Reprisal

by Ian Barclay

  Dartley grinned. “I have a hard time imagining that.” He folded the two papers, glancing at them before he put them in his pocket. They seemed to be diagrams of clusters of buildings, labeled in Arabic handwriting. “What are you going to do to replace them?”

  “I have Xeroxes,” Omar said brightly.

  Dartley left him on the park seat, rerolling the rug. He walked quickly, pausing suddenly at store windows and crossing streets unexpectedly, reconnoitering for a tail.

  He had snapped on the plastic cap and flipped the aspirin bottle of water in a garbage can.

  Dartley phoned the number Aaron Gottlieb had given him. Again he heard the shouting and crashing of crockery. It might be the kitchen of a busy restaurant or a factory in which they made something that clattered like plates under chaotic conditions. He raised his voice so the man at the other end of the line could hear him.

  “I want to speak to the boss’s nephew.” He spoke in simple colloquial Arabic.

  “Maalesh.” The code reply. Meaning don’t bother.

  The man hung up.

  Dartley headed for the cafe in the New City. He wondered whether he should sit in the cafe this time since he would not recognize the person he was meeting, or whether he should do what he had done before—sit out of sight in the cafe across the street and observe what went on. Maybe the Israelis were furious with him for having caused the loss of their agent. His opening line over the phone about wanting to speak to the boss’s nephew presumably identified him, each contact being given a different code. Instead of coming to talk this time, the Israelis might send a couple of heavies to spray the cafe with Uzis. A seat out of sight across the street was definitely indicated.

  Or maybe not. Gottlieb would have reported that this was where he met him rather than at the agreed upon rendezvous. To hide across the street was what they would expect him to do, and any professional assassin with a yen to survive did not do what people expected him to do.

  He could not properly size up the situation by walking past the cafe periodically because it would mean he would not have the cafe in sight all the time. So he hired a taxi, bought a magazine for the driver and told him he might have to wait an hour. The man was willing, drove to the appointed place and parked the taxi where Dartley had a view of the two cafes on opposite sides of the street.

  From the moment he first saw her, Dartley figured she was his contact. She was tall, with jet black hair piled on her head in loose waves, and had a narrow face and pointed chin. He could not tell much more from the distance at which he sat inside the cab. He hung back a while and watched her select a table and order a coffee from the waiter in the cafe in which they were supposed to meet, not in the one across the street where he and Gottlieb had run into one another.

  Why had they sent a pretty woman? It was not unusual in Cairo to see a woman enter a cafe by herself. The mullahs had not managed yet to deprive Egyptian women of their relative independence, although their publicly announced goal was to install every grown female in a shapeless black chador. This woman was dressed in a pantsuit which modestly concealed whatever bodily charms she possessed.

  Dartley paid off the driver and approached her. He had no prearranged signal to exchange with her and so tried his telephone code again.

  “I want to speak to the boss’s nephew.”

  “Maalesh.” She gestured to a seat at her table.

  Dartley ordered a Turkish coffee from the waiter. They observed each other wordlessly until after it was served. This lady was tough. She wasn’t yielding an inch. And she had an amused look in her big brown eyes, almost as if she half expected him to ask her if she came here often.

  Dartley placed his folded copy of the Egyptian Gazette on the table. “There’s a handwritten account here of what happened to Aaron Gottlieb. I’m sorry about how it ended.”

  “We understand.”

  He had given them all the details, including his suspicions of Michelle Perret’s treachery. Let her explain things to some mean Israelis. She could tell them how she wanted him killed, not the Mossad agent.

  “There are two documents—maps—of what seem to be nuclear facilities. I got them from what I think is a reliable source, Omar Zekri is his name, but he’s off to paddle them around town. If you want to make use of them on an exclusive basis, you’re going to have to act fast.”

  “I’ll see that they get top priority,” she said coolly.

  “There’s also a photo of me. I need an American passport.”

  “No problem.”

