by Nick Louth
* * *
It was nearly 9.30am when Wyrecliffe’s mobile rang. He swung out of bed when he realised it was a voice he didn’t recognise.
‘Who is this?’ he asked.
Taseena sat up in bed, watching him.
‘I’m a Saudi reporter here in Sharm. Listen, there’s a link between the Al Qaeda men killed last night and the EgyptAir bombing.’
‘Really,’ said Wyrecliffe. ‘What do you know?’
‘I can’t talk over the phone. Meet me in Café Sunshine in fifteen minutes.’
‘Listen,’ said Wyrecliffe, the memory of the wild goose chase with Kat Quinlan fresh in his mind. ‘If you’re a reporter, you know what’s happening today, and I’m very busy. If it’s good fine, but don’t waste my time.’
‘It’s good,’ the caller said.
‘Okay, but why me, as a matter of interest?’ Wyrecliffe added.
‘You’re the only one who thinks she’s still alive, that’s why.’ He hung up.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Wyrecliffe said, pulling on a bathrobe. ‘Where’s Café Sunshine?
Taseena shrugged and started to Google it on her phone.
‘Someone reckons they know something about Cantara,’ Wyrecliffe said. ‘Don’t wait for me at breakfast. I’ll go straight on to security check-in after.’
* * *
Rifat put down the phone and smiled to himself. Wyrecliffe had fallen for the gambit, as he knew he would. His death would come soon enough, but not before he knew the damage he had caused. But there were other vengeances to exact. Rifat stood on a chair, and with a roll of masking tape covered over the hotel room’s smoke alarm. Then he got down, opened his briefcase and carefully lifted out the Helwan pistol Yemen had sent him. It was, as he expected, an Egyptian copy of the Italian Beretta M1951. Serviceable, proven, but not as good as the Glock. The silencer, however, was good. A brand new Gemtech Raptor, still in its packaging, with a Heckler & Kock three-lug adapter. His practised hands assembled them, loaded a clip of ammunition, then set them aside.
He took a dog-eared folder from the briefcase. Inside were page after page of photographs of Taseena, old family snaps showing her as a child, at school, among university friends. Rifat carefully leafed through his meticulous scrapbook, moving on to more recent pictures: professional headshots, and several pages of print outs from Google Images. Over all of them, from beginning to end, in tiny, neat handwritten Arabic script were dense tracts of hatred, condemnations and Koranic quotations to castigate the life of the woman who had turned out to be his mother. On the final pages were the faded pornographic images from a two-decade old Playboy magazine. As far as he could calculate, she was already pregnant with him when these pictures were taken. There she was, blasphemously spread-eagled for the lust of the world, revelling in her dangerous and inflammatory beauty, the woman from whose public loins he would seven or eight months later emerge. And there she was, on pages blistered with the stain of her own son’s seed. Rifat lifted the pages to his mouth, and kissed each delicately. ‘Goodbye blessed mother, my fallen angel,’ he said. ‘Your time is nigh.’
He took one of the professional portraits and taped it to the wall at head height. He then took the gun, paced out the greatest distance he could, eight metres, which entailed him standing in the bathroom with the door open. He lifted the gun and sighted it on his mother’s smiling face. He fired.
The suppressed click from the weapon was swamped by the hammer blow of the bullet’s impact. The photograph had a neat hole in the mouth, the bullet buried deep in the wall. With a cigarette lighter, he set fire to the scrapbook, holding it up as the pages curled, and fire first darkened then consumed Taseena’s flesh. As the flames spread, Rifat dropped the folder into a metal wastebin, and added to it the punctured portrait from the wall. When it was thoroughly charred, he took the bin to the bathroom and ran it under the tap. Once the smoke had cleared, he reloaded and packed the weapon, locked it in the briefcase and took it with him as he left the hotel.
* * *
By 9.45am Cantara had eaten her fill, but Wyrecliffe still hadn’t arrived. She watched TV listlessly, breaking off every few seconds to glance at the door, as the last of the hotel guests gradually filtered out to start their day, and the waitresses began to clear the tables. Reluctantly, she decided to leave.
