While police continue their search, members of the public are asked to assist them in their inquiries and to contact the police department, who have issued all point bulletins and identikit photographs of those involved. Ulrike Meinhof’s husband, Publisher Klaus Rainer Rohl is urging his wife to surrender.”
The article gave contact information and displayed photographs of Baader, Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.
“Oh shit, Aunt Jack. Where does this leave me? Will the authorities think that my absence was planned to help them out? What the hell do I do now?”
“Personally, child, I still feel that all civilized countries believe one is innocent until proven guilty, but,” she added sarcastically, “I doubt if you would last long in a German prison waiting for trial. With this in mind, Cherie, and against my better judgment, I think it probably really is time for you to join your husband. Your options are to leave with Ahmed and fly to Beirut if you feel up to it, or to make the trip by car, still with Ahmed, of course.”
“There is a third option.” It was Wilfred de Crecy, who had entered the room and had obviously overheard the entire conversation. “I can escort her to Lebanon. I am affiliated with the British Embassy here in Cairo as well as a well known foundation and she is assisting me in my work. Emily does have a passport in her married name which is not common knowledge, I assume? If we are not asked, why should we volunteer information? Let me make some calls and pack a few things and we can leave in a few hours. I hardly think James Bond is going to beat down the door looking for Emily in a few hours.”
A few minutes later he reported in to his Station Chief Archie Beresford and his superior’s assistant Tony Shallal, who were now both comfortably ensconced in their private suite in a secured section of the palatial British Embassy in Garden City.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Ready to roll chaps,” he said.
“Well, well, my dear de Crecy. Baader’s escape from the terrors of the local prison library was rather fortuitous, was it not? What a bloody marvelous coup. I’ll bet our cousins in Langley will be pissed off. Get over here my dear and we‘ll chat further.”
Within an hour, Wilfred de Crecy arrived at the Embassy resplendent in his khaki jacket, white shirt and trousers, with a ‘bwana” Panama hat to complete the ensemble.
“Christ almighty, de Crecy! You look like bloody George Raft in “Saunders of the River”, but frankly you do smell quite delectable!” laughed Shallal, referring both to the particularly patronizing 1935 film and the liberal amounts of “Truefitt and Hill 1805”, de Crecy’s signature cologne, “Are we trying to prove here that the British are still controlling the colonies?”
“Just thought I’d dress the part of an insufferably wealthy and very superior British subject. Not something you lot could possibly understand.”
“Point taken. No doubt another abortive attempt at colonial humor,” Shallal responded coldly.
“Will you two please tone it down?” interrupted Beresford. “Wils, you will fly from Cairo to Beirut. On arrival you will make the acquaintance of her husband, appealing to his wealthy diplomatic background as only you can. You will in all conversations remain vehemently opposed to socialism and left wing radicals, as I can assure you he is. While our chap is a separatist, he has no communist sympathies but what he does have is his little friend Mustafa with contacts throughout the budding terrorism world, from the “Populist Front of the Liberation of Palestine” to these over educated middle class upstarts with a commitment to violence in the guise of redeeming the working class. At some point young Mr. Ansari is going to become a very influential Afghani leader. He is already a passionate Muslim idealist who is intent on linking the Arab world together to form an Islamic alliance which will counteract what they believe are the dual forces of the Soviets on the one side and on the other the Anglo-American alliance.”
“Our lads know that the oil resource in Arab world is going to need a bolster at some point this decade and whatever is ready to be excavated under the North Sea isn’t going to help the Western world that much if there’s no oil to run the machinery to find it. The Russkies are heading for financial collapse and need what lies beneath little Afghanistan as well as all its minerals. God forbid the Arabs will have us all by the balls. If they begin an oil embargo we’re all bloody sunk. We must target their younger leaders now and help them understand the need for eliminating the Soviets completely and mark my words, Afghanistan is the key. Not yet, perhaps but clearly within this next decade. We need to prepare potential allies. Observation first, preparation second! You do understand, don’t you gentlemen?”
