by Finn Óg
Alea did as she was told without histrionics. She gently rose from her seat and backed down the ladder into the cabin. She glanced briefly at Sam before she turned, a soft look with her big brown eyes, the tiniest hint of an apology.
“It was the Englishman,” said the first man – the foreman of the informers.
The second man nodded his head in agreement at his back.
“The Englishman,” repeated Habid, flat and without conviction, his tone designed to convey his scepticism.
“It must have been.”
“Why? Why would an Englishman turn you in to Gaddafi if he was getting information from you?”
“The Englishman was different to the Americans. He was – he was silent, almost always.”
The second man nodded. “He asked questions only when the Americans were finished. Very few questions – sometimes none at all. He just … he just watched.”
“Yes,” said the foreman, “he never took notes. He just stood, back to the wall, in the dark sometimes. We could hear his voice sometimes, but mostly we could barely see him.”
“I still don’t understand why you think he was the person that betrayed you to Gaddafi.”
“It is complicated,” said the foreman.
“You think I am incapable of understanding?” Habid bristled, leading to an appeal from the second man.
“No, no, no, please do not think that.” He stood up in the cell.
Habid felt the power coast through him – their liberty was within his gift.
“My friend was just explaining that there was a lot happening back then.”
“When?” Habid’s eyes moved to the foreman.
“When Tunisia began to explode.”
“The revolution? What has that got to do with your betrayal?”
“I believe there was a plan. The British wanted to keep Gaddafi in power but the Americans wanted him gone.”
“Why?”
“The Englishman must have been from British Intelligence. The Americans must have been CIA—”
“I had managed to work that much out by myself, thank you,” said Habid.
“Yes, of course. The CIA wanted to know where the Gaddafi targets were – his home place in Sirte, his bunkers and compounds. They wanted to take him out.”
“Is that not what the Englishman wanted?”
“I don’t think so. I think he wanted information only about people in the regime. He wanted to know who liked who, what alliances there were. He did not care about locations. He wanted to know what would happen if Gaddafi was killed not when Gaddafi was killed. I think he wanted Gaddafi to stay, to be alive. I think the Englishman was one of Gaddafi’s allies.”
Habid thought for a while. “What do you mean, allies?”
“Ever since UBL destroyed the Twin Towers, the attitude has changed. America and Britain saw Gaddafi as a friend in the fight against extremists.”
“Gaddafi hates the Islamics.” Habid nodded.
“They tried to overthrow him many times. He defeated them always, and they ran to all parts of the world, but the Americans became more afraid of them than Gaddafi, so they turned to the leader for information on the militants.”
“I see,” said Habid, not sure that he saw at all.
“So Britain, especially Britain, started to rub Gaddafi’s back. They asked him for help and he gave them it – they got their information. Then when they found the Islamics in different parts of the world, they sent them to Gaddafi for interrogation.”
“Because they don’t torture people – the CIA?” scoffed Habid.
“The British. They do not like to be seen to torture. They cannot be seen to torture, so Libya does it for them – they get the information.”
“I still do not see why you think the Englishman told Gaddafi you were informers?”
“I think he wanted to offer them a reward for the information they passed on about the Islamics. And it also meant we would be taken out of the way – that there would be no evidence.”
“And then you were arrested?”
“Yes.”
“But Britain and America both still bombed Libya? They did that together. If Britain wanted Gaddafi to survive, why would they join the CIA and bomb our country?”
The foreman shook his head in despair. The second man appeared behind him and spoke.
“Just because a president and a prime minister want something does not mean that their intelligence chiefs want the same thing. Just look at us.”
“You were Gaddafi’s intelligence chiefs,” sneered Habid, shaking his head. “Slim pickings.”
The second man said nothing.
The foreman took up the narrative. “The Spring was too well-advanced. They could see that Gaddafi might lose, so they took away evidence – they removed the risk. They threw us to the dogs to die so that we could not tell the world what they had done.”
Habid was more confused than ever.
“What exactly had you done?” he asked, trying to remember what he had read in the papers. “Given them a few coordinates for aerial bombings?”
“Oh, no,” said the second man, “we gave them the information to bring Gaddafi in from the cold. We were the people who brokered the deal to pay-off the victims of Lockerbie, to end arms smuggling, to make the leader acceptable to the West again.”
Habid nodded slowly. He could see why the Americans and British might have cast them adrift. Which got him thinking, nobody liked loose ends. Least of all him.
“I thought you were a part,” said Alea.
“Apart from what?” snapped Sam, eight hours later, cold and no less pissed off.
“A part of route.” She pronounced route as rowt, as if she’d been watching American TV.
The kids were in their cabin. Alea had cooked, or more correctly heated some unidentified carbohydrate with wet meat from a can. Sam had inhaled it.
“Look, Alea, you’re going to have to spell this out for me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sam was in no mood for another barney. The swell was building to the point that autopilot was a poor option, which meant that someone had to sail the boat through the heaving sea.
