Thomson wasn’t that stupid either. With the two Goons distracted, he rolled beneath the van, trying to shake the cobwebs out of his head and figure out what was happening. He looked back and saw the two Goons’ silhouettes in the bright headlights. Goon One with the bloody face and arm made a major mistake when he pulled out a revolver and pointed it in the general direction of the car, shading his eyes with his off hand as he tried to find a target. His second and final mistake was to fire off two shots. Before the echoing blasts had died away, he got his reply.
A short staccato of bright orange flashes erupted from the passenger side window of the car, and Thomson heard the hacking cough of a silenced submachine gun. It was only one short burst of perhaps six bullets, but it was expertly done. Each of them was a “kill shot” that hit Goon One in the center of torso and ripped into bone and muscle, lifting him off his feet and dropping him hard onto the pavement. Goon Two didn’t even try. He dove sideways and tumbled over the trunk of a parked car as a second burst flashed from the car window. The bullets skipped off the buildings, chasing him away with a shower of white sparks. They missed, but they got the job done. The guy took off running after Blondie, zigzagging into the darkness without even looking back.
Good riddance, Thomson thought as he crawled out from under the van. He was battered and bruised, but glad to still be alive. From his knees, he reached up with an unsteady hand and groped for the door handle, slowly pulling himself up to his feet. Dimly, through the fog bank inside his head, he heard a shrill whistle. That would be the Police, he figured; and they were not very far away. The Police were the last thing he needed. He was in no condition for yet another long grilling from Saleh or Kilbride; but he was in no condition to outrun the Cairo cops, either.
Fortunately or not, the sounds of the police were drowned out by the roar of the big mystery car’s engine. Thomson looked up to see it race toward him again and skid to a halt only a few feet away. The rear door flew open and a voice called out, “Get in, Thomson!” When he didn’t move, a young man got out and grabbed him. Thomson tried to push the guy away, but he didn’t have the strength. “Don’t be a fool, get in!” the voice called out again, “We haven’t the time for this.”
Thomson heard the dull chatter of the submachine gun again from the other side of the car and decided this wasn’t a good time to argue. He didn’t know who these people were. Maybe they weren’t on the right side, but they didn’t appear to be on the wrong one either, so for the moment that would do. Thomson let them pull him into the car and push him onto the floor. They weren’t trying to hurt him and were just in one understandably big hurry. Thomson slumped onto the floorboards, too numb to move. The tires squealed and the car sped away, hurried along by sirens and several more loud gunshots. The driver took the first corner on two wheels and careened into a side street. He made another quick turn and then several more before finally slowing down.
Long minutes later, Thomson pushed himself up to his knees and then turned to sit painfully on the backseat. No one stopped him or appeared to care as he looked out the side window. The lights of the city quickly thinned out until he could see only scrubby farmland, desert, the black sky, and a high crescent moon. Wherever they were going, they were well outside the center of the city now. Slowly, his head began to clear. He ached everywhere and his body was in complete rebellion against what he had just put it through; but when the old habits took hold again, his brain began to inventory the moving parts. Some were bruised and dented; but nothing seemed to be missing, broken, or shot full of holes… not yet anyway.
Finally, Thomson looked up and saw that the man in the front passenger seat had turned halfway around and was staring back at him with a friendly, amused smile. “You must be more careful, Thomson,” he said, sounding calm and almost friendly. “Late night walks in Cairo can be very bad for a man’s health these days.” He had curly black hair and the same thick mustache you see on most other men in the Middle East, and he was older than either the driver or the other man in the backseat. They all had the same olive-brown skin, which could have come from anywhere around the shores of the Mediterranean. The man’s accent was strange, but the nasty-looking submachine gun he held in the crook of his arm was an Israeli Uzi with a long silencer on the end of the barrel.
“Yeah… and thanks,” Thomson acknowledged belatedly.
