Aggressor

by Nick Cook

  Years before, when Mona had brought him here, showing pride in the craftsmanship paraded in these shops, it had seemed a different place. But that was before the Gulf War and before he had even heard of the Brotherhood.

  Upon its foundation in the late 1920s, the Brother-hood’s twin aims had been the eviction of the ruling British elite and the establishment of a fundamental Islamic state. It took them just two decades to realize the first goal and, although a comparatively quiet period followed, it never lost sight of the second. A vivid reminder of their presence hit the world between the eyes when a breakaway group, the Partisans of Allah, assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981. Sadat had been trying to woo the Brotherhood into mainstream politics, recognizing that it was gaining strength daily, that it was wresting the country from him inch by inch. But the Brother-hood could not negotiate with a man who had sold the Arab birthright for peace with Israel, its sworn enemy. And so one day it rose up and killed him.

  He rounded a bend in the street and saw the two minarets of the mosque. The sunlight soared between them, refracting off the dust and the flies that swirled in the air.

  As the faithful tramped through the doors of the mosque, Girling scouted for guards. He soon spotted them, two policemen squatting beside a small gas burner in the shadows at the top of the steps.

  Girling adjusted his camera, making sure it hung obviously by his side, and nipped into the midst of a group of prayer-goers as they marched up the marble steps. At the top, a column of warm light hit him in the face. He squinted past the turbaned heads of the people in front of him and caught a glimpse of trees and ornate ponds in the open courtyard. The people were already sitting on the floor, ranged in lines before the miqra, the pulpit where the Guide would make his speech. Girling was inside and looking for a place to sit out the service, when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him round.

  The policeman shook a finger in his face. ‘Entry mamnoo’a,’ he said in hybrid English-Arabic.

  Girling’s brow furrowed in confusion.

  ‘Forbidden,’ the other guard explained.

  Girling produced the guidebook and began to thumb through its pages. ‘This is the Al-Mu’ayyad mosque?’ he asked, his eyes wide in innocence. He pointed to a page for emphasis.

  ‘No speak English,’ the first policeman said. He pointed down the steps. ‘Go.’

  Girling laughed disarmingly. One of them smiled back. ‘I just want a few pictures,’ he said, lifting his camera.

  The first policeman shook his head. ‘For-bid-den during prayers.’

  ‘I see,’ Girling said, pretending to understand only then. ‘OK, no pictures. I just look, yes?’

  The guard remained unmoved until his gaze dropped to the open guidebook and rested on the eighty Egyptian pounds protruding from the pages. There was two months’ salary for each man there. ‘One hour,’ Girling said firmly.

  The guards looked first at each other, then down the street. The older one grabbed the money and gave a shrug of resignation. ‘OK,’ he said.

  Girling slipped off his shoes and entered the cool tranquillity of the mosque. He crossed the great sahn, the courtyard, and proceeded into the gardens on the other side. He found a bench among the trees and sat down. No one paid him any attention, for prayers had already begun. The sea of bodies moved as one, rising and falling with the exhortations of the prayer-leader.

  Girling began to gather his thoughts, to prepare himself for the encounter ahead. But in the stillness that followed, he became conscious only of the depth of his hatred. He told himself over and over that this was not the time or the place for his anger, that he had to forget this man’s deeds. His first duty was to break Stansell out of captivity. The Guide offered a chance. But first he had to put Mona behind him. He held his head in his hands, but like a migraine it would not leave him.

  When Girling looked up, the people had turned their faces to the pulpit. An air of expectancy filled the mosque. Across the courtyard, a slight figure was climbing the steps to the miqra. The Guide was older than Girling imagined; his face weather-beaten, skin sallow from a life of asceticism. His hair was hidden by a turban; his cheeks and chin by a patchy grey beard. He wore the long flowing robes of all clerics.

  The Guide’s address rang out across the courtyard. Girling listened, trying to understand, but all he caught were snatches of meaning. The Guide was using classical Arabic, the language of literature, and vastly different from the colloquial patois he had taught himself. The Guide’s address was inspirational; an appeal for patience, a reminder of rewards to come. His people listened thoughtfully and every so often there were waves of assent.

