He extended his hand and asked her to have a seat.
What would bring a woman like this to the office of the drug cartels’ number-one enemy?
“Yes, ma’am. What can I help you with?” he asked, trying his best to maintain an authoritative tone.
She stared at him with unexpected calm. “Are you . . . Detective Hanash?” she asked.
He looked around as if she were referring to someone else and then took a moment to scrutinize her. “My real name is Bineesa,” he said finally, “but if you know who it was who first called me Hanash, I want to bring him to justice! And you? Who are you? And how did you get into my office?”
“I bribed the guard,” she said casually, gesturing toward the door.
Hanash leaned back in his leather swivel chair, clasped his hands behind his neck, and looked at her carefully. He was starting to have serious doubts—was this a ruse? Her smile, self-assuredness, and calm were indicative of a woman who was used to all the chips falling in her favor. On top of that, her devastating beauty gave her a confidence he had never seen before. She was calm and collected, knowing in advance that she would always receive a warm welcome.
“May I have the pleasure of knowing with whom I’m speaking?”
“My name is Bushra al-Rifiya,” she said, staring at him as if it were a test. “I was living with my husband in Spain, and we settled here in Tangier not too long ago.”
Hanash smiled to himself even before she ended her sentence. This was what he had thought all along. He extended his hand to shake hers again, this time sincerely. She blushed and her heart raced as she wondered if he knew why she had come. She hesitated, but it was too late.
“I’m all ears. What can I do for you?” he asked gently, leaning in and giving her his full attention.
She paused. She hadn’t expected such a receptive audience and needed to compose herself and calculate her next move. She wasn’t prepared to share all of the details at once. She wanted to reel him in slowly. Her plan was to offer a few hints about her circumstances and then suggest that a meeting outside of the office would yield a greater reward. She shook her head a couple of times, as though she’d forgotten why she had come in the first place. Hanash cracked a smile. He knew he had her in his grasp. The snake was ready to strike. He stood up and walked over to his closed office door.
“You can tell me whatever you want. No one can hear you behind this door!” he boomed, emphasizing his point that her secrets would be safe inside these walls.
She stared into space and thought carefully, searching for the easiest way to divulge why she had come. Hanash watched as the expression on her face changed. The confidence she had strode in with gave way to a pout and she cast her eyes to the floor. She took a few quick breaths. He knew she was trying to keep her composure. He moved back around his desk and pushed the button on his phone to mute so that they wouldn’t be interrupted. He could tell she was searching for a way to seem unrehearsed.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start from the beginning.”
She took a beautifully embroidered kerchief from her purse and clutched it nervously. “Better to start from the end. My husband was kidnapped.”
He understood intuitively that what was most important was not her husband’s kidnapping, but the way in which the kidnapping would be resolved. She gave him the information, piece by piece, monitoring his reactions. This was curious to Hanash because it was the same conversational tactic the big-time drug dealers used. They would give clipped, half-sentence responses to see if their interrogator responded. And they were never in a rush. They knew that the development of the case was dependent upon every little detail they decided to share.
“What is your husband’s name?” Detective Hanash asked firmly.
“Mohamed bin Bushuayb, known as al-Sabliyuni.”
The detective sat back, taking his time. He was bothered by the fact that he had never heard this name before. “Is he currently living in Tangier?” he asked, as though they had been friends forever.
“He’s from Katama, like me, but we were living in Spain.”
This cut to the heart of the matter: Katama was a world-renowned hash paradise. He nodded, indicating that her message had been received. “Do you have a picture of him?” he asked.
There was a long silence, as if he had asked her to divulge something off limits. He turned to his computer and typed something, looking at the screen. She searched in her purse, and took out a small picture that had been in a side pocket. She looked at it adoringly before handing it over to him. Detective Hanash stared at it intently, as though this man were his sworn enemy even before meeting him. Bushra bit her lip, convinced that she had just entangled herself in something grave. Detective Hanash knew exactly what her movements meant: that this was the beginning of an agreement between them.
“Do you know his kidnappers?” he asked nonchalantly, as if he knew the answer in advance.
“No” she said, trying hard to chart an ambiguous route.
He shook his head, knowing what she was up to. “How did you find out he was kidnapped?”
“One of them called me and warned me not to talk to the police. My husband spoke as well, and asked me not to call them. I know I’m not supposed to be here, but here I am.”
“What did the kidnappers request from you?”
“A briefcase, but I have no idea where it is.”
He got up from his desk and took a seat next to her.
“What’s your husband’s line of work?” he asked with a sense of gravity that warned her not to lie.
“I don’t know exactly. I’m just a housewife. We were living in Marbella and then moved here just five months ago. And then my husband was kidnapped.”
She sniffled, choked up, and looked as though she were about to start sobbing.
“If I understand you correctly, you want to get your husband back,” he said with feigned empathy. “The kidnappers asked you to hand over a briefcase and you don’t know where it is.”
She nodded without looking up at him.
Hanash was struck by the gall of this woman. What she had divulged so far lacked cohesion. He hadn’t yet pressured her or asked follow-up questions as he would in a real interrogation. He wanted to give her a sense of assurance and listen to her without suspicion, but his years of working with criminals had taught him not to trust what she was saying. He knew she was testing him to see if he would reveal anything he knew about her husband.
She sensed that Hanash was figuring her out and starting to read her thoughts.
“I think your husband is engaged in illegal activities,” he said, which clearly took her by surprise.
He was extremely polite in how he crafted this accusation. She went silent for a moment, not knowing how to respond. She knew that whatever she said next would be filed away by Hanash. She muttered some incomprehensible, barely audible remark and then shut up, thinking it better to not even venture a comment. Her mood had changed completely.
Detective Hanash returned to his desk. She did not look like a grieving woman whose husband had been kidnapped by a gang. Her outfit, composed of items from famous Spanish designer boutiques, suggested someone who clearly had other intentions in visiting the office of Tangier’s most notorious detective.
3
Detective Hanash would meet up with Bushra whenever she visited Casablanca, putting her up in a secret apartment he owned downtown. Whenever she came down from Tangier he would take time off work. He would tell his family that he had some urgent business and would leave without giving a time frame for his