Taha went on thinking along these lines until he pushed open the door of the office and warily entered. Inside he found two brothers waiting — Brother Dr. Mahgoub, who was a veterinarian of over forty, one of the pioneering generation that had founded the Gamaa Islamiya in the 1970s, and Brother Abd el Shafi, from the Fayoum, who had been a law student at Cairo University, then was repeatedly detained and hunted by Security till he abandoned his studies and came to live in the camp. Taha shook their hands affectionately and the three of them sat talking of general matters, though inwardly all of them felt anxiety and foreboding. Sheikh Bilal arrived, shook hands with them, embraced them warmly, and said as he looked at them with a smile on his face, “Youth of Islam, this is your day. The Gamaa’s Consultative Council has chosen you to go out on an important operation.”
A moment of silence passed. Then the brothers shouted “There is no god but God!” and embraced one another in happiness, the most joyful of all being Taha, who shouted out “Praise be to God! God is great!” The sheikh’s smile widened and he said, “Bravo! God bless you and increase you in faith! This is why the enemies of Islam tremble in fear of you — because you love death as they love life!”
His face resumed its serious expression and he sat at the desk, spread a large sheet of paper out in front of him, and said, searching in the pocket of his gallabiya for a pen, “We don’t have much time. The operation has to be carried out at 1 P.M. today or we’ll have to wait a whole month at least. Sit down, boys, and give me all your attention.”
Two hours later a small truck loaded to the brim with cylinders of cooking gas was making its way toward the Feisal area in the Pyramids district. In the driver’s seat was Dr. Mahgoub and next to him Taha el Shazli. Brother Abd el Shafi had taken up position among the cylinders piled in the back of the truck. They had shaved off their beards and dressed themselves as workers distributing gas, the plan being for them to carry out a visual inspection of the site at least one hour before the operation, then stay in the street in a perfectly normal way until the National Security officer left his house. In the time between his exiting the door of the apartment block and his getting into his car, they were supposed to delay him by any means available to them, then open fire with the three automatic rifles hidden under the driver’s seat. They were also provided with stern additional instructions. If the officer was able to get into his car before the plan had been implemented, they were to cut him off with their truck, then throw their whole supply of hand grenades at him at once, abandon the truck, and each run in a different direction firing into the air so that no one would pursue them. If they suspected that they were being observed, Dr. Mahgoub (as the emir of the group) had the right to call off the operation immediately, in which case they were to leave the truck in any side street and return to the camp separately using public transport.
As soon as the truck entered the Feisal area, it reduced speed and Brother Abd el Shafi started banging with his wrench on the gas cylinders to announce their arrival to the residents. A few women came to their balconies and windows and called out to the truck, which stopped more than once, Abd el Shafi carrying the cylinders to the residents, taking the money, and returning to the truck with the empties; these were the instructions of Sheikh Bilal, who was concerned that they have good cover. The truck arrived at Akif Street where the officer lived and a woman asked for a cylinder from her balcony, so Abd el Shafi took it to her. This provided an opportunity for Mahgoub and Taha to inspect the place at their leisure. The officer’s car — a blue, late-seventies Mercedes — was waiting in front of the entrance to the building. Mahgoub carefully studied the distances, the neighboring shops, and the exits and entrances. When Abd el Shafi returned, the truck sped off to a point away from the site, where Dr. Mahgoub looked at his watch and said, “We have a whole hour. What do you say to a glass of tea?”
He spoke in a cheerful voice as though to instill confidence into them. The truck stopped in front of a small cafe in a neighboring street, where the three sat and drank mint tea. Their appearance was completely ordinary and incapable of provoking any suspicion. Mahgoub noisily sucked tea from his glass and said, “Praise God, everything’s okay.”
Taha and Abd el Shafi responded in a low voice, “Praise God.”
“Did you know that the brothers in the Gamaa Council have been watching the target for a whole year?” he whispered.
“A whole year?” asked Taha.
“I swear, an entire year. Investigations are difficult because the high-ranking officers in National Security go to enormous lengths to conceal themselves. They use more than one name, have more than one residence, and sometimes they move with their families from one furnished apartment to another, all of which makes it almost impossible to get to them.”
“What’s the officer’s name, Brother Mahgoub?”
“You’re not supposed to know.”
“I understand that it’s forbidden, but I’d like to know.”
“What difference would his name make to you?”
Taha fell silent, then looked at Mahgoub for a moment and said irritably, “Brother Mahgoub, we’ve started the gihad for real and maybe God will honor us with martyrdom and our souls will rise together to their maker. So can’t you trust me a little, as we stand at death’s door?”
Taha’s words had an impact on Mahgoub, who was very fond of him, so he said in a low voice, “Salih Rashwan.”
“Colonel Salih Rashwan?”
“A criminal, an unbeliever, and a butcher. He used to take pleasure in supervising the torture of Islamists and he’s the one directly responsible for the killing of many brothers in detention. In fact, he killed with his own revolver two of the best of the youth of Islam, Brother Hassan el Shubrasi, the emir of Fayoum, and Dr. Muhammad Rafi’, the Gamaa’s spokesman. He boasted of killing them in front of the brothers in detention at the El ‘Aqrab prison — may God have mercy on our innocent martyrs, bring them to dwell in the mansions of His paradise, and unite us with them without mishap, if God wills!”
At five minutes to one the gas truck pulled up on the other side of the street from the entrance to the apartment building. Abd el Shafi got down, went up to the driver’s cabin, took a small notebook out of his pocket, and pretended to go over the accounts with Mahgoub, the driver. The two of them busied themselves with an audible discussion of the number of cylinders sold, appearing entirely natural, while Taha grasped the door handle in readiness. The entrance to the building was in clear view in front of him and he felt as though his heart was almost bursting it was beating so hard. He tried hard to focus his mind on a single point, but a roaring cataract of images swept through his mind’s eye and a minute passed in which he saw his whole life scene by scene — his room on the roof of the Yacoubian Building, his memories of his childhood and his good-hearted mother and father, his old sweetheart Busayna el Sayed, his wife Radwa, the general in charge of the Police Academy condemning him for his father’s profession, and the soldiers in the detention center beating him and violating his body. He burned with longing to know whether this was the officer who had supervised his torture in detention, but he had not been frank with Mahgoub about this desire in case the latter should feel uneasy about him and exclude him from the operation. Taha kept staring at the building entrance, the memories rushing past in front of him, and then the officer appeared. He looked the way they had described him — portly, with a pale complexion, the traces of sleep and his hot bath still on his face, walking calmly and confidently, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.