The Hidden (41 page)

Aside from the two night guards outside the door of my room, Virginie’s house is empty. I fear she is still being held in a detention centre on the other side of Cairo. I have to assume that her husband has not yet returned to claim her. There is no doubt he will have been wired about the terrible news concerning the death of his dear friend, Ali Sultan, and the questioning of his beloved wife, Virginie, and will be on his way back to Cairo.

My own breathing sounds loud and laboured. I try to quieten myself by muffling my breathing with my hands.

Then I hear it, a faraway rumbling. I hold my breath. The sound grows louder. I hear the night guards talking among themselves in alarm. I hear them moving across the pavement. I go to the balcony to watch. Five men dressed in British military uniforms ride up, pulling
back on their reins. One of them has a holdall over his shoulder. Their caps are pulled down over their eyes, so I cannot see any of their faces. The guards ask them who they are. They answer that they have been sent from the army barracks near the British headquarters to check on things. My heart sinks. Alexandre’s Rebel Corps has been found out. It’s all over. I clench my teeth miserably.

The guards reply that everything is all right and look up hopefully, as though waiting for the soldiers to turn their horses around and leave. Then, in one swift motion, the five soldiers withdraw their revolvers and point them at the guards. There is hardly time for them to answer before the horsemen have fired dozens of bullets into their bodies.

I hear the guards stationed outside my room run down the stairs at the sound of the gunfire. They fling open the door and open fire with their own guns, but the horsemen have vanished.

I watch the guards tread carefully down the steps onto the pavement. They spin around, taking stock of the situation, then separate and sidle around the house, guns raised.

Footsteps sound on the staircase within the house and the door is flung open. Alexandre stands there. He drops the holdall on the ground and wrenches from it a British officer’s uniform, complete with cap and boots.

“Hezba, put this on. Quickly.”

I rip off my hated robes and climb into the scratchy uniform, do up the buttons, pull on the boots, pull my hair behind my ears, and put on the cap. Alexandre grabs me by the arm and we fly down the stairs. Suddenly he pushes me back against the wall of the hallway. I hear bullets firing and a trilling sound of victory.

Alexandre leads us to the horses and helps me to mount one of them. As the others mount theirs, I notice that the fifth soldier, whose horse I have taken, waves us off and marches off into the darkness. I do not dare ask questions about where he is going. Suddenly we’re off. I do not dare
look back. I pray as I gallop that my baby is all right, hoping it is God’s will that my baby will not suffer any harm. I do not know where we are heading. All I know is that we are leaving Cairo. Now is not the time to ask questions. I have to trust Alexandre.

Some clouds race across the moon. I smell the scent of oud, of damp earth. We head out of Cairo like bolts of lightning. Then we come upon the lush and verdant soil of the Delta, and ride through cotton plantations, date palm forests, and mud-hut villages, at one with the flooded plains around the Nile. At last, just as the moon is setting on the horizon, we reach Alexandria.

We have stopped only twice, to drink and eat a little midnight supper, but we were back on the desert road once more without delay. Once in Alexandria, we make our way to the district of el-Gomruk.

When we arrive, Alexandre dismounts and goes to knock on the door of a whitewashed house. A woman answers. She nods and he summons us in. The woman takes me by the hand and leads me into a small room lit with lamps and furnished with plain wooden furniture. On the floor is a mattress. She bids me to lie down.

But I can’t stop the thundering of my heart. I can’t stop the terrible feeling that nothing will truly be all right until Alexandre and I are as far from Cairo as we can possibly get.

The woman tells me she will get me some refreshment and leaves the room. I hear the men talking. Alexandre is bidding them good-bye. He is thanking them with all his heart. He is swearing continued allegiance to their cause. He is making them promise to keep safe. He tells them he will send them money and that one day he will return.

I hear them laugh as though what they have done is all in a day’s work to them. I shudder regretfully. We are all wanted murderers. What have I become?

