Reprisal (28 page)

“Things didn’t work out that way?”

Abdel Ibrahim gestured elaborately. “We—my brothers and sisters and I—all had government jobs when
President Mubarak was overthrown. We were not rich, but we owned our own houses. My oldest brother was accused of helping
some of the president’s aides escape to the American Embassy. When they tried to arrest him, he resisted with the help of
another brother. So they took them both away. That was the last we ever saw or heard of them. When I demanded to know what
had happened to them, I lost my government job. Then anyone who was a family member was expelled from government-subsidized
housing and their jobs.”

“Do you know anyone on the American staff?”

“We get money to keep us alive.”

“Who gives it to you?”

“I cannot remember his name,” Abdel said with a polite shrug.

“Pritchett?”

“It is a name very like that.”

“I know Pritchett,” Dartley said. “Don’t tell him or anyone else at the embassy that I am here.”

“Agreed.”

Back to conditions, Dartley saw. “What about this place? Won’t someone inform the police that an American is with you here?”

“Hasan’s friends around here have all died or moved away.”

Dartley was impressed with the sinister tone in Ibrahim’s voice.

Abdel went on, “When you come and go, take different routes. There are many tourists here and the devout pass through on their
way to various tombs.”

Dartley was aware of the Arabic custom of picnicking
at the family burial ground, and he knew that pilgrims flocked to the mausoleum of Al Imam Al Shaf’i not far away. Some of
the mausoleums even charged tourists admission, so he would not be out of place as an American during daylight hours in the
City of the Dead.

“Do you know Omar Zekri?” Dartley asked.

Ibrahim scowled and spat on the ground.

“Find out what he is doing,” Dartley said.

Omar Zekri sat beside Awad in a battered, brown Saab. They paused outside the huge doors of the Citadel. Awad displayed his
pass, the guard signaled and a door swung inward to admit the car. Awad was cleared by two more separate sets of soldiers
before they were allowed to enter a building after leaving the Saab in a courtyard.

Omar was terrified. He had always been convinced that if he ever entered the Citadel, he would not leave it alive. They walked
down a long hallway and into a large, bare, high-ceilinged room with no windows, badly lit by a single naked bulb suspended
on a wire at the center of the room. Awad just stood there, letting his big belly relax and hang out over his belt. Omar moved
restlessly about, fretting, worrying. Awad seemed to have forgotten him.

“I already explained that you can’t blame me for what happened to Zaid,” he whined. “I only telephoned information, like both
of you told me to. Zaid knew that man was dangerous. You can’t blame me because he went alone and got himself killed.”

“No one is blaming you, Omar,” Awad said soothingly.

“Then why am I in the Citadel?”

“Maybe I just want to torture you.” Awad laughed at his own little joke.

Omar was reassured. This was the predictable Awad that he knew. He did not dare ask any more questions, knowing anyway that
he would receive no straight answers until Awad felt like telling him why they were here.

Awad never did. They spent more than an hour in the empty room, Awad just standing in one place and hardly moving, Omar pacing
up and down and from time to time starting up conversations that took him nowhere.

Ahmed Hasan strode into the room with his body-guards. Awad bowed. Omar saw this and bowed even lower, pale now and starting
to sweat.

“Honored president,” Awad said, “this is the one man who can positively identify the American dog who drags his filthy carcass
over the pure world of Islam.”

Ahmed Hasan looked at the nervous, sweating Omar critically. “The Frenchman Jacques Laforque recognized him when it mattered.
Why do I have, to depend on a foreigner to alert me? Where has this Egyptian been until now?”

“He has been working with me,” Awad said, “and with my partner, who as you know sacrificed his life for your excellency.”

Hasan bowed his head in respect for the dead. “He will not be forgotten.”

Everyone there knew Hasan could not remember Zaid’s name.

Awad pointed proudly to Omar. “This man is not a
foreigner. He is an Arab. An Egyptian. A Sunni Moslem. A patriot and a believer you can depend on, not some whore from Paris
like Laforque.”

Ahmed Hasan looked from Awad to Omar and back again with an amused look. He said to Omar, “I have heard of your activities.
You should be careful not to disappoint Awad, now that he has placed his trust in you. Like me, Awad is a hard taskmaster.
He does not tolerate failure. How many days have you given him, Awad?”

“I had not presumed,” Awad answered with uncharacteristic meekness.

“Two days,” Hasan announced with finality.