The click of high heels drew her attention. A self-aware Arab woman in expensive western clothes and a short skirt had just arrived. She was talking loudly on her mobile and began absent-mindedly loading up a plate with fruit. Cantara saw from the lanyard around her neck that she was with Arab Satellite Broadcasting. She stood to follow her. While the woman hung up on the call and reached for coffee, Cantara leaned closer to read the name on the security card.
Taseena Christodopoulos. The power of that name, the woman Chris preferred to her, was enough to make her take a step back.
‘Can I help you?’ Taseena said, turning.
‘I’m Cantara al-Mansoor.’ She took off her sunglasses.
Taseena just stared, taking in the bloodstained abaya, the bruised face and smeared eye make-up.
‘I need to find Chris, urgently! Do you know where he is?’
‘Oh my God!’ Taseena said. ‘Chris was right all along. He’s raised heaven and earth trying to find out if you are still alive. I can’t say I believed him, but…’ She touched Cantara’s arm, as if to be sure that this was really the woman she had heard so much about. Cantara felt ugly and dirty in the critical gaze of this glamorous woman. Instinctively she slid a hand over the dried bloodstain on her midriff.
‘Are you hurt?’ Taseena looked at the stain.
Cantara shrugged. ‘Yes, but I’ve got more important things to do. Al Qaeda is planning to blow up the peace conference, one of the BBC journalists may be a suicide bomber. It is really vital that I talk to Chris and warn him…’
‘I’ll ring him now. Oh God, he’s going to want to know everything that has happened to you in the last year and a half. There’s a terrific story here. Don’t go away. I want you to tell us all about it. Don’t talk to anyone else, okay? We can get you good terms.’
‘Please hurry,’ Cantara pleaded.
Taseena turned away. ‘Chris. Need to speak to you right away. You’ll never guess who is standing right next to me. Bye.’ She turned back. ‘Line must be busy,’ she told Cantara. ‘Right, I’m going to alert conference security, then I’ll call the BBC. Are you sure they are still going to be able to do this? It doesn’t sound likely. The police reckon they killed both the guys who attacked the Ramada Royal last night.’
‘Yes, they were trying to kill me, they were holding me captive. But the mastermind is a Saudi called Rifat, he builds their bombs. That’s who they really have to worry about.’
‘Rifat?’ Taseena looked straight into her eyes. ‘Did you say Rifat?’
‘Yes, Rifat.’ Seeing Taseena’s dumbstruck face, Cantara raised her voice. ‘His name is Rifat. Rifat ibn Juluwi Aziz al Khalifa, aged twenty-one, from Medina. He is the most evil man I have ever met. And he is here in Sharm.’
Taseena screamed and dropped her phone. ‘Rifat, no, no, no!’
‘What is it?’ yelled Cantara, as Taseena lowered herself to a chair. ‘Tell me!’
Taseena fell into hysterical sobbing. Cantara waited for a minute, and then when it didn’t stop, slapped her, hard. Taseena almost fell, sending fruit, crockery and cutlery flying. ‘Taseena, we don’t have time for this! Come on. Lives are at stake. Give me the phone!’
‘No, no, no,’ Taseena sobbed. ‘It cannot be true.’
Cantara had her hand up ready to strike again. Sullying that poised self-confidence had given Cantara a rush of satisfaction, alarming in its intensity. But now it felt somehow unworthy. Waitresses were watching her in horror. Taseena steadied herself from the debris of shattered plates and squashed strawberries. ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t even know who you really are.’
Cantara knelt with difficulty and retrieved the phone. Th
e casing had cracked and there was no signal. A burly chef in fat-spattered apron and hat had emerged from the kitchen, and grabbed Cantara’s wrist. ‘I saw this. You struck this woman and tried to steal her phone.’
‘I did not,’ Cantara said, looking intently at Taseena. She had lost an earring and her make-up was smeared with tears. ‘I came to warn her, but she does not listen.’
‘I am going to call the police,’ the chef said, as a security man arrived. ‘Egypt has severe penalties for thieves.’ He turned to Taseena. ‘I do apologise. These low-life types are always trying to get into the hotel to steal from travellers and tourists. They take advantage of the chaos of the resignation of our president to further their mischief. I will send her back to whatever Cairo squatter camp she came from. If you wish it, Madam.’
Taseena narrowed her eyes and looked Cantara up and down. ‘I can’t believe he was ever interested in you.’
‘I must speak to him!’ Cantara said.