CHAPTER FIFTY

The foul-smelling odour at the Kubri el-Kubba detention centre was nothing new to Hilali. He was familiar with el-Kubba, one of Cairo’s most inhumane holding centres for the lowest of criminals. Tonight, the smell—a mix of human excrement, sweat, and open drains—was particularly pungent. A fitting place for the X, he mused.

His mouth and hair were still coated with dust from the explosion, and his body was still quivering, but he had to pull himself together. As he walked, he pulled a comb out of his pocket and ran it through his hair, tugging at bits of plaster lodged there. He was safe; he could thank Allah for that. His men had arrested most of the terrorists from the basement meeting in Ezbekieh, and the ones who had gotten away had been shot dead. He’d arrived at the palace with his men just in time to witness it.

Shortly afterwards, the dynamite had rent the concrete underfoot, and the world in front of him had been engulfed in a wall of flames, consuming men in tuxedos, women in ball gowns, and his own security forces alike. The power of the blast had been so great that bodies had literally flown through the air.

He shuddered at the horror of it. The X was finished. He would see to it personally. Some of his best men had been lost in the explosion. Though he tried to compose himself, his rage was
all consuming. He looked around at the slime-coated walls of the building he was walking through, stifling a retch that was threatening to overwhelm him. In the name of Allah, the smell was awful. His nose twitched in disgust.

Gamal and Major General Nesbit of British Intelligence walked by his side along the long dank corridor to the main interrogation room. On the left-hand side were the cells. He heard groans permeating the darkness of one, saw the whites of an inmate’s eyes as he peered through the bars.

“Where have they been put?” Hilali asked Nesbit.

“Fifty of them are in cell A. The remainder are in cell F,” Nesbit replied.

“Call them one by one to the interrogation room, Major,” Gamal said. “We’ll interrogate each one individually.”

Nesbit patted Hilali on the arm.

“You’ll be rewarded for your diligence, Hilali,” he said.

“The king, once he has recovered from tonight, will hear of the success of Operation X.”

“And Issawi’s murderer?” Gamal asked.

Nesbit’s eyes flashed triumphantly.

“A girl was spotted by one of our men. She was arrested immediately and brought in. She is the one you will be interrogating. She’s a live wire, but I have no doubt she’ll break if we apply the pressure.”

“Okay, men, let’s get on with it,” Hilali said. “We’ll see the girl first. Get your men to bring her through, will you, Major?”

Nesbit clicked his heels and walked away.

Hilali opened the door to the interrogation room. Gamal followed. Four military officers holding batons with rifles slung over their shoulders stood by a large square wooden table. The room was brightly lit, windowless, and soundproof.

“Men,” Hilali said, “Operation X is still missing one of the masterminds. We’ll be interrogating every one of the men and the woman we’ve caught for information. Any sign of trouble and I’ll give the order, okay?”

The door opened. In walked the girl, held firmly by two of Nesbit’s men. They sat her down on the wooden chair next to the table and tied her arms behind her back.

Gamal walked over to her.

“Name?” he shouted.

“Fatima Said.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Address?”

“Forty-eight Sharia Ibn Tulun, Ezbekieh.”

“Occupation?”

“Businesswoman.”

“And what is your business, Sayyida?” Gamal went on.

“I run a nightclub in Wassa.”

“What type of nightclub?”

“A gentleman’s club.”

“Name of the club?”

“The el-G.”

“Do you sell women’s services?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever heard of a man, code name Centurion?”

“No.”

“I’ll ask you again. Have you ever heard of a man, code name Centurion?”

Fatima shook her head. Hilali studied her. She was a pretty thing, a little cocky though.

“Do you know why you are here?”

Hilali watched her black eyes narrow with hatred as she stared at him.

“No.”

“You murdered the chief advisor to the king, Haran Issawi, one of Cairo’s most prolific politicians.”

“I did not. I am not a murderer.”

“You’re a liar, Sayyida. Not only were you seen aiming and firing at Issawi, but as soon as you fired, you made the mistake of dropping your gun and running. I should congratulate you, Sayyida, for being such a good shot, but I’ll save my breath. However, I will warn you, do not make the mistake of lying to us. Your sentence is predetermined. Egypt does not view murderers with any favour whatsoever, especially not if they are female, and especially not if the victim was at the pinnacle of public life. You are being interrogated now because we believe you know the real identity of the Centurion, the mastermind behind the X, and we want you to reveal his identity immediately.”

