“If need be, we’ll pick up al-Senussi and get him to safety. Mulligan might be helpful there.”
Malko went into the house, to the bedroom. Cynthia was coming out of the bathroom in a cloud of perfume. She wore makeup, an attractive shade of lipstick, and a form-hugging cotton dress that buttoned down the front.
She seemed quite recovered from the morning’s drama.
“Are you feeling better?” asked Malko.
The young woman smiled, a new gleam in her gray eyes.
“Yes. When I heard you talking about killing someone, I had feelings I’ve never experienced before. It was like being in the movies. It was intense.”
Malko grinned. “We operate in a world where we run on adrenaline and do things ordinary people can’t. In any case, you’re looking very beautiful this evening.”
“Thanks. Where are you taking me to dinner?”
She must have thought she was in Cairo.
“That’s a bit of a problem,” said Malko with a smile. “First, because the few restaurants around here are terrible, and second, because this isn’t a good time to show ourselves in public. But I’ll ask Ted if we can go out.”
The special-ops leader was nonplussed, but had a suggestion.
“If the young lady wants to eat a halfway decent meal, we could go to the Bala Beach. It’s on the coast road and the fish is fresh; we eat there from time to time. Of course, they only have nonalcoholic beer.”
“Going out doesn’t seem very wise,” Malko objected.
“It’ll be okay. We have an old Ford Winner with local plates. It’s discreet. And we can follow in a Cherokee.”
He paused.
“Just one thing: the young lady has to change her clothes. Otherwise, people will notice her.”
Suddenly Malko had an idea.
“We could drive there by way of the Old City, couldn’t we? I’d like to check out the place where al-Senussi is. I have the address.”
“Show me,” said Ted.
While Cynthia was changing, they sat down in the kitchen. The American unfolded a map of Benghazi that was more detailed than Malko’s, and quickly found the location the Thuraya signal came from.
“We could swing by there,” said Ted. “I’ll drive in front. When we get to the intersection of al-Sharif and Masawi, I’ll tap my brakes, and you’ll see my taillights come on. We won’t stop, of course.”
“Perfect!” said Malko.
He went to fetch Cynthia. Wearing jeans, a head scarf, and a modest blouse with a high collar, she was almost decent. Though when she walked, she swung her hips in a way unknown in the Quran.
They joined Ted, who was waiting by the lawn with three Marines.
“I’ll drive lead, and you’ll follow, with Bill driving,” he said. “There’ll be four of us in the Cherokee. Two will stay with the car and two will eat in the restaurant. Foreigners often go there.”
Malko’s car was an old blue Ford that smelled bad. Cynthia got into the back and a young Marine took the wheel. Malko sat in the passenger seat.
The gate slowly swung open and they drove out onto the unpaved road.
There was no one in sight.
By night, Benghazi with its lights had a certain charm. It took them a half hour to reach first the lagoon, then the Old City. Its streets were full of people. There were many women in niqab or veiled; not a single head was uncovered. There were dozens of shoe stores on 2A Street, the main business drag; with so many shoes, you would think the Libyans were millipedes.
Malko kept his eye on the Cherokee twenty yards ahead of them. Suddenly it slowed, and its taillights flashed just before an intersection. It was the place where al-Senussi was located. Beyond the intersection on the left was an old one-story house, with a pickup truck with a machine gun parked out front. Malko looked up. There were no lights in the windows, but the house had a terrace roof. It looked like every other house around.
They drove to the coast and turned right on Ahmed Rafiq al-Mahdawi, leaving al-Tahrir Square to their left. There were cars parked here and there, but not many pedestrians. The Cherokee passed a restaurant built above the highway, then pulled over and stopped.
The Bala Beach dining room was completely empty. In a small side room, fresh fish were laid out on a bed of ice.
Two of the CIA men walked back from the Cherokee to the restaurant. The SUV then made a U-turn, parked on a sandy pullout on the other side of the highway where it had a clear view in both directions, and switched off its lights.
