Chasing the Storm

by Martin Molsted

  He climbed back out the window and was about to leave, when he was startled by two cats fighting. They were squabbling over a plastic garbage bag beside the back door. Shooing the cats away, Ibrahim sifted through the contents of the bag, digging through rotten tomatoes and discarded orange peels, looking for scraps of paper. He found a couple dozen: shopping lists, a note to the cleaner, a letter from Roman’s aunt in Australia, two Russian newspapers. He took them all. Back at his apartment, he scoured the texts for evidence of the word code he’d been taught. And sure enough, he found a message in the letter. It was a list of supplies: medicines, wet suits, flashlights, life vests, etc. And at the end of the list was a date: April 4, a.m. Ibrahim didn’t know what to make of this, but he memorized the list and the number and returned it to the garbage bag.

  Ibrahim had gone to Dahab with the mistress. While they were there, the Alpensturm hijacking hit the news. Immediately, Ibrahim remembered the date in the code: April 4, a.m. Precisely when the hijacking had occurred. And the supplies had mentioned items that would have made sense in a sea mission. So he’d come back to Cairo and contacted Youssef. He was interested in getting some money out of the story, but Youssef warned him that he’d compromise his steady income if he leaked anything to the media. The day after their meeting, Ibrahim was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he left his apartment. Hit-and-run accidents were common in Cairo, but still … Youssef held his hand out, palm downward, and turned it this way and that.

  Youssef was intrigued. He’d done a little scouting on his own. First, he made a list of all the Mossad-related people he knew. Using his contacts, he then traced all the movements he could over the last month. He’d turned up three interesting tidbits. A Syria-based agent had also abruptly left the country, on the same day as Roman. His whereabouts were at present unknown. But, even more interesting, he’d discovered that two high-level Israeli diplomats, one with close ties to Mossad, had traveled out of Israel on April 7. Diplomats travel all the time, but something was interesting about these two: Youssef had conflicting accounts of where they were headed. Investigating further, he discovered that each had told his wife that he was heading for a conference in Toronto. They had left from the Tel Aviv airport, where one of the baggage handlers was a friend of Youssef’s. According to the baggage handler, they had gotten on a plane to Moscow. Why? asked Youssef. Why had they both lied? They had been to Russia before and had felt no need to lie about it. He could only assume that they wanted to keep the mission secret from the media.

  “So,” Youssef sat back and sipped at his tea. “So. What do you think of all this information, Mr. Torgrim? Quite interesting, mish kida? If we put everything together, it appear that Israel send some Mossad agents to make hijack on this ship. Also, they are contacting with the Russian government.”

  Rygg looked at Marin. He was a cipher, sitting cross-legged with his palms on his knees. Finally, he looked up slowly. He wore a sad, haggard look. “The pieces are in place,” he said. “I think we can now tell the story so far. It goes something like this: Iran approached the Russian government sometime last year, with an offer to buy twelve S-400 missiles. The government agreed, and contacted Captain Tamm of the Alpensturm, who was known to be a straight player, with no connections to the drug world. Perhaps they told him that he would be serving his country. Clearly he would receive quite a lot of money. Through their intelligence network, Israel learned of the transaction. They sent six Mossad agents, including this Roman, to intercept the ship and hijack it. The next day, top-level Israeli diplomats arrived in Moscow to discuss matters with the Russian government. As a cover, to continue the story that the ship had been hijacked by drug criminals, Russia sent a massive fleet of ships and submarines to find the ship. Of course, as we learned only yesterday, they know exactly where the Alpensturm is. They have been delaying the actual boarding, I will guess, because negotiations with Israel are continuing. Russia clearly loses much money if the mission is aborted. Their relationship with Iran is damaged, their relationship with Israel is damaged. And, clearly, if the true story gets out, their relationship with the United States and certain European countries is extremely damaged. So it is in their interest to disguise the whole operation.”

  Rygg let out his breath in a soft whistle. “So when do you think they’ll board the Alpensturm?”

  “I have no idea. But they cannot wait too long. The world is watching and the rumors are beginning to run rampant. I would say that within a week they will board the ship.”

