Aggressor

by Nick Cook

  Shabanov drove his fist into the open palm of his hand. ‘One, we fly in to the Sword’s camp. Two-’ the fist rammed home again ‘-we locate and secure the hostages. Three, we annihilate the terrorists.’

  Shabanov’s knuckles whitened.

  ‘Because my men have been hand-picked, among other things, for their linguistic ability, English will be adopted as standard.’ Shabanov turned to address his own men. ‘Any deviation from this rule will entail punishment.’

  There was a sudden roar from outside as the first of the two An-124s thundered down the runway and lifted into the night sky. Shabanov paused until both aircraft had departed, the sound of their engines receding into the night as they set course for their operating base in Soviet Central Asia.

  ‘In summary, by the end of our training you will be neither American nor Soviet,’ Shabanov said. ‘You will learn to work together, to think together, to trust each other. Such co-operation only comes with practice.

  ‘So, I want you assembled here at midnight. You will be organized into pairs - one Soviet for every American - and flown by helicopter to separate locations in the desert, one hundred and twenty kilometres from here. It is a classic evade and escape exercise - E and E, as you Pathfinders call it. Each team will make its way back, undetected, within forty hours of the drop-off. Those late back will be made to do the exercise again. Perhaps, too, they will forfeit their place on the mission. I have no room for men who are not fit.’

  Ulm studied his men. It was rough, but they could take it. They had endured worse.

  ‘And to make it more interesting,’ Shabanov said, ‘our helicopters will fly combat patrols into the desert to find you. Anyone located will be made to repeat the exercise. And they, too, may find themselves dropped from the mission.’

  The Russian took a step backwards. ‘I suggest you rest now. It will certainly be the last you get for two days.’

  The taxi, an Egyptian licence-built Fiat that had seen better days, clattered noisily along 26th of July Street.

  Girling took in the skyline and plotted the differences over the past three years. The number of luxury hotels had almost doubled; so, too, had the lean-tos and corrugated-iron shanties.

  The driver pulled up outside the Khan. After the sombre observances of the holy day, the market was alive with festivity.

  Girling paid the fare, crossed the road and took stock. The Khan stretched away in front of him, a sprawling mass of stalls and shops built up around the tiny streets - some no broader than a man’s shoulders - that were the capillaries of the ancient bazaar. The arteries that fed them were five main thoroughfares, one of which was the Street of the Judges. Girling consulted the map he had found in Stansell’s apartment. By his reckoning, Kareem’s coffee house lay a few hundred yards distant and straight ahead. As the crow flies. He knew that nothing would be quite that simple at ground level.

  That he saw no other foreigners did not surprise him. Although a popular tourist attraction by day, the Khan was not the safest place in town for an ‘agnabi to be walking alone after dark.

  Girling pulled up the collar of his jacket and plunged into the market. Most of the shop shutters were drawn. He navigated by the pools of light thrown by hurricane lamps and the occasional string of low-wattage bulbs across the entranceways to the coffee houses. In the dark, there was little to distinguish him as an ‘agnabi. He kept going, twisting and weaving along the tiny streets, mixing with the people as he went. Eventually the alley opened up into a main street. The openness of his surroundings, the blazing lights and the hordes of people suddenly made him feel quite naked. The shops, stalls, and coffee houses lay interspersed amid the mosques and the ancient mausoleums shown on the map. He had arrived at the Street of the Judges. He looked left and right, scouring the billboards for a sight of Kareem’s. People had begun to stop and stare. It was with immense relief that he spotted the coffee house fifty yards from him on the opposite side of the street.

  He brushed past the tables on the pavement, past the old men smoking their water-pipes and into the bright, strip-lit interior. No sooner had he reached the back of the shop than the chatter stopped. Girling found himself the object of uniform curiosity. The only waiter, a middle-aged man with brown teeth and a lazy eye, stopped what he was doing and turned round.

  ‘We closed,’ he said. ‘Too late.’ He tapped his wrist where a watch should have been.

  ‘I’m looking for Mansour,’ Girling said.

