“It was Kilbride who wanted me out. The Agency had nothing to do with it.”
Saleh chuckled. “A CIA plot with a CIA man in the middle of it, and you say the CIA is not involved. That is patently ridiculous.”
“There is no CIA plot.”
“There is always a CIA plot.”
“You’ve got the CIA on the brain, Captain.”
“I admit to certain prejudices, but history shows your country never tires of meddling with little people like us. This time, they were sloppy. I caught you, and I shall hang you around their necks before I am finished. Hence my question — why did you not escape when you had the chance? It makes no sense to me.”
“I had my reasons,” he answered with a shrug, “and you’re wrong. The CIA has nothing to do with this. Neither do I. In fact, I have no idea what’s going on, and it’s obvious you don’t either.” Thomson leaned forward, his expression suddenly serious. “Let me ask you a question for a change. Does Egypt really want to start another war with the Israelis?”
Saleh frowned, surprised by the question. “No, we do not; and that is from the highest source. It is not that we do not dislike them, and we certainly do not trust them, but we have bled and suffered enough for other people’s causes,” he said as he tapped his own thigh. “Now, you tell me, why would you even ask me a question like that?”
“There’s something going on out at that old RAF base at Heliopolis.”
“Yes, you broke in and kidnapped that woman.”
“No, it’s a secret research center, staffed by Nazi scientists.”
“Mister Thomson,” Saleh shook his head derisively. ”I expected better from you. Nazis? You might be surprised to know that in your last world war, many of my people favored the German side. Not that we liked Hitler, but anyone who fought the British was a friend of ours.”
“I understand.” Thomson waved the point aside. “However, I’m talking about today. Someone is doing something out there, and a lot of people are scared to death about it.”
“Even if your story is true, it is none of your damned business.”
“Would a secret airplane factory surprise you?”
Saleh cocked his head and considered the point. “No, not in the way you mean; and it would not particularly interest me, either. Neither would your story about German scientists. Frankly, if that is the best you have to offer, I have wasted a good deal of my valuable time on you for nothing.”
“Well, it isn’t an airplane factory,” Thomson answered, carefully studying Saleh’s face for a reaction. “That’s the cover story they’re using, and it’s not a very good one. Would a secret rocket base surprise you?”
Saleh raised his eyebrows and paused. “No, that would not surprise me, either.”
“Well, maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think that’s the whole story either. The minute I began poking around, a lot of people got very nervous. So, I think there’s more going on out there than that.”
“For instance?”
“I don’t know, but the best way to keep a big secret is to wrap it inside a bunch of little ones.”
“Do you think that is why your friend Yussuf met his early demise?”
“Him, an Israeli Mossad agent named Landau, the Goon you found lying in the street, and maybe a couple more besides them.”
“Are you saying they were all killed by a group of gray-haired, German rocket scientists?”
“No, no, it was your people who did the killing.”
“My people? You see, that is where your story is wearing a bit thin, Mister Thomson. If Yussuf and all the rest of them were foreign spies, why should they not forfeit their lives? What is wrong with that — and why should I care?”
“Because it doesn’t make any sense. There must be more to it. That’s the dangerous part, the part that they’re willing to kill to keep a secret.”
Saleh stared at Thomson, but the American’s eyes never wavered.
“Look.” Thomson edged closer, trying to explain. “Someone caught Yussuf and shut him up for keeps, right? Assume for the moment that it wasn’t us.”
“Why should I?”
“Humor me. Assume Yussuf really was a spy. If we had caught him, wouldn’t we want to keep him alive long enough to make him tell us everything, maybe even turn him and use him. Think about it. Give me one reason why we would want him dead… especially dead like that. Come on, Captain. It’s not our style.”
Saleh let him continue, uninterrupted.
“It was an execution, and it was meant to set an example or send a message, pure and simple. For my money, that means the Germans, your own State Security, or fanatics.”
“State Security? The GIS? That is preposterous.”
