The Key to Rebecca

by Ken Follett

  Vandam drove the motorcycle through the streets at a dangerous speed. He had ripped the blackout mask off the headlight--nobody in Cairo took the blackout seriously anyway--and he drove with his thumb on the horn. The streets were still busy, with taxis, gharries, army trucks, donkeys and camels. The pavements were crowded and the shops were bright with electric lights, oil lamps and candles. Vandam weaved recklessly through the traffic, ignoring the outraged hooting of the cars, the raised fists of the gharry drivers, and the blown whistle of an Egyptian policeman.

  The assistant provost marshal had called him at home. "Ah, Vandam, wasn't it you who sent up the balloon about this funny money? Because we've just had a call from a restaurant where a European is trying to pass--"

  "Where?"

  The APM gave him the address, and Vandam ran out of the house.

  He skidded around a corner, dragging a heel in the dusty road for traction. It had occurred to him that, with so much counterfeit money in circulation, some of it must have got into the hands of other Europeans, and the man in the restaurant might well be an innocent victim. He hoped not. He wanted desperately to get his hands on Alex Wolff. Wolff had outwitted and humiliated him and now, with his access to secrets and his direct line to Rommel, he threatened to bring about the fall of Egypt; but it was not just that. Vandam was consumed with curiosity about Wolff. He wanted to see the man and touch him, to find out how he would move and speak. Was he clever, or just lucky? Courageous, or foolhardy? Determined, or stubborn? Did he have a handsome face and a warm smile, or beady eyes and an oily grin? Would he fight or come quietly? Vandam wanted to know. And, most of all, Vandam wanted to take him by the throat and drag him off to jail, chain him to the wall and lock the door and throw away the key.

  He swerved to avoid a pothole, then opened the throttle and roared down a quiet street. The address was a little out of the city center, toward the Old Town: Vandam was acquainted with the street but not with the restaurant. He turned two more corners, and almost hit an old man riding an ass with his wife walking along behind. He found the street he was looking for.

  It was narrow and dark, with high buildings on either side. At ground level there were some shop fronts and some house entrances. Vandam pulled up beside two small boys playing in the gutter and said the name of the restaurant. They pointed vaguely along the street.

  Vandam cruised along, pausing to look wherever he noticed a lit window. He was halfway down the street when he heard the crack! of a small firearm, slightly muffled, and the sound of glass shattering. His head jerked around toward the source of the noise. Light from a broken window glinted off shards of falling glass, and as he looked a tall man ran out of a door into the street.

  It had to be Wolff.

  He ran in the opposite direction.

  Vandam felt a surge of savagery. He twisted the throttle of the motorcycle and roared after the running man. As he passed the restaurant an MP ran out and fired three shots. The fugitive's pace did not falter.

  Vandam caught him in the beam of the headlight. He was running strongly, steadily, his arms and legs pumping rhythmically. When the light hit him he glanced back over his shoulder without breaking his stride, and Vandam glimpsed a hawk nose and a strong chin, and a mustache above a mouth open and panting.

  Vandam could have shot him, but officers at GHQ did not carry guns.

  The motorcycle gained fast. When they were almost level Wolff suddenly turned a corner. Vandam braked and went into a back-wheel skid, leaning the bike against the direction of the skid to keep his balance. He came to a stop, jerked upright and shot forward again.

  He saw the back of Wolff disappear into a narrow alleyway. With- , out slowing down, Vandam turned the corner and drove into the alley. The bike shot out into empty space. Vandam's stomach turned over. The white cone of his headlight illuminated nothing. He thought he was falling into a pit. He gave an involuntary shout of fear. The back wheel hit something. The front wheel went down, down, then hit. The headlight showed a flight of steps. The bike bounced, and landed again. Vandam fought desperately to keep the front wheel straight. The bike descended the steps in a series of spine-jarring bumps, and with each bump Vandam was sure he would lose control and crash. He saw Wolff at the bottom of the stairs, still running.

  Vandam reached the foot of the staircase and felt incredibly lucky. He saw Wolff turn another comer, and followed. They were in a maze of alleys. Wolff ran up a short flight of steps.

  Vandam thought: Jesus, no.

