The Burning Gates (25 page)

‘That’s the one.’

‘I didn’t even know he was married.’

‘The world is full of mystery. Shall I go up?’

‘Sure, go ahead. But the lift isn’t working. You’ll have to take the stairs.’

‘Just my luck. What floor is it?’

‘Second floor. No need to complain.’ He put his head down again. Makana started off in the direction of the staircase, stopped and returned to the counter. The receptionist forced his eyes open again.

‘Now what?’

‘I just thought. What if he’s asleep? You know, he sounded like he’d already been through one of these. You know what these Americans are like.’

‘So leave it here. I told you, I’ll make sure he gets it.’

‘On my eyes, I swear, I can’t do that.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ The receptionist got to his feet to hobble a couple of steps, just enough to demonstrate that he was not only bulky and moved with difficulty, but that he also had a club foot. ‘I told you, the lift’s not working. I can’t go up there.’

‘I can see that.’ Makana tapped his fingers on the counter and waited. The two men looked at one another. There was no point in rushing these things. Finally, he said, ‘Look, why don’t you just give me the pass key? I’ll go up, knock on the door. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll leave it on the table.’

‘I can’t do that.’ The receptionist toyed with his keys.

‘What difference does it make to you? I’ll be back in no time.’

‘What happens if something goes missing from the room?’

‘Look, I’m just like you. I’m just trying to do my job. I want to get this over with as fast as possible and get back to the shop.’

The receptionist looked unconvinced. ‘Seems like a lot of trouble. How much does a bottle like that cost anyway?’

‘I’m just taking care of things, you understand? Abdelhadi wouldn’t be happy if he found I’d lost his customers while he was away, would he?’ Makana thought the matter over a little more. ‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll split the difference.’ He placed a ten-pound note on the counter. It wasn’t much, but it was a concession of sorts. In the blink of an eye the note was replaced by a pass key.

Outside the door of Number 27 Makana listened to the sound of a voice droning on in what he took to be English. He realised that it was the television. Slipping the key into the lock, he turned it quietly and went in.

Cassidy was lying asleep on the bed still wearing his clothes, or most of them. The jacket lay in a heap on the floor, over an upturned chair. The boots had been kicked off in different directions. One stood in the hallway while the other sat on top of the television set, which was tuned to a debate between two American men and a woman who were all getting very excited about Iraq, a country they had probably never heard of until their president decided to invade it. Makana switched the volume up. Behind him, Cassidy stirred, turned over on his side and went on snoring, the almost empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s still gripped in his right hand. The gun was hanging in a shoulder holster off the far bedpost. Lying on the dresser was a bag of plastic ties identical to the one Cassidy had used to secure him to the railing of the awama.

Makana slipped one of the ties around the American’s left wrist and pulled it tight against the bedpost, stepping back as Cassidy began to stir. Removing the gun from the holster, he lifted the chair upright and sat down to wait. Cassidy came awake slowly, dropping the bottle, then rubbing his face and trying to move before he found one hand was restrained.

‘What’s going on?’

He tugged hard and the bedstead screeched in protest. Eventually he wriggled upwards and looked around him.

‘I brought you some supplies.’ Makana nodded at the bottle of gin on the bedside table.

‘Thoughtful of you,’ mumbled Cassidy. ‘What is it, I’m not paying the right person downstairs?’ He gave the bed a kick.

‘Don’t take it personally.’

‘You’re in my room and you’re holding my gun. How is that not personal?’

Makana waved the Colt in his hand. ‘This is only a gesture. I don’t intend to shoot you.’

‘You need to work on your bedside manner.’ Cassidy tried to sit up again, found he couldn’t and tugged at his bound wrist again.

‘You’ll hurt yourself if you go on like that.’

Cassidy closed his eyes and rubbed his face with his free hand.

‘I’d like to know what I’m doing wrong here.’

‘People are always suspicious of foreigners in this country.’

