Aggressor (32 page)

More details leapt into focus. In one of the corners he noticed a minaret set starkly against the rocky backdrop, a building within the building at its base.

Girling turned to Abdullah. ‘What is this place?'

‘I do not understand,' Abdullah replied. He had to shout over the gunfire. ‘It is a caravanserai.'

Girling had never seen one close up.

‘Did you know about this caravanserai here?'

‘No, ya majnoon.' There was a mixture of puzzlement and anger on the bedouin's face. ‘A caravanserai is the desert's own miracle, a sacred place, where even rival tribes forget their differences.'

It was only when Girling looked at one of the walls side-on that the pieces fell into place. ‘Look,' he shouted. ‘Your caravanserai is made of wood.'

Before Abdullah could ask him the purpose of such an edifice, the two Sikorskys that had broken away thirty seconds earlier swept in low and fast from the open end of the wadi. Their noses reared as the pilots bled off the excess speed. Then they began to settle on the expanse of dust between the caravanserai and the two outhouses. Even before their wheels brushed the ground men leapt from their ramps.

A group of eight soldiers rushed to one of the outhouses amidst covering fire from the helos circling overhead. Accurate sniping fire came from the men who had been deposited earlier on the clifftops.

The soldiers were difficult to spot, dressed as they were in black, gas masks and hoods on their heads.

There was a flash like a firecracker detonation and the outhouse door blew off its hinges. Two men scurried inside. Another group dished out similar treatment to the second outhouse in a mirror-image operation. The second door blew open just as the first group of soldiers began hurrying back across open ground towards the helicopters. Each soldier supported mannequins, all dangling legs and dead weight. The second group reappeared and from somewhere a star-shell rose into the sky, bursting in an incandescent shower of green phosphor.

The two Sikorskys lifted off from the ground and peeled away.

There was so much action that Girling did not know where to look. At the head of the wadi, the second pair of Sikorskys began to lower over the caravanserai, ropes spilling from their bodies like disembowelled entrails. In an instant men were abseiling to the ground.

It took, perhaps, less than two minutes for the soldiers to clear the rooms with gunfire and grenades. This time, they did not reappear with mannequins. As he watched, the caravanserai was torn apart.

Another star-shell, red this time, burst in the sky. The Sikorskys reappeared and, once more, the ropes fell from the cabins. The helicopters pulled away, clearing the cliffs just as a series of explosions blew the building apart.

Then the noise ceased, leaving only a ringing in Girling's ears.

Shabanov jumped from the side door of his MH-53J onto the tarmac at Wadi Qena. The other three helicopters swept down from the sky one by one, each separating by a hundred yards as it lowered wheels to the ground.

The Russian had exchanged his Soviet combat fatigues for American ones. It had been decided that since they were using US helicopters they would standardize on US military equipment, right down to the uniforms. Apart from anything else, it would lead to fewer identification problems when they took the Sword's caravanserai for real.

Shabanov waved to his pilot and took a last admiring look at the MH-53J. With mid-air refuelling, it was big enough to ferry them all the way into and all the way out of the target area and yet Soviet pilots who had flown it, his Soviet pilots, said it performed like an agile combat helicopter. Remarkable. Would that their own technology were as good.

When he turned to the other Sikorskys, two of them were already trundling across the tarmac to their hangars leaving Ulm's machine alone, facing his, the two birds looking like overweight gunslingers at a dawn showdown. He watched Ulm swing out of the co-pilot's seat, drop to the ground, catch sight of him and start walking over.

They met half-way.

‘Well?' Ulm said.

Shabanov pulled off his helmet and ran a gloved hand through his bristle length hair. ‘Tell Mr Jacob-son to alert the KC-130 tankers. We're ready to go as soon as General Aushev gives the all clear.'

‘When could that be?'

‘Your guess is as good as mine, Elliot. When the weather's fine, when the hostages are all in the optimum position, when the Angels are asleep, when the gods smile...'

‘That could be weeks.'

‘Or tomorrow.' Shabanov breathed deeply. He felt good. ‘You can tell Mr Jacobson we're ready, Elliot. For the moment, that's all that matters.'

