His hand on his heart, al-Afghani promptly answered:
“If he is an enemy of God, he is my enemy as well.”
“I’ll tell you what’s involved. It must be done quickly.”
Shalubi had decided he couldn’t allow a CIA agent near Ibrahim al-Senussi, especially since the man also knew the Libyan’s lover. All infidel women were whores, so maybe she was his lover as well. Shalubi didn’t know exactly what al-Senussi was doing in Cairo, but he clearly had to be protected from “pollution.” So Shalubi had decided he would eliminate the CIA man without raising the issue with the Libyan Brothers. He was sure they would approve.
All he had to do was prepare the trap.
Sprawled on a deck chair by the fifth-floor swimming pool, Malko tried to concentrate on the Financial Times, which predicted nothing but economic catastrophes in the coming weeks. The forced inactivity of this assignment was starting to weigh on him.
Jerry Tombstone’s romantic gambit seemed to be stalled. He must have assumed that Malko could seduce every woman he met at a mere glance. Cynthia Mulligan was certainly gorgeous, and she seemed to find him attractive, but the young Brit was sticking awfully close to her Libyan shadow.
Just then, the two of them appeared. Al-Senussi was wearing a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts, Cynthia a pareo skirt slit up the side. As they made for their usual pool cabana, she shot Malko a quick look. It was nice for his self-esteem but not enough for his plan.
Back to the Financial Times.
The sun got hotter, and Malko was beginning to feel like a lobster in a pot of boiling water.
That morning, he’d had a short talk with Tombstone. In his calm, slow voice, the station chief reminded him that he had to be patient and that their business was important enough for the restless Austrian to hang in there. He also pointed out that being forced to loll in the sunshine in a palace was hardly a nightmare, whereas he was being constantly badgered by Langley, demanding updates.
The door to the hotel opened again. This time it was the couple Malko had seen the day before. The woman was still draped in her niqab, and her likely husband led her by the fingertips, looking as serious as a pope. There was no danger of them taking a dip in the pool. They ordered fruit juices and settled in.
It was now almost one o’clock. From time to time, Malko glanced toward the cabana where Cynthia and her lover sat relaxing in the shade of the canvas awning.
As he was watching, al-Senussi picked up his phone to answer a call. Malko couldn’t hear what he was saying, and it was probably in Arabic, anyway.
The conversation was a short one. Al-Senussi put away his phone with a look of annoyance. Then he stood and put on his T-shirt, walked past Malko, and disappeared inside the hotel. Intrigued, Malko waited ten or fifteen minutes. When al-Senussi didn’t reappear, he strolled over to the cabana.
“I’m not bothering you, am I?” he said. “Your friend …”
Cynthia was reading a magazine and looked up with a smile.
“He had to leave,” she said. “An urgent meeting. He said he’d be away for a few hours.”
Malko’s pulse sped up.
“Didn’t he want to take you with him?”
She smiled again.
“Oh no! He’s going to some mosque way off in Giza. It’s called al-Isti-something. Would you like to have a drink with me?”
Cynthia seemed as bored as he was.
Malko now had a dilemma. Should he stay with his assigned target, who was wearing a white Dior bikini so sexy it might have been designed by the devil himself, or follow up on al-Senussi’s unexpected meeting? Duty called, alas.
“I’m sorry, but I have a meeting, too,” he said with regret. “I hope you’ll still be here when I return.”
She gave him a meaningful look.
“In that case, hurry back,” she said lightly.
“See you later, I hope,” he said, striding off under the hot sun.
An ever-faithful sentry, Nasser was waiting in the Mercedes, and he jumped out when Malko approached. With his bushy eyebrows and Saddam Hussein mustache, he really does look scary, thought Malko. A human bulldog.
“Do you know a mosque in the Giza area called Isti-something?”
“Sure. The al-Istiqama, on Giza Square. It’s very well known.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s Muslim Brotherhood territory.”
“Did you see our ‘client’ go by?”
“Yeah, about five minutes ago. He took a taxi.”
“All right, let’s go to the mosque. Is it far?”
