The Men Behind

by Michael Pearce

  Especially in the present circumstances.

  “I’m trying to get it right,” Owen said weakly, “politically right, I mean.”

  Mahmoud nodded. He was Cairene enough to know that things had to be politically right before you could do them.

  “I’ll get him,” Owen promised, “but I want to let things run as they are just for the moment.”

  “Of course!” said Mahmoud enthusiastically. “You want to find out who his associates are. Pull in the whole lot of them.”

  “That’s right. And there’s another thing too. Something that particularly interested me. It might interest you. One of his associates is Rashid.”

  “Rashid? My Rashid?”

  Owen nodded. “Your Rashid.”

  “But—but that can’t be.”

  “That’s what I thought. When you told me that Ali Osman was going to be the next target.”

  ***

  They were sitting outside a café in one of the small, crowded streets near the Bab el Wezir. Above them towered the famous rock, on the brow of which stood the Citadel.

  Much of Saladin’s marvelous castle was now in ruins. The stateliest part of it, Joseph’s Hall, had been blown up in 1824 to make room for a still more fabulous building, the mosque of Mehemet Ali, with its Arabian Nights-like domes and minarets. Nowadays, too, it shared the space with the headquarters of the British Artillery stationed in Egypt, located in the deserted palace of a former Khedive.

  Four conquerors, then, and each in his time had passed away, leaving only a building behind them.

  Except, of course, the British.

  A place of myth. And the most potent of the myths was the Massacre of the Mamelukes.

  One day in March 1811, Mehemet Ali invited the Mamelukes, the princes who had ruled Egypt for over five hundred years, to a reception in the Citadel and, when it was over, suggested they ride in state through the city, escorted by his troops.

  As the Mamelukes proceeded between the two lines of the Pasha’s troops down the steep lane, hemmed in by rock and rampart, which leads from the Bab el Wastani to the Bab el Azab, the troops fell on them and killed them. One only, according to legend, escaped.

  There was an added potency in the myth. By the time their dynasty came to an end, the Mamelukes had declined greatly from the warrior caste they had originally been. They had become decadent and corrupt—as decadent and corrupt, might it be said, as the Khedives and Pashas who had succeeded them? And might it not be their turn to be swept away as brutally and dramatically as the Mamelukes had been by Mehemet Ali?

  Owen, aware of the power of myth and symbol to stir the Islamic mind, felt uneasy. The attack was intended to be symbolic, Elbawi had said. Owen was as much concerned about the symbol as about the attack itself.

  “Obviously we’re not going to let it happen,” he said. “We’ll have our people there and they’ll pick up the men as soon as they spot them. No hanging around this time. We’re not going to make that mistake again. At least we’ll have the killers out of the way. But, of course, the one we’re really after is Rashid. And that’s where you come in.”

  “He’s really clever,” said Mahmoud. “He never does anything himself. He always works through other people.”

  “That’s why this is so important. If he really does want to speak to you in person.”

  “That’s what the message was.”

  “I can’t quite see—I mean, why should he approach you now, when he’s already set something up?”

  “Perhaps he’s thinking ahead to the next one.”

  “Yes. Or perhaps—” Owen suddenly sat up—“perhaps there’s another part to this one. Something we don’t know about yet.”

  “Someone else to be killed?”

  “Another Pasha, perhaps. Someone besides Ali Osman. I’ll have a look at the party and see who else is to be there.”

  Mahmoud finished his coffee.

  “Of course,” he said, “it may not be a case of someone else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It might be more than one. Have you forgotten that Rashid has a predilection for bombs?”

  ***

  Mahmoud left first. Owen sat on at the table drinking another cup of coffee. The café was well away from the Law School and from the Bab el Khalk and there was little chance of their being recognized. All the same it was as well to be careful.

  Owen felt a hand on his shoulder. A small hand.

  Soraya slipped into the chair vacated by Mahmoud.

  “Your friend has gone. You can talk to me now.”

  “What are you doing here?” said Owen, surprised.

  “I live here,” said Soraya, pointing along the street. “Would you like to come home with me?”

  Owen had forgotten that this was the area of the gypsies.

  “That would be very nice,” he said. “However, I am working.”

  “In the café? You are like my man. He sits in the café drinking tea when he should be stealing.”

  “Are you and your man together again?”

  “Sort of,” said Soraya vaguely.

  The owner of the café came out, looked at Soraya sternly, and Owen questioningly, then shrugged his shoulders and went back inside.

  Soraya beamed and drank some of Owen’s coffee.

  “Your friend looked nice, too,” she said. “Nicer than your other friend.”

  “Roper, you mean? That is certainly true.”

  “Is he married?”

  “Mahmoud? No.”

  “It is time he was,” said Soraya censoriously. “You too.”

  “I dare say we’ll get around to it sometime.”

  “Among my people,” said Soraya pointedly, “it is the custom to marry young.”

  “Are you married?”

  “I dare say I’ll get around to it. One day.”

  ***

  “To do this to me!” said Ali Osman, upset. “Rashid!”

