The Ghost Runner

by Parker Bilal

  Everywhere was the smell of food. Kebabs sizzled over hot coals, beans bubbled away in fat cauldrons. A plump man broke off from stirring a mountain of pasta to ladle steaming hot sauce over pots of the stuff. Fires flickered here and there. The moving flame throwing a montage of dark shapes over the sheer cliffs surrounding them. The depression they were in was roughly divided up between the various items on offer. There were large sections for vehicles and arms – stalls selling every make of weapon and ammunition available in the world. Evidence, if it was ever needed, that the one thing man had perfected in thousands of years of evolution was the weapons he used to kill his fellow man with. If that wasn’t a sign of progress, thought Makana, what was? Potential customers pored over shiny automatic pistols and high-calibre rifles like connoisseurs. They were in the middle of the African continent. As far from the coast in any direction you cared to choose. Transport and portability were the keys to survival. Further over were white goods: refrigerators and washing machines, which seemed almost surreal in their domesticity. Beyond that were television sets as big as doors, air-conditioners, stereo systems, towers of loudspeakers blasting nomad rhythms to the stars. Were there homes that still dreamed of power supplies and happy families in clean clothes? Perhaps they represented a kind of ideal for these warriors. A market of utopian dreams? One day they would put down their weapons and plug in their appliances and life would be good. Whatever it was, Kalonsha was clearly beyond the reach of any kind of law and order. Beyond any known logic, thought Makana as he passed an aircraft jet engine with Chinese characters on it. Were they still in Egypt? He wasn’t sure. Sergeant Hamama’s presence seemed to provoke no signs of nervousness. Here his uniform was really just a variation on a theme. Everyone was wearing the clothes of one army or another. Gaddafi’s African Legion, the Interahamwe, along with a dozen other militias and scraps from the national armies of about ten countries.

  Sergeant Hamama decided to remove the handcuffs. In a place devoted to liberty, market and otherwise, and ruled by lawlessness, restraints might be considered a provocation. As he wandered along behind the sergeant, Makana could hear the enterprising salesmen promising delivery in any of a dozen cities on the edge of the Great Sand Sea.

  It was all so much like a dream that when Makana caught a glimpse of Daud Bulatt he was sure it was simply the product of his over-stimulated imagination. A half-seen silhouette. The distinctive shape of a man whose right arm was missing. Shadow and light swimming in and out of one another like two halves of a menacing dance, like snakes mating. His quarry disappeared, ducking into a crowd of men gathered around the skeleton of a vehicle of some kind. All that remained was the chassis, a gearstick poking upwards like a flower in a graveyard. When the men shifted position the one-armed man was gone.

  A hurricane lamp hissed by his ear as they passed a stall with a glass-sided cupboard crammed with trays of sticky baklawa. Crushed flies adorned the grubby panes. Behind it a string of coloured lightbulbs hung like incandescent fruit over another counter where a young boy was twirling strings of dough into cheese pastries.

  ‘The first time I came here was twenty years ago.’ Hamama was talking over his shoulder. ‘It’s been here all this time. Every now and then someone sends his army in to try and break it up, but there’s nothing they can do. The people drift away and after a time they come back. New faces, new markets, new conflicts. That’s flexibility. People just melt into the sand and reappear somewhere else. There is a demand and there is supply. It’s been like this for centuries probably. Captain Mustafa never understood that.’

  ‘That’s why you killed him?’

  ‘Among other things.’ Sergeant Hamama shrugged. ‘He objected to certain plans.’

  ‘You mean the Qadi’s business with the gas company?’

  ‘He didn’t understand. He thought he could change things. But this . . .’ Hamama shook his head. ‘You can’t change this.’

