The Hidden (18 page)

He bit his lip. “Whatever happens, don’t say anything. Let me do all the talking.”

He stopped the car. A soldier walked round to the driver’s side and spoke in French.

“Where are you going?”

“Ismailia,” Farouk said, “to visit friends.”

“Papers,” the soldier said.

Farouk slid his hand into his inside pocket and pulled out his identity papers.

The soldier peered at them closely, studied Farouk’s face, and looked at Aimee. In one fluid movement, he pulled a revolver from inside his jacket and pointed it at them. His face was straining, the veins on his temples standing out against his face.

“Get out of the car, both of you,” he shouted. “Quickly. Don’t try anything stupid.”

Aimee froze in her seat, her heart banging wildly in her throat and chest. And the way Farouk had grabbed and squeezed her hand, jerking his head up towards a sand dune, confirmed everything. This wasn’t an ordinary security check.

Five uniformed guardsmen were marching towards them with rifles over their shoulders, shouting at the top of their voices in Arabic.

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

Kerdassa, August 23, 1919

The night grows colder. I hear a sound and I freeze. It is faint at first, but it is an ominous sound, the sound of thunder in the distance, low and dark and growing louder all the time.

I look at Alexandre, who soothes me with a touch of his hand on my arm.

“Come with me,” he says. His eyes are strained with worry as we leave the hut. Anton shouts for his men. I hide in the shadow of the doorway, not sure exactly what I should do. I watch in horror as three horsemen ride up, pale, nasty looking men, British officials, no doubt, in government uniform, looking very like the official Turkish zaptieh on parade, their uniforms more elaborate than any I have seen before. They are obviously government officials and not soldiers.

If they discover I am a woman beneath my Australian Light Horse uniform, I will be reported. At first, I hear nothing but the sound of restless horses, pulling against their reins, their hooves pounding the dirt. The horsemen are surveying the village scene suspiciously.

Then one of them speaks. “We are here under authority to investigate an illegal meeting taking place. Do any of you fellows know anything about this?”

One of Anton’s group speaks up in strained, heavily accented English. “We are humble farmers, Sayyid. We are celebrating a festival this evening. There is no one in this village acting in an inappropriate way. You would be the first to know if there was.”

I catch the arrogance in the man’s voice.

“You,” shouts one of the horsemen at one of Alexandre’s men. “What are you hiding in your robes?”

I hold my breath.

“Give it to me,” he orders.

I hear the men muttering in Arabic, interspersed with a few words of French.

One of Alexandre’s men speaks. “May I ask you under whose authority you have ridden out to Kerdassa to interrogate us?”

Before they have a chance to reply, he says in a more respectful voice, “We are quiet people here and don’t want any trouble.”

The horseman dismounts and says, “High Commissioner Wingate has ordered an investigation into illegal meetings. We have orders from
headquarters to search rural villages near Cairo for aggressor activity. So do as you are told and hand over what you’re hiding.”

A scuffle ensues. Aalim draws a dagger. The horsemen draw out their pistols.

“Stand back, keep out of the way,” someone shouts. The three horsemen steady their horses with their pistols pointed directly at Aalim. I pray quietly to my God. Aalim is poised with the dagger held high over his head, crying out, “Allah, Allah.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The soldier with the revolver lunged forward, flung open Farouk’s door, and stepped back, pointing the gun at him at eye level. Trembling, Aimee got out of her side of the car, arms raised in the air. The soldier pulled Farouk around the car and pushed him next to Aimee. Farouk could see her frightened eyes taking in the five officers marching towards them. He scanned the desert, spread like a yellow carpet all around them; date palm, and acacia trees and a ramshackle service station dotted the road ahead. In the distance he could see a group of old men in long, pale blue jalabas trailing donkeys, accompanied by two large chador-shrouded women, trekking slowly back to Cairo. He saw a huge billboard covered in metallic red and chrome—an advertisement for Coca-Cola; two young men were smoking and laughing underneath it. No one seemed to be taking any notice of them.

