by Jim Ingraham
“Don’t touch me,” she said, jostling him away with her shoulder.
He could see only her eyes. They were dark with anger. She was loaded with cologne.
“Who are you?” Faisal demanded to know. He was a man of importance. He would not be demeaned by a woman.
The man in the university shirt got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The tall one moved in beside Faisal, forcing him against the woman. Faisal could feel the warmth of her buttocks through the fabric of his trousers.
“I don’t want him touching me,” the woman said, squirming away.
“Who are you?” Faisal shouted, rejecting the insult, refusing to be ignored, refusing to be treated like a victim. “Where are you taking me?”
The tall one slammed the door shut as the car moved up the street.
“I demand to know who you are!” Faisal yelled.
The driver turned his head briefly and snapped, “Iskut!”
“I won’t shut up, you son of a bitch. Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
“Just shut up,” the bearded one said.
The car was air-conditioned. It had to belong to someone of importance. He had been betrayed. By whom? Not Afaf. Not Diab. How many knew he was in Egypt? Salima? Could that bitch have betrayed him, a homeless whore? Would she know these people? Would she know a person who owned a car like this?
*
Before they left the cemetery, the woman turned her face aside and took off her scarf. She handed it to the tall man who made Faisal lean forward while he blindfolded him. They don’t mean to kill me, Faisal assured himself, leaning back, taking deep breaths, pressing his hand to his chest, feeling the nervous thumps of his heart. As they moved through city streets, the car bucked, stopped, jumped ahead, obviously moving through noisy traffic. Twice Faisal felt the car go up onto a sidewalk. The driver rolled down his window, letting in warm air and street odors, yelling curses at other drivers, at donkeys, horses, crowds of pedestrians. Although Faisal had lived many years in Cairo. he had no idea where they were. They had turned east out of the cemetery, then north. That’s all he knew. When the car jolted to a stop or quickly moved forward, Faisal heaved against the woman. Twice her soft body wedged against him, her fragrance bewildering his senses. It had been months since he had touched a woman.
Without realizing it, he placed his hand on her thigh.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, digging fingernails into his hand.
The tall one, on the other side of Faisal, started to laugh. Faisal couldn’t help himself; he too started to laugh, sucking blood off his hand. The car bucked, the impatient driver muttering, “Ya’Allah!” in disgust.
After more than a half hour, the car slowed and made a sharp right turn, rising slightly off the flat level of the road. A driveway? The car stopped. Faisal smelled the scent of recently cut grass. He heard men talking, then a sound of something moving. A gate?
I am outside the city. I am at a guarded villa. It’s not my villa.
The blindfold was not removed until he was inside a small foyer and the two men and the woman had disappeared. A short, bearded man escorted him down a carpeted hallway into a large, high-ceilinged room, a white room with gold-framed windows and stiff old-fashioned damask-covered furniture on Persian rugs. A room suited to a conservative man of wealth, a man of importance.
“If you will take a seat,” the short man said. “Over here, please, by the window.” He waved at a cluster of chairs around a small table.
Faisal was furious that he had been forced to come here in these filthy clothes, unbathed, unshaved, smelling like a jackal. He glowered at the servant. He would not sit down. No matter who lives here, I have been insulted! I will be treated with respect! He looked down at himself in shame—dressed like a farmer, stinking of a cemetery.
He was gazing out the window at a row of banyan trees and mustard-colored outbuildings when he heard a door open. He turned. A small, white-haired man in a pale linen suit had come into the room. At the sight of him—a man Faisal had not met but whose image was known throughout the world—his outrage melted. It was Colonel Mustapha Jaradat! I am in the home of Colonel Jaradat!
Instantly he thought: Should I speak first? This man is important, the director of the Islamic Legion. I am also important. His hesitancy turned to embarrassment when the colonel walked toward him saying, “Mr. Ibrahim,” not offering the salute of equals. Not even offering his hand.
