by Parker Bilal
‘I told you because I wanted to be honest with you. Maybe it was an error of judgement. I thought you could handle it.’ The ice tongs hung in mid-air. ‘So you won’t do it?’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Makana. ‘Because I can’t not do it. But I don’t like it.’
‘I understand.’ Winslow finished with the ice and raised his glass in a toast. ‘I wish I could explain it, but I can’t, just as I can’t promise this isn’t just something Nizari is making up. Don’t get your hopes up.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve been dealing with this for a long time.’
‘The good thing is,’ smiled Winslow, ‘that in this case you are on the side of the angels.’
‘I’d like to believe that makes a difference.’
‘Naturally we will pay you for your time, and we’ll make all the necessary arrangements. Ever been to Istanbul?’
‘You’re forgetting that I can’t leave this country. I don’t have a valid passport and nobody is likely to provide one right now. Neither my government nor this one. I have a history, you might say.’
‘I’m aware of your situation,’ said Winslow. ‘Since arriving here from Khartoum you have remained in a kind of limbo. It’s not a problem. A passport will be issued by Her Majesty’s government.’
‘A British passport?’ Makana raised his eyebrows.
‘Effective at once, but for a limited time. You’ll hand it back when the job is over. Much as I’d like to help you, there is a limit to the miracles I can perform.’ Winslow lit a cigarette and leaned over the table. ‘You arrive in Istanbul, make contact with Nizari and deliver him to the extraction point. Someone else will take care of things from there.’
‘How do I find him?’
‘You don’t. Nizari has specified a time and place. All you have to do is be there and he will find you.’
‘So you’re in touch with him?’
‘Not exactly.’ Winslow sighed. ‘He communicates with our people at the consulate when he chooses.’
‘So the only way to reach him is through this meeting place.’
‘It’s not that complicated, not for a man like yourself. I’m confident of that. On the chair next to you is an envelope that contains ten thousand US dollars and some photographs. That’s for your transport out. Study the pictures but don’t take them with you.’
‘Who’s in them?’
‘Our man, Ayman Nizari, and the waitress from the club in Marbella.’
‘You think I might bump into her?’
‘If the Israelis are still around it’s best to be aware what form they might come in.’
Three waiters arrived bearing platters of lamp chops and skewers of kebab and grilled vegetables, more salad, bread and dips. Makana felt tired just looking at it. He swirled the ice around his glass.
‘Do you have a family?’
If the question caught Marcus Winslow off balance, he recovered smoothly.
‘You know what I do in my spare moments, Mr Makana? I sit in a dark room and play the saxophone. I imagine I am Ornette Coleman, or Sonny Rollins, and for a time, in that darkness, I shine. It’s the closest I shall ever come to understanding religion. We all have something. Maybe for you it’s redemption, the thought of finding your daughter again. I can’t really speculate. The point is that we’re not going to become friends. Not now, not ever. We’re going to do a job together as professionals and then we shall go our separate ways. It’s who we are. It’s what we do. Here’s to noble causes.’ Winslow raised his glass. ‘Now, please, we should try to make it look as if we’re enjoying a meal together.’
Makana wasn’t hungry. He chewed a lump of pickled turnip thoughtfully.
‘Why don’t you tell me about your daughter. She died in an accident, didn’t she?’
‘Somebody tampered with my car.’
‘You know this for a fact?’ Winslow stopped heaping food onto his plate.
‘It’s never been proven, but I know there were people who meant me harm. They thought I would try to escape the city in that car.’
Winslow reached into the basket for a piece of warm bread. ‘Tell me who you are worried about.’
‘Who says I’m worried?’
The Englishman looked him in the eye. ‘You believe that Nizari’s message about your daughter was not from him, but from someone else.’
Makana lit a cigarette. Whatever appetite he might have had was now well and truly gone.
‘A man named Mek Nimr. We worked together for a number of years. I was an investigator with the Criminal Investigation Department, he was a uniformed sergeant.’
