by Tony Lavely
Silence fell.
Of course, he would raise that issue. Solely to embarrass me. No matter. “It goes well, as I am sure Al-Shazar informed you following our last meeting.”
“Of course.”
Is that a sneer? What else would it be? Perhaps Al-Shazar does have an inkling of our difficulties… He looked at Achmed and Maryam; neither met his eye, though Maryam had focused her glare on the flunky.
“Still, things will be better when the money has been received. What prospects are there?”
“You know that Al-Shazar is in Syria now. He meets a man… Well, I should not say much more, except that this man may be a source of money, both for you and us.”
But more for you. Boufel’s cynical nature recoiled at the insincere tone in the man’s voice. “This is news.”
“Yes. Al-Shazar hoped to surprise you with it. Introductions will be forthcoming.” The flunky raised his cup and sipped. “Though the archeologists are near the cache, Al-Shazar is confident that they will not discover any trace.”
“I understand that this is what he believes. Until he has success with the rebels, however, we are at risk if the weapons come to light. Especially…” Asad had a grim look about him as he nodded. “I see you understand. Convey our concerns to him as soon as you are able.”
“Certainly I will. Understand that his plan has been… augmented? I think that is correct. After the last discussions forced him to leave Baluchistan, he instructed me to advise you that he is recommending that one of the devices should target Quetta, and if necessary, a second one for Gwadar—”
“That would serve the Chinese right,” Boufel said.
“It would. However, it would also damage our ability to use the port, so he proceeds with great care.”
“Good. I suppose no one would miss Quetta, but the port… to be honest, the Chinese trade benefits us almost as much as Islamabad. When do you expect him to meet with us again?”
“You will be advised. A few interesting things have occurred—” Asad’s phone began a disconcerting noise that brought a surprised expression. “Excuse me,” he said, looking at the display. “I must take this.” He rose and walked several meters away to stand near a pair of old olive trees where he spoke to the phone.
Boufel sat for a moment staring at Asad, then glanced at Achmed. The waiter passing made a quick turn when he waved; they all ordered a second glass of wine.
Several minutes passed. Asad’s conversation appeared to become heated before he turned resigned. The dip of his head as he finished seemed an obeisance.
Asad returned to his seat, acknowledging the fresh water in his glass. “Al-Shazar will meet you on Wednesday, in the afternoon. He commands me to say no more.” He finished the water. “Will you meet with him?”
“Of course. Here will be satisfactory for us. Can you… arrange it with him?”
“Gladly.”
“No,” Boufel said to Achmed once Asad had departed, “I can think of no reason for a meeting, unless to deliver a payment.”
Maryam stifled her laugh with a hand and an apologetic look.
Boufel sat back in his seat. Maryam was, as usual, driving. He wondered briefly if she’d learned from the insane drivers in Italy… or in the Middle East. She stopped at a signal, and he contemplated the weather. They’d had rain all morning, along with a chilly on-shore wind, which would make the outdoor cafe problematic. Damp at best, if one of the downpours occurred. Hmpf. Al-Shazar must be familiar with rain. After all, hurricanes blow over his former home with increasing frequency.
As his watch showed 17:00, Maryam turned into the car park outside the cafe. The sun peeked through the broken clouds, now lighter than the black they’d been earlier.
“Well done, Maryam. You remain with the car.” With a wave to Achmed, he climbed out of the car.
He stopped short at the outdoor gate. At the table where he expected Al-Shazar, the waiter was using a bright white towel to wipe the rain from the table and chairs. That’s good. But… Where is Al-Shazar? Who…
Standing slightly back from the waiter and his wet cloths, a plump, short man waited. He had been watching the waiter with interest, but now that Boufel had stopped short and was staring, the stranger returned his glare.
Achmed bumped Boufel, just enough to remind Boufel that he was staring. And blocking other patrons. He stepped through the gate. “As-salām ‘alaykum. Good afternoon,” he continued in English.
“Masā’ al-khayr,” the man replied. “We may continue in Arabic, if you choose.” Boufel nodded, a little surprised. “I see by your reaction that our brother Al-Shazar has not introduced me.”
“Correct.” Though I hardly need admit it. “A moment. Will you have… anything? Pastry? Wine? Coffee? Tea?” He stopped himself. I could have brought Maryam if I wanted a waiter!
The man picked up a menu, apparently the sign the waiter had hoped for. In a few moments, the waiter’s pad filled, Boufel leaned back in his chair and gazed at the newcomer. “Who may I welcome?”
