Aggressor (17 page)

The single-file column of hostages stumbled along the dusty track.

Ambassador Franklin kept his hand clasped firmly to the shoulder of the man at the head of the column. He had given up trying to loosen the blindfold that had been tied too tightly around his head. The last time he had brought a hand up to his face, the sharp crack of a rifle butt reminded him of the rules that had been imposed upon them. The most rigidly enforced was the one about the blindfold.

When they first began to march, the heat had been intolerable, but now that they were higher up, the air had cooled considerably and, despite their fatigue, the journey had become easier. He had an impression they were passing through a deep ravine. Occasionally, he could hear the noise of scree scattering from under their feet echoing off steep-sided rock walls on either side of them.

Now the ravine was opening. Sunlight streamed onto his face, and he could smell lush vegetation around him.

When the terrorists called them to a halt, he thought at first it was just another rest. But then he heard the door pulled back, its hinges jarring noisily, and he knew that they had arrived at their final destination.

The hand in the small of his back sent him sprawling onto the musty earthen floor. His head hit the far wall, but was saved from bruising by the blindfold. The cloth dislodged, Franklin opened his eyes. Bright sunlight flooded through the diminishing gap as the door was pushed shut behind him.

A moment before it closed, Franklin caught a glimpse of his jailer. The sight of the man, the detail of his clothes clearly visible in the bright sun, made the ambassador catch his breath.

Alone, and in the darkness of his primitive cell, he knew there would be no demands, no ransoms paid.

BOOK 2: CHAPTER 9

Girling awoke from a light sleep when he felt the flaps and wheels lower into the slipstream. He cupped his hands over the window and peered out-side. The Egyptair A300 was descending through the night over the barren desert just west of Cairo. He could see sporadic pinpoints of light, where islands of civilization dotted the desert like fireflies.

As the Nile Valley swept below the belly of the aircraft, Girling settled back into his seat for the landing.

Five minutes later the wheels greased the tarmac at Cairo International Airport, sending a shimmer through the aircraft. Behind him a group of Egyptians cheered.

He descended the airstairs and shivered. Thanks to the six-hour delay, the aircraft had landed during the small window of time when the chill of the night had sucked the last warmth from the land. He looked to the eastern horizon, but the sun was a half-hour away yet.

The journey through customs and immigration was the usual maze of triplicate forms and rubber stamps. The massed ranks of officialdom were painstakingly breached. Now he had arrived, he felt every delay counting against Stansell's life. He looked at his watch a third time in five minutes. An immigration officer watched him with suspicion.

Reunited with his bags, he headed out of the terminal, through Cairenes crammed around the exits searching for friends and relations. He looked briefly for Sharifa, but she wasn't there. They had arranged to meet at
Dispatches
' offices if his plane arrived late.

He dropped his cases to the pavement. The sun had started to climb over the eastern desert accompanied by the odours of humanity that had been suppressed by the dew of the night. A swirl of choking dust blew in his face, bringing with it the distant cry of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

As Egypt stirred it offered sights, sounds, and smells that he remembered so well.

A Mercedes, sporting the familiar black and white paint scheme of Cairo cabs, pulled alongside. The driver leant across the passenger seat and waved him in.

Girling told him where he wanted to go.
Dispatches
' offices were located on the fifth floor of a tall building overlooking the Corniche, the long road that ran almost the length of the Nile's east bank in Cairo.

The driver turned to compliment him on his Arabic and the Mercedes swerved across the carriageway. The closer they drew to the city centre the greater the bustle and the noise as ten million people went about the day's business. Ahead, the twin minarets of the Muhammad Ali mosque, a soaring nineteenth-century edifice built atop Saladin's medieval citadel, swung into view. Girling glanced to his left and saw smaller, less elegant minarets, scattered like rocky outcrops in a plain of whitewashed graves and crumbling mausoleums.

The City of the Dead stretched away from the highway until its edges merged with the long shadows of the Muqattam Hills.

As the car sped on by, he watched a little boy, one leg amputated at the knee, hobble from the doorway of a requisitioned mausoleum and disappear down one of the myriad alleys that criss-crossed this sprawling sub-city.

Once located beyond the walls of the capital, the City of the Dead was now one of its largest suburbs. The million people living here were from the lowest walks of life; mostly peasants who had teemed into the city to find work but who quickly ended up picking through the rubbish dumps in search of food.

The City of the Dead attracted every kind of criminal. From the lowest thief to powerful, Mafia-style gangleaders. A virtual no-go area for the regular police - the ‘Askary - the City of the Dead was a hot-bed of Islamic fundamentalism. If Stansell was anywhere in Egypt, there was a better than even chance he was down there, Girling thought, perhaps a few hundred yards from his speeding Mercedes. It was a notion that both exhilarated and depressed him.

