Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2023 07:29:15 +0100 (CET)
From: Boris Chen <borischenaz@mailfence.com>
Subject: Captured chapter 6 (Revised)

Chapter 06. Rescuing twenty children in Algeria.
Remember: this story is 100% fiction.

First, a little geography lesson.

The waterway at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea is called the Strait
of Gibraltar. It's about nine miles wide and almost 30 miles long and
almost 900 feet deep. The southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain
and Portugal) is a tiny island called Isla Tarifa. Long ago that tiny
island was a military fortress with cannons. Many people still believe the
southernmost tip is the Rock of Gibraltar but it's actually 12 miles
away. There is a busy Spanish port city nearby called Algeciras. Across the
bay from the busy Port of Algeciras is a small peninsula called
Gibraltar. The peninsula is about two miles north-south and one mile
east-west. The peninsula is British soil, much of it is a military base to
ensure the Strait remains open to British ships. Much of the peninsula is a
limestone mountain range with a 1200 foot peak at one end with a dramatic
near-vertical wall. During the wars the Brits installed large cannons, the
size used on battleships, they are installed all along the range. Today,
the Rock is a major tourist attraction with a cable car ride to the top. So
the entire Rock of Gibraltar was once a 3000 foot long non-moving
battleship.

Despite how it appears in movies the huge vertical rock wall faces away
from the strait towards the northeast, towards France, and it's at the
north end of the mountain range, the furthest end from the Strait!

They even have a tiny airport that crosses the entire peninsula along the
border fence. In order to drive from Spain into Gibraltar every vehicle
crosses the runway but they're blocked by gates for airplane traffic. The
entire area around Gibraltar and Algeciras is a very busy shipping and
tourist boat port. There's a train station nearby with access to the entire
EU. The shoreline of Gibraltar has hotels and places to eat and drink. If
you are going to stay in Gibraltar don't pay extra for a hotel with a nice
beach because the water is ice cold all year and there are well fed sharks
and Orca too.

Do a search online for Gibraltar Beach images and you'll see the beaches
are crowded but there are not many people actually in the water and most
that go in only go up to their hips, and very few get in up to their
necks. And there have to be people watching for sharks, probably in boats
and armed with harpoons. One of the most popular beaches on the south shore
has an actual anti-shark wall.

The Strait's narrowest point is about 9.5 miles across, but those points
are mostly just rocky coastline. From pier to pier (diagonally) it's more
like 22 miles. The strait is around 900 feet deep. There are a few tourist
ferries that cruise across with jet powered catamaran hulled boats that run
up to 40mph but you pay double for the faster speed. I usually take the
cheaper-older car ferry because its only 22 miles regardless, even rusty
old freighters go 10mph.

Like the English Channel, there are proposals to build a train tunnel under
the Strait of Gibraltar. But that area is seismically active (one reason
why most of the ancient structures in that region are ruins-like Carthage,
the fortress on Isla Tarifa, and other nearby castles).

----

The hotel room I leased was inside the old walled part of Tangier from when
it was a Roman fortress at the mouth of the Mediterranean 1,200 years
ago. But the neat thing was the hotel sat on top of a natural peak and I
got the one room with a view that included both harbors and the tiny Isla
Tarifa across the way, about 14 miles (from my window to the lighthouse on
the other side). State was paying the bill but I was obligated to negotiate
for a lower price. When I took the room I told them I had no idea how long
I'd be there, but we signed a six month lease to test the internet
performance and the location for the cameras and the RF sniffer.

I fully expected a small box to arrive soon with a camera, a mount, and
some kind of power supply to get the live video online. I could probably
screw the mount into the wood frame of the window and maybe the hotel owner
wouldn't notice it. The camera would need to be fully waterproof because
Tangier has a rainy season and the cam would be fully exposed to Mother
Nature and the sun too. They might use suction cups (on glass) instead of
screws or adhesive so nobody gets mad.

I worked hard to keep Jen from giving up on her plans but I had to stall
her because I needed more time. But I needed to see a familiar face and get
hugged by someone who felt like family and spoke fluent English. Then I
started getting weird calls from Daniel. He said he got the autopsy report
for his father. Not only did he rapidly develop stage-4 cancer of the
liver, they found a huge blood clot that ran from his left ankle to his
lungs. It appeared a chunk of it broke off and got stuck in his heart and
that's what dropped him, 'dick in the dirt.' Dan said he died instantly and
might have felt weird for a couple seconds then it was lights
out. Paramedics call that type of death a 'left main,' or 'the widow
maker.' If you get a clot in the first couple inches of your left main
cardiac artery it often drops you in your tracks, just like a burst
aorta. There are usually two things that drop people instantly and without
warning, those are a left main occlusion and V-fib.

Dan was freaked out and said his mother was making no sense so they put her
on anti-depressants but he asked her doctor to order a head CT. It
eventually got done and they found she'd had a stroke caused by... a large
blood clot. So she was put on clot dissolving drugs but those are not
without risk. Three days later she sliced the radial artery in her wrist
and quietly bled to death in the shower. So now Daniel had both parents to
bury and everything they owned had to be sold or pitched, he needed more
time off and his sister was beyond consoling and unable to help. He said he
rented a trash bin and started throwing away everything they owned just to
make progress. He described completely emptying one room after another and
another. He also said he was filing lawsuits against the doctor and the
facility where she was receiving treatment.

I could tell by his voice that Dan was messed up. I mean the guy lost both
of his parents in one month. They were just over 60 but that ain't too
old. But it seemed like his entire world was turning to shit. Dan even
started to cry on the phone, which has never happened in the past. We
talked for ninety minutes on a State Department secure satellite
phone. Personal calls were allowed within reason, but I forget the daily
limit for personal use. They issued me a sat-phone when they discovered all
electronic communications in Morocco were recorded and stored forever, even
if they were encrypted. Its slightly larger than a standard cell phone but
the antenna extends and looks ugly. And it ran on the US Government's own
private sat phone system. All of the calls were scrambled, but if you
called a local store it was not secure. Calls to other sat phones were
supposedly secure.

I started to doubt I'd ever see Daniel again, it felt like I was watching
my best friend slowly melt like Frosty the Snowman.

My boss told me I might eventually be transferred to the embassy in Rabat,
Morocco. Rabat was on the Atlantic coast between about 150 miles south of
Tangier, my new home. Like the Eagle's song says, "Ain't never been there
but they tell me it's nice." He said I'll get tourist calls when visiting
Americans lose a passport. I could verify their identity and submit the
paperwork to begin the replacement process. There are hundreds of thousands
of Americans that come to Tangier every year and hundreds live there all
year.

One thing I didn't know before about Morocco was its government is very
friendly toward Americans, a bunch of Hollywood movies are shot here when
they need desert scenes. One of the 1976 Star Wars desert scenes were shot
here too, but most were filmed in Tunisia. "Go that way, you'll be
malfunctioning within a day, you nearsighted scrap pile." That scene was
filmed in southeast Morocco. Some other films shot here were: James Bond
Spectre, Blackhawk Down, Gladiator, Inception, MIB-International, Lawrence
of Arabia, Bourne Ultimatum, Alexander, American Sniper, Kingdom of Heaven,
The Mummy, and WTF. The only one of those I've seen is Lawrence of Arabia
because I'm a fan of Omar Sharif. I've heard the film studios are about 100
miles southeast of Marrakech.

The series of horribly bad days finally ended for us and I breathed a sigh
of relief when the bad news stopped arriving daily. When shit happens to my
best friends it hurts me too.

