No Safe Place Read Free Page A

“Clear the way — medic!”
    Through the noise of the crowd came the noise of police sirens, the special sirens of the CRS, the security police. The sound that put terror into any migrant.
    Abdul knew that whoever was wounded would be arrested before they were treated, and likely deported after that. He wanted to help get them out of there, so that when the CRS got to the middle of the crowd there would be no one they could take away. The police would beat at the crowd with batons, but migrants were tough. Many had been beaten before, often by people more brutal than the French.
    By a miracle, the crowd parted enough to let Abdul and the woman through. The man on the ground was Eritrean. Blood came from a wound in his chest, and he was struggling to breathe.
    The charity worker opened the first-aid kid and ripped open packets of gauze with her teeth.
    â€œHold this!” She pulled in volunteers to put pressure on the wound and carry the man to the truck.
    Abdul could tell from the cries and the noise of pounding boots that the CRS was almost at them. He got ready to run.
    Then he spied the knife — a serrated fish-gutter’s knife — scuffling around under people’s feet.
    A knife like that would give him protection. He wouldn’t even have to use it. He could just show it to people and they’d back away.
    Scrambling on his hands and knees, he went after the knife. Several times he almost had it, then it would be kicked from his reach by the crowd on the move.
    Finally his hand went firmly around the knife handle. Already he felt stronger. He held it tightly and got to his feet.
    He brought the knife up just as a CRS officer moved in close to him. The knife stabbed into the officer’s arm.
    In that moment, Abdul saw the officer look at his face and memorize it through the protective plexiglass of his faceshield.
    In the instant it took for the officer to raise his good arm, the one with the baton in it, Abdul ducked and plunged through the crowd.
    He could hear the officers coming after him, could hear the cries of the migrants who closed ranks and were beaten for not getting out of the way. He heard, and he kept moving.
    At the yacht basin, he jumped the low fence and stumbled his way down the stone steps, slimy from the seaweed left by the low tide. He tried to blend in with the wall as he made his way around the narrow ledge toward the steps in the opposite corner. The ledge was slippery, too, caked with seaweed and trash. But at least he couldn’t be seen from above. And the few boats in the basin were abandoned by their owners this late in the season.
    It was then that he noticed he was still clutching the knife. And it was covered with blood.
    Abdul grabbed at an iron ring attached to the stone wall and leaned down, dipping the knife into the cold sea water. He wiped the blade and handle dry on his trousers and righted himself on the ledge.
    The knife was too long to fit into his pocket and it was unsheathed, so it was dangerous to carry close to his body, and he certainly couldn’t carry it out in the open.
    For now he cupped the bottom of the handle in the palm of his hand and stuck the rest of it up his sleeve. He made his way over to the steps and headed up them.
    He emerged from the basin by the old Fort Risban and kept walking toward the beach. Across from the boardwalk, an inflatable slide in the shape of the sinking ship Titanic looked depressed and out of air. The children who might have played on it were lined up at the ice cream trucks, whining in the chill breeze while their parents argued. The beach looked like a holiday, with beach huts and white sand, but Abdul knew how much dog dirt there was underneath that sand.
    Away from the beach, in the high dune grass, Abdul found a child’s T-shirt, discarded and dirty. He shook it free of dried seaweed and gravel.
    â€œMickey Mouse Christmas,” he read, and he