Aggressor

by Nick Cook

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Tom, this is not your fault.’

  Girling shook his head. ‘I should have watched Kelso. I should have known better than to leave him alone with a story like that.’

  ‘Do you think this was why Stansell asked you to hold back? Did he know the Angels of Judgement would come to get him?’

  ‘Whether he’s been taken by the Angels of Judgement or local nutters, he’s dead either way. The only group in Cairo with the will to strike at someone like Stansell is the Muslim Brotherhood.’

  Girling held his stomach as the pain bit deep. Mallon saw him stagger and moved round the desk. Girling clutched him by the lapels for support.

  ‘Oh God, it hurts,’ he said looking into Mallon’s eyes. ‘They say lightning never strikes twice. But look what happened to me.’

  Mallon got Girling into his chair.

  ‘Have you got any of that whisky left? I can’t let the rest of them see me like this.’

  ‘Don’t you think they’ll understand?’

  ‘Please, Kieran.’

  Mallon scrambled over to his desk, pulled the bottle of Bushmill’s from a drawer and handed it to Girling.

  Five minutes later, the bottle half-empty beside him, Girling had beaten the pain. And yet his mind, turning over sluggishly after the onslaught, told him that this was not the answer.

  Girling put his hand on Mallon’s shoulder and pulled himself to his feet. In the far corner the rest of the staff had begun to file back into the newsroom.

  ‘Thanks, Kieran. You’re a pal.’

  He had to go back, not just for Stansell. He had to go back for Alia. For Mona. He had to go back for himself.

  He headed for the lift.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Mallon shouted after him.

  The lift arrived and Girling stepped inside. ‘To a board meeting,’ he said, just before the doors closed.

  He never bothered to knock on the door that led to the office managed by Lord Kyle’s secretary. The personal assistant to the proprietor stammered as Girling breezed past her.

  ‘Excuse me, you can’t go in there. There’s a planning session in progress. You’ll have to wait. Mr -?’

  But Girling swept on.

  He threw open the door, pausing for only a moment to absorb the scene before his eyes. Lord Kyle, owner of the world’s second-largest publishing empire, gaped at the intruder who stood framed in the doorway. Either side of the proprietor’s seat at the large conference table, two other main board directors whom Girling recognized, but whose names he’d forgotten, looked on in amazement. The heads of senior publishing executives ranged along the nearest side of the table twisted in their sumptuous chairs to look at the intruder. Behind him, Girling was aware of the fussing secretary, who was trying to get past to blurt her apologies.

  Girling surveyed the faces. Then he found the one that had brought him there.

  As he strode towards Kelso, whose face seemed to redden with every pace that he took, Girling was aware of the cacophony breaking out around him.

  Lord Kyle demanded an explanation, while the secretary bleated for her master’s absolution.

  With the din at its height, Girling leant over and whispered in Kelso’s ear. ‘I’m going to make a short announcement here, after which you are going to follow me very quietly from this room so we can talk. Just the two of us.’

  ‘This is outrageous, Tom. That’s Lord Kyle over there.’

  ‘Bob, I’m sure the noble lord will be fascinated to hear me brand you a murderer in front of all his friends here. It’s a statement I am fully prepared to justify, unless you decide to come with me.’

  ‘I haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about,’ Kelso blustered.

  ‘You will.’

  Girling turned to the assembled company.

  ‘Gentlemen, our scoop has caused such a stir that I’m afraid Mr Kelso’s presence is badly needed downstairs. A small administrative matter.’

  He leaned over and whispered again. ‘Now step outside.’

  Girling saw the resignation on Kelso’s face as he struggled to his feet, mumbling apologies to the board. Girling held Kelso firmly by the arm and frog marched him along the corridor and into the toilets reserved for the board.

  Kelso could contain his rage no longer. ‘I’ll have your hide for this. I have never been so humiliated in my entire life. You barge in like you own the place, smelling like a fucking tramp...’

  ‘That’s because I’ve been drinking.’

  ‘What on earth is wrong with you? What was all that crap back there?’