Then I was asked to fly down to Rabat (the capitol of Morocco) to meet the
US Ambassador, so I went. Yes, Tangier had an airport, and yes they had
commuter flights (eight-passenger propeller planes) between the major
cities. If you're not in a hurry there is also passenger train service
between the largest cities. Pardon my sarcasm but in Morocco the train is
called High Speed, but it's high speed by the American standard where that
means it goes 81mph or faster. In the rest of the world, high speed rail
usually means over 150mph and sometimes over 200mph. America will NEVER
have high speed rail unless they build their own elevated tracks. If the
tracks are not elevated it will not be true high speed rail, like
Japan. America is really too large for a real high speed rail network.

I also noticed there were a lot of single young women in Tangier, and lots
of them were very attractive. They appear often in the coin-op laundry
places in town. And about half the population wears the Djellaba just like
in Oran, and the women wear veils. There's also quite a few elderly
American beatniks and hippies living here, waiting to die, getting high,
reading old newspapers, and sipping coffee in the cafes. It seems some of
them arrive at the same time each day and count down the hours until the
bars open across the country. Let me tell you, each day from 8-9pm is happy
hour across the entire country of Morocco. Little work gets done during
happy hour! You probably don't want to be driving then either. I think even
the Modesty Police quit each day at 7:59pm. You should avoid needing an
ambulance from 8pm-1am.

Since I mentioned it I should explain that it is common in this country for
there to be water use restrictions, and few people have clothes washers at
home. This is why so many people use the coin-op and they became kind of a
cultural thing in Morocco. It's not uncommon to see good Muslims do prayers
in the coin-op if they are there at prayer time. The first time I saw them
stop to pray it made me uncomfortable. It was kind of like when just one
person at the dinner table stops to silently say grace, nobody else knows
what to do so they all freeze. At the coin-op I keep on folding and
stacking.

After the nine-hour trip to Rabat and back home I got permission to let Jen
stay in my tiny room, she could stay with me if she could respect local
behavior rules, like they didn't want her getting busted by the modesty
police. She was in fact a curly red haired (former) wild child with two
college degrees and a rather nice body. I think the myth that red heads had
no soul didn't apply to her. I called her and explained the rules, I told
her my room didn't even have a sink and the bed was twin size. It proved to
me she really wanted to visit when she said my room sounded fine, she also
volunteered if needed she would gladly wear a veil in public.

Some layover times for her trip would be long, it would take her almost two
days to get to Tangier because of all the airline bullshit. If I know her
she'll keep researching and find another route with less time spent
waiting. Maybe her next-next trip will be much easier. This one was a trial
run for us. She's never been to Europe or Africa and I don't even know
where the airport is in Tangier. Maybe it's near Rick's Cafe? In the movie
it's near the runway.

----

During my third week in Tangier I was sent files on two fugitives
supposedly in town with warrants in the USA, both had rewards too. I worked
with city police and got one of them located and arrested him with my new
double sided velcro straps instead of traditional stainless steel
handcuffs. The first fugitive was wanted on arson charges in Alabama for
setting fire to an abortion clinic. She walked in the building with two
wine bottles full of gasoline and sprinkled it all over the floor and
torched the place, but nobody was killed. The building was destroyed and
she got away. The reward was fifty-K Euros.

When you turned-in a wanted person you must do it correctly to collect the
reward, and get a receipt or someone at the police station can shred your
paperwork and claim they apprehended the fugitive. It's never happened to
me but I have heard of it. Usually I turn them over to feds but sometimes I
leave them at a local police station. You need to read the reward sheets
and follow them to the letter and get receipts and if possible take video
too. While the paperwork is being done I sit at the desk with the cop and
together we call the phone number on the wanted poster so everyone hears
that I caught the fugitive and satisfied the reward criteria.

A couple of the ones with warrants I looked into were not really worth the
time, or the case against them was paper thin and full of holes. In their
case I wore my holster on the outside and tracked them down and told them
to leave Morocco, and all of them left within a couple weeks. There are
quite a few of the old hippies here with old expired warrants in the
states. Some of them threatened to leave the US to avoid the Vietnam War
draft, but they ended up here instead of Vancouver BC.

During my third week I handled two stranded American tourists and one
elderly tourist death. It was lots of paperwork and phone calls but I got
the dead lady flown in a cardboard remains box to Atlanta. The family has
to claim the remains there and pay for the plane ride too. Since burial
boxes are rather large the cost to fly a dead person is high compared to a
seat in first class. It sometimes runs triple the price of a first class
seat because the box and the pallet they are strapped down to take up a lot
of space in the cargo hold and require special equipment to load and
unload. A human remains box in the cargo hold takes up about the same
amount of space as three seats in first class.

----

Three weeks later Jen arrived in Tangier. She flew from Austin to Atlanta
to Rabat to Tangier. So she had a series of flights that took two days but
she kept pushing and made it all the way here with a small carry on case,
she only brought two changes of clothes and some cash ($3000 in Euros), her
cell and charger, passport, but not much else. When she first walked around
the corner into Baggage Claim she looked like a lost boy with ugly glasses,
but the dark curly red hair gave her away. I walked up to her in front of a
large crowd of people standing and waiting for their luggage to slide down
onto the carousel, we hugged and cried. Then I got us turned toward the
door and we got in line for the next taxi outside the terminal. She's from
Texas so the desert heat in Morocco was no big thing.

In the taxi she started to tell the entire story about her trip here but I
shushed her and said, "Tell me at the hotel." That was one of the few times
she actually followed directions from me. Jen is a true individual thinker
and not a follower. In the taxi ride to the hotel I pictured her flawless,
silky smooth tummy and started to get turned on. By the time we got to the
hotel I had a wet spot on my boxers! We held hands the entire way.

About 45 minutes later in (10 miles of) heavy traffic on the cross-town
boulevard we arrived. At first she didn't believe I was living in a closet
with two windows. The place had a twin bed with a desk, a 13" CRT color-TV
with rabbit ear antenna, a dresser, two large windows, two padded arm
chairs, and a shared bathroom that was cleaned daily. The entire inside of
the hotel had smooth white walls, rounded corners, painted concrete floors,
arched doorways, no air conditioning (it was two blocks from the ocean and
sat up high so it got a good ocean breeze daily), no cable-TV, but it
included internet and maid service. She sat there reading a hotel brochure
and asked me if I ever went to the roof patio, but I said I hadn't. In
Tangier I've learned to keep my expectations low, it's very different from
Texas.

At first I think Jen was mad that I was living in such a tiny space,
slightly larger than a small camper.

She walked over to the large window that looked toward the north (toward
Spain) and before she moved the window and messed-up the camera angle I
told her to not touch the other half of the window. She leaned out and
looked up and saw a six inch long black lens coming out of a plain plastic
box with two cables coming out, and three large suction cups holding it to
the glass. You turned a thumb screw to loosen the mount to aim the camera,
then tightened the screw. One wire plugged in the outlet strip the other
plugged in a USB port, but it connected to the net over cellular 4g.

