The Men Behind

by Michael Pearce

  At the bottom of the street he saw Elbawi. His face was grey and miserable and he leaned shattered against a wall. He looked up dumbly as Owen arrived.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Yes,” said Elbawi.

  “Did you tell him?”

  “No,” said Elbawi wretchedly. “I—I couldn’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “He just reached out and took the bomb.”

  “Bomb!”

  “I had it. They gave it to me and I took it up the street. You told me I was to do exactly as had been arranged!”

  “OK, OK. But why the hell didn’t you speak to Mahmoud?”

  “He was behind me. He just reached past me and took it out of my hands. I looked up and he was gone.”

  “When was this?”

  “A quarter of an hour ago.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  Owen wheeled away and hurried back up the street. It had become more crowded.

  Another thought struck him. Suppose Mahmoud was actually carrying the bomb when they reached him? Suppose it exploded as he fell in a crowded street?

  He saw one of his marksmen.

  “What the hell are you doing? I thought you were supposed to be by the Pasha?”

  The man pointed.

  A little further up the street, completely hemmed in by people, was Ali Osman.

  “You’ve got to be near him!” Owen exploded.

  “Hassan and Abdul are near him. Mahboub and I stand back a little that we may watch.”

  His eyes were scanning the crowd continuously. It made good sense.

  “OK,” said Owen. “Keep going.”

  He followed Ali Osman up the street. The little knot surrounding the Pasha seemed to have come to a halt. There were cries of “Make way for the Pasha!”

  Owen squeezed past along the wall. He hadn’t envisaged it being as crowded as this. There was nothing he could do, however. He had to leave it to his marksmen.

  And Ali Osman did not really matter.

  As he passed an open doorway someone pulled at his arm. He spun around. It was Soraya. She drew him through the door.

  “Not now,” snapped Owen.

  Soraya pouted.

  “It is never now with you,” she said. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I have to find a man. Quickly!”

  “Men can wait.”

  “This one will be killed.”

  “Who is he? The fat Pasha?”

  “No. My friend.”

  “If it is your friend the Englishman, why worry?”

  “It is not my friend the Englishman. It is the Egyptian, Mahmoud.”

  “The one I saw with you yesterday? The nice one?”

  “Yes.” He pulled himself away.

  “I have seen him.”

  “Mahmoud?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Ten minutes ago.”

  He caught hold of her. “Where? Where did you see him?”

  “Climbing up the steps by the Bab el Azab.”

  “Climbing up the steps?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I was there then!”

  Soraya shrugged. “I saw him.”

  “That must have been just after I’d left.”

  “Do you want me to find him?”

  “Yes. Tell him his life is in danger. They have found out.”

  In an instant the small form was gone. Soraya, used to slipping through crowds, and knowing the street, found gaps where the bulkier Owen could find none. He pushed his way up laboriously. All the time he was looking for the gunmen.

  Where the hell was Mahmoud? And why the hell had he got the bomb with him?

  A thought struck him, a stupid thought, which he dismissed at once but which would not go away.

  Why did Mahmoud have the bomb with him? Because he meant to use it.

  Ridiculous! Stupid! Mahmoud was his friend, on his side, responsible, loyal.

  But a Nationalist.

  And he had been wronged. It wasn’t just pretense. He had fallen foul of the British authorities, he had been publicly dismissed from a case. Those in the know knew it wasn’t quite like that. But…

  Ridiculous. The man’s life was in danger because he had put it at risk. Because he felt it was his duty.

  Ridiculous. Shameful, to think such a thing. Owen reproached himself.

  He was nearly at the top of the street now. Ahead of him, yes, outlined against the beautiful twilit sky, he could see the little group of Pashas gathering at the Bab el Azab.

  They were looking down the street. One of them suddenly began to wave a hand. Then they all began waving, beckoning. Ali Osman! They must have seen Ali Osman.

  There was a shout behind him.

  Where the hell was Mahmoud? And where the hell were the two gunmen?

  Immediately in front of him there was a sudden commotion. An onion-seller’s stall had been upset by the swirl of the crowd, the stall had collapsed and the onions spilt all over the street.

  The onion seller rushed out into the crowd to recover his wares. Sundry small boys, street urchins, rushed out to pilfer. Neighboring stallholders and shopkeepers rushed out to prevent them. The upward movement of the crowd came to a halt.

  Owen found himself stumbling over onions. He bent down and put his hand against the wall to recover his balance. A slight gap opened in front of him.

  And then he saw.

  A little way ahead, moving purposefully up the street, two men, one on one side of the street, one on the other. They were in shirt and trousers and there was nothing to distinguish them from many others in the crowd. Except that they were familiar.

  He had seen them before, once briefly, when he had looked back up the street and caught, just for a second, a glimpse of the men who had been following; a second time, more clearly, much, much more clearly, when they had been following Jullians.

  He pushed a stooping stallholder out of the way and forced a passage along the wall, behind the stalls, pushing the stallholders firmly aside. He came clear of the crowd and stepped out into the street and fell in behind the men.

