THE TESTAMENT OF AL-HARIQA
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1
Two days after the digital breach that had shaken Lina in Berlin, she called Adnan at his Damascus hotel, her voice carrying a clear professional excitement despite the extra caution that had begun to mark every step she took since the threat. As she told him, she had spent the previous two days working almost without interruption, sleeping only a few hours between one research session and the next, driven by a growing sense that she had finally come close to something real—something worth all the effort and danger. As promised, she had changed all her passwords and called in a friend who specialized in digital security. He had examined her device thoroughly and found no further trace of the breach, but he had warned her that whoever had done it possessed sophisticated tools that were difficult to track by ordinary technological means.
“Mr. al-Rafii, I think I have finally found the thread that ties everything together.” She was speaking quickly, excited in a way he had never heard from her before. “Through that retired Beirut researcher I told you about, I managed to gain access to an old police file, partially classified, dating back to the summer of 1976—about two years before Kamal al-Hawrani disappeared.”
“What does the file say?”
“It describes a threat made personally against Kamal al-Hawrani by a party that the report never clearly identifies. It seems to have involved substantial debts, or perhaps fierce commercial rivalry; the exact nature of the threat is not entirely clear because of the poor quality of the photographed copy we obtained. What matters, Mr. al-Rafii, is that the report says Kamal filed an official complaint on July 14, 1976, claiming that unknown men had broken into one of his shops in Beirut and stolen a large sum of money and jewelry. He said he feared for his family’s safety if he remained in Beirut.”
2
Adnan felt other pieces of the picture falling into place. “That matches exactly the period when Kamal visited Haj Tawfiq’s shop with his daughter, asking to recover part of his deposit.”
“Exactly. I think this is what happened, Mr. al-Rafii, though it is still an inference based on incomplete evidence. Frightened by the escalating threats in Beirut, Kamal decided to hide a substantial part of his wealth—not only the old 1958 deposit that Haj Tawfiq was already holding without Kamal knowing its true size, but also additional money and jewelry he had accumulated himself, perhaps never part of that original deposit at all.”
“Does the report say who specifically threatened Kamal? Or whether he knew their identity?”
“The report is terse on that point, but it says that in his original statement to the police, Kamal indicated that he suspected a former business rival who had lost a major deal to him years earlier. He gave no name, fearing, as the report puts it, “consequences his family could not bear” if he accused the wrong person. A strange sentence, Mr. al-Rafii. It suggests that Kamal knew far more than he officially told the police, but chose silence to protect his family.”
“And do you think that was what he was asking Haj Tawfiq for during that visit? Not merely part of his family’s old deposit, but another, more recent sum entrusted specifically to him?”
“It is a very strong possibility, yes. It may also explain Haj Tawfiq’s extreme tension during that visit, as you described it to me. Perhaps he feared that if Kamal discovered the true size of the old deposit, he would realize there was a family fortune far larger than he imagined, locked away with Haj Tawfiq for two decades—while Kamal was now pleading for a relatively small part of it.”
3
Lina paused for a moment, then added in a more serious tone. “But that leads me to the most important part of what I discovered, Mr. al-Rafii. I continued searching the same archive, trying to trace what happened to the case after that first complaint, and I found another reference, extremely brief, to a later investigation opened in late 1978, immediately after Kamal’s disappearance. It linked his disappearance to that old complaint, suggesting that whoever threatened him in 1976 might have been the same person who finally carried out the threat after two years of watching and waiting.”
“Does the report mention a name? Any possible identity for the person who made the threat?”
“Unfortunately, no—not directly. But there is an intriguing detail. The report says that one witness, a neighbor of the Hawrani family in Beirut, stated that in the weeks before Kamal disappeared, he saw a man visiting the house more than once. The man spoke with a Damascene accent, not a Beiruti one, and seemed to have known Kamal personally in the past.” Lina paused, then added in a suggestive tone, “That reminds me, Mr. al-Rafii, of your own description of Ilyas al-Nabulsi—the man you said spoke with a polished Damascene accent despite claiming an old acquaintance with the family.”
“How exactly did you get hold of this file? I thought the police archives from that period were classified.”
“A large part of them are, indeed. But the researcher I work with, a man called Abu Nabil, spent decades archiving documents from the Lebanese Interior Ministry before he retired. He knows every bureaucratic loophole that can be exploited to reach files that have not yet been digitized or formally classified, files sitting in forgotten cardboard boxes in damp basements. I paid him extra this time because he had to take greater risks than usual to obtain this particular file. A few months ago, he noticed that someone else had requested the very same file and left a suspicious trace in the request log.”
“Who requested it before?”
“The record gives no name, Mr. al-Rafii—only an internal request code that could, theoretically, be traced to the relevant department.”
“Do what you need to do, Lina. I’ll cover any additional expense.”
“Thank you. I’ll follow this thread immediately.”
4
A cold shiver ran through Adnan. “You mean Ilyas—or someone from his family—could have been involved in Kamal’s disappearance itself, back in 1978?”
