by Finn Óg
“My wife used to,” he muttered, then shook his head.
“Only three in the sea or the boat. Only three people?” she inquired.
“Only three who survived,” said Sam becoming irate.
“So you do know their story?” the captain rounded, full of ahah, got you!
Sam shook his head in wonder at the line the woman was taking. The two armed men were rifling around below and Sam kept half turning to see what they were looking at. “I know nothing about them,” Sam said. “We just picked them up from the sea, at night, a few days ago, and I’m trying to get them to safety. Here. Greece. Europe.”
“Why not back to Egypt or Libya or Cyprus?”
Sam had no intention of getting into any of that. “Because we are headed to Ireland,” he said, “and we are making west.”
“Then you can take them to Ireland,” said the captain, snapping the two passports together and lifting her head to receive an assessment from her crew. The captain and her men chatted in Greek for a few moments and then, to Sam’s incredulity, stepped over the guard rail and prepared to cast off.
“I am injured, our engine is fouled, I have refugees and two children aboard and not enough provisions for them. What the fuck do you expect me to do?” he screamed as the engines readied for take off.
The captain stared at him and barked an order. A man emerged and threw a huge bale of water bottles onto the deck of Sam and Isla’s boat.
“You will not be allowed to land in Greece. I shall put out an all-points communication. We have too many migrants already, and you, to me, look like a people trafficker. If you try to make land here, you will be arrested. Go home,” she commanded as the RIB tilted and the throttle was gunned. Sam stared at its wake and couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Betrayal. Perhaps the hardest emotion bar grief to endure. Big Suit was experiencing it twice in the space of two days.
He felt hurt, initially, then afraid. Then resigned. It was true what people said – a bully’s greatest fear is being bullied. Big Suit was at moping stage by the time his former friend offered him the ultimatum.
“Just spell out the whole plan and you’ll probably survive this, but you’ll not retain your soft little number in Alexandria exploiting hard-working men for half their profits.”
“I don’t,” Big Suit began to protest.
“You do. Not all your fault – you’re easily led – mostly down to your horrible little boss.”
“I hate him.”
“Oh?” said Waleed. “He finally turned on you, has he?”
“How do you know him?”
“We know what you do in Alexandria and we won’t think twice about meting out your kind of justice back upon you.” He gestured around the poorly lit room with dust underfoot. “So talk, or we’ll cut bits off you and throw them into the desert, and then we’ll leave the rest for the jihadis and they can cut your head off on the internet.”
Big Suit could believe what he was hearing but not who he was hearing it from. It was a compelling enough argument. He’d heard variations of it from his boss a few dozen times and knew what way it would go. Why lose a hand to prove a point when they would get what they wanted anyway? No. Senseless. His biggest fear, however, was how little he had to give.
“You don’t need to torture me,” he said. “I came here to tell you about it. I’m here deliberately.”
“You’re here because your boss sent you to Nuweiba,” scoffed Waleed.
“Yes—no—yes, but as soon as he sent me I decided to find you and tell you.”
“Of course. I believe you.” Waleed was unaccustomed to sarcasm but it seemed a fitting moment to give it a go.
“I don’t know much but, please believe me, I’ll tell you everything I do know.”
“Yes, you will,” said Waleed. “Let’s start with why you’re going to Nuweiba.”
“I think to collect a boat or boats.”
“In a Toyota Corolla?” he said, tiring.
Big Suit had no answer.
“A boat for what?”
“Trafficking.”
“Ah,” said Waleed, “you’re getting into the people movement racket now.”
“We took a prisoner from the Sofitel in Alexandria. We just wanted his money really.”
“Money from what?”
“Well, we didn’t know. We had a tip-off from the front desk saying that a filthy desert rat had checked in, and we thought, how can someone from the desert afford the Sofitel? So we went to see him.”
“And how did that work out?”
“Not that well. He was a tough little bastard. I trimmed him to within an inch of his life but he didn’t give much away. I think they’re still working on him at the barracks.”
“So what are you doing out here in the desert?”
“I got from him that he was into people trafficking, and, well, my boss, he thought he would take a slice of that.”
“Of course he did. Why stop criminality when you can profit from it?”
Big Suit nearly nodded then remembered why he shouldn’t. “He sent me out here where we thought the boat and engine were being delivered for the next trip.”
“To the desert?”
“To Nuweiba. But that’s why I called you. I knew you worked in intelligence.”
“Good of you to look me up but trafficking isn’t really our main concern.”
“Oh, ok,” said Big Suit, disappointed. His head fell.
Waleed almost felt pity for the man but then grew angry at the inconvenience the distraction his former classmate presented.
“You think we have time for people trafficking out here?”
“I don’t know.” Big Suit’s huge jowls slapped as he shook his hanging head.
“This is an antiterrorist unit.” Waleed softened a little. “We hunt Islamic State and the like, their training camps. We try to stop them massacring people.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you. It’s just that, with Gaddafi’s people coming through, I thought you’d be interested.”
“Gaddafi’s people?” Waleed’s tone changed.
“Yes, that’s what the rat said. He’s finding Gaddafi loyalists and making them pay.”
