Firebird (4 page)

Marvin was watching me with wide eyes. ‘You having a fit?’ he demanded.

‘No,’ I said, gulping air. ‘Just a bit giddy.’ I paused and took more breaths, and Marvin swung round on Hammoudi accusingly.

‘Like I told you,’ he said, ‘this is a job for hard-core professionals. This guy never saw a stiff before or what?’

‘Lieutenant Rashid’s one of the best detectives on the force,’ Hammoudi said.

Marvin whistled. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘what are the rest like?’

‘I don’t see any rounds or ejected cases,’ I said, ignoring him, trying to strain the shake out of my voice, ‘so I assume you got them. The perps must have fired at least thirty rounds.’

‘You’re supposed to be the star detective,’ Marvin said sullenly, ‘work it out for yourself.’

‘Oh I have,’ I said, breathing deeply through my nostrils. ‘Three gunmen were chasing Ibram. He ducked in here to call someone for help. He was shot by at least two men from close range while he was on the phone. The first shots were probably fired from submachine guns, but the last shot — to the head — was fired from a pistol at point-blank range. Street grafters? I don’t think so. They wouldn’t have chased a man through busy streets in broad daylight, even with
shamaghs
over their faces. Grafters work at night. We know he wasn’t robbed, and that
could
have been because they were interrupted, but then why bother with the headshot? He couldn’t have identified them. What we’re left with, Mr Legat, is first degree murder meditated and planned — a Mafia-style contract killing or a terrorist job. But I think you know that.’

Hammoudi cast me a worried glance and Marvin stared first at the Colonel, then at me. ‘All I know is that Ibram’s dead,’ he said, ‘and this homicide is officially non-political.’ He brought a tiny cell phone from his pocket. ‘I’m going to call my ambassador right now.’

Hammoudi laid a huge hand gently on his arm. ‘Look,’ he said, in his most diplomatic voice, ‘if we’re going to work together on this, Mr Marvin, I think we should...how do you say?
Level
with each other. We know Ibram was a big noise in the States. We can’t rule out a political motive. The important thing is that anything we discover stays under wraps. I don’t think either of our governments wants undue publicity, but we need to know what this is really about.’

Marvin looked thoughtfully from the Colonel to me, and put the phone back in his pocket. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll buy it for now. But if one shadow of a whisper gets to the press, I’ll make you wish to God you’d kept your noses the fuck out of it.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘This is one hell of a mess. Ibram was over here for a meeting of your Giza Millennium Committee.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I said, ‘the committee’s planning a huge shindig at the pyramids for the turn of the century. Big opera by Jean-Michel Jarre to be broadcast worldwide on TV with over a thousand singers and musicians. Even the president’s attending. There’s going to be hundreds of thousands of visitors here. The flights and hotels are already fully booked, and the government’s hoping to revive the tourist industry in one go.’

‘That’s right. There’s a lot of careers riding on it — and a mega infusion of cash from the States. That’s how come a U S citizen like Ibram got to be sitting on the board.’

‘The Militants are already talking about putting the kibosh on the celebrations,’ Hammoudi added. ‘New Year’s Eve falls in Ramadan, so the fundamentalists aren’t going to be impressed with a lot of champagne-swilling foreigners on the rampage. Security’s going to be a nightmare.’

‘Exactly,’ said Marvin. ‘If it happens, the century’s biggest party could turn into the biggest security fiasco of the millennium — something the Hate Groups will be crowing about for the
next
thousand years.’

Hate
Groups
, I thought, so that was what they called them now. It was only partly right. It always seemed to me that the Militants’ biggest motivation was fear. They were frightened silly of a universe they couldn’t control or understand, and had invented a set of phoney certainties to cling to like a drowning man clings to a floating spar. And they were prepared to kill anyone they thought was going to take that spar away from them. But perhaps hate and fear were just two different words for the same thing, anyway.

‘You think Ibram’s murder is related?’ I asked.

‘He was a member of the board,’ Marvin said. ‘Now he’s a stiff. This could be the opening gambit.’

‘What about the waiter?’ Hammoudi asked. Marvin pointed to a yellow chalk mark in the shape of a stout human body by the toilet door. ‘A big guy,’ Hammoudi commented.

‘Pavarotti lookalike,’ Marvin said. ‘Guy must weigh three hundred pounds, but it’s all horizontal. Hit in the thighs. Out like a light when your men got here, but they managed to stop him bleeding to death. He’s in our embassy medical facility in Garden City. Guy called Fawzi Shukri.’

