by Ward Larsen
He was grasping for miracles. Coming up empty.
More wild theories raged, and he jettisoned them as quickly as they came. There was simply no possible solution that didn’t fail on one count: Christine wasn’t answering her burner. That was the death knell to anything innocent. Their phones were an absolute, the last-ditch tether that always connected them.
Never to be broken.
Surrendering to reality, Slaton climbed back out on deck. He made a despondent survey of the sea all around. Rain was coming in torrents now on the squall’s leading edge. The entire hemisphere to the northeast was obscured, and elsewhere he saw only featureless sea.
It was a rainy day on the Bay of Gibraltar.
In the city nearby, business as usual.
On the docks, a day to stay below with a cup of coffee.
And for Slaton: it was the day his wife and son went missing.
FIVE
Earlier that same morning, long before Slaton stood drifting on a catamaran near the western terminus of the Mediterranean, five men had set out across the arid reaches of central Turkey. It was a region where the passage of small groups had fallen to a cliché. War refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants. As contrasting as their motivations were, all had one thing in common: a desperate urge to leave the ravaged homelands of their ancestors. Indeed, the region once referred to as “the cradle of civilization” had, in little more than a generation, become something nearer its grave.
The five travelers began their journey, in the faint predawn light, when a pair of guards at the Suruç refugee camp turned their heads right on schedule. As jailbreaks went, it was hardly notable. The camp’s security had gone lax as the war in Syria abated. There had never been strict confinement, and no one could say whether the original halfhearted curfew was aimed at keeping local thieves and smugglers out or refugees in. Whatever the intent, everyone still went through the motions: the gates were locked each night from midnight to six in the morning.
Slack as the watch might be, the leader of the group of five was a thorough man. The day before he had given inducements to the guards to turn a blind eye. The night shift commander had in fact been left slack-jawed, knowing the man had overpaid severely. The desired effect, however, was had: the departure of the small band, who had arrived at the camp separately over the course of the last week, caused barely a ripple in the cool morning air.
After clearing the main gate, the faux refugees rendezvoused in a derelict rooming house a mere hundred paces to the north. Three top-floor hovels had been procured in advance, and in the tiny shared bathroom each of the five men bathed and shaved their beards. They took turns giving each other haircuts, and later convened for tea at the first café to open. There, at a quiet corner table, the leader went over the plans for the next two days. He mostly addressed contingencies in case their respective travel plans were interrupted, but there were also subtle critiques—like the suggestion that two of the men get some sun to cover the lighter skin where their beards had been shaved away. He reiterated the need to avoid Turkish police checkpoints, and even more importantly, those of local militias in the villages—both had elements who preyed on refugees, and who would gladly lock a man up for no cause but to see how much money his family could wire.
After tea, they split up and entered the souk that had risen in the camp’s shadow. It was a busy and nervous place. Overhead a riotous tangle of phone and power lines webbed between buildings like a living thing. At its peak population, the Suruç camp had hosted eight thousand refugees—Syrian mostly, with a few Iraqis, Afghans, and Somalis thrown in the mix. At the height of the war, vendors with pushcarts had done a brisk business with the guards, and a better one with the constant flow of transients suffering worn shoes and empty bellies.
Now, with the conflict winding down, there were fewer merchants, but enough that each of the five men had no trouble acquiring a new wardrobe in something near their size. As the leader had instructed, they kept to Western clothing, all of it gently used: denim and khaki pants, light jackets, casual shirts. They sported the emblems of European football clubs and famous Italian designers. By the time they walked away from the souk, with the sun nearing its midday peak, the five men were fully transformed—at a glance, indistinguishable among the hundreds of thousands of exiles who’d passed through in recent years.
Yet there were subtle differences from the usual human flotsam. Chief among them was in their pockets. Each man carried a passport that was perfectly legitimate, albeit originally drafted in the name of another. The documents had been acquired by one of two methods: either appropriated from foreign ISIS fighters who’d joined the war and perished, or confiscated from locals during the course of the caliphate’s occupation—an administrative spoil of war. Every passport so obtained was carefully vetted by the caliphate’s “record specialists.” Those not flagging on terrorist watch lists, not reported as stolen or missing, and issued by a country that didn’t employ biometric marker technology were given the highest grade. From that group, it was simply a matter of matching each man to a “donor” whose picture, age, and physical characteristics were a reasonable match.
Each of the bogus refugees also carried a modest sum of cash. This was commonplace for those trying to reach Europe, although the amount involved, type of currency, and denominations had been carefully considered—not too much to draw attention, but enough to bribe a border guard or modify travel plans. Melding into the westbound river of humanity was a necessary diversion, and relatively simple. Yet there was one hidden commonality that distinguished the five from the usual bands of migrants: the highly unusual destination they shared. At the edge of town, they all shook hands and exchanged best wishes before dividing—two groups of two, and one man going solo. The next time they saw one another, God willing, they would be very near the North Korean border.
