Aggressor (33 page)

Under the harsh light of the noon sun, however, the City shimmered in its true colours. Interspersed amongst the mausoleums of the Mamelukes were small bungalow-like tombs, some topped with fragile, crumbling domes and minarets, built in a pathetic emulation of the glorious sepulchres of the rich and the royal. It was to these tombs that the oppressed and the destitute of Cairo had flocked over the centuries. Too hungry and frightened to fear the dead, these people began to construct flimsy shanties, at first on any patch of land they could find, and then, as space ran out, on top of the graves themselves. As the shanties spread, so too did the City's reputation as a safe haven for murderers and thieves. Initially, the crime barons kept their distance, hugging the shadows for anonymity, and the traditions that had existed for so long in the City were allowed to con-tinue. On certain days of the religious calendar, for instance, families would still come to the tombs of their forebears to leave food and drink for the departed. But as the criminal fraternity's grip on the City became firmer, so the visits of the simple law-abiding people became fewer and fewer. Staring across the City of the Dead's desolate expanse now, his car stopped, the engine idling, Girling understood why the meek at heart had stayed away.

Girling had halted the Fiat at the very boundary of the City. Behind him the air above the track still swirled with the dust thrown up by his tyres. Ahead stretched a street whose buildings crumbled from the neglect of centuries. Every now and again, the desolate monotony of its facade was interspersed with a whitewashed tomb here, a newly added shanty there. A dog crossed the street, stopped half-way to scratch its ear, then continued lazily on its way, lying down in a scant patch of shade on the other side of the road.

At first, Girling thought this part of the City was devoid of any human habitation. But as his eyes adjusted to the contrast of bright light and shade, he became aware of faces watching him from the gloomy recesses of windows, or the dark innards of doorless rooms.

Girling climbed from the car. He did not want to stay in this place any longer than he had to. He knew that to the wary inhabitants of the City of the Dead, the very colour of the car would reveal its identity. But as he stood under the sun, feeling as naked as a child, Girling realized that the disguise was paper-thin and would not last long. As his watchers became accustomed to the sight of him, they would know that there was no way an ‘agnabi would be in the employ of the Mukhabarat.

Girling moved quickly to the back of the car. He opened the boot and stepped back as the smell of decomposition and the flies rushed to meet him. Al-Qadi's automatic, which Ram had replaced in the waistband of the investigator's trousers, had slipped from the folds of the blanket and now lay loose against the petrol tank. Girling reached for it on impulse and stuffed in into the pocket of his suit jacket.

With one hand over his nose and mouth, Girling slammed the boot shut. As he glanced up, he saw the first wave of people creep from their houses towards him. He could see the hunger in their eyes as they studied his car. Girling knew that, body in the back or not, within the next hour the Fiat would be stripped from the wing-mirrors to the chassis. After that, it would simply cease to exist, except in a thousand and one parts on the black market. Al-Qadi's body would be hungrily devoured by packs of scavenging dogs.

He began to advance back up the hill, one hand thrust into his jacket pocket where it held on to the reassuring grip of Al-Qadi's pistol. A hundred yards from the car, Girling glanced back to see it sur-rounded by a crowd. He pressed on, anxious to regain the airport road, where he could find a taxi that would take him back to the Israeli Embassy.

As he proceeded up the track, he saw a figure in the distance, moving down the hill towards him. It drew closer and he realized it was a boy, probably no more than ten years old, dressed in a traditional jellaba, which was dirty enough to indicate he possessed no other garment. The boy skipped down the hill seemingly without a care. He appeared to pay Girling no attention until he drew level. Then he stopped, just as Girling stopped, and studied him, head inclined over one shoulder to exaggerate the act of contemplation.

‘‘Agnabi,' he said. ‘I have a message for you.'

Girling thought he misheard. He was convinced that this boy would ask him for money.

‘A message? Who from?'

‘From Sheikh Youssef, our Guide.'

Girling felt his pulse quicken. ‘What does he say, ya walad?'

‘If you come with me, I will show you the house of Abu Tarek. You want him, don't you?'

Girling fingered the butt of the automatic. ‘Why should the Guide do this?'

‘He did not tell me.'

Girling stared up the track. He could hear the traffic at the top of the road.'

‘Do you come, or not?' the boy asked impatiently.

Girling's every nerve ending tingled. To be so close to Mona's killer and not see where his house was...

‘How far is it, ya walad?' he asked.

The boy pointed down the slopes of the wooded grove beside the road. ‘He lives just beyond these trees.'

Girling looked from the trees to the road and back. He gripped the gun more firmly in his pocket.

‘Well, ‘agnabi?'

‘Come on.'

The boy stopped him with a hand on his jacket. ‘First, you must pay.' He held his hand out.

