The Witness by Josh McDowell Read Free Book Online Page B

suddenly go sliding off the highway. And why should I believe in you, he thought angrily. What have you given me other than loneliness and pain? And now this! When I was trying to help a man who had just lost his daughter and whose wife was missing? This is what you give me?
    The cell phone rang, shattering the silence and rattling his nerves.
    “Hello?”
    “Marwan, it’s Ramy. Are you there yet?”
    “No, not yet.”
    Marwan checked his watch and his map, and the knot in his stomach tightened. It was almost seven thirty, and he was only now approaching the outskirts of Marseille.
    “Ramy, I don’t think I can make it.”
    “You have to,” Ramy insisted. “You don’t have a choice. I can get you out of North Africa. But I can’t get you out of a French prison. How much farther?”
    “Five kilometers, maybe ten, but look at the time.”
    “I know, I know,” Ramy said. “But look, we have to go over some things before you get to the airport.”
    “Like what?”
    “Your phone, for starters. You said it was originally the taxi driver’s.”
    “Correct.”
    “But you called through our scrambler system in Prague, right?”
    “Of course.”
    “Then the cops probably can’t trace it back to me. But they’re going to try, so you can’t keep it, and you can’t use it again. As soon as you hang up with me, you need to ditch it immediately. You got it?”
    “I got it.”
    “When you get to Casa, buy a satellite phone,” Ramy continued. “Use cash. And don’t skimp. Get a good one. Something nobody can trace or tap.”
    “Right.”
    “But only use it to call me. No one else.”
    “Right, no one else.”
    “Marwan, I’m not kidding,” Ramy said. “You’re tired. You’re fighting off shock. You’re not yourself tonight. You’ve got to be extra careful. You can’t afford to make a single mistake. And until we figure this thing out, you need to get low, stay low. No friends. No old hangouts. Nothing familiar.”
    “That should be easy,” Marwan lied. “I don’t know anyone in Morocco.”
    “Good,” Ramy said. “Keep it that way.”
    Marwan knew Ramy had never liked Kadeen al-Wadhi, and with good reason. When they were all kids, Kadeen, Marwan’s best friend, seemed to feel an obligation to make the younger boy miserable. Sometimes, when things got out of hand, Marwan would step in. But mostly he just stood by and laughed as Ramy cried or tried to fight back.
    Age had changed everything. Kadeen moved away and found religion, and Ramy moved into that best friend position in Marwan’s life. Still, because of that history, although Marwan kept in regular contact with Kadeen, he never mentioned him to his younger brother. Those were wounds that he knew might never heal.
    “Now look,” Ramy continued, “one thing seems certain. Your instincts about Claudette Ramsey were right on the money. She’s alive. She’s in São Paulo. She’s making wire transfers. Which means she’s probably behind this whole thing. That’s the good news—we know that much already.”
    “And the bad news?” Marwan asked as the rain began to fall harder over Marseille and the throbbing in his shoulder worsened by the minute.
    “She and whoever she’s working with know you’re onto them.”
    “But that still doesn’t make sense,” Marwan said. “I’m the only person who could have known, plus my sources in Zurich and São Paulo.”
    “Might they have double-crossed you?”
    “I don’t see how,” Marwan said. “I’ve known those guys for fifteen years, at least.”
    “What if the phone in Ramsey’s place was bugged?” Ramy asked.
    “The one in Monte Carlo?”
    “No, the one in Paris,” Ramy said.
    “It’s possible,” Marwan said. “But by whom? The security company?”
    “Or the police,” Ramy said. “Didn’t you say he suspected someone in French intelligence was after him?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well?”
    Marwan considered that for a moment. Perhaps Ramy was right.
    “What did you say