Heartbreaker: Love, secrets and terror

by Nick Louth

  ‘Come quick,’ Jabr said, betraying a hint of excitement. He led her to the hotel reception area where a giant TV screen was showing football with what sounded like Spanish commentary. ‘Manchester United,’ he said approvingly. ‘My team. Two nil up. Other team is rubbish.’

  Cantara knew nothing about football, but she could see that Jabr’s distraction could be useful. In fact just having a TV could be useful.

  ‘Have you found Al Jazeera?’ she asked, hoping to get some news. ‘Maybe they have commentary in Arabic.’

  Jabr flicked through the channels. There were several others, with varying picture qualities, including BBC World. Cantara started to ask Jabr to leave it, but he had already flicked to Al Jazeera English which was running a news piece about the peace conference starting soon in Sharm el-Sheikh.

  After two minutes, Jabr tutted. ‘So much English. They don’t even have Arabic news.’

  ‘It isn’t surprising. The hotel is just for tourists,’ Cantara said.

  He flicked again, this time the picture was the worst so far, almost completely scrambled. All she could make out was a vague outline of a man and the wobbly letters beneath: Arab Satellite Broadcasting. But the sound, though crackly, was unmistakeable. It was Chris! Her heart leaped. He was talking about the peace conference.

  ‘More rubbish,’ Jabr said, flicking on.

  ‘No, go back,’ Cantara said. ‘Please.’

  For a moment Jabr looked as if he was going to strike her.

  ‘Please, Jabr, please.’

  Curious to see what had so exercised her, Jabr switched back to the channel, and turned the sound up.

  ‘…..but given the disappointing outcome of previous attempts, from Camp David to Oslo, no one will be holding their breath for a breakthrough to an enduring and real peace.

  Chris Wyrecliffe, Arab Satellite Broadcasting, Sharm el-Sheikh.’

  Despite her best efforts, a gasp escaped Cantara’s lips. Her eyes flicked to Jabr, who was watching her intently.

  ‘You hope for peace, from this talking shop?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I am a Palestinian. My family came from Jaffa, but I was brought up in a refugee camp in Sidon. We long to return to Palestine.’

  ‘Then you must fight. Just as we fight for all Muslims.’

  ‘We have tried fighting,’ Cantara said, tears starting unbidden in her eyes. ‘For more than half a century. How can you not know this?’

  * * *

  Half an hour later, at seven, the roar of the truck in the gathering darkness outside indicated Omar’s return. Cantara slid back to her room and closed the door, hoping to avoid meeting him.

  Two minutes later she heard his clip-clap gait, and her pulse quickened in anxiety. The door was flung open and Omar tossed a pizza box into the room, together with a can of Sprite. ‘Food and drink fit for our princess,’ Omar said. ‘Have nice day,’ he added in English. He slammed the door behind, locking it.

  The three slices of pizza may have been almost cold, but after the diet Cantara had endured for almost three months, they were heavenly. The drink was icy cold, the bubbles and chill searing her throat with refreshment. After finishing the food, she picked every crumb out of the box, every string and scab of melted cheese. She licked the cardboard.

  She hoped this food heralded a change of policy. Being treated better wasn’t just good in itself, but it made her feel that she might be ransomed, or even released. She listened at the door, and could clearly hear Omar’s voice, telling Jabr how to improve the TV signal, amid the background roar of a football crowd.

  Chris Wyrecliffe was in Sharm. But how to reach him? And there was never going to be a better time to get out of here than right now. The sport was a perfect distraction. Her captors’ pre-occupation gave her the chance to again investigate the ceiling. She clambered onto the washbasin, and reached up to the tiles. She used the knife to cut the plaster seal. It took a few minutes. With some gentle taps she was able to lift up one tile and on tiptoe peer above the false ceiling. Though it was quite dark, she could see that the crawlspace between the ceiling and the actual flat roof of the building was easily big enough for her. She would be able to move along at a crouch. There were big harnesses of electric cables to negotiate, and large silvery ducts for the air-conditioning. The biggest problems were the lack of light and the flimsiness of the ceiling. Walking on the framework of metal struts which held up the tiles was dangerous. It would be quite easy to dislodge one, or even fall through and break her leg. Any noise would invite devastating retribution. Even though Omar couldn’t follow her up in the ceiling, he could rake it with bullets. She would be helpless. It was horribly risky, but she had to do it.

