Ulm shook his head. ‘Shabanov has been in Spetsnaz twenty years. And the Sovs went into Afghanistan in 1979.’
‘So where does Opnaz fit in?’
‘Slip of the tongue?’
‘I don’t think so, sir.’
‘Then maybe that bedouin hit you harder than you thought.’
Jones passed his hand over the newly applied bandage and managed a broad smile. ‘You could be right there,’ he said.
Doyle had just finished submitting his daily report to TERCOM when Ulm appeared at the door of the communications room. The intelligence officer followed him outside.
‘Anything shaking out there?’ Ulm asked.
The IO shook his head. ‘TERCOM’s still in silent mode.’
‘Shit, this is shaping up to be one big bitch of a day.’
‘You’re bound to pick up some news when you go to Cairo tonight.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it. The Angels of Judgement managed to give an entire task force the slip when they pulled that stunt at Beirut. Who’s to say they’ve got any easier to find since?’
‘It’ll do you good to get off the base,’ Doyle said, then hesitated. ‘You think there’s anything in this sabotage shit?’
Ulm looked at him.
‘I know what you’ve been telling the men, Elliot. But I want to know what you really think.’
Ulm kicked a toeful of sand across the edge of the concrete runway. ‘I think we’ve got trouble, Charlie, that’s what I think.’ He paused. ‘Have you ever heard of something called Opnaz?’
Doyle shook his head. ‘Nope. Should I?’
Ulm repeated the story that Jones had just told him.
‘His brains are pretty badly shook up,’ Doyle said. ‘That bedouin hit him hard.’
‘He swears the guy said Opnaz, not Spetsnaz.’
‘OK, maybe he did. Is it that significant?’
‘I want you to have it checked out. Raise Jacobson on SATCOM. I want answers. Bad luck has a habit of coming in threes. And Opnaz has got bad written all over it.’
The investigator leaned against the wall and nodded to the two others to take up positions by the door.
Girling rocked back and forth on the chair and clasped his sides for warmth.
‘You are cold?’ Al-Qadi asked.
‘Just tell me what I’m doing down here.’
Al-Qadi examined a fingernail. ‘I have one or two questions for you, Mr Girling. That is all. Once you have answered them, you will be free to go.’
‘Then ask them.’
‘Please, a little patience. We have been more than patient with you.’
Girling opened his mouth to speak, but Al-Qadi put a finger to his lips. ‘You are right to feel angry.’ His eyes darkened. ‘But then I, too, am angry. You make trouble in my country. You look into matters that do not concern you and you create only problems for us, for Egypt. You are a dangerous man, Mr Tom Girling.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘Don’t be nattered, Mr Girling. You are in very deep trouble. This should not be a matter for your private amusement.’
‘Why am I in trouble?’
‘First of all, you have met with the Israeli, Lazan.’
Girling shook his head disbelievingly. ‘I’m a journalist, Captain. I meet with many diplomats, even Israeli ones. There is no law, even here, against that.’
Al-Qadi’s voice rose. ‘Then tell me what you were doing with the Internee of the Al-Mu’ayyad Mosque.’
‘The Internee?’
‘Perhaps you know him as the Guide.’
Girling had wondered how the Mukhabarat had found him.
‘The Internee is not known for his knowledge of science and technology,’ the investigator said.
‘You’d be surprised at his range of interests,’ Girling said.
‘Be careful, Mr Girling.’
‘There is something about the… Internee that intrigues me,’ Girling said.
‘And what is that?’
‘If the Brotherhood does not exist, why is its spiritual leader locked up in an ivory tower by the Mukhabarat?’
Al-Qadi tried unsuccessfully to mask his fury. ‘Listen to my truth, Mr Girling. I do not like people who roam my streets, breaking my law. What did you hope to achieve by going to the Sheikh?’
‘Why not ask him?’
‘He despises people like you.’
Girling looked at him levelly. ‘And you, Captain.’
A muscle twitched at the right side of the investigator’s face. ‘Let me ask you again, Mr Girling, what you were doing at the Al-Mu’ayyad Mosque.’
‘I went to the Sheikh with an appeal for Stansell’s life.’
The investigator’s eyes blazed. ‘I told you to leave the matter of Stansell to us.’
‘Tell me what progress you have made since Stansell was first taken. Tell me what leads you have uncovered. You have done nothing that suggests Stansell’s disappearance is in any way a priority for you, Captain. And you blame me for looking for him, for doing your job? You and I may have got off to a bad start, but we have the same aim, don’t we? We both want Stansell. For God’s sake, let’s start acting like we’re on the same side. I’m not interested in denigrating Egypt. I don’t want to write an article about the Guide. Whatever he’s doing in the Al-Mu’-ayyad mosque is your business. I just want Stansell. He’s the one — the only — reason I’m here.’
Al-Qadi’s features seemed to soften. ‘Then, Mr Girling, perhaps we can do business together.’ He walked to the door. ‘Come,’ he said.
Together with the two bodyguards, they retraced their steps to the entrance. It was still light outside. A wall clock in the hallway stood at a little before six. Al-Qadi crossed the great courtyard, entering an outlying wing of the building via a wooden door. Once inside, Girling became aware of a pungent odour, a mixture of organic decay and chemicals.
Al-Qadi checked the number on a door at the end of yet another long corridor. He entered the room and flicked on the lights. Unlike the interrogation cell, the forensic laboratory was well-lit, although by Western standards quite filthy. Archaic microscopes abutted bottles of strangely coloured fluids scattered on a ledge that ran waist high around the room. In the centre of the floor there was a large, solid-looking box, its formica work-surface extending to the same height as the shelf. There were various papers and instruments scattered on top. The smell he had first detected upon entering the building was stronger than ever.
Al-Qadi lifted the lid off the box, scattering the papers across the floor.
He beckoned. ‘You see, there really is no need for you to stay in Egypt any longer,’ he said.
The body, half obscured by blocks of ice and semi-submerged in water, lay in a sarcophagus chiselled from the limestone quarries of the Pharaohs.
Stansell had been shot twice. One bullet had nicked him on the side of the head; a second had hit him in the chest. There were cuts on the body which Girling recognized as pathologist’s incisions.
Girling turned away. Parts of the torso were badly decomposed and he felt the bile rise to the back of his throat. With a supreme effort he suppressed it. He didn’t want to give Al-Qadi the pleasure.
‘When did you find him?’ He heard his voice tremble. The question was a device, nothing more, to shield his pain from Al-Qadi. Inside, all he could think of was his failure.
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘Where?’
Stansell had given him life. Kelso and he had taken it away. Kelso. Girling felt new anger and new pain. None of this needed to happen. Kelso and his lousy ambition. Tom Girling and his wretched stupidity.
‘In the Nile. On a patch of beach, near Shari’a Al-Nil, across the river from the Meridien. Some fishermen caught the body in their nets and dragged him ashore. The body had been weighted down.’