When I open my eyes, it takes me a while to focus. Today is Thursday, the 8th of February, 2018. It's 04:30 AM. We're in the men's dressing room of the public swimming pool of Valletta. We're in a hopeless situation.
Yesterday, while we enjoyed ourselves with our new friends in the park, the local police towed our limousine away. Fortunately, I'd left my luggage in an abandoned storage container in the harbour, and not in the car. I'd needed the toolkit from my backpack to break into this pool. Although the hard wooden benches in the dressing room weren't very comfortable, the simple burglar alarm (there's nothing worth stealing in a public pool), the SSS facilities and the fixed opening hours made this a good hiding place. I change into a swimsuit and do twenty lanes to get the stiffness out of my muscles.
After getting dressed and waking up Malik, we have almost an hour to make plans and get out of here.
We have one clue. On a bench in the park, I found a flyer for another episode of Katie's literary crime series about mafia boss Toni Peroni. After the coincidence of the name of the home for the elderly, after what we found in the Lin-Kin Park, and after getting the information that Khalid El Bullít hates writers, it looks like we have an anonymous informant who shares inside information with anyone who might be interested.
This flyer promotes her book «Death Wish». The cover text says: «When Hurricane Mike, the former lieutenant of mafia boss Toni Peroni, enters his highly secured cell, he swears an expensive oath: "I won't rest until I've killed Toni." To fulfil his death wish, Hurricane Mike has to escape first…»
No clues about where we might find this Hurricane. We've checked the weather reports, but everything is clear: there's no hurricane in the entire Mediterranean area.
Under different circumstances, I would send a message to #2, The Nerd. He would come back with all the info I'd need. But with the LSD looking for me, contacting #2 seems a dangerous idea.
"Perhaps we can have breakfast in a cyber café and see if we can find something about this Hurricane on the Internet.", I suggest.
"Actually, there is an Internet café on the other side of the street. They have fresh coffee and bread rolls. Aren't you hungry?"
I am.
"We need a disguise. Every secret service of the world is looking for us now.", I say.
"An excellent idea, but… how? Most of your luggage is still in that container in the harbour."
No problem. We're in a public swimming pool. People forget things here all the time. Behind the counter at the entrance, we find what we need: two burkas. A woman as small as I forgot the light-brown one. The light-blue one belonged to someone twice as heavy as Malik. Ten towels around his waist do the trick. With some forgotten make-up, we give our eyes a female image. Our burkas hide the rest. With so many members of the Arab community on Malta, we won't stand out.
We leave the pool just in time; the first class of schoolboys are already queueing in front of the door, waiting for their 06:00 class. The Internet café opens at 07:00. We take a walk to kill the time.
Our disguise is perfect. Nobody pays attention to us. Malta is a country where respect for religion is stronger than fear of the unknown. I know the political arguments to prohibit women from wearing traditional Muslim clothes: they should also prohibit Halloween, clowns and Santa Claus for the same reasons. For religious people, the Law of God stands higher than the law of society. Why does the state prohibit people from behaving according to their religion? It will only estrange women in burka from society. Banning burkas won't help women in a burka, and neither will it help society. You'll never take away the fear if you prohibit people from getting to know each other better. The only ones who benefit from causing all that hate are the politicians.
Suddenly, I think of something: "Rostov!"
Malik corrects me: "Mannerly, I would prefer it if you don't swear."
"Rostov isn't a swear word. It's an educated way to express surprise or other strong emotions without using words that might be holy to others, but it's also the name of my friend. We met a few months ago when I was on a mission in Geneva. He might help us out."
During that mission, I gave Rostov one of my spare mobile phones, the one with the #555 speed-dial number.
I take my spiPhone and send him a message: «Rostov. It's me, #5, The Runner. Do you still use this phone? Are you awake?»
Almost immediately, a reassuring beep indicates an incoming answer: «Hi, Lux. Yes, I use this phone every day to send a message to Katja, asking her if she wants to marry me. She hasn't said «yes» yet, but every day I'm getting closer to the day she will.»
Katja is #4, The Agent of the LSD. Rostov has a crush on her, but I fear she'll answer his death wish sooner than his proposal.
«I'm in trouble. I need your help. The LSD are after me. Can you send a message to #2, The Nerd, and ask him which side he's on: mine or his employer's?»
One beep later I get the reply: «He's on your side as long as you don't contact him. You're hot. He has orders to monitor you and all the traffic of relative info about your mission on the island. Which island is that?»