  She assembled her resources. Her western clothes were tatty, but dry and practical, so long as the hurriedly re-glued soles on her shoes held up. She had the plastic bag that the abaya and niqab came in, a pen, and a variety of small hotel toiletries. Most important were the Stanley knife, the tube of glue, and a small bottle of water that she’d found in the room. She put all these in the bag, bar the knife which she put in the pocket of her trousers. At first she had considered mocking up the abaya, stuffed with towels, as if she was lying in bed wearing a niqab. She dismissed it. It wouldn’t fool them for a second. Instead she stuffed both abaya and niqab into the bag, and knotted the top. It trebled the bulk she had to carry, but might offer some form of anonymity in a crowd should she escape.

  She put the chain on the room door, bolted the bathroom door, and wiped up the dust. She stood on the basin, gently pushed up the loose ceiling tile and slid it to one side inside the ceiling. The darkness was intimidating. There were faint patches of light in the distance where ventilators sat over the lit corridor. She knew there was a push-bar emergency exit at the end of the corridor furthest from reception. She had no idea whether it would be locked, but that must be her target destination. She calculated she would only have to crawl a few metres. The hardest part would be pulling herself up to begin with. She stood on tiptoe, allowing her head and shoulders into the cavity. She wedged her elbows above the frame, then spread her shoulders, and gave a heave. Her feet lifted off the basin, but she struggled to get any higher. As she dangled, a roar of ‘goal!’ came from the TV with answering shouts from Omar and Jabr. It was much easier to hear them up here than in the room, and it added a measure of panic to her. With a desperate lunge, she bounced down on the basin, and threw herself back upwards. She got better purchase this time, and despite scraping her hips on the metal edge of the tile frame, managed to drag herself fully in. Once her feet were no longer dangling, she slid the tile back down behind her. She waited a couple of minutes to let her eyes accustom to the darkness, and use the faint light coming up through ventilators. For all the hotel’s newness, there was plenty of insect life up here. Movement of insects and spiders on top of the pipes, and the bodies of hundreds more lying in cobwebs. She raised herself to a crouch and followed by touch a metal roof girder until it reached an air-conditioning duct that was as wide as she was. After brushing away the cobwebs, there was just room to slide over the top and under the cold roof above. In two more minutes she had reached the edge of a corridor ventilator. She crouched down and felt for the edge of a tile. She then cut away at the plasterwork with the knife. It came away easily enough, and using the blade and her nails, she managed to ease the edge of the tile up.

  Cantara could hear the TV still, and briefly lowered her head carefully through the hole. She would have made a strange sight, popping out upside down, with her ponytail dangling. The curved corridor kept her out of direct sight of reception. Back in the roofspace, she grabbed her bag, shuffled forward so her legs were hanging out, then lowered herself through. It was a much bigger drop to the floor than she had hoped. But there was nothing else for her to do but try. She kept her knees bent and dropped. Though she landed quietly, she dislodged another tile in her fall, and it cartwheeled across the floor making an exuberant clattering.

  N
ot waiting to see if there was any reaction, she ran for the exit. She hit the push-bar, and the metal door scraped open. She was free. A set of paved steps led down to a rudimentarily landscaped garden. The truck was slightly off to her left. She ran for it, and tried the door. It was locked. She thought about trying to slash the tyres so she couldn’t be followed. No time. Instead she just ran along the dirt track, away from the hotel and toward the metalled road. After so long in captivity, it felt like an enormous release to run, to stretch out cramped limbs, to extend powerful strides and exult in her freedom. The gravel just disappeared beneath her feet and her arms pumped. Adrenaline coursed through her bloodstream, and the chill of the cold velvet night made her flesh tingle. To her left the broad arc of Sharm el-Sheikh twinkled in the distance. Somewhere there was Chris Wyrecliffe, who probably thought her dead. Had he grieved on hearing the news? Yes, he would have done. She was sure of that.

