Reprisal (17 page)

How could he get there? He could try disguise and go by commercial airliner from Cairo to Amman. An American doing this at
any other time might not arouse suspicion. An American doing it now, to coincide with Ahmed Hasan’s visit to Jordan, would
be carefully checked out. An overland journey by bus or car had to clear military checkpoints in the Sinai and enter and leave
the southern tip of Israel. He had almost settled on taking a bus to Suez and an Egyptian Navigation Company ship from there
for a nine-hour voyage to Aqaba when he remembered Aaron Gottlieb. Surely the Israelis would be pleased to get rid of Hasan.
He would level with Gottlieb and see what suggestions he came up with.

Dartley had assured Gottlieb at their last meeting that his mission was complete and that he was leaving Egypt right away.
Gottlieb’s response had been to give him a phone number to call if he needed further help. Perhaps Gottlieb had already returned
to Israel.

It was while Dartley was telephoning that Omar Zekri spotted him. This hadn’t taken Omar long to do. He had said to himself,
where would a Westerner consider the best places to hide in the city? The man whom Omar knew as Thomas Lewis was tanned and
he wore an Egyptian cotton suit. He certainly did not look like an Egyptian, but he no longer stuck out in a crowd as a newly
arrived American. That was good—Omar was all for this man retaining his freedom while he sold his whereabouts to the interested
parties.

First Omar would call Laforque, since he had paid the most money. He would give Laforque an hour and then phone Pritchett.
Then he would speak to both these parties to see if they wished to make further investments in Thomas Lewis. If they did,
good. If not, Omar would phone Awad and Zaid and they could dispose of him as they saw fit.

Dartley was having trouble with the phone. At last he got through but could hardly hear the person at the other end because
of shouting and what sounded like plates crashing together.

“I want to speak to the boss’s nephew,” Dartley shouted in his rudimentary Arabic.

“Maalesh” came the agreed upon reply. “Don’t bother.”

The line went dead. Dartley was now to proceed
to a cafe in the New City and wait there, according to Gottlieb’s instructions. He took his time getting there, and when he
did he didn’t sit in the cafe as arranged, but in one across the street which gave him a view of it without being observed.
Aaron Gottlieb was already at a table here.

They laughed at how this coincidence in the way their minds worked had thrown them together, instead of achieving each one’s
intention of observing the other carefully before approaching him.

Omar Zekri phoned Jacques Laforque and told him to hurry.

Dartley—or Thomas Lewis, as he was known to Gottlieb—wasted no time in presenting his case. Would the Israelis help?

“Who the hell are you working for? Don’t tell me CIA.”

“A private foundation.”

Gottlieb stared him in the eyes. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I can’t. Tell your people whatever they want to hear. All I want is a plane into the place. A plane out would be nice also,
but not essential. Get me in, that’s my minimum demand.”

“No problem if the people at home agree to it,” Gottlieb said. “This will be top priority, so I will have an answer for you
quickly. The only delay will be the coding and intermediary involved, since I can’t send messages direct.”

“Understood. Here then, tomorrow at noon?”

“Make it eleven tonight,” Gottlieb said.

“You Israelis are very efficient at this game.”

“We try harder.”

* * *

Dartley waited five minutes after Gottlieb had gone, then paid for their coffees and stood up to go. Before he could leave,
Omar Zekri came barreling into the cafe.

“Mr. Lewis, what a pleasant surprise. Sit down. You are my guest.” He switched to Arabic to order more coffee from the waiter.

Dartley reluctantly resumed his seat. He was already familiar with the Egyptian people’s wonderful sense of hospitality, and
it would have almost amounted to an insult if he had refused Omar’s offer. Not that Dartley minded insulting Omar, but he
was curious to know if their meeting like this was merely a coincidence, which he found hard to believe. If it was not, he
would never find out Omar’s purpose by refusing his hospitality, and Omar had enough deviousness and knowledge of Cairo to
make him a dangerous man to ignore.

It soon became obvious to Dartley that Omar was trying to keep him where he was with some purpose in mind.

“Sit closer to me,” Dartley said to him.

Omar rolled his eyes. “Mr. Lewis, what a pleasure.”

