The Cairo Affair

by Olen Steinhauer

  John had been on hand to watch Egypt rise up, and Libyans had been watching it, too. Four days after Hosni Mubarak stepped down, unrest rolled through Benghazi, Libya’s second city. Protesters had been shot and kidnapped from the sidewalks, yet it went on. The protesters raided government weapon depots and went to war. Blood on the pavement, it turned out, wasn’t enough to stop history.

  More fires were raging elsewhere: Jordan, Mauritania, Sudan, Oman, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Syria, Djibouti, Morocco, Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, and the perpetual fire of Iraq. It was, John had been told by enthusiasts, a remarkable time to be alive.

  Even the Bedouins guarding the Egyptian side of the border had seemed lighthearted as they checked their passports and waved them through. “Journalists? Yes? Go, go!” Though the guards were overwhelmed by the flow of refugees and Egyptian workers returning home, their steps were buoyant. Hold on to that feeling, John wanted to tell them. Next week you’ll be dreaming about it.

  By that day, March 3, one day after the murder of an American diplomat in Budapest and two weeks after the Day of Revolt, the Libyan body count—estimated from panicked reports, anecdotes, and unreliable official statements from Tripoli—had passed a thousand. The east was in rebel hands, based in Benghazi, where revolutionary councils were optimistically setting up new local governments, while Tripoli and most of the west were still held by Muammar Gadhafi’s loyalists, who showed their allegiance by wearing green shirts and scarves. Green was Gadhafi’s color.

  Somewhere, another baby was screaming. He couldn’t find it in the crowd.

  He smelled smoke on the cool desert wind as he adjusted the wide-brimmed safari hat he’d picked up that morning in Marsa Matrouh, then examined the loose groups of men in soiled jackets and clean shirts, in robes and local headdress, talking. Families squatted in protective circles on the sand, others joining a long line heading to the Egyptian border post. There were cars parked here and there, dusty Western makes cooling off around a makeshift refreshment stand stocking warm bottled drinks and hot tea. A few yards from the stand, Jibril Aziz was talking in Arabic to three men who had come from Benghazi.

  He had picked up Jibril from the Semiramis InterContinental before dawn, as Cairo was just starting to wake up. They hadn’t met before, but the man from Langley had been interested in only the briefest of introductions. John was just a driver, after all. Jibril had sniffed at their late-nineties Peugeot before climbing in, and as they took the long coastal road, fighting heavy traffic along the way, Jibril had spent a lot of time on his smartphone, checking maps, news reports, and weather forecasts, and occasionally holding conversations in Arabic. Did he know that his driver only understood enough of the language to order a meal? John had no idea.

  It had been a long drive from Cairo. They had refueled and bought grilled lamb from a street vendor in Marsa Matrouh, where Jibril met with a short man in a red-checked ghutra for a quick coffee at an outdoor café while John bought his hat. Once the meeting was over, Jibril laid down some coins, shook the man’s hand, and nodded at John to meet him back at the car. They drove on in silence. John wanted to ask questions, but he knew his place. His only responsibility was to get this man safely to Ajdabiya, on the Gulf of Sidra. From there, a contact would take him farther, to Brega, where fighting was going on—he’d told John that much. Afterward (John guessed from the occasional proper nouns amid the Arabic), Jibril was heading toward Tripoli.

  Once inside Libya, John’s plan had been to stick to the northern coastal highway that arced westward from Tubruq, through the green cities of Derna and, inland, Al Bayda, before heading south through Benghazi to Ajdabiya. In case of trouble, they could find help. Jibril, though, was in a hurry and insisted that they take the direct but unpredictable desert road from Tubruq down to Al `Adam, then straight on to Ajdabiya, through 250 miles of desert, much of it, he guessed, with no phone reception. It had been their single subject of conversation, and the one thing they couldn’t agree on.

  When Jibril finally returned to the car, he was carrying a dirty Kalashnikov. His white shirt was clean and dry, but he had a few days’ growth on his cheeks; with another day and a change of clothes, he would be indistinguishable from these refugees. “We’re skipping the coastal road,” he told John.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “After Tubruq it’s a mess. We’ll never get through in time.”

  In time for what? John wanted to ask, but there was nothing to say. The decision had been made. So John nodded at the Kalashnikov. “How much did that cost?”

  Jibril raised the weapon, turning it over in his hands. “Hundred fifty.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Euros.”

  “How many rounds?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Does it even work?”

  Jibril looked down at the weapon and, with a flash of embarrassment, said, “That’s an excellent question.”

  John tried to hide the judgment in his face as he walked around the Peugeot and took the rifle from him, then carried it out past the road, past the groups of huddled smoking men, and into the cracked desert. Jibril followed from a distance and watched as he cleared the breech, then pulled out the banana clip and checked the cartridges. This, at least, was an area in which John had some authority. He got down into a kneeling position and adjusted the rear iron sight, raised the gun to his shoulder, and aimed into the desert at a small boulder about a hundred yards away. He fired a single shot. A couple of yards to the right of the rock, sand exploded. He adjusted the front sight, then fired again. Another burst of sand. He adjusted once more, and this time the rock went up in a burst of cloud. He carried the rifle back, noting all the stares as he approached Jibril and handed it over. “Looks all right.”