“No, it isn’t. We would have bought his pictures and so would the Israelis or the KGB. But no professional kills a good snitch. It’s bad manners, especially if you might want something from him or anyone else in the future. Use your head. Who would want to shut the guy up? Besides, if this thing is on the up-and-up, why didn’t State Security push you aside and take over a long time ago? They know I’m CIA, so why did they let it remain a police matter? Answer that one.”
Saleh couldn’t. Thomson knew he had him stumped.
“And I have another one for you. This isn’t wartime. Doesn’t the army have to notify the police of major troop movements?”
“Of course, there are many things to consider. Traffic, missing persons…”
“So, if someone moved a crack armored regiment down here from the Delta, perhaps even two, with all their tanks, wouldn’t they notify the civilian police before moving them to Cairo and hiding them in the desert only fifteen miles from here?”
“You are insane.”
“That’s what I thought,” Thomson sat back and smiled. “You don’t know a damned thing about them, do you? Well, they’re out there, Captain. There’s at least a full armored regiment with T-34 tanks hidden under camouflage nets in the trees out at that old air base. I know, because I saw them myself.”
“You are lying,” said Saleh, who didn’t believe a word of it. “I do not know why, but I have no doubt that you are.”
“Am I? Why would I make up a story that you could check out with a couple of phone calls? Am I that dumb? I’m telling you there are tanks out there — Russian T-34s and a lot of them. The troops are in the old barracks, and the tanks are hidden all around in the groves of palm trees.” He picked up a pad of paper and a pencil from Saleh’s desk and began to sketch. “My Arabic isn’t the best, but here are the markings I saw on one of their jeeps. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough. What unit is that?” he asked as he spun the pad toward Saleh.
The Egyptian’s eyes flashed as he looked down at the paper.
“It does mean something, doesn’t it? What unit is that — the Third Armored Regiment or the Fourth? Whichever, they’re supposed to be up in the Delta, aren’t they? Plus, you know as well as I do that there are only two things you need that much muscle for: to start a war or to overthrow a government.”
“This is preposterous.”
“You recognize the bumper marking, don’t you?”
“That is the Third Armored, my old regiment,” Saleh relented. “You knew that and you’re trying to bait me, to draw me into this game you are playing, aren’t you?”
“Prove it. Prove I’m lying. I’ve bet my life that those tanks are there, so you prove I’m wrong.”
“Why… to satisfy you?”
“No… to satisfy yourself.”
Saleh glared at Thomson for a long minute, but then he picked up the phone. “Police headquarters in Alexandria… I want Sergeant Khatib in the inspector’s office. Put it through immediately.” He then sat back and waited, trying to maintain a firm, confident facade, but he was not as successful as he would have liked.
Ten interminable minutes later, the phone rang. Saleh yanked it from the cradle and forced a broad smile. “Khatib, you old rascal, Saleh here… Aywa, aywa. Yes, ye
s, too long, I know… No, it is business, I am afraid. Perhaps you can save me some time. We had a murder last night. The unfortunate victim was wearing army fatigues and tanker boots, but the thieves got away with his wallet. You know what it is like to ask the army… Yes, yes, but I heard some armored units from the Delta came down here for maneuvers.”
Saleh picked up the pad and stared at Thomson’s crude sketch. “Really… Yes, of course, you should know. That is why I phoned… Maneuvers in the Western Desert, you say. Top Secret orders, from General al-Baquri himself… The Third and the Fourth Armored… No, no, I shall not breathe a word of it, old friend. Do not bother, I shall call them myself, Khatib… Yes, shokran, thank you. You have been a big help. Saaida. Good-bye.”
Saleh slowly placed the receiver in its cradle and stared across at Thomson, his expression appearing more confused.
“Convinced now, Captain? Or do you still think I’m crazy?”
“This is impossible,” he muttered.
“Then call their Headquarters and ask.”
Saleh drummed his fingers on the desk and finally picked up the receiver. “Call the Headquarters of the Third Armored Regiment,” he demanded as he placed the receiver down. The two men stared at each other without speaking for several minutes until the phone rang. Saleh spoke first but spent most of the time listening. “No answer, you say. That cannot be. Call the Fourth Armored. Tell them it is a police emergency.” This time, Saleh stayed on the line, waiting impatiently, his forehead twisting into a worried frown as the minutes passed. Finally, he picked up the phone and said, “That is enough for now. I shall try the numbers again, later.”
