Chapter 10

Al-Kuwari towers, Al Corniche Street, West Bay, Doha, Qatar.

At one o’clock in the morning, Al Corniche Street stretched out like a silver ribbon along the water’s edge, quiet yet alive in its own restrained way. From the eightieth story of a penthouse in West Bay, the city below appeared hushed, its heartbeat slowed to a nocturnal rhythm. The usual bustle had thinned to a sparse scattering of headlights, each car gliding smoothly along the sweeping curve of the Corniche, their beams briefly catching on the polished glass of towers before vanishing into the distance.

The ambiance was serene, almost cinematic — a city suspended between its own grandeur and a rare softness. The skyscrapers of West Bay glimmered like steel and glass sentinels, their lights still burning but muted compared to the blaze of day. Neon reflections quivered on the black surface of Doha Bay, where the water moved with a languid stillness, stirred only by the faintest suggestion of a breeze. The horizon, though dark, seemed to shimmer faintly with residual heat, a haze that never fully abandoned the desert air.

The weather, as it often did in the small hours, clung to its warmth. The heat of the day still lingered in the concrete and glass, radiating upward, though tempered by the gentler touch of the night wind. It was not cool — not truly — but softer, easier on the skin, as though the city itself had exhaled after the relentless sun. The air smelled faintly of salt and dust, mingling in a way both sharp and soothing.

From such height, the scene carried a dreamlike detachment. The Corniche curved gracefully around the bay, its lamps glowing amber, tracing the city’s spine. Beyond, the darkness of the water stretched outward, blending with the sky until it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. The mood was contemplative, almost intimate, as though the city had drawn its veil tighter, allowing only those awake at this hour to glimpse its quieter, more vulnerable self.

Jassim Al-Kuwari turned from the full ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall glass on the eightieth floor of Al-Kuwari Towers. His office overlooked the city and the bay, a spread of lights and dark water that might have commanded any other man’s thoughts. At 01:00 in the morning, Doha time, it would be 22:00 the previous day in the DRC; the arithmetic of time had a way of making distant lives feel both near and unreachable. His daughter would have finished her nightly routine and would be getting ready for bed. Time to call her.

He sighed and crossed the marble floor to his desk, the soft click of his shoes swallowed by the hum of the building’s night systems. The desk was a study in restraint: a slab of white marble, a leather blotter, a neat stack of briefing folders, and the satellite phone — compact, matte, the kind that looked as if it belonged on a military table rather than a penthouse. For a moment he simply looked at it, watching his face and the city lights ripple faintly in the glass. Above the distant bay a breeze had lifted faintly; somewhere below a taxi passed and then was gone.

He sat. The city’s heat still rose from the pavement and glass like a remembered weight, and the air inside the office held the antiseptic cold of high-rise air conditioning. He ran a hand through his hair, the movement slow, as if gathering courage. Then he reached out, picked up the phone, and pressed the call button for his daughter’s number. The device made a small, businesslike chirp. He had called before, and Nisreen had not answered. Maybe she had been detained, otherwise occupied; but at this hour she would surely be in her quarters, winding down for the night. The possibility of confrontation coiled in him like a wire.

The phone rang on the other side. It rang a few times and just as Jassim was about to disconnect there came the voice of his daughter.

“Halla Yābī,” Nisreen answered in Arabic using the Qatari dialect.

“Halla wallah, yā bintī Nisreen,” Jassim replied.

“You did not call to find out about the weather or my health,” Nisreen simply responded. “So, what can I do for you?”

“You seem a little defensive? Could it be about the attack on your betrothed?”

“He’s not my betrothed. My answer is the same. He can go to hell. I will not marry him.”

“Nisreen, Nisreen...” Jassim sighed. “I thought the Congo would teach you the lesson of loyalty and discipline...”

“I am myself! If you want loyalty and discipline, get a dog...”

“NISREEN! Don’t you speak to me like that!”

“You thought you’d send me here to the Congo to be dropped in despair and hardship so that I could come crawling back to the gold cage you try to smother me in. Well I got news for you dear Daddy. I am not coming back to Doha. Never again!”

Jassim heard the words but did not comprehend the prophecy contained in Nisreen’s words.

“Nisreen, you will board a flight back to Doha in the morning. There is a flight at ten to Kigali and a connection flight to Doha at 13:00. Be on that flight!”

“Or what? You’re going to disown me? Then do it.”

“Nisreen, you don’t know what you are throwing away...” Jassim sighed.

“What? To be a breeding factory for that wimpy shadow of a man that physically forced me to get on his aircraft? I still have a bruise on my arm where he grabbed hold of me.”

“He touched you? In public?”

“YES!”

“And he hurt your arm?”

“YES!”

“That’s not what he told me...”

“What did he tell you?”

“He said he wanted to talk to you. Get some sense into your head and then this big gorilla of a man just cold cocked him.”

Nisreen’s laughter rang through the speaker of the satellite phone. “The lying bastard! He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me towards his plane. My colleague told him twice to stop and in return he insulted the guy. That’s when Dolf busted him.”

“Hit him with a piece of wood and kicked him when he fell to the ground?”

“Is that what he told you?”

“Yes.”

“Well Dolf just hit him once with his fist. And THAT is the truth. Now, do you still want me to marry that lying woman beater?”

“Nisreen, it will be for the good of the family...”

“That’s your blind spot, Father. You are willing to sacrifice me, your daughter, for money and power. Sorry to disappoint you, but you can disown me as much as you like. I’m not a piece of furniture, a car, or an ivory tower skyscraper. I am me, a living, breathing soul with a life of my own to live!”

“Is that what you think, I think of you?”

“YES!”

“I ... I...”

“Good night, Father,” Nisreen replied and broke the connection.

For a moment the office kept her last words as if the glass itself had swallowed them. Jassim stared at the phone on his desk until the numbers on its tiny screen blurred. He pressed the redial button.

“The number you have dialled is not available. Please try again later... ” came from the speaker.

“The little minx has switched her phone off!” Jassim said to no one and disconnected the call. He closed his eyes, felt the thin line between fury and panic tighten in his chest, and then, with a decision made as much by muscle memory as thought, he said aloud, “I will go there myself and get her to come back!” The words hung hollow in the cool air, small against the height of the tower and the far stretch of the Corniche below.

What Jassim Al-Kuwari did not know, or foresee in his wildest dreams, is what he would find in Goma.

Goma International Airport, the next morning at SAAF 22 Squadron.

The morning light dawned golden across Goma. A few scattered clouds floated lazily overhead, and the volcano’s crest wore a shawl of fog that slithered down its black, lava-scarred slopes. The mist thinned as it reached the warmer air, dissolving above the dense green canopy that stretched out below like a living sea.

Breakfast was done and dusted. Andy had given Nisreen and me a short brief, but then waved us off to first attend to a request from the 22 Squadron CO.

Side by side, we made our way across to the SAAF hangar. Both of us were kitted out in our green flight-suits, ready for the next relief run to Bukavu, south across Lake Kivu. The fabric already clung to us in the morning heat, though the day was still young.

“I wonder what’s up?” Nisreen asked, steadying the edge of her shayla as a light breeze teased at it. “If they needed us for another sortie, we’d have been in a proper briefing by now.”

I shrugged, tucking my hands into my flight-suit pockets. “Your guess is as good as mine. This one’s a mystery.” Truth was, my stomach carried that odd flutter—the kind you get when you sense the day is about to hand you something unexpected.