Mamdouth opened the door a sliver. He looked out and then ducked back quickly. He recognized a nasty-looking figure in khaki.
It was Colonel Amjad, strolling up and down the hall, looking at doors.
Mamdouth indicated to Hamzah that they should wait. They did, Mamdouth’s hand remaining on the doorknob.
Then the colonel was gone. Mamdouth poked his head fully into the hall. No one. Perfect. They stashed their garments and stepped out. They pulled the door shut. It clicked and locked behind them.
They went down the back stairs wearing their hotel uniforms. The Metropole was a big hotel, and security was nowhere as good as Western guests thought it was. Plus, they had bribed the rear guard, who was a brother in Islam.
They were out the gate within two minutes. This was even easier than planting a car bomb. They were away in a waiting car in four minutes.
It was neater than a car bomb too. The poison wasn’t messy for anyone unless you were the victim who slept on it or someone who had inadvertently been exposed to it for several hours. If that was the case, it would be living hell and a horrible death.
THIRTY-NINE
Voltaire led Alex to the next room, which was a smoky sitting area-a shabby chamber with peeling paint, a pair of rundown sofas, some extra tables and chairs. There, a group of three men sat around a small table, on the sofa and on a cushion on the floor. They wore Western shirts and pants and white Arab headgear. They turned toward Voltaire when they saw him, and their faces illuminated in smiles. One man was cleanly shaven, two had bushy first-growth beards. Their gaze jumped quickly from Voltaire to Alex, and all three faces broke with even broader smiles and greetings in Arabic.
They stood. They liked Voltaire, whoever they thought he was, and they liked the idea of a female guest. Voltaire introduced her as a family friend who was visiting Egypt and the Holy Land on holiday.
They switched into English. The men around the table could not have been politer. Alex already knew that men in Cairo tended to be very polite, unless they were trying to assault or kill you.
Getting a further grip on where she was, Alex realized that they were in a small cafe and storefront that was part of someone’s home, a common setup in Cairo, much as it is in Central and South America. The front of the place opened onto the street, and there were four other tables, though all of them were empty. The small group that she and Voltaire had joined were the only customers. It was just past midnight now. Abdul, who had led them there, seemed to have disappeared. Alex didn’t question his absence.
A waiter appeared. Voltaire ordered in Arabic before Alex could speak. The waiter addressed him as “Monsieur Lamara.” Two more teas arrived. And then, before she could object, a hookah.
She looked at him in astonishment.
“When in Cairo, do what the locals do,” Voltaire said with a wink.
A single hookah with a double hose sat before them. It was a giant water pipe, decorated in gold and blue, that stood about three feet off the ground. The waiter gave Voltaire and Alex fresh plastic mouthpieces. Alex looked at the substance being packed into the bowl of the pipe.
“What’s in this?” Alex asked.
“Not what you think,” Voltaire said. “Maybe not even what you’re hoping for.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Ever smoked one of these?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re about to, my Canadian friend,” he said. “I ordered something called
The Egyptian men watched her with smiles and amusement. In turn, she watched as the waiter packed a damp sticky brown substance into the bowl.
“I don’t smoke,” she said.
“Tonight you do,” he said.
“Unhealthy,” she said.
“So is our line of work,” he countered. “So don’t insult my friends.”
“I want to see you smoke it first,” she said.
“Oh. With pleasure.”
There was a small amount of a special charcoal in the bowl, burning black and red. Voltaire nurtured the flame and drew in a breath. The smoke filtered and cooled through the water. The conversation around the table resumed as Voltaire held the smoke in his mouth and exhaled. The aroma that drifted toward Alex was more suggestive of a fruity pipe tobacco than anything else.
Deftly, Voltaire steered the conversation to politics and to the new American president, who was a great improvement on the world stage the men at the table agreed. But then Voltaire inched the conversation a few years farther back, to the previous administration and the attacks on New York and Washington in September of 2001. Around the table, it was common currency that Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were not responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001. The United States and Israel, according to the general opinion put forth, had to have been involved in the planning and execution of the attacks.
“I don’t believe what the American government says,” one man at the table said. “They don’t tell the truth, the Americans. The United States did 9/11 to itself with its own airplanes so that they could invade Iraq for the oil.”
There were nods all around. Voltaire gave Alex a conspiratorial glance. He picked up the second hose and handed it to Alex. With some reservation, she put it to her lips.
“Don’t inhale into your lungs,” Voltaire said, softly and outside the conversation around the table. “Just hold it in your mouth, get the flavor and the relaxation. Then exhale slowly.”
“Like Bill Clinton?” she asked.
Voltaire laughed.
“The attacks were part of a conspiracy against Muslims,” said another man, who turned to Alex, hoping for agreement. “I do not believe that a group of Arabs could have waged such a successful operation against a superpower like the United States. We are not smart enough. We are not powerful enough.”
“But the hijackers were Saudis,” Voltaire reminded them.
“Ah, but look at Washington’s post-9/11 foreign policy!” the first man countered quickly. “It proved that the United States and Israel were behind the attacks, especially with the invasion of Iraq.”
There were nods all around. Alex drew some soft, sweet smoke into her mouth. She was convinced that she was going to cough, but didn’t. There was a further glimmer of amusement in Voltaire’s eyes and a sparkle in the eyes of some of the other men.
There was also a sparkle in the ma’sal concoction. It was infused with honey, possibly with a hint of raspberry also. Alex exhaled the smoke in a long, steady stream. She felt like the smart-ass self-satisfied caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. Oh, if her friends back home could see her now, she thought.
One of the men couldn’t take his eyes off her. When his gaze caught hers, he motioned to her headscarf. “Are you a follower of Islam?” he asked.
“No, I’m not,” she said.
“Then…?”
Thinking quickly. “I am a guest in your country,” she said. “So I wear this out of respect for your customs.”
Good answer, she thought to herself.
“That is gracious of you,” he said. There were nods all around. She was okay, they decided. She took a second draw on the hookah pipe and blew out the smoke gently and soothingly. Nothing extraordinary happened. She took another drag and didn’t mind it at all.
Voltaire gave her a wink. Tonight, she was one of the boys.
“Maybe people who executed the operation were Arabs,” said a third, younger man, joining in politely. “But it had to have been organized by other people. The Israelis, the Americans,” he said. “The Mossad. The CIA. Zionist businessmen.”
“Jews did not go to work at the World Trade Center on that day,” the first man insisted, finding a further thread of agreement.
“Yes. Why is it that on 9/11, the Jews did not go to work in the building?” said the second man. “Everybody knows this. I saw it on TV. Everyone discusses this. It is evidence of Zionist involvement.”
Alex drew and exhaled a fourth drag from the hookah. Then, provoked by what she was hearing, she joined in the conversation.
“Much of what you’re saying is preposterous,” Alex said. “Even if it were true, which it is not, how could Jewish workers have kept it a secret from coworkers?”
Momentarily, the men were taken aback, not used to a strong, articulate opinion from a female.
“Jews do things like that,” the second man was quick to say. His tone suggested that he was willing to explain the world to a female who didn’t understand as well as he did. “They are loyal only to other Jews and their financial interests.”
“And to Israel!” said the younger man. “American Jews will do anything to protect Israel!”
Alex felt herself losing her patience very quickly. The monstrosity of all this from apparently otherwise rational people left her momentarily speechless. But the fuse of indignation was burning down.
“I don’t agree with you,” she said.
“That’s because in America where you are from, the government controls the press.”