  He had no choice. He accelerated and headed squarely for the steps. A moment before hitting the bottom step he jerked the handlebars with all his might. The front wheel lifted. The bike hit the steps, bucked like a wild thing and tried to throw him. He hung on grimly. The bike bumped crazily up. Vandam fought it. He reached the top.

  He found himself in a long passage with high, blank walls on either side. Wolff was still in front of him, still running. Vandam thought he could catch him before Wolff reached the end of the passage. He shot forward.

  Wolff looked back over his shoulder, ran on, and looked again. His, pace was flagging, Vandam could see. His stride was no longer steady and rhythmic: his arms flew out to either side and he ran raggedly. Glimpsing Wolff's face, Vandam saw that it was taut with strain.

  Wolff put on a burst of speed, but it was not enough. Vandam drew level, eased ahead, then braked sharply and twisted the handlebars. The back wheel skidded and the front wheel hit the wall. Vandam leaped off as the bike fell to the ground. Vandam landed on his feet, facing Wolff. The smashed headlight threw a shaft of light into the darkness of the passage. There was no point in Wolff's turning and running the other way, for Vandam was fresh and could easily catch him. Without pausing in his stride Wolff jumped over the bike, his body passing through the pillar of light from the headlight like a knife slicing aflame, and crashed into Vandam. Vandam, still unsteady, stumbled backward and fell. Wolff staggered and took another step forward. Vandam reached out blindly in the dark, found Wolff's ankle, gripped and yanked. Wolff crashed to the ground.

  The broken headlight gave a little light to the rest of the alley. The engine of the bike had cut out, and in the silence Vandam could hear Wolff's breathing, ragged and hoarse. He could smell him, too: a smell of booze and perspiration and fear. But he could not see his face.

  There was a split second when the two of them lay on the ground, one exhausted and the other momentarily stunned. Then they both scrambled to their feet. Vandam jumped at Wolff, and they grappled.

  Wolff was strong. Vandam tried to pin his arms, but he could not hold on to him. Suddenly he let go and threw a punch. It landed somewhere soft, and Wolff said: "Ooff." Vandam punched again, this time aiming for the face; but Wolff dodged, and the fist hit empty space. Suddenly something in Wolff's hand glinted in the dim light.

  Vandam thought: A knife!

  The blade flashed toward his throat. He jerked back reflexively. There was a searing pain all across his cheek. His hand flew to his face. He felt a gush of hot blood. Suddenly the pain was unbearable. He pressed on the wound and his fingers touched something hard. He realized he was feeling his own teeth, and that the knife had sliced right through the flesh of his cheek; and then he felt himself falling, and he heard Wolff running away, and everything turned black.

  13

  WOLFF TOOK A HANDKERCHIEF FROM HIS TROUSERS POCKET AND WIPED THE blood from the blade of the knife. He examined the blade in the dim light, then wiped it again. He walked along, polishing the thin steel vigorously. He stopped, and thought: What am I doing? It's clean already. He threw away the handkerchief and replaced the knife in the sheath under his arm. He emerged from the alley into the street, got his bearings, and headed for the Old City.

  He imagined a prison cell. It was six feet long by four feet wide, and half of it was taken up by a bed. Beneath the bed was a chamber pot. The walls were of smooth gray stone. A small lightbulb hung from the ceiling by a cord. In one end of the cell was a door. In the
other end was a small square window, set just above eye level: through it he could see the bright blue sky. He imagined that he woke up in the morning and saw all this, and remembered that he had been here for a year, and he would be here for another nine years. He used the chamber pot, then washed his hands in the tin bowl in the corner. There was no soap. A dish of cold porridge was pushed through the hatch in the door. He picked up the spoon and took a mouthful, but he was unable to swallow, for he was weeping.

  He shook his head to clear it of nightmare visions. He thought: I got away, didn't I? I got away. He realized that some of the people on the street were staring at him as they passed. He saw a mirror in a shop window, and examined himself in it. His hair was awry, one side of his face was bruised and swollen, his sleeve was ripped and there was blood on his collar. He was still panting from the exertion of running and fighting. He thought: I look dangerous. He walked on, and turned at the next comer to take an indirect route which would avoid the main streets.

