City of the Sun (47 page)

“Who?” Mickey asked breathlessly.

“Some renegades within the Egyptian army who call themselves the Revolutionary Committee. MI5 has known about them for some time; in fact, they just put one of their leaders and his clique under locks. His handwriting matched a document they found at Madame Samina’s—a deal guaranteeing Egypt’s independence in exchange for their collaboration with the Germans. We have to get MI5 on this right away. I’ll call Commander Toppington immediately.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Mickey said as he pressed the receiver tightly against his ear. “Is there any way I can talk to these officers from the Revolutionary Committee before MI5 does? I seriously doubt that the Brits will get anything out of them.”

“I’m obliged to alert MI5 right away.”

“Of course. But Egyptian soldiers, especially if they’re anti-British renegades, are more likely to cooperate with Americans. Just buy me a little time so I can talk to them first? I can be there in two hours.”

“Mickey,” Kirk’s tone veered toward patronizing, “what you did—finding Erik—was a
coup de force
, but—”

“There is no ‘but,’” Mickey almost yelled. “If I can’t interrogate these people alone, then at least make sure I’m present when MI5 does. This is not only about catching the spy. It’s still about finding our guy and delivering him to Roosevelt. We have our own agenda,” he reminded Kirk.

There was a silence on the other end of line. Mickey realized that he must have sounded overzealous.

“Erik Blumenthal’s sister is the girl with me in that photo taken at the ball,” he said, letting out a sigh. “I had no idea. I just found out.”

Kirk did not say anything for an instant. “Give me a few hours,” he said.

There was something dreamlike about his drive back to Cairo, alone, through the vast darkness of the desert. A whistling draft entering between the Jeep’s canvas top and the windows made it cold, but Mickey barely noticed. He was lost in his thoughts about Maya. He tried to remember everything she’d ever said and put it in the context of her actual situation: the demanding family she’d referred to, the vagueness of her plans, the secretive phone calls. It was all to hide their illegal immigration plans, which, in light of the growing threat of the Muslim Brotherhood, had become extremely dangerous. The poor girl. What difficulties and horrors she must have suffered since leaving Paris, and before that as a Jew living in Hitler’s Germany. It was a miracle that she still had a heart to give, and he loved her even more for opening it to him.

As he entered the outskirts of Cairo he could smell the gunpowder and ashes lingering in the air. He had to pass a number of checkpoints before he could reach Hugh’s apartment. He’d
decided to spend the night there, fearing his own place might be under surveillance.

“Mi casa es tu casa
,
”
Hugh said with a twinkle in his eyes when Mickey appeared at his door. He gave Mickey a pair of pajamas and left him in the privacy of the living room to call Kirk, who said that he was still working on arranging for the two of them to visit the jailed Revolutionary Committee officers. He asked Mickey to wait by the phone for his call.

Mickey collapsed on the sofa; he needed badly to unwind. “Swell joint,” he commented when he heard Hugh return to the living room.

“And the rent is only one love letter a month,” Hugh smiled mischievously as he settled into the flowery print of an overstuffed armchair. “So …” he bent forward and clapped his hands. “This article you’re writing about the Jews of Egypt?”

“Baloney,” Mickey admitted straight out. “I promise I’ll tell you the whole story when I can.” He crossed his arms when suddenly a new thought struck him. “Tell me about your friend Ali, you said he stole an ammunition truck?”

Hugh nodded. “After the humiliation of King Farouk, he turned against us,” Hugh sighed. “He’s being held at GHQ. They’re fighting over who has jurisdiction—the Egyptian authorities or High Command. Either way, he’s facing a stiff sentence, possibly death. Why?”

“Is he part of the group of officers arrested for conspiring with the Nazis?”

“Sadly, yes. How did you know?”

“I need to see him. Can you help me?” Mickey asked, springing to his feet.

The first light of the morning sky had barely appeared when Mickey spotted a sign on the side of the road,
Suez 20 km
. He had
no idea where he was being taken, but he realized that the rugged reddish-brown mountains in front of him must be running parallel to the Gulf of Suez. This meant he was probably about eighteen miles or so south of Ismailiya.

He was still in disbelief at the succession of events that had brought him here. It was all thanks to Hugh, who had put Mickey in touch with Ali’s parents and the family’s lawyer. Mickey had conveyed Kirk’s assurance that if Ali cooperated, the Americans would use their considerable influence with the Brits to be lenient on the young captain. In less than an hour Mickey found himself with the family’s lawyer in Ali’s cell, which he shared with five fellow members of the Revolutionary Committee. Ali denied any knowledge of the kidnapping and insisted that the lawyer also represent his comrades, who had remained present during the talk, and whom he claimed had been arrested without evidence.

Mickey corrected him. There was in fact, evidence. The field police had discovered a document containing a German promise of independence to Egypt in exchange for help from the Revolutionary Committee. The document had been found in the home of the dancer Samina who was being paid by a Nazi spy. It was apparently waiting to be sent to Hitler for signature.

The officers had become visibly disturbed by this information. Realizing he had touched a nerve, Mickey felt emboldened and pressed them for information regarding the Blumenthal abduction, promising help from the American Embassy in exchange, but they still denied knowledge. Dispirited, he’d gone back to Hugh’s empty-handed and desperate. Perhaps the Brits would get better results through force.

