A Gentleman's Game

by Greg Rucka

  •

  A knock on the bedroom door woke them.

  “Come out, please,” a man said.

  They did, Chace walking stiffly, her knee giving her trouble. She hoped running wouldn’t be required anytime soon.

  When they emerged, Noah Landau was seated at the small square table by the kitchen, and another man, tall enough to be gangly, hair wiry and unkempt, was plugging in an old coffeepot to percolate. One of them, Landau or the other, had put an ashtray on the table, and two unopened packs of cigarettes, and a plate of dainty cookies, what looked like chocolate chip.

  “Please.” Landau swept an open hand, indicating the empty seats. “Join us.”

  “Oh, that’s very nice of you,” Wallace said.

  They took seats, and the man making the coffee turned from his task and gave Chace a looking-over, grinning. Then he looked to Landau, said something in Hebrew, and Landau shook his head, as if the words were expected and not particularly original.

  “Rude,” Chace said. “Speaking like that when we can’t understand.”

  “You wouldn’t like the translation,” Landau told her. “He thinks he’s in love with you.”

  “If his coffee’s any good, tell him I’ll marry him.”

  The man laughed.

  “It’s Wallace, isn’t it?” Landau asked Tom. “Yes?”

  Wallace nodded. “Crete, seven years ago? Or is it eight?”

  “Eight and a half, Mr. Wallace.” Landau smiled. “I understand you retired.”

  “Well, I thought a holiday was in order, came to see the Promised Land.”

  “Hmm, sadly I think that will not be possible.”

  “Oh?” Wallace looked to Chace. “I told you we should have booked a package, but no, you had to insist on the Rough Guide.”

  “You like it rough,” she said.

  “I like snuggling, too.”

  The other man spoke again, laughed, then began pouring the coffee.

  “He’s still being rude,” Chace said.

  “He is very rude,” Landau agreed. “Viktor, introduce yourself.”

  “Viktor Borovsky.” The man set one of the cups in front of Chace and gave her an enormously amused smile. “And if you like my coffee, I will go search for a ring for you.”

  “Needs to be a big one,” Chace said. “I’m a size queen.”

  Borovsky laughed. He joined them at the table, taking one of the cookies and dunking it before eating. Wallace reached for one of the packs of smokes, tore the cellophane free, then knocked two free. He handed one to Chace, took one for himself, and his actions seemed to provide some sort of permission, because by the time Chace had her lighter to her cigarette, Landau and Borovsky were smoking as well.

  “Regular kaffeeklatsch, this,” Chace said.

  “Nothing regular about it,” Wallace said.

  Landau smiled at them both for a moment, then said to Chace, “You blew it.”

  “To which ‘it’ do you refer, Mr. Landau? I’ve blown so many things in my time.”

  “El-Sayd.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes.”

  Wallace shot a quizzical look to Chace. “Muhriz el-Sayd, he means?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You blew it?”

  “I was supposed to kill him. He left before I could take the shot. Killed Prince Salih instead.”

  “You neglected to include that part,” Wallace said.

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  Borovsky ate another cookie, feeding himself with the same hand that held his cigarette. When he smiled, chocolate was visible on his teeth. “Please, don’t mistake Noah’s gruffness for disapproval. We’re quite happy with the way things turned out.”

  “So this is about giving me a medal, then?” Chace asked. “That’s why you’re holding us?”

  “Viktor speaks out of turn,” Landau said softly. “I neither approve nor disapprove of Salih’s death. If he wasn’t an enemy of Israel, he certainly supported Israel’s enemies. It is relevant to the discussion at hand only because Salih’s death impacts your current situation dramatically.”

  Chace rolled the end of her cigarette along the edge of the ashtray, watching the embers. “Impacts how?”

  “Come now, you know the position in which you have been placed as well as I.”

  “You’re not going to hand me to the Saudis,” Chace said.

  It wasn’t a question, but Borovsky took it as such, answering, “Fuck me, no. No, no, never, never in a million years, no.”

