by Ian Barclay
Darkley yanked his 9 mm Browning out of his holster, hoping not to set the trigger off accidentally. He got his hand nicely around the grip and snaked his trigger finger forward as he brought the barrel up to bear on the Frenchman sitting opposite him at the small cafe table.
Laforque was more careful, more precise, slower.
Dartley squeezed the trigger when the Browning was pointing somewhere in the middle of Laforque’s chest.
The bullet snapped off the top of the MAB and buried itself in Laforque’s neck.
Dartley’s trigger finger was already sending a second shot home, and this slug hit Laforque in the solar plexus with a dull whop. The bullet ripped through his innards and embedded itself in his backbone, severing the spinal cord.
The first shot lifted the Frenchman up out of his chair and the second sent him crashing backward into other tables and chairs.
Yet the last threshing movements of Laforque’s body, as life leaked out of it, caused less damage to cafe property than the stampede of other customers to safety. They jumped over and kicked aside the tables and chairs, sending cups and saucers and other customers flying.
They were still trying to untangle themselves and escape when Dartley placed a $100 bill on the counter, holstered his smoking gun and headed out into the street.
While he made his way through the traffic toward the car waiting on the opposite side of the street, he heard some kids behind him shouting, “Jesse James! Jesse James!”
When Ahmed Hasan heard how Jacques Laforque died, he lost his aura of calm.
“This is an open invitation to the lawless, godless elements to riot!” he screamed. “Where were the police when this shootout was going on? How can this man conduct gunfights in crowded streets in Cairo and nothing happens to him? Awad ran away! He is making the state security forces look like fools. The lawless ones will think we are weak. We do not respond. One man can challenge us successfully right here in the capital city. I can see them now! The rebels are digging up their guns and oiling them! The spies are watching! They are like wolves. When they scent weakness, they attack.” He paused in his rapid pacing up and down the presidential office and stared at the assembled military and security officers. “We need a diversion. Yes! Exactly! Get a mob to storm the American Embassy and we’ll hang Mubarak and the others.”
“President Reagan has told us loud and clear,” one general pointed out, “that if the embassy is attacked, either by us directly or if we let a mob do it, the American Air Force will lay waste—”
“I know all that!” Hasan shouted, but he cooled down a bit. “Then let’s get your soldiers on the move. Have them do something.”
“Right now, sir, they might do more harm than good,” the general spoke up again. “We have a bit of a morale problem. There’s no telling which side they might end up fighting on if we let them mix with the city mobs.”
They watched Ahmed carefully and saw him register this advice. He was raving, but his brain was still taking things in, even if they were not what he wanted to hear.
“What about the police forces then?” he asked in a much more reasonable tone of voice.
“We’re already doing our best, sir,” another man said.
“And it is not good enough,” Hasan judged. He looked at them all in silence for a full minute with a crooked grin on his face. Finally he said, “I know some of you think I am mad. Talented but unpredictable and very dangerous, isn’t that what you say behind my back to foreigners at cocktail parties? Very well. Listen to this. It will confirm your fears. I want you to put the whole city on a riot alert. Cancel all leaves. Bring every possible man on duty, both police and army. I want you to do this as secretly as possible, so that this does not become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell them we think Israeli paratroopers may attack. They’ll curse and groan, but they will all show up. Keep the assault squads restricted to barracks and be ready to move out. Any questions?”
There were none, apart from a few raised eyebrows.
“Dismissed.”
Pritchett entered the mosque. He was curious. It wasn’t often that anyone from the American Embassy got an invitation from the mullahs in Cairo. This time these Light of Islam people had specifically asked for him. Pritchett waited in the entranceway for someone to approach him.
A young mullah with a sparse beard came up to him and said something in Arabic.
Pritchett gestured that he did not understand.
The mullah pointed to a door at the end of a long corridor at the left of the mosque entrance. Pritchett walked down to the door, banged on it with his fist—but the wood was so heavy his knock would not be heard on the other side of the door—then pressed down its latch and pushed it inward.
