Countdown in Cairo (38 page)

“I thought they were two minutes behind us,” Alex said.

“He must have hauled ass and caught up,” McWhorter said. “Anyway, he’s here. That’s good.”

“We’re going around back,” Len said.

“Good thing,” she said.

On the side of the building, at the base of the wall, a man was lying down. Dead? Rotting in the sunlight and heat? Sleeping? Faking? She didn’t know.

Len turned the corner. The back of the building was void of people and vehicles. A good sign. She scanned. Nowhere to take a shot from either.

No trees, just sand.

She looked carefully, keeping the Beretta in her palm.

She checked her veil to make sure it was secure.

Len came in close to the building. Then they rolled to a halt. She flicked a glance through the car’s rear window. The backup vehicle came around the corner and stopped about twelve feet away. She glanced at it carefully, then turned to McWhorter.

“Are the right people in that car?” she asked.

He looked, squinting. The driver gave a thumbs-up signal.

“Yeah. We’re cool,” he said.

McWhorter put a hand of support and caution on her shoulder.

“I know it’s not in the plan, but do you want me to go through that door first?” he asked.

“That would give us away, wouldn’t it?”

“It might, but—”

“I’ll be okay,” she said, hand on the door.

“Good luck,” Len said.

“Yeah,” McWhorter added.

She gave him a nod. Then she was out the door, prim and proper, like a middle-class Arab woman calling on a medical facility.

For some reason, her feet felt strange on the sand. Must have been her slippers. The heat radiated upward. She carried her bag. A change of clothes. The gun remained in her palm. The steel door was a few feet away. Somehow she felt more vulnerable out in the open, even though if this operation were tainted, a volley of bullets might lurk on the other side of the door.

She moved quickly. The Egyptian sun pounded down. Ra the sun god wasn’t a benign spirit.

The service entrance was unlocked, a dull steel door that could have been pulled off its hinges by any strong man or woman. She pulled it open and glanced back. The Marines gave her a final wave.

Suddenly, she liked them a lot and missed them. They weren’t hillbilly tourists with guns anymore. They were big brothers-in-arms.

She entered the morgue. Stench assaulted her nostrils. Formaldehyde, disinfectant, rotting flesh. The aroma of ugly death.

She hadn’t been ready for it. She gagged.

Okay
,
memory. Don’t fail on me.

She steadied herself. She had memorized the directions to the office of Dr. Badawi.

End of the corridor
,
turn left. Follow that corridor about ten feet
,
turn right. Ignore everyone. If spoken to
,
don’t talk. What the heck could I say
,
anyway? “Loved your pyramids? Hated your radioactive crystals.”

She traveled through a warren of dingy corridors. She picked up signs that would lead her to the medical examiner’s station. There were voices and sounds from adjoining rooms. Mostly in Arabic. Nothing good. Some wailing. Some fool was playing music.

Supplies were stacked up in the corridor. There were two body bags, both looked full. Cadavers on top of each other. Small. Probably children. She shuddered. It was hot. Humid. Fetid.

She passed two nurses who eyed her strangely but didn’t speak. Proper ID? She noticed quickly. No one had anything. What was proper ID in a place like this? A scalpel? Bloodstains? A pulse?

Then she arrived. An office, door opened, just where it was supposed to be. Cluttered. Much noise from adjoining chambers. Some piece of heavy equipment was rumbling.

A heavy saw? Were they cutting a body? She cringed again. She couldn’t wait to get out of here.

She found Dr. Muhammad Badawi at the desk in his office. He looked up when she arrived at the door but said nothing for a moment. Then, “Yes?” he asked in English, suspicious.

“I’m Signora Ijerra from Rome,” she said. “I believe you know my brother.”

“I believe I do,” he said. A long pause. “You’re alone?” he asked.

She glanced over her shoulder up and down the corridor.

No one.

“I’m alone,” she said.

He made a motion with his head, indicating that he would follow and she should lead. He passed her and entered the corridor, bringing her along.

“I believe your brother is en route,” he said. American educated, she could tell instantly from his accent. Her feverish nerves eased slightly. He spoke good English and, even better, spoke it softly.

“I believe so. Brother Gian Antonio.”

