Tracks (12 page)

Christine got up, turned and
raced down the sand dune not looking back.  The chief was still there
staring in her direction when she got to the inhabited beach area.

CHAPTER
TEN

A day later, Black Jack was called
to the judge for one last session in which they settled on five grand and Clair
was let go.  Jack and Christine met her at the prison gate and took her to
the resort to clean up and enjoy a decent meal, her first in two months. 
The judge ordered Clair deported from Egypt but allowed Black Jack to perform
the deed so he could get his pay.  Jack needed three days to deliver the
money.

“I will not leave without my
boy,” Clair said once they had settled for drinks after dinner.

“He’s well-guarded,” Christine
pointed out.  “There’s no reaching that house without being seen.”

“Then we’ll get him at night,”
Clair persisted.  “They won’t be expecting it after all this.”

Christine looked for Jack to
talk some sense into the woman but he had a mischievous grin on his face.

“It could work,” he said
thoughtfully.  “We could surprise the bastards.” 

Christine was taken aback by
the idea of risking being thrown in a dungeon and who knows where else for the
remainder of their lives, if they failed, but waited to hear more before she
voiced her opinion.

“We could use that yacht to
get away,” Jack was saying warming up to the idea.  “With the right kind
of wind we could be in Israeli waters in less than five hours.”

“I wouldn’t count on that
yacht,” Christine said. “It didn’t look like it has seen much use from where I
was standing.”

“How could you tell?” 
Black jack asked.

“It just didn’t look seaworthy
- the peeling paint, the crooked mast, the overall shape.  It just looked
old and unused.”

“The Israeli border isn’t that
far with a car,” Clair pointed out.  “If we press, we could get there in
four hours.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got
roadblocks along that route that could quickly be alerted,” Jack remarked, then
added, looking at Christine, “But we’ll have to risk it, or we’ll never get him
out.”

Christine took a deep breath,
but did not comment.  The decision had been made.  She worried but
could not oppose it.

Nights over the Sinai
Peninsula were as clear as day most of the year and the three nights left at their
disposal looked to be no different.  They hoped the element of surprise
would be on their side if they acted quickly and decisively on the very first
night, allowing minimum suspicions to creep in.

The plan was simple. 
Jack and Clair would sneak in via the sea and try to lure the boy to join
them.  They had no idea what the boy felt for his mother after so many
years, but at least she was a person he would recognize and trust. 
Christine would wait with the rental at close proximity, ready to spring. 
Then they would try to make it to the Israeli border at Eilat, hoping they
could reach it before word reached any of the roadblocks or border patrols.

They packed the car with only
the essentials, leaving most of their belongings in their rooms, and ventured
out for “dinner” at the Dahab strip.  After an exceptionally long meal at
a typical Middle Eastern restaurant serving salads and meats, they took a long
stroll on the boardwalk, stopping now and then to check whether they were being
followed.  They stopped again at an open café and slowly sipped
coffee before continuing on their outing.  Finally, after midnight, when
they could clearly see the strip emptied, they hopped into the car and drove to
the southern end of town just beyond the outmost neighborhood as close to the
sea as possible.

Jack and Clair stripped to
their under garments, Jack to his bathing suit, Clair to a bathing suit given
to her by Christine.  They looked chilled for a moment, stuffing their
clothes in the car, then took off and disappeared into the shimmering Red Sea.

They swam along the coral
reef, beyond the incoming tide, careful to keep silent and not cut themselves
on the sharp corals. They kept looking for the small alcove with the lonely
house, the pier, and the yacht.  Christine had estimated it to be no more
than a kilometer away, which meant that it should take them approximately
twenty minutes of hard swimming.  They slowed their pace after fifteen
minutes and concentrated on the coastline.  After thirty minutes the deserted
beach suddenly took a sharp turn into a darkened niche, where they were able to
discern the pier and the sailboat.  They swam toward it and reached the
house, keeping within the confines of the logs holding the pier. 

Jack motioned to Clair who
steadied herself on his shoulders to carefully survey the scene.  What she
saw mesmerized her.  There was her boy, Ibrahim, sitting by a lighted
window looking out to sea, as if waiting for her to appear. 

