“You’re right. But this was no coincidence either.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll find out.”
“You’re right about that too. Whoever it is, they made a grave mistake putting us in their crosshairs.”
“Tell me what you see.” The man passed his binoculars to the driver.
He took the Bushnell binoculars and peered through it. The powerful magnification produced a sharp close-up image even through the BMW’s windshield. They had a clear view of the entrance to the Castle coffee shop from the Nile City Fairmont parking lot.
“He’s standing outside the shop, talking to the woman,” the driver said.
The man shook his gray-haired head.
“No, you see two brave soldiers ready for a fight.”
His voice showed clear disappointment. After so many years in the Islamic Fighting Alliance, the driver still failed to see beyond what was in front of his eyes. “They still have their weapons drawn?”
“They do,” the driver replied.
“Our men have become martyrs now.” The man’s voice held no regret. “Good thing they were our least talented shooters. They served their purpose.”
“You don’t think we went too far?” The driver raised the binoculars to his eyes. Justin and Carrie were now pacing in front of the Castle.
“No. We want to make this fight personal. Revenge is a powerful motivator. In this way, they’ll be more eager. More dedicated. That’s exactly what we want.”
Faint police sirens sounded in the distance.
“I’ve seen enough. Let’s go,” the man ordered his driver while looking to his right for police cars. “It’s time to brief Sheikh Ayman and play our next card.”
Chapter Two
George Patterson was struggling to establish a videoconference connection with the CIS headquarters in Ottawa. He kept pressing keyboard buttons and plugging and unplugging wires into the back of his laptop. Despite his efforts, no images appeared on the plasma screen of the Maple Leaf Conference Room.
George was the CIS Cairo Station Chief and Justin’s direct supervisor, at least in terms of administration. For operations work, Justin and Carrie still reported to Claire Johnson. They had returned to their jobs with the Cairo Station last year, after a CIS internal inquiry had cleared them of any misconduct during a hostage rescue operation in Libya. The inquiry was completed right after the Arctic Wargame mission that almost claimed their lives.
Sitting across the square table from George, Justin mulled over the evening’s events. As soon as Carrie had finished retrieving all their documents and gear from the Castle, the mukhabarat arrived at the scene. Of course they did not buy the agents’ implausible cover story, according to which two employees of the Canadian Cultural Agency in Egypt had survived a shootout with barely a scratch. Justin and Carrie claimed they found the guns in the coffee shop where they were having dinner and used them in self-defense. Their explanation was unlikely, but that was their cover story and they were going to stick to it. The mukhabarat confiscated their guns and interrogated them for a few minutes. Once Justin produced two Canadian diplomatic passports, the mukhabarat had little choice but to escort them to their embassy.
The Canadian Embassy was in the lush neighborhood of Garden City, one of the safest neighborhoods in the capital. It was always crawling with Egyptian uniformed police, security contractors, and secret agents. The CIS station occupied several offices in the east wing of the embassy. It had its own entrance, parking lot, and security system. The station served the intelligence and operative needs of the entire North Africa. It was run in a quasi-independent manner from the rest of the embassy — mainly for “plausible deniability” purposes — but still under the umbrella of diplomatic immunity.
“Here, I think I got something,” George said as a bright blue light flashed on the plasma screen.
“Great,” Carrie replied with a sigh. Sitting next to Justin, she was impatiently drumming her fingers on the edge of the desk, swinging in her swivel chair. “That was only what, ten minutes?”
George ignored her and clicked a few more buttons. Then he proudly pressed the Enter key. The image on the screen changed. The three of them gazed at Johnson’s long and narrow face, distorted because of how she hunched over the camera at her work station.
“Hello, Ms. Johnson, can you hear me?” George asked.
“Yes, yes, I can hear you. I’ve been waiting here for a while.”
“Hmmm, we had some technical difficulties with the connection, but, we’re, eh… we’re good to go now.”
“All right. I see you have Justin and Carrie there. How are you two holding up?”
“We’re fine,” Justin said.
“Everything’s good,” Carrie added with a nod.
“OK, now tell me what happened exactly? Your e-mail was quite short.” Johnson spread her hands.
“We were at the Castle conducting surveillance when we were ambushed.” Justin leaned over his folded hands with his elbows resting on the table.
“I know that much already,” Johnson said.
“Those are all the facts we have so far. I suspect the shooters were from the Alliance, since Cairo has always been their home.”
“The Alliance?” Johnson asked. “Why the ambush if their sheikh was meeting with us?” She frowned while pondering the answer.
“One possibility is that the ambush was the purpose of this so-called ‘meeting,’ to lure us into their trap,” Justin said.
He glanced at Carrie and his eyes caught a slight jerk of her left hand. He nodded for her to speak her mind.
“One theory is that Rahim sold us out and helped stage the attack,” Carrie said.
“Really? What evidence do you have for that?” Johnson asked.
Carrie shrugged. “None, it’s a theory.”
“I noticed a suspicious car parked by the Castle and asked Rahim to check it out,” Justin added. “Two of the shooters escaped using the same car.”
Johnson absorbed the information. “So Rahim never checked the car?”
“He sent his nephew, presumably.”
Johnson did not ask why Justin was not sure if Rahim’s nephew had searched the car. She probably concluded he disappeared or died before I could talk to him, Justin thought.
“Who is dead?” asked Johnson.
“Rahim, his nephew, and two shooters. I also wounded one of the passengers as the car sped away. She should die soon, if she’s not already dead.”
Johnson’s eyes remained still despite the coldness in Justin’s voice.
“I don’t get it,” Johnson said, “if Rahim, and maybe his nephew, sold us out, how come they’re both dead?”
“I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re asking.” Justin said. “They both got popped during the shootout. I can’t really tell whether if it was by error or on purpose.”
Johnson nodded and a few strands of her gray hair came loose. “I want you to find out the identities of these shooters and their motives,” she said softly, removing a pin from her hair and fixing her stubborn curls. “Then—”
A knock on her office door interrupted her.
“Yes, come in.” Johnson turned to her left.
A man’s voice could be heard, but he was outside the camera’s angle, and his words were unintelligible. But Justin could read Johnson’s facial expression. It went from shock to awe and then to doubt in a matter of seconds. Before he could ask anything, she said, “Justin, I’ve got to check something urgent here. I’ll put you on hold for a few seconds, OK?”
“That’s fine,” Justin said. He had no other option.