“By killing them?”
“No, pay to leave – through the Libyan border, then by boat.”
Waleed sighed with impatience. “Do they leave by boat from Egypt or Libya?”
“Egypt – Alexandria.”
“Why Alexandria?” Waleed was very curious now.
“It’s to do with money and bank accounts,” was all Big Suit could muster. In truth, he hadn’t paid that much attention. His interest in interrogation lay in the persuasive arts.
“So a Libyan is bringing ex-Gaddafi loyalists to Egypt, getting them to pay him in Alexandria and what – sending them to sea?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Do they have bank accounts in Egypt – is that why they go from Alexandria?”
Big Suit shrugged. “I think it’s also because many people leave from Libya but get caught and sent back.”
Waleed considered this for a moment and Big Suit felt optimism creep in.
“I think the rat is talking in return for his life.”
“Where exactly in Nuweiba were you going?”
“Ferry port,” said Big Suit. “My boss is to call with more information.”
Then there was silence as his former friend stared at him before eventually raising the rat’s phone and placing it in front of him. “This one?”
“Yes.”
“We will wait for him to call then, with further directions.”
“I guess so,” said Big Suit. “That’s all I know.”
“You understand that if you’re not telling me everything, I will find out, don’t you? How do you think I got you here?”
“My own phone?” ventured Big Suit.
“Your own phone,” agreed Waleed. “This is no place for an unprofessional thug like you.”
Big Suit felt more hurt than surprised.
“We have real-world problems in this area,” he said. “Corrupt officers like you make the beards look like they might have a point.”
“What?” Big Suit stared in bewilderment at a man he continued to idolise.
“The reason there is all this trouble – the militants killing everyone they disagree with, the Spring, the chaos?” He gestured to Big Suit as if offering an opportunity to answer.
He received a confused look in return.
“People like you. Greedy fat pigs who want to take cash off hard-working people while sitting on your lard arses doing nothing.”
“I work hard,” he protested.
“You arrest the weak and then exploit them. You charge people extra money to do the job the state pays you to do!” yelled Waleed. “You tax the people who provide employment and if they don’t pay – what do you do?”
Big Suit faltered for a response.
Waleed filled the void. “You find reasons to prosecute them for petty violations or things you and your snake of a boss dream up.”
Big Suit’s eyes welled with shame. Had this tirade come from anyone else he would have held firm, but exhaustion and weakness drew his head towards the filthy floor.
Waleed wasn’t finished. “And what does it achieve? It makes people believe that the bloody jihadis might offer a better way. It makes them think the religious nutters will deal with you corrupt idiots. They find out the hard way, in the end, but not before their daughters have been raped and they’re living in a caliphate watching executions every afternoon.”
Big Suit sat in astonishment. He had no idea his former friend harboured such loathing for corruption, for anyone.
“And the worst of them all are the scum who send our people to sea with no hope of survival. Fellow Arabs fleeing abuse and attack at the hands of IS or al-Qaeda or whatever other mad group. The victims trying to take their children to a better place currently floating face down in a sea they’d never even paddled in.”
Big Suit just gawped.
“Now, when this phone rings, we will monitor what you say. You will stay here, on this chair, and you will tell your boss to fill you in on the whole plan.”
“But he won’t do that – he just won’t. You don’t understand. I never get the full story.”
Waleed understood perfectly.
“Then you bring him here.”
“Here? I don’t even know where here is.”
“To Sinai. Then we’ll find out the plan for ourselves – the routes, the people involved.”
“How? How will I get him to leave Alexandria?”
“There will be a way.”
Nine
“You shouldn’t say those words, Daddy.”
Isla had managed not to cry this time; not in front of her new friend.
“Sometimes, Isla, those words fit the description,” Sam muttered, still staring at the wash left by the customs boat, or the coastguard, or whatever it had been.
He began to run through his options: he could ignore the crabbit captain and land somewhere else on Crete, but there was radar and if she had marked him and he landed anyway, could he really afford the hassle to be arrested, to have Isla taken into the care, regardless of how temporary, of someone else? Since Shannon had died Sam hadn’t trusted anyone other than Isla’s grandparents to look after her, so the answer came swiftly enough: they would not be separated. He could keep heading west but they’d be fishing for their dinner soon. Only so many cans and wraps of dried pasta could be stocked on a boat their size, and protein was essential. His provisioning had been based on certain assumptions and he’d never imagined being denied berth in a European country.
He slowly climbed below and pulled out the charts, staring at them, hunting for an attractive option. Italy was one, Malta another, but less so. If the Maltese refused him, it was a long way to the next stop. Whatever he chose he knew he was looking at over five hundred nautical miles, four days of sailing.
