“Emmett Kohl. He’s a deputy consul, used to work in Cairo.”
“Right,” Omar said, thinking of that man’s wayward wife. What a small world it was.
“I’ve gotten word to some exiles who can meet me in Budapest. Then I’ll fly to Cairo.”
Recovered now, Omar said, “Fouada will be happy.”
“Don’t tell her,” Jibril said quickly. “Don’t tell anyone. I don’t know who to trust yet.”
Though he promised to remain silent, it was a midnight promise made only half awake. So in the morning, after laboring over the issue as he suffered the indignities of front-door security, he knocked on Ali Busiri’s door and sat down to explain the situation. Busiri seemed angered by it, but said, “We know about Stumbler already.”
“How?”
“How do you think? Sophie Kohl passed it on to Zora Balašević.”
“Well, Jibril is going to meet with Emmett Kohl.”
Busiri frowned. “Why?”
“He thinks Kohl is trustworthy. Of course, he knows nothing about the wife.”
This seemed to trouble Busiri. He looked at some papers spread across his desk. “What do you think, Omar? Are the Americans really stupid enough to do this?”
Omar didn’t think so, but … “After the Bay of Pigs, who knows?”
Burisi stretched out and pulled at his ear. “Maybe the Libyans will welcome them with open arms.”
“At first.”
“At first, it’s always sunshine and flowers, isn’t it?” Busiri said, grinning; then he got hold of himself. “Thank you for sharing this, Omar. If he gets in touch again, let me know.”
Jibril called again on Saturday the twenty-sixth. He was in town, and Omar went to his room on the sixth floor of the Semiramis. He had told Fouada that there was an evening meeting, an emergency, and at first she had blocked his exit. “It’s dark out there, Omar. You won’t be able to see them until they’re right on you.” Riding the hotel elevator skyward, he could still feel where her fingers had clawed at his arm.
Jibril looked haggard and unshaven, but he was still the same boy they had welcomed into their home. He kissed Omar’s cheeks and asked after Fouada. “All this hasn’t been too hard on her?”
“She’s strong,” Omar lied. “How is marriage?”
Jibril blushed. “I’m going to be a father.”
Omar clapped his hands and gave him a congratulatory hug. “Tell Inaya that we are wishing her all good things. Does she even know about us?”
Jibril nodded, smiling. “I left her your phone number. In case.”
“Should we expect a call?”
Jibril shook his head. “She just wanted a number. Any number. She’s worried about me.”
“That is because she loves you.”
The moment passed, and Jibril’s smile faded as he went to the clock radio by the bed and turned it on. It was tuned to 92.7 “Mega FM,” a pop music station. Jibril raised the volume to an uncomfortable level, then sat on the edge of the bed, waving Omar to the chair he’d positioned close to him. Omar settled down as Jibril leaned close and spoke softly. “I’m going in. On Thursday.”
Omar had expected this. “You need help?”
Jibril shook his head.
“What did Emmett Kohl say?”
Another shake of the head. “He’s more deluded than I thought. He doesn’t believe it.”
“What does he believe?”
“He doesn’t think anyone’s doing it. He thinks that, if anything, someone’s trying to shut down Stumbler before it starts.”
“But you do not believe this.”
“I believe the data, Omar. I believe what I can see.” Again, Jibril described the abductions. “They haven’t been seen since. Nowhere. They’re either in Egypt or Tunisia, or they’ve already crossed the border.”
“So what can you do?”
“My networks weren’t entirely destroyed—you know that. They’re part of the uprising, I’m sure. I need to meet them face-to-face and tell them to defend their rear. The last I heard, a few were sighted in Ajdabiya. I’ll get the updated list from my Bedouin in Al `Adam, and then track them down.”
“How are you getting in?”
Jibril seemed to blush. “The Agency’s giving me someone from the embassy.”
Omar hesitated, not sure he’d heard right. “The CIA is giving you a guide?”
Jibril nodded stiffly. The radio cut to an old Britney Spears hit.
“Does this not suggest,” Omar said slowly, “that they are not behind Stumbler?”