  ‘Stansell’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s been kidnapped, because you decided to have your exclusive, whatever the cost. He’s been taken by our old friends the Angels of Judgement, or someone operating in their name.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s true. And you as good as pointed the finger.’

  ‘Look, there must have been some misunderstanding - ’

  ‘Bullshit! I know about the notepad. You knew full well what you were doing.’ Girling jabbed a finger in the direction of the board room.

  ‘What am I going to tell them? They’ve just voted Dispatches another five million.’

  ‘Here’s how you’re going to start spending it. You’re going to send me to Cairo. Make me Middle East bureau chief in Stansell’s absence.’

  ‘You must be mad. Egypt was the reason you gave up reporting.’

  ‘I’m not going there to report for you.’ Girling looked at him levelly. ‘I’m going there to find Stansell.’

  ‘You? What can you do that the police can’t?’

  ‘You just don’t understand, do you? You’re so busy currying favour with your friends down the corridor that you’ve lost touch with the real world. The reality is that the Angels of Judgement have killed over a hundred people inside a week. And to compound an already dismal situation, the outfit that has been tasked with finding Stansell is just about the most corrupt and incompetent collection of policemen that ever walked this planet. Why do you think they’ve asked for news of Stansell’s kidnapping to be suppressed? Because it helps his case?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s because they know they haven’t a hope in hell of finding him. By keeping the lid on news, of his abduction, they minimize their incompetent efforts at finding him. I know, because as you correctly pointed out the other day, I am close to this story - maybe too close. I’ve been through it before.’

  The single-file column of hostages stumbled along the dusty track.

  Ambassador Franklin kept his hand clasped firmly to the shoulder of the man at the head of the column. He had given up trying to loosen the blindfold that had been tied too tightly around his head. The last time he had brought a hand up to his face, the sharp crack of a rifle butt reminded him of the rules that had been imposed upon them. The most rigidly enforced was the one about the blindfold.

  When they first began to march, the heat had been intolerable, but now that they were higher up, the air had cooled considerably and, despite their fatigue, the journey had become easier. He had an impression they were passing through a deep ravine. Occasionally, he could hear the noise of scree scattering from under their feet echoing off steep-sided rock walls on either side of them.

  Now the ravine was opening. Sunlight streamed onto his face, and he could smell lush vegetation around him.

  When the terrorists called them to a halt, he thought at first it was just another rest. But then he heard the door pulled back, its hinges jarring noisily, and he knew that they had arrived at their final destination.

  The hand in the small of his back sent him sprawling onto the musty earthen floor. His head hit the far wall, but was saved from bruising by the blindfold. The cloth dislodged, Franklin opened his eyes. Bright sunlight flooded through the diminishing gap as the door was pushed shut behind him.

  A moment before it closed, Franklin caught a glimpse of his jailer. The sight of t
he man, the detail of his clothes clearly visible in the bright sun, made the ambassador catch his breath.

  Alone, and in the darkness of his primitive cell, he knew there would be no demands, no ransoms paid.

  BOOK 2: CHAPTER 9

  Girling awoke from a light sleep when he felt the flaps and wheels lower into the slipstream. He cupped his hands over the window and peered out-side. The Egyptair A300 was descending through the night over the barren desert just west of Cairo. He could see sporadic pinpoints of light, where islands of civilization dotted the desert like fireflies.

  As the Nile Valley swept below the belly of the aircraft, Girling settled back into his seat for the landing.

  Five minutes later the wheels greased the tarmac at Cairo International Airport, sending a shimmer through the aircraft. Behind him a group of Egyptians cheered.

  He descended the airstairs and shivered. Thanks to the six-hour delay, the aircraft had landed during the small window of time when the chill of the night had sucked the last warmth from the land. He looked to the eastern horizon, but the sun was a half-hour away yet.

  The journey through customs and immigration was the usual maze of triplicate forms and rubber stamps. The massed ranks of officialdom were painstakingly breached. Now he had arrived, he felt every delay counting against Stansell’s life. He looked at his watch a third time in five minutes. An immigration officer watched him with suspicion.

