“Are you-!”
“Not to worry,” Voltaire said. “Some of my people intercepted the plot. We have a young man named Masdouth as an infiltrator. He was part of the team that planted the crystals in your room. They switched some harmless stuff for the poison.”
“How on earth did they get in?”
“Same way that Judas knew who had come from America. A traitor in out midst.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“Who got a good look at you and would have been able to describe you to Judas?” Bissinger asked. “Who knew exactly where you were staying, right down to your room number? The same individual has been compromising our embassy for years and stood guard while the crystals were being planted in your room. He kept the hallway clear for the intruders. As soon as he departed, it was their cue to get out.”
She sighed and seethed with anger. “Colonel Amjad,” she said.
“There will be a day of reckoning for him too,” Bissinger said. “But first we need to play the colonel along and he needs to report that you’re dead. Game?”
In Alex’s mind, it all fell into place. “Game,” she said. “How does that work?”
“It works with you posing on a slab in a filthy Egyptian morgue and letting the colonel get a look at you,” Bissinger said. “With you out of the way, there would be nothing stopping Cerny from making a quick gambit back to Cairo.”
“So I’m supposed to play dead.”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“If you think we can get away with it, I’ll go for it,” she said.
“Then I think we’re finished here,” Voltaire said.
“I think we are,” she agreed.
“Thank you, Josephine,” Bissinger said.
“My appreciation also,” Voltaire said. “What a trouper.”
“Some day in the future,” she said, “you guys owe me big time.”
First Bissinger left, then Voltaire. Alex tossed her towel back on a deck chair and gently flipped her sunglasses on top of the towel. As events, past and future, swirled in her head, she wore off her nervous energy with another ten laps. Then, after drying off and getting five more minutes of sunshine, she went back upstairs and phoned Gian Antonio Rizzo in Rome.
That same afternoon, Bissinger arranged to have a network of rooms rented at the Radisson Cairo where Boris was staying.
FORTY-FOUR
The next morning, without checking out of her own hotel, Alex had gone to the area of central Cairo known as Zamalek, where most of the embassies were located, along with the fashionable shops. There, in one of the French boutiques, she purchased a very short cocktail dress in smooth black satin. It was the type of dress that a young woman could wear to a private party or in one of the Western hotels, but which could never appear on the street. She bought a pair of heels to go with it and a purse that was big enough to pack her phone and her Beretta. It was a come-and-get-me outfit, and Alex was wearing it for work. Amused, she wondered if she could deduct it on her tax returns.
Then, that evening, Alex sat at the end of the hotel bar at the Radisson Cairo. She nursed a glass of wine and had a pack of Marlboros on the bar in front of her. Boris entered the hotel bar at about 9:00 p.m., as was his habit. He went to a table in the corner and sat down where he could survey the whole room. Alex had positioned herself where she would be directly in his line of view. She reached to her pack of Marlboros and lit one. Her first cigarette in ten years. She didn’t look directly at Boris but felt his eyes on her as she smoked.
Patience, she told herself. He’s going to assess me very carefully before he makes a move, if he makes a move at all. He may be careless, but he has to be at least a little bit cautious.
She engaged in a small conversation with the bartender, who brought her an ashtray. Then an American couple came in. She didn’t know them, but she had a drink with them. Alex spoke with a slight Latino accent. She sold herself as a wealthy Mexican lady waiting for a no-good boyfriend, loud enough to allow Boris to overhear, as well as to advertise what language he could use if he wanted to make an approach.
The American couple was from Illinois, and they congratulated her on her wonderful English. She hoped they wouldn’t kill the potential sale to Boris. The Midwestern couple left, and Boris was still there. He was looking at her, which was fine, assessing her from head to toe. She glanced his way, gave him a friendly smile, and looked away. She was showing as much leg as she ever had in her life, and she knew Boris liked what he saw.
A few moments later, she reached back to her pack of smokes. She picked up the pack of cigarettes and tapped one out. She muttered to herself in Spanish, as if in anger. She fumbled with a cigarette and dropped it, as if soused. Then she felt a presence next to her. She feigned surprise when a gold lighter snapped open and a sharp yellow flame rose in front of her.
Boris. The lighter was one of those five-hundred-dollar Dunhill ones. That or a fine counterfeit. The flame could have served as the Olympic torch.
“May I?” he asked in English.
His hand was frightening. It looked like a small anvil. She assumed he had a second one that matched. Yuri Federov looked like a poster boy for the Boy Scouts compared to this thug.
“Sure. Why not?” she answered.
She leaned forward and let him light her smoke. She inhaled and blew out a long steam of puffy white carcinogens as the lighter clicked shut.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m feeling slightly lonely and very angry. And I’m getting very drunk.”
“No need to apologize,” he said.
She stayed in English. Russian would scare him off.
“I can join you?” he asked.
“I wish someone would,” she answered.
He slid onto the bar chair next to her. “You’re very pretty,” he said, turning back.
“If I’m so pretty, why did my boyfriend stand me up?”
“He doesn’t appreciate you,” Boris suggested.
“Ha!” she said. “You tell him that when and if he gets here,” she said with inebriated inflections. “Will you tell him that?”
“I will,” Boris said, ever the gent.
“I’m getting old,” she said with self-pity. “Almost thirty. I guess I’m losing it.”
Boris laughed. “Not at all,” he said.
She eyed him up and down, as if to see him for the first time. He was a big man, maybe six-three, and broad-bigger than she had thought.
“Nobody appreciates me tonight,” she said sullenly. “So I’m just here getting plastered. I hate to drink alone.”
“So do I. You’d permit if I joined you?”
“Sure,” Alex said. “Drink as much as you want. Just make one promise.”
“What’s that?”