Countdown in Cairo (43 page)

“Yuri Federov.”

Cerny shook his head.

“He’s still alive? I’m surprised.” He snorted.

“I’m going to describe to you my sense of the big picture,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to comment, but I’m going to entertain you with it, anyway.”

“Suit yourself.”

“It was the Russians who put you up to getting rid of Federov, didn’t they?” she began. “They sent you to the United States many years ago, back when Vladimir Putin was holding together remnants of the old KGB. Sell a little bill of goods here, another one there. You were Putin’s man in Washington and Langley—or more likely
one
of Putin’s men—going all the way back to the 1990s when you first appeared hawking your bag of tricks. Didn’t much matter who you were selling out to start with, did it? Langley was always buying the act. But then, as years went by, and the goals got bigger, every person you compromised was in some way inimical to Vladimir Putin.”

He shifted on his cot. There seemed to be some swelling on the side of his head, and he kept touching it.

“I even reviewed all the cases you worked, right up to the one about Dr. Ishraf Kerwidi, the fellow who went out the window in London. That served a whole host of interests, didn’t it, Michael? Putin. The Israelis. Maybe even the Americans.”

“Kerwidi had it coming,” Cerny said.

“By your way of thinking, I’m sure he did,” Alex said.

“You might want to watch out for open windows yourself,” he added, “if you keep making enemies all over the place. Got to be people who think you have it coming too, Alex.”

“Just like the people around here think you have it coming as well.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“I just wouldn’t want to be you right now,” she said.

“Who would?” he asked with a final dash of irony. “Certainly not me.”

“So then I would be correct?” she said, glancing at her watch and backtracking. “You were a Russian agent, going back at least a decade. And the whole operation in Kiev was put forth primarily to take Yuri Federov out of the picture for Putin. I talked to Yuri about this. He’s not well, by the way. Federov, by his own admission, had become too powerful following the Ukrainian gas crisis of 2005. So in a strange way, American interests and Russian interests—Putin’s interests—merged. He was on the US hit list for gangsterism, arms dealing, and tax evasion. But worse for him, he was on Putin’s hit list for just being too powerful. So you came to the CIA with a plan to take him out. First by an assassin in Rome who hit the wrong person. And then later in Kiev.”

Cerny exhaled a long breath, one of resignation.

“It was an easy sale,” Cerny said. “The CIA wanted Federov gone. Who really cared if Putin wanted him gone too?”

“Poor me. Poor Robert. Poor everyone else who got killed in Ukraine that day. We were all caught in the middle,” Alex said. “Do you remember a Colombian cocaine lord named Pablo Escobar?” Alex asked.

“Sure, I do,” Cerny answered.

“Escobar once planted a bomb on an Avianca-jet—just to kill one specific person,” Alex said. “The plane blew up and eighty-six people died. Collateral damage. That’s what we’ve all been. Collateral damage for the games nations play.”

“That’s how life is. You’d do the same if you were assigned to do it.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she said. “I’d like to think, in fact, that there’s a special place in hell for people who do things like that.”

“Well,” said Cerny. “I told the inquisitors everything, so why shouldn’t you know too? So I serve a few years in prison. Putin’ll get me back. They always do. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“That’s all I’m going to ask,” she answered.

By then, time was up and Alex had had quite enough. Two military men in blue berets were at the cell door. They clanked the door noisily and said something in Arabic that Alex didn’t understand. She was more than ready to leave. The door opened with a metallic groan.

She left the cell without saying anything further. If Cerny had anything more on his mind, and she was sure he did, he wasn’t going to talk about it.

FIFTY-TWO

One of the guards accompanied her back down the hall. Alex had the impression that the guard spoke none of the languages she knew, so she didn’t attempt conversation. Tony was sitting on a desk in the entrance area, his jacket off, his shoulder holster and weapon exposed. Once again, Alex knew the drill. By this time, it seemed to her, she knew too many of the drills. Tony would continue on with her and deliver her to the airport. Operations were like that. As soon as one was rolled up, the CIA liked all the players out of the country as quickly as possible. Once she got back to Washington, there would be a lot to talk about. Yet most of it she wouldn’t be able to even mention—not to her friends anyway.

Outside, two SUVs were waiting in the scorching sun, both with their motors running. Tony walked her to one of them. He opened the back door for her. As Alex stepped up to slide in, she saw the form of a man in the back seat. He was bare-headed with sandy-hair and sunglasses. He wore a beige linen suit. He had been waiting for her.

Handsome devil, he was. Voltaire.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said. “On the other hand, I was sure I would.”

“Oh, I wasn’t sure myself,” Voltaire said. “But you were of great value here in Cairo, so I wanted to see you off personally. There’s a final bit of business, then we’ll get you to the airport.”

She waited. “What sort of business?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

He engaged her in small talk for several minutes, and she gained the impression that he was stalling. Then she saw why. While her SUV and the neighboring one were poised and ready to go, a third vehicle swung into the driveway. It was an armored car. Green, the color of Islam, but with no markings.

“Welcome to the world of espionage,” Voltaire said softly. “And what would the world of espionage be without payback?”

“I’m not sure I like it,” she said.

“What? Payback?”

“No. The world of espionage.”

“Ah! Who does? Often it’s like a disease. You didn’t choose to have it, it found you. And you’re in it now, my dear lady,” he said. “And you
do
excel at it. You have your own assets, your own nascent network. I’m very favorably impressed. Back and forth you went to Europe. You used the database in Washington as you worked; you helped us reel in some troublesome people here. You really did a formidable job. I’d work with you again any day.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It could be construed as one. How’s that? Take it as an expression of praise only if you wish.”