  “That’s it then,” Dartley said. He had made sure that the photo, like the previous one he had given Aaron Gottlieb, was of poor quality and showed him with an uncharacteristic expression on his face, a photo that was definitely of him when compared to his living face by some official, but one of little use in a file for future identification purposes.

  “Tonight, about midnight, at the bar of the Marriott.” She gave him a quick smile, picked up the newspaper, and was gone.

  Mustafa Bakkush returned from the airstrip to the flat-roofed military hut in which he, his wife, two daughters and son lived. The hut was in an abandoned air force base in the middle of the Western Desert, halfway between the Nile and the Libyan border, distant from all Bedouin camel routes. He kept Aziza and the children with him in the wilderness for their own safety, although her well-to-do family at Aswan had pleaded that they stay with them until Mustafa’s project was finished. Mustafa could not tell them his project would never be finished, because he would not let it be finished, regardless of the consequences to him. But that still lay in the future and while he could he wanted to have his family near him so he could protect them and enjoy their company. Aziza naturally resented his frequent trips to Cairo while she remained confined on a military base in the hot, dry, endless desert, but the memory of her and the children’s abduction from London in crates was still fresh enough in her mind to make her see the sense of her husband’s course of action. What he did not tell her was that he would find a way out of Egypt for her and his children before he did whatever he had to do to prevent Ahmed Hasan from possessing an atom bomb.

  It had been a long, hot day, and his family sat in camp chairs in the shade of the hut, sipping tea. Mustafa had brought a plastic bag of ice cubes which the children squabbled over, spilling some of the precious objects onto the sand at their feet.

  Mustafa chatted with them as they watched the sun sink in blazing red and gold over the empty wastes of sand. But though he smiled and joined in the children’s games and told his wife the latest gossip from the capital, he felt weighted down by a slow burning rage. This was not merely a resentment at his present lot in life or an unfocused bitterness. It was a strong personal hatred of Ahmed Hasan that grew mightily every day, so that it was almost a living, moving part of him, real, like his blood except that it was poisoning his mind rather than sustaining him. Would he go mad? Maybe. But first he had to get his family out.

  He looked toward the airstrip in the setting sun. Some cargo planes and a few fighters were on the concrete expanse before the terminal building and control tower. Scientists, technicians and pilots lived in other huts, but most were empty. As few personnel as possible were stationed at this base.

  Someone who didn’t know the place could easily have dismissed, even at close range, the sandy swelling in the ground among the huts as a desert dune. Most of the vast concrete dome was underground. Sand had been bulldozed as a fortification around much of the dome that protruded aboveground. From the air, not even the swelling of the land surface was visible.

  Beneath the huge, brown, dusty concrete dome, a nuclear reactor processed its uranium fuel into plutonium and other products. Next to it a chemical extraction unit separated the plutonium from the other products. In a lead-lined concrete cistern sunk deep in the sand, the deadly fruit of this harvest was gathered and stored.

  This had been one of Ahmed Hasan’s nasty surprises for Mustafa Bakkush. The physicist had expected to wor
k with Egypt’s known nuclear reactors which were subject to international inspection. Whatever cheating that might have gone on at these reactors would have been on a reasonably modest scale and at a fairly slow rate, because of the necessity of accounting for fuel and interruptions for inspections. This secret reactor changed all that. Here everything went toward producing plutonium. In addition, the other reactors were doing their share as had been planned for them. It would not be so long after all until Ahmed Hasan had the radioactive material for his bomb.

  Mustafa saw he could not interfere easily with this stage of the process. He would strike at Hasan later. For example, a faulty bomb design would use up time, parts, and fuel.…

  The children heard them first. They saw nothing until the planes were almost on top of them because the aircraft flew with the setting sun behind them. First one aircraft swooped low. Antiaircraft guns followed it. Seconds later, eight more planes swooped in, dropping long cylinders, almost a third of each plane’s length, onto the concrete dome.

