Countdown in Cairo (Russian Trilogy, The)

by Noel Hynd

  It was midday and the pool was otherwise deserted, other than children and nannies. The children, splashing and screaming, formed a perfect acoustical backdrop to make electronic eavesdropping on them impossible, even via a rifle mike aimed from a hotel window.

  “I’ve been to meetings that were all wet before,” Bissinger said. “But to actually be in a pool is a first.”

  “You should thank me for getting you out of the office,” Alex said, standing and pushing back her hair. She toweled her shoulders and let the towel hang across them.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Everyone knows everyone,” she said. “I already know that. So what are the signals we need to get straight?”

  “It seems that a certain someone in whom we have an interest,” Bissinger said, “ ‘Judas,’ has just made a move.”

  “What sort of move?” Alex asked.

  “As I understand it, he smelled danger here in Cairo, or maybe a better opportunity somewhere else, and departed from this wonderful country.”

  Against her normal habit, Alex swore emphatically. She had traveled all this way for no resolution?

  “Where is he?” Voltaire asked.

  “Tel Aviv,” said Bissinger. “Or so we think.”

  “Ha! Well, that’s not far, is it?” Voltaire asked. “Although the jurisdictional problems just increased.”

  “So is our operation scuttled?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Bissinger said. “Look, here’s what else we know about Judas. In addition to his actual passport under his real name, he has at least four others. Two are Russian, a pair of solid forgeries that he seems to have picked up from his business associates. Then he’s got a British and a Hungarian.”

  “Impressive collection,” Voltaire said.

  “I posted an alert for all the passports and their numbers,” Bissinger said. “We have an internet apparatus now. Works through Homeland Security and all the airlines.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  They all fell silent as a pool attendant passed by with chilled containers of purified water. They each grabbed one. Bissinger tipped the man with a wet US five-dollar bill, which was appreciatively received.

  They drank liberally. The sun pounded down on them.

  “When a passport moves in which we have an interest,” Bissinger said, “whoever posted the alert gets an update. As long as we have passport numbers, we can keep track of anyone in the world.”

  “Impressive software,” said Voltaire, who was more of a street-level guy.

  “We had analysts review the images on the airport security cameras at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. We checked the passengers disembarking for the flight from Cairo. The images we got are not a hundred percent conclusive, but we think that Judas arrived.”

  “So?” Alex asked. “What if he continues onward with a different passport?” Alex asked. “A fresh document. Presumably a man who has access to four fake passports isn’t going to get weak-kneed about finding a fifth.”

  “We’re sunk if he does that,” Bissinger said. “We would just have to wait for him to surface again. But the odds are that he won’t do that. Whenever a new passport goes into the system, there’s always the chance it will bounce from improved security software. The other thing is that if Judas has no reason to be wary other than normal precautions, he’d tend to use an ID that has already worked.”

  “What’s the rest of it?” Alex asked.

  “Judas has got some deals cooking for the information he swiped from the US Defense Department, but it’s all fairy gold to him until he can close a deal. And we know he needs to close a deal ASAP because he knows that Langley is officially listing him as a defector. We suspect Judas won’t move again, wherever he is, until he’s given the heads up. It’s a one-two punch. He has to hear from his first contact here by email, then he needs to get the voice go-ahead from his number-two guy, his security guy here in Cairo. Only then will he move. Then there’s the problem with the apprehension point. Let’s say he’s coming from Moscow or Ukraine. If he flies to a neutral point, like Athens or Rome, we have no brief to pick him up. Quite the contrary. Certain host countries in Europe would be furious if we did. Too much rendition during the Bush administration. We did it but never told the host countries we were doing it. Over the back channels they’re still screaming, and the new administration in Washington wants to distance themselves from the Guantanamo mentality. So we have to sit on our hands and wait for him to connect. We can monitor him, say in the airport at Athens, but even that’s risky. He’ll be looking for a tail, and if he sees it, he’ll cut bait, head back to Russia, and that’ll be the end of our ball game.”

