The Sea and the Sand

by Finn Óg

  “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.”

  “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 wh
at 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 worry 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.

  “Pier-haps in past,” Waleed grunted, which Sam took as a reference to his vintage.

  “Not army, though.”

  “Intelligence?”

  “No,” said Sam firmly.

  Waleed sat quietly for a while. “Sailor.” He nodded to himself knowing he had put the jigsaw of Sam’s previous conversation together.

  Sam said nothing.

  “Special sailor, pier-haps.” The name of a unit was on the tip of Waleed’s tongue, but it just wouldn’t roll off.

  He was quiet for a while and Sam had no intention of jumping in.

  “You said I could help you,” said Sam, happy to divert the flow of conversation. “What can I help you with?”

  Waleed took a deep breath as if preparing to tell an irritating story. “I have prisoner. He is idiot.”

  Sam laughed aloud.

  “He is also dangerous. He is corruption but was not always. He is involve-ed.”

  “Involved in what?”

  “People traffick,” said Waleed, as if that much ought to have been clear to Sam by now.

  This sounded like good news.

  “He is also police officer.”

  “Right,” said Sam, slightly surprised.

  “I am not knowing what to do with him,” said Waleed, as if confessing a weakness to Sam. “He is too stupid to organ-ise. But he has boss – also police. Bad, bad man.”

  “Ok,” said Sam, “and how do you think I can help you with this man?”

  “I think-ed he can hel-ep you.”

  “How?”

  “Am think he can hel-ep you find traffick gang.”

  “That sounds like a hell of a reach,” said Sam. “I’m not looking for any old people trafficker, I’m looking for one particular man.”

  Waleed turned and smiled.

  “This is strange, Sam Ireland. I am think we are look for same man.”

  Twenty Two

  “Your boyfriend’s a dickhead,” Áine seethed as she came in the door from work.

  Sinead had arrived at the flat they shared just ahead of her.

  “What?”

  “Sam. He’s landed us right in it again.”

  “What’re you talking about? Have you been speaking to him? And by the bloody way – he’s not my boyfriend,” she said with unusual force before softening. “Is he ok?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine. It’s me you should be worried about.”

  “Why? Will ye tell me what’s happened?”

  “I’ve been sacked,” Áine said.

  “What?”

  “And hacked. Sacked and hacked. Well, hacked first, sacked after that.”

  “Áine, for the love of—will you just calm down and tell me what’s after happening?”

  Áine accepted she was making no sense, bailed into their sole sofa and began a measured rant. “So I get in from lunch and plug-in at my workstation and the whole fucking system is going cracked. Someone had proxied into my terminal and was raping the whole network.”

  “Well, that’s a security issue, isn’t it?”

  Sinead knew very little about tech firms but Áine had been headhunted half a dozen times by the bluest, chippiest firms in Dublin, so she imagined their firewalls, or whatever, would be
fairly robust.

  “Eh, duh,” said Áine, still seething.

  “Don’t do that.”

  Very little really annoyed Sinead, but that expression made her mad. Áine relented a little.

  “I plugged my laptop into the network to help your … colleague?”

  “Colleague is grand.”

  “And I started trying to ping that phone again – the one that went dark in Egypt.”

  “Right,” said Sinead, not understanding what all this had to do with anything.

  “Then I went to get a blaa.”

  “Thought you were off white bread.”

  “What the actual fuck?”

  “Sorry, but it was you who brought up your lunch.”

  “I nearly did get sick when I got back. The whole system was compromised, not just my personal laptop.”

  “And you think it’s something to do with looking for this phone? For Sam?”

  “I don’t think it, sis, I know it. Our head of information security shut down the network – which is a major fucking call for an organisation like ours. It was down for one hundred and forty minutes. Nobody could do any work. Do you know how much that costs?”

  “How much?”

  “Fuck, Sinead, I don’t know how much but it’s a hell of a bloody lot, alright?”

  “Alright,” said Sinead, hands up at the onslaught.

  “And the security team analyse what the source of the information attack was – and guess where they land?”

  “At your laptop.”

  “At what I was looking for on my laptop – which was a phone – in a desert – in Egypt, for your bloody—”

  “He’s not my fucking boyfriend!” Sinead all but screamed.

  That shocked Áine. Sinead’s mouth was over ninety per cent cleaner than her sister’s, so such outbursts tended to have a silencing quality.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Who would have wanted to know about this?” Sinead tried to bring her own temperature down.

  “They say it’s at, like, government level.”

  “What? Serious?”

  “Serious.”