“If we make good time, a half hour, inshallah.”
Malko didn’t know if following al-Senussi would turn up anything useful, but the man’s impromptu meeting intrigued him.
Karim Akhdar consulted his fake Rolex. The blond foreigner he’d been watching had left the hotel fifteen minutes earlier, following Ibrahim al-Senussi. Akhdar dialed a number, said a few words, and stowed the phone in his djellaba pocket.
“We’re going home,” he said to his wife. “It’s getting hot.”
His day’s work was done.
“There’s the mosque,” Nasser said as they headed down a ramp to an open space with a kind of market and a bus terminal with a line of green buses. Beyond it, a small mosque stood next to a massive white telephone company building topped by a giant antenna.
Nasser parked by the telecom building and turned to Malko.
“Want me to see if I can find him?”
“No, I’ll go myself.”
Malko had noticed several other foreigners in a small crowd at the mosque’s entrance and figured he wouldn’t stand out too much. The building had a modest blue-and-white facade with a row of columns. A side entrance led to a hospital that the Muslim Brotherhood had built behind it.
A loudspeaker brayed a constant stream of prayers, interrupted with loud cries of “Allahu akbar.”
And there were the money changers, right in front of the temple!
A young man was hawking stacks of prayer CDs under a big blue umbrella with an incongruous Nivea logo. Next to him, another man was selling socks and underwear. Yet another stand sold books. A few tourists were taking pictures under the watchful eyes of two hulking bearded men wearing djellabas and skullcaps, one white, the other brown.
They didn’t exactly look like fans of representative democracy.
A little farther on, a dozen Egyptian soldiers in their pancake-flat red berets and GK bulletproof vests were guarding the mosque. Under the current government, the Muslim Brothers clearly had an inside track.
Malko paused, unsure what to do next. He didn’t see al-Senussi anywhere, and the two big bearded men kept looking at him, clearly wary of infidels.
The one wearing the brown skullcap, who had glasses, came over with a smile, hand on his heart.
“Salaam alaikum,” he said. “Are you interested in our activities? Are you a journalist?”
“Just a tourist,” Malko assured him. “I’m out for a walk.”
“If you are one of the People of the Book, you can visit the mosque.”
Malko politely declined. While the bearded man was talking, a crowd of Arabs had gathered to listen.
“Are you the imam of the mosque?” Malko asked.
“Oh no, I don’t have enough education for that,” said the man with a modest smile. “I’m just a helper, eager to serve Allah.”
The flood of words continued to pour from the loudspeakers overhead. It was both good-natured and scary: an unstoppable machine. These people’s certainties are rock solid, thought Malko. They don’t ever pass up a chance to proselytize.
“Come inside and visit the mosque,” the bearded man repeated.
Malko yielded to his insistence. Led by his minder, he climbed the steps and took off his shoes at the entrance.
It was cool inside the mosque, with a lighted panel on the left announcing the schedule of the day’s various prayers. A few men prayed or meditated, leaning against co
lumns. One lay curled up on the floor, sound asleep, some poor soul who’d come to get out of the heat.
“Many people come to this mosque because of the hospital that we run next door,” the big man whispered. “We do a lot of good work here. Would you like to visit the hospital?”
Malko politely declined.
Of al-Senussi, not a sign. Malko’s trip had been a complete waste of time. He should’ve stayed by the pool and flirted with the lovely Cynthia.
He began to feel comfortable only after he got his shoes back on and was free of his minder.
There were more people in front of the mosque now, clustered around the open-air stands under the dull gaze of the soldiers. Malko walked down the steps toward them.
Abdul Gabal al-Afghani was lurking in the crowd, watching the mosque steps. His right hand gripped the horn handle of a long dagger he’d sharpened for the occasion.
He could have followed his victim into the mosque, but it was a grave sin to kill a man in the House of God. Even an infidel. And if nothing else, al-Afghani was a man of deep faith. It was the only thing that kept him going in this shitty life, where he worked like a dog for a few hundred Egyptian pounds. His only joy was getting his wife pregnant every year.
