The grey van drives slowly through the barriers, approaching where Jacob sits on the back of Bashir’s motorcycle.
‘Please drive!’ Jacob begs, folding up the visor of his helmet. ‘I have to get out of here!’
Bashir turns around and folds down Jacob’s visor. ‘Calm down,’ he says sternly. ‘If we drive away now, we attract their attention. Just sit still and shut up.’
The van is getting closer, just twenty metres from them now. Every fibre of Jacob’s being is urging him to jump off the motorcycle and run away as fast as he can. But even if he gathered the strength to act, he’s not sure his legs would carry him. The van is just ten metres behind them, and it slows and stops just outside the entrance to the departure hall. Jacob watches as the back door glides up.
‘Drive!’ he screams. ‘Please drive!’
He doesn’t get further before Bashir elbows him in the solar plexus, and he doubles over against Bashir’s back, gasping for air. ‘Shut up,’ he hisses.
Jacob turns his head back despite the pain in his stomach. The door is completely open now and a middle-aged man in a suit steps out. Then a grey-haired man and a woman in a beige suit. The driver jumps out and starts unloading suitcases. The passengers grab them one by one and head en masse towards the departure hall.
‘It’s a hotel shuttle,’ Bashir says, folding up his visor. ‘You need to stop this. You need to take a deep breath, do you understand?’
Jacob nods cautiously.
‘If I’d driven off in a panic, we would have attracted attention,’ Bashir says. He gestures towards the parking checkpoints and police and soldiers. ‘A motorcycle acting suspiciously is dangerous around here, you understand?’
Jacob nods again.
‘I don’t know what kind of shit you’re involved in,’ he continues. ‘And I don’t wanna know either. I’m just the guy driving the motorcycle. But I’ve lived here long enough to know you can’t panic. Remember that. Ice in that gut.’ He knocks his fist against Jacob’s helmet.
‘Thank you,’ Jacob says, unbuckling the helmet’s straps. He feels stupid, like some excitable novice. At the same time, Bashir is right: He doesn’t have a clue about what Jacob is up to. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he says, leaving the helmet behind.
Bashir and his motorcycle disappear. Jacob throws his backpack on his shoulder and heads towards the departure hall. His fake passport is burning a hole in his pocket. Stress is crackling beneath his skin. The wound between his shoulder blades aches.
There’s no point in waiting: it won’t get any easier, so he goes straight to passport control. He’s flying from Beirut to Brussels using a fake passport, with tickets issued in someone else’s name. What happens if it doesn’t work, if he’s discovered? He sees Myriam’s indifferent eyes in front of him, the men in the bookstore – Guantanamo. But he has no other option now, he’s made his choice.
With trembling fingers he pushes his passport over the counter to a tired man. Should he make eye contact? Or turn his eyes away? What are you supposed to do when you have something to hide?
The man takes the passport and flips to the first page. He looks up at Jacob and then down at the passport again. Flips through the pages and is just about push it back to Jacob when he stops and holds it up again.
He looks back and forth from Jacob to the passport. Jacob swallows and tries not to blink. He can feel his armpits break out in a sweat.
The man doesn’t release Jacob from his gaze, as if nailing him into place.
‘Excuse me?’ Jacob asks. His mouth is dry, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Is there a problem?’
The man doesn’t answer; he just holds the passport in front of him, as if to get a better look. Then he meets Jacob’s eyes again. ‘Mr Andersson?’ he says.
Is it better to admit it? Will it matter? ‘Yes?’
The man closes the passport and puts it on the counter. ‘Your passport expires in six months,’ he says. ‘Just so you know.’
He pushes the passport over the scratched grey counter top. Jacob almost thinks he heard wrong, shakes his head in disbelief then grabs the passport.
‘Th-thank you,’ he says. ‘I’ll… make sure it gets renewed.’
He’s almost at the security check now when he feels someone take a hard grip on his shoulder. He spins around and sees a soldier in a beret, a small, efficient automatic rifle hanging across his chest.
Jacob instinctively holds his hands out so that the man won’t perceive him as threatening; the panic is almost paralysing. The man takes a step closer and holds up a backpack. ‘You forgot this,’ he says. ‘At passport control.’
Jacob shakes his head to make all the pieces fall in place. It’s his bag. In all that stress, he forgot it.
He stretches out a shaking hand and takes the bag. ‘Oh. Thank you.’
‘Keep track of your belongings,’ the soldier says. ‘Next time it will be confiscated.’
