by Paul A. Rice
It went on for hour-after-hour. Huge, ground-shaking explosions echoed throughout the city. The distant whirring sound of Tomahawk missiles filled the skies, their propulsion units making weird noises as the came zooming overhead. The sound would always be followed by the enormous thump of their detonations. I stopped counting at sixty-one, the glass doors on my patio window literally bulging under the pressure waves caused by the blasts, coffee table rattling alarmingly.
I was to find out later that the bombardment had been devastating; many military installations were completely destroyed on that day – Happy-fucking-Birthday, Mr G.
Right now, I had far more serious things on my mind…
‘Who are you?’ I asked Raouf, for the second time in as many days. ‘What is it you want, am I in trouble with you guys, or what?’
He turned to me and laughed, it was a sound of genuine humour and not the nasty, doom-impending snigger that my wild imagination had predicted. Turning back to watch the road, which in itself was a bonus with this fellow, Raouf proceeded to give me the truth, and he gave it to me straight – right on the chin.
‘I use to work for the government, everybody use to work for the government!’ he said. ‘Just because one works for the government, doesn’t mean that one runs around killing people on behalf of our so-called ‘leader’ and his family!’
He looked at me and I could see the anger in his eyes.
‘If you wanted to get ahead in Libya, then in one-way-or-another you worked for the government, even if not directly, sooner or later you would have ‘dealings’ with them.’ Raouf rubbed his fingers together in the sign for money. With a sigh, he said, ‘Back then it was a case of survival, just staying alive and making enough money for one’s family was all we could do.’
I understood. Having met many people during my time in Libya, I spoke to several of them who’d said exactly the same thing. Gadaffi, his family, and all of their henchmen, were like a web, everything was connected to them – everybody paid them, in one way or the next.
‘But,’ he said, interrupting my thoughts, ‘not all of us cared for him and his madness, so we just gathered information, keeping some of it to be used on another day. We didn’t give them everything we knew, and over the years we began to learn a lot of things, we also gathered a lot of information.’
Looking at me with grin, he then said, ‘And then we noticed you – you are a very interesting man, Mr Collins, very interesting indeed.’
‘Are you telling me that you’re a spook?’ I asked, in disbelief.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Indeed I am, and a very well-trained spook at that, thanks to the Israelis.’
‘The Israelis… so, you’re telling me that the Jews trained an Arab, is that what you’re actually telling me?’
‘I know that to you westerners it must sound crazy, but it’s the truth,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘Gadaffi influenced many countries, including yours, with his distribution of guns, bombs and money. Israel wanted to know his every move, to understand what he was doing so that they could protect themselves and their assets.’
‘Jesus!’ I said, shaking my head.
‘He never came into it,’ Raoul said, with a soft laugh. ‘It was just some guy in a suit who I met in Nairobi from time-to-time.’
I looked at him and then did some laughing of my own.
What an insane conversation, what a way in which to be ferrying the dead back to reality. I wondered what Andi would have made of all this – and then I stopped wondering, slamming the shutters down on the memory of her and those beautiful blue-eyes.
It was no wonder everyone was shit-scared of Raouf – if he’d been a government spook, albeit a double-dealing one, then there was to be no messing with him. I was truly amazed.
He paused for a while and we sat in silence, me drinking more water and lighting cigarettes. I knew that this was most likely going to get out of hand – if Raouf had ideas of using me as a spy, then he had another think coming. I’m no angel, of that there’s no doubt. But, if he thought that I was going to lead some double-life and be his bitch or something, then he could piss-off. Listen – if I’m walking down the road and I find a bin-liner with a million bucks in it, then I’m your very man. However, if it comes down to me having to watch my back all the time, especially since I already do enough of that at work, then count me out. It’s a bin-bag full of cash, or you can poke-off.
Yeah, well… funny how close to the truth a person’s thoughts can be, isn’t it? A bin-bag full of cash, was it, eh, Jake?