This is useful information. Imagine we'd visited the cyber café and searched for Hurricane Mike. If he's indeed connected with Khalid, it would alarm the LSD and all the other authorities and they'd arrest us in hardly any time. Avoiding similar search commands on the browser of my now anonymous spiPhone is also a safe idea. It will make us deaf, dumb and blind for a while, but we'll still have our taste, our smell, and our tact.
Secretly, I admire Khalid. This is exactly why he can't be found: he's careful. Last month, there was news about the authorities in a certain country who cracked the encrypted message system at www.uglycriminalbastards.com, which gave them access to thousands of messages with enough proof to arrest and convict hundreds of criminals. Khalid doesn't trust anyone, not even the Internet. That's why he's still out there. We should follow his example.
I reply to Rostov: «I'm on Malta. Long story. Please, ask #2 to send you a social report about Hurricane Mike. I'm after Mike's former boss, Khalid El Bullít.»
This time, it takes almost fifteen minutes before the answer arrives, but it's worth waiting for: Rostov didn't only send the social report I requested (presenting Mike as a respected businessman), he also did some private investigations himself.
«According to his MaskBook account, you can contact Hurricane Mike at his temporary residence, room 501 at the Sing Sing in Valletta, Malta. Visiting hours: daily from 10:00 AM until 12:00 AM».
I ask Malik: "What's the Sing Sing? Is it a hotel with a karaoke bar?"
Malik shakes his head: "Wrongdoingly, it's how the local criminals call Valletta's prison. Its official name is Rubin Carter Correctional Facility. Why? Do you want to sleep there tonight?"
It's not a bad idea. The United Secret Services will probably have stake-outs at the airport, at every bus station and even the smallest hotel, but nobody, looking for criminals, would think of checking the local jail.
"A friend of Khalid stays there. We'll pay him a visit. He might have some interesting information for us. Did you ever act in a play or a film? Can you speak with a high, female voice? Can you make anyone believe you're an old mother who wants to visit her dearly beloved son?"
* * *
"We don't have an appointment, Sir, but my old mother is dying of a broken heart. She must see her son or she won't live another day."
"According to her red eyes, your mother wants the merchandise that Mr Hurricane sells so generously. The answer is no."
"Her red eyes aren't caused by any addiction, Sir. She's crying so much. Her eyes got infected."
The chloride in the air in the swimming pool had turned Malik's eyes red, but if we tell the truth, we will never enter this prison. Malik adds a little sniffing and wipes away an imaginary tear with a paper handkerchief.
The guard looks her in the eye: "I don't see no tears."
Malik wines: "Sadly, I've cried so much that I have no tears left. I haven't seen my dearly beloved son for so long."
"A few centuries more won't harm you either. The answer is no.", the guard stubbornly insists.
Now we're so close, I don't want to give up: "Perhaps it's better if we have a word with your superior officer. Some men change their mind when a woman… when two women, two beautiful, irresistible women, ask him politely."
"My superior officer is only willing to change his mind when a woman behaves like a slut.", the guard says.
"That's exactly the type of man we like best. We'll get hired and you'll get fired. My mother and I are very convincing when it comes to asking politely in private. Too bad you don't have a little room here. We would very much like to give you a demonstration. Is it long ago that you were having a polite word with two women, two beautiful, irresistible women, at the same time?"
The gestures Malik and I make under our burkas are suggestive enough for the guard to change his mind: "We have a little room at the back, over there, where polite women can ask permission. Perhaps we should go there, so you can convince me to talk to my boss and ask if an appointment is necessary for direct female relatives of our guests."
Two capsules of Tumble Tornado later, mother Malik and I use the guard's keys to enter the visitors' room. On the other side of bullet-proof glass, the inmates can take their seats while they chat via a phone-like intercom. After a few minutes, Hurricane Mike comes in. He's black, he's big, he's strong, he's dangerous, but he's not happy to see us: he looks like thunder.
Malik can't take his eyes off him. He whispers to me: "Fashionably, why does he wear his undershirt on top of such an ugly, fluffy sweater?"
I whisper back: "That's not a sweater. That's his body hair."
The chair cracks but holds when Mike sits down. His voice is deep and dark: "Who are you? I killed my mother when I was five and, as far as I know, I don't have any sisters."
If I want Mike to become our drinking mate, I'll have to start with breaking the ice cubes first: "Hello, Mike."
"Call me Hurricane."
"We're your friends."
"I don't have friends."
"We're here to help you."
