The old woman lived in a crumbling house nestled between a hammam and a spice shop in Derb Sultan, one of Casablanca's oldest and most defiant quarters. The air there tasted of coal smoke, cumin, and the residue of whispered rebellion. Even in the early morning, the alleyways swelled with motion—barefoot children with dates in hand, gossiping women in colorful djellabas, young men smoking behind crates of tangerines, and the omnipresent watchful gaze of colonial police drifting like invisible smog.
Khalid didn't speak much on the way. His shoulders were taut, and his eyes scanned every corner like he expected betrayal to leak from the bricks. Yassin followed in silence, the cobblestones uneven beneath his modern sneakers. Every so often, someone would glance at his odd shoes or subtly foreign posture, but no one said anything. This was Derb Sultan—a district that knew how to keep secrets.
They stopped in front of a faded green door with chipped paint and a brass knocker shaped like the Hand of Fatima. Khalid exhaled sharply and knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more.
No answer. Then, a rasped voice: "Enter."
Yassin stepped into a world of dim light and incense. Sunlight filtered weakly through latticework windows, illuminating shelves stacked with jars—dried herbs, tiny skulls, unmarked powders. An iron kettle hissed over a small coal fire. The scent of myrrh, mint, and something older filled the space.
At the far end of the room sat a woman wrapped in layered linen, her head covered in a scarf that shimmered faintly despite the low light. Her skin was parchment-thin but firm, creased like desert stone. Though her eyes were milky with cataracts, they fixed on Yassin with uncanny precision.
"Sit," she said. Her voice was dry but full.
Khalid bowed slightly and lowered himself onto one of two cushions. Yassin sat beside him, heart hammering.
"You have come from far," she said to Yassin.
"I…" he hesitated. "Yes."
"Not far as men walk," she clarified. "Far as time breathes."
Khalid turned to Yassin. "She knew before we came."
The woman—Salima—smiled faintly. "I have seen your face in the water. Years ago. A man wearing the shoes of ghosts, with a watch wrapped in thunder."
Yassin took out the pocket watch and placed it gently on the rug. It pulsed faintly, as if aware of the moment.
Salima didn't touch it. "The watch is not a tool," she said. "It is a mirror. It only opens when it is ready."
"I need to go back," Yassin said, almost pleading.
"Then you are not ready."
Khalid exhaled through his nose, trying not to show impatience. "He's helped us. He deserves to understand."
Salima poured three cups of mint tea, the sound of liquid flowing oddly soothing in the shadowed room. "The watch does not answer to desire. It answers to need. Time does not care for comfort, only meaning."
"But why me?" Yassin asked. "Why would time—or whatever force brought me—choose someone like me? I'm just a guy. I write apps. I watch Netflix. I'm not a hero."
"You carry the blood of two worlds," she said. "The modern and the colonized. You speak in the tongue of the future, but your soul remembers the chains your ancestors broke. Your grandfather's fire is still in your breath."
Yassin looked down, ashamed. "I never paid attention to the old stories. I didn't ask questions. I always thought they were just… the past."
"The past is not dead," Salima said. "It sleeps beneath your feet and waits to be named. That is why you were brought here. Not to escape. But to remember."
A long silence followed. The watch ticked once, then stilled again.
Then Salima's tone changed. Her voice dropped.
"There is danger."
Khalid stiffened.
She continued, "A betrayal within your circle. A man who prays for freedom with his mouth, but whispers to the French at night."
"Who?" Khalid asked sharply.
"I cannot say," she replied. "Not because I do not know, but because the act of speaking his name may hasten the betrayal."
Yassin felt cold. "How do we stop it, then?"
"By watching. Listening. Choosing trust carefully. The betrayal comes in three days. He will lead soldiers to the safehouse if unchecked."
Khalid stood, fists clenched. "We'll move tonight. No one outside the cell will know the new location. We'll burn the papers."
Salima added, "He will not be alone. The betrayal opens a door. Once it is opened, the violence will grow. You must act before that door swings wide."