“I can’t say that for certain yet, Mr. al-Rafii. Ilyas was still a very young child in Damascus at the time. But I can’t rule it out either. He may have visited the Hawrani house with an older relative—his father, perhaps, or someone close to the family. He may have been a child then, but the family connection we are hearing about now could go back to the same old trust, perhaps through stories and information passed down within the family over the years. I need to know more before I draw any conclusions.”
Adnan sat in silence for a few moments, absorbing the weight of this new possibility: that the network threatening him now might be part of a complicated family history stretching back more than half a century.
“Lina, if this is true, it means someone—perhaps an entire family—has known about this old trust for decades. They may not have been waiting all this time simply to seize it. They may have been waiting for the right moment.”
“Exactly, Mr. al-Rafii. And that explains something that has puzzled me from the beginning: how did Ilyas know the precise time the message would reach you? And how did he know about the discovery of the document itself? Unless Ziad Salim told him—despite everything, despite Ziad never telling him about the archive, or even seeing the original documents himself.”
“You mean the discovery of the document itself wasn’t a coincidence?”
“That is a possibility I find more convincing every day, Mr. al-Rafii. Perhaps someone has been watching the old trust, following its trail, waiting for the right political or economic circumstances to make a move. The timing may be deliberate. And if that is true, the real Hawrani family interests may not be your interests at all—they may serve his.”
5
“Lina, have you found anything about Reem al-Hawrani? Is she still alive?”
There was a brief silence on the other end, then Lina’s voice returned with renewed excitement. “Actually, yes, Mr. al-Rafii—and this is my most important news today. I found a record for a woman named Reem al-Hawrani, now in her seventies, who currently lives in Damascus itself, specifically in the Muhajireen district. Apparently, she moved there from Beirut many years ago, after things had settled down somewhat there in the late 1990s.”
Adnan’s heart seemed to stop for a moment. “Can you give me her address? Or her phone number?”
“I found an old telephone number registered in her name in a public directory from several years ago, but I can’t guarantee that it is still active. I’ll send it to you now through the encrypted channel.” Lina paused, then added in a clear warning tone, “But please, Mr. al-Rafii, be extremely careful about how you contact her. If the network we suspect really is watching us, as it appears to be, Reem herself may be a potential target—especially if, like her father before her, she possesses knowledge of, or a claim to, this trust that she has not yet revealed.”
6
Adnan called the number Lina had sent him, his hand trembling slightly with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. He had rehearsed what he would say in his mind several times, staring at the number on his phone, trying to find an opening sentence that would not sound intrusive or absurd. The phone rang for several seconds before a woman’s voice answered—calm, cautious, and unmistakably elderly.
“Hello?”
“Good evening. Am I speaking with Mrs. Reem al-Hawrani?”
A long silence followed on the other end, carrying a clear tension. “Who is calling?”
“My name is Adnan al-Rafii. You may not remember me, but we met once, many years ago, when you were still young, in Haj Tawfiq’s shop. I was working there at the time.”
Adnan heard a faint breath on the other end, as though the woman had been startled, or perhaps had suddenly been seized by a memory.
“Adnan? Adnan al-Rafii? The young man who used to work for Haj Tawfiq? My God. I never thought I would hear that name again.”
7
“Mrs. Reem, I know this is extremely sudden, and I’m sorry for calling you without warning. I have been trying to understand what happened to your family, especially Kamal’s disappearance, and I believe you may have information that could help me.”
He heard a long, deep sigh on the other end, a sigh carrying decades of suppressed grief.
“If you’ll allow me to ask, Mrs. Reem, what was your life like after all that? After your father’s disappearance? How did you go on?”
Reem was silent for a long moment, as though summoning memories she had not touched in many years. “My life… I don’t know how to describe it. After he disappeared, I stayed in Beirut for several years, trying to hide from him—from the past, I suppose, and from the questions that never stopped. Then, in the early eighties, I left for Damascus, hoping someone might offer me a different life. I learned French, worked as a teacher, and eventually married here. We had a daughter. I tried to build a simple, quiet life, one that would not burden my children with the weight of a past that was not their fault.”
“Did you marry again? Is your husband still alive?”
“My husband died about ten years ago, may God have mercy on him. He was a good man who never knew the full details of my story. We were married for ten years, then our children grew up, moved to other cities, and married. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them everything, even after they had children of their own. I live alone now, more or less, with a few kind neighbors. One moved to Aleppo years ago, and the other checks in on me from time to time.”
“Could we meet? Somewhere you feel safe?”
Reem thought for a moment before answering. “Yes. There is a quiet café near my home in Muhajireen. I sometimes go there around three in the afternoon. If that works for you, we can meet there.”
“I’ll be there, Mrs. Reem. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
Before ending the call, Reem added one final sentence in a tone of renewed caution: “Mr. Adnan, please don’t tell anyone about this meeting. Not where we are meeting, not when, not even that you spoke to me. I have learned over the years that some things are safer when they remain unspoken. And there are old reasons for being careful—reasons that may be more dangerous than they seem.”