CHAPTER 19

Only in the cool air-conditioned interior of the Misr Tours office at Ramsis Station did Girling notice the acrid odour of his body and clothes for the first time. His filth-ridden suit and sweat-stained skin had gone unremarked amongst his fellow travellers - mainly fellahin peasant farmers - on the third-class wagon from Qena to Cairo. But here, surrounded by a bus load of Italian tourists, their leader remonstrating angrily with a girl behind the desk who was disclaiming all knowledge of a block booking on that morning's express to Luxor, the smell of the camel saddle and the dust on his jeans almost choked him.

With the uproar at its height, Girling calmly reached across the desk, picked up the phone and dialled Sharifa. He let the phone ring for almost two minutes, but there was no answer. He was relieved, because it meant she had done his bidding and gone to Lazan's.

Enduring hostile glances from a couple of elderly tourists at the back of the melee, Girling dialled a new number, Stansell's apartment, and waited for the answering machine to engage. He was reluctant to show up there personally in case he ran into one of Al-Qadi's men. For the moment, being dead suited him down to the ground.

He activated the remote access code and listened to his messages. There were four from Kelso, his voice getting successively angrier. Interspersed amongst them were the calmer tones of Jack Carey, asking him to call with details of his forthcoming exclusive on the Angels of Judgement. Time was running short if he was going to make the edition. Girling smiled to himself. God, did he have a story for Carey now.

On the train, with eight hours to himself, Girling had resolved not to release details of what he had seen in the desert until after the rescue was complete. Not only did he want it to go ahead, uncompromised, he felt consumed by the need for the Angels of Judgement to get what was coming to them. The fact that he had seen the rehearsal - and knew of the punishment the Americans and the Russians would unleash once the hostages were secured - gave him a glow of satisfaction. It was as if he would be going in with them. As if their revenge was his also. His last message was from Lazan. The Israeli asked him to get round to see him as soon as possible, before he did anything else. At the embassy, day or night. He would be there, not home. There had, he said, been some interesting developments.

Girling wandered from the station into the chaos of Ramsis Square. Though it was filled with thousands of people heading off for work he managed to find a taxi before long.

He reached the embassy after a protracted battle with the early morning commuter traffic. The security was elaborate, the checks endless. Only after the armed guards, video cameras, remote entry systems, and air locks, did he get to talk to Lazan on the lobby phone. The defence attache told him to sit tight and wait for an escort who would take him to the second floor. A girl behind the desk handed him his pass, scarcely disguising her distaste for his appearance as she did so.

The escort was a taciturn man in his late twenties who looked almost Scandinavian. The atmosphere in the embassy was distinctly militaristic. But for the fact that everyone sported the relaxed dress-style of Israeli officialdom, Girling imagined he could have been in an IDF command bunker on the Golan Heights.

The lift doors opened on the second floor and Girling was greeted by the quiet chatter of teleprinters and the businesslike rasp of Hebrew. He saw the sense of purpose in the comings and goings of the people in the corridor. The embassy seemed to be a microcosm of the Jewish state - a small patch of land under siege - and it showed in the determination of the people around him.

Lazan was at his desk, the phone jammed to his ear. He cupped his hand over the receiver and told the Scandinavian to bring an extra chair and two cups of coffee.

The office was bare, functional. A picture on the wall of a younger, uniformed Lazan, free of facial scars, posing beside the burned-out hulk of a Syrian T-62, provided an ironic comment on the Islamic skyline beyond the window. The picture was an arrogant gesture, Girling thought, but he would have expected nothing less.

The air-conditioning prickled Girling's skin. Outside, the sun rose a little higher above the minarets as Cairo began to cook.

The Scandinavian returned with a chair and coffees. Lazan nodded his thanks before the door was closed and the two of them were alone.

Lazan wound up his conversation and put the phone down. ‘Where have you been, Tom Girling?'

The rim of the coffee cup never reached Girling's mouth. ‘I'm sorry?'

‘I said - ‘

‘I know what you said, Lazan. Didn't Sharifa tell you?

‘Sharifa? What are you talking about?'

Girling felt the old pain in his side. ‘Oh my God. Al-Qadi...' He made a lunge for the door, but with surprising agility, Lazan beat him to it.

‘Tell me what is going on, Girling.'

