Countdown in Cairo rt-3

by Noel Hynd

  Bissinger handled the introduction of Colonel Ahman Amjad to Josephine from Toronto.

  “I have my car outside,” Colonel Amjad said. “I could drive you.”

  “I really don’t mind walking,” Alex insisted.

  “I insist,” the colonel said. “You must be tired.”

  Alex was about to refuse again, but her feet were killing her and the jetlag was catching up. Then there was the din and grittiness of the walk over, the catcalls from men in trucks and taxis. She thought better of it.

  “All right,” she said.

  The colonel gave her a bow. “I’m honored,” he said.

  He led her to his vehicle, an unmarked police car. He held the door to the backseat open and she climbed in. He came around, slid in, and started the car. The ignition sputtered and resisted slightly, and for one horrible stretch of seconds, Alex wondered if that was how Carlos’s car sounded before it turned into a flaming execution chamber.

  The car failed to start. She was ready to bolt.

  Then Colonel Amjad turned the ignition a second time. The engine kicked in. He pulled out of the secured embassy parking and into traffic on the motorway along the river. Traffic was moving faster than a crawl now, a propitious sign.

  “You are American? From where?” he asked, glancing into his rearview mirror as they drove.

  “Canadian, actually.”

  “Ah! Canada!”

  “You’ve been there?” she asked.

  “I’ve been to America and I’ve been to Canada,” he said proudly. “I have one brother in Vancouver and a half-brother in New York.”

  “That’s very nice,” she said. She couldn’t get a range on him. Was he snooping or being sincere?

  “Maybe next year I go and visit again,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  He hit some traffic and started to work his horn, not that anyone paid any attention. Another driver started to give him a threatening gesture but backed off immediately when he noticed the police uniform.

  “Well, I’m sure you’d enjoy your trip,” she said. “I hope you’re able to visit.”

  He shrugged while driving. Then, seeing an opportunity, he switched on a small blue flashing light on his dashboard. Traffic ahead of him gave way and Colonel Amjad edged through it like a weasel.

  “There is a phrase in Arabic,” he said. He then gave it in Arabic. Alex didn’t understand. Arabic was still beyond her dossier. “The phrase says, ‘Let every man eat bread,’ ” Amjad said. “We are also so busy here. Police. One thing stops and another starts. Very hard for me to travel and get away.”

  “I understand,” Alex said, who wasn’t sure if she did.

  He found the exit from the motorway, and they were back at the hotel within a few minutes. After her initial reservations, Alex was satisfied with the trip, and with Colonel Amjad. A chauffer was a great thing, a police escort something even greater.

  Colonel Amjad pulled into the semicircle in front of the hotel. The doormen knew enough to stay away until the proper moment. The colonel turned around from the front seat.

  “May I give you some advice?” he asked. “For your personal safety? About Cairo.”

  “Please do,” she said.

  “When walking on the street, walk as far away from the cars and motor scooters as you can,” he said. “Bad people, they pull up right next to you, grab your purse, and drive away. Or, with a single Western woman, they force you into the car. Stay close to the buildings. Don’t give money to beggars. Some of them will stalk you and send their family members to follow you home and harass you for more money.”

  “Simple urban precaution,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He nodded politely. “Yes, you could say,” he said. “And maybe,” he said, giving a nod to her head, “if I am not being presumptuous, you might purchase a headscarf or two. It will help you fit in. Even in Western business clothes, for a woman the hijab is a good idea.”

  She thought about it. “Good advice, Colonel,” she said.

  “Are you really Canadian or are you American working undercover with the embassy?” he asked.

  She laughed. “Got to admit it!” she said, not missing a beat. “I’m a spy!”

  “You are?”

  She laughed again and shook her head. “You flatter me, Colonel. I’m a visiting scholar and a personal friend of Mr. Bissinger at the embassy. Everything I know about spies I saw in James Bond movies.”

  “You are very pretty. You could be a Bond girl.”

