by Paul Sussman
He rolled his shoulders, the skin tight beneath his shirt, and came up even closer to the screen. Who would have thought it? Who would have imagined? Yet somehow he had always known. He was the chosen one. The saviour of his people. And now all he had to do was wait and watch. Let Ben-Roi track it down. And then, when it was found . . .
'Thank you, Lord,' he whispered. 'I will not fail you. Ani mavtiach. I promise. I will not fail you.'
LUXOR
'That's fifteen pounds you owe me. You want another one?'
In response, Khalifa drained off the remainder of his tea and, getting to his feet, slammed the leaves of the backgammon box together, signalling that no, he didn't want another game.
'Coward,' said Ginger with a grin, puffing on his shisha pipe.
'Always have been, always will be,' replied Khalifa, opening his wallet and counting out his losses. 'Although right now it's not losing to you I'm afraid of but being late for Zenab. She's cooking, and I promised her I'd be home by eight.'
His friend exhaled a cloud of apple-scented tobacco smoke and, extending his thumb, drilled it into the table-top, the gesture indicating that he thought Khalifa was 'under the thumb'. There were loud chuckles from the other tea-drinkers sitting around them. The detective's devotion to his wife was a source of common knowledge, and general amusement.
'Time for Inspector Hen-Pecked to get off home!' one of them called.
'Pussy-whipped Khalifa!' yelled another.
'By day the police rottweiler,' chanted a third, 'by night
'Zenab's mouse!' everyone chorused, the refrain accompanied by a barrage of squeaking sounds.
Khalifa laughed. It had never bothered him, this sort of good-natured teasing, and this evening he actually rather enjoyed it, signalling as it did a return to normal life after all the upheavals of the last two weeks. He handed Ginger his winnings – he couldn't remember the last time he'd played backgammon with his friend and actually come out on top – and, telling everyone to go drown themselves in the Nile, picked up the two plastic bags he had leant against the leg of his chair and left the cafe, the squeaking sounds pursuing him for twenty metres down the street before dissolving into the more generalized babble of the evening souk.
He felt good. Great. Better than he had done for ages, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He'd handed in his final report to Chief Hassani, sent all the stuff about the Menorah over to the Israelis, who could do with it whatever the hell they wanted, and now he was heading home to Zenab and the kids with a bag full of brochures for the Red Sea resort of Hurghada. There was just one discordant note: when he'd asked Hassani to pass a copy of the case report on to Chief Mahfouz, his boss had informed him that the old man had passed away late the previous night. The news had saddened Khalifa, although not overly so. As Mahfouz himself had said, at least he'd died knowing he'd done the right thing in the end.
He stopped to say hello to Mandour the T-shirt seller, a plump, partially sighted man whose habit of chasing punters up and down the road extolling the virtues of his wares had almost become a tourist attraction in itself, then continued on his way, swinging his bags beside him, thinking of beaches, and waves, and, best of all, Zenab in a swim suit – God, what an image! Before he knew it he was standing outside the drab grey apartment block in which he lived, one of a row of identical blocks lined up on the northern fringe of town like a line of pock-marked stone monoliths.
He paused a moment to finish the cigarette he was smoking, then climbed the bare concrete staircase to the fourth floor and, as quietly as he could, inserted his key into the door of his flat. He didn't open it immediately. Instead, leaving the key in the lock, he kicked off his shoes, squatted down and, rooting inside one of the two plastic carriers, produced first a pair of cheap rubber flippers, which he pulled onto his socked feet, then a diving mask and snorkel, slipping the former over his face and the latter into his mouth. Then he let himself into the apartment, barely able to control his amusement at the joke he was about to play.
'Tsonly ee,' he called, his words distorted by the rubber mouthpiece wedged between his lips. 'I hoh!'
No response. He slapped forward into the hallway, wondering where everyone was.
'I hoh!' he repeated, louder. 'The deef sea diver has surhaced!'
Still no response. He put his head into the kitchen – empty – then edged his way around the fountain in the middle of the floor and padded, duck-like, towards the living room at the far end of the flat, struck by the sudden thought that maybe they were playing a joke on him. What a laugh! The door to the living room was ajar and, pausing for a moment to clear his mask, which had become fogged, he pushed it open and stepped through, making what he hoped looked like an underwater swimming motion with his arms.
'Wow, it's a-azing down here with all the hish and the—'
His words trailed off. Zenab, Ali and Batah were all sitting on the sofa, their faces pale, frightened. Opposite, one sitting, one standing, were two men in grey suits, the standing one's jacket hanging open slightly to reveal the unmistakable outline of a Heckler and Koch machine pistol. Jihaz Amn al Daoula. No doubt about it. State security service.
'Daddy!' Ali leapt from the sofa and ran to his side, eyes bright with tears. 'They want to take you away, Daddy! They say someone wants to talk to you. They're going to send you to prison.'
Khalifa removed the mask and snorkel, flicking a glance down at Zenab, who looked terrified.
'What's all this about?' he asked, trying to keep his voice calm, be strong for his family.
The sitting man – the elder and thus, presumably, the more senior of the two – got to his feet.
