The Rift Read online

He closed his eyes and images flooded his memory of Rafik playing in the pool as a boy. The way his chest moved up and down when Fawaz went to say goodnight to him and he was already asleep, covers kicked off because he was too hot. The curl of his hair and the softness of his skin when he hugged his father in thanks for a birthday present. The deep chestnut colour of his body and the contrast of his two huge new white adult teeth when they came through, unmissable when he smiled, which he did often. Images of another boy haunted him: a fit and free vision of male promise, with his life before him, the son of another, but not for much longer.

  Then, just before Fawaz dozed off, the terror began, as it always did: Rafik’s last phone call to him. The panic in his voice as he realised he was in serious danger; a peril that his father could not make go away. The gut-wrenching desperation gripped him, and he opened his eyes again, staggering off the bed for a refill. Would it never end? He’d have to get fully intoxicated if he stood any chance of making the images go away, but his ability to cope with alcohol was stronger than ever, and it took more to anaesthetise him every time. He gulped at the whisky.

  He lit another cigarette and barely breathed in between drags. He sweated profusely, and he tripped and landed on the floor, the glass tumbling noisily across the tiles, his drink soaking through his shirt. His heart pounded with the toxins circulating in his blood. He closed his eyes tight shut and hoped that inebriation would overcome him soon. Rafik’s face filled his vision, and then he saw him beaten, broken, begging for his life, and, finally, thrown into a grave somewhere unknown for all eternity, damned to agonising separation from his father forever. His body remained unclean, his soul committed to wander, rootless for all time, and no one was allowed to pray for him.

  He’d had countless people assassinated: government officials who swore they knew nothing of the young man’s identity beaten to a pulp in a Moroccan jail, and the police who were on duty that night, but still he never learned where Rafik was dumped. Somewhere in the desert, no doubt.

  Was he still in pain?

  It was yet another reason to turn his back on religion.

  * * *

  Three hours later, a gentle knock on his door turned into a rather loud one that jolted him back into the land of the conscious. His body was exhausted from processing alcohol and he felt mildly fuzzy. It took him a few seconds to work out where he was, but when he did, he knew that it was time to get going. He dragged his still-intoxicated body to his shower room and stripped off, turning the taps on.

  ‘Give me ten minutes!’ he shouted through the door. He stepped under the water in an attempt to revive himself, and it worked. In five minutes, rather than ten, he was refreshed, clean, dressed in pristine clothes and ready to go. He grabbed the photograph of his son and slipped it into his casual bag. He didn’t want to draw any attention on his journey. He wore jeans and a white shirt, carried two sports bags, a jacket and wore brogues on his feet.

  He stopped by the door and looked around. Out in the riad, he allowed the breeze of the early-morning Sahara to wash over him, and quietly he said goodbye.

  Chapter 12

  Dirty Harry watched as the trucks lined up outside the stone building he guarded.

  The pre-dawn light cast an orange glow across the black sky and he was reminded how much he loved the desert at night. He made out the fading Milky Way, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia and Jupiter. He wouldn’t be accompanying the trucks on their onward journey; his job was simply to make sure no one poked their nose around as they loaded. The route to the Algerian border was simple enough. However, the problem was that it had been closed since 1994. So they had to take the ferry to Spain and then to Algiers. This was out of the question, given their cargo. Their only other option was driving south to Mauritania and crossing there. Besides, they had business in Mali. But it made their journey eighteen hundred rather than six hundred miles.

  The Sahara was an unstable region at the best of times, but they had boot-loads of weapons should they run into any unwelcome attention. They were also authorised to hand over envelopes full of money to bribe their way across. A contact had communicated that the course was clear but that meant little until they were actually over the border and on their way.

  Fawaz would take the riskier option of crossing the Mediterranean and travelling through Portugal, Spain and into France across the Pyrenees. Harry didn’t know Fawaz personally but everyone knew him by reputation. Their ties were bound through years of loyalty, and no one would ever rat him out. It wasn’t fear that would prevent them, but rather an undying allegiance to the legend and the man himself; he looked after his people. Only last year, Harry’s son had needed vital hip surgery to stop the spread of aggressive cancer through his weak body, and Fawaz had paid for him to travel to Tangier to be treated in a private hospital. It doubled the chances of his son’s survival and he was still alive today, God willing, thanks to Fawaz’s generosity. One day he’d like to thank the man personally.

  The noise of men carrying boxes full of random cargo echoed loudly. Their grunts and groans hinted that the boxes were heavy, and Harry wasn’t too old to help. He did his bit, not knowing exactly what was in them, apart from weapons. Each truck would carry a different load, ostensibly being transported across North Africa with different destinations. Or at least that was the back-up should they be stopped. One truck was almost loaded and would depart first.

  ‘What’s weighing it down so much?’ Harry asked.

  ‘One hundred cartons of dried milk and medicines. Charity for remote villages.’ A man smiled at him and he nodded.

