The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller (15 page)

M
ohammed spent the night in his van.

Though Salé is the sister city to Rabat, it has not advanced in the way the capital has. The buildings are old, the streets cobbled, the alleys impassable by modern conveyances. Three centuries ago, the city’s economy was driven by pirates who not only dealt in goods but slaves—white as well as black. To a large extent, piracy still drove the city’s cash flow. Coupled with radical Islamists, Mohammed knew he could not be in a better place. The key was not to be found by Iranians or anyone else before then.

He drove to the beach along the river and, spotting a boathouse, parked among a pile of rotting fishing boats within view of the place. The boats were small, not much larger than canoes, and judging from the rot revealed by his headlights, they looked as if they’d been there for at least a half century. Two of them sat prow to prow and formed a pyramid that would protect him from being seen except along the river. He had noted that there were no footprints in the sand and, feeling sufficiently isolated, used his hands to dig a shallow grave for his companion. He found a tattered old sail to use as a shroud and, stripping Aden’s body, lay his companion to rest beneath the stars while murmuring a heartfelt prayer. With reluctance, he took his tire iron and applied it to the man’s face, averting his gaze the entire time. Then he covered the hole. Then he went back to the van and against his best efforts to remain vigilant, fell asleep for several hours. He was tired—he recognized it as the exhaustion of effort, not illness—and awoke with a guilty start as the sun rose through his windshield.

His mind was clearer now, not just from the rest but from the time his new circumstances had to settle in. He was no longer shocked by what had happened but resolute. He poured water from a plastic bottle into his eyes, rubbed it over his face, then looked back along the waterfront. The sunlight glared off the window of the boathouse so he couldn’t see inside. But there was a motorbike that had not been there the night before. It was a new Vespa, a two-seater with the kind of elegance that suggested the owner made money from more than fishing or renting boats. Mohammed started the engine and drove over.

A young man came out to greet him. Dressed in a white shirt and jeans, he was swarthy and had a wary look. His beard was short-cropped, like his hair. He stood in the doorway, one hand still inside—on a firearm, no doubt. Mohammed emerged with his hands raised slightly above his waist. He was glad to see the man’s caution: he would not have to waste time. He had come to the right place.

There was no need to speak. The young man nodded once, turned to go inside, and Mohammed followed. There was, indeed, a shotgun leaning against the wall, the stock resting in an empty metal water basin on an old wooden stand.

“Tea?” the young man asked.

“Please.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Not since lunch, yesterday.”

That told the young man a great deal. It had been a busy night for the newcomer. He hadn’t wanted to—or didn’t dare to—stop at one of the city’s countless cafés. He hadn’t abandoned his vehicle, so he probably didn’t need passage; the waterways were more heavily policed than the roadways here.

He needed information.

“Sit.” The young man gestured to a small card table.

The newcomer sat—with a view toward the van. So there was something in it. Had he come to sell stolen property?

“I am Hassan,” the young man told him.

“My name is Mohammed.”

“Is there something I can do for you, Mohammed?”

Mohammed looked around. The trappings here were old, spare. He saw a row of wooden chairs along the back wall that looked, oddly, as though they were bolted to the floor. There was a potbelly stove in the corner—that was where the water was being heated—and he saw a closet with a vented generator. He didn’t have electricity here, but he had a smart phone on a small desk. When the man left each night, whatever command center this was reverted to being an old shack.

“It was built by my grandfather,” Hassan said, watching Mohammed’s eyes. “He was a fisherman. Not a very good one. But he managed to make a living.”

“How?”

“God is generous to the pious man, and the river offered many opportunities.”

The young man poured tea, set out bread and honey.

“Praise be to God for his kindness—and to you for yours,” Mohammed said.

The young man sat across the table—after adjusting the chair and placing himself between Mohammed and the van. The visitor suddenly felt naked. The move and now Hassan’s steady look were brutally purposeful.

“What are you trying to move?” Hassan asked.

Mohammed chewed a mouthful of bread. He took out his entire bankroll and lay it on the table. Hassan didn’t have to touch it. The smallest bill was visible. The man wasn’t trying to deceive—or insult—him by placing the largest on top.

“I am not sure how much is there,” Mohammed said. “But it is all I have. That, and the vehicle.”

Hassan grinned. “I have been offered much in the past. Never everything.”

Mohammed took another bite as he considered what he was about to say. “I must ask you a personal question, my brother—”

“You want to know if I am devout?
Am
I your brother? Do I serve the Prophet?”

Mohammed should have realized he was not the first person to come here like this—scattered and searching. He answered Hassan’s question with silence.

“You offer me all you have and, if that is short, hope to pay for the rest with my devotion to faith,” Hassan said. “I will be frank. It is not my preferred way of doing business. I have a family, including my blessed grandfather, and I am their sole provider. If you tell me something and I can get more compensation from some other party I will take it.”