“I thought you waiting for us. When we were in sea.”
“When we rescued you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you are coming from nowhere,” her voice rose in justification. “Like man is waiting for you to arrive-ed.”
“What man?”
“Man we pay for journey. Trafficking man. Man who was on this boat.”
“Why would you think that?” Sam couldn’t follow her logic.
“Was long time we are in boat. Many days.”
“I understand that bit.”
“The man, he keep checking time,” she said, motioning to her wrist. “He is waiting.”
“What for?”
“For you, I think.”
“Why do you think that, Alea? I don’t understand.” Although it was beginning to dawn on him.
“When is dark, he move women and children to front of boat.”
“Ok,” said Sam, unsure.
“He sit back of boat with men.”
“How many men?”
“Two men.”
“So three men in total?”
“Yes, three men. Seven women and children.”
“Fuck,” said Sam, realising how many had perished.
“Yes.”
“But what has that got to do with me?”
“Captain of boat is fisherman. He can use engine. He can use ...” She pointed at the compass on the binnacle.
Sam nodded.
“He see your light.”
“Yes, our mast headlight,” said Sam, pointing upwards.
“This captain he jumping. Very, very happy. The traffick man get very cross. He tell captain sit down! Captain is shouting at light and then traffick man … he stab-bed captain.”
Sam was stunned. He stared at her but said nothing.
“He push captain into sea. Then he stab-bed my husband here.” Alea pointed to the side of her neck and began to shake. “I screaming, Sadiqah screaming. We very afraid.” The woman’s eyes filled with tears but she didn’t break down. She had something to say and she steeled herself to say it.
“What did he do then?” asked Sam, gently.
“He tell me, get bank papers from husband body.”
“Your husband had his bank statements on him?”
“To pay man when we get to Europe. Was deal. But he make me give passport and papers.”
Sam wasn’t interested in that. He was worried about what became of the other women.
“Then he women take off cloth-es.”
“You and Sadiqah?”
“No, other women. They take off full veil then he stab them dead.”
Alea was convulsing now. Sam thought she was about to be sick. He wanted to move towards her, but instinctively knew it would be the wrong thing to do. He let her continue as her sobs grew louder.
“Sadiqah see everything. Everything.”
She placed her hand over her face and began to cry hard. Sam left her for a few minutes until the shudder abated.
“What did he do with the dead women?”
“They have papers. He take all papers and keep them inside his clothes in bag here.” She gestured at her torso. “Then he push into sea.”
Sam sat still for a long while waiting for her to recover.
“Did he push you into the sea?”
“No.”
Sam just waited, unable to press her any further.
Alea blew her nose and then looked at him. “He stab boat.” She began a sweeping motion as if she had a dagger.
“He let the air out before we were close?” Sam asked, surprised at the level of risk the man had taken.
“You were so close,” she said. “I could see you.”
“The boat must have sunk fast.”
“Air is all gone. The water so cold.” Alea began to cry again. “Sadiqah, she is panic, the sea in her mouth.”
“The man was in the sea – could he swim?”
“He has preserver,” she said, pointing to Isla’s buoyancy aid. “When in sea he says blow.” Her gesture was similar to that of an air hostess demonstrating how to use a whistle on a life jacket located under a seat.
“A whistle,” Sam said.
“Whistle,” she repeated. “Then you are in sea and Sadiqah is dying and you take us onto here.” She opened her hands.
“And you thought I was there by appointment?”
“Is what?”
“You thought I had come to collect you – to pick you up.”
“Of course.”
Sam knew there was a flaw in her reasoning but it took a while to work out what it was.
“Alea, why would the man let you live when he killed the others?”
“This I do not know.” She slowly shook her head, at a loss.
He realised she had thought about this but hadn’t worked it out. Sam tried to reason it out. “Well, what did he need most?”
“Money?” she shrugged.
“Money is no use if you are dead.”
“Safety?” she suggested.
“Rescued.”
“Rescue.” She nodded in agreement.
“So what’s the best way to get rescued when you’re not a migrant at all but actually a murderer and people trafficker?”
“Aintihal,” she said, hunting for the correct phrase. “Tazahar.”
Sam frowned.
“Make lie,” she tried.
“You pretend to be a woman,” Sam said.
“Pretend!” She seized the word. “Yes, he pretend.”
“But why? If it was for money, he had already taken your passports and bank statements.”
Alea thought about that for a while. “He need to say he is owner. At bank. He need to …” She rubbed her fingers together.
“Verify they are his?” Sam ventured. “Prove it?”
“Prove it.” She nodded in satisfaction.
“So he needed you to pretend that he is your husband.”
“Yes,” she said, then frowned. “But he take veil and dress as woman.” She was at a loss.
“Don’t you see?” Sam said.
Alea just looked at him.