“For what?” Omar asked, alarmed.

“To find the American dog,” Awad told him. “I will be with you every hour and every minute of your search. We will not sleep
until we find him.”

“Two days,” the president repeated.

“You will have to try very hard, Omar,” Awad rasped. “Everyone here knows you for a cock-sucking asshole who does not deserve
to live! We will let you fly to Beirut, Omar, and take your money with you if you give us this American. Before everybody
here, you have my word on that.”

“You will have my protection and thanks,” Ahmed confirmed.

“But you only have two days,” Awad cautioned the terrified Omar. “You heard his excellency give you two days. He is being
very generous to a known spy such as yourself, Omar.”

The only sound the sweating, trembling Omar was able to make was a small wheeze of protest.

“Spies!” Ahmed shouted, making Omar jump. “They
infest Egypt! They must be rooted out!” He rushed to the door. “Guard! Guard!” A dozen armed soldiers gathered before him.
“Bring me a spy.”

A sergeant stepped forward. “Who, sir?”

“What does it matter, soldier?” Ahmed shouted. “All spies are enemies of Egypt and Islam. Bring me a spy!”

They came back with a frightened, soft looking, middle-aged man who might once have been a prosperous businessman. The sergeant
trussed the man’s thumbs behind his back, pushed him into the room and shouted after him, “Kneel before our glorious president,
defender of the Light of Islam.”

The prisoner staggered to Hasan, dropped to his knees, and bowed his head.

Ahmed Hasan turned to Omar Zekri. “You see? That was not low enough. Kick him.”

“Me?” Omar asked.

Awad shoved him. “Your president has ordered you, stupid dog.”

Omar waddled over to the kneeling prisoner, who was now bowing desperately so that his forehead touched the floorboards. Omar
kicked him gently on the thigh.

“Not gently!” Ahmed Hasan bellowed. “Hard! Like this!” He kicked the cringing Omar on the leg, and the chubby man squealed
and nearly lost his balance.

But Omar got the message. He hauled off with a good boot into the bowing prisoner’s side, which made the man crumple into
a gasping knot of pain.

“Again!” Ahmed yelled. “Harder!”

Omar stood still and looked at him in mute appeal. When Hasan took a step toward him, Omar rushed
to comply. He balanced on his left foot, drew back his right foot and kicked the prisoner with a mighty thump. Omar hopped
about, holding his right ankle, which the kick had strained.

Ahmed smiled at this performance, walked over and kicked Omar on the rump. He pointed to the prisoner, now agonizedly trying
to crawl away. Omar kicked him on the side of the head, which flipped the man on his back. Omar kicked the man again and he
became unconscious.

“So you defy me?” Ahmed asked in an interested voice. “You try to cheat this spy from feeling his deserved punishment? Well,
remember this, my friend: I will not let you slip away into unconsciousness to escape me if you don’t hand over this American
to me.” He strode to the spread-eagled prisoner, contemptuously turned him over with one foot, then brought his heel down
on the back of his neck and loudly snapped his backbone. He turned to Awad and pointed to Omar. “He has two days. No more.”

As the president made for the door with long strides, his bodyguards clustered around him.

Awad gave Omar a pitying look and sneered, “You keep this up, Omar, you’re doing just fine.”

Richard Dartley and Abdel Ibrahim walked out of the Southern Cemetery and kept going until they came to a cafe with a public
phone. Dartley got through to the Hotel des Roses after the usual difficulties with a Cairo phone and asked for Jacques Laforque.
The Frenchman’s voice came over the line a few minutes later.

“Monsieur?”

“Meet me in two hours where we met before,” Dartley said without identifying himself.

“D’accord.”

They took a taxi to the Hertz depot and Dartley gave Ibrahim money to hire a car. Ibrahim drove to a suq on Dartley’s instructions.
There Dartley bought the carcass of a lamb and a sack of rice, which they loaded in the trunk. Nothing was said—it was simply
understood that Dartley would not insult Ibrahim by offering him cash at this stage. The Egyptian was free to change his mind
later when he came to understand that this was business with Dartley, not revenge or heroics.

