Captured

Chapter 16. Daniel gets the last word.

Cyril Hammersly was a villain in this sad story, he was the Deputy District Attorney who hid the evidence proving the innocence of Daniel Davis, my best friend since high school. Not only did he know Daniel was innocent he lied repeatedly in the court room to convict an innocent man. They were trying to hide the fact that they botched the investigation and fabricated a story to explain how an intoxicated cyclist wrecked his bicycle in a heavy rain, crashed, and broke his skull on the curb. The man was riding in a storm because he already lost his driver's license due to a history of DUI convictions. Soon after his parole Daniel obtained enough money to hire a private investigator to prove his innocence, a judge reviewed the case and then Texas dropped the charges and released him from parole.

Two months after Dan's parole in Houston Cyril fell ill at home one day and died of a sudden severe case of pneumonia and septicemia. Two months after his burial his wife held a public memorial service near their home in Austin, near the cemetery.

The day of the memorial service in Austin for Cyril Hammersly arrived. Daniel told me he was driving up to Austin and staying one night at a hotel and only bringing a tiny pepper sprayer for self defense, the size of a roll of dimes. Cyril Hammersly, the guest of honor could not attend because he was buried months ago. Dan still felt the need to get even for his loss of freedom and reputation.

I had multiple honest conversations with Daniel about his plans. Many times I tried to talk him out of going up to Austin to disturb a memorial service but he was serious about doing it regardless of personal risk. He assured me he would not touch anyone and his speech was three paragraphs long, it should last less than thirty seconds. He said he wrote it on the computer and edited it down and composed it to keep unfortunate truth to the very end.

It was a long day full of anxiety for me with a close friend in serious jeopardy; I kept the sat-phone powered-on because that was usually how he called. I kept checking that it had signal sitting on the desk in my office, even with two floors of leather factory above me. The lack of a phone call from Daniel made me worried. The cheapest way to call me from Texas is to call the sat-phone because it had a Washington DC phone number, area code 202. I've been using a State Department owned Iridium satellite phone for personal calls since it was issued to me and nobody has ever said not to. I think State pays a flat monthly rate for overseas employees using sat phones, so the bill is based on the number of users, not the number of calls. I also assume all my sat calls are recorded and stored forever so we have to be careful what was said. But then again I've heard all phone calls in the USA are recorded by the NSA and stored forever regardless.

At home that evening Daniel emailed me and Jen and described what happened:

"I'll get to the point quickly. Yes, I went to the memorial service. His wife was there and his brother and one of his elderly parents and a few people from his office and some others but there were no kids. I think I counted 17 people total, including the funeral home dude. Everyone got a chance to stand at the front of the room and say something. I raised my hand and was 4th to speak. The room was silent as I stepped up to the microphone, nobody recognized me. We were supposed to introduce ourselves but I forgot to do it and everyone was too polite to interrupt and ask.

"I knew Cyril, I met him in a court room. He was the DDA who sent me to prison for felony DUI, hitting and killing a man on a bicycle at night in a heavy rain storm, and they said I left the scene but was later caught in a DUI checkpoint and arrested. The big problem was none of it happened, Cyril fabricated all the evidence. And under Cyril's direction I was tried, convicted with no evidence or witnesses. I was sentenced to prison for two years despite the fact that I was over a mile away when the accident happened. I was the only motorist they caught in the sobriety checkpoint so they blamed me for everything, without evidence. It turned out the guy on the bicycle was very drunk and rode his bicycle over a sewer cover, lost control, flew over the handle bars and smashed his head on the curb, his body and his bicycle never contacted any vehicles. The guy on the bicycle lost his license for life after repeated DUI convictions and he was completely responsible for his injuries."

"Cyril Hammersly had evidence that my car was never involved in hitting anyone on a bicycle but kept that evidence locked in his desk to ensure I was falsely convicted. I spent two years in a state prison on charges that he fabricated to make himself look like a competent DDA. He was a liar and an incompetent lawyer. He cared about himself and money more than anyone or anything else on Earth."

"You all should be ashamed to admit you knew him because Cyril Hammersly was a disgusting liar and just as guilty as many of the other people he sent to prison. He also graduated dead last in his law class, in 2005 at the University of Little Rock, and had to take the state bar exam three times just to pass."

Then Daniel said he stepped over to the large framed portrait of Cyril on a stand and spit on it and pointed at the face, rotated his middle finger upwards and yelled "THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE NOW THAT YOU'RE DEAD! FUCKING LOSER!" He said he marched proudly out of the building but hid nearby to watch what happened. Moments after he left everyone else quickly left too, his wife was in tears and was helped to a taxi by relatives. Daniel drove to the cemetery and located his headstone. Using a hammer he pounded on his name until it was no longer readable.

Then Dan chuckled and said he felt much better now that he got that off his chest, he got his revenge.

I asked him why being dead wasn't good enough, but Dan said he wanted to ruin his reputation with his family, and then he was done hating the guy now that he had been erased from history. Although he never said it I expect before he left the cemetery he also pissed on the headstone.

"So you never got busted for all that?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Well good for you. Now move on with your life."

Daniel angrily told me that was a fucked-up thing for me to say, "You didn't waste two years in prison for something you didn't do," then he paused briefly to calm down then went on: "Oh hey I got my new passport finally. I can come to Africa if you'll have me." He said as sort of an awkward request.

"Okay, we need to plan your trip. Please email Jen to get the details how she buys tickets and what airlines to use. She's worked out the cheapest and best flights from Austin."

"I'll do that."

"Email me when you're ready to set dates, okay? But don't buy tickets yet."

"Sure."

We had a few moments of silence, then I said, "Sorry if I upset you."

"It's all good Bro." He replied softly.

And then we got off the phone without actually saying good bye. The rest of my week and the next two were routine. I had dates next month set aside for flying the Ambassador to Ghana for the day. He's part of a regional group to promote business and trade between the west coastal African nations and North America, instead of China and Southeast Asia. Morocco is actually a big producer of European brand cars for the African markets. The auto factory is the single largest employer in the Tangier metro area. And Ghana is slowly ramping up exports to the world and they're always looking for new markets, which is what his meetings in Accra were usually about.