Flicking my latest butt out of the window, I turned to Raouf and continued the conversation.
‘So where does that leave me?’ I asked, waiting for the sting.
‘Well… let me see,’ he said. ‘How would you like to be rich?’
For one minute I actually thought he was taking the piss, or, even worse, that I’d lost my mind and had been talking out-loud for the past five minutes.
Either way, it was good few seconds before I spoke.
‘I am already rich, thanks,’ I eventually retorted, recent thoughts racing through my head like a dust storm in the desert.
‘Hah!’ Raouf snorted. ‘I’ve seen your bank-balance, Jake. To some people you would definitely be considered as rich, yes.’ He turned to me, staring in total seriousness. With that look still on his face, he then said, ‘But, I am talking about the sum of one point five million dollars, with that kind of money you would truly be rich!’
Wondering if this was for real, I said, ‘Go on, what’s the catch?’ Although my curiosity was definitely raised, I could still hear the cuckoo-clock getting ready to chime in my head.
Raouf said, ‘There is no catch, all you have to do is take the money into Tunisia for us – the rest will be done by our people there and in Dubai.’
I couldn’t believe it. What a dumb-fucking-plan.
‘Raouf, my friend, how can I possibly carry such a large amount of cash through customs? I mean, if you’re offering me one-point-five million…’ I said, shaking my head in disbelief, ‘…then how much will there be in total – what am I, a fucking money-camel?’
Raoul just cracked-up, laughing his arse off and banging the steering wheel so hard that I feared he may activate the airbags, which would have rounded this whole, shitty, trip off perfectly.
‘A money-camel – that’s very funny, Jake. Very funny indeed, I shall tell Faizal the joke! He will laugh so hard!’
‘I’m not bloody laughing,’ I said. ‘If I get lifted with that sort of cash on me, even Mus and his little mates aren’t gonna be able to save my arse from a long spell in jail – no way!’
‘That will never happen,’ he said, all trace of jollity disappearing.
I shook my head, saying: ‘Why, how do you know, and if it does go pear-shaped then it won’t be your arse in jail, getting admiring glances whilst it’s in there, will it?’
Raouf pulled a face. Trying not to laugh, he wound his window down and held one arm out into the slipstream, letting his hand fly like a kite in the wind. It was a very childlike action and totally took the rising tension out of me. Even though I’d been making wise-cracks, Raouf had figured out that I wasn’t too happy.
He was a smart guy.
After a decent pause, when he had finished playing kites with his hand, Raouf turned to me and smiled calmly. He had obviously come to some kind of conclusion, and although I didn’t what it was, the findings must have pleased him.
‘Okay, Jake,’ he said. ‘You have passed the test, well-done!’
This was getting boring. ‘What test?’ I snapped.
‘Well, if you had immediately said yes, with no thought for any of the dangers, then I would have simply told you that I was just joking, you know – oh, that crazy Raouf, he’s always joking with the silly western guys?’ I nodded, silently, listening as he went on to prove exactly why he wasn’t, just joking with me.
‘You won’t be caught, because,’ he paused, before saying: ‘They don’t
check the bodies of the dead, if you have the right paper…’
‘Nope, there’s no chance of that, no, no, no!’ I said, cutting him off in a staccato burst of negatives. ‘If you think that we’re sticking any blood-money in the bodies of these poor guys,’ I pointed over my shoulder with my thumb to where the dead lay, covered by a tarpaulin in the back of our pickup. ‘Then you must be joking! It is never gonna happen, not as long as I’m here!’
‘I agree,’ he said, surprising me yet again. ‘That would be a total violation – they were our friends and we would never even think of doing that, I am very disappointed that you imagine we would, Jake!’
‘Nothing surprises me when it comes to money and people…’
‘Yes, well, never mind about that for now – you can believe me when I tell you that we have a much better plan’ he said. ‘There won’t be any real body, just the paperwork and a big parcel, like a body.’
