The Ghost Runner
Authors: Parker Bilal
Contents
Also available by Parker Bilal
Denmark, February 2002
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The wind cutting across the dark, deserted streets was an icy blade that dug deep into his bones. He shivered and, for the millionth time, cursed his luck at having landed in this country. Seven years he'd spent here and not a day went by when he didn't wish himself elsewhere. A warm place at least, if not home. The weather and the constant reminder of his being different. It had strengthened his sense of purpose. That much was true. If he had never known Westerners before coming here, now he felt he knew them well enough to last a lifetime. His features, his skin, his faith, all marked him apart. For seven years he had lived as a shadow. They looked down on him, almost as if they expected him to apologise for his existence.
A gust of icy wind cut short his thoughts. It whipped through any amount of clothing you cared to put on. It made his head ache. It was inhuman to expect anyone to live under these conditions. The rain that poured down day after day, week after week. The locals didn't seem to care. The way it ran off their backs they might have been ducks. Muttering a silent curse under his breath, Musab hugged the cheap jacket to him and carried on walking. Already he was beginning to think he might cut short his evening stroll. The wind that shook the bare trees made him uneasy and he had the sense that something unearthly was about to come down on him. As if summoned from his thoughts, a handful of snowflakes flew out of the darkness to strike his face. He let out a groan of dismay. Underneath the long parka he wore a gelabiya and beneath that a set of thermal underwear he had purchased from a Turk bandit in the market in Aalborg. The kuffar had overcharged him, despite all the
aleikum salaam
s that Muslims used in this forsaken corner of the earth to lull you into a false state of trust.
Pausing for a moment at the corner, Musab turned to gaze back the way he had come. The large black Transit van was still there. Its lights were off, but from time to time he could make out movement inside the darkened cab. He was not unduly worried. He was aware that PET, Politiets Efterretningstjeneste, the Danish intelligence services, were keeping an eye on him. It wasn't surprising. In the last few months everything had changed. Ever since the attacks on the United States last September they had taken a renewed interest in him. The people of this country had taken the attacks personally, as if they had been launched against them, not against the great Satan of the United States. Sentimental. They sucked in all things American unquestioningly, so that their own culture was barely distinguishable. He had watched from his living room, images of the Twin Towers tumbling down. It had dug deeply into him, a sense of pride, yes, not that he had been involved in any way, but at the audacity of it, the nerve to pull off the most spectacular attack in history. Carried out by young brothers, devoted to the jihad. He had watched the images on the news of people weeping in the streets here. They took it personally. They held memorial services, in schools and warehouses. The nation wanted to send a message of sympathy. It made Musab laugh. How stupid. But he felt the change soon after that. Taxi drivers were dragged from their cars and beaten, for wearing a turban. Nobody cared if it wasn't Muslim. Women had their headscarves pulled off in the street. Children were set upon by their classmates. He himself was spat on in a train station. Nobody turned a hair. It was as if 9/11 had released a hatred that had always been there, simmering just below the surface. That was when they had hauled him in. Once, twice, three times. Always the same questions. Did he know of any attacks planned for this country? Did he understand that his permission to stay in this country was conditional on his co-operation? This was a bluff. They were legally bound to defend his right as a political refugee, no matter what his opinions were. That much he knew. The Danes prided themselves on being progressive, on defending the weak and the downtrodden. They couldn't just turn on him now. His lawyer had made this clear. They couldn't touch him. So instead, they kept an eye on him. It wasn't a problem. He had noticed little signs. Phone calls where nobody was there when you lifted the receiver. Amateurs. They left little traces of their presence everywhere they went.
Laughter and music spilled over him as a car rolled by. A young man stuck his head out of the window and yelled something that was snatched away by the wind. A bottle flew by to splinter against the ground as the car accelerated away in a trail of curses and cackling howls. Drunken fools on their way to hell. The music sank into the silence as the car disappeared around the next corner with a screech of rubber. There was a chance they would come back, if it amused them to humiliate him further.