The hotel overlooked the waterfront and the harbors, the smaller harbor was
mostly for pleasure craft. The hotel sat on a hill above the curved
waterfront boulevard. It's an old building with many coats of paint. I saw
a plaque in the lobby that said it was built in 1629. I think that meant if
there was a fire or big earthquake we're doomed. Everything in the hotel
was small, you can tell indoor plumbing was added long after the place was
built. My room doesn't even have a sink, but came with a large basin and a
pitcher for water. Because the coastline is curved it gives my windows a
wide view of the waterfront and both harbors (my total view is northwest to
south). The old harbor here (built by the Romans) is nearly gone but it's
still visible between the two modern harbors. You can clearly see my hotel
window on the shots taken on gmaps streetview along 'Avenue Mohammed 6th,'
look for the building next door to our hotel, it's called Restaurant Al
Achab Medina. My hotel room is about 8x16 and I bet in the entire
neighborhood there are no fire sprinklers or fire exits.

We stood at the window taking in the view, which was beautiful. It was a
little hazy today but if you looked in the right spot you could see the
light house on the other side. I gently aimed her head and rested my arm on
her shoulder and pointed to it. "Oh yah, now I see it." She commented about
the light house.

"Notice what's missing?"

"No what?" she replied without taking time to think.

"What we were always told sat at the southern tip of Spain, it's in the WW2
movies the most."

"Gimme a hint." She requested.

"Rock of..."

"That's right! I thought the Rock of Gibraltar was there, did terrorists
finally steal it?"

"It's about 12 miles away to the east."

"That is so weird. What's over there?" she asked.

"It's an island called Isla Tarifa, its about 1000 feet by 1000 feet in
size. There used to be a military fortress there and there are several
modern buildings but the fortress is in ruins. It's mostly just a
lighthouse now. It looks like the fortress had a parade ground in the
middle for the troops to practice marching and stuff and that's where the
lighthouse stands. It's just another expensive tourist attraction." She
told me she doesn't want to go see it, but she wanted to see The Rock.

With my arms around her standing at the window we also discussed dinner and
she told me she was starved and jet lagged. She wanted something filling
but no cross-town taxi adventures or anything on a camel. I laughed and
said there was a nice restaurant next door.

We got cleaned up and presentable and left the hotel. The restaurant is
behind the hotel but you have to walk around the block to get there because
the hotel and restaurant sit up against the old Roman wall.

We stepped down the white limestone steps to the sidewalk while discussing
the neighborhood, Jen said she wanted to see everything, we should walk
slowly because it was like going back in time. We slowly strolled down the
block and made two left turns. She said, "Your room has a basin and water
pitcher like it was in the 1800s, but where do you dump the basin?" I
paused for minute then said 'out the window, but look first.' Then I told
her '...the entire neighborhood was probably destroyed a time or two and
totally rebuilt after earthquakes. If you look closely at the old city wall
it makes no sense because it has wide ramps inside and out. On a fortress
wall exterior ramps would be built after tourism became a thing. Parts of
the wall look like an old stone fortress wall, but parts look like the
Great Wall of China, I think those are re-built parts. Some parts are tall,
others are wide. I think the wide sections face the water and the tall
parts face the desert.'

Jen asked why wider walls faced the water and the only reason I knew was to
resist cannon balls fired from ships.

Today, it's hard to imagine at some time outside the wall there was nothing
but sand, weeds, and grazing camels. Maybe there were a few Bedouin tents,
maybe a water well. Today it looks like suburban Las Vegas. I told Jen it's
like Chicago. If you look at Chicago today it's hard to imagine it was once
all swamps and sand dunes, flies and snakes. I thought Tangier was too
pretty to be authentic.

The streets were busy with tourists window shopping. They come in large
numbers to see the old Roman walls and buy shit they don't need. Watching
the crowds walking on the very narrow sidewalks got me wondering what
percentage of Tangier inside the wall is original. When it was built I
doubt they had city water or sewers but now they do somehow? I guess
somehow I doubt all these tightly packed old buildings are as old as they
claim. But perhaps their foundations were original. I suspect modern
Tangier is a replica of the original, maybe it should be called Stepford
instead of Tangier.

Back when it was a military outpost they must have had many outhouses and
water wells. Inside the walls they probably had lots of open space too,
then came civilization and high tech naval ships that made the forts
obsolete.

We stopped at a few of the trinket shops so she could look at stuff in the
windows or go inside. We looked at coffee mugs (made in China) that said
TANGIER on two sides and showed the outline of the old fortress walls with
a scattered few seagulls and palm trees. She looked at trays of silver and
gold jewelry and earrings (some made in China). They sold wall decorations
with desert symbols, like the massive sand dunes in southeastern
Morocco. We saw racks of post cards with brilliant night time cityscape
photos of Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakech (100 miles in from the
ocean). Some are coastal cities where most of the wealth in Morocco can be
found, the interior of the country is rather poor and has a farming
culture. She didn't buy anything but left the store when it got too crowded
(and loud) when another wave of British tourists arrived. I told Jen locals
say there are vast areas of southeast Morocco where it looks exactly like
Mars, except the colors are wrong.

We left the shop and walked around outside and saw the scattered few young
men standing along the perimeter of the market areas. They stand and watch
and seem to be doing nothing. They seem to think they are invisible, but
they're all young indigenous males, of military service age, slender and
physically fit, and they stand at the outskirts and watch the tourists walk
by . Their clothing always looks like it was purchased in bulk from the
Goodwill Store. It appears they are trying hard to not be noticeable, to
sort of blend into the view, but they are thick in parts of the city.

I told her some of what I learned talking to locals about Morocco while we
held hands and casually strolled around the block and paused at every shop
window so Jen could look at the shiny stuff. So many shops here
specifically target the female brain. It's as if humans had a gland in the
brain that when it saw small shiny objects it secreted some kind of natural
endorphin into the blood stream, but that same gland was shrunk by exposure
to testosterone.

I told her, "So Morocco has many ethnic groups, but the two big ones are
Sunni Muslims and Berbers. I have no clue what a Sunni Muslim is but the
Berbers are native 'Africans' they lived across the northern slice of the
African continent for thousands of years. Even the ancient Egyptians fought
the Berbers, but they are a distinct race with a varied appearance and they
are the reason why a piece of land was sliced off Algeria and the nation of
Western Sahara in the 1950s (the border between Morocco and Western Sahara
is still disputed). At the time it was seen as a worthless piece of desert
with nothing but rocks, flies, and sand. Morocco was supposed to be the
homeland for the Berbers, sort of like Reservations for Indians in North
America but many Berbers refused to re-settle in Morocco. The Berbers today
look pretty much the same as modern Egyptians, and I bet a lot of Egyptians
are Berber."

Then I continued, "The Strait of Gibraltar has been the home of many sea
battles since it is one of the most important waterways on the planet. Lots
of countries have tried to control it. Most recently, England defended it,
but I bet there are a lot of sunken ships on the bottom within 100 miles of
Tangier."

While she paused to look in a store window I asked her if she ever saw a
photo of what is called the Narmer Tablet? She said she saw it on TV, the
Pharaoh of Egypt invaded the coastal area and conquered northern Egypt and
killed the locals. Its shown on the Narmer Tablet, the dead men with their
heads cut off and set on the ground between their feet. Those people were
Berbers.

Jen stood there looking in the window of another gift shop that sold head
coverings made of silk and decorated according to Islamic custom. She said
other women were staring at her, walking around without a head covering. I
told her curly red hair is somewhat of an anomaly in this part of the
world, it's mostly out of curiosity. She finally stepped away from the
window and we made the first left turn. Luckily, this block had more fruit
and vegetable sellers and no motor vehicles, so we walked down the center
of the street and only had to step aside for a couple scooters.