The man chuckled, his face a grimace of sardonic amusement. “Actually, I had asked Al-Shazar not to mention me, hoping my reputation would not precede me. Sheikh Abdul Bakir.” With a grand gesture, Bakir paraded his background and bona fides; Boufel only glanced to be sure Achmed was making notes to check out later, then allowed the words to wash over him.
Until he said “… Baluchistan by a group headed by a woman—”
“Sorry. I missed something. A group headed by a woman is in Baluchistan?”
Bakir made a face that Boufel didn’t like but could hardly object to. “I said, the mercenary group the scientists have hired is a group headed by a woman. I know the group from our experiences in Syria.”
The next fifteen minutes Bakir expounded on the business of transporting natural gas from the producers in Qatar to users in Syria, and the connection Al-Shazar had helped him make between the group protecting that section of pipeline and the group now poised to interfere with Boufel’s interests in Baluchistan.
Finally, Boufel waved the waiter over to clear the table. When the bus boy departed, tray full, Boufel intertwined his fingers across his belly. “What is all this to you, Sheikh? It sounds as if you have a working relationship with this group—doing your bidding—in Syria, and I see no advantage to either of us for you being involved in Baluchistan.”
Bakir nodded and made a gesture of coming together as he leaned forward. “I have no interest in your doings in Baluchistan. None whatever. Which means I will not be tempted to share whatever details I may happen upon with others. However, I have been poorly served by the woman who leads those mercenaries. Al-Shazar will have his deal with the Baluch rebels by… Bastille Day, he said. Before that… Well, the woman Jamse, I wish to gain control over her. In Syria, I was thwarted. In Baluchistan, you can… arrange access for me, I think. That may benefit you as well.”
“Why? What use have you for this… heathen woman?”
“That is none of your concern! What should be your concern is the payment I will arrange when she is transferred, essentially undamaged, into my control.” He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew an old boarding pass folder. He wrote a figure on the border and held it where Boufel could read it.
Praise Allah! This will almost cover our misstep with Al-Shazar and relieve our problems with the American terrorists. “What other constraints apply to this… effort?”
“Almost none. She must be delivered before Al-Shazar is successful in Baluchistan. She must be uninjured—”
“‘Uninjured’? If we must restrain her—”
“Pfaugh! Bruises, small cuts, those are of no concern. Broken limbs… It would depend on the limb. No rape. Simple things. Fatal injuries, and the offer is… Pfft!” He gestured to reinforce the offer’s ephemeral nature.
They spoke for a few more minutes, Achmed taking copious notes, but the end was the same. Boufel could earn an obscene number of euros for delivering the woman Jamse, bound and gagged, t
o Bakir anywhere they could arrange.
Boufel couldn’t believe the pleasure on Bakir’s face as he stood and made his goodbyes, headed to meet his taxi back to the airport. He shook his head in disgust as he and Achmed exchanged glances.
On the way back to his office in Monaco, he gave Maryam sufficient details that she understood the new mission. “Does he have the ability to pay?” was her only question.
“Achmed will check his references as soon as we return. If we believe what he told us, he has oil money behind him.” He sighed. “Much oil money.”
Entering their rooms in rue des Roses, Achmed stopped short. “Jamse, he said. The woman,” when both Boufel and Maryam stared at him. “He said the woman is named Jamse. But… the heathens…” He spat, barely hitting the waste bin. “The heathens we brought here… One is called the same!”
“Yes, I know. It provides us more leverage with the woman, and improves the possibility of earning the sheikh’s money.”
“We should have killed them already,” Achmed muttered.
Boufel spun and grabbed Achmed by his shirt, yanking his face to his own. “It is your responsibility to ensure no damage… no uncalled for damage comes to those two.”
“But they haven’t been any help, Soufiane. Are you sure we can’t achieve the result without them?”
“I am not sure. But Bakir offers far more money than any woman can be worth; and I am overseeing a business. It is a windfall we cannot pass up.” He released Achmed, then fixed both of them with a piercing glare. “We will not pass it up! The two men are to be held safe, as is the woman when we… entertain her.” He turned to head to the back room, but stopped to look back. “Of course, the treatments prescribed will continue. I will have a word with the doctors to make sure they aren’t too aggressive. We have little time. Achmed, begin the research on Bakir. Maryam, you seek information about the woman Jamse and the mercenaries deployed in Pakistan. Both of you, call on others as needed.”
