Aggressor

by Nick Cook

  He took her in his arms and felt her body give.

  ‘Poor Stansell,’ she said softly, her head on his shoulder.

  She cried in silence, her chest rising and falling sharply as the grief flowed from her body. And then, when she was done, she pulled herself away from him and shut the door. She began to wipe away the tears, but Girling stopped her. He lifted her head and looked into her eyes. The kohl had run down her face in long, dark lines. She smiled sadly, almost apologetically.

  He led her to the sofa and sat her down. Then he disappeared into the dining-room and brought back brandy and two glasses. He poured them both stiff measures and sat beside her. ‘Drink,’ he said, ‘it’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘How long have you known about us?’ she asked.

  ‘Not very long.’

  She looked at him questioningly.

  ‘When I was going through his things,’ Girling said. ‘There was a letter to you in his desk. He must have thought twice about sending it. I’m sorry. I didn’t read more than I had to.’

  ‘We both knew in our hearts that it wouldn’t work, but Stansell just refused to admit it.’ The tears started to come again. ‘After he was taken, I realized that this story, the Angels of Judgement... it was his way of trying to prove himself to me...’

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself.’

  She gave him a look of infinite sadness. ‘Ah, Tom,’ she said, ‘but I must.’

  They sat in silence, Girling trying to blot out the image of the torn and bloated body in the sarcophagus. Suddenly he couldn’t protect her from the truth any longer. He told her what had happened, from the meeting with the Guide to Al-Qadi’s brutal unveiling of Stansell’s corpse. When he had finished, she had to wipe away his tears. Then, without warning, the concern in her eyes turned to anger.

  ‘What on Earth made you go to this sheikh? You were lucky not to have been killed.’

  Girling stared into his glass. ‘It seems stupid now, doesn’t it? Stansell dead all along, before I even set foot in Egypt, and now I’m to be deported for trying to find him. What a bloody waste.’

  ‘Deported?’

  ‘Al-Qadi didn’t like me playing amateur detective. He’s given me my marching orders.’

  ‘Then it’s all over.’

  Girling shook his head. ‘It’ll never be over, Sharifa.’

  ‘So Stansell died for nothing?’

  ‘No, Stansell died uncovering a story that’s bigger than anyone ever imagined. The threads that bind the Brotherhood to the Angels of Judgement are just a tiny part of an enormous web. I realized that today. For the first time, I saw the size of the monster I’ve been running away from since Mona died.’

  She started to shake. He reached out and held her hand. ‘You’ll be all right. When I leave, this will all be forgotten. Stansell, Mona - for everyone but us they’ll just be names on a list.’

  Her fingers tightened around his. ‘I have nightmares about Mona, Tom. I see people watching me on the streets, Al-Qadi and his men, I see the hatred in their eyes. I wonder when they will come for me with stones.’

  He held her gently, knowing there was nothing he could say. After a while she slipped into a troubled sleep. From time to time her body stiffened and she would cry out. Later he picked her up and carried her from the balcony to the bedroom. He placed her tenderly on the bed and pulled back to see her looking at him through half-closed eyes.

  ‘Can we pretend?’ she asked, her voice breaking. ‘Is that so wrong?’

  He turned out the light and they undressed, the sound of their clothes and the rustle of the sheets seeming unnaturally loud in the darkness. He slipped in beside her and they held each other tightly, pressing the contours of their bodies against each other for comfort and warmth. Girling drifted into sleep as if he had been given an anaesthetic. He could see demons still, but for the moment they were very far away.

  They awoke in the night and clung to each other urgently, like swimmers trying to save themselves from drowning. Then she wrapped herself around him and he around her until shrill ululations of pleasure danced in her throat and he fell back, exhausted. Then they made love a second time, slowly, tenderly, their bodies hot from the first encounter. Their ecstasy rose together, hung there suspended, then fell in a simultaneous moment of release. And in that small window of time, Stansell, Mona, the Brotherhood, and the Angels were a distant memory.

