Reprisal (24 page)

“All I hear are damn fool excuses and explanations!” Ahmed shouted. “I don’t want excuses and explanations! You don’t have
to explain things that work! You don’t excuse yourself when you win! No more excuses and explanations!”

He glared at all of them for a moment. Then his feverish eyes settled on another military man and he began to shout again.

“You told me that concrete dome could not be seen from the air and that, even if it was, the reactor beneath it would escape
undamaged in a hit-and-run raid like the one today.”

“We all believed that, honorable president,” the officer replied. “We did not think it possible for jets to drop bombs through
holes in the structure. Nor would it have been possible for them to do what they did today were it not that they somehow received
the plans for the dome and calculated the weakest points.”

Another officer put in, “They would also have had to make many practice runs in order to develop such a precise technique
in placing their bombs. In other words, sir, they knew the structural plans of the dome for some time. What they may not have
known until very recently was its exact geographical location.” The officer added dryly, “Since they came in on the attack
in a single pass, they were obviously supplied with accurate details on that also.”

“Spies! Traitors! We’re surrounded by them!” Hasan crashed his fist on the table and ground his teeth. Then his eyes settled
on Mustafa Bakkush, who looked vulnerable with his poor posture next to the row of uniformed officers. “You! Are you a spy?
Tell me! A lot of you scientists are Jews and Zionists! Do you write to them? Do you telephone overseas?”

“I have contacted no one outside Egypt since my return,” Mustafa said in a loud voice.

“No one?” Ahmed echoed unbelievingly. “What
about your colleagues in England? I bet some of those were Jews.”

“Some were, but not necessarily Zionists. I did not discuss politics with them there. I receive scientific journals from overseas
and also letters. But no phone calls. And I have not responded to any letters. Your own security people could probably tell
you that—if they knew their job.”

Ahmed was visibly stung by the scientist’s touch of sarcasm, and several of the officers looked sideways at Bakkush in puzzled
admiration. They knew scientists were crazy, but this crazy?

Ahmed’s mood changed. He spoke now in a soft, cold whisper. “How do I know that you did not call in these Zionist planes on
our reactor?”

“Because I was there with my wife and children, only a few hundred yards from where the bombs fell. Do you think I would call
in an air strike on my wife and children?”

Ahmed smiled. “I do not, Mustafa Bakkush. Indeed I do not. My doubts about you are cleared. You must help us. How soon can
things be repaired?”

Mustafa shook his head. “I have not seen the damage and it may be months before anyone will be able to. My guess is that the
facility will be unrepairable because of contamination. We will be able to salvage whatever plutonium and uranium that is
not destroyed by fire. But all the equipment and the structure itself are a total loss.”

“We must begin again?”

“I think so. At another location. The construction won’t be a problem. I think getting another reactor might be.”

“Why?” Ahmed was playing dumb.

“Well, because of Egypt’s… ah, political gestures toward certain Western countries.”

“You mean America?”

“Yes, I do,” Mustafa said. “All you’ll get from Russia is outdated junk. You can’t hope at this stage that America will be
willing to supply you directly. However, if relations were better between Cairo and Washington, they might not scream too
loudly if we bought another reactor from France or Italy. As things stand, I think Washington will prevent such a sale.”

“Good, good. Dr. Bakkush, at last I’m hearing plain sense instead of empty explanations and lame excuses.”

As Ahmed made some more complimentary remarks about him, all Mustafa could think about was doors opening to the outside world
through which he and his family could escape. He would be the most knowledgeable one to send for a hurried purchase and he
would not go without his wife and children. But Ahmed would never trust him that far….

The president was now talking to the mullahs, requesting them to restrain the other Light of Islam clergymen in their attacks
on the United States. They seemed agreeable to his request.

Ahmed Hasan turned back to the military men. “We must make friendly gestures. How? Where can we begin?”

An officer said, “There’s a tour of American amateur archeologists in Cairo at the moment, sir. I’ve had to give them clearance
to enter several military zones to see the temples there. It seems many of
them are very important men in America and are very happy with how they have been treated here. Perhaps a presidential palace
reception and a few words from you—”

“Excellent!” Hasan beamed at them. “Tomorrow night. I want you all to be there.” His wild eyes included Mustafa in the invitation.