‘Whose money is it?’ I asked. ‘Is it…’
It was Raouf’s turn to do some interjecting.
‘It is not blood-money! Of that I give you my most solemn word,’ he said. ‘It is our family’s money, mostly Faizal’s – from his business.’
‘And what business would that be?’ I asked, cynically.
‘Faizal was the main contracts-negotiator in Tripoli,’ he said. ‘Anyone who wanted to do big-business, drilling, construction, anything like that, had to go through him – he made a lot of money, and yes, some of it was from kick-backs, but that is normal for us here, that is how we do business. But no-one was ever killed for this money; it all comes from his earnings and his percentages from the big, multi-national companies.’
I nodded in understanding of his explanation. I knew the score in this region; kick-backs were a standard procedure. If you wanted to do business then someone had to get a sweetener – houses, cars, boats, apartments in Dubai, they were all acceptable. The procedure was widely-practiced. But, most of all it was the money. Money, in my experience, was the preferred currency used in order to get a deal started. I never had a problem with that – it’s just the way it was.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘What’s this about there being no body, what does that mean?’
‘There are three bodies with us today, yes?’ he said, raising his eyebrows in question.
‘Correct.’
‘Well, the people at the border have been told that there will be four, but we, you and I, have to go down to the east and collect one more, a poor journalist who was unfortunately ‘killed’ over there. They know we will be back in a few days and that it will be you who escorts the body. The guards have been told’
‘Right…’ I said, slowly getting the idea.
‘But, as I have said – there will be no real body, just a big bag of money… that looks like a body,’ Raouf grinned, adding: ‘Especially when it is wrapped correctly. We practiced last night and it is really quite simple…’
I snorted, saying: ‘And there was me thinking that you were the all-caring, give-a-shit, type of guy – it’s no wonder you spent so long at our place last night!’
‘Jake,’ he replied. ‘You are so cynical sometimes that I really do wonder if you aren’t depressed, or something? I do care, very much so. But we had time and we have a plan, so why not make the effort? Your friends were taken care of long before we practiced making the money-body…’
I apologised. ‘Yeah, you’re right, Raouf,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but all this stuff that’s happening just seems to be frying my head a little bit at moment, you know?’
Raouf did know. Looking at me, he said, ‘That’s no problem, my friend. We have time for you to make up your mind before we get to the border. If you say no, then it will just be the paperwork for three bodies we give them, and we will say our goodbyes. If not… then it will be for four and you and I must turn back. Can you make an excuse, for turning back?’
I thought about it for a while, maybe just dumping everyone at the border would be a bit out of order, a bit callous. People might ask questions and I already had enough of them to answer…
‘How long will we need to do the job,’ I asked.
‘No more than three days, including the travel,’ he said.
‘Okay, listen – if I say yes, I think it would be very sensible of me to go into Tunisia first, to say goodbye properly and things. That way the way the crew won’t know I haven’t flown out behind them. Then we can go and do whatever it is that you want me to do, and no-one will be any the wiser. How does that sound?’
‘That, Mr Collins, sounds very agreeable to me!’
‘Okay, one other thing…’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Why do you want the money out, what’s the issue?’
‘In times of revolution, people get greedy, Jake. There are many people looking for power in Libya, right now. And there are many more who are looking to revenge past atrocities. My brother is a rich man, and several of my family worked for the government, in some people’s eyes this is more than enough reason to kill us and strip my family of all they have earned over the years.’
‘Do they have a point, should you be stripped of everything, should you be killed?’ I asked, pointedly.
I only had his word on this. People lie.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I have never killed anyone, and nor has anyone in my family. I gathered information on foreign countries and foreign companies. I was not in the secret-service for Libya, only for the Israelis.’
‘Why do you need me, why don’t you just do it yourselves, you guys must know all sorts of people?’
