Captured

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!"

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