  “He was your man, wasn’t he?”

  “Up to a point.”

  “Up to what point?”

  “Does that matter?” asked Ali Osman. “Obviously not to the point when it would stop him from killing me.”

  “Yes, it does matter. He did things for you. What things?”

  “Oh, various bits of business.”

  “Liaison with illegal Nationalist groups?”

  “Well, yes, you might say that.”

  “Getting them to follow public servants? So that you could create an atmosphere of crisis which you could turn to political advantage?”

  “My dear fellow!” said Ali Osman, staring. “What can you mean?”

  “To shoot at Fairclough?”

  “Certainly not!” said Ali Osman firmly. “The idea!”

  “To throw bombs?”

  “The one in the café was left, wasn’t it?”

  “The one at Nuri was thrown.”

  “I had nothing to do with either.”

  “But Rashid did.”

  “If he did,” said Ali Osman earnestly, “that was nothing to do with me.”

  “He was your man, wasn’t he?”

  “Not in this. Not in this,” said Ali Osman fervently.

  “My question was,” said Owen, “up to what point?”

  Ali Osman sat silent for a long time, looking at Owen seriously. At last he said: “I shall have to tell you, shan’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  The Pasha was silent for a moment or two longer. Then he pulled himself together.

  “Since you obviously know the answer already,” he said, “I will tell you. Rashid is the nephew of Haround Rashid, my lawyer. The Rashids are good people, have worked for me for a long time. Entirely trustworthy. Except for Narouz Rashid.”

  “Narouz Rashid is the one
at the Law School?”

  “Yes. The bright one of the family. And the most untrustworthy. Mark that, my dear fellow! The two go together. Education is a bad thing and should be confined to those too stupid to benefit from it. That is why I only send dull boys up to Cairo to be educated. That is why—”

  “Yes, yes. Did you send Narouz Rashid to be educated?”

  “No. The Rashid family had more or less left my estate. They had set themselves up independently in Cairo. That was even before I inherited. Of course, they still worked for us, were still heavily dependent on us. But by then they could pay for their own education.”

  “And they all went to the Law School?”

  “It is, after all, the only place. If you want to become a lawyer.”

  “And Narouz?”

  “Went there too. Paid for by his grandfather. A clever boy, as I said. Too clever by half. He had ideas of his own. ‘Haround,’ I said, ‘this boy is dangerous. He will end up by getting you all in trouble. Take my advice and get rid of him.’ Well, of course, they did. Very sensibly.”

  “Let us get this straight,” said Owen. “You make them get rid of him; and yet he now works for you?”

  “On commission. On occasional commission. You don’t make much money as a lecturer at the Law School. I bear him no ill will.”

  “The question is,” said Owen, “does he bear you ill-will?”

  Ali Osman regarded him thoughtfully. “It would appear so,” he said, “wouldn’t it?”

  “Tell me about the commissions.”

  Ali Osman spread his hands and shrugged.

  “Very well,” he said, “if you must know. Narouz Rashid has links with a wide variety of Nationalist groups. The sort of groups that are not officially part of the Nationalist Party. The sort of groups that the Nationalist Party likes to steer clear of. At a time like this such groups can be useful. They will cause trouble on the streets. If you pay them.”

  “And you were paying them?”

  “Rashid was paying them. I was merely providing the money.”

  “And what exactly were you paying them for?”

  “He was paying them,” corrected Ali Osman. “I was providing the money. What I wanted was trouble in the streets. You know, at public meetings and processions and demonstrations. Not too much, naturally. Just enough to worry the Khedive. And to embarrass the Nationalists.”

  “And that was as far as it was to go?”

  Ali Osman looked at him soberly. “That, I swear, was as far as it was to go.”

  Owen thought it over.

  “The other,” said Ali Osman, “was something he added for himself.”

  Owen was still thinking. He felt half inclined to believe Ali Osman. The other half, however, said that here was someone who would cheerfully use others for his own advantage and would not be too particular about what happened to anyone who got in his way.

  “Very well,” he said, “I shall put you to the test. You will go to the Citadel exactly as arranged. You will carry on as if you knew nothing. My men will be in the crowd. You will have nothing to fear.”

  “I certainly hope so,” said Ali Osman.

  “And if we pick up those two men I shall perhaps be disposed to take a lenient view of your actions. Some of them,” he added, remembering the slave-trading and gunrunning.

  Ali Osman bowed his head in acquiescence.

  “And Rashid?”

  “There, too. I shall need your help.”

  Ali Osman smiled thinly. “It will be given,” he said, “with the very greatest of pleasure.”

  ***

  Mahmoud rang.

  “I’ve seen him,” he said.

  “Rashid?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked me to throw a bomb. At the group of Pashas which would assemble in the Citadel.”

  “He actually asked you? Straight out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ve got him,” said Owen exultantly.

  “Don’t pick him up just on my say-so. He could always claim he hadn’t meant it. Been testing me or something. Wait till I’m actually given the bomb.”

  “When will that be?”

  “At the Citadel.”