  “I could’ve done that.”

  “What if it had blown up in your face?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “I’m supposed to keep you safe. If you do get killed, it better not be for something as stupid as this.”

  During the drive toward Tubruq, weaving occasionally around stalled cars and children and goats that had broken loose, John said, “How long has it been?”

  “What, been?”

  “Since you were last here.” When he didn’t receive an answer, John said, “Langley isn’t sending in someone cold to chat with the opposition.” He hadn’t been told why Jibril was going into Libya, but with Libyan affairs the way they were, it didn’t take a foreign relations expert to figure it out.

  Jibril thought a moment, maybe considering evasions, but said, “Six years.”

  “Your contacts are still there?”

  “Some, maybe.”

  “Maybe? You’re taking one hell of a risk.”

  Jibril sucked at his lower lip. “You’re with Global Security, right?”

  John nodded.

  “You get sent somewhere for a few weeks, maybe a year, and then you go home.”

  “If I’m lucky.”

  “But you’re never permanent.”

  “I’m a temp. Sure.”

  “Then you don’t know what it’s like to find a group of people and develop them and convince them, over years, to risk their lives simply so that you can get some information.”

  As a contractor, John had spent a lot of his time being told by Agency employees what he couldn’t understand. “I do have imagination, Jibril. Why don’t you tell me what it’s like?”

  “It wouldn’t make sense to you.”

  “You owe them. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “Yeah, John. I suppose that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “And Langley agreed to this?”

  There was no reply at first, and John looked to see his passenger lost in thought, one hand gently stroking the barrel of the Kalashnikov. Finally Jibril said, “I think they trust me to make my own decisions.”

  “That’s what they’ll say if it goes south. That you were making your own decisions.”

  Jibril squinted a
head into the sinking sun. “Well, when you owe someone, you owe them. There’s no getting out of it. Not for me, at least.”

  “Sounds like a quick way to get yourself killed.”

  There were about four seconds of silence before Jibril snapped. “Fucking cynics like you ruin everything. It’s always easier to tear down than to build up, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” John asked, cynically.

  “Try being constructive for once. You might break a sweat.”

  There was no point answering that one, or answering anything. Harry Wolcott, the station chief, had made the assignment clear: Just get him to Ajdabiya. Alive. And keep your trap shut about it.

  In silence, they passed a sign in Arabic that had been spray-painted over with WELCOME TO FREE LIBYA. Neither of them wondered aloud why it was written in English, but John believed they were both thinking it. He knew he was.

  2

  They took a turnoff before Tubruq, escaping the traffic and the Mediterranean and saying good-bye to the green of coastal foliage. The low, pale hills and long flat stretches were hypnotic and at times breathtaking. Occasionally cars blew past in the opposite direction, usually stuffed with men, one full of Bedouins with rifles. Some honked loud greetings. John kept the speedometer at about 70 miles per hour, watching out for boulders that might have rolled onto the road, or been pushed, and IEDs.

  “Do you know what you’re doing once you get there?” he asked after the silence had grown tedious.

  “I know who to look for,” Jibril said. “Some will still be around.”

  “And you’ll be America’s ears in the heart of the revolution.”

  “Hardly.” Jibril scratched his long nose. “This is bigger than me, John. It’s bigger than the Agency, no matter what Langley thinks. The Agency has a bad habit of doing the right thing at the wrong time, and that won’t happen here.”

  “What does Langley think?”

  There was a pause, and again John turned to look at Jibril, but his passenger was staring out the window at the desert creeping by. He heard Jibril say, “What Langley thinks is a drop in the ocean of history.”

  John didn’t bother asking for an explanation.

  Jibril finally turned back, his expression changed. “It’s all new. Geopolitics will never be the same. Remember the Green Revolution in Iran? The Arab Spring is Green two-point-oh, and this time they’re getting it right.”

  Green, John thought.

  “And until they invite us in,” Jibril continued, “we’ve got no business being here at all.”

  “So why are you risking your life?”

  He pinched his nose. “The point, John, is intelligence. Everything starts with a conversation. That’s how you show respect.”

  He’d said that with an edge of disdain, but John was used to it. He’d been around long enough to know that most of the Agency viewed contractors as backwoods militia nuts, weekend soldiers disappointed by the drudgery of real life, by failed marriages and failed lives. Not that they were entirely wrong—it was just a point of prejudice with them. But Jibril Aziz was being opaque and contradictory. He certainly wasn’t the first Agency representative heading in to have a chat with the Libyan opposition—so what, really, was he going on about? He was acting as if he were the linchpin that would decide the fate of the entire nation.

  “You get me there,” Jibril said. “That’s all you’ve got to worry about.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’ve got to get out again.”

