El-Sawy frowned. “Why would I have heard anything?”
“Because you tracked me yesterday. I assume it was you. You followed me all the way to the border. No?”
“No,” el-Sawy said.
“I’ve talked to Ali,” Omar went on, despite the denial. “I should have reported in, but Jibril Aziz is a friend. I wasn’t sure I’d get permission to keep an eye on him.”
El-Sawy nodded again, a sharp movement that suggested the subject was finished. “Is that it?”
“Well, yes,” Omar said, feeling vaguely insulted. “I want you to understand that I’m not complaining. You were doing your job.”
“I was doing my job,” el-Sawy said, “but not here. I wasn’t even in Cairo. I only just got back. Is that it?” He stepped back to the door.
Did it even matter who had been watching him yesterday? Not really. “Wait,” Omar said. “I want to look at some of the material we received from Sophie Kohl. The Stumbler file.”
“I’ll have to ask Ali.”
“I’ll ask him. Is he around?”
“Who do you think I’ve been looking for?” el-Sawy said before leaving.
It turned out that Busiri was not in the building, and so in lieu of the Stumbler documents he retrieved a file stocked with employees of the American embassy and looked through it until he’d found the big black man who’d driven Jibril to the border. He called Mahmoud and Sayyid to his office and explained that he wanted them to begin surveillance on an American, John Calhoun, who was living in Zamalek. “He may not be around yet, but either later today or tomorrow he’ll get home, and I want to know what he’s up to.”
When Busiri arrived in the afternoon, Omar asked to take a look at the Stumbler file.
Busiri leaned back, the heels of his hands resting on the desk. “Why?”
“Because I’ve never seen it. Jibril described it to me, but I never read the final draft.”
“I’m not sure you need to,” Busiri said. “Jibril Aziz wrote it, and now the Americans are running it.”
“Jibril certainly believes that, but he’s emotional. He’s young.”
Busiri shrugged. “I’ll have it sent over.”
Mahmoud called when John Calhoun got home on foot. “The man’s a mess. Filthy. Barely able to walk. Should we collect him?”
“No, no. Just watch.”
He received the Stumbler file at four and stayed late to read it. He was near the end when Mahmoud called again. “Harry Wolcott just visited him. I think they know we’re here.”
“They’re in a foreign country. They should expect it. Just stick to him.”
When he got home, he found Fouada napping in front of the television. There was a plate of dinner in the kitchen, and he ate quietly, trying not to wake her. His phone, however, rang loudly, and as he answered it he heard her saying, “What! What?”
“He’s at a bar now,” said Mahmoud. “Deals. Expatriate place. Sayyid just went in to take a look. Oh—he’s coming back. What?”
“You’re here,” Fouada said, stumbling into the kitchen. Her hair looked like a bird’s nest.
He smiled at her and said into the phone, “What is it?”
“Sayyid tells me John Calhoun is talking with Rashid el-Sawy.”
“What?”
Fouada opened the refrigerator, saying, “We’re almost out of water.”
Sayyid took the phone. “He’s talking as if they’re friends. They’re with a woman—a friend of Calhoun’s, I think. The three of them at a table. What should we do?”
Fouada took out a half-full bottle of Evian and, seeing what was on Omar’s plate, said, “Don’t tell me you’re eating that chicken cold.”
Why was el-Sawy meeting with the man who had taken Aziz over the border? Was he following his own investigation? “Don’t approach,” he told Sayyid. “Did he see you?”
“I stopped at the door. No, he didn’t see me.”
“Then pull back. Both of you. Let me find out what’s going on.”
He hung up and submitted to Fouada’s mothering, waiting as she microwaved the remaining chicken and steamed some couscous for him. He listened to her stories of the day. Her paranoia, he was happy to hear, had ebbed. Her husband had not been ripped apart by angry mobs. Their place had not been ransacked. She had not been raped. She was beginning to realize that when the world changes, most of it remains the same.