  “That would pay better than what I do as a teacher, Colonel. You flatter me again.”

  “So be it,” he said. “It is my pleasure to be at your disposal while you are here.”

  She gave him a final smile.

  “If at any time you feel there is a threat or a danger, please call me. I insist. Here,” he said. He wrote out his cell phone number and handed it to her. “I oversee security for the Americans, Canadians, and British. I am often at the big hotels.”

  She thanked him again. “And I’ll get myself some scarves.”

  Then she was out of the car. He pulled out of the driveway and back into the endless Cairo traffic. From the corner of her eyes, she watched the car disappear.

  “What a creep!” she thought to herself.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  It was past 3:00 p.m. when Alex left the hotel, wearing the Beretta concealed beneath the linen jacket. Anxious to adapt to Egyptian time, she went walking in the city, curious to see what she could while she had a small amount of downtime. On her stroll, she reversed course several times to make sure she wasn’t being followed. When she was convinced that no one was trailing her, she relaxed slightly.

  She was in one of the more affluent neighborhoods. She could read the streets enough to tell that much. But as a single Western woman alone on foot in Cairo, she had her difficulties. When she stopped and looked at postcards in a souvenir stand, an Egyptian man approached her, stood too close, and spoke to her in English.

  “You are American?” he asked.

  She tried to ignore him.

  “British?”

  “Soy Mexicana,” she answered in Spanish, stepping away.

  He persisted in English. She tried to throw him by crossing the street, but he followed and persisted. “I help you see city,” he said. “I can be guide.”

  Finally she said, “I don’t need help,” in English.

  “We have a drink now,” he said. “And I tell you about Cairo.”

  They stood near the entrance to a cafe. She turned to him and glared. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go in here. Buy me a Coca-Cola.”

  They sat. He ordered. Then Alex made a motion with her hands as if to wash them. “Bathroom,” she said. “Wash up.”

  He nodded. The waiter arrived with their drinks. She took a long sip. Then she excused herself to use the washroom. While he waited, she eased out the back entrance of the cafe, jogged a block through a crowd, and continued on her way.

  By 4:00 p.m. she had arrived in Old Cairo. She spent an hour wandering through crowded markets. The aroma of herbs and spices pervaded the air: cayenne, coriander, saffron, sesame, turmeric, and cinnamon. On the streets, in the public squares, there were beggars, snake charmers, acrobats, rug peddlers, minstrels, astrologers, and would-be medicine men.

  She tasted different spices and examined some earrings but was more in the mood to look, not to buy. She did follow Colonel Amjad’s advice, however, and purchased three scarves. They were beautiful pieces in tan and green silk with very Egyptian designs, each slightly different. They would help her blend in somewhere later perhaps, or so she reasoned.

  She stopped for a tea and was again relieved that no one was following her. Across from her, a row of men smoked hookahs and quietly assessed her as they sipped tea along with their smokes. Finally, in response to their persistent and curious gaze, she smiled back and nodded to them.

  She recalled her teenage friend, Rene, from years ago.

  She looked at t
he men. “ Marhabbah. Assalaam Alaikim,” she said. Hello. Peace be with you.

  They broke into surprised smiles. They nodded respectfully and smiled broadly.

  Then, late in the day, she went up to the Citadel, the thousand-year-old fortress originally built to protect Cairenes from the Christian crusaders of Europe. As she stood on a promontory overlooking the city, she could hear the athan, the call to prayer, sounding from all angles. There seemed to be a masjiid, a mosque, in every direction, each equipped with loudspeakers attached to its minaret. Like the street vendors and hawkers, even the mosques were competing for attention and customers in this small, crowded universe. And yet, in a cramped, sooty, elbow-to-elbow way, the city had its charm-or at least her first view of it. Alex felt as if she were picking up the feel of the place.

