He was put on a tiny stool which required him to use his feet to balance, and the only way of doing this was to turn them in so that the outside of his soles rested on the floor. The Egyptian lit a cigarette and offered one to The Doctor, who shook his head, and then with fastidious care replaced the packet and lighter in the pocket of his jacket. With the cigarette in his mouth and one eye closed against the smoke, he put out a hand to one of the men who had been beating Khan and snapped his fingers for the truncheon. He slapped it gently into the palm of his left hand, then leaned forward and brought it down on Khan’s collar-bone. Khan fell from the stool screaming and had to be lifted up and held straight by the two thugs.
‘I was… in Afghanistan,’ he stammered. ‘I was trained to use explosives. I was trained for political assassination and to eliminate large numbers of civilians. I know the plans. I know what they are going to do.’ He threw these lines scattershot, hoping that one of them would interest them.
‘We know all this. Where were you trained?’
‘Khandahar… for six months in 2000. I learned about political assassination. I know the plans to attack buildings in the West.’
‘Which buildings?’
‘Christian buildings, embassies and water supplies also.’ This was remembered from one or two newspapers that Khan had read in Pakistan and Turkey.
‘Which buildings?’
‘A big church in England – London.’
‘When are these attacks due to take place?’
‘Soon – next month.’
‘Next month? Then how were you expected to be in place? A man like you with no money walking through the mountains? ’
‘That was the plan, to enter Europe illegally. Then if I was caught, I would say that I was a man looking for work. That is all. They send you back to where you came from, but they don’t put you in jail. They know terrorists have money and travel on planes, so they are watching the airports. But with all these men on the road they don’t know who people are. It’s much safer. I came with many other men. Many, many men. And I know who they are, where they went, what their plans are.’
The Eygptian turned to The Doctor, who shook his head. ‘These are stories,’ said the Egyptian.
Khan looked up at him. ‘Ask yourself why you’re questioning me. Ask yourself if I would lie about these things when I know what you can do to me.’
The officer threw the cigarette away into the gloom of the cell and returned the look. Khan noticed the whites of his eyes were muddied and that his skin, a degree or two darker than his own colour, was very thick and plump, as if blown up slightly from the inside. The Egyptian shook his head and without warning stepped behind and hit him several times. ‘ You will answer my questions.’
‘I am,’ he cried out. ‘I am trying.’
Khan now understood the game he had to play. The Egyptian must be seen to win. If he failed to make this happen The Doctor would take over, and this he had to avoid at all costs. So the Egyptian became a kind of ally. Khan had to work with him and make it look as though it was his skill that was persuading him to talk, and that there was no need of The Doctor’s expertise. But this meant he would have to endure much more pain while letting the information out slowly.
He was terrified by this conclusion. He was taken up to the ceiling again and began to experience a quite new level of pain. He lost count of the times he passed out during these hours but the investment of pain seemed to be working. The gaps between the beatings grew longer and a man was summoned to write down what he said in English, which was a slow process because he had to stop and ask Khan how to spell certain words. This gave Khan time to collect his thoughts, however, and add convincing detail to the story of his training in an al-Qaeda camp. He found that the things he just made up out of desperation were the most readily accepted by the Egyptian.
Night came and the questions continued under a naked bulb. At some point in these hours, Khan’s faith in humanity, more particularly his assumptions about his fellow men, slipped away. He had been changed, although his mind was in no state to hold such an idea or to know what it meant.
Herrick noticed that the prospect of the adventure in Egypt instantly took ten years off her father. His eyes shone with animation and he seemed to be moving less stiffly. Besides the essentials of the plan, he had mastered the hand-radios, the encryption phones and the topography of the district of Cairo where Khan was believed to be held. On the way to Heathrow he explained to Herrick and Christine Selvey that he’d spent two weeks in Cairo before leaving for Palestine in 1946, exploring the medieval quarter and the area around Khan al Khalili souk. He understood that little had changed.
They were booked, not into one of the modern hotels along the Nile, but the more central Devon Hotel that once acted as a kind of officers’ mess for the British Army. Munroe had stayed there when the more exclusive Shepheard’s had been full. He was astonished to find the same 1930s switchboard behind the front desk and the ancient lift that carried guests up to the rooms in a steel cage and stopped short of each floor by about a foot. He was even more taken by the scorched canvas which had once been a hunting scene and still hung in the dining room as a reminder of the anti-British riots that coincided with Nasser’s coup in 1952. ‘Of course they were right to kick us out,’ he murmured. ‘We had no business being here.’
‘And what about now?’ asked Herrick.
‘That’s another matter, as you well know, Isis.’ He shook his head with affectionate despair. ‘Anyway, we haven’t time for this. We’ve got a rendezvous to make.’
They left Selvey at the hotel and caught a cab to the Sunset cafe, which was still nearly full even though it was well past midnight. They didn’t know which member of the team to expect, just that someone would arrive with details of the next day.
When they had ordered tea and a hookah, Herrick said, ‘You have to admit this is bloody weird, Dad.’
‘I suppose it is,’ he said. ‘I was even less keen than you, but I believe the Chief needs our help, and you have to admit I’m an excellent cover.’
‘But you’re part of the operation, not just cover. That’s what worries me. And what about the Chief? Even if we manage to pick up the package, this is bound to get out sooner or later.’
‘I’m certain you’re right. But he’s not furthering his own interests. He’s only trying to protect the Service from Vigo and Spelling.’ He looked at her with a sudden, intense concern. ‘The Chief told me what happened to you. He said it was almost certainly Vigo who’d put those two bloody Albanians on to you. You did well to fight them off. I’m impressed and immensely relieved.’
‘That’s what I mean. You shouldn’t know about this stuff. How can I possibly be expected to work if I know you’re being told about every minor danger? Anyway, they weren’t after me. They were searching the place and I happened to turn up.’
‘What were they looking for?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. It had now become almost a matter of faith that she told no one about the package from Beirut.
He smiled sceptically. ‘But Vigo knew it was there.’
‘Yes, that means he was listening to a phone conversation I had a few hours before with a friend. Though God knows why he would bother.’
‘Come off it, Isis. You surely understand?’
‘No.’
‘He’s jealous of your talent. You’re a natural. The Chief never stops telling me how good you are. The idea that anyone could possess the sort of flair he once showed would certainly grate with him. Besides that, you’re critical of his operation. He’s bound to be put out.’
She shrugged and moved a little closer. ‘What chance do you think we’ve got here?’
‘Fifty-fifty. It relies on quick, accurate information and if we don’t get that, we’re jiggered.’
‘Jiggered! Where did that word come from?’ She looked at his eyes moving over the cafe’s customers, discreetly noting who was showing an interest in them. ‘Well, I suppose this is better than looking at snail shells through a magnifying glass.’
‘Not a patch on it, but the change is certainly refreshing.’
They waited a further half hour gossiping about Hopelaw, and then a young man who had been browsing
