‘I think you can help.’
‘Why should I help you against the noble soldiers of Islam?’
‘What nobility is there in the death of innocents, Sheikh?’ As he spoke, Girling heard Mona’s cries echoing across the courtyard. ‘Stansell’s only crime was that he did his job. He published a name, the name of the Angels of Judgement. Nothing more. Surely — ‘ He stopped, searching for the merest sign of assent. ‘A word from you would spread through the mosques, the bazaars and the streets. They listen to you…’
The mosque was silent once more.
‘And why do you assume I might have influence in this matter?’ the Guide asked.
‘Because I know who you are. I know they look up to you, Sheikh.’
There was a murmur from the crowd.
The Guide straightened his back and lifted his face to the sky. ‘Your friend’s fate was determined by God. What has happened was written. I cannot change that.’ He reached for the door.
Girling shook his head. ‘That’s bullshit,’ he said in English. Then in Arabic: ‘I was in Asyut. Three years ago. The riots, Sheikh, I was there…’
The Guide stopped walking, but he did not turn.
Girling fought for space. The crowd had almost surrounded him. ‘I saw a young Egyptian girl stoned to death on a patch of dirt road. Like Stansell, she had done nothing. But that didn’t stop the mob. They rained the rocks on her until her body was so badly broken even her husband could not recognize her. Could such a death be pre-ordained?’
The Guide faced Girling once more. His eyes were bright, but there was a tremor in his voice. ‘More than likely she was unclean,’ he said. ‘An adulteress.’
‘Then I of all people should have known,’ Girling replied. ‘For this woman was my wife.’
The Guide’s shoulders rose as he drew breath. The crowd quivered in anticipation.
‘Only God can save your friend, ‘agnabi,’ the Guide said. Then he stepped through the arch. The door slammed behind him, the noise echoing across the sahn.
Girling pounded the wood with his fists. On the other side, he could hear the Guide’s steps retreating down the corridor. ‘You murdered her, Sheikh, you killed her, you and Abu Tarek,’ he shouted. Before he could put his shoulder to the door, there was a howl of rage from the crowd. It surged forward. Girling felt himself being picked up like a swimmer in the grip of an immense rolling wave. He tried to grab hold of something, the door handle, the balustrade of the miqra, but they were too many. They dragged him to the top of the steps where he had entered the mosque. He knew this crowd. He had seen it at work before. Once outside the sanctuary of the mosque he was as good as dead.
He was tumbling down, images from the street spinning past his face as he fell. The crowd fell on him, blocking out the sun. They were kicking him, pulling his hair, ripping his clothes. He tried to shield his face with his hands, but his arms were nearly pulled from their sockets.
Then he heard a volley of shots and suddenly saw daylight again. He struggled to his feet, as his assailants scattered. He saw blood, his blood, dripping into an open drain. When he looked up, he found himself staring into the unsmiling face of Captain Lutfi Al-Qadi of State Security.
The Guide watched from the tiny latticed window of his second-floor room as the ‘agnabi Girling was led away, flanked by two plain-clothes police officers, with a third, short and overweight, leading the way down the street.
The Guide found that his exchange with the ‘agnabi had vexed him deeply. It was partly the look in the young man’s face, partly the reminder of times past, dredged up so publicly, that preyed on his mind.
Most of all, though, he caught in Girling’s eyes a vision of troubled times to come. Not for himself; the Guide was beyond caring for his own physical well-being. He was old and his moment, the moment he had been waiting for all his life, was near. But for his brothers Girling spelled danger. He must pass the message on.
He called over his scribe, the katib, and proceeded to dictate a letter.
Bookerman leaned against the fuselage of his Sikorsky smoking a cigarette. He watched the comings and goings of the Russians dispassionately. The Soviet investigation team, a bunch of technicians from Qena, had been brought in on another Hind, accompanied by a fully-armed detachment of Spetsnaz.
A Soviet sergeant, in charge of the armed escort, informed Bookerman that the troops were there to ward off any inquisitive Bedouin who strayed into the wadi. But Bookerman knew that was only part truth. He had little doubt their primary task was to discourage the Pathfinders from getting too close. Some things never changed. He had been at the Paris Air Show once when the Soviets’ pride, the MiG-29, had crashed during the display. The Russians closed ranks and began blaming anyone or anything except their flawless fighter. He sniffed the same paranoia in the air in this hot and dusty wadi.
As the Sikorsky which Bookerman had requested as back-up disgorged its complement of Pathfinders, he was able to relax. Bookerman didn’t like to spend more time than he had to in the company of Russians, particularly when they outnumbered him.
As he pulled a last drag from his Marlboro and tossed the butt away, Bookerman became aware of a commotion around the twisted remains of the Hind’s tail boom. He joined a group of three Pathfinders and set off towards it.
The boom had carved out an enormous trench in the centre of the dried-out river-bed. It was so deep that from where Bookerman had been standing beside his helicopter, it was possible to see only the mangled blades of the tail rotor. Now as he came closer Bookerman could see a group of technicians huddled around the boom like archaeologists gazing at a newly excavated dig.
The Pathfinder group was still thirty yards away when a young Spetsnaz soldier spun round, his Kalashnikov pointed right at them. The Russian screamed something and Wallace, the leading American, stopped in his tracks. The two other Pathfinders made to unsling their weapons.
‘Stoi!’ the Russian shouted. There was a wild look in his eyes.
Wallace held his arms out, the palms of his hands face down. His escort let go of their weapons.
Wallace looked the Russian, a fair-haired corporal, squarely in the eye. ‘What the fuck is with you, boy?’
‘Sabotage!’ the soldier yelled, jabbing his weapon. ‘You killed them, Yankee.’
Bookerman could tell from the expressions on the faces of the other Russians that the belief was shared.
A Russian officer, a major, sprinted across from another area of the crash site. He shouted at his corporal, but the soldier appeared not to hear. He kept his eyes fixed on Wallace, his gun aimed at the middle of the American’s ribcage. Bookerman tensed. From the set of the Russian soldier’s jaw and the look in his eyes, he was going to blow a hole through Wallace’s chest. The major swung his 9mm into a firing position. The corporal saw the movement and started to turn, bringing his assault rifle round with him, but the officer’s pistol found its target first and jumped, the shots booming in the confines of the wadi. The bullets lifted the soldier off his feet and threw him into the pit gouged by the tail boom.
Bookerman was the first to unfreeze. He jumped into the pit and knelt beside the body. A shadow fell across him and Bookerman looked up into the face of the corporal’s executioner. The officer was holstering his Makharov. His face was devoid of any expression.
‘Perhaps it was the heat,’ the officer said.
Bookerman shook his head. ‘Don’t give me that horseshit. He said something about sabotage.’
The officer shrugged and turned away. Bookerman got to his feet, grabbed the Russian’s shoulder and spun him round. ‘Tell me what he meant.’
The Russian hesitated, then indicated that Bookerman should follow him to the centre of the crash site. A small section of skin had been pulled back from the tail boom. Bookerman examined the guts of the machine. For the most part it was intact, with little sign of internal damage. His gaze skirted past the ribs, wires, and incidental components of the helicopter’s dynamic systems to rest at a point where the shaft linking the main transmission drive and the tail rotor had sheared in two. Orange hydraulic fluid dripped onto the gleaming metal.