The big room on the other side was dimly lit by small windows high in its walls. Two mullahs sat on carpets scattered about the floor. A third man with them was no more than twenty-five and he wore jeans and a burgundy T-shirt with a white Harvard University insignia on it. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, Pritchett recognized the mullahs—both leaders of the so-called moderate wing of the Light of Islam. One had a huge white beard and the other a sharp, black, pointed one and black fierce eyes.
Pritchett had been through this shit before and he wasn’t about to let them intimidate him with their silence and their stares in their mosque.
“Hi,” he said, left his shoes at the door and lowered himself onto the carpets next to them. “You a Harvard boy?”
“Yes,” the young man said, evidently a little surprised by this American’s approach.
“I went to Boston University myself,” Pritchett lied.
“Oh.” The young man had nothing to say to that.
“You the interpreter?”
“Yes.”
“What do they want?” Pritchett asked, like he was in a hurry and these people were taking up his valuable time.
“I don’t know.”
“Ask them.”
The usual elaborate formal greetings followed, which Pritchett returned patiently; then a short denunciation of the United States, which made Pritchett yawn. Then the mullahs got down to business. A popular uprising was about to take place—within hours—against Ahmed Hasan and the more fanatical Light of Islam zealots. The two mullahs were aware that the CIA had several arms dumps hidden at strategic points around the city. Would the CIA release these arms to the rebels?
“Because of the rising popular unrest of the last few days,” Pritchett told them, “I have already discussed this subject with my superiors. While I cannot speak for the CIA, since I am not a member of that organization, and while the CIA denies the existence of such arms dumps in Cairo or anywhere in the sovereign territory of the Arab Republic of Egypt, I can tell you the following: The State Department in Washington, D.C., strongly supports President Ahmed Hasan and will not permit any American intervention that might destabilize his administration.”
The translation of this statement was met with hard looks from the mullahs. Their reply was polite and forceful. “We will pursue the course which Allah has pointed out for us, even without the help of potential friends. And we have long memories.”
“If Ahmed Hasan were… somehow removed from the presidency,” Pritchett suggested, “I can’t see how the State Department could object to our support of the more moderate faction in the ensuing chaos. Especially if that faction agreed to reinstate ex-President Mubarak.”
The two mullahs chewed this over between themselves for a while before replying. “We will move against our oppressors without your assistance.”
“I know of a cache of Kalashnikov rifles and Makarov pistols,” Pritchett volunteered. “I don’t suppose it would do any harm for us to give you these. But I can’t give you American weapons while Hasan is still in power. I’ll send someone here in an hour to show your people where to find these Soviet arms.”
Pritchett left. He was not the one who made decisions, he just followed orders. He smiled to think of the furious faces o
f State Department guys at the embassy when they heard about the mob with Russian guns. There was no way they could trace these to the Agency.
The fighting broke out in the huge courtyard of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in southern Islamic Cairo. Bullets ricocheted off the intricate lacework of decorations and gouged out pieces of carved stonework and stucco. The fighting then spilled eastward into Saliba Street and on to Salah Al-Din Square, near the western gate of the Citadel. Government reinforcements did not have far to go.
The fellahin fought the police and soldiers with modern shotguns and hunting rifles, with antique weapons that had gold or silver inlays and filigrees, with a mysterious but small supply of Soviet rifles and pistols, with World War II British Enfield rifles and Webley revolvers, with Molotov cocktails and cobblestones.
The soldiers and police started out with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets. In minutes they were using live ammunition from their Rashid and Hakim rifles, Carl Gustav submachine guns and Beretta pistols. The bodies started piling up in the suddenly deserted streets.
The same thing happened at five other points in the city. Before the fighting could spread and a mob build beyond the point where it could be controlled, crack units descended on the undisciplined rebels. The highly trained police and military units took out the leaders of each group in a quick assault, then let the others escape into the crowd so long as they dropped their weapons and ammo.
