When I left the gate at Madrid Airport, all I had in my wallet was a few Moroccan dirhams and about two hundred dollars. I had credit cards but wanted to wait before using them. I changed the dollars into euros at a counter, then took a taxi into Madrid, wishing that I had Laura there to translate for me. In broken Spanish I asked the driver for a cheap place to stay, and he took me to the Room007 Ventura Hostel, a place for travelers a decade younger than me—eclectic art on the wall, a communal bathroom, and a bedroom I had to share with a surly French backpacker. But it was only thirty dollars a night, and the Frenchman left me alone throughout the day.
For forty-eight hours, I wrote with my thumbs, directly into my phone. Everything I had seen, everything I had heard, and everything that I believed the Agency should follow up on. I even wrote about Haroun, because they knew about him already. And I told them that the only course of action was to send a team to Davos to assist Milo Weaver and his librarians. Which sounded like the name of a band, but I didn’t mention that.
When I finished, having missed meals in my obsession, my thumbs cramped into claws, I passed out with the phone hidden under my stomach, and when I woke on the second morning I reread it, making few changes to the text file that ran over ten thousand words. I used the hostel’s computer to attach it and four big audio files to a message addressed to Paul’s Agency email:
Paul, I don’t know what you’re going to do with this, or what the others will say. But if the Agency doesn’t act on the information, I will be forced to release copies. See you in Davos.
I didn’t know who I would release the report to, so I didn’t say. Paul would fill in that blank with whatever the worst option was. After pressing SEND, I took a taxi to the train station, where I scanned the departures board. I was presented with so many possible choices, all over Europe. But my destination was no longer up to me. I took out my credit card.
It was after midnight when I powered up my phone again and made the call. “Hey,” I said when she picked up.
“Abdul—oh, God, are you all right? Where are you?”
For some reason the emotion in Laura’s voice startled me. “I’m fine. Sorry I couldn’t call before now.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on a train. I’m going to Switzerland.” She was silent a few seconds, so I said, “How are you? Is everything all right?”
“Other than thinking you were dead?” she asked.
“Yeah. Other than that.”
“Paul keeps calling me. Asking if you’ve gotten in touch.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. Of course he’d been pestering her. “I’m sorry about that. I’ll talk to him. He won’t bother you anymore.”
“But,” she said, looking for words, “what’s going on? Are you in trouble?”
How to explain it? Was I in trouble? Probably, yes, but sitting in that clean train it didn’t feel like trouble. I said, “It’s about my brother.”
“You mean Haroun?”
“He’s alive.”
Another moment of silence, longer this time. “He’s not, Abdul. You know that.” She was starting to speak to me the way she did to Rashid when he was confused.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I said, trying to sound as sane and as calm as possible. “But I saw him. He’s alive, and he’s in Europe.”
“But your father went to his—”
“His grave. He flew to Mauritania and saw a marker in the ground. He never saw Haroun’s body. None of us did. He didn’t die.”
“Then … then what did he do?”
This, really, was something I couldn’t tell her. If the knowledge of these new Tourists had put a price on Milo Weaver’s head, then I wasn’t about to do the same to my family. “It’s unclear,” I told her. “But I know where he’s going now.”
“Switzerland.”
“Yes.”
When she spoke again, her voice was choked. “Abdul, can’t you come home? Talk to Paul. He’ll help you figure it out.”
My heart sank. She didn’t believe me. No—she believed that I believed what I was saying, but she didn’t trust that I hadn’t lost it. “I’ll talk to him,” I said. “How’s the monster?”
“He misses his dad.”
“I miss him,” I told her. “I miss you.”
We spoke a little more, but the sentiments felt empty. She was too scared to say too much, in case I was on the edge, and I was too scared to tell her what was really going on. She again told me to talk to Paul, then told me she loved me. “I really love you,” I told her, as if it had ever been in doubt, which I suppose it might have been a long, long time ago.
When I hung up, it only took thirty seconds for the phone to ring. A part of me, as I picked it up off my thigh, thought it might be Laura calling back, but no, of course not. It was Africa section, and when I answered Paul said, “What’s going on, Abdul?”
“Did you get my report?”
“It’s a hell of a read.”
“And?” I asked, wanting him to hurry up. “Are you going to act on it?”
“Because if we don’t you’ll share it with the press? Is that what you’re saying?”
Fair enough. After two days holed up in that Madrid hostel, listening through headphones to the hours of interview, ruining my thumbs, the threat had felt necessary. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“Something has to be done,” I told him. “We can’t let this go on.”
“And you believe Milo Weaver?”
“My dead brother tried to kill us. Yes, I believe Weaver.”
“Look,” Paul said, sounding tired. Maybe he was. “I appreciate what you’ve done. We all do. But you send me a screed about a secret army of industrial spies and killers, and you expect the Agency to take action within hours? As admirable as your work has been here, this is the first time you’ve been sent abroad in the line of duty. I show this to the seventh floor, what do you think they’ll say? You’re not giving evidence here. You’re spouting conspiracy theories.”
“You already knew about my brother,” I said. “It’s why you sent me.”
Silence. Then, patiently: “It doesn’t matter what I know or don’t know, Abdul. It’ll look like conspiracies to them. How do you know Weaver isn’t playing you?”
How did I know? I’d asked myself that until the very moment that Haroun’s eyes had met mine. From that point on, I didn’t need to be convinced anymore. “You’ll find the evidence here,” I told him. “They’ll all be at Davos. Weaver, too. I’ll arrange the meeting.”
That was when he broke. “You’ll do no such thing, Abdul, because your job is done. You understand? Get home now, or we’ll issue a Notice for you. Understand?”
“But—”
“Enough, Abdul. Get Stateside.”
A part of me had expected this, though the rest of me had hoped, unrealistically, that everyone could be swayed simply by the depth of my conviction. “See you in Davos, Paul,” I said, then hung up and turned off my phone.