  Lazy-eye frowned and shook his head quickly from side to side, as Egyptians do when they are confused, or claim to be.

  ‘Old Mansour,’ Girling said. ‘I was told he worked here.’

  ‘No Mansour here,’ Lazy-eye said.

  ‘I was told-’

  ‘No. You leave now.’

  Girling hesitated. In the mirror on the wall in front of him he saw three customers get to their feet. Each was too well-built for his liking. They began weaving a passage through the tables towards him.

  Girling held his hands up. ‘OK, I’m going,’ he said to the waiter. ‘Aruh,’ he reiterated in Arabic, gesturing towards the door.

  It was as his eyes swept past the mirror again that he saw the keg. It was low down in the reflection, nestling on a shelf under the work surface in front of him.

  Girling switched his gaze back to the three bearing down on him. They were almost there.

  There was a doorway set in the rear wall, a curtain across it. Girling brushed past the waiter and pushed the curtain aside. The ante-room was dark except for the glow of a charcoal fire. A man was picking out embers and placing them on small tobacco-filled clays. Some of the clays had been attached to water pipes, ready for delivery to waiting customers out-side.

  The figure did not seem to hear him enter. Girling heard the swish of the curtain behind him. He took a step forward and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

  Old Mansour turned just as Girling’s arms were wrenched back in a full nelson. He tried to shake himself loose, but they had him held fast.

  Old Mansour stepped away from the fire and Girling felt the intensity of its heat.

  As the light shone full on Girling’s face, Mansour’s eyes widened in recognition.

  Behind him, voices rasped as his assailants questioned Mansour. The old man answered them patiently. The next thing Girling knew he was free and Mansour and he were alone.

  Girling looked Old Mansour up and down. He was a little more bowed in the frame, a little sallower of cheek. But it was Mansour, fit, alive.

  ‘Forgive me, ya Mansour,’ Girling said in Arabic. ‘I never meant to embarrass you - ‘

  Old Mansour replied in English. ‘It is I who should ask for forgiveness, Mr Tom. They thought perhaps I owed you money. I am sorry. They were only trying to protect me.’

  ‘It is good that you have friends to look after you, Mansour.’

  ‘Yes, they are kind to me here.’

  ‘Mansour, I am looking for Stansell.’

  ‘I know.’

  Girling took a step closer to him. Mansour had the kindest face he had ever seen; blue eyes that were rare for an Egyptian and a white, bushy moustache. ‘Tell me how you know that, Mansour.’

  ‘Do you remember Uthman, the doctor from Duqqi?’ Mansour said.

  Girling confessed that he didn’t.

  ‘He used to drink at the Metropolitan Club, back in the old days,’ Mansour said. ‘Now he comes here for his water-pipe. The rose water here is the best, they say, the pipes here the smoothest in Cairo. It was Uthman who told me about Stansell. These are terrible days, Mr Tom.’

  Girling felt his pulse quicken. ‘How did Uthman know about Stansell? The police have tried to keep it a secret.’

  Old Mansour shrugged. ‘He works part-time at Mukhabarat headquarters in Shubra, working on the bodies - ‘

  ‘Autopsies,’ Girling prompted.

  ‘Yes. While there one night earlier this week, he heard about the kidnapping. It came as a great shock when Uthman told me. I
liked Stansell very much; you know that, Mr Tom.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘But now you are here. And you have come for him, I think. This gives me great hope.’

  Girling didn’t answer directly. ‘I am hoping you may be able to help, Mansour.’

  ‘Me? Of course, anything.’

  ‘Stansell’s contact book,’ Girling said. ‘In emergencies, did he continue to leave it in your keeping after you left the Metropolitan Club?’

  Old Mansour’s watery eyes glazed for a moment. ‘The little book of names and telephone numbers?’

  Girling knew the old man knew exactly what he meant. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Maybe he did, Mr Tom.’

  ‘Do you have it now?’

  ‘I...it was a sacred arrangement, Mr Tom.’

  ‘It was the police he wanted you to hide it from, Mansour, not me.’