‘Then they shouldn’t invite so many damn tourists.’ The malevolent look on Cassidy’s face made Makana all the more glad he had taken the precaution of restraining him. ‘How about a cigarette?’

‘I would not object.’ Makana reached into his pocket.

‘No, not those things. There’s a carton in the wardrobe.’

There were three cartons of American cigarettes. As he moved back Makana picked up the jacket off the floor and went through it. In the inside pocket he found a wallet that folded open to reveal an identity card and a gold shield that announced his prisoner as Detective Frank Cassidy, Los Angeles Police Department, Homicide Division. Makana opened a fresh pack of Camels and lighted himself one before throwing the packet across. The taste of the tobacco felt as rare as fine caviar. Not that he’d ever tasted caviar, but he imagined it as similarly exotic.

‘You’re a long way from Los Angeles. What are you doing in Cairo?’

‘I thought I warned you to stay out of my business.’ Cassidy lit a cigarette and dropped the lighter on the bedside table. ‘Why are you here, in my room in the middle of the night?’

‘That’s an interesting question.’ Makana flipped off the television and sat down in the chair again. ‘I find myself in a . . . how do you say, a predicament?’

‘You’re not going to start using fancy words now, are you?’

‘What I mean is that this is a difficult situation.’

‘Don’t come crying to me, buddy.’ Cassidy gave Makana a hostile stare. ‘How about untying this and we can talk like gentlemen?’

‘In a moment, perhaps. I need to ask you some questions first.’

‘I’m all ears.’ Cassidy jerked his arm like a gorilla on a chain. Makana wondered how long it would be before the bedstead came apart.

‘I saw you in the Marriott Hotel. You were looking for a man named Kane.’

‘Full marks. Go to the top of the class.’

‘Why are you after Kane?’

‘I told you, mind your own business.’

Makana cocked the revolver. ‘I wouldn’t push my patience too far, Mr Cassidy.’

‘I thought you said you weren’t going to use that.’

‘This is Cairo. Things happen. A tourist is robbed at gunpoint in his room. Nobody will make a fuss. It’s the kind of thing they like to keep quiet. Bad for the trade.’

‘Something tells me you’re not kidding.’ Cassidy relented with a heavy sigh. ‘All right, Kane killed my son.’

‘The boy in the picture?’

Cassidy nodded. ‘Is there really gin in that bottle?’

Makana squinted at the bottle of Butler’s. ‘It’s a local brand. I can’t guarantee it.’

‘I’m asking for a drink, not a guided tour. Jesus, what’s wrong with you people? There’s a glass somewhere around here. Try the bathroom.’

Makana placed the gun on top of the television set, then fetched the glass and poured raw gin into it. He winced as he handed it over.

‘Are you sure you want to drink it like that?’

‘It’s my liver, or do you have an opinion on that too?’

‘Just watch out with that cigarette, the whole place might go up.’

‘Help yourself to one, or is that against your precious beliefs?’ Makana passed on the drink but took another Camel. Cassidy sipped his drink and pulled a face. ‘Ouch. That would take the paint off a Sherman tank. Just leave the bottle where I can reach it.’

‘Can we get back to Kane?’

‘By all means. Zachary Kane is a very dangerous man.’

‘You say he killed your son.’

‘How about we take turns answering questions. What is it you do for Kane?’

Getting to his feet, Makana crossed to the window and smoked his cigarette. Across the way a woman was hanging out her washing. Who does their laundry at this hour, he wondered. He turned back to the bed.

‘I don’t know about your jurisdiction as a police officer, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t run to carrying a concealed weapon in this town.’

‘How would you know?’

‘I know that you’re out of your depth.’ Makana pointed at the telephone. ‘I could make a few calls that would turn your life upside down.’

‘If you were going to do that, you’d have done it already.’

‘You’re in a foreign country. You don’t speak the language. Have you ever seen the inside of an Egyptian prison?’

‘No, thank you, and I don’t intend to either. Maybe we should start talking turkey.’

‘Turkey?’

‘Money. How much do you want?’