“Even closer,” Dartley said. Omar shifted his chair again so that they were shoulder to shoulder at the little cafe table.
Dartley said, “That’s fine. I just need you this close to be sure of killing you first as soon as I see trouble walk in that
door.”

Omar tensed. “I don’t say it’s trouble, but I will tell you, just in case it is. A French gentleman wishes to speak with you.
He paid me to find you.”

“Name?”

“Laforque.”

The idiot, Dartley thought. At one time Laforque wants to keep France’s name out of this at all costs, then he gives his whole
game away by contacting Cairo’s best known information broker and stool pigeon.

“Stay where you are at this table,” Dartley told Omar. “When Laforque comes in, tell him to sit at that table in the corner.
You remain here after I join him and stay on here after I leave. If you move, send the waiter somewhere, or try to make a
phone call, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Omar said. “There’s no need for any of this—”

“I’ll be watching.”

Dartley left the cafe and stood looking in a store window where he could see Omar and Omar could see him. The Egyptian had
set him up once before, on Zamalek Island, and he was not going to do it again.

In a short while Dartley saw Laforque walk along the opposite side of the street and try to peer into the interior of the
cafe. Laforque passed by, then crossed the street and walked a couple of feet behind Dartley’s back without noticing him until
the very last moment.

They shook hands.

“Let’s take a taxi,” Dartley said, wishing to leave Omar and anything else the wily Egyptian might have plotted far behind
him.

They left the cab and walked in the crowded streets without saying much until Dartley lost his patience.

“Is it off or on?” he asked.

“Everything’s still go,” Laforque said to the man he knew as Paul Savage. “My superiors grow nervous easily. They asked me
to say hello to you. That’s all.”

“So you use Cairo’s greatest gossipmonger to contact me.”

Laforque shrugged. “A mistake perhaps. I had no other way.”

“I’m thinking of an attempt on Hasan when he’s in Aqaba.”

Laforque thought about that for a moment. “Why not? It might work very well. How will you arrange things from here?”

“I hope the Israelis will help me fly in.”

“The Israelis! Do they know about us French being involved in this?”

“Not unless Omar Zekri tells them,” Dartley snapped back.

“The Israelis will fit in nicely, but don’t let them get too close to your operation or you’ll find them using you for their
own ends. I can see why they might want to help you, because if you escape clear they’re going to be blamed for Hasan’s assassination
anyway. They might as well have a hand in it. They would prefer to be involved, I think, so as to have some control over anything
this big happening so close to home. They’d see Israeli involvement in this as a warning to other Arab states. No doubt the
Arabs would too.”

“Nothing is fixed yet,” Dartley cautioned.

“What do you have on the ground at the other end?”

“Nothing.”

“The Hotel Jarnac, on the beach at Aqaba, is
French-owned Michelle Perret is manager there. I’ll send word on. She will supply you with weapons and local information,
whatever you need. But don’t stay at the Jarnac. You can rely on Michelle more than you can on your Israeli friends.”

Dartley wondered if he would have been offered French help if he had not raised the possibility of the Israelis offering theirs.

The Lear jet took off from Cairo airport. Gottlieb had arranged the charter of the plane from the Jordanian company Arab Wings,
based in Amman, and it flew to Cairo to pick them up. Dartley had paid for the plane by phone through a Swiss bank account.
They watched the fertile valley of the Nile slip away beneath them to be replaced by the sandy wastes between Cairo and the
Gulf of Suez.

The British pilot was courteous, asked no questions and busied himself with his instruments and navigation.

“You’ll see the Gulf of Suez beneath us very soon, gentlemen,” the pilot told them. “After that we cross the Sinai desert
in an east by east-southeasterly direction, then swing south to give Israel’s southern extremity wide clearance—the plane
has Jordanian registration numbers and since this is a jet, we would be forced down by fighters and held for hours if we strayed
over their territory. So we’ll swing south and cross the Gulf of Aqaba, north of the Sinai town of Nuweiba, enter Saudi air
space and then swing north to Jordan. Cairo to Aqaba in a straight line is about two hundred fifty ground miles, a little
over three
hundred miles by our route. Sit back and relax, gentlemen. You’ll be there in no time.”

