Aggressor (28 page)

Ulm looked at him.

‘I know what you've been telling the men, Elliot. But I want to know what you really think.'

Ulm kicked a toeful of sand across the edge of the concrete runway. ‘I think we've got trouble, Charlie, that's what I think.' He paused. ‘Have you ever heard of something called Opnaz?'

Doyle shook his head. ‘Nope. Should I?'

Ulm repeated the story that Jones had just told him.

‘His brains are pretty badly shook up,' Doyle said. ‘That bedouin hit him hard.'

‘He swears the guy said Opnaz, not Spetsnaz.'

‘OK, maybe he did. Is it that significant?'

‘I want you to have it checked out. Raise Jacobson on SATCOM. I want answers. Bad luck has a habit of coming in threes. And Opnaz has got bad written all over it.'

The investigator leaned against the wall and nodded to the two others to take up positions by the door.

Girling rocked back and forth on the chair and clasped his sides for warmth.

‘You are cold?' Al-Qadi asked.

‘Just tell me what I'm doing down here.'

Al-Qadi examined a fingernail. ‘I have one or two questions for you, Mr Girling. That is all. Once you have answered them, you will be free to go.'

‘Then ask them.'

‘Please, a little patience. We have been more than patient with you.'

Girling opened his mouth to speak, but Al-Qadi put a finger to his lips. ‘You are right to feel angry.' His eyes darkened. ‘But then I, too, am angry. You make trouble in my country. You look into matters that do not concern you and you create only problems for us, for Egypt. You are a dangerous man, Mr Tom Girling.'

‘Dangerous?'

‘Don't be nattered, Mr Girling. You are in very deep trouble. This should not be a matter for your private amusement.'

‘Why am I in trouble?'

‘First of all, you have met with the Israeli, Lazan.'

Girling shook his head disbelievingly. ‘I'm a journalist, Captain. I meet with many diplomats, even Israeli ones. There is no law, even here, against that.'

Al-Qadi's voice rose. ‘Then tell me what you were doing with the Internee of the Al-Mu'ayyad Mosque.'

‘The Internee?'

‘Perhaps you know him as the Guide.'

Girling had wondered how the Mukhabarat had found him.

‘The Internee is not known for his knowledge of science and technology,' the investigator said.

‘You'd be surprised at his range of interests,' Girling said.

‘Be careful, Mr Girling.'

‘There is something about the... Internee that intrigues me,' Girling said.

‘And what is that?'

‘If the Brotherhood does not exist, why is its spiritual leader locked up in an ivory tower by the Mukhabarat?'

Al-Qadi tried unsuccessfully to mask his fury. ‘Listen to my truth, Mr Girling. I do not like people who roam my streets, breaking my law. What did you hope to achieve by going to the Sheikh?'

‘Why not ask him?'

‘He despises people like you.'

Girling looked at him levelly. ‘And you, Captain.'

A muscle twitched at the right side of the investigator's face. ‘Let me ask you again, Mr Girling, what you were doing at the Al-Mu'ayyad Mosque.'

‘I went to the Sheikh with an appeal for Stansell's life.'

The investigator's eyes blazed. ‘I told you to leave the matter of Stansell to us.'

‘Tell me what progress you have made since Stansell was first taken. Tell me what leads you have uncovered. You have done nothing that suggests Stansell's disappearance is in any way a priority for you, Captain. And you blame me for looking for him, for doing your job? You and I may have got off to a bad start, but we have the same aim, don't we? We both want Stansell. For God's sake, let's start acting like we're on the same side. I'm not interested in denigrating Egypt. I don't want to write an article about the Guide. Whatever he's doing in the Al-Mu'-ayyad mosque is your business. I just want Stansell. He's the one - the only - reason I'm here.'

Al-Qadi's features seemed to soften. ‘Then, Mr Girling, perhaps we can do business together.' He walked to the door. ‘Come,' he said.