Girling actually allowed himself a smile. Somehow this simple act of enterprise made him feel better. He handed over a few piastres, notes which amounted to little more than a few pence, but were enough to sustain this artful boy for a week. They were bundled quickly into a pocket in the lining of his jellaba.

He followed the boy as he skipped nonchalantly between the trees. The sun broke through the branches and the boy used the shadows for a game, jumping from each of them, humming happily as he went.

And then they were out of the trees and moving through a cemetery. Girling slowed as he weaved between the headstones, but the boy waved him on. Finally they sat at the wall of the cemetery, the boy pointing at a collection of tombs across a clearing, the nearest of them about a hundred yards away. Girling crouched breathlessly, cradling Al-Qadi's automatic in his lap.

The boy looked down at the gun. ‘Are you a policeman, ‘agnabi?'

‘No.'

‘Then why do you have a gun?'

‘It makes me feel safer. Which is the house of Abu Tarek?'

The boy pointed to the largest of the mausoleums, the one capped by a small, crumbling dome. ‘In there.'

Girling studied it for a few moments, then turned to his small guide. But the boy was already weaving a path back through the graves. ‘How many people are inside?' Girling hissed after him.

The boy stopped. ‘He is alone,' he said, before proceeding on his way.

Girling knew he should turn back. Before good sense could get too firm a hold, he darted across the clearing, gun in hand, and pressed his back against the nearest wall. He stopped still and listened. The place was perfectly quiet. He could hear nothing, not even so much as a dog's bark. He edged along the wall, stopped at a low gate and was over it, heading down a narrow passage, the tomb supposedly occupied by Abu Tarek straight ahead. He could see inside the mausoleum now. There was no door. Light streamed through a latticed window in the roof. There was a kind of raised platform in the centre of the room, beneath the dome. It looked like the sarcophagus in which he had seen Stansell at police headquarters.

His heart in his mouth, Girling twisted through the doorway. There was no stopping him now. He felt that every minute he had been in Egypt had been in preparation for this moment. He stopped and listened again. His gun was ready, he had cocked it in the cemetery, and he held it out before him with both hands. The tomb was quiet. There was nobody there.

When he turned to the door, he caught only the merest glimpse of the figure inside as it turned and coshed him in the face. At the moment Girling fell, he saw others. They were dressed in black, heads covered, moving into the room as nimbly as spirits. Girling rolled across the floor, coming to a halt against the sarcophagus. The figures advanced towards him. One of them held something in his hand.

Just before the cloth was clamped over his face, Girling asked the question to which his delirious mind thought it already knew the answer.

The mask moved. ‘We are the Angels of Judgement,' it said.

CHAPTER 20

Girling awoke with a start. He sat up, trying to focus his eyes beyond the sunlight streaming through the window. The floor of the cell was of loosely raked earth, so cold he was shivering convulsively.

He tried to move towards the window, but his legs gave way. He lay with the chilled earth against his cheek and as the light started to fade drifted back into unconsciousness.

He dreamt he had fallen into a deep well shaft and that there was someone there, framed in the circle of light far above him. He began climbing. The sides of the well were smooth, but somehow he forced his way upwards. And then he was at the top, clawing his way out. As his tired muscles began to fail and the weight of his body dragged him back, he looked up to see Mona and Stansell watching him, their faces impassive. He reached out to them, trying to find the strength to cry, but neither moved. It was as he slid inexorably down into the pit that he woke again.

This time he managed to stand.

As dusk fell, he groped for clues to his surroundings. The smell of the earth confused him. He was sure he remembered the rise and fall of a ship at sea, the smell of tar and salt spray.

Then he was running once more through the graveyard, Al-Qadi's gun in his hand, trying to keep up with the Sheikh's messenger.

Girling brought his hand up to his face and felt the bruise above his eye. He remembered rolling towards the sarcophagus, Al-Qadi's gun skating across the floor. Figures, too. Dressed in black. A smell of ether in the air and a voice from behind a mask.

‘We are the Angels of Judgement...'

Girling swayed. He felt pain and swelling in his upper arm. Whatever it was, it had been a powerful anaesthetic. The hollowness in his stomach told him that he had been unconscious for a day, maybe two.

Before he made it to the window, a crude hole in the door criss-crossed by bars, a cool wind brushed his face, and brought with it the smell of cooking.

He grasped the bars and looked outside.

His prison lay now in the shadow of a high-sided rock face, at the end of a wadi. As his eyes adjusted to the light he made out a white crenellated building shimmering in the distance like a mirage.

‘A caravanserai... a sacred place,' Abdullah had said, before the helicopters swept over the wadi to destroy it.

Girling let go of the bars and teetered backwards. He tried to regain balance, but fell against the far wall of the cell, cracking his head against the stones.

There was a scuffle outside the door and he looked up to see a man's face at the bars. Girling could not speak. He watched as a slice of unleavened bread was thrown to the floor. By the time he reached it, the face was gone and he was alone again.