Hilali nodded at one of the military officers, who marched up to Fatima.

“I’ll ask you one last time, who is the Centurion?”

Fatima bit her lip and looked around. She saw the man questioning her nod at the soldier standing next to her.

“Tell us the truth, Sayyida,” Hilali shouted.

The officer grabbed Fatima around the neck and slammed her head against the table with such force the table’s legs cracked and slid forward on the damp stone floor.

“I’ll die before I tell you anything,” Fatima said, her voice cracking. The soldier had not released the grip on her neck. Gamal stared at her face squashed against the table, her eyes bulging, blood trickling from her lip.

“We have ninety members of the X incarcerated. Every single one of them will remain in prison for the rest of their lives. There will be no trial. Military Intelligence has this power, and the X will not get away with their reign of terror. We know two of the ringleaders died in the bomb blast. You saved us the trouble and murdered another one. Why? Were you working as a counter-operative to the man you murdered? If so, on whose instructions did you murder him? We want a name, Sayyida, all aliases, and addresses. Is he the Centurion?”

Fatima did not move. Her head was on the table. Her eyes were closed. She opened them briefly, then shut them again. She did not answer.

Hilali nodded at the soldier.

He lifted Fatima’s head again and smashed it violently against the table. Tears of rage slipped from her eyes, and she tried to open her mouth to speak.

“Centurion is also Smith, Carpet Seller. It depends on his business enterprises of the week,” Fatima stammered.

Hilali smiled.

“You have decided to talk, Sayyida. You are wise. The owner of the newspaper the
Liberation
is an Italian called Lorenzo,” Hilali went on. “Does the Carpet Seller ever use the offices of the
Liberation
as his headquarters?”

The soldier raised Fatima’s head. She winced and closed her eyes.

“Well?” Gamal said.

“No—I don’t know—no.”

“What do you know of Abdullah Ibrahim, the young professor murdered in the desert recently?”

Fatima shook her head, wincing.

Hilali nodded at the soldier who slammed Fatima’s face against the table again. Bloody welts began to appear on her cheekbones. The table was covered with blood and saliva.

“Nothing, Sayyida?” Hilali said. “Are you sure about that? You use your nightclub to network and sign up men for your cause, don’t you? You were paid to befriend Ibrahim, weren’t you? By whom?”

“No one,” Fatima groaned. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about this man Ibrahim.”

“Throw her back in her cell, men,” Hilali said. “A pitch-black bout of solitary confinement in the company of the flies, the overflowing excrement bucket, and the rats might make her change her mind.”

The soldier dragged her up and marched her out the door. Hilali heard her jail door crank shut and the key turn. This was going to be a long night, he thought to himself.

“Now bring in each of the arrested men,” Gamal ordered his other officers.

“Use maximum violence this time,” Hilali ordered. “Each and every one must be broken. This Carpet Seller, the Centurion, this man Smith, is the one we need. We need to know exactly where we can find him if he is still alive. If we start smashing their knuckles and cutting off their hands, one of them will talk.”

The journal of Hezba Iqbal Sultan Hanim al-Shezira,

Alexandria, October 1919

In the house in el-Gomruk, Alexandre comes to me. I sit up to greet him. He kneels down on the floor beside me, takes my face in his hands, and kisses me passionately, lovingly. In this moment, it is just the two of us, encircled by the haunting light of the lanterns, safe in this private world we have created, free of repression and domination. In
this moment, I believe I am truly his equal. The fact that I have ridden with him through the desert to freedom is proof.

“Hezba,” he whispers, “look to the future. Think of our life together.”

He smiles and nuzzles my neck, and then I ask him. “How did you escape, Alexandre?”

“My men blew up the wing of the prison where I was incarcerated. I was in solitary confinement on the north side. No one was hurt. My men are clever. But we haven’t time to talk about that now. I am here. You are here. There are other things we need to discuss.”