by Finn Óg
“Where your friend take us?” Alea asked.
“Dublin, probably. That’s where she lives.”
“And what then?”
“Honestly, Alea, I don’t know.”
“You don’t care, is true.”
Sam thought for a moment, realised she was right and lied.
“I do care,” he said, “but I have my own child to look after, Alea.”
Sam got back to the chart. He could get Charity to meet them further west – Baltimore, Unionhall, Skibbereen. They were attractive destinations in that fewer people meant fewer cops, but it also meant that new arrivals were more likely to be noticed, particularly exotic-looking women and children no matter how Western their attire. Such places were also further from where Sam wanted go with Isla. His plan was to head north and east not south and west. He followed the coast in the desired direction – Youghal, Dungarvan, Tramore, Dunmore.
Kilmore was familiar to him but he remembered a bar brawl there, a village teeming with fishermen if not fish, each of them fairly hostile to sailors. Those who made their living on the sea tended to have little regard for those who took their pleasure from it, and there were often minor battles when yachts tied up alongside commercial vessels. Sam recognised that the fishermen often had a point – some yachts people acted like they owned each place they visited. For them the sea was a playground; for the fishermen it was a workplace. Each tended to look down their noses at the other and Sam could do without the hassle, so he ruled out Kilmore and Dunmore, and as far as he could remember Tramore was a sandy beach with little or no harbour. Dungarvan was unfamiliar but the pilot books suggested it was no longer a fishing port, so he set a loose course for it. He looked again at Alea, softening with the knowledge that he had a plan.
“Look, Alea, Charity is a good person, a really good person. This is what she does all the time. You’ll be in good hands, you and Sadiqah.”
“Who are the people she helps?”
Alea had obviously been working through scenarios. Sam plumped for the truth.
“Sex workers mainly. People who thought they were coming to the UK or Ireland to do other work, as far as I could see. They’d been promised cleaning work or whatever and they ended up being used for sex.”
“I am not hooker,” said Alea disgusted.
“Well, I know that, and you know I wasn’t suggesting you are a hooker,” Sam’s exhaustion wasn’t up to any protracted discussion, “but the fact remains that my friend has expertise in helping women who need help – foreign women. That’s all.”
“And you and Isla will just sail away.”
“Yes, Alea, yes, we bloody well will. I mean, do you think we owe you something?”
Alea plunged into bitter silence again and stayed there until Sam’s temper rose once more.
“What? What do you think we should do? Stand by until we know you’re in the asylum system and in a house somewhere?”
Alea turned to stare at him.
“You have dead wife. You are left with child. I have dead husband. I am left with child. Is good for you to be a man. You are in your country. Is good for you. I am woman. I am Arab. I am alone. I have not money. I have not home for my child. You have boat. You have money. You can go everywhere you wish to go. I am left with woman I not know.”
For the first time Sam put himself in her place. He was stunned. He couldn’t fault her. She was looking out for her kid just as he was looking out for his. She was fighting for her survival just as he had on countless occasions. But she made him recognise what he’d always taken for granted: he had skills few others could call upon. She was right. He could just leave them on the quay, turn his transom and forget about all he had left behind. He had cash, he had a floating home, he had independence, freedom and his tiny family. She had Sadiqah, which was her love and her fear, and she had a terrifying unknown ordeal ahead of her. She was being expected to rely upon a woman she’d never met, and she knew that with all likelihood she would face hostility as a Libyan in Europe.
Sam had been used to responsibility – the weight of taking kids to war regardless of how well-trained they were. When he’d led his Marines or his small SBS units, he had felt every ounce of their expectation – that they were in the hands of a seasoned commando, that his call would be correct. But since he’d left the navy,he’d stretched and cracked as the crush of that responsibility had been lifted from him.
And here it had returned. The same expectation; the same demand.
Help keep me safe for I am scared.
Eighteen
The hotel was one of the most frequently attacked on the peninsula yet still they came – wealthy tourists, Russians dressed like hookers, even Israelis on occasion but they booked less frequently nowadays. It was literally a stone’s throw from the border crossing with Eilat, which made it within winking distance of the Red Sea, Israel and Jordan.
The man Waleed had tasked with destroying the GPS and phone recovered from Big Suit’s car was sent to carry out a routine inspection. It was always good to have a man with a machine gun walk the perimeter of such establishments. It had the curious effect of making guests feel safe: nothing like having a heavily armed guard show up. It was one of Waleed’s routine orders from Cairo: keep the tourists coming at all costs. It confused him. How holidaymakers could take comfort from such sights was a mystery. Surely, he thought, it would remind them of the intense threat they were under? Less than a few years had passed since check-in had been disrupted by a bomb-laden lorry that had barrelled through the lobby windows and exploded. No man with a machine gun was going to stop that.
In the same foyer of the rebuilt hotel the guard sidled up to the car-hire clerk perched at a small office desk amid leaflets with images of tired old Japanese saloons. The guard knew most of the vehicles didn’t even have locks, which was fine because car theft wasn’t an issue in Egypt. Even in cities cars were left unlocked to allow parking attendants to wheel them about to create space. Besides, many people couldn’t afford fuel. But the guard’s advantage was in the age of the hire fleet – no fancy inbuilt navigation systems in these vehicles. They barely had blowers to circulate the stifling air.
