Umar threw a wild punch and Jonah ducked, coming up underneath the gangster with a blow to his jaw, dislocating it. Fear entered Umar’s frantic eyes. Jonah doubted the man could feel the pain, but that some deep part of Umar’s lizard brain screamed at him through the fog of the drugs that something was very wrong. Screaming at him that he’d need to finish the fight.
The gangster straddled Jonah and drew himself up to a sitting position, aiming a meaty fist at Jonah’s face. Jonah raised his arms in a boxer’s defense, but the punch blew through, a crushing strike against the side of his head. A second blow from the other side violently knocked his head the other direction and his arms fell limp to the ground. He knew he was losing the fight, losing badly.
The blows didn’t stop, and Jonah’s rattled mind spit out garbled, conflicting instructions. Only one thought rose to the surface.
So this is it.
He didn’t feel anger or sadness. But he did feel a twinge of surprise, as if sitting down to a novel and finding it stopped halfway through, the rest of the pages blank. Three years was a good run, sometimes the music stops and you don’t have a chair. Umar’s ruined face stared back at him, jaw hanging to the side, nose shattered, eye drooping as the gangster raised his fists back and prepared for the final blows.
A single gunshot rang out, and Umar jerked in surprise. He twitched for just a moment, then slowly tilted back, collapsing to the ground. Jonah crawled out from underneath his twitching form, dragging himself away without looking back. Adrenaline coursed through his veins like a raging river, as did anger — anger at the brutality, the suddenness, the unfairness, and most of all, the sheer randomness of the attack.
The silhouette of a man holding a pistol stood between him and the sun. Armed prison guards flanked him, each with varying degrees of disinterest painted on their face.
“Bring him to my office,” said a voice in clipped Queen’s English. “Gently.”
Several guards grabbed onto Jonah’s arms and torso. He allowed them to lift him to his feet, and even placed his arms across their shoulders as they walked him through a door in the fence and towards the medical trailer. The other inmates knew better than to watch, but Jonah did catch the worried look of one of the activists. It was never a good thing to leave the grounds of the courtyard, not even for a visit to the infirmary.
With the sun no longer silhouetting his form, Jonah got his first good look at the man who’d saved him. He recognized him as Dr. Hassan Nassiri, a man who no more belonged in the blight that was Prison 14 than did an orchid in the Sahara.
Dr. Nassiri had arrived the prior evening to great commotion and speculation among prisoners and guards alike. Most hoped he’d come to replace the current director, a drunken army medic with a penchant for thick-needled penicillin shots and a strong reluctance to distribute even the most innocuous of narcotics, much to the impotent rage of Prison 14’s addict population. By stark contrast, Dr. Nassiri was a military surgeon building a lucrative part-time private practice in Tangiers. In the prime of his mid-thirties, with clear, olive skin and long, dark hair framing a sharp, well-proportioned face, he was one of the finest examples of well-to-do Moroccan lineage, a product of generations of commingling between brilliant, wealthy men and beautiful, equally wealthy women. Though such families had long ago exited the aristocracy to the professional academic and medical class, everyone wondered what had brought such a man so low. What could possibly have reduced him to the purgatory of Prison 14? Incompetence? Heartbreak? Punishment?
The adrenaline from his fight wore off, and Jonah’s knees buckled. “Careful,” Dr. Nassiri said as the guards caught him. Following in the doctor’s footsteps, the guards half-carried, half-dragged Jonah past the medical tent toward a small mobile trailer parked at the far edge of the camp. Dr. Nassiri opened the door and the guards propelled Jonah inside.
Jonah stepped into a world of shapes and colors he never thought he’d see again. The trailer was richly appointed, with thick, comfortable carpeting, a single examination table and an imported Spanish-style writing desk. Dr. Nassiri took a seat in a comfortable green leather chair behind his desk, allowing the guards to unceremoniously deposit Jonah on the examination table.
“You may leave,” said Dr. Nassiri without looking up. The guards nodded and exited the trailer. Dr. Nassiri unlocked the lowest drawer on his desk and removed his pistol from his waist holster. Jonah caught his first look at the pistol that had taken the life of his attacker — an Italian-manufactured Beretta 92FS with markings of the Moroccan internal security forces, a simple 9mm firearm ubiquitous to governments and police forces worldwide.
Dr. Nassiri clicked the safety on and placed it in the lowest drawer, locking it. He took his medical kit from behind the desk and walked up to Jonah. He snapped latex gloves on his hands. “May I examine your wound?” he asked.
Jonah looked down at his stab wound for the first time in a few minutes, and was surprised to see that the bleeding had already begun to subside. He nodded, giving permission. Dr. Nassiri leaned close, probing at the ugly puncture. Jonah smelled expensive cologne.
“A small blade, the wound does not appear too deep.” Dr. Nassiri took an antiseptic sponge from his bag and began to clean the area. “And as to your face — I imagine you’ve taken worse blows during your incarceration. Any dizziness? Fatigue? Nausea?”
Jonah shook his head. He felt he’d just gone through a washing machine with a set of bowling pins, but only the stab wound concerned him. Dr. Nassiri produced a syringe from his medical satchel and filled it. He smiled apologetically and stuck it into Jonah’s side. Immediately Jonah felt the numbness spread as the local anesthetic took hold around the wound.
“This will need stitching, my friend,” Dr. Nassiri said.
Jonah met the statement with silence.
“You do not wish the stitches?”
“Give me the needle and thread,” Jonah said. “I’d prefer to do it myself.”
“I assure you, I am quite artful with such minor procedures.”
Jonah weighed raising a fuss, but didn’t see the benefit. The last man to sew him up was the drunk medic who’d done the job with rough, shaking hands. Jonah had the scars to prove it.
“Lie back, Mr. Blackwell,” Dr. Nassiri said. “This will take but a moment.”
Dr. Nassiri possessed the practiced, smooth mannerisms of an experienced surgeon, and accomplished the stitching with no pinching or pulling. When finished, he slipped off his gloves, washed his hands, and took two bottles of Pellegrino sparkling water from the fridge, giving one to Jonah.
“I’ve read your file, you know,” Dr. Nassiri said.
“Yeah? What does the DST have to say about me?”
“Thirty years of age. You come from… interesting… family stock. Your father, Donald Blackwell—”
Jonah gritted his teeth. It wasn’t the first time his traitorous family history had been thrown in his face. When his original DST interrogators initially discovered his identity and family lineage, they’d treated it as a grand coup and confirmation of his inherent criminality. And thirty? He still thought he was twenty-nine. He must have missed his last birthday.
“Your father, Donald Blackwell,” continued the doctor. “CIA station chief with two decades of service. Highly decorated. That was, of course, until he vanished when you were… seventeen, I suppose? Eighteen?”
The doctor pronounced CIA like see — aye — eh, letting each syllable drip off his tongue like poison.