Harper and Andrews sat in a thoughtful pocket of silence amid the swells of dinnertime pub noise around them. It seemed that a long period elapsed before the DCI at last lifted his fork and knife, used them to skillfully form another amalgam of steak, onions, and cheese, and took his next bite. Swallowing, then, he glanced at his wristwatch.
“Let’s finish up and ask for the check,” he said. “It’s damn near two o’clock in the morning in Cairo, and I don’t want the person I need to call there feeling too cranky when I get him out of bed.”
“Asser, how are you this morning?” Andrews said over his sat phone.
He waited, listening to his counterpart at Mukhabarat al-Amma produce a sequence of phlegmy rumbling sounds as he shook off sleep at the other end of the line. The DCI was in his study in the two-bedroom Tenth Street apartment he had recently bought for over three-quarters of a million dollars, a canny real estate agent having persuaded him it would be cheaper and easier to maintain than the spacious old two-story, four-bedroom home across the Potomac in which he and his wife had raised their four children. Thus far the verdict was out; although Andrews appreciated the lower maintenance costs, the concierge, and private elevator, he had nearly broken his neck twice slipping on the too-slick tiles of the building’s marble lobby on rainy days and missed staring wistfully into the bedroom his youngest daughter had vacated when she went off to college.
“At this hour, Robert, it is only technically morning, and I have a poor mind for technicalities even when wide awake,” Asser Kassab replied with a snorting yawn. “That said, I assume you would not have gotten me out of bed for an inconsequential reason.”
Andrews went right for it. “Asser,” he said, “I need to get two people into the Sudanese capital.”
“May I ask who they are?”
“Employees of an Egyptian chemical company.”
“Though not Egyptian nationals, I assume.”
“A technicality,” Andrews said with a wry smile. “Though you’re correct. They’re Westerners.”
A sigh. “And which of our companies employs them?”
“That’s your pick and choose,” Andrews said. “They’ll have proper identification and international work permits. But I’ll need your assistance with their specific professional affiliation.”
Kassab’s negative reaction was almost palpable across the vast distance between them. “This cannot be done,” he said.
“Of course it can. Your government just opened that huge new Products Marketing Center in Khartoum. On Al-Steen Street. Nice-looking place-I’ve got aerial photos going back to when the foundation was laid.”
“I do not doubt it,” Kassab said. “Or your general inquisitiveness.”
Andrews admittedly enjoyed his displeasure, however much a token it might be. “How many corporations have their export offices there? Must be dozens of them, selling everything from petrochemicals to paints.”
“I tell you it cannot be done,” Kassab repeated emphatically. “We…my country, that is…respects America’s position regarding Omar al-Bashir. But we share a geographic border and have vital economic ties with the Sudanese.”
“Unfortunately that’s part of the problem,” Andrews said, deciding to play his trump card. “And it’s why you’re going to help me.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That your country was prepared to assist in the cross-border transport of a massive armaments shipment to the Sudanese army, presumably from Aswan down to Wadi Halfa, in violation of the United Nations arms embargo,” Andrews said. “This is before it was captured by pirates at the Horn.”
“I know nothing of it.”
“Of course you don’t, Asser. I wouldn’t figure head of Egyptian intelligence would have a clue.”
“It is perhaps good for our friendship that I am too drowsy to have noticed your sarcasm,” Kassab said. “Moreover, if what you tell me is correct, this movement of weapons would not have been sanctioned by my government. There are many outlaws in the south, and their network is well organized.”
“No thanks to your agency providing support,” Andrews said.
Silence. “I think, Robert, that I would rather not continue our chat right now. I will happily return your call from my office tomorrow-”
“I think you’d better hang on the phone until I’ve finished my piece,” Andrews said. “Whether or not you believe it, we’re on the same page here. Or does your government not want Omar al-Bashir to stay comfortably nestled in the presidential palace?”
“A gross mischaracterization,” Kassab said. “I must remind you that, like the United States, we are not a signatory to the ICC. As I have also made clear, this no more makes us supporters of his regime than it does your government or the others that abstained. We simply contend that acting on the warrant for his arrest would throw his already destabilized nation into anarchy. Whatever new issues may have arisen to aggravate the already dangerous tensions between America and Sudan…presumably they would include this arms sale you’ve mentioned…I would recommend pursuing a remedy through diplomatic channels.”
Andrews scowled with growing anger and impatience. He was good at keeping his temper in check; if he wasn’t, the bureaucracy through which he’d steered for his entire career would have long since spat him out. But when the dam broke, it came down with a crash.
“Look, Asser, it’s time to cut the bullshit,” he said. “I called you from my home instead of the office for a reason. And tired as you are from standing around with your head in the desert sand, I think that tells you something about the delicacy of my own situation.”
“Robert, listen to me-”
“No. Now you listen. The GIS owns at least half the petrochemical companies headquartered in that Products Marketing Center.”
“Robert…”
“It controls and coordinates the smuggling operations down at the borders and would have been instrumental in running that illegal weapons shipment down into Sudan,” Andrews said. “If that information somehow leaked out to various House and Senate subcommittees, there could be repercussions. For example, my agency might have to pull its support of the GIS’s efforts to keep your president from getting his head blown off by hard-core extremists on a daily basis.” He paused, took a deep breath. “Asser, you talked about what’s building between the United States and Sudan. Man to man, I’m telling you the situation’s on the verge of exploding, and I’m trying to stop that, even if it means Bashir stays in power, which falls right in line with your own government’s preference. I’m also going to tell you that the damned shipment is still heading into Sudan-just not to its original buyer.”
Kassab hesitated. “To whom, then, is it going?”
“That’s frankly something I might not share with you if I knew,” Andrews said. “But I will advise that you do yourself a favor and cooperate.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. Then, finally, a heavy, resigned sigh. “Where are your chemical workers presently located?”
“Cameroon,” Harper said. “They can be out of Yaounde and on their way to Cairo within twenty-four hours.”
“Very well,” Kassab said. “Please send me their photographs immediately so the corporate identifications can be readied. When they arrive here, I will see to it they are met at the airport and accompanied to Aswan with a special escort. The Nile River Ferry Company runs a daily boat into Wadi Halfa. Although an air shuttle would be faster, the ferry would probably be best as I have personal influence with its ownership.”