Twenty minutes later, he paid the driver and stood with his bags on the kerb opposite
Dispatches
' building. He crossed the road, avoiding the wildly converging traffic on the Corniche to reach the sanctuary of the building. In the comparative cool and silence of the lobby he glanced at his watch. It was six thirty. He decided to go upstairs and wait.

He rode the lift to the fifth floor and found the door to their offices ajar. He swung it gently and peered inside. Never a tidy place, the room looked like it had been turned upside down. Files littered the floor, back issues of the magazine were scattered across tables and desks, there were endless boxes filled with papers and several filing cabinets with their drawers hanging open. Then he noticed the policeman in the corner, his white summer-issue fatigues sullied by dust and soot. He was sitting on a tea-chest brimming with documents and looked like he had spent the night chain-smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes, judging from the butts littering the floor by his feet.

Girling coughed and the corporal roused himself self-consciously, anxious to prove he had been doing anything but sleeping. He fingered his 1940s-vintage rifle anxiously, until Girling explained who he was. Girling took his seat in the opposite corner and for the next forty minutes they watched each other uneasily, neither saying a word.

Presently, Girling heard footsteps in the corridor. He smiled in anticipation of seeing Sharifa again. He wondered, as he rose to his feet, how kind the last three years had been to her.

Girling turned to find himself confronting a short man in his early fifties, his face built around small features. A wispy moustache, hairs glistening with droplets of sweat, sprouted from his upper lip. The suit, expensive by Egyptian standards, was ill-fitting, the buttons straining against an extensive belly.

The militiaman was on his feet, hand locked in salute. The fat man waved him to a post by the door.

‘You are Mr Tom Girling, the unfortunate Stansell's replacement.' It was presented as a statement of fact, not a question. He took a step forward, hand outstretched. ‘Captain Lutfi Al-Qadi of State Security.' Al-Qadi lisped each s, leaving Girling with a fleeting impression of something reptilian. The Mukhabarat was welcoming him back.

Al-Qadi left a thin film of sweat on Girling's palm.

‘You are not well, Mr Girling?'

‘It was a long flight, Captain.'

‘You must be tired.'

‘You try to get used to it in my business.'

‘And mine also.' Al-Qadi gestured to the mess around him. ‘Not the best greeting, I'm afraid, Mr Girling. Our forensic people, you understand.'

‘Actually, I'm impressed, Captain.'

‘The Mukhabarat does not take its work lightly, Mr Girling. We are making progress.'

‘Oh?'

‘We have recently recovered his contact book,' Al-Qadi said. ‘I believe it will answer many of our questions.'

Girling had hoped Sharifa might have salvaged the book. It would have been an admirable start to his own efforts. Doubtless, Stansell's contact book would give the Mukhabarat a sober insight into a first-rate journalist's penetration of the establishment, both in Egypt and in neighbouring countries.

‘I am afraid your Stansell did not believe in personal security,' Al-Qadi said, shuffling to the large desk in the corner of the office. ‘In his apartment, he has a piece much like this, only oak, good quality.' He rubbed the surface to prove the point. ‘We found his typewriter, with paper in it, just here. There were signs of a struggle - a broken lamp, an overturned chair.' He pointed to the corresponding positions of each item.

‘Had he typed anything?' Girling asked.

‘On the paper? No.'

‘Did he leave behind any notes?'

‘I remind you there is a news black-out, Mr Girling.'

‘Stansell is my friend, Captain. I think I have a right to know.'

Al-Qadi removed a silk handkerchief and mopped his brow. ‘There was the note from his abductors, but that was all. Both his apartment and this office have been thoroughly searched, I can assure you.'

‘Could I see it?'

‘What?'

‘The note.'

‘This is police business, Mr Girling.'

‘We have the same interest at heart, don't we, Captain?'

‘Naturally.' Al-Qadi's eyes narrowed to slits. ‘But in Egypt some things are impossible. Do your job, Mr Girling, and I'll do mine.'

‘This is my job,' Girling said levelly. ‘How do you know they didn't kill him on the spot?'

‘Because we found traces of chloroform on the desk.'

‘But why would the Angels of Judgement go to the trouble? Out here, miles from home?' He paused. ‘Do you think the Brotherhood may be up to its old tricks?'

Al-Qadi pulled a pack of Nefertitis from his pocket. ‘A most convenient theory, Mr Girling.'

Girling watched him take out a cigarette and roll it between his fingers.

‘It would be stupid for either of us to pretend,' Al-Qadi said. He lit the cigarette and sucked hard. The smoke streamed from his nostrils. ‘About what happened to your wife.'