  The sun was setting. She bought a cheap digital camera, took some pictures of the Citadel, and headed back to her hotel. Back in her room, she went again to her window to savor her new venue. Below her, in the back lot of the hotel, the blue pool gleamed. Tourists with brown bodies frolicked and splashed in it. Beyond, the sun set on the Nile, and she watched a few pleasure craft and sailboats navigate the river.

  Toward 8:00 in the evening, Alex had dinner alone in her hotel room. There were three different menus: American, European, and Muslim. She ordered from the European. From her window again later in the evening, she could see the lights of part of the city.

  She realized anew how exhausted she was. She made sure her door was bolted properly and, after her experiences in Geneva, examined all the walls for any false entrances or exits to her room. As was her habit, she placed the loaded gun by her bedside. She had no desire to wake up in a place different from where she had fallen asleep. It had happened before.

  Toward 10:00 in the evening, Cairo time, she reviewed secure email on her laptop. There was nothing of importance from back in the United States, where it was now midafternoon. Nothing from her contacts in Cairo either.

  Then, just as she was about to log off, her secure email came alive again. It was from Rizzo. He had spotted a newspaper article that had just appeared. He enclosed a link.

  She clicked on it and read:

  EXPERT IN RUSSIAN POISONING CASE IS SHOT

  FBI joins investigation, but officials think it’s just local crime

  By Evelyn McFedriesSpecial to The Wall Street Journal

  WASHINGTON-FBI agents are assisting Washington, DC, police, who are investigating the shooting of a Russian expert, a man who spoke out on NewsLine NBC last weekend and strongly suggested that veterans of the KGB were responsible for the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.

  The Russian expert, Grigor Popov, was shot Thursday night as he stepped from his car in front of his house in Bethesda, Md. Police in Prince Georges County say witnesses claim to have seen a lone gunman running away after the shooting. Popov remains hospitalized in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the lower abdomen. He is under police guard at the hospital.

  Popov was a longtime consultant on Russian affairs. From 1990 to 2002, he was director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

  On last weekend’s NewsLine, he said of Litvinenko’s death: “A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin: ‘If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you and we will silence you.’”

  FBI and Maryland police are aware of Popov’s theories regarding the Litvinenko death. But local investigators are highly skeptical that this was anything other than street crime. The FBI, however, has theorized differently.

  In an additionally bizarre coincidence, another person who appeared recently on a NewsLine broadcast died of a heart attack last month. Reporter Howard Dunbar of the Times of London, who had also written about the Litvinenko case, died Feb. 20, before the NewsLine segment was broadcast. He was 52.

  Mr. Dunbar was a veteran British foreign correspondent who had reported from Eastern Europe. Just before his death, he had been reporting in Ukraine.

  She read the article twice.

  Okay, good to know. Continuing background.

  Russia. Ukraine. Putin. Mysterious death. Apparent political assassination.

  Special significance beyond that? If there was any, Rizzo didn’t note it and she didn’t catch it.

  She yawned. She undressed and showered. She brushed her teeth.

  She collapsed into a very comfortable bed and was asleep within seconds.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  In the 1300s, Cairo had been the crossroads of trade between Europe and the Far East. As Cairo grew as a commercial center, the need expanded for space within the city for traders to gather, open stalls, and engage in commerce. The horse keeper of one of the sultans, Gharkas al-Khalili, seeking appropriate new quarters for Muslim merchants, purchased the land of the old Fatimid royal cemetery. He dug up the bodies that had been interred there, transported them by horse-drawn carts to a place outside the city walls, and dumped them to rot in the heat and sunlight.

  So much for early urban renewal.

  With the land now cleared, a new market was built in 1382 by the Emir Djaharks el-Khalili in the heart of the Fatimid City upon the old burial grounds. Together with the al-Muski market to the west, the new commercial area created one of Cairo’s most important shopping areas in the Middle Ages. But more than that, the market established Cairo as a major center of trade, and at the Khan, as it is now called, one will still find foreign merchants where the market was founded in 1382.