Dartley sat back, but he did not relax. He looked through his new U.S. passport and press pass in the name of Fairbairn Draper,
correspondent with Associated Press. Gottlieb supplied the documents, after Dartley supplied him with a photo. Gottlieb, also
with a new name and now a U.S. citizen born in Chicago according to his passport, was credited as a photographer. Naturally
they were coming to Aqaba to cover Ahmed Hasan’s trip to the beach. They had been given no trouble at Cairo airport—where
Dartley had a few moments of bad doubt—and expected none at Aqaba.

The Lear jet swooped down over crystalline blue water, and they could see the waterside strip of luxury hotels that made up
the Jordanian resort of Aqaba almost next to the similar strip of hotels that made up the Israeli resort of Eilat.

The pilot said in an amused way, “In all their Arab-Israeli wars, not a shot was fired down here, not a single window broken.
You’ll see King Hussein’s villa—it’s almost right next to the Israeli border. Damn expensive place, Aqaba.”

The tall white buildings shone in the sun between the brown hills and blue water. Big ships were anchored off a port area
at the eastern end of the resort, and beyond the port a dazzling white beach stretched away toward Saudi Arabia.

The Egyptian president was due in Amman the next day and in Aqaba the day after that. He would arrive in Aqaba early in the
morning and leave before nightfall.

While their plane taxied to the terminal after landing, Dartley told the pilot, “You’re free until the day after tomorrow.
That day we may leave at any time—as soon as we get our story and photos. So be here early and have the plane fueled and ready
to go. We’ll head for either Athens or Rome.”

Dartley figured that in a place like Aqaba an American would be less conspicuous in a luxury hotel than in a budget place
back from the beach. A newsman on an expense account didn’t bother to compare prices. He registered as Fairbairn Draper at
the Aquamarina Hotel and Club, with its waterfront dining and water sports. The place swarmed with Arab tourists, obviously
having a hell of a time away from the mullahs and the baked desert.

He had no idea where Gottlieb took himself off to. They had arranged to meet the next day at the beach, and the Israeli gave
him an emergency phone number before he left. Dartley liked to work alone. If he could, he would cut Gottlieb out of the operation
from now on and handle it himself.

The Hotel Jarnac was farther along the beach, a smaller place than the Aquamarina, with French cuisine and European haughtiness.
Dartley ordered a Martell cognac at the bar and asked for the manager rather than for Michelle Perret by name. A wimpy Frenchman
introduced himself as the assistant manager and said that the manager was off-duty. Dartley said he’d come back. He had another
cognac and then drifted out into the blazing heat.

He had only walked down the steps in front of the hotel when a porter caught up with him and handed
him a folded slip of paper. Dartley opened it and read: Room 202.^ No signature. He tipped the porter a dinar and retraced
his steps inside the hotel.

Room 202 was opposite the elevator. He knocked on the door.

It was opened by a tall, pretty woman with green eyes and straight black hair to her shoulders. She had full breasts and she
thrust one thigh forward provocatively beneath her pink silk peignoir. “Mr. Draper?”

“Right.”

“Come in.” She stood to one side to let him in the room. “What is your first name?”

“Fairbairn.”

“Middle initial?”

“I don’t believe I was given one.”

“You weren’t,” she said. “And I don’t know who the hell thought up ‘Fairbairn.’ I’m Michelle. What was it you were drinking?
Martell, wasn’t it?”

She was letting him know she knew her stuff, not to try to take advantage of her because she was a pretty woman. Dartley had
been thinking it would be mighty pleasurable to have her around. She spoke colloquial English with a strong French accent.

They touched glasses. “Success,” she toasted him. “What will you need?”

“I don’t know yet. I won’t until I get some idea of what itinerary is planned.”

Michelle said, “Hasan is due in Amman tomorrow morning. His plane will land at a military airport outside the capital. He’ll
review an honor guard there and be given a big motorcade with soldiers of the Arab Legion. He’ll water an olive tree from
a
silver urn on the Martyr’s Monument and then have a private lunch with King Hussein and Queen Noor. After that, more speeches
and visits. Tomorrow night there will be a big state dinner and Hasan will stay at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Amman. The
day after tomorrow he comes here by air in the morning. He will have lunch with the king—who will arrive separately by air
also—on the king’s yacht. Other than the fact that President Hasan departs for Cairo before dark, no one seems to know what
he will be doing here before or after the lunch.”