Most of the cars, vans, and SUVs built in Morocco are for the Dacia brand, popular in Europe and Africa. I think the Ambassador likes the prestige of arriving in Ghana in a private jet, but it's his decision to fly private instead of commercial from Rabat to Accra. If he flew commercial it might take a couple days due to infrequent commercial flights to those cities.

Days later I got an email from Jen about teaching Daniel how she flies to Morocco. She said she lectured him about getting off the plane and walking to the correct luggage carousel then out the nearest exit and that's where I will be waiting. Dan laughed because he was actually the guy who invented that rule amongst our circle of friends. His trip was two months away; I reserved the dates and applied for time off work. She said she mailed her itinerary from her last trip to Dan so he could fly the cheapest and most direct way.

Jen explained that when scheduling a trip that crosses so many time zones you really have to route it backwards. You start with your target destination arrival time and day, and then schedule flights to connect to the one before it. But always start with the last segment of the trip. She said you don't want to arrive in Bumfuck Egypt only to discover all the busses and taxis are shut down for the night and you have to hang out on a steel bench outside the airport with the homeless beggars in a strange land. I thought it was funny the way she said it, but that's my Jen. It's no wonder why the snowflakes she works with can't stand her, but she outranks all of `em!

That evening I was sitting on the sofa with the windows open listening to the fog horns out on the strait, some of the freighters also have a very distinct engine rumble, the sound carries rather far. I wonder if the RF sniffer outside my window had a microphone, the INR should know about that. It could become a way of fingerprinting ships day or night. US Navy fingerprints all ships based on sound (sonar), but I doubt they did it above the waves for non-military ships.

I got to thinking about Daniel visiting here. I could predict at least once he would try to get his dick in my mouth by whatever means he could invent on the fly. And he'd probably try more than once because the next best thing to oral sex is oral sex twice!

He sent an email that day after he purchased his tickets.

You know my relationship with Daniel is tricky. I love him like a brother but I am not in-love with him. I really liked his dick, I think it's a technically perfect appendage. But he did nothing special to earn it other than the luck of being born to decent parents whose DNA combined to give him great looks, a fantastic body, and a flawless boner. He's almost seven inches long and as thick as a genuine bratwurst. His rod is perfectly straight and cut. His head is the perfect helmet shape and it's a bit wider than the shaft so technically he'd be called a mushroom head. His head is the same red color as his lips and his nipples, despite being half Mexican. And if he's really horny and sober he can shoot semen nearly four feet, and stay hard after an orgasm! His rod sticks out proudly erect like the flagpole on the front of the library.

I suck his dick because I love the way it looks, feels, and tastes. I'd probably make the same offer to whoever owned that specific dick. I think Dan doesn't understand my feelings for him. I'm not in love with him, but I love his dick! The rest of Dan's body is kind of average for a guy in his 30s. He's in good shape, he's fit and healthy, he has a decent sense of humor, and he's pretty smart. I especially love his hair. Dan has that thick black Hispanic hair that feels so nice to run my fingers into and mess it around and grab a clump and pull gently on it. His hair feels so thick and healthy it's very luscious just feeling it. I don't think he likes or appreciates his hair at all. It makes me wonder what it must be like growing up in rural Mexico or Japan where everyone everywhere has the same thick black hair. And Dan's eyes are also black, they look like black holes in his face that leave me wondering if he even has a soul because you can't see his pupils. I find myself staring into his eyes, and then he tells me to blink at least once an hour. He tells me I'm staring him down but it's because I'm mesmerized by his eyes. Inappropriate eye contact is another symptom of autism, it can mean not enough or too much eye contact with people.

Something else I should say about Daniel and Hispanic men in general, if you blow men from Japan, China, or Korea then come to the States and blow men born to the Indian tribes like Apache, Hopi, Navajo, Maya, Aztec, Polynesians, and others you start to notice that when you strip them naked below the chin they all look the same. That is why I believe most of the DNA of today's Indians' crossed the Pacific on boats and settled western North America and those brave men and women are the ancestors of today's Indians and many of us. There was no ice-free corridor' from Russia to Canada during the last Ice Age, they sailed across because they settled the Pacific Islands along the way and kept moving east. When-why did they cross the ocean? I have no idea, but they did it for hundreds of years so it was a big deal to them to keep expanding east, toward the rising sun.

As I mentioned before I also doubt the theory that human life started in Africa. I believe humans originated on Australia (or New Guinea) and they migrated west across Indonesia toward India and around the coast and into Africa. Some of them moved north up the Red Sea and into the Mediterranean Sea, then west across Africa, across the Atlantic, and settled the Caribbean Islands and the coastline from southern Florida around to Yucatan Mexico and down to Brazil. So the black skinned people from Jamaica and Texas were the distant descendants of the Aboriginals of Australia. It's just my theory, and it runs backwards from what they taught us in school that humans first appeared in Africa. I mean if you think about it, DNA cannot show if someone migrated eastbound or westbound. All they have is fragments of skulls dug up in Africa but they have complete skulls found in New Guinea and the only difference it makes is the migration story is the same, just in the opposite direction. The entire story is just a theory anyway, there is no concrete way to prove or disprove any of it.

When I watch the TV and an anthropologist says "Our ape like ancestors" I always say to the TV, "Your ape like ancestors, mine were always human, not apes." I think their theory of human evolution is mostly bullshit they wish was true.

There was a bulletin issues by State about another group of people organizing refugee boats crossing the Med and sailing to Spain where they surrender to authorities and request asylum as a means of escaping poverty in African nations. Most of the refugees came up to Oran on board the freight train from Congo and Sudan. It appeared the same group was now operating a boat lift and somehow the passengers mysteriously vanished during the crossing. My mission was to sneak into Oran and investigate, take photos of the ship and crew.

INR told me our long time CIA contact in Oran, the elderly lady Aafia is retired now (living quietly in Canada), after her cover was blown to save her life. But I was told there are some new contacts that might not have the resources she had for recruiting helpers or equipment. But all I was bringing into Oran would be my automatic pistol, 2 magazines, my knife, and three spray cans of anthrax. He said I would be updated along the way over my cell phone, which always worked in Oran. INR also reminded me they probably had an arrest warrant for me in Algeria since I was no longer welcome to enter their country. I decided to wear disguises and for my safety I also decided to limit my time there to less than one week. I'd leave home early in the morning and take the first AM train to Oran, a five hour train ride. Luckily, the trains are in great condition and none of the countries on this commuter line check passports. These commuter trains have been running this way since the 1930s. Most of the passengers are little old ladies who travel across the border to shop and visit relatives.