“What it suggests,” Jibril said, for he’d dealt with this contradiction already, “is that they want to make it appear as if they aren’t behind it.”
Omar held up a hand. “Wait. You are talking to your employers. They’re helping you go in. What is their story?”
“That they don’t know. But they’ve seen the data, too, and they’re worried someone else has gotten hold of Stumbler. Their worry, they claim, is that al Qaeda is going to use it to take over Libya.”
Thinking of the Stumbler plans moving from Sophie Kohl to Zora Balašević to his office, Omar said, “Maybe not al Qaeda, but someone could have gotten hold of the plans. Information leaks. You know that.”
“Is Egypt running Stumbler?”
Omar gave it a moment’s thought. Busiri had probably passed the plan up the ladder, but what were the odds that their new military leaders would attempt to manipulate the Libyan revolution? They could hardly maintain control of their own country. “No,” he said.
“Right,” Jibril agreed. “And Tunisia doesn’t have the resources to pull this off.”
“So you are convinced America is doing it.”
“I don’t see any other options.”
“Yet you put yourself into their hands,” Omar said. “They are going to kill you.”
“They won’t,” Jibril said, shaking his head. “Not before they get my network.”
“You didn’t give it to them?”
“Why do you think I was sent back to Virginia?”
“You were blown.”
“Maybe, but what Langley really wanted was the network, so someone else could take it over.”
“Why…” Omar began, shocked by this insubordination. “Why didn’t you give it to them?”
“Eleven of my people were killed. I still don’t know how they were discovered, and I wasn’t about to share the names of the survivors with a bureaucracy as big as the Agency’s. I wanted to give those people a rest.”
“You took a rest as well. Six years later, you’re coming back.”
Locating the events in time seemed to put them in perspective. Both men were silent a moment. Omar said, “Did you promise them the network?”
He smiled. “Of course, but I’m not handing it over. I kept their names in a book that I left with my Bedouin. Only I can get hold of it. As long as Langley doesn’t have that book, I’m safe.”
“Let us hope they don’t get it.”
“Agreed.”
“And let us hope that your Libyan friends welcome you with open arms.”
The radio sang, Oops! I did it again.
“The most important hope,” Omar continued, “is that this is a quick and safe trip, and that you are home soon with your wife and child.”
Jibril nodded. “God willing,” he said, then got up to turn off the radio.
3
After the Semiramis, he called Busiri and drove over to his opulent villa in Maadi, an upscale neighborhood full of embassies and foreigners and affluent Egyptians. Quiet, unlike Omar’s place in the twisting cacophony of Giza. It was nearly ten when he parked outside the gate. He didn’t get out. Five minutes passed; then Busiri stepped out the front door and crossed the dry lawn, wearing the same suit he’d worn to the office that day, but no tie. He opened the passenger door and got inside. “It’s late, Omar,” he said with a hint of impatience.
In great detail, Omar told him of Jibril’s plans.
&nbs
p; “So he really does believe America is doing this?”
“He does, but Emmett Kohl doesn’t.”
“What does Kohl believe?”
“The opposite. He thinks someone is shutting it down.”
“CIA?”
“The Libyans. If so, then the question is: Who told the Libyans?”
Busiri frowned, considering this. “You say the embassy has given him a guide?”
“I don’t know who, but I can have Mahmoud keep an eye on him.”
“No,” Busiri said, shaking his head. “We’ll need Mahmoud for other things. Sayyid, too. This is going to be another busy week. It doesn’t matter who’s taking Aziz in—it just matters that he’s going in.”
“You’re not going to pursue this?” Omar asked.
“I’ll go upstairs and talk with our masters. But I don’t think they’ll believe it. Other than a few public statements about the will of the people, the Americans resisted the temptation to meddle here.”
“Mubarak was their friend. Gadhafi isn’t.”
“Friends?” Busiri asked with a wry smile. “In international diplomacy?”
“Well, someone who gave them what they wanted more often than he didn’t.”