*
Just after six in the evening, Jacob lands in Brussels, and he’s convinced that his shaky hands and blurry eyes will make the woman at passport control look more closely at his passport, push some little button beneath her counter. But she just glances at him and the passport and waves him on. It’s so easy – he can’t believe it’s really happening, that he managed to escape Lebanon alive.
As he walks through the terminal, he realizes there are even more soldiers here than in Beirut. The Paris attacks just last week have left their mark. It feels absurd, but he slept for most of the flight, exhausted and wiped out after the stress at the airport.
What should he do now? He received no further instructions, just the tickets. Will someone come meet him? And what should he do if not?
And then he starts to think about Gabriella Seichelmann. Was it a mistake to pull her into this? It didn’t seem like it when he was in Shatila with Alexa. Then he was so scared and confused, felt completely lost and abandoned. And now he doesn’t know if there will be a Belgian SWAT team waiting for him in the arrivals hall.
‘No, no, no,’ he whispers under his breath, and heads for an electronics store near the baggage claim area and arrivals hall.
He buys a burner phone with the MasterCard the bookseller gave him and takes out the piece of paper with Gabriella’s number on it. She answers on the second ring.
‘This is… Karl,’ he begins. ‘I called you—’
‘I remember,’ she interrupts calmly. ‘It’s important we keep this short, Karl.’
He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m here now… and I’m afraid,’ he says.
He hasn’t even considered it before, just swung back and forth between a hard-won calm and full-fledged panic. Now he realizes how scared he is. Completely terrified.
‘I understand that. But you have to hold it together. We have our meeting on Tuesday, as we already agreed. The elevator outside the Palais de Justice at four p.m.’
Tuesday? Three days. It feels like a year from now. ‘But…’ he says. ‘What should I do until then? I’m in Brussels now. What if nobody meets me, what if—’
‘I don’t think we should talk any more about this on the phone, better if we discuss it on Tuesday. And as I’ve said several times now, I can’t do it any sooner. I’m so sorry, but—’
‘You don’t understand!’ He’s raised his voice now, but gets control of himself, and lowers it so as not to be overheard in the airport. ‘I’m being hunted by so many people. I need your help.’
‘All the more reason to stick to the plan. We can’t risk being bugged. In any case, we may both be in danger.’
‘But there’s no way they could be listening, I just bought this phone—’
‘Do as I say,’ Gabriella says. ‘Just stay calm, do as little as possible for the next few days. I have to hang up now. We’ll meet on Tuesday as agreed. Don’t call before unless you have to change the time. This is serious.’
Her firmness and her calmness have an effect on him, and fear loosens its grip somewhat. Just a few days. A back-up plan if all else fails.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll manage.’
*
Jacob follows the stream of travellers heading towards the exit. What will happen when he exits into the arrivals hall? Will Yassim be waiting for him? Just the memory of his face, his body, makes Jacob’s hands tremble. But if he’s not there? If he’s been arrested?
The arrivals hall is full of people waiting for family and friends. He stops and scans the motley crowd, turning his head towards the taxi drivers and their handwritten signs. He thinks he’s mistaken at first, but one of them is holding up a name that makes him jump.
Patrik Andersson.
The driver in a leather jacket sees him at the same time – he must have been briefed on his appearance – and starts to approach. ‘Mr Andersson,’ he says in accented English. ‘Come with me, please.’
Jacob looks around and hesitates for a moment. He has to trust this will work out, that Yassim will make it work out. He follows the driver out of the building. They pass by taxis and cross the street into the darkness outside, towards the parking garage.
‘My car is over here,’ the driver says, without turning.
Jacob follows him towards the dull yellow lights of the garage. They don’t take the elevator, just stay on the street level, heading deeper and deeper into the building, towards one of the most remote corners.
‘It’s just over here, not far,’ the driver says.
Jacob thinks he hears a car door opening and closing again and footsteps echoing.
‘There,’ says the driver, pointing to an old black Citroen.
The footsteps are approaching from behind. Something’s not right. There is no taxi; it looks like a private car. And why is it parked out here, so far away, despite the fact that there are so many parking spots close to the terminal?
‘Wait,’ he says, stopping. ‘Who sent you to pick me up?’
The man turns to him with his hand in his pocket. He’s holding a gun, it’s obvious, far too obvious.
‘Your friend sent me,’ he says. ‘Yassim.’
Just as he says it, Jacob hears footsteps right behind him. He doesn’t have time to turn, just feels his jacket being lifted above his waist, feels a cold breeze on his bare skin.
A needle is stuck into his side. The garage spins around, his legs buckling beneath him, and everything goes black.