by Jay Deb
“How come you were so early?” Rosania asked.
“I was hoping you would be too.” He smiled and sat up. “And we could spend more time getting to know each other.”
Rosania had to give it to him, he was charming.
“How is your uncle?” Raafiq asked.
“What?”
“Your uncle. How is he?”
“Oh.” Rosania was caught off guard. “He’s fine.”
The bartender brought her wine.
“Uh-huh,” he said and threw a piercing look at her. She wondered how much he knew about her. She was told Raafiq was being followed and his calls monitored, and she would be informed anytime something significant happened. But just months before, her trainer had said, “When you are on a job, be alert and never relax. You have only one protector – yourself.”
She knew that she was dealing with a dangerous man, and her life was in danger every minute she spent with him.
In the bar, an hour passed by easily. She was working on her second glass of wine, and Raafiq had downed two glasses of Chardonnay and a shot of whisky. His eyes were red from drinking and smoking.
“I have paintings worth five million bucks in my flat,” Raafiq said in a drunken voice.
Her eyes popped. “You must have a lot of money. Where do you keep it? I mean, which bank?” She instantly knew that was a bad question to ask. It was not a piece of information he was likely to give up easily. Finding the terrorist money trail was one of the top goals for the agency.
Raafiq moved his fingers, asking her to come closer, and she complied. She leaned forward and turned her face to put her ear close to his mouth, and then it happened. Her glass toppled, and her leather skirt got wet. Instinctively she stood up.
“I’m so sorry,” he said and stood up.
She looked at her ruined clothes and rushed to the bathroom. As soon as she reached the bathroom door, she realized she had left her purse on the table. She ran back and was relieved to see the leather bag undisturbed. She glanced at Raafiq, looking for a hint as to whether he had searched her purse. But the man’s face was emotionless like a stone.
She took her purse and headed back to the bathroom. She cleaned up the wine as much as she could. But it was hard to return the wet leather to its shine.
Fuck, if you don’t want to tell me the bank name, just say so. God! Don’t fucking ruin my expensive leather skirt.
She opened her leather purse. There was no sign of invasion. Under the real lipstick case, the fake one with a built-in camera lay there. A Swiss knife and pepper spray lay under carefully placed receipts. She opened the first chamber. Inside there was a needle, a syringe, a plunger, and a small pouch with the crushed tranquilizer.
She had practiced twice that morning how to put ten milliliters of the liquid and the powder into the syringe, and then plunge it into a pillow – all with just one hand.
She closed her purse and walked back to her table.
Raafiq apologized again and asked her if she would like to visit his flat.
She thought for a moment. She wanted to finish the work as well. “Okay, let’s go,” she said.
RAAFIQ ROSE, AND she followed him from the bar. They came out of the building together and stood on the cobblestoned curbside. Traffic was almost nonexistent. She checked her watch – it was twenty minutes past midnight.
A yellow cab came from nowhere and screeched to a halt at Raafiq’s feet. Without saying anything, Raafiq opened the rear door and got in. As he entered the cab, his white T-shirt moved up a few inches, and she saw it. The pistol was tucked into the waistband of his jeans. She felt a shiver up her legs, the legs that were already moving inside the cab. You are your only protector.
The cab took barely five minutes to reach his flat. Raafiq threw a few euros at the young cabbie.
The building was seven or eight stories high. The next building was taller, maybe twenty stories.
Raafiq opened the iron-gate and held it open for Rosania. Her scarf ruffled in the air, and the late night chill brought shivers back to her body.
Thoughts of death crossed her mind. She now regretted not bringing her Sig Sauer P228, a gun perfect for hiding in a purse. But she could not turn back now.
Raafiq skipped the elevator and headed for the stairs. While climbing, he lit another cigarette.
As he walked up, she followed and tried to spot his gun. It was hidden by his shirt, but now that she knew it was there, she could still see the outline through his clothes.
They ascended two flights of stairs to his door, right next to the stairwell. Inside the living room, there were four painting stands, one in front of the kitchen, one next to the sofa, and two more in the corners of the living room.