The man had the Uzi resting casually across the back of the seat, pointed in Thomson’s general direction. “You have had a rough day,” he said in a friendly-enough voice. “You look tired. So why not sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”
CHAPTER TEN
Captain Hassan Saleh let his police cruiser roll to a halt. He turned the engine off and sat quietly, staring through the dust-streaked windshield at the all-too-familiar scene a half block farther down the street. He had seen it too many times before. The flashing rhythm of red lights on police cars and the accompanying crowd of gawking, late-night thrill-seekers never failed to turn his stomach. There was the occasional pop of a reporter’s flashbulb mixed in, and he knew there would be idle clusters of uniformed police officers milling about, chatting uselessly with each other, waiting for someone higher up the chain of command to tell them what should be done. That was why these crime scene investigations invariably proved futile. Regardless of who, why, or how, there was a sickening sameness to each murder. In the center, he would find a body lying in a pool of blood. Someone slashed someone else with a blade, beat him senseless, or pulled a trigger, instantly transforming another human being into so many pounds of dead raw meat. That was when they called for Saleh, because he was the butcher’s apprentice.
Slowly and painfully, he opened the car door and swung his legs out. He kept his hand on the steering wheel for support as he flexed his bad knee, testing it, gradually adding weight until it was ready to support his reed-thin body. The leg hurt much worse tonight, he thought; not that it would ever hurt much less. Pain? In the Middle East, even pain had a political and international dimension to it. In Saleh’s case, he faced a lifetime of pain thanks to the white-hot explosion of a Czech artillery shell. It had been fired from an American howitzer loaded by Israeli hands standing on Arab soil, which the British and French politicians had drawn after they won a war against the Germans and the Turks. Saleh had been given a choice, of course. He could have permitted them to cut off his leg, which the doctors had wanted to do from the very beginning; but he refused to allow it. They kept threatening him with amputation many times since, but he continued to refuse. Doctors never understood there could be fates far worse than a lifetime of pain. A one-legged soldier might project sacrifice, honor, and dignity, while a one-legged police officer could never be anything but pathetic. Saleh refused to permit an abomination like that. It would be better to suffer the pain. Or better still, to have died from a direct hit from that artillery shell.
He had been sitting too long in his police cruiser, and his leg muscles were already cramping badly. That was why he had parked up the street in the shadows, so he could do his suffering in private. Leaning heavily on his ebony cane, he put as much weight on the leg as he could and took the first tentative steps. A bolt of pain shot up through the top of his skull, so he stopped, shook his leg, and even punched it with his fist, trying to beat it into submission. Gradually, the pain subsided and the knee reluctantly agreed to support his weight. Bent over slightly, he limped up the street until he reached the bright lights at the corner where his private sanctuary vanished. Now, he must become Captain Saleh once again. Closing his eyes, he pushed down on the top of the cane and forced his torso upright. Waves of pain rolled and crashed inside his head and he almost passed out. Concentrating on the flashing red lights of the police cars up ahead, he managed to block the pain until it ebbed. He pulled a sweat-soaked handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. How long did he have before the tricks and mind games would not be enough? How long?
Saleh gritted his teeth and stepped into the light, commanding his
leg to move at a more normal pace. There was a rope barricade strung across the street between wooden horses. Saleh pressed the rope as far down as he could with his cane. As he raised his leg the necessary few inches to step over it, a uniformed police officer turned his head and bellowed, “You there! Where do you think…” but the man’s voice faded as he recognized the distinctive white suit and cane. “Oh, Captain Saleh,” he said apologetically, “I did not…”
Saleh dismissed him with a harsh glance and continued over the rope. Once inside the perimeter, his eyes searched for Sayyid. He finally found him standing in the midst of a group of young detectives, laughing and joking with them. The big sergeant happened to turn his head and saw Saleh walking toward him down the centerline of the street. Sayyid stomped out a cigarette and quickly separated himself from the others as he hurried to join his boss, but Saleh did not wait for him. The Captain’s eyes methodically swept the murder scene. Slowly, he walked the line down the middle of the street, alone, noting and absorbing each detail. Sayyid fell in step beside him, knowing not to offer any comments or opinions until asked. Captain Saleh was not only his boss and the Chief of Homicide; he was a legend among the men. Like the camel that could smell water from ten miles away, it was said that the Captain could sniff out a clue at a crime scene from halfway across the city.