Mustafa groaned inwardly, knowing that the madman would notice if he did not show up. He would take no risks. Ahmed Hasan’s
sudden upswing of mood after today’s disaster was certain to be followed by an equally sudden downswing that might cause heads
to roll.

Richard Dartley was making his way on foot across Cairo toward the Nile, along the cool night streets, when he heard men shouting
on a side street. He was about to hurry on to avoid becoming accidentally involved in a fracas when he heard a woman scream
and a Southern good ol’ boy’s voice rasp: “Dang it, Emily, you keep out of this!”

Dartley decided to take a look. Without thinking about it too much, he usually went to the help of fellow Americans when they
were in trouble abroad.

Beneath a streetlight, a youth of about twenty in a white djellaba was waving a knife with an angled bend in its long blade
at a red-faced, overweight American about sixty. The red-faced man’s wife was of a generous girth also, accentuated by a bright
floral pattern on her dress. She was swinging her purse by its straps and seemed anxious to take on the knife-wielding Arab
herself.

In that instant in which a fresh observer takes in
all the details of a scene and puts them together in his mind to make sense of them, Dartley guessed that the Arab was furious
enough to attack, but was confused—perhaps because the woman had attacked him. This would come as such a surprise to a young
traditional Arab male, he might be temporarily at a loss what to do. On the other hand, both Americans seemed drunk and belligerent,
the woman saying to her husband, “Don’t give him a dime, Harry.”

None of the three saw Dartley approach in the dimness outside the streetlamp’s yellow pool of light.

Harry held out an unopened pack of Marlboros to the Arab, clutching the bottom of the pack with his fingers and pushing it
into the Arab’s face so he could see what the peace offering was.

With a flick of his right hand, the Egyptian sliced the Marlboro pack in two. The razor-sharp blade left the bottom half of
the pack still in the American’s hand.

Dartley was impressed by this bladework, realizing that the Arab could have just as easily run the blade across the American’s
throat if he had chosen to do so. This was maybe beginning to dawn on Harry too, and he quieted down real fast. But Emily
was having none of it. She took a wild swing with her purse at the Arab’s head.

“Ungrateful little foreigner!” she yelled. “You ain’t going to get our cash! Harry, you kick that boy’s ass right now, y’hear?”

Harry was kind of thinking things over. The Arab was looking at the swearing, purse-swinging woman as if she had two heads
and a tail.

“Inta malak?” Dartley asked the Egyptian in a calm voice. What’s wrong with you?

His answer was to turn his anger from his confusing previous pair of adversaries and focus his rage on this newcomer, an infidel
who dared question him in Arabic. He charged Dartley with his knife.

That was his mistake. He would have been hard to handle if he had weaved and sparred. Dartley had seen more than one martial
arts expert go under to a skilled knife fighter. But the Egyptian’s rage clouded his mind and he thrust himself headlong at
what he saw as a new and hated American challenge.

The Arab came at Dartley with the knife held close to his right hip. Dartley checked the arm of his knife hand with a left-handed
reverse grip, thumb down. At the same time he delivered a right vertical flatfist to his attacker’s deltoid muscle joint.
Still holding onto the Arab’s arm, Dartley brought his right arm across the back of his opponent’s neck, pushed his head down
and brought his right knee up into his face.

He forced the Egyptian’s right arm up behind his back and applied a reverse hammer lock with his left arm. Dartley had to
rip the Arab’s little finger from the knife handle to loosen the grip on the weapon.

Dartley dispatched him with a blow to the base of his skull and let him sag unconscious at his feet.

“He’ll be all right,” Dartley reassured the Americans. “When he wakes up he’ll have a bit of a headache.”

Emily squawked. “Son-of-a-bitch is going to have a pain in his gut, too.” She drove the pointed toe of
her highheeled shoe into the prone man’s belly. “Damn mugger!”

“I don’t think he was trying to rob you,” Dartley said, pushing them both firmly before him out of the side street and into
the main thoroughfare. “There’s very little street crime here. He was behaving as if you’d insulted him.”