‘Yes, we do,’ he said. ‘But I don’t trust any of them. If the revolution goes the wrong way, if the wrong people come into power then my family’s days will be numbered in Libya – we have to make sure that our money is somewhere safe, somewhere that our children will be able to use it later, if we are dead…’
‘Why not just transfer it to an offshore bank, or something?’
‘Are you joking?’ he said, incredulously. ‘Everything is frozen now; no-one can move money! Almost everything we have is in cash; we have always made sure of that – even before this started we could never have kept any amount of serious money in the bank – too many people can see in your account, too many people talk!’
Raouf was probably telling the truth, Gadaffi had made sure that in every camp, every tribe, every home, there were spies – spies spying on spies, divide and rule, that’s how he survived for so long. One thing was for sure, he may well have been a ruthless tyrant, but old Mr G – he sure as hell wasn’t stupid. Anyway, I imagined that the ‘cash under the bed’ scenario was exactly the one I would have used, had it been me in Raouf’s situation. As it was, I, too, kept a couple of grand in cash at home, just in case.
‘Right, well, as it happens, I tend believe you,’ I said. ‘I’m probably being stupid, but after what you did for us this week, and the things you’ve told me today, then I suppose I have to give you a lot of credit. You’re a good guy, Raouf. Just don’t try and burn me, Okay. I don’t burn easily!’
‘I know that,’ he said. ‘My brother told me that you were like a lion when he was trapped, he said that you tore the door off with your bare hands!’
I laughed as he reached over to shake one of my ‘lion’s hands’.
‘I still haven’t said yes,’ I commented, looking at him sideways.
‘You will,’ Raouf said. ‘It’s a lot of money, it’s a good plan, my brother wants to repay you and this is the very best way. You help us and we help you…’
‘Yeah, well maybe it is,’ I said. ‘But I still need to think about it. I will let you know tomorrow after we get the crew underway, is that Okay, can you work with that?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I will tell the border-guards that for today it will be only three bodies, and that we will give them the papers when we arrive with the next one, they will believe me. Let us forget this for now, tonight we shall drink beer in the hotel!’
‘Wh
at, you actually drink beer?’ I asked, looking at him in surprise.
Raouf nodded, saying: ‘There are a lot of things…’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah…’ I murmured.
Then, with a grin, I said, ‘Oh, by the way, you do know that it’s only the second-best hotel in Djerba we’re staying at, don’t you?’
Raouf laughed, ‘That is not a problem, I drink beer and they have a bar, it’s easy! I’m not in disguise anymore, and anyway, what do you think I am, crazy – what would a man be without some beer?’ Flooring the accelerator, he raced to catch-up with the others.
I couldn’t fault him on that as an ethos, and I certainly hoped that he wasn’t in disguise anymore, either. If he was, well, then that could turn out to be really tedious. Oh, and the crazy bit? Yeah, Raouf was crazy all right, as crazy as a box of frogs.
16
Last Goodbye
We arrived at the border without incident, the journey taking us slightly less than three-hours. When we arrived, there was massive queue of vehicles waiting to be processed by the border-guards. By my estimation it would take almost the whole day to get anywhere near the front. And that’s before the shenanigans with the passport guys had even started. Raouf jumped out and walked over to speak to one of the guards, casually leaning against a barricade and smoking. They had a very short chat and then my personal spook turned away and came back to the pickup.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, he started the engine and moved us so that we went to the front of our little convoy. Leaning out of his window, Raouf gave some instructions to the other drivers and then we moved off, turning sharp right onto a separate track that bypassed the horrendous line of waiting traffic. Two, armed-men walked over and proceeded to chaperone us through the border crossing.
We were only stopped for about a couple of minutes whilst they checked our passports, looking at the photos and then staring into each car. A man with a rubber stamp leaned on the roof, happily thumping out our exit visas. Raouf handed them a whole sheaf of papers, which they quickly browsed before sending us on our way. The whole thing was over-and-done in less than ten minutes.