Needless to say I was scared and trembling. I applied skin color and facial hair appliances: a heavy moustache and sideburns. I also added coloring to my eyebrows and put colored contact lenses over my eyes to make them look dark brown. I nearly looked like an Arab except the shape of my nose was wrong, and so were my cheek bones.

I texted the people in my contact list and advised them not to contact me for the next 7 days, I would explain later.

When my alarm clock rang at 4am I got up and took a mini shower, trying not to get my face wet. After the shower I added more skin color to my neck and upper chest and shoulders. I had my Arab clothing set out and grabbed a black taxi to the train station, it's about one mile south of my apartment. I wanted to get there before the train left because I needed to get to Oran on time.

I tried to sleep on the train but couldn't because of the anxiety I felt the entire way. So I sat there enjoying my sense of fear and kept my eyes closed hoping those seated around me left me alone, I was posing as an Arab but didn't speak the language.

The train arrived slightly late at the end of the line train station near downtown Oran, in the oldest part of the city.

The train station like everything else in Oran has a French name, it's called the Gare Centrale d'Oran. It is a white building with a tall clock tower and a golden dome like a mosque. The station sits about one mile from the waterfront in an area with lots of small hotels and places to shop and eat. And it looks like a scene you'd expect to see in Cairo, lots of horns honking, lots of pedestrians and people on scooters. It's a very busy area which makes it a great place to disappear into the crowd if you are being followed. That entire area looks like it was still 1935 outside. It looked like an Indiana Jones movie set.

I decided to walk to the waterfront. In the distance off to my left I saw the cargo cranes in the port for unloading containers, so I headed toward the waterfront to the east. I was going to walk to the area where the INR said they were loading refugees onto boats east of the actual port. Supposedly, there is only one group of coyotes running the scams on the unsuspecting refugees from central Africa.

INR told me this time they are using an old freighter and loading it over a period of a few hours, as many people as possible who arrive on foot at the waterfront pier with cash (Euros) in hand to pay for transit. The fare is lower now, about $500 to cross per person and it includes food rations of rice and soup (Halal). What I was told about an hour ago was some were forced at gun point to jump into the sea without a life jacket or hope of rescue. For more chaotic groups like women and children they welded a 12x12 steel compartment and filled it with refugees, telling them it's time to eat. They are told this steel room is the elevator to take them down to the dining hall. Then someone on the top deck opens two steel hull doors and a steam powered ram pushes an entire wall quickly towards the opening. Everyone in the room is bulldozed through the opening and falls twenty feet into the sea. It happens fast so there's no time to struggle. It is believed the greatest cause of death is hypothermia. The ship keeps moving north and soon another group is loaded into the elevator, the doors are opened and the process is repeated until all the passengers are gone.

They unload a few hundred people (men, women, and children) all splashing and screaming in the sea as the ship motors on at 11 knots. The goal is to get them off the ship halfway across so no bodies wash-up on the beaches and blow their cover story. They also have to check that there are no ships nearby on radar when they start dumping passengers. Most will be dead within 30 minutes due to the cold water, many drown because they cannot swim, some are taken by sharks, and some slowly decay on the surface and eventually sink to the bottom.

The armed crew rummages through their belongings for anything of value, the rest gets tossed overboard. The walls of the top deck where all the passengers wait after boarding are built up so they cannot see the water or hear the screams as the people are shoved out the side of the freighter. According to the INR, they have killed thousands of Africans seeking asylum in Europe. About 85% of crossers are Muslim, the rest are Christian but they all end up dying together. I've heard the scene on the water is probably similar to what happened when the Titanic sunk.

Oran does nothing to stop them because they do not have any resources to handle that many refugees. And each day another train arrives loaded with hundreds of refugees. I wondered why they were running such an elaborate scheme to get rid of these African people.

It took almost 45 minutes for me to arrive at the waterfront. But I saw no signs of any kind of operation going on so I decided to walk west toward the port. The ship I'm looking for is on the small side, maybe 200 feet long and forty feet across at the middle. It has freight loading cranes and two large hatches on each side for forklift loading. They probably load passengers with a steel gangway like the oil tanker we crossed on several times years ago.

By the time I got to the first pier it was 4:45pm. And for the first time since I arrived I saw a group of black skinned people standing around on an empty concrete pier. The pier had no signs or gates, it looked like a 300 foot long concrete fishing pier sticking out into the sea. I could see the buildings and cranes from the port ahead on land, and the seawall around the harbor out in the water. My guess was it was about two miles further west down the coast.

In this area there's a 2-lane road running along the shore. The shoreline is mostly rocky here with a few small areas of sand, but those are tiny. Sometimes I saw kids playing on the rocks as the waves crashed. Nice weather to play near the water but everyone seems to be aware of the shark danger. I was walking west along the shore between the road and the boulders along the waterfront. I wondered why the rocks were there. Many of them looked like old chunks of coral reef that were dug out and dumped on the shore to help protect it from storm erosion.

As the pier got closer I decided to keep a safe distance so when I was about a quarter mile away I climbed onto the boulders and found a place to sit and watched the crowd of mostly black skinned men wearing Djellabas, like me. I took off my sandals and pulled up my skirt so an occasional wave splash sprayed my feet, which felt nice but the water was cold. My guess was the temperature here on the waterfront was in the upper 80s to low 90s and the humidity was nearly the same number. The air felt heavy on my chest because I was used to often dry desert air, even though I live a few hundred feet from the beach, we rarely get wind from the north. Our winds in Tangier often come down off the Atlas Mountains.

At my first count I saw about 50 people on the pier. The only obviously female people numbered maybe six. And I saw a few children in the crowd too. Looking out to see all the way across the horizon I saw nothing but water and sky, not a single cloud to be seen all the way across.