  She had run no more than four hundred metres when she heard the truck engine. She was still some way short of the road, but she was near the Red Sea Emerald hoarding, which stood to the right and uphill. It was lit from above by three powerful lights so that it could be seen miles away towards the coast. In the deep shadows behind it was the only place for her to hide. She crept round the back, amid spiky weeds and rubble. The billboard was huge, a metre off the ground and the size of a small bus. The full-beam of the truck lights slid over the front of the hoarding, and the vehicle roared by and down the road towards Sharm. She was just about to heave a sigh of relief when she heard the scrunch of gravel. Someone was walking along the path from the hotel, less than fifty metres away. The gait certainly wasn’t Omar, he must have been in the truck. That means it must be Jabr. He had a torch, and from the changing sound of his footfalls was looking through the weeds on either side of the road.

  She knelt behind a stanchion and looked towards the sounds. Jabr had his AK47 in one hand, and was approaching her. Closer and closer. Then his phone rang. He answered it, and turned round to look down the valley. He was all of two metres away, just the other side of the billboard.

  ‘I don’t think she could have got far. No. Not as far as the main road. I was out within a minute and saw her running. Yes, our little princess can certainly run. I haven’t searched the other wings. I’ll do that next. But it could take all night.’ He paused to listen. ‘You’re calling Rifat? Isn’t it dangerous for you to let Rifat know she escaped? Yemen will find out. It makes us look stupid.’

  Omar’s reply was so loud and abusive that Jabr held the phone away for a moment.

  ‘Well I didn’t know he could do that.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Omar, why didn’t you let me know? Of course you can trust me. I always keep my mouth shut.’

  Jabr ended the call, and checked the line was closed before cursing Omar as the son of a whore. He leaned back against the hoarding, and lit a cigarette. He was so close that Cantara could have stabbed him. Anywhere from ankle to buttock. But she wasn’t sure enough that a one-inch blade could do enough damage. He’d turn and shoot her before she could have a second try. Better to stay still. Flight not fight.

  Soon she heard the truck returning. Omar. He would show no mercy. They would be on to her in no time. Oh God, what was she to do?

  The pick-up pulled up and Omar leaned his head out of the window, a phone pressed to his head. ‘Rifat’s got precise satellite coordinates for her,’ he hissed. ‘Trouble is he says there are no detailed computer maps to cross-check it against. There’s only the main road. She is within fifty metres of that and she’s apparently not moving at the moment.

  ‘She’ll want to get to the road. That’s the only way out,’ Jabr said. ‘We can just search the roadside…’

  ‘I told Rifat trigger the bomb. Just blow the she-devil to pieces,’ Omar whispered, holding his hand over the phone. ‘But he won’t. Says it would be a waste. He wants to use her tomorrow. At the same time as the big one, the BBC martyr at the conference. So we can’t shoot her either. I can’t believe it. It’s like chasing one of my father’s stray camels. Too fast to catch, too valuable to shoot. So tomorrow, anyway, she dies. God has willed it.’

  ‘Then so be it. Now we must search,’ said Jabr, cocking his gun.

  ‘I’ll drive around the perimeter. You search the other buildings. Keep your phone on. Hello?’ Omar was back on the phone now, and Jabr put his head through the open truck window to listen in.

  ‘Still not moving. Okay.’

  Cantara held her breath. Not only a bomb inside her, but a homing device! If this was what she suspected, there would be no hope until she had removed it. The whole lot. Maybe the pacemaker itself. But how could it be done? No doctor would agree to do it, because they wouldn’t believe the story. And then there was the peace conference. A bomb planned there, one of Chris’s former colleagues! That, she decided must be her priority. To warn them. To warn him.

  In a moment of inspiration Cantara picked up a rounded stone and looked for targets. There was a pile of builders’ rubble thirty metres away down the hill on the other side of the track. It was partially lit by the hoarding lights. She squinted and sized up the target. Putting her head and throwing arm horizontally, so she could pitch below the level of the hoarding, she let fly. The stone flew, low over the back of the truck, sailed down into the valley and smashed loudly into a tile on the rubbish heap. Jabr immediately looked up, and raced round the front of the truck, away from her. Scanning the horizon, he started to make his way down through the field of weeds towards the noise. Omar got out of the truck, AK47 in hand and limped after him, clip-clap, with the phone still clamped to his ear.