‘So you knew him well, you were close?’
‘We had a different way of looking at things. We tolerated each other.’
‘You distrusted him.’
Makana considered the idea. ‘Some men have something in them. A poison, like a rabid dog that has been infected but has yet to show signs of illness. You sense it within a few minutes of meeting them. You can’t say exactly what it is but you know that one day it will come out.’
Winslow took a long drink before setting his glass down. ‘You think this man has some kind of personal vendetta against you.’
It was always hard to explain what had happened, because Mek Nimr had never protested or given any indication of discontent. Makana knew that over the years of working together, Mek Nimr had built up a powerful hatred for him. Envy. Ambition. Who could say what it really was? Perhaps it was the influence of the alcohol, or the possibility that Nasra might still be alive, but Makana found himself telling Winslow about the past in a way that he hadn’t done in years. It was as if all the unresolved questions in his life suddenly demanded further scrutiny. He was talking because he wanted to understand something he had never fully been able to comprehend.
‘We met at the police academy. His scores placed him at the bottom of the class. I was chosen as officer material. He wasn’t.’ Mek Nimr never lacked the desire to prove himself, to rise above all those around him. ‘I don’t think he ever got over that. He thought it was favouritism. He worked hard, did all the work, and he just could not understand why that didn’t make him officer material.’
‘What do you think he was lacking?’
‘Empathy. On the surface he was the most conventional man you could hope to meet. He followed regulations to the letter but he had trouble understanding people. He saw the world his way and he despised anyone who didn’t see things as he did.’
Mek Nimr’s moment had come with the power shift in 1989. Priorities changed after the coup. Suddenly, being an investigator no longer meant solving cases, or bringing people to justice, it was about conformity. Makana found himself isolated and under suspicion for the very qualities that had singled him out early on.
‘There was a restructuring. Chief Haroun was replaced by a military officer close to the new junta, and Mek Nimr got the promotion he was after. It was his hour. He ran a special unit of the People’s Defence Forces, which was a kind of informal militia to do the government’s dirty work – running down dissidents, students, trade unionists. They made them disappear.’
‘Was he involved in your being banished from the country?’
‘Banished?’ Makana echoed the word as he stubbed out his cigarette. It made him sound like a bygone chapter in history. Maybe he was. ‘There was a cover-up, in a murder case. A number of young women were being preyed on by the militias. Someone high up was involved. He was looking for a reason to get rid of me. I was arrested.’
‘Under what charge?’
‘In those days they didn’t bother much with such formalities. This was outside the law. I was held in what they used to call a ghost house. An unofficial prison. There are no records.’
‘I know what a ghost house is,’ said Winslow quietly.
‘There was no purpose to it. It was simply to intimidate, to scare, to wipe out all possible opposition.’
‘I had the impression you weren’t political.’
‘That didn’t matter. I w
as simply not one of them.’ He could have been a communist, a traitor, an apostate. He was whatever they wanted him to be.
‘Sooner or later they would have killed me. It was a little awkward because I was a senior investigator, so they released me and gave me the opportunity to flee. I think that’s where they planned to get rid of me. Somewhere out in the desert where nobody would ever find me.’
Suddenly thirsty, Makana paused to take a drink. The arak was heady and sweet.
‘You crashed while making your escape. Your wife and child were in the car.’
Makana nodded. ‘They didn’t make it. I did.’
‘And you think that this man, Mek Nimr, is somehow connected to Nizari mentioning your daughter?’
‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘I understand.’ Winslow chewed for a time, then dabbed his mouth with his napkin. ‘It’s a complicated situation. Sudan is on a list of states that support terrorism, but 9/11 was a game changer. They are keen to prove they’re on the side of the good. Nobody wants to feel the wrath of the United States. And besides, just take a look around you.’ Winslow nodded in the direction of their State Security chaperones. ‘It’s a good cover for going after your political opponents. Anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a terrorist. Welcome to the age of paranoia. The war on terror is the best thing that ever happened for Mubarak and his men. We’ve never had a problem doing a deal with the devil. Khartoum came in with plenty of useful intel.’