“Settle down.” He smiled, pointed to the sofa and went inside. He came back two minutes later wearing shorts and a blue sleeveless T-shirt.
“Wine?” he asked.
“No, I’m fine.” She was feeling tired, and more than that, she was tense. She felt just a tad relaxed as the gun certainly wasn’t with him anymore. “I had too much to drink already.”
Raafiq came back with a large glass of wine and a cigarette blazing between his lips. The man would certainly die from lung cancer or a failing liver, she was sure, if his enemies didn’t kill him sooner.
“Where are the five million dollars’ worth of paintings?” she asked.
“I will show you. Let me finish my drink first.” Raafiq sat close to her.
Raafiq stroked her shoulders a few times. She just sat there, watching every corner of the living area, taking in mental images. In one corner, a bunch of paintbrushes lay strewn. In another, there were four small bottles of oil paints.
After taking the last sip of his wine, he pointed to the bedroom and said, “Come inside.”
Rosania rose, the man must have hung the expensive paintings inside the bedroom. It was one a.m. already, but she wanted to finish the job and not have to come back another day.
She entered the bedroom. The walls were covered with paintings, hardly any empty space left visible on the wall. Some looked classy, some cheap.
He sat on the bed. “Why don’t you sit here?” He pointed to the space next to him.
Rosania sat down and asked, “All these paintings are worth five million in total?” She knew trading stolen paintings was another trade Raafiq was engaged in.
“More than that. But most are worth nothing. Look at this one.” Raafiq rose and pointed to a portrait of a woman standing next to a tree. “This is worth more than six hundred thousand euros. It was originally painted by a famous Dutch painter and has changed hands many times before falling into mine.”
“Wasn’t that reported stolen?”
Raafiq nodded and smiled at the same time. “And look at this one.” He pointed to another oil painting, where a man was kissing a woman and a child looked on. “I got it for a quarter of a million, but it will easily sell for a half mil now.”
“Do you consider yourself more of an art dealer than a painter?” Rosania asked. A thief is really a more appropriate word to describe you.
“I am both.” Raafiq came within inches of her and brushed her cheek with his fingers. “But painting is what I love. My work never reached the exhibitions. But that might change, if you become my model.”
Rosania felt uncomfortable with the way he said ‘my model.’ It sounded more like ‘my whore.’ She said nothing, looked at the floor, and swung her legs back and forth.
“Will you become my model?” Raafiq put his arms around her, pressed his body against her chest and kissed her on the cheek.
“Yes,” she said.
Raafiq continued kissing her. He moved to her forehead, neck, cheek and then her lips. As Raafiq pressed his lips against hers, a feeling of revulsion started growing inside her. She had to push him away as he started penetrating her mouth with his tongue.
Raafiq was all smiles. He stood up. “Let me take a shower, and then we will do some work tonight. Agreed?�
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“Okay.” Rosania felt happy at last as she saw Raafiq leave the room. It was like a big weight off her back. She had been watching and following Raafiq’s orders so far, and now it was time for her to act.
She waited till she heard the noise of the water gushing through the pipes. She rose and began her work. She had to find his bank statement or something that would tell her the source of his money.
Next to the bed, there was a plastic drawer with three compartments. She started with those. The first one had some receipts, a Rubik’s Cube and some glass balls. The second one was full of dried brushes, and in the bottom drawer, she found a plastic Ziploc pouch with white powder inside. She had no doubt about what that white powder was. Despite liberal French drug laws, that kind of volume would certainly put Raafiq in the slam for a few years. The third drawer was empty.
Nothing else interested her in the bedroom. She took a tiny device out of her purse and quickly stuck it behind the base of a phone that hung from the wall. It was a bug that would stick to any piece of iron, and its signals could be picked up by a receiver two hundred meters away. Her co-workers would just have to be within a short distance to listen to Raafiq’s conversations.
