She rubbed her eyes and tried to blink back an escaping tear. Her voice was hardened with determination when she spoke again.
“We needed Adalina’s support to allow me to enter the camp but Julia secretly told me she wasn’t convinced the woman was managing the camp well. She believed Adalina was involved in the disappearances and was being paid to look the other way.”
Antonia tried to sit up and reach for a glass of water from the stand next to the hospital bed. She grimaced with pain prompting Gabriel to rise to his feet and hand it to her. He took the opportunity of rearranging her pillows before helping her to sit back earning himself an impatient look from Botelli.
“Julia told me women were disappearing from the camp. It was easy for them to. Records of people coming into the camp are poor. It is overwhelmed and at crisis point. Families had reported that a group of men slipped into the camp at night posing as refugees but they were Italian. They carried guns and the refugees were afraid of them. They invaded the tents and kidnapped young women. But what was even more disturbing was when the families cried out for help to the soldiers guarding the perimeter fence they turned their backs on them and pretended not to hear them.”
Angry passion rose feverishly in Antonia’s voice at the injustice. She was trying to keep her fury under wraps but it was desperate to escape and explode out into the air. Antonia put a shaky hand to her head and took a breath to calm her rage.
“These men are more than likely working for the Mafia,” Gabriel said trying to give her a moment.
Botelli nodded.
“Julia and some of the other aid workers at the camp informed me that Morelli was turning a blind eye to drugs being sold in the camp and a host of other illegal practices to get money. She was using the profit to buy extra blankets, food and other necessary items for the refugees. The weight of the increasing responsibility was causing her to have a breakdown and her solution to the crisis was to sacrifice some of the refugees to help as many of the others as she could.”
Antonia took another gulp of water.
The tears she was trying to hold back tumbled out of Antonia’s eyes unexpectedly. Botelli bent her head for a moment, but when she raised it her face was as cold and hard as before, so much so it made the lines on her attractive face deepen and crease.
“She needs a break,” Gabriel suddenly snapped.
Antonia was exhausted and needed to rest even if it was just for five minutes before they continued her interrogation. But Botelli appeared determined to step up the process and gather the information she needed rather than stop.
“What happened to Nazila and Qaifa? The girls you were protecting. Were they kidnapped? Who do you believe took them and why?” Botelli questioned, ignoring Gabriel.
Antonia’s face paled and she became silent.
Botelli’s eyes widened with impatience and then she turned to the leather-bound folder she had on her lap. The Italian United Global Defence chief opened the folder and took out a photograph. She stood and handed it to Antonia.
“Is this the man who took them? Is this the man who raped you?” she demanded harshly.
Chapter 8
The face on the photograph was one she would never forget until the day she died. Aalam El Hashem was a man she wished she had never had the misfortune of coming across. He was a fundamentalist and a jihadist fighter from IS who had infiltrated ‘The Hole’ to radicalize male youth and recruit them as fighters.
He conducted meetings in his tent during the day and evening. Implanting grievances about the West’s treatment of Muslims inside the young men’s heads when they should have received encouragement for starting their new lives in another country.
The first day she encountered him, Antonia was walking back with the girls from the small shop in the camp with some bottles of water, bread, pasta and sauce to feed little Nazila and Qaifa. She had been in the camp for a month now and was looking forward to leaving soon. Antonia was just waiting for the girls’ papers and passports to come through as Adalina had promised she would help organize. There were no further leads in her investigation at present. She was looking forward to the article, she had been secretly writing in her tent, being published. And to uploading the video diary, she had secretly kept, to YouTube.
Antonia was drained and exhausted from living in the camp. Eating had been difficult because supplies had been low and her focus was on keeping the girls well fed. She did not sleep and was constantly on guard.
It had been raining again the previous night and the mud was thick and difficult to walk through, making Antonia’s movements feel lethargic. Mud and dirt were not her favourite things and having to be so entrenched in them made her nauseous. She was screaming for a hot shower in her hotel room and not having to take her life in her hands with the water in the unisex shower block. And she was dreaming of getting back into her normal clothes.
That day, the Burqa was feeling more suffocating than usual. She hated the way the material rubbed her face and her breath was confined in the small space covering her mouth. It made her sweat in the humid climate.
Her mind drifted once more to thoughts about the possibility of getting the girls adopted and creating a new life for them as she walked back from the camp shop clutching each girl’s hand. She remembered the morning she met them. It was her second day in the camp. She’d come outside
