‘Sami. Do you work here?’
‘I work in the building, but not for the agency.’
The man turned his head to the side, seemingly to stare into space but probably to talk into an earpiece.
‘He’s here now.’
The man gestured for Sami to enter the building. Some of the officers had stepped in behind him, others were keeping an eye on the street. Sami noticed curious faces peeking out from behind curtains in the block of flats opposite. Cars slowed and rolled down their windows. Whatever happens, if something happens, at least there are witnesses, he thought, and went inside.
The fluorescent light was harsher than usual. Rasheed and he rarely turned on all the ceiling lights at once but today the office was bathed in light. The decorative palm trees drooped and he made a mental note to water them. Sami looked around and felt vaguely annoyed at the mess, the way you notice a toothpaste stain on your shirt instead of taking in that your girlfriend just told you she feels you should take a break from one another.
‘Are you listening to me?’ she’d said, the night before. ‘You’re working too much.’
‘We’ll talk about it next week, when we’re back from Latakia.’
‘I’m not going, it’s just going to be you and Rasheed.’
Sarah’s words were rushing through his head, or maybe it was the sound of the ceiling fan. Ten more members of the secret police were moving about the office. They were packing papers and binders in black bin bags, carrying out boxes full of routers and cables, grabbing armfuls of computers and antennae.
‘There you are,’ said an older man, who introduced himself as the colonel.
His white hair matched the pinstripes of his suit. In his breast pocket was a pack of cigarettes with the red Alhamraa label. The colonel was shorter than him but Sami nevertheless had the feeling the colonel was looking down at him. He had clear, intense eyes behind round frames.
‘I apologize for disturbing you in this manner,’ the colonel said. ‘Let’s step into one of the offices so we can talk privately. Don’t worry, my colleague will look after your bag.’
They sat down in Rasheed’s room, which looked the same as before, except that Rasheed wasn’t there. The pictures of his wife and daughters felt out of place with the colonel behind the desk.
‘We’ve heard a lot of good things about your company. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be here today,’ he said by way of starting the conversation. ‘But, as I’m sure you know, what you are doing is illegal.’
The colonel folded his hands on the table to let this fact sink in. ‘Where is Rasheed, by the way?’
Sami ran his hands up and down his jeans, fidgeting with a few loose threads where the fabric had worn thin by the knee. Rasheed: he was the one with all the important contacts who could get them out of this situation. He swallowed and asked to go out in the hallway to make a call, which the colonel allowed.
‘Are they in the office, are we in trouble?’ Rasheed said breathlessly on the other end of the line.
‘They just want to know what we do, that’s all.’
‘Are you sure?’
Rasheed’s voice was high-pitched and shrill like metal, and cars were honking in the background.
‘Completely sure,’ Sami said. ‘We pay and answer a few questions and that’s it. But if you try to go on the run, that’ll obviously look suspicious.’ Was it him Sami was trying to save, or himself, or both? He wasn’t sure of anything.
Rasheed arrived at the office an hour later, with sweat beading on his forehead.
‘Where were you going?’
‘Lebanon,’ Rasheed whispered.
The colonel bade him welcome and asked them both to take a seat. He seemed genuinely curious about their business, how they went about installing cables and finding new customers and the speed of their network. After thirty minutes of chitchat, he leaned back in the office chair – the only furniture aside from empty cabinets and the desk that remained in the room, now that the secret police had confiscated what they wanted – and lit a cigarette. The colonel took a long drag and apologized for having to borrow their equipment. They seemed to be serious entrepreneurs. Truly driven individuals, he had to say, and wasn’t it strange that despite their obvious intelligence – he dragged the word out – they didn’t understand that they needed permits to install cables and networks?
‘Consider what this looks like. From our perspective. Given how quickly your network has grown, it’s likely only a matter of time before you expand into Israeli territory. But you’d almost think you didn’t want to be noticed. Almost as if you were trying to set up a secret communication system…’
He said it kindly and unassumingly. Rasheed jumped to his feet and objected, his face white as a sheet.
‘That’s not how it is at all, not at all. We’ve even been singled out for praise at the Palmyra festival.’
The colonel raised his hand and waved away a tendril of smoke.
‘Yes, the minister,’ he said. ‘He’s why I’m here, to make sure everything is above board. You have two options, the way I see it. Either you come with me now or you come in tomorrow to answer some questions. It’s up to you.’
Once again, he made it sound like it was all a formality, a friendly visit. The colonel dropped his cigarette on the floor but didn’t put it out – a chemical smell spread from the hole in the plastic rug. Sami thought about Latakia’s beaches, about the sound of never-ending waves breaking, swirling up shells and pebbles, and he nodded.
‘Rasheed?’
‘Of course, absolutely. We’ll come with you.’
People had gathered outside in the pale sunlight to see what was going on. Others continued watching from doorways, across the street and nearby offices. The colonel invited Sami and Rasheed into the back seat of his own car, a black Land Rover, driven by a private chauffeur. When the colonel noticed they were being patted down, he waved his hand to signal that there was no need for that. The Pink Panther looked sad and alone on the other side of the car park, and Sami found himself wondering whether the food would stay fresh in the cooler.
Two motorcycles led the convoy, clearing the way. They were followed by two cars with tinted windows, the Land Rover Sami and Rasheed were in, then two more cars. The drive to the secret police headquarters would normally have lasted around half an hour, but since the driver had his foot permanently on the accelerator and the other cars made way for them, it took less than fifteen minutes.
Sami and Rasheed sat quietly in the back. When they drove into a courtyard and the black steel gates shut behind them, their thoughts were swirling like seaweed in a current.