Sheik's Rescue

by Ryshia Kennie

  “The employee the administrator referred me to is particularly knowledgeable about the earlier cases, those that aren’t online,” Zafir said.

  She followed him as he turned to face the entrance. Like the rest of the outside, here the facade of age masked the modernized core of the psychiatric hospital.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “You don’t like hospitals. I’ve read your file, Jade. I know it wasn’t a good way to lose a parent.”

  “We’ve both had bad experiences. It was a long time ago. I’m fine, really,” she said. She was shocked that he knew that much about her, that he cared enough to check it out and mention it, to make sure she was all right now.

  “Then let’s go,” he said as he led the way through the doors where inside, they were overwhelmed by the liberal scent of disinfectant.

  “The older section is no longer used, and there’s a new area dedicated to psychiatric beds,” Zafir said.

  “Interesting,” she replied.

  “Is it?”

  She stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “That it has no relevance to the case. I was only making conversation.”

  His phone buzzed. “Wait,” he said to Jade and took the call. A minute later he disconnected from their Marrakech office with a troubled expression. “Seems the bank records for Fayad el Eloua are looking grim.”

  “Broke?”

  “Pretty much. Unless he’s hiding it elsewhere there’s not much left.”

  “That could change everything.” She took in her surroundings. “Or so could this.”

  They approached the receptionist, who passed them on to another employee, who then passed them off to a young woman in a white lab coat.

  Jade was intrigued as they walked briskly through a gleaming off-white corridor. It was as if they’d been dropped from archaic to modern in the space of seconds. The sleek lines of the updated area seemed to clash with the ancient brick and stone of the exterior they’d just seen.

  “Even upgraded, it isn’t very inviting,” Jade whispered.

  They stopped at an elevator. Jade crossed her arms and warded off a shiver.

  “You’ll find Omar on the basement floor in the southwest corner. He’s our longest standing employee and considers himself our unofficial archivist,” their guide said in Arabic. “Actually, we all do. He has more information stored in his head than we have in the records room,” she said with a light laugh before turning to leave.

  Zafir repeated the information in English to Jade.

  “This is a problem, isn’t it? Me not speaking the language.”

  “Let’s hope we’re not here long enough for it to be a problem,” he said as the elevator doors shut. “Although there are many people who speak English or French, as well.”

  The elevator doors opened, and the musty smell of basement met them. Jade wrinkled her nose. For a second it felt like the past had wrapped a shroud around them. As they stepped out into the hallway, it was clear that the modernization had stopped in the basement. While the concrete walls had been painted white, the tile on the floor looked well worn. A battered gurney was against one wall as if it had been forgotten there and an exit sign glowed red at the end of an endless length of hall. They turned away from the sign and down the corridor in the opposite direction. Light filtered from a doorway and lifted some of the gloom. Just ahead of them a thin man stepped out of the shadows.

  “Are you Omar?” Zafir asked and at the man’s nod, he said, “Zafir Al-Nassar and this is Jade Van Everett.”

  Jade was surprised at how young he appeared. The only sign of the fifty years they’d been told that he’d worked here was his graying hair and a rather stooped posture, as if he’d sat at a desk too long. Although, she knew that wasn’t the case as they’d been told that the majority of his work experience had been menial.

  They both shook his hand, and he ushered them into a large room that was filled floor to ceiling with steel shelving holding boxes of files.

  “Most of this has yet to be put online,” he said with a wave of his arm. “You asked about Chasi el Eloua. He was committed a long time ago. But I’ll never forget that case. It was the worst I’d seen at the time. Everyone talked about it.”

  “Worst?” Jade asked. “How?”

  “He was violent, so violent. He had no empathy for anyone or anything. He didn’t try to hide it, either. I’d never seen a patient like him. What the family told us was terrible. But here, it seemed to get worse. You couldn’t turn your back on him. He broke an orderly’s arm and hospitalized an aide the first week he was here. In fact, for his first months he was locked up in solitary confinement and, because of similar violence, off and on over the years that followed.”

  He shuffled through a box of papers and then turned around, scanning the room as if he’d lost his train of thought.

  “You said you had proof of his death?” Jade interrupted.

  He nodded. “He committed suicide, but not before threatening the lives of two staff members and fatally wounding two of the other patients. He partially beheaded one of them. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “How?” Jade asked, horrified at what she was hearing.

  He shook his head. “Somehow he managed to escape his cell. Then he stole a carving knife from the kitchen. It took three of us to get control of the situation.” He shook his head. “I was one of them. We weren’t able to stop him from jumping from the fifth-floor window.”

  “You’re sure he died?” Zafir asked. “That it was him?”

  “No doubt,” the man said. “I’ve had a lot of positions in my time. Then, I was in charge of removing the body and cleaning the cobblestones after.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t an uncommon chore.”

  He looked at each of them. “I’m sorry, that must seem harsh. Anyway, I was here when his father came to identify him.” He looked at both of them. “There was no doubt that he was dead. As far as the legal registration, I don’t know what happened there. It isn’t a first, though, at least back then. So it doesn’t surprise me. But one thing I can guarantee is that he was and is dead. A sad ending, but then maybe it was for the best.” He handed them the chart. “See, it’s notated here as I’m sure administration told you.”