She sprang off Jack’s
shoulders and approached him on the creaking wooden pier.  At first, the
boy did not notice her, he seemed to be absorbed in some distant view,
daydreaming.  Then he suddenly looked sideways, gazed hard at her, stood
up and went out through a side door. He came toward her, unsure, until he
finally grasped who the woman was.  At that moment a voice called out to
him from inside, but the boy calmly dismissed it in Arabic.

Jack saw mother and son
embrace.  Then the boy took off his clothes and jumped in the water, Clair
right behind.  The three swam back out beyond the tide, and headed back
along the coral reef to where Christine was waiting.  After half an hour
they saw her flashing lights and headed in toward the beach.

Shivering from cold, their
bodies half numb, they welcomed Christine’s waiting towels, quickly drying
themselves and putting on fresh clothes.  In a few moments they were
racing the rental toward the main coastal road and
freedom.           

It did not take long for hell
to break loose.  Chief Halil was alerted from his bed and a posse was
formed quickly.  Roadblocks were alerted in
both
directions
, south toward Sharm el Sheikh and north toward Nueba and the
border with Israel. Two mini convoys were streaking after the fugitives within
the hour.

Jack’s intuition told him they
should abandon the coastal road as soon as possible.  He did not like
their prospects after hearing Ibrahim’s father call the boy from within the
house.  He had no illusions their coup would be discovered the minute
Hussni noticed his son’s absence and was actually surprised they had made it as
far as they had.  Ibrahim had explained it was quite common for him to go
swimming at night but that could not buy them the needed time to get to the
Israeli border.  Christine was driving and he was scrutinizing a detailed
map under the dim cabin light of the rental.  Clair, with Ibrahim in the
back, was looking over his shoulder.

He identified the turnoff to
Santa Katarina, the famous monastery high on the Katarina ridge, and decided to
turn off and head that way.  The mountainous area offered places to
hide. 

The asphalt road turned to
rocky dirt as the incline began to get steeper and more winding.  They had
to considerably reduce their speed to be able to maneuver the rough terrain in
which the road had been cut into.  The sun was just coming up above the
horizon to the east its rays bouncing off the sharpened granite cliff
faces.  The rental skipped and bounced but kept a steady pace up the
ravine. 

After an hour they stopped to
listen.  The near perfect silence was disturbed only by a faint hum of a
convoy of engines heard in a distance, far below where they had just come
from. 

The posse had found their
tracks. 

They kept driving until the
passage leveled off somewhat and the car gained more speed.  A few minutes
later behind a bend in the canyon they came upon a Bedouin retreat, nearly
ramming into a herd of goats passing the road.  The camp was arranged in a
semicircle with a small campfire burning in its middle.  Two shepherds
were bent over the fire paying no mind to the scattering herd. 

“We may be able to employ
their services,” Jack suddenly said, stepping out of the car signaling the
group to join him.

“Clair, can Ibrahim translate
for me?”  Jack asked as they approached the Bedouin camp.

Clair relayed the request to
her son in French getting a nod for approval.

“I want one of them to take
the car up as far as possible, and the other to lead us along these mountains
to the Israeli border,”
  Jack
explained. 

The women exchanged
glances.  “This might be a long walk,” Christine remarked.

“I’ve looked at the map,” Jack
went on.  “With a Bedouin who knows his way around, we should have about
seventy kilometers to cover, most of it in this type of mountainous terrain.”

“That’ll take days,” Christine
exclaimed.  “We’re not equipped for it.”

“Could take up to a week if we
do ten kilometers a day though the last bit we should cover faster,” Black Jack
stated.

“Where will we get food and
water?”  Clair asked.

“I was hoping to buy some from
these Bedouins.  Also, if they agree to help, they should be able to walk
us among their various tribes, from one camp to another.”

“Won’t they get in trouble,
helping us?”

“They might, but not
likely.  In this barren country, they rule.  The Egyptians stay
away.”

They reached the center of the
clearing. Jack bent down to talk to the two herdsmen, gesturing for Ibrahim to
do the same.  He spoke in English, translated to French by Clair, then to
Arabic by Ibrahim.  The older of the two Bedouins replied in Arabic which
Ibrahim translated to French and Clair back to English.