  CHAPTER 15

  Sharifa awoke just before the dawn. She reached out for Girling, but he was not there. Slipping on her T-shirt, she found him hunched over her ancient typewriter at the dining-room table, pounding away at the keys as if his life depended on it.

  The first he knew she was there was when she touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m writing Stansell’s obituary.’

  She gave a puzzled look.

  ‘I know. But believe me, it helps.’

  ‘Who’s it for?’ she asked.

  ‘Reuters, the Associated Press... One of them will take it. News of his death will have the wires humming by mid-morning.’

  ‘That sounds so cold.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to.’

  ‘But you haven’t even told Kelso yet.’

  Girling pulled the finished page from the roller and added it to the two others beside the machine.

  ‘Kelso can read about it in the papers, or hear it on the radio, the same as everybody else. This way, the words will get to the right people.’

  She rubbed her eyes, wearily. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Read it.’

  It took her several minutes. It was less an obituary, more a news story. It pointed the finger squarely at the Angels of Judgement and their accomplices in Cairo, the Brotherhood. And finally, it revealed that the full story of the Angels of Judgement, the hijack-ing in Beirut, and the reasons behind Stansell’s death would be made public in the next issue of Dispatches in two days’ time.

  She put the sheets back on the table, puzzled. ‘You don’t have a jot of evidence against the Angels of Judgement.’

  ‘Right, but they don’t know that.’

  She stared at him.

  ‘Don’t you think they might just be a little bit curious about how I know so much?’ Girling asked. ‘And, more to the point, about exactly who else knows what I know?’

  ‘You’re setting yourself up!’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Sharifa, it’s the only way.’

  ‘But what about last night? You said you were leaving. As soon as Al-Qadi sorted out the paper-work.’

  ‘I changed my mind. Someone’s got to get these fuckers. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Al-Qadi will put you straight back in that cell.’

  He reached out and held her hand. ‘Who’s going to tell him?’

  She recoiled like a sea-anemone from a predator’s touch.

  ‘Why has he got a hold over you, Sharifa?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘You were the only person who knew that I would be at the mosque. I’m not angry. You saved my life.’

  ‘I was scared I’d lose you, too.’

  ‘Tell me about Al-Qadi. I want to help.’

  ‘Al-Qadi’s evil, Tom. You’ve no idea of the things he can do.’

  Girling held her. ‘He’s a playground bully,’ he said, and wondered who he was trying to convince.

  ‘If he touches me again,’ she said, ‘I’ll kill him. I’ve been running from him for too long.’

  ‘You told him where Stansell was going, didn’t you?’ Girling said quietly.

  She looked up at him. ‘I’m so sorry, Tom... I’ll carry that for the rest of my life.’

  From the look in her eyes, he believed that she would.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  Girling folded the sheaf of papers and tucked it into his jacket.

  ‘First I take this to Reuters, then
I’m going to the Khan. There’s an old friend of mine there who might be able to get me access to the pathologist’s report on Stansell.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I believe there is.’

  He gave her the volume and page number of the piece missing from the Dispatches binder. Then he went to take a shower.

  Cyrus McBain’s face almost creased in two. He stood up from behind his desk and greeted his old friend warmly.

  ‘Elliot Ulm. I might have fucking guessed.’

  ‘You mean, they didn’t warn you?’ Ulm said. ‘You always were slow, McBain.’

  ‘Your identity was ‘need to know’ right up until this minute, which is a piece of luck for you, Elliot. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have shown up for work today. What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?’

  Ulm threw his leather jacket over the back of a chair. He had made the overnight journey from Qena in good time, blending in amongst the tourists from Luxor and Aswan in his jeans, sweatshirt, and beat-up jacket. ‘Shut up, Cy, and give me a drink. Where I’ve been the last three days, they don’t even have Miller Lite on the menu.’

  ‘Colonel Beckwith always said Qena was a shit-hole. If you’d read up on Eagle Claw and Tehran before you signed on, Elliot, you might have elected to stay at home.’

  ‘I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.’

  McBain shrugged and moved to a small fridge beneath a shelf crammed with books about the Middle East, terrorism, and military hardware. He threw the can of Budweiser across the room and Ulm caught it cleanly.

