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Authors: Jim Ingraham

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BOOK: ARAB
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“Of course,” Jaradat said. He crossed his knees and spent several seconds aligning the crease of his trousers with the exact center of his kneecap.

“What I want,” he said, “is a favor.” And getting that out seemed to relieve him of a burden. Faisal believed that playing the supplicant was not easy for this descendent of a dispossessed landed gentry. Whatever his protestations of devotion to the lower classes, he was a blooded aristocrat. Humility was not in the baggage he had inherited from his ancestors.

Why is he watching me with that smug anticipation? To him I am a pig. He probably thinks I always smell like this.

“And what favor is that?” Faisal said.

“From what I understand, this Bashir Yassin is quite a sport. He must be clever. I understand he worked his way out of poverty on a string of scholarships and now parades around as quite a man of parts. He undoubtedly has a very high opinion of himself. Even the police are aware of his ambitions.”

“The police are investigating Bashir Yassin?”

“They have been making inquiries. Probably only because of the girl. Hopefully it’s just routine.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is this girl?”

“I believe you know, Mr. Ibrahim,” Jaradat said. “Let’s not pretend we don’t understand each other. Nobody blames you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why are the police investigating Bashir Yassin?”

“He was seen with the daughter of a high government official. It was just routine, I’m sure. It is nothing to worry about.” As though to ease things by changing the subject, he said, “I have to congratulate you for getting into the country undetected. Since the assault on America, security has tightened.”

“Did the police tell you that Bashir Yassin works for me?”

“Oh, no. I’ve known that for some time. So far as I can learn, the police are ignorant of any connection between you and Bashir Yassin. That’s one reason I chose you.”

Faisal studied the complacent little face across the table. You
chose
me, you arrogant son of a bitch? What am I, a fig you pluck off a tree?

“And the other reason?”

“Let me explain what I want,” Jaradat said, leaning forward, forearms on his thighs. “And don’t take offense. This is simply business. Bashir Yassin works for you. He therefore is associated with a wanted terrorist.”

“I’m not a terrorist!”

“You have sold arms to Osama bin Laden. That’s enough for the police. But let me continue. His association with you makes him vulnerable. If the police were to learn of it, he could go to prison for life.”

“And I would be taken down with him,” Faisal said.

“I have no desire to hurt you.”

“Then why these threats? Why Bashir Yassin? Why me?”

“Because you are uniquely qualified.”

“To do what?”

“I want Bashir Yassin brought down to earth. I want him…. How should I say? Reconverted? Yes. I want him subdued, brought down off his high horse. That friend of yours in Mokattam, the Coptic who hides rifles and other war materials for you—”

Faisal pretended to be offended. “You think I deal with garbage collectors?”

“I know you do, Mr. Ibrahim. And I’m not criticizing you. I think it’s ingenious to hide your weapons in garbage heaps. Who wants to poke around rutting pigs looking for an arms cache?”

That one of his hiding places had been compromised didn’t surprise Faisal. There wasn’t an organization in the entire Islamic community that hadn’t been penetrated. What was this leading to?

“Years ago, before you broke away from Abu Nidal in Libya, you gained a reputation,” Jaradat said. “I believe the place was called ‘Station 16,’ a place devoted, let us say, to military discipline.”

“I know nothing of that place,” Faisal said. “Those stories are lies.”

“Of course,” Jaradat said. “But let’s say that you’re acquainted with the methods used there—the beatings, the tortures and other subtleties of persuasion.”

Faisal was tiring of this. It’s bad to be insulted; it’s worse to be patronized. It was obvious what this was leading to.

“And you want me to turn Bashir Yassin into an assassin?”

“I didn’t say that. But the idea shocks you?”

“Nothing shocks me, Colonel.”

“You don’t think it’s hypocrisy?”

Faisal laughed. “Do you care?”

A faint blush came to Jaradat’s cheeks: he had revealed a weakness. To hide his embarrassment he got up and put his hands in his pockets and walked to the window.

At least he cares what I think of him, Faisal thought, amused. He disliked men like Jaradat. Like others of his kind, Jaradat fronts for the poor only to restore himself to power. He pretends to revere the memory of Abd el-Nasir, but he despises everything the revolutionary stood for. Of course he’s a hypocrite. They’re all hypocrites.