"What else can you tell us?" Yassin asked.
Salima hesitated. "There is a name in the wind. De Lassalle. A French commander newly arrived. He believes wiping Derb Sultan clean will frighten the rest of Morocco into silence. He will use your betrayer as a spark."
Khalid's expression darkened. "I've heard the name. Rumors only."
"Rumors are the first cries of truth," she said.
They left before the afternoon prayer.
Outside, the light felt harsher. The sounds of the city—donkeys braying, peddlers shouting, tinny radios humming with Arabic love songs—felt somehow more precarious.
Back at the safehouse, Khalid summoned the core members of the cell: Samira, Hakim, a wiry teenager named Rafiq who handled messages, and an older man called Abbas who rarely spoke but was always cleaning his revolver.
Khalid didn't reveal everything. Just enough: a warning, an unknown informant, the name De Lassalle.
"We move tonight," he said. "Rafiq, you'll burn everything in the writing room. Hakim, we'll relocate the transmitter. Samira, take Yassin and secure the secondary safehouse."
"Where?" she asked.
Khalid smiled slightly. "My cousin's bakery. Beneath the oven."
Samira arched an eyebrow. "How poetic."
They moved with urgency. Yassin helped pull down maps, pack radios into burlap sacks, and even helped rewire the transmitter so it could run on a car battery instead of wall current.
That night, they slipped through the medina in pairs, cautious and silent.
Yassin and Samira ducked into the bakery's side door under cover of darkness. Her cousin, a man with flour on his sleeves and eyes like razors, said nothing—only pointed them to the trapdoor behind the counter.
The space below was cramped but dry. Shelves lined with dates, olive oil, and sacks of flour surrounded a table and two cots. Samira lit a lamp and locked the hatch.
"We'll sleep in shifts," she said.
Yassin nodded and sat. "Do you think Salima was right?"
"She's always right," Samira said. "But not always in the way you expect."
"You think it's Abbas?" he asked. "He barely talks."
"Maybe. Maybe that's why. Or maybe it's Rafiq. He's scared, and scared people are easy to turn."
Yassin closed his eyes. "I hate this."
Samira softened. "This isn't the world you're used to. But it's real. We live in it. We fight in it. And sometimes we bleed in it. But it's ours."
The betrayal came on the second night.
Yassin was asleep when Samira shook him awake. "Move."
He blinked, confused. Then he heard the boots.
Upstairs, shouting. French voices. Orders.
Samira pulled him into a crevice behind the flour sacks just as the hatch burst open. Two soldiers dropped into the room, rifles raised. One had a scar across his chin.
They didn't see Yassin.
But they saw the transmitter.
One soldier radioed something in French. Moments later, someone else climbed down.
Khalid.
Yassin almost shouted—until he saw the rifle pointed at Khalid's back.
Behind the soldier: Rafiq.
Rafiq's face was pale, his hands trembling. "I didn't want to. They found my sister. They said they'd hang her."
Khalid didn't speak. Just stared.
The commander barked, "Search everything."
Then the explosion.
Hakim had rigged the secondary safehouse with a trap—one last failsafe. It wasn't meant to kill. Just to buy time.
Smoke, screams, chaos.
Yassin and Samira burst from hiding. She grabbed the transmitter. He tackled a soldier. Somewhere above, a fire broke out.
They escaped through the tunnel behind the bakery, coughing and bloodied.
Khalid stumbled out behind them.
Rafiq did not.
They regrouped at a third safehouse—an abandoned hammam near the old wall. No one spoke for a long time.
Finally, Khalid said, "Rafiq chose fear. That's what the French sell. Fear."
Yassin stared at the watch in his hand. It still didn't move. But something inside him had shifted.
He looked at Khalid. "What happens now?"
Khalid's eyes burned. "Now we make sure his sacrifice wasn't in vain. Now we strike."
To be continued in Chapter 4: The Informant's Shadow