He gradually made his way toward the mosque. The foreigner had come down the steps and was mixing with the crowd. Al-Afghani followed, every fiber of his being drawn taut toward his goal: accomplishing the will of God.
In moments, he was behind the man he had come to kill, who was headed for the telecommunications building. A few more steps and al-Afghani would be almost close enough to touch him. With a casual gesture, he drew the dagger from his djellaba pocket and laid it along his thigh. The crowd was so dense, nobody noticed. He had killed this way before, jamming the blade in the victim’s kidneys, then yanking it out. If the knife got stuck, he left it in the wound.
This was a working-class neighborhood, and al-Afghani knew he would have no trouble losing himself in the crowd afterward. He had already spotted a little shawarma stand on the avenue above the mosque where he could lie low until the excitement died down.
He got still closer, his victim’s back now just a few feet away.
Holding his dagger horizontally, he lunged. But habit was stronger than caution, and before striking he yelled, “Allahu akbar!” at the top of his lungs.
Startled by the scream, Malko spun around to find himself facing a bearded man with a beaked nose and wild eyes, thrusting a dagger at his stomach like a lance.
In a blur of motion, the swordsman slashed at his belly.
Nasser kept an eye on Malko constantly, except for one brief period, when he went into the mosque. He was in no danger there, Nasser knew. In the Islamic world there are rules that are never broken, even in jihad.
When the Austrian came out, Nasser stayed in the crowd but eased closer to him. He was only a few yards away when he noticed a man shoving bystanders aside, apparently eager to get through. That caught the veteran cop’s attention, and a moment later he spotted the long dagger the man was holding in his right hand down along his djellaba. Nasser pushed someone out of his way to get behind him. He wasn’t armed, but his size gave him an advantage over the man with the dagger, who was now less than a yard from Malko.
Suddenly, everything happened at once. As al-Afghani reached out to stab his victim and gave his cry, “Allahu akbar!,” Nasser sprang and grabbed him from behind.
The two men fell to the ground, struggling.
The would-be killer fought like the devil. He lost a sandal, tried to punch Nasser, then leaped to his feet, still holding his dagger. He had another chance to kill Malko, who was only a few feet away. But when he went to strike, Nasser slammed his wrist with a karate chop, making him drop his weapon.
One of the big bearded helpers was howling like an air-raid siren, yelling to the soldiers for help.
Al-Afghani fought his way free of the crowd and sprinted away, dodging between the buses in the terminal. Nasser tried to follow, but two soldiers grabbed him, thinking he was the attacker.
In shock, Malko stared at the dagger lying on the ground. It had almost gone into his belly. A voice at his ear made him jump.
“Are you hurt, brother?”
The tall helper with the brown skullcap was looking at him with concern.
“No, I’m okay,” said Malko. “But I don’t know why that man tried to stab me.”
“He’s a fanatic. Some people think infidels shouldn’t be allowed in the mosques, that it’s a sin. That’s wrong, of course. You have to forgive them.”
The soldiers had come over by now and were standing around, having released the Mukhabarat agent. In a loud voice, the tall helper ordered them back to their pointless guard duties. Then he took Malko by the elbow and said, “Come with me. A glass of tea will help settle your nerves.”
He was holding Malko so tightly there was no point in arguing. The two of them climbed a few steps and entered a kind of sacristy. It was a hot, dusty cubicle with benches along the wall and a large repoussé copper tray on a stand. A boy appeared, and the bearded helper shouted something at him.
He came back moments later with two glasses of sweetened tea.
Malko took a sip, grateful to relieve his thirst. But his brain was in a whirl, and he was furious.
By mentioning this meeting, sweet Cynthia Mulligan had cold-bloodedly sent him to his death! But then Malko caught himself, ashamed of his suspicions. For her to do that, she would have had to know where the meeting was, which wasn’t likely. And she couldn’t have expected Malko to go chasing after her lover.
One thing was clear, however: someone who knew who Malko was had counted on his doing just that. A clever gambit, and it very nearly worked.
Malko set down his glass.