Mohammed stopped chewing. He resisted the urge to spit out the bread; that would cross a line from rejecting the man’s hospitality to insult. If he could not find an ally in Hassan, neither did he want an enemy. He placed the rest of the bread back on the plate and pushed the chair back.

“Thank you, Hassan, for your gracious welcome,” Mohammed said and rose.

Hassan remained seated. He looked at the cash as Mohammed reached for it. “Were you naive enough to think a man of faith could be found on the waterfront? You saw those chairs.” He jerked his head toward the back of the room. “We sell young girls to the highest bidders, my brother.”

Mohammed looked at him with disapproval. “I do not have young girls in my van.”

“I did not think you did. You have no scratch marks. But I will make you a deal, Mohammed.”

Mohammed hesitated.

“Leave the cash and tell me your proposition. If I do not feel I can help you, this will buy my silence. You may take your van and go. You have my vow. Be aware, Mohammed, that unless you are very, very fortunate, you will face this same question from whoever you approach. Men of faith, purely of faith, do not work where I do, as I do. And you dare not go to a mosque, where you will be asked about your own beliefs and, more likely than not, you will find you are in the house of the wrong sect . . . for there are many here.” Hassan smiled. “I like you. That advice is free.”

Mohammed considered this . . . not that he had a choice. Everything in his world, in this world, was like a bazaar. Haggling for goods, services, or lives was the norm. Following their victim to Rabat had been no different: it was pay as you go for extra eyes and ears so he would not see them everywhere he went.

Mohammed said, “I have a portable nuclear device in the van. It is shielded now but it is so hot it killed my companion in minutes. I wish to find someone who can complete the wiring so I can use it to attack the enemies of Islam.”

Hassan did not show surprise often, but he showed it now.

“This—thing. It is from here?” Hassan asked.

“Not originally, but this is where I found it.”

“Found?”

“Stolen. By accident. An honor killing—an Iranian who killed my brother in Yemen.”

“Last night?” Hassan asked. He would have heard about it otherwise.

“Yes.”

“Where is your companion now?”

“In a grave in the sands,” Mohammed said. “By the boats.”

“He will be found, eventually. You—”

“Stripped him. He has no identification. He has no record, so his fingerprints will be of no value.”

“Did you enter this country legally?”

“Yes, but with counterfeit papers,” Mohammed said.

“His face?”

“I—I made sure he will not be identified by sight.”

Hassan nodded. He had wondered where the blood on the man’s shirt had come from. The poor fellow probably didn’t realize it was there. “The Iranian was passing through?”

“Yes.”

That meant other Iranians would be looking for the device, and very soon. There was no science in Hassan’s choices: he acted by his gut. What instinct told him now tore him in two. Any man who helped in this project would be hunted by Americans, Europeans, and Israelis. If he were known to be a participant, then one day he would be found and killed. Possibly with his family. On the other side of the argument: what would his father and the rest of the group do if God had dropped this man at their door? Hassan was not religious enough or old enough to be overly concerned about Paradise just yet. But to be guaranteed an eternal place by the side of God—that was not unattractive.

My life is about risk-taking
, he thought.
How is this any different
?

And there was a third part of the equation, though it only surfaced when he had weighed the other two: vanity. To have a hand in something of this magnitude would make Hassan a legend among the few people in whom he could confide. There were not many, since other smugglers would sell him out as quickly as he would sell them. But his father and grandfather, his wife and, one day, his children—he would never earn that kind of stature doing what he did day after day.

He thought for a moment more. Those were the abstract aspects of the problem. There was a practical side as well: how to do what needed to be done.

“I will help you,” Hassan said. “But I want a promise from you first.”

“Anything.”

“If you are discovered, you will not be taken alive,” Hassan told him. “You will not speak of my involvement. Not even to the people to whom I send you.”

“I swear it.”

Hassan picked up the pile of cash and selected a dozen 100,000-rial notes, which he stuffed in a front pocket of his shirt. Each was worth roughly ten dollars U.S. He pushed the rest of the stack back to Mohammed. “You will need this along the way.”

Mohammed smiled and bowed gratefully.

“Do you have a cell phone?” Hassan asked.

“I do.”

“Passport?”

“Yes.”

“Firearm?”

“I would not travel without one.”

Hassan nodded his approval with great seriousness.

“You are to get on the Maghreb Highway and stay on it,” Hassan told him. “Wait for my call. I will tell you what the situation is here and whether you need to stop along the way. When I give you your final instructions, you will crush the cell phone under your tires and throw the pieces into any body of water you pass.”

“I understand,” Mohammed said. “Is there anything you can tell me about where I am going?”

“All I can tell you,” the man said, “is you are going to meet a well-connected professor. I am sure he will help you.”