ARAB (25 page)

The request enraged him. I don’t fetch things for people, he wanted to say. But he got up and went into the kitchen, found a package of Marlboros and brought it to her. She extracted one cigarette, pinched off the filter and put the good end between her lips. She waited for a light.

“You don’t like filters?” he said, holding a flame to the raw end of her cigarette.

“I don’t like anything filtered.”

He watched her suck smoke into her mouth, pull it deep into her lungs and let it stream from her nostrils, her eyes all the while watching him with cold dispassion.

She leaned back. “Why do you suppose the general never mentioned you?”

“No need to know, I suppose. How much of his plans did he share with the prince?”

“He dealt with me.”

“And shared all he knew with you? Doesn’t sound like him.”

“He told me many things but never mentioned you. But let’s examine something else. He must have had people in the desert to meet me. Was the landing changed to Cairo to avoid those people?”

“I changed your destination for my own convenience and your protection. Without General Saraaj, I couldn’t be sure what might happen at that desert airstrip. I was concerned only for your safety.”

“If you were working closely with the general, the people out there must have known you.”

“In an ideal world what you’re implying might be true,” Esmat said, “but here…. Even the general didn’t trust everyone. You could have ended in the arms of some very desperate people.

She smiled. “And maybe I have.”

“I want only what the general wanted.”

“And what is that?” she said. She waited for a response. None came, only puzzled silence. “My life has been threatened, Mr. Bindari. I arranged to come here under the protection of General Saraaj. Now he is gone. You say an American Marine is here looking for the pilot you sent to rescue me. Is he actually looking for the pilot? Or is he looking for me? Does he know I’m here?”

“I don’t think he has any idea that you’re in this country.”

“But he’s with the CIA, you said. And the pilot knows I’m here.”

“I don’t think you have anything to fear from the pilot. Trust me.”

“I’m trying to, Mr. Bindari. Believe me, I’m trying to.” She stood and walked to the window. He watched cigarette smoke expand over the glass in front of her. Clearly she was weary of the conversation and wanted him to leave.

*

Later, when Bindari was gone, Helene held the phone to her ear. “Phillip, is that you?”

“Who else?”

“Just say ‘yes,’ damn it!”

“It is I and I have been drinking, forgive me. This is an odd hour, you know. What time is it there?”

“Who gives a shit! Listen to me. I want out. This Bindari asshole is holding me prisoner. He’s no friend of the general. All he wants is money. I want out of here. That guy in Khartoum. How do I reach him?”

“Who’s that?”

“The one they chased out of Egypt. Got a funny name.”

“Shkaki?”

“Yes. Something like that. How do I reach him?”

“I don’t know. We went through a guy named Uthman al-Ajami. It’s how Bindari found us. I don’t know how safe this Uthman is. In fact, I wouldn’t trust him not to go straight to Bindari. Let me handle this. If Shkaki’s available….”

“You said General Saraaj trusted this Shkaki.”

“True. Aren’t there other friends of Saraaj up there?”

“He doesn’t have any friends, and you know what that means.”

“I’m sorry, Helene. I thought everything was on the up and up. Think the family might help you?”

“Sure, and put me on my knees and chop my head off. I’m a royal embarrassment.”

“Okay. I’ll contact Uthman. He owes me one. I’ll let you know. Just sit tight.”

*

Aziz al Khalid lowered the phone and watched his secretary leave the office, closing the door quietly behind her. Nick inhaled the lingering fragrance of her cologne.

“Arguably,” Aziz said, resuming what they had been talking about. “But you have no evidence of this.”

“But he was tortured!”

“I’m aware of that. And I know the particulars of his training. What you suspect may have merit. I’ll mention it to Yousef.”

“The woman Bashir brought in from South America,” Nick said. “Does Yousef know who she is, where she is?”

Aziz paused. “He hasn’t mentioned a woman, but…. I suppose it’ll appear in his report. What do you know about her? You saw her?”

“No. Habib was told about her. Neither of us has seen her. We know she was not allowed to get off the plane in Casablanca and that arrangements apparently had been made here in Cairo to take her directly to the cab stand and drive her away.”