After a while I managed to lean back and close my eyes and try to take a short nap. There were cargo trucks running along the waterfront road, they kept waking me up. The clock ticked off the minutes and the sun went down and I stayed in that spot. Sometimes I was on my side, other times I was on my back. The boulder I was on was rather well polished from millions of years underwater, but it wasn't flat. I used my arm as a pillow and tried to sleep. Nighttime arrived and the sky was beautiful with millions of stars. There were no streetlights in this area so the night sky was amazing. I wished Jen was here, she'd love this spot too. I pictured her standing in ankle deep water, mostly naked doing her erotic belly dance to some kind of Arabic music, a veil partly covering her face and eyes. I started to get hard when I imagined myself pressing my face into her soft lower belly and kissing her flesh. Then another one of those smoky cargo trucks roared by and ruined my moment. Asshole!

As I pulled my hand out of my clothes I felt my thumb was slippery and wet from the pre-come I sometimes profusely create. I've been told several times I was a major producer of salty pre-come.

I napped off and on all night. From where I was I couldn't see the pier or the people on the pier but I heard people talking all night. I bet a bunch of them slept on the bare concrete pier overnight. I never saw where people peed or shat. I also never saw any signs of food or water being handed out.

Around sunrise I noticed a cargo ship on the horizon headed toward shore. As the sky got brighter I could see more detail and color. At the same time I saw a fishing pole had washed up on the sand near me so I grabbed it as a prop so I would fit-in on the pier, posing as a local just fishing like the others seated along the pier with a line in the water.

And by the time the sun shone on the ground I saw the number of people on the pier had swelled overnight. I'm not good at estimating crowd size but I felt it was at least 300 people on the pier now. Across the street I saw a few dozen more in line at a food truck that also appeared overnight.

Author's note: Alex later learned many refugees exited the Sahara Train in Oran and spent the night in a public shelter near the train station then walked to the city pier early in the morning, a 1 mile hike on city streets.

With my fishing pole in hand I climbed off the boulders and walked toward the pier. The closer I got I could tell the crowd was much bigger than I witnessed earlier, it could easily be 500 people of all ages. The biggest majority were male but I saw maybe 30-40 children. Out to sea the ship slowly approached, heading toward this pier. I guessed near the pier they would turn around and back into position and use ropes to position the ship for boarding. I was tempted to warn the people what might happen but it would blow my cover and I was sure someone would call the cops and I'd become a political prisoner in Algeria. I was here to gather intel, not to stop the operation. I took photos of it as it slowly moved closer.

Down at the pier I walked through the crowd with my fishing pole over my shoulder so it was fully visible all the way to the end where others were sitting on empty plastic 5-gallon buckets trying to catch lunch. Most of those fishing were elderly men and women, and most looked like Arabs. I saw no animosity or conflict between the locals and the refugees. I even saw they had a squat toilet in the open installed in the pier, it dumped directly into the water and had no privacy.

Standing at the end of the pier I looked down but couldn't see bottom since the sun was too low. Out to sea the ship was close enough I could almost see the name painted on both sides of the bow. I'd say it was 2 miles out now. It flew a flag but I didn't recognize the country.

People began to crowd near the end of the pier where someone set up a table to sell tickets. At the far end of the pier people were selling hot snacks in paper cups. There were empty cups blowing all over the pier since they had no trash cans to collect waste. I saw some men pissing off the pier where there was nobody fishing.

I smiled and nodded at several people, the crowd on the pier seemed very excited to be leaving Africa, they were actually already off the land and over the water while standing on the pier, and so just being in line to board was almost as exciting as being on the ship itself headed for Spain.

Out to sea the ship came to a stop and began a turnabout procedure. Slowly, the freighter turned itself around and began to carefully drift backward toward the pier. Slowly, foot by foot they drifted closer and by the time someone could catch a rope on the pier they were about 60 feet away. People caught two ropes and ran them through giant cleats on the pier and used big iron cranks to winch the ship against the pier cushions. They used two cranes on board to place their own gangway stairs and with a blast of the horn the crowd cheered and the ticket sales table was open for business. Cash was the only form of payment accepted, Euros was the only currency accepted. Each bill was carefully examined first.

I witnessed a few skirmishes between anxious people standing in line, someone cut in line or tried to sneak ahead and a couple minor fights broke out, that caused some women to start screaming loudly but overall the fights attracted little attention.

I moved to a spot a little closer to the ticket sales table and carefully took several pictures and video to try to capture faces of the people taking the cash and speaking to the passengers. I also took photos of the ship, including the name and registration ID plate on the side of the hull. The ship was flagged and registered in Libya. I sent encrypted texts with some of the photos attached to my contact at the INR, which is just another 202 area code phone number in Washington DC.

By 1pm Oran-time the line was down to less than 50 people and the ship blasted its huge steam horn warning they were going to depart soon. On board the ship everyone located mats for them and their family so they could sleep together, and hopefully stay warm. The top deck was open to the sky and the sides were built-up so they could not see the sea, just the sky.

Everyone getting on board looked happy to be minutes away from finally escaping Africa for the Promised Land. I started to wonder who told them Europe was the Promised Land and the best way to get there was this ship. Because from what I knew, and I could be wrong but in 23 hours all these people will be dead.

Anyone who struggled was beat and shoved overboard with serious injuries. There is no place on-board to hide, they are all unarmed since they are wanded for metal before going up the steps to the ship. Any knives or other weapons are simply tossed overboard on the spot. We also heard that on the first night at sea they actually start tossing troublemakers over the side, anyone they catch alone after bedtime goes over the side if nobody else sees. That first night they are fed rice and tea and sleep on thin rubber mats on the top steel deck with no shelter from the weather. The top deck is like a prison yard with squat toilets that drain over the side and no view of the sea. They are told the sides were raised to protect them from the ocean spray, but it's to prevent them from seeing or hearing people being pushed off the ship.

After the main event they inspect the ship for anyone they missed and turn around and slowly motor back to Oran for another load. They arrive by the train load like prisoners arriving at prison camps in Poland. I texted INR that I estimated they had a crew of 10 to 12 and most of them were armed with automatic weapons, but those were only on display once land was no longer visible from shipboard.

I found the entire scene bizarre and sickening but there was nothing I could do. I had no idea what language these poor people spoke or who lied to them about this being the best path to freedom, but I didn't speak their language. I hoped I might bump into some of them speaking English or Spanish but my odds were low.

One thing that surprised me was not hearing anyone speaking English or Spanish in this huge line of African people.

