by Jon F. Merz
Zero waved his hand. “Look around us, Lawson. We’re the only two white guys in this place. How the hell else are we going to convince Nadi to see us unless he thinks we’re some sort of offshoot IRA group looking for a handout.”
I sipped my fruit juice. Seoul had been a lark. Zero and I had ben on a mission and were flying back through Seoul from some other place. Zero had struck up a conversation with a pair of attractive young ladies who apparently had a thing for guys with Irish brogues. I’d been in the bathroom and when I came back, Zero introduced me as his cousin Billy from Dublin and I’d had to immediately suss the situation out and start improvising an Irish accent on the fly. It had worked wonders and made our stay in Seoul considerably more enjoyable than it might have been otherwise.
Keeping up an accent is a pain in the ass, however. Still, Zero had a point and it made enough sense that this guy just might buy it. If we were lucky.
“I assume you’ve got some sort of backstory built up for us already? In case he calls and checks with his contacts?”
Zero nodded. “We took credit for a car bomb outside a police station in Portadown last month.”
“Was there really such a thing?”
“Of course,” said Zero. “I should know because I placed it there myself. Just with one of the wires not properly connected to the detonator, so no danger to anyone. The IRA didn’t claim it, so I took the liberty of calling in and claiming responsibility along with the promise of more bloodshed in the future, courtesy of the Brothers of Bogside.”
“How’d you manage all of that?”
Zero just looked at me like I had five eyes. “You really have to ask a question like that after all the time you’ve known me?”
I laughed. “Good point.” I sipped more of my fruit juice and then put the glass back down. “So, how do we find this guy?”
The waitress interrupted us again asking if we needed anything else. Zero smiled at her. “What’s your name?”
She smiled suddenly. “Wajiah.”
“Lovely name,” said Zero. “For a lovely woman.” He stared at her for a moment and then broke the eye contact. “We’re fine for now, but we’ll call you over if we need anything.”
Wajiah apparently liked this a great deal because she floatd away as if she was on a cloud. I looked at Zero. “Someone seems to have an affinity for old dudes.”
“I’m not old,” said Zero. “I’m older. And clearly she has remarkable taste.”
“Again,” I said switching topics. “How do we find him?”
“He finds us,” said Zero. “We’ll begin nosing through some of the places he likes to frequent and see if he makes an approach once I start asking for him by name.”
“How would we have gotten his name? He’ll want to know that.”
“It’s a minor matter,” said Zero. “Terrorist groups are some of the most gossipy people around these days. They’re always bragging about what they’ve got for explosives and weapons. One question leads to another and another. Pretty soon, you know who has their hand on the money. If Nadi asks, leave it to me. Your role is to play my younger brother who is amped up to get our hands on money so you can blow those butchering British bastards back to the Stone Age.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “So just how big is our group, the Brothers of Bogside?”
“Only a few true believers at the moment,” said Zero slipping into his own brogue. “But don’t ye know, we’re hoping to find a few more after this trip.”
“So where do we start?”
“At the market,” said Zero. “Our target frequents it quite a bit.” He put his hands together. “There’s just one small problem.”
“That being?”
“I don’t know what he looks like.”
“You know his name,” I said. “How hard could it be to track it down?”
Zero frowned. “Believe me, I’ve tried. Our boy keeps a very low profile. And presumably uses a fake name which makes finding out who he is that much more challenging. Until we get a sit down with him, we’re going to be flying blind.”
“Spectacular,” I said. “We could literally be talking right to the guy and not know it.”
“True enough.”
“And we’re going to just start walking around the market asking questions? That’s the plan?”
“It’s a good one, right?” Zero asked with a grin on his face. He knew it wasn’t particularly good at all. But it had something else going for it: it was so simple that it might work and it was also exactly what a pair of would-be bombers might do without having a better network in place that could assist them. Zero wanted us looking like a pair of disillusioned ex-IRA boyos trying to start their own big show in Northern Ireland, and that’s exactly how it would appear when we started knocking on doors asking for Nadi and his big old bag of money.