After dinner, he withdrew to the guest room and called Busiri to ask about el-Sawy’s interest in Calhoun. Busiri paused before answering. “Don’t take this badly, Omar, but I’d like you to pull back from the Aziz situation. It’s too personal for you. Rashid is better equipped to deal with it. He’s used to working undercover—he’s nearly American, after all. He’ll find out what happened to Jibril, and then I’ll tell you.”
It was a brush-off, but Omar accepted it. Busiri was right—he was getting emotional over this, though no one outside of his skin could have really suspected it. Certainly Fouada couldn’t tell; she just fed him and prepared for bed talking about the lack of water, and how could she have been so distracted to have forgotten about it?
He wasn’t thinking of water, though, and as she drifted to sleep beside him, he remembered Stumbler.
Stage 1: Collect exiles right off the street. London, Paris, Brussels, New York. They disappear in the middle of their lives, no one the wiser.
Stage 2: Reassemble them just outside the Libyan border with a contingency of approximately a hundred American troops—Special Forces, each of North African descent, dressed in civilian clothes—as well as volunteers previously collected from the exile population. Half sit in wait in Medenine, Tunisia, while the other half hole up in Marsa Matrouh. The plan even listed the addresses of two ideal locations, one in each town—houses owned by sympathetic Libyans. They await the signal.
Stage 3: The signal. Networks within Libya rise up in three cities: Zuwarah, Ajdabiya, Benghazi.
Stage 4: Entry. The exile forces cross into Libya, surprising the Libyan armed forces, while the networks move their focus to the ports. Undercover ships begin supplying arms.
Jibril’s predictions for success ranged from two to six months, but the primary objective of Stumbler was less a quick end to Gadhafi’s regime than the post-Gadhafi political landscape. Having been viewed as early saviors of the revolution, the exiles would naturally form the new power elite who owed their sudden good fortunes to one country, and one country alone.
There was a time when this plan would have been less cynical than it now appeared. Now, the only moral course was to arm the rebels and let them take care of their own future.
Omar felt the weight of guilt. He could have squelched the operation during the planning stages, simply by insisting to Jibril that Mubarak and Ben Ali would treat any such incursion on their territories as acts of war. Jibril would have been dejected, but he very likely would have accepted his opinion and tossed Stumbler into the wastebasket.
He imagined Jibril at that very moment, over in Ajdabiya, making harried contact with his network, telling them that America, the country they had once risked their lives for, was now preparing to take advantage of their sacrifices. How would he put it? How could he break such news to them? Would they believe him? Yes, for they would be able to read the conviction in his face. Such an earnest young man.
5
On Saturday he resolved to stay out of it. He took Fouada to El Kebabgy for lunch, on the southern tip of Gezira Island, and from the rooftop terrace of the Sofitel they could see the filthy Nile flowing past and hear the noise of a demonstration in the direction of Tahrir. Feeling reflective, he told her about how naive they’d been—everyone in the security forces—before January 25. “This group of kids, they were on Facebook, calling people out to demonstrate. A joke, of course, having their demonstration on Police Day.”
“Not a joke,” Fouada said quietly. “A point.”
He nodded, conceding this. “In the office, the other men laughed about it. ‘They
think they’re going to pull another Tunis,’ they said. So narrow-minded. These kids had been posting videos online of police torturing people with broom handles, evil things. The protesters had even been trained in peaceful resistance by Serbs—Otpor, the student group that took down Slobodan Milošević. Peaceful resistance?” He shook his head. “You can imagine what kind of jokes those boneheads in the office came up with. They understood it finally, shutting off the cell phones and Internet, but it was too late. The kids had modeled their flag on Otpor’s—a fist. Peaceful resistance turned out to be tougher than anyone thought.”
Fouada let him speak for a while, though he knew it wasn’t the kind of conversation she’d been hoping for, and afterward they drove back to Giza, away from the demonstrations. At home, he avoided the news by fielding calls from a cousin in Port Said who wanted to worry with someone about his daughter’s upcoming wedding. His plan went well until four in the afternoon, when Fouada began dressing to go out. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“Not we. Me,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”
He didn’t.
