Wolff wanted to get into those briefcases.
Today be would do a dry run.
Waiting under the blazing sun for the aides to come out, he thought about the night before, and a smile curled the corners of his mouth below the newly-grown mustache. He had promised Sonja that he would find her another Fawzi. Last night he had gone to the Birka and picked out a girl at Madame Fahmy's 'establishment. She was not a Fawzi-that girl had been a real enthusiast-but she was a good temporary substitute. They had enjoyed her in turn, then together; then they had played Sonja's weird, exciting games. It had been a long night.
When the aides came out, Wolff followed the pair that went to the barracks.
A minute later Abdullah emerged from a cafe and fell into step beside him.
'Those two?' Abdullah said.
'Those two.'
Abdullah was a fat man with a steel tooth. He was one of the richest men in Cairo, but unlike most rich Arabs he did not ape the Europeans. He wore sandals, a dirty robe and a fez. His greasy hair curled around his ears and his fingernails were black. His wealth came not from land, like the pashas, nor from trade, like the Greek. It came from crime. Abdullah was a thief.
Wolff liked him. He was sly, deceitful, cruel, generous, and always laughing: for Wolff he embodied the age- old vices and virtues of the Middle East. His army of children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces and second cousins had been burgling houses and picking pockets in Cairo for thirty years. He had tentacles everywhere: he was a hashish wholesaler, he had influence with politicians, and he owned half the houses in the Birka, including Madame Fahmy's. He lived in a large crumbling house in the Old City with his four wives.
They followed the two officers into the modem city center. Abdullah said:
'Do you want one briefcase, or both?'
Wolff considered. One was a casual theft; two looked organized. 'One,' he said.
'Which?'
'It doesn't matter.'
Wolff had considered going to Abdullah for help after the discovery that the Villa les Oliviers was no longer safe. He had decided not to. Abdullah could certainly have hidden Wolff away somewhere probably in a brothel more or less indefinitely. But as soon as he had Wolff cornered, he would have opened negotiations to sell him to the British. Abdullah divided the world in two: his family and the rest. He was utterly loyal to his family and trusted them completely; he would cheat everyone else and expected them to try to cheat him. All business was done on the basis of mutual suspicion. Wolff found this worked surprisingly well.
They came to a busy corner. The two officers crossed the road, dodging the traffic. Wolff was about to follow when Abdullah put a hand on his arm to stop him.
'We'll do it here,' Abdullah said.
Wolff looked around, observing the buildings, the pavement, the road junction and the street vendors. He smiled slowly, and nodded. 'It's perfect,' he said.
They did it the next day.
Abdullah had indeed chosen the perfect spot for the snatch. It was where a busy side street joined a main road. On the corner was a cafe with tables outside, reducing the pavement to half its width. Outside the cafe, on the side of the main road, was a bus stop. The idea of queuing for the bus had never really caught on in Cairo despite sixty years of British domination, so those waiting simply milled about on the already crowded pavement. On the side street it was a little clearer, for although the cafe had tables out here too, there was no bus stop. Abdullah had observed this little short-coming, and had put it right by detailing two acrobats to perform on the street there.
Wolff sat at the corner table, from where he could see along both the main road and the side street, and worried about the things that might go wrong.
The officers might not go back to the barracks today.
They might go a different way.
They might not be carrying their briefcases.
The police might arrive too early and arrest everyone on the scene.
The boy might be grabbed by the officers and questioned.
Wolff might be grabbed by the officers and questioned.
Abdullah might decide he could earn his money with less trouble simply by contacting Major Vandam and telling him be could arrest Alex Wolff at the Cafe Nasif at twelve noon to-day.
Wolff was afraid of going to prison. He was more than afraid, he was terrified. The thought of it brought him out in a cold sweat under the noonday sun.. He could live without good food and wine and girls, if he had the vast wild emptiness of the desert to console him; and he could forego the freedom of the desert to live in a crowded city if he had the urban luxuries to console him; but he could not lose both. He had never told anyone of this: it was his secret nightmare. The idea of living in a tiny, colorless cell, among the scum of the earth (and all of them men), eating bad food, never seeing the blue sky or the endless Nile or the open plains . . . panic touched him glancingly even while he contemplated ft. He pushed it out of his mind. It was not going to happen.
At eleven forty-five the large, grubby form of Abdullah waddled past the cafe. His expression was vacant but his small black eyes looked around sharply, checking his arrangements. He crossed the road and disappeared from view.
At five past twelve Wolff spotted two military caps among the massed heads in the distance.
He sat on the edge of his chair.