This entire situation really pissed me off and I was considering accepting any mission to sink this ship as soon as I could, but I wasn't sure how to do it. Explosives is the only way I know to sink a ship at sea, but I don't have any or the means to get it on board. Maybe it would be a good idea to fly a plane over the ship once they shoved almost everyone over the side so they had photographic evidence of the genocide: the ship's wake and hundreds of bodies in the water, in a line that stretched five miles across the Mediterannean Sea.

I slowly walked along the line of people listening closely to people talk and noticing how they were dressed. I saw a rather large family, all fancily dressed nearly the same. It looked like three generations, a family of 10! They had an entire herd of children. One skinny young man looked to be in his mid teens, we made eye contact and I smiled and nodded, he waved and spoke.

"Oy Maytey!" He said showing off his brilliant white teeth. He looked to be about 5'6" maybe a little taller than Octavio's oldest grandson Hadi. I slowed and complimented his colonial British English; the young man nodded and asked me where he might urinate. I smiled and gestured at the edge of the pier but the boy blushed and nodded no. The rest of his family were engaged in loud excited conversation, so I grabbed his skinny bare arm and pulled him out of line to the edge of the pier and spread wide my Djellaba and told him he was safe, so he reached in his clothes and then I heard him moan as his piss started hitting the salt water 15 feet below us. With some kind of British Colonial accent he said he already felt better but the piss kept flowing. I told him my name was Ahley. He said his name was Joachim, but everyone called him Joe. He still pissed, I think he'd soon reached a half a gallon emptied and was still going.

I turned to look at his family but none of them noticed his departure so I told him to put it away we gotta go. I held onto his skinny boyish elbow tightly and walked him like a prisoner off the pier toward the street, then we turned away from the crowd and I walked him fast. When we got far enough away that his family couldn't see us I stopped and spoke urgently to him.

"Listen Joe, if you get on board that ship you'll be dead in 24 hours, it's a death ship they push everyone into the sea halfway across, your family, everyone dies. They're never going to reach Europe, it's is a killing ship. You can come with me, I'll smuggle you to safety in Morocco if you want, or you can go back and die with your family tomorrow. The choice is yours. I was going to ask him how long could he swim in 68 degree water but decided wait for him to decide first.

The young man was so wide eyed he didn't know what to do except cry. He asked if I was kidding and I nodded no, this ship was paid for by an international group to prevent Muslim migrants coming from Africa. He asked me why.

"Because they have a lot of money and a lot of hate and they love killing people and children, it's their sick religion; it's too complicated to explain here. You gotta choose: Ship of Death and die in the ocean tomorrow with your family or go with me to Morocco, I'll help you live but you gotta work hard and be willing to sacrifice too.

He ran his hand over his face and forehead and took off his matching African tribal hat, tossed it on the ground and looked me for several seconds straight in the eyes and proclaimed, "Let's go!"

I grabbed his elbow again but gently this time and walked him across the street and disappeared into the city. Our destination was the downtown train station. Along the way I found a small men's clothing store with a manikin outside dressed in a men's Djellaba (jah-LAB-ah), I rushed Joe inside and paid for one in his size, then I lifted his tribal gown (with gold threads) to look at his shoes and they were very ornate (almost Tibetan looking) and bright so I purchased sandals like mine, made of old car tire tread. They were two bucks and came with a spare pack of goat leather straps for when his broke. Every poor person in Algeria wore car tire sandals and carried extra straps too.

After paying and cutting off the tags I escorted him into the dressing room and told him to take his clothes off. While he undressed I asked how old he was and Joe said he just turned 15. I asked what religion he was and he said Christian. I asked if he had any diseases and he said no, he was very healthy and had shots for malaria and yellow fever, he said he never catches anything. I told him I was bisexual and asked if he knew what that meant and Joe said basically it meant I would sleep with anyone. I told him that was essentially true but never had much sex in my life, but I enjoyed it with good friends. I asked if he had a problem with that and he said he didn't care. He said he was not a virgin and wanted to know if I felt any desires for him and I said no. He asked if it was because he was black and I said no, I don't know you, I don't care what color your skin is.

Joe was one of those very dark black skinned Africans. He had thick lips and large eyes that really looked nice, he had wide bushy eyebrows, but below his ears he was hairless. He had a few curls of pubes in his arm pits and a few above his dick but otherwise he was nearly bald except a thick head of closely packed African curly hair. He even took off his burgundy red brief underwear but I told him to put them back on for now. While he did that I couldn't take my eyes off his belly button and his limp dick and balls.

I told him I had autism and he said he heard the name but didn't know what it meant so I told him I'd explain later.

We left his fancy African tribal garb in the trash along with his dress boots and left the store. Back out on the street we walked like two local boys (dressed nearly the same) toward the train station in downtown Oran. I kept trying to get him to walk faster but I think my pace was faster than his, maybe because my legs were longer. Joe was about five inches shorter than me.

We stopped again and purchased a gallon jug of cold drinking water and a pack of gum. We passed the gallon back and forth and drank the entire thing. We got to a very busy street at a traffic light and had to wait for the light to change, Joe told me he had to piss again so we crossed with the light and down the block and into an alley. I stood beside him to give him cover and he pissed on the side of a building and like the last time he seemed to pee half a gallon. We laughed as the piss formed a small stream that ran between his feet toward the center of the alley. Since he was stuck in that spot for a while I pulled mine out and peed on the same spot. I kept looking down at the head of his dick and then at him. He was looking down at both of them and then in my eyes, I smiled and told him, nice dick' and he smiled and said same to you.' While we were standing in the alley I told him I was wearing a disguise, my facial hair was all fake and so was my skin color. He laughed loudly at the idea and said it was just like in the movies.

We got back to the sidewalk and kept moving quickly. About 20 minutes later we arrived at the train station. I texted INR that I rescued the only English speaking person I met in the line to board the ship, he was coming back to Morocco with me. Ten minutes after the text my cell rang and I answered it then handed Joe the cell so he could explain his identity to the lady on the phone in Washington. He handed the phone back and I ended the call.

"Who was that on the line?" Joe asked.

"It was someone in the State Department in Washington DC. She'll work on getting you to the US legally." He smiled and said "Awesome!" I knew his attitude would soon turn sour when he started to realize he'd seen the last of his huge family and they were all about to die together. In fact I'm not sure the importance of what we were doing really clicked in his head yet because I saw little emotion.

