Countdown in Cairo (21 page)

“Go, Leafs,” she said.

“That’s the spirit. We worked things with the Alitalia reservation, also, so you can check in for the trans-Atlantic flight as the Canadian woman.”

“Got it,” she said.

The afternoon she spent packing and purchased a few guide books on Egypt, as well as a phrase book. She stopped by her doctor’s office. The wound to her arm was checked. It seemed to be healing properly. It was fitted with a new bandage. There was no lasting damage but some scar tissue would remain. That evening, she played basketball and had dinner with Ben at the hotel pub across the street.

Then next morning she was at Dulles International and caught her midmorning flight to Toronto.

She rendezvoused easily with her contact, Ken, at the Toronto International Airport. She gave up her United States passport to him, then killed a couple of hours in one of the airport bars, reading, drinking too many glasses of wine, and waiting for her departure.

The ten-hour Alitalia flight took her across the Atlantic, down across Western Europe, and into Rome, where she arrived the next morning. She had booked a small suite at the Hassler Roma, another upscale lodging on the American taxpayer’s dollar. The hotel was situated just above the Spanish Steps in the heart of the Eternal City. After clearing customs and immigration, Alex took a taxi there, arriving shortly before noon.

Fortunately, the hotel allowed her an early check-in. She was able to grab a shower and then lay back for what she hoped would be a short nap.

TWENTY-NINE

She blinked awake several hours later and looked at the clock by her bedside. It was almost 6:00. For several seconds she couldn’t figure out which 6:00 it was. Or where she was.

Then gradually she realized. It was evening. The disorientation of trans-Atlantic travel had caught up with her. She came to her feet. There was a coffeemaker in the kitchen area of her suite, and she put it to use.

She sat by a window and sipped coffee. The view of Rome from the Hotel Hassler had taken on the light blues and misty yellows of evening. From her window Alex watched the city grow darker and more vibrant as the evening approached.

She went to the hotel dining room at seven, early by Italian standards, but her dining companion that evening, Gian Antonio Rizzo, had made concessions to Alex’s circadian rhythm.

Carlo, the ramrod erect and proper maître d’, met her at the entrance to the dining room. She gave Rizzo’s name. Carlo managed a low bow and showed her to a reserved table set for three.

She sat. Then, moments later, Gian Antonio Rizzo appeared, arms wide in a gesture of reception. A smile swept across his face. He was dapper in a light brown suit that almost perfectly concealed the ever-present pistol that he wore on his hip.

“Well, well, well,” he said, greeting her in English.

She stood and let him embrace her. He kissed her on each cheek, he released her, and they sat.

“So?” he asked at length. “This hotel is usually up to my high standards. Is it up to yours?”

The hotel was lavish, one of the most distinctive in Rome. She took his question with several grains of salt. “It’s excellent,” she said.

“Ever stayed here before?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t.”

“But you’ll only be here for overnight?”

“That’s correct.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” he said. “I have a formula. An equation, as you will. Gian Antonio’s Rule of how to stay in a hotel and be remembered forever.”

“Leave bullet holes in the walls of your room?” she asked. “Or a body under the bed?”

“Very funny,” he said, “but that’s not quite the effect I was after. I mean, how to be remembered
favorably
. Here’s what you do. You book for a week. On the first day give them your order for breakfast, exactly what you want and the hour you want it. Tell them what kind of jam or mustard you like, what sort of coffee or tea. Tell them which newspapers you want, I suggest the best local newspaper,
Le Monde
in France or
Il Messassero
or
Il Corriero della Sera
here, plus the American one,
The Herald Tribune
. Don’t ask for
USA Today
; it’s only the American peasants who read that.”

“I get my news off the internet,” she said. “Maybe three or four sites per day.”

“Of course you do. We all do. Don’t be silly. That’s not the purpose of this. Order the newspapers anyway.”

“Okay,” she said, laughing.