  Zafir looked at the notation, and then glanced at the notes that proceeded it. There wasn’t much there. In fact, what Omar had told them said so much more. “Date and time of death is here in the chart. That’s about it,” he said to Jade.

  “Did he ever get visitors? From family or anyone else?” he asked Omar a few minutes later.

  “Family, no, never. Except that one time for identification.” He paused. “He refused to see his family. No one came that I know of in the entire time he was here.”

  “Thank you,” Jade said as they shook hands and left.

  * * *

  THE VISIT TO the hospital had taken them less than an hour. Still, it was a relief to be away from the dank smell of the basement and the haunting remnants of lives destroyed by illness and outdated ideas about treatment.

  Jade took deep breaths, as if that would remind her of life and hope. The hospital basement, the story of Chasi’s sad ending, was haunting. It was impossible to forget that nightmare and it made her consider briefly what other horrific stories might be contained within that hospital.

  “Stanley’s cousin Fayad el Eloua is in financial straits and conveniently, he inherits if Stanley is out of the picture,” she said as they walked. “I don’t like the sounds of this.” They crossed a narrow street and turned right, entering the medina, where it was mostly only pedestrian traffic; the streets were walled in and narrow. The buildings crowded close where the walls didn’t. As they neared the souk, the street became more congested. Merchants and goods crowded on both sides.
Tourist trinkets and local goods wove together as one shop seemed to merge into the next.

  “Fayad might still believe that his uncle is dead. Information to the contrary hasn’t gotten out yet, but I’m betting that if he doesn’t know about Mohammed’s death, he will soon,” she said. “That means he will know that Stanley is alive. And he can track him here.”

  “I think from here on in we don’t let Stan out of our sight.”

  “I agree,” she said as she strode beside him.

  “Talib just texted,” Zafir told her. “They’re waiting for us. We’ll helicopter in to Rabat.”

  They walked the remaining block to the heart of the souk in easy silence. Although Jade found that her mind kept going back to the grim hospital basement and Chasi’s last moments. They were a distraction. But the thoughts were soon driven away by the intoxicating scent of incense and spices. The warm scent of cinnamon laced through the sharp tang of cloves and the heavier scents of curry and turmeric. The noise of a multitude of voices and activity became an unidentifiable hum. As they got closer, the volume increased, and it was impossible to hear what each other was saying without shouting, so they walked in silence. The merchants had bordered the narrow street with their wares sprawled out in front of them, but now they entered an area crowded with both tourists and locals. Vendors and their goods lined one stall against another. There was motion and color and noise wherever they looked. Colorful robes hung from one stall, a brilliant display of scarves hung from a second and souvenir T-shirts at another. Barrels of spices were lined up in the next. A woman called to them, motioning them to come to her stall, to check out the red-hued pottery that was spread out in front of her. Across from her, another pottery seller also called to them. Her pottery hung from hooks, pitchers in vibrant colors and pots around her feet. A man in a beige-and-white-striped djellaba guided a donkey with woven baskets that bulged with red and yellow cloth. The merchants were crowded into the narrow space, many dressed traditionally, a few in modern attire. For a moment the smell of manure wove through the rich scent of spice, and oddly wasn’t off-putting. She stepped sideways, dodging a donkey’s fresh leavings.

  “We’re meeting Talib at the Spice Haven. It’s owned by a friend of the family. The shop is another block from here,” Zafir said.

  A few minutes later, a woman pushed between them. Jade was jostled from the other side and turned to catch up with Zafir. In that moment they were separated by a man leading a pair of donkeys and a group of women who pushed ahead of the man and his animals.

  A sinewy arm wrapped around her waist and yanked her backward. She was slammed back against someone. She couldn’t see behind her. She could only hear rough breathing as she was dragged backward, to the edges of the crowd.

  Just like that, she was pulled out of the main corridor of traffic and into the fringes. Here, transactions were made, of people, goods, animals, that went on unseen every day, in the shadows. Here, kidnapping and murder would slip by unnoticed. She had to get away. She needed a distraction. More than likely, she would have only one chance. She didn’t fight. She wanted to let her captor think she was resigned, passive. She had a glimpse of Zafir twenty feet ahead of her. He was boxed in in the midst of the crowd.

  A heavy hand clapped over her mouth, jarring her teeth against her lips. She took a breath, smelled stale sweat and without hesitation sank her teeth deep into the sweaty flesh. At the same time, she brought her heel down on his instep, her hiking boot slamming as hard as it could into the soft cloth of a sneaker. Luck was on her side. She broke free as her attacker cursed and eased his hold.

  Through the crowd she looked sideways and could still see glimpses of Zafir. It was doubtful that he could see her, she was blocked by her captor. There was no time to contemplate that or anything else. To do so would be to lose the edge she now had. It was act now or never. She pulled her gun all the while knowing that she wouldn’t use it in such a crowd except as a desperate measure, but her attacker didn’t have to know that. She looked into his rheumy brown eyes and saw the disconnect she saw in many killers. This man saw her as nothing of value, as a thing, something to be removed in whatever fashion it took.