“Well, we’re wasting time sitting here,” I said. “Let’s get moving.”
Zero paid the bill and met me outside at the taxi area where the doorman flagged us a cab. Inside, Zero told the driver in fluent Arabic to take us to the marketplace. The man grunted, complimented Zero on his Egyptian dialect, and threw us out into the traffic slipstream, rocketing down the main drag toward the market.
As we drove, I took in more of the cosmopolitan sites, amazed at the extent of construction that was happening everywhere. Zero pointed out where the embassies were and even from the inside of the car, you could see that security had been stepped up around the areas due to terrorism concerns.
A few miles down the road, we drew abreast of a bustling area clogged with traffic and people. Zero nudged me and we got out, throwing a sheaf of paper money into the front seat as we did so.
Outside, the heat of the day bore down on us and I got an instant sweat on, feeling it quickly soak the linen shirt I was wearing untucked over the pistol in the small of my back. Zero guided us across the street and we ducked under the tents and into a dimly-lit world of merchants eager to hawk their wares to everyone walking by.
I was immediately overwhelmed with the shouts and calls and din of the entire place. People haggled over the price of goat meat at one stall, bought cheap watches at another, and even American sneaker counterfeits at yet another. The place was a maze with small avenues to walk through as you journeyed down the main thoroughfare. If Zero knew where he was headed, it didn’t seem like we were heading right there. In fact, I think he wanted us looking a bit lost, knowing there would immediately be eyes on us since we weren’t exactly the local flavor.
He stopped at a rug merchant and asked the shopkeeper something I couldn’t hear because of the incredible volume of noise in the place. The shopkeeper shook his had and pointed further down the market place.
We passed an ancient woman sitting by herself next to a stand that sold fresh melon. She sat there fanning her weather-beaten skin that looked like old leather left to crinkle and warp in the bright sun for too long. I put some money in her hand and grabbed two pieces for me and Zero. The juice of the fruit was amazing and refreshing and momentarily allowed me to shut out the din of the marketplace and concentrate only on the experience of eating the fresh fruit. I was already soaked through with sweat and the juice rejuvenated me. Coming from cold, rainy London, it was going to take sometime to acclimate to the heat of Egypt.
We pressed on, with Zero making more inquiries as we went. I ditched the melon rind and kept pace with him, making sure I didn’t get too close or stay too far away. Pickpockets were notorious in places like this and the last thing I wanted was for either one of us to have our pistols grabbed or wallets lifted. Egyptian pickpockets were some of the best in the world and had such a deft touch you’d never know you’d been fleeced until hours later when you went to pay for something only to discover your wallet was gone, replaced with a wad of cotton in the same shape.
Some of the merchants had set up electric fans that helped circulate some air about the place, even though it was humid. Zero asked three more times, and each time he d
id, the merchants would point further along the way. It seemed at least that we were headed in the right direction to find someone who could help us. It was just a matter of hanging in there until we did.
Finally, we drew up to a small cafe at the other end of the market where things seemed to settle down a bit. The cafe had a large chunk of real estate and was partitioned off from the rest of the chaos by heavy curtains that led into a cool, dark interior. Stepping inside, it felt like we’d arrived at some old beduin oasis in the middle of the Sahara.
We were seated immediately by the proprietor who brought us menus. Zero asked for water, which normally would not have been especially prudent given the nature of water in Egypt. But the usual stomach parasites didn’t bother us since we were vampires. Our bodies could handle any of that without repercussions. Fortunately. There’s nothing worse than being held hostage by your toilet while your system works to expel nasty intruders.
After several minutes of perusing the menu, the proprietor came back over and asked if we knew what we wanted. Zero laid his menu down, looked at the old guy, and said very simply and politely.
“We’d like to meet with Nadi.”
