Chapter Sixty-two

FOR THE TEENAGE boy in El-Mina, the run of good luck that had started with the unexpected gift of a cellphone continued unabated.

On a Wednesday afternoon, walking home from school, the phone rang and he spoke to the man who had given it to him. The Saracen said that he was calling from Germany, where he had been lucky enough to find both a mosque that conducted itself in accordance with his strict beliefs and a job that offered great promise for the future.

The boy started to ask questions, probably with the thought that he might one day be able to join the father-figure who had been so generous to him, but the Saracen cut him short by telling him that, unfortunately, he was heading to work, time was short and he had to listen carefully.

‘Get a pen out – I’m going to give you an address. ’

While the boy sat on a wall under the shade of a tree and rummaged through his backpack, the Saracen explained that he had already posted him a key that would open the garage at his old apartment. Inside were the boxes of medical supplies he had spoken to him about. Remember – the expired vaccines with their official dispatch dockets already attached? Once the boy had received the key, he was to open the garage and fill in the following address.

‘Mark them to my attention, ’ the Saracen told him, ‘at Chyron Chemicals in Karlsruhe, Germany. I’m going to spell it out, starting with the street address. Okay? ’

Once he had finished, and had made the boy repeat it back to him, he said that he had already organized for the Beirut courier, with a refrigerated truck, to visit the garage on Saturday morning. Could the boy be there to meet him and unlock the door? Of course he could.

With that done, there remained only one more task. He told the boy to call the company in Beirut from which he had bought the industrial refrigerators and negotiate to sell them back.

‘Whatever money you get, you can keep, ’ the Saracen said. ‘That should guarantee you’ll drive a hard bargain, ’ he added, laughing.

When the Saracen told him what he could expect to receive for the items, the boy could hardly believe it – it was almost six months’ salary for his mother, who worked in a local laundry. He tried to thank him, but the doctor cut him short, telling him that he had to run to get to work on time. The Saracen hung up and, though the boy didn’t know it, it was the last time they would ever speak.

The Saracen stepped out of a public phone box next to the Karlsruhe market square and sat for a moment on a wooden bench. It was close now: in a few days the garage would be empty and the ten thousand tiny bottles loaded on to a truck operated by a courier company which specialized in medical supplies.

The boxes that contained the precious vials would be displaying genuine dispatch dockets from a Lebanese hospital, their destination well established as one of the largest producers of vaccines in the world, and all of them addressed to a man who was an authentic employee of the company’s warehouse department.