  Mustafa understood what he was seeing. The pilots carefully aimed their bombs at the dome so they would not bounce the bombs off the concrete. The first bombs had delayed explosive impact so that they sank into the concrete through their falling weight before exploding.

  The first bombs, dropped by four planes, lifted great chunks of thick concrete out of the dome. The second four planes swept in out of the setting sun and dropped their bombs through the holes made by the first! Mustafa had seen and read of many bombing techniques, but he had never thought such precision and accuracy possible.

  The explosions were now deep beneath the dome, destroying everything the giant shell had been built to protect. Great orange billows of flame shot out of the ruptures and cracks in the fiery egg.

  The green-brown camouflaged jets had disappeared, streaking low across the desert.

  “There may be fallout,” Mustafa warned and shepherded his family inside the hut. He sealed the doors and windows.

  His five-year-old son cheered and clapped his hands at the raging inferno visible through the shattered concrete dome.

  He asked, “Can we go home now?”

  Three hours later, Dr. Mustafa Bakkush was at the Citadel. They had come to the hut for him with a protective suit and flown him in a high-speed jet fighter to Cairo. A military car rushed him from the airport to the courtyard within the Citadel where not so long ago he had seen men executed and saved the life of a rebellious engineer. Maybe this time Ahmed Hasan wanted his head.

  The scientist passed beneath the stony stares of soldiers who looked as if they might know something he did not. Mustafa pulled himself together. For better or worse, he would defend himself against all accusations. If there was slaughter, he was not going to be led to it as a silent lamb.

  A high-placed civil servant whom Mustafa recognized stood outside a pair of large double doors inside a building in the Citadel. Mustafa knew what lay beyond them. In there was the hearing room in which he had tried to explain nuclear weapons to the contemptuous Light of Islam mullahs.

  The civil servant nodded to Mustafa’s military escort and they marched back along the corridor.

  The government man paused before he turned the handle of one door and murmured, “Be careful.”

  Mustafa nodded gratefully and went in.

  To his relief, he was not facing a row of fierce, bearded mullahs. Only a few were present. Ahmed Hasan sat at the opposite side of the long table. A number of uniformed military men Stood in a row in front of him, with several paces between each of them, as if they were each trying to disassociate themselves from the others.

  Mustafa joined them, making sure not to get too close to them, but deriving a certain comfort, all the same, in not being out there all by himself in front of Ahmed Hasan.

  The president did not acknowledge Bakkush’s presence. He went on shouting at one of the military men.

  “Tell me how—how—nine Zionist planes, one F-15 and eight F-16s, could reach that location deep in our air space without alerting our air defenses?”

  “They fooled the radar, sir, by flying in tight formation so they looked like a large commercial airliner on the screens. When challenged, one pilot identified himself as a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 en route from Riyadh to New York. The radar image was on the correct flight path and moving at the right speed, and the call numbers and identification data checked out. There was no air or ground visual contact reported to contradict what seemed to the radar operators to be a routine flight. I can’t fault them. They followed procedure. We have a weakness in our system.”

  “All I hear are damn fool excuses and explanations!” Ahmed shouted. “I don’t want excuses and explanations! You don’t have to explain things that work! You don’t excuse yourself when you win! No more excuses and explanations!”

  He glared at all of them for a moment. Then his feverish eyes settled on another military man and he began to shout again.

  “You told me that concrete dome could not be seen from the air and that, even if it was, the reactor beneath it would escape undamaged in a hit-and-run raid like the one today.”

  “We all believed that, honorable president,” the officer replied. “We did not think it possible for jets to drop bombs through holes in the structure. Nor would it have been possible for them to do what they did today were it not that they somehow received the plans for the dome and calculated the weakest points.”

  Another officer put in, “They would also have had to make many practice runs in order to develop such a precise technique in placing their bombs. In other words, sir, they knew the structural plans of the dome for some time. What they may not have known until very recently was its exact geographical location.” The officer added dryly, “Since they came in on the attack in a single pass, they were obviously supplied with accurate details on that also.”