The five officers came to a stop a few feet away. Another soldier appeared from behind the car, walked towards Farouk, and gave him a shove. “Move,” one of them shouted, “that way.”

Farouk felt a sharp jab as the young soldier pushed the revolver into his back. They were marched towards the sand dune from which the five of them had appeared. He saw a mud-brick house and a shack in a little clearing in the distance.

When they reached the hut, Farouk and Aimee were pushed inside. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he tried to swallow an angry breath. Damn them all, he thought. He’d been followed, that much was obvious. He was losing his touch. He’d been careful but not careful enough.

The officers followed them in. One of them adjusted a little window so there was some light. Farouk and Aimee were seated at a table and tied agonisingly tightly to their seats with some rope.

The young soldier with the revolver took up his place in front of them, arm outstretched, revolver at the ready. Farouk saw perspiration pouring down Aimee’s face. She was licking her lips, her face contorted with fear. He hated himself for getting her tangled up in this.

“What’s this all about?” Farouk said, but before he had a chance to say another word, one of the officers struck him across the face with his fist.

“Silence.”

Farouk’s jaw and cheek tingled. He ran his tongue over his mouth and felt a warm thick trickle of blood slide down his chin onto his white shirt. He could smell its sulphurous scent. He steadied his gaze to regain composure.

One of the men bent down beside him and waved his identity papers at him, sneering as he spoke.

“Do you think you’ve fooled us, Mustafa Alim?”

Two stony-faced men in suits entered the hut. Farouk felt a deep hatred well up inside him.

“What do you want? Who the hell are you?” Farouk said quietly.

The men laughed. One of them started to circle Farouk’s chair, speaking as he went.

“My name is Hilali. This is Gamal. These are three of our officers.”

Farouk closed his eyes.

“Our names mean nothing to you, Sayyid? I am the head of Secret Operations for Issawi Pasha, Sayyid.”

Farouk flinched, his veins bursting with poisonous hatred, but he remained silent.

“You know Issawi Pasha, Sayyid?”

“Is there a single man or woman in the whole of Egypt who does not know who Issawi is?”

Gamal and Hilali looked at each other and smiled.

“You speak very passionately, Sayyid, which makes us believe you have strong feelings about Issawi Pasha.”

Farouk swallowed hard.

“It is easy to have strong feelings about a corrupt despot.”

“So you are a Nationalist, Sayyid?”

Farouk sank back into silence.

“What was your business at Nasser’s Trinkets in the Muski?”

Farouk blinked. “How—?” he said before Hilali cut him off.

“You were being followed.”

“I was visiting my friend there, simply a social call,” Farouk said.

Gamal shook his head.

Hilali said, “Men, search him.”

The three officers lunged forward and stripped Farouk of his clothes. They fumbled through every pocket until they found what they were looking for.

“A matchbox,” Gamal said with satisfaction, sliding open the cardboard.

He withdrew a little packet from the box, unfolded it, then sniffed it.

“Heroin.”

“But you’re not a drug-taker, Sayyid. If our sources are correct, Mustafa Alim is a family man, a Khalili tailor, and an X sector member. You must have bought the drug from Nasser Sayyid to use for another purpose?”

Farouk remained silent. He simply sat there, nearly naked in his white undergarments, tied to his chair, staring Hilali in the eye, never once averting his glance.

“Is Nasser of Nasser’s Trinkets one of the X’s letter boxes?” Gamal demanded.

The young soldier advanced on Farouk, pointing his revolver squarely between his eyes.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Farouk said without flinching.

Suddenly men’s voices were heard outside. Gamal, Hilali, and their officers sprung to attention. Gamal jerked his head, and he and Hilali went outside.

Farouk strained to hear what was going on. When Hilali and Gamal returned, they were followed by a thickset older man with white hair peeking out from under a general’s cap. Hilali and Gamal stood erect, clicked their heels together, and bowed.

“Al-Alfi Pasha,” they said in unison.

The man stood back from the others on the far side of the room. He leaned against the wall, then said, “Get them talking, Hilali. I have orders to report back to Issawi on any progress when I meet with him tonight. He does not want to be disappointed.”