Cynthia and Malko climbed the steps to the restaurant and were greeted by the owner, who showed them the fish.
“Lobster!” he cried, waving a boiled spiny lobster under Malko’s nose.
He took the crustacean and examined it. It had been cooked a long time before and its claws were slightly greenish. To be on the safe side, he chose a large dorado instead.
There were just the four of them in the restaurant, and the two operatives were pretending not to know each other. But Cynthia seemed delighted.
“It’s pretty here,” she said. “And the air’s nice.”
It was true; a warm breeze was blowing in from the sea. She and Malko drank mineral water while the dorado was being cooked. As they waited, an old violinist popped up at the end of the room, as if he’d been stored in a closet somewhere. To their surprise, he went to stand behind the cash register and began to play.
The violinist disappeared unbidden when the dorado came out, surrounded by gritty-looking vegetables.
All in all, it wasn’t half bad.
Malko leaned over to Cynthia and said, “Earlier, we passed the place where your friend Ibrahim is staying.”
He explained the operation.
“I hope he didn’t see me!” she said in alarm.
The two Americans went out just before Malko and Cynthia did. There were only a few shops still open on the long corniche road. The drive home was uneventful, with almost no traffic.
The moment they were in the bedroom, Cynthia turned to Malko.
“Thank you,” she said.
Moments later, she was pressing first her lips, then her whole body against him. She reached down to draw his stiffening penis from his alpaca trousers.
Malko had never seen her like this.
She tore off her blouse, then shoved her jeans down. She walked over and let herself fall back on the bed. She spread her legs apart, then lifted herself to slip off the scrap of black lace that covered so little of her belly.
Ever the gentleman, and knowing Cynthia’s preferences, Malko moved his head toward her exposed crotch, but she grabbed him by the hair.
“No,” she said. “Not tonight.”
She hadn’t even taken off her bra, and Malko was already as hard as iron. Cynthia gave a little flick of her hips, as if to ease him into her, then gave a sigh of delight.
“Fuck me.”
He lifted and bent her legs back and proceeded to pound at her with powerful thrusts of his hips.
Gripping his back, Cynthia started to scream. She was coming and coming.
When she felt Malko was about to explode, she shouted:
“You’re so big! Harder, darling, harder!”
Malko collapsed on her with a hoarse shout. This was a long way from their first sexual encounter. When he started to pull out, Cynthia held on to him.
“Stay there,” she said. “I want you to fuck me again.”
This was a switch from her usual program. As if she could tell what he was thinking, she said:
“I feel as if I’m becoming a different woman. I always used to find men so brutal. But everything that’s happened in the last few days has shaken me up. And I’ve never met a man like you. My boyfriends were pussycats, sometimes bisexual, too. Like companion animals.”
“What about Ibrahim?”
“No, not him. He pursued me so desperately, I found it touching. But he just wanted to get off with me. He didn’t care if I enjoyed it or not.”
“But I d
idn’t do anything special,” said Malko. “And I was rough, too.”
Cynthia gave a throaty laugh.
“Maybe I’m being unfair! Or else I’ve fallen in love with another world.”
She very slowly began to move her hips until she could feel Malko getting hard deep inside her. He made love to her again, more gently, and she began to moan quietly. Cynthia really did like gentleness.
Later, sexually spent, Malko found himself thinking that if Peter Farnborough led him to Abu Bukatalla tomorrow, it would really be a red-letter day.
For the last half hour, the two Cherokees had been crisscrossing the Assilmani neighborhood inside the al-Jala Hospital Ring Road. Ted asked several pedestrians where Abu Bukatalla’s old headquarters was located, but nobody would tell him.
Finally, he stopped at an Al-Rahla gas station—the brand with the handsome camel on its logo—on the Shola Square roundabout. The owner knew where the headquarters was, but his directions were so complicated that Ted handed him a fifty-dinar bill and said, “Give us a guide.”
