Chapter 3
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Chapter 3As we were driving south – Aziz at the wheel – I smiled to myself, remembering how the three of us went to buy some trousers for Aziz and Mark and then went to the beach store and bought Mark a ring-cushion. I made the purchase under the pretext that it was for my baby who was learning to swim. But I couldn’t avoid asking Mark his opinion as to the dimension of the little inflatable ‘life-saver’.
“Do you think it will fit?” I had asked with the most innocent smile crossing my lips.
“What do you want me to tell you?” Mark had said, shrugging his shoulders and with a flash of irritation in his eyes.
“I think that should do the trick,” Aziz had commented while Mark had been glaring at him. “He’s not that big really and it should fit him very well actually.”
Once we had been out of the store, however, Mark hadn’t been able to hold back his pent-up frustration.
“You guys have no idea, have you? This is an insult... This is unbelievable. And I’m supposed to carry this darn thing everywhere I go? You’ve got to be joking. I’m not going to sit on anything... I’ll stand all the way to Toronto if that’s what it takes. Can you imagine what they’re going to say at the office when I march in with this thing in hand...? They won’t let me live this down.”
“Maybe you prefer to spend a couple of weeks in hospital with cute nurses coming to check on your rear every two hours?”
“Shut up, Aziz. I’ll take my cushion and use it discreetly. No hospital for this man – even if all the nurses were as cute as you say – I wouldn’t set foot in your butchery for anything.”
We were reaching the main highway when suddenly I said, “Turn north.”
Aziz turned his head. “Why?” He looked somewhat bewildered.
“Just do it, Aziz.”
“But I’m already on the ramp – I just can’t make a U-turn here...”
“Just go back when we’re over the overpass...”
“Okay, but why?”
“We can’t go to Miami; can’t you see that?”
“No, I can’t. We’ve promised Khalid to be on the flight, remember?”
“I’m telling you, we won’t make it to the flight. This is a trap.”
“You think they’re expecting us in Miami to kill us?”
I nodded. “They’ll tell Khalid anything... Let’s try to call him. Let me have your cell.”
“You won’t have any connection here...”
“There, take mine,” Mark blurted from the backseat, extending his arm for me to take the sat-phone. He had been lying down, and although Aziz and I thought he was asleep, he had heard my suggestion. “Dial 011...” He gave Benny’s number.
I dialled the number without a word. The phone rang twice and then the line went dead. I lowered the sat-phone to my lap, while fear gripped me. I turned around, gave the phone back to Mark saying, “No answer.”
“So, where to now?” Aziz asked as he pulled out of the traffic in the slow lane.
“North, Aziz. We’ll drive it.”
“You mean we’re going up to Canada?”
“Let’s take it one step at a time, but we’re definitely going where we’re not supposed to be.”
“Is that another ‘play with mirror’ thing?” Mark grumbled.
“Yes. We need to get under this radar – no question.”
- 작가
