The Prisoner's Wife (20 page)

The prisoners made no noise. Two were dressed in off-white women's panties that came from God knows where. Otherwise, they were naked. Their unwashed skin made it hard to tell whether or not they were Arabic. All—even the hanging men—were chained by their ankles to wall bolts. Drainage gutters ran across the cell floors.

From somewhere, a sound of machinery.

Shawn leaned against a damp-stained wall. He felt nauseous. He was too old for this. Across the corridor, Younis systematically checked odd-numbered cells. Motionless, the Moroccan sergeant watched, his weapon loosely held in a black-gloved hand.

From above came a louder sound Shawn could not, for the moment, identify.

Several minutes later, Younis returned. “Not on this side, your man.” He held a handkerchief to his nose, against the stink. His eye still wept. He spoke in French to the sergeant, then in English to Shawn. “Sadly, my client has died and been buried. Once again, sudden death, it seems. Aneurism, hemorrhage of the brain.”

Shawn was at the last inspection window. “Our guy's not on this side.” He pointed. “That door there. The one without a window.”

“La sépulture,”
said Younis. “Do you say, sepulcher?”

“What's inside?”

Younis translated the question for the sergeant, then translated the answer. “They call that the grave. There is a human in there. He will never come out. Not walking. But he is not your man.”

Shawn knew then what he was hearing: rotation of blades. Above them in the courtyard, he guessed, the unmarked helicopter was taking off.

To Younis he said, “I think we just missed our guy.” He pointed upward. “Sounds like the chopper's gone.”

Younis thought for a moment. Dabbing his eye, he led the way toward the stairs. “Frequent flyers.” He shook his head. “Always hard. So hard to trace. You should take your woman, my Danielle, you should take her home to England, to France, wherever. She will not find her man.”

Shawn shook his head. “I'll maybe take her home,” he said, “but she's not my woman. And Younis, I'll tell you this—she'll keep looking.”

*   *   *

When Shawn arrived back at his hotel room, his laptop was missing. Not a serious loss. Shawn had learned something from his last night with Ellen: from losing his laptop, his job, and her. Now secure data dwelled, encrypted, on a server somewhere near Amarillo. The FBI could, if they wished, crack the encryption. They'd gotten good at that. First, though, they'd have to find the server.

For form's sake, Shawn reported his loss to the local police. In broken English, he was told by a gray-haired uniformed sergeant, sorting papers, to come back during office hours.

“Which are what?”

“After ten in the morning,' the policeman said. “Not holidays, or religious festivals. Both of which occur, as it happens, tomorrow.”

“If I leave Fes tomorrow?” Shawn asked.

The man behind the desk shrugged. What, he said, could anyone do about that? He advised Sean to forget the loss. “Go back to your hotel,” he said. “Get drunk. Is that not what Christians do?”

Shawn did go back to his hotel, but not to drink. Pausing outside the door of his room, he heard sounds he hadn't heard since the last weeks of Martha's life—racking, choking sobs, then a cry, hardly human. Opening the door, he saw Danielle, half naked, on the floor, rocking, between the beds. She seemed not to hear Shawn close the door and softly leave. He'd known some weeping women; he never knew what to do, or what to say.

 

22

FES, MOROCCO, 28 MAY 2004

On the last day in Fes, Shawn was depressed, uneasy; a feeling that lay in his gut, without a cause he'd put a name to. In part, it was foreboding: a sense of something evil gestating, something ominous in the air. In part, it had to do with his feeling for Danielle—desire might presage disaster, even death. He sensed she was dangerous: He knew he should forget her, and doubted he could.

On that evening, their last evening, Danielle said she'd take Shawn to supper. Now she was beautiful. When Shawn asked, she said she'd wept awhile for Darius and was through with tears. Calmer, she said she'd find where her husband had gone, and follow him there.

One way or another, she said, they were through with this town.

*   *   *

Danielle led Shawn through crowded streets—to him, more like lanes—in the city's medina. From somewhere came a sound of quarter-toned music, a slower, sadder music than they'd yet heard. It matched Shawn's mood of unease.