Together with the two bodyguards, they retraced their steps to the entrance. It was still light outside. A wall clock in the hallway stood at a little before six. Al-Qadi crossed the great courtyard, entering an outlying wing of the building via a wooden door. Once inside, Girling became aware of a pungent odour, a mixture of organic decay and chemicals.

Al-Qadi checked the number on a door at the end of yet another long corridor. He entered the room and flicked on the lights. Unlike the interrogation cell, the forensic laboratory was well-lit, although by Western standards quite filthy. Archaic microscopes abutted bottles of strangely coloured fluids scattered on a ledge that ran waist high around the room. In the centre of the floor there was a large, solid-looking box, its formica work-surface extending to the same height as the shelf. There were various papers and instruments scattered on top. The smell he had first detected upon entering the building was stronger than ever.

Al-Qadi lifted the lid off the box, scattering the papers across the floor.

He beckoned. ‘You see, there really is no need for you to stay in Egypt any longer,' he said.

The body, half obscured by blocks of ice and semi-submerged in water, lay in a sarcophagus chiselled from the limestone quarries of the Pharaohs.

Stansell had been shot twice. One bullet had nicked him on the side of the head; a second had hit him in the chest. There were cuts on the body which Girling recognized as pathologist's incisions.

Girling turned away. Parts of the torso were badly decomposed and he felt the bile rise to the back of his throat. With a supreme effort he suppressed it. He didn't want to give Al-Qadi the pleasure.

‘When did you find him?' He heard his voice tremble. The question was a device, nothing more, to shield his pain from Al-Qadi. Inside, all he could think of was his failure.

‘Yesterday afternoon.'

‘Where?'

Stansell had given him life. Kelso and he had taken it away. Kelso. Girling felt new anger and new pain. None of this needed to happen. Kelso and his lousy ambition. Tom Girling and his wretched stupidity.

‘In the Nile. On a patch of beach, near Shari'a Al-Nil, across the river from the Meridien. Some fishermen caught the body in their nets and dragged him ashore. The body had been weighted down.'

‘Time of death?' Girling asked. His stomach churned. The smell was excruciating.

‘The very day he was taken. It seems that from the beginning you have been wasting your time here, Mr Girling.'

Stansell stared at him from the fetid water. If there was one shred of solace for Girling, it was that Stansell's expression in death was of infinite wisdom. Whatever answers Stansell had been seeking, it seemed he had found them.

‘Has the discovery provided any new leads? What about our embassy - has anyone there been told?' Girling leant against the shelf, staring down at the scattered tools of the pathologist's trade - scalpels, saws, microscopes, chemical fluids, powders. The questions had exhausted him.

‘You are off the case now, Mr Girling,' Al-Qadi said. ‘No more questions. You are being sent home, deported.'

Girling felt himself sag. The anger, even the pain, had gone, leaving emptiness.

‘As soon as the paperwork is complete,' Al-Qadi went on. ‘Forty-eight hours, at the most. Meanwhile, stray from the boundaries of this city, or make any further trouble, and I will be forced to detain you in less comfortable surroundings.' He nodded in the direction of the courtyard.

The investigator looked at Girling contemptuously. ‘Khalas,' he said, clearing his throat and spitting into the icy water of the sarcophagus. ‘It is over.'

CHAPTER 14

It was a fifteen-kilometre drive from Qena's main runway to the outside perimeter of the base complex. Doyle drove the jeep hard.

He waited until the checkpoint had dwindled to a dot in his mirror before he opened his mouth. He told Ulm he had filed a separate report to Washington about Opnaz, but true to form, TERCOM had returned an F3 grade reply, which translated as ‘monitor, but take no further action'. His report of the Hind crash and the Soviet accusation of sabotage had met with a similar response.

‘Is that it?' Ulm asked.

‘Not exactly,' Doyle shouted over the whine of the jeep's engine. ‘I took the liberty of plugging into JWICS and seeing what I could find.' JWICS was the DIA's Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, a classified data network for US operatives in the field.