  Girling reached out and pressed a ten-pound note into Mansour’s hand.

  Mansour examined the money for a moment before looking up into Girling’s eyes. ‘You know me better than this, Mr Tom.’

  Old Mansour’s expression darkened. He walked past Girling and headed out through the curtained doorway.

  ‘Shit,’ Girling said to himself. The tenner was as much as Mansour made in a month. But money did not yet buy everything in this city. Some people were above bribery. He cursed himself.

  He was about to follow after Mansour when the curtain parted again. Mansour was silhouetted against the lights at the front of the shop. He held the mock sherry keg in his hands.

  ‘After the Metropolitan Club... dismissed me, they threw this out, too,’ the old man said.

  ‘The book, Mansour...’

  ‘If you ask for it, Mr Tom, then it must be important.’

  Mansour twisted a catch at the base of the cask, opened it and pulled out a small pocket-sized volume, its covers held together by an elastic band. He handled it with reverence, as though it was the Koran, his fingers avoiding the dog-eared corners. The book looked as if it would crumble at the slightest touch. He passed it reverently to Girling. As he did so, Girling noticed the edge of the ten-pound note poking above Old Mansour’s waistcoat pocket.

  ‘In any case, it will be better in your hands,’ the old man said. ‘It will not be the Mukhabarat that finds him. Uthman says they have put a Captain Al-Qadi on his case.’

  ‘Do you know him?’ Girling asked.

  ‘Not me, thank God. But Uthman says he has a certain reputation.’

  Girling opened the book carefully. Stansell lived a disorganized existence in most respects, but in his professional life he maintained a rigorous discipline. Against each surname was a first name or an initial, a job title, a date - presumably the day of their first meeting - an address, and a telephone number. From a brief glance Girling estimated there were several thousand entries. Maybe finding the contact book wasn’t the great coup he had cracked it up to be.

  ‘When did Stansell give you this, Mansour?’

  ‘Five nights ago, Mr Tom.’

  The night he was taken, Girling thought. ‘Did Stansell say where he had come from, or where he was going?’

  ‘He was in a great hurry. We hardly talked. He used to come here to smoke a little. But not that night. He handed me the book, just like he used to do at the Metropolitan sometimes, and told me he would be back for it when it was safe to come back.’

  ‘How did he look, Mansour?’

  ‘That night? Like you had never gone away, Mister Tom.’ Old Mansour paused. ‘With Stansell everything used to be laughter, you remember? But many things changed after you left Cairo. When you find Stansell, will you stay?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mansour.’ Girling opened and closed the book as he spoke. ‘Where did he go when you stopped working at the Metropolitan Club? They said this morning that they hadn’t seen him there for a long time. I know he used to meet people at the Club on business. Did he tell you where he used to go instead?’

  ‘I only know of Andrea’s.’

  ‘Where is Andrea’s?’

  ‘Out by the Pyramids. When Stansell was here last... not counting the other night, he asked me why our beer was not cold like the Stellas at Andrea’s. He had been at Andrea’s that morning. He came here afterwards to smoke. For the digestion, you understand.’

  ‘I see,’ Girling said. Andrea’s. Maybe it was something worth checking.

  Girling glanced down at the open pages of the book. There, halfway down, was a name, a date, and two telephone numbers. But it was the address which had caught his eye. 22 Ibn Zanki Street was the address that had been ringed and underlined on the map he had found inside the stray volume of Dispatches in Stansell’s apartment.

  ‘By the way,’ Girling said. ‘I never asked you how you got the keg back.’

  Mansour’s eyes twinkled. ‘Stansell found it in the rubbish outside the Metropolitan Club. It was he who returned it to me. Please find him, Mr Tom. It is not the same around here with him gone.’

  As soon as he arrived back at the apartment, Girling went to the phone. Referring to Stansell’s little black book, he dialled in the second of the two numbers, the one listed for Mr Lazan’s place of work. At that time of night, past eleven thirty, he didn’t expect anyone to answer, but there might just be...

  There was a click as the call connected... an answering machine.

