Chasing the Storm

by Martin Molsted

  “I have two questions,” he said.

  “Yes?” Visha’s eyes narrowed.

  “First: why did it take you so goddamn long to find us?” Ivan asked belligerently.

  The leader nodded. “The AIS was turned off. It is not so easy to find a boat if you don’t receive signals from it.”

  Ivan sat back and shrugged, making it clear he didn’t believe a word of it.

  “And your next question?” the leader asked.

  “Yes. My next question is: what is really on the boat?”

  The leader smiled blandly. “As I told you, a load of meth. Now, if there are no more questions, I will continue. Because of the delicate nature of this operation, and to preserve the respectability of the Russian nation, we are suggesting a course of action for you. Listen carefully. When we dock in a few days, there will be media waiting to interview you. You will refuse to say anything to the media, no matter what they offer you.”

  “How will you enforce that?” Ivan scoffed.

  “In two ways,” the leader said equably. “First, we are offering something much greater than you could possibly receive for a newspaper or television interview: the Russian government is offering to provide for you for the rest of your lives. There is one caveat, however: you are not to return to your homes. You will receive a large sum of money, but you will only be able to access it outside of Russia. The second way we will enforce your silence is this: if you ever – ever – say anything at all about this voyage, to anyone at all, you will be killed. You will not be shot. No, you will not be shot. Nothing that generous. You will be killed quite slowly. Your death will take several days, during which time you will lose a number of critical body parts. Then all your family members will be imprisoned in the Volnosk Maximum Security Prison in Siberia. This is much worse than death as I’m sure you are aware. The average life span of a prisoner in Volnosk is less than five years. If they do not die from the beatings, most commit suicide.” The leader smiled. He stubbed out his cigarette. “So, these are your two options. You may choose a lifetime of security and luxury for yourself and your family. Or you may choose slow death.”

  May 12

  For a second, all five stared at the contents of the box. Then, with a great ululating cry, Abdulrazak clambered to his feet, knocking over his stool and the sheesha, which shattered on the concrete. He fell back into a pile of books and lay there moaning and waving his arms like a stranded beetle. But Rygg had risen before him, and was already off and running, tearing past the book stalls, knocking over stacks of magazines. He reached the boy just before he left the enclosure, grabbing the collar of his robe. Rygg dragged him back to the box and made him look inside. The boy peered at the head for a few moments. Standing upright, he looked around at the group with an expression as though he was trying to remember something. Then, abruptly, he threw up, spewing vomit across Abdulrazak’s robe.

  Ignoring the vomit, Rygg shook the boy’s neck, shouting at him in Arabic. The boy murmured something and shook his head. Rygg shouted at him again, and again the boy shook his head, staring fixedly away from the box. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Rygg hurled him away, and the boy sprawled onto the tiles. “Come,” he said.

  “Who gave the boy … ” Marin started.

  “He doesn’t remember. A man, he said, but he can’t even tell me what he was wearing. Perhaps he is lying. I don’t want to stay to find out.”

  “Surely they’re watching us,” Lena said. “And if we don’t know who they are—”

  “I have an idea,” Rygg said. “Come along.”

  They followed him out of the bookstall enclosure, through a crazy intersection, and into a zone of clothing shops, where dresses and robes swung from suspended rods. Here, women milled in fragrant flocks, fingering fabrics and giggling over patterns. In front of the largest store, Rygg paused. He held a scarf up to Lena’s throat. “This color!” he exclaimed loudly. “It is perfect for your eyes! I have been looking for a scarf like this for one year. Wait here, I must buy!”

  “He’s gone crazy,” Marin said, as Rygg disappeared into the store, but Lena ran her fingers across the scarves and smiled. “Why you never buy me scarf?” she said.

  Rygg returned in a couple minutes with a bulky paper parcel. “I bought all the scarves!” he announced. “They are so beautiful!”