Girling managed to keep his feelings in check. He held the investigator's stare. ‘As you say, Captain.' Even though the Mukhabarat did not operate with Western-style efficiency, it kept files. ‘But it doesn't alter the fact that the Brotherhood may be helping the Angels of Judgement.'

‘Please leave the theorizing to us, Mr Girling.' Al-Qadi took a step towards him. ‘You would do well to remember that the Mukhabarat has this investigation in hand. And that the Brotherhood is a spent force here in Egypt.'

Girling buried an urge to tell Al-Qadi that a Mukh-abarat officer had uttered those same words by his hospital bed three years before, barely a fortnight after he had watched his wife stoned to death by Brotherhood activists. For a moment, the rage swirled within him, but he fought against it. He could not afford to antagonize the Mukhabarat.

He was saved by a sharp knock at the door.

Girling turned and there was Sharifa, a scarf covering her hair, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses. A slight puffiness about her face told him she had been crying.

‘Oh, Tom, I'm so glad you're here.'

They held each other for a moment. She took a step back. ‘You haven't changed.'

‘Nor you.'

They stood there awkwardly for a moment, neither knowing what to say after so long.

‘How's little Alia?' she asked at last.

‘She's fine. I've left her with my parents, until-' He stopped. ‘She'll be with them for a while.'

Sharifa looked across to the investigator. ‘I see introductions are unnecessary,' she said.

Al-Qadi ground the stub of his cigarette into the floor. He made to leave.

‘I hope you have a pleasant stay in Egypt, Mr Girling. If anything occurs to you that could help our investigation, do not hesitate to call me. Miss Fateem has my number.' He clapped his hands and the militiaman took up his position inside the room again. ‘The guard will see to it that you are protected.'

Al-Qadi's eyes rested on the satin-smooth skin of Sharifa's legs for a moment, then he turned and walked from the room.

Girling waited till he heard the lift doors close. ‘I need a couple of hours in here,' he whispered to her. ‘I have to check this place out, unsupervised.'

She followed his gaze to the militiaman, who was engrossed in the pages of a magazine that had fallen from one of the boxes. Sharifa glanced towards Girling's luggage and asked: ‘Do you have a carton of cigarettes?'

He shook his head. ‘I quit.' He pulled a bottle of Johnny Walker from his duty-free bag. ‘But this stuff always used to be better than currency around here.'

Girling handed over the bottle and watched as the transaction was made. Sharifa cooed soothingly at the guard's protestations. There was nothing to fear. She had things, private things, to discuss with her colleague from London. Captain Al-Qadi would understand. The militiaman looked at her quizzically for a moment, then headed for the door, seemingly satisfied, his prize tucked inside his tunic.

Girling gestured after him. ‘Where's he going?'

‘To guard the main entrance for a while. You probably have a little over an hour before he gets nervous and comes back. Providing, of course, Captain Al-Qadi doesn't beat him to it.'

‘Unpleasant little runt, isn't he?' Girling said.

‘Do not underestimate Al-Qadi, Tom. You, better than most, know what the Mukhabarat can do.'

Girling started with the filing cabinet nearest the door. He picked through the folders meticulously, occasionally removing a carnet and leafing through its pages like a bank cashier counting out money.

‘Shouldn't you be getting some rest?' Sharifa said. ‘You've been up all night.'

Girling said nothing, but moved to the next cabinet, pulling each drawer out on its runners in turn and passing his hands over its underside.

Nothing.

‘There's a coffee-shop round the corner,' she ventured. ‘I bet you could use some real Arabic coffee after that flight.'

‘Sounds good,' he said distractedly. He never heard her leave.

Girling moved to the cardboard boxes used by Stansell as surrogate filing cabinets. As he stripped away the layers, he found newspaper cuttings, some in English, others in Arabic, bound with pieces of string, or elastic. The Mukhabarat, he knew, would have looked on the boxes as junk. There had been no attempt to categorize the contents beyond their natural chronology. Yet Stansell knew where to find everything. He had that sort of mind.

With a growing sense of unease Girling moved down the layers until he reached the period when he was last in Egypt. There was a long article clipped from the
Economist
on Libya's return to the Arab fold, headed with a picture of Gaddafi shaking hands with Mubarak on the tarmac at the Cairo Airport. Girling remembered the Libyan leader's visit. Gaddafi arrived the day he took his first steps in Stamen's apartment. Stansell had gone to the airport to watch the plane come in and Girling had decided to use the solitude to practise walking. After two months in bed, it had been more difficult than he'd ever imagined. There were a few more pages of contemporary parliamentary reports. He nicked past them and there was Mona.