"I don't need help."
"We're here to help you get out of here."
"That means you're government. I hate the government. They put me in here. I'm innocent."
"We're not government."
"That means you're lawyers. The only thing I hate more than the government is lawyers. I'm innocent, but the lawyer that was supposed to defend me, helped the government put me in here."
"We're not lawyers either. You have one guess left. I'll make it easy for you: the only one who has enough power to get you out of this prison is a man called Khalid El Bullít."
Mike's muscles tense. He clenches his fists. His eyes spit fire: "The only one I hate more than lawyers and governments is Khalid El Bullít. I'm here because of him."
We're making progress, not exactly on the breaking-the-ice-thing, but we have Mike talking and he's giving us priceless information too.
"Listen, Mike. We're not lawyers and we're not government."
"Call me Hurricane."
Malik is getting nervous. He puts a cigarette between his veiled lips and lights it.
Mike protests immediately: "It's not allowed to smoke here."
I smile: "Since when do you act according to the law? Do you want a smoke too?"
"No. That stuff kills you. Those bastards who locked me up, I won't do them the favour of dying early. First, I'll cost this bloody country as much tax money as possible."
Malik tries to smoke through the cotton veil of his disguise. It doesn't give him the result he hoped for. With the burning tip of the cigarette, he burns a little hole in his veil so he can stick the cigarette through it while he smokes it, but the cotton of his burka burns faster than the tobacco. We have to put it out before the scorching turns into flames and his disguise goes up in smoke. Malik spits from the inside, I spit from the outside, and Mike laughs out loud: "To put it out, piss on your mother's face. I told you smoking kills."
This is getting better and better: Mike is laughing. Too bad all the ice has melted; a few cubes could put out the fire. I see a water cooler in the far corner. It saves the day.
Back in our seats, I continue our little conversation with Mike: "We're here to help you. We know you're innocent. You've been framed. We have proof of that."
Mike doesn't say anything. I've touched the right string on his soul. I'm learning how to play Frankenstein…
"We're on your side, Mike. We're here to help you. Let's make a deal."
Mike looks me in the eye, trying to figure out if he can trust someone with eyelashes, eyeshadow, eyeliner and powder, someone whose dark-brown eyes show the typical ring of coloured lenses that hide the original colour of the iris, someone whose olive skin comes from a make-up box, someone who dresses like a woman and talks with the voice of a man. Then he looks at Malik. Malik looks back.
Mike decides he doesn't trust us. That's no big surprise. He's a convicted criminal. A criminal who trusts anyone doesn't live long enough to break the criminal record.
"Why should I trust you?"
Malik takes over from me: "Confidentially, you shouldn't trust us. You should trust Khalid El Bullít. He will cut you into pieces with a chainsaw and throw you in Deepwater Lake."
"I don't know where Deepwater Lake is."
"Obviously, nobody knows where Deepwater Lake is. That's why you'll never be found. Do you know the story about Khalid's Corsican cousin?", Malik asks.
Mike shakes his big, black, bold head.
"Don't you want to hear it?"
Mike shakes his big black bold head; he doesn't want to hear it.
Malik takes a double negative «no» for a positive «yes»: "Historically, this story is from the time when Khalid was a rookie crookie. One day, he met Napoleon, a former hitman from Ajaccio, who had changed his career and was at that time a senior drug lord. Napoleon taught Khalid all the tricks of the narcotics trade, and Khalid helped Napoleon get rid of his Corsican competition. Eventually, Napoleon retired when his student Khalid graduated. Years later, Napoleon returned. He knocked on Khalid's door. He said he needed help. He hoped for credit. Amicably, his old friend Khalid hugged him and told his staff to prepare a huge dinner, to honour the visit of his Corsican cousin and mentor. After dessert, Khalid opened a bottle of 100-year-old Cognac Napoleon and served his friend a generous glass, while Khalid himself (you know he never drinks, smokes, or takes drugs) celebrated with a bottle of water from the ice of a glacier in Greenland that had been frozen for over 40.000 years.
» «Let's talk business. Why are you here?», Khalid asked.
» Distractedly, Napoleon took a steak knife from the table, tossed it in the air, caught it at the point and lifted it, ready to throw it into Khalid's throat: «I have a money problem. I need 100 million euros.»
» Khalid smiled and asked: «Is the Corsican mafia bothering you? Or is it one of the Sicilian families? I can handle that.»