Pressed into service, one of the attendants climbed into the Cherokee. Malko went to sit in back between two Kevlar-clad special-ops men. M16s and ammo magazines littered the floor.
After they’d driven for another ten minutes, the gas jockey pointed to the entrance of a complex below Maryif Road: a group of apparently abandoned buildings next to a huge mound of garbage. The Cherokee stopped in the middle of a courtyard surrounded by empty buildings. The other SUV stayed near the entrance, to deal with any unexpected company.
Debris lay everywhere, including several wrecked cars. The moment they got out, their guide took off running, without giving them time to ask him a single question.
Escorted by two Marines, Malko walked around the buildings. Given their size, they must have been barracks.
There was no one around.
He looked at his watch. Peter Farnborough should have been there half an hour ago.
Malko was getting a bad feeling. He dialed the MI6 agent’s cell phone but immediately got his voice mail.
They walked around the area for another ten minutes, with Ted increasingly on edge.
“This is a trap,” he muttered. “We should get out of here.”
“We can’t,” said Malko. “It’s too important. Let’s go talk to the guys working at the dump.”
Ted led their group over to the big public garbage dump on their right. The workers there looked very surprised to see them. There weren’t many foreigners in Benghazi, and certainly none at the dump. The stench was awful.
Ted asked some questions in Arabic, then turned to Malko.
“They say this was Abu Bukatalla’s headquarters, but he left more than a month ago.”
That much Malko already knew.
“Ask them if they saw anybody today. Tell them we were supposed to meet a foreigner here.”
The man shook his head, then said:
“Someone came about an hour ago. Two guys in a pickup who tossed out a big bag. One of them said that if I saw any foreigners I should give it to them.”
Malko felt the blood draining from his face.
“Where’s the bag?”
“Over there, in the dump truck or next to it,” said the man. “That’s the garbage we’re about to burn.”
“Can you dig it out?”
The man hesitated, and a twenty-dinar bill changed hands. The group walked deeper into the dump, and the stench got even worse. Ted was holding his nose with his left hand. Their man shouted to some workers who were loading a dump truck. Reluctantly, they climbed into the truck and started rummaging around. A few minutes later, they pulled out a bag and lay it on a pile of garbage.
Malko was about to rush over, but Ted stopped him.
“Watch out! It might be booby-trapped.”
The American kneeled next to the bag and examined it. He could see that it was closed with an ordinary string. He tugged on the string, then cut it. Very carefully, he opened the bag.
Seeing him jump backward, Malko expected to hear an explosion, but nothing happened.
Looking thunderstruck, Ted waved Malko over. He was as pale as a ghost.
“Take a look,” he said in a choked voice.
Malko opened the bag a bit and saw what he first thought was a furry animal. Looking more closely, he realized it was white hair on a scalp.
Mastering his disgust, he opened the bag wider, this time revealing a human head.
The dead man’s eyes had been gouged out, and their sockets were crusted with blood. His hands were tied behind his back. Despite this butchery, Malko had no trouble recognizing him. It was Peter Farnborough.
The body lay on a pile of garbage in the middle of the dump. Farnborough was wearing the same clothes he’d had on at their first meeting. Carefully turning the body, they found a bloody hole in his neck. He had been shot execution style. There was no way to know if they’d gouged his eyes out before or afterward.
Ted slowly made the sign of the cross.
“Goddamn the bastards who did this,” he said dully.
The worker said something in Arabic, and Ted glared at him, looking ready to strangle the man.
“He wants to know if they should put the body back in the dump truck.”
“Tell him that we aren’t Muslims, but we respect the dead,” said Malko. “Ask him who brought this body.”
Ted translated the answer.
“Thwars, he says. They had AK-47s and seemed to know what they were doing.”
“What thwars?” Malko insisted.
The dump worker clearly didn’t understand what he meant. Malko asked the question differently.