‘Well?'

Doyle gritted his teeth as they hit a particularly deep pothole.

‘Opnaz stands for Operativniy Naznachenie,' he said the moment they cleared it.

‘Don't tell me what it stands for. What the fuck is it?'

‘Trouble,' Doyle said. ‘The toughest antiterrorist squad at the disposal of the Kremlin. According to JWICS, it was formed in 1977 to deal with the potential threat of terrorism against the Moscow Olympics. Opnaz is the Soviet equivalent of Delta, or the SAS. Tough sons of bitches. Being only company strength, it was initially led by a captain. We don't have the name of that officer - at least, he's not listed in JWICS - but given Shabanov's age and rank today, it's quite possible that he was the main man.'

Ulm looked at his IO. ‘What does it all mean, Charlie?'

Doyle sucked his teeth. ‘I don't know. If Shabanov is Opnaz, not Spetsnaz, then he's probably the most competent and experienced special forces oper-ative alive today. Judging from some of the jobs they've done, Opnaz is a whole order of magnitude better than Spetsnaz, though Spetsnaz has managed to grab the headlines.'

‘Why is that?'

‘I guess the Pentagon was happy to let Spetsnaz be the chief bogeyman. They're excellent troops, but Opnaz are the guys who get the really tough jobs - Latvia, the Transcaucasus, Uzbekistan. The only thing I can't work out is - if Jones really did hear Bitov right - why is Shabanov taking orders from Aushev, an Army general, when he's in the MVD, a totally different part of the establishment. And what was Opnaz doing in Afghanistan?'

‘Uzbekistan, Afghanistan... what's the difference?'

Doyle took his eye off the road for a moment and turned to Ulm. ‘A lot, Elliot. A whole lot. You see, Opnaz is the elite spearhead of the MVD, the Soviet Ministry of the Interior, the guys responsible for keeping internal order. Officially, the MVD is quite separate from the Army. When the Army wants something special done - in Afghanistan, for example - it calls in its own special forces, Spetsnaz. The MVD is technically forbidden to operate outside Soviet borders. It's a constitutional thing, like the rules governing the National Guard back home. And if that's what we're dealing with here - if we're teamed with Opnaz, not Spetsnaz - someone ought to tell us what all the secrecy's about.'

‘Not to mention Aushev's role in the whole thing.'

Doyle turned to him.

‘General Aushev's GRU - Soviet Army,' Ulm added. ‘What's he doing running a special forces outfit from the Ministry of the Interior?'

‘Do you get the feeling these guys are working some kind of agenda of their own?'

‘I want answers, Charlie.'

‘The embassy should be getting the big picture.'

‘Yeah, maybe.'

Doyle pinched the top of his nose. He looked studious for a moment. ‘While you're there, ask them what's going on in the Lebanon and Syria,' Doyle said. ‘The DIA's reporting movement out of Hizbollah, Fatah, and the PFLP-GC.'

‘Movement?'

‘Lots of radio traffic in the last couple of days. JWICS says it's encrypted, but it looks like these guys are planning something. And all at the same time.'

‘And in the Lebanon, our next port of call.'

‘Have a nice day,' Doyle said.

The door opened and for a while Girling stood there, just watching her. Sharifa was dressed in Levi's and a T-shirt. Her hair was uncombed and she had a faintly drowsy look about her.

He watched her expression alter as her eyes became accustomed to the shadows outside her apartment door. His clothes were ripped and scuffed, one eye was blackened and his face was a mass of cuts.

Her hands came up to her face. ‘My God, Tom, what happened to you?'

He took a step forward. ‘Sharifa, Stansell's dead.' He gave her the briefest details.

She looked at him uncomprehendingly. He could see her trying to establish a connection between his appearance and the news. Then, as the words registered fully, his condition ceased to be important and she let out a gasp of anguish. She stifled it by biting her lip, but her eyes brimmed with tears.