“Of course, sir,” began Tony Shallal, “The Arabs aren’t a problem until they start acting like us!”
Shallal had tried to remain silent, as usual taking everything in and retaining it away for future use. Try as he may he would never understand the insatiable British need for total control. It wasn’t simply greed like the Americans; it was the design, the development and application of absolute power that came from some latent gene that affected the entire British class system. They believed without any doubt that they had the divine right to lord it over all the world’s peasants, himself included.
“You may leave now Wils,” Beresford said in dismissal, adding, “Oh, before I forget, I spoke with your mother yesterday evening. Do drop her a line or ring. There’s a good chap. Don’t want that pretty ‘gel’ upset you know!”
“Right-Oh, Sir!” de Crecy answered, as he closed the door, winking at Shallal whom he knew was in for a blistering dressing down.
“Mr. Shallal,” Beresford began, “Open the bloody door and check in case of eavesdroppers will you?” and pouring a sherry for himself and the usual soda water with a slice of lemon for Shallal pointed to the jasmine covered balcony leading out from his spacious office. “Tony my boy, stop taking everything to heart. Wilfred de Crecy is a dismal representative of Britain as a whole and he’s a prig. However, we both know that he’s very, very well connected. But what you don’t know is that I have been in love with his mother for decades. We didn’t marry because I simply wasn’t suitable, but we can and will now that his father has passed away and there’s no family left to appease. Wilfred, like his father as I remember him in the Army, is a brutally dangerous young man. Not a prize catch for any potential stepfather, but he is intelligent and fearless, which makes him a very formidable adversary. Learn from me my dear boy and don’t turn your back on him for too long.”
Beresford continued, “I want you to shadow his every move, particularly when he is around that girl and you above all should remember that under Islamic law, if she is compromised in any way, she will be executed. It is a question of honor. My understanding is that Ghulam Ansari is getting ready to leave for Afghanistan within a month. He is obligated to his wife as long as she carries their child. If the child is male she’ll fare well. If the child is female, she’ll be of no use to him whatsoever. Should that happen, you must repatriate her to England. Her father is my friend. He trusts me to protect her.”
“Your contact at the Embassy in Beirut will be Hamish St. Claire, whom you know from Gordonstoun. So before you moan to me again about the ‘Old Boy’s Brigade’ and ‘the Old School Tie’, let me remind you that Gordonstoun is one of the few schools in the Empire to be attended by the Prince of Wales.”
“As I recall, sir, he was as bullied and ostracized as I was, but less active in sports. HRH was a rather nice chap though, very artsy. He often waxed poetic after a few cherry brandies.”
“Point is, Tony, you have some rather powerful connections yourself! Prince of Wales, a rather nice chap indeed! You leave for Beirut this afternoon. You’ll be housed at the Embassy with full diplomatic privileges. I don’t have to tell you not to abuse The Firm or ‘Six’,” he said, referring to the Monarchy and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, to whose Vauxhall Cross office Tony Shallal was generally assigned.
Tony Shallal accepted his role without further question, leav
ing his supervisor, Archie Beresford, the newly appointed Charge of Affairs, Cairo Station alone to pick up the telephone and ring his old friend Yacouta D’Aboville.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Yacouta D’Aboville passed the message on to Emily that her current passport should be updated or replaced to reflect her married name at her earliest convenience and that she should immediately get two passport photographs made.
Within one hour Yacouta and Emily arrived at 7 Ahmed Rahgeb Street which was a mere ten minutes walk on the clear spring day. Her relatively new navy blue, hard backed British Passport could, as Col. Beresford explained be simply updated to read “Now Mrs. Ansari” or with a little finagling he could pretend she had lost it and reissue a new one using the new photographs in the name of Amina Ansari. He then suggested she keep the old one just in case there was a problem. Her questioning the legality of such action was politely ignored.
