Countdown in Cairo (Russian Trilogy, The)

by Noel Hynd

  “Think about it,” Guarneri said. “A day will come when you might want to consider my offer.”

  “The answer is no,” she said. “I’m flattered, but find someone else. My answer is not going to change.”

  Federov smirked. “Remember what I said,” he reminded her. “Never say never.”

  THIRTEEN

  Thirty minutes after midnight, sitting again in his car on a quiet Calvert Street, Nagib had a great idea. Taking a sharp screwdriver from the glove compartment and pushing it into his belt, he turned to Rashaad and said, “Wait for me. I’ll be back.”

  Nagib stepped out of the car and took a slow walk around the periphery of the building. The Calvert Arms took half the block on its side of the street, and there was an entrance to its garage around the corner.

  He walked back and forth for about twenty minutes, keeping a wary eye out for those nosy cops who had given him a cross-eyed look the previous night. He strolled until he saw a car stop in front of the access to the parking garage. Now it was almost 1:00 a.m. The driver used a remote device to open the garage. The big steel door opened and allowed the car to enter.

  Nagib drifted to the entrance door. Just when the automatic door was almost shut, he ducked inside, quiet as an eel in shallow water. There! He was in the building and the driver who had unknowingly let him in had already moved down to the lower level to park.

  Perfect!

  Nagib searched along the high part of the walls for security cameras. He didn’t see any. That was good too. He found a remote area of the garage, ducked down between cars, and waited till he was convinced he was alone. His gun was in his belt in case he encountered serious trouble.

  No one came by, no one saw him. Not a single car moved. As he waited, he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on.

  Toward 1:45 a.m., he rose. He circulated among some of the more remote cars and found several that were dirty and covered with dust. Obviously, these cars rarely moved. If he took something from one of these cars and did it neatly, no one might notice for a week or two, maybe even longer, judging by some of the dust.

  He moved from car to car, keeping low, ever attentive for the sound of anyone intruding. He looked into various cars until he found what he wanted in an old Mercedes-Benz nestled into one of the corners on the lower of the garage’s two levels. He knew his Benzes because he had been a mechanic early in his life. He had worked on old Mercedes diesels, the now-vintage 230s, 240s, and 300s, which were common where he grew up. This one appeared to be a 1980 or thereabouts, a 300 D, a dependable old Teutonic workhorse.

  So this too was perfect. Judging by the dirt on the Benz’s windshield, judging by the way the tires were slightly “down,” this old silver-blue baby rarely moved. Nagib looked on the dashboard near the VIN number to see if there was an alarm. He saw none. God was smiling on Nagib tonight, he reasoned. This car was like an engraved invitation.

  He wedged the sharp screwdriver between the driver’s side doorframe and the door. He pried, parallel to the lower part of the window. He created an opening of about half an inch.

  With his other hand, he took a looped strip of hard plastic from his pocket and slid it through the small passageway. He dropped the loop on the peg of the lock.

  He pulled it tight. Then he pulled it sideways and upward. It fought him a little and he had to squeeze his fingers between the door and the frame. But the peg of the lock popped up. The car was unlocked.

  Nagib released the screwdriver, reached to the door handle, and opened the door.

  He slid in. He reached to the sun visor on the right side and removed what he had spotted from the outside: a remote clicker that he assumed operated the garage door. There was also some money between the seats. He took some of that too, but not all of it. All of it would have alerted the owner to the break-in, and he didn’t want that.

  He checked the glove compartment, just out of curiosity, and looked at the car registration. The car belonged to a woman who lived in the building. The name meant nothing, but he prowled through the other paperwork, one eye on the rest of the garage in case some busybody intruded.

  He found a few letters and some photographs. The woman’s name was Helen Jacobus, and she seemed to be a retired teacher. Good. She was older and apparently widowed. Nagib noted her name in case it might help him sometime. He stole some of the mail, just enough to have a record of the address, in case he ever wanted to steal an identity or break in again. There was also a twenty-dollar bill and two fives. Emergency money. He couldn’t resist. He helped himself to that too.

  The woman lived in Apartment 303. Now if anyone ever asked him why he was in the building or hanging around it, he had a name he could use immediately, enough to allow getaway time.

  Helen wasn’t the woman he was here to kill. A much younger, more troublesome woman held that honor. But Helen might be his unwitting accomplice.

  Nagib pocketed what he needed from the car and locked the doors from within. Then he closed the car door. The damage done to the door and door frame by his break-in was almost nonexistent. It would take a close examination to tell how the break-in had occurred. And by that time, he theorized, his business at the Calvert Arms would be complete.

  He pulled off his latex gloves. He walked back through the driving lanes to the garage door at street level. He pressed the button on his new remote and the sliding door opened.

  This was fantastic! He now had access to the entire building whenever he wanted it. There was no doubt in his mind that this would be more productive than sitting in his car for days on end, waiting.

  He was pleased with himself and his accomplishment for the evening. He went back to the old Taurus on the street where Rashaad waited.

  “Tomorrow,” Nagib said. “Tomorrow I’ll get her.”

