by Henry Porter
When he stopped retching and his breathing finally returned to normal, he told the others about the precious phone that had survived the sinking of the raft and was his only link to his family in Turkey; he mentioned other important things on that phone, which he said he could not talk about. He was very near to breaking down, but controlled himself by squeezing his tear ducts with his thumb and forefinger. Someone poured tea into his battered aluminium cup and tipped sachets of sugar into it to give him energy, and Lashkar put an arm round him and told him that things would be okay.
It had been Aziz the Libyan who had tried to kill Naji, stolen his phone and escaped into the night. When he believed Joseph’s hands were crawling over him like a huge spider the night before, it had been Aziz. And now Naji thought about it, Aziz was always chewing that chilli and ginger jerky. He felt terrible that he had cursed Joseph and had bad thoughts about him when he had done everything to help Naji.
The others began to talk about Aziz, and it emerged that none of them liked him. No one knew how he had joined the group, because he had no friends – he had just fallen in with them outside Gevgelija and started walking. When Lashkar had asked him why he had not taken a boat from Libya to Italy, Aziz came up with a crazy story that his vessel had been swept away in a storm and he had ended up in the Aegean. He took more food than he should and one of them pointed out that he always stuck close to Naji – they thought he maybe wanted to have sex with him – and he looked over Naji’s shoulder whenever Naji took out his phone. ‘Maybe he got your password,’ said Lashkar.
Each in their own way tried to make him feel better and let him know that they cared for him. Slowly they began to get their things together and stagger off into the night, for they were determined to press on up the river until they reached a bridge a few kilometres beyond the valley where their companions had been arrested. This would lead them to the hamlet and to the rail track and the highway. They were all of them done with the river and had decided to remain as close as possible to the columns of legitimate migrants, those that had papers but who could not afford transport to the north. On the way, Naji ate all his food, including his last banana, for he now believed that the exhaustion he felt on the hill had been due to lack of food and water, and the food did make him feel better, though his throat was sore and it hurt to swallow.
By dawn, they reached a bridge where some kind of accident had taken place. This improved their mood, although Naji was inconsolable about his phone and showed no interest in the wreckage of a small truck that had taken the parapet with it into the river. It was not just the severing of his only link to his family that he regretted; it was the loss of the old messages and the photos that Munira had sent, which he sometimes scrolled through to make himself feel better. The phone was like having them with him, and now that it was gone he felt more alone than he had done at any moment in his journey. This weighed heavily on him, but at the back of his mind he also knew that he’d lost the means to access all that information he had collected on Al-munajil and his crew. One day he might be able to recreate the codes he’d devised in his head, hunched in the back of Al-munajil’s pickup, but it would take time and there was a lot he would have to recall without making a single error. If he could manage that, he’d be able find the material on any device in the world. But for now that was the least of his concerns.
The group of nine kept walking until they came to the hamlet. There was no sign of life; the windows were shuttered and the only store was closed. One or two dogs showed interest in them, but they saw not a single human being and, having filled their water bottles from a tap on a water butt, they moved on. At length, they found the road leading to the tunnel under the rail line and it was here the party split, with the two Moroccans, the Algerian and the Gambian opting to walk the rail line. There was suddenly no sense of them being a group any longer and the four Africans barely said goodbye before climbing the embankment and vanishing in the vegetation that bordered the track. Naji and Lashkar and the two other Afghans headed towards the Alexander the Great Highway, which was surprisingly free of traffic.
Over the next couple of hours, they saw no more than a few hundred vehicles, and the only moment of interest during the whole morning was when they came across a snake sunning itself in the litter on the side of the road. The Afghans threw stones at it and it flashed away through the dry grass.
Just after midday, by which time they had been walking for eight hours, they spotted a service station ahead of them, on their side of the highway. They were mightily relieved, for they had run out of food; their water bottles were again low and they were all exhausted, particularly Naji, who again began to wonder whether he had the strength for the journey. There were only a few cars and one truck in the car park, and the man running the café and mini market seemed pleased to have their custom. Lashkar bought Naji a strip of four painkillers for his throat. He swallowed two with some Coca-Cola and went outside with a chicken roll and a chocolate bar. He had noticed the toilets on the side of the building and wanted to use them before the others. He went down some steps to find a pristine washroom that was decorated with photographic wallpaper to give the impression that you were in a forest. There was music playing over a recording of birdsong, plentiful soft paper, mirrors and hot water – all that he needed. He used the lavatory, washed himself all over and rinsed his underpants, socks and a T-shirt, which he hung on some railings at the back of the building to dry in the midday sun. For a while he sat in the shade with his arms wrapped around his knees, looking out across the mountains, feeling a sense of his own smallness. Then he dozed off.
A cold wind, a sign of the coming winter, woke Naji at five that evening. He snatched his now dry clothes down from the railings, packed them quickly into his backpack and rushed round to the front of the service station. Lashkar and the two other Afghans were nowhere to be seen. He searched everywhere with mounting panic. Maybe they had found somewhere to sleep, or they were playing a trick on him. He looked under the trucks in the car park and behind every car.