  There was truth in it. Almost lost entirely to civilisation, these tribes were cut off from the rest of the world and relied on charitable organisations, such as the one Fawaz had set up, to deliver the precious goods. Though, this one would get lost and end up over the border in Algeria. The same applied to the other trucks, loaded with basic foodstuffs, clothes, shoes, children’s toys and clean water. Each would pretend to become disorientated in the desert, should they be apprehended, and the worst-case scenario was that they were escorted back across the borders. But in the middle of the Sahara, no-one cared about aid trucks.

  Harry watched as the men laboured under the weight of the heavier goods. He’d done his bit and lit an American cigarette. Most of the cartons and pallets, labelled with the brand names of various fruits, electrical goods and textiles, needed two men to load them, and Harry saw the wheels of the trucks sink deeper into the sand as they became fully laden. It would take four days for them to arrive in the port of Algiers, but they’d know sooner than that if any of them made it into the country. By then, Fawaz should be in place. The fact that he was heading the mission himself bred even more respect from his wide network of adherents.

  It wasn’t political. It wasn’t religious. It was merely right.

  The first truck was fully loaded, and as it began to rumble away into the coming dawn, Harry prayed silently to himself that the plan was followed through. He knew little of what it involved, only that Fawaz would bring them glory and recognition on the world stage. He wouldn’t feel it here, of course, in this tiny backwater surrounded by sand. But he would hear of it soon enough.

  No matter the outcome, they had already won.

  Chapter 13

  The Place des Terreaux was busy, and Helen pushed her way through the crowds, peering up at the seventeenth-century Hôtel de Ville. It was only a thirty-minute walk to the river from her hotel, then over the Pont Morand, and it meant she could absorb a bit of the city at the same time. She could have taken the metro, but she wanted to breathe the air and gaze at the Alps in the distance disturbing the horizon. Her apartment was clean and basic: all she needed. After reading into the early hours, she’d had a comfortable, if short, night’s sleep.

  Helen knew the city well from a previous secondment to a joint international mission to gather intelligence on terror suspects embedded in Europe, working closely alongside Europol, Interpol’s European cousin. And it
had yielded some good results. They’d averted seven major plots to attack civilian targets across Europe, and had contributed to Interpol’s growing database on lone operators, how they functioned and who they worked for. Terrorism inside Europe had taken a sharp upturn in the last eight years, and the internet had fast become the favoured way to communicate between cells and their sympathisers. New waves of organisations used social media platforms to reach increasingly large numbers of potential recruits, and it was getting worse.

  The months she’d spent on the Europol collaboration gave her good knowledge of the geography and demography of France’s third-largest city. It was an urban sprawling hive of hiding places for criminals, with its ancient buildings and tiny back streets. Since the Second World War, the Croix-Rousse, to the north, with its series of intersecting traboules posed a massive headache for law and order. The covered passages had originally been used by silk weavers to transport their precious work, undercover, away from adverse weather conditions. Today they were ideal rabbit warrens for criminals, where they could lose the most ardent pursuer. As a result, Interpol was working hard at closing them down and making them one-way routes. It was an ongoing and uphill task.

  Her stroll over the Pont Morand was pleasant, and she could see the colossal cube-like structure of Interpol HQ. As she neared the main entrance, she took a few deep breaths and reminded herself of her new assignment. Essentially, Sir Conrad wanted one thing: reassurance that the summit would go ahead without event. How she came to offer him such assurance was down to her. One thing was certain though: so far she’d uncovered not one shred of evidence to link Fawaz to the Afghan poppy fields. She hoped that this would prove Sir Conrad overcautious. In her book, prudence was preferable to dead bodies any day of the week, and she was here to offer solid assurances to the ambassador in that regard.

  She entered the vast air-conditioned foyer, which reached three storeys up, and was surrounded by escalators and more glass on all sides. A whole line of security scanners awaited her, and she approached, showing her ID and signing in to see Commander Peter Knowles, Head of Counter Terrorism. She’d looked him up before her visit; Peter Knowles, whom Sir Conrad had said was a personal pal, had a respected and acclaimed career in police work, mainly at the Met. He had an excellent track record, and Interpol had arrested seventy-two criminals associated with terror plots across Europe since his appointment in Lyon as part of the international force. If anyone was to know about Fawaz Nabil and his connections – perhaps even the circumstances of his son’s death – then it was him.

  She was searched and allowed to proceed to the fourth floor, where Peter’s office was. She was slightly apprehensive because she didn’t know what to expect, but she generally found that the civilians working at the HQ were all after the same goal: to stop the shitheads hell bent on destroying the social and civil liberties of member states.

  Peter Knowles was busy but his secretary made Helen a great coffee. Her accent was French. The language of Interpol was first and foremost English, closely followed by Spanish, French and Arabic. There was a lot to be ashamed of as a result of the British Empire, but people speaking your language in every corner of the globe was something that Helen was grateful for, though her French was excellent. She stood in front of the glass windows and watched Lyon below, unable to divert her mind from what might be going on down there in the streets. It was this instinctive pull towards rooting out criminality, and wanting to expose it, that had landed her in the RMP in the first place.

  ‘He’s ready for you now,’ the secretary told her. Helen followed her into the spacious office.