  He led them through the throngs to the roundabout, where he hailed a taxi. Within five minutes, they were speeding along the Nile. Rygg directed the taxi across a bridge, onto Zamalek Island, and toward the frilly, sparkling edifice of the Farouk Pasha Hotel. Within the hotel compound, the trees and high walls dampened the clamor of the city, and the constant horns and shouts were just a murmur. They moved past sentries in gaudy uniforms, and across pieced marble floors where fountains leapt to the coffered ceilings. Saudi men in white robes, with striped cords around their headcloths, moved in murmuring groups, and slickly coiffed Lebanese millionaires reclined in gilted armchairs, and beer-bellied Germans shouted in a corner.

  “This was the palace of one of the kings,” Rygg said. “It has been converted into a hotel. But we have no time to look. Hurry!”

  They followed him out into gardens, the bushes spangled with ruby and sapphire lights, and past a swimming pool, empty at this late hour. Behind the pool, a wall shielded the changing rooms. Rygg shoved them quickly into the women’s room.

  “Marko, lean against that door,” he said. While they watched, he ripped open the parcel and brought forth handfuls of filmy black cloth.

  “What are you … ” Marin began.

  “These are niqabs,” Rygg told him. He handed the dresses out to Lena and Sasha and showed them how to put them on, adjusting the veil so just their eyes peered through the slots in the fabric. He gave them black gloves to put on, and black slippers. Then he had Sasha lean against the door while he and Marin put theirs on. Marin’s fit with no problem, but Rygg struggled to get into his.

  “This was the largest niqab I could buy,” he said. “The man in the store thought I was crazy, but I told him it was for my mother-in-law who only eats cake.”

  The veil was fine, but the hem of the dress came to the middle of Rygg’s calves. Marin looked down and pressed his lips together. “Not very modest, I am afraid, Torgrim,” he said. Explosions of laughter came from within Lena’s and Sasha’s black tents.

  “Well,” Rygg said. “It’s the best we can do. Make a wall around me, and I’ll stand in the middle. No talking. Remember this: I do all the talking.”

  They followed Rygg out of the changing rooms and around the pool. He moved slowly, with shuffling steps, so they were forced to do likewise. He stayed close to the wall, with Marin in front, Lena on his right, and Sasha behind him. Rygg led them through the garden, past the starry bushes and fountains and marble statues, past outdoor diners, always keeping to the shadows. But no one even glanced at them. These things are like invisibility cloaks, Rygg thought. There was one hairy section where they had to move past two guards flanking a metal detector, but here Rygg leaned down and whispered in Marin’s ear, all four of them crowding through the metal detector together. Then they were in the open. Rygg moved faster now, leading them out of the hotel and to an overpass. He hailed a taxi and as they were piling in Sasha grabbed Rygg’s arm and whispered, “Wait.”

  “What is it?” Rygg asked in his most feminine Arabic tone.

  Sasha quietly whispered, “My laptop.”

  Rygg nodded his head, indicating to not say a word, and then he pushed Sasha into the waiting taxi. Sasha shrugged and put his head down, truly looking like a humbled Egyptian woman, and Marin reached over and patted his arm by the niqab, indicating that he would be okay.

  “Mahattat Ramsis,” Rygg told the driver, in a husky falsetto, and the driver answered, more respectfully than any of their other drivers so far: “Hadr, ya sitt al kul.”

  Chapter 18

  Alexandria

  Mahattat Ramsis turned out to be the train station, a colossal structu
re trapped within a web of overpasses. It resembled a mosque with the minarets lopped off, with arched windows and blue tiles patterning the exterior. Rygg paid the driver and led them through the crowds, dodging wheeled suitcases, heading behind the station. About twenty tracks meshed here. On some, trains were pulling out or coming in, but on the track beside the wall, a dozen unconnected carriages sat. The metal of one was accordioned at one end. Rygg peered into the first carriage, then made a saddle with his joined hands to help Lena into the dark doorway. She shrieked as a cat streaked out of the carriage, landed with a thump on the ties, and sped silently away.

  “Shh!” Rygg said. Sasha and Marin clambered in, and Rygg joined them. He pushed them behind the doorway.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Take off your niqabs. Give them to me.”