On the second block I told Jen how I had my own theory that the world
wasn't populated from Africa, but from Indonesia. The migration of dark
skinned humans started in places like Australia and Borneo then migrated
west and settled southern India, then around the coast and eventually into
Africa. Then later they sailed further west and settled the Caribbean and
both American continents. In those places they were called Indians because
they looked like people from the west coast of India and the Indus River
Valley.

Jen held onto my hand as we stepped around elderly British couples looking
at every fruit on the cart. We rounded the second corner and I saw the
restaurant sign at the end of the block. So I continued my story, "In the
world there are places with a long standing reputation for anything goes,
in the modern world the capitol of hedonism was always Bangkok, Thailand,
but in the 1920s Tangier was added to the list. Misfits, eccentrics,
sodomists, heroin addicts, underground poets, musicians, Marxists, and
Beatniks came to Tangier and were allowed to do their thing as long as they
didn't kill anyone. Tangier swelled after World War 2 and today it still
carries the reputation.

But with Islam eventually came a brake pedal on the culture and the hippies
calmed down. Today it's still okay to get high in some cafes and pubs. But
I've never seen unconscious people sprawled out, pooping on the sidewalk,
or shoplifting. You pull that crap here and the cops will disappear
you. They have some kind of Modesty Police here now, I think some of them
are the young men we see standing around everywhere watching people walk
by. But nobody arrests the pickpockets or the Gypsies. When I see that it
ruins their credibility in my mind." Jen corrected me and said the Modesty
Police in most countries have no legal authority, just religious law. She
said even the Amish had their own form of the Modesty Police.

She said in public good Muslins appreciate the modesty police, but in
private they can cut loose, and invite friends over and do all sorts of
wild shit. For the sake of the public order (and safety of women) the
modesty police focus on public spaces They sort of subjugate women into
'safety,' if that makes sense. But you need to look at their culture and
how men treated women over the past two thousand years.

So I asked why there were so many of them and she said probably because
they can't get hired to do anything else. That's why so many young people
leave and never come back.

Then I told her that there are a lot of elderly gays and trans here, pseudo
intellectuals that still read Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal
Cassady. By then we were halfway down the block and I didn't see much
pedestrian traffic outside the restaurant. The street came to an end at the
wall, I think this area may have burnt down long ago, but the hill
remains. If you walked down to the restaurant but turned the to the right
you'll go up on top of the wall. I think it was turned into a tourist route
after their last earthquake. On the other side of the wall is one of the
bus stops where you can ride to any destination around Tangier.

If you're in an ancient walled city during a big earthquake a fire is
certain to start and the last place you want to be is trapped inside a
walled city. Those big wide ramps are actually fire escape routes. When
they were re-built they were made to closely resemble the original walls so
most people wouldn't realize it was only 70 years old. I thought it would
be funny if the architect that designed the ramps was actually Greek.

Eventually we made it to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. After the
long walk she wanted to sit on one of the benches on the sidewalk. Jen
gestured to the neighborhood around us and asked if this was what Tangier
looked like in 1939. I looked all around and told her this spot probably
hasn't changed much since the war, maybe its painted better today. In the
old quarter the utilities are mostly underground, except telephone cables
are usually mounted on the outside of buildings. But there are no poles
with ugly electrical wires to be seen in old Tangier. At some point they
must have torn up the streets and run sewer, water, and power into each
building. I told Jen when this place was built they probably dumped human
waste in a gutter that ran down the middle of the street. Tangier often had
a slight sewer gas odor to it in places. Since I came here I've not seen
any rats, but I have seen lots of cats.

After a rest I offered her my hand and pulled Jen to her feet and we walked
up the work limestone steps and stepped inside the restaurant. Luckily, the
hoards of British tourists were gone. It was getting close to dinner
time. Inside, this small restaurant appeared to be there for the locals.

We were seated right away, a round wood table with a candle and chairs for
three. This restaurant only had three windows and our table had a view of
nothing except each other. They were not busy, we were almost too early for
dinner, a clock behind the bar showed 4:55pm.

We both ordered fish fillets, string green beans, and rice. The fish
fillets were large and were lightly breaded and deep fried. We also got
tiny paper cups of tartar sauce and a bottle of catsup and malted
vinegar. The price ran about $9 per person for the meal which included a
drink. Refills are always sold separately in Tangier. We both drank water
with ice, it was too early for beer.

I got absolutely stuffed and Jen carried her green beans back to the hotel
wrapped in napkins. I put my arm over her shoulder and we buddy walked back
to the hotel, the sidewalks here were very narrow and uneven, just like the
streets. We saw a tall man walking down the center of the street, someone
on a scooter honked at him, he was talking on a cell phone and not paying
attention to the world around him. I told her it was probably a tourist
from Canada, they don't understand sidewalks.

Jen said, "No doubt, their sidewalks are buried under 6ft' of snow half the
year so they have to walk in the street." I told her I saw a report once
that said that more Canadian tourists die in pedestrian accidents than any
other nationality. "You mean they get run over walking in the street more
than people from any other country?" She asked.

"Yes, exactly. Sad but true, they really struggle with sidewalks."

Jen looked up at me and scoffed, "You are such a liar!" I hugged her
tightly and we had a good laugh.

That night we got in bed naked and I sat on her thighs and massaged her
backside with my fingers and a lot of Baby Oil. I think she was too tired
to do much, but she loved the back massage that went from her neck to her
knees. I never made it sexual but it was very intimate, which she seemed to
appreciate.

----

The next day we changed into shorts and tank tops and used the hotel roof
patio for several hours. It was small but nice and the ocean breeze was
cool but refreshing. It was one of the highest places in the entire walled
city so the view was tremendous. At 2pm we got dressed for going out in
public and stopped at a shaved ice shop and got tall glasses of hand
squeezed lemon on ice, which was full of pulp and very little sugar, which
was fantastic. It was very lemony and made my saliva glands ache but
reminded me of a Slurpy. With our tall cups in hand we went back to the
hotel roof patio and read books and listened to the sounds of the city. In
one direction the view was the blue water of the Strait of Gibraltar, and
to the south were the Atlas Mountains and the sprawling city and the towns
that sprung up around the old fortress. There was a constant breeze and the
sound of sea gulls cawing at invading predator birds.

When we're together we like to spend quiet time reading and being close, I
found it very therapeutic. Those times often slowly evolved into gentle
touching and flirting. I found if we flirted in the afternoon it meant we'd
probably be naked together that evening, but not always.

Jen asked about the Old Quarter so I explained the defensive wall and the
area called the Kasbah (which means: Fortress). I told her how the Old City
was divided into neighborhoods today and each one has an open air market
called a: Socco, it's sort of like a French-looking outdoor market and
public square. The streets are very narrow. Tangier was mapped out in an
era of donkey pulled carts on cobblestone streets, and it's still that way
today. The closer you get to the old port the narrower everything gets, and
there are lots of stairs built into streets and blind alleys. They have
very little signage and the streets are all named in French. The city was
originally mapped out in an era when some people had small 2-wheel carts
pulled by animals. As long as the animals could walk down the stairs they
allowed them to be built into the streets, Tangier is a hilly place.

Most people that are born and raised here never learn the street names
because the signs are tiny and badly worn, nearly impossible to
read. Anyone delivering in the walled city has to know the people and the
streets, otherwise forget about it. There is a delivery store near my
office, sort of like a reverse UPS Store, mostly for incoming packages that
people walk over and pick-up, drop a coin in the slot.