  When it was over, the crowd rose suddenly, much more quickly than Girling had expected. He leapt to his feet and rushed forward, but the Guide was already half-way from the miqra to a door in the far wall. He battled against the tide of people heading for the street, ignoring their cries of indignation. Girling burst through them just as the Guide was almost through the arch.

  Girling shouted in English.

  The silence began with those closest to him. They stared accusingly as if he had uttered some deep profanity. Like concentric ripples in a pond, the silence emanated outwards, until it reached the Guide and his entourage. When it touched him, the Guide hesitated, then turned.

  ‘Do I know you, ‘agnabi?’

  Girling tried to speak, but could not find the Arabic.

  ‘Do you come as a friend?’ the Guide asked. His voice rang clearly across the courtyard.

  Girling’s awkwardness had turned his curiosity to concern. He felt the crowd’s hostility at his back.

  ‘Who are you?’ the Guide asked.

  The words came suddenly. Girling spoke the local dialect of a Cairene. ‘I am a journalist, an English journalist. My name is Tom Girling. I have come a long way to see you, Sheikh.’

  ‘A journalist? What could I possibly have to say to a journalist?’ The Guide waved his hand in a gesture that indicated the high walls of his prison. He took another step towards the door.

  ‘I did not come here to write down your words. I have come here with an appeal. An appeal for a life. For a man named Stansell, a writer, like me. Have you heard of this man?’ The Guide stopped.

  ‘Do you know this man?’ Girling repeated. ‘Should I, ‘agnabi?’

  ‘He has been kidnapped by the Angels of Judgement, or people acting in their name. Here, in Cairo.’

  The Guide turned again. ‘What has this to do with me?’

  ‘I think you can help.’

  ‘Why should I help you against the noble soldiers of Islam?’

  ‘What nobility is there in the death of innocents, Sheikh?’ As he spoke, Girling heard Mona’s cries echoing across the courtyard. ‘Stansell’s only crime was that he did his job. He published a name, the name of the Angels of Judgement. Nothing more. Surely - ‘ He stopped, searching for the merest sign of assent. ‘A word from you would spread through the mosques, the bazaars and the streets. They listen to you...’

  The mosque was silent once more.

  ‘And why do you assume I might have influence in this matter?’ the Guide asked.

  ‘Because I know who you are. I know they look up to you, Sheikh.’

  There was a murmur from the crowd.

  The Guide straightened his back and lifted his face to the sky. ‘Your friend’s fate was determined by God. What has happened was written. I cannot change that.’ He reached for the door.

  Girling shook his head. ‘That’s bullshit,’ he said in English. Then in Arabic: ‘I was in Asyut. Three years ago. The riots, Sheikh, I was there...’

  The Guide stopped walking, but he did not turn.

  Girling fought for space. The crowd had almost surrounded him. ‘I saw a young Egyptian girl stoned to death on a patch of dirt road. Like Stansell, she had done nothing. But that didn’t stop the mob. They rained the rocks on her until her body was so badly broken even her husband could not recognize her. Co
uld such a death be pre-ordained?’

  The Guide faced Girling once more. His eyes were bright, but there was a tremor in his voice. ‘More than likely she was unclean,’ he said. ‘An adulteress.’

  ‘Then I of all people should have known,’ Girling replied. ‘For this woman was my wife.’

  The Guide’s shoulders rose as he drew breath. The crowd quivered in anticipation.

  ‘Only God can save your friend, ‘agnabi,’ the Guide said. Then he stepped through the arch. The door slammed behind him, the noise echoing across the sahn.

  Girling pounded the wood with his fists. On the other side, he could hear the Guide’s steps retreating down the corridor. ‘You murdered her, Sheikh, you killed her, you and Abu Tarek,’ he shouted. Before he could put his shoulder to the door, there was a howl of rage from the crowd. It surged forward. Girling felt himself being picked up like a swimmer in the grip of an immense rolling wave. He tried to grab hold of something, the door handle, the balustrade of the miqra, but they were too many. They dragged him to the top of the steps where he had entered the mosque. He knew this crowd. He had seen it at work before. Once outside the sanctuary of the mosque he was as good as dead.