From byways, doors opened to unlikely courtyards, carnations planted with pink-flowered trees, fan palms, cacti, set around fountains. In one water-haunted garden was a raucous party, a family celebration: tables set with food, women slow-dancing to a plaintive tune, fireworks punctuating the sound of argument and laughter. Shawn thought of the last time he'd partied in palm-shaded gardens: years back, it was. They'd been in Andalusia, celebrating Martha's birthday. A child of the Deep South, she'd fallen in love with southern Spain: cognac in the sun at breakfast above the blue and shimmer of the sea.

Another life. Since then, with Martha gone, there hadn't been much to celebrate.

*   *   *

Danielle walked faster now, threading her way through crowded streets. Taller than the men and women around her, she was easy to follow. Shops here were small and shadowy, cavelike metal-lined recesses where legs of lamb hung from hooks, the meat gray with age. There were dishes of offal, intestines like softened hosepipe; baskets piled with fresh-cut herbs; odors of sweat, grilled meat, and roasting spice.

Shawn's mind was on the prisoners he'd seen; on the nameless hanging men, their unseen inquisitors. He'd done it himself, such interrogation, and seen it done by others.

Captors and captives, both now invaded his dreams.

Here, in the souk, Shawn had the feeling he was being followed, but—looking back along the lanes—he saw no one out of place in those densely peopled streets. At his feet, he found a child: a little boy, crying in the dirt, chubby arms protecting his head.

Shawn stopped, blocking traffic. Like water around a rock, crowds flowed about him. He bent to lift the kid. The boy rested a small dark head on Shawn's shoulder.

Danielle made her way back to where they stood. She nodded at the child. “What are you doing with him?”

“Least I can do,” Shawn said, “is put him someplace he won't get stepped on.”

“Come,” she said. “We can do that.”

Minutes later, Shawn, holding the boy, followed her into what seemed to be a grocer's store. Shelves filled with jars of spice and herbs and preserved fruit reached to the ceiling. The floor was stacked with floury sacks.

Danielle spoke in brief Arabic to an apron-clad Moroccan behind a wooden counter. To Shawn, she said, “This man will take the boy. He knows the family.”

Shawn set the child down. “You sure about this?”

“Of course I am sure. Here, they care about children.”

The apron-clad man lifted the child and placed him on a high chair behind the counter.

“Could've fooled me,” Shawn said. “Kid was on the ground, folks walking over him.”

“It's a side of you I haven't seen,” she said. “The good father.”

“Didn't work so great with my daughter.” He waved good-bye to the boy as Danielle thanked the storekeeper and set off toward the back of the shop. “This is where we eat?”

Danielle led Shawn to a narrow room, poorly lit, its walls hung with calligraphic tablets. In this claustrophobic cell, it seemed, food was served.

“My father,” Danielle said, “Benoit, my surrogate father—he used to bring me here, when I was a child.”

“This is the lawyer you talked about? Radical?”

“One of them. Sometimes I came with Younis—sometimes it was Benoit and me. Daughter and daddy, we were so close.”

“You were lovers? You and him?”

Danielle nodded. “Of course. My introduction. It was part of the excitement. The city, too. The food, the music, the market—it all seemed strange. So different from what I knew in France. So sexy.” Dramatically, she shivered. “Dangerous, I thought. I wanted to be a lawyer, then. Working for prisoners.”

Shawn thought that over. He turned back toward the shop, trying to see what had become of the child.

A young man with the look of a Koranic student set out plates on the only uncluttered table. Above it hung an old-fashioned ceiling fan from which descended four metallic lights: iron molded in the shape of tulips. There was no menu. Danielle ordered in French, which made Shawn uneasy.

“Danielle,” he said, “don't give me a hard time, but what the hell did you ask for? I should tell you, I'm not good with third-world chow.”

She put her fingers over his, leaving them a little longer than she needed to. He could count on one hand the times she'd touched him.

“Shawn,” she said, “it's Morocco, not Manhattan. I want to thank you for helping me.” She pointed to the front of the shop. “And for that child.”

“Which means?” he asked, with sudden hope.

“This evening, it is on me. You don't eat burgers. Or catfish.”

“Don't knock catfish,” he said. “My first date was Miss Alabama Catfish. Cute as a button, that kid.” He did the math. “She'd be fifty now.”

