Escaping to the private space allowed him to vent the well of anger that had threatened to explode since his son had been taken, and he beat the table with his fist until it pulsed with pain. He sat down heavily behind his desk and heard room service arrive next door. The boys quietened down as they looked forward to filling their bellies. They loved staying in hotels, even when they’d been given no reason as to why they weren’t out and about in Paris or seeing their brother. They’d asked after him, but the answer, agreed between him and Taziri, was that Hakim was in the middle of important exams and they’d celebrate together when he was done. The ages of the boys enabled them to process the information simply: they accepted it. They were in heaven: Xbox on tap, an open room-service menu, a private rooftop pool for their exclusive use and European TV. Youth was simple.
He hoped to raise his children without ego and instead teach them humility. He hoped that Hakim had drawn on these resources to soften his captors. It is infinitely more difficult to be cruel to someone who is kind. A scared animal normally bites back, but the one which keeps coming, despite the blows, touches something basic in the most barbaric. He hoped he’d disarmed them with his generosity.
Khalil needed some air. The thoughts going round his head of Hakim in a bare room, possibly bound and even gagged, guarded by thugs for hire, potentially starved and already descending into the depths of the dehumanisation process, made his blood boil and his body sweat.
Taziri came in and handed him a package. Khalil was puzzled.
‘The men that are keeping us prisoner have told me it’s been scanned electronically. They opened it, so I took a look for myself. Why are you being delivered phones, Khalil?’
She stared at him with those piercing eyes of hers. She was difficult to lie to.
‘You’re not a prisoner, my love,’ he said.
‘Pfft. Whatever you say. I know why we have to stay cooped up, that is the least of my concerns. What are you up to?’ She held his gaze steadfastly. He was the first to look away.
‘I have to make sure that everything is being done and Grant is being careful not to be traced,’ he said.
‘Grant? And how do you know you can trust him? He turned up pretty quickly from the desert, didn’t he? Why do you trust a white man?’
He overlooked her traditional views. They’d been raised, as children, to mistrust the infidel, but Khalil read and watched, making his own mind up about the value of warring indefinitely. He’d witnessed the Twin Towers fall, and he’d studied what came after: Bush’s wrath on the Middle East and the millions of lives obliterated. War wasn’t the answer to anything, but Khalil knew that Taziri wasn’t open to this logic at the moment. Perhaps another day, but not now. She was angry and lusted for revenge. He let her rant.
‘What are you hiding, my love? Who sent you this?’ Taziri asked. She still wouldn’t accept his explanation, and that’s why he loved her.
‘I’m not hiding anything. I need to communicate with Grant in secrecy – I can’t have people listening to my business. I have to get some air – I’m going to the roof. Don’t worry, I’ll take one of the guards.’
Taziri eyed him as he walked past her clutching the phone, in case Fawaz called him. He’d done what was asked of him, and now it was time to make some demands of his own. The container ship was waiting, as instructed, at the port of Algiers, and would load tonight. He’d kept to his side of the agreement, and now he would insist that Hakim be returned. There was no longer any leverage to be had by keeping him. He felt Taziri’s eyes burn into his back.
He took a burly six-foot Englishman to the rooftop, by a private lift, and he wondered at the life they led; these mercenaries out for hire with all the training of the British Army elite. He supposed that his father, as well as Fawaz’s father, had been somewhat similar in the sense that they were cast into the wilderness and fought for a cause, willing to fight to the death. These ex-special forces men were hard and steely. They knew the risks, which is why they got paid so much. The key was to stay ahead of anything anybody else might offer them. Loyalty had a price, and Khalil wondered if he’d paid Jean-Luc too little. He had to find a way to shed some light on what his ex-head of security’s motivation had been. He didn’t know where to start.
But perhaps his mother, Madame Bisset, did.
Chapter 24
The trucks bumped and bounced along the rough, sandy track. Travelling at night gave them respite from the fierce Saharan sun that beat down on them like the blast of a furnace, the air-con whirring like a whining dog as they still gained valuable miles. But at night, the moon lit their way, and they made better progress. They were able to open the windows and allow the cigarette smoke, accumulated by day, to escape in clouds. It was the only thing that kept them sane: the rush of nicotine to while away the boredom.
The journey to the Mauritanian border had gone without a hitch, despite it being the junction of four major North African territories: Mauritania, Morocco, Western Sahara and Mali. The Mali officials were the trickiest but had been paid handsomely in advance with weapons and supplies for the Malian army fighting insurgents pushing south for domination of the region. They had been at times funded by the French, and so that helped. Foreign occupants were always easier to bribe than a man defending his children.
During the long war between the Mali government and those Malians fighting for independence, in what the insurgents called