So it had come as a great surprise when Mickey was awakened in the middle of the night by Sami, Ali’s little brother, telling him that a driver in a black Plymouth was waiting downstairs to take them to the Blumenthals. He had to leave at once and tell no one.
En route, Sami explained that his brother and his comrades were outraged at being lied to and betrayed by the Nazi spy, who had sworn that the document guaranteeing independence had reached Germany and that Hitler had signed it. One of the jailed officers had been involved in planning the kidnapping and had arranged a mail plane for the spy to take his captives to Rommel. Furious that so many of their comrades’ lives had been put at risk because of the spy’s false assurances, they now wanted to abort the plan.

The Plymouth sped toward the safe house where the Blumenthals were being held, with Sami and the driver urgently needing to inform the Egyptian officers there about the betrayal. They would overpower the Nazi and transfer custody of the foreigners to Mickey. If the spy resisted, he would get what he deserved. Mickey prayed the plan would work as intended.

When they arrived at the edge of a Bedouin encampment, which consisted of a half dozen black tents, the driver, whose name was Fuad and who spoke only Arabic, barked an order. “You stay here until we call you,” Sami translated as they strode away. A handful of children in bare feet followed them.

Mickey wasn’t happy about staying behind. He got out of the car and paced.

A woman was squatting in front of a nearby tent, wetting dough from a bowl of water and flattening it between her palms. She was veiled in black and only her eyes were visible. When she encountered Mickey’s gaze, she rushed inside in modesty, yelling at the children to do the same. He felt bad that his presence had chased her away. Oh well. He checked his watch. Two whole minutes had already passed.

“Sami!” he called. “What’s taking so long?” he yelled, but no response came back except a low, menacing hiss, and he saw a pair of vultures circling in the sky overhead, ascending and descending. Impatient, he opened the driver’s door to the car and honked the horn continuously until Sami and Fuad emerged from one of the
tents with another man who was clad in loose cotton trousers and an Egyptian army jacket. He was closing his jacket with one hand, while holding a gun in the other. They all ran toward the car.

“Get in,” Sami shouted. “They are gone, but we may still have a chance to catch them.”

Mickey climbed in the passenger seat as he fought a rising panic. “Where did they go?”

“One of the Bedouins drove them to the airfield,” the soldier with the loose trousers responded as he settled into the driver’s seat and started the car. Fuad and Sami jumped in back. The soldier took off like a bandit.

“I’m Sergeant Ibrahim,” the soldier turned to Mickey. “So our document never left Cairo, huh?”

“It never left Cairo,” Mickey confirmed.

“I want to kill that dog with my own two hands,” Ibrahim said.

Fuad said something in Arabic and spat.

“One of the men you met in the cell with Ali was their leader,” Sami said.

Mickey turned around. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Their plane is to take off at 6:35 promptly, five minutes before the normal mail plane departure from Suez,” Sami explained. “This way they can fly in plain sight and not arouse suspicion.”

Mickey looked at his watch. “But it’s already 6:40.”

“There’s a chance they may be delayed because of the strong winds last night,” Ibrahim said. “They probably have to clear a lot of debris from the runway.”

Wind rushed through the open windows as they raced down a grade that seemed never to end. Ibrahim never slowed for rocks, encouraged by the cries of Fuad in the back with Sami, who wanted him to go even faster.

“We want to get there, not get wrecked,” Mickey yelled. His face lit up when he spotted what looked like a runway near the
remains of a Roman temple at the bottom of the hill. He squinted, urgently scanning the valley, but there was no plane in sight. A feeling of utter despair began to settle over him. However, just as they approached the bottom of the hill he heard an unmistakable roar, and as they drove past the only standing wall of the temple he saw it.

“A plane!” Mickey exclaimed as he spotted a small trimotor aircraft. Two men were in the open cockpit, but he couldn’t tell who was in the enclosed cabin.

The pilot was revving the engine to nearly full throttle before turning onto the makeshift runway, a smooth field barely three hundred yards long that crossed the road and ended in a ravine. On the other side of the gully was a rock wall, an impossibly short distance for the plane to take off from. Yet the pilot was obviously prepared to do just that as he gunned the engine up another notch.

“Turn around!” Mickey yelled at Ibrahim, but as he did, he heard gunshots. Were they being fired at?

Ibrahim slammed on the brakes, and as he skidded into a U-turn, the Plymouth almost hit a Jeep that was hidden between the dunes, its two front doors wide open.

“Turn around!” Mickey ordered, grabbing the wheel from Ibrahim, who had frozen rigid.

As they turned, a figure raced onto the runway, arms outstretched, trying to block the plane as it rolled into takeoff position. It was a woman. A Bedouin man with a limp was chasing her, a rope hanging from his hand.

“Maya!” Mickey shouted at top of his lungs, jumping up from his seat, shouting desperately though he knew she was too far away to hear him. “Maya! It’s me, Mickey!”

“She’s going to get killed!” Sami shouted when an arm with a pistol emerged from the cockpit and began firing.

The Bedouin stopped in his tracks and then turned tail, hobbling away as fast as he could.

“Get out of the way,” Mickey yelled at Maya as the car raced toward the plane. “Get out of the way.”

From the backseat Fuad started shooting at the aircraft, while Sami, eager to get in on the action, lurched forward and grabbed Ibrahim’s pistol.

Mickey held his fire. “Are you crazy? Stop shooting. We’re too far away,” he screamed. “We need our ammunition.”

The clicks from Fuad’s gun told the story—he had already emptied his weapon. Maya had run right in front of the plane, her arms waving. She fell to the ground, but quickly stood up again as the trimotor slowed and veered to the right and then to the left as the pilot tried to avoid her, but she valiantly followed its every move.