathered around. The screen was white with ten language choices. “This is a huge site,” he explained, and grimly went on, “it’s heavily encrypted.”
“What does that mean?” asked Siddhu.
Devi spoke up, “It means you can’t get in without a password.”
“It means,” Russ turned to them, “that this man runs a kind of business where only those who are given permission can enter. You want to pay this man money; he has to approve of you first.”
“What could the business possibly be?” Halima sulked.
Russ clicked the keys. “All I can tell you is that the search engines find his site with the words: adoptions, transplants, hearts, livers, medical supplies, biomedical consultations…here, see for yourself.”
They looked over his shoulder. Siddhu jerked upright and whispered in dismay, “Does Granfa sell babies and body parts?”
The late afternoon sun tried its best to warm them. The frigid air trapped in the alley between the large courthouse and larger jail made Tahireh’s skin crawl. Frost glittered in the darkest shadows. Dressed in a white clinician’s coat and pants with a long tan trench coat over both, her head and hair covered in a white and checkered burqa and a wide moustache tickling her nose and mouth, she looked male, Arab and professionally medical. Her hands, clutching a thin leather portfolio briefcase, were in thick camelhair lined gloves, for which she was very thankful because she’d been waiting almost twenty minutes.
Suddenly a wheezy voice behind her commanded, “Step back.”
She sidled backwards into the darkest icy shadow of the alley. “Are you…?”
“Shhh. Take these,” and a pudgy fellow an inch shorter than she, opened a wide metal case and from the upper section pulled out a se
aled plastic baggie containing papers. He shut the case and from the baggie handed her a pocket protector, pens, a clip-on identification card with a blurry photo of her as a man minus the moustache, several files which she put in her thin briefcase, and a clipboard with a short stack of official, filled-in forms attached.
She read the ID card: Sami Aql-Hadi. “I’ve had so many names this month, what’s one more!”
“Shhhh.” Mr. Granfa was sweating, in this terribly cold air, the man was sweating. “You must memorize how this will work,” he insisted, “you must follow every direction I give you without question.” As the man explained, Tahireh felt herself grow numb. Her brain would not register his words. All she could think of was how much she wanted Shamsi Granfa to see Dr. Legesse. Surely the man was diabetic and didn’t know it. Surely… “Can you do all I have said?” he concluded.
Tongue-tied, Tahireh, alias Sami Aql-Hadi nodded.
“I believe you can. I have heard of your bravery.” Shamsi smiled, satisfied.
“How long have you been doing…this?” Tahireh managed to squeak.
“The business? About three years. It is very profitable.” He smiled.
She grimaced. “I imagine it is.”
“We should go in.” He stepped ahead of her. Over his shoulder he said, “The rescues I only began six months ago, by accident. A fortuitous accident.”
They were starting up the steps.
“Oh?”
“Shhhh.”
Sami Aql-Hadi shed any hint of Tahireh Ibrahim and took up the assigned role. She had become assistant to a man whose profession gave him access to anywhere he chose to be, anywhere the to-be or freshly dead could be found. He had complete, total omnipotence over anyone whose life hung on the fate of these poor souls.
Into the courthouse they went and were immediately saluted by one of the guards that phalanxed the lobby. “The third interview room,” said the man sotto voce and Shamsi nodded, motioning to Tahireh to follow as he hustled down a long flight of steps. It became more and more drear. That such morbid dampness could exist in the middle of a desert could only be due to the sheer volume of human excreta permeating everything. Centuries of human sweat and urine and shit and vomit and blood and the undeniable stench of fear. Tahireh choked and Shamsi grabbed her arm. “Not here, don’t throw up here. Keep it down. It becomes much worse.”