“Thank you for your kindness,” he said, standing up.
“Please come back whenever you like,” said the bearded man, without a hint of irony.
Outside, the crowd had dispersed, the soldiers were in the shade again, and the dagger that had nearly killed him had vanished. Malko walked over to find the Mercedes empty. Looking around, he realized Nasser had disappeared. The keys were in the ignition, but Malko didn’t feel up to driving in Cairo. Besides, he was sure to get lost.
Malko took out his cell phone and called him.
The Mukhabarat agent was standing in front of a store window full of shoes, across the street from a chicken and lamb shawarma stand. A single customer was at the counter: Malko’s attacker.
It was Nasser’s doggedness as a cop that helped him find the man, and even then, it was almost by accident. Once the soldiers released him, he ran in the direction the fleeing man had gone, taking the stairs beyond the bus terminal up to busy Sharia el-Aram.
He found himself in a dense crowd, unsure what to do next. The man he was chasing was probably long gone, he thought. Just the same, he decided to walk as far as a bus stop a few hundred yards away; Islamists often used public transit, he knew.
It was while walking down the sidewalk that Nasser spotted the man he was after. He was at a shawarma stand, calmly having a bite to eat!
Nasser immediately stationed himself on the other side of the street. He stayed hidden in the crowd, determined to follow him.
Just then his cell phone rang.
Recognizing Malko’s voice, Nasser said:
“I found the man who tried to kill you, and I’m following him. You can take a taxi back to the hotel.”
By his fourth glass of tea, Ibrahim al-Senussi was seething with impatience. The man who had called him at the Four Seasons when he was with Cynthia was the same Nabil who had first taken him to meet Abu Bukatalla. On the phone he’d been terse as usual, merely telling him where to meet: in front of the al-Istiqama mosque on Giza Square. But this time he’d added that it was urgent.
Sure that this involved preparation for his trip to Libya, al-Senussi didn’t hesitate.
When they met, Nabil immediately led him up to Shari
a al-Aram, where they took a taxi to the Ramses Railway Station. They sat down in a small café, and Nabil explained that they were expecting someone who was coming from Marsa Matruh.
But the wait went on and on. Nabil kept phoning, then hanging up in disappointment.
“He hasn’t arrived yet,” he said.
Al-Senussi tried to make the best of it, while wondering how soon he could get back to the hotel.
Deep in thought, Malko watched absently as his taxi drove past gritty, crowded streets. Somebody now knew what he was doing in Cairo and had decided to kill him. That news might ruffle even Jerry Tombstone’s Olympian calm.
As his taxi pulled up in front of the Four Seasons, Malko could still see the wild eyes of the unknown man who had tried to stab him, and hear his scream ringing in his ears.
At least there was no mistaking the style of the crime.
The chill of the air-conditioned lobby did him good. Without thinking, he headed for the elevators and was about to push the button for his floor when he suddenly pushed number 5 instead.
Malko didn’t know if al-Senussi had come back to the hotel or if Cynthia Mulligan would still be by the pool. At the worst, he could have a vodka to help him unwind. The area around the pool was empty, but al-Senussi’s cabana wasn’t closed. Some things lay scattered on a low table between the two folding chairs.
He walked over to the cabana and called:
“Cynthia?”
“Who is it?” came her voice from inside.
Malko pushed aside the changing-room curtain and found himself nose to nose with the young Englishwoman. She was bending over to pick up her sunglasses and unwittingly offering her breasts as if on a tray.
Cynthia stood up, and their eyes met. It was like an electric shock. Malko was swept by an irresistible impulse. The shadow of death was still hovering around him. He’d come close to dying, which always sparked a rush of adrenaline in him and an intense hunger for life.
Cynthia was staring at him, not sure what to do.
Without a word, he cupped her breasts in his hands as if they were fruit. She was wearing only her two-piece Dior suit, and she exuded sensuality from every pore. In the blink of an eye he had her pressed against the wooden wall of the cabana, his tongue forcing her teeth apart in a furious kiss.
The Madmen of Benghazi Page 6