Although these government tactics resulted in few arrests, they served to quell the disturbances quickly, since the leaderless rebels lost the will to fight to the death when they saw an opportunity to run now and come back another day. In sha ‘allah.
Chapter
14
When Abdel Ibrahim told Richard Dartley that Dr. Mustafa Bakkush wanted to meet him, Dartley was enthusiastic. In his stay at the City of the Dead, Dartley had learned that Ibrahim had wide contacts in the rebel underground against Hasan and many of the Light of Islam zealots. He was even regarded as being a major leader of this leaderless, disorganized, hard-core mass of dissenters. Dartley remembered how the man at the reception desk of the Pensione Cornwell had recognized Ibrahim when they came to pick up the weapons.
Most of the rebel factions disagreed with one another in their attitude to the Light of Islam mullahs, but they were all united in their hatred of Ahmed Hasan. So far as Dartley could tell, Ibrahim had emerged as the pro-Mubarak strongman in the movement. Both of his brothers had died in serving the ex-president, who with his family and some associates had taken refuge in the American Embassy after the overthrow of his government by Islamic fundamentalists.
Certainly Abdel Ibrahim was a lot more than a half-starved occupant of a shack in an ancient graveyard. He had stayed out of the unsuccessful uprising against Hasan. Dartley did not know that this was because he had been advised to do so by a message from Pritchett at the embassy. On his part, Pritchett would have been enraged at Ibrahim if he had known he was sheltering the American madman who was causing everyone so much trouble—particularly Pritchett himself, who was still shamefacedly reporting to Langley, Virginia, that he had no notion who the man was.
Mustafa Bakkush had sent Dartley, via the tailor, to Ibrahim. Dartley hadn’t seen or heard of Bakkush since then, and looked forward to talking with this world-renowned scientist. He found it a little peculiar that the scientist had arranged to meet him in a mosque. Although Dartley expected that Bakkush’s request to speak with him would have some hidden motive attached, he was amazed to find two mullahs waiting with him whose faces Dartley recognized from the Cairo TV news. He did not know their names or exactly what they stood for, except that they were Light of Islam and he wanted none of them.
Dartley headed back toward the door where he had left his shoes, with his hand on the butt of the Browning in his shoulder holster. He stopped only when both Ibrahim and Bakkush pleaded with him to come back.
“I’ve seen these two on TV, cussing out the U.S.,” Dartley said. “The one with the white beard called us the devil’s spawn, and the one with the little pointed beard, who, if you ask me, looks like the devil himself, called us something else. I’m not going to sit down with them, no matter what. As I see it, they ain’t good enough to kiss Ronald Reagan’s ass.”
“Things have changed,” Bakkush said. The little scientist looked out of place next to the two crazy looking mullahs and the fellahin rebel from the City of the Dead.
“Things always change when someone wants something from someone,” Dartley said. “You go ahead and translate what I said about them, and say it slowly so I can understand your Arabic enough to make sure you get it all in. And you can add that if they start ranting about the evils of the West, this particular devil is going to hightail it out of here.”
So far as Dartley could follow, Bakkush told the two mullahs everything he had said. The one with the white beard even laughed and said politics are politics and must not come between men of good will.
They must want something from him real bad, Dartley decided.
Bakkush spoke hurriedly now, before the American and the two Light of Islam mullahs could tangle any further. “I was brought back to Egypt under duress. It is common knowledge that I preferred to live abroad. Now I am here to stay—I will remain even after I am free to go. Abdel Ibrahim loves this country too, even though it has cost the lives of two brothers. The mullahs here are harder for you to understand. I suppose we Muslims like our religion strongly spiced, so we get what we deserve. These two religious leaders are perhaps like some of your fierce Southern Baptists in the United States, which makes them moderates here. The most important thing for us about them is that they think their power should center around the mosque. They do not believe they should take over the government and rule the people, as many of the other Light of Islam mullahs do. Thus they are on the same side as Abdel Ibrahim and I.”