» Napoleon didn't smile. He was dead serious: «Mafia I can handle, but this is much bigger, too big for me, and too big for you too. It's the French tax office. They found out how many men I'd killed and calculated my income against an estimated fee of one million each. Now, they want half of the profit.»
» Amusedly, Khalid asked: «You come here for a loan? Or do you expect me to give you the money, just like that?»
» Napoleon looked at the lethal knife in his hand, shook his head and explained: «They put a price on your head. 100 million. I come to collect it. It's exactly the amount I need to settle my debt with the taxman.»
» Khalid roared with laughter: «And after you've killed me, they tax you for 60% of the 100 million income, and then they'll estimate that all your other kills were worth 100 million, which leaves you with a debt of (he took his phone, started the Calculator app and pressed several zeroes) ten billion euros in taxes for delivered services. Governments are worse than the mafia. First, they pay you for your work, and then they steal it back, calling it «taxes». They even invented The Law, to make stealing legal for the democratically chosen top criminal of the country. You shouldn't trust those people, Napoleon.»
» Conspiratorially, Napoleon hesitated to finish the conversation and finish the life of his friend: «Would it be better to trust you?»
» Khalid laughed out loud: «How long have you known me, Napoleon? Fifteen years? You know me better than my wife does. You should have known that I would never trust anyone who comes here, to my house, while he could have called me on the phone. Why didn't you send me an email? That's why I served you the Cognac Napoleon, with a strong enough taste to hide the bitterness of the added arsenic. Do you feel it burn in your stomach? Did you think the sweat on your forehead was because of the summer heat? I have people working for me at every tax office in the European Union, Napoleon. Did you think their greed is something they were born with? I trained them, of course.»
» And then, fatally, Napoleon dropped dead on the floor. He was Khalid's best friend, his Corsican cousin, so Khalid allowed him the pleasure of knowing why he died. Usually, he's not so generous."
Mike looks at Malik with small eyes: "How do you know all that?"
"Confidentially, one of his slaves, the one who served during the dinner, then fed Napoleon's corpse to the sharks, wrote the whole story down and sold it to me for the price of a ticket to nowhere plus a new identity. I know people.", Malik answers.
Mike shakes his head again: "I don't know you and I don't trust you. You don't scare me with your stories."
I know a better way to scare Mike: "Malik explained why you can trust Khalid. He'll find a way to kill you, even whilst you're here in jail. Do you want to be killed? Do you have a death wish, Mike?"
"The only one I wish dead is Khalid, but you've just placed yourself on my list as number two."
"I'm sorry for you, Mike. You're all in. We're out. That makes it easy for us to find Khalid and kill him, while you can only kill time until they release you. How many centuries do you have left?"
I'm guessing, of course. We have no idea why Mike is in jail, but Mike is now so furious that he gives us classified information for free. Fear is a great motivator.
"When I get out of here, in 3.014 years, I'll break your neck. And don't call me Mike! Call me Hurricane!"
"I thought murder in the first degree was only 3 to 5 years."
"It is."
"Now all the criminals in their coats and ties are free to drink tequilas and watch the sunrise while you're sitting like a Buddha in a five hundred square metres cell, an innocent man in a Maltese hell."
"I'm innocent."
"We have proof of that. Tell us your story and we'll show you how we can clear your name."
"I don't want to clear my name. I want my reputation back, I want my wallet, the one that says «bad motherfucker», and I want my revenge."
"You'll get it. Tell us your story first. Your version. Not the official one. We know you've worked for Khalid. We know that the judge, the cops, the witnesses, and part of the jury were on Khalid's payroll. They won't help you, by the way. The boat on which they celebrated the outcome of your trial had an unlucky accident and they all ended as shark food."
I hope Mike believes my little lie. If he's had any contact since with any of those people…
Mike takes a deep breath: "I had to deliver a message to a man called Bello. I would meet him in that bar, Valentine. He would wear a red rose on his shirt. I had to be there at midnight. When I entered the bar, I saw three men with roses on their shirts: red roses of blood. Someone had come in earlier and killed them all. The smoking gun was still on the table."
"Why didn't you walk away immediately?"
"I see dead people all the time. First, I checked their pockets and took their cash. Then I checked the register and found it empty. At that moment, the cops came in. It was a set-up. Someone gave them a tip. I hadn't been in that bar for more than two minutes."
"There were no fingerprints on the gun."
"When I'm working, I always wear leather gloves."
"If you didn't fire that gun, the lack of gunpowder on your gloves could prove your innocence."