If you cannot walk half a mile on uneven sidewalks you should not visit old
Tangier. In most of the old city motor vehicles are blocked because they
don't fit and there is literally NO parking. But you do see an occasional
small delivery or service van or tuk-tuk.

A Beatnik poet back in the 1950s once said of Tangier: 'You walk into a
room and flip-on the switch and no lights come on, if that is intolerable
then you should never come to Tangier. People say '...it is an Islamic city
and they own it, we're their guests and we should behave accordingly. The
locals are amazingly tolerant but even they have limits.' One other thing
you notice early-on is the old city would be a death trap if it had a big
earthquake, but surprisingly it has city water, sewage, and electricity
plants. The power goes out here a few times a week, especially during
storms. I told her the old fortress part of the walled city is at the far
end with a view toward the northwest. She said she'd like to go see it. I
said it's too far to walk and we'd get lost anyway. Streets in the old city
are not on a grid, they're on a whim.

The Kasbah has a small museum, with very few exhibits and lots of bare
walls. Most of the displays are old drawings and photographs of Tangier the
1800s. They display some authentic 1700 clothing and furniture. They even
have some old bronze cookware and hand tools from long ago.

We stayed on the roof patio until it got too hot in the afternoon sun and
went back to our room. When we arrived the maid was just finishing the
bathrooms on this floor. There was no place for us to bathe together, Jen
suggested we use the beach but I said it might be illegal. I told her to
keep an eye on the beaches and notice you never see anyone go there,
they're all scared of the police and the constantly changing laws about
modesty. Then I told her they had sharks that came up into very shallow
water and the sea water here is ice cold all year long, like ten degrees
colder than Los Angeles. There were other reasons why their huge public
beaches here were always empty, but you can run your dog there as long as
you pick up after them and don't let them get in the water.

"Do they really have sharks?" she asked.

"Oh yes and Orca too, lots of beaches on the Mediterranean have shark
bites, so I heard."

Jen said she was going to take a shower but she's going to check the tub
for sharks first. I laughed and wished I could go along and watch.

While Jennifer was in the girls bathroom I went to the front desk and asked
if there was a place where a man and woman could bathe together and she
said yes, on the second floor, it was marked Family Bathroom but it was
only available by reservation. I asked if there were any openings today and
she said no, but late tonight at 11pm it was open until 5am. So I reserved
it for two hours (11-1) and paid in Dinars, that was eight bucks US
total. The room was lockable and we could burn incense. I assume that meant
we could smoke hashish in the bathroom too.

I told Jen that as far as I knew in this hotel all the rooms on our floor
and the 2nd and 3rd, none of them have in-room plumbing, only first floor
rooms had tiny bathrooms.

----

Hashish (aka: Hash) is a substance made from the most potent parts of the
Marijuana plant. In Africa it is refined and mixed with melted cane sugar
and molasses to become something that resembled peanut brittle. Some of the
Beatnik cafes make a treat similar to a granola bar with hard hashish candy
added. Its cut into candy bar shaped pieces and sold all around the city,
the Arabic name is unpronounceable by any Texan. But it's sold locally as a
substitute for smoking or injecting in public. I hear they take a baking
pan and fill it with roasted nuts and chunks of dried fruit then fill the
pan with melted brown hashish candy and put it in the refrigerator to
harden.

After a few hours they peel it from the pan and use a pizza cutter to slice
it into candy bar size pieces. They sell for around fifty Euros each, but
consider each one of those bars is like ten fat joints. And it won't melt
in your hand either!

Despite the formal illegality you can often smell drugs being smoked all
over this city, even today. The main things people smell in Tangier are:
the sea, drug smoke, sewage gas, and fish. Tangier has a lot of cats so
rodents are seldom seen. There are shark attacks on beaches all around the
Mediterranean so Tangier's beaches are risky. Around the world many shark
attacks happen in shallow water. The city waterfront has large beaches that
sit empty because getting into a bikini and catching rays with your husband
is bordering on a violation of the rules so only a few brave tourists dare
to use the beaches.

People told me smaller sharks come up into very shallow water looking for
children and dogs to grab and drag into deeper water. They said even water
ten inches deep is risky, and you won't see it coming. A small child could
probably sit where the waves end to build a sand castle and be safe with a
parent nearby watching. But there have been reports of Orcas coming up onto
the sand to snatch a live meal off the beach.

Back in our room I told Jen we had to kill time until 11pm so we decided to
go to a small cafe with a limited menu close to the hotel in another
direction, toward the northwest. We purchased a two gram cup of locally
made 'granola.' Lots of cafes make their own version but most of them are
very close to the same. The most important part is which cafe adds the most
Hash resin.

It was very sweet and crunchy and had a nice honey flavor too, but I think
all the sugar was needed to mask the bitter taste of the hashish oil. They
warned us the hashish candy is very strong, and that was no joke. I wanted
to put money in the juke box but Jen told me not to, since none of the
locals were either. Besides it probably didn't have any Glenn Campbell or
Charlie Pride CDs! She quipped and smiled.

I reached into my pocket and got out my cell and turned the volume down so
now we could barely hear it ourselves and played, 'Is Anyone Going to San
Antone.' We smiled, tapped fingers on the table, and bounced our heads like
a couple of stoned fools. When I played it again we stared in each other's
eyes and mouthed Charlie's lyrics to each other.

"Rain drippin off the brim of my hat, sure is cold today.

Here I am walking down 66, wish she hadn't done me that way."

I air strummed a crack in the table like it was the steel guitar. She did
the whistling at the end of the song too, it's hard to do when you're
smiling really hard. I think we played that song ten times and can't
remember a time when I saw her smile more than our short time in the cafe.

We also got glasses of the local wine-ish herbal drink. It contained
several locally grown herbs and spices, with added fruit and blended with
into a thick dark juice that was fine for sipping and served at room
temperature. Everyone got one glass just for walking in and taking a
seat. It tasted sort of like a fruit blend juice with a shot of cheap Port
wine added. I'd bet nobody ordered it while the bar was open!

The waiter walked up and we ordered a bowl of something like nachos and
cheese and split a glass of Sprite. Jen loves to split drinks and share the
straw. I could see the look on her face, I think she was getting horny
too. I saw that smile like she used to give me back when we were kids and
she was thinking with her vagina brain. In my mind I pictured her on her
back on the table with other cafe patrons cheering us on.

About the time our nachos arrived Jen slid her hand over and gripped my
left hand, I took that as a signal she was really high. I smiled and
watched her try to put nachos into her mouth without poking her
lips. Across the room everything started to look glossy and the waiter
walking quickly across the cafe had colorful trails behind him. Every time
Jen raised her hand to take another bite of the corn chip it left a smear
of color in the air behind it, that really caught my attention.

One entire wall of the cafe is tall windows, so the main attraction was
people walking around looking at stands of things for sale. Behind us if
you turned around they had a few TVs showing some kind of soccer game and
thank God the sound was muted. And they had local music playing moderately
loud which forced people to talk louder. The music was very acoustic with
lots of percussion and a few odd sounding guitar-like instruments. The
combination of the music and people-watching was very enjoyable, especially
noticing how the tourists dressed.

When a group of British tourists walked by I could hardly stop myself from
laughing. They looked so ridiculous how they acted and dressed. Jen stared
at me wondering what was so funny and I said the people outside all dress
alike in groups, it's like watching a line of Zebras walk through a herd of
Gazelles. She got a big smile and moved her chair and started watching the
tourists too. She reached over and held my hand again. Yes, I'd say I was
really high by the time the tourists walked by the cafe windows. We got in
a discussion which tourists looked like different zoo animals.