“Allow me to apologize for the manner in which you were brought here,” he said, maybe expecting a bow, the insulting son of a bitch! “If my men were disrespectful, I will punish them.”
Faisal nodded a grudging acceptance of the apology, infuriated by his craven unwillingness to speak first, even though, fearing rejection, he himself would not have offered the salute of equals.
“Malesh,” he said. “It’s not important. What can I do for you?” telling himself it was more dignified to ignore the insult than to carp about it. Regardless of how he had been brought here, he was here; that’s what was important. Very few were allowed to come here. Only important people came here. He wants something from me; otherwise he would have turned me over to the police.
As Faisal settled into one of the small chairs and accepted an offer of sweetened coffee, he reminded himself that this man’s rank of colonel, although official, was not won on the battlefield. It was a political reward for having supported the president’s decision to oppose Saddam Hussein’s mad assault on Kuwait. And that opposition was a clear statement to the Arab world that the Islamic Legion, unlike the Brotherhood, was on the side of moderation.
“We reject the rejectionists!” he had proclaimed in a ceremony honoring the martyrdom of Anwar al-Sadat. “We reject terrorism in all its forms! We reject every fanatic who supports terrorism! We embrace Islam, the religion of peace!”
So what am I doing here? Faisal asked himself. According to my reputation, Colonel Jaradat is my enemy. Or does he think I have joined the camp of Israeli lovers? Did he bring me here behind the darkened windows of a limousine to prevent anyone’s knowing he was dealing with an outcast? Or was it to protect me from the police? No doubt this villa is being watched, just as mine is.
“You look fully recovered from your ordeal,” Jaradat said. “Are you in pain?”
“Very little pain,” Faisal said, shrugging. “It was nothing.”
A smile touched the edges of Jaradat’s mouth. He seemed to be a man of restrained responses, a fastidious man with small hands, very thin pale fingers holding the cup as he sipped at his coffee, his eyes shrewdly appraising Faisal. He was said to be highly intelligent.
“I would like to know about the woman in the car,” Faisal said. He could think of no reason for the woman’s being in the car except to show the two men where to find him. It had to be she who was contacted. Who contacted her?
“She’s not important,” Jaradat said, meaning Faisal’s desire to know was not important.
He insults me! I am nothing to him?
“There’s someone else I prefer to talk about,” Jaradat went on. “A protégé of yours, Mr. Ibrahim.”
“I want to know who the woman is. I want to know how you were contacted.”
“I have many sources of information. The woman is not important.”
What I want is not important, you mean, Faisal thought. He said nothing. Insisting upon talking about the woman would not be productive. And that is how a leader thinks, he reminded himself.
“Bashir Yassin,” Jaradat said. “Let’s talk about Bashir Yassin.”
“I don’t know that name.” Faisal could smell unclean odors rising off his clothes. Probably Jaradat could also smell them.
He humiliates me, makes me feel like I’m dwelling in a cesspool of filth while this fastidious aristocrat sits there pretending not to notice.
“He works for you, Mr. Ibrahim. I believe he occasionally pilots your aircraft.”
“That was a long time ago. I sol
d that.”
“But he did work for you.”
“If you say so. I don’t recognize the name.”
“I believe he obtained those Strella surface-to-air missiles you brought into Libya from southern Brazil. He has lately been cultivating connections in your trading grounds down there in Foz do Iguacu. Maybe you don’t know about that?”
Faisal knew everything about that but said, “I know nothing of these things. Bashir Yassin, if it’s the one I think you’re talking about—there were many who piloted planes for me. If it’s who I think, I know him only as a mechanic at the airport.”
“And I suppose you know nothing about his little romance.”
“Romance?”
Jaradat smiled. “You expect me to think he went to that girl on his own, a teen-ager, a college student? You didn’t arrange it?”
“What girl?” Faisal said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Why should he know anything about Bashir Yassin’s love life?