  “But there’s something … here’s what I don’t understand. Okay, they board the ship and capture the hijackers. But what then? I mean, they’ve got these Israeli hijackers then and the media will be all over them. What the hell are they going to do?”

  “You make a good point, Torgrim. I cannot think what they will do.”

  “And what do we do?” Lena asked gently.

  Marin placed a hand on her knee. He looked up at Rygg. “I am almost ready to publish,” he said. “But I am missing one piece. I still do not have hard evidence that Iran is buying the missiles. I do not see who else it can be, but I do not have evidence.”

  Rygg looked at Youssef.

  Youssef grinned at him. “Mr. Torgrim. For you, I do anything. I will talk to my Iran contact. Meet me tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “Never the same place twice, as you know, Mr. Torgrim. We will meet tomorrow, at the booksellers in Ataba. Seven p.m. Ask for Abdulrazak.”

  May 10

  They had been on the ship for nearly six weeks now. The food stocks were dwindling, and they were rationing the potatoes and flour. Each person now got half a potato and two slices of bread a day, along with broth. The broth, which Ivan called “stone soup,” was a continuously simmering concoction of bones and scraps of meat, into which they threw another few beets and carrots and frozen peas every day. They were also running low on coffee. The smokers on board were almost out of cigarettes.

  The weather had been mostly clear, though a couple squalls had blown up out of nowhere, roughening the water and tossing the ship about as though it was a toy. Dmitri’s seafaring experience was confined to the relatively tame Baltic and the gigantic waves, taller than the cathedral in the center of Kaliningrad, terrified him. During one of the storms, the commandos took the captives on deck in groups of three and had them remove their clothes and soap themselves up. Dmitri was taken up with Ludo, who sucked in his breath when he saw Dmitri’s ribs and sunken belly. “I needed a bit of a diet,” he muttered as he passed the soap across, “but you certainly didn’t.” The rain was painful on Dmitri’s skin: he’d developed sores on his loins and back that kept breaking open; he’d find fresh dabs of pus and blood on his mattress every morning. His gums were also bleeding, and a couple of his teeth seemed loose. “I’m turning into an old man,” he complained to Ludo, before a commando hushed him.

  One morning, Dmitri was lying on his bunk, staring up at the gray paint of the ceiling. He’d finished baking the day’s bread, and there was nothing to do until it was time to heat up the stone soup for lunch. There were five or six books on board, which had been passed around to all the sailors, but Dmitri found he couldn’t read anymore: he didn’t have the concentration. Now, if he wasn’t cooking or washing dishes, he just lay on his bunk staring at the ceiling or sleeping. He had a headache, a pulse of pain behind his right eye, which was connected to his heartbeat. And as he lay there, drifting in and out of sleep, he felt the pulse grow stronger, and it seemed that it grew louder as well, until he could hear it – hear his heartbeat pounding away in his skull and shaking the bed frame. Suddenly he sat up, frightened. The other two sailors were at the porthole, faces crammed to the glass. “What is it?” he screamed. “What’s happening?”

  “Lie down, Dmitri,” one of them said. “It’s a helicopter.”

  “What? What?” But now he could hear the pounding of the rotors as the copter came alongside the ship.

  “A helicopter. It’s above u
s.”

  Dmitri staggered over to the porthole and pushed one of the sailors aside. He could see the blown circle where the blades ruffled the water, and, if he crouched and peered up, he could just make out the landing struts. It was hovering directly above the ship. As he watched, a rope wobbled down from the struts, and almost immediately, a black-clad figure scurried down, followed by another. There were shouts, and he expected to hear gunfire, but the invaders seemed to be boarding the ship with little fanfare. Seven figures slipped down the rope like fat drops of oil, and then the helicopter veered abruptly away. Dmitri watched the rope shortening as it was drawn back into the body. Tilted forward, the helicopter buzzed away to the east until it was just a speck, and then vanished into the haze on the horizon.

  Dmitri turned back into the room. “What was that about?” he asked. His roommates shrugged. He felt only fear, and the headache that drove a spike deeper and deeper into his eye.