“Yes,” he said.

Dr. Badawi led her to an adjoining chamber two doors down. They went through a door and entered the room together. It was an examining room of sorts, combined with storage. Supplies and a sink, a couple of guttered tables in a disgraceful state of nonhygiene. On a shelf above a side table were three jars with bodies of stillborn human infants floating in amber liquid. She gagged and tried to keep her thoughts on the task at hand.

There was a gurney in the middle of the room and a beige body bag on it. There were also two sheets, white and folded.

He closed the door. “You know what to do?” he said.

“I know.”

“You’re very brave.”

“I just look that way. I’m terrified.”

“That’s how I feel every day,” he said. “You prepare yourself. I’m going to leave to give you privacy. When I come back in, I’ll apply some fine powder to your face and then some wax. I apologize but it will be necessary.”

“I understand,” she said.

He nodded. Then he turned and left the room. She drew a breath, then pulled off her dress. She stepped out of her slippers and removed her bra. Why, oh why in instances like this did she always absurdly think of her mother’s advice from twenty-five years ago:

Always wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident …

She grabbed the first sheet and wrapped it around herself. She kept it snug, but not so tight that she couldn’t keep her gun in her palm.

She pulled herself up onto the table and slid into the body bag the way she had slid into a sleeping bag as a twelve-year-old kid at camp. She lay back. She heard voices in the hall and then a hand on the doorknob. She heard the door open but couldn’t see it.

Someone said something nasty-sounding in Arabic, and then the door closed. She hoped it was Dr. Badawi.

More footsteps. They approached the gurney where Alex lay flat and motionless, her eyes closed.

A hand settled on her shoulder. She was careful not to flinch.

“It’s all right, Josephine,” an Arab voice said. “Open your eyes.”

She opened her eyes a third of the way, then the rest. Dr. Badawi stood over her. “Your friends, Rizzo and his two cohorts, they’ve arrived. They will be viewing your body in a few minutes. You’re calm?”

“As much as possible under the circumstances,” she said.

“I’m going to dress your face slightly now,” he said.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Keep your eyes closed, breath evenly and lightly.”

She closed her eyes. She tried to ease into almost a light trance. The doctor ran a brush with powder across all parts of her face, from the hairline down across the neck. He adjusted the sheet to shroud her neckline, then readjusted it.

“I’m going to put a piece of gauze in here also. That’s standard.”

He pulled it over her face.

“You can breathe?” he asked.

She gave a slight nod.

“Good,” he said. He pulled it away.

Then, distantly, she heard voices in the next room. She recognized Rizzo’s. It sounded as if he were arguing with someone. Not unusual. Dr. Badawi told her he was going to get an attendant to wheel the gurney. The attendant, he said, was a technician who was not in on the ruse. Alex would have to keep still.

She remained silent. The doctor zipped the bag. Alex felt the zipper slide over her face and head. She opened her eyes just enough to see a crack of light from a six-inch gap where he had left the bag open.

A wave of claustrophobia was upon her, almost as bad as the time she had been trapped in old tunnels under Madrid. She fought the feeling. She suppressed the deep desire to push her way out of this bag. Yet she had disrobed, wrapped herself in sheets, and climbed in voluntarily. And if everything went right, this would be over in ten minutes.

And if it doesn’t go right?
she asked herself.

Don’t go there!
she answered.

She heard Dr. Badawi walk away, leave the room, and then return a few moments later with a second pair of footsteps. She heard them talking. The doctor was with a woman and they spoke Arabic. Alex guessed that the woman was a nurse, maybe one of the suspicious ones she had passed in the corridors. Alex felt deeply vulnerable. She was in darkness but kept still.

Then the gurney began to move. She knew that she was going on display before Rizzo and two other men in the next room. She tried to steady her minimal breathing. At the same time she felt that her heart was kicking so loudly that they could probably hear it in Cairo, even above the din of traffic.

Then her gurney was moving on the uneven floor.

FORTY-SEVEN

She heard a steel door to the visiting room rattle and felt her gurney being pushed forward. The room tone changed.

She heard voices. First Rizzo. Then Colonel Amjad. Then the embassy guy whom she hardly knew.