  They were almost at the top of the street now. Above, the ground flattened out and became the Citadel plateau.

  There was the Bab el Azab. And there, coming towards it, was the little group of Pashas, joined now by Ali Osman.

  And there, standing quietly to one side, looking aimlessly out over the vista below, right next to the edge of the rock, beside the steep fall, was Mahmoud.

  The two men in front paused slightly, exchanged glances, and then moved quickly on.

  Owen had brought his gun with him this time. He took it out.

  The men ducked suddenly behind a wall. Owen thought for a moment that they had seen him. He slipped into a doorway and then, as nothing happened, slid cautiously along to where they had disappeared.

  There was a step down to a drain and then a deep gadwall, a ditch used for carrying water, ran along beside the wall.

  The two men had dropped down into the ditch and were creeping along it. As Owen watched, they stopped, straightened up and took out their guns.

  Owen fired first.

  One of the men spun around and fell back against the side of the gadwall. The other turned. Owen saw for a moment a frenzied face.

  And then the face simply disappeared. It was as if a giant hand had reached into the gadwall and plucked it out.

  And then, as Owen watched, the second man disappeared. This time there could be no doubt about it. A hand had reached in and—plucked him out!

  Owen ran up the gadwall, put his hand on the wall, and scrambled out.

  There was a little group of people in front of him. One he recognized at once: Mahmoud. Beside him was the
slight slip of a figure that was Soraya. On the ground were two men, both still. And towering over them were two outlandish figures that seemed slightly familiar, Berbers from the south.

  One of them was holding something in his hand.

  They saw Owen and beamed.

  “Effendi!” they greeted him. “You spoiled it!”

  “Spoiled what?”

  He recognized them now: Nuri Pasha’s ruffian bodyguards.

  “The fighting. We saw them coming and would have fought with them. But then you fired!”

  “Fortunately you did not kill them.”

  “So we did.”

  “What’s that you’re holding?”

  The man looked down at his hands sheepishly. He showed the thing to Owen. A head.

  “It seems to have come off,” he said.

  ***

  The gypsy girl had reached Mahmoud. Warned by her, he had looked up and seen the two men as they were pulling out their guns.

  “I dropped flat and missed the next bit,” he said. “When I looked up there was a melée going on at the edge of the gadwall. By the time I got there it was all over.”

  “They were good,” said Soraya appreciatively. “Nuri picks his men well.”

  “I looked for you before,” Owen said to Mahmoud. “Where were you?”

  “I took the package from Elbawi,” said Mahmoud. “It really was a bomb. I didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t find your man,” he said to Owen. “I knew I had to get rid of it. I couldn’t just carry it around. Not in a crowd. So I went down the steps from the Bab el Azab and crawled around the rock and stuffed it into a crevice. It took longer than I thought.”

  “What about the reward?” said Soraya. “I found him, didn’t I?”

  Owen took out his wallet.

  “Not that!” said Soraya scathingly.

  ***

  Rashid needed to be dealt with first.

  He had not come, as Owen had half-expected he would, to the Citadel. Owen sent a man to his lodging. The agent he had posted there said that Rashid was still inside.

  “He has been there all day,” he reported, when Owen and Mahmoud arrived. “He did not go to the Law School today.”

  “Are you sure he’s there?” asked Owen. He began to feel misgivings.

  “He was there last night,” said the agent. “I saw him.”

  “He may not be there now,” said Owen. “This is the way he would have come out.”

  “Unless he used a back way.”

  “It is not easy to use the back way. And then, why should he?”

  “We’ll soon see.”

  He posted his men to cut off any attempt at escape. Then he and Mahmoud went into the block of flats, climbed up to the third floor and found Rashid’s door.

  Mahmoud tried it gently. It was locked.

  Owen called up two huge constables. They stood back from the door, braced themselves and looked at Owen expectantly.

  “One moment,” said Owen.

  He tried the door of the adjoining flat. It opened at once and he went in. A surprised man looked up at him.

  “The Mamur Zapt,” said Owen.

  He went across to the window. There was no glass, just heavy wooden shutters. He pushed them open.

  “Stand here,” he directed one of his men. “That’s his window. See if he tries to get out.”

  He went back into the corridor.

  “OK,” he said to the two large constables.

  They threw their weight against the door. It held for a moment and then burst open, spilling them inside.

  Mahmoud and Owen ran in.

  The room was empty but there was a door leading to an inner room. Mahmoud threw it open.

  Rashid was lying on the bed. There was blood all over it.

  “Throat cut,” said Mahmoud. He looked at Rashid’s hand and then under the bed. “No weapon.”

  “Someone else,” said Owen.

  The shutters were open. Owen went across and looked out.

  “Roof, I should think,” he said.

  Rashid’s jacket was hanging over the back of a chair. Mahmoud put his hand into the inside pocket.

  “Wallet still there.”

  “Not money, then.”

  “No.”

  Georgiades came in from the corridor. He saw the body and stopped.

