A short story by Dubai Jazz
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Abu Diaz blended easily in the crowd. Perhaps his Spanish looks – the reason behind the alias -- helped him appear innocuous and inconspicuous. It’s like he’s there, but he’s not there. He could be anywhere from Iberia to Persia and no eyebrow will rise. Clinking of glasses and loud laughter rose from the bar as he crawled ahead with no drink in hand. That should not be a problem. If you have a table booked, you don’t mingle with the cheaper section of the patrons to order from the bar. He kept glancing to his left, eyes on his prey, but pretending to marvel at a huge unlit chandelier suspended from a roof truss. The chandelier was turning ever so slowly around its ceiling hook. Beneath the chandelier was a roofless gazebo, probably made of plastic and varnished over a quasi-wooden look. With public park-style stone benches underneath it. Colored beams of light swam across the otherwise dimly lit hall and got reflected and refracted by the crystal balls of the magnificent chandelier. Giving an atmosphere of a starry night to the couples lounging on the benches. Strange contraption, Abu Diaz thought, but not entirely odd for a city like Athens. A quick glance to his right revealed an exit sign behind and above a partition that led to the men’s room. He would have preferred a secured escape route, but a pro has to improvise and compromise sometimes. When he returned his gaze to his prey, he saw him standing near the access to the central gazebo. Which was exactly what this focal point was meant to achieve; draw attention of people and blunt their sense of time by the successive barrage of colors and lights. So they end up getting drunk quickly and drinking more even quicker, before passing out on the stone slabs.
The man in the flannel shirt and dark pants stood in his place and kept his gaze on the chandelier. Every once in a while he’d shift his weight from a leg to another and look around. Smiling and nodding at the few people standing near him. A mixed expression of approval and enquiry on his face. Fucked up homo-sapiens, Abu Diaz thought, they could be looking at the most stunning masterpiece of the world but they still needed a third party confirmation.
The crowd had eased a little at the end of the human stream and Abu Diaz moved about more casually now, careful not to intercept the view of his prey. He knew he was dealing with a pro too, albeit a mediocre one; a mid level courier who is useless at combat but good at disguise and incognito travel. Good as long as he’s undercover, anyway. Abu Diaz didn’t know how the cover was blown. He didn’t care. All he knew about his subject was delivered to him in the morning newspaper. It was a standard daily publication that came through a legitimate annual subscription and was dropped at his doorstep at daybreak everyday. Exactly identical to the tens of thousands of copies delivered all over the city. Except that his paper sometimes came with few variations, and he would usually look for telltales or a ‘message alert’ of pre-determined nature, splotches of ink in a certain pattern over the obituary column. Or tiny tears on the Sports page, like the commencement of shredding work that went bad and incomplete. He got the message alert that morning, and he moved to compile and collect his little gems. His handlers realized long time ago that phone lines could be tapped. And that mail is liable to interception and inspection. But who cared about a newspaper anyway? Beyond a casual check to make sure it had no nefarious content apart from the journalistic rants --like an envelop tucked neatly between the pages, or worse, a handgun—a newspaper raised no red flags at all. And so Abu Diaz sat at his kitchen table, carefully putting aside the pages he’d need. And then he got to work on removing single lines from several other pre-determined places. Lines and words that didn’t make any sense if you read the entire articles or columns to which they belonged. But as far as he was concerned, they only needed to make sense when he put them together. This is one of those cases where you need to take things out of context, he’d thought. He didn’t care how the assortment of words got there, either. Or how were they embedded seamlessly on the paper. Although he suspected super-thin paper, with microscopic drops of glue, were used.
And now as he studied his prey more closely, he recalled the perfunctory description of body type, skin color, and basic facial features, along with the rest of the instructions. A mug shot of the man was also supplied in black and white. Grainy, but useful. It was taped next to a note about ‘safe driver of the month’ award. How ironic, Abu Diaz thought, as he moved further into the hall toward clusters of tables in an area that was brighter and significantly less crowded. He waved a waiter away with a smile, signaling that he didn’t wish to be seated. That he was merely looking around.
He had his back to the gazebo now. The music got suddenly more upbeat and few drunken voices screamed in approval. He seized the chance to swivel on his heels and pretend to be looking toward where the voices had come from. By doing so he’d seen that his prey was moving slowly toward the gazebo. Casually sipping a fizzy liquid from his carafe. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Abu Diaz moved on in a parallel line, like two guys progressing slowly down church isles separated by twenty-feet long median pews. Abu Diaz didn’t know if such an ecclesiastical arrangement ever exited, but for the second time that day, he found the irony amusing: a pseudo safe driver approaches his death on the altar of global espionage.