Just to make her laugh I tried to narrate the scene outside on the street
with the different groups of tourists mingling, and do it in a fake Steve
Irwin voice, but my Aussie accent sucks.

Eventually the nachos and the pop were gone. Our waiter delivered a tiny
receipt and I paid at the table, I think the bill in dollars was like nine
bucks! I asked to see the menu and he pointed at a chalk board on the wall
and said it changed daily, but it was impossible to read
(distance/lighting) so we smiled at him and holding hands we went back to
the hotel room and crashed for a few hours in bed. I had my cell set to
alarm at 10:45pm. I was actually super horny and nearly erect and wanting
badly to do what Daniel suggested, to service Jen with great energy.

We spooned together and I slipped my hand under her shirt and rubbed her
soft belly, then we fell asleep. If this was a real hotel with big king
size beds I'd sleep with my head on her belly, with my face against her
bare flesh. We did that back in Texas all the time.

----

The alarm went off and we got dressed as if we were going to the pool, but
we went downstairs to the 2nd floor family bathroom. When we got there the
door was wide open, the lights were on, and the room was hot and humid. I
think the previous couple just left, or maybe the maid just
left. Everything looked clean. I looked at the sink and saw the soap pumps
were full and the towels were new, dry, warm, and fluffy-soft.

We closed/locked the door and lit the incense smoker. The bathroom wasn't
big, the entire room was tiled. It had a long counter with two sinks and
had blow dryers on hooks on the wall.

The shower was a walk-in with two benches outside and lots of hooks, we'll
step behind the curtain and strip then step through another curtain into
the shower, I estimated was 4'x6'. It had two small windows up high on the
wall to vent steam outside to the dry air. There was one flush toilet that
was out in the open. The tub was the size of a four person hot tub, it sat
beside a large window with a view over the rooftops toward the beach and
looking east along the coastline of Morocco. Jen stood beside the tub
staring out the window because it was a beautiful view, all the street
lights and the ships at sea, the moon. It almost looked like Christmas
lights, they all twinkled. I made sure again the door was locked and shut
off the lights and walked up behind her at the window and pressed against
her back. The bottom of the window frame was about ten feet above the
walkway on top of the old city wall. Without realizing it she was standing
there with one hand under her shirt rubbing her tummy. I don't think she is
fully aware how often she rubs her tummy.

Jen had on a short sleeve men's shirt and gym shorts. I had on gym shorts
and a T-shirt. I kicked off my slippers and slid my hand under her shirt
and rubbed her baby soft lower belly. She closed her eyes and sighed and
leaned back against me. I gently kissed her neck and whispered that I
wanted her. She closed her eyes and remained still while I gently caressed
her. I knew doing that to Jen really lit her fire.

My hand went further up and encountered her breasts, they felt warm and
erect, I was nearly there too. Gently, I undressed her from behind then
quickly pulled off my clothes and moved her to the shower.

Slowly, I adjusted the faucets for our favorite temperature then soaped my
hands and started washing her entire body. I started with her arms and
hands, I washed each finger too. Then I did her legs and feet and moved up
and did her back and tops of her shoulders. Jen turned and wet her hair and
face and did them with regular soap while I carefully hand-washed her butt
and her crack and hole. She spread her legs so I could wash between her
legs. I felt her entire body tremble when I got to her favorite spots.

By then I was fully erect and dripping.

Next, I did her lower belly and saw she trimmed herself bald in front and
between her legs. I was trimmed short all the time.

Slowly I worked my way up and using two fingers I soaped inside her belly
button then carefully rinsed it out with the sprayer. Further up I got to
her ribs and did her sides and arm pits, which were also hairless - like
mine.

Next, I gently hand washed her breasts over and over and rinsed them
clean. I also licked her nipples (to taste her flesh), belly button, and
pleasure spot with my tongue, which made her tremble and whimper.

I stepped into her and held her against me, my dick smashed between our
stomachs. I asked her if she was ready for Act-2 and she softly replied,
"Yes."

I shut off the water and we moved back out into the dark bathroom and got
in the tub. I got on my back, she sat beside me and worked the faucets, I
told her to run the water up to the top of my hip.

After it was done she got on her side next to me and rubbed the front of my
body, massaged my tummy and carefully teased my nipples too. Then she went
down to my dick and gently held it with her palm, thumb, and first finger
forming a loop and carefully stroked the rim around my head, except it was
too thick to touch her finger tips together. She slid her fingers up and
down across the rim, her knuckles across my piss slit and it tormented my
dick powerfully, I told her I wouldn't last much longer.

A tremendous energy was focused on the final two inches of my erection and
when it became too powerful I couldn't keep still. My entire brain was
focused on what she was doing.

When I felt my orgasm begin I told her I was coming so she leaned over and
put the head against her tongue and stroked me to a powerful orgasm. My
entire body had muscle spasms for a minute after it ended. She silently
spit out my semen onto my belly then rinsed it off. Then we made out for a
while.

If she had taken advantage and asked me to marry her I would have said yes
to anything, but Jen was an honorable person. We snuggled in the tub for
about half an hour. I think I still had a few faint traces of high left
over from the Hashish candy earlier. I whispered to her asking if she still
felt it and with her head rested on my arm pit she nodded yes. We still had
some leftover, wrapped in foil in the refrigerator.

We decided to trade places, then I was on my side next to her with my hand
on her belly, one finger pushed down to the bottom of her belly button. She
wiggled around to get comfortable then I moved up to gently massage her
breasts, she slid her hand down to her belly and started to massage her
parts. I licked and kissed her right nipple and both of them got hard, her
hand was moving faster in her crotch.

When Jen wanks and gets close to orgasm there's a rhythm she likes, that's
usually my warning. When she gets there is when I suck harder on her breast
to draw more areola inside my mouth and massage the tip with my
tongue. That's when she usually starts to groan. My right hand was gently
massaging her other tit. When she was down to the final seconds and
breathing heavily I moved my body but kept her tit securely suctioned into
my mouth. I got up on my knees over her body and pressed my boner against
her belly and started sliding up and down then she really grunted through
clenched teeth as her orgasm started.

Finally she relaxed and her entire body became limp, I was close so I came
on her tummy, panting she asked, "D'you just come?"

I relaxed my entire body on top of hers with her arm still between us and
panting I told her yes, I did. I didn't say I thought I made one helluva
mess too, but she surely felt it.

"Nerd!" she whispered, trying to be funny and affectionate!

I lowered my mouth to hers and we gently deep tongue kissed for a while. At
least with my tongue in her mouth she couldn't call me names.

Five minutes later I got off her and opened the drain. I stood up and
offered her my hand. When the tub was empty we moved back to the shower and
cleaned up. We dried off then went to our hotel room and went to bed like
two spoons in the drawer.

----

We woke up at 6:45am when the sun shone in the east window, onto my face. I
moved my face to bury it in the hair on the back of Jen's head. But it was
too late, I was wide awake. Then she woke up and rolled on her back, we
smiled at each other.

We got dressed and used our assigned bathrooms. I don't mind really except
you gotta put clothes on to use it at 3am but the walk isn't very
far. Floor space is tight in this building, especially if you consider what
this 'Inn' offered when it was (allegedly) built hundreds of years
ago. Things that did not exist when the walled city was built were added
later on, and it shows: indoor plumbing, wireless internet, telephone,
electricity, natural gas, air conditioning, and room service. When this
place was built they might have not even had glass for the window openings,
just an oil lamp or two, blinds for the windows (to keep flies and prying
eyes out), a woven bed stand, head cushion, basin, and pitcher of water
hand pumped from the well.