  Then they gave up their watch for the evening. By any account, however, their day had been a success.

  FOURTEEN

  Alex checked out of the Gotham by 9:00 a.m. the next morning and took the Lexington Avenue subway down to Wall Street. The office building where her interview would be held was in the new enclave of federal offices at Liberty Place.

  She took the elevator to the fifty-sixth floor where two different representatives of the United States Treasury interviewed her, first in English and then, because it had bearing on the eventual assignment, in Spanish.

  The job in question was similar to what she was already doing, but she would be a department head. Most of the anticrime and antifraud work would be against operations launched from Central and South America. Given her expertise in the field, she was a natural for the assignment, although there were currently no women holding similar “senior” posts around the country. She would be the first, an idea that attracted her. She would also be the youngest, the interviewer mentioned. That flattered her too.

  Part of the job would entail fieldwork, on-the-spot investigations, and probably a good deal of travel. Some of it would be dangerous. In some instances she would be working with local law enforcement in places like Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Chile. She would be required to carry a weapon on the job if only for her personal safety. The opponents would be some very dirty people. She noted that there was nothing new about that, she was already carrying a gun. She knew the drill.

  She felt drawn to the job and repelled by it at the same time. One part of her was a poet and philosopher, the part that wanted to settle into a village like Barranco Lajoya and bring peace and civilization to people who had never known it. The other part of her was the righteous warrior, the woman who could pull on jungle fatigues or navigate through a rough inner city, a woman who could carry a weapon, use it, and go after the malefactors of the world where they lived.

  She was often torn as to which was the dominant part of her personality. When there was too much violence and action, she longed for tranquility. When things were too calm, like now, she longed for activity.

  The interviews were rigorous. They took tw
o hours. But afterward, Alex left feeling that she had interviewed well. Then again, as she rode the subway back uptown to Pennsylvania Station, where she would take the afternoon Metroliner back to Washington, she knew that the government was interviewing several dozen highly qualified men and women for various jobs at the New York FinCEN office. She was just one of several, she reasoned, despite Joseph Collins’s high opinion. One never knew whether a personal favor or connection would pull through a long-shot applicant.

  Well, that’s fine, she told herself. If the position is offered, I’m going to take it. If not, there will be something else. No point to get hung up on it.

  The express train back to DC left on time. She relaxed again into her novel on the trip back to Washington. In the evening, she went by the gym to swim twenty laps and burn off the nervous energy from the trip.

  She was back home at the Calvert Arms by 10:00 p.m.

  FIFTEEN

  Shortly after 11:00, as the Saudi waited in the getaway car down on the street, Nagib walked down the fifth floor corridor at the Calvert Arms. The corridor was long and carpeted with thick plush runners, making his footfall all but undetectable. He had pulled the neck of a turtleneck sweater up over the lower part of his face and kept a wool cap down low.

  These people who lived in this building, these wealthy Americans, he thought to himself. They all had peepholes. And who knew when some old busybody who couldn’t sleep, or some young girl with a boyfriend, was going to look out into the hall.

  Or, as had happened before, some night owl would step out to send a bag of kitchen garbage down the chute or go outside to smoke a cigarette. Americans were unpredictable. They were a disorderly, hypocritical population with a disorderly, hypocritical society. It was just one of many reasons why he hated them. Nonetheless, he had his assignment. He would complete it, get paid, and have his family come and join him in London.

  He had his pistol tucked under his sweatshirt. It was at the small of his back with the safety catch on. He knew if someone looked out of one of those pesky peepholes and saw a man with a gun, the DC police would be called. There was a chance that the police would respond to the call, and then his whole assignment would be compromised. As it was, he was in the country illegally. They would do a background check, and who knew where he would land? So, literally, better not to show his hand until he was ready to use it.

  He arrived at the apartment he wanted. Fortune smiled. The door to 506 was at a bend in the hallway where the corridor took a turn in a different direction. So he could lurk in the corner and none of the other peepholes could view him.

  He stooped down and took a reading on his situation. Under the door to 505, there was darkness. Under the door to 506, the same. No music, no voices, not even the sound of a distant footfall. As he cocked his head, all he could hear was the distant steady rumble of Washington traffic.

  He stood. He reached behind his back and pulled out his weapon. He wondered how much effort it would take to kick the door in. He theorized: if the young woman he wanted to kill was with a man—who knew?—maybe the man would have a gun and come out shooting.

  Nagib did not know the layouts to these apartments either. If only his victim would step out quietly, Nagib could just stick his gun to her face and finish her with one pop.

  But he knew better than to count on wishful thinking.

  He looked at the doorknobs, first the one to 506, then to 505. They were solid-looking knobs. The building was maybe fifty years old, he reasoned, but the closing and locking apparatus was much newer.

  Nagib had once killed a man in Egypt whose door could be pushed in with a steady shoulder. In Munich, he had once gone into a dissident Iranian’s apartment as part of an execution team. The victim had piled furniture against the door from the inside, but the locks had given up virtually the moment Nagib and his team looked at them.

  He hoped for the same here.