He seemed lost in his own thoughts. “They could not get through, not to either one,” he said quietly. “There’s some type of problem with the phone lines. No one has been able to get through for two days. With our phone system, that is hardly newsworthy,” he tried to joke, but even he wasn’t laughing.
“Both regiments… and at the same time?”
Saleh had no answer.
“Knowing you, I expect you won’t let this lie, will you, Captain?”
Saleh glared across at Thomson, but he offered no reply.
“I want you to promise me something. When you do start asking, be damned careful who you talk to.”
“Why?”
“Because people keep getting dead every time that place is mentioned in the wrong circles. I want you to do something else, too. Let me out of here.”
“What?” Saleh asked, both surprised and amused. “Now I know you are insane, Mister Thomson. Just because some phone lines in Alexandria are out of order, I am supposed to release the prime suspect in two murder cases. How big of a fool do you think I am?”
“You’re the one who asked me why I didn’t get on that airplane, didn’t you? Well, now you know why. Something stinks around here. You knew it when you saw Yussuf’s body, and I knew it when I saw the tanks and a German rocket scientist who doesn’t know anything about rockets. You know you’ll never find out why by yourself.”
“Oh, you do not know me very well.”
“You’ll try, I’ll give you that much; but you’re a company man, Captain. I am not. You’ll let someone con you into believing their story — someone at higher headquarters or a friend — and you’ll do what you’re told. They’ll tell you you’ve got nothing to worry about, but they’ll be wrong. You have plenty to worry about, like Yussuf, Landau, me, and now you, because you’re part of the daisy chain. They’ll be watching every move you make, and they’ll kill you if you get too close. That’s why we need each other, Captain. You’re on the inside. If you’re very careful, you might actually get through to the right people while I chip away from the outside. Working from opposite ends, we might be able to stop them before it’s too late. Besides, what do you have to lose? The worst thing that can happen is I get myself killed, right?”
“No, the worst thing is you won’t. So, I shall deny myself that little pleasure and keep you right here, where I know you cannot bother anyone else.”
Saleh pressed the buzzer on his desk and Sayyid stepped into the room. Obviously, he had been waiting, hoping he would be needed even sooner than this. “Lock him up, Sayyid, quietly and with no fanfare. Put him in the isolation cell and I want no records kept. Mister Thomson does not exist, not until I decide he does.”
Thomson shook his head, wanting to argue but knowing it was useless. Slowly, he rose to his feet. “You’re making a big mistake. I just hope you learn how big before it’s too late.”
“You have an incredible imagination, Mister Thomson… Incredible. Take him away.”
Sayyid gripped the American’s arm and pushed him into the hallway. Thomson turned toward the main staircase, but Sayyid steered him the other way, toward the back stairs they had come up. Sayyid opened the fire door and motioned for him to go first. Thomson paused and looked down the steep, dimly lit stairwell. Any thoughts he might be harboring about outrunning the hulking sergeant evaporated as Sayyid laid a huge paw on his shoulder. He gave Thomson a gentle push, not enough to make him tumble head first down the stairs but enough to let him know he could if he wanted him to. Sayyid was careful. He stayed off to one side, one stair back, his hand never leaving the American’s shoulder.
Thomson knew he had to do something. If he let them lock him up, it would all be over. After everything he had been through, he couldn’t let that happen. They walked down the staircase in silence. Thomson stopped on the first narrow landing and let loose a loud, uncontrollable sneeze. “Dust,” he mumbled as he wiped his coat sleeve across his nose. Sayyid said nothing, but Thomson felt the grip on his shoulder tighten as the sergeant looked down the steep flight of stairs and shoved him again. This time it was not for show. It was for real.