'It's like the boy says: someone's got some questions for you. You're to come with us. Now. No arguments.'
He looked across at his companion and the two of them smiled.
'Although you might want to change out of your flippers. I don't think you'll be needing them where you're going.'
There was a limousine-style car waiting in a lay-by across the street – sleek, black, smoked-out windows; he couldn't imagine how he'd missed it earlier – and, escorted by the two men, he was ushered into the rear seat, the younger of the agents slipping in beside him, the older one taking the passenger seat in front. A third man, in the same uniform of tailored grey suit and crew-cut hair, was already waiting behind the wheel. Even before the doors were properly closed he had started the engine and moved off, the car gliding out onto the uneven tarmac with the smooth, predatory grace of a prowling panther.
Khalifa tried to ask what was going on, where he was being taken, if all this was to do with Piet Jansen and Farouk al-Hakim, as he knew it must be. The men said nothing, just stared fixedly ahead with the blank, menacing impassivity of professional executioners. After a couple of minutes he gave up trying to communicate, lighting a cigarette and gazing out of the window, cursing himself for his naivety, for imagining he could expose someone as powerful as al-Hakim and not be made to pay for it. The Jihaz always looked after their own. And always punished those who crossed their own. God, how could he have been so naive? Beside him in the darkness the tip of his Cleopatra scratched orange patterns against the window from the trembling of his hand.
Initially they headed back towards the middle of Luxor, making, he presumed, for one of the many government offices clustered in the centre of town. As they passed Luxor General, however – and this only served to increase his anxiety – they swung off onto a trunk road and headed out again, eastwards this time, towards the airport. Again he tried to ask the men where they were going, again they refused to answer, the silence seeming to push in on his chest and lungs as though his torso was being slowly constricted within a thick loop of rope, making it hard for him to draw breath.
At the airport, the front barrier was thrown open for them without question and, skirting the car park, they were waved through a side gate out onto the runway area, the dial of the car's speedometer veering round to 150 km/h as the driver put h
is foot to the floor, rushing them across the expanse of smooth, empty tarmac towards the very furthest corner of the airport enclosure where they pulled up alongside a Learjet, its twin engines already running. As he was ushered out of the car he asked for a third time, his voice desperate now, what this was all about, where they were going, what was going to happen to him. Still the two agents said nothing, just marched him up the steps into the jet's cabin and pointed him into a leather seat, indicating that he should fasten his safety belt.
The door was closed, instructions shouted towards the cockpit, and the plane taxied out onto the runway, slowing for a brief moment as if to gather its strength before accelerating again and lifting gracefully into the air. Khalifa stared down at the floodlit bulk of the terminal building as it slowly receded beneath him, then leant back and stared at the cabin ceiling. Behind him he could hear one of the agents mumbling into a mobile phone.
Amazingly, given the circumstances, he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew his shoulder was being shaken and he was being told to get up. Groggily, he undid his seat-belt and got to his feet. They were on the ground again. For a muddled moment he thought perhaps he'd only dreamt the take-off and they were actually still in Luxor. As he was prodded through the cabin door and down the steps onto the tarmac, however, he realized it couldn't have been a dream because this was a new airport, smaller than Luxor, differently configured, an unfamiliar smell in the air that at first he couldn't place but then realized was the brackish tang of salt water. The sea. Where the hell . . . ? He glanced down at his watch. Not Hurghada, certainly, they'd been in the air too long, almost fifty minutes. Alexandria? Port Said? Hadn't been in the air long enough for those. So where? Sharm el-Sheikh? Yes, it could be Sharm el-Sheikh. Or Taba, maybe. Yes, Sharm el-Sheikh or Taba, although what the hell they were doing on the Sinai Peninsula he couldn't begin to imagine. Wherever they were it clearly wasn't their final destination because at the bottom of the steps he was led round to the far side of the Learjet where a Chinook CH-47 helicopter was waiting for them, crouched on the runway like a giant praying mantis. They barely had time to clamber into its long, narrow belly and strap themselves into their seats before its rotors whined into life and they were airborne again, wheeling away across the airport and off into the night.
'God help me,' Khalifa whispered, remembering all the stories he'd heard about the Jihaz throwing people out of helicopters way out in the middle of nowhere, their bodies left to rot amid the rocks and the sand. 'Please, God, help me.'
They flew north, to judge by the position of the moon outside the window, the cabin vibrating with the rhythmic wub-wub of the engines, a barren, mercury-coloured desertscape rushing past beneath, its surface torn by sharp ridges and criss-crossed with a meandering tracery of wadis, like snake-trails slithering across the landscape. Twenty minutes went by, then they came down again, the helicopter's bulbous wheels settling themselves onto the desert's back, its rotor blades slowing to a standstill, swamping the interior with a dense, eerie silence. One of the agents leant forward and tapped Khalifa on the arm.
'Up.'
He undid his seat-belt, hands shaking, and followed the men to the front of the cabin where they heaved open the door, revealing a dim rectangle of night within which he could just make out a jumbled landscape of slopes and ridges beneath a star-filled sky.