“Junah’s having her birthday party tonight. I promised I’d go. And I told you it was only women—not that I thought you’d want to come.”
He smiled, saying, “Of course I remember,” but not remembering at all. With everything else, this was just one more thing that had slipped his mind. Maybe, he mused, he should spend the evening planning his retirement.
Yet after calling her a taxi, walking her downstairs, and then coming back up to sit in the silent living room, his mind returned inevitably to Stumbler, to Jibril, and to John Calhoun and Rashid el-Sawy. Then he remembered the plan. Stage 2: Half the exiles collect in Marsa Matrouh. There was more to it, more detail—a building in the neighborhood around the old soccer field. He couldn’t remember the address.
He drove back to the office and suffered through another body check before heading up to the empty seventh floor. He found the Stumbler file still locked in his desk and went through the pages until he had the Marsa Matrouh location: the corner of Tanta Street and Al Hekma.
That night, he told Fouada his plans, and she looked troubled. She didn’t understand why he had to leave at four o’clock the next morning to drive to Marsa Matrouh. “I thought we could visit friends,” she said. “A Sunday out. Today you seemed so … so social.”
“You visit,” he said, kissing her. “But I’ll be gone all day. You’ll be safe?”
“In that case,” she said, some of the old fear creeping into her face, “I’ll stay in.”
They had been married more than thirty years now, and while she suffered bouts of a fear that could shake the foundations of their relationship, he had long ago learned to respect this woman. Love, also, but love was too sandy a foundation to build a life on. He didn’t like the idea of her sitting fearfully all day in this living room. “Would you like to come?”
She was shocked. “What?”
“It’ll be long and uncomfortable, but maybe it’ll be more interesting than that television.”
This was, it turned out, an inspired suggestion. Fouada helped pry him out of bed in those predawn hours and get breakfast into his stomach. On the road, her conversation kept him pleasantly distracted from the things he would otherwise have glowered over—his aching back, for example, and the feeling that he was far, far too old to be driving a car six hours in one direction. She was so thrilled by their unexpected trip together that she never thought to complain about the discomfort, becoming instead an ideal travel companion, and the six-hour trip felt more like three—or, say, four. Not once did she ask why they were driving to a distant port town—she was just happy to have been brought along. He would have to do this more often.
By ten thirty, though, when they pulled into Marsa Matrouh, they were both flagging. Omar parked on Al Hekma, just off of the main road, around the corner from the dilapidated café where Jibril had met his contact. As they got out, a fresh burst of salty Mediterranean air enveloping them, it occurred to him that the café was only five or six blocks from the intersection of Al Hekma and Tanta. Jibril’s contact had come from that address. So he took Fouada to the sidewalk café, where they ordered tea and sandwiches, and then he said, “I’m going to have to step away. A half hour, no longer. Will you be all right?”
She smiled, patting his hand. “I’ve always been all right, Omar.”
He kissed the knuckles of her hand and left, the sun beating down on him the whole way. He’d forgotten to bring a hat.
Though the Stumbler plans didn’t list a house number, it didn’t take him long to figure out the building he was looking for. It was two doors west of the intersection, the only one that could be used to lodge a large number of fighters. An old, unassuming building, concrete, two stories high. With half its high windows boarded up, it appeared to be abandoned. The front door, though, was clean, as were the front steps, and he heard a radio playing classical music—something by Hasan Rashid, he thought. He pressed the buzzer and waited. A minute later, the door opened, and he immediately recognized the man who had worn a red-checked ghutra when he met with Jibril. Now his head was uncovered, and his graying hair shot out at all angles. He was skinny—not frail, but wiry—with sun-cured skin. Omar introduced himself, then stated his employer, flashing an ID card. He was friendly about it, but maintained an air of command as he asked the man’s name—“Qasim”—and then asked if they could speak inside, out of the heat. Hesitant, Qasim let him inside.
The building was in the early stages of destruction. While a door to the right led to a functioning apartment, from which the music drifted, as he looked toward the back of the building he saw that walls had been smashed out, creating a rough cavernous space. “Redecorating?” Omar asked.