‘How am I supposed to get Nizari out?’
‘That happens with the help of a man named Nadir Sulayman, a local entrepreneur, former heavy metal rock musician, would you believe, and radical journalist. He ran a number of cultural journals on alternative lifestyles, transcendental meditation, legalising marijuana – that sort of thing – before going straight. Maybe he just grew up. He went into business and now runs a number of small, mostly legal enterprises – import/export. He’s been helpful in the past and he has a lot of contacts, particularly across the border in Bulgaria, which is important.’
‘Why Bulgaria?’
‘It’s too risky to fly you straight out, so you will be driven to Sofia to catch a plane. It’s a short drive – a few hours. The advantage you have is that you’re a cleanskin. Nobody knows you, nobody will be looking for you.’ Winslow tapped his fingers on the table, then flashed a smile. ‘You’ll be in and out of there before you know it.’ He helped himself to more kebab. The bread basket was whisked away and replaced by another filled with loaves warm from the oven.
‘Remember that Nizari wants to come in. He’s not an unwilling passenger. All you have to do is make contact and bring him to the location. Nadir will take care of the rest.’ Makana sipped his drink as Winslow continued. ‘Pay him half before and half on arrival. That’s the deal. We can’t risk you travelling with a larger sum. There will be more waiting for you in your hotel room safe for expenses. Your fee will be paid separately, after completion of the job.’
Over Winslow’s shoulder Makana saw the two men in the corner whispering. They looked agitated, which wasn’t a good sign.
Winslow placed a business card for something called the Green Crescent Travel Bureau on Kasr al-Nil Street on the table. ‘The place actually exists, but you can’t reach them on that number. You call me every day at six p.m. on the dot. If I’m not there, someone else will take the call. Use a landline, never a mobile. Try not to use the same one twice.’ Makana tucked the card into his pocket. ‘The last digits of the number will open the safe in your hotel room where you will find the extra cash and a weapon. Please do not use this unless absolutely necessary. The most important thing is the daily rendezvous at one o’clock at a place called the Iskander Grillroom. That’s where Nizari will try to contact you. There will be a map in your room with the location marked on it.
‘All that remains is for me to wish you good luck.’ Winslow raised his glass. ‘Now, please eat some of this delicious food. You’re making me look like a glutton.’
Makana looked at the platter and hesitated. There was something about the skewers of meat that put him in mind of a sacrificial lamb.
Chapter Four
The early hours found Makana leaning on a balcony staring out across a six-lane road at the tranquil vista of the Nile. Palm trees and greenery flourished, leaves stirring gently in the shadows like a reminder of some primordial innocence that had long been lost.
Talk of Mek Nimr had stirred up old memories and emotions that he thought he had put behind him. Makana felt as though he had lived for centuries with the images of that night’s events on the bridge burned into his mind’s eye. He had thought he was coming to terms with the death of Muna and Nasra. Now he realised he would never be at peace until he put Mek Nimr out of his life for ever.
Makana jumped as two arms came around his sides and he felt a soft warmth press against his back. He knew that underneath her robe Jehan was wearing nothing. She rested her head against his shoulder.
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she said. ‘I’m a wreck if I don’t get a full night’s sleep.’
He let her rest there against him, finding comfort as always in her presence. This too, this new beginning that he thought he had begun with Jehan in his life, was now brought into doubt.
She moved alongside him, pulling the robe tighter and plucking the cigarette from his fingers.
‘Are you sure you’ve really thought this through?’
‘I wish I could say I had,’ said Makana. ‘But I’m not sure I’m thinking clearly.’ He gazed out over the dark river. ‘I feel like I’m being pulled back down.’