And as you walk up and down the stairs you start to notice the building is
not square and plumb, almost everything is crooked. The stairs are crooked
and the walls lean slightly, and the hallways are not straight, but almost
every building in old Tangier is like that, except the modern hotels and
new construction.

There's no included breakfast here (or a place to offer it), we walked over
to a cafe for breakfast. The only item on the menu was a mash-up of egg and
potatoes (we call Hash Browns in the US) with goat sausage patties and
coffee. There was a twenty minute wait for a table. The note on the menu
said their Arabica coffee beans came from the African nation of
Cameroon. Their standard cup of coffee was considered a dark roast and
tasted a lot like espresso.

After eating we went for my daily walk from the hotel over to the
commercial port to take photos of all the cargo ships and if possible crew
faces too. My point and shoot has a pretty decent zoom, but it's still only
a 14mp chip. I discussed with Jen how we should try to look like dorky
tourists taking pictures of the 'big boats!' I assumed sooner or later
someone from the local government was going to bring me in for questioning,
what I was doing in Tangier and who I worked for. Taking twice daily photos
of the port will eventually attract attention, if it hasn't already. I know
for trains they call enthusiasts Foamers. I wonder what they call cargo
ship enthusiasts?

This is why I used my little Canon point and shoot camera instead of
something like a Canon 5d Mk2 with a two foot tele lens. That would arouse
suspicion around the port, so I look like a tourist and get worse pictures.

My passport clearly says I am a US State Department special employee with
diplomatic immunity. But in a 3rd world police building accidents can
happen, like your camera can get smashed and your shoulder might
accidentally get dislocated. So I wear sunglasses and a hat and I keep
moving. With Jen here we behave like we were a retirement age couple from
the UK. And we never talk to people except in cafes.

Once I started pointing out the men standing around busy tourist areas then
she started to notice them on her own. They're always in very good physical
shape, military service age young men standing around people watching. They
are usually seen in areas where tourists might run into trouble with
modesty laws. My theory was they were the much feared modesty police. As
far as I knew those laws only applied to Muslims, not to tourists. But that
law may have changed. Really, there are no experts on what the modesty
police can and cannot do. But one person told me they are not police, they
cannot arrest people. But if they catch a bank robber running from a bank
they could detain him and wait for the real cops, sort of as a public
service.

----

On this day I got an encrypted INR email about a fugitive. This was an
older man from the States wanted on embezzlement and financial institution
fraud (bank theft). He was supposedly dangerous, armed, and eager to not
get caught. They said he would use any means to remain free and he was
recently tracked in Tangier in an apartment complex (state-owned
(Section-8) complex near the airport). The fugitive was named Nelson Starr,
he was 69 years old and believed to be carrying as much as two million in
cash and jewels. The reward for his live capture and surrender to NYC was
two million Euros in cash, tax free, but only $300k in Euros if he was
dead. He was supposedly HIV positive, well armed, and also a heroin addict.

He was supposedly to be found in the company of a long-time traveling
companion, a young man (age31) named Oscar Rodriguez. Their latest booking
photos were old and looked fake. There was a warrant in the States for
Oscar too but no reward, he was also a suspect in a jewel heist.

Since I was technically on vacation I could have declined the case but I
asked Jen if she wanted to play True Crime Detective and she immediately
grew a broad smile and said 'Sure, why not, sounds like fun.'

We downloaded the files on Nelson and Oscar and printed the latest face
shots. The most recent was of Nelson when he got his driver's license
renewed. We spent the next two hours reading all the stuff they sent on his
criminal history, and notes about him personally.

Nelson was also wanted in the EU on charges of sexual assault, on a 62 year
old divorced woman near Paris, France. We discussed how to collect the
reward if he died during capture and I told her the best way was to cut off
his right hand and save it on ice. The DNA and fingerprints would match and
the injury would prove he was dead. For some reason surrendering a
criminal's right hand was always accepted as proof the person died
resisting arrest.

I even downloaded a copy of his birth certificate and grade school
records. I asked Jen if she wanted to go and excitedly she said "You bet!"
We walked around the block again but turned right at the restaurant and
hiked over the wall and down to the main boulevard where they have six bus
stops all in a row. We got on the bus and headed for the neighborhood near
the Tangier airport (southwest side).

It took over an hour to get there. In the southwest area are the newest
parts of Tangier. It looks like mile after mile of four story apartment
blocks with a scattering of sandwich shops and some service shops and
coin-op laundry shops. This was tax funded housing for the (Islamic)
poor. Most were studio apartments for single older adults, but in some
cases multiple family members shared it, and that was where we should find
Nelson.

According to the file he was 5'6", slender, and hunched over from
osteoporosis. He walked with his head down due to curvature of the spine
and could barely see straight ahead. And this was the so-called Dangerous
Fugitive. I kept an open mind which is hard to do after reading so much
badness about him. They said he was using a common alias, but the state
knew who he was. From what I read, here in Tangier he was behaved, but
maybe he's too old now to get in much trouble, except maybe getting high
every day.

My map on the cell looked like we were getting close so we pulled the cord
to ding the driver and he stopped at the next bus stop. We left via the
back door and the bus sped off. The sunlight was harsh and bright, it was
nearly 95 degrees out and 93% humidity, but dark rain clouds were moving
toward the city.

We had about a mile walk further west into the heart of the apartment
complex. I saw very few cars and children in this part of town, I think it
was mostly elderly people, retired or maybe working little part time jobs
for some pocket money. Nelson supposedly worked at a sandwich shop. But he
had HIV so he shouldn't be near anyone's food but his own. His address was
18431 West Rue de Vines, #223. We walked west on the main road then cut
over into the neighborhood when we got to the 18000 block.

The neighborhood was clean but not very pretty. The ground was covered in
weeds and rocks and the air was buzzing with flies. We finally found his
building and sat on park benches along the street to observe people for a
bit. My cell tracking app said his cell was home and powered on. We pulled
on our latex gloves.

"He's not in that building, he lives in that one." Jennifer added when she
took the time to read the signs on the outside of the building by the
stairs. I looked and saw she was right, I was ready to storm the wrong
building. Apartment 223 was in another building even thought the street
address was the same.

We saw some delivery people drive up in very small vans delivering meds,
hot food, and perhaps home healthcare services. I considered maybe we
should get fast food bags out of the trash bin and pretend to be delivering
hot food to his place, Jennifer could be the delivery boy. She agreed to
role play so we walked over to the trash bin and went dumpster diving for
two sandwich bags. Luckily, several oil spotted bags were within easy
reach, I bent over the side and grabbed two of them and stuffed 'em full of
crumpled-up newspaper. Then to help her look like a boy I lifted her cap
and tucked all her hair up underneath her cap.

We had a discussion about what to do with him and I said I could shoot him,
but that's risky if the neighbor hears POPs and calls the cops. Jen didn't
have a federal passport, hers' was just a normal individual one like all
the slaves get back in the states so if we got busted I'd go free but she
could be held for years without trial for being an accomplice. I could
spray him but that takes a day or two, typically about 15 hours. That's too
long to sit and wait. She reminded me he had the HIV, so we should avoid
making a bloody mess, we could drown him in the tub. Jen suggested
electrocution by appliance, first we punch him in the face to put him out
of business then she'll fill his bath tub, we put him in the tub and toss
in one end of an extension cord and electrocute him.