Qasim laughed nervously. “I just live in the apartment. I don’t know what they’re doing with the rest of it.”
“But it’s a big space,” Omar pointed out.
“Yes, it is.”
“Big enough for a hundred men. Big enough, too, for their weapons.”
Silence. He turned to see Qasim’s mouth clamp shut, eyes big.
“Come,” Omar said to him, touching his shoulder. “Let’s sit down.”
They went into the small, dirty apartment and settled on chairs coated in concrete dust. The man was shaking. Omar walked over to the old transistor radio and switched it off. He said, “Where are they?”
Qasim shook his head, almost frantic.
“Where,” Omar said, “are Yousef al-Juwali, Waled Belhadj, Abdel Jalil, Mohammed el-Keib, and Abdurrahim Zargoun?”
The man’s mouth was hanging open, his head swiveling back and forth, but slowly now, a quiet no.
“If they’re not here,” Omar said, “then where would they be? Was the collection point changed?”
“No,” Qasim finally got out, a whisper. “It wasn’t changed. But I’ve seen no one.”
“What did Jibril talk to you about?”
The man blinked, confused.
“The man you met in that café down the street. Three days ago. Thursday.”
“Haddad,” the man said. “Akram Haddad. He asked the same thing. He asked where they were. I said I didn’t know. No one’s spoken to me for years. I’ve heard nothing.”
Omar nodded, accepting this. The poor man was terrified. He got up, ready to leave, then noticed an old electric clock on the wall. “Is that time right?”
Qasim looked at it. “Yes.”
“Would you like to pray together?”
The man blinked rapidly, then shrugged. “Okay,” he said and went to find a large mat he kept rolled up beside the refrigerator. It had been a long time since Omar had prayed, but he thought he could remember it well enough.
Later, once he’d returned to Fouada and they were drinking tea under an umbrella, he puzzled over Qasim’s story. If Stumbler was in motion, then why hadn’t the exiles arrived? Had they switched the entry point to Tunisia? That made no sense, for the
Egyptian side of Libya was almost entirely in rebel hands.
Fouada smiled at him. “Did you ever think of retiring here?”
He blinked, suddenly ripped from his thoughts. “Retire?” Though he’d thought of retiring last night, it had been a passing idea. What did a man do when he retired?
“You can swim here,” she told him. “The water’s clean, nothing like the Nile.”
He opened his mouth, unsure what to say, and was surprised by his own words: “I just prayed with a man I’ve never met before.”
His wife’s face creased; she was struck as much by the non sequitur as by the act he had admitted to. “I’m happy to hear it. You should pray more often.”
“I think you’re right.”
“What’s changed?”
He frowned, considering this. “What hasn’t changed?”
She smiled at that wisdom; then they were both startled by the ringing of his phone. He looked at the number—he didn’t know it, but he did recognize the country code. Who would be calling from America? Unsure, he answered it, watching Fouada turn to gaze up the quaint, sun-cracked street, imagining a new life in Marsa Matrouh.
A woman’s voice: “Omar Halawi?”
“Yes.”
She continued in English: “My name is Inaya Aziz. We’ve never met, but you know my husband, Jibril.”
As he listened with trembling hands to this woman’s story, he gradually felt that he was being cornered by wives. Fouada was in front of him, asking him to change his entire life, and in his ear the wife of Jibril Aziz was asking if he had any news of Jibril’s health. Omar gave Fouada an apologetic smile, then rose, bringing the phone with him to the edge of the street, where the sun caught him again as old cars rattled by, spewing smoke.
He told Inaya Aziz that, as of Thursday, Jibril was in excellent health. “Then why hasn’t he called?” she asked, and he tried to reassure her. He doubted his success, but she let it go and asked if he would please help a friend of hers named Sophie Kohl, whose husband had recently been killed. “I believe her, Mr. Halawi. She needs the help of people who care about Jibril. From what he’s told me, I believe you care for Jibril.”
The Cairo Affair Page 28