When he reached the far end of the street, Saleh turned and looked back, pausing and deep in thought. “You saw to it that nothing was touched?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing, as you ordered.”
“Good. Have the street cleared,” he said as he eyed the milling crowd of dark faces. “It is time the circus closed for the night.”
Sayyid hurried away as Saleh began slowly to retrace his path, studying the crime scene even more carefully this time. He turned his head from side to side with nose slightly raised and eyes narrowing like an old hunting dog seeking the scent. Everything he needed to know was here — the two sets of skid marks; the glimmer of brass shell casings scattered along the pavement where they had flipped out a car window, bullet holes in the parked cars and shops to the right, and finally, the body. Saleh stopped and looked down at one of the shells, as he rolled it from side to side with the tip of his cane. Painfully, he bent over until his trembling fingers grasped the piece of brass. He pushed himself upright and held up his hard-won prize to the light.
Saleh examined it carefully for a moment, and then grunted. From the number of shells scattered about, an automatic or semi-automatic weapon had obviously fired them. It was probably a submachine gun of some sort, and nine-millimeter — big, deadly, and effective. Bullets like those were used for one purpose and one purpose only, to kill a man, up close. Still, what did a nine-millimeter shell prove? None of the usual Russian or American weapons used nine-millimeter ammunition, but the brass could have come from a British Sten, a French MAT, an old German Schmeisser, or a dozen others, including an Israeli Uzi. Even if he knew the make of the gun, however, Saleh would not know the nationality of the finger that pulled the trigger. The brass shell was something to consider, though — a beginning. His eyes returned to the pavement, and he continued searching until he came abreast of the body. It was lying in a disjoined heap next to a parked car. Someone had covered it with a gray field blanket, but the man had been blown backward and died where he landed. No amount of cover could hide the awkward configuration of arms and legs sticking out from underneath. Unfortunately, as Saleh well knew, that was what violent death could do to a human body.
Sayyid had returned. Saleh neither heard nor saw the big sergeant, but he felt his presence next to him, watching and waiting for more orders. Finally, the sergeant spoke. “One of the precinct police officers was patrolling in the neighborhood when the shooting began. He blew his whistle and came running, but it was too late. There was more gunfire, and all he saw was a dark sedan racing out of sight around the corner. Do you wish to question him?”
“No, do not bother. I doubt he will have anything to add. If someone was shooting a submachine gun in your direction, would you?” Saleh smiled, thinking that Sayyid probably would. He might not be much of a detective, but he had served in the infantry and his memory was as hard as forged steel. “Give the good fellow our thanks and tell him to go back to whatever it was he was doing.”
“He found this lying in the street,” Sayyid said as he handed Saleh a badly scuffed shoe, “and this jacket was lying under the van.”
Saleh’s eyes widened as he took them both. The jacket was from a dark suit. There was nothing in the pockets, but the label was American. “Brooks Brothers’, it said but the size was much too small to fit the dead man. Saleh then examined the shoe as if it were a piece of rare porcelain, turning it over and over in the dim light. Saleh snorted. The label in the shoe was also American, and Saleh immediately knew where he had seen it before. “What do the Americans call these? Oxfords? How quaint — but I never saw shoes like that at Oxford.”
Saleh turned and looked down the street. “Do you know what street this is, Sayyid?”
“It is the Shari Rushd, I think.”
He pointed to the corner. “Is that not the Tin Whistle bar?” Saleh asked.
“Yes, it is the one that the Englishman Throckmorton owns.”
