The Hidden (16 page)

“I’m convinced there’s a coded document in Ibrahim’s house, detailed plans of Issawi’s next offensive, the schedule for their next raids. Mustafa is an excellent decoder. It was simply a matter of finding it. The house is not big. It wouldn’t have taken long.”

Farouk picked Littoni up by his shirt collar once more and pinned him up against the wall, the veins on his forehead pulsing with rage.

“But you didn’t find it, did you?” he snarled.

Littoni stared at him through bloodshot eyes. He had never seen Farouk so angry. The man had lost his mind. Littoni had no idea what he was going to do next. Then Farouk withdrew the piece of paper, he suspected was encoded with Issawi’s plans, and waved it in Littoni’s face.

“Is this what you were looking for?” he said.

Littoni’s eyes were the size of dinner plates. He tried to grab the document from Farouk’s hand, but Farouk waved it out of his reach.

“Sorry,” he said. “Not for amateurs.”

“Is that it? Where did you find it? In her house? How did you get it?”

Farouk stepped back, waving the document, then he folded it up and slipped it in the top pocket of his jacket.

“None of that matters, Littoni. I’ll just tell you one thing. Judging from what Issawi’s networks have up their sleeve, your little plan to go in with a time bomb will never work. You might as well give up right now.”

“You evil snake,” Littoni shouted. “You’re dead, Farouk. You’ll see. You’ll pay.”

In the blink of an eye, Farouk seized his lapels once more and flung him across the room, then kicked him in the stomach as he lay spread-eagled near the door.

Littoni spluttered, spat out bile, then crawled up on all fours, trying to stand.

“Help me up, you imbecile.”

Farouk stuck out his hand and helped Littoni to his feet. Littoni pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth.

Littoni grabbed the wall to steady himself. “Be careful, Farouk,” he said, his eyes narrowing with hatred.

“Or what?” Farouk shot back, clenching his fists in front of Littoni’s throat, but Littoni batted them away.

“I have my men, and we’re watching you. Sectors ten through twenty are on my side. You know the game. I’ll be the new president once we’ve ousted the king and his chief advisor. Do you really want to get on the wrong side of the new president of Egypt, me—Omar bin Mohammod? I can finally ditch my aliases and be proud of who I really am—not like you, Farouk, forced to return to Egypt in shame. Remember, sectors ten to twenty are the chemical warfare sectors—they’re the ones I need on my side. We can do without you.”

Farouk wasn’t going to take any more of Littoni’s threats. In one swift motion, he stepped around him, wrapped his arm around Littoni’s chest, and twisted him into an arm lock. From this position, he could whisper in his ear and get his message across.

“You’d better tell Hamid, Hossein, and al-Dyn to destroy the dynamite, bury it somewhere in the desert. My journalists are collating the reports on what’s happening in Issawi’s camp. The night of the twentieth, the night of the celebrations, the whole of Cairo
will be on high alert. Now you’ve risked everything by ransacking the girl’s house. I was with her at Achmed’s party. I talked to her. She doesn’t know anything. She’s an innocent. Ibrahim was involved in this, but his wife wasn’t. Now she’s doubly suspicious, and she’ll go to the police at the first opportunity. They’ll dust the place, take fingerprints. They probably have every conceivable bit of information on you in their dossiers. It’s only a matter of time—hours in fact—before you’re picked up, and once they’ve got you, the whole organisation will start to tumble like a house of cards and Issawi will have slipped through our fingers yet again.”

Littoni struggled against Farouk’s arm, but the man was strong. It made Littoni regret his declining stamina.

“Al-Dyn has reported back. Issawi was at his club tonight. He overheard him talking to his secretary. There are plans for increased security all-round, so where does that leave us? With the need for a new strategy? A change of time and place? I don’t think so. We’ll manage one way or another, Farouk. Everything is ready.

“Threaten me all you want with sectors ten through twenty. You think the men in the souks and the hotels, working men will come out in support of you? You, an ousted army general with a big chip on your shoulder. You know nothing of the men in sectors ten to twenty. I know these men, know their families.”

He released his arm and pushed Littoni away, then headed for the door.