“He didn’t speak English, we don’t speak his lingo,” Emily reasoned. “How the hell could we insult him?”

Harry wasn’t saying anything.

Dartley gave him a hard look.

“Well, back there a ways I had to take a leak,” Harry offered. “Happened it was against one of their churches.”

“Who ever heard of anyone getting threatened with a knife for relieving himself against a church?” Emily wanted to know.

“A foreigner urinating against a mosque is the sort of thing some of the Light of Islam fanatics imagine in their nightmares,”
Dartley explained, now walking along between the two of them. “Don’t you know how things are here?”

Emily said, “I’m a Baptist from Alabama and it still don’t seem reasonable to me.”

Dartley laughed. “I’d feel sorry for any Arab you caught relieving himself against your Baptist church down in Alabama.”

Harry guffawed. “She’d cut his pecker off with one swing of that purse of hers.”

“I’m a lady,” Emily protested, “and I won’t tolerate that dirty talk. Though I could use a drink.”

Dartley considered that a drink was the last thing
either of them needed. Yet they would provide good cover for him at the bar of the Marriott Hotel. He glanced at his watch.
Twenty to twelve. He would take a cab.

“Where are you staying?” Dartley asked.

“The Sheraton.”

“That’s not far from the Marriott, which has the best bar of all the hotels. Let’s grab a taxi and I’ll buy you a drink.”

It was in the taxi that Emily dropped the bombshell.

“You’re a nice man,” she said to Dartley. He had told her his name was John and she had forgotton it. “You saved our lives
from that mugger and we haven’t even said thank you. Where’s your manners, Harry?”

“Cab and drinks are on me,” Harry said, and punched Dartley in the arm.

“My invitation,” Dartley claimed.

Then Emily’s bombshell: “Very well. But you come with us tomorrow night to meet the prez at his palace.”

“The who?”

“The president,” she said. “What’s his name, Harry?”

Harry couldn’t recall. “I seen him on TV back home though, mouthing off like they all do. We’re all sitting out in the garden
late this afternoon, having a little drink or two, when the clown and a bunch of juvenile delinquents with automatic rifles
nearly run us down with a truck first of all, then rush around with phony grins while they shake our hands, and next thing
we know they’re going to send limos for us tomorrow to come to a reception at the presidential palace. He even made a joke
about no booze being
served there and so to make sure we’ve had a few before we go.”

“Ahmed Hasan said that?” Dartley asked.

“Sure,” Harry confirmed. “You ask me, he’s loony as they come.”

There was no sign in the Marriott Hotel bar of the pretty woman who had met him that afternoon in the cafe. Dartley found
himself disappointed. He had assumed, with no good reason he now realized, that she would be the one to meet him.

He stayed with Emily and Harry at a table for twenty minutes or so, until they got to chatting with other Americans and he
was able to slip away to the bar. He would phone them at the Sheraton tomorrow to go with them to see the prez, as they called
him. Harry was an auctioneer in Birmingham and had collected pre-Columbian artifacts for years. Now that supply was tightening
up and so he was checking out Egypt. They both referred to themselves as amateur archeologists. Dartley privately considered
they were being a little kind to themselves. In better times, he might have put Harry together with Omar Zekri. They could
have done business with each other.

A small, seedy looking man who blinked his eyes a lot stood down the bar. Finally he said to Dartley, “Terence Hunter?”

“’Fraid not.”

“Yes, you are. If you follow my meaning.”

Dartley nodded. “I was expecting someone else.”

“She’s in room 422.”

“Are you coming too?”

He shook his head.

“Then I’ll ask you now. Can you get me a floor plan of the presidential palace by tomorrow morning?”

“Will noon be all right?” the man asked, blinking his eyes.

“Sure. You want to make it here?”

The little man nodded and faded away into the crowd at the bar.

The nameless lady from the cafe was in room 422. Dartley, as always, refused a drink.

“That much I have in common with the mullahs,” he joked.

She handed him an American passport. Terence Hunter. Schoolteacher, Huntington, Long Island.

“Hi, I’m Terry,” he said.