  Reunited with his bags, he headed out of the terminal, through Cairenes crammed around the exits searching for friends and relations. He looked briefly for Sharifa, but she wasn’t there. They had arranged to meet at Dispatches’ offices if his plane arrived late.

  He dropped his cases to the pavement. The sun had started to climb over the eastern desert accompanied by the odours of humanity that had been suppressed by the dew of the night. A swirl of choking dust blew in his face, bringing with it the distant cry of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

  As Egypt stirred it offered sights, sounds, and smells that he remembered so well.

  A Mercedes, sporting the familiar black and white paint scheme of Cairo cabs, pulled alongside. The driver leant across the passenger seat and waved him in.

  Girling told him where he wanted to go. Dispatches’ offices were located on the fifth floor of a tall building overlooking the Corniche, the long road that ran almost the length of the Nile’s east bank in Cairo.

  The driver turned to compliment him on his Arabic and the Mercedes swerved across the carriageway. The closer they drew to the city centre the greater the bustle and the noise as ten million people went about the day’s business. Ahead, the twin minarets of the Muhammad Ali mosque, a soaring nineteenth-century edifice built atop Saladin’s medieval citadel, swung into view. Girling glanced to his left and saw smaller, less elegant minarets, scattered like rocky outcrops in a plain of whitewashed graves and crumbling mausoleums.

  The City of the Dead stretched away from the highway until its edges merged with the long shadows of the Muqattam Hills.

  As the car sped on by, he watched a little boy, one leg amputated at the knee, hobble from the doorway of a requisitioned mausoleum and disappear down one of the myriad alleys that criss-crossed this sprawling sub-city.

  Once located beyond the walls of the capital, the City of the Dead was now one of its largest suburbs. The million people living here were from the lowest walks of life; mostly peasants who had teemed into the city to find work but who quickly ended up picking through the rubbish dumps in search of food.

  The City of the Dead attracted every kind of criminal. From the lowest thief to powerful, Mafia-style gangleaders. A virtual no-go area for the regular police - the ‘Askary - the City of the Dead was a hot-bed of Islamic fundamentalism. If Stansell was anywhere in Egypt, there was a better than even chance he was down there, Girling thought, perhaps a few hundred yards from his speeding Mercedes. It was a notion that both exhilarated and depressed him.

  Twenty minutes later, he paid the driver and stood with his bags on the kerb opposite Dispatches’ building. He crossed the road, avoiding the wildly converging traffic on the Corniche to reach the sanctuary of the building. In the comparative cool and silence of the lobby he glanced at his watch. It was six thirty. He decided to go upstairs and wait.

  He rode the lift to the fifth floor and found the door to their offices ajar. He swung it gently and peered inside. Never a tidy place, the room looked like it had been turned upside down. Files littered the floor, back issues of the magazine were scattered across tables and desks, there were endless boxes filled with papers and several filing cabinets with their drawers hanging open. Then he noticed the policeman in the corner, his white summer-issue fatigues sullied by dust and soot. He was sitting on a tea-chest brimming with documents and looked like he had spent the night chain-smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes, judging from the butts littering the floor by his feet.

  Girling coughed and the corporal roused himself self-consciously, anxious to prove he had been doing anything but sleeping. He fingered his 1940s-vintage rifle anxiously, until Girling explained who he was. Girling took his seat in the opposite corner and for the next forty minutes they watched each other uneasily, neither saying a word.

  Presently, Girling heard footsteps in the corridor. He smiled in anticipation of seeing Sharifa again. He wondered, as he rose to his feet, how kind the last three years had been to her.

  Girling turned to find himself confronting a short man in his early fifties, his face built around small features. A wispy moustache, hairs glistening with droplets of sweat, sprouted from his upper lip. The suit, expensive by Egyptian standards, was ill-fitting, the buttons straining against an extensive belly.

  The militiaman was on his feet, hand locked in salute. The fat man waved him to a post by the door.