“He’s very clever and very ambitious,” Jaradat said. “It won’t be enough to extract a promise from him. He’ll promise anything. He needs to be broken. He needs to realize that he’s a filthy animal. Can you do it in two weeks?”

“I can’t do it at all, Colonel. I’m no longer active. I’m retired. I’m a sick man. Why go to all this trouble over Bashir Yassin? There are assassins on every street corner. Tell them it’s for Allah and they’ll beg for the job.”

“No,” Jaradat said, simply and decisively. “It’s not what I want him for.”

He came back to the chair and sat down, crossed his knees and leaned forward, making himself a little bundle of concentration. “It is not necessary for you to know why I want Yassin subdued. I want you to bring him to me a broken man. That’s all you have to know.”

“Why don’t you offer him money? I hear he’s in debt to half the banks in Cairo.”

“Yes, he has debts. But he is too comfortable in his present role. This gutter rat thinks he has become an aristocrat just because he wears Italian suits and speaks English.”

“You have offered him money?”

“It would go straight into a foreign bank and he would move to England. It is his dream, I’m told, to embark on his own, perhaps to take over some of your enterprises.”

“You seem to know a lot about this man,” Faisal said.

“As do you,” and gave that a moment. “I have my sources. But let’s concentrate on the present. He needs to be broken. He needs to have this false respectability scraped off his flesh. He needs to be taught who he really is. He needs to learn obedience.”

A savagery glinted in Jaradat’s eyes that surprised even Faisal. No one in the Arab world would recognize the Colonel Mustapha Jaradat of this moment, this symbol of non-violence, this Martin Luther King of Egypt. And he wants me to produce this assassin so that, if it fails, I will be blamed, not him.

“Why don’t you threaten to kill his family?”

“Do you know that he has one? Besides, I don’t operate like that,” Jaradat said.

But you think I do, Faisal thought. “I wish I could help you, Colonel.”

“I won’t threaten you, Mr. Ibrahim. That’s not my way. But you will do what I ask. And you will be glad I have given you this opportunity, believe me.”

“You’re threatening me? You’d turn me over to the police?”

“It helps my cause to do favors for our president. He would enjoy announcing to the world that you’ve been captured, and I can always use his gratitude. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to employ you.”

Again Faisal was insulted. I am not something to be rented like a camel! I can defy this man. I can rise out of this chair and defend my honor. But what would it get me? If the police find out I’m in Cairo, they’ll hang me. Where can I hide? No country will take me in.

“I can bring you out of hiding,” Jaradat said. “After you have performed this little favor for me, I can persuade the government to leave you in peace. I promise they will respect your retirement so long as you obey the law and remain in obscurity. Remember, if I could find you in that cemetery, so can the police. Once you are in custody, no one can help you. Once the world finds out you’re in Egypt, you are doomed. Our president is not going to let the world know he is harboring a man who supplies arms to terrorists, especially in these times. The United States would take away his two billion dollar annual subsidy. That idiot Osama Bin Laden has placed us all in jeopardy. However, if you want to retire quietly and live the remainder of your life in peace—”

Faisal sagged into the cushions of his chair. It was true. He had no options. He had offended too many leaders, broken too many agreements, betrayed too many friends. Like the Jackal, he had become a weakened old man begging for sanctuary. And possibly, just possibly, if he did this one thing, people would leave him alone.

He thought of Afaf puttering around her dusty tomb waiting to die. He closed his eyes. Am I an Afaf?

He sighed wearily. “What is it you want Yassin to do?”

“That needn’t concern you. Just bring him to me broken in spirit. That’s all I ask.”

As they walked to the door at the far end of the room, Jaradat said, “Remember, when you have done what I want, I will take you to a safehouse where you can live out the rest of your life in peace and comfort, no longer in fear of the police. In the meantime, my men will take you to that cemetery for your things, then bring you to a villa where you will be under my protection.”

Outside in the hall, Jaradat paused and looked intently into Faisal’s eyes, watching for a reaction. “The girl Bashir has recently been seen with,” he said, obviously having waited until the last minute to spring this, “is the daughter of Aziz Al-Khalid, Special Deputy to the Minister of the Interior.”