She recovered from her initial surprise at seeing Col. Beresford in Egypt, then congratulated him at his new posting, but when the door opened and Tony Shallal walked in she was most assuredly taken aback.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m being posted to Lebanon. Coincidental, is it not? This is just a brief stop on the way. I actually leave first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I won’t ask,” she added, “You have to kill me if I heard it from you, right?”
“Quite,” he responded, indicating that she should follow him to the passport section. “How about dinner this evening at Shepheards? It used to be a Turkish bathhouse before it became famous in the colonial days, you know?”
“Sorry, I’m leaving for Beirut tonight with an escort. Would you believe, one Wilfred de Crecy?”
“Yes, we have met” He added smugly “Good luck on your journey.”
“Mr. Shallal, did you hear anything about Sammi Farouq’s murder? You knew him and I thought that you might have heard something.”
“As a matter of fact, there are a group of suspects. A robbery, the police believe. One of several done by a gang of kids in the area. In this case he interrupted them and was fatally stabbed.”
“Oh come on! His throat was cut! Isn’t that just a little more overkill than an unplanned murder-robbery?”
“I really can’t get into a discussion on this, Mrs. Ansari. I’m not a police officer.”
“Oh, right. So what were you doing there? I saw you.”
‘Mrs. Ansari, let me make one thing clear. If you saw me, then obviously you were there too. Can you account for your whereabouts that morning?”
“Bloody funny, Shallal. I went to say goodbye. I was on my way to the airport. He was dead when I got there and there was a crowd outside his shop.”
“Mrs. Ansari, Sammi Farouq was part of a group of PFLP financial backers. Let me give you piece of advice. Forget you knew him and let the professionals do their job without your help.”
“What?” her voice echoing loudly in the slate tiled passage, “Palestinian Liberationists! The terrorist group? Look Shallal, I don’t know anything about them other than what I read in the paper. I don’t think Sammi could have been part of that. Good God, he was an old man!”
“When this is all over, Mrs. Ansari, we will talk. In the interim, you need a passport to replace the old one you lost, right? Here’s the office,” he said, opening the door.
She did not tell him that her old passport was safe in her shoulder bag and that his boss was quite sure it should stay there.
The formalities were completed in minutes, amazingly without any documentation other than her marriage license and two photographs. She couldn’t help thinking that this was extremely lax security. She could have been a terrorist. This was too easy, she thought, know one person at the top and you’re home free.
Yacouta D’Aboville was placated as they left the Embassy and began their walk home. “That Shallal is a wonderful young man. Good family, single, handsome too. He obviously likes you.”
“Right Aunt Jack. Total bloody adoration. He practically accused me of being part of the PFLP.”
“Oh ma petite Cherie, he doesn’t mean that. He’s just trying to make you aware of the fact that you’re going to a very dangerous place. These terrorist factions are all over the Middle East. Beirut is the London or New York of the Arab world, full of the high life, nightclubs, parties, very exciting. But there are some who believe that this is immoral, too western and too corrupt and it is these people who are easy prey for the Islamists and fundamentalists.”
“I thought you were pro-Palestine, Aunt Jack.”
“I am pro-peace. I am pro-freedom of choice. Not pro-domination by one religious group. There is enough here for everyone. We cannot deny the existence of one group of people for another. We must all work together.”
“But you’re a Muslim woman.”
“Amina, if I claimed a religion at all it would be as a faithful follower of Isis!”
“Oh Jesus wept; now I’ve heard it all.”
“You know the story of Isis and Osiris, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Isis was the Greek name for the Goddess Aset who is the most distinctive Goddess of Egypt. There are more temples and sacred sites dedicated to her than any other deity here. She is the Queen of Heaven, the one they prayed to for healing of every ailment. She’s the Divine Physician, the lawyer, the Goddess of Agriculture. No other Pharaoh could rule without her authority and approval. Her husband Osiris ruled all Egypt with her, but his brother Seth was jealous of him and buried him alive in a specially made golden coffin.”