  Those imbeciles in Berlin had given him counterfeit money! No wonder they were so generous with it--they were printing it themselves. It was so foolish that Wolff wondered if it might be more than foolishness. The Abwehr was run by the military, not by the Nazi Party; its chief, Canaris, was not the staunchest of Hitler's supporters.

  When I get back to Berlin there will be such a purge...

  How had it caught up with him, here in Cairo? He had been spending money fast. The forgeries had got into circulation. The banks had spotted the dud notes--no, not the banks, the paymaster general. Anyway, someone had begun to refuse the money, and word had got around Cairo. The proprietor of the restaurant had noticed that Wolff's money was fake and had called the military. Wolff grinned ruefully to himself when he recalled how flattered he had been by the proprietor's complimentary brandy--it had been no more than a ruse to keep him there until the MPs arrived.

  He thought about the man on the motorcycle. He must be a determined bastard, to ride the bike around those alleys and up and down the steps. He had no gun, Wolff guessed: if he had, he would surely have used it. Nor had he a tin hat, so presumably he was not an MP. Someone from Intelligence, perhaps? Major Vandam, even?

  Wolff hoped so.

  I cut the man, he thought. Quite badly, probably. I wonder where? The face?

  I hope it was Vandam.

  He turned his mind to his immediate problem. They had Sonja. She would tell them she hardly knew Wolff-she would make up some story about a quick pickup in the Cha-Cha Club. They would not be able to hold her for long, because she was famous, a star, a kind of hero among the Egyptians, and to imprison her would cause a great deal of trouble. So they would let her go quite soon. However, she would have to give them her address; which meant that Wolff could not go back to the houseboat, not yet. But he was exhausted, bruised and disheveled: he had to clean himself up and get a few hours' rest, somewhere.

  He thought: I've been here before--wandering the city, tired and hunted, with nowhere to go.

  This time he would have to fall back on Abdullah.

  He had been heading for the Old City, knowing all along, in the back of his mind, that Abdullah was all he had left; and now he found himself a few steps from the old thief's house. He ducked,under an arch, went along a short dark passage and climbed a stone spiral staircase to Abdullah's home.

  Abdullah was sitting on the floor with another man. A nargileh stood between them, and the air was full of the herbal smell of hashish. Abdullah looked up at Wolff and gave a slow, sleepy smile. He spoke in Arabic. "Here is my friend Achmed, also called Alex. Welcome, Achmed-Alex."

  Wolff sat on the floor with them and greeted them in Arabic.

  Abdullah said: "My brother Yasef here would like to ask you a riddle, something that has been puzzling him and me for some hours now, ever since we started the hubble-bubble, speaking of which ..." He passed the pipe across, and Wolff took a lungful.

  Yasef said: "Achmed-Alex, friend of my brother, welcome. Tell me this: Why do the British call us wogs?"

  Yasef and Abdullah collapsed into giggles. Wolff realized they were heavily under the influence of hashish: they must have been smoking all evening. He drew on the pipe again, and pushed it over to Yasef. It was strong stuff. Abdullah always had the best. Wolff said: "As it happens, I know the answer. Egyptian men working on the Suez Canal were issued with special shirts, to show that they had the right to be on British property. They were Working On Government Service, so on the backs of their shirts were printed the letters W.O.G.S."

  Yasef and Abdullah giggled all over again. Abdullah said: "My friend Achmed-Alex is clever. He is as clever as an Arab, almost, because he is almost an Arab. He is the only European who has ever got the better of me, Abdullah."

  "I believe this to be untrue," Wolff said slipping into their stoned style of speech. "I would never try to outwit my friend Abdullah, for who can cheat the devil?"

  Yasef smiled and nodded his appreciation of this witticism.

  Abdullah said: "Listen, my brother, and I will tell you." He frowned, collecting his doped thoughts. "Achmed-Alex asked me to steal something for him. That way I would take the risk and he would get the reward. Of course, he did not outwit me so simply. I stole the thing--it was a case--and of course my intention was to take its contents for myself, since the thief is entitled to the proceeds of his crime, according to the laws of God. Therefore I should have outwitted him, should I not?"

  "Indeed," said Yasef, "although I do not recall the passage of Holy Scripture which says that a thief is entitled to the proceeds of his crime. However ..."