  A large man in a smart suit walked towards her, holding out his hand. He had a warm face and clean hands. She imagined him starting out as a police constable in Hackney, thirty years ago, cutting his teeth on the street. It was difficult to imagine him as Sir Conrad’s personal friend though. The two couldn’t be more different, and she wondered how they’d met.

  ‘Major Scott. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your CV makes for entertaining reading indeed,’ he said. ‘Peter Knowles.’

  Peter’s voice was the kind that demanded attention without shouting, and she met his stare. He was sizing her up.

  ‘Hello, Peter – good to meet you.’

  ‘Sit down, please. I trust you’ve been reading up on your homework from Sir Conrad?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘A yellow notice has gone out to all member states about the abduction of Hakim Dalmani.’

  ‘Not a red notice then?’ So, he was being treated as a missing person and not a fugitive. It was an important distinction and one that told her they’d weighed up the options. A red notice was issued for an international fugitive, while a yellow one was released for an international missing person where any border had been crossed – in this case, Algeria–France.

  ‘The investigation with our office in Algiers is not my department, of course, but I’ll introduce you to the woman in charge in a minute – she can fill you in on the details. So, Sir Conrad is worried about the summit?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been working on his personal security for two weeks, and yesterday I met with Special Agent Roy White, who’s heading up the US operation at Versailles. I’m happy with everything from that perspective.’

  ‘But now, Fawaz bin Nabil poking his head above the parapet has everybody jumpy?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘That is my department,’ he said. ‘I’ll be taking a keen interest in his movements over the next week. It’s poor timing, I grant you that, and we’ve got eyes on him – as you must know, we’ve been watching him for years – but in all honesty, the most likely attack on a summit like Paris would come from Da’esh. Fawaz isn’t, and never has been, affiliated in any way. He chases the money, billions of it. He’s not a political animal, and as far as we know, he’s not a religious nut either.’

  ‘Coincidences mean you’re on the right path…’ she said.

  He looked at her. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Your detective nose?’

  ‘Actually I can’t take the credit, it’s from a short story by Simon Van Booy.’

  ‘I like it. That’s your police head talking,’ he said. ‘As long as you’re here, you may as well use your time to satisfy yourself that all ducks are in their respective rows and report back to Sir Conrad.’

  ‘That’s the idea. Thank you for allowing me to get involved – it’s a pleasure to be back in Lyon. I hope I can contribute. Great coffee, by the way,’ Helen said.

  ‘It is good, isn’t it? I love this city. My wife is happy here and the kids are at university back in England. Mind you, I wish I wasn’t quite so busy, the statistics on increasing terrorist cells and how sophisticated they have become don’t make for happy reading.’

  He escorted her out of his office, along the corridor to the elevator and up one floor to another office and another introduction. This time it was to the head of International Missing Persons. Helen had worked in this department before, and it was depressing as hell. At any given time, there were some seven thousand active yellow notices issued by Interpol, and a lot of them were minors. It revealed the staggering extent of the problem Interpol faced when people went missing across several borders. She’d found herself trawling through them, looking at the photos supplied by loving family members, alongside that of Hakim, and couldn’t grasp the unimaginable pain felt by the parents of the children staring back. Most of them would never be seen again. At least her boy had died in her arms.

  Sylvia Drogan was Irish. She had a lovely soft accent, and Helen felt instantly comfortable. The head of International Missing Persons was stick thin and wore a chic navy suit, and she could have passed as French. Helen smelled tobacco smoke and figured this was Sylvia’s secret to her figure.

  Peter Knowles excused himself, and Helen thanked him. Sylvia got straight to work.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ll take you straight to the incident room we’re using for this. The Algerian authorities
have been fantastically transparent and we have some good CCTV from the airport there. Here in France, we’ve been searching for vehicles seen leaving Le Bourget between two thirty p.m. and three p.m.,’ Sylvia said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I’ve just had one, thanks – I’m ready to get going.’

  Chapter 14

  Hakim had never had dirty nails before. He studied them carefully and picked out the dirt. It was greasy, and he was able to roll up each piece of grit with his thumb and forefinger and make it into a little ball and flick it across the room. He’d witnessed two sunsets since his capture and knew, therefore, that it was Tuesday. Today was his third day in captivity and his body ached for water. The room was about three metres square. It was carpeted badly and there were stains on the beige patterns. There was a wardrobe, which he’d searched carefully, but found empty. There was also a window that had shutters locked closed across it. With little else to explore, he’d spent most of his time curled up on the only bed in the room, on which was laid an odorous mattress, a sheet, a blanket but no pillow. He stopped picking his nails and concentrated his mind once more on the timeline of the last few days, so the details could be of use when he was finally found. He dare not think of any other outcome.

  On Sunday, they’d travelled for well over three hours before he asked for a toilet stop. His driver had made a phone call and had pulled into a deserted rest area on the side of the road. The hood over his face was lifted off and the restraints on his wrists cut. The sunshine hurt his eyes. It was made clear to him that a weapon was loaded and inside the driver’s jacket. Hakim harboured no desire to run, he just needed to piss. That’s when he noticed the car behind him, which he’d suspected had been following them from the airport: driven by a man who’d spoken to his driver when the little girl was talking about the forest. That seemed a lifetime ago now.