“And” her aunt continued for her, “Isis searched heaven and earth for him, finding him at last on the coast of Syria.”
“And then,” interrupted Emily, “after she found his body his wicked brother tore it into fourteen pieces and scattered them all over Egypt and Isis searched everywhere for him and each time a piece of him was found they erected an altar and gave thanks to the gods, which later became the funeral rites of Egypt. She found thirteen parts but not the fourteenth, his phallus, but she still magically conceived his son Horus who avenged his father.”
“There is another legend my dear that whoever finds the missing phallus creates havoc in the world.”
“Yes” Emily agreed “I read one of mother’s books about that when I was away at school. It scared me half to death. It was by Dennis Wheatley. He maintained that evil was unleashed whenever anyone looked for the talisman of Set. You’re not going to tell me that you believe that rubbish, Aunt Jack?”
“No, of course not, but I and many other local women have prayed to the Goddess Isis at her temples and our prayers have been answered. I prefer the gentleness of a Goddess to the harshness of the Judeo-Christian and Muslim God of War. So I talk to her all the time.”
Emily was nonplussed. She had always considered her aunt to be too sophisticated for such things. But later, when she was packed and ready to leave with de Crecy, who had arrived in an Embassy vehicle, her aunt pressed a silver pendant of the Winged Isis into her palm, urging her to light a fire and use incense to pray to her when the need arose. She also gave her a much used copy of Frederick Grant’s “Hellenistic Religions”, which she claimed contained initiation rituals into the mysteries of Isis written in the second century. Just what I need, Emily thought to herself, pagan rituals for my future as an Islamic wife.
Wils de Crecy and Emily drove to the airport in comparative silence. The goodbyes to Aunt Jack and the weeping Ahmed had been very dramatic and de Crecy’s comments about the pair had been most unkind. He annoyed Emily even more by suggesting in a perverse sort of way that Ahmed was a “bloody shirt-lifter”, callously adding, “like most of these bloody wogs. It’s second nature to them.”
“Look here, de Crecy. I find this damned insulting. My father is an Arab and he’s not a homosexual,” thinking to herself how wrong she had been in her initial assessment of de Crecy and concluding that this was going to be an awful bloody journey.
&nbs
p; One hour later they arrived at the main entrance of Cairo Airport and shortly thereafter boarded the red finned MEA Boeing 720B flight for Beirut. The flight had originated in Greece and was full to capacity. The food was mediocre. Unlike the first time she had traveled with the airline and perhaps because of the short duration of the flight, the staff gave no safety talk to the new passengers.
In time they touched down in a surprisingly empty Beirut Airport. Only two years before, on December 28th 1968, the Lebanese-owned and Beirut based Middle East Airway’s entire fleet had been destroyed by a retaliatory Israeli bombing attack, but like the land on which it stood, it had, as always, survived. Security had been tightened because of the continuing Arab-Israeli tension and soldiers armed with machine guns were highly visible as Emily passed through Customs and Immigration. Their entry into Lebanon continued without problem and soon they were walking through the gate toward a small group of people who were waiting for passengers to arrive.
Among them was a tall, bearded man, wearing a white cotton robe known as a “dishadasha” covered with a black “abaya” tunic. The contrast of the white under robe with the dark heavier garment accentuated his lithe figure as he stared at the screen above him, his perfect profile disrupted by his protruding full beard. He was standing sideways. At that angle his features resembled carved granite. A traditional Middle Eastern black tarboush covered much of his black curling hair, but there was no mistaking him. It was her husband Ghulam. He turned towards her but did not smile.
“Your head is not covered, Amina. This is not Europe. You must attempt to be modest. I see you disgrace me already.” Looking around him, he raised the hijab her aunt had given her and covered her, pulling it down low over her forehead.
He turned to her traveling companion and gave the Islamic salutation of peace which de Crecy returned. In typical Muslim tradition, Ghulam offered his home to the British representative. The offer however was declined as the Englishman explained he would be leaving immediately for the British Embassy.
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