“They are members of the
Tarrabin tribe and would be glad to escort us if we let them keep the car,” was
the reply.

“Tell them they can keep the
car only after they have used it to divert our pursuers,” Jack said.

"They understand that,”
Ibrahim informed him without turning back to the Bedouins.  Jack was not
so sure.  Such a car was a prime possession for these poor people and he
was not sure they would not turn on them in order to persuade the Egyptians to
let them keep it.  But they were in a hurry and he was in no position to
negotiate.  There was no time to spare.  Jack nodded his head in
agreement and the two Bedouins ran to one of the tents, talking excitedly,
waking up whoever was inside.  Black Jack and his crew rushed to the car
for their meager belongings.

Jack, having left the car in
the road, asked Ibrahim to make sure and tell the Bedouins to keep driving on
straight and not veer off the road to prompt suspicion with their followers. 

A third Bedouin was awakened
and rushed to the car.  Apparently, the other two possessed no driving
skills.  The older Bedouin got in with him and off they drove leaving a
cloud of white dust behind. 

The third Bedouin, Samir,
motioned for them to follow him.  He took off walking briskly toward the
cliffs that enveloped the road and disappeared within its walls.  The four
scrambled behind, disconcerted at the sudden change in circumstance.  They
climbed for a while, following a narrow path which took them high above the
plateau. After a half hour of hard climbing, all of them except for Samir
sweating profusely, they reached a point overlooking the road below just in
time to watch the Egyptian convoy pass by.

It looked as if the diversion
had worked.  The posse did not bother with the quiet Bedouin encampment by
the side of the road.  They just kept plowing along after the fresh tracks
of the rental car.      

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Mai-Li sat at the hotel bar, anxiously
scanning the faces.  None of them looked familiar.

She had checked in at London’s
Bailey’s Hotel, across from the Gloucester Road Underground station, soon after
landing at Heathrow.  Stashed in her briefcase was the evidence Harley
needed to take on the job.

The barman came over, handing
her an envelope.  She opened it nervously finding an airline ticket with
round trip fare to Edinburgh, Scotland, leaving at eleven the following
morning.  The attached itinerary showed a one-night hotel stay at The
George.

Exhausted from a hectic week
of gathering the evidence Harley had requested, and alerting key contacts in
anticipation of fulfilling his two other requests of funding and
authorizations, she went straight to bed and slept like a log.

She reached Edinburgh at just
past noon the next day and by one pm had completed checking in at The
George.  There were no additional instructions from Harley as far as she
could gather, so she took a stroll down the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle to
the parliament building, stopping at the small tourist attractions and shops
along the way.  The day was a typical drizzly and gray but it did not take
away from the historical magic of Edinburgh’s ancient stone structures and
brick passageways. 

It was turning dark when
Harley appeared out of nowhere, joining her at a small coffee shop she had
stopped in for tea.  He ordered an espresso and faced her
expectantly. 

Having anticipated such
circumstance, and not willing to leave her evidence at the hotel, she handed
her material over to Harley in a brown manila envelope.  He sat scanning
it for over an hour, studying the details and asking questions from time to
time.

The background, written
material, and photographs were sufficient but the most overwhelming evidence
was found in a video clip taken by an Indian journalist moments before he was
shot and killed.  The 8mm video was in Mai-Li’s envelope.  She had
obtained it through contacts in New Delhi who claimed to have found the video
camera in some bushes not far from a burned Jeep found with the corpses of an
unknown driver and the Indian journalist out covering the Indian-Pakistani
tensions in Kashmir. 

The Lambda-B organization was
believed to be Afghan in origin, operating out of Pakistan on the border with
Kashmir.  Kashmir’s vulnerable, undetermined status offered a heaven for
criminal activity - unchecked and uncontrolled.  Besides other unlawful
activities associated with the group, child labor was believed to be their main
“line of business”.  They kidnapped children from the immediate Kashmir
border area, and sold them mostly to rich landlords for excruciating hard labor
in mines situated in remote sections of the Himalayan Mountains where they
would be almost impossible to track.