“Did they have beards?”
“Of course. They looked like good Muslims.”
So they were probably Islamists.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
The worker shrugged.
“We find bodies all the time,” he said. “They’re traitors. Besides, there’s no more police.”
“But that man was a foreigner.”
“There are also foreign mercenaries,” he said.
Anxious to get back to work, the man turned away and resumed loading the truck.
Two of the agents brought a big green tarp and wrapped the MI6 agent’s body in it.
They left Abu Bukatalla’s old headquarters a few minutes later, driving in silence. Malko realized that his lead to the takfiri had been cut. He would have to move Ibrahim al-Senussi to safety as soon as possible.
When Ted slowed to turn onto the dirt road leading to their base, Malko saw him notice something in his rearview mirror.
“A green car just drove by,” said the American. “I saw it earlier, when we were leaving the dump.”
So they may have been followed.
Malko got out first. He had to talk to Jerry Tombstone immediately. Exfiltrating Ibrahim al-Senussi wasn’t going to be easy, even assuming he was still in the same location.
Abu Bukatalla listened as the militiaman he’d sent to watch the dump reported.
It was very edifying.
The description of one of the foreigners matched that of the CIA agent in Cairo who knew al-Senussi’s girlfriend. So the man was now active here in Benghazi. If it hadn’t been for the alertness of one of Abu Bukatalla’s partners, he might have had a CIA commando bursting into his new headquarters.
Right when he was in the final phase of his operation.
He needed at least forty-eight hours to wrap everything up and kill the pretender to the country’s throne. He would then have completed the mission Qatar had assigned him.
And earned an important position in the new Libya.
He now had to quickly dispatch the CIA agent, who was getting too close for comfort. It wasn’t clear how to accomplish that, however. Even he couldn’t afford to openly attack the Americans, who were the NTC’s allies. He would have to set a trap.
Standing out on the lawn, Malko had just told Tombstone about Peter Fa
rnborough’s brutal murder. The Cairo CIA station chief’s reaction was equally brutal.
“We’ve got to kill this Abu Bukatalla guy, and right away. Do you have any other leads to him?”
“I have a name,” said Malko. “A Spanish woman named Manuela Esteban who works for an NGO. She might know who set Farnborough up. She’s staying at the Ouzou Hotel, but that’s all I know.”
“Follow that lead,” said Tombstone. “I’ll give Herb Mallows the bad news about what happened to Farnborough. He’s the Cousins’ representative here.”
“Okay,” said Malko. “I’ll go to the Ouzou and try to find the woman.”
When he went inside, Cynthia was emerging from her bedroom.
“What are we doing today?” she asked. “I’d like to see the city in daylight.”
Malko hadn’t told her about Farnborough’s death. She’d been asleep when he left for their meeting.
“I do have to go into town,” he said. “You can come along, but you’ll have to stay in the car.”
They left the base a few minutes later, with Ted at the wheel and a Marine in the back next to Cynthia. Malko wanted to take advantage of the trip to the Ouzou to check out the place where al-Senussi was supposed to be. On their way to the hotel they crossed the Old City and reached al-Tahrir Square, where the Revolution was celebrated every Friday.
By daylight, the house pinpointed by al-Senussi’s GPS was an old yellowish place with a flat roof. Its doors and windows were all closed, and the armed pickup was still parked in front.
They drove along the harbor, passing a T-72 tank with its barrel pointed out to sea. The wall opposite was plastered with photographs of martyrs.
A little farther on, the plaza was covered by black canvas with white stripes designed to help the faithful line up facing Mecca for Friday prayers. From a distance, the stripes made it look like a competition swimming pool.
Facing the square was another huge billboard reading “Thank You, France” in French and Arabic, with a picture of Nicholas Sarkozy. Unfortunately, the flag topping this expression of gratitude was that of Slovakia.
The Madmen of Benghazi Page 12