‘I have to get to Sharifa's. She was supposed to get in touch with you.' Girling managed to blurt out the succession of events which had led to his ordering her to seek sanctuary with him. ‘I've got to get to her.' He tried to twist from Lazan's grip, but the Israeli held him firm.

‘No, wait.' Lazan moved to his desk and punched in an extension number. He spoke quickly into the receiver and hung up. ‘Take the lift to the basement. Ariel Ram - the man who brought you to my office - will drive you to her place. I'll catch up with you there as soon as I can.' He gestured to the cane by the door. ‘I'm afraid my leg would only hold you up on the way to the basement.'

Girling opened the door, then hesitated. ‘Why did you call me here?'

‘Think about this on your way. We're receiving intelligence from the Lebanon of something extraordinary. My people need answers, Girling, and maybe you're the one to find them. It seems like every important leader of the whole terrorist com-munity in the Levant is on the move. Al-Haqim of Black June, Sheikh Abu Jadid of Hizbollah, Ahmed Jibril of the PFLP-GC, and others. They're mobilizing and we don't know why. There are rumours of a shura - a council of war - somewhere in the Lebanon. Tel Aviv is screaming for information, but everyone's drawing a blank.'

‘Do you think it's got anything to do with the Angels of Judgement?' Girling asked.

‘I don't know. That's what I'm hoping you'll tell me.' He slapped him on the back. ‘That lift's waiting for you, Tom Girling. Go.'

Girling was out of the passenger seat and bounding up the steps of the apartment block even before Ram had brought the car to a stop. He dispensed with the lift and took to the marble stairs, taking three steps at a time in his impatience to reach the third floor.

Panting for breath, he stood outside her door and leaned on the bell. He sensed someone close by, turned and saw Ram coming up the stairs.

Neither of them said a word. Ram raised his foot and gave the door a sharp kick. It flew open and Girling was inside, calling her name and getting nothing in reply. When he saw the overnight bag by the front door it only served to heighten his anxiety. He checked each room in turn, moving down the corridor, Ram behind, the Israeli's outstretched hand brandishing a small, compact automatic. Girling stood before the bedroom, its door slightly ajar. It was the last room in the apartment. He peeped through the crack and caught a glimpse of clothes strewn around the end of the bed. He called out her name, but again there was no reply. He took a deep breath and stepped inside. He had braced himself for the worst, but nothing had prepared him for the sight that confronted him.

Al-Qadi lay in the centre of the bed, belly up, arms and legs outstretched. His face had gone a shade that was something between a pasty yellow and a watery grey, his lips a deeper hue of the same, sickening colour.

The tip of his blackened tongue poked from between his teeth. It was just possible to see the hilt of the paper-knife protruding from a hole somewhere below the investigator's heart. There was blood all over the investigator's hands. In his last moments of life, it seemed Al-Qadi had tried to prise the dagger from his chest, but the blade had stuck fast between two ribs. The blood had poured through the wound, running over his great stomach in rivulets, soaking the bedcover, the sheets, and the pillows. Al-Qadi had bled like a stuck pig, unable to get up, unable to remove the paper-knife, too shocked, too weak to shout for help. His eyes bulged, unblinking, sightless, like a fish lying gutted on the slab.

Behind him, Ram gagged. Girling fought to keep his mind clear. He, too, felt sickened, but the need to find Sharifa was uppermost in his mind. He saw Al-Qadi's gun on the floor. As he reached for it, anxious to see if it had been fired, he heard a slight sound from the clothes cupboard in the far wall.

He found her hunched in the very corner, hidden behind suitcases and a pile of clothes. She stared at him, at first not comprehending who he was. He pulled her to him and she began to cry, softly at first, then less so as her mind regurgitated her last moments with the investigator.

Girling held her close until her sobs subsided. Then he took her face in his hands. ‘What happened?'

‘I killed him, Tom.' She stared at him, eyes wide. ‘I stood here, where you and I are standing now, and I watched him die, slowly, painfully. It must have taken him almost half an hour, just lying there, bleeding to death. And do you know something? I enjoyed every minute of it. I've dreamed of this moment for as long as I can remember. And now he's dead and I'm glad it was me who killed him.'

‘Sharifa, no.'