“Hello,” he said to the bored man at the desk.
“Hello,” the man said back, suddenly transfixed by the machine gun across the guard’s chest.
“How much will you give me for this?” he said.
“The gun?” asked the baffled clerk.
“No, this.” The guard furtively gestured to the GPS and cable in his spare hand.
“Oh … ehm … it is old,” said the clerk.
“How much?” pressed the guard furtively glancing around him, keen to do business and move on.
“I need to call my boss,” said the clerk.
The guard gathered up the kit and moved off. “Hurry,” he said, “I’ll come back in five minutes.”
He wandered outside and took a tour around the swimming pool, soaking in the tits and arses of the privileged tanning team. Satiated, he headed back to the shade of the reception, approached the clerk, took the first price offered and went back to his vehicle.
An uncharacteristic fluster.
“This is Sinead. Leave a message.”
Then calm. Sam tapped red. He seldom left voicemails and wasn’t about to start now. Paranoia. He’d seen how easy it was to hack a phone. But at least the call confirmed that they had service, intermittent as it was.
“Daddy, who are you ringing?”
“A friend.”
It was almost a shock to hear that voice again, even on an answering service. He had to stop calling her Charity. He owed her more than that.
“Who?” Isla asked.
“Charity,” Sam muttered absently.
“That’s not a name.”
“Sinead,” he said.
“A woman?” Isla seemed surprised.
“Yes,” said Sam, unwilling to elaborate.
He could see the cogs turning in his daughter’s mind.
She had watched his odd stand-off with Sadiqah’s mother and no doubt heard the frustration in those conversations, and here he was phoning a woman Isla had never met while out of sight of land. Sam wondered what she was thinking, and yet he didn’t want to know because lurking somewhere behind it all was a sense that there was some inappropriate thought, some subtle betrayal, as the scent on the T-shirt weakened.
“Can Sadiqah and I go to the cinema when we get back to Ireland?”
Thank the Lord for the attention span of children, thought Sam.
“Maybe,” he said, doubtful whether Dungarvan had a picture house and of the wisdom of taking such a liberty given the risk of being stopped and questioned.
“That means no,” sulked Isla.
“I’m sorry, wee love. I need my friend to come and help Sadiqah and her mam as soon as we get ashore.”
Shock crossed Isla’s face. “You’re sending them away again?”
Her eyes were like frisbees, as if he couldn’t have done more to disappoint her.
“Not like last time,” he said. “This time they’ll be properly looked after and be safe.”
“With Charity?”
“Sinead.”
“Who is Sinead?”
“Sinead is Charity. Charity was just my nickname for her, my friend. I shouldn’t have called her that.”
“Why?”
“Just cos. Never worry about it.”
“Charity’s not a bad word, Daddy,” Isla said, teacher-like.
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Look, Isla, it doesn’t matter. Sinead is going to help Sadiqah, that’s what matters, and we’ll keep an eye on them. We’ll go and visit them for play dates. Honestly.”
Sam caught Alea turning her head slightly. Her back was to him as she sat below but she’d obviously overheard them.
“Where will Sinead take them?”
“To Dublin, darlin’. They’ll be safe there.”
“We can go and visit them and stay in a hotel!” She fizzed with excitement.
Sam and Shannon had once taken Isla on a trip to Dublin. The family room had provided great excitement for Isla and the grandeur of the hotel lobby had made her feel like she was in a movie.
“Ok, Isla,” he said. “I promise we can do that.”
And he meant it at the time. He was sure such a simple request would be achievable.
At the time.
Habid was adamant – no easy outs. If someone had to die to give the doctor what he wanted, then the doctor had to do the deed.
Tassels was happy with the plan. His cousin had become a serious pain in the arse, nagging and threatening him at every opportunity. He’d considered having the doctor knocked off just to get some peace, but Big Suit’s absence meant he’d have to carry out the dirty work himself and in that regard he and the rat were remarkably similar.
Habid had called Tassels and explained what was to happen. He would bring a new batch of migrants across the border and expect to be met by a police escort in the normal way. Tassels would drive the minibus and deliver the expectant, filthy rabble to the banks where they would make their transfers and Tassels would get paid. They would then be offered a free medical with the doctor before making their way to the beach. The final person to receive an examination would be a man identified by Habid.
And so the doctor sat in a plastic chair and examined the small group one by one, waiting to meet his salvation, his passport, his victim. Because the victim was a fellow physician, the doctor had been forced to plan the process well in advance. The man was unlikely to allow himself to be injected, so Habid had settled on a seasickness remedy, gambling that the chances of his quarry being a seafarer in his spare time were few and that unfamiliarity with the sea would encourage the physician to swallow the pill. When he had taken the vitals of each of the migrants with his usual negligence, he sweated gently and waited for his new identity to reveal itself.