Fawzi
Shukri
, I thought. The name went off like a buzzer in my head, but when I tried to listen it faded out. Marvin pointed to a stitch pattern of bullet holes on the lower part of the toilet door, and I went to examine them. ‘They got him cold as he came out of the john,’ Marvin said, ‘but they didn’t finish the job. When your footsloggers appeared, seems they beat it through that curtain. There’s a flight of stairs behind there up to a corridor that takes you back into the bazaar.’

‘I’m going to have a look at it,’ I said and before Marvin could say anything I moved towards the curtain.

3

I brushed it aside and found a flight of bare stone steps leading up between mud-coloured walls from which plaster had fallen out leaving pustules of brilliant white. It was dark on the stairs, and at the top I found a long arched tunnel leading down to what was probably the external door. Shafts of light shot into the gloom from tiny flower-patterned windows. I took a pencil flashlight from my pocket and searched the ragged carpet carefully. It was thick with dust, dead flies and fragments of plaster. No one had cleaned the place in weeks. At the far end of the corridor I spotted an object on the floor and bent down to pick it up. It was a sealed pouch of uncured leather not more than an inch square, fixed to a short string. I had just stuffed it into my jacket pocket, when the door banged open and a blonde-haired woman stood there, thrusting the muzzle of an S I G 9mm automatic at me with both hands. I’d only just realized what was happening when she stepped forward again and without letting her aim waver even a fraction, slid her left hand under my jacket and picked out my Beretta, hooking her middle finger through the trigger-guard like she was hooking a fish.

For a fraction of a second I was completely fazed. On the streets of Aswan where I’d been dragged up you were either fast or you were dead. I’d seen some pretty swift moves in my time, but this was so slick it was almost supernatural. In a split second the girl had clocked where I wore my weapon and how, and disarmed me at the speed of light. I didn’t know if she’d been born a human flash or if the move had been practised over and over, but one thing I was certain of: she was a pro.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded. ‘And what are you doing in a restricted area? This is FBI only.’ Two heavy weapons are a bitch to handle when you’re trying to keep a bead on someone, and I watched with professional interest to see what she was going to do. She didn’t bat an eyelid — just drew out the magazine with one hand and dropped both pistol and magazine coolly into the Gucci handbag she wore over her shoulder. I was miffed that I’d been caught with my pants down, but I was also impressed. I almost expected to see her empty the shells out one-handed, too. I kept my mitts loose and looked her up and down.

She was early thirties, probably, and dressed in a green Lacoste shirt, white chinos and solid rubber-soled boots. She was very slim and long-legged, but all in proportion and the Lacoste shirt bulged satisfyingly at the front. Her features were twisted up in a ‘don’t-underestimate-me-just-because-I’m-a-woman’ sneer, but I guessed that they were normally quite even, except for her tantalizingly erotic lips which were so full they gave the impression of a permanent pout. She had eyes as blue as hard crystals, smooth skin the café-au-lait colour of someone used to sunshine, and her blonde hair was tied out of her eyes in a long sensuous plait. There were two kinds of women, I thought — the kind who looked good in clothes, and the kind who looked good without them. They weren’t necessarily the same thing. I’d known girls who’d looked ravishing until the moment they took their clothes off, and others who never drew a second glance until they put on a bikini and suddenly knocked you out. I couldn’t help wondering whether this woman’s mannish clothes were actually disguising a magnificently feminine figure. I’d have bet money they were.

I felt in my pocket for my ID card, and she stiffened. ‘One more move, mister,’ she said. I looked into the barrel of the pistol and grinned, seeing puzzlement come into her eyes.

‘It’s my ID ,’ I said. ‘If you damn Yanks are going to pull guns on me in my own country, I’ve at least got the right to show you who I am.’

‘OK, but you take your time.’

I slid my English-Arabic ID card slowly out of my pocket and dangled it in front of her eyes. ‘I’m Lieutenant Sammy Rashid,’ I said, ‘Special Investigations Department, assigned to the Ibram murder enquiry. Now do I get my piece back?’

She looked at me with eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t look like any cop I’ve ever seen.’

‘So what?’ I said. ‘Can I have my weapon back, please?’ She glanced at the ID again then looked me straight in the face. ‘You’ve got green eyes.’

‘It’s not my fault. I was born that way.’

‘Gyps don’t have green eyes.’

‘Yeah, well here’s one who does. Now, gimme back my hardware.’

She frowned and let her SIG drop. She fished in her bag for the Beretta, and slapped it into my open hand. ‘Hem,’ I said, ‘aren’t we missing something? A gun is damn all use without its ammunition and that was a full clip.’

She locked my eyes and sighed again, handing me the magazine. ‘What were you doing sneaking around like that?’ she asked.