Farouk scrutinised the man and recognised him as one of Issawi’s sidekicks. His body tensed.

“Who is the mastermind behind the X, Sayyid?” Hilali snarled.

Farouk said nothing and shot Aimee a look of warning not to say anything. His eyes darted from face to face, trying to anticipate what was going to happen next.

“Fine, the Sayyid doesn’t want to talk. Men, you know what Issawi Pasha has ordered you to do.”

They advanced on Farouk. One of them swung behind him, withdrew a knife from his pocket, pulled Farouk’s head back by the hair, and positioned the knife over his throat.

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

Kerdassa, August 23, 1919

The officers are violent men. They are looking for any excuse to haul Alexandre and his men away and charge them with being underground aggressors. If they are taken back to Cairo, the plans for the revolution will come to nothing. I edge my way backwards against the door and somehow—as though my God is punishing me—I knock over a small bundle of sticks propped up against the house. The horsemen swing round. They dismount and walk over. One of them pulls off my cap. My hair, unravelled because of our lovemaking, cascades down my back.

“Well, well a little Gyppy girl,” the older one says, his watery blue eyes shining with contempt.

Then one of the other horsemen speaks, the one with the red hair and freckles, who looks as though he is no older than I am.

“We should take her with us, until this group confesses,” he says.

“I am sure these men only want to cooperate with you,” I say in French, but this does not seem to please them.

“We don’t speak French, Little Missy Gyppy Girl,” the older, evil-looking one says. They point their pistols at me now, all three staring at me.

“Please put down your guns, gentlemen,” I say in very broken English.

Alexandre shouts. “Leave her alone. She is not involved. Don’t touch her.”

But the horseman ignores him. “What a beautiful voice you have, Missy,” he says.

“Where did you learn to speak the King’s English?”

I do not say anything, but I notice Alexandre is moving up behind them with a dagger raised high above his head.

“What? Little Gyppy Missy has lost her tongue? Why don’t you give us a kiss then, girlie?”

This is more than I can bear and I explode, a torrent of Arabic expletives bursting from my mouth.

“Get her,” one of the Englishmen says, and they lunge at me, forcing their lips onto mine. Their hands are on my breasts, inside my jacket, between my legs, and around my throat. I scream in terror.

Alexandre and his men are on them at once, twisting their arms behind their backs. I run inside the hut, rubbing my mouth with my sleeve in disgust.

“We should kill you right now,” Alexandre hisses at them. “How dare you touch one of our women,” he screams in Arabic, his voice unrecognisable. “How dare you. Now mount your horses and leave before we shoot you all.”

They follow his orders.

“We’ll be back for you lot. We know your faces, you bloody Gyppies. We know who you are.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Aimee blacked out. The glint of the knife, the look of hatred in Farouk’s eye as his head was forced back, Hilali’s sneering whispers, the stench of human perspiration all washed over her, and the world dissolved about her. When she awoke, she moaned and opened her eyes. For a few seconds she didn’t know where she was. Trying to move her neck, she cried out in pain. She was lying sideways on the mud floor, still strapped to her chair. A line of sweat was trickling down her nose.

“Lift her up,” Gamal ordered the soldier.

The chair was lifted upright. The soldier bent down and pulled the ropes tighter. She winced and wriggled, her head throbbing. “I need a drink,” she croaked. “I need water.”

The soldier flashed a look at Gamal who nodded. The soldier poured some water in a dirty tumbler and lifted it to her lips. She could see a dead fly floating in the cup. She pursed her lips and sucked a little water. The fly brushed her lips. Aimee squeezed her eyes shut in disgust.

She tried to move her head to see what had happened to Farouk, but her neck and spine felt bruised. Out of the corner of her eye she managed to get a tiny glimpse, a flash of white. He was still undressed, in his undershorts, but a bandage was now tied tightly over his mouth.

She felt something brush against her cheek. Her head flew round to see Gamal standing an inch away from her. He knelt in front of her and ran his hand salaciously over her face. Aimee froze and closed her eyes.