City of the Sun (34 page)

“What’s wrong, Mickey?” she finally asked.

He stopped and deliberated. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “How about I tell you over a cool drink?” He waved at a drink seller who was making his way between the exposed roots of the giant banyan trees that dotted the riverfront. A harness rested on his shoulders, where a jug with a long spout was fastened.

“What do you have here?
Maak eh henna
?” Mickey asked, venturing his Arabic as they approached him.

“Assab
,
”
the Egyptian responded.
“Taig
,
”
He pointed to a lump of ice strapped to the harness.

“Do you like cold sugar cane juice?” Mickey asked. “It’s the best thing in the world for quenching thirst.”

The seller served the drinks in cardboard cups that he had wedged behind his belt. They found an unoccupied bench next to a banyan tree and went to sit there. A few sailboats were still valiantly crisscrossing the river, but with the thick layer of dust brought in by the wind, the view had lost its romantic luster.

“I had planned a picnic for us on a felucca like one of those,” he said without batting an eye and pointing to one of the sailboats. “Champagne and caviar. There is a very private and beautiful embankment I discovered just past the old Cairo station that I thought you might like …” He finally looked her straight in the eyes, and she saw anguish there.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly, her hand reaching for his.

He squeezed his eyes shut and reopened them. Then took her hand and kissed it. “A close friend of mine was murdered,” he said numbly.

Maya’s hand flew to her mouth to smother a cry. She expected anything, but not that. “Murdered?” she repeated. Until today the word had never been in her vocabulary. She was familiar with death and war, but murder?

“That’s why I’m such lousy company today.” He smiled miserably.

“Oh, Mickey. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She stroked his face and arm. “Who was he?”

“She was the American ambassador’s secretary. She was helping me research my article. No one knows what happened. I’m still in shock.”

Maya shook her head, at a loss for words.

“She was one hell of woman,” he continued, “though she’d probably refer to herself as a broad! Someone followed her home after work and broke her neck.” He snapped his fingers. “
Bam
! Just like that. Alive one minute, dead the next. I keep wondering what went through her head during that split second.”

She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight, but he remained stiff, just placing a light hand on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she said disengaging. “What can I do?”

He blew out a long breath as if to exorcise his pain and said, “I’ll be okay. It’s just still very unreal to me. I left Detroit four months ago on what I thought was going to be a grand journalistic adventure, but now I’m finding myself a little too much in the story. I feel like I’m caught up in a sandstorm. I can’t see what’s going on. I just need to get my equilibrium back.”

“Is there anything I can do?” she said, trying to meet his eyes, but he still avoided them.

He cleared his voice and said, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you for a while, Maya.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling like she’d been hit by a brick.

“The embassy has warned those of us who worked closely with Dorothy to be very careful. She had access to some highly sensitive information and it’s possible that we may become targets ourselves. When it’s safe, I’ll come find you. I swear it. I’m sorry.” He started to stroke her shoulder, but this time it was she who pulled away.

“Did the killer try to force some information out of her?” she asked, biting her nail.

Mickey hesitated before answering. “She was tortured, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Are you in danger yourself?” she asked, carefully looking at his reaction.

He shrugged, then added, “Maybe. And it may not be safe for you to be near me.”

A torrent of thoughts started swirling in her mind as she started to realize that Mickey was not the person he had said he was. Here he was, writing an article about the Jews, yet he hardly ever talked about it. He was much more interested in keeping up with the developments regarding the war. Surely the ambassador’s secretary was in contact with many people on a variety of matters. Were they all in danger? This did not completely add up. What kind of sensitive information could the woman have possessed about the Jews here? And how did a young reporter manage to get so chummy with ambassadors, generals, and royalty in just four months? It was clear Mickey was involved in something beyond the story he had given her. Was he mixed up in spying? At least one thing he’d said she believed to be true—being around him might not be safe and could endanger the people she cared about. She turned to face him.

“Who are you, Mickey?” she demanded. “I think you’ve been lying to me all along.”

“And what about you?” he shot back. “I should be the one asking who
you
are. You’re intimate with me, but won’t tell me where you live or let me call you. You’re a refugee, but you won’t consider accepting help even though you know I have valuable connections. You forbid me to talk to your uncle. What is it? Are you ashamed of me? Is there another man?”

“You have to trust me,” she said softly.

“And you have to trust me,” he replied, looking her straight in the eyes.

She held his stare for a long while, reading darkness and fear as well as vulnerability and pain in his eyes, and she was sure that hers read the same way. She began to feel overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness as if she were a pawn in a game that was bigger than the two of them. This was crazy. She was caught in a crossfire of murders and state secrets. Any future with this man would be impossible. Her whole world was crumbling, and from a place deep inside of her, she felt tears surging. She immediately hid her face with her hands, ashamed to let him see them.

“Maya,” he said softly. “You will write to me and I’ll come to you after the war, I promise.” He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it away. “Please, Maya, don’t do that. This is killing me. Don’t you know I’m in love with you?”