  May 12

  That afternoon, Rygg, Marin, Lena, and Sasha took a taxi through the heart of the city. They passed by restaurants that had no doors and Lena asked Rygg, “Why they have no doors?”

  “Because they never close,” he said. “This place never sleeps.”

  They moved past gigantic mosques, clad in blue and green tiles, the domes gilded, and a strange, bulky church. A man rode past them on a bicycle, against the traffic, with a double-storied pallet of pita bread on his head. A girl with one arm led her blind brother from car to car, begging. A woman veiled top to toe walked arm-in-arm with a girl in a skimpy skirt and skin-tight T-shirt. The sidewalks were crammed with sellers of plastic toys and packets of tissues and falafel sandwiches and quail in baskets and Arabic books, all of whom had spread mats or set up little tables on the concrete, so the passersby were forced to walk in the street.

  They got off at a roundabout and followed Rygg, weaving through the traffic, past shops selling watches and lutes and stuffed animals, making their way to an enclosure that was a haven of peace within the commotion. Inside the enclosure, about fifty steel huts stood around a plain of broken concrete tiles. From the doors of the huts, books spilled in piles and bales. The proprietors sat beside their wares, smoking sheesha and drinking tea.

  Rygg went up to the first hut and asked for Abdulrazak. The man got up, took his arm, and led them among the stacks of books to the far end of the enclosure. He banged on the side of a hut, shouted: “Ya ustaaz!” and left them. After a minute, a paunchy man in a dusty gray robe emerged from the hut. One cheek bore a rectangular imprint, as though he’d just woken from a nap and had used a book for his pillow.

  “Aiwa?” he said. “Ayi khidma?” Rygg talked to him for a while and Abdulrazak shrugged. He fetched a couple stools from within the hut and pulled bales of books tied up with twine into a loose circle. He made motions for them to sit.

  He shouted something, shouted again, and a boy trotted up. “Shai wi sheesha,” Abdulrazak told him. He brought out a sheesha and tapped out the cold ash, reaming the little ceramic spout with a pencil that he took from behind his ear. The books surrounding him were all in Arabic, except for a lone copy of Jane Eyre. The Arabic books seemed to fall into two categories. The first had luridly painted covers, on which buxom girls in rosy hues struggled with blue-toned men wielding whips or pistols. The covers of the second category bore photographs of minarets or stern-faced, bearded men.

  The boy trotted back, bearing a tray with five glasses of tea and a fresh, smoking ceramic sheesha top. He settled this into the sheesha, then placed the tray on a stack of books. Abdulrazak handed the tea around. He sucked at the sheesha to get it going. When it was burbling merrily, he passed the nozzle over to Marin. Marin inhaled and passed it on to Lena, but Abdulrazak grabbed it out of her hand. “Haram!” he shouted.

  “What I do?” Lena asked.

  Rygg grinned at her. “He is traditional,” he said. “He thinks women should not smoke. We don’t want to make him angry. We will buy you sheesha later, don’t worry.”

  Marin checked his watch. It was 7:45. “What time did Youssef say he was going to be here?” he asked.

  “Not to worry,” Rygg said. “We are in Egypt – time is a little bit – a little bit not exact. Loose, shall we say.” He picked up a couple books, of the lurid variety, and chatted with Abdulrazak for a while, leafing through the pages. The boy came back with a bale done up in brown paper and tied with twine and dumped it on the tiles beside the hut, then added another ember to the sheesha. Rygg watched the customers at the bookstalls, leafing through the volumes or haggling with the proprietors. He picked up his tea glass by the rim and took a sip. As he did so, his glance happened to fall on the bale the boy had brought. The lower edge bore a dark stain, which was spreading across the brown paper. He wondered if the bale contained ink or tea. Looking up, Marin followed his gaze. He clicked his fingers at Abdulrazak and pointed to the bale.

  “Eh da?” Abdulrazak exclaimed. He pulled the bale in front of him. Taking broken scissors from his robe, he ran it under the twine and ripped it away. Then he clawed at the brown paper. Underneath was a cardboard box. He opened it, and they all leaned forward, looking into the shadowed interior. Inside the box, eyes half open and gazing up at the filthy sky, was the severed head of Youssef, his beard drenched in blood.