As if he was being instructed by a higher calling, the prey walked up the three steps to the elevated octagonal space of the gazebo and stopped below the avalanche of flaring lights. He then looked under and behind his back to see about getting a seat. Each side of the polygon was lined with a bench, and the prey picked the one nearest to him and moved toward it. All his movements were being read by Abu Diaz, who didn’t waste anytime and preserved his casual look, while he kept on walking the winding path around the Gazebo to the part of the hall where he’d begun. Perfect, he thought; he would be totally concealed within the crowd again, and that area was darker anyway.
While he continued his counter clock-wise movement around the prey, he noticed that the clusters of people off the hall entrance had gotten thicker than they were the first time around. He was beginning to get concerned; crowds are good for confusion and disruption as long as they don’t inhibit your free movement. He wasn’t worried about pickpocketing though; he’d lived his childhood in cramped refugee camps in Jordan and his youth in Beirut where he had gotten his training. Not that there was a shortage of pickpockets anywhere. And his modus operandi for now didn’t include anything fancy. No capturing the man alive. No induction of suggestive drugs and long hours of debriefing in a safe house. No attempts at extracting information about future operations and command structure of the enemy. Nothing about picking up the pieces of a larger scheme in the espionage business. There is simply no time or energy for that kind of thing now.
The vicious ghost war between the extended intelligence arm of the occupation power on one hand, and Abu Diaz and his comrades on the other, had lost all recognition of the protocols of the intelligence world; and that usually happens when your peers in the enemy camp start targeting you and become targets of yours themselves as a result. The war was instigated when the enemy sought to kill all the political leaders of the liberation movements in diaspora. Their own Casus Belli being that all those high-ranking officials were complicit in terrorist attacks on the occupying power. So the comrades had to retaliate. And in short, Abu Diaz was simply required to ‘take out’ his opponent and move on to wait for the next doctored newspaper with instructions.
The brief that came along with the instructions to Abu Diaz gave him liberty to achieve that goal. Apart from the description and the mug shot, it only told him where the subject was staying; a highly secured hotel in downtown Athens. Abu Diaz knew the hotel was swarming with security and the exposure was high. So he set himself up for a stakeout in one of the coffee shops across the road from the hotel gate and waited. He knew sooner or later the subject would appear. Athen’s nightlife is irresistible.
He wasn’t disappointed.
But now Abu Diaz needed to concentrate on the job at hand. He finally moved across the clots of human bodies and was able to connect with his prey again. Abu Diaz was mildly pleased. The man was sitting on a stone bench and leaning his head back on one of the column supporting the gazebo. His eyes still fixated on the crystal chandelier, taking leisurely sips from his drink every once in a while. Abu Diaz thought that the man was infatuated with the chandelier a little too much. Although the concept was novel and spectacular, at one point you are going to have to take your eyes off of it.
But he didn’t want his prey to move his eyes or change his posture. He liked the head resting on the column and the neck exposed the way they were. As he stood behind the guy, Abu Diaz leaned his own head back on the column from the other side. What an awkward position, he thought. The elevated floor of the gazebo put their heads on the same level, and if it weren’t for the separating column, they would have looked like a twin born with their heads attached.
The air was chocking with smoke and his eyes got watery as he continued to scan random faces and give special attention to the girls. Not tonight, baby. Abu Diaz then made up his mind about his weapon of choice for the evening. He took out a thin –yet strong – power cord from his back pocket and threw it loose behind his back. It was 2 feet long and it almost touched the ground, coated with black polymer and of a single copper core. He slid his back down a notch on the column in one casual movement, and then he bent his knees and brought his feet forward like he was about to cross his legs but changed his mind and kept them spaced at comfortable distance. The resultant triangular space between his legs, the floor and the column gave him a nice secure area to prep his tool for the catch. He then began threading the malleable copper and pulling it through his fingers to form a nice half-circle in the middle of the cable. A ligature. Once that was complete, all he needed was to wait for the right moment, some sort of an outward diversion, and then make his move. He believed he could come out fine. He could slip the cable through the column at a high point and then keep a handgrip on both ends of it, camouflaging this maneuver by stretching his hand up in yoga-style routine. Once that was accomplished, he’d wait for the diversion, slip the cable in one daft movement, down across the face of the prey all the way to his neck, and then pull it in one forceful forward and downward drive. End of the story. The man will certainly gag and struggle and might draw some attention, but it will be too late; by the time Abu Diaz pulled out and away from the circle of suspicion his victim would have a crushed thyroid cartilage and failing carotids.