  “Or we can lure him back here,” Voltaire said softly.

  “What’s here that he wants?” Alex asked.

  There was a soft splash nearby. A child’s wayward Frisbee had skimmed to rest near Alex. She picked it up and deftly sailed it back, with a smile and a wave.

  “One of his Russian friends is still here,” Bissinger said. “Boris Zharov. Boris is one of the two men Carlos caught him with. Judas is anxious to get his deal with Boris done. Overanxious, perhaps, which could work in our favor.”

  “Tell me more about Boris Zharov,” Alex said.

  “Boris is still ensconced at the Radisson Cairo,” Bissinger said. “He goes down to the hotel lobby every evening around nine. He sits there and glowers for about an hour, smokes like a Soviet-era factory, and waits for instructions from Moscow. He’s got a wife back in Moscow, but he’s always on the trawl for Western women. If he doesn’t get lucky, he goes out to the clubs. Dances with every young girl he can find. Brings them back to the hotel when he gets lucky. He’s careless. He builds most evenings around a skirt and a bottle-long consultation with Dr. Stolichnaya. Sometimes he pays for both.”

  “Well,” Alex said. “We all agree on how to target him. This is what you’ve had in mind for a while, right?” she asked Bissinger.

  Bissinger allowed that it was.

  “You want me to seduce him, right?” Alex asked. Bissinger and Voltaire looked at each other.

  “Well, if you wouldn’t mind terribly?” Bissinger said. “We promise to break in just as you’re pulling your dress up over your head.”

  “Maybe thirty seconds before that would work even better,” she said.

  “We’ll try,” Bissinger said.

  “I assume Boris can access Judas by email,” Alex said.

  “That’s pretty much what we had in mind,” Bissinger said.

  She looked to Voltaire, who was squinting behind sunglasses.

  “Can you put a couple of guns in the room as backup?” she asked.

  “I was going to offer Tony and Abdul for the snatch operation,” Voltaire said. “They like to get their noses punched from time to time. Makes them feel good about themselves.”

  A moment passed as Alex thought it through.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “But if I’m going to be the centerpiece of that exercise,” she said, “I want to bring in at least one of my own people and maybe a laptop tech.”

  “How long would it take to get them here from America?” Bissinger asked. “If Boris gets bored and goes home we’re out of luck. Ditto if Judas scores with the Israelis and sells his wares there.”

  “My contacts are in Rome,” she said.

  Bissinger looked at Voltaire. “That’d work,” Bissinger said.

  “Okay with me,” Voltaire said.

  Alex turned back to Bissinger. A welcome breeze swept over the pool. “You said he also needed a voice okay before he returns,” she said. “How do we work that?”

  “That one’s trickier,” Bissinger said.

  “How are you feeling today?” Bissinger asked, seeming to shift the subject.

  “I’m okay,” Alex answered.

  “Head? Stomach?” he asked.

  “I think I ate something a little tainted on the flight,” she said. “Or maybe it’s been the heat. Today I
feel better. How did you know and why do you ask?”

  “You were poisoned.”

  “What?”

  “Or an attempt was made to poison you. See here’s the thing—Judas got wind of the fact that someone had been sent from the US to spot him. He reasoned it was you. Something about some shootout in an American drug store. So he got out of Cairo until you, who could identify him, have been successfully killed. They planted some radioactive crystals in your hotel room. You’ve been bathing in them and sleeping on them. You should be able to illuminate any room you walk into by now without even turning on a lamp.”

  “Are you—!”

  “Not to worry,” Voltaire said. “Some of my people intercepted the plot. We have a young man named Masdouth as an infiltrator. He was part of the team that planted the crystals in your room. They switched some harmless stuff for the poison.”

  “How on earth did they get in?”

  “Same way that Judas knew who had come from America. A traitor in out midst.”

  “Who?” she demanded.

