by Finn Óg
“Go on,” said Sam, although he wasn’t at all sure she was only messing when she slagged him.
Sinead began reading: “Tell that gobshite that he got something right – it was a phone number and it was a Libyan mobile. But – for whatever reason, it’s not in Libya any more. At least the last time it pinged a cellular mast it wasn’t in Libya. It was in Egypt.” Sinead paused. “Make sense so far?”
“Yes,” said Sam, tension building at what he knew was coming.
“Last known location, eastern Egypt. Can track it from Alexandria across Sinai Desert with patches of nothing until … I can’t make this out.”
“Does it begin with N?” he asked, his head in his hands.
“Yeah, how’d ye know that?”
“Sound it out,” he said – just as he made Isla do with her reading books.
“What am I, like five? Nu-wi-ba,” she said.
“Nuweiba,” he repeated.
“Weird.” Sinead dismissed the incidentals and got back to the note. “It went dark closest to a town called Nuweiba. Tell him to …” Sinead trailed off for a moment then came back. “Well, that’s the gist of it.”
“Tell him to what?” he pressed.
“The rest is just nonsense really.”
“Go on, some nonsense might cheer me up just now.”
“No,” she said, unusually firm.
“Go on,” he giggled.
He later imagined her set on a path before being nudged by him towards wavering. It had been a big decision.
“Come on, Sinead, what else did she write?” he asked.
He heard her take a big breath and then dive in.
“Tell him to make a decision about my sister and stop fucking with her head. She’s been through enough dickheads already.”
There was a deathly silence for a few moments. There was no point in denying anything. They were grown-ups and they’d both been around the block. Sam eventually spoke.
“I don’t mean to mess with your head, Sinead.”
“I know, Sam,” she said. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget about it. It’s not an issue. But … I’m going to go now, ok?”
“Ok,” was all Sam could think to say.
And she was gone.
He sat for a long while thinking about things he didn’t want to be thinking about. All he wanted was a bit of time with his daughter, alone. But that was going to have to wait, so he hunted for a distraction and wondered about Shannon and what she would say.
She’d ask what the bad guys had done. He’d tell her they were people trafficking. She’d ask what he intended to do about it – not if he intended to do anything but what he intended to do. He’d talk her through possible scenarios, toning down or ignoring the violence. She’d weigh it all up and opt for the hard road. If people are harming children or women, remove them. She would have no problem with that.
So he fired up the Wi-Fi and searched for flights to Egypt.
Chapter 21
“Irish Ireland, Irish Ireland. Passport office.”
First impressions: Middle Eastern mayhem.
There were chickens running about being chased by headless Arabs, their scarves bound round their skulls to stave off the weather. Ancient Mercedes estate cars were three-storey stacked with mattresses, furniture, old square television sets, and Sam even spotted a dog kennel. He thought he’d seen it all until a pickup emerged from the ship with what appeared to be a bundle of sandy rugs in the back. He thought little of it until the rig opened its eyes, bore a jaw full of enormous teeth and he realised he was staring into the face of a camel. Like, seriously, who brings a camel across the sea in the back of their car? And what shipping company lets them?
He was enjoying Nuweiba very much indeed, despite the ferry crossing during which men had unashamedly squatted to shit on the decks and piss against the life-jacket holds. Sam doubted there were any life jackets in them anyway. He had thought on more than one occasion that if the ship was to sink, he would be the sole survivor.
The route was far from ideal. Sam was spoiled for passports, and all of his passports were spoiled. He had two Irish issues and one British – all legit and a by-product of the happy circumstance of being born in Belfast, where the Good Friday Agreement provided for possession of both. A person could be Irish, British or both in the new Ireland. A person could identify as a box of chocolates as far as Sam could care.
Sam’s intention had been to enter Egypt as undetected as possible, but he had Israeli stamps on two of his passports. That could prove a problem for Arab border guards, many of whom were hostile to the Jewish state. Besides, his travel history was so murky he could well be mistaken for a mercenary or special ops soldier and be sent back or scooped. Being arrested wasn’t an option – given Isla – so he had to travel clean.
To compound the complications he couldn’t say for sure that he wasn’t being actively sought in that state, given the work which Shannon had given him shortly after they’d first met. Israelis were exceptionally good at questioning new arrivals.
Because of the strife in Egypt no commercial carrier was flying to Cairo, so he decided to get to Amman, get through Jordan and catch the ferry at Aqaba, which was why some clown in an Egyptian customs kiosk was reading his passport, word by word, over a tannoy.
“Irish Ireland, Irish Ireland, please come immigration,” echoed over a crackly speaker system. In his distraction Sam only picked up on the Ireland bit. He seldom heard his surname used. He would have to go back to his pre-officer days to remember a time it had been routinely used to his face.
He left the madness of the arrivals terminal and eventually found a small hut in a loading bay where his passport was returned. He’d been reluctant to hand it over on the ship – expecting some bloody backhanded fundraising activity to be behind it – but there was no other option. Kick up a fuss and maybe have to buck a few people over the side, or hand it over peacefully and hope for the best.