‘I don’t want your money.’

Cassidy laughed coldly. ‘Everybody in this country has a price. It’s just a question of picking the right number.’

‘I want you to tell me about Kane.’

Cassidy considered the question for a moment. ‘All right. In Afghanistan Kane passed himself off as Special Forces, but he never made it through the programme. He’s a fraud. He’s more interested in making a career for himself in the media.’

‘American television?’

‘That’s right, buddy. Americans would believe Kane was the Messiah if it came out of the mouth of one of those wax dolls that read the news. Anyway, Kane is smart. He strung them along with his story about hunting down the world’s most wanted man. Once the network figured out what was going on they had to see it through or they would all end up with egg on their faces. Don’t ask me how he got away with that.’ Cassidy drew on his cigarette and flicked ash onto a bedside table that already showed burn marks in the wood. ‘Kane is a strange man. I ran every kind of trace on him and came up with nothing. It’s like he didn’t exist before he joined the army.’

‘You say he killed your son. How do you know this?’

Cassidy reached under his vest to produce a medallion on a chain. ‘St Christopher. Patron saint of travellers. His grandmother gave it to him when he went away.’

‘And you found it, where?’

‘In a palace outside of Falluja. The place had been torched. Kane and his men had gone off the map two months earlier. They survived the mess in Afghanistan and were reassigned contracts in Iraq. It’s a goddamn scandal, but things were getting out of hand with in Falluja. In March of this year Iraqi insurgents killed four security contractors. They dragged them from their cars, beat them and set them on fire. They hung the bodies from a bridge.’

Makana recalled the incident. That was the first time he had heard of mercenaries operating in Iraq as private contractors.

‘The point is the US military needed all the help they could get. They got Kane. My son was also in the area. His unit was ambushed. A roadside bomb, but his body was never recovered.’ Cassidy stared into the bottom of his glass. ‘I was never satisfied with the army’s answers. They didn’t know where he was. I’m not the kind of guy to settle for that. Ask any of my ex-wives. They’ll all tell you. Old Frank never knows when to quit.’ He drained the glass and reached for the bottle.

‘So you went to Iraq to look for him.’

Cassidy nodded. ‘I went to his base, Camp Volturno.’

‘It sounds like a place in Italy.’

‘Nice guess. Actually they named it after a river in Sicily. The Marines won an important battle there back in World War Two. Camp Volturno my ass. Before that it was a holiday resort for Saddam’s sons. They called it Dreamland.’ Cassidy shook his head in wonder. ‘Two pictures of the same scene, and neither of them make any sense.’

‘You said your son was caught in an ambush but he didn’t die?’

‘The whole story stank.’ Cassidy squinted as he drew on his cigarette. ‘The army couldn’t explain what they were doing out there that night. They had been on a routine mission searching for weapons, but that was miles away. The explosion happened way out in the desert, on a back road, not much more than a track. I went out there to take a look. Nothing but the burned-out wreck of their Humvee. It looked like a set-up by local insurgents. The other soldiers in the car were killed. Their bodies were recovered, but not Virgil’s.’

‘Virgil? The boy in the photograph?’

‘Virgil Cassidy. My son.’

‘I see. Please go on.’

‘Anyway, it turns out there was an incident involving a hotel owner in Falluja. Faisal Abdallah. Before the war, this hotel manager had been a driver for one of Saddam’s officers. Once it was clear the war was over he did what most people did. He took off his uniform and blended in.’ Cassidy straightened up in the bed as best he could. ‘The way I see it, Kane had something on this guy. There were rumours the insurgents were getting support from old Baath Party members and former army officers. They picked him up, along with four others. The reason I know this is there was a complaint made against Kane’s outfit by Abdallah’s family when he disappeared. A week later Kane goes off the grid.’ Cassidy gave a grunt of annoyance. ‘I don’t know what the hell we thought we were doing going into that country. The say Iraq was one of the most developed countries in the Middle East before the war. Hell, I’d hate to see the rest of it.’