Eventually the man at the counter got his attention by calling him on the PA system, used to speak to drivers filling their vehicles, and beckoned him inside. The nametag – in Cyrillic and English alphabets – told Naji that the man’s name was Zoran. Speaking in English, he said the Afghans had left in a truck. Naji must have looked devastated because the guy came out from behind the counter and sat him down in the little café area. He said that Lashkar and his friends had been sitting in the café, at that very same table, when they were approached by a people smuggler, a person known to his colleagues at the station for his regular trips to the north. It was this man’s habit to stop there to pick up stray migrants and buy water, which they assumed he resold to his passengers at a greatly inflated price. It was anyone’s guess what he was making out of each trip. He charged Naji’s friends three hundred euros each to go all the way to Austria. There were perhaps thirty other men, women and children in the truck, so Naji could do the maths for himself. Naji’s friends had searched high and low for him, including in the toilets, but the driver was in a hurry and after a few minutes said he would leave without them if they didn’t climb into the back with the other passengers.
Aside from being extremely apprehensive about being on his own again, Naji was angry with himself. A trip all the way to the Schengen area! Lashkar and the others would be there within a couple of days. A chance like that wouldn’t come along again. He slumped back in his seat and desperately tried to stop the tears welling up in his eyes. He took deep breaths, as his father had taught him. He knew that if you gave way to your feelings, you would be overwhelmed by your situation. To survive the horrors of the homeland you had to stay strong and never give vent to despair, for the expression of it would always make it worse.
He knew also that if he had had his phone with him he would have been all right. Just to speak to his family or text his sister would give him the boost he needed to
continue with his journey. But that connection was lost. He must face the truth that his luck had run out – the guardian angel that had saved him in the sea and allowed him to find solutions to the problems that he met on the road had deserted him.
He bought a Coke and made a conscious effort to order his thoughts. No one else was going to help him, so he had to come up with a plan himself, and that thought alone gave him some encouragement. He had screwed up and now he would find a way to retrieve the situation and stay true to his plan of bringing his family to safety in Europe. Somehow he would work it out – somehow.
The few drivers in the café began to leave. Naji smiled at them hopefully as they passed his table but no one offered him a ride to the Serbian border, or anywhere else. The place was soon empty. The two other people working there departed and Zoran prepared to close. He came over to Naji, carrying a secure black case that contained the takings of the day. The owners of the service station would be along soon to collect the money, he said, and Naji couldn’t be there when they arrived.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Zoran, ‘you have to go.’ Then he had an idea. He was about to close the toilets, but if Naji were to run ahead of him and make sure he wasn’t visible when he came to check everything and lock up, he could spend the night there. He would be safe and warm. Naji headed for the door, but before he reached it the man called after him and lobbed him two sandwiches and a roll filled with cheese. They were out of date and would be taken off the shelves in the morning – Naji might as well have them.
And so it was that Naji spent his most comfortable night since he’d slept in a bed on Lesbos, and because the hot water had not been turned off he was able to wash his jeans and trainers and dry them on the hot pipe beneath the sink. He took out The Cosmic Detective, the book given to him by Anastasia, and read by the blue light from the electronic insect killer that was high on the wall. Things were okay – in fact, they were pretty good – and even the recorded birdsong, which seemed to be on some kind of timer, stopped after a while. Tomorrow he would ask the man behind the counter if he could use his phone to send a message to his sister.
*
Vuk found rooms in a farmhouse owned by a friend of a friend. It was a pretty place with a mountain view, a large vegetable plot and farm animals wandering about a ramshackle yard. Samson was woken a little before six by a cock crowing. He went in search of coffee in the kitchen, where the cheerfully ample lady of the house was at work. Through the open window he saw that Vuk was outside and talking to the farmer, who held the halter of a large white bull with backward-facing horns. Vuk rested his arm on the bull as though it were a vehicle and gestured with his cigarette hand. It was evidently a setting he felt comfortable in.
‘The guys, they check the lorries at border,’ he called over, when he saw Samson. ‘No boy and no fucking terrorist.’ He withdrew a flask of quince brandy from an inside pocket, poured some into the flask cap and knocked it back. ‘What we do now, mister? Fuck the goats?’
‘Not sure yet,’ replied Samson. ‘There’s no point chasing round these hills unless we have something to go on.’
‘We catch boy today, Mister Samson – I know we do catch him and we do kill all those fucking terrorists.’
‘Well, here’s to our success,’ Samson said, toasting Vuk with his coffee. He grinned at him and wondered what Vuk’s thoughts were like in his own language.
In London it was even earlier in the day, but the Office was calling him. Samson answered. ‘Hello, Chris.’
‘How’d you know it was me?’
‘Because you are a sadistic arse and you hoped I was still asleep.’