Musab had spent three years in an asylum holding centre, a rusty old passenger ferry docked in Copenhagen harbour, while waiting for his application to be processed, for the various offices to verify his story, to investigate his claim that he was a political dissident. In the end they concluded he was telling the truth, that if he ever went back to Egypt his life would be in danger. They granted him the right to stay in this country, fruit of their noble aspiration to be seen as civilised and humane. It made him laugh. Where else in the world would he be treated like this? They had no idea what things were really like, away from their fairy-tale land. Still, they didn't just set him free. There were conditions. The state declared he was to be sent to a remote town in Jutland. It might as well have been the moon. There was nothing and no one here. The long winter nights were interminable and the wind was cold and merciless. At night the lights on the fishing trawlers in the harbour bobbed on the water, the sea as slick and heavy as diesel oil.
His face was numb with cold, his lungs ached with every breath. In the distance he could make out the hum of cars passing on the motorway. Really he had nothing to complain about. His needs were taken care of. He had a roof over his head and there was no work for him. The state provided him with clothes, furniture, food, spending money. Musab was in no doubt that if he went home he would be arrested, just being abroad under these circumstances would have made him look guilty of something. And if there was one thing in life he didn't want to do it was return to an Egyptian prison. So he bided his time though the idea of returning home was never far away. He longed for the familiar sounds and smells, to be among people like him. Sometimes the loneliness was so bad he wondered if death might not be a better alternative.
Another car raced by, disturbing his thoughts. A halo formed around the street lights, each orange orb glowing like a matchstick. The snow was now blowing in thick flurries, out of the darkness, across the bare fields beyond the houses. The soft flakes filled the air like weightless insects, glowing like warm silver in the orange glow of the overhead lights.
The Transit van slid up behind him, a smooth, silent shadow that he felt rather than heard. His woollen cap pulled down tightly over his ears. Overhead, the tops of the tall trees stirred in the wind. He had just begun to turn when something hit him from behind, pushing him to the ground. The air was knocked out of his lungs and he lay on the icy ground, stunned, unable to move. A snowflake landed on the pavement in front of his face. He watched it, suspended between the blades of a tuft of grass. For a brief second it remained there. Then it vanished and was gone for ever. It was the last thing he was to remember from this place. A jolt of current went through his body and he blacked out.
When he tried to open his eyes he found that he couldn't. He felt an engine surging beneath him. His body was numb. Through the narrow gaps around the blindfold he caught a fleeting glimpse of light and shadow hurtling past him. Then he passed out again. When he woke up he breathed in the dragon's breath of aviation fuel, heard the screech of jet engines warming up. Now the cold vanished from his bones, replaced by fear. His feet scraped along the tarmac as he was carried between two powerful men, then up a short flight of steps. His wrists were strapped together. He could not feel his legs. A needle went into his arm and the world seemed to float away from him. The engines rising to an insane scream as they hurled along a runway. He lay like a corpse, unable to lift his head.
After that there were confused snippets. Flashes of the world turning around him. A glimpse of unfamiliar stars through a porthole. The jolt of a landing. Voices. Again into the air. The same plane or another? Some part of him was aware that he ought to be taking note of what was happening around him, but the rest of him was so far gone that he didn't care. He was floating in a stream of warm fluid. Even turning his head was a challenge. Night passed into day and then night again. The next time he opened his eyes he was shivering inside a narrow cell so dark he could not see his hand in front of his face. He was naked but for a filthy diaper around his loins. It stank like a cowshed. Where was he? He was hungry and freezing. Most of all he was scared. He seemed to have fallen off the end of the earth. The door was flung open and two men stood there. One of them opened up the jet of a high-pressure hose and he was flung back against the wall by the force of the water. It was so cold he felt his heart stop. He gasped for air, convinced he was going to die, to drown, or have a heart attack. When the water subsided the two men entered. They threw a set of clothes at him. Underwear and a jumpsuit and waited for him to dress. Then they manacled his feet together and tied his wrists with a plastic loop that dug into his skin. Then he was inside another aircraft, only different, bigger this time and more noisy. He was stretched out on his back on a hard floor that vibrated with the hum of powerful engines. His eyes were covered.
âYou can forget about the world you know, buddy,' came the voice of a man bending over him to check his bindings, âyou're a ghost now.' Then the rising whine of jet engines and the movement of air around him. He lost track of time and sensed they were approaching their final destination.