Faisal felt blood drain from his face. He stared hard at Jaradat, and Jaradat seemed pleased by what he saw. He turned and walked back into the large room and closed the door.

Faisal was weeping openly when he joined the two men outside at the car. He had intended to demand the return of his pistol and to find out who the woman was who had come with these men to the cemetery. But he could make no demands of anyone. He was totally absorbed in memories of his son. He got into the car with the two men who had picked him up. The woman was not with them. He allowed himself to be blindfolded. He could feel pain in his chest. He didn’t care. He didn’t care that these men had seen tears flowing down his face. All he could think about was the boy in the white sheets with the rope burn on his neck.

Since the death of his son he had not allowed the name Aziz al-Khalid to be spoken in his presence. He had shot a man once who had taunted him with that name.

*

 

The boy, Abdullah, had escaped to England and had been working two months in a London bakery when he was warned by a girl from a nearby pub that the police were looking for him. Other than the girl and the owner of the bakery, he had no friends in England. He had no money, no passport. No one knew he was wanted in Egypt for conspiracy in the murder of President Anwar al-Sadat. Although he was part of a group that had carried out the assassination, he was not with them when the president was shot.

He was innocent! He was an innocent naïve boy! He hadn’t even known that an assassination had been planned!

And there had been nothing Faisal could do. His organization had not expanded to England. The boy had no sanctuary. He had only a vague memory of a conversation with a Palestinian guerrilla who had told him about a professor at the London School of Economics. He remembered nothing about the man except his name—Professor Aziz al-Khalid. In desperation he contacted Professor al-Khalid and was invited to his home, was fed and given a bedroom to use. He believed he was safe! But when the boy was asleep, this jackal, this Aziz al-Khalid phoned the Egyptian embassy. Within days, the boy was in Cairo and, after weeks of torture and interrogation, he was hanged.

*

 

I am not dead! Faisal told himself. It is Abdullah who is dead. It is my son who has been dead these many years! And I sit here whimpering and feeling sorry for myself! Am I a woman? Am I an Afaf?

He tore the scarf from his face. “I don’t need a veil,” he yelled at the tall bearded man, who reached out to restrain him. “I am not a woman.”

The tall man pushed him back against the cushions, then released him. “
Malesh,
” he said, “It doesn’t matter.”

Faisal lay back in the seat, his heart racing, but not out of fear. Jaradat obviously knows about my hatred of Aziz Al-Khalid, and he probably wants me to murder the girl’s father. Has Aziz become an obstacle? He couldn’t buy his loyalty?

Faisal stared through tears at the neck of the driver, remembering the scarred and broken neck of the boy resting on the burial sheets—the innocent face, the closed eyes, the closed lips of his beloved son.

As the car entered the cemetery, Faisal searched the narrow streets. As he had hoped, there were no cars in sight, no people, just littered pavement and pale walls and small buildings shrouded in darkness.

The moment the car stopped and the tall man opened the door, that giant old friend Diab and three others stepped out of the shadows, all holding rifles. A fifth man jumped onto the hood of the car and aimed an Ingram submachinegun at the driver.

Faisal raised his chin and squared his shoulders. He was again a leader of men. He stood directly in front of the tall man, reached up and slapped his face. “You come to my house. You insult me, you filthy pig!” He slapped him again, aware that his men were watching. “You tell your colonel I will be respected! By him! By anyone he sends to me! You tell him that.”

The man glanced at the rifle in Diab’s hands.

“My pistol,” Faisal said.

“I don’t have it. I left it back there. I just do what I’m told.”

“Now you will do what
I
say!” Faisal yelled. “You will tell me the name of the woman who came here with you.”

“I don’t know her. He doesn’t know her,” tilting his head toward the driver. “We never saw her before. She just showed us how to get here. As God—”

Again Faisal slapped the man’s face.

“You tell your colonel I want my pistol back and I want the name of the woman. I choose to do what he wants. Tell him that. And tell him I’ll contact him when I am ready. And don’t use my pistol. If it is used and it leads the police to me, you will die.”

BOOK: ARAB
6.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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