Rogers was staying at the Nile Hilton, a grand American hotel along the river that had become, paradoxically, the favorite haunt of President Nasser. It was an island of sanity and efficiency in the middle of chaotic Cairo. Egyptian novelists came to the air-conditioned Coffee Shop to write their books in the cool and calm; Moslem brides held their wedding receptions in the crowded lobby, blushing as a chorus sang tales of the wedding night. It was the place where all Cairo met and socialized.
Rogers arrived a day before his meeting and practiced losing the Moukhabarat surveillance teams, the little men in baggy suits who waited in clusters outside the hotel. He found that it was easy and wondered whether perhaps Jamal had been right.
The day of the meeting, Rogers slipped out the back door of the hotel and walked several blocks up Kasr el-Nil Street to Talat Harb Square, where he hailed a taxi. He had the taxi drive to Dokki, across the river. He stopped there, checked for surveillance, and took another taxi back toward the center of town. He shifted cars one more time before heading to Heliopolis. When he finally arrived in the neighborhood of the safehouse, he had the taxi drop him a block from his true destination and walked the rest of the way, stopping twice to check for little men in baggy suits.
Jamal arrived on schedule an hour later. Rogers barely recognized him. He was dressed like a bawab, a humble doorman, in a dirty gray gallabiya, muddy leather sandals, and a turban-like scarf that covered his head and most of his face. It was a discordant sight: the dark lustrous hair and fine features of a movie star, wrapped in the rags of a beggar. Rogers found the outfit faintly comical and said so.
“I count on the snobbery of the secret police,” said Jamal. “They would never imagine that anyone dressed like this would be worth following.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Rogers, walking toward the window.
The drapes were closed to prevent surveillance from across the street, leaving the room nearly dark at midday. Rogers opened the drapes slightly. The street looked quiet. In the building across the way he saw women and children. In one apartment, a young man was sitting alone reading a newspaper and looking idly out the window. He looked harmless. Rogers closed the drapes.
He offered Jamal a whisky. The Palestinian smiled and said no, tea would be fine. They made small talk for only a few minutes. Jamal seemed eager to do business. From the folds of his dusty gallabiya, he removed two sheets of paper covered with dense Arabic writing and handed them to Rogers with a flourish. The shyness of Kuwait had vanished.
“The Old Man sends greetings to the United States,” Jamal said.
Rogers touched his heart in a sign of gratitude.
“What’s in the papers?” Rogers asked.
“Part of our security cooperation,” said Jamal, still beaming.
“Tell me,” said Rogers. The tape recorder was going. He wanted a record for Stone.
“We are giving you the names of eight people who are attending a training camp in South Lebanon. There are four Palestinians, two Germans, and two Italians. They are studying techniques that could be used in airplane hijackings. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine organized the camp, but one of the trainers works for us.”
“Why are you giving us this information?” asked Rogers.
“The Old Man doesn’t like the fact that the Europeans are involved,” explained Jamal.
It struck Rogers as an odd sort of racism, the notion that it was all right for Palestinians to blow airplanes out of the sky but not Europeans. But he kept his mouth shut.
“The second page is the most useful,” said Jamal with the knowing smile that a lawyer or accountant might use in briefing a client.
The second page gave details about the passports that had been prepared for the eight by the PFLP’s documentation bureau. The four Palestinians would be travelling on real Algerian passports, the two Germans and two Italians on false ones from their home countries. The names and passport numbers were listed neatly.
“Thank you,” said Rogers.
Rogers was more pleased than he wanted to admit. The document was a bonanza. It would allow Western intelligence services to track the terrorists as they left the training camp in Lebanon, monitor their contacts with other operatives in Europe and the Middle East, and apprehend them before they killed anybody.
The American dreaded what he had to do next.
“The names and passport numbers are fine, as far as they go,” Rogers said in a measured voice.
“But they don’t tell us all that we need to know. They tell us who will try to hijack airplanes and discredit the Palestinian Revolution. But they don’t tell us when or where. For that, we must go further. I am sorry to push you, Jamal, but we must move to a new level of security cooperation.”
Jamal looked at him suspiciously. The enthusiasm had drained from his face. His lips were tight and his nostrils flared.
Rogers removed the paperweight from his pocket.
“This is a simple device that can help us save many lives. I’ll explain how it works…”
“Aaacchh!” Jamal cut him off with a sharp cry. It was almost a scream, a noise that someone might make to block out another sound he didn’t want to hear.
“Impossible! It is absolutely impossible! I told you in Kuwait that I will not be your spy!”
Jamal was almost shouting. Rogers was torn between concern for the Palestinian and worry about the racket he was making.
“Shhh!” said Rogers.
He walked to the darkened window again and pulled the curtain back a hair to see if the noise had roused anyone. After no more than a second he let it fall back in place.
Rogers groaned and bit his lip. He turned to Jamal and spoke in an eerily calm voice.
“My friend,” said Rogers. “Your problems are just beginning.”
In an apartment across the way, Rogers had seen the same man he had glimpsed before. Still in the same spot, still pretending to read a newspaper. It was so obvious. Why hadn’t Rogers realized it before? The man across the street was a watcher, and he was watching the safehouse. Somehow, despite all the precautions, the Egyptian Moukhabarat had them under surveillance.
Rogers took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He turned to Jamal.
“There is an escape plan,” Rogers said coolly. The apartment had been provisioned with this sort of contingency in mind. He led Jamal to a bedroom and pointed to the simple business suit and broad-brimmed hat that were in the closet.
“Put them on as quickly as you can,” said Rogers.
The Palestinian wordlessly obeyed.
“There are sunglasses in the pocket of the jacket,” Rogers said. “Put them on.”
Rogers looked at his feet and saw that he was still wearing the peasant sandals. There were no shoes in the closet. Never mind. It would have to do. Rogers led the Palestinian toward the front door.
“Listen to me carefully and do exactly as I say. If you follow these instructions precisely, there is no reason that anyone should identify you as having been here.
“Take the stairs down two flights to the basement. At the bottom of the stairwell is a door. Open it. The door leads to a tunnel that passes underground to the basement of the next building. When you come out of the tunnel, walk calmly up the stairs to the front door. It opens on a busy street where the Heliopolis streetcar line makes a stop. The stop is thirty yards from the building. Wait in the doorway until you actually see the streetcar coming. Then walk out quickly and catch it.