“Leave the girl alone, Littoni,” he said. “Go near her house again and I’ll kill you.” Farouk pushed his way back out through the haret. Mission accomplished, he was going home to Zamalek.

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

Kerdassa, August 23, 1919

I walk with Hassan down a narrow street to the far end of the village. Men sit outside their shops and smoke. Young boys run around laughing and shouting out little songs. It is now very late, and the earth smells of fire. We come to a squat mud-brick house, similar to the others in the village. Hassan knocks on the door of a house and then opens it. I duck down to enter and remove my cap. Monsieur Alexandre is standing in the far corner of the room, his back to us. He turns around.

“Anton, you have a visitor,” Hassan says matter-of-factly.

Alexandre bows and says, “Thank you, Hassan. You can go.”

Hassan leaves. We are alone. I stand in silence, watching him. My heart is pounding in my chest. He is dressed in a loose, pale jalaba. Around his head he wears a turban. He comes to me, reaches for my hand, and kisses it. Little flames course through me. I catch his gaze, his scent.

“We haven’t much time,” I say. “Al-Shezira is very close. He will be at my palace very, very soon. And then I will have to leave for Minya.”

He puts his finger to my lips to hush me. I close my eyes. In the darkness of the hut, he wraps his arms around me and holds me against him. In the space of a second, I forget my despicable, torturous marriage and my hateful life at the palace. My body ripples, little shivers pulsating inside me.

Alexandre steers me towards a low couch, his finger still on my mouth. I can hear the thump of his heart. He lays me down, unbuttons my jacket, slips his hand inside, against my warm flesh. He sweeps his hand over my face and hair. Then he disengages himself, removes my boots and trousers, and throws a blanket over us.

“Hush,” he says.

He lies down with me. He traces a line with his finger from my forehead to my breasts and then gently gathers me to him, kissing my mouth slowly and tenderly.

When he has removed his clothes and turban, he teases me with little kisses until my breasts and my body are quivering. Then his mouth makes its way to the crest of my womanhood.

Later, in the darkness, I look into his eyes. I feel the hard heat of him as his thighs cover mine. I taste his breath, absorb the fire from him. My body jolts as he joins his own flesh with mine. As we move together, I forget who I am, forget where I have come from. It is only when he wrenches himself from me that I realise that perhaps for the sake of honour I should have stopped him. But I know that I will become his wife and together we can plan for a better Egypt. I want to be by his side, fighting, as he fights. Years ago when I was forced to do my duty as a wife, I cried because I did not want al-Shezira in this way. Now I am different. I want to love Alexandre as a wife loves her husband, physically and with every bit of passion she has. Convention will not stop me. Alexandre caresses my face and after a while he speaks. I have no qualms about being Alexandre’s lover. He is my true love—my one and only love—and in my heart, I know that to be with him is my destiny.

Warm flutters ripple through me. I want to hold on to this moment forever. I do not want to go back to al-Qahire. I want to be free among the stars of Africa, a child of the earth.

“I have heard talk of al-Shezira’s plans to reclaim all the land within a fifty-mile radius of his palace for himself. This will destroy hundreds of businesses. Your husband has a great deal of political power, but the Rebel Corps cannot allow this to happen. I have many friends among the traders and the farmers, and I know for a fact that many families’ lives have been ruined by al-Shezira. He is not a man who pays his debts or keeps his honour. He has enslaved many of the young boys who work the farms for their fathers, and these boys have been carted off as auxiliary soldiers, leaving their families struggling. He has bought up acres of cotton land for nothing and is now reaping extraordinary profits. He plans to do this again in Minya.”

I turn away and my tears start to flow.

“Yes,” I say, “yes, I know.”

He tilts my chin with his finger. “What we are attempting is dangerous, Hezba, but we cannot sit idly by and let this man have his way. The revolution will start with the destruction of al-Shezira’s power. By destroying the power he holds, we will change things for good. Al-Shezira and the British are one and the same—you know that, don’t you. To get rid of the British, we must start by getting rid of al-Shezira and his political associates. Only then we can restore the power to the people of this country. I know you want that too. With your money and your connections, all this is possible.”