And the best had prevailed. His third passport remained Israeli-stamp free and he exited the ferry port exhausted but strangely elated to be back in business. He was about to get stuck into something he was good at as opposed to parenting – in which his skill level still rested with the jury.
He walked one mile north, found a beach, dug a hole in the sand and slept to the sound of the sea while he waited for his ship to come in.
Sam looked up at her, imposing, dangerous, full of menace – and smiled in the sure knowledge that few people would imagine him capable of what he was about to do.
Teetaya. Her name was plastered on the transom. He toyed with the notion of shimmying up the lines tying it to the harbour, but he wasn’t confident in his own fitness having been at sea for such a long time. It had meant virtually no walking, and save for a bit of habitual core work and winching sails in and out, he’d done no exercise and was softer than usual.
In the end he didn’t have to do anything so exotic. He simply strolled up the walkway and punched the man standing at its top in the face. He took the man’s radio and phone, kicked him down the steps and swung the walkway away from the quay.
He worked his way below and found a fire axe right where it should be. Deeper again he identified the enormous seacocks that allow water in and out of the ship. Every vessel sucks seawater – to flush toilets and, more importantly, cool the engines. Sam merrily swiped the metal fixings with the axe as he passed, pishing water in at a furious rate. Within minutes he was wading around just below knee level.
Sam started to climb the steps in search of the real workers – the ratings. He found some running about trying to identify why the alarms were going off.
“Sinking,” he barked at them. “Get off the ship immediately!”
They turned and ran up the metal rungs. He cleared each deck as he rose through the bowels of the boat, kicking or throwing open doors to make sure nobody was left behind. Up and up he went until eventually he made it to the bridge where
all hell was breaking loose with buzzing and beeping and the wailing of sirens.
“Who is the radio operator?” he screamed as he burst onto the floor.
A man Sam assumed to be the captain turned towards him and began with a barrage of questions in a language he didn’t understand.
Sam ignored him. “Radio operator!” he screamed again, and in their confusion at this axe-wielding apparition two of the four men present pointed at a burly chap by a window.
“I am from the yacht Tuskar. Remember me? You refused to give us help,” he said, his voice more even as he lowered his heart rate.
The burly man’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. He made to move from his seat but Sam caught him with a well-aimed hurl of a small fire extinguisher. It left the operator nicked but not out.
Sam turned to the others. “Refusing to help a fellow seafarer in distress is an incredibly serious issue, gentlemen. The punishment for such a transgression,” he somehow found himself adopting Fran’s flowery prose, “is a spell in Davy Jones’s locker.”
“What?” spat the captain, evidently understanding the reference.
“To the seabed, my friend, but first you must give me the sea books of your crew.”
“No!” yelled the captain, so Sam chased down the radio operator, opened the bridge’s side door, dragged the man a few feet across the walkway and swept his feet from beneath him, depositing him over the rail and into the harbour below. Then he returned to the bridge and surged for the captain.
“Moment, moment, moment,” shouted the skipper who made for a large chart table and crouched beneath it.
Sam was wary and stayed tight to the captain’s back in case there was a gun in the ship’s safe. The captain rooted around and came out with a clasp of passport-sized brown booklets and held them over his shoulder.
Sam nodded and took a step back. “Vessel Teetaya, you are currently sinking. That is why the alarms are screaming. This is because you refused to help people who were in trouble and because you have abused your crew for years. You can leave the ship by walkway for another few moments, or if you prefer to wait, you can test your dodgy lifeboats. As you are at dock in this fine port, the ship will not go under but will remain here clogging the place up. I am quite sure that this will cause your employer some anger and distress – and you will deserve every bit of what is coming to you.”
With that Sam gathered the books for the ratings and left the bridge to its wailing commotion.
Living life impulsively might be fun in short bursts but it always leaves a low when the excitement is over.
Sam returned to his hole on the beach and realised he had very little to go on and nothing to do next. Around him sat a few circular beach huts, all abandoned. There was a dilapidated backpacker’s retreat nearby with no customers but little else. He decided to take up residence, and stock of his situation, in the shelter of a straw mud hut.
What had he been thinking? That this people trafficker could be traced in a town just because his phone had last been here? That he would somehow find this man, batter him and return to Ireland with a job done? Sam’s darkness crept over him. He had been distracted of late, had had purpose and direction – across the Med, to Ireland, getting Isla back to routine. When she’d gone on holidays he’d leapt at the first opportunity to avoid thinking, and he’d applied himself, as usual, one hundred per cent, but that was finished now and he was flapping around like a hooked mackerel in a bucket. The high of sinking Teetaya and wreaking revenge was wearing off. He needed a lead but he didn’t even have a sniff to follow. So against his better judgement and fearing the awkwardness of the call he dialled Sinead.
“I didn’t think I’d hear from you for a while,” she said sheepishly.
