‘Hurry up!’ says the person blocking Jacob’s way.
But the voice isn’t threatening, just stressed, urgent, anxious. He lifts his head and sees Yassim coming towards him.
‘Come on!’ he cries. ‘We have to get out of here now!’
It’s like in a dream where everything is turned around without explanation or context. His friend is suddenly a monster, then a moment later he’s transformed into a friend again.
He hears movements and voices through the open window. His jailers are on their way into the cell.
‘Come on!’ Yassim cries.
After so long in the dark, Jacob has to squint under the yellow lights of the Christmas decorations hanging across the street outside the gate. His whole body hurts as he runs. And when the first gunshot cuts through the grey evening air he jumps. He hears Yassim shouting in his ear. ‘Faster! Faster!’
Then more shots, more deafening explosions ringing in his ears, as Yassim points to a small green Volkswagen Polo parked just down the street.
They jump into the car, and Yassim has it started before Jacob even has time to blink. He speeds off down the uneven street so fast, Jacob is pressed back against his seat.
The car sits low, almost directly on the road, and it jumps and bounces and somewhere another shot sounds, and cars honk all around them. Yassim is gripping the wheel with one hand, his left is resting on his knee, as if it were loose or powerless.
A red spot is spreading near the collar of his jacket.
His friend is pale, his eyes glassy, as he takes the curve with one hand and soon they’re out on a slightly bigger road.
‘You’ve been shot,’ Jacob begins. ‘Yassim, you got hit in the shoulder.’
Yassim doesn’t look away from the road, but he moves his right hand quickly back and forth between the wheel and gear stick.
‘Is anyone following us?’ he says.
He slows again but only enough to be able to take the next curve without flipping the car. Jacob turns around. He sees nothing at first but as they swing left, a black car appears at the corner they just rounded. They’re driving almost as fast and recklessly as them.
‘A BMW,’ Jacob says. ‘They seem to be after us.’
Yassim has already swung off the road, taking a ramp to an underground garage. He crosses between cars and finds an empty parking spot at the bottom of the stairwell.
‘Out!’ he says to Jacob.
He’s already halfway out of the car. The garage is damp and smells like urine, and they take the stairs two steps at a time. They’re on a landing and now it’s just two more floors, then they’ll be out on the streets of the city again.
Jacob can see the streetlights above. Somewhere in the distance he hears a siren. He takes the first two steps, but then stops when he hears Yassim panting behind him.
‘Wait!’ his friend wheezes. ‘Wait a second.’
Jacob turns around and sees Yassim leaning against the wall. His breathing is heavy and strained.
‘What?’ Jacob says. ‘They must be in the garage by now too.’
But there’s something in how Yassim leans, something in how he’s breathing, that makes Jacob understand it’s impossible.
‘Come here,’ Yassim says instead. ‘I have something in my pocket, but’ – he indicates his hanging arm – ‘but I can’t get to it.’
Jacob is at his side now, very close. Yassim’s familiar scent in the midst of the stench of the stairwell.
‘What’s happening?’ Jacob whispers.
But his friend doesn’t answer. Jacob thinks he can make out a motor in the garage, but he can’t be sure.
‘I’m sorry,’ Yassim says, turning to him. ‘We have so little time.’
He sinks against the wall, down onto the floor. Jacob leans over him and opens his jacket hesitantly to access the wound, but Yassim stops him. At the same time, in the garage, a car door is closing again, and there are footsteps on a concrete floor.
‘Fuck it,’ he says. ‘Nothing you can do about that.’
His voice is so weak now. He coughs and Jacob thinks he’s going to spit blood, but he doesn’t and that’s a relief, in the midst of all this unspeakable terror.
‘You have the chip, right?’ he asks. ‘Somewhere? It’s not still in Beirut?’
Jacob looks at him. How could he know that? Below them he hears the door of the stairwell opening. Several pairs of feet heading up the stairs.
‘Who are you?’ Jacob whispers as his panic grows. ‘First you helped them capture me then you helped me escape? I don’t understand anything. You’re hurt and I… I… I…’ He can’t talk any more. There’s too much he doesn’t know, too much he doesn’t understand.
‘You have to make sure that chip ends up with someone you can trust, someone independent, someone who’s not in intelligence or the police. Do you know anyone?’
Jacob nods. ‘I believe so.’
Yassim stretches out a trembling hand and caresses his cheek.
‘I knew I could count on you. In my pocket there’s a phone and a few hundred euros. Take them, you’ll need them. Now you have to go.’
‘What about you?’ Jacob says. ‘I can’t leave you.’
But he stretches down his hand and grabs the money and phone, puts them in his pocket. He already knows that he has no other alternative. ‘I can handle it,’ Yassim says. ‘I have nine lives.’
But he looks down the stairs, blinking. As if he can’t quite gather the energy for this one last lie. Jacob rises, he feels a lump in his throat that he can’t do anything about. ‘You have to make it,’ he says. ‘You can’t disappear now, we just met.’
Yassim smiles. ‘You remember the roof terrace?’
Jacob nods, feeling tears welling up in his eyes. ‘How could I ever forget?’
Yassim reaches behind him, to his lower back, and suddenly he’s holding a big, heavy gun in his hand. He grimaces and Jacob sees again how his left arm hangs uselessly at his side.
‘You have to go now,’ he whispers. ‘You have to trust me.’
Jacob swallows his tears and bends down and kisses him on the cheek. Then he turns around and heads up the stairs two steps at a time.
By the time the first shot rings out, he’s already on the street.