‘Perhaps that’s not so strange.’ She twisted him round to study his face in the half-light. ‘You’ve never come to terms with their being gone. Maybe some part of you didn’t want to believe it. They have always been there, in some kind of twilight existence, on the edge of your life. Most of the time you keep them out of the way, but they are never fully gone. And now they’re back.’ She stroked the side of his face. ‘You have to let go, for your own sake. You can’t carry them with you for your entire life.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and tightened his grip on the railing. ‘I can’t seem to let go of them. What if it’s true? What if this man Nizari does know something about Nasra?’
‘Then you will find her and you will have to learn what that means. It’s not going to be easy. Whatever happens, you must live your own life.’
Makana had lost count of the number of times he’d tried to tell himself the same thing.
‘There wasn’t anything you could do,’ Jehan went on. ‘You can’t torture yourself with guilt for something that was beyond your ability to change.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem.’
‘You feel guilty for leaving them behind’ – she corrected herself. ‘You feel guilty for living.’ She handed back his cigarette and folded her arms across her chest. ‘I don’t like the idea of you going away like this, on the spur of the moment.’
‘There’s no other way.’ Makana took her hand in his. ‘I thought you said I should go.’
‘That doesn’t mean I like the idea. You don’t know if you can trust this Englishman, or what Nizari is up to. You’ve never been to Istanbul in your life.’
‘It’s a city. I’ve lived here for long enough to understand how they work.’
‘Not all cities are the same. They don’t even speak Arabic there.’
Makana smiled. ‘I’ll manage.’
‘I’m sure you will. You always do.’ She returned her head to his shoulder. ‘But I’m going to miss you and I’m going to worry about you.’ Straightening up, she looked him in the eye. ‘Go, but just remember that I’m here. If it doesn’t work out for some reason, if this story isn’t true, if this man is lying, you have something to come back to.’
Makana looked at her. ‘I’ve never been very good at this kind of thing.’
She covered his mouth with her hand. ‘We agreed, no promises and no apolog
ies, remember?’
‘I just want you to know that I appreciate this, everything, having you in my life.’
‘Just promise me you’ll be careful.’
‘I’m always careful.’
‘Well, more so than usual.’ Jehan squeezed his arm before turning to go back inside. ‘Aren’t you coming back to bed?’
‘In a moment.’
He listened to her moving around the room for a time before climbing into bed. After a time there was silence. He was willing to bet that she wasn’t asleep yet, but she would be soon. He switched on a low lamp, sat down in the living room and opened the envelope Ubay had given him. He had put together a fair amount of background information on Ayman Nizari.
Born in 1947 in Kufa, Nizari had studied in Baghdad and later in Paris. When he returned to Iraq with a PhD he started out as a researcher at the university but soon transferred to the military. In the mid-1980s he was part of Project 922, the Iraqi nerve-gas programme. They concentrated on developing mustard gas and a nerve agent, tabun, which was later abandoned in favour of sarin. This was during the Iran–Iraq war and chemical weapons were dropped on the waves of Iranian troops who launched themselves at the Iraqi lines, intent on martyrdom.
There was a document on the effects of mustard gas, which had claimed some fifty thousand victims, but that number could double if you counted long-term effects. The symptoms made hard reading: blistering of the skin and mucus membranes, causing respiratory problems and blindness. The long-term effects included cancer.
Sarin was a nerve agent that produced muscle convulsions and was generally lethal. There was evidence that the use of these gases had been sanctioned by the US Defense Department. The Americans had not only known what the Iraqis were planning, but provided a wealth of intelligence to help them track Iranian troop movements. After the war Ayman continued work on VX gas, an organophosphorus nerve agent. More deadly but also more unstable, VX had proved difficult to produce in sufficient purity.
By Makana’s watch it was almost five in the morning. How long had he slept that night? He wasn’t sure, but he knew there was little point in trying to sleep more. It would be light soon. He paused on his way out to look into the bedroom. Jehan was sleeping soundly. He ought to wake her and say goodbye, but instead he moved as quietly as he could towards the door.