  "Perhaps not," said Abdullah. "Of what was I speaking?"

  Wolff, who was still more or less compos mentis, told him: "You should have outwitted me, because you opened the case yourself."

  "Indeed! But wait. There was nothing of value in the case, so Achmed-Alex had outwitted me. But wait! I made him pay me for rendering this service; therefore I got one hundred pounds and he got nothing."

  Yasef frowned. "You, then, got the better of him."

  "No." Abdullah shook his head sadly. "He paid me in forged banknotes."

  Yasef stared at Abdullah. Abdullah stared back. They both burst out laughing. They slapped each other's shoulders, stamped their feet on the floor and rolled around on the cushions, laughing until the tears came to their eyes.

  Wolff forced a smile. It was just the kind of funny story that appealed to Arab businessmen, with its chain of double crosses. Abdullah would be telling it for years. But it sent a chill through Wolff. So Abdullah, too, knew about the counterfeit notes. How many others did? Wolff felt as if the hunting pack had formed a circle around him, so that every way he ran he came up against one of them, and the circle drew tighter every day.

  Abdullah seemed to notice Wolff's appearance for the first time. He immediately became very concerned. "What has happened to you? Have you been robbed?" He picked up a tiny silver bell and rang it. Almost immediately, a sleepy woman came in from the next room. "Get some hot water," Abdullah told her. "Bathe my friend's wounds. Give him my European shirt. Bring a comb. Bring coffee. Quickly!"

  In a European house Wolff would have protested at the women being roused, after midnight, to attend to him; but here such a protest would have been very discourteous. The women existed to serve the men, and they would be neither surprised nor annoyed by Abdullah's peremptory demands.

  Wolff explained: "The British tried to arrest me, and I was obliged to fight with them before I could get away. Sadly, I think they may now know where I have been living, and this is a problem."

  "Ah." Abdullah drew on the nargileh, and passed it around again. Wolff began to feel the effects of the hashish: he was relaxed, slow-thinking, a little sleepy. Time slowed down. Two of Abdullah.'s wives fussed over him, bathing his face and combing his hair. He found their ministrations very pleasant indeed.

  Abdullah seemed to doze for a while, then he opened his eyes and said: "You must stay here. My house is yours. I
will hide you from the British."

  "You are a true friend," Wolff said. It was odd, he thought. He had planned to offer Abdullah money to hide him. Then Abdullah had revealed that he knew the money was no good, and Wolff had been wondering what else he could do. Now Abdullah was going to hide him for nothing. A true friend. What was odd was that Abdullah was not a true friend. There were no friends in Abdullah's world: there was the family, for whom he would do anything, and the rest, for whom he would do nothing. How have I earned this special treatment? Wolff thought sleepily.

  His alarm bell was sounding again. He forced himself to think: it was not easy after the hashish. Take it one step at a time, he told himself. Abdullah asks me to stay here. Why? Because I am in trouble. Because I am his friend. Because I have outwitted him.

  Because I have outwitted him. That story was not finished. Abdullah would want to add another double cross to the chain. How? By betraying Wolff to the British. That was it. As soon as Wolff fell asleep, Abdullah would send a message to Major Vandam. Wolff would be picked up. The British would pay Abdullah for the information, and the story could be told to Abdullah's credit at last.

  Damn.

  A wife brought a white European shirt. Wolff stood up and took off his torn and bloody shirt. The wife averted her eyes from his bare chest.

  Abdullah said: "He doesn't need it yet. Give it to him in the morning."

  Wolff took the shirt from the woman and put it on.

  Abdullah said: "Perhaps it would be undignified for you to sleep in the house of an Arab, my friend Achmed?"

  Wolff said: "The British have a proverb: He who sups with the devil must use a long spoon."

  Abdullah grinned, showing his steel tooth. He knew that Wolff had guessed his plan. "Almost an Arab," he said.

  "Good-bye, my friends," said Wolff.

  "Until the next time," Abdullah replied.

  Wolff went out into the cold night, wondering where he could go now.

  In the hospital a nurse froze half of Vandam's face with a local anesthetic, then Dr. Abuthnot stitched up his cheek with her long, sensitive, clinical hands. She put on a protective dressing and secured it by a long strip of bandage tied around his head.