Countdown in Cairo

“And I visited Italy once,” said Amjad, “and found it to be a filthy, degenerate place. A civilization that has fallen to ruin.”

“You? An Egyptian, are saying that to me? A Roman?” Rizzo said, turning fully toward him.

“Would you prefer that I say it again?” Amjad asked. “Slowly, so that you will better comprehend?”

“You do and I’ll see that you’re lying on your very own slab by the end of the day. How’s that?”

“Gentlemen…,” said Ghalid, attempting to defuse them. He clearly used the term loosely.

The steel door swung open with a sharp rattle. An attending clinician in whites and a sterile mask pushed a gurney into the room. The apparatus was old; the wheels squeaked. On the gurney was a body bag in dark beige canvas.

Rizzo’s eyes darted to the gurney as it arrived in the center of the room. A long zipper ran the length of the bag. He searched it for little details. There was a section unzipped near the head of the body within.

Dr. Muhammad Badawi followed the gurney. Badawi was small and thin. He had sad brown eyes, a hooked nose, and a face like a ferret.

Rizzo looked at him.

The clinician stepped back and kept his distance.

The doctor spoke in English. “Which of you is-?” he began.

“I’m Rizzo.”

The interpreter from the embassy explained who everyone else was. He said his piece in Arabic and English so there would be no confusion.

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

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

“As you wish.”

The doctor gently pulled down the zipper and revealed a female body. He stopped just past the breasts and lifted a thin gauzy fabric away from the face. Rizzo gasped and felt the eyes of the other men in the room upon him. He steadied himself by placing a hand on the edge of the gurney.

“Oh, my dear Lord,” he muttered in Italian. “Oh, no…”

His hand went to his own face. He looked upward, his eyes trying to beseech heaven but instead finding a ceiling with peeling paint. He shook his head.

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

Rizzo nodded. Finally, he spoke. “Yes, it is,” he said, fighting back real emotions. “I’m certain.”

The face was so familiar to Rizzo. And yet now the face was so whitened, still, and lifeless. The woman for whom he had so much affection and admiration now looked so ghostly in the artificial light. Rizzo shook his head.

“Cause of death?” Rizzo added.

“Poisoning,” the physician said. “Lethal dose of an industrial chemical. Radioactive. She never had a chance once the poison was absorbed.”

Rizzo cursed violently.

The doctor replaced the filmy gauze that covered the woman in the body bag. Colonel Amjad, the irritating Egyptian cop, reached toward the body as if to feel the coldness of the corpse, or to see if the body flinched to his touch.

Rizzo intercepted the grasp. He yanked Amjad’s arm upward and thrust it back toward the policeman so fast that Amjad was propelled several paces in reverse.

“Have some small amount of decency, would you, you pig,” Rizzo said. “Keep your filthy hands to yourself or I’ll rip your arms out of their sockets.” He followed this with a withering torrent of obscenities. Amjad looked frightened enough to keep his distance but was secretly pleased at the same time.

“I was only making sure,” Amjad said.

“What more do you want? A severed head? A bullet hole you can stick your fist in?”

Rizzo looked as if he were about to take out his rage violently on Amjad. Again Ghalid interposed himself, this time physically stepping between the two men. Rizzo was five inches taller than Amjad and half again as wide at the shoulders. He could have torn the smaller man apart if he’d felt like it, and everyone in the room knew it.

“All right,” Amjad finally said.

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

The clinician rezipped the bag.

“I’m afraid there is some paperwork,” Dr. Badawi said 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.

“You’ve done a good thing by coming out here,” Dr. Badawi said, handing Rizzo a file while Amjad continued to keep a distance and stare at the body bag. “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. Eventually they’re buried in the desert without a marker.”

“Typical,” Rizzo mumbled, along with something obscene. He opened the folder and began to sign. There were a dozen pages and more than one place to sign on each page.

“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.

Rizzo signed a final page. “Nothing is impossible,” he said. “Walk on water if you have to. 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. “So let’s get this done. Mr. Ghalid here from the American Embassy has brought the proper paperwork.”

Dr. Badawi glanced to Ghalid. “True?” he asked.

Ghalid handed him an envelope containing several official documents. “True,” he answered.

The doctor glanced quickly at the documents and nodded.

“All right,” he said softly. “This would seem to be in order. Will you call for the proper van to transport her?” the doctor asked.

“Already done,” Rizzo said. His eyes were moist.

“Under the circumstances then,” the doctor said, “I’ll see that the body is ready to move today.”

“Grazie,” Rizzo said. “Choukrn.”

“Afowan,” the doctor answered.

“I’ll remain with the body,” Rizzo continued.

“You do not have any reason to think-,” the doctor began.

“I have every reason to think something could happen,” Rizzo retorted sharply. “I said I’d stay with the body! What language do I have to say that in so that you’ll understand?”

“Very good, ya-effendim,” the doctor said. “If it pleases you, you may wait here in this chamber. Over there, perhaps.”

Dr. Badawi nodded to an array of wooden chairs ill-arranged against the wall. Then he took his leave.

Rizzo turned back to Ghalid and Amjad.

“Should we wait with you?” Ghalid asked.

“No.” Then with an angry nod, Rizzo indicated Amjad. “Get him out of here before I shoot him. We’re already in the morgue, and I’m starting to think it’s just too convenient to pass up.”

Amjad looked to Ghalid. Ghalid interpreted. Amjad shot Rizzo an angry glance and headed to the door.

“I’ll be at the embassy if you need anything else,” Ghalid said to Rizzo. “Be advised, transport for the body back to the US will probably have to go to Frankfurt first, then New York or Washington.”

“Just get the paperwork done,” Rizzo said, exhausted.

Ghalid nodded. Amjad was already out the door.

The two men who remained exchanged an extra glance. Then Ghalid turned to follow Amjad and start the trek back to Cairo.

Left alone in the room, Rizzo exhaled long and low. He let himself calm slightly. His sweat glands were in overdrive, but he felt them slowing down now. He went to the door where Amjad and Ghalid had exited. He opened it, looked out in both directions to make sure no one was returning, then he closed the door and bolted it from within.

He walked back to the body bag, his steps falling heavily on the concrete floor. He stood above the body bag for a moment. He placed a hand on the bag and gave it an affectionate touch, almost a caress, on the shoulder of the body. Then he reached to the zipper and pulled it down again.

With a stoic expression, he stared down at the closed eyes of Alexandra LaDuca.

TWO

TWO MONTHS EARLIER

Hand in hand, Carlos and his fiancee, Janet, walked the streets of the Egyptian capital, the most densely populated city in the world. They were on