Busiri rocked his head, as if this were a marginally better description. “Well, we’ll see what our masters think.” He patted Omar’s knee. “I appreciate this.”
“It’s my job,” Omar pointed out.
Busiri sniffed. “Maybe, but you needn’t have been such an excellent co-worker. After all, you did expect to be sitting at my desk when Abdel retired.”
The subject had never come up between them. “Decisions were made. I’m not complaining.”
“It’s a thankless job, you know. The pay is atrocious, and those friends you see filing in and out of my office? Wolves, every one.”
Omar nodded at the walls surrounding Busiri’s villa. “The pay seems to be sufficient.”
“Marry rich,” he advised, smiling. As he opened the door he added a quick “Salaam” and left.
Despite Busiri’s conviction that this wasn’t important, on Thursday Omar left home before sunrise and parked behind a taxi outside the Semiramis Hotel, waiting in the dark. Just after the 4:00 A.M. Fajr prayers, Jibril emerged from the lobby and climbed into an old Peugeot. The driver, a large black man, chilled his blood. If the Americans wanted to kill Jibril, then a man that size would be an ideal vessel. As he drove behind them, he called and left a message with the office that he would be out sick.
Since he knew their destination, there was no need to remain in sight of the Peugeot, so he lagged far behind, only occasionally speeding up to be sure he hadn’t lost them along the desert road leading to El Alamein on the coast. Halfway to the border, Ali Busiri called to check on his condition, and he forced a nasal sound into his voice as he complained of sinus troubles. “It sounds like you’re in a car, Omar.”
“I’m on my way to the doctor’s.”
When, at around ten, the Peugeot turned off at Marsa Matrouh, he had a moment’s panic. This was where they were going to get rid of Jibril. But a glance at his own fuel gauge showed him the truth, and after the Peugeot refueled he did the same thing himself.
They stopped in the city center, and he was surprised to see the men split up. Jibril headed to a small, ramshackle café, his phone to his ear, while the black man took off in the opposite direction and began to window shop among hawkers gesturing at open crates, walking in the direction of the white sand beach. What was going on?
Soon, Jibril was joined by a man in a red-checked ghutra, and they began to talk. While Omar didn’t know the man, he suspected this was another of Jibril’s Libyans, perhaps a splinter from his core network, who could add to Jibril’s knowledge. The meeting was brief, and then Jibril and the black man were driving again.
He considered following them across the border, but he’d reached the limits of his authority and responsibility. He’d made sure Jibril made it through Egyptian territory unscathed, and now it was time to return home.
He didn’t reach Cairo until after nine that night, and by then, with the little sleep he’d had the previous night, he really did feel sick. He was too old for road trips, and perhaps too old for intrigues, and his body was finally starting to protest. Fouada asked where he’d been. When he gave her a tired shrug, she raised her voice to a shrill pitch. Fear was taking its toll on her as well, and he was the only person she could take it out on. In the midst of her tirade, she said, “What could I tell Ali? A woman who doesn’t know where her husband is is no wife. He knows that as well as anyone.”
He raised his hands. “Busiri?”
“Of course. He called here to check on you.”
Why hadn’t he called Omar’s cell phone?
Because, Omar realized with despair, he hadn’t believed his feigned sickness. In the morning, Omar would have to mend that bridge. Then he heard something on the television. He left Fouada standing in the kitchen as he wandered into the living room, and that was when he learned of Emmett Kohl’s murder the previous night.
Again, that chill went through him. If they were willing to kill their own diplomats, then what was Jibril to them? Nothing. Get him into the lawless deserts of Libya and leave the body to be swallowed by the sands. He went for his cell phone and called Busiri.
“Omar,” Busiri said. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired, Ali. What’s this about Emmett Kohl?”
“It seems he was killed.”
“What leads?”
“They’re pinning it on an Albanian. Gjergj Ahmeti.”
Omar didn’t know the name, but Busiri’s quick description of Ahmeti fleshed out a simple enough picture. He was the kind of man the Agency might hire if it wanted to remain at arm’s length from a murder. He was the kind of man any government would be happy to use. “I’m told the American embassy is working furiously on it,” Busiri told him.