"I use those same gloves during my practice hours at the shooting range. There were traces of gunpowder from fifty different guns on them."
"And then you had a problem…"
"That problem was just a minor problem. Three murders would mean 9 to 15 years in prison. With the usual discount for good behaviour, I would be out in 4 or 5 years. But then they found a bank account in my name. A statement from the bank showed that a man called Sepp Bladder had paid me 1,8 million Swiss francs. Mister Bladder testified: he'd bought my help to get him elected. The tax office testified too: I'd never declared that income. They declared me guilty and sentenced me to 3.000 years in prison. And they kept the 1,8 million Swiss francs too."
"Do you think Khalid was behind it?"
"I can't think of anybody else."
"And now you want to kill Khalid?"
"I can't think of anything else."
"We can help you, Mike. Give us information about Khalid. and we give you Khalid. Do we have a deal?"
"What happened between Khalid and me stays between Khalid and me. The government put me in here, and I won't help the government against Khalid. You get me out of here first. After I've killed Khalid, I'll give you all the information you want. That's my final offer."
Mike can't see my triumphal smile behind my burka. Too bad. It's an Oscar-winning performance. I hope the twinkle in my eyes does the trick: "You're making a mistake. You seem to think we're respected businessmen. Unfortunately, we're not. We're criminals too. We lied to you: we're not interested in getting you out; we're interested in getting Khalid in. When Khalid is your cellmate, we take over his business. If you cooperate, we promise you we won't kill Khalid ourselves. We'll leave that to you, with pleasure, so you can have your revenge. Make it look like an accident…"
I suspected Mike to go berserk, but he stays cool, even flashes a smile of admiration: "You're good. I see I can trust you. What do you want to know?"
This time, my hidden smile is real. A reliable criminal will always be trusted more than a shady businessman.
"What does Khalid look like?"
"I don't know. I've never seen him in person. He sent envelopes with money and instructions. I moved closed crates from one side to another. I took suitcases from one man and delivered them to another."
"Where can we find Khalid?"
"Rumours say he owns a nightclub, Sandman. I've never been there. If you're black, you might as well not show up in that neighbourhood."
"Discrimination?"
"No. Reputation. Those white executives there think every black man sells expensive drugs and cheap women. I'm a respected businessman. I don't do whores and scores."
"I thought you were a criminal."
"You know nothing. When I was young, I started my career by beating up the people in my poor neighbourhood for protection money. When I had enough money, I started to grant loans, beating up the poor people who couldn't pay my usurious interests. I worked hard but stayed poor. And then I started to think: poor people are poor for a reason. Poor people work at least as hard as rich people, but they'll always stay poor because they fight each other for the little money that goes around. Doctors get rich by selling legal drugs that are more expensive and more addictive than the illegal stuff on the streets. Rich countries live in peace and sell guns to poor countries to fight wars. I moved to the rich business part of town. There, I did more or less the same work as before, but instead of living a poor life with a big chance to end up in jail, I lived in luxury with a big chance to end up as the mayor of Valletta or perhaps even as President.
» That was my dream. I wanted to be the Champion of the World. I wanted to be the President who ended the misery I was born in myself. Begging in the streets and sleeping under bridges are prohibited for everyone, not only for the rich! I would personally kill every beggar, shoot every drunkard from the slums, and solve poverty, once and for all. I wanted to become the first President of the Maltese Empire of Terror, a rich and democratic empire, of course. I wanted the people of Malta to love me. Do you know how many love affairs some Presidents of the U.S.A. have? Some of them screw the entire country! I wanted that too. I wanted to be elected. I wanted people to want me.
» If you're honest, hard-working, and poor, nobody wants you. If you're black, Muslim, Mexican, gay, or female, nobody's even interested if you're hard-working and honest: nobody wants you. Now take a gun and rob a bank, better, shoot someone, best of all, shoot lots of people: you're wanted. You're wanted so much that the government actually pays thousands of dollars reward for you. They spend tax money on your lawsuit. You can live in a highly protected house without paying rent. They pay the servants who do your cleaning and washing. You get three meals a day and free healthcare. You will be on the news every day. And when you decide to write a book, everybody buys it and helps make you a millionaire.
» But thanks to Khalid, I can't vote or be elected any more. My plans to become the first President of the Maltese Empire of Terror stay in the refrigerator for the next three millennia. I want my revenge…"
"We'll make sure you'll get your revenge, Hurricane."
Hurricane slams his huge fist on the table: "My name… is Mike!"