Thomson would have lost his balance and fallen if it had not been for another monstrous sneeze that bent him over at the waist, just as Sayyid pushed forward. The sergeant’s hand slipped off Thomson’s shoulder, and he lost his balance. For a split second, the big man tottered on the edge of the stair, and that was all the opening Thomson needed. He grabbed Sayyid’s shirtsleeve and pulled.
Like a runaway dump truck on a steep grade, nothing was going to stop Sayyid’s momentum now. He reached out to grab Thomson, but the American slapped his hand away. The sergeant’s expression turned from surprise to shock and then to terror as he found himself airborne, tumbling down a steep flight of bare concrete stairs, arms and legs flailing wildly. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, the police headquarters was made of huge quarry stones and thick concrete. The sound never left the stairwell, and it was a rough ride down. Thomson cringed as he watched the mountain of angry muscle bounce twice and smack headfirst onto the landing fifteen feet below. Sayyid came to rest in a crumpled heap against the far wall at the foot of the stairs, out cold.
Thomson took the rest of the stairs two at a time and bent over to check Sayyid’s pulse. He was alive, but Sayyid would not forget the quick trip down the stairs for a long time. Serves the big bastard right, Thomson thought; but why did Sayyid try to push him down the stairs? Like everything else, that made no sense, either. Was this Saleh’s idea? Had he planned this little “accident” all along, or was Sayyid working on an agenda of his own? Thomson did not know; and for the moment at least, he did not care. He searched through the sergeant’s pockets, taking the man’s service revolver, money, and keys. To make the job complete, he pulled out Sayyid’s handcuffs and snapped one ring around the big man’s wrist and the other around his ankle. That should slow him down for a while, Thomson thought, as he turned and ran for the back door, hoping he would never meet the sergeant in another dark stairwell again or anywhere else for that matter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Could twenty-five years have passed since they were boys playing on that muddy riverbank near their village? Back then, they were like brothers: Hassan Saleh, Ali Rashid, and Gamal Nasser, and a small village could never contain these boys or their ambitions. The
y went everywhere and did everything together. Perhaps it was their youth, the simpler era in which they grew up, or the narrow world and common experiences they shared; but it seemed that they had but one dream and one destiny. Yes, it was all so clear back then, before the hot forge of time and war proved it could bend and twist even the hardest steel.
Each joined the army when he came of age, because it was the surest and quickest path out of the sugar cane fields. As classmates at the Royal Military Academy in the late 1930s, they were trained by arrogant British officers and NCOs, whom they quickly learned to hate. Because Egypt remained officially neutral during WW II, their first battlefield experience came during the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, when King Farouk’s large, but unprepared Egyptian army was routed by a small and very determined handful of Jewish settlers. From that humiliation, a hardened cadre of young officers, with Gamal Nasser, Ali Rashid, and Hassan Saleh in its fore, swore that such a thing would never happen again.
Hassan Saleh knew there had always been something different about Gamal. He was not the smartest, the most athletic, nor the most serious of them. Ali Rashid was better than the other two on all those counts, but that did not matter. Gamal was the thinker, the planner, and their unquestioned charismatic leader. No votes were ever taken, and the point was never debated. They knew it instinctively, as Egypt itself would one day know it. That was the effect Gamal Abdel Nasser had on people. Ever the politician, he was driven by a cause. His was secular and national, and the army was merely a ladder to be climbed to greater heights. He donned the uniform until the time came to exchange it for a politician’s business suit.
To Ali Rashid, the army was also the means to a more important end. Intensely religious, he was always the serious one, humorless, as only a man who talked back to God on a regular basis could be. The burning, blinding passion which only religion could inflict on a man consumed him; and only a holy war could heal it.
Of the three, only Hassan Saleh joined the army for itself. A uniform and an officer’s epaulets and sword had been his dream since he was too young to remember. He took to the ritual, hard work, and discipline with the pleasure and natural grace of a man born to it. He was the one whom his instructors expected to rise to the highest ranks in the Army. To him there was no higher calling than to serve one’s country on the battlefield. That made the tragedy so much greater when the career he loved ended on the sands of the Sinai in l956 when an Israeli artillery shell nearly cost him a leg and his sanity.
Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers Page 90