  ‘Rifat, hello? Yes, we may have found her,’ Omar said. ‘Yes. Not far away.’

  Jabr shouted for her to come out. She saw him raise his gun, as if to fire in the air. She prepared herself. When the burst of fire rang out, she lunged for the truck. It was just five metres away. Though she knew the gravel made a noise, no one would be able to hear anything for a few seconds after the firing. She climbed carefully into the back of the truck, and slid under a tarpaulin which had been used to cover the gun box. She could hear Omar yell out to Jabr. ‘She’s just moved, heading south.’

  Omar got back in the truck and fired up the engine. He threw the truck into a violent three-point turn, and drove out towards the main road. At the junction he waited while a minibus came past, then turned left after it. He drove down level with where Jabr was, and yelled to him to come over.

  ‘Jabr, come quickly you idiot. She’s getting away.’

  Jabr ran over to the truck.

  ‘Rifat’s got a perfect trace. She’s moving too fast to be on foot. Going south now. She’ll be on that bus.’

  ‘How did she get on it?’

  ‘Only the Almighty knows, but get in quickly. Inshallah, when I get my hands on her she will curse her mother for ever daring to bear her into this world. I do not care what Yemen says. I will drink her blood.’

  The truck was going faster now, and the rattle of the gunbox next to Cantara obliterated the sound of voices from the cab. After a few minutes she risked peeking from underneath the tarpaulin. They had already passed an army base, and were now getting closer to the cheaper hotels that gathered around the airport and the bus station. While Sharm was a tourist town, this was clearly the hub for the thousands of migrant workers who served it. The truck put on a burst of speed, and she saw it overhauling the minibus. The bus, which was crowded, pulled over in a bay next to the bus station, and the truck slewed across in front. Jabr leapt out of the truck and ran towards the minibus.

  A group of male construction workers, clothes thick with dust, were getting off, followed by two women in full niqab with young children in tow. Jabr jostled the men aside to get to the women. There was no sign of his gun. Cantara peeked from the tarpaulin and through the rear window into the back of the pick-up’s cab. Omar was staring out towards the bus, and still on the phone. An AK47 lay partly under a jacke
t by his side. Jabr pulled a woman’s niqab off. She screeched, and a man with her pushed Jabr. An angry row quickly began including numerous others. Turning away from the bus to the far side of the road, Cantara noticed a line of canvas-covered food stalls. They were crowded with djelabah-clad manual workers, from a couple of battered minibuses. They were hanging around, eating showarma and kofta. There was a narrow alleyway between the stalls. It was just a few metres away, and an obvious exit that the truck couldn’t follow.

  This was her moment. She had to go for it. Cantara slid over to the passenger side of the truck away from continuing argument, unhooked the bungee cord that kept the tarpaulin in place, and emerged carefully so as not to rock the pick-up. As she did so, there was shout from the bus. A passenger had pointed her out to Jabr. Cantara jumped out and ran as low as she could, keeping the truck between her and Jabr. She darted through the milling kofta customers, heading for the alleyway. The bellowing of Omar carried all before it: ‘Move out of the way you sons of dogs, my daughter is escaping.’

  But by the time he had said it she was running down the alley, the view from the road blocked by the crowd. She was glad to see the alleyway was narrow and uneven, dotted with parked motorcycles, puddles of waste water and food vendor’s baskets. That would give her a greater advantage over her pursuers. She turned sharp left down another alley behind a large building. There was no one there. She ran as fast as she could, finding another alley to the right, too narrow for pursuit except on foot.

  At the end of the alley there was a major road and then beyond it an American-style shopping mall, newly built. She was reluctant to cross that road. On the side were a group of westerners, shopping in an upmarket haberdashery. An American matron was cooing over the beautiful scarves and embroidery. Beyond them was a red minibus, marked as a courtesy vehicle for the Ramada Royal Pharaoh Hotel. Cantara slid to a halt, paused for breath and then walked calmly towards the bus. She spoke to the Egyptian driver, in English.