  Apparently the loss of Sasha’s laptop wasn’t as traumatic to him as it was of concern to Marin. He leaned in to Sasha and whispered as he took off his garments, “Do you have access to the information on your laptop still … from another location?”

  “Of course,” Sasha replied casually. It was almost as if the question was beneath his intelligence level.

  Despite the dire circumstances and the loss of Youssef, a good man, Rygg provided entertainment value by getting stuck trying to take the black tent off, ending up with one arm trapped. After struggling for a minute, he just ripped his way through, tearing off the veil. He gathered the black cloth from his companions and dumped it in a heap in the recesses of the carriage.

  After the smiles subsided, he pulled the four of them together, tugging them tight, arms around their shoulders. “Now,” he said. “We will be in two groups. I’ll go with Lena. We’ll stand by the clock, talking. Marko, you will go with Sasha, to buy four tickets to Alexandria.”

  “Why don’t you buy the tickets?” Marin asked. “You speak Arabic.”

  Rygg plucked at his sandy hair. “I’m too tall, too foreign looking. You can almost pass for an Arab. All right?”

  Marin nodded.

  “Okay,” Rygg said. “Lena and I will count to two hundred, and then meet you under the big clock. Pass by us, without looking at us. We will follow you, twenty paces behind.”

  “Okay,” Marin murmured. “But we need backup.”

  “Backup. Let’s see. If we’re separated, meet at … we’ll meet at the Pastroudis Patisserie in Alexandria. Midan Saad Zaghloul.”

  “Pastroudis,” Marin said. “Okay.”

  Marin and Sasha left. Lena counted under her breath, in Russian. It seemed to take a long time, and Rygg wondered if Russian numbers took longer to say than Norwegian ones. Finally she said, “Now is time.” He peered out the carriage door and looked left and right. All clear. He jumped down, turned, and held out both hands to Lena. They made their way along the tracks and up onto a platform. Two filthy kids looked at them in puzzlement, and Rygg leaned toward them. “Imshi!” he hissed, and the kids ran off. Lena took his arm. He led her toward the center of the station. The clock was a confection of burgundy and blue set in gold filigree high above densely worked brass doors. Rygg halted in front of it and checked his watch. “Well,” he said, “one of these is wrong, and I’m guessing it’s not mine.”

  Lena swung him around and they stood watching the crowds. There was a lot of shouting going on. Marin and Sasha were coming toward them. Marin was holding Sasha’s arm and leaning toward him, murmuring something. They passed several meters in front of Rygg and Lena and continued across the station, toward one of the platforms.

  When they were almost on the platform, Rygg tugged Lena forward, but she pulled back on his elbow. “Wait,” she said. “Wait one moment.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Someone is watching them. See that man?”

  He scanned the station and spotted the man she was talking about. He had a thick mustache and a blue uniform. As they watched, he spoke into a walkie-talkie and started toward Marin.

  “Quick,” Lena said, pulling Rygg toward the entrance. As she dragged him away, he looked back. The guard was talking with Marin, who was inclining his head respectfully. He had his hands behind his back. And in that moment, Rygg thought he saw something white fluttering to the ground close to Marin’s shoes. He shoved Lena sideways, past some worshipers kneeling on a mat, and leaned over her with one arm against the wall behind her. “What is it?” she asked. Her blue eyes were wide and terrified.

  “Just wait here one second,” he said.

  “We have to leave now.”

  “No, just wait. I saw something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Listen. Do you know the exact spot where you saw Marko being questioned?”

  “Yes. I think.”

  “All right. I’m too big – someone’s going to see me. But here’s what you need to do. Go back to that spot and look on the ground. Pretend you’ve lost your passport or something. I saw Marko drop something there.”

  “What he drop?”

  “Something white. I don’t know what it was.”

  “Okay.”

  “Wait one minute. And go slowly. Make sure no one’s watching.”

  “Okay.”

  He swiveled back against the wall. “Go,” he said.