  He was tumbling down, images from the street spinning past his face as he fell. The crowd fell on him, blocking out the sun. They were kicking him, pulling his hair, ripping his clothes. He tried to shield his face with his hands, but his arms were nearly pulled from their sockets.

  Then he heard a volley of shots and suddenly saw daylight again. He struggled to his feet, as his assailants scattered. He saw blood, his blood, dripping into an open drain. When he looked up, he found himself staring into the unsmiling face of Captain Lutfi Al-Qadi of State Security.

  The Guide watched from the tiny latticed window of his second-floor room as the ‘agnabi Girling was led away, flanked by two plain-clothes police officers, with a third, short and overweight, leading the way down the street.

  The Guide found that his exchange with the ‘agnabi had vexed him deeply. It was partly the look in the young man’s face, partly the reminder of times past, dredged up so publicly, that preyed on his mind.

  Most of all, though, he caught in Girling’s eyes a vision of troubled times to come. Not for himself; the Guide was beyond caring for his own physical well-being. He was old and his moment, the moment he had been waiting for all his life, was near. But for his brothers Girling spelled danger. He must pass the message on.

  He called over his scribe, the katib, and proceeded to dictate a letter.

  Bookerman leaned against the fuselage of his Sikorsky smoking a cigarette. He watched the comings and goings of the Russians dispassionately. The Soviet investigation team, a bunch of technicians from Qena, had been brought in on another Hind, accompanied by a fully-armed detachment of Spetsnaz.

  A Soviet sergeant, in charge of the armed escort, informed Bookerman that the troops were there to ward off any inquisitive Bedouin who strayed into the wadi. But Bookerman knew that was only part truth. He had little doubt their primary task was to discourage the Pathfinders from getting too close. Some things never changed. He had been at the Paris Air Show once when the Soviets’ pride, the MiG-29, had crashed during the display. The Russians closed ranks and began blaming anyone or anything except their flawless fighter. He sniffed the same paranoia in the air in this hot and dusty wadi.

  As the Sikorsky which Bookerman had requested as back-up disgorged its complement of Pathfinders, he was able to relax. Bookerman didn’t like to spend more time than he had to in the company of Russians, particularly when they outnumbered him.

  As he pulled a last drag from his Marlboro and tossed the butt away, Bookerman became aware of a commotion around the twisted remains of the Hind’s tail boom. He joined a group of three Pathfinders and set off towards it.

  The boom had carved out an enormous trench in the centre of the dried-out river-bed. It was so deep that from where Bookerman had been standing beside his helicopter, it was possible to see only the mangled blades of the tail rotor. Now as he came closer Bookerman could see a group of technicians huddled around the boom like archaeologists gazing at a newly excavated dig.

  The Pathfinder group was still thirty yards away when a young Spetsnaz soldier spun round, his Kalashnikov pointed right at them. The Russian screamed something and Wallace, the leading American, stopped in his tracks. The two other Pathfinders made to unsling their weapons.

  ‘Stoi!’ the Russian shouted. There was a wild look in his eyes.

  Wallace held his arms out, the palms of his hands face down. His escort let go of their weapons.

  Wallace looked the Russian, a fair-haired corporal, squarely in the eye. ‘What the fuck is with you, boy?’

  ‘Sabotage!’ the soldier yelled, jabbing his weapon. ‘You killed them, Yankee.’

  Bookerman could tell from the expressions on the faces of the other Russians that the belief was shared.

  A Russian officer, a major, sprinted across from another area of the crash site. He shouted at his corporal, but the soldier appeared not to hear. He kept his eyes fixed on Wallace, his gun aimed at the middle of the American’s ribcage. Bookerman tensed. From the set of the Russian soldier’s jaw and the look in his eyes, he was going to blow a hole through Wallace’s chest. The major swung his 9mm into a firing position. The corporal saw the movement and started to turn, bringing his assault rifle round with him, but the officer’s pistol found its target first and jumped, the shots booming in the confines of the wadi. The bullets lifted the soldier off his feet and threw him into the pit gouged by the tail boom.