“He didn’t know who was picking you out of the water. I reckon he just wanted to make sure he got to safety. Maybe he decided that a woman had a better chance of being rescued than a man.”
Alea shrugged as if it were a possibility. “Perhaps is simple. He want to get to Europe, then when he get he run away.”
“Maybe he realised that the veil would be lifted eventually – that someone would see he was a man, and then he would need a backup. Maybe the backup was that he was your husband. Maybe you were his passport to asylum. Single men are less likely to be granted asylum.”
“Maybe he need us for money from bank,” she said dryly.
He couldn’t fault her scepticism. “Yeah, could be,” he conceded. “Whatever it was it seems to have worked, in part at least, but I’ll tell you this for nothing, Alea – I had nothing to do with it.”
The tears cascaded down her face and she eventually began to nod. “I am sorry,” she said. “I am sorry, Sam.”
Sixteen
It felt peaceful to be back in the barren stone-strewn desert. Habid, his staff in hand and with a scarf wrapped tightly around his face, struck out for his hidey-hole halfway between Benghazi and Tobruk. He chose to travel on foot for the roadsides were riddled with rival tribes attempting to assert their authority. It was hard to imagine how but it had never been easier to get shot dead in Libya.
Habid couldn’t help congratulating himself. He’d retrieved the next batch of papers from his underwater hideaway and had them tucked safely into his belt. He’d selected the next group of travellers and would announce their names as if they’d won the lottery. They would emerge pale but grateful, their eyes batting in the sun – and they would do whatever he told them. There was nothing like a few months in a hole in the ground to instil discipline, even among those more accustomed to giving orders than receiving them.
He had held their feet to the fire from the moment he discovered them. Habid smiled at how clever his instincts had proven. Had he simply demanded a ransom for their release from that Benghazi jail, they would have known they were going to die and been unlikely to pay up. Anyone who chose to take that risk would part with money only once. Habid wanted security amid the madness into which his country was free-falling. He wanted repeat business, and the only way to get it was to supply a good service and receive recommendations so that others might present themselves for extraction. His wasn’t the sort profession one advertised on Facebook, so he had offered the prisoners something – a carrot to informers more familiar with a stick. It was something they couldn’t get anywhere else.
Hope.
Hope that they might one day live free again as the CIA had promised them but failed to provide. Hope in exchange for money that was useless amid their own detritus in the colon of a forgotten jail.
They were scared of everyone – of being caught by the militias, the tribes, Gaddafi loyalists, Egyptians, anyone. It made them subservient to Habid. He could ask them to strip naked and run barefoot over the rocky ground and they would do as they were bid.
Of course he had the expertise and the contacts – friends and colleagues at the border crossings who would let his little flock flow through. He knew how to pay enough but not too much. He knew to mix it up to prevent using the same checkpoint each time, which kept the border guards hungry for the little they got rather than cocky enough to ask for more. They too were glad of his business and eager to provide passage.
And it just got better and better. His deal with Tassels may have been forced upon him, and it was early days, but it was working well – so far. Months had passed since they’d first met and the dynamic between the two men had changed utterly. T
he few runs they had collaborated on had thrown up unexpected advantages – when Habid’s little caravans reached Egypt they were guaranteed a police escort, no less. Not official, not in uniform, but Tassels let everyone know he was a police officer and was there to help them. Habid delighted at the awe in which the flock held him when they heard that. They gazed upon Habid as if he were Moses leading them to safety across the sands.
And then in Alexandria they entered a bank and make the transfers. Habid always allowed them to make their calls to other exiles in Libya with enough cash to make a similar trip. Later, when he was sure the boats were in place and that Tassels was not about to stroke him, he extracted a sum of cash and shared it with the loathsome little cop. Placated, the jumpy Tassels then arranged to have him driven back to the border to begin all over again.
Yes, he mused as he struck out from Benghazi, it was a fine plan that refined like oil – added value and accumulated interest. And the best bit of all? Tassels was at his beck and call.
The weather forecast for the trip ahead was favourable – no storms, no floods. The desert was a dangerous place when the wind rose or the rain came. A person could end up swimming in the sands – drowning even. Most people refused to believe the speed at which rivers could be created from nothing but Habid had seen it many times. The gushing flow created by a downpour, the stones from the desert surface swept up -barrelling at shins and feet, wreaking damage, inspiring infection.
Habid looked at the stump of his own toe sticking out of his sandal like a beacon. The infection had passed but the pain hadn’t. He thought of Tassels and the deal they had reached. Then he thought of Big Suit and wondered where that thug had vanished to. And as his anger rose he again resolved to cut them out at the first opportunity – while causing them as much pain as possible.
Blind panic. It was a look similar to a first-time flyer’s face when their aircraft hits violent turbulence. Alea remained silent but her mouth was open and her eyes enormous as she stared askance at Sam pleading for confirmation they weren’t about to drown.
“This is how it will be for a few days,” he shouted. “It will be tough but we have to sail through it.”