The two designated martyrs began walking north along the main road. The porosity of the Turkish frontier had long been established, and it was even more sievelike now that things were easing in Syria. After clearing the patrolled areas, the pair shifted to a secondary road and rendezvoused with a prearranged car. The car would take them as far as Istanbul. From there the plan was to split at the airport, one aiming for Doha on Qatar Airways, with a follow-on flight to Beijing. The other would try for the same destination by way of a connection in Frankfurt on Lufthansa. By midday all was going to plan.
The two technicians were close behind. Both were in their early thirties, and because each was vital to the operation—one a bomb-maker, the other as close to a scientist as existed in the caliphate—their travels had been strictly tailored. For the same reason, they had been issued the most convincing documents of the bunch, perfectly valid EU passports, along with the attendant visas to match their itinerary. They began by walking west, and found an SUV waiting in the recesses of a work shed outside the first village. The driver whisked the pair north, and by late that afternoon they arrived at Fatsa, a small fishing village on the hip of the Black Sea. There they took passage on a small fishing boat, a fast run north toward Ukraine. Once ashore, the plan was to cover the remaining ground to Kiev via bus, followed by a nonstop flight on Air China.
They too got off to a good start.
* * *
The last man to leave Suruç retained the most freedom of movement. His name was Kasim Boutros, a native of Iraq, and he was the commander of the mission. Since Boutros was firmly established on EU watch lists, and because facial recognition software was increasingly a problem, he began his journey with an easterly vector. He first crossed into Iraq, skirting the Kurdish strongholds with practiced deftness. South of Mosul, he fell back on old Baathist connections. The first of these: an uncle with a taxi.
“It has been a long time,” Boutros said.
“Six years, I think,” Uncle Hakeem replied. He was leaning on the fender of his beaten Toyota sedan, the bright red paint having gone to dull orange. They bantered for a time about family, a bit more a
bout the war. Preliminaries complete, the pair were soon in their respective seats and heading south, a rooster tail of dust trailing behind.
“The roads in this area are safe now,” Hakeem said. “But the Shiite militias have checkpoints outside both Ramadi and Fallujah. They are bastards, each group beholden to their own cleric. The government in Baghdad has no control outside the city.”
“Can we get around them?”
Hakeem smiled. “That is how I make my living.”
Boutros knew better than to ask for specifics on his uncle’s initiatives, and Hakeem returned the favor, not questioning why his nephew needed a surreptitious passage to Baghdad. Even among family, the wary crosscurrents of the new Iraq ran deep.
Hakeem threaded his way expertly through territory that had twice in Boutros’ lifetime been the front lines of combat. First the Americans had invaded, and later the Islamic caliphate. As he watched the familiar tawny hills roll past his window, the irony did not escape him that he had served in both conflicts, first as an officer under Saddam, and later in the army of God. That he had been on the losing side in both campaigns seemed predestined.
And here I am once again, he thought. In that eternal bed of conflict.
His new mission would be undertaken far from these arid lands. But then, when he’d served under Saddam his expertise had also been utilized elsewhere, far to the south, in surroundings far removed from this land of his youth. It didn’t matter. Boutros knew the sands around him remained central to everything. The refrain of his ISIS commanders, of course, never wavered: only when the West was driven clear could the law of Allah return. Boutros had always nodded in agreement, never mentioning the truth of the matter: that his own relationship with Islam was far more indirect.
He doubted anyone really cared. A motivated soldier was worth his weight in gold. And the source of that motivation?
That, he was sure, could be left for God to judge.
* * *
They reached Baghdad in midafternoon, and arrived at the airport uneventfully. There Boutros rendezvoused with one of his old Republican Guard commanders, the sort of man who always seemed to land on his feet, and who’d taken a post as the airfield operations chief. The one-time major had been expecting him, and he already knew where Boutros wanted to go—a tentative passage to Belarus.
They shared the embrace of old comrades, and after a few reminisces, and a bit of cautious fencing about present situations, the ex-major got down to business. “Minsk, is it?”
“A business matter. We all have to get by.”
A knowing smile. “You are in luck, my friend. Our airfield is less busy than usual today, but I have found the exact connection you need!”
He pointed to a massive airplane across the tarmac.
“It’s very big,” Boutros remarked.
“Unfortunately, an Antonov,” the major said with some caution.
“Is that a problem?”
“They are safe enough, but have a tendency to break. Once the pilots get her into the air … then you will be fine. The better news is that the crew are Kazakhs.”
Boutros was encouraged. The Kazakhs had long been a rebellious lot, dating back to the sixteenth century when their homeland in Central Asia was overrun, in turn, by the Persians, Mongol hordes, the British Empire, and finally an emergent Russia. It was precisely the kind of history that bred contempt. So too, the kind that fostered bonds amid vanquished brethren.
Boutros was introduced to the captain as the big jet was being loaded with fuel and cargo. They struck up a conversation in English—his grasp of the language was decent, and he knew aircrew were required to speak it. He learned that the man was a vagabond aviator and, more relevantly, a casual Muslim who’d spent the bulk of his life running freight in and out of war zones. Even more encouragingly, he displayed the anti-Russian leanings typical of those born on the shoulders of the Caspian.