  He put one powerful hand on the knob to 506 and gripped it. Then he turned. He held the pistol aloft in his other hand, the safety catch off. He squeezed the knob hard and twisted it. He turned it hard. He turned it with all his strength and waited for the snap that would be like music from heaven, a sign from God. He squeezed and turned so hard that the veins started to pulse on the side of his neck.

  He wanted to hear the snap. Where was it?

  It wouldn’t come.

  He cursed. The lock had held.

  He released the knob from his hand.

  He withdrew slightly. He looked in all directions. The coast remained clear.

  He reached to his sleeve where he hid a burglar’s picking pin in the material of his sweatshirt just above his right forearm. He pulled the pin out, crouched down, and went to work picking the lock. If he could just get one or two of the tumblers within the lock to cooperate, he was home free.

  The sweat poured off him as he worked. The hallway remained quiet. He attempted to pick the lock for several minutes. It was so quiet that he could hear the soft rattling and scratching from within the lock. He heard a couple of faint clicks, two and maybe even a third. A good sign.

  He stood and tried the knob again.

  He tried with all the strength in his hand. Then he tucked the gun into his belt and tried with two hands.

  Still nothing. The lock held. He sighed. He cursed to himself. He stepped back.

  Then, about fifty feet behind him down the hall, a door opened. Nagib heard music and voices. Two men, two women, laughing, talking loudly, as if a social gathering was breaking up.

  Then they were joined by more.

  He turned away from them and away from the doors where he stood. He walked in the opposite direction, keeping his head low so no one would see his face, and one hand on his pistol in case someone did.

  He arrived at the door that led to the emergency staircase. He ducked into the stairwell and hurried back down. He was sure no one had seen him. But he wasn’t sure whether he’d be back again that night.

  Two minutes later, Nagib was downstairs in the garage. He listened to his own footsteps echo as he walked to the automatic door. He used his remote clicker to open it and walked outside.

  His assistant sat in the car, waiting, the engine running. Nagib slid into the passenger’s side in the front seat. The door had been unlocked. His cohort looked to him, unable to tell by his expression whether he had killed anyone or not.

  “I can’t get into the apartment,” he said. “Next time we see her on the street, we take her out then.”

  Rashaad maintained a steely expression. He let a minute pass and didn’t move.

  “She’s there tonight,” he said softly. “I saw her go in.”

  Nagib drew a long breath and exhaled.

  “It’s quiet down here; it’s a rainy night,” Rashaad said. “It’s perfect.”

  Nagib eased back. “Okay. We wait a little. Then I’ll go in again.”

  SIXTEEN

  Alex was about to change and shower for bed when her doorbell rang. It gave her pause. Normally, visitors didn’t show up at the door unexpectedly, and they never did this late. Her friends normally knew better to drop in on her unannounced.

  She glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes past 11:00 p.m. Who was in the hall?

  An emergency of some sort? She wondered. A problem in the building?

  She stood and walked to the door. She thought of taking her weapon with her. One could never be too careful in her line of work, but she decided against it, maybe out of pure laziness.

  She arrived at the door and looked through the peephole. A little wave of relief swept across her. It was her neighbor, Mr. Thomas, the older gentleman she affectionately called “Don Tomás,” the retired diplomat. He was definitely a friend.

  With him stood a young woman, a girl maybe a third his age.

  Alex suppressed a mischievous smirk. Maybe the old boy wanted to borrow a bottle of champagne. Then she suppressed her smile, undid the latch, and opened the door.

  Immediately, be
fore Alex could speak, Don Tomás held up a finger to his lips to indicate silence. Then he spoke in a barely audible whisper.

  “Good evening, Alex,” he said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” His tone was serious. She picked up on it right away.

  She shook her head to indicate that, no, he was not disturbing her at all.

  “I have some new music that I downloaded,” he said, continuing a low tone tinged with a conspiratorial air. “I wondered if you’d like to come over and take a listen. Some of them might be of interest to you. I’d be glad to lend you a few of my bootleg CDs if you’d like to rip them.”

  Alex was about to open her mouth to respond softly when Don Tomás moved his firm finger from his lips to a few inches in front of Alex’s. At the same time, the young woman held forth a note scrawled on the open pages of a writing tablet.

  Alex glanced at it and her eyes widened. Her heart skipped as she read. The note said,

  I used to work for the CIA

  I once planted a listening

  device in your apartment

  I think it’s still there

  Alex raised her gaze and looked into the girl’s eyes. The girl looked frightened and agitated, hunted, like a doe in deer season. Her appearance also rang a distant bell to Alex. It took a second, but Alex realized that she was Don Tomás’s niece. Her name was Janet; Alex had seen her from time to time in the building and had even been introduced briefly once in the hallway.

  Abruptly, Janet turned the page of the writing tablet and presented a second written message.

  I used to work for Michael Cerny

  We need to talk

  Alex blinked in surprise and looked back up. She saw more fear in the girl’s eyes.

  Alex raised her own finger to indicate they should wait for a moment. She ducked back into her apartment, found her pistol, and clipped it to the right side of the belt on her jeans. Then she returned to her door and followed her neighbor across the hallway to his place.