“Arrangements?”

“The driver turned people away until she showed up.”

“And Isaac Roach told you this?”

“His people are looking for the driver.”

Aziz appeared to be troubled by what Nick was saying. Whether he suspected Yousef of withholding information, Nick couldn’t tell. Probably not.

“I’m sure Yousef is aware of this,” Aziz said.

“He doesn’t trust me,” Nick said.

“Yousef? Oh, he doesn’t trust anybody, not even me, I suspect,” and he laughed.

“He wants Habib to spy on me.”

“I don’t think it’s you he doesn’t trust. It’s the CIA, and you work for them.”

“So why haven’t I been deported?”

“It’s on the president’s desk. That’s all I can say. It’s all I know. Officially you’re what you have been, a cultural attaché to the American embassy, free to come and go as you please. A move against you, if it should get in the news, would be a move against the United States of America. Only the president could order that.”

After a while, their talk drifted from the problems of Egypt to reports from Amina now at Harvard. She was having a great time, apparently. She loved the freedom American women enjoyed. It astonished her that male and female students were permitted to share the same living quarters.

Downstairs, Nick retrieved his cell phone and his pistol at the security desk. He drove to his hotel, wondering what he had just learned.

*

With legs drawn up, chin on his knees, Bashir sat with his back to the wall watching the two men who had just entered the room.

“You must forgive me,” said the man who had brought him across the tarmac. “I had an emergency call and completely forgot,” reaching down, helping Bashir to his feet.

He thinks I’m a stupid fool, Bashir told himself, letting go the man’s hand, wiping his palm on his pants leg as though to rid himself of a contaminant.

“The police have been swarming all over this building,” the man said, leading Bashir to the door where a second man in jeans and sweatshirt was waiting. “That woman you brought here. She’s some kind of fugitive, I guess. They were looking all over for her … and for you. They’d’ve put you through hell if they’d known you were here.”

“So you kept me in hiding?”

The man didn’t answer, aware probably that he had contradicted himself—either they forgot him, which Bashir doubted, or they deliberately kept him hidden.

“They’re gone,” the man said, stepping hesitantly into the narrow hallway. “We’ve got a place, a villa where you’ll be comfortable.”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Bashir said. “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. Just leave me alone,” conscious of a surging will to defy these people, to defend himself, sick of cringing before people he didn’t respect. All his life he had been afraid to assert himself. No more!

When Bashir tried to pull away, the man caught his arm. “We don’t want the police to find you. We’re not your enemy.”

“Then let me go!”

The man gave his friend a look. The friend grasped Bashir’s other arm. “Don’t give us trouble. We’re here to help you.”

“Then let me go!” Bashir said, ripping his arm free.

No longer pretending to be friendly, they hustled him to the stairs, caught him when he stumbled, lifted him by the arms and carried him to the foyer.

“Your name is Anwar!” Bashir yelled. “I remember. You came with the police that time! I remember!” And he remembered that Anwar was related to someone in the main office. He didn’t know who. It hadn’t seemed important.

He recalled the face of Esmat Bindari in the doorway. He felt frightened. Nothing made sense. Wasn’t Bindari his friend?

What’s going on! Why has everyone gone crazy?

Anwar opened the outside door. The cart was ten feet away. Terminal workers were less than a hundred feet down the building, a little cluster of them arguing, arms flying, voices trumpeting. He broke free of Anwar’s grasp and ran to the men.

“These people are trying to hurt me!” he shouted.

The men, four or five of them in work clothes, didn’t know what he meant. Anwar wasn’t coming after him. He and his friend were driving off in the cart.

“You all right?” one of the men said.

Bashir nodded, still out of breath.

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Bashir said. “They found me in the building.”

“Ah … unauthorized. Yes, they’re being very careful these days. You work here, don’t you? Think I’ve seen you.”

“Is there a way out? I don’t want to go up front. I don’t want them to find me.” He trusted these people. They were workers like him.

“That door you came out. It goes to the garage. You can find the street from there.”

None of the mechanics in the garage paid attention as he walked past the grease pits, past the cars outside. Within a few minutes he was on a sidewalk waving at a group of young men piling into a convertible.