  Historically, this same market was involved in the spice monopoly that encouraged the Europeans to search for new routes to the East. Indirectly, it led Columbus to sail for the Americas.

  On the evening of her second day in Cairo, Alex walked through this shopping district, passing through the narrow passageways between shops and booths, tradesmen and artisans, until she came to an old cafe named Fishawi’s. Cairo remains a city that reeks of age, and Fishawi’s is a great part of that aroma.

  Fishawi’s has been open every day and night for two centuries. It is a dark, noisy place, reminiscent of an old-fashioned Paris cafe, with gas lights and small tables scattered inside and out.

  Alex entered the cafe alone and surveyed the chamber. It didn’t take long to find the people she was looking for. There were two women in headscarves and robes at a table midway back in the cafe, talking, but obviously waiting for someone. Their eyes were upon Alex from the moment she saw them. They wore no veils. They would have been otherwise unremarkable except Alex spotted the bouquet of roses immediately. That, and the fact that they were the only pair of women within the entire cafe. There were scores of men.

  The roses were upright in a vase. That was the “clear” signal.

  Alex walked to the table, conscious of many eyes upon her. The women stopped talking and looked up at her, though the chamber remained noisy.

  “I’m a friend of Fitzgerald,” Alex said in low tones in English.

  “Yes?” one of the women said. “You are Josephine?”

  “I am Josephine,” Alex said.

  “I’m Artemiz,” the woman answered. “Be seated. Welcome.”

  “You are alone?” the other woman asked.

  “I am alone.”

  “You were careful when you came here?” Artemiz asked.

  “I’m always careful,” Alex said.

  “That’s very wise,” Artemiz said.

  The women looked enough alike to be sisters. Dark eyes, round faces, black hair. Mocha skin.

  Alex looked for an extra chair. There was one nearby. She reached for it but Artemiz stopped her hand.

  “Wait,” Artemiz said softly.

  Alex looked back at her. She knew enough not to interfere with any safety precautions. As was usual in cases like this, Alex was very conscious of the gun under her jacket, and how quickly she could get at it.

  The two women spoke to each other. Alex was surprised. She realized that she had missed something. T
he women spoke Farsi to each other. They were, it was quickly apparent, Persians, not Arabs, though Muslim nonetheless. They were most likely Iranians in exile.

  The second woman got up, went to the entrance, and stepped outside where she could see the street as well as be seen. Artemiz remained in the cafe. She indicated that Alex should now take the seat. Alex did.

  “Sit and relax for a minute,” Artemiz said.

  Alex watched as the woman on the street flipped open a cell phone and made a call. Then the nameless woman retreated from the cafe side of the street to the opposite side. Artemiz engaged Alex in a petty conversation, but Alex kept her eyes on the street. She then saw two burley men appear and take positions, like sentries, by the door. They were conspicuous in their size, well over six feet each, and bulked up. Alex assumed they were also armed and part of the security arrangements for the meeting. It was Alex’s first clue that she wasn’t about to rendezvous with any old broken-down street spy.

  Several minutes passed. Artemiz continued a meaningless conversation about tourist sites in Cairo. Alex replied politely to each question and waited. She broke a sweat. The woman on the street stayed within view. Alex felt her anxiety level rise but continued to watch. The woman out on the street took an incoming call that lasted no more than five seconds. She then put her phone away and reached with her right hand to her left elbow, tapping it twice.

  Artemiz changed subjects in mid-phrase. She reached beneath her own robe, pulled out a checkered head scarf and handed it to Alex.

  “Here. Wear this,” she said. “We’re going to move. Come!”

  “To where?” Alex asked.

  “Voltaire is ready. He will see you now,” Artemiz said. “Put the hijab on.”

  “I have my own,” Alex said.

  Artemiz was surprised. “Then wear it,” she said.

  Alex reached to a pocket and pulled out a hijab. She wrapped the new scarf around her head and neck. The Persian woman looked at her and then smiled, as if Alex hadn’t donned the scarf just right.