I purchased two adult train tickets with cash and learned the next train to Tangier was due in one hour, so we walked out onto the platform and sat on a hard steel bench. I asked about his family and he said it was a long story but he didn't get along with his parents because he struggled in school and didn't want to go to medical school, he wanted to be an artist or maybe to work with animals. They offered to send him to trade school to become a carpenter but he said he wanted to paint flowers and nature and they were furious. That happened two days before they left on the train for Oran. But he said his father always seemed disappointed that he wasn't the man his father expected him to be, like his four brothers.

When I asked if he might be gay too he said he knew very little about sex, then he repeated: very little! "My parents did not allow me to have friends." I asked why and Joe said they felt it was a privilege he hadn't earned at home. I asked what his parents did for a living and Joe told me his mother had a nail shop and his father was a bookkeeper for a few businesses and the local Witness church.

"Ahh, that's where you learned English?"

"Yes, the church was run by two couples from England, they taught English at night school, so I went since it was the only reason I was allowed to leave the house. They had milk cows in the barn behind our church so we always got cheap fresh milk. I loved taking care of them too. I made sketches in the barn because technically I was at church and my parents allowed that."

"Oh man!"

We sat there in silence for a long time. Then I told Joe he could be my friend if he wanted. And Joe replied "I think I am already!" We laughed and he mumbled, "Nobody ever tried to save my life before. Are you sure about that boat killing everyone on board?"

I told him yes, I worked for the US Government, I was assigned to come to Oran and identify the crew. I took pictures of the crew and the ship. Based on what I learned I expect that ship will be on the bottom of the sea within the next few weeks.

Just to be honest I also told Joe I didn't practice a religion but I believed God exists and designed all living creatures.

I asked Joe how he lost his virginity and he said he was outside in the brush with a group of neighborhood boys and one of them brought a girl, she was drunk and let each boy screw her so she got down on the ground and they all took turns doing her beside a small camp fire in front of all the boys in the neighborhood. He said he had no idea what to do, she had to steer it for him, but he orgasmed inside her and pulled out and put his clothes back on. His friends cheered him on while he was humping her. He said he was not proud of what he did but he was glad he didn't catch HIV.

He said he had blood streaks on his underwear that his mother saw in the laundry and he confessed what happened so she took him to the doctor for testing but he was negative. I told him a little about Jennifer and Daniel and he said she sounded like a nice person. He said he's only seen red hair in movies.

I asked him what God put him on Earth to do and Joe said he was here to make art that was pleasing to the eye of God. He said his father nearly disowned him over that because good African boys don't do such things. He said he was beat several times for not being a proper boy. He also admitted he'd been raped by boys in the brush before, it was part of life in their tiny town in Congo.

We talked a lot getting to know each other and eventually a very bright light appeared in the distance way down the train tracks, he gestured toward it and I told him that was probably our ride. When we get on board it would be best if he let me do the talking. I would identify him as my cousin Joe and we were returning to our home in Tangier, let me do all the talking, okay? He nodded yes. Then I told him I was heavily armed and would protect him.

We boarded the train and got seats facing forward. I could tell he was scared when the conductor approached to punch our tickets, I actually considered leaning over and kissing him while handing the conductor our tickets, since the conductor was probably an Arab he would be disgusted, punch the tickets and move on to the next seat. So that is exactly what I did, but seconds before I whispered to Joe to just go along, and I held up our tickets and leaned the other way and lip locked with Joe and lip kissed him (no open mouth and no tongue) and I felt the tickets pulled from my fingers, I heard the punch work then he slipped the tickets back between my fingers and moved on to the next passengers.

I slowly pulled off Joe and he looked at me and sighed deeply! Then I leaned over and whispered, "I wanted to stop the conductor from asking about who you were." Joe said it worked great. I apologized for not warning him first. He reached up and wiped his mouth and told me it was okay. I could tell he was embarrassed and a little uncomfortable. I think that was not his first kiss from a male. His lips were large like most Africans and they felt wonderful against mine.

I looked down at his crotch but his clothes were too loose to see anything. He never commented about it after that. But the train soon left the station heading back toward Tangier. I told him we'd arrive about 5am tomorrow, it was a 5-6 hour ride. Then I pointed out the bathroom.

I asked if he was hungry but he said no and he pulled out the pack of Trident gum and said he had gum to chew on. I told him they turn off the lights inside train about the time it left the last station at the edge of Oran.

It took ten minutes to reach the station at the western outskirts of Oran, after that there were two quick stops in Algeria then you crossed into Morocco and there are two small towns with stops then the last stop is Tangier. After the last Oran station they shut off the lights in our passenger car. The car was probably 80% full, mostly of old ladies with shopping bags. Luckily on this car there were no crying babies.

After lights out he said he had to pee so I kept an eye on him as he carefully got out in the aisle and walked to the end of the car and went inside the lavatory. It's tricky to use a train toilet because everything is rocking side to side. You have to lean against the wall then pee.

We both woke up at every station when they turned on the lights. A few people got off and a few got on even though it was in the middle of the night. We made it to Tangier at 5am and walked out of the station, I texted INR my location and status. They texted back that my young friend had no criminal or political history, he was just an average unknown African kid with no history, and his parents had no history either. They also said they were watching the ship but the info we sent was valuable and they now know who owns it and who funds the killing operation. It turned out the guy selling tickets to board was the captain, so they had his photo and already ID'd him.

On the long walk from the train station to my apartment I realized I had no clue what I was doin with this African teenage boy; I couldn't keep him as a pet! But I felt compelled to try to save his life, it was the right thing to do. I already saved his life but I couldn't just abandon him in another country and tell him he was on his own. To be honest I sort of felt some higher power wanted me to do this but I had no idea where we were headed. I wondered if they asked about his parents when INR spoke to him on the phone.

"We're almost home." I told Joe.

He said he "...needed to lie down and relax his back for a while, ... stiff from all that sitting."

Back at the apartment he said my place looked nice, he checked out the faucets and was amazed with hot and cold water from the same faucet. He noticed my lack of a TV and I told him I used the computer, but he only used the ones in school.

