After securing the suitcases, he removed a package from the trunk, got behind the wheel, and drove away. “Tianha, it’s good to see you again.” The subservient demeanor fell away, replaced by a calm and confident ease.
“And you, Omar. This is Kyle Swanson. Kyle, meet Omar Eissa, formerly a flight sergeant of the Royal Air Force, and our local contact.”
After retiring from the RAF, Omar Eissa had drifted back to Egypt, the homeland of his family until his grandfather had moved to England as a student many years before, and his father had fought against the Nazis in World War II. The reward for the exemplary military service to the crown was British citizenship for the entire Eissa family. In trade, the country had received three generations of strong boys in uniform. Omar had become bored after his retirement from active duty, but he had noticed something in his travels throughout Egypt, something that might be interesting in his less active years.
Tourists and professionals and businesspeople always preferred spotless private vehicles with air-conditioning and a competent, knowledgeable driver who spoke English and other languages to the clattering taxis with open windows and mulish men who smoked vile cigarettes as they drove. The Flighty reached out to old friends and was guided into MI6, which offered financial help to establish a string of hire car agencies throughout Egypt. As a driver himself, he could poke around for intelligence without drawing the attention of the authorities. The more he did it, the more he became just an ordinary piece of the local scenery.
“Ah. The American. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Swanson.” The driver exited the airport and turned toward the city.
“Just call me Kyle. Did you bring a pistol for me?” Kyle saw no point in dancing around the main issue. He wanted to gun up as soon as possible.
Eissa handed the box over his shoulder, and Kyle opened it: a .45 Colt for him and a 9 mm Beretta for Bialy, with spare magazines and a soft shoulder holster for Swanson.
“Terrific,” Kyle said, working the slide and checking the weapon. “Where are we staying tonight?”
“You are in adjoining suites at the Marriott down at the beach. It’s the best hotel around, and they were glad to get the business. To stay in character, you will go directly there now to freshen up, like a couple of normal, exhausted travelers.”
“No argument from me,” said Tianha.
“Right. At six o’clock, you tell the concierge to call my car agency because you have made dinner plans. Then we will do a full ride around town after dark.”
From the backseat, Kyle looked in the mirror at the driver’s dark eyes. “You have something special in mind?”
Eissa grimaced and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Things have been pretty calm around here because the people were making decent livings, and jobs are the best reason there is for not overturning the economy. Also, we are far away from the population centers and the rioting. This morning, however, I came across something rather unusual, and I need your opinion before reporting it to London.”
“What is it?” Swanson asked.
“You’ll have to wait a couple of hours,” Omar replied. “I don’t want to influence your thinking.”
“Come on, pal. Don’t fool around if it’s important.”
“This is my territory, Kyle. I’ll know when to go. I have already driven past it twice, and I don’t want to attract attention.” There was no hesitation in the agent’s voice now. “As for importance, well, let’s just say it could change the entire cricket match.”
Omar pulled beneath the canopy of the Marriott as the sky was purpling just before sundown. A chubby doorman moved forward with a friendly smile, his hands clasped behind his back. He knew Omar, and he knew there would be a five-dollar U.S. tip for him to allow the preferred parking spot.
“Well, what is it tonight, my friend?” The doorman held up his hand. “No, let me guess. You brought that couple in this afternoon, so it’s time for an authentic camel steak and some belly dancing, followed by a romantic stroll on the beach.”
“If we all don’t get murdered in the process,” Omar said, pressing the folded bill into the doorman’s palm. The instability of the country had sent the foreign exchange rate rocketing for the U.S. dollar.
“The fucking revolutionaries are murdering our entire country, Omar. I have heard of no problems around here tonight. Do you require protection? I could get a trustworthy man to ride along, or follow in another car.”
“No, my friend, but thank you. I have an AK-47 on the front floorboard, and my pistol. Anything beyond that, well, we would be dead enough to be no longer concerned. Here come my people now.”
Tianha and Swanson appeared at the door. Before the doorman drifted away back to his post by a small platform, he whispered. “They are booked into separate suites, but I think they are probably sleeping together. There is a connecting door. I will let you know.”
The English woman and the American man were both in cool, casual attire, ready for a night on the town. She wore long sleeves, a traditional black shawl covered her head, and her skirt was modest. Her matching expensive purse carried, out of sight, a pistol and a camera.
“Hello again, Dr. Bialy. Did you have a good rest?” Omar Eissa asked with a slight, polite bow.
“It was excellent, Omar,” she said as she slid into the rear seat of the car. “Just what I needed after that long flight.” Kyle walked around and got in the other side, surveying the scene as he moved. No serious watchers.
As soon as Eissa pulled away from the entrance canopy, they put aside the acting. “Hurghada, as you know, is near the choke point for the Red Sea and the Suez Canal,” he said. “Ship traffic moves freely through the area all the time, which gives it strategic importance. Not to give you a geography lesson, but just to put what you are about to see into proper perspective. Tianha, get your camera ready. We will be there in just a minute.”
They looped south through streets of small, white-walled homes where people lived who could never afford a single night in a luxury hotel. “Omar, Hurghada is just a dot on the map. Sharm would be the defensive bulwark around here because it controls more of the vital waterways,” Bialy said. “I’m as curious as Kyle. What are you talking about?”
The quiet sedan turned onto Al-Farouk, the main coastal highway. “You are absolutely correct. Sharm would be the prize for any real battle, so what do you make of this? Over there at the ten o’clock position.”
A large olive green truck with the markings of the Egyptian Air Force was parked in a turnaround off the highway, its nose facing the sea. It had a stubby little cab, but the broad rear deck and heavy load required three sets of double wheels on the back. Flat on the deck was a rack of four missiles.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Swanson. “Are those Harpoons?”
“Yes. My sources say that the air force bought that particular mobile missile battery system several years ago from the Royal Danish Navy. It is served by a two-man crew, and both of them are over there with it.”
Kyle noticed the truck was not protected by a large guard detail, nor even a stack of sandbags, giving the impression that it had just pulled in there to park temporarily, as if in the middle of a long trip. He heard Tianha’s camera clicking images into the memory chip. “Back in the day, Harpoons were the shit,” he commented. “Over-the-horizon capability and a range of about seventy miles, with a big boom on some ship at the end. Consider that to be a significant threat, boys and girls, and go ahead and report it.”