  Makana moved as the sergeant spoke. Hamama’s hand was raised which blinded him on one side, and his focus was elsewhere. Makana knew there would be no better chance than this. He threw himself sideways so that he struck the sergeant with his shoulder. It was difficult to put much force into it from so close, but it was enough to knock Hamama off balance. The uneven ground helped and Sergeant Hamama stumbled into the nearest counter which subsequently collapsed, sending pots and pans, trays of food flying along with a vat of boiling oil that tipped over with a hiss. Hamama went down on one knee giving a howl when his hand came to rest on the scalding oil. By then Makana was already running, back through the crowd hoping to lose himself. Moving left and right, randomly changing direction. At first he tried to seek out large gatherings. The more people the better. He twisted and turned, suddenly finding himself trapped within a circle of men arguing over something. He could not understand what language they were speaking, but the way they were brandishing their weapons it was all about to turn nasty. Makana began slipping through looking for a way out when he bumped into someone. Apologising, he tried again, only to have the same thing happen. This time the response was a hard shove which sent him sprawling. As Makana started to pick himself up a pair of shiny military boots appeared in front of his face. They were on the end of a pair of fancy army trousers with lots of patches and pockets on them. Not standard military issue. The man wearing them was shaven-headed and muscular.

  ‘Hello Makana,’ he said.

  ‘Lieutenant Sharqi.’ Makana struggled to sit up. ‘What a surprise.’

  ‘I’d say the same, but nothing about you surprises me any more.’

  ‘I didn’t know you took an interest in smuggling.’

  Sharqi’s hard face betrayed little emotion. He was an ex-paratrooper, then a member of Egyptian Special Services. Specificially, Task Force 777, a counterterrorism unit founded in the wake of President Sadat’s assassination. More recently, Sharqi had been promoted to running his own elite and rather shadowy unit within State Security. He gave the signal and two of his men hauled Makana to his feet and held him in check.

  ‘Bring him along. We need to talk.’

  ‘What’s wrong with here?’ Makana was reluctant to be led off into the dark. Sharqi smiled.

  ‘I’m not going to lose you that easily. Watch your step, it’s quite tricky.’

  Sergeant Hamama burst breathlessly into sight, provoking a scuffle and some shoving among the other men who had been arguing earlier. They noticed his uniform and drifted away.

  ‘There you are,’ Hamama addressed Makana as he closed in. ‘Now I’m going to teach you a lesson.’ He clapped the handcuffs back onto his wrists.

  ‘Nobody is teaching anyone anything here without my permission,’ said Sharqi.

  ‘Lieutenant Sharqi,’ said Makana. ‘This is the man you want. Sergeant Hamama has been running a smuggling ring in this area. He and his men are bringing in illicit alcohol, cigarettes, along with a range of electical appliances.’

  ‘Nice try, Makana,’ grunted Sharqi, turning to Hamama. ‘You were told to bring him to us down in the gully on the other side. What happened?’

  ‘That’s what I was doing,’ protested the sergeant. ‘He’s devious, this one. You want to keep a close eye on him.’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s not going to try anything with me.’ Sharqi gave the signal for them to move on.

  Murky shadows swelled up from beyond, dancing on the walls in the moving flame from scattered fires, writhing hypnotically. Then the light and noise faded, giving way to the silence of the vast landscape as the cliffs rose on either side of them. A few pockets of men still congregated here and there, consulting in low voices, away from the lighted spaces. The sound of banknotes being counted deciding the fate of far-off places. Conversations snaked over the sand with barely a whisper. Ahead of them a gap opened up in the wall of rock as the land dipped and a stony path dropped into the unbroken darkness that stretched out below. Makana concentrated on not stumbling. The sound of stones rolling underfoot carried on, echoing ba
ck from the walls. There was so little light that he could barely see where he was going. There were voices coming from below. As his eyes adjusted he could make out the small convoy of SUVs he had seen on Jebel Mawtah. Around them a group of shadows stood loosely placed. They looked up as the new arrivals stepped onto the track. Sharqi strode ahead.

  ‘We’ve got our liaison man,’ he said in English. Makana recognised the woman and man he had seen previously. The Americans.