All he wanted to do now was to muster all his sensory powers and wait for the moment of distraction and diversion and all the actions that will follow.
But when the distraction came, it wasn’t at all what he’d expected.
First, the bottles on the shelves behind the bartender vibrated and clicked together and then they started to topple and fall off with bangs and bursts of liquids on the floor. Second, he felt the column rubbing against his back. And then there was the unmistakable and ominous hum hum hum hum reverberating sound ripping through the entire structure of the building.
Then came the screams. And in a moment everything turned into chaos.
Abu Diaz instantly realized that human confusion was even a greater risk than the malice of nature. An earthquake and its perils is one thing. A massive herd of human beings in a state of primal panic is something else entirely. He realized he needed to shield himself from the stampede he was sure will ensue. He also remembered from one of his field training on emergencies that the greatest danger in an earthquake inside a building is not getting crushed by the collapsing building structure; it is getting hit by the falling debris and accessories; false ceiling and partitions, ceiling mounted fixtures and installations, faultily fitted glass panels, shattered windows and advert boards, chandeliers…etc..
Chandeliers…
Without hesitation, he ducked down, spun on his feet and aimed to throw himself under the stone bench. He slid his body between the cross bars of a peripheral guardrail on the octagon and ended up on his stomach with his arms folded to his side and his hands clasped on the back of his head and neck. Standard military bomb-survival posture. Works with equal efficiency for surviving earthquakes inside buildings. It took Abu Diaz a second to make a mental inventory of what had happened in the last couple of seconds. And then he settled to wait and observe. His body was tightly pressed on the cold tiles. His chin and nose lined up and firmly planted on the floor in a painful posture. He could feel the vibrations of the ongoing tremor and its impact on the building; he could feel, through his thin T shirt and denim pants, all the shattering noise made by the falling debris. And unlike his surroundings, he was calm and prepared. He has the liberty of aborting mission at any given moment. He wasn’t suicidal. He could always wait for the next paper delivery.
He heard few minor explosive sounds as crystal balls hit the ground after departing the chandelier. Then he heard a massive thud. He dared a glance and realize that his prey was hit with a ball on his head and was bleeding profusely. A free-falling piece of glass of that size is a killer projectile. But Abu Diaz soon realized that his prey was almost unconscious and probably in too much pain to move out of the shooting range he was within. Piece of glass kept falling on and around him. If he doesn’t move away he was going to be pounded into a human paste. Abu Diaz hesitated for a second. For the first time that day he wasn’t sure what to do. But then he sprang into action.
He was of an average size, but with a fit body and powerful muscles and a stamina of a horse. He wouldn’t be where he is right now if he hadn’t weathered the most physically demanding situations. He raised his feet and hooked his left calf on the side of the stone slab and lunged forward and grabbed his prey from the collar of his shirt. Debris was raining upon him like a relentless hail. But he was ready. He crawled back on one elbow and used the leverage of his calf to pull himself backward. His prey was too weak and too drunk to struggle or protest.
It was over in less then a minute. There were still sporadic shouts of panic here and there. But the major action was over. Abu Diaz pushed himself away from the wounded guy and stood up to assess the damage. As he’d expected, the structure of the hall weathered the shake but many bodies were lying around as a result of being trampled over by the crowd or getting hit by falling objects. He wiped dust off his forehead and sat down on the bench. He sat there for an awfully long time. Just staring into a distant space. After about twenty minutes, he heard groans of pain from below. He looked down and found his prey twitching and squirming in his vomit. He looked back up and stared forward into space once again. He sat there for probably a twenty minutes more before he heard the guy from below coughing and choking and breathing hard. He looked down again. Got his butt off the bench, took his T shirt off and turned around and squatted down. He tore it into two pieces, wiped blood and vomit off the mouth of the injured guy with one, and made a primitive bandage for the head gash with the other. Then he moved him around and got him on his side in as close approximation of a fetal position as possible, to keep his airways clear and unobstructed. He sat back again on the bench and stared into space for some more. In few more minutes he heard authoritarian voices coming from the hallways outside.
Paramedics.
He stood and set off walking toward the fire escape exit he’d seen earlier. Time to split. But just before he departed, a thought occurred to him. He turned around; saw a firefighter and a paramedic proceeding gingerly through the room. Arousing people and checking their injuries.
“Hey!” He yelled at them, a little too loud, he thought.
They were startled for a moment. But then they looked at him in unison.
“There’s a guy under the stone bench over there with a head injury. He might be critical, better check him out.”
He then turned and walked out and away.
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Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