  “Who got a good look at you and would have been able to describe you to Judas?” Bissinger asked. “Who knew exactly where you were staying, right down to your room number? The same individual has been compromising our embassy for years and stood guard while the crystals were being planted in your room. He kept the hallway clear for the intruders. As soon as he departed, it was their cue to get out.”

  She sighed and seethed with anger. “Colonel Amjad,” she said.

  “There will be a day of reckoning for him too,” Bissinger said. “But first we need to play the colonel along and he needs to report that you’re dead. Game?”

  In Alex’s mind, it all fell into place. “Game,” she said. “How does that work?”

  “It works with you posing on a slab in a filthy Egyptian morgue and letting the colonel get a look at you,” Bissinger said. “With you out of the way, there would be nothing stopping Cerny from making a quick gambit back to Cairo.”

  “So I’m supposed to play dead.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “If you think we can get away with it, I’ll go for it,” she said.

  “Then I think we’re finished here,” Voltaire said.

  “I think we are,” she agreed.

  “Thank you, Josephine,” Bissinger said.

  “My appreciation also,” Voltaire said. “What a trouper.”

  “Some day in the future,” she said, “you guys owe me big time.”

  First Bissinger left, then Voltaire. Alex tossed her towel back on a deck chair and gently flipped her sunglasses on top of the towel. As events, past and future, swirled in her head, she wore off her nervous energy with another ten laps. Then, after drying off and getting five more minutes of sunshine, she went back upstairs and phoned Gian Antonio Rizzo in Rome.

  That same afternoon, Bissinger arranged to have a network of rooms rented at the Radisson Cairo where Boris was staying.

  FORTY-FOUR

  The next morning, without checking out of her own hotel, Alex had gone to the area of central Cairo known as Zamalek, where most of the embassies were located, along with the fashionable shops. There, in one of the French boutiques, she purchased a very short cocktail dress in smooth black satin. It was the type of dress that a young woman could wear to a private party or in one of the Western hotels, but which could never appear on the street. She bought a pair of heels to go with it and a purse that was big enough to pack her phone and her Beretta. It was a come-and-get-me outfit, and Alex was wearing it for work. Amused, she wondered if she could deduct it on her tax returns.

  Then, that evening, Alex sat at the end of the hotel bar at the Radisson Cairo. She nursed a glass of wine and had a pack of Marlboros on the bar in front of her. Boris entered the hotel bar at about 9:00 p.m., as was his habit. He went to a table in the corner and sat down where he could survey the whole room. Alex had positioned herself where she would be directly in his line of view. She reached to her pack of Marlboros and lit one. Her first cigarette in ten years. She didn’t look directly at Boris but felt his eyes on her as she smoked.

  Patience, she told herself. He’s going to assess me very carefully before he makes a move, if he makes a move at all. He may be careless, but he has to be at least a little bit cautious.

  She engaged in a small conversation with the bartender, who brought her an ashtray. Then an American couple came in. She didn’t know them, but she had a drink with them. Alex spoke with a slight Latino accent. She sold herself as a wealthy Mexican lady waiting for a no-good boyfriend, loud enough to allow Boris to overhear, as well as to advertise what language he could use if he wanted to make an approach.

  The American couple was from Illinois, and they congratulated her on her wonderful English. She hoped they wouldn’t kill the potential sale to Boris. The Midwestern couple left, and Boris was still there. He was looking at her, which was fine, assessing her from head to toe. She glanced his way, gave him a friendly smile, and looked away. She was showing as much leg as she ever had in her life, and she knew Boris liked what he saw.

  A few moments later, she reached back to her pack of smokes. She picked up the pack of cigarettes and tapped one out. She muttered to herself in Spanish, as if in anger. She fumbled with a cigarette and dropped it, as if soused. Then she felt a presence next to her. She feigned surprise when a gold lighter snapped open and a sharp yellow flame rose in front of her.

  Boris. The lighter was one of those five-hundred-dollar Dunhill ones. That or a fine counterfeit. The flame could have served as the Olympic torch.

  “May I?” he asked in English.