“Or pretending to.”
“No, I think it’s in earnest. I called Harry Wolcott to give condolences. He’s a mess. He’s hoping Stanley Bertolli can come up with something. Did you know of Bertolli’s relationship with Mrs. Kohl?”
“Zora told me.”
“We should watch him,” Busiri said. “Information has a way of collecting like dust mites, and it would be preferable if he didn’t learn that Mrs. Kohl was ours.”
“I understand.”
“In fact,” Busiri went on, “we might want to help him out. Perhaps you’d like to warn him that he needs to be looking over his shoulder.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Omar admitted.
After a pause, Busiri said, “Did he make it over the border all right?”
“What?”
“Jibril Aziz. You were waiting outside his hotel.”
There was no point arguing with the facts, so he simply said, “You had me watched?”
“You thought I wouldn’t verify your information?”
“He made it all right.”
“Glad to hear it,” Busiri said. “Maybe next time you’ll tell me this without me having to ask.”
“Apologies, Ali.”
Before heading into the office in the morning, Omar sent a coded message to Paul Johnson, who had become his embassy contact after Amir Najafi’s death in November. They met in a Zamalek café not far from Paul’s apartment, the young, bleary-eyed American clutching desperately at his coffee. “You are looking in the wrong direction,” he told Paul.
“What?” Paul turned to look behind himself. “Where?”
“I am talking about the murder of Emmett Kohl. Tell Stanley Bertolli that you need to look at yourselves.”
Paul frowned, slowly absorbing his words. He leaned close, a high whisper. “What does that mean? Are you saying someone in the embassy killed him?”
Omar shook his head. “I don’t know. I am talking about your agency. Here, or back in America—I don’t know.”
“But … but why?”
“To ke
ep Emmett quiet.”
“Quiet about what?”
He considered telling the young man the whole story. Stumbler, Jibril Aziz, the co-opting of the civil war raging next door … but, no. Stanley Bertolli would be sharp enough to ask the logical next question: How did the Egyptians know about Stumbler? Then the connections leading back to Sophie Kohl would be child’s play.
“Just tell him,” Omar said. “Tell Stanley Bertolli to be careful.” Then he got up and walked out, leaving the puzzled American to his steaming cup.
4
Afterward, once he’d made his way through the meticulous entry procedure to reach the seventh floor, he found Rashid el-Sawy walking the ministry corridors, looking for Busiri. “Rashid,” Omar said, waving him over. “A word, please.”
El-Sawy joined him in his office and closed the door. While he had been part of their section since the start of Busiri’s tenure seven years ago, coming with Busiri from the SSI, Omar had seldom spoken to el-Sawy one-on-one. The younger man had a way of entering and exiting the building without anyone noticing, and during meetings could maintain an unnatural silence as the men around him shouted and cajoled. Sometimes Omar suspected this was due to embarrassment over his flat American accent; other times he suspected that el-Sawy was calculating how best to dispose of everyone in the room. Over the years he had performed a variety of undercover jobs for the section, often using his American childhood to great advantage; his most common alias was Michael Khalil, Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was one of those loyal dogs who tie their entire future to the fate of another man, rather than to the fate of an office—which, in light of the imminent dissolution of the SSI, had clearly been the wiser choice.
“How are things?” Omar asked.
El-Sawy shrugged. He was a tall man, easily six feet, and he seemed to be aware of this, always preferring to stand rather than sit. “You’ve heard about the SSI raids?”
Omar shook his head.
“The protesters. They’ve started breaking into SSI buildings around town, and of course the guards are just letting them in. They’re collecting files. They say they want evidence of the SSI’s crimes. They’re going to start building guillotines soon.”
Omar hadn’t known this—he’d been too distracted by Jibril. He thought of el-Sawy’s long tenure in the SSI and wondered how many of those files chronicled his visits to torture cells. He imagined el-Sawy was worried out of his mind, but there was no sign of this in his face. “Have you heard anything from Libya?” Omar asked.
The Cairo Affair Page 27