The proprietor did his best to look as if he had no idea what we were talking about, but the left eyebrow twitched slightly and was enough of a tell to let us know he knew who we were asking about. Without a word he left the table.
Zero looked at me. “Well, we’re either at the right place or else he’s setting us up to be killed.”
5
We sat there for five minutes without seeing any sign that Zero’s request was being fulfilled. And the longer we sat, the more uneasy I got.
“I don’t like this.”
I was wearing a Browning Hi Power 9mm in the small of my back. It wasn’t the most concealable piece but it had decent stopping power and I appreciated the heft of it in my hand. I eased myself forward in my seat, ready to draw it if I needed to, but Zero stayed me with a quick glance.
“Relax, Lawson. Let’s wait and see what these guys have to say. Remember: we came knocking, not the other way around.”
Thirty seconds after that, four men rushed into the cafe so suddenly I barely had time to turn in my chair before one of them clocked me across the jaw. The punch wasn’t hard, but it was enough to show they meant business. As if I wouldn’t have been able to discern that given the pistols they all aimed at us.
“I guess we’re gonna see,” I said quietly.
They put hoods on both Zero and I, tied our hands, and rushed us out of the back of the cafe into a van that was idling there. I couldn’t see anything through the hood, but my ears were astute enough to pick up on the many different sounds I heard.
We were tossed into the back of the van, the door was slammed shut, and then the van itself reversed, changed direction, and sped off down the bumpy road that ran adjacent to the market place.
Next to me, Zero said nothing and I knew he was most likely taking stock of the situation the same as me. That’s what we’d been trained to do. Any sort of clue would come in handy later when we either made our escape or had to fight our way out of here.
My Browning had been taken off of me as soon as the hood had gone on leaving me feeling naked without it. I assumed they must have taken Zero’s pistol as well. We could both fight them unarmed if necessary, but I like having a firearm in situations like this. Knowing I didn’t have it made me more apprehensive than I liked.
The van bounced along the road, sending both Zero and I jostling against each other and the sides of the van. We heard laughter as the men who had taken us joked in Arabic about how many bruises we were going to have by the time we reached our destination.
Neither Zero nor I let on that we could understand and speak fluent Arabic. There was no sense giving them that information, especially when we might have need of it later or might pick up information they wouldn’t otherwise share with us.
We rocketed around a corner at high speed and I wondered if there were any traffic cops in all of Cairo who would care that a van carrying two Americans was caroming around the city.
Probably not.
In my head, I was doing my best to memorize our route. We’d gone straight after being tossed in at the market place, then the turn. We made another series of turns as well and I figured that we were either being deliberately confused by the driver, or we were actually heading to the right place. It made more sense that they were trying to confuse us. Wherever we were headed might have only been a block from the market, but given the length and route of the drive, we could have also been miles away.
The van braked suddenly and the string of profanity that erupted from the driver and the other guys in the van made me think someone must have cut them off in traffic. I heard banging on the dashboard and one of the guys suggested pulling up alongside the offender and putting a few rounds into them. This suggestion was overruled with laughter, which at least made me think they weren’t completely psychotic.
We took a few more turns and then hit a straightaway for almost a solid two minutes. That suggested a distance of perhaps a mile. Finally, the van slowed and turned right before slowing to a complete stop a few moments later.
The men got us moving immediately with shouts and shoves. Zero and I knew what they wanted but we played stupid. There wasn’t much chance of a couple of Irish lads knowing what the hell they were saying in Arabic.
We were taken out of the van and hustled down a narrow alley before being forced to duck inside some sort of building. It was measurably cooler inside and I was grateful for it. I was sweating like a bastard underneath the hood and longed to take it off. My wrists were also aching from being bound together.
I kept stumbling as we walked, trying to get a sense of the type of floor we were on. It felt like concrete. Perhaps a warehouse?