‘And you come here to follow him, spreading your poisonous lies. Your target, a harmless but confused young man. You should be ashamed!’
‘Why do you defend this terrorist?’ Cantara asked.
‘Because he is my son!’ she yelled.
The security man took this scream as a cue to seize Cantara around the neck. The hotel manager and two of his staff had arrived too. Everyone was shouting at once, and Cantara had to raise her voice. ‘Taseena! Don’t let them do this! I am speaking the truth. Chris’s life is in danger! If you love him, you must let him know!
‘What do you know about love?’ Taseena said. ‘You came from dirt, and you will return to dirt. You only ever got to leave that camp because Chris felt pity for you and your twisted foot. But I can see he never spotted your twisted mind.’
‘I have evidence that your son is a cruel man, bent on murder!’ she said, as the security man tried to drag her away, her neck bent back.
‘What possible evidence can there be?’ sneered Taseena.
‘This,’ said Cantara. She pulled up her abaya and slip, leaving her naked from waist to ankles. In a single agonising movement she tore off the dressing to expose to everyone her wound, crude dark stitches and a rime of blackened blood. ‘Your son did this to me. He put a bomb inside my body!’
There was a collective gasp. Taseena recoiled in shock, into the arms of a security guard. The hotel manager, expressing his revulsion at this ‘disgusting display of mental disorder’, directed two of his security staff to cover Cantara, and carry her down to a private room to await the police. Cantara was writhing with pain and frustration, as she was picked up and carried to the emergency stairs.
‘Don’t let them take me! Taseena, please! Taseena! I beg you. I beg you.’
* * *
Wyrecliffe lifted up his sunglasses and looked at his watch. It was 9.55am. The Saudi was late. Sunshine was, appropriately enough, an outdoor café, very pleasant under the palm trees. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes on the phone to Finn Finlay, finalising the logistics for today. He drained the overly-strong coffee and regretted missing the Majestic buffet breakfast. In a few minutes he’d have to leave, to prepare his piece to camera, then start the long and inevitably tedious process of going through security at the Tutankhamun, to be ready at the press conference at 1pm. The networks, ASB included, had already been ferrying production staff and equipment through since 7am, but the correspondents themselves could afford to wait until what in security terms was the last minute. Ninety minutes, they had been told to allow. The CBS chief correspondent had summed up the journalists’ reaction perfectly: ‘What a bunch of crap.’
‘Mr Wyrecliffe, at last.’
A shadow fell across the pages of Wyrecliffe’s International Herald Tribune. He looked up, squinting into the sun. The dazzling halo around the man’s head almost blinded him.
‘You’d better sit down,’ Wyrecliffe said, folding up the paper. ‘I was just about to go.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t.’ The man sat.
Wyrecliffe dropped his sunglasses on the table and stared at the black gloves, the dark, youthful face. ‘You?’ he breathed.
‘Yes. I’ve had quite an interest in you for some time.’
For Wyrecliffe a series of cogs clicked into place. ‘You’re Rifat, aren’t you? That’s why you keep turning up in my life. At the talk in Red Lion Square, in the Old Bell on Fleet Street. I can’t believe I didn’t guess before. Did you also follow me in a taxi?’
Rifat smiled. ‘Yes, twice. I met your wife. I’ve seen where you live, the home in Baron’s Court as well as the one in Dulwich. I visited your daughter and her friend in York.’
‘Michaela…so it was you that got them drunk.’ Anger and anxiety curdled in Wyrecliffe’s mind.
‘Hardly. I think they were quite intoxicated before I arrived. I do not approve of alcohol.’
‘But you went all the way to York to meet them?’
‘Only to learn more about you, about my father.’
Wyrecliffe restrained an urge to apologise, in some general way, for the accident of Rifat’s birth. ‘Why didn’t you just speak to me about this, why didn’t you introduce yourself to me earlier?’
‘My understanding was that you were unaware that you had a third child.’
‘Well, that was true until a few days ago, certainly.’
‘So you would probably not have believed me.’
‘If you had mentioned the circumstances and time of your birth, I might have.’
‘Then you would have known that your attempts to have me disposed of before birth were unsuccessful.’
‘Now steady on, I never tried…’
‘No, you listen to me…Father. You wanted my mother to have me aborted, and she almost agreed.’ Rifat’s face was intense, his gaze unblinking. Wyrecliffe felt the air chilling.