“Don’t say that!” she shot back, only to turn and see his face raw and naked with emotion, his eyes telling her he was speaking the truth here. She couldn’t veer away, nor could she mask her urge to throw herself in his arms and tell him she loved him too and didn’t want him to get hurt. For a moment they remained in anguish, lost in one another. She suddenly felt a surge of tears rising again, but soon her inner voice came loudly—she had to assert control and cut things off with Mickey at once. After all Erik and Vati had endured,
she could not risk endangering them and those helping them by bringing a man into her life who told her lies. She dried her tears with the back of her hand and took a sip of her juice as she built up her protective wall.

“Whatever you’re involved in, please be careful.” She took a deep breath and said, “We’ll be leaving for Khartoum in a few days. Our entry visas came yesterday and we’re expecting our exit papers any day now.”

“The war won’t last forever. I’ll come to you wherever you are.”

Summoning all her strength, she faced him. “I’m not going to write to you, Mickey. What happened on the boat Saturday night was beautiful, but it isn’t what you think. I’ve been going through a very difficult period. I was lonely. I needed a good ear,” she said, astonished that she could put on such a collected front.

“What are you saying?” His eyes penetrated her like a bullet.

“The setting was so extraordinarily romantic, and it was wonderful to be with you, but I think we just got carried away.”

Mickey pulled away, incredulous. “What do you mean we just got carried away?”

“Please don’t be angry with me. I—”

“Save it,” he snapped. “You’re talking nonsense. I know what happened on that boat. And you do too. It was real.”

He stared at her so intensely that she had to lower her eyes. “Maybe it was different for you, but whatever it was that I felt then, I don’t feel that way now. I’m sorry,” she said.

He looked away, his jaw clenched. Though his face was unreadable, she knew that she had hurt him deeply, and she hated herself for it. She felt the old aching in her stomach, gnawing at her like a poisonous snake. Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he get angry again? His silence was torture for her. She felt tears rising again, but she fought them back. Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare cry! she demanded of herself. She was desperate to leave.

The sound of engines was heard and the cars in the street started to move.

She stood up. “It’s better this way.”

“One more lie gets added to the bucket,” he responded. “But, okay. I won’t hold you back. We’ll play it your way.”

She strode off and crossed the street quickly, threading in between cars, trying mightily to keep her composure until she was out of his sight. She was starting to feel sick, and as soon as she reached an alley, she bent over and vomited.

CHAPTER 32

Mickey bristled with energy as he hopped out of his Jeep to meet with Kirk at the embassy. He’d just returned from early morning target practice in the desert, a routine he’d adhered to religiously since Dorothy’s death ten days earlier. Blasting away with the Walther PPK pistol the ambassador had given him was cathartic; it made him feel as if he were doing something in response to her murder. Unfortunately, there had been little progress in finding her killer. The best the local police had dug up was that on the day of the murder a smart-looking European man had come to the embassy to drop off a purse that Dorothy had supposedly left behind at Groppi’s, but when Dorothy saw it later, she’d said the purse wasn’t hers. Other than that, the police had come up empty, but that was to be expected since Kirk insisted on keeping the most important clue secret: the disappearance of Blumenthal’s picture.

This did not prevent Mickey from doing some digging on his own, and he discovered that a smartly dressed Egyptian man in his late twenties, wearing a suit and tarbush, had visited the Fuad University library right after Dorothy, asking for the very same journal. The man had flown into a tirade when he’d discovered that the page with Blumenthal’s picture was missing and had pressed the librarian for information. The librarian indicated that a woman who worked for the American ambassador must have been the culprit.

Were the man who’d come to the embassy and the one from the library connected? They were probably working for the German spy who was certainly on top of his game. He’d known exactly which scientific journal contained Blumenthal’s picture. Mickey found it too much of a coincidence that Dorothy and the mystery man from the library had been seeking the same journal at the same time, information that had been radioed from Donovan. The spy either had an informant at the embassy or had been listening in on the airwaves and had cracked the American code.

“Coincidences are the stuff of everyday life! There is no spy working out of our embassy!” Kirk cried out, banging his fist on his desk.

Mickey was disappointed that the ambassador so adamantly rejected his theory. They’d spoken on the phone, but this was the first time he had seen Kirk in person since Dorothy’s death, and he was uncharacteristically irritable and uncooperative.

“Who decodes the embassy’s messages, sir?” Mickey asked calmly.

“A fellow by the name of John Wayman. I’d stake my life on his loyalty,” Kirk insisted.

“Then someone who has broken our radio code is listening,” Mickey said as he leaned back in his chair across from Kirk’s desk and crossed his arms.

“You understand the implications of what you’re saying?” Kirk asked.

Mickey nodded—the ambassador had been sending daily reports about the war to Washington. “We can run a test. The stakes are too high not to.”

His brow furrowed, Kirk thought for a while. “Very well. I’ll transmit some false information and see what happens.” He pushed
his chair back and got up. His face was contorted. “Good God, I hope you’re wrong, Connolly! It would be an unmitigated disaster, and the Brits will never trust us again.”