The group not only made
profits selling the children but also, securing their “investment”, they were
responsible for guarding against escape attempts. 

Their methods varied.  In
India they could just grab children out and about in rural areas or in crowded
markets, stuff them in enclosed vans and haul them off to Kashmir where they
would be held prisoners until some landlord paid to take
them.     

In higher elevations,
Pakistan, Nepal, and even China, they would ambush buses along narrow mountain
roads, scatter the passengers and take whatever children they thought fit the
description needed for the labor they were providing.

Reports of child abductions
were not unknown in those areas but were never properly investigated by local
authorities.  The combination of the difficult landscape, lack of properly
trained law enforcement personnel, budgets, means, and corruption, all
contributed to making Lambda-B’s child labor activities prosper.

The slave auctions were
conducted in secret locations, presumably in Kashmir, where the children were
kept under lock and key, fed only enough to look worthy for the buyers. 
They would be sold for approximately five hundred US dollars a head,
then
taken to the mines, where they would be worked to their
death.  A strong child would be expected to survive ten years on just rice
and water, easily returning profit for the initial investment.

The meager evidence provided
on the activity came mostly from rumors, word of mouth, and speculation as to
the fate of a growing number of missing children.  This prompted an Indian
magazine to investigate the phenomenon more closely and it was the magazine
that first exposed the activity.  The pictures Mai-Li had shown Harley
during their first meeting at Langley were taken by one of two Indian
journalists investigating the matter.  They were both murdered after an
initial article was published and the matter was laid to rest by the publisher,
who had personally received threats on his life.  The Lambda-B
organization further showed its ruthlessness when they ambushed an Indian
police unit sent to investigate.  Growing concern prompted further
investigation by Indian authorities which stopped short of entering an open
conflict in Kashmir near the Pakistani border.

The attached video clip taken
by the Indian journalist in Kashmir would show Harley filmed evidence of
teenaged children being hauled in bamboo cages, presumably to a slave
auction.  Lambda-B tattoos were clearly visible on few armed men spotted
around the cages.

Trying to prompt action by both
the Indian and Pakistani authorities to stop the atrocities, Mai-Li’s pleas had
fallen upon deaf ears as a result of the two countries squaring off around
Kashmir.  The long and loaded dispute gave no quarter for them to
cooperate and therefore, no action could be taken inside
Kashmir.     

Harley stuffed the paperwork
back in the envelope, promising to watch the video carefully.  He looked
hard at Mai-Li.

“How many children do you
suppose have been subject to this?”

“It’s hard to say because many
missing children in those areas don’t get reported. 
From
what we’ve been able to gather, its well over two hundred children in five
years of activity.”

“How’d you come up with this
location on the map?”

“I went to Kashmir and
followed the trail the two Indian reporters left.  With my looks and
fluent Chinese no one suspected anything.  I actually reached the
indicated village where a few of the auctions have taken place and quietly
managed to extract a possible location.  I hired a trail guide who took me
above the suspected area.  I managed to pinpoint a clearing with human
activity in the dense jungle which after a full day of spying and thanks to a
last second inspiration of taking powerful glasses along, I managed to
determine it was a site that held children locked up.”

Harley got up and they moved
outside.  “I’ll need three months to complete the job,” he said, towering
over Mai-Li in a darkened corner just outside the coffee shop.  “Two
months to prepare and gather information, and hopefully a month to deal with
the problem.” 

Mai-Li kept silent, her heart
pumping with excitement.

“I’ll need to verify the
location before we can take any action.  I’ll need five hundred thousand
pounds sterling and a nod from my Foreign Minister and MI6 before I ever attempt
to cross into Kashmir, if indeed, Kashmir is the target.”

Mai-Li nodded, though she felt
much less certain she could swing it now that she heard his two other requests.

“I believe the evidence is
sufficient and I will oblige if the money and political support are there,”
Harley concluded.

Mai-Li nodded again and shook
his outstretched hand, her tiny palm disappearing in his.

“I’ll expect you right here,
same time, same coffee shop, in exactly two weeks if we are to proceed.  Otherwise,
my unit has other things to do.” 

With that Colonel Joe Harley
turned and disappeared down a darkened Edinburgh alley.