Damascus

An excerpt of the thriller ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ABYSS.

Damascus

On Both Sides of the Abyss

An excerpt

Nour landed at Damascus international airport at ten forty five and passed the immigration counters and customs inspectors like any other passenger, but with ease and without the slightest hitch. A polite stranger helped with her suitcase up to the exit, where they were accosted by a cab driver that took her suitcase and the polite stranger left them and vanished among the coming out crowed.

'Follow me please Ms Ramzi.' The cab driver asked her and led the way to his parked cab. He drove up to her Christian sector hideout apartment, and accompanied her carrying her suitcase up to the apartment door. He unlocked the front door, opened it up, laid her suitcase on the floor, handed her the keys, and with touching his brow with his right hand, and with this mute greeting he turned around and left.

There was a note on the low coffee table in the living room:

"Welcome, there is enough food in the fridge, and there is reading material concerning the old city, I'll see you tonight."

She just washed her hands and studied with much interest the reading material, which Abdul Karim left her, and while unloading her suitcase in the bedroom cupboard she thought things over; and she decided to visit tomorrow morning first of all the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus greatest and the third holiest mosque to Muslims. There she would pray for the success of her dangerous mission in her home town. She was protected by a team of the internal security service according to Abdul Karim's orders, but she still feared the vengeance of her own family members and her ex fiancé's family.

The Umayyad Mosque is a huge and magnificent mosque and the most important site in the ancient city, and she knew that she will need several days to inspect it. She believed that the visit and prayers in this holy site would ensure the successful start of her inspections of the ancient city.

She had something to eat at lunch time, and resumed her reading enthusiastically. She was very eager to learn all about the antiquity importance of her home native town, of which she was very proud of.

Abdul Karim arrived at six thirty with a broad smile spread all his face. He hardly hugged her a few second when they heard a series of knocks on the front door, and he had to detach himself from Nour's arms with regret and open the door. It was his driver that brought them their take away dinner of kebab and French fried plus two bottles of mineral water.

'So what have they asked you to do?' He asked Nour while having dinner without delay, before the food will cool off.

'They want me to send them Morse messages every night beside the phone calls to my contact at the UNESCO center.'

'That's simply excellent and it meets our needs, we'll feed them every night then with disinformation.' He remarked with a chuckle.

In her bed after three long hours of bliss that encouraged her very much, Abdul Karim told her before he left that the cab driver, which accompanied her from the airport will come to drive her to the ancient city at nine am.

At five minutes to nine am on the next morning after a quick breakfast, Nour was at the building entrance ready for her first day of inspection; she did not use any cosmetics but covered her head with the hijab, and waited in front of her building entrance to the cab driver. She noticed a certain type leaning with his elbows on the roof of a parked car on the other side of the road watching her with interest. She was used to men hot looks but it could be just some one of her protection team. She didn't pay any particular attention to that type. The cab driver arrived and took her up to the entrance of the impressive Umayyad Mosque.

The immenseness of this magnificent mosque astounded her she roamed around its huge hall and looked for a secluded corner where she could pray without kneeling on all her fours, and thus attract unneeded attention; there were always those fanatics that objected to women presence in a mosque, and her own father did not let the females of his family to visit their neighborhood mosque. She believed that Allah would listen to her prayer and won't demand her to kneel and to touch the carpeted floor with her brow.

She was not able to inspect this gigantic and a marvel of a mosque, so impressed she was. She decided to just roam around in it after her prayer, and start her inspection at the next day. At one pm she went out to meet the cab driver that came to pick her up for lunch, and she noticed the same face on the other side of the road not far off, in the company of another young male near the same car, on which this type was leaning on the car's roof when she saw him while she waited for the cab in the morning. The moment her eyes met with this stranger's eyes, he raised his arm towards the mosque minaret holding a camera in his hand, and started to take pictures of the minaret. It did augment her self confidence and she felt thankful to Abdul Karim for providing her with so much care for her safety.

'Come to pick me up and drive me back to the mosque in about forty five minutes.' She told the driver and went inside The Old Town restaurant.

She waited two minutes after lunch in front of the restaurant, when the driver came back and she was driven to the mosque again.

She strolled at the chambers and corridors, which she did not see yet up to five pm, when the cab came to pick her up and drive her home.

 

At a quarter to five pm Abdul Karim collected the top secret documents on his desk and went over to his safe to store them, as he was crouched before the open safe his office door was opened up suddenly and Rashid brandishing a Colt forty five in his extended forward hand entered, accompanied by two young men carrying sub machine guns in their hands.

'You're under arrest Abdul Karim!' He declared to his astounded boss.

Abdul Karim stood up and moved forward with a raised hand, ready to slap his deputy's face.

Rashid pulled the trigger and a forty five bullet pierced Abdul Karim's heart. He stood like a statue for a short second with an open mouth, watching his deputy with disbelief and hit the floor with a loud thump.

'He resisted arrest you witnessed it.' Rashid told the two young men. 'Search the office and get rid of his body and don't forget to clean up the mess.' He ordered them and went out.

© Haim Kadman 2012 �" all rights reserved.

 

"On both sides of the abyss"

Synopsis

 

This espionage thriller relates the trials of Amina Rifa'ee a young Syrian woman, was born in Damascus Syria; a beloved daughter of a prominent Ba'ath party member that refused to marry her father business associate. She was sent to study in London School of Economics as a compromise while her fiancé' is compensated by her family.

Her loneliness drives her to the arms of Murad the Libyan (an Israeli Mossad member), and during her fourth year of studies she moves to his apartment and thus cuts off her ties with her family.

As Murad does not succeed to persuade her to become a secret agent, he introduces her after a relationship of several months to Kenneth Collins the Beirut American embassy's press attaché
who is in fact a CIA agent. Amina falls in love with Kenneth; and the latter takes her with him to Beirut to train her as secret agent, which would serve the Israeli Mossad in Damascus, without her being aware to it.

But at the very beginning she's by her fiancé's brother and she is caught by the Syrian internal security service and in her first interrogation she agrees to become a double agent, to atone for her treason instead of arrest, torture and death.

 

62 chapters

148 pages

75,767 words

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