‘I wasn’t sneaking, I was making a search. I’m the investigating detective.’

The girl opened her eyes wide in surprise. ‘In your dreams, mister. I’m the investigating detective. This case belongs to the FBI.’

‘You’d better ask my boss about that. He’s the chief investigating officer on this case, and he’s right downstairs now, talking to your Legat. Now I’ve told you who I am, how about returning the compliment?’

The girl pointed to the ID pinned to her ample chest, which read ‘Special Agent Daisy Brooke, FBI’.

‘Wow,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know they let Barbie dolls into the FBI .’

I suppose I was still feeling a bit peeved that she’d worked me over so fast. I wanted to needle her, and I knew right away I’d pushed the right button. The girl’s features turned even more vinegary and she gave me a shrivelling look.

‘I’ve seen the way you people treat your women,’ she said, ‘and as far as I’m concerned you’re a bunch of Neanderthals who belong in caves. And while we’re on it, I didn’t know they let freaks into the SID.’

I chuckled, slid the mag into my pistol and replaced it in its shoulder-rig. Then I followed her through the dimly lit corridor and down the stairs into the light. Ibram had already been transferred to a body bag, and someone had drawn the outline of the body on the floor in yellow chalk.

The forensic team were packing up, and though Hammoudi and Marvin were still locked in discussion, I sensed that the atmosphere was more relaxed.

Marvin glanced at us as we appeared. ‘So you’ve met?’

‘Sir, this man says he’s the investigating detective,’ Daisy said. ‘Could you please tell me what he’s doing on an FBI case?’

Marvin grimaced. ‘It’s OK, Daisy, it’s all been straightened out. Colonel Hammoudi here has overall authority and he’s assigned Lieutenant Rashid to the case.’

‘But I’ve already been assigned to it, sir. I haven’t even had a chance to look at everything yet.’

‘No one’s taking you off the case, Daisy,’ Marvin said, ‘and if it’s any consolation, I sympathize. But I’ve just been on to the ambassador, and he’s anxious to avoid tension between the law enforcement bodies. We’re on the same side, after all.’

Daisy stared at my baseball cap, a size too big, and pouted like a bad-tempered child. ‘So now we’re assisting kooks and weirdos,’ she muttered.

A ghost of a smile played round Marvin’s downturned mouth. ‘The ambassador says let it go, and we agreed that the best thing is to let you two work together, sharing data. You’ll be reporting to the Colonel here, and I’ll be acting as liaison with the ambassador.’

‘What?’ Daisy gasped incredulously, ‘you mean partners? With that space cadet? Holy Jesus.’

I groaned. ‘Do I really have to do this, Colonel?’ I asked Hammoudi. ‘I knew I should have stayed at Giza. I’m going to be the laughing stock of the team, working with this Barbie doll.’

‘How long have you been in Egypt, Miss Brooke?’ Hammoudi enquired.

‘It’s
Special
Agent
Brooke,’ she said, ‘and I’ve been here a week.’

I groaned again. ‘That’s all I need,’ I said, ‘a greenhorn Barbie.’

‘Actually I’m a counter-insurgency specialist.’

‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘Am I supposed to do a jig, or what?’

‘Sir, I don’t need this,’ Daisy said, appealing to Marvin. ‘This guy’s a kook.’

‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ I said, ‘but I still keep my eyes open,
Special
Agent
.
’
I brought out the leather pouch I’d found upstairs and held it up for inspection.

‘You missed it, and so did your forensic team. I think one of the perps dropped it when he ran.’

‘Jesus!’ Daisy said. ‘That’s pure speculation!’ But she looked embarrassed, I noticed. Marvin took the pouch and examined it with interest, turning it over in his hands.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘It’s an Islamic amulet,’ I said, ‘containing a verse from the Quran written by a holy man or
faqi
. The verse is inscribed on a tiny piece of paper that is sealed inside the pouch. Believers say the amulet’s got magic properties, and this type is supposed to give the wearer protection against knives and bullets. Now, I’ve seen a few of these things in my time, and as it happens I recognize this amulet. See the inscription on the side there? This thing belongs to a fundamentalist Islamic sect called the Sanusiya Brotherhood. The Sanusiya originated in Libya in the 1830s and became one of the most powerful organizations in the whole of North Africa.’

All eyes were on me now. I could tell this was news, even to Hammoudi. ‘Go on,’ Marvin said, ‘this is hot stuff.’

‘Actually it’s not so hot,’ I said. ‘The sect was disbanded some time around the First World War. This amulet’s a museum piece. As far as I know there haven’t been any Sanusiya Brothers around for eighty years.’