  ‘You are Mr Tom Girling, the unfortunate Stansell’s replacement.’ It was presented as a statement of fact, not a question. He took a step forward, hand outstretched. ‘Captain Lutfi Al-Qadi of State Security.’ Al-Qadi lisped each s, leaving Girling with a fleeting impression of something reptilian. The Mukhabarat was welcoming him back.

  Al-Qadi left a thin film of sweat on Girling’s palm.

  ‘You are not well, Mr Girling?’

  ‘It was a long flight, Captain.’

  ‘You must be tired.’

  ‘You try to get used to it in my business.’

  ‘And mine also.’ Al-Qadi gestured to the mess around him. ‘Not the best greeting, I’m afraid, Mr Girling. Our forensic people, you understand.’

  ‘Actually, I’m impressed, Captain.’

  ‘The Mukhabarat does not take its work lightly, Mr Girling. We are making progress.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We have recently recovered his contact book,’ Al-Qadi said. ‘I believe it will answer many of our questions.’

  Girling had hoped Sharifa might have salvaged the book. It would have been an admirable start to his own efforts. Doubtless, Stansell’s contact book would give the Mukhabarat a sober insight into a first-rate journalist’s penetration of the establishment, both in Egypt and in neighbouring countries.

  ‘I am afraid your Stansell did not believe in personal security,’ Al-Qadi said, shuffling to the large desk in the corner of the office. ‘In his apartment, he has a piece much like this, only oak, good quality.’ He rubbed the surface to prove the point. ‘We found his typewriter, with paper in it, just here. There were signs of a struggle - a broken lamp, an overturned chair.’ He pointed to the corresponding positions of each item.

  ‘Had he typed anything?’ Girling asked.

  ‘On the paper? No.’

  ‘Did he leave behind any notes?’

  ‘I remind you there is a news black-out, Mr Girling.’

  ‘Stansell is my friend, Captain. I think I have a right to know.’

  Al-Qadi removed a silk handkerchief and mopped his brow. ‘There was the note from his abductors, but that was all. Both his apartment and
this office have been thoroughly searched, I can assure you.’

  ‘Could I see it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The note.’

  ‘This is police business, Mr Girling.’

  ‘We have the same interest at heart, don’t we, Captain?’

  ‘Naturally.’ Al-Qadi’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘But in Egypt some things are impossible. Do your job, Mr Girling, and I’ll do mine.’

  ‘This is my job,’ Girling said levelly. ‘How do you know they didn’t kill him on the spot?’

  ‘Because we found traces of chloroform on the desk.’

  ‘But why would the Angels of Judgement go to the trouble? Out here, miles from home?’ He paused. ‘Do you think the Brotherhood may be up to its old tricks?’

  Al-Qadi pulled a pack of Nefertitis from his pocket. ‘A most convenient theory, Mr Girling.’

  Girling watched him take out a cigarette and roll it between his fingers.

  ‘It would be stupid for either of us to pretend,’ Al-Qadi said. He lit the cigarette and sucked hard. The smoke streamed from his nostrils. ‘About what happened to your wife.’

  Girling managed to keep his feelings in check. He held the investigator’s stare. ‘As you say, Captain.’ Even though the Mukhabarat did not operate with Western-style efficiency, it kept files. ‘But it doesn’t alter the fact that the Brotherhood may be helping the Angels of Judgement.’

  ‘Please leave the theorizing to us, Mr Girling.’ Al-Qadi took a step towards him. ‘You would do well to remember that the Mukhabarat has this investigation in hand. And that the Brotherhood is a spent force here in Egypt.’

  Girling buried an urge to tell Al-Qadi that a Mukh-abarat officer had uttered those same words by his hospital bed three years before, barely a fortnight after he had watched his wife stoned to death by Brotherhood activists. For a moment, the rage swirled within him, but he fought against it. He could not afford to antagonize the Mukhabarat.

  He was saved by a sharp knock at the door.

  Girling turned and there was Sharifa, a scarf covering her hair, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses. A slight puffiness about her face told him she had been crying.