“Give each doorman a ten-Euro note when you arrive. Learn the name of the room service manager, the concierge, and the desk manager and give each one a twenty when you arrive and when you leave. Take at least two saunas. You’re a woman, so be seen at least in one outfit with a daring skirt and boots in the middle of the day. In your case, swim at least once so the staff can get a good look at your fine figure. Have dinner or cocktails prominently with at least three different men. Always order the same cocktail and have the concierge book your dinner reservations away from the hotel. Come back in a year, and they will remember you.”

When she stopped laughing, she responded. “Gian Antonio, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to guide me through life,” she said.

“Oh,” he said modestly, “you would survive most likely. Some people do. Just not as long or as well.”

“Who’s the third?” she asked, indicating the third place setting. “Who’s joining us?”

“Ah!” he said. “Good that you inquired! A young lady. A friend of mine, very close. She was an intern with the police in Rome; now she’s studying art, but she might want to do a career in forensic sciences. So I’m teaching her the ropes.”

“Lucky her,” said Alex.

“Yes, very lucky girl,” Rizzo said with mock conceit, or at least Alex thought it was mock. “Knowing me is better than three years at any university. And learning the black arts from me is, I suppose, much like learning piano from Mozart.” Alex laughed, to his obvious pleasure. “But, my heavens,” he continued, “she’s young, so who knows? Even she doesn’t know what she wants to do. Her name is Mimi.”

“As in Puccini’s
La Bohème
,” she said, playing one of her best Italian cards and continuing the music motif.

“As in
La Bohème
,” he conceded with a nod. “In the future you should come by Rome, and I’ll take you to the opera. The greatest opera house in the world is here in Rome. Compared to the Italians,” he said with all the humility he could muster, “the French, the English, and the Germans sing like second-rate canaries. And the Americans don’t sing at all.”

“I’d love to do that with you sometime,” she said.

“Sing like a canary?”

“No, attend the opera in Rome,” she said, engaging his line of dialogue. “I can’t imagine the price of good seats at the Rome opera these days.”

“Oh, I never pay,” he said. He playfully raised his brown eyebrows. “The tickets don’t cost anything if you work it right,” he said over the top of the menu as he glanced at it. “It’s all a matter of whom you know. And
this
Mimi,” he continued, bringing the conversation back to
La Bohème
, “
my
Mimi, is much healthier and more fit than the one who perishes of mezzo-soprano disease in Puccini’s act five. I’m happy to report this. And from the appearance of you,” he said, examining her as he ran his gaze across her bare shoulders, “you would appear to be, also. Fit and healthy.”

“I’m in good shape, in good spirits,” she said. “Sorry to have only one night in Rome. I go on to Cairo tomorrow.”

“Cairo?” he said with no humor whatsoever, turning over the concept. “
Cairo
.”

“Ever been there?” she asked.

“Many times.” He paused. “Officially and unofficially. Noisiest city I’ve ever visited and I’ve visited many.”

“Noisy?”

“The racket on the street is beyond belief,” he said. “Take earplugs.”

“Sorry, I don’t have any.”

“Get some here at the hotel pharmacy. You’ll be pleased you did. You’ll thank me later.”

“I’ll try to remember,” she said.

“What’s your business in Cairo?” he asked, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Don’t tell me you’re fluent in Arabic now that I haven’t seen you for several weeks, and about to run a one-brave-lady operation against the whole bloody jihad.”

She laughed. “Not a chance,” she said. “Seriously, it’s starting to smell more Russian than anything.”

“Ha! Well, you’re becoming a bit of an expert there if you catch my drift.”

“I catch it, and I wouldn’t say that you’re wrong. So you’re ‘mentoring’?” Alex asked, going back to the place setting that remained unattended.

“You could say so,” he said. “Delightful girl. I’m enjoying it.”

“So it’s more than professional?” she asked.

“You could say so,” Rizzo said again.

“And we can still speak freely when she arrives, if she arrives,” Alex said.

“Absolutely.”

“I ask because there’s a bit of shop talk to get through.”

“I reckoned that ahead of time,” Rizzo said, “and I asked Mimi to come by at seven thirty. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Far from it,” Alex said. “That’s perfect.”

A waiter arrived to take an order for predinner drinks. Alex was hardly in the mood for another boozy evening, but allowed Rizzo to talk her into a Prosecco, which actually worked very well. Alex moved to business.