They talked an insurgent’s shop for nearly half an hour: which shoulder-fired missiles had proved most effective for shooting down Russian airplanes, how many Chechens had volunteered in Syria. At the end, with a guarded rapport established, Boutros showed the captain documents that were perfectly in order. Six thousand U.S. dollars changed hands—terrorist camaraderie went only so far—and he was directed to the great jet’s cargo bay.
At the top of the rear cargo ramp he was introduced to his host for the next half day—a taciturn loadmaster whose dominion involved everything aft of the cockpit door.
“Where would you like me to sit?” Boutros asked, once again reverting to English.
The loadmaster said in a gruff voice, “No smoking, no drinking … but then, I’m sure I don’t have to say this to a soldier of Allah.” Clearly the man had been given a briefing. He studied Boutros closely, his dark eyes and stubble-framed lips forming a silent query. Trying to reconcile his new passenger with the standing image of a battle-hardened jihadi.
He was not the first to wonder.
On appearances Boutros was not cut in the typical mold of an Islamist field commander. Rail thin, he was of average height, his face a bit too round for intimidation. Although the loadmaster could not know it, Boutros was not uneducated, amiable when he wanted to be, and a bourbon drinker of some repute. In casual situations he exuded a thoughtful, almost academic nature, notwithstanding that he’d had neither the chance nor the means to attend university. His bookish disposition, however, vanished the moment bullets began flying. What Boutros lacked in size, strength, and gravitas, he more than made up for with a ferocious fighting nature. He’d survived some of the most vicious battles of the caliphate’s war, along the way earning more than a few scars and, more critically, the unwavering respect of his men. Most curious of all was that his training in the Iraqi armed forces had nothing to do with desert firefights. It was that special qualification, in concert with his fierce reputation, that had made Boutros the singular choice to lead this mission. A mission that, if successful, could alter the tide of battle for the foundering Islamic State.
“This way,” the loadmaster said. He led Boutros to the forward cargo area where a handful of webbed seats lined either sidewall. “Starboard side,” the Uzbek said, not gesturing either way.
Boutros veered to his right and took a seat, knowing he’d passed the man’s test.
“If you need something, don’t call me,” the man added. With that, the world’s worst flight attendant ambled aft and disappeared behind a stack of crates.
Twenty minutes later the old Antonov was airborne. Boutros sat staring at crates of motor oil and car parts, all of it lashed firmly to the deck. At the last minute a second suspicious passenger had boarded the Antonov, an unsmiling young man who looked more frightened than purposeful, and who’d belted into a seat on the opposite side of the cargo bay.
As the big jet climbed smoothly and turned toward the Zagros Mountains, an ever-thoughtful Boutros found himself ruminating on the chances of success of their mission. Merely getting his squad to the staging point was the first order of battle, and no small task. He’d opted for an admittedly shotgun method of moving his unit, but thought it the best strategy. If he had learned anything as a commander in ISIS, it was that victory and defeat came in degrees, neither absolute a realistic outcome.
He had allowed from the outset that one of his team members might be detained somewhere along the way, either sent back from where they came, or delayed to the point that they would not arrive in Beijing on schedule. The Chinese themselves were not party to the mission, but Boutros had been assured they would not interfere. Someone, apparently, had connections. At a minimum, he prayed the two technicians would get through—if either was delayed, the mission would have to wait. His own presence was also required. The martyrs were less essential—in truth, little more than a convenience.
The airplane jostled under turbulence, and Boutros gripped his seat. As he did, a grim derivative of his commander’s calculus lodged in his mind. On this mission, he relented, we must all be
prepared for martyrdom.
SIX
The storm abated quickly, and in less than thirty minutes Slaton had Sirius back in the harbor. Her bow split the twin jetties, and soon she was in the slip where she’d begun the morning. The Scotsman next door was nowhere to be seen, which was fine with Slaton—he didn’t want to waste time concocting a story about where his family had gone.
While he secured the boat, his eyes kept sweeping the piers and shoreline—dying hope that it was all only some great misunderstanding. He saw people going about their business. Tourists strolling, boat detailers scrubbing, waitresses on the way to the lunch shift. None of them could imagine the crisis he was facing. He briefly weighed playing detective, canvassing the pier to ask if anyone had seen or heard anything suspicious. There was a chance he would uncover leads about what had happened. More likely: he would raise suspicion and waste precious time. Slaton felt a cresting sense of urgency, as if Christine and Davy were slipping farther out of reach every second.
At the very least, he decided he could search the boat. He began by looking for differences from his recollections of that morning. The coffee pot was half full, and an unwashed mug sat in the sink. Toys scattered across the floor suggested Davy had been awake—and that they’d departed without the customary cleanup. With aching vividness, he remembered stealing a glance at them both on his way out. Christine had been rustling in bed, Davy sleeping soundly in the adjacent cabin. Slaton was overcome by the grim notion that it would be his last vision of them.