I shake my head in despair and humiliation at being al-Shezira’s wife and with the knowledge that my father, the sultan, is an associate of his.

“But Hassan and Aalim seem to despise me. They don’t appear to want my money or my help.”

“Ignore them,” he whispers. “They are humble fellah. It will take them longer to get used to the idea of a woman helping us. They are ignorant, uneducated, but deep down they are good men and we are all working for the same thing, for Egypt.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Farouk arrived home just as the eastern sky began to show signs of dawn. Instead of entering the house, however, he went around the side to the garden and sat down on the bench by the fountain. He needed to think. The girl would be upstairs in the blue bedroom, where he’d instructed Gigis to put her.

The sun was rising now, and gold-tinged clouds broke through the black rim of the night sky. Light began to flood the streets of Zamalek. He could not go to bed. He was far too agitated to sleep. He plucked the document the girl had given him out of his pocket and started to read.

At first he didn’t understand the code. His mind kept wandering to Littoni and what he had said. The ten sectors on the east side of the city were all personal friends of Farouk’s. He counted at least fifty of them, knew their operations, where they worked, what their aliases were, how many code names they operated under, their covers, their fields of speciality, how often they compiled their reports, how their reports were transmitted, how many of the men were decoders, how good they were at their jobs, how many men had access to radio transmitters, who the subagents were—and yet Littoni had tried to fool him into believing he was on his own.

It worried him that Littoni had brainwashed the lot of them into taking part in Littoni’s version of the revolution. A thug’s revolution
was what Littoni wanted—followed by a dictatorship with himself at the helm. But if Littoni were to become Egypt’s ruler, it would only result in more poverty for the country, more civilian deaths, and no progress. The country would soon be on its knees and at the mercy of the Germans. He had to get word to Nemmat, fine-tune his plan, and inform her that Ali and Mitali Khaldun were ready to move in on Issawi on the sixteenth, three days from now.

He continued to try to decipher the coded document. He’d once been a skilled code-cracker. He peered closer. The code appeared to address Ibrahim as a member of Security Operations. Yes, he could crack that much. But of Security’s specific plans to move in on the X? Well, that was where the code got tricky. Farouk was sure that the document had been double-coded. He would need time to work it out.

He looked up and saw the dark shape he knew to be Gigis standing at the top of the stone steps that led to the terrace. He folded the paper and slipped it back into his jacket, waved to his servant, got up and walked towards him.

“Is the madame asleep?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, I believe so,” Gigis replied. “I brought her some tea around half past three and haven’t heard a sound since then.”

“She needed my help,” Farouk said, shaking his head sadly.

“Yes, sir.”

“You can take the day off, Gigis,” Farouk continued. “But give me the keys to the car. I’ll need it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gigis said, fumbling in his pocket for the keys.

“Now go.” Farouk smiled. “You look half dead from lack of sleep. Have you been waiting for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Farouk patted the boy on the shoulder.

“Well, I’m here now. The madame is safe, and you can go and get some sleep.”

Gigis smiled, turned, and left.

Farouk followed him inside, discarded his jacket, and stood for a moment, thinking. Then he climbed the marble staircase to the first floor and padded along the carpeted corridor to the blue room. He just wanted to see her. He could picture her—her pale, striking youth, her unblemished features unmarked by life, her still-forming soul swelling to take its place inside her nearly adult body—yet she had married the evil Ibrahim; it didn’t add up. Was there more to her? Was her innocence a useful foil?

He quietly opened the door. In the gloom, he could see her body lying motionless under the sheets. Her dress had been discarded on the chair in the far corner. Her hand clutched the edge of the cotton, like a child seeking comfort. The balcony doors had been flung wide open. Splashes of dawn bathed the room in a soft morning glow. He tiptoed towards the bed and sat down on the edge of it, never taking his eyes off her. Her hair was wild and loose and splayed out like a fan on the white pillow. Her mouth was downturned, her thick black eyebrows highly visible in the shuttered light. He longed to touch her long, straight nose and run his finger gently along the bridge of it towards the pout of her mouth, but he did nothing. He just sat and stared at her. And then he let his eyes wander down to her shoulders and her breasts, partially covered by the cotton sheet.