Danielle shook her head. “Miss Catfish. Such a redneck. Tonight you have tagine”—she pointed—“cooked in one of those dishes, you see there? Conical?”

“Tagine? Made with what, exactly?”

“Lamb—lamb and prunes and apricots and honey. It's delicious. You don't like it, sue me.”

*   *   *

When the food came, Shawn watched Danielle eating, considering this woman with whom he'd fallen in love, or lust. He'd never known which was which. He was about to speak—about to ask something intimate—when the light changed. Standing in the doorway, filling the doorway, stood Tariq, the giant bodyguard. He was silent, watching. For the second time that day, Shawn wished he had a handgun.

Danielle drew out a chair. The giant seated himself with care, unsure of the chair's strength. He sat for a while, taking in his surroundings. The man had, Shawn thought, an operative's eye for hidden threat.

It was Shawn who spoke. Tariq made him uneasy. “How did you know we were here?”

“It is smaller than it seems, this town,” said Tariq. “If you are foreign, if you are American, it is hard to be out of sight.”

The young man, the scholarly waiter, brought more food: dishes of some creamy concoction. Shawn tasted the stuff on the tip of one finger, testing for the heat of chili peppers. Tariq said he would not eat. For a moment Shawn imagined the Rabelaisian business if ever the big man were truly hungry: truckloads of bread, butcheries of meat, sacks of grain, barrels of wine.

He examined his own plate, checking its odd ingredients.

“Tell me something,” he said to Tariq. “You know Calvin McCord? The CIA guy? He was in the café this morning?” Tariq nodded. “Give me your best guess. Why do you think he was here the same time as we were?”

“Here in Fes?”

Shawn nodded.

Tariq thought this over. “Maybe he is seeking the same thing you seek. To do with the bomb, perhaps. Your people worry about jihadists with nuclear weapons.”

“Are you surprised?” Shawn asked. “Why Fes, though?”

“I would guess,” Tariq told him, “it is to do with the man in prison. The man who was in our jail.” He nodded at Danielle. “Her man.”

That was Shawn's guess, too, though he still had doubts, about both McCord and Danielle.

Now she had stopped eating. “When you phoned, you said you had something for me.”

It was the first Shawn knew of a call between Danielle and Tariq.

“Cairo,” Tariq said. “Your man, the frequent flyer. Younis said I should tell you—maybe you know—he believes they have taken him to Cairo.”

Shawn believed that, too. Danielle turned to him. “Do your people take prisoners there?”

Shawn finished what was in his mouth, the fruit, mixed with meat. It tasted strange; he could get to like it. “My people don't do that. Never.”

“CIA?”

“The Agency? They do. Remember, in England—Ashley told you that. Plus Special Plans uses Cairo—the guys Bobby Walters works for. OSP does what the hell they want—veep's office, they're like the goddamn Nike ads. Just do it. They write laws. Whatever you do, if it's not legal today, it will be tomorrow.”

Tariq said, “We know there is a Company facility—somewhere in Cairo.”

Shawn said, “Sure. Shared with Mukhabarat.”

“Tell me,” said Danielle.

“Security police,” said Tariq. “Good at what they do, they tell me. The jail is in Giza.”

“Close,” Shawn said. “Gaber Ibn Hayan.”

“Okay.” Danielle pushed her plate aside. “I know Giza. That's where we're going.”

Shawn was still eating. He'd discovered he was hungry.

“Who's the ‘we' in this sentence? I never said I'm going to Cairo.” He tried a fine pale grain with his meat. “I have a home, remember? House, cat, five sheep. Maybe a lamb, by now.”

“Fine,” she said. “You have helped. It's okay. If you are gone, I'll go alone.”

Tariq held up a huge hand. He leaned toward Shawn. “Before you leave this town, Mr. Maguire, there is a thing you can do for us, if you will. In return for the help of Mr. Younis. We would be grateful. Someone you might identify.”

Shawn finished the food on his plate, enjoying it, and thought that through. He had the sense that this was an offer he might not refuse.

“You say someone? Where is this person? Why would you think I'd know whoever it is?”

“Three minutes' walk from here. Maybe four. It would help Mr. Younis.” With surprising speed for a man so heavy, Tariq heaved himself to his feet. “If you will come with me?”