  Bookerman was the first to unfreeze. He jumped into the pit and knelt beside the body. A shadow fell across him and Bookerman looked up into the face of the corporal’s executioner. The officer was holstering his Makharov. His face was devoid of any expression.

  ‘Perhaps it was the heat,’ the officer said.

  Bookerman shook his head. ‘Don’t give me that horseshit. He said something about sabotage.’

  The officer shrugged and turned away. Bookerman got to his feet, grabbed the Russian’s shoulder and spun him round. ‘Tell me what he meant.’

  The Russian hesitated, then indicated that Bookerman should follow him to the centre of the crash site. A small section of skin had been pulled back from the tail boom. Bookerman examined the guts of the machine. For the most part it was intact, with little sign of internal damage. His gaze skirted past the ribs, wires, and incidental components of the helicopter’s dynamic systems to rest at a point where the shaft linking the main transmission drive and the tail rotor had sheared in two. Orange hydraulic fluid dripped onto the gleaming metal.

  ‘He thought this was sabotage,’ the officer said.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘No sabotage.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Structural failure, maybe.’

  ‘But this was a new helicopter,’ Bookerman said. They didn’t come newer.

  The officer clambered to the top of the trench and looked down. Bookerman had not moved.

  ‘We go back to base now,’ the Russian said. ‘No doubt Colonel Shabanov will issue orders to recover the wreckage later.’

  Bookerman heard turboshaft engines spooling into life a little way down the wadi.

  He climbed wearily to the top of the pit and paused before heading back to his Sikorsky. It was some moments before he realized Wallace was standing there beside him, waiting for orders.

  ‘Are you all right, Major? You look like you were the one who nearly got blown away.’

  Bookerman didn’t answer.

  ‘It’s time to get going, sir,’ the sergeant said, more firmly.

  Bookerman nodded and started walking. ‘You’re right, Wallace. The quicker the better.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Someone took a saw to that shaft and cut it almost in two. That Hind was flying on borrowed time. And the Russians think we did it.’

  Al-Qadi clicked his fingers and the driver to
re off down the road. A turn close by the train station confirmed they were heading for the Mukhabarat’s interrogation centre in Shubra.

  The main drag gave way to the oppressive squalor of slums. Here, there were no children playing, no dogs, even, roaming the gutters for scraps. The air was thick, every molecule charged. The Fiat splashed through open drains and the stench of the water rose to meet them. Al-Qadi removed a soiled handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped it under his nose.

  The interrogation centre seemed to have cast a pall over the surrounding area. It was a desolate place, a place you went to and never returned. As they pulled up before the red and white barrier and Al-Qadi wound down his window Girling realized there ‘was something more. Shubra felt as if it had been sealed in a vacuum. There was no sound.

  He was marched, a policeman on either side to support him, into the bowels of the building. Al-Qadi’s plastic soles squeaked on the smooth flag-stones as he led the way down the corridors of cells. From time to time the investigator would stop, slide back a hatch and peep inside. From one, Girling heard a sudden cry. Al-Qadi responded by gargling some phlegm in the back of his throat and spitting it to the floor.

  At last, Al-Qadi kicked in a door, letting it swing on its hinges as he groped in the darkness for the switch. Greasy yellow light pulsed from a bare bulb hanging in the centre of the room. The current crackled as it fought against the build-up of damp in the flex.

  Al-Qadi gestured to a chair by a table, the only furniture in the cell. There was a strong odour of urine. Girling took three steps before his legs gave way and he fell. The concrete floor was cold and wet against his face.

  The door crashed shut behind him and he looked up in time to see Al-Qadi’s face momentarily framed by the bars. Girling struggled to his feet and stuck his head as far as possible into the opening. He bellowed down the corridor, but all he heard was his own weak echo and the squeak of Al-Qadi’s soles disappearing into the distance. When he turned back to the room, the light had failed and the cell was quite dark.