Brute Force

75

The weather started to turn just as the lights of the Libyan capital pulled into view. Flashes of lightning lit up the sky over the coast, where the wind blowing in from the Sahara mixed with the chill air that had dogged us since Sardinia. We prepared to ride out the gathering swell.

While Lynn slept, I grabbed the Google Earth maps that he had downloaded when we were in Italy.

The downloads basically gave us two options for coming ashore. The first was on what looked like a deserted stretch of coast close to a suburb called Janzur. Tripoli, like most North African capitals, was a vast urban sprawl, bursting at the seams. The satellite imagery showed houses and industrial facilities extending ten to fifteen kilometres along a coastal ribbon east and west of the city centre – the old Medina – where Lynn told me our boy liked to disappear every morning for his regular shisha session.

Janzur was around thirteen kilometres west. The photograph depicted a rocky headland dotted with small, sandy inlets, where we could easily come ashore without being noticed. There were no houses nearby. The coastal road, less than a kilometre away, led into Umar Al-Mukhtar Street, the artery that fed traffic towards the Medina.

But what then? Lynn and I would be forced into walking the road, conspicuous as fuck, as we tried to thumb a lift; or I'd have to nick a car. But as Arab cities never really slept, the chances of getting away with that were minimal.

Our other option was to tear the arse right out of it and come ashore in a densely populated, residential area.

I'd spotted a promontory on the satellite map around three kilometres west of the city. Three features identified it. The first was a small harbour dotted with boats. The resolution of the imagery wasn't good enough to tell me what they were, but they were probably fishing vessels of the Marhaban variety. The second was a large, T-shaped building with a car park at the front and a swimming pool on its roof; and, last but not least, a 400–500-metre stretch of beach, just west of the harbour and the building.

Lynn emerged from below as the first drops of rain started to hit the windshield. He made us both a brew and came and sat down beside me.

I showed him the Google map. 'See this? A stretch of deserted beach. And just here' – I pointed to the T-shaped building – 'is a hotel.' At least I assumed it was, judging by the pool on the roof. I looked at him. 'You recognize the place?'

Lynn studied the picture. 'I know the area. There used to be a little seafood restaurant nearby. It served the best prawns in Tripoli. But the hotel is new.'

Twenty years ago, Libya was a closed society. Since the Lockerbie settlement, however, tourism was on the increase. There were a lot more white faces moving about the country but every one of them had to be accompanied by a 'guide' – tourist-board-speak for policeman.

Whereas there had only been a handful of border crossings in Lynn's day, there were many more now. I hoped that we'd find one that would pay a lot more attention to a fistful of dollars than a compromised passport and no visa.

Egypt, Tunisia, Niger, Algeria, Chad or the Sudan. I didn't fancy Niger, Chad or the Sudan much – and taking my chances again in Algeria, home of the headless Adel Kader Zeralda, didn't thrill me either. That left either Egypt or Tunisia, both tourist hotspots, so great cover once we were across the border. And with Lynn's knowledge of ancient history, we could always say we were on a tour of North African archaeological sites.

But first we had to find Mansour.

My plan was to wait until the worst of the weather had passed then take to the tender. It was around twelve miles to the coast. All being well, we'd reach the beach shortly before five. There was a cliff between the beach and the hotel, but the satellite overlays on the map showed what looked like a number of paths leading to the top. Once we'd disposed of the dinghy, we'd make our way to the hotel and grab a taxi to the Medina.

Lynn wasn't too keen but knew he had to do it.

'We have to appear as if we belong. It's a psych-job. It all starts and ends up here.' I tapped the side of my head. 'You have to convince yourself that you have a reason for being on those streets. If you convince yourself, you'll convince others. Humans – like animals – sense strength and weakness. If we seem in the least bit uncomfortable, they'll pick up on it.'

'I know what the manual says, Nick.' The fact that the boot was on the other foot and I was calling the shots still rankled with Lynn, but I didn't give a shit. This was no time for pride or hurt feelings.

'We've switched manuals here. In London, our primary objective was to lie low.' I studied his eyes to see if he was taking all this in. To be honest, it was pretty hard to tell.

'There won't be CCTV in Tripoli; at least, none to speak of. We'll need to take precautions all the same, conduct all the usual streetcraft. But we'll have to do it in a way that doesn't alert the man on the street. Third-party awareness is going to be a very big deal. We're going to be noticed everywhere we go. The colour of our skin, our clothes, everything about us will attract attention, because – there's no getting away from this – we're different. We just have to make a virtue of it; finding Mansour will give us a sense of purpose – it'll make it look like we belong.'

Lynn was clutching his brew, staring into the steam rising from the cup.

'Any of this making any sense?'

He nodded. 'Yes, of course. It'll make it look like we belong.' He even managed to sound like me.

I got to my feet. 'The alternative is just to turn the boat around. Go back to Italy. Stay tucked up in that nice, cosy apartment of yours while they track you down and then you're dead without ever knowing what the fuck this was all about.'

He shook his head. 'You're right. I'm sorry, Nick. I really should have told you. I'm—' He stopped. 'I've been living on my own so long I'm not really used to explaining myself.'

Something in the way he said it made me stop. I knew then that this was about his wife.

'You never separated or divorced, did you? What happened to her?'