They came for him several hours after nightfall.

Too faint from drugs and hunger to be afraid, Girling stumbled into the night. His hands were roped together in front of him; two soldiers held his arms and a third marched behind, holding a rifle to his back.

Girling felt as if he were caught in a strong current against which resistance was useless. He twisted in his escort's grip to take in his surroundings. The new moon did not cast much light, but picked out the caravanserai none the less. He reached the top of a rise. Dotted before the walls of the ancient building were a dozen camp fires, each surrounded by fifteen or twenty men. It looked like a medieval battlefield.

In the glow of the fires, Girling could make out weapon emplacements. He saw anti-aircraft guns mounted on station wagons and, amongst the portable weaponry, rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles by the dozen.

The night air was sharp against his face. He was maybe five or six thousand feet above sea level. Mountains, he was in the mountains.

They reached the caravanserai's double gates. The soldier in charge of his escort shouted a series of harsh commands in the night and the doors swung slowly open, hinges groaning under the strain.

Inside, women cooked over open stoves while the men sat talking and smoking. The air was thick with conversation and the smell of bean stew and spiced meats.

The caravanserai was lavishly detailed. It reminded Girling of the Al-Mu'ayyad mosque, where he had seen the Guide. A wooden balcony ran around the inside of the courtyard, supported by ornate carved columns. The balcony was covered by a simple tiled roof, but the rest was open to the night. In the corner was a small mosque.

They reached a door set into the far wall and Girling was pushed inside with such force that he tripped and fell headlong.

He lifted his face off the smooth, paved floor. He was in a low-lit room and there was a crowd around him. The silence was palpable. As he climbed to his feet, Girling's gaze passed quickly across the sea of faces. Some were in traditional robes, others dressed in jeans and combat jackets. Several carried automatic rifles and pistols.

His guards grabbed him again and waded through the crowd, pushing it back with their rifles. He was forced onto a wooden chair.

Smoke hung in layers, from floor to ceiling. Facing him were three tables arranged in a semicircle. The crowd behind him was quieter now, but Girling could sense its every movement.

A door opened and two men entered. They sat down directly in front of him, on the opposite side of the middle table. One of them was Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. He was older than his few published photographs gave him credit. His hair was grey, his stubble patchy. He wore a chequered Palestinian gutra around his neck.

The second man unbuckled his canvas combat belt and dropped it onto the table. Removing an old Colt .45 from its holster, he proceeded to clean it with a corner of his shirt. His dark hair, thinning at the temples, was swept back over his crown. His eyes were immensely dark and devoid of expression. Like Jibril, he wore military fatigues.

Jibril produced several pieces of paper from the top pocket of his tunic. He unfolded them slowly and placed them on the table. He put on a pair of reading glasses and studied them for a full two minutes without saying a word.

Girling could hear nothing except the sound of his own breathing. The entire room waited for Jibril to speak, but the other man held Girling's attention. As he watched the rhythmic movements of the second man's hands on the gun, a succession of images appeared before his eyes. The massacre at Beirut, bodies falling from the aircraft, explosions ripping it apart, flaming jet fuel incinerating the dead and the wounded. He saw Al-Qadi spitting into Stansell's sarcophagus, felt the crowd close in on him outside the Al-Mu'ayyad Mosque.

As he looked into this man's eyes he saw the face of Abu Tarek. His men had held him while the rocks rained down on Mona. He who had turned and laughed as he stood over her body on that dirt road in Asyut...

Girling gripped the edge of his chair. He now knew the secret of Wadi Qena. Ulm and the Pathfinders were coming to kill this bastard. And he wanted to watch them do it.

Jibril looked up. ‘Thomas Girling.' He pronounced it badly, running together the ‘t' and ‘h' and softening the first ‘g'.

Girling turned slowly towards him.

‘Who do you work for?' Jibril asked. Behind him a studious-looking man translated into Arabic for the audience.

‘The British publication,
Dispatches
.'

Jibril clucked. ‘The whole truth...'

‘I told you -'

‘I heard first time,' Jibril interrupted. It was a gravelly voice, heavily accented. ‘Perhaps I should be more clear.' He waited for the translator to finish. ‘Who is paying you to write this material?' He waved the pieces of paper in his hand. ‘The Americans? The Israelis? Your own secret service?'

‘I am a journalist,' Girling said. ‘I don't work for any government.'

‘You expect us to believe that?' Jibril gestured around the room.

‘It's the truth.'

‘One day you are writing about guns and aeroplanes from the safety of a desk in your own country. The next, you are here, sticking your nose into business that is not your concern.'

‘Murder is my concern.'

‘You do not answer the question.'

Girling took a deep breath. ‘I was in Cairo a long time ago. Murder took me away, and murder brought me back.'

The translator held his tongue.