"What if all his outlets are on a ground fault circuit?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, well what else do most people have at home?"

I said, "Plastic bag over the head, power cord around the neck, broken
neck, seizure and inhale your vomit." She asked, "What did they teach you
in Quantico?"

"Broken neck, broken nose, smashed nose, punch to the throat, kick in the
balls, knife in the heart, suffocate - but that takes too much time."

"Why don't we make a food delivery, I'll sweet talk him and be all flirty
while you barge-in behind me, look around and smash his head with
whatever's handy. He falls to the floor and you snap his neck?" She smiled
and expected me to say something like, "Oh boy let's go!"

I softly told Jen, "You know breaking someone's spinal cord isn't as easy
as it looks in the movies, you gotta be pretty strong in the arms, and the
victim has to be unconscious. Same with strangling someone to death, it
actually takes a long time, like almost nine minutes until their heart
stops."

I sat there staring at my shoes because the thought of killing someone and
cutting off their right hand was not my idea of a good time, I'd rather be
in the hot tub. So I tried to make the fast food bags look new and fresh. I
handed the 2nd one to Jen to work on. She emptied it and blew it full of
air and put the paper balls back inside and carefully folded the top nice
and neat. Hers looked so much better than mine. We got up and started
walking toward the apartment complex stairway.

Up the steel staircase we arrived on the second floor, the sign said to go
right, so we walked down the hallway, she carried the bags like they were
full of hot food containers. We arrived at 223 and she knocked on the door
while holding out the bags with a smile. I stood to the side against the
wall. Nelson answered the door, he was a petite man that looked sickly and
he smiled and gestured for Jen to come inside, I stepped in behind her and
he said something in Arabic while I barged-in around her, he seemed to want
clarification what the food order was and she started to open one bag and
look inside. She told him in Spanish the food was paid. So he said he
wanted to tip her something.

I looked around the room and saw a ceramic flower vase I stepped closer,
lifted it up with the flowers and spun around and smashed his head from
behind while he was looking in his wallet. Jen jumped back and shut his
door and locked it. Nelson collapsed immediately to the floor with a large
gash on the side of his head. Jen stood there with a horrified look. I was
certain I fractured his skull.

"Quick, take the bags into his bedroom and look for diamonds and cash in
something, GO!" I ordered her. She stepped over the body and ran around the
apartment looking for hidden jewels and cash, I told her it might be in a
baggie of some kind. Then I went from kitchen cabinet to cabinet and found
a box of Ziploc bags and set it out, while she was gone I grabbed a dish
towel and kneeled beside the body and covered his head and started to twist
it around until I felt bones snap, then his breathing stopped and he let
out a huge fart. When I let go of his skull his head dropped to the floor
and the kitchen started to smell like shit so maybe he crapped his pants
too!

I grabbed a steak knife and more dish towels out of the drawer and
carefully hacked off his right hand and carried it to the sink. I heard Jen
shout from the bedroom, "FOUND IT!" I turned on the cold water and used
soap to wash his hand and let more blood drip out. It only took a few
seconds before it stopped bleeding.

She came back with two Ziploc bags, the small one was full of diamonds, the
other full of Euros. I told her to double bag the stones, I pointed to the
box of baggies on the counter. While she did that I opened the freezer door
and got out some ice and put some cubes in another quart size bag then
carefully lowered his hand into the bag and sealed it shut, squeezed out
the excess air, and checked for leaks. Then I double bagged it too and
squeezed out the excess air.

Jen picked up a wallet off the kitchen table and found his ID card and took
his cash too. We dropped the hand and the jewels inside a white fast food
bag and quietly stepped over the body and unlocked the door. I pressed my
ear to the door then silently opened it and looked both ways, then we
stepped out into the hallway. I silently shut the door and heard it click
shut. We walked back to the bus stop, over a mile away.

"I can't believe what we just did Alex. My heart is pounding."

"You didn't do anything, I killed him and robbed him of his stolen
property, you waited outside. Got it?"

We walked rather quickly along the edge of the street because this area had
no curbs or sidewalks. Way ahead in the distance I could see the busy main
street that the bus took across the metro area. I was thirsty and she was
too, but we kept marching forward. So far no sirens, police, or EMS. I
thought once we got on the bus we were safe.

We finally got to the bus stop and she got out cash for our fares and way
off in the distance I saw the big LED sign on the front of the bus
approaching, probably ten minutes away still. So we sat there watching down
the street as hundreds of trucks and cars zoomed past. My heart was
pounding and I felt headachy. We used the cash I snatched from his wallet
to pay the fare.

While we sat there waiting she suddenly raised her legs and turned sideways
and shouted "Eww!" I saw a rather large black beetle walking down the
sidewalk so I raised my feet. I had no idea if it was poisonous or what it
was but it was big and shiny black. It kept going down the sidewalk like it
didn't even notice us and we slowly put our feet back down. She wiped her
forehead and I patted her back.

The bus rolled to a stop and the door opened, she fed the machine two one
dollar Euros and we took seats behind the driver and sat pressed against
each other staring off in the distance. The further away we got the more I
was able to calm down.

We rode the bus, to the big bus stop outside the city wall near my
apartment, but it's still a long walk to get home. We set down the bag and
I grabbed the satellite phone and we went to the roof after a brief
bathroom break.

I called the number in NYC from the wanted poster and got the information
where to send his hand and the diamonds. Jen counted his cash and it was
way down from what the reward notice said he had, so he'd spent most of it
already, we counted $52,150 in Euros. But since it's so small we never
reported it, just the diamonds which were worth a ton of money, but I know
squat about diamonds. Jen pointed at her tiny earrings and said that was
all she knew about diamonds, they were $50 for the set and made out of
scrap diamonds about the size of four grains of sand.

We re-wrapped the hand in layers of Saran wrap and aluminum foil and added
chunks of dry ice inside a Fedex shipping box along with the baggie of
diamonds. We walked it to a shipping store and Fedexed to NYC
overnight. They fit in a box about the size of a dictionary. Shipping was
$195 for guaranteed delivery in NYC before noon tomorrow. Jen paid in Euros
and we got a receipt and walked to the shaved ice store (that sold us the
dry ice) and got two lemon ices and went back to the hotel room.

She looked exhausted and stressed so we went up to the roof patio. I walked
over to the back sidewall of the hotel building where it was waist high but
the view was the roof of the restaurant next door. The sun was just down
and the sky was navy blue to the west. "Comere, check this out," I looked
down in the narrow gap between the hotel and the restaurant building. I
thought they touched but there was a gap, maybe two feet wide. She walked
over beside me and bent over the wall and looked down and asked me what was
so cool. I reached under her shirt and rubbed her back then pushed down her
shorts to her ankles (she was bent over at the waist looking into the dark
gap) and slipped myself inside her. She whispered, "Not out here!" But I
did it anyway and came quickly. When I was done she pulled her shorts up
and asked me (with a straight face) what was so interesting down there?

I looked over the wall as I raised my shorts and said there was a big
striped animal but it's gone now. We grabbed our Lemon Ices and went back
inside, down the steps and back to our room. On the walk down the 4th floor
hallway she mumbled, "Liar, there weren't no striped animal down there."

"Yeah, I made it up."

"You don't have to lie you know."

"Actually, I wasn't lying I was kidding."

"You are such a nerd! You were exactly the same in fourth grade!"



contact the author: borischenaz at mailfence