  Ulm snapped the can open and poured half its contents down his throat before he came up for air. ‘So this is what it’s like outside the firing line,’ he said, taking in the clean, businesslike appearance of McBain’s office. ‘Judging by your beer gut I’d say they must be preparing you for a nice fat job in Washington.’

  ‘Repeat those words across a volley-ball net some-time and I’ll make you eat them, Elliot.’

  Ulm snorted and they both laughed. McBain took a step forward and they embraced, slapping each other heartily on the back. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ Ulm said.

  ‘You, too, Elliot. So, you finally managed to get away from that rest home in New Mexico.’

  ‘Yup. One fucking desert to another.’ Ulm waved his can around the room then lowered his voice. ‘I take it this place is clean.’

  ‘Swept every day.’

  ‘I need the big picture, Cy. Tell me what’s been happening these past three days. Is there any news?’

  McBain sat back at his desk and began rolling a pencil between his palms. ‘Not a squeak. It’s like the Angels of Judgement and Franklin’s negotiating team never existed. Don’t they get newspapers out where you are?’

  ‘We don’t get Jack,’ Ulm said.

  ‘No Early Bird?’

  The Early Bird was the Pentagon’s own cuttings service, a faxed digest of all the important news stories of the day.

  ‘Minimum transmission, remember?’ Ulm said. ‘That’s why I’m here. Cyrus, there’s a whole lot I don’t like.’

  ‘I’ve known you a long time, Elliot. And the last time I saw you look this way was the day. before the court-martial brought home its verdict. What’s up? I guess it’s got something to do with this guy Jacob-son that keeps sending all this encrypted shit for you. I thought I’d seen some classification levels before, but. . .’

  ‘There’s not much I can tell you.’

  ‘Just make sure this thing stays an Air Force operation,’ McBain said, his voice set. ‘You know what happens when Marine pilots get involved.’

  ‘Come off of it, Cy. What happened at Desert One could have happened to anybody. Shit, look at me. I should know. The suits punished me long enough for a lousy piece of bad luck. The Tehran operation wasn’t the operators’ fault, it was the system. Washington fucked Eagle Claw, and the same guys are pulling the strings this time around. But I’ve done my stretch, Cy. I’m not going to pick up the tab again.’

  ‘What can I do, Elliot?’

  ‘I need the big picture.’

  McBain shook his head. ‘Like I told you. Everybody’s running around like headless chickens here. When it comes to the Angels of Judgement, nobody knows. Nobody.’

  Ulm wondered what his old friend, dyed-in-the-wool Colonel Cyrus J. McBain, USAF, would say if he were to tell him that the Pathfinders were hooked up with Spetsnaz, or Opnaz, or whoever the fuck Shabanov and his men were.

  ‘That’s not exactly true,’ McBain said, correcting himself. ‘There’s one guy around here who seems to know what’s going on but-’

  ‘Who?’

  McBain looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, he’s not exactly cleared.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘The guy’s a journalist, Elliot. A British journalist from the magazine that broke the story, Dispatches.’‘

  Ulm was immediately suspicious. ‘Shit, you don’t think-’

  ‘Relax. Girling’s got too much on his mind to start digging into special operations activity here in Egypt. Besides, people’s attention is on the Lebanon task force. If there’s going to be a rescue that’s where they think it’s coming from. Read any of the papers.’

  ‘You said he had some things on his mind.’

  McBain put down his pencil. ‘A guy called Stansell, their Middle East correspondent, got himself snatched by the Angels of Judgement. Girling has been here the best part of a week trying to get him back. We just heard he didn’t luck out. They fished Stansell out of the river a few days back with a couple of holes in him.’

  ‘So what good is Girling to me?’

  ‘I never said he was good; in fact, he smells like trouble. But you asked who might be able to give you more on the Angels and Girling’s the only guy I can think of who fits the bill. He’s got the Mukhabarat, the secret service, running around in a blue funk, he’s stirred up a hornet’s nest in the Islamic fundamentalist community, and he’s even got the Israelis going. We intercepted a transmission from their embassy here to Tel Aviv the day before yesterday. And guess whose name was on it. The Israelis are convinced that Girling’s going to lead them to the Angels of Judgement and, God knows, they’ve got just as much to be worried about as we have.’

