The colonel remained unruffled. “You are a clever man, Mr. Swanson, but you forgot one thing.”
“I forget a lot of things, but nothing important, like whether I’m a spy.”
“You got too close to the spotlight of publicity, sir, when you were helping out the young hero street fighter in the rebellion. I saw your picture with him during the fighting.”
Swanson smirked. He had been wearing the mask. “Bullshit. You’re just fishing now.”
Naqdi unfolded one of the pictures he had downloaded. It showed Abdel El-Din listening to a masked man with a gun over his shoulder. “The rifle, Mr. Swanson. Everybody else out there had out-of-date and common weapons like the AK-47. This man is carrying a 5.56mm Colt-made M-16A3 assault rifle, the latest generation preferred by American Special Forces. I suppose it could have just been there by accident, but I don’t believe so. The masked fellow fits your physique. This is you, Kyle Swanson.”
Swanson laughed aloud. “You are letting your imagination run away with you, Colonel. Somebody with a telephone camera snaps an out-of-focus picture and you come up with a story to match what you want it to be? You’re wrong again, but let’s wrap this up. What do you want?”
“Very well. Have it your way.”
“Chief, could you excuse us for a few minutes? This won’t take long.”
“Should I know what is being said?” The chief was already moving toward the door. This man Swanson was a mystery: a warrior, then a businessman, now becoming something else right before his eyes.
“Probably best that you don’t.”
When the Egyptian had left them alone, Swanson sat down again. “Talk. Get to the point.”
“You know my work as the Pharaoh, so you can assume that I possess an incredible amount of information that I am willing to pass to your government, with a few conditions, such as my safety.”
“Information like what? Sell me.”
Naqdi turned sly and condescending. “You have neither the rank nor the skills to interrogate me, Mr. Swanson. All I want from you is a safe-conduct escort to Washington or London. Inform your superiors that I will give them the inner workings of the Iranian Army of the Guardians to start. From there, we can move on, all the way up to, and including, the nuclear program. Is that enough of a sales job?”
Kyle leaned back in the chair and laced his hands behind his head. God, his neck was in knots. “Well, let me break this to you gently. While you were waiting, I was on the phone with MI6 in London and my boss in Washington. The decision is simple: No deal.”
Naqdi swallowed hard, and his face blanched white. “What are you saying? I insist, no, I demand, to speak with someone higher than you.”
“Too little, too late. Everyone agrees that you are unreliable, untrustworthy, a liar, and that you are just trying to lay down some disinformation fog to save your ass. We doubt that you know anything at all that we don’t already have on file in triplicate in some agency’s file cabinet. As for the paper-shuffling side of things, like with the Palm Group in Cairo, your chum Major Shakuri beat you to it and made his own deal first. He’s giving up everything, and he had been logging your private dealings and secret communications for months. Other sources have cracked your financial network. You’ve got nothing left that we want.”
“You took Shakuri?”
“Yep. Chalk that one up for Dr. Bialy. So we’re done here, you and me. By the way, I really don’t work for the CIA. You know that the United States operates a big-league intelligence and counterterrorism network, Colonel, but it also has a few guys like me — I can go anywhere in the world and do anything I want, no questions asked. So count yourself lucky this morning that I haven’t broken your fat neck right here at this desk, or pitched you off the top of this nice hotel, you arrogant son of a bitch.” Swanson unfolded from the chair and opened the door for the chief to return.
“Take me to the British, then. Let me talk to them!” Naqdi’s voice grew shrill, and he tried to stand, jerking on the handcuffs until the steel cut into his wrist.
“This guy is all yours, Chief. I think he has a lot to answer for to the Egyptian police and military, or you can just mail him back home. The mullahs in Iran would love to talk to him, knowing that he has turned traitor and is peddling all of their secrets.”
The cop unlocked the handcuffs and pulled Naqdi to his feet, saying, “Or perhaps there should be one more firing squad in Sharm el-Sheikh. He should feel how it is to be tied to a post with a bag over his head, like I was.”
“Your choice, sir. It’s not my affair,” Kyle said. “I’m going back to bed.”
32
Egyptian troops flooded into the Sharm airport, disarmed the Iranians, and kept them under loose guard. They were easy prisoners, for they had nowhere to go even if they escaped, and they willingly helped fill the holes in the runway and mixed hot asphalt that would patch it up temporarily. The Egyptians could get around to laying rigid concrete later, but this would be enough to handle the commercial jets that would be used for the exodus back to Iran. Their commander, Brigadier General Medhi Khasrodad, signed the surrender papers in a private meeting and was allowed to stay with his men until they were safely evacuated. The Egyptian and Iranian troops arranged soccer matches for exercise. Khasrodad knew that his military career was over, and he did not really want to return to Tehran, but his family was there. He would not abandon them, although he was certain to be imprisoned and probably executed when he returned. Maybe something could be worked out. He didn’t know.
Abdel El-Din remained in the hospital for a few more days, then went back to work on the beachfront, which was already returning to normal. The still-mending arm wound prevented him from doing a lot of heavy work, but there was still plenty to do because business was phenomenal as tourists and residents flocked to the Gold Sun to see and cheer the hero of the rebellion. After a week, he accepted the invitation of the chief of police to go on a fishing trip for a few days, out on the water and visiting little shoreline villages where no reporters could find them. By the time the trip was over, Abdel had agreed to become a cop.
A short time thereafter, the decayed body of Iranian Colonel Yahya Naqdi was found in a desolate stretch of desert to the north. The corpse sagged against the ropes that lashed it to a tall pole; a hood was over the head, the body was riddled with bullets, and scavenging animals had been feasting. An official notification of his death was sent to Tehran.
Kyle Swanson missed all of that. The day after his private talk with the colonel, and a full ten hours of sleep, he made arrangements through the hotel concierge to go home. A private helicopter was chartered and was waiting for him on the beach in the morning. No more suits, no more local clothes, no more weapons. Today it was back to jeans and sweatshirt and running shoes, and he climbed into the chopper easily, buckling in beside the pilot.
The Red Sea appeared glassy smooth as Kyle looked down from the helicopter at the long thicket of tankers and other vessels that were starting to unsnarl the knot of shipping that had gathered at the mouth of the Suez Canal.
“Oil prices will go down today,” the pilot said over the headphones.
“Take me for a quick tour so I can get a good look,” Kyle replied.
“It’s an hourly rate,” said the pilot, and Swanson replied he didn’t care. His plane would wait. For the next forty-five minutes, they cruised the unchallenged sky in lazy circles, hovering for a few minutes to watch the cleanup crews that had finally contained the oil slick from the sunken tanker.