David Bruns - Weapons of Mass Deception

Then he reeled toward the low railing and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Rafiq stood at the rail of the Ottawa , squinting at the distant lights of Thunder Bay.

Barely a ripple disturbed the image of the half-moon reflected in the still waters of Lake Superior. Dead calm. If he believed all the songs these people sang about the Great Lake Gitchi Gumee, this was a rare condition indeed.

A flash of movement on the southern horizon caught his eye, and he snapped the binoculars to his eyes. A motor craft, running lights extinguished, was headed directly toward them. He breathed a soft sigh of relief.

The captain appeared at his elbow. “Is that him?” he said in English. The man’s hands beat a nervous tattoo on the railing. For him, this was the most dangerous part of the journey. Rafiq’s forged seaman’s papers showed him as Indian, and the captain could plead ignorance in the unlikely event they were boarded at sea. Smuggling a person across an international border was another thing entirely.

Rafiq nodded. “Calm yourself, Captain. I’ll be gone in a few minutes. You’ll be well paid.”

To be fair to the captain, this was a change of plans. The original plan had been for Rafiq to go ashore in Thunder Bay, but his last-minute contact with Charles Whitworth had changed the game entirely.

The luck of the draw had made Charles — he preferred “Chas”—Whitworth his freshman-year roommate at Carleton College. As the only son of a prominent Wisconsin real estate developer, Chas’s life was filled with expectations, which he’d spent the greater part of his eighteen years of life not meeting. His father had tried everything: counseling, military school, rehab, Outward Bound wilderness programs, anything to make his son take his responsibilities seriously. Carleton College was the last straw. Daddy had bought his way into the freshmen class with a generous donation to some building fund and Chas was given an ultimatum: graduate or be disinherited.

To Rafiq — he went by the pseudonym of Ralf Faber in those days — the answer was obvious. The only thing Chas wanted was what his father refused to give him: his love and respect. Rafiq/Ralf saw an opportunity in this broken, spoiled man-child. The money, the political connections, the access to powerful people at the state and national level — if he could make Chas successful, Ralf would be able to use those assets someday.

His training in Hezbollah and with Hashem had taught him to watch for ways to cultivate people, and the biggest bet of Rafiq’s many years of cultivation was about to reap a fabulous harvest.

To be sure, his time with Chas had not been easy. His roommate was a habitual drug user, a drunk, and read at barely an eighth grade level. Ralf got his friend clean, tutored him in his classes, and, when necessary, did his assignments for him. They were roommates and friends their entire four years of college. Chas gained the respect of his father and a fast track to becoming CEO when his aging parent passed away.

A week before their graduation from Carleton, Ralf produced a letter from a prestigious, and fictional, brokerage in London where he had landed a job. Chas’s face fell; he’d hoped that Ralf would take a job offered by his father and they could stay together.

On their graduation day, Chas hugged his friend Ralf fiercely. He was near tears at the thought of being separated from his friend. “If you ever need anything — anything — you call me. Anytime. Anywhere.”

Tonight, more than a decade later, Rafiq was here to collect on that promise.

He ran lightly down the ladders in the ship until he reached the small landing that jutted from the stern at the waterline. The boat approaching was a forty-footer, sleek, with a covered cabin — a rich man’s pleasure craft. He caught a glimpse of the name on the fantail: Marauder . How appropriate.

“Ralf? Is that you?” The voice was Chas’s, but coarser, roughened by years of smoking and drink, he suspected.

He slipped easily into his American accent, a vague Mid-Atlantic blend. “Chas? Toss me the line, buddy.” He caught the line on the first try and secured it to the cleat on the edge of the platform. Rafiq leaped into the boat.

The ladder creaked as Chas descended from the upper-level cockpit. Even in the shadowy light, Rafiq could see his old friend had grown obese. A hug confirmed it. Chas’s breath wheezed even when he was standing still. “God, it’s good to see you, buddy.” He paused for breath. “Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff, anyway? I feel like a smuggler.”

Rafiq laughed. “Oh, funny story, you know. I’m a journalist now and doing a story on cargo ships and working conditions. Well, wouldn’t you know I lost my passport.” He lowered his voice and leaned in. “I’m thinking maybe one of these guys on the ship stole it. Passports go for good money on the black market, am I right? Anyway, the idea of landing in Canada without a passport and having to go to the embassy and all that. Then I thought about you and figured why not call Chas?”

Chas had reached behind him into a small refrigerator and pulled out two beers. He cracked one open and took a long pull. He handed the other to Rafiq, who opened it and pretended to take a sip.

“Look, this actually is illegal, so how about I get my stuff and we skedaddle?”

Chas nodded and drained the last of his beer. He threw the empty container over the side.

Rafiq ran back up to the main deck. The captain was looking down on the Marauder from the railing. Keeping back from the rail, Rafiq extracted a smartphone from his jacket. He logged into his account and did a wire transfer of $50,000 to the captain’s personal account in the Caymans. He showed the confirmation to the captain.

Rafiq could see the man’s broad smile in the dim light. “Go,” the captain said.

Chas was deep into another beer by the time Rafiq dragged his black packing case out onto the narrow platform. He surveyed the open water gap to the edge of the boat. It was large enough to allow the crate to fall into the water. He leaned back into the ship and called up the ladder. One of the cook’s boys, a Syrian refugee, was loitering a level above. With the boy’s help, he lifted the case across the gap and safely into the boat. Chas had not moved from his seated position.

“What language was that you were speaking?” Chas asked.

With a start, Rafiq realized he had spoken Arabic to the boy. He forced a laugh. “I travel a lot, so I pick up stuff here and there. Is that my beer?” He hefted the can toward Chas and took a long drink. The bitter liquid burned his tongue and the carbonation made him want to sneeze.

“Let’s take off, eh?” Rafiq said in a fake Canadian accent. They used to watch the movie Strange Brew almost every weekend at Carleton.

Chas heaved himself to his feet and started up the ladder — after he stuffed a beer in each pocket of his shorts.

The ride to Bayfield, Wisconsin, took nearly twelve hours.

By the time the sun came up, Chas was drunk enough that Rafiq took over the pilot duties. The sight of his old friend in the soft light of morning made Rafiq sick to his stomach. The Chas he knew from college had been a slim young man with wavy brown hair and soft hazel eyes. The beast that snored behind him was a mountain of sweaty flesh with heavy jowls the color of rust and wisps of gray-brown hair swirling around his face. The eyes — when they were open — were bloodshot pools.

They’d talked for the first few hours, before Chas fell into an alcoholic stupor. Rafiq found it surprisingly easy to fabricate a backstory about his life since graduation, mixing in facts about Nadine and the children with fictional elements.