Refugee Prison Break

Chapter 16

From abstract, outlandish dream, my plan had instantly become serious, urgent and tangible. Noor had sent enough cash to cover everything I asked for plus contingency, and would now expect results. There was no backing out.

I sat in my kitchen staring at the money. If things went wrong, it would be very hard to uncover the Sarraf family's involvement. In fact, if I were an FBI agent trying to entrap them, I would have nothing but circumstantial evidence. They were being very clever, and it struck me that I needed to be just as stealthy. Whether things went well or badly, I needed to cover my tracks.

I wanted to start reserving things, things like the Schattig Aardworm, a critical element in my plan. However, if the tunnel were discovered after the mission, and if my name was on the reservation for the only tool in the world that could have made such a tunnel, law enforcement agencies would arrive at my door within minutes. I needed someone in whose name I could do things, someone totally unconnected to Bas and ideally me.

I considered identity theft. I had heard it was relatively straightforward to go on the dark web and buy someone's details—name, address, account numbers. For a thousand dollars, I could assume a new identity and conduct all my malfeasances under it. It was an appealing idea, but I ultimately felt it had to be discarded. I wanted to carry out my plan with minimal impact on innocent bystanders. By nature, I didn't like breaking rules; I didn't like stealing from people, or doing bad things. Freeing Bas from his complex quagmire was an exception, and if I could help it, I wanted to do it without harming my conscience. If I had to involve others, I wanted them conscious of their actions.

It took some time to think of a suitable candidate. If someone I barely knew asked me to put my name all over something as unlawful as a prison break, I would shoo them away and maybe go to the police myself. Eventually, I arrived at the only person I could think of crazy enough to hear me out.

Her name was Poke. Poke was a student at the same time I was, but she went to a rival university, and she studied humanities instead of engineering. I knew her by reputation. She toured the campuses of Kuala Lumpur railing against moral injustices around the world. And she wasn't just talk. According to reliable accounts, Poke had donated a kidney to an orphan in Oman, and married a friend so he could stay in Malaysia. She had demonstrated ample willingness to do risky things for grand causes, including immigration.

It wasn't hard to track her down. Poke was participating in a publicly advertised panel debate on global inequality. It was a few nights away, so I noted it in my diary and went to bed.