She rounded on him. ‘Why not? Is it so wrong to want for something like that? Isn't that what you have wished all along for Mona's killers?'

He found himself wanting, but unable to answer.

‘He killed Stansell,' she said.

‘What?'

‘He told me.'

‘But that makes no sense. Al-Qadi couldn't have been in league with the Angels of Judgement. If they're half as radical as the Brotherhood, then Al-Qadi was the kind of person they would have despised.' He shook his head. ‘No, there has to be some other explanation.'

‘He pulled Stansell's autopsy report, tried to bury it -'

‘How do you know that?' Girling interrupted.

‘Dr Uthman told me, in so many words. He rang yesterday, asking for you. I was just on my way out, to Lazan's.'

‘What did he say?'

‘That Stansell had probably been held in two dif-ferent places, or shot in one and dumped in another. One of them was the City of the Dead. And that's when I realized Al-Qadi was here, in the apartment, listening to every word.'

‘What happened then?'

‘Something in what I'd said to Uthman made him suspect you were still alive. He dragged me into the bedroom and began going through my clothes until he found your jacket. It was then that he just -'

‘Yes?'

‘He just went berserk. He tried to rape me. If I hadn't had the paper-knife he would have killed me.'

Girling looked past her at the obscenity on the bed. ‘We've got to get rid of the body.'

She couldn't bring herself to turn round. ‘Where?'

Girling found himself thinking fast. ‘There's only one place... the City of the Dead.'

She was poised to remonstrate, but he put a finger to her lips. ‘This is one death the Brotherhood can take the rap for, whether the Guide likes it or not.'

‘But how-?'

Ram appeared at the door. Sharifa gasped and grabbed Girling in alarm.

‘It's all right,' Girling said. ‘This is Ariel Ram. He's on Lazan's staff.'

Girling looked at him. ‘I'm getting the body out of here. Al-Qadi's bound to have a car somewhere round here. I'll use that.'

‘How to get the body outside?' Ram asked.

‘You're going to help me,' Girling said. ‘We'll wrap it up in the blankets and shove it in the boot. And then I'm going to drive his car to the City of the Dead and dump it there. The Brotherhood can have the lot.' He turned to Sharifa. ‘You, meanwhile, are going to stay here with Ram until Lazan gets here. Then the three of you must go to the embassy and wait for me there.'

‘What happens then?' she asked.

‘You and I are on the first plane out of here.'

Girling turned the unmarked blue Fiat off the airport road down a track whose tarred surface soon gave way to the bare sandstone foundations that characterized the land beneath the Muqattam Hills on the south-east side of the city.

He let the car coast, listening to its suspension protest as the wheels dipped in and out of pot-holes, or jarred against the protruding rocks. He had the windows down full. The sun was high in the sky and the heat was stifling. Girling thought he could smell Al-Qadi's body decomposing, but it was nothing more than the regular odours of the city, odours that grew stronger the further he plied into the old, south-east side and the closer he got to the City of the Dead.

Behind him, the walls of the Citadel and the mosque at its pinnacle towered over the surrounding landscape. The great Muhammad Ali mosque, at something over one hundred and fifty years old, was a comparatively new addition to the skyline, but little else had changed in almost a thousand years. Girling's view was filled by the City of the Dead, a suburb of tombs, originally for the mighty, but over the centuries for anyone who could afford the money or the time to construct a mortuary for himself and his family. On his left were the egg-like domes of the Circassian Mamelukes, a dynasty that had governed Egypt from the middle of the thirteenth century until the arrival of the Turks in 1517. Girling thought back to the morning of his arrival and his fleeting impressions of the necropolis as the sun had crept above the Muqattam Hills.

In the dawn light, the City of the Dead possessed a sinister kind of beauty, a thin curtain of mist softening its horrors, like muslin over a camera lens. It was here, at the turn of the millennium, that the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim liked to wander incognito, dis-guised as one of the simple peasants he had terrorized and ritually slaughtered during his reign. One evening he rode out in the direction of the Muqattam Hills and was never seen again, becoming a hero, his status embellished over the years, his return awaited by obscure Islamic sects across the Arab Empire. It was here, too, that many of the stories of thieving and roguery were composed for the
Arabian Nights
.