‘Then you have learned nothing,' Jibril said. ‘Why did you write these lies about the Angels of Judgement?' He waved the paper again.

Girling looked back at the second man, who was no longer polishing his gun. ‘Because I wanted to see the face of the murderer,' he said.

‘Who are you working for?' Jibril repeated. The other man held up the Colt, examining it carefully under the light.

‘You bastards aren't interested in the truth. It doesn't matter if you blow the leg off another kid, or waste one more pregnant woman. There's always the cause, isn't there? The fucking cause justifies everything -'

The second man snapped a bullet into the chamber of the automatic. Girling looked straight into his eyes. Suddenly he didn't care about the hostages, the rescue, even about revenge. Past and future were the same. ‘You can't kill me again,' he said, rising. ‘You fuckers did that three years ago.'

Jibril clicked his fingers and three bodyguards appeared from the shadows behind him.

The crowd took it as a signal and came for him from three sides of the room.

One of the bodyguards brought the butt of his Kalashnikov across Girling's face.

The pain temporarily drowned the cries of the crowd.

The first man to get to him had already drawn his pistol. At least six others held him down, pinioning him to the table.

Girling opened his eyes. He was staring straight into the snub barrel of an automatic. The man who held it was pleading with Jibril, shouting over and over. The crowd joined with him, a tuneless chant, an exhortation for him to pull the trigger and blow the ‘agnabi to hell.

Girling closed his eyes and the barrel was rammed against the bridge of his nose.

Then a voice rang out, silencing the crowd. It was deep and authoritative, but ice cold, not angry. ‘Put your gun away, Adel.'

‘Aiwa, ya Saif.' Yes, Sword.

Girling tried to turn towards the voice, but it was impossible to see past the wall of men who surrounded him.

‘Girling must live long enough to tell us what he knows. I will deal with him personally.'

Girling lay close to the door, his ears straining for sound. In the night, alone with his thoughts, a yearning to survive had returned. The thought that help was at hand sustained him.

On his way back to his cell he had spotted another, nearly identical: the same window bars, same thick wooden door with two armed guards either side. Was it large enough for an ambassador and a nine-strong team of negotiators?

He walked over to the door and looked outside. The moon had slipped behind the clouds. There was not a sound, not a single voice, not a laugh to be heard in the wadi. He clutched his sides for warmth. He could not see the other cell, but was tempted to call out. Then he felt the dried blood on his face from the Kalashnikov and remained silent.

When was Ulm coming?

Jibril and the Sword would put him through a further round of interrogation sometime after daybreak. They would want to know what he knew about the Shura, but with boots and gun butts in his face, his groin, and his kidneys, what else might he tell them?

He heard something.

An engine. An aero engine.

Girling pressed his head to the bars. It was very faint, very distant.

An airliner, crossing the night sky at altitude on its way to Europe, or the Gulf. Passengers inside, warm, relaxed, eating, sleeping...

Girling moved away from the bars to the corner furthest from the door and sat there waiting for the dawn.

He opened his eyes when it was not yet light. He lifted his head from the crook of his arm and heard a sound, very close. He stiffened, then got slowly to his feet. By the door he could see the outline of a man.

A match flared and he found himself staring into the eyes of a man he took at first to be a priest. He was dressed in a long robe and turban. His beard was white and full, the face strong.

The mullah watched him as he brought the flame to the wick. He replaced the glass and hung the lamp on a hook by the door. To Girling's surprise, the eyes that held his were bright blue.

‘Why so angry, Mr Girling?' The mullah lifted the hem of his robe and sat opposite him, eyes level.

‘Who are you?' Girling asked.

‘One who comes in peace.' His English was accented, but smooth, unlike Jibril's.

‘Does peace come from the barrel of a gun?'

The mullah raised his eyes. A muezzin had begun to call from the caravanserai.

Girling pointed to the door. ‘There are enough weapons out there to start another world war.'

‘The weapons belong to Jibril and Hizbollah. They are here for the Shura.'

‘The Shura...?' Lazan's last piece of intelligence came back to him.

‘A meeting, a council. At the caravanserai. You know what a caravanserai is? It is a holy place-'

‘Where even rival tribes forget their differences,' Girling whispered.

‘For one who knows our culture it is strange that you should hate it so. What have the Angels of Judgement done to you?'

Girling felt a surge of anger. ‘What have you done...?'

The mullah held up his hand. ‘I know about your wife. I know about your friend. I know about the hostages. But these things are not our work.'

His voice held such quiet conviction that Girling was still. Then he saw himself once more overlooking the valley outside Wadi Qena, Abdullah beside him. The helicopters were circling, pouring fire into the mock caravanserai. ‘Then why call this Shura?'

‘So that many can hear the message.' He paused. ‘The Sword will tell them that there is to be no Jihad, no Holy War.'