neglect.
He came to a thunderous traffic circle. A sandaled boy tugged at his coat sleeve and invited him to visit his family’s perfume shop.
He followed the circle counterclockwise and turned into Qasr el-Nil Street, Cairo ’s version of the Champs- Elysees. He walked for a time, pausing now and again to gaze into the garish shop windows to see if he was being followed. He left Qasr el-Nil and entered a narrow side street. It was impossible to walk on the pavements because they were jammed with parked cars, so he walked in the street like a Cairene.
He came to the address shown on the business card Shamron had given him the night before his departure. It was an Italianate building with a facade the color of Nile mud. From a third-floor window came the strains of the BBC’s hourly news bulletin theme. A few feet from the entrance a vendor dispensed paper plates of spaghetti Bolognese from an aluminum cart. Next to the vendor a veiled woman sold limes and loaves of flat bread. Across the cluttered street was a kiosk. Standing in the shade of the little roof, wearing sunglasses and a Members Only windbreaker, was a poorly concealed Mukhabarat surveillance man, who watched as Gabriel went inside.
It was cool and dark in the foyer. An emaciated Egyptian cat with hollow eyes and enormous ears hissed at him from the shadows, then disappeared through a hole in the wall. A Nubian doorman in a lemon-colored galabia and white turban sat motionless in a wooden chair. He lifted an enormous ebony hand to receive the business card of the man Gabriel wished to see.
“Third floor,” he said in English.
Two doors greeted Gabriel on the landing. Next to the door on the right was a brass plaque that read: DAVID QUINNELL-INTERNATIONAL PRESS. Gabriel pressed the bell and was promptly admitted into a small antechamber by a Sudanese office boy, whom Gabriel addressed in measured German-accented English.
“Who shall I say is calling?” the Sudanese replied.
“My name is Johannes Klemp.”
“Is Mr. Quinnell expecting you?”
“I’m a friend of Rudolf Heller. He’ll understand.”
“Just a moment. I’ll see if Mr. Quinnell can see you now.”
The Sudanese disappeared through a set of tall double doors. A moment turned to two, then three. Gabriel wandered to the window and peered into the street. A waiter from the coffeehouse on the corner was presenting the Mukhabarat man with a glass of tea on a small silver tray. Gabriel heard the Sudanese behind him and turned round. “Mr. Quinnell will see you now.”
The room into which Gabriel was shown had the air of a Roman parlor gone to seed. The wood floor was rough for want of polish; the crown molding was nearly invisible beneath a dense layer of dust and grit. Two of the four walls were given over to bookshelves lined with an impressive collection of works dealing with the history of the Middle East and Islam. The large wood desk was buried beneath piles of yellowed newspapers and unread post.
The room was in shadow, except for a trapezoid of harsh sunlight, which slanted through the half-open French doors and shone upon a scuffed suede brogue belonging to one David Quinnell. He lowered one half of that morning’s
“Any friend of Rudolf Heller is a friend of mine.” Quinnell’s dour expression did not match his jovial tone. Gabriel had the impression he was speaking for an audience of Mukhabarat listeners. “Herr Heller told me you might be calling. What can I do for you?”
Gabriel placed a photograph on the cluttered desktop-the photo Mahmoud Arwish had given him in Hadera.
“I’m here on holiday,” Gabriel said. “Herr Heller suggested I look you up. He said you could show me something of the real Cairo. He said you know more about Egypt than any man alive.”
“How kind of Herr Heller. How is he these days?”
“As ever,” said Gabriel.
Quinnell, without moving anything but his eyes, looked down at the photograph.
“I’m a bit busy at the moment, but I think I can be of help.” He picked up the photograph and folded it into his newspaper. “Let’s take a walk, shall we? It’s best to get out before they turn up the heat.”
“YOUR OFFICE IS under surveillance.”
They were walking along a narrow, shadowed alleyway lined with shops and vendors. Quinnell paused to admire a bolt of blood-colored Egyptian cotton.
“Sometimes,” he said indifferently. “All the hacks are under watch. When one has a security apparatus as large as the Egyptians’, it has to be used for something.”
“Yes, but you’re no ordinary hack.”
“True, but they don’t know that. To them, I’m just a bitter old English shit, trying to scratch a living from the printed word. We’ve managed to reach something of an accommodation. I’ve asked them to tidy up my flat when they finish searching it, and they’ve actually done a rather good job of it.”
Quinnell released the cloth and struck out precariously down the alleyway. Gabriel, before setting off after him, glanced over his shoulder and glimpsed Members Only listlessly examining an Arabian copper coffeepot.
Quinnell’s face, by the time Gabriel caught up with him, was already flushed with the late-morning heat. He’d been a star once, the roving correspondent for an important London daily, the sort of reporter who parachutes into the world’s hot spots and leaves before the story turns dull and the public begins to lose interest. Undone by too much drink and too many women, he’d come to Israel on assignment during the first intifada and had washed ashore on the Isle of Shamron. Over a private dinner in Tiberias, Shamron had probed and found weakness-a mountain of debt, a secret Jewish past concealed behind a sneering, drunken English exterior. By the time coffee was served on the terrace, Shamron had made his play. It would be a partnership, Shamron had promised, for Shamron regarded as his “partner” any man he could seduce or blackmail into doing his bidding. Quinnell would use his impressive array of Arab sources to provide Shamron with information and entree. Occasionally he would print a piece of Shamron’s black propaganda. In return, Quinnell’s equally impressive debt would be quietly retired. He would also receive a few exclusive pieces of news designed to polish his fading reputation, and a publisher would be found for the book he’d always longed to write, though Shamron never revealed how he’d known Quinnell had a manuscript in his drawer. The marriage was consummated, and Quinnell, like Mahmoud Arwish, set himself on a path of betrayal for which the punishment was professional death. As public penance for his private sins, Quinnell had gone over completely to the Arab side. On Fleet Street he was referred to as the Voice of Palestine-apologist for the suicide bombers and Islamofascists.
“There’s a place in Zamalek you should try. It’s called Mimi’s. Good food, good music.” Quinnell paused and added provocatively: “An interesting crowd.”
“Who’s Mimi?”
“Mimi Ferrere. She’s something of a fixture on the Zamalek social scene. Came here nearly twenty years ago and never left. Everyone knows Mimi, and Mimi knows everyone.”
“What brought her to Cairo?”
“The Harmonic Convergence.”
Quinnell, met by Gabriel’s blank look, explained.
“A bloke named Jose Arguelles wrote a book some time ago called