“One of the positives of the operation we just completed in Madrid,” she began, “was that for the first time, it allowed me to make some extensive personal contacts in the European intelligence community. Similarly, I had a very good relationship with an agent who worked for the Chinese service, the
Guojia Anquan Bu
.”

“I remember,” Rizzo said.

“Two days ago in Langley, I was shown a file about an Egyptian spymaster who went to his death out a window in London. One of those ‘jumped-or-pushed?’ cases.”

“What was the man’s name?”

“Dr. Ishraf Kerwidi,” she said. “He had links to several intelligence agencies.”

“I know of him, and I know of the case,” Rizzo said.

“In the report that I read, the name of one of the investigators rang a bell with me,” she said, “Rolland Fitzgerald.”

Rizzo was nodding. “Yes. The young Englishman from Scotland Yard. Pleasant fellow. He didn’t contribute much in Madrid, but I rather liked him.”

“Would you be able to contact him?” she asked. “Pick his mind a little. I can forward to you by secure internet a copy of the report I’m working with. See if there’s anything further he can provide.”

“You don’t want to contact him directly?”

“No,” she said. “Mr. Fitzgerald might be more inclined to share an extra detail with another member of a European service, rather than an American. Additionally, if I’m on my way to Cairo, I don’t want to raise any extra flags.”

Rizzo stared down at his hands, not answering but thinking. Then his gaze shot back up to meet hers. “And you want me to pass along any extra details that I can discover without revealing that I’m passing it along to you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Any small detail might be useful. But I also do not want to call any additional attention to myself by inquiring about a high profile spy case that touches upon the Egyptians.”

“So Fitzgerald should not know where the inquiry is coming from. Or where his information is going?”

“That’s correct,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t trust Fitzgerald, but who knows where his own contacts are compromised? If you make the inquiries, he won’t think much of it. Dr. Kerwidi used to live in Rome. If there’s a further inquiry from an American, he’ll be more guarded.”

“I’ll contact him for you,” Rizzo said. “Send me the information you have and give me two or three days to run things around. Would that suffice?”

“Yes, it would. You’re an angel,” she said.

“Or a demon,” he answered, “to go along with a request like that! What else before Mimi arrives? Anything?”

“Yes,” she said. “You’re European, you were in law enforcement, and you’ve worked in the same type of fields as I have. Have you ever been to Russia?”

“Three times in the last five years. Twice on assignment. Once to attend a funeral of a friend who died mysteriously. That should suggest something right there.”

“How much do you know about Vladimir Putin? And Russia under Putin?”

“Aside from what we all know?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Rizzo’s expression went faraway and journeyed back after several seconds. His face grew serious. “I can tell you what Europeans in law enforcement know and are talking about,” he said. “A few cases that are discussed in private circles.”

“That would be a good start,” she said.

“Just recently I was speaking to one of my other contacts at Scotland Yard,” Rizzo began. “He tells me that the British are seeking the extradition of one Andrei Lugovoi from Russia. He is to face a homicide charge in the poisoning death of former Soviet agent Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko was a former KGB operative who became a prominent dissident opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The people trying to kill him used a radioactive substance called metalloid polonium 210. They broke into his home and hid it there, gradually poisoning him with radioactive contamination day-by-day. Ninety percent of the world’s polonium 210 comes from a single facility in Russia. Scotland Yard found traces of polonium 210 not only in Litvinenko’s home in Britain but also in Hamburg, at locations visited by Lugovoi’s associate Dmitri Kovtun, the day before Kovtun and Lugovoi attended a meeting with Litvinenko in London. It is theorized that Kovtun and Lugovoi shipped the chemical from Russia and infiltrated Litvenenko’s home. But this was particularly messy, this case, because maybe another two hundred people came into contact with the polonium 210. These Russian hoods are like that Colombian cocaine gangster who blew up an airplane with a hundred people on it to kill his own victim.”

“Pablo Escobar,” she said.

“Yes. Human life means nothing to beasts like them. Only terror and death and the ability to get their way mean anything.”

“Any chance of the case being resolved?” Alex asked.