“Of course,” Jaradat said. He crossed his knees and spent several seconds aligning the crease of his trousers with the exact center of his kneecap.
“What I want,” he said, “is a favor.” And getting that out seemed to relieve him of a burden. Faisal believed that playing the supplicant was not easy for this descendent of a dispossessed landed gentry. Whatever his protestations of devotion to the lower classes, he was a blooded aristocrat. Humility was not in the baggage he had inherited from his ancestors.
Why is he watching me with that smug anticipation? To him I am a pig. He probably thinks I always smell like this.
“And what favor is that?” Faisal said.
“From what I understand, this Bashir Yassin is quite a sport. He must be clever. I understand he worked his way out of poverty on a string of scholarships and now parades around as quite a man of parts. He undoubtedly has a very high opinion of himself. Even the police are aware of his ambitions.”
“The police are investigating Bashir Yassin?”
“They have been making inquiries. Probably only because of the girl. Hopefully it’s just routine.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is this girl?”
“I believe you know, Mr. Ibrahim,” Jaradat said. “Let’s not pretend we don’t understand each other. Nobody blames you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why are the police investigating Bashir Yassin?”
“He was seen with the daughter of a high government official. It was just routine, I’m sure. It is nothing to worry about.” As though to ease things by changing the subject, he said, “I have to congratulate you for getting into the country undetected. Since the assault on America, security has tightened.”
“Did the police tell you that Bashir Yassin works for me?”
“Oh, no. I’ve known that for some time. So far as I can learn, the police are ignorant of any connection between you and Bashir Yassin. That’s one reason I chose you.”
Faisal studied the complacent little face across the table. You chose me, you arrogant son of a bitch? What am I, a fig you pluck off a tree?
“And the other reason?”
“Let me explain what I want,” Jaradat said, leaning forward, forearms on his thighs. “And don’t take offense. This is simply business. Bashir Yassin works for you. He therefore is associated with a wanted terrorist.”
“I’m not a terrorist!”
“You have sold arms to Osama bin Laden. That’s enough for the police. But let me continue. His association with you makes him vulnerable. If the police were to learn of it, he could go to prison for life.”
“And I would be taken down with him,” Faisal said.
“I have no desire to hurt you.”
“Then why these threats? Why Bashir Yassin? Why me?”
“Because you are uniquely qualified.”
“To do what?”
“I want Bashir Yassin brought down to earth. I want him…. How should I say? Reconverted? Yes. I want him subdued, brought down off his high horse. That friend of yours in Mokattam, the Coptic who hides rifles and other war materials for you—”
Faisal pretended to be offended. “You think I deal with garbage collectors?”
“I know you do, Mr. Ibrahim. And I’m not criticizing you. I think it’s ingenious to hide your weapons in garbage heaps. Who wants to poke around rutting pigs looking for an arms cache?”
That one of his hiding places had been compromised didn’t surprise Faisal. There wasn’t an organization in the entire Islamic community that hadn’t been penetrated. What was this leading to?
“Years ago, before you broke away from Abu Nidal in Libya, you gained a reputation,” Jaradat said. “I believe the place was called ‘Station 16,’ a place devoted, let us say, to military discipline.”
“I know nothing of that place,” Faisal said. “Those stories are lies.”
“Of course,” Jaradat said. “But let’s say that you’re acquainted with the methods used there—the beatings, the tortures and other subtleties of persuasion.”
Faisal was tiring of this. It’s bad to be insulted; it’s worse to be patronized. It was obvious what this was leading to.
“And you want me to turn Bashir Yassin into an assassin?”
“I didn’t say that. But the idea shocks you?”
“Nothing shocks me, Colonel.”
“You don’t think it’s hypocrisy?”
Faisal laughed. “Do you care?”
A faint blush came to Jaradat’s cheeks: he had revealed a weakness. To hide his embarrassment he got up and put his hands in his pockets and walked to the window.