So one of my first lessons was: what is a personal computer, what is the internet, internet safety and security, email, and media online. He asked if I had a bible and I told him I might have one in a box under the bed or sofa, I'll look tomorrow. And the next thing I knew was he was in tears on the sofa, so I quickly offered him tissues and got the boxes out and found my old King James edition and handed it to him. Joe hugged it and said it was the best book he ever read.

I also found it necessary to teach him how to curse in English and sex slang and language differences between Congo and Morocco.

Joe told me a little about himself. He was born in a rural farm community near the north outskirts of Braazaville, Congo, he was considered Protestant/Christian and his race was Bakongo, it was like a tribal thing, like being born Navajo, it was one flavor of being an Indian. He touched his fingers to his cheeks on his puffy cheeks and said Bakongo have big cheek bones, like his. He smiled at me to show off his bulging cheek bones. He was born on the farm in July, 2002 but didn't know the date. At least he knew his parents names and the names of his nine siblings.

When he said he was born on the farm that means his mom was working in the fields on the day he was born. She felt the contractions start and when he got close she walked over to a fence post and held-on and the baby dropped out onto the dirt and she cleaned him by hand and carried him in her clothing the rest of the work day. That was how Joe was born back before his mom found a job in town doing nails at a salon. He said his family worked two acres of potatoes. He said he was the youngest, the last child born. His mom was 45 the day he was born, during the potato harvest.

We walked to the store and bought stuff for a few meals and went back home, he said he was not allowed in the kitchen at home, so I start teaching him kitchen basics.

How to boil water on the stove.

How to make minute rice, instant potatoes, fry an egg, make and butter toast, make a simple sandwich, how to wash dishes and pots, and how to operate the oven and the microwave, and how it worked using radio waves to heat food. I also taught him how to use the coin-op washer and dryer. How to clean the toilet, sink, and shower. All it took was one lesson and he understood and remembered what I said. My guess was Joe was well above average IQ but he lacked a lot of information.

He seemed to be a really decent kid, he wasn't embarrassed about nudity at all, his or mine. But he was sort of fascinated by my pale white flesh and wanted to feel my shoulders, chest, and arms. I told him I was totally unfamiliar with African hair so we spent time playing with his hair and he had me shampoo his hair in the shower. I was surprised by how much it compresses down and teased up. He said he'd never seen a circumcised penis before, so we closely examined mine and I told him it was usually done on your first or second day of life and babies really never felt it and it was done with different steel devices, the most common were interlocking steel rings. He pointed out that his erection was much larger than mine. So I told him my erection was much more experienced than his!

In the bathroom we discussed bodies and I pointed out his nipples were tiny and mine were much bigger and very sensitive, I tried to tell him if you rubbed my tits I could actually feel it as if my dick was being touched but he didn't understand how that could happen. I cleaned his shallow cup of a belly button. His belly flesh was hairless and super soft but very dark black. His skin in places was very oily, especially his face. I took a wad of toilet paper and wiped his forehead and found it came up with dark brown smears, he said that was skin pigment, not dirt. He said African skin was heavily pigmented and it constantly leaked out to protect them from sunlight, like natural suntan lotion. I told him it was amazing how soft his flesh felt all over his body.

He let me turn him around and rub my hand over his naked buttocks and as a joke I scolded him that he should be ashamed to walk around with butt cheeks that felt as soft as an infant, he laughed loudly and said he never got in trouble before for being too soft.

That evening I called Jennifer and introduced her to Joe over the speaker phone, and told her the story. I asked if she had any advice what would be best for Joe and she said she would call me back, but she heard of a group in Oklahoma because they beg for money on TV in Austin all the time. Maybe it was called African Children International, they have a farm school and cattle ranch north of Tulsa. It's a Christian trade school, K to 12, with college scholarships and residences. I asked Joe if he wanted to be a cowboy and he shouted YES! he loved animals. She said she would call them tomorrow. They're north of Tulsa on 106th Street at Sheridan Road.

The school makes money raising steer for the beef they sell as grass fed organic all across the country. They breed and raise, graze, and do veterinary care of the herd on a 300 acre ranch. All the work is done by the resident students, all of them are from Africa and they usually have a resident population of 60 boys from age 8 to 22. Many go on to college and some even return to Africa once their education is complete but they all have the option to become US citizens. Joe told me they got tornadoes in Congo too during the monsoon, but they were rare. I warned him they get huge killer tornadoes in Oklahoma, he comment was `Meh.' But he grew up in a village that dealt with wild elephants, man eating tigers, and vampire bats the size of eagles.

We spent hours teaching him how to curse-out people in American English so he survived his next life in the states better. We practiced new sayings:

That's your dick?

Blow me!

You kiss your mom with that mouth?

Up yours! (Blazing Saddles)

Kiss my ass!

Grow Up!

Get off my back.

We shared the wine glass and had a great time. But getting a teenager drunk was probably not a good idea.

That evening I showed him photos of Jen and Daniel and we talked about his life while we sat on the sofa in our underwear with the windows wide open. Joe said his family was middle class, they owned an old ranch house and part of it had dirt floors. They had an outhouse and bathed in a tank outside by the water pump, driven by a small windmill. They had some electrical service but it wasn't on all day, just at times like 7pm to 10pm and 5am to 7am daily. His father had an old truck and drove his mother to work seven days a week.

He said his siblings were all about a year apart in age so his oldest brother was 28, he was the youngest child. But they all came together to make the trip to Spain. I told him it was highly likely they were all dead by now. He asked how it happened and I told him information about the freighter but didn't say it was top secret, since he had nobody to tell. I said they pushed everyone on the ship off the side with a mechanical wall, steam powered thing that pushed them out a cargo door on the side of the ship. I said they got pushed out and fell into the water and watched as the ship sailed away. I said a few might get sucked into the propeller since the ship ran kind of high and often just the very top of the prop was above the water if the seas were calm. That story made him start to cry a bit, so I reached over and rubbed his silky soft back. His flesh felt extremely soft, maybe because he was totally hairless.

After he calmed down I turned him sideways and he got on his back with his head on my lap. I rested my hand on his chest and continued comforting him. Joe had tiny black nipples, at a glance they were impossible to see (in the dark) but I felt the tiny bumps. His belly button was a small round cup with creases in the bottom, but his flesh was extremely soft. He never tried to stop me from feeling his body.