They were an hour early for his meeting with Laforque, and they sat in the car parked a distance down the street. Dartley
expected the worst. The Frenchman had betrayed him at the palace. Presumably, he would try again if given the opportunity.
Laforque did not know Dartley had seen him at the palace reception. There had been no mention of the incident on the TV, radio
or newspapers. A meeting like this would be an ideal way for Laforque to hand him on a plate to the authorities. Yet Laforque
was a professional and so he would know that Dartley could not be easily lured into such a trap. Anyway, Dartley had no choice
but to meet his “employer” to find out what was happening.

They saw Laforque arrive and enter the cafe. Dartley left the car and Ibrahim drove past the cafe, turned about and stopped
outside the cafe on the way back. He beckoned to Laforque, who stood immediately and joined him in the front seat of the gray
Opel. As Ibrahim returned to where Dartley
stood, there were no suspicious movements of other cars or people that he could detect. When the Opel stopped, Dartley climbed
into the backseat. He said nothing to Laforque and kept busy looking for patterns in the traffic behind them, such as one
car turning off and being replaced by another. The chaos of Cairo traffic would have made any sophisticated tailing operation
very difficult. When Dartley was sure they were not being followed, he told Ibrahim to drop them off at a crowded intersection.

When Laforque had gotten out, Dartley set up a meeting place with Ibrahim in two hours. He recalled the Egyptian’s often sketchy
notion of time and tapped the man’s digital wristwatch. “Be there.”

“What do I do now?”

“You might take the lamb home before it starts to stink up the car during the hot part of the day.”

Laforque seemed content to walk.

“Anything new?” Dartley asked.

“Yes. Very important. We want to cancel your contract. Keep the money. Go home right away.”

Normally, Dartley would have shrugged and headed for the airport. He found himself saying, “Why?”

“High-level decision,” Laforque said.

“Just like that.”

Laforque shrugged. “No reflection on your abilities.”

“Although I failed twice to achieve my goal?”

“Twice? Whatever you say. We’re very pleased things turned out this way.”

“I lost a man at Aqaba.”

“You recruited him, not me,” Laforque said. “That was bad luck. You don’t throw good luck after bad to
try to even things out. You get to keep your money without completing the job. Don’t complain.”

“Michelle Perret, your contact at Aqaba, set me up. Why?”

“She works for the same people I do. It’s possible they gave her different orders behind my back. She doesn’t report to me.”

Dartley had to admire Laforque’s cool dismissal of his implied charges. They both knew that Laforque was low-level and could
be just as much a victim of his Paris superiors as Dartley was meant to be.

“Why did you give the alert when you saw me at the presidential palace?”

“Me?”

“You told the bodyguards, then stood in a doorway.”

Laforque laughed. “I was certain you hadn’t seen me. Very well, I’ll tell you. As you know from all the screaming on the television
and radio, the Israelis bombed Hasan’s nuclear reactor and set his program back by a couple of years. Now Hasan needs a new
reactor worth a hundred million American dollars or so. France is about to sell it to him. I was at the palace to deliver
some negotiation details from Paris before going out to search for you, when to my horror I saw you, no more than fifteen
feet away from France’s suddenly most valuable customer, about to pull some lunatic ninja stunt. If Hasan goes, so does our
contract. I did what I had to do to stop you,”

“And now?” Dartley inquired.

“I’ve been searching for you everywhere to tell you to go home. I could have put the bodyguards onto you at the palace, but
I didn’t.”

“It’s also possible you guessed that I was within
seconds of striking down Hasan, knew they couldn’t find me in time among all those Americans, and thought I’d never escape
from the palace anyway.”

Laforque laughed scornfully. “If I sat down with you, we could theorize all sorts of explanations together. It’s always easy
to do
after
the event, but when something is happening you never get a chance to think. You just act. Maybe I could have done things
better. But look at how things are: Hasan is alive and will give France the contract. You’re alive and richer by a million
dollars. Forget all this. Go home and spend it.”

Dartley grinned. “When you put it that way, it makes sense.”

Omar Zekri did not want Awad to find out about the Ibrahims. They were too valuable to Omar to lose. He funneled money from
Pritchett at the American Embassy to them, keeping a hefty chunk of it for himself. The Ibrahim women and children picked
up many of the information packets from his informants and could be trusted to pay them the agreed amounts—such honesty in
Omar’s eyes being proof of their insane dedication to revenge. Where else would he ever find ragged urchins or fellahin women
upon whom he could totally depend? He used their menfolk on missions which involved physical danger. And for all this, they
charged him not one piastre, assuming that the money sent by Mubarak’s aides inside the American Embassy should be answered
by their efforts.