The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller (32 page)

E
ven as the white light enveloped her, even as a batting noise overpowered the hard lapping sound of the waves and grew nearer, Rayhan kept moving. She was loping now, shifting quickly from leg to leg as each threatened to give out. Once they did and she sprawled on her chest, only to scamper to her feet, push off the sands like an Olympian, and keep on running. The lights ahead of her didn’t seem to be getting nearer but through it all there was just one thought in her mind: Get to them. Get help.

The light kept getting lower, spreading her shadow longer and longer before her. Finally, when her silhouette stretched so far ahead of her the top was lost in darkness, the light stopped moving. Rayhan was wheezing, stumbling now, and when she fell again she did not get up. She writhed forward, clawing, but could not escape the powerful fingers that gripped her shoulders from both sides and picked her up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, remembering not to say Kealey’s name aloud. “I failed—”

She heard a distinctive Arab dialect in her ear. It was not the Farsi of her captors but the distinctive inflection of Moroccans.

“Are you the American? From Washington?”

“I am American,” she answered. She thought about not answering the question fully then realized that if these men knew that much they were probably looking for her. “Yes, I am from Washington.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes—now.”

“There is a man—”

“Taken,” she said. “He was taken.”

Two men conversed quietly, then lifted her firmly but carefully and carried her back the way she had come. She was thinking how unexpected that was even as she was turned toward the light and loaded into the police helicopter. She lay awkwardly stuffed across the two backseats, her legs across the man’s lap.

“Your embassy has been looking for you,” one of the men said as the helicopter took off.

“Embassy,” Rayhan said. She stared at the man who was wearing a charcoal-colored uniform. Police, it looked like.

“Yes, in Rabat,” the man said. He put a blanket around her. “Do you know where you are?”

“Tangier,” she replied.

“That’s right,” the man said.

Rayhan pulled the edge of the blanket tighter around her chest. She felt a plastic bottle against her lips. She drank quickly, not caring how much she spilled. Washing the dank taste from her mouth was like a tonic to her.

“You were reported missing from the airport. You must be important. We are looking for terrorists, but your ambassador insisted you must be found. You and another man.”

Rayhan became more alert. “They took him,” she said. “We need to find them.”

“Who are they? Where are they?”

“In a canvas-backed truck,” she said. She did not provide the only name she knew. That would be considered confidential. “The other side of the wetlands . . . a dirt road. They chased me but I escaped.”

There was more conversation. She gathered they were deciding whether to get her to a hospital or pursue the truck.

“The truck,” she insisted. She threw off the blanket and tried to sit. She ended up slanting with her shoulder against the door. She was still wet and shivering from the air-conditioning in the helicopter, but she shrugged off the man’s efforts to help her. “Go after the truck! You don’t want to lose them!”

The pilot got on the radio. Rayhan squirmed erect. She could not hear anything because he was wearing headphones. She took the water bottle from her companion and poured it on her face.

“The men who have my—my friend knows who is behind this,” she said. “You must get them before they escape.”

The pilot had evidently received the same orders, because after nodding he swung the helicopter around and set off in the direction he had come. The interior light was switched off and Rayhan placed her face to the window, blocking the lights of the control panel with her hand. She looked back past the marsh, which was far narrower than it had seemed when she was in the middle of it. The helicopter went lower when it reached the dirt road.

“This is a construction road for the expansion of the Tangier-Med facility,” the man beside her said, yelling to be heard over the powerful rotor. Her eyes scooted ahead. Those were the other lights she saw: a massive city within a city, a complex of industrial structures, residential buildings, offices, ports, and various support facilities.

She did not have to say what was on everyone’s mind. If they were in there, it would be difficult to find them—and practically impossible to find them in time for the information to be of use.

The helicopter went lower, and the pilot spotted tracks that could have belonged to any vehicle that had passed that day—and then swung over the truck so fast they passed right by. It was dark and parked by the side of the road just outside the complex. The pilot had to swing back to take another look at it. He directed the spotlight at the vehicle and made a hand gesture over the seat.

“He says it looks abandoned and I agree,” the man beside Rayhan said.

They landed behind the truck, shined the light around it again, then finally got out. The officer told Rayhan to stay in the helicopter.

Handguns drawn, the two men approached on either side of the truck. They checked the back first, found it empty, then went to the cabin. Rayhan’s spirits had spiked when they saw the truck; now they plummeted. She looked just ahead of it at the enormous white structure at the end of a long, beautifully tiled courtyard. The building looked like a squared-off sports arena. There were other structures around it, along with parking lots and construction equipment; she began to wonder if all of Morocco was being renovated. As one of the few strongholds of capitalism and tourism on the continent, that was probably the case.

But why wouldn’t they have driven in?
she wondered. She looked behind her, at the older streets.
Because they didn’t go in here
.
They only wanted us to think they did. They didn’t want to be seen on the security cameras.

They went somewhere else
.

She pushed at the door on her side. It took several shoves with her shoulder but she managed to open it and half fell with it. She hung on to the handle and looked into the dark. There were a few people standing ahead—they were not Yazdi and his men. They looked like locals who were probably wondering what a helicopter was doing just outside their community. Beyond them she could dimly see lights outside a café and a small inn. She shucked off the blanket and started to walk forward. It occurred to Rayhan that if she found Yazdi and his people they would also find her. But she didn’t think they would go after her—not with the police a few steps away.

She took a few more steps. They were slow, sluggish. She was angry that she was so drained. As she shuffled forward she heard the crunch of feet on the dirt road behind her. Hands grabbed her and she started, but it was only the police officer who had given her the blanket and water.

“That way,” she said.

“I know,” the officer said. “My partner is calling for a cordon. We’ll find them.”

That was the last thing she heard as her head grew light and her legs gave out and she fell into his arms.