  ‘So how do I get in touch? I haven’t got much time, Cy.’

  McBain poured himself some coffee. ‘Something’s really gotten under your skin, hasn’t it?’

  Ulm said nothing.

  ‘Girling’s already contacted our public affairs people here,’ McBain continued. ‘He wanted to meet with me, or someone who could give him updates on what’s happening in the Lebanon. So far, I’ve told the P/A guys I’m out - permanently. I don’t give intel briefs for people I don’t know. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a change of heart.

  Someone from P/A will sit in on the meeting, but there’s no way they’ll be able to guess who you are. Even if they do, they’ll play dumb. You’re just another suit from Washington, right? All you need is a name. Your mother’s maiden name mightn’t be a bad place to start. That’s if you had a mother, Elliot.’

  Ulm sat back.

  ‘Thanks, Cy. I owe you.’

  McBain said: ‘You can pay me back by forgetting I ever did this.’ He punched a four-digit extension number and held the phone to his ear.

  ‘Get me Mike Schlitz,’ he said, as soon as he had a connection.

  CHAPTER 16

  Girling turned the BMW onto Shari’a Al-Ahram, the road that led almost from the centre of Cairo to the pyramids of Giza, and settled down to a steady pace in the centre lane. It was coming up to one o’clock. He was in good time for his lunch appointment at the Mena House Hotel, a luxury affair in the shadow of the Great Pyramid. The Mena House was just that little bit remote; he guessed that was why Schlitz and McBain had picked it.

  It had been a busy morning and it was getting busier. First he had called on his old friend John Silverman at Reuters and
dropped the story onto his desk. Silverman was shocked. He had known and liked Stansell. But Girling recognized a look in Silverman’s face that said he also knew a good story when he saw one. With kidnapping and hijack in the air, the fact that a leading British journalist had been murdered by the world’s latest public enemy made the story dynamite. And despite his previous visit from the Mukhabarat, Silverman wasn’t going to be deterred. With commendable restraint, Girling thought, Silverman had not pressed him for any of the details of Dispatches’ forthcoming exclusive on the Angels of Judgement, which was just as well.

  Next he drove to the Khan, parked and retraced his steps to Kareem’s coffee house on the Street of the Judges. This time, he gained access to Old Mansour without difficulty. Mansour accepted Stansell’s death with a sad, wise look in his face which said that he had known all along that Stansell would never again smoke and exchange banter at Kareem’s. Girling explained that it was important he get in touch with Uthman, the doctor from Duqqi, who worked part-time at Mukhabarat HQ. He gave Old Mansour Sharifa’s number and told him to get Uthman to ring him, day or night.

  It was when he returned to the office, at about eleven o’clock, that he’d got the invitation from Schlitz.

  Soon he caught his first glimpse of the Pyramids’ chipped, sand-blown peaks creeping above the houses lining the dead straight road. Despite their over-exposure - Pyramid motifs were emblazoned on everything in Egypt from newspapers to petrol stations - he never tired of seeing them. On the rare days when neither the smoke nor the dust was too thick, you could see them with the help of a long lens from any of the tall buildings downtown.

  Mona and he had climbed to the top of the Great Cheops Pyramid on a day much like this. They had ignored the cautionary notices and made it to the summit a little before sundown. The view had been breathtaking. They had sat holding each other in the moonlight.

  The sun glinted on the windscreen of a Fiat three cars behind him. Girling spotted it in the mirror. They must have picked him up at the office. He adjusted his dark glasses.

  He drove on for another kilometre without varying his speed, but instead of turning off at the hotel kept driving along the road that led up the escarpment to the Pyramids. He parked in the shadow of the Great Pyramid and set out for the first row of metre-high stone blocks that marked the base. He heard the Mukhabarat slow to a stop a little way behind. He began to climb.