Eventually, they stopped us and I was made to sit on a simple chair. I sensed Zero next to me and then it got very quiet. I had no idea if there was anyone in front of us or not, even though I didn’t sense anyone. Should I risk talking to Zero or not?
I decided not to. If Zero had anything to communicate, he’d let me know. And since he was staying quiet, I followed his lead and did the same.
The chair I sat in felt like a metal folding chair. I shifted and it scraped against the concrete floor and the sound told me I was right. I got cuffed on the back of the head for doing that, which confirmed we weren’t alone.
What were they waiting for? Was Nadi here? Would they simply shoot us and be done with it? If so, they were going to be really surprised when their bullets didn’t kill us.
I heard another chair being set down in front of us, followed by the sound of someone clearing his throat. In the next instant, our hoods were whipped off.
I blinked in the bright light, getting my bearings as fast as possible. I could see the man in front of me and then a half dozen other armed men at key points around us. I kept blinking, allowing my eyes to fully acclimate to the new environment and I guessed Zero was doing the same.
The man seated before us wore a dark beard and his eyes looked sunken and hollow. His wiry hair jutted from his head at odd angles and the loose shirt he wore looked to be the cleanest part of him. He also stunk like bad body odor which made me want to crinkle my nose. I refrained, however. No sense insulting the guy since we’d only just met.
“Who are you?” he asked simply in stilted English.
Zero took the lead and I stayed silent, exactly the way a pair of relations might actually be. As always, I had to restrain my natural inclination to look surprised whenever I heard Zero affect a new accent. He was a master of any number of them, and the first time I heard him speak, I really believed he was from Ireland.
“The Brothers of Bogside. My name’s Ian. This is Billy. We’re here looking for money. Told that we could find it if we managed to find a fellow named Nadi.”
The man looked from Zero to me and then back to Zero. “And what do you want of this man, Nadi? Wh
y do you seek him?”
“We need money,” said Zero. “To help fund our wee campaign back in Ireland. We want to bring the British to their knees and in order to do that, we need funds to help us recruit more members and get more explosives and guns. Can’t bring down an empire with just fists, don’t you know.”
The man’s faced remained impassive. Again, his eyes moved slowly from Zero to me and then back again. He scanned us from our feet up, carefully cataloging everything about us. He rubbed his chin and then leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees.
“And why shouldn’t I just turn you over to the cops? Then they can hand you over to the British and you can go right to jail for being terrorists?”
“Why would you want to do that?” asked Zero. “We came here on good faith. Looking for help, we did. If you can’t help us, then let us go and we’ll be on our way. We meant no disrespect.”
“Maybe what you say is all lies,” said the man. “Maybe what you say is a trick to get me to reveal this man you know as Nadi. Maybe you are spies sent to kill us all.”
“Why we would risk this?” asked Zero. “If we were here to kill you, you’d already be dead. We would have had some sort of team waiting for you back at the cafe. But we don’t. It’s just me and my brother. That’s it. We came here with all we’ve got. And that ain’t much, is it? Our guns that we took off the dead British soldiers we killed.”
“You killed soldiers?”
“Yeah we did,” said Zero. “A couple weeks back. Came across two of them stumbling round drunk. Came up behind ‘em and knifed ‘em until they stopped squirming. They died on the floor of an old mill up in Bogside. Don’t know if you know where that is, but it’s a cold, dark place and not fit to be dying’ in.”
The man frowned. “And if I make inquiries into what you claim, will it come back as truth?”
Zero shrugged. “Who knows what you can find out? Who knows what the Brits have reported and held back. They’re not exactly forthcoming with news of the squaddies getting killed over the water in Ireland. Don’t want to upset the general public back in London now, do they? Chances are if you ask about us, you might hear a little or a lot. Can’t say for sure. But we’re here and so are you, so that’s something. But go ahead, make your inquires. Me and my baby brother have got nothing but time. Can’t do anything else but wait here.”
