Sharaf joined in. Those who merely wanted to talk retreated to the corners. One or two Europeans tried to jog, weaving clumsily through the crowd. He wished it were warmer, but the sun wasn’t yet high enough to reach over the walls.
Amina and Laleh must be up and about by now, he supposed. He wondered if they knew where he was, and, if so, if they would be allowed to visit. Did the Minister know? More to the point, was he doing anything about it?
The rest of the day was more of the same. Two more meals. Two more trips to the yard, with plenty of time for worrying as each hour passed without word from the outside. And the next day was virtually identical to his first. Maybe Assad was counting on the boredom to break him. Sharaf didn’t have a single dirham, but fortunately the kindly Nabil let him borrow enough credit from his account at the prison store to buy socks and underwear. He also picked up an American paperback from the woeful offerings in the prison library, where most of the books in Arabic were religious texts and there was nothing in Russian. Nabil made no further mention of his cousin, and Obaid continued to punctuate every remark with “inshallah.”
Not long after dinner on the second day, when everyone had been locked down for the night, Sharaf settled into his bunk to read. The book was the worst sort of pulp, a high-action thriller that described weapons more lovingly than people. But it must have passed the time, because the next thing Sharaf knew he was awakening in the dark to strange noises overhead.
The bunks in his cell were silent, but the ceiling trembled as if cattle were stampeding on the floor above. Thundering footsteps receded, only to be replaced by a frantic howl, and then another. The distant noise of barking dogs chilled him enough to want to pull the blanket tighter. Then came more footsteps, a hoot of laughter, and silence.
Someone in the next bunk moaned and rolled over in his sleep. The cell door buzzed ominously. The lock clicked loudly and the door swung free, as if opened by a spirit. Sharaf quickly pulled on his slippers and slid from the bunk. Already he heard the mutter of voices from the unseen end of the corridor, low and conspiratorial, people up to no good.
He leaned forward for a glance. The first thing he saw was the clock—4 a.m. Then he saw the guards, maybe fifteen of them. Or he supposed they were guards, because they weren’t clad in their usual forest green. These fellows were dressed like burglars—black T-shirts, black pants, black balaclavas with holes for their mouths and eyes, and long black batons, like the one that had probed him during the strip search.
Sharaf pulled the door shut, but the lock wouldn’t catch. The guards began to shout. The men in black were rousting prisoners from their beds in the cells at the far end.
“Wake up!” Sharaf said. “They’re coming!”
“Shit!” Nabil said, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I’ve heard about these raids. Not good.”
Obaid must have, too. He was already kneeling on the floor, offering a plaintive prayer of fear and woe.
“Deliver us, inshallah, most holy God our protector!”
“Out of your beds and into the hall!” It was a guard. His mouth, visible through the hole in his balaclava, moved like a pink sea creature. The inmates complied, but for good measure he whacked each passing man on the rump with his baton.
“Faster!” he shouted. “Unless you want more of that. Faster!”
Only Obaid remained in the cell, still kneeling. In a spasm of rage, the guard elbowed quickly through the doorway and struck a savage blow to the back of his bowed head. It resounded almost musically, as if the baton had struck hollowed wood. Sharaf cringed. Obaid went silent, and slumped sideways, still in a kneeling position. Blood trickled from his nostrils.
“That’s what the rest of you will get if you don’t move when I say. I don’t care what colors you’re wearing. Down the hallway, now!”
The men stepped briskly. No one said a word. Every other cell was in similar chaos—cries of pain and anguish mixed with the thumps of batons, although none were as gruesome as the blow to Obaid’s head.
Doors opened at the end of the corridor. Waiting on the other side was a receiving line of perhaps a dozen more men in black, except each held a German shepherd straining at a leash.
“Run!” their escort shouted. “Run past them if you can, all the way to the yard!”
A man ahead of Sharaf tripped. The nearest guard released his dog, which pounced as if someone had just flung a steak to the floor. The poor fellow shouted in terror and covered his head with his hands. Nabil, just ahead, nearly lost his balance as he slowed to dodge the fallen man. Sharaf grabbed his tunic in the nick of time and shoved him forward. A dog’s snout flashed out from the right, teeth snapping. Sharaf veered left and ran hard, finally reaching the far door just behind Nabil. They spilled into the yard, nearly collapsing onto the others who had already reached safety. No one had turned on the outdoor lighting, and it was eerily dark beneath the pale glow of a half-moon. From cellblocks all over the prison you could hear shouts and screams, and lots of barking. Sharaf’s tunic was soaked with sweat, and he was heaving for breath.
“My cousin, Khalifa!” he heard Nabil say. “There he is!”
Indeed, nearly every cellblock on their side of the prison was emptying into the yard. The space was filling rapidly. There must have already been two hundred men there, and more were coming every second from doors at both ends. Some were bleeding. Others were doubled over in pain. No guards seemed to be among them. Looking back through a large window on the side, Sharaf saw several of the prison’s ranking officers in khaki uniforms with gaudy stripes and epaulets. They were laughing uproariously and taking flash photos with their cell phones.
When Sharaf turned back around, Nabil had disappeared. Sharaf finally spotted him in a far corner chatting rapidly with a man who must be Khalifa. As shaken as he was, Sharaf realized this might be his one chance to ask about the doorman Patel. The problem was that he still needed to play it cool, even though he was buzzing with adrenaline, and the cousin would be as well.
He shoved his way through the crowd. Fortunately Nabil saw him coming.
“There he is!” Nabil said loudly, pointing at Sharaf. The earlier stunned silence of most of the prisoners had given way to relieved yammering and shouting, a collective release of emotions. “This is the fellow Anwar I was telling you about. He’s here for the same reason, except they didn’t even bother to charge him. Anwar, this is my cousin, Khalifa.”
Figuring time was limited, Sharaf got to the point.