'Out.'
Khalifa hesitated. Why had they brought him here? What were they going to do to him? Then he jumped, shoes crunching on the gravelly desert floor, a rash of goosebumps rising like bubblewrap across his forearms from the cold. The two agents remained behind him in the doorway of the Chinook.
'Over there,' said one of them. 'Go.'
The man raised the muzzle of his gun, pointing to the right, towards a low stone building about a hundred metres off at the foot of a rocky incline, its outline murky and indistinct, its windows lit by a faint yellowy glow like monstrous eyes peering out of the gloom. A Bedouin shelter? An old army border post? Either way Khalifa didn't like it. He turned back towards the men, but they simply patted their guns and waved him forward, so he started walking.
After fifty metres he stopped and looked back, noticing for the first time two other helicopters sitting side by side beyond the one he had come in, then continued, the conviction growing with every step that this was it, he was going to be executed, there could be no other possible explanation for his presence out here in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Maybe he should make a run for it, he thought, scuttle off into the desert, hide among the rocks. At least he'd have some chance, albeit a remote one. But he couldn't bring himself to do it, couldn't force the necessary adrenalin down into his legs, so he just plodded forward until he came to the building and was standing on the step in front of its rusted iron door.
He threw a final glance back towards the Chinook, then, mumbling a prayer, by now certain that his life was about to end, reached out a shaking hand, pushed the door open and stepped inside, wondering in a detached sort of way whether he'd actually hear the shot that killed him or whether everything would simply go blank and he'd suddenly find himself transported to a completely different world.
'Mesa el-khir, Inspector. My apologies for bringing you here like this, but given the urgency of the situation we had little other choice. Please, help yourself to tea.'
THE SINAI DESERT, NEAR THE BORDER WITH ISRAEL
Khalifa blinked. He was standing in a low, spartan room – stone walls, bare concrete floor, corrugated tin roof – with a collapsible camp table at each end and, on the tables, a pair of oil lamps, the latter illuminating the room with a heavy orange light, viscous and shimmering. In front of him three men were sitting in worn armchairs. A fourth man was standing in the far corner of the room, leaning against the wall, his face half-lost in the shadows. The air was dense with the odour of kerosene and cigar smoke.
Relief – that was his immediate reaction. A surging, bowel-shuddering wash of euphoria that whatever else he'd been brought here for, it clearly wasn't to be killed. Almost instantaneously it gave way to shock, for the person who had addressed him, one of the men in the armchairs, unmistakable with his thick square glasses and silver-grey hair, was none other than Ahmed Gulami, his country's foreign minister. Khalifa opened his mouth to say something, ask what the hell was going on, but such was his surprise, and awe, that no words would come out, and after a moment he shut it again. There was an extended silence, the four men all staring at him, the only sounds the soft hiss of the lamps and, outside, the rusty creak of the iron window-shutters. Then Gulami waved a hand towards a thermos flask sitting on the table nearest to him.
'Please, inspector, do have some tea,' he repeated. 'I expect you need it after your journey. And if you could close the door . . . It's a cold night.'
In a daze, Khalifa pushed the door to and walked across to the table where he filled a Styrofoam cup from the flask. Once he had done so Gulami beckoned him onto a low canvas stool beside him. The standing man remained where he was; the other two shuffled their chairs round so as to face Khalifa directly.
The younger of them – a handsome man in his late thirties, with a mop of black hair and a red and white checked keffiyeh slung over his shoulder – the detective had already recognized: Sa'eb Marsoudi, the Palestinian activist-turned-politician, a hero not merely to his own people but, after his leadership of the First Intifada back in the late 1980s, most of the Arab world as well (Khalifa still remembered those iconic television images of Marsoudi, wrapped in the Palestinian flag, kneeling down and praying in front of a line of advancing Israeli tanks). The other, older man – medium height, stick-thin, with a white skullcap on his head, a cigar clamped between his teeth and, on his right cheek, a ragged, sickle-shaped scar arcing from his eye down to the level of his chin – this man too Khalifa had seen before, although at first he was unable to pinpoint precisely where. Only after a few seconds did he remember that it was in Piet Jansen's villa, that first night he
had visited it, in the picture on the front of Time magazine. Masan, Maban? Something like that. A politician. Or was it a soldier? Israeli, anyway. The fourth figure, the one standing, he couldn't place, although there was something about him – the lumbering, bear-like frame, craggy face, the way he kept swigging from the silver hip-flask he held in his hand – that Khalifa didn't like. Thuggish, that was his immediate impression. And drunk too, by the look of it. Disgusting. He stared at him for a moment, then dropped his eyes and took a sip of his tea.
'So,' said Gulami, pulling a set of amber worry beads from the pocket of his jacket and beginning to tell them off between the finger and thumb of his left hand. 'Now we are all here, let's get down to it.'
He turned to Khalifa.
'To begin, inspector, I must emphasize the absolute confidentiality of what you are going to hear tonight. The absolute confidentiality. You were not brought to this place. You did not see these people. This meeting is not happening. Do I make myself clear?'