Gabriel placed a file on the table and slid it across the divide so that it came to rest in front of Ibrahim. The Egyptian looked down at it for a long moment, then lifted his gaze once more to Gabriel.
“Where did you get this?”
“Where do you think?”
He managed a superior smile. “The Americans, the Jews, and the Egyptian secret police: the unholy trinity. And you wonder why you are loathed by the Arabs.”
“Our time together is limited, Ibrahim. You can waste it delivering another one of your lectures, or you can use it wisely by telling me everything you know about the kidnapping of the American woman.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You’re lying, Ibrahim.”
“I am telling you the truth!”
“You are a member of the Sword of Allah.”
“No, I was a member. I left the Sword when I left Egypt.”
“Yes, I remember. You came to Europe for a better life-isn’t that what you told me? But it isn’t true, is it? You were dispatched to Europe by your friend Sheikh Tayyib to establish an operational cell in Amsterdam. The al-Hijrah Mosque, the West Amsterdam Islamic Community Center: they’re both Sword of Allah fronts, aren’t they, Ibrahim?”
“If I am an active member of the Sword of Allah, then why was I working with your spy, Solomon Rosner? Why did I tell him about the plot to shoot down your jetliner? And why did I warn you about Samir al-Masri and his friends from the al-Hijrah Mosque?”
“All valid questions. And you have exactly thirty minutes to answer them to my satisfaction. Thirty minutes to tell me everything you know about the operation to kidnap Elizabeth Halton. Otherwise, I’ll be asked to leave and the Americans will take over. They’re angry right now, Ibrahim. And you know what happens when Americans get angry. They resort to methods that go against their nature.”
“You Israelis do far worse.”
Gabriel cast a desultory glance at his wristwatch. “You’re wasting time. But then, maybe that’s your plan. You think you can hold out until the deadline expires. Four days is a very long time to hold out, Ibrahim. It cannot be done. Start talking, Ibrahim. Confess.”
“I have nothing to confess.”
His words were spoken with little conviction. Gabriel pressed his advantage. “Tell me everything you know, Ibrahim, or the Americans will take over. And if the Americans don’t get the information they want from you using their methods, they’re going to put you on a plane to Egypt and let the SSI take over the questioning.” He looked at the burn marks on the Egyptian’s arms. “You know all about their methods, don’t you, Ibrahim?”
“The cigarettes were the kindest thing they did to me. Rest assured that nothing you say frightens me. I don’t believe there are any Americans-and I don’t believe anyone’s going to send me to Egypt to be interrogated. I am a citizen of the Netherlands. I have my rights.”
Gabriel leaned back in his chair and thumped the side of his fist twice against the double doors. A moment later Sarah was standing at his side and staring unabashedly at Ibrahim, who averted his gaze in shame and squirmed anxiously in his chair.
“Good evening, Mr. Fawaz. My name is Catherine Blanchard, and I am an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. One mile from here, there is a plane fueled and waiting to take you to Cairo. If you have any further questions, I’ll be right outside the door.”
Sarah left the room and closed the doors behind her. Ibrahim glared at Gabriel in anger.
“How dare you let that woman see me like this?”
“Next time you won’t doubt my word.”
The Egyptian looked down at the file. “What does it say about me?”
“It says you were one of the original members of the first Sword of Allah cell in Minya. It says you were a close associate of Sheikh Tayyib Abdul-Razzaq and his brother, Sheikh Abdullah. It says you organized a terrorist cell at the University of Minya and recruited a number of young students to the radical Islamist cause. It says you wanted to bring down the regime and replace it with an Islamic state.”
“Guilty on all counts,” said Ibrahim. “All but one very important count. There was indeed a Sword cell at the university, but it had nothing to do with terrorism. The Sword of Allah turned to terror only after Sadat’s assassination, not before.” He looked down at the file again. “What else does it say?”
“It says you were arrested the night of Sadat’s murder.”
“And?”
“That’s the last entry.”
“That’s hardly surprising. What happened after my arrest is not something they would want to put down on paper.” Ibrahim looked up from the file. “Would you like to know what happened to me that night? Would you like me to fill in the missing pages of that file you wave in front of me as though it were proof of my guilt?”
“You have thirty minutes to tell me the truth, Ibrahim. You may use them any way you wish.”
“I wish to tell you a story, my friend-the story of a man who lost everything because of his beliefs.”
“I’m listening.”
“May I have some coffee?”
“No.”
“Will you at least remove the handcuffs?”
“No.”
“My arms hurt terribly.”
“Too bad.”
He had been a professor once and spoke like one now. He started his account not with the story of a man but with the struggle of a generation, a generation that had been raised to believe in secular isms-Nasserism, Baathism, Communism, Pan-Arabism, Arab Socialism-only to learn, in June 1967, that all the isms were merely a mask for Arab weakness and decay.
“You were the ones who unleashed the storm,” he said. “The Palestinians had their Catastrophe in forty-eight. For us, it was sixty-seven-six days in June that shook the Arab world to its core. We had been told by Nasser and the secularists that we were mighty. Then you Jews proved in a matter of hours that we were nothing. We went in search of answers. Our search led us home again. Back to Islam.”
“You were in the army in sixty-seven?”
He shook his head. “I’d done my army service already. I was at Cairo University in sixty-seven. Within weeks of the war ending, we organized an illegal Islamist cell there. I was one of its leaders until 1969, when I completed my doctorate in economics. Upon graduation, I had two choices: go to work as a bureaucrat in Pharaoh’s bureaucracy or take a job teaching in Pharaoh’s schools. I chose the latter and accepted a position at the University of Minya in Middle Egypt. Six months later Nasser was dead.”
“And everything changed,” said Gabriel.
“Almost overnight,” Ibrahim said in agreement. “Sadat encouraged us. He granted us freedom and money to organize. We grew our beards. We established youth organizations and charities to help the poor. We did paramilitary training at desert camps funded by the government and Sadat’s wealthy patrons. We lived our lives according to God’s law and we wanted God’s laws to be the laws of Egypt. Sadat promised us that he would institute sharia. He broke his promise, and then he compounded his sins by signing a peace treaty with the Devil, and for that he paid with his life.”
“You approved of Sadat’s assassination?”
“I fell to my knees and thanked God for striking him down.”
“And then the roundups began.”
“Almost immediately,” Ibrahim said. “The state feared that Sadat’s death was only the opening shot of an Islamic revolution that was about to sweep the country. They were wrong, of course, but that didn’t stop them from using the mailed fist against anyone whom they believed was part of the conspiracy or conspiracies to come.”
“They came for you at the university?”