‘The boy’s phone is on and we have a position for him,’ said Okiri.
‘Great! What else did you get?’ Samson asked.
‘We found good pictures of his sisters and mother which we’ve sent to Sonia in Turkey. His texts and phone calls have given us a patchy log of his movements in the last few months, including in Syria, but mostly of his journey from the camp in Turkey to Izmir and onwards to Greece. The battery isn’t great, but as long as he doesn’t use the phone, it shouldn’t drain too fast and we can keep track of him.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He must have got a lift because he is about thirty kilometres north of where we thought he was yesterday. But he’s on foot again, walking up the rail line.’
Samson cursed under his breath. He wasn’t keen to repeat the previous day’s toil.
‘I’ve sent you the coordinates by text – tap on the link and it will find his place on the map. Later we’ll work out a system so that you can have a live feed that shows you exactly where he is from minute to minute.’
‘That would be helpful,’ said Samson, moving towards the Land Cruiser and twirling his hand in the air to suggest that Vuk wind up his conversation about bulls.
‘Have you thought what you’re going to do when you get to him?’ Okiri asked. ‘He’s going to be pretty wary after all he’s been through.’
‘Yes, I need Sonia to find out as much about him and his family as she can and then we can maybe put them together on the phone and hope they’ll tell him to trust me. Then I guess we’ll find him a hotel in Skopje and start debriefing him, as far as that will be possible, and develop things from then on . . .’
‘Right,’ said Okiri sceptically.
‘Let’s just find the boy,’ said Samson. ‘Is there anything else on that phone?’
‘It’s being looked at. I think we’d like to get inside the actual phone, so when you find the boy, don’t forget that.’
Samson hung up and Vuk reluctantly moved from the side of the bull and went to his car with that strange, regretful walk. Samson tapped the link in the message from Okiri – a light pulsed on the rail line about twenty kilometres from the farmhouse. He showed it to Vuk, who grunted and phoned his three spotters to tell them where to meet. Only Aco answered. He told Vuk he could be there inside the hour. He added that he knew the spot and that it was exceptionally difficult terrain. The train track was wedged between a sheer cliff and the Vardar River, and it was a stretch of line where there had been several deaths that year.
They avoided the highway and took the old road that followed the course of the Vardar even more closely than the highway until they reached the town of Veles. There they found a road to take them to the place indicated by Naji’s phone. On the way, Samson wondered why the boy had chosen to join the train line at the most hazardous place. Perhaps someone had given him a lift, it had come to an end and he had had no option but to get out of the vehicle and walk the line. It was also odd that the boy, so scrupulous about saving his battery, had turned on his phone.
London called again on the satellite phone; this time it was the communications officer, Jamie O’Neill. ‘The reception is poor in the area where Firefly is now,’ he said, and Samson noticed the trace of Northern Irish accent when he said Firefly. ‘But we have a position for him seven minutes ago, so he can’t have gone far. He’s north of a train station named Rajko Zinzifov. Sending that position to you now. We’ll fix you up with the feed ASAP. We don’t have live satellite coverage but we’ve got some excellent imagery that shows that it’s a very tight fit along that stretch. You wouldn’t want to be on the track when the Thessaloniki–Belgrade express passes in forty minutes.’
‘Have you got all the train times?’
‘Yes, but we can only estimate when they pass along that stretch by adding or subtracting from the arrival and departure times at Veles station, which is about eight to nine minutes away. Maybe you should try to find a spot to intercept him after that stretch, but I’m looking at it now and I don’t see any obvious place.’ He heard O’Neill breathe heavily. ‘Once he’s walking on that track there’s no choice but to follow it. It’s a bloody long haul for a young lad. A few miles up the track and he’ll have to pass through a tunnel. There’s no way round.’
When the call was over, Vuk scratched his stubble ferociously and offered his flask to Samson.
‘Maybe when I’ve got the boy safely off the track,’ Samson said.
‘Then I drink for you.’ Vuk put the flask to his mouth.
It was then that Aco came on the scene, but not on their side of the river. He called Vuk and explained that the only way they would know who was on the rail line was if he remained on the eastern bank. He would act as Samson’s spotter and he’d also have a better view of approaching trains, particularly those coming around the bend.
Samson and Vuk moved off and drove up a hill of stunted trees and bushes. They bumped along a track that was no more than a depression in the grass. Vuk insisted that it was an ancient way – the road that people had used to pass through these valleys for thousands of years. It was little more than a shepherd’s path now, of course, but Slav warriors of the past had once marched along it to do battle with the Greeks. Samson ignored the history lesson and kept his eye on Aco’s bike flashing through the trees that lined the banks of the Vardar. About fifteen minutes into the journey, he saw him pull up in a meadow of hay stooks. Moments later Aco was on Vuk’s speaker saying he had seen half a dozen migrants spread out over fifty metres, just a little ahead of Vuk’s car. There was no sign of the boy.