‘She had warned me that you might be angry,’ Wyrecliffe said.
‘Angry? Oh, I’m not angry. That doesn’t quite describe the way I feel. I am the bastard child of a whore and a godless lothario.’ His fingers flexed in the gloves, as if playing some secret andante.
‘You can think what you like of me. That’s your privilege,’ Wyrecliffe said. ‘But I won’t have you describing your mother that way.’ He stood up, and tossed some notes on the table. ‘I’ve got work to do. In case you hadn’t noticed, a few hours from now there will be an attempt to find some peace in this benighted part of the world, and it is my job to report it.’
‘The enormous power of the press, yes.’ Rifat smiled, his grin getting broader by the moment as he pointed at him. ‘My father, Christopher Wyrecliffe, crusader for peace. I know you have it within you to explode the myth that there can be any peace without justice.’
Wyrecliffe laughed. ‘It doesn’t feel that way, believe me. Look, you tempted me here with some bollocks about the attack on the Plaza Royal and about Cantara. If you have anything to tell me, you’d better start now, because I’ve got work to do.’
Rifat stared at Wyrecliffe, saying nothing.
‘In fact, you don’t know anything about Cantara, do you?’ Wyrecliffe said. ‘Probably never met her. Just read up some stuff in the papers, right?’
Rifat shrugged. ‘Well, it seems you have found me out. Sorry.’
‘Look, Rifat. This hasn’t been the best way for us to get to know each other. And I’m sorry you got dealt a bad hand. None of us ever get to control that, I’m afraid. It is what you do with it afterwards that matters. If you ever feel you can be civil I’ll happily meet you again. Until then goodbye.’
He put out his hand towards the black glove, but Rifat’s fingers twitched, withdrawing and curling, like withering flowers.
As Wyrecliffe turned and walked away he felt something cold seep down inside him, a chill blade right into his entrails. It was nothing he’d ever felt before. Fatherhood? He’d felt fatherhood before. But it was never anything like this. Despite the gathering heat of the day, he shuddered.
* * *
&
nbsp; Taseena fled in tears to her room, looking for her spare phone. She was there in two minutes, took out her key, unlocked the door and stumbled in. She had to ring Chris. Perhaps she had done something terrible, but then who was this woman to say such ridiculous things about Rifat? She flung her handbag on the bed, while she hunted in her luggage for the spare phone. That dishevelled bed, where she and Chris had so recently made love. Then she remembered. She remembered caressing his scar. Oh God! The scar.
It was in exactly the same place as Cantara’s scar.
Low, across the abdomen.
Surely, it couldn’t be. Of course not. Chris’s scar was neat, properly sewn up, professional, not that horrible botched job the Palestinian had displayed. It still made her sick to think about that.
Where is that phone?
Chris had had his operation in a proper Egyptian hospital, he’d been flown home at the BBC’s expense. It was surely all official. It wasn’t done by some untrained jihadi in a spare room.
And yet. He had complained about the size of the pacemaker. He said it sometimes felt like a bowling ball. She had never heard of anyone else with a pacemaker in the abdomen. Chris had said it wasn’t uncommon where heart surgery was needed at the same time. So little time to check!
Where is that damn phone? Ah yes. She finally found it and rang Chris. It went straight to voicemail. Damn! Of course, Chris would probably by now be up on the hotel roof, recording his piece to camera. It would be turned off, maybe for ten, fifteen minutes. She’d go straight up and find him. But first she rang her trusted Gulf correspondent, a man who could get anything done.
‘Finn? It’s Taseena. I need you to do something urgently. No, forget that. Do this now. The police have just arrested a young woman called Cantara al-Mansoor. Yes, I know. Same name as the bomber. I know. Now, I want you to offer whatever bail they need to get her out. Bribe whoever you need to. We’ve got ten thousand in cash, if you need all that. No, I have no idea where she is being held. Call in some favours. Whatever it takes. We need her for just a few hours. Say it’s for an interview. She knows important things. Yes, a scoop. Massive. I’m afraid I didn’t believe what she just told me, and I’ve just realised that I was probably wrong. It might just be the biggest mistake of my life. Do it now! I’ve got to ring conference security right now. Bye.’