The following Sunday, the last in March, Maryam tugged her white cotton gloves up snug and rapped on the door to Boufel’s office. She handed the plastic tray to Boufel; he gaped at the white envelope and gloves.
“The gloves will prevent either fingerprints or DNA from being extracted,” Maryam said.
“Mine are not in any database.”
She sneered, and he admitted, it was a creditable sneer. “We shall keep them out. Once in the wild…”
He did his best to conceal his ill-humor. It’s not her fault things move slowly. “I suppose. What do you have here?” He donned the gloves; they barely covered the heel of his hands.
“Only the fingertips matter, for this. We plan to dispatch this tomorrow morning. It should arrive Thursday or Friday, but everything is set up if it is early.”
He nodded as he slipped the heavy bifold card from the envelope. “What is this message? And what is this writing on the envelope?”
“One of the imams offered to… Between us, can I say bastardize?” she asked with a hint of a grin. He returned it as he nodded. “He offered to bastardize a verse in the Qur’an that he said in ancient days dealt with returning wives, he thought following a raid, to obtain forgiveness from both Allah and the aggrieved man.” She shrugged. “He said it might confuse them. Whether it does or not might be useful information.”
Boufel snorted his disbelief, and Maryam shrugged again. “As for the other, it directs them to the video we made the other day.”
“May I see?”
Without responding directly, she left the office, returning momentarily with an open laptop computer. “Use this one, with the secure browser. Our computer boffin is unsure if someone can determine who has visited the site, though he thinks it’s safe. He’s sure he’s hidden the registration so they will have a difficult time to trace where we are.”
“Why not just use a standard provider?”
“We’re worried that they might be able to obtain the billing details. Bribery, theft,” she explained. “For example.”
“Ah.” He smiled as he understood. “You anticipate they are our equal, then?”
She nodded. “While they have done us no good, we targeted them because they are the best at what they do. This would be what they do. It seems foolish to take even that small chance.”
He gestured his agreement and finished typing. Together, they watched the small image for its minute and a half duration.
“The following page has the text we agreed. The imam translated it to Arabic.”
“Why?” He noticed her tension, maybe fear, and continued, “I’ve no problem with it; I’m only curious.”
Her face smoothed. “I hoped it might misdirect them slightly. I asked him to slant it as if a Pakistani had written it, and he said he did.” His confusion must have remained; she continued her explanation. “Since we want her to direct her team to leave the archeologists, I thought to have everything appear to originate there.”
“Ah. I see. Very good.” He closed the laptop and replaced the card in its envelope. “Continue, please. Advise me of developments.”
A week later, Maryam knocked and entered Boufel’s office. She placed a small slim white box on his desk. “All is arranged for this.”
“This?”
“You don’t recall the locator we ordered? Shame, M. Boufel,” she teased.
“Yes, of course,” he replied. “I have many things to keep in mind; this minor incidental… slipped my recollection, no more.” He picked up the box and opened it. The cross had no power for him; it would function in Al Shazar’s environment. He lifted it on his fingertip. “It has been completely tested?”
“À la perfection.”
“Bien. And its deployment?”
“Al-Shazar’s new recruit has offered a target who Al-Shazar believes can bring the woman Jamse closer to us. You shouldn’t want any more detail. All will be on Al-Shazar once we arrange delivery in San Diego.”
He gave a wave of dismissal and returned to his computer.
Part III: Ralf Eoin Jamse
FOR BECKIE, THE SEVERAL WEEKS between early February and the end of March passed in a blaze of weight, lack of mobility, loss of comfort, pain and finally, unremitting joy that Ralf Eoin Jamse had presented himself with the usual wailing, and the requisite number of limbs, fingers and toes. Beckie found herself amazed that the first time Ralf was laid in her arms, she counted each of his digits even before allowing him to find her breast. The nurse laughed gently, but still Beckie thought, I am being silly!
The pleasure she had in him was slightly diminished by the pain and discomfort of the incision Doctor Claire had made in her lower abdomen; Ralf had been hale and healthy, and the doctor and her staff decided that a cesarean delivery would be safer and present less difficulty, overall. While she acknowledged their greater expertise, during the first several days she wondered, present less difficulty for whom?
The whole of the time both before and after his birth, when she was not being distracted by Ralf or one of Millie’s nurses, Beckie lent her full attention to the team’s operation. Since the only things she could do involved grieving Ian or pouting about her condition, or sitting and listening to Willie or another team member on the phone or Skype, she opted for the latter as often as the opportunity arose.
End of Excerpt
Continue Reading Discoveries in early 2016.