  After passing a few tin buildings, they reached Al `Adam, a desert town on a limestone plateau. Had they continued to the southern end of town, they would have reached Gamal Abdul El Nasser Air Base, which had once launched Allied planes against the Nazis. But Jibril wasn’t interested in planes. He directed John to a small, dusty gas station—generic, no oil company logo on its sign—where they went inside and leaned against a counter, and Jibril held a conversation with the station manager. He ordered two Nescafés. As they were drinking, a tall, very dark Bedouin wearing sand-colored robes and an old pistol in his belt wandered into the station. John tensed. They’d left the Kalashnikov in the car. But Jibril stood, crying, “Salaam,” and the Bedouin strode briskly over. The two men embraced, even touching noses—they were old friends. The Bedouin broke out a huge smile, exposing a lost front tooth, and they walked outside, leaving John to the bad coffee. As he waited, gazing out the dirty windows at two children, no older than five, on the other side of the dusty road teasing a dog, the station manager returned to eyeball him, so John used hand signals to order some stale butter cookies with almonds the manager called ghrayba.

  Jibril returned on his own, carrying a leather-bound book about a foot tall, then paid for the coffee, cookies, and gas. In the car, he put the book into the glove compartment, and they headed west into the chilly, open desert, the only landmark a long ridge of dunes in the distance. To reach Ajdabiya on the gulf, they were looking at three hours, minimum, along a road that was sometimes hidden by drifts of sand, but John at least understood why they were taking it. Jibril hadn’t been concerned about traffic along the coast; he’d just wanted to meet his contact in Al `Adam.

  After a while John noticed the engine temperature rising, so he turned on the heater, which seemed to help. Jibril opened the glove compartment and took out the Bedouin’s book. It was a journal, primitive-looking with hand-sewn binding. “Can you do something for me, John?” The judgement was gone from his voice.

  “Shoot.”

  Jibril tapped the book with an index finger. “If I die, I’d like you to destroy this.”

  “If you die, I’ll give that to the embassy.”

  “No. I need a promise from you, or you can drop me off right here. If I die, then you will take this out into the desert and burn it.”

  John gave him a look. He was serious. “What is it?”

  “Just names. But if this gets into the wrong hands, all of these people are dead.”

  “What’s the wrong hands?”

  “Anybody’s except mine.”

  “Including the Agency’s?”

  “Just burn the papers and pretend you never saw them. Can you promise?”

  There seemed no point denying him this, so John made the promise. If Jibril died, then it was a dying man’s final wish. If he survived, then John could console himself with the knowledge that he’d lied. If they both died, then it wouldn’t matter.

  “On your mother’s life,” Jibril said.

  “My mother’s dead.”

  A pause. “On your children’s lives. You have children?”

  “I’ve promised, Jibril. That’s enough.”

  Jibril he waited a moment before nodding and putting the book back into the glove compartment. “It’s not just intelligence,” he said.

  “Of course it isn’t,” John agreed, though once again he wasn’t entirely sure what the man was talking about.

  Jibril said, “In 1993, my father was part of an attempted coup by the Libyan army. Beforehand, he sent me, my sister, and our mother to Florida to stay with relatives. Next time we heard from him, it was by phone, and he told us the Revolutionary Guard was at the door. He wasn’t striking some metaphor—we heard them banging against his office door as he screamed good-bye to us down the line. I was fifteen. With outside assistance, that coup might have succeeded, but it didn’t, and the outcome was that my father was tortured and beheaded in a basement in Tripoli. We know this because an agent of the Libyan Intelligence Service showed up in Florida to share photographs of my father—before, during, and after the beheading.”

  There wasn’t anything to say to that, so John only watched the unchanging landscape.

  “In that situation,” Jibil said, “we might have been able to do some good, because the coup was doomed to failure. Every year since then, the Agency could have helped the opposition topple Gadhafi. But this year the situation is different. This year, the people are rising en masse. Nothing can stop them. We can supply them with weapons; we can send
in food. But this year the revolution is theirs, and theirs alone. They deserve it.”

  “Sounds like you’re splitting hairs,” John said before realizing that Jibril wasn’t interested in his opinion. This was a lecture, not a conversation. A hard silence followed, and when he finally glanced over, he saw the back of Jibril’s head as he stared out his dirty window. He said something John couldn’t hear. “What?”

  Jibril turned back, but there was no anger in his face. “I told you it’d been six years since I was here. It didn’t end well. I was blown, and some of the people in this book ended up as dead as my father. I made mistakes, and those mistakes killed good people. I don’t want that to happen again.” He paused. “You’ll burn it, right?”

  “I said I would.”

  “Good.” Jibril blinked and rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. Anxiety, or frustration. After another moment, Jibril said, “Sorry. You didn’t need to hear all that.”

  “No problem.”

  “It was lousy security.”

  It had been, but so had most of this trip. Case in point: He hadn’t needed to know Aziz’s real name. Harry had only given him a description and pass-phrase, but Jibril, perhaps taken by the excitement of the road, had handed over his name the moment they shook hands outside his hotel. At the border, as if remembering something of his long-ago field training, Aziz had demanded that John give him his passport so that he could deal with the border guards, and when they were handed back John saw that Aziz had used a Libyan passport. John didn’t know Aziz’s cover name, but if he was captured on the way back from Ajdabiya that would be small consolation. John said, “Look. By tomorrow I’ll be back in Cairo. I’ll be busy forgetting this entire conversation. I’ll be busy forgetting you.”