  The woman’s voice, very smooth, almost robotic, talked to him in a language he did not understand, before switching to English.

  ‘You have reached the Israeli Embassy. There is no one here currently to...’

  Girling gently replaced the receiver.

  ‘Gotcha!’ he said.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sergeant Jones worked his tongue between his teeth. It had ceased to feel like a tongue, more like the crust of a dried-out swamp bed back home. They had been jogging for just over four hours. One tenth of the time allowed to them. And already halfway. But for the water situation, it wasn’t so bad.

  Shabanov’s last little surprise before they boarded the helicopters had been to restrict each pair to just one water bottle. One fucking bottle between two men. To compensate for this, each team was supplied with a map that supposedly marked all the wells in that section of the Eastern Desert. Some swap.

  In the darkness, they had missed the first well. Bitov wanted to turn back for it, but Jones persuaded the Russian otherwise. Now he was beginning to regret it.

  He was thirsty as hell, but he tried to convince himself he’d been thirstier. Their situation could have been worse, he told himself. The bottle was still half full and the sun wouldn’t be up for another half-hour or so; and the next well wasn’t so far off now, probably around twenty-five kilometres.

  On paper, sixty kilometres was good progress. But in a few hours the heat would descend on them and they would have no choice but to hole up for the rest of the day. In this sort of terrain and with daytime temperatures rising a hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit, marching by night was the only option.

  The terrain here was flat. They had managed to skirt around the mountains so far, but the map indicated that towards the end of the journey there was a solid ridge between them and the air base. And there was no way around it. They would have to go over the top. Half-way in one tenth of the time wasn’t beginning to sound so good after all.

  Jones kept one eye on Bitov’s outline, a little to his left and in front. He was impressed by the Russian’s stamina, but then Bitov was no ordinary man. Six foot five and built like an armoured personnel carrier, he was the ugliest son of a bitch Jones had ever seen. He was damned if he was going to let the Ivan get the better of him.

  Suddenly Bitov stopped.

  They dropped onto their haunches. Jones scanned the skyline for movement, but could see nothing.

  The Russian turned his head to the wind. Whatever was bothering him, it was off towards the west.

  ‘There!’ Bitov said softly.

  Jones heard only his heart pounding agai
nst his ribs.

  ‘Two of them, I think,’ Bitov said.

  Now Jones heard the deep wok-wok of the blades. He peered against the night, but they were too far away, at least five miles off.

  ‘What are they?’

  Bitov shrugged. ‘Too far for identification.’

  There were Mils and Sikorskys out looking for them that night. Jones’s mind worked against the fatigue. The difference was critical.

  ‘It’s OK, they are far from here,’ Bitov said. He started to march again. ‘Let’s go.’

  Jones stayed down. He heard the helos’ change of direction. Those turboshafts were distinctive now. They were headed straight for their position at a hundred and ninety-five miles per hour. He picked himself off the ground, drove his feet through the sand, and launched himself at Bitov. He hit the Russian at waist height, his two hundred and twenty-five pounds knocking the starshina to the ground.

  Bitov reacted instinctively. He swung his arm round and grasped Jones’s face between thumb and finger, the claw of his left hand.

  ‘Don’t fight me and don’t stand, whatever you do,’ Jones snarled. ‘Just start digging. We’ve got about a minute and a half before those helicopters are on us.’

  Bitov wasted vital seconds as he contemplated Jones’s distorted face in the vice-like frame of his fingers. Then he released his grip.

  Jones’s fingers tore into the sand. He linked both hands and shifted pounds at a time, in great scoops. It took Bitov vital extra seconds before he began to copy the American, the fingers of his good hand partially aided by the mutilated stump of the other.

  ‘They will never see us, Jones.’

  ‘Wrong,’ Jones panted. ‘Those are our MH-53Js and unlike your birds, they carry FLIR - Forward Looking Infra-Red. Worse, they just picked us up.’

  ‘From eight kilometres? Impossible.’

  ‘We stand out like two virgins in a whorehouse against this cold desert floor,’ Jones said.

  Bitov stopped digging long enough to hear the surge in sound.