Girling turned to McBain. ‘I don’t need this.’
‘Then fuck you,’ Gudmundson said, rising from his chair.
Across the room, people had begun to stare.
Girling also got to his feet. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I won’t be joining you for lunch.’
Ulm said goodbye to McBain and Schlitz too angry for remorse. He was due on the six o’clock express to Qena, but hoped there might be an earlier train. He did not want to spend a moment longer in Cairo. He stopped at the concierge’s desk to ask for a timetable for southbound trains. Then he joined the small line of people waiting for taxis outside.
Girling watched the man he knew as Gudmundson from a phone booth in the main lobby, shielded by the throng of tourists checking in and out at the front desk.
He was intrigued by Gudmundson. He watched impatiently as the queue grew shorter. Girling strained for a better look, willing a couple of tourists to get out of his line of sight. A taxi swung into view and Gudmundson raised his hand to flag the driver.
It was in that moment, when Gudmundson’s body was three-quarters to him, that Girling tagged him. The American’s entire bearing was military. This was a man used to giving orders, but not from behind a desk. And Girling suddenly realized he’d seen Gudmundson giving orders before.
He rushed outside as the taxi swept out of the forecourt. There were no others in sight. Taking a deep breath, he went back inside the hotel and asked the concierge what his American friend with the sun-tan and the leather jacket had asked her for a few moments earlier.
The girl smiled and pointed at a timetable for trains leaving Ramsis Station, Cairo, for the tourist centres of Middle and Upper Egypt: Minya, Asyut, Qena, Luxor, and Aswan.
Girling thanked her and looked around for Schlitz and McBain. They hadn’t emerged from the bar. The sound of crickets mingled with the buzz of traffic on Pyramids Road. He felt light-headed. He went back to the phone booth, lifted the handset and gave the hotel operator a London number.
In less than a minute, he was talking to Kieran Mallon.
‘Girling, you rogue. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m talking to you. Where are you, man? The world, not to mention Kelso, is going ape-shit and you’re nowhere to be found.’
‘Slow down, Kieran.’
‘Slow down, you say? Is it true about Stansell?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’
‘Hell, I’m sorry, Tom. Kelso’s been besieged with calls from Fleet Street ever since the story broke on the wire. They want to know everything. The facts behind the kidnapping, how he died, and what we’re going to file about the Angels of Judgement. I know Kelso wanted to capture a bit of attention, but I’m not sure this is exactly what he had in mind. He and Carey are both screaming for you. What do I tell them?’
‘Tell them the story’s on its way.’
‘Is it?’
‘No. But keep that to yourself.’
‘Tom, why Reuters? What’s going on?’
‘I need your help, Kieran. Can you do something for me? It’s very important.’
‘Name it.’
It took Girling a little over two minutes to dictate his instructions. After he’d finished, he made Mallon read them back.
‘What’s this got to do with Stansell?’ the Irishman asked.
‘I’m not sure. When can you get back to me?’
‘Hopefully within the hour.’
‘Good. I’ll be waiting by the fax. And if you need to get hold of me by phone, I’m abandoning the office and my apartment for a while. I’ll be here.’ He read out Sharifa’s number.
‘A woman?’
‘It’s not what you think.’
‘Tom?’
‘Yes.’
‘You sound different.’
‘You should see how I look.’
‘No, you sound… well, better.’
Girling felt himself smile. ‘I hope it lasts,’ he said.
He paid reception for the call and set out to retrieve his car.
It was hotter than usual for late afternoon and nowhere more so than in Al-Qadi’s office, three floors above the basement cells at Mukhabarat Head-quarters. The air-conditioning unit had long since broken down. An electric fan mounted on his desk had suffered an undiagnosed mechanical failure three days before.
Al-Qadi mopped his brow and read the handwritten report from his deputy for the third time.
He took another sip of water and loosened his tie. When Girling had filed his report with Reuters he had declared war. The investigator wondered whether the Englishman had even begun to appreciate the power of his enemy.
Al-Qadi opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a tatty manila file and studied it one final time. The pathologist’s report had been placed on his desk that morning. He was supposed to read it, then hand it back to be copied. There was, of course, no way he could allow that. He lit one of the corners, made sure it had caught well, and tossed it into his metal waste-paper bin. As the flames took hold, the cardboard buckled and a blown-up passport picture of Stansell slipped from the dossier. Al-Qadi stared at it, mesmerized by the advance of the flames across the ‘agnabi’s face. Not until every scrap had been reduced to ash did he turn to the second drawer of his desk, open it, and pull out his automatic.
He had resolved not to wait for the general’s call.
It was dark when Girling entered the office to find both telephones ringing and Sharifa nowhere in sight. Having checked the fax tray and found it empty, he took both phones off the hook. Then he locked the door, sat down on the floor beside the fax machine and waited in the gathering gloom.
Ten minutes later, the silence of the fifth floor was disturbed by the first bleep of the fax’s built-in phone. He switched on the light as the teleprinter burst into life.
The picture formed before his eyes, pixel by pixel, line by line, until it grew into the face and body of a man. Mallon had enlarged the shot on the photo-copier and still kept reasonable definition. When the transmission ended, he took the page over to his desk and placed it under a lamp.
Girling stared at the picture with some satisfaction. The thick-set, balding guy in the fatigues standing hand raised before the 11–76 Candid at Machrihanish, the day he thought he would die in the Tornado, was the man who called himself Gudmundson.
He blipped the phone and composed the number the moment he obtained a line. Ten seconds later, he was connected again to Mallon. This time, there was no small-talk. Mallon’s rapid breathing signalled his excitement.
‘Who is that guy?’
‘I don’t know,’ Girling said. ‘That’s what I want you to find out.’
‘Me?’
‘It’s all right, Kieran, I’m going to take you through it. Have you got the picture in front of you?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. You’re going to have to help me here as some of the quality has been lost in the transmission.’ He brought the desk lamp lower. There was a name tag stitched onto the officer’s combat fatigues, just above the left breast pocket. With the frame enlarged it was possible to see that the person he had mistaken first for a technician was in fact a USAF officer — and a senior one too, judging by the pips on his shoulders. He asked Mallon if he could read the name on the tag. One thing was for sure. The letters did not spell Gudmundson. Not that he had ever expected them to.
‘What do you make of it?’ Girling asked.
It was not easy — it was already grainy from the enlarging process — and to make matters worse, the man’s arm was obscuring part of the word.
‘Could be… Palmer,’ Mallon said. ‘It’s a common enough name.’
Girling found a magnifying glass on the desk and tilted it under the light. ‘Could be,’ he agreed. ‘But that doesn’t look like an ‘A’, more like a ‘U’.’