Voltaire motioned to the armored car. The rear door opened. No one got out. Two security people stood around the vehicle with machine guns, however.

“What am I watching?” she asked.

“The final act. We have our instructions from Washington.”

She kept silent. Half a minute later, two guards brought Cerny out in wrist manacles and leg chains. They frog marched him to the armored car and roughly pushed him into the back. One of the guards went into the back with him, presumably to chain him to a seat. After a moment, the guard came out.

Then they were underway, a small cortege of three vehicles, traveling at about twenty miles an hour down the paved road, through the sandy landscape of the barracks, through the gates, and into the outside world. Alex’s SUV was the second in the progression, and the third SUV followed them.

“You have your luggage, your passport, everything you need for your return to America?” Voltaire asked.

“I have everything,” she affirmed. For a moment, she started to relax.

“Good. In a short while you’re going to feel very lucky to be leaving this dreadful place.”

“Why?” she asked. “Where are they taking Cerny?”

“Not far,” Voltaire laughed. “Remember those five agents of mine who were murdered? I did mention that, correct?”

“No, I don’t remember that,” she said.

“Oh. Dreadful oversight on my part,” he said in a voice that indicated that it wasn’t. “See, that’s part of my personal tab with Mr. Cerny. I’ve lost people here in Egypt thanks to him. Same way you lost someone in Kiev, same way that girl lost her boyfriend via the car bomb at the hotel.
Compris?
”

“Oh, Lord,” she said.

Watching over the shoulder of Tony, the driver, through the front windshield, Alex saw the armored car accelerate and pull away from them. It went from being fifty feet ahead of them to one hundred feet, and then to maybe one hundred and fifty. And as the armored vehicle pulled away, she felt Tony ease up on the gas. He allowed the interval between cars to grow.

Then the SUV from behind them did something that at first appeared crazy. It overtook Alex’s vehicle and went speeding beyond them. Everything played out as if it were slow motion. The armored car up ahead pulled to the side of the road and its driver and its guard jumped out. They walked with a leisurely pace away from their vehicle as the trailing SUV pulled to an abrupt halt behind it.

Two executioners stepped out, their feet hitting the ground almost before the car had stopped, Uzis across their chests. Tony eased to a crawl, and they continued to approach the scene of the stopped vehicles. But Tony didn’t overtake them. He slowed almost to a halt and stayed distant.

The armed men went to the gun portals in the armored car and pushed their own automatic weapons inward. The van wasn’t so much a security vehicle now as much as it was an execution chamber. As Alex watched, she knew that Cerny was a dead man this time. And he probably even knew it himself. She didn’t hear him scream, but she was sure he did.

Even over the air-conditioning of their van, Alex could hear several seconds of gunfire. There must have been fifty shots all fired into the armored car. The man in the back, no doubt chained into the most vulnerable position, had no chance at all.

The gunmen followed with a second burst and stepped back.

They gave Tony a wave and he accelerated. Seconds later, they passed the armored car. The gunmen were masked with light camouflage kerchiefs, and Alex could not see their faces. Nor would she have wanted to. The armored car was surrounded in a small noxious cloud of gun smoke, and the men waved to them as Tony’s vehicle slid past. Then Alex looked away, feeling nauseous.

“There,” Voltaire said calmly. “That’s done. Excellent.”

Alex was silent.

“Which airline again?” Voltaire asked her. “Swiss International? That’s a good choice. Can’t go wrong with Swiss International. I understand the
hors d’oeuvres
are excellent.”

Several minutes passed before Alex answered.

FIFTY-THREE

On December 24, Alex observed her thirtieth birthday. The event was a bittersweet occasion, considering the events of the year. But she celebrated with a small group of friends in Washington. As was frequently the case with her birthday, falling on the day it did, it was a half-Christmas half-birthday celebration. Friends from work filtered in, as well as friends from the gym. Don Tomás dropped by to speak five languages and keep everyone amused. And once again, Alex missed Robert horribly.

She went to a Christmas Eve service at her church in Washington and then went home alone. On Christmas morning, she did something unusual. She slept.

Over the next two days, she packed. The job in New York had been offered to her, and she had accepted it. The moving men arrived on the twenty-seventh. Her personal bags were packed and stashed in the trunk of her car. The listening devices she had personally disabled. One morning when she was out for a walk, she threw them into the Potomac.

As the moving men worked, she dropped by a few of the establishments that she had patronized in the neighborhood. She said her good-byes.

When she went back to her apartment, it was empty. She stood and looked at it for a long, cold moment. An instinct told her to take a walk through and then another instinct warned her not to. Enough was enough. She closed the door.

She rapped softly on Don Tomás’s door to say good-bye.

He answered. She gave him a shrug and tried to keep her eyes from welling. He did much the same. Then they embraced in a wordless hug. He had been as close to family as anyone in the last days—older brother, uncle, and advisor. She would miss him.

Then she went down to her car.

She turned the key in the ignition, came up out of the garage, and left her block for the final time as a resident. She drove past the monuments again and then watched them recede in her rearview mirror. Thus, on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday afternoon, Alex moved out of Washington and drove north to New York.

By this time, Janet, her protégée, had found her own friends, her own apartment, and a new job. She was happy, living in Brooklyn, and anxious to introduce Alex to her new boyfriend, who—against Alex’s best advice—was one of her former bodyguards.

FIFTY-FOUR

Six weeks later, Alex was at her desk in her new office in Manhattan when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the LED and read the incoming number.