“I need a ride!” he yelled.

“Come on!”

*

Nick was in his bedroom cleaning his pistol when the phone rang. He set the pistol on the newspaper with the oil can and cleaning rag, reached to the table and raised the phone.

“Sorry to disturb you, Colonel. A man here says you know him, but he won’t give his name.”

“What’s he want?”

“Said he was here before. I don’t remember him.”

“What’s he want?”

“To come up.”

“And he won’t give his name? To hell with him,” and he hung up.

He had finished cleaning his gun and was in the bathroom washing his hands when he heard voices in the hall, then someone pounding on his door.

He fed bullets to his pistol, held the pistol at his side, swung it behind him when he reached the door.

Two house cops were holding Bashir.

“It’s okay,” Nick said, beckoning Bashir toward him, acknowledging the apologies.

“We caught him coming up the stairs….”

“It’s okay. He’s a friend,” Nick said, noticing the alarm in Bashir’s eyes when, after Nick had closed the door, he saw Nick’s pistol. Nick brought it into his bedroom, came back. “So what’s going on?” pointing Bashir to a chair.

“There’s no one else,” Bashir said. “No one I can trust.”

“Here, sit down. It’s okay.” Nick could hardly believe his luck. He had despaired of ever finding Bashir again. There was so much more to learn from this man.

*

“Yes, I know about the flight. I know nothing about the woman,” he said, sitting across from Bashir who was gripping his raised knee as though to cope with tension. He was trembling.

“You’re safe here,” Nick told him.

“Could you find my car? Before, your man said….”

“If the police picked it up, he might be able to. But a lot of people are looking for you. He would be followed.”

“Why? I don’t understand! What have I done?”

“They think you’re mixed up in some kind of subversive activity.”

“Why? I worked for Faisal Ibrahim because I wanted to learn.”

“I don’t think it’s that.”

“Because I went to England? They sent me there! I told you that.”

“Bindari.”

“I thought he was my friend! I don’t know what to do!”

“Hey, come on, man,” reaching out. “You’re safe here.”

He didn’t want Bashir to collapse. Nick couldn’t know what was in Bashir’s mind, but the man wasn’t faking. He was lost. He was frightened.

“Did anyone ask you to hurt Aziz al-Khalid?” Nick said.

“No!”

“Is there a plot out there to kill him?”

“I don’t know. Diab said it. That’s why they killed him. That’s…. I thought they were there to help me.”

“Who were they?”

“They brought me to an airstrip in the eastern desert. They had a jet there and a man to fly with me. I thought it was okay. I had made that flight before. The people over there knew me. I thought that’s why they picked me.”

“Bindari?”

“Yes!” apparently pleased that Nick remembered the name. “I thought he was my friend. But he was at the airport when those men locked me in that room. He saw it happen. I know they were going to kill me. Anwar….”

“Who’s Anwar?”

“Bindari’s … I don’t know … maybe related to him. I could tell the way they talked they wanted to hurt me.”

“And you escaped from them and came here.”

Bashir gave that a weak shrug. “They let me get away. I think they didn’t want those men to recognize them. I don’t know. I don’t care anymore. Everyone I go to gets arrested. You want to arrest me? I don’t care.”

A childhood memory entered Nick’s mind: his boyhood friend Froggie Begin falling through the ice at Parson’s Pond. His eyes, as he drifted under the transparent ice, looking up, pleading for help, losing focus while Nick watched him. Even now, after thirty years, Nick remembered the feelings of helplessness. Even now he believed he could have done something.

Bashir was waiting, obviously hoping Nick would say something reassuring.

Nick looked away, wondering what Froggie had thought, staring up from under the ice, sliding by in that brief moment before he died.

Chapter Twenty

They were side by side at the urinals in the Ramses Hilton off the Corniche. “I don’t think Aziz knew about the woman,” Nick said. “He knew of the flight—”

“Then he knew about the woman,” Isaac said, stepping back, adjusting his fly.

“I don’t think so. He thinks it’ll show up in Yousef’s report.”