He took her in his arms and felt her body give.

‘Poor Stansell,' she said softly, her head on his shoulder.

She cried in silence, her chest rising and falling sharply as the grief flowed from her body. And then, when she was done, she pulled herself away from him and shut the door. She began to wipe away the tears, but Girling stopped her. He lifted her head and looked into her eyes. The kohl had run down her face in long, dark lines. She smiled sadly, almost apologetically.

He led her to the sofa and sat her down. Then he disappeared into the dining-room and brought back brandy and two glasses. He poured them both stiff measures and sat beside her. ‘Drink,' he said, ‘it'll make you feel better.'

‘How long have you known about us?' she asked.

‘Not very long.'

She looked at him questioningly.

‘When I was going through his things,' Girling said. ‘There was a letter to you in his desk. He must have thought twice about sending it. I'm sorry. I didn't read more than I had to.'

‘We both knew in our hearts that it wouldn't work, but Stansell just refused to admit it.' The tears started to come again. ‘After he was taken, I realized that this story, the Angels of Judgement... it was his way of trying to prove himself to me...'

‘You mustn't blame yourself.'

She gave him a look of infinite sadness. ‘Ah, Tom,' she said, ‘but I must.'

They sat in silence, Girling trying to blot out the image of the torn and bloated body in the sarcophagus. Suddenly he couldn't protect her from the truth any longer. He told her what had happened, from the meeting with the Guide to Al-Qadi's brutal unveiling of Stansell's corpse. When he had finished, she had to wipe away his tears. Then, without warning, the concern in her eyes turned to anger.

‘What on Earth made you go to this sheikh? You were lucky not to have been killed.'

Girling stared into his glass. ‘It seems stupid now, doesn't it? Stansell dead all along, before I even set foot in Egypt, and now I'm to be deported for trying to find him. What a bloody waste.'

‘Deported?'

‘Al-Qadi didn't like me playing amateur detective. He's given me my marching orders.'

‘Then it's all over.'

Girling shook his head. ‘It'll never be over, Sharifa.'

‘So Stansell died for nothing?'

‘No, Stansell died uncovering a story that's bigger than anyone ever imagined. The threads that bind the Brotherhood to the Angels of Judgement are just a tiny part of an enormous web. I realized that today. For the first time, I saw the size of the monster I've been running away from since Mona died.'

She started to shake. He reached out and held her hand. ‘You'll be all right. When I leave, this will all be forgotten. Stansell, Mona - for everyone but us they'll just be names on a list.'

Her fingers tightened around his. ‘I have nightmares about Mona, Tom. I see people watching me on the streets, Al-Qadi and his men, I see the hatred in their eyes. I wonder when they will come for me with stones.'

He held her gently, knowing there was nothing he could say. After a while she slipped into a troubled sleep. From time to time her body stiffened and she would cry out. Later he picked her up and carried her from the balcony to the bedroom. He placed her tenderly on the bed and pulled back to see her looking at him through half-closed eyes.

‘Can we pretend?' she asked, her voice breaking. ‘Is that so wrong?'

He turned out the light and they undressed, the sound of their clothes and the rustle of the sheets seeming unnaturally loud in the darkness. He slipped in beside her and they held each other tightly, pressing the contours of their bodies against each other for comfort and warmth. Girling drifted into sleep as if he had been given an anaesthetic. He could see demons still, but for the moment they were very far away.

They awoke in the night and clung to each other urgently, like swimmers trying to save themselves from drowning. Then she wrapped herself around him and he around her until shrill ululations of pleasure danced in her throat and he fell back, exhausted. Then they made love a second time, slowly, tenderly, their bodies hot from the first encounter. Their ecstasy rose together, hung there suspended, then fell in a simultaneous moment of release. And in that small window of time, Stansell, Mona, the Brotherhood, and the Angels were a distant memory.