  ‘Well good for you, Sharqi,’ laughed the woman.

  ‘You might just pull this one off, buddy,’ said the man.

  ‘Just you wait and see.’

  Another newcomer was waiting for them, seated inside an old Lada that Makana recognised. A sullen, puffy-faced man. Makana guessed this was Musab Khayr. As he opened the car door the interior light came on summoning a curse from Sharqi.

  ‘Get that light off, you idiot. I told you, no lights showing!’

  The light went off. There were no doubts who was running this show.

  Sharqi turned to Makana and smiled. ‘We’ve been keeping tabs on you since Cairo.’

  Makana recalled the two men he thought had been following him in the Ghuriyya market. It seemed like a lifetime ago but was barely a week.

  ‘Since you are now an integral part of this operation, I shall explain.’ Sharqi put his hand on Makana’s shoulder and led him to one side. He waved back the men who had escorted him. It was a formality. There was nowhere to run and Makana was in no doubt that Sharqi would shoot him dead on the spot before he had gone ten paces.

  ‘A few months ago Musab came up on some list of possible terror suspects. You understand, our American friends are all a bit jumpy since 9/11. They started pulling in anyone with the slightest smudge against their name. So, Musab gets pulled off the streets of his comfortable European home and flown back here. You know how it is. They always want us to do their dirty work for them. In this case, to torture Musab and get the information from him. It’s a legality issue. And besides, this is Egypt. We have our ways.’ He might have been talking about the Olympic swimming team, or the triumphs of the national soccer side. Pride ran deep regardless. ‘Makes no difference anyway,’ Sharqi went on. ‘The point is that the information Musab had was low grade and out of date. He was always small-time, never seriously involved in the jihadist movement. He saw it as a way out, as lots of them did. Now the problem is what to do with him. He doesn’t have anything for us. Musab, of course, is terrified. He’s been flown halfway around the world and this is not where he wants to be. So he offers to make a deal. It turns out he was in prison, near here in fact, in Al Wahat, with a certain Daud Bulatt.’

  It was four years since Makana had come face-to-face with Bulatt for the first time. Bulatt had a history. Before he turned himself into a jihadi, he had been running a violent gang in Cairo. He was tied in to a case Makana was working on and when he caught up with him Bulatt had just blown up a holiday resort on the Red Sea.

  ‘The last I heard Bulatt had fled across the border into Sudan.’

  ‘Exactly, under the protective wing of your old friend, Mek Nimr.’

  Bulatt had been hiding in Sudan for years and he knew he would find shelter there again. Mek Nimr had asked Bulatt to kill Makana and on that occasion he could have done so easily. For his own reasons he had chosen not to.

  There was one piece that still puzzled Makana, but for the moment he would have to let that go. Sharqi was calling the tune.

  ‘So Musab offers to bring Bulatt to you?’

  ‘You catch on quickly,’ Sharqi smiled. He was overdoing the friendliness. Trying too hard to put Makana at ease, which made him worried all over again. ‘It seems that our friend Bulatt has become something of an embarrassment. In the post 9/11 world everyone wants to wash their hands of the Islamist threat. It’s too dangerous. Someone has stirred the sleeping giant and everyone knows somebody is going to get hurt. Today Afghanistan, tomorrow, who knows? Maybe the Americans decide you’ve killed enough Southerners and intervene in your civil war?’

  ‘So Mek Nimr is eager to play along.’

  ‘Your friend Mek Nimr has come a long way. He’s a big fish now. Years of rubbing shoulders with terrorists have turned him into a valuable asset. So he’s co-operating. He will give us what we want.’

  ‘What has any of this to do with me?’

  ‘In return for helping us so generously, Mek Nimr has asked for a certain amount of money to be placed in a bank account of his own choosing, and for you to be returned to him.’ Sharqi went on quietly. ‘He must miss you.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘You’ll have a chance to ask him that yourself before too long. He’s just across the border waiting for you.’