  “Someone will give it you?”

  “Yes. Elbawi.”

  “Elbawi!”

  “Yes. He doesn’t know yet. He thinks he’s just there to give a signal when Ali Osman’s arabeah arrives. Just before he sets out he’ll be given a package to deliver.”

  “Will Rashid be there?”

  “In person, you mean? I don’t know.”

  “I’ll put someone on him. We want to know where he is so that we’ll be able to pick him up immediately.”

  “Someone good.”

  “Someone very good,” said Owen.

  He thought for a moment.

  “Is the shooting still going to go ahead?”

  “Ali Osman? Yes. But that’s just a decoy. They are going to see that his arabeah gets delayed so that he arrives last. The others will all have assembled. They will hear the shots and then when everyone is rushing around I will be able to get close and throw the bomb. But I throw the bomb anyway.”

  “Are there any other permutations?”

  “Not as far as I know,” said Mahmoud.

  ***

  Owen made his dispositions carefully. There would be handpicked men in the crowd, four of them, two for each gunman. They had been given descriptions of the gunmen and had rehearsed all morning. Now they were walking up and down the street which led up to the Citadel, familiarizing themselves with the street, getting used to operating in a crowd.

  There were other men, too, only they would be held back. Owen didn’t want them getting in the way. They were there in case things went wrong. Once Ali Osman’s arabeah had gone by they would move quietly into the streets, not sealing them off—Owen didn’t want the gunmen to panic and try shooting their way out, not when there were ordinary people about—but ready to intercept as they tried to escape if things went wrong in the main street.

  Owen would join them just before things started to happen. He did not want to go down before as that would increase the chance of someone seeing him and recognizing him. He stayed in his office, quietly checking arrangements, especially those for disposing of the bomb afterwards. He wanted no accidents.

  He was just able to set off for the Citadel when the phone rang.

  The voice was so agitated that at first he could not tell who it was. Then he realized: Elbawi.

  “They’ve found out!”

  “What have they found out?” said Owen with sinking heart.

  “About Mahmoud.”

  “Tell me.”

  “That he’s—he’s working for you. They are going to kill him.”

  “I’ll get on to him right away.”

  “He’s at the Citadel.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s where it will happen. After he’s thrown the bomb.”

  “He’s not going to throw any bomb.”

  “I know. But he’ll be there. They’ll find him. And even if he doesn’t throw the bomb they’ll kill him.”

  “Who are ‘they’? Do you know?”

  “The two men.”

  “The ones who are going to kill Ali Osman?”

  “Yes. But they’re not going to kill Ali Osman now. They are going straight for Mahmoud. You’ve got to stop him before he gets there.”

  “I can’t. He’s already gone.”

  There was a silence. And then the voice said shakily: “The two men. They’ve—they’ve already gone too.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Owen couldn’t find Mahmoud.

  There on the terrace of the mosque of Mehemet Ali were the Pashas
, a little group talking quietly among themselves, pausing occasionally to look out over the marvelous view at their feet, old Cairo with its hundred minarets, the broad, gleaming sweep of the Nile, the Pyramids dyed to royal purple by the advancing sunset.

  The group was almost complete now, waiting only for Ali Osman. Owen saw Nuri glancing impatiently at his watch. The arabeah was obviously late. That part of the terrorists’ arrangements at least was going to plan.

  Mahmoud must be somewhere about. But where the hell was he?

  He wouldn’t be too far away because he had to be near enough to be able to throw the bomb. Mahmoud, stickler for accuracy that he was, had insisted on carrying out his role to the letter. That was, he had said, the only way to make sure that things happened the way they were meant to happen. Rashid would certainly have planted an observer in the crowd and if he, Mahmoud, deviated from the plan, this might alert them and cause them to deviate too.

  But where the hell was he? Owen had circled all around the terrace and he wasn’t there. He had tried the neighboring En-Nasir, a ruined mosque with a forest of pillars, all good for hiding behind, but Mahmoud was nowhere to be found.

  He walked back to the Bab el Azab gate and stood for a moment looking down at the crumbling steps which fell down to the houses below, and then up at the steep ramparts which hemmed the gate in.

  The Bab el Azab was where the Pashas’ act of remembrance would actually take place. It was there that Mehemet Ali’s troops had waited for his signal to fall on the Beys and massacre them. The gate had seen the end of an old regime. It was hoped—by the assembled Pashas—that this symbolic gathering would see the beginning of a new.

  Owen climbed up onto the ramparts to get a better view. A hundred yards away he could see Georgiades moving among the pillars of the En-Nasir. He could see others of his men. But no Mahmoud.

  He climbed down off the ramparts and walked across to Georgiades.

  “I’m going down into the street. Handle things up here, will you?”

  “They’ll be moving soon,” said Georgiades. The Pashas were beginning to stir, giving up hope of Ali Osman’s arrival.

  “Keep looking,” said Owen.

  He started walking down the street. He was looking for the two gunmen as well as for Mahmoud. He tried to recall their image to his mind, that brief glimpse he had had of them at the start of all this.