“I mean it. I am sorry. I’m just not there. Not yet anyway.”
“I get that,” she unhooked him, her generosity boundless.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be in touch with you, Sinead. If that’s not an annoyance.”
“You know it’s not.”
“Thank you.”
There was an easy and long silence between them, a peaceful understanding.
“You’re on the boat, I take it?” Sinead asked.
Sam laughed. “You would not believe where I am, Sinead.”
“Where?”
“Egypt. I just sank a ship with a hatchet.”
“Fuck off,” she said, which surprised him as she seldom swore.
“Serious.”
“Why?” Sinead was struggling to make sense of it.
“When we were at sea with Alea and Sadiqah I called a passing ship and told them I’d people on board who needed help. They told me to fuck off. It made me cross.”
“Bloody hell, Sam, remind me not to make you angry.”
“I feel better now.”
“Did anyone, like, drown?”
“No, no, I just sank her in the dock. She’s lying against the quay wall clogging up the harbour, but on the seabed all the same. Most of her is above the waterline.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“So are you.”
And there was silence as he computed how that had managed to come out of him unguarded.
“So are you in that place, Noobia?” Sinead broke it.
“Nuweiba,” he said. “Yeah.”
“Are you going looking for this trafficker then – the fella who sent Alea into the sea?”
“I’d like to but I don’t know where to start.”
“Well, what was your plan?”
“I didn’t really have one.”
“Unbelievable.”
“You said that before.”
“This time I meant it,” she sniggered.
“Maybe you could rub Alea up for me a bit. See if there’s anything she can remember that would help me find this fecker.”
“Like what?”
“Like what he looks like or what he wore or his kit, or whether he was the type to rough it or if he drove a pimped-up wagon. Anything like that could give me a start.”
“I can’t believe you went all the way out there and didn’t have a clue what you were going to do.”
“Well, Isla’s away, so I’ve got a week and I might as well be at something useful.”
“I’ll give it a go with Alea. I’ll call you soon as.”
“Thanks, Sinead.”
“And Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“No pressure, seriously, but do you think you might ever be there?”
Sam paused for a long moment looking at the waves and the sunset and gave an honest answer. “I don’t know, Sinead. I really don’t know.”
Waleed looked in the rear-view mirror, closed his eyes for a brief moment and kissed Arish goodbye. Four months he’d spent in the town. Useless months during which he’d discovered no more than the little his instincts had told him the day he’d arrived. Regardless, the air force had carried out seven air strikes on known terrorist locations in Sinai and there were unconfirmed deaths in the hundreds. Egypt’s latest leader looked decisive, the security situation had momentarily stabilised and Waleed had been ordered to return to his Sinai outpost to continue intelligence gathering.
Until he got a call to say there had been another attack.
“Where?”
“Nuweiba, sir.”
“A bombing?”
“No, it’s …”
“Hurry up,” Waleed barked, irritated at yet another distraction and keenly aware he had another matter to deal with back at base. An enormous matter in a grungy suit.
“They’ve sunk a ship, sir.”
“What?”
“The harbour is completely blocked. The captain claims some terrorist came aboard and scuttled his ship while it sat in port.”
“Terrorist or terrorists?”
“Well, sir, just one, apparently.”
“One man sank a ship? Where was the crew?”
“They were all on board, sir.”
“Then why didn’t they stop him?”
“They say he was armed.”
“With what?”
“Ehm, an axe, sir.”
“An axe. One man sank a ship in front of its crew with an axe.”
“That’s… that’s what they say, sir.”
“Did he chop through the ship’s hull with the axe?” Waleed was struggling to understand.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“And why do you think it’s a terrorist incident?”
“Well, the captain says it was terrorists, sir, and, well, aren’t all ports getting tighter security?”
Waleed sighed. It did sound like an attack, which was positive in a way. That an axe was used rather than explosives suggested the Islamist groups were low on resources.
“There’s one more thing, sir.”
“What?”
“The attacker – apparently he was a white man who spoke English.”
“Right,” said Waleed, thinking about the countless recruits IS and others had managed to attract from England and elsewhere. He struggled to remember one who had been white, though.
“What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Secure the area,” he said. “Monitor all mobile phone activity in the vicinity and get Cairo to track any unusual comms. I’m on my way.”
“Ok, so,” Sinead began. “He’s small, Libyan, gnarly and his hair is black.”
“Hello to you, too,” said Sam.
“Yeah, sorry. Hello.”
“So this is Habid.”
“You know his name?”
“His brother gave it away – the bloke in the detention centre.”
“Right?”
“Anyway, tell me what Alea said. What about his habits?”
“I didn’t ask about habits – you didn’t ask me to ask about his habits, but you did tell me to ask about kit.”
“Ok, ok, well, what does he use?”
“He’s got a phone, as you know, which Áine tried again and still can’t find. She says it’s probably been destroyed. And he had a GPS.”
“Did he now?”
“Yeah, so we tried to find out what type of GPS it was.”