  “Hello!” he said. “What’s this?”

  He walked across and looked at it dispassionately.

  “Professional job, I’d say.”

  He turned away and began to search the room meticulously.

  “Yes,” said Mahmoud. “I’d say that too.”

  He took up a position in the center of the room, directly in front of the bed, and began to look systematically about him.

  “Yes,” he said, after a moment. “That’s what I would say. Clean, simple cut from left to right done from behind by someone who knew how to do it. No sign of struggle, all over in a moment, very expert. Professional, as you say. And that I find a little puzzling.”

  “Why?” asked Owen.

  “No sign of struggle, door locked. Rashid must have let him in. Why, I ask myself, would Rashid let someone like that into his room?”

  “Because he wanted to employ them.”

  “A throat-cutter? Guman, yes; a potential thrower of bombs, yes. But a throat-cutter? That’s not the way political assassination works. At least, not in Cairo. I don’t think Rashid knew he was a throat-cutter and I don’t think he meant to employ him. I think he let him in because he came from somebody else. Somebody important.”

  “Yes,” said Owen. “That’s where I was, too.”

  ***

  “What if I did?” said Ali Osman. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes,” said Owen. “You can’t take the law into your own hands.”

  “The hand of the law is not always entirely consistent in Egypt,” said Ali Osman. “It’s much better to settle these things on a personal basis.”

  “So you did send him?”

  “As I said, the law is not always consistent. You cannot count on it seeing things the way you do. The injustices that can come about, my friend! And so I think we should leave the matter in doubt. You should be satisfied that Rashid is dead. I, well, when a man has attempted to kill me, I—” Ali Osman smiled like a hungry wolf—“would not expect him to live long.”

  ***

  “The trouble is,” said Owen, “that unless we find the actual killer and get him to confess, there’s not much we can do.”

  “I take it the Parquet are looking into it?” said Paul.

  “Yes. The case has been put in the hands of one Mohammed Bishari. Mahmoud says it is bound to take a long time.”

  “Is that entirely an accident, would you think?”

  “I would think some of Ali Osman’s gun-running money has found its way into the Parquet.”

  “Well,” said Paul, “it’s not strictly your business any longer, is it? The terrorist attacks have stopped, the Army is safe on the streets, God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. The Khedive still hasn’t made up his bloody mind and Ali Osman still think’s he’s going to be the next Prime Minister.”

  “It’s between him and Sa’ad.”

  “In that case it’s likely to be Ali Osman. Unless we can stop him. Can’t you get the Government to do something about the gunrunning?”

  “No. It needs someone more powerful at home. Powerful in Whitehall.”

  “Does it?” said Owen thoughtfully.

  ***

  “Good God!” said the Army. “Gunrunning!”

  “I’m afraid so. Regular caravans. Shipments in bulk.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “And all going to
the south as far as we can tell.”

  “The Sudan? Hmm, that’s dangerous. We could have another war on our hands.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “The Khalifa’s dead, of course, but there’s bound to be someone else they could rally to.”

  “Pretty tricky down there.”

  “Like tinder, old man. All it needs is a spark.”

  “And guns.”

  “By Christ, yes. And guns!”

  “Thought I’d better tell you.”

  “Absolutely right, old man. Absolutely right.”

  “The trouble is, I can’t touch him. Too powerful. Powerful friends—” Owen dropped his voice—“back at home. We need someone on our side. Someone who can speak up for us. Powerful voice. Whitehall.”

  “You can rely on us. On to it right away. Oh, and, Owen—well done! Damned smart work!”

  ***

  And so Ali Osman fell from power. The efficient political machine of the Army—efficient at politics if nothing else—had gone to work, whispering in the clubs, arguing in the corridors, questioning in the House.

  Was it true that the Khedive was proposing to appoint a notorious slave-dealer as his Prime Minister? Nonconformist souls in the Government’s ranks rose in wrath.

  And a gunrunner to boot? Some Nonconformist souls pursed their lips and muttered “Business.” Others, the pacifist conscience of the party, recoiled.

  Arming the south? That meant war. Sound Conservative heads wagged. Had our Army’s glorious conquests gone for nothing? Was the Mahdi to march again? The rot must be stopped.

  The delegation made an early return to London. Its report was unaccountably long in appearing and when it did appear its recommendations were innocuous. There were, alas, fewer opportunities of commercial benefit than had been supposed.

  Roper appeared some time later in South Africa.

  The Minister sent a telegram to the Consul-General. The Consul-General had a word in the Khedive’s ear. And Ali Osman retired speedily to his estate, this time, if not quite permanently, at least for several years. The Mamur Zapt made a point of ensuring that his years of retirement were not interrupted by further commercial considerations.

  The Pasha took his banishment hard. “It is so uncivilized down here, mon cher,” he complained in a letter to Owen, “and so uncomfortable. Cannot you intercede for me? You know I have always been a supporter of the Khedive, and of the British, of course. And, after all, didn’t I do you a favor?”