  Makana glanced over his shoulder at the darkness. ‘How is the exchange to take place?’

  ‘Musab has the details. Between the two of us he’s a pompous pain in the ass, insists that he is in charge. I suppose he wants to impress the Americans.’

  ‘What happens once I’m handed over?’

  ‘Nothing. We wish you a safe life and good prospects, or whatever. I don’t think we’ll be seeing you again anytime soon.’

  ‘You know that he’ll kill me.’

  ‘We don’t know that. Not for certain.’ Sharqi paused. ‘Maybe he’s had a change of heart now that he’s such a big star.’

  ‘Is he really that big?’

  ‘They fly him to Washington DC on their Gulfstream jets.’

  ‘That’s good is it?’ Makana managed to reach into his pocket for his cigarettes. Almost a whole packet. He wondered if he would get a chance to smoke them.

  ‘A private jet from here to Washington? I don’t get treated like that.’

  ‘It’ll come,’ nodded Makana. ‘You obviously know how to make an impression.’ He tilted his head towards the American couple who stood off to one side talking in low voices.

  ‘To be honest with you, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Daud Bulatt was our problem. He’s not a terrorist mastermind.’

  ‘Maybe you’re underestimating him.’

  ‘Yeah, and maybe you have too much time on your hands.’ Sharqi snatched the cigarette from Makana’s mouth and ground it out under his heel. Then he whistled and made a signal with his hand in the air. The men began moving towards the vehicles. ‘You ride with our friend and the fat policeman.’

  Sergeant Hamama and Musab were waiting by the Lada.

  ‘We will be three minutes behind you. When you reach the meeting point don’t hang around. Make the exchange and move on.’

  ‘Are you sure they won’t see you?’ asked Musab.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. We’re professionals.’

  Just the kind of reassurance that made you feel worse, thought Makana as he climbed into the back seat of the Lada. Sergeant Hamama leaned in and clipped the handcuffs through the handrail over the door.

  ‘That’ll keep you from getting any ideas,’ he said. Then he went round and climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Are you sure you remember the way?’ he asked.

  ‘I remember,’ muttered Musab as he turned the ignition. They rolled up the stony track and came up into the open plain. It was pitch black. Musab must have meant what he said. He paused and leaned forward from time to time to look at the sky. He was navigating by the stars. Small-time crook he may have been but someone had taught him about travelling in the desert. Makana had seen guides like this before. It was impressive to see them work, especially at the speed of a moving vehicle.

  ‘What exactly are you getting in return for me?’

  Musab’s eyes never left the road. ‘Weapons, for the Palestinian people.’

  ‘The Palestinians?’ Even Sergeant Hamama thought that was a little far out. Makana was silent. Something felt very wrong here. Sharqi could not be making a deal allowing weapons for the Palestinians into the country. That could set off a war between Egypt and Israel faster than you could strike a match.

  ‘It’s all a set-up,’ M
usab went on, stifling a yawn. ‘The Israelis kill a few militants in Gaza. The Egyptians arrest a few people on this side of the border and everyone looks like they are doing their bit in this stupid war on terror.’ Musab chuckled to himself. He seemed to have it all worked out. Makana craned his neck to look back to see if he could catch sight of the three Jeeps. Strangely, it would have been a comfort to know that Sharqi was close by. All he saw was blackness. If Sharqi and his team were following close behind they were doing a good job of concealing themselves. He grasped the handrail and used all his weight on it. To his satisfaction he felt it give slightly.

  ‘One thing I don’t understand,’ said Makana, leaning forward. ‘Why did you kill your own daughter?’

  Musab grunted. ‘I didn’t.’

  Sergeant Hamama chuckled. ‘Some investigator.’

  ‘But you went to see Karima, just after you escaped,’ Makana persisted.

  ‘I had nowhere else to go. I thought it would be a good place to hide.’