We changed the subject to school and friends and he talked endlessly about soccer and art class and going off by himself on Sundays to sketch scenes in the brush near home. He said you had to be careful where they lived because there were wild cats that escaped from the game reservation. When I asked what he'd like to do in life in the future he said he wanted to go to art school and maybe teach kids how to make beautiful drawings.

I asked him if it bothered him, my hand on his body and he said it felt nice. So I reached down and outside his burgundy red briefs I rested my hand on his limp dick and balls and gently cupped them but he never did anything and never changed the way he was talking, so I left my hand there for a while. I noticed he started to get slightly hard. He reached down and adjusted it so it pointed toward his hip, then we kept talking. I took that as sort of a go-ahead.

We started talking about sex and I told him about Patrik and the party in Cabo Negro. He said it sounded great and by then he was fully hard. It amazed me that his dick went from rather small to rather large so quickly. I mean he was probably nine inches long and oozing as I described in detail how I performed with Patrik's boner on the pool stairs in front of a large audience, in broad daylight. In fairly short order he had a puddle of pre-come below the head of his dick. Joe said he never got dick attention like that in his life, but he fucked a girl once.

After that story I got up and got paper towels and dried him off and the wet spot on the sofa too. He said he needed to wank soon or his balls might explode so he went in the bathroom and wanked standing in the shower, I heard him grunt and the spurts land on the bath tub floor. He walked out with a smile and a wet spot on his underwear. I applauded and he turned red faced.

That evening Joe slept on the sofa and I slept in bed, I told him I was going to wank too but he seemed disinterested.

The next day I got a call from Jennifer, she talked to the ranch school in Oklahoma and they said they would gladly accept Joe but we had to fly him to Tulsa, she said they said they never turn away African kids, even if they are at capacity and mid-semester.

I got a call from the INR that they were tracking the cargo ship and late this morning they did a slow turn around in a five mile wide circle and were slowly headed back to Oran. I asked what would be done about it and they said they'll sink it soon, a small US Naval helicopter was en-route from Italy to intercept it with a small air-dropped torpedo. The crew would never see it coming, just a sudden explosion and the ship would sink quickly, probably within sight of bodies floating on the water. The ship's crew would be welcome to join them.

I emailed Jen and asked her to buy us a USA burner phone at Walmart and UPS overnight it to me for Joe. We also authorized a temporary passport using his actual name and the address of the facility in Tulsa. We researched more online about the camp and watched videos on youtube and he agreed to go, but said he'd stay with me if he could, but I said I was gone too often and the police in Tangier would eventually arrest him and send him back to Congo. I told him I loved him and wished he could stay but he'd end up in police custody and back in Congo again.

Two days later I got notice from State that a temp passport was enroute. We spent the time close together, he stayed by my side every minute of the day. At work he spent his day on the sofa or nearby outside sketching things on paper with pencils. I had to buy a sharpener for him.

He sketched the entire front of the building my office was in. It included the leather store, my office, the US flag in the window, the two floors upstairs, and the street vendors who sold produce and other edible things on the wide sidewalk in front of this building. It took him six hours to make that one sketch and I told him I would frame it and keep it on the wall in the office. I made him sign it too.

Since it went so well, every day we showered together, meaning we took turns but he sat on the toilet and we talked while I showered, then it was his turn and I stayed in the room while he showered. He wanted me to stay nearby all the time. I think I was about the first person to show him respect and affection, the first adult that valued his thoughts and showed respect and he devoured that kind of attention. Every day he had me get in the tub and shampoo his hair for him, then rinse, dry, and comb it out.

He told me in rural Congo lots of villages lived with no clothes. It was so hot and humid you couldn't wear clothes so that's why it was his nature to be naked at home. I complimented him on his dick and he told me that was the tenth time I said it, so I apologized and explained in US culture nudity was not normal so I was a little awkward due to a lack of experience. He might find nudity was a little bit against the rules in Tulsa and he said he'd adapt to whatever the rules were.

I tried to explain to him about the USA with a federal, state, county, and local government but he said it sounded weird and confusing. He said he never voted but his father did, but you often had no choice since anyone running against the incumbent was often found dead.

That evening at shower time he went first, I sat on the toilet. This time he decided to wank with me watching. He spurt all over the floor of the tub then turned on the water and pulled the curtain across. I was rock hard watching him perform, but to him it was just like all the boys did in the brush back at home, they all did it together a few times a week but he said it wasn't a sexual thing, just a way to relax and reinforce community bonds.

His passport finally arrived at my office and I purchased airline tickets for him: Tangier to Madrid to Atlanta to Dallas to Tulsa, $2100. I paid for it out of my own pocket. And that evening we went clothes shopping for a few things and ran them through the wash machine and dryer in the building next door. Like me Joe actually started to like wearing a Djellaba.

The next morning we rode to the airport and sat outside the security area eating. On a TV in the terminal I saw a news story that a cargo ship sunk on the Mediterranean Sea yesterday, all the crew was lost, it was registered in Tunisia, no spokesmen were available for comment. I pointed the TV out to Joe and told him that was the ship he almost got on but he had nothing to say, just a solemn straight face and some tears.

One hour later we reviewed his entire trip, which I printed on a sheet of paper, he had his tickets, his boarding pass, his passport, his clothes in a backpack, his charged but powered off cell phone, with my cell number, the sat-phone number, my bible, and Jen's number already programmed in. The camp people had his arrival flight and time and would meet him at baggage claim in Tulsa. I gave him five US twenty dollar bills for food and drinks and we hugged and we even kissed (no tongue) and he stepped into the security line and I stood and watched until he passed the machines and began the walk to his departure gate. I never met his parents but I must say Joe was a really good kid. I hope he did well in America.

It took days until I got Joe out of my head 24 hours a day. I wished I could see him a couple years from now, wearing a cowboy hat, on horseback in Oklahoma rounding up the cattle, chasing off a group of coyotes with a broad relaxed smile on his face. He was the fourth boy I rescued and it was super rewarding. Sometimes I cried thinking about all of them. The one kid I cried for the most was little Naji Hassan, now Naji Bustamante. I wished I could have him come down every year at Christmas to visit for a few days. Naji should be old enough to register to vote soon.

Contact the author: borischenaz mailfence