  She wandered into the crowd, slender and bright among the bulky, heavily clothed Egyptians, and in a few seconds he’d lost sight of her. She seemed to be gone a long time, and he checked his watch. But only five minutes had passed since he’d checked it against the station clock. Finally she returned and leaned against the wall beside him.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Well?”

  “It is two tickets,” she said. “Two tickets for Alexandria. The train leaves in six minutes.”

  “Six minutes!”

  “Yes.”

  “So what do we do? Did you see Marko and Sasha?”

  “No.”

  “All right. All right.” He ran his hand through his hair. “We’ve got about a minute to make a decision here. What do you think? Did he intend for us to pick them up? Was it a signal?”

  “He had to drop the tickets, of course.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if the police find four tickets, who are the other two, yes?”

  “Right, right. So do we get on the train?”

  “If we stay in Cairo, where do we go?”

  “Right. Okay. We have to make a decision here. Let’s go, Lena. Let’s go. Alexandria it is!”

  He grabbed a guard and showed him the tickets. The guard nodded and led him through the crowds to the platform where Marin had been apprehended. People were still cramming into the doors of the train. The first carriage looked impossible. Rygg and Lena ran to the second one, leaving their guard behind. He shouted “Baksheesh!” at them. Rygg shoved Lena between some burly businessmen, then grabbed hold of the outside rail just as the train was easing out of the station. The guard had caught up and was tugging at his shirt, so he kicked backwards. The guard fell away, and he could hear Arabic epithets being shouted at him.

  “I thought everything was late here,” Lena said as they pushed into the aisle.

  “Everything except the trains,” he said.

  It took them twenty minutes to negotiate their way through the throngs to their carriage, which was near the front of the train. There they entered a ten-minute altercation with two black-clad ladies who were in their seats. This was finally resolved when the conductor came along and shouted at the ladies, who had no tickets, haranguing them until they got up and waddled, complaining loudly, into the space between the carriages. Rygg was soaked in sweat by the time he took his seat. He and Lena sat looking straight ahead for a minute. Then they both started laughing at the same time. He looked at her.

  “You know,” he said, “I could have just kept walking in Orfeoplatz. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I just walk on to the bar? Would have made my life a lot easier. Instead, here I am with half a finger and stitches in my face and
the police on my tail.”

  She put a hand on his knee.

  “I’m not really complaining, you know,” he told her.

  “I know, Torgrim.”

  “So you were in Egypt before,” she said. “What happened?”

  “I was here on a three-year assignment, running an operative who had infiltrated a Palestinian group. That was in the late ‘80s. Later I participated in a ridiculous mission, for the FSK.”

  “Tell me.”

  He shrugged. “It was in 1995. The Oslo Accords were beginning to break down. The Palestinians were running guns across the border, in direct violation of the accords. Both Israel and Palestine needed the smuggling to stop, but neither side wanted to engage in any military activity that might jeopardize the accords. So the FSK was fingered. It was top secret. I had experience in Cairo, so I was the point person. But our group was infiltrated. We discovered the informant on a train heading south – well, he made it seem as though we discovered him. Then he flung himself off the train, and we chased him. But it was a carefully planned ambush. They’d been hiding in a palm grove along the Nile. There was a gun battle, in the late afternoon. Three of our men were killed. I managed to escape and made my way back to Cairo, where Youssef hid me until I could get in touch with my handlers. But before I made it to the diplomats who were supposed to get me out of there I was captured and held hostage on a ship bound for Russia. Apparently some badass Russians were trading guns against drugs and our interference wasn’t exactly appreciated. Like I told Youssef, I managed to escape, but they caught up with me outside of Marseilles and started shooting at the yacht. The captain was killed, but I grabbed a life jacket and jumped overboard. Minutes later the whole boat was set aflame. I handed in my resignation as soon as I got back to Oslo.”

  “Do you know who the kidnappers were? Or the guys shooting at your yacht?”

  “I know now.”

  “What you mean?”

  “The captain of the Krasnyĭ Rodinu had very green eyes.”

  May 13