“That is where our friend Thomson hangs out.” Saleh finally turned his eyes back on the crime scene. “Show me where the patrolman found the shoe.”
Sayyid pointed toward a parked car. “There, behind a tire.”
Saleh stepped closer and ran the tips of his fingers across the dents and scratches on the car door. He also noticed a few drops of dried blood. In a way, he was relieved. Thomson may have been injured, but they had not killed him. If they had, there would have been more blood and a second body lying here. Nevertheless, it had cost one man his life. The question was why.
Saleh turned back to the body. He used the tip of his cane to flip back the coarse field blanket and stood quietly for a moment examining the man and his wounds. Five evenly spaced shots in the chest formed a tight line from the bottom of the rib cage to the middle of his left shoulder. A thoroughly professional job, Saleh had to concede — neat, effective, and deadly accurate. No doubt, the dead man was Egyptian or Arab. He was thickset and very muscular with a powerful chest and arms, clean-shaven, and dark skinned. There was nothing terribly remarkable about that, Saleh thought, except for his hair, which was closely cropped on the sides and the top — sheared would be a better description — and not by the most fashionable of barbers. Is this what one might refer to as a “Goon,“ he wondered. Was that not the word Thomson used? Two big men in cheap suits with short haircuts and the two are my men, he had said. What did he mean by that — police, army, the GIS? Saleh did not believe him at the time; but looking down at this body now, who could tell?
“His hands, Sayyid, show me his hands,” Saleh said impatiently.
Sayyid frowned, but he dropped to one knee and raised the man’s right hand to the light.
“Rub your fingers across his palm. What do you feel?”
“Feel?” Sayyid questioned. “It is rough, very rough, with calluses.”
“And?”
Sayyid strained for the answer that would not come.
“The calluses, man. What do they tell you? Use your imagination, Sayyid. Think! What does that palm tell you of the man?”
Sayyid shrugged and rubbed the palm again. “The hands are big, rough and scarred. I think he worked with them, perhaps outdoors; and he used them often.”
“Good, and what of the fellow’s muscles? How do you think he got them — sitting behind a desk? And what of the tanned, weathered skin on his face? No, this is no simple street tough. That fellow last night, his hands were soft, like a pimp’s, as if he were someone who spent his mornings in bed, weren’t they? Now look at this man’s suit. Look at the fabric.”
Sayyid nodded with a glimmering of comprehension.
“And the man’s short hair,” Saleh hurried on, his voice fading as
his mind raced ahead, losing interest in the lesson. He flipped the dead man’s jacket open with his cane. The waistband of the slacks was gathered in awkward tucks beneath the belt. They were a cheap local brand, ill-fitting but new, as if he had just purchased them and had not had time to see a tailor.
“No papers on him, I assume?”
“There was nothing, not even a matchbook or a pack of cigarettes. His pants pockets did not even have any lint in them.”
Saleh nodded. Completely professional, he thought, and exactly what he expected.
“You have the gun?” he asked, holding out his hand.
Sayyid pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and handed it up. “It is a Russian Makarov automatic, or the Czech copy,” he commented as he pulled out the clip. “Two rounds were fired. I will order the usual tests, but the gun is quite common.”
“Yes. Quite,” he answered. In our Army, our police, and our intelligence services, but not the American’s or British. “Run this fellow’s fingerprints. They will not match anything in our files, I am certain of that,” Saleh stated as a curious expression crossed his face, “but also send them to the army, to their personnel department, with this fellow’s photograph. I am curious to hear the story they come back with.”
“The story? Our army?” Sayyid frowned. “Why would they be involved?”
A thin smile crossed Saleh’s lips, but he volunteered no answer. Instead, he turned away and stared back down the street, trying to picture what had really happened here. He could smell it; the scent was so strong that it burned the lining of his nose. There was no question about it now. When he reached the end of the trail, he knew he would find the American, Thomson. Saleh’s eyes narrowed. “At first light I want this entire neighborhood canvassed. Question everyone in these buildings.”
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