Habid had chosen wisely. Before him stood a man of equal height and colouring, haggard, for sure, but in age they could have been similar had the Libyan not spent the past few years in a hole in the desert.
“Hello, how are you?” he began.
“Fine,” said the Libyan suspiciously.
“I need to check you for dehydration and make sure you are ready for the trip – the sea is a serious place.”
“I am fit and well,” snapped the Libyan, nervous that the examination could result in his exclusion. “Nothing wrong with me. I am a doctor, I would know.”
“Ah, a doctor?” he said, eager to learn more about his future persona. “Where did you practise?”
“Tripoli, in a hospital and I had private patients too.”
“Anyone famous?” asked the doctor, probing.
“You obviously know I had a famous patient,” snarled the Libyan, “otherwise you would not have asked.”
The doctor shrugged. “Gaddafi cannot have been an easy man to look after.”
“No,” agreed the Libyan, softening.
“What was your area of expertise?”
“Cardiac,” said the doctor. “Angioplasty. The leader was highly strung.”
The doctor sniggered. “We could tell. Even here in Alexandria we could hear him shouting.”
The Libyan relaxed a little as the doctor listened to his chest and peered into his throat, ears and eyes.
“Your own heart is strong and your BP is fine,” concluded the doctor. “Now, take these – they will help with any seasickness. You would be advised to avoid illness on the boat as the skipper has orders to drop dead weight into the water.”
The Libyan had expected little more. This was a mercenary business and every man for himself. He popped the pills offered without querying it further.
“Now,” said the doctor, “join the others and I wish you safe journey.”
By dusk the group had assembled on the beach and the Libyan physician was dead. There was gentle sobbing from two women who had grown attached to him while in the hole in the desert. Tassels’ cousin had joined them, examined the body and declared life extinct. Habid took control.
“This man was selected because he was a doctor. I do not want you to go to sea without his skills.”
The rat’s deviousness knew no bounds. He somehow managed to make his business sound benevolent while twisting every turn to his advantage. Alarm rose on the faces of the migrants. They felt their opportunity slipping away with the life of the Libyan physician. They began to plead with Habid to allow the journey to go ahead regardless. By arrangement Habid looked to the doctor.
“These people wish to go to sea, doctor. I cannot allow that without proper care. They have paid handsomely for the privilege. Will you take that man’s place?”
“What?” feigned the doctor. “Leave – now? Just like that?”
“Please!” wailed the women, lighting on the idea.
“Where would I go? I cannot start a new life just like that. I do not even have any papers!”
Habid looked to the women and then to the dead man and then began a body search. The women whimpered – not so much in grief as in hope. Habid hoisted a sheave of documentation aloft theatrically.
“These may help!”
The doctor took the papers from Habid and examined them.
“But – these men and women know I am not the man referred to in these papers.”
Habid looked to the assembled group questioningly.
“We will say it is you.” They all began to nod. “We know him well. We can tell you all about him. You can become him!”
Desperation delivered the plan better than the doctor had hoped. He could not resist laying it on thick.
“And you really want me to come with you, to keep you well?”
“Please,” wailed the women.
One of the men fell to his knees in appeal.
“Ok,” said the doctor reluctantly, turning to Habid. “I will go with them.”
“Hurry on then,” said Ha
bid, disgusted at the doctor’s ad-libbing.
Habid watched the dinghy warble over the waves, listening to the rev and fall of the outboard engine. He hoped against hope that the doctor would drown.
“Will you look who it is, fuckin’ Houdini.”
“Shut up,” he heard Charity hiss. Sinead. He made another mental note to stop calling her Charity otherwise Isla would drop him in it when they met.
Sinead’s sister ignored the request. “So to what do we owe the pleasure?”
The troublesome sister, as useful as she was irritating. He pitied the man or woman who would end up sharing her sarcasm daily.
‘Will you please be quiet,” he heard Sinead say.
Sam realised he hadn’t yet said a word.
“How are you, Sam?” Charity assumed control. Sinead. Sinead assumed control.
“You have me on loudspeaker,” he said.
The drone of a vehicle suggested the pair were on the road and he was patched through the Bluetooth.
“Yeah, but I’m not listening to ye,” snarked the sister.
“Áine, would you ever just give it up?” Sinead snapped. “Sam, give me a second.”
He heard a snap and a bang and Áine complain that you shouldn’t drive while using a phone and then Sinead was back.
“Where are you?”
“At sea,” he said.
“How are you?”
“Grand,” he replied. “How are you getting on?”
“Busy,” she said. “It’s good to know you’re ok. How’s Isla?”
“She’s here, she’s good. Getting big.”
“Ah, stop,” she said, as if she was all too familiar with growing children, which he’d always assumed she wasn’t. He found himself wondering, for the first time, whether she had any kids. It confused him – why he hadn’t considered it before. It unsettled him but he didn’t care to admit why.
“Are you too busy for a wee job?”
“You’re asking me? I’ve had jobs coming out me pores and I’ve been trying to reach you for months, and now you ring me asking if I want a job.”