She heard the door close, and she knew she was on center stage. The room fell silent, and the gurney stopped moving.

The doctor spoke in English as she heard the clinician step back and keep her distance.

“Which of you is—?” Dr. Badawi began.

“I’m Rizzo,” she heard Rizzo say, his voice slightly muffled and disembodied, listening as she was from within the bag. The interpreter from the embassy explained who everyone was. He spoke in Arabic and English, and Alex wished she could understand the Arabic.

“Who will do the identification?” Dr. Badawi asked.

“I will,” said Rizzo. “So let’s get it done.”

“As you wish.”

The doctor reached to the zipper. He pulled it gently open, lengthwise across the body. He stopped just past Alex’s chin. She held her breath. She kept her eyes closed as someone lifted the thin gauzy fabric away from her face. She felt a hand land on the gurney and assumed it was Rizzo’s.

“Oh, my dear Lord,” she heard him mutter low and in Italian. “Oh, no …”

“This is the woman you were working with?” Dr. Badawi asked. “The American woman who was missing?”

Several seconds of silence. She wondered if she could sneak a breath. She tried not to. Another moment passed. She heard Rizzo answer.

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

“You’re certain?” the doctor pressed.

Come on
, she thought.
Get it over
. She couldn’t hold her breath forever.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m certain.”

“You knew her personally?” the doctor asked. “Or professionally?”

“Both,” Rizzo said.

Please
,
please
,
please. Close the canvas. At least put the gauze back.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she heard Rizzo say. There was more silence. She knew everyone was staring at her. Then something happened.

There was commotion. Colonel Amjad must have done something because she heard Rizzo getting very angry, and she could feel the vibrations of some sort of scuffle.

“Have some bloody decency, would you!” she heard Rizzo shoot back. “You keep your hands off this woman’s body or I’ll rip your arms out of their sockets! Understand me?”

There was an ominous pause.

“You tell him that!” Rizzo snapped to someone, she assumed Ghalid, the interpreter. “And make bloody well sure he understands!”

Ghalid urgently spoke Arabic to the other man.

“I was only making sure,” Colonel Amjad said.

“Making sure? Making sure of
what
? We’re in the blasted morgue!” she heard Rizzo roar. “What more do you want? A severed head? A bullet hole you can put your fist in?”

Zip the bag. I can’t keep holding my breath. Zip me back in!

“All right,” Amjad finally said to Rizzo.

“Too bloody true, ‘all right,’ “ Rizzo said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Someone swiftly rezipped the bag. The hand pulled the zipper all the way shut. Alex was in near darkness and a second surge of claustrophobia hit her. But other hands reached to the bag and pulled the zipper back down six inches and left it there.

“There is some paperwork,” Dr. Badawi said in English to his visitors.

Rizzo spoke softly. “Of course,” he said. “Paperwork. Always. The world could come to an end but there would be paperwork even if no one were left to complete it.”

The doctor turned to his assistant. “I’ll take it from here,” he said in Arabic, dismissing the technician. Alex heard the technician walk away. She heard the steel door open and clack shut.

“You’ve done a good thing by coming out here,” Dr. Badawi said, presumably to Rizzo. “A quarter of the deceased out here are never identified. The medical authorities tell me they had to bury six hundred unknowns since January of this year, unidentified and unclaimed.”

“Typical,” Rizzo mumbled.

The doctor answered, “This had been a fairly routine day until you arrived.”

“I’m honored,” Rizzo grumbled.

Her heart started to settle slightly. The worst was most likely over. Now if she could just get out of this horrible sack of death. Rizzo seemed to be rustling some papers.

“The United States Embassy in Cairo has started procedures to retrieve her body,” Ghalid explained softly. “However, it might take several days. So—”

“We’re taking the body with us today,” Rizzo said. “I’m not leaving without it.”

“That would be quite impossible, sir,” the doctor said.

“Nothing’s impossible,” Rizzo said. “Make it happen. We owe it to this woman to get her physical remains back to her country of origin. I’m acting on behalf of the Italian government and the government of the United States. I’m not leaving without her,” he said again. “And Mr. Bassiri from the American Embassy has brought the proper paperwork.”