“Good for you,” Dartley said warily.
“We want to tell you only two things,” Bakkush resumed, “two very important things. The first is that we cannot get arms released until the tyrant Hasan is ousted. Nor will the people join an uprising until they truly believe he is gone. That much is evident from what has already happened. You are going to kill Ahmed Hasan. We need to know when.”
“Forget it,” Dartley said.
“We must know for our planning,” Mustafa Bakkush protested.
“I’ll get Ibrahim to tell you when we decide,” Dartley said, privately vowing that Ibrahim would know nothing until the latest possible time. Dartley was damned if he was sharing his schedule with Light of Islam mullahs, no matter how friendly they pretended to be.
“The second matter is just as important,” Bakkush continued. “The government agent known as Awad—no one knows his real name—is the one whose partner, Zaid, they say you garroted in his van and is the one who ran from you when you shotgunned Omar Zekri. This Awad is at the moment combing the city not only for you, as he has been doing for days, but for members of the underground movements. He will torture them and some of them may have heard rumors of where you are to be found.”
Ibrahim nodded. “You know how people talk loosely. And Awad is a skilled torturer. I think there is a great danger. You must go with Mustafa. The mullahs will hide you both.”
“Hold on,” Dartley said. “Why do you mention only Awad? Aren’t there other government agents?”
“That is how Ahmed Hasan works,” Abdel said. “He assigns a task to one man and holds him alone responsible for it. Awad’s task is to find you. Besides his fear of Ahmed Hasan, Awad must kill you because you made him run like a cowardly dog and because you killed his partner Zaid. None of the others will search for you like he is doing.”
“So let’s go find Awad,” Dartley said to Ibrahim while climbing to his feet. “Mustafa, you and I have got to talk sometime.” He nodded to the mullahs. “Pleasure meeting you gentlemen.”
“The hunter often forgets he can be hunted too,” Dartley remarked as he and Ibrahim watch
ed the secret police patrol from the front of their car.
They had found Awad where they heard he would be, near the intersection of the Sharia Al-Azhar and the Sharia El Muizz. They had watched three secret police patrols searching the buildings in this crowded, noisy sector before they found the one Awad was with. He directed them all by a hand-held radio, which meant the other patrols were not far away and might number more than Dartley and Ibrahim saw.
“You drive and concentrate on that,” Dartley cautioned. “Try to give me a back door if things go wrong.”
Dartley would take care of Awad himself. He felt no personal challenge in this, as he often did in putting himself against someone else who knew he was a marked man. Awad was only a bully. Now that he had others with him, he would know no fear. It would not even occur to the fool, as he terrorized people in his search for rebels, that he too was being stalked at that very moment.
“Follow them till they go in the next apartment building,” he told Ibrahim, “then hang back here till they start coming out. As soon as you see Awad emerge, put your foot on the gas and move up fast.”
Dartley took his jacket off as they watched Awad and the five other plainclothesmen pass five doorways and enter the sixth. Dartley draped the jacket over his left arm, picked up the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun from the floor at his feet and concealed it as best he could beneath the jacket.
He opened the car door and said to Ibrahim before he got out, “Hang back here. I can take care of myself. Don’t come till Awad shows unless I wave to you.” He grinned. “It’s really going to freak them out when they see me walking right at them.”
Dartley stopped at a store window next to the house the secret police were searching. He looked like a hot, perspiring, foreign tourist examining curios in the window. The two secret policemen who came together out of the building didn’t even notice him. They walked up the street, lighting cigarettes and talking to each other. The next man down spotted Dartley. He dived for his shoulder holster, but Dartley knocked off a pair of shots from the MP5, which placed two red splotches on the front of the man’s shirt. His legs gave way beneath him and he hit the sidewalk.