  His hand was frightening. It looked like a small anvil. She assumed he had a second one that matched. Yuri Federov looked like a poster boy for the Boy Scouts compared to this thug.

  “Sure. Why not?” she answered.

  She leaned forward and let him light her smoke. She inhaled and blew out a long steam of puffy white carcinogens as the lighter clicked shut.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m feeling slightly lonely and very angry. And I’m getting very drunk.”

  “No need to apologize,” he said.

  She stayed in English. Russian would scare him off.

  “I can join you?” he asked.

  “I wish someone would,” she answered.

  He slid onto the bar chair next to her. “You’re very pretty,” he said, turning back.

  “If I’m so pretty, why did my boyfriend stand me up?”

  “He doesn’t appreciate you,” Boris suggested.

  “Ha!” she said. “You tell him that when and if he gets here,” she said with inebriated inflections. “Will you tell him that?”

  “I will,” Boris said, ever the gent.

  “I’m getting old,” she said with self-pity. “Almost thirty. I guess I’m losing it.”

  Boris laughed. “Not at all,” he said.

  She eyed him up and down, as if to see him for the first time. He was a big man, maybe six-three, and broad—bigger than she had thought.

  “Nobody appreciates me tonight,” she said sullenly. “So I’m just here getting plastered. I hate to drink alone.”

  “So do I. You’d permit if I joined you?”

  “Sure,” Alex said. “Drink as much as you want. Just make one promise.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If my boyfriend comes running in more than an hour and a half late,” making what sounded like a joke out of it, “punch the SOB out for me.”

  Boris laughed. He held up a fist the size of a small pumpkin. His hands were cushioned with muscle and crisscrossed with scars, one-shot knockouts waiting to happen.

  “I’m good at that. Punching out,” he said. “If that’s what you wish, I will do. You tell me when, and you don’t be afraid of anyone when you with me.”

  “Thank you!” she said drunkenly. “I appreciate a gentleman.”

  Boris gave her a nod.

  “I hear an accent,” Alex s
aid. “Where are you from?”

  He held a hand to her. “I’m Boris,” he said. “I’m Russian.”

  She feigned surprise again. She held her hand to his. He took it. He had the grip of a professional fighter. Iron. She guessed further Russian ex-military. She uncrossed and crossed her legs to pique his interest.

  “I’m Maria,” she lied. “I’m from Mexico.” And deep inside her, she admired her own personal best: Alex, Josephine, and Maria, three IDs in five days, spanning all of North America.

  “If you’re from Mexico,” he said, being cautious, “let me hear you speak Spanish.”

  “Well, that’s easy,” she laughed. “¿Le apetece tomar algo conmigo? ¿Qué toma?” she said.

  “I don’t talk Spanish,” he said. “What did you say?”

  “I asked if you wanted to have a drink with me,” she said. “And if so, what?”

  He laughed. “I’m Russian. There is only one thing to drink.”

  He turned to the bartender and ordered a triple shot of vodka. Stoli all the way.

  Conversation ensued. The vodka arrived, three generous shots of about two ounces each, arranged in a tray of crushed ice. Boris toasted her and knocked back the shot with a quick gulp. Then the second.

  “Want to see one of my favorite party tricks?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  She reached to the third glass, picked it up and held it to her lips. “May I?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

  “I dare you,” he said.

  “Watch closely,” she said.

  Intrigued, he watched as she grabbed a book of matches on the bar.

  She struck a match and lit the vodka. She let the flame blaze until it receded beneath the rim of the shot glass. Then she slapped her right palm on the glass and held it tightly there. The flame extinguished and formed a vacuum. She used the suction to pick up the glass without closing her fingers on it. She whirled the drink around to Boris’s delight, defying gravity. Then she used her left hand to pull the glass free. With an upward motion, she tossed the vodka up out of the glass into the air as one would throw a piece of popcorn into one’s mouth. She caught the shot in its entirety and swallowed it in one gulp. Her throat, for a few seconds, felt as if it were on fire. But Boris was, she could see, impressed.