She moved to the living room and checked out the drawers of the coffee table, and then sifted through the books and magazines in the bookcase. Nothing of importance.
Get real, girl, who keeps their bank statements in the living room.
She went to the kitchen, skipped the drawers, and opened the first of the three cupboards – a few spice boxes lay there. She moved on to the next one and saw some stacked papers. She felt overjoyed, thinking she found what she was looking for.
But her enthusiasm dissipated immediately as she heard the bathroom door crack open. She turned around and saw Raafiq standing there, a white towel wrapped around his waist, a few beads of water still on his forehead, his hair looking wet.
“What are you doing there?” he asked with a suspicious look.
“I’m looking for a drink. My throat is dry, like a piece of wood,” she quipped. “And you have been so rude; you haven’t even offered me a drink.”
“Actually I did, you refused.” Raafiq came close. His whole body was freckled with brown dots. Even after the bath, he smelled of tobacco. He grabbed her face and gave it a shake. “What do you want? Wine? Whisky?”
“Do you have any rum? You see, as the night gets darker, I like stronger drink.” She gave his ass a slap.
“You naughty girl. Of course I do. I keep everything here. Go back to bedroom. I will get your rum.”
She went back to the bedroom, sat on the bed, and patiently waited. Raafiq walked in after a minute, with two glasses in his hand. The towel was gone, and he was now wearing a tiny pair of European-style shorts, and he was naked from the waist up. His Adam’s apple looked bigger than before.
She took her glass and started drinking, pretending to enjoy it.
Raafiq sat next to her and started kissing her; his hands moved across her body, and she let him do it – she had to. She placed her glass on the corner table, right next to her purse.
Raafiq placed his glass on the floor and then gently laid her on the bed. He took her scarf off, then her top, and then her bra. He kissed her nipple.
She closed her eyes and lay still as Raafiq slowly unzipped her skirt and pulled it down. She felt something was stuck in her throat when he took her panties off, leaving her naked on the edge of the bed. She felt as if her heart was being crushed and her lungs had been run over by a hundred-ton truck.
Raafiq mounted her, and soon the back and forth motion started.
A few minutes later, Raafiq slid off her, and Rosania pushed him away and sat up. She glanced at Raafiq, who was almost dozing, picked up her clothes, purse, and Raafiq’s drink and headed for the bathroom. She cleaned herself and then took out the pouch from her purse and poured the tranquilizer in Raafiq’s drink. She watched the powder mix in the drink without any shaking, and it didn’t even leave a residue. She checked herself in the mirror and then headed back to the bedroom.
He was still lying on the bed, his eyes looked tired, and he was still naked.
She dangled the glass in front of him. “I took your glass, thinking it was mine. Now come, finish this drink; be a man! Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t we have a lot of work to do tonight?”
Raafiq grudgingly sat up, took the glass and drank.
A few minutes later, Raafiq lay on the bed, unconscious. Rosania went back to the kitchen and pulled out the papers from the cupboard. They looked like bank statements. She took out her lipstick camera and quickly took pictures of the documents and put the papers back where they were, and then she headed back to the bedroom.
Raafiq was sleeping like a goat. Rosania felt an urge to kick him in the chest but decided not to. It might have woken him up and ruined her mission. She walked around the flat one more time and came back to the bedroom. To her, it looked like Raafiq was not breathing.
She became scared and called Andy. “I think I killed the guy.”
“That stuff we gave you cannot kill anyone,” Andy said in his usual confident voice.
“But I think he isn’t breathing.”
“Check his pulse.”
Rosania went back to Raafiq and felt his wrist. Indeed, his heart was beating. “I think he’ll live,” she said into the phone. “I’ve placed the bug and have taken pictures of his bank statements. Now send someone to take me back to the house.”
“Okay, don’t worry. We will be there in two minutes. We’ll text you once we reach his place. Okay?”
She was picked up by Andy at two a.m. when most of Paris was sleeping. The car raced through empty streets.
“Good job, Rosania.” Andy took his hand off the steering wheel and patted her shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”
She said nothing.