  May 10

  For seven hours after the arrival of the new commandos, the sailors were confined to their cabins. The heat beat from the walls. The fans didn’t work. One of Dmitri’s companions banged at the door for a while, shouting for water, but no one came. Dmitri could feel his stomach clenching with the hunger pains. His mouth was parched, but he had grown used to the incessant thirst.

  Finally, in late afternoon, one of the elite commandos opened the door and ordered him to the kitchen. As soon as he got there, he filled a jug with water and drank and drank, water spilling blissfully over his cheeks and down his chest, until the commando banged down the steps and knocked the jug out of his hands. Dmitri didn’t care. He watched the commando, panting. “Get to work!” the commando ordered. “And make twice as much as usual.”

  There were a couple kilos of beef thawing on the counter, and a whole bag of potatoes. Dmitri added these to the stone soup, and made, as a special treat, a batch of little raisin cakes, dusting them with sugar. The stew smelled fantastic. After it had simmered for a while, the commando came down the steps, grabbed a spoon, and sampled it. He nodded at Dmitri.

  “More salt?” Dmitri asked, sarcastically. But the commando shook his head, not unkindly, Dmitri thought. He decided to press his luck. “So who are the newcomers?” he asked.

  “You’ll find out tomorrow,” the commando said tersely. He tore a hunk of bread off a loaf, dipped it in the stew, and went to the top of the steps to eat it.

  The next morning, after he’d finished kneading the bread, Dmitri was called to the officer’s lounge. He hadn’t been into the lounge since the day before the hijacking and was shocked at the opulence. Open tins of biscuits lay about, and there was a whole carton of cigarettes on one table. The bar was still fully stocked and the fan was on. Clearly, while the sailors had been subsisting on watered-down soup and a couple slices of bread a day, the elite commandos had been living in luxury. Ivan was already there, and Ludo, and five other sailors. The captain sat to one side. On chairs by the bar sat four men Dmitri hadn’t seen before. He knew even before they spoke that they were Russian military: they had that grim, slit-eyed look, and their boots were navy issue. And he already knew who the leader was: the man with the thick neck, second from left. He couldn’t have said how he knew for certain, but there was something about the quiet, calculating intelligence in the eyes that he recognized.

  The thick-necked leader lit a cigarette and looked carefully at each of the sailors in turn. Dmitri met his eyes for a couple seconds, then he had to drop his gaze – he couldn’t take the other’s calm, hard stare. Finally, the leader spoke. “You may call me Visha,” he said. “That is not my name, but it will do for o
ur time on this boat. I know your names. I know your histories, your families, your friends. I have spent the last two months studying everything about you.”

  “So what’s it all about?” Ivan shouted, making Dmitri cringe. Ivan could always be counted on to put his big mouth into gear.

  Visha, however, seemed unconcerned. “What is it all about, you ask,” he said. “An excellent question. And I am sure that you are eager for an answer. This is my job – to give you an answer. Listen carefully.” He sat back and dragged on his cigarette, releasing a thin stream of smoke. “On April 2 of this year, the good ship Alpensturm set sail from the port of Kaliningrad. It was carrying a load of methamphetamines to Algiers, where the drugs would be repackaged and sent to various locations.” Dmitri had the sense that the speech had been rehearsed – the man was rattling off the information as though he were delivering a news story. “On April 4,” the man went on, “the ship was boarded by Russian criminal elements, who intended to take possession of the cargo and resell it. It was a very professional operation, but they ran into difficulties with their buyer, who reneged the day after the hijacking. Meanwhile, the international media learned that the ship had been hijacked, which made it even more difficult for the hijackers to find a port where they could land and offload the drugs. So for the past two months, they have evaded capture on the high seas. But finally, we, the Russian security forces, tracked you down. Yesterday, we invaded the ship and subdued the hijackers. You are now free men.” The leader paused, and again looked from face to face. Dmitri had the notion that he was testing them. He prayed that Ivan would keep his mouth shut. But of course Ivan could do no such thing.