  She looked at him and he smiled broadly, and Chace motioned with her free hand at her own mouth, indicating crumbs. Borovsky swiped at his chin with the back of a hand, unashamed.

  Landau said something softly to Borovsky in Hebrew, and Borovsky looked at him, surprised, responding curtly. Landau answered, as quietly as before, but longer this time, and Borovsky listened. Chace watched his smile evaporate, to be replaced with a decided scowl.

  To Chace, Landau said, “Our options are as limited as yours.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that the HUM-AA camp in the Wadi-as-Sirhan must go, Miss Chace. Unequivocally, the camp must be neutralized, destroyed. One way or another.”

  “Then please get on with it,” Chace said tartly. “The sooner you take care of it, the sooner I can go home.”

  “You know our dilemma.”

  “No, actually, I don’t. I’m told that you’ve been blocked by the Americans, but the Americans have blocked you before and you’ve gone around them before. A clear and present danger to the State of Israel has always required the same response from your lot—you take care of the problem. Why not this time?”

  “This time the Americans are threatening to suspend four billion dollars in aid,” Borovsky said. “And since the problem can be solved without direct intervention, our Government is content to allow things to run their course.”

  “Which brings us back to you,” Landau said. “I understand that SIS has listed you as rogue, Miss Chace. Certainly, you suspected that would be the result of your flight from England. Of all the places in the world you could run to, you came here.”

  “And you were waiting for me at the airport,” Chace said. “Which means you knew I was coming. How is that? Crocker tip you?”

  Landau shook his head. “So you are here because you want our help, because you feel you must neutralize the camp by yourself or else run for the rest of your life. You are here because your own Government will not aid you, and so you turn to us.”

  “And you’re eager to help,” Chace said. “That’s why you’ve held Tom and me here for the last twelve hours?”

  “You left the job undone,” Landau said.

  Chace stared at him, for a moment stunned by his arrogance. “I beg your pardon?”

  “El-Sayd is still alive, Miss Chace. Until you fulfill our last agreement, I see no reason to enter into another with you.”

  “You’re fucking joking.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Wallace crushed out his cigarette. “You’re seriously saying that we’ve got to go kill el-Sayd before you’ll help us take care of the camp?”

  “No,” Landau said.

  “Thank God.”

  “Miss Chace will go kill el-Sayd. You will remain here.”

  Both Wallace and Chace stared at him, and for a moment Chace wondered at the world’s insistence on making her its bitch. She shook her head stubbornly, but Wallace spoke first.

  “The hell I will. If she’s off to Cairo, she’ll need support.”

  “But if you go with her, there’s no reason to assume she’ll complete the mission. If we hold you here, as our guest, she will be motivated to take care of el-Sayd with the same efficiency she brought to the assassination of Faud.”

  “You’re a staggering bastard,” Chace said to Landau after a moment.

  “Perhaps, but no more of a bastard than your D-Ops.” Landau removed his glasses, checked the lenses for
smudging. “Surely you didn’t think we’d want nothing in exchange for our help, Miss Chace?”

  “Actually, since it’s your problem as much as it is ours and the Americans’, yes, I sort of did.”

  Landau replaced his glasses. “That was surprisingly naïve of you.”

  Chace sighed.

  “You’re telling me,” she said.

  •

  Landau and Borovsky briefed her in the apartment, with Wallace listening, until just before dawn. Shortly after sunrise, they drove her back to the airport, leaving Wallace behind with two of the brutes to mind him. Her tickets were already arranged, a flight to Athens, and from there to Rome, and then from Rome to Cairo. They gave her five thousand dollars for her expenses and a number to contact when the job was done, to arrange her return trip.

  They stayed with her until it was time to board and waited until they saw she was on the plane.

  She appreciated the fact that neither Landau nor Borovsky wished her luck.