He looked at the Arab man, now staring back at him, and imagined how things would be if he were no longer on board, if the woman were forced to show her face, a bit of arm, a foot – and the child dressed like Isla. The next attempted landing might prove a hell of a lot easier. Life aboard might become a lot more tolerable. He allowed himself a few moments of resentment to imagine what their journey would have been if he’d let the family drown. It lasted no more than a minute before Shannon put a stop to it. Her influence was so strong it almost irritated him. She would never have thought like that, it just couldn’t have entered her head. Of course his wife would have saved the family, would have starved if necessary to feed them, rationed her own to share all she had. She hadn’t been a saint – Sam knew that better than anyone; she had persuaded him to kill to let innocent children live, but he could rationalise that. It made sense to him. His gaze fell upon his daughter as he pushed back the loss and gulped to free his aching throat. He would never want Isla to think as he just had. By hook or by crook he would get the family to safety. And off his boat.
Some people recover quickly but the doctor had never seen anything like Habid’s healing: the speed at which the scabs appeared, the infection drifted back, the stumps repelled the infection. Even amid the detritus of his Egyptian prison cell, the rat had managed to convalesce at a remarkable pace.
“Any news from Sinai?” Habid asked, as the doctor’s saucers poured over his abrasions, replaced dressings and tinkered with the syringe driver.
“Apparently he’s gone off-grid,” the doctor said. “My cousin cannot reach him.”
Which was gratifying and disappointing at the same time.
“How far did he get?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, where was he last?”
“Suez, I think.”
“He’s probably done a runner.”
“Don’t think so. My cousin sent him east across Sinai to the ferry port at Nuweiba, just as we agreed.”
“We don’t have long to get the boat. If it’s not collected soon …”
“I know. You said. The route will dry up.”
“It took a long time to negotiate in the first place,” said Habid. “It will take a long time to find another supply route. Word spreads fast. People will not trust us. They will think we have been turned, that we are working for the state.”
“So,” said the doctor, “we will find someone else to get the boat.”
“You could go,” suggested Habid.
The doctor looked distinctly uncomfortable at the proposition. “Who would look after you?”
“Then we need to send Tassels.”
“Tassels?” inquired the doctor.
“Your cousin, the cop. He’s got tassels on his shoes.”
“Mmmm, he’s unlikely to leave Alexandria.”
“You will need to persuade him.”
The doctor just grunted and raised his eyebrow.
But Big Suit was progressing Habid’s wish all by himself.
Shuffling and tapping were the first indications the man had spotted something. Sam stopped working on his dressing and chuckled when he settled on Sinbad as the name of his watchman. He could be from Baghdad, Sam supposed, relishing the irony – a more useless sailor he’d never encountered. The man had shown a certain bravery in taking to the sea in the first place, so Sinbad seemed fitting, if probably politically incorrect. But Sam was an ex-marine and cultural sensitivity wasn’t an immediate priority.
He twisted slowly out of bed, attempting to protect his tightening stitches, and looked at the brass clock on the bulkhead. Forty hours had passed since they’d – as commanded – left Greek waters. He had a rough idea of where they should be, provided Sinbad had managed not to knock off the autohelm.
Dancing a jig, he was. Bare feet slapping on the teak, binoculars dangling from his scrawny neck, eyes alight with discovery. Sam reached out to prevent his expensive glasses bouncing off the stainless-steel binnacle
, then choked the cord towards him angrily, forcing the man to calm down and remove the leather strap from his throat. Sam turned towards the sun plummeting into the west, and caught the shadow low on the surface. Land. At last. He checked their speed: four knots. A short age away, but still. He was filled with the promise of unloading the easterners, stocking up with food, fuel and water, and cutting a course for Ireland. He nearly danced a jig himself.
He had no idea how premature such a sentiment would have been.
Big Suit had a penchant for vacancy. Ordinarily he could sit and stare at a wall or a spider and remain clear of conscience and devoid of thought. He never mused upon the mutilations he’d performed and he never felt pangs of guilt. He was grateful for that. Yet today, or tonight as it may be, he was experiencing something new: panic. His old friend was going to finish him. And the absence of his boss meant he had to think for himself. Again, a new sensation.
There was a layer to Waleed that Big Suit hadn’t noticed before, something else going on. That lecture about corruption was almost religious, as if he’d been driven by some faith. That flew in the face of all they’d done at the academy, but then Big Suit thought back to what actually occurred during training and what Waleed’s role had been. He thought of the room they’d shared and realised, for the first time, that he’d never once seen his roommate pray. He guessed he’d put it down to rebelliousness and acknowledged that he’d admired that in the man. Waleed didn’t give a rat’s ass for any authority as far as Big Suit could tell, yet he excelled at everything. Why? In every class, physical or mental, he was streets ahead of the other recruits. It was as if he’d been through it all before.
His thoughts turned to survival. Big Suit’s skills were limited. If he got expelled from the police, what could he do? How could he turn this around? What weakness was there – what opportunity?
He combed through their conversation but his mind wasn’t even working at its usual pedestrian pace; the lack of blood in his system made him light-headed and dreamy. And maybe that’s why the notion came to him as he drifted into sleep on the grimy floor. Waleed’s hatred of the extremists, his disregard for the beards at the academy, his refusal to roll out a mat and pray – his apparent lack of a mat. Why didn’t Waleed have a mat? Big Suit had never wondered about that before. He’d never seen Waleed at the mosque either. Why had nobody questioned that? And then it came to him as the blackout draped him: Waleed wasn’t Muslim.