  “You won’t kill me,” he snarled.

  A shout just to her left. She was distracted for a split second, but that was all it took. He grabbed her left arm. She couldn’t free it; instead she swung with her right, the one holding her Colt. She slammed the butt of the pistol against his temple. His grip loosened. Suddenly, she was completely free and her attacker was yanked off his feet. Zafir had one of the man’s arms twisted behind his back. His other arm was crushing his windpipe. He looked over the man’s shoulder, looking straight at her as if she was all that mattered, as if a filthy man with murderous intent did not stand between them.

  “You’re all right?”

  She nodded. “Let’s get him contained,” she said as she pulled out a set of handcuffs.

  Their captive cursed in Arabic.

  Zafir answered him in Arabic.

  “He wished me an unpleasant death, in not quite those terms,” Zafir told her. He didn’t say what he’d said in reply. She imagined it hadn’t been friendly.

  She snapped the cuff on the man’s thick yet sinewy wrist. He spat, his dark hair glistening with grease, the scent of sweat clashing with the exotic smells that had been so enticing earlier, and the combination made her stomach curl.

  “Over there.” She pointed six feet to her left where there was a metal flagpole, held upright by a block of cement.

  Zafir dragged the man with his arm tight around his neck. Her attacker didn’t have a choice—either cooperate or choke. At the flagpole, he glared at her.

  Jade gave the cuff on one wrist a hard yank. The man pulled back, refusing to get close enough to have the cuff close on the pole. Zafir was about to step in when she took their captive’s legs out from under him with a hard kick to the back of his knee. He fell as she snapped the cuff onto the pole.

  “Who hired you?” she demanded.

  He spat. An expletive that was clear in any language followed. But he refused to look at her.

  She lowered her gun, aiming for his crotch. “Five seconds.” She warned. “One...”

  “I wouldn’t push her,” Zafir said as he moved beside her.

  She didn’t take her eyes off the greasy character in front of her. He was a classic criminal for hire, not above doing anything sleazy, not smart enough to come up with the crime himself but more than willing to collect money for any number of acts. He glared at her, his thin lips tight with disdain.

  “Three.”

  “Fayad el Eloua.”

  “Where is he?” she asked. “This time I’m not going to count.” She brought the gun a few inches lower, a few inches closer.

  He placed his hands over his crotch as if that would somehow make him bulletproof.

  Behind her, Zafir chuckled. “I wouldn’t want to be in your place,” he said, but his voice was low enough that Jade doubted the man had heard.

  “Where?” she repeated.

  “I don’t know,” he gritted. “I was supposed to meet him in Rabat in two days.”

  “Where?”

  He named a hotel in Rabat.

  She turned around.

  Zafir was on his phone, but he nodded at her. She stepped away from their captive as Zafir ended the call.

  “The police will be around to release you,” he said as he disconnected. “Although I doubt there will be much releasing happening. Maybe a ride to the cell block.”

  The man snarled and cursed.

  Zafir looked at Jade. “We’ll have this trash picked up in no time.”

  A man began to clap, and a woman whistled as if they thought this was a play put on specifically for them.

  “Time’s running out,” Jade said to Zafir. “Let’s get mo
ving.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Security found a breach at the Marrakech Menara Airport,” Zafir said. “A mechanic alerted Fayad el Eloua of Stanley’s arrival. From there it was a series of informants marking our path all the way to the psychiatric hospital.”

  “He’s resourceful,” Jade said. “The question is, where is Fayad now?”

  “That’s what we don’t know. What I do know is we need to get Stan’s uncle out of there and keep both him and Stan close until we get this man contained.”

  They were standing on the edge of his family’s compound in Marrakech. In another circumstance, Jade would have been in awe. The grounds were massive; behind them an infinity pool stretched, seeming to touch the distant edges of the mansion that was the family home. As it was she only noted the details and focused on the helicopter that would take them to Rabat, where they could make sure that Stanley’s uncle would live out his remaining years.

  They took off ten minutes later from the Al-Nassar compound. Zafir flew them in while Talib took the copilot seat. If anything went wrong, it was agreed that Talib would be getting Stanley and his uncle out.

  Nothing would go wrong, Jade thought. She clenched her hands in her lap. And even as she thought that and glanced at Stanley to make sure he was okay, she knew that they couldn’t assume anything. They didn’t know where Fayad el Eloua was. He’d rented a rattrap apartment in one of the poorer areas of Rabat. Whether or not he was there now, they had no idea. The first priority was securing Stanley and his uncle.

  No one was saying much. Everything that could be said, at least in front of Stanley, had been said. Instead, Jade watched Zafir’s easy maneuvering of the aircraft. It didn’t surprise her that he was an accomplished pilot. She wondered if there was anything that he wasn’t accomplished at.

  “Stint in the Moroccan air force,” he said, glancing back at her, answering her unasked question.

  “I didn’t ask,” she said with a laugh.

  “But you thought it,” he replied as he steered the helicopter into a turn, dipping it slightly to the right. “Even without that, I probably would have acquired my license. It’s kind of the family path. Each of us learns to fly and joins the business.”