  41

  Egypt—Central Cairo, the Shepheard’s Hotel

  20 September 0937 Local (GMT+3.00)

  Sinan watched Nia through his binoculars from the window of his room in the Shepheard’s Hotel, knapsack on her back, guidebook in her hand, dressed in T-shirt and shorts and sunglasses, just another visiting sightseer, exactly as they had rehearsed. He smiled when she stopped at the corner, asking a passerby for directions. She was very good, very convincing, and it made him proud and happy to know that she would soon be shahid. The sunlight glittered on the cross she wore on the chain around her neck, the final touch to her disguise, a Christian woman looking to take in the Coptic sites.

  “Where is she?” Matteen asked.

  “Turning from the marina, about three hundred meters to go,” Sinan said.

  “Let me see.”

  They swapped places at the window, Matteen putting his eyes to the binoculars on their tripod, Sinan stepping back to the desk, where the cellular phone and the remote were lying. Neither would be required: Nia would telephone only if something were wrong, and he would use the remote only if she were going to be apprehended. There was no danger of that, he was sure. He had faith in her.

  He loved her.

  And she had told him last night, as he saw her to bed in the adjoining room, that she loved him.

  He didn’t think about the opportunity that her death would deny them, and he didn’t mourn her for what she was about to do. Rather, it gave him a powerful sense of pride that their bond was so deep, so profound, that they had come together in this wonderful way, Nia making the journey to Paradise, Sinan there to see her on her way.

  If he had been able to articulate it, he would have gone so far as to describe the situation as romantic.

  •

  While Matteen had taken Nia to the hotel, to settle them into their rooms, Sinan had returned to the café on Sikket al-Badestan that he and Aamil had visited so long ago—a lifetime ago—to meet their contact, a man named Hafiz, and to acquire the components for the bomb.

  But instead of Hafiz, Sinan had found Muhriz el-Sayd waiting for him, and for Sinan, it was a triumphant homecoming indeed. To be face-to-face with the man who had turned him away, and in so doing turned him toward Salih and Abdul Aziz, to meet him as an equal, was yet another moment of pride.

  “Sinan,” el-Sayd said. “A better name than the last time we met.”

  “I am a better man now, Allah be praised,” Sinan had replied. “A change you helped to make happen. It is good to see you, my brother.”

  “I saw a boy who would be a jihadi. Now I see a man. Our friend speaks well of you, Sinan. He says that, with time and Allah’s blessings, you will achieve great things.”

  “If Allah wills it.”

  El-Sayd had clapped a hand on his shoulder, kissed his cheeks in greeting, and Sinan had returned the gesture, relishing the acceptance. They had moved to a room in the back of the café, and el-Sayd had given him the knapsack, already prepared, and the remote, and the two mobile phones.

  “The bomb is a good one,” he’d said. “Like the ones Hamas uses on the Zionists. Eight kilos of explosive, PE9, another four of nails, all of them coated with rat poison. This is a big one, Sinan, it will kill many.”

  Sinan had hefted the knapsack experimentally. It was heavier than they had planned for by about three kilos, but he was confident Nia would be able to carry it without difficulty. It had been well packed and made no noise when he moved it, the shrapnel packed tight around the charge. Coated with poison, the nails would create hideous wounds that would hemorrhage uncontrollably.

  El-Sayd took the knapsack back from him, showed him the padded straps. “The shahid arms it here on the right strap and detonates it here with the left. The buttons are hidden and ride high, so it looks like he’s adjusting the pack, nothing more.”

  “She,” Sinan said. “Not he.”

  “Really?”

  Sinan nodded. “A great woman. Pure and strong. She deserves Paradise as much as any man I have ever met.”

  El-Sayd gave him a look, as if surprised by Sinan’s words, then nodded. “She has to turn away from the target for maximum effect. Make sure she understands this, Sinan.”

  “She will do it correctly.”

  “Sometimes they get excited, they detonate early. Tell her to be calm, to focus on the words of the imam, on what awaits her. Make sure she understands that she will feel no pain, that there is only the decision, the action, and her arrival in Paradise, in the place that awaits her.”

  “She knows these things already, my brother.”