  “Spies! Traitors! We’re surrounded by them!” Hasan crashed his fist on the table and ground his teeth. Then his eyes settled on Mustafa Bakkush, who looked vulnerable with his poor posture next to the row of uniformed officers. “You! Are you a spy? Tell me! A lot of you scientists are Jews and Zionists! Do you write to them? Do you telephone overseas?”

  “I have contacted no one outside Egypt since my return,” Mustafa said in a loud voice.

  “No one?” Ahmed echoed unbelievingly. “What about your colleagues in England? I bet some of those were Jews.”

  “Some were, but not necessarily Zionists. I did not discuss politics with them there. I receive scientific journals from overseas and also letters. But no phone calls. And I have not responded to any letters. Your own security people could probably tell you that—if they knew their job.”

  Ahmed was visibly stung by the scientist’s touch of sarcasm, and several of the officers looked sideways at Bakkush in puzzled admiration. They knew scientists were crazy, but this crazy?

  Ahmed’s mood changed. He spoke now in a soft, cold whisper. “How do I know that you did not call in these Zionist planes on our reactor?”

  “Because I was there with my wife and children, only a few hundred yards from where the bombs fell. Do you think I would call in an air strike on my wife and children?”

  Ahmed smiled. “I do not, Mustafa Bakkush. Indeed I do not. My doubts about you are cleared. You must help us. How soon can things be repaired?”

  Mustafa shook his head. “I have not seen the damage and it may be months before anyone will be able to. My guess is that the facility will be unrepairable because of contamination. We will be able to salvage whatever plutonium and uranium that is not destroyed by fire. But all the equipment and the structure itself are a total loss.”

  “We must begin again?”

  “I think so. At another location. The construction won’t be a problem. I think getting another reactor might be.”

  “Why?” Ahmed was playing dumb.

  “Well, because of Egypt’s… ah, political gestures toward certain Western countries.”

&
nbsp; “You mean America?”

  “Yes, I do,” Mustafa said. “All you’ll get from Russia is outdated junk. You can’t hope at this stage that America will be willing to supply you directly. However, if relations were better between Cairo and Washington, they might not scream too loudly if we bought another reactor from France or Italy. As things stand, I think Washington will prevent such a sale.”

  “Good, good. Dr. Bakkush, at last I’m hearing plain sense instead of empty explanations and lame excuses.”

  As Ahmed made some more complimentary remarks about him, all Mustafa could think about was doors opening to the outside world through which he and his family could escape. He would be the most knowledgeable one to send for a hurried purchase and he would not go without his wife and children. But Ahmed would never trust him that far….

  The president was now talking to the mullahs, requesting them to restrain the other Light of Islam clergymen in their attacks on the United States. They seemed agreeable to his request.

  Ahmed Hasan turned back to the military men. “We must make friendly gestures. How? Where can we begin?”

  An officer said, “There’s a tour of American amateur archeologists in Cairo at the moment, sir. I’ve had to give them clearance to enter several military zones to see the temples there. It seems many of them are very important men in America and are very happy with how they have been treated here. Perhaps a presidential palace reception and a few words from you—”

  “Excellent!” Hasan beamed at them. “Tomorrow night. I want you all to be there.” His wild eyes included Mustafa in the invitation.

  Mustafa groaned inwardly, knowing that the madman would notice if he did not show up. He would take no risks. Ahmed Hasan’s sudden upswing of mood after today’s disaster was certain to be followed by an equally sudden downswing that might cause heads to roll.

  Richard Dartley was making his way on foot across Cairo toward the Nile, along the cool night streets, when he heard men shouting on a side street. He was about to hurry on to avoid becoming accidentally involved in a fracas when he heard a woman scream and a Southern good ol’ boy’s voice rasp: “Dang it, Emily, you keep out of this!”