At least he cares what I think of him, Faisal thought, amused. He disliked men like Jaradat. Like others of his kind, Jaradat fronts for the poor only to restore himself to power. He pretends to revere the memory of Abd el-Nasir, but he despises everything the revolutionary stood for. Of course he’s a hypocrite. They’re all hypocrites.
“He’s very clever and very ambitious,” Jaradat said. “It won’t be enough to extract a promise from him. He’ll promise anything. He needs to be broken. He needs to realize that he’s a filthy animal. Can you do it in two weeks?”
“I can’t do it at all, Colonel. I’m no longer active. I’m retired. I’m a sick man. Why go to all this trouble over Bashir Yassin? There are assassins on every street corner. Tell them it’s for Allah and they’ll beg for the job.”
“No,” Jaradat said, simply and decisively. “It’s not what I want him for.”
He came back to the chair and sat down, crossed his knees and leaned forward, making himself a little bundle of concentration. “It is not necessary for you to know why I want Yassin subdued. I want you to bring him to me a broken man. That’s all you have to know.”
“Why don’t you offer him money? I hear he’s in debt to half the banks in Cairo.”
“Yes, he has debts. But he is too comfortable in his present role. This gutter rat thinks he has become an aristocrat just because he wears Italian suits and speaks English.”
“You have offered him money?”
“It would go straight into a foreign bank and he would move to England. It is his dream, I’m told, to embark on his own, perhaps to take over some of your enterprises.”
“You seem to know a lot about this man,” Faisal said.
“As do you,” and gave that a moment. “I have my sources. But let’s concentrate on the present. He needs to be broken. He needs to have this false respectability scraped off his flesh. He needs to be taught who he really is. He needs to learn obedience.”
A savagery glinted in Jaradat’s eyes that surprised even Faisal. No one in the Arab world would recognize the Colonel Mustapha Jaradat of this moment, this symbol of non-violence, this Martin Luther King of Egypt. And he wants me to produce this assassin so that, if it fails, I will be blamed, not him.
“Why don’t you threaten to kill his family?”
“Do you know that he has one? Besides, I don�
��t operate like that,” Jaradat said.
But you think I do, Faisal thought. “I wish I could help you, Colonel.”
“I won’t threaten you, Mr. Ibrahim. That’s not my way. But you will do what I ask. And you will be glad I have given you this opportunity, believe me.”
“You’re threatening me? You’d turn me over to the police?”
“It helps my cause to do favors for our president. He would enjoy announcing to the world that you’ve been captured, and I can always use his gratitude. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to employ you.”
Again Faisal was insulted. I am not something to be rented like a camel! I can defy this man. I can rise out of this chair and defend my honor. But what would it get me? If the police find out I’m in Cairo, they’ll hang me. Where can I hide? No country will take me in.
“I can bring you out of hiding,” Jaradat said. “After you have performed this little favor for me, I can persuade the government to leave you in peace. I promise they will respect your retirement so long as you obey the law and remain in obscurity. Remember, if I could find you in that cemetery, so can the police. Once you are in custody, no one can help you. Once the world finds out you’re in Egypt, you are doomed. Our president is not going to let the world know he is harboring a man who supplies arms to terrorists, especially in these times. The United States would take away his two billion dollar annual subsidy. That idiot Osama Bin Laden has placed us all in jeopardy. However, if you want to retire quietly and live the remainder of your life in peace—”
Faisal sagged into the cushions of his chair. It was true. He had no options. He had offended too many leaders, broken too many agreements, betrayed too many friends. Like the Jackal, he had become a weakened old man begging for sanctuary. And possibly, just possibly, if he did this one thing, people would leave him alone.
He thought of Afaf puttering around her dusty tomb waiting to die. He closed his eyes. Am I an Afaf?
He sighed wearily. “What is it you want Yassin to do?”
“That needn’t concern you. Just bring him to me broken in spirit. That’s all I ask.”