  “Tell them to her again, Sinan. I have seen too many shahid lose their nerve at the last minute, and it has cost us dearly in the past. They panic. Do stupid things. Some simply run, try to get rid of the bomb, return home. Others, they turn themselves in, Sinan. They go to the Zionists and ask for mercy.”

  “As if they would receive it.”

  “This girl of yours, she’s seen a lot, she’s been with Abdul Aziz, with you, with your comrades. If she were to lose her nerve and surrender herself to the British or the Americans, she could compromise all of you.”

  “I understand.”

  El-Sayd set down the knapsack, then handed Sinan the remote. It was a squat plastic box, shorter but thicker than a package of cigarettes, with two buttons set into its face and a single small lightbulb above them. The antenna was stubby, wrapped in black plastic.

  “This is the insurance,” el-Sayd told him. “Right button arms the bomb, left button detonates it, same as with the backpack. In open terrain, its range is almost a kilometer, but near the embassies it will be half that, if you’re lucky. Once she closes on the target, you’ll have to follow her.”

  Sinan looked at the remote in his hand, frowned. It was heavy and crude, and he felt that, just by holding it, he was committing to betraying Nia in some way.

  “Which button does what?” el-Sayd asked him.

  “Right arms, left detonates, like the backpack,” Sinan said, moving his frown from the remote to the other man. “I understand.”

  “I know you don’t like it, that you don’t think this necessary, Sinan. But trust me, insurance is a good thing to have.”

  Sinan’s nod was reluctant.

  “You like this girl.”

  “I do. I want her to have this thing, to be shahid.”

  El-Sayd’s eyes narrowed and he looked hard at Sinan. “Then don’t fail her. Don’t let her bow to her fear. Make certain she remembers what awaits her, that is where her mind must be. Not on what she is doing, but on where she is going.”

  “I will, as I have said.”

  El-Sayd hesitated, and Sinan wondered why he seemed so suddenly unsure.

  “May I offer you some advice, my brother?” el-Sayd asked.

  “Please.”

  “Don’t tell her about the remote. Only if she balks, if you have to use the phones. Tell her then, but not before.”

  He didn’t like that and knew it showe
d on his face. “I will not lie to her.”

  “It is not a lie if you do not speak of it. It is not a lie if, as you say, it is unnecessary. Only if it becomes necessary should you tell her, that is what I mean to say.”

  Sinan looked at the remote again, then back to el-Sayd, before nodding, accepting the logic.

  “It won’t be necessary,” Sinan promised.

  •

  “She’s stopped,” Matteen said.

  “What?”

  “She’s stopped.” Matteen moved back from the binoculars, to let Sinan look. “Across the street from the embassy grounds, facing the river. She hasn’t moved in almost a minute, she’s just staring at the damn river.”

  Sinan rushed back to the window, pressed his eyes to the binoculars.

  Nia stood motionless, staring at the Nile, morning traffic streaming along the Sharia Corniche el-Nil behind her, pedestrians and tourists making their way quickly along the eastern bank of the river. The guidebook was still in her hand, but held loosely against her thigh, as if forgotten.

  Sinan cursed softly. The binoculars were good, but not so good that he could make out her expression, that he could tell what she was thinking and, more, what she was feeling.

  “Move,” he whispered. “Move, Nia.”

  “She’s frozen.”

  “No,” Sinan snapped. “Give me the phone.”

  He heard Matteen moving to the desk, but he didn’t look away from the view through the binoculars, just extended a hand back to him, waiting to be handed the mobile. Nia hadn’t moved, not a fraction, not a muscle.

  Matteen put the phone in his hand, and Sinan tore his eyes away long enough to make certain he hit the right button, then pressed the mobile to his ear, hearing the hiss, then the ringing. Through the binoculars, Nia still hadn’t moved, apparently watching one of the many faluccas on the river floating past, even though he was certain she could hear the telephone ringing in her pocket. Then, as if pulling her limbs through glue, she tucked the guidebook beneath her left arm, reached into her right pocket, and produced her phone.