Adnan woke an hour before dawn on the morning of his meeting with Reem, unable to shake the sense of unease that had followed him through the night. He had barely slept. He sat by his bedroom window, watching Damascus slowly awaken beneath the first light of dawn, and felt the weight of a new question settling over everything he already knew.
He thought of Reem as he had last seen her, a woman in her early twenties, fiercely intelligent, carrying in her eyes an anxiety that seemed too sharp for someone so young. How many years had she carried that fear? How much of the past had she buried beneath the quiet life she had built? He wondered whether she had ever imagined that someone would come looking for her after all these decades.
He also remembered the small piece of paper she had slipped into his hand the first time they said goodbye: “Be careful of the people around you. Not everyone is what they seem.” He had never understood what those words meant. For forty-five years they had remained in his mind, two simple sentences he had never been able to place within the story. But now they felt like a warning whose meaning had been waiting all that time to reveal itself.
8
The next morning, while Adnan was getting ready for the meeting, Lina called him, her voice carrying unmistakable urgency.
“Mr. al-Rafii, I discovered something else last night, and I couldn’t wait until morning to tell you. I followed the financial trail connected to the old Hawrani trust and found several large transfers through a small private company of the kind that, according to the source I’m using, often operates quietly for clients who want legitimate protection without attracting attention.”
“What does that mean?”
“It most likely means Ilyas is financing something—some operation that requires resources and people who do not appear on ordinary records. The transfers were made during the past two weeks, from an account linked to the company, and then moved through other accounts that are much harder to trace. I can’t tell you exactly what he is financing, but the pattern is not ordinary.”
A shiver ran through Adnan. “Do you think this company is the one that hacked your computer in Beirut?”
“I can’t say that with absolute certainty, but the timing and the nature of the activity are disturbingly consistent. I would not rule out the possibility that the same people are behind both things. And if the incident at the hotel in Beirut was also connected to them, then you may already be under surveillance.”
“Do you think I should cancel the meeting?”
Lina thought for a moment before answering with unmistakable firmness. “No. I don’t think you should. Reem may be the only remaining source who can explain what happened to the old trust and what became of Kamal. But you must be extremely careful. Meet her only in the place you agreed on, arrive early, watch who enters and leaves, and do not tell her anything about our investigation until you know whether she is genuinely alone in this.”
9
Adnan headed to the café in Muhajireen a full half hour before the appointed time, trying to arrive without being noticed. The café was small and quiet, with wooden tables and a faint smell of jasmine drifting in from a little fountain in the courtyard. He chose a corner seat that gave him a clear view of the entrance and ordered a small cup of coffee. The calm of the place contrasted sharply with the tension tightening in his chest. He took only a few sips, waiting for the woman whose arrival could change the entire shape of the journey he had begun.
He watched those entering and leaving the café with a careful eye, trying to distinguish any face that might belong to someone following him. The suspicion of being watched had become almost a reflex. He had spent so long being cautious that caution itself had become part of his nature.
Adnan used the waiting time to review in his mind everything he had gathered so far: the 1958 trust belonging to the Hawrani family; the 1976 complaint that had disappeared into the police archives; Kamal’s disappearance two years later; the mysterious man who had visited the Hawrani house before the disappearance; the old family connection to Ilyas; and the anonymous request for the very same file Lina had uncovered. Each detail seemed, on its own, too small to mean anything. Together, however, they formed a pattern whose outlines were becoming harder and harder to ignore.
He also considered the possibility that this very meeting, despite all his precautions, had been deliberately arranged by someone else. Perhaps Reem herself was being watched. Perhaps the person sitting somewhere behind him was not a random customer but a real observer. And perhaps the most dangerous part of the journey was not discovering the truth, but allowing the truth to discover him first.
Three o’clock passed, then a quarter past, without Reem appearing. Adnan tried to reassure himself that the delay had an ordinary explanation. Damascus traffic could be difficult, especially at that hour. But the longer he waited, the more the unease returned.
At three twenty-three, he took out his phone and tried calling Reem on the same number. It rang several times without an answer. He tried again five minutes later, with the same result. He was no longer able to dismiss the silence as simple traffic or a missed appointment. Something was wrong.
He politely approached the café owner and asked whether he knew the woman named Reem whom he had described to him. The man told him that he had not seen her that day, although he recognized her as a regular customer who had been coming for years. He had no idea why she had not appeared.
Adnan looked at his watch again: approximately half past three. He felt his hand move instinctively toward his phone. Before he could decide whether to call Lina, the phone suddenly rang.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Adnan al-Rafii?” A strange man’s voice came through, formal and slightly tense. “This is a paramedic from the hospital. We found your number in an elderly woman’s phone. She was involved in a car accident a short while ago, near Bab Sharqi. She was unconscious when we found her. We wanted to tell you only one thing: she asked us to call you specifically, in case she lost consciousness.”