Chapter 18
The light inside the Arabian restaurant was dim; diners spoke in low voices. Hindi music could be heard, but it seemed as if it was coming from a far-off place.
The white-dressed maître d’ escorted Doerr to a corner table with two chairs. He ordered some red wine and started taking a mental image of the people eating their dinner. He saw a man chide his much younger wife, and the woman wiped her tears with the corner of her niqab.
A few minutes later, Rosania appeared, dressed in a long skirt that almost touched her toes. She said something to the maître d’, and he took her to the table where Doerr was seated. Doerr was expecting her. Lazarus had told him that Rosania would be his partner in the operation to locate Halim. Lazarus had told him that she was an able, intelligent and astute field officer. But Doerr didn’t need to be told.
This was not the first time Doerr had worked with her. Five years ago, she had been his partner in an operation to trap and take out a Russian agent in Belgium.
She took a seat, and a few seconds later, a white-tunic-clad waiter took Rosania’s order of a glass of soda.
After the waiter left, she said to Doerr, “It is nice to see you after such a long time.”
“I’m glad to see you, as well.” Doerr leaned forward with the glass in his hand. “How have you been? I’ve heard a lot about your recent triumphs.”
“I’m pretty good.” She took the napkin from the table and spread it on her lap. “Though I haven’t heard any of your triumphs lately. How come?”
“I was doing news editing.”
“Don’t tell me the agency pays you to do that sort of work.”
“Actually, I wasn’t with the agency for some time, and I took a job with a newspaper in New York.”
“Really?” Rosania said. The white-tunic-clad waiter came back with Rosania’s soda and asked if they were ready to order dinner. Doerr and Rosania ordered their food, and the waiter left.
“Which newspaper did you work for?” she asked.
“Why don’t we talk about that another day? I see you speak English much better now.”
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�I did some work in London.”
“Good for you. What did you do there?”
“Why don’t we talk about it later?” She threw Doerr’s exact words back to him and smiled. “Tell me about what we are about to do.”
The waiter brought Doerr’s chicken biryani and Rosania’s goat shish kabobs and placed them on the table. The aroma of the Middle Eastern spicy food filled the air.
“Let’s eat dinner first.” Doerr eyed the food. “Then we will walk and talk work. Someone might be eavesdropping here, you never know.”
She nodded, and they got busy with their food.
Forty minutes later, Doerr paid for the dinner with his card and walked out of the restaurant. Rosania followed him. They sauntered toward the taxi place, about three hundred feet away from the restaurant. Doerr took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a drag.
“Let’s talk about work,” Doerr said. “We got a lead on one of Halim’s right-hand men. His name is Ahmad. He goes to a bar that we have marked up. Now you will go there and entice him to a hotel. And don’t forget to put on a man’s dress before you go in.”
“How did you get the lead? Did someone provide that to you?”
“No.” Doerr glanced at her. “I had to do some work to get it.”
“What did you do exactly?”
“How shall I say – I spent nights without sleep, and I had to visit some corners of this city that many of its inhabitants have never visited. I spoke to over a hundred people. Made false promises to many of them, spent three hundred thousand dollars of American taxpayers’ money, bribing officials, and I got the name of this man – Ahmad. I got many other names, but I think this is our guy. We have to be extremely careful since he is our only solid lead to Halim right now.”
“Why don’t we get Kassem to apprehend this Ahmad guy?” Rosania asked. “Once he is caught, we go in and ask all our questions.”
“Well, there are some problems with that. This Kassem guy may be good on certain things, but he’s pretty much a paranoid son-of-a-bitch. You should see what he has done to some of the people he has in jail, without a charge or evidence. Two of the prisoners will die soon if they are not taken to the hospital. One man is almost paralyzed. When you do that, you get lies from them, not truth. And the other thing is if Kassem picks up Ahmad, with Halim’s money and reach, Ahmad might flee and simply vanish.” Doerr looked straight into Rosania’s eyes. “Some stuff we just have to do ourselves.”