Countdown in Cairo

The driver’s glowering eyes kept alternating between the road and the rearview mirror. She wished he would just watch the road.

“You know why people think the way they do here?” Voltaire asked a few seconds later as their cab jockeyed through the streets of Old Cairo in the direction of Alex’s hotel. “Above and beyond the sorry details of 9/11, this is how many Arabs view their governments. Not just in Cairo, but throughout the Middle East. The people hate their leaders, and they have learned not to believe them. The state-owned media are also hated and distrusted. Therefore, they think that if the government is insisting that Bin Laden was behind the attacks on Washington and New York, he must not have been.”

“A Catch-22 sort of thing?”

“More like Pirandello,” said Voltaire. “ ‘It is so if you think so.’ Perverse, is it not? But it’s what we have to deal with, you and I who do the work that we do. The average Egyptian thinks President Mubarak says whatever the Americans want him to say, and that he’s lying for them because the Americans keep him in power. There’s even an element of truth to this. Mubarak wouldn’t last a day without US support.”

“I’ve forgotten,” Alex said. “Is he elected?”

“Not really. A referendum is held every few years. Mubarak runs and those who vote can vote yes or no. The election is fixed, of course, so the man in power always wins the referendum. Government employees take care of the results. If free elections were held, someone far worse for American and Western interests would be elected. So the United States government doesn’t allow it to happen.”

“So it’s like Saudi Arabia?” Alex said.

“Very similar,” said Voltaire.

They stopped at a light. On the street, eighties-style disco music boomed out of another nightclub for Westerners. In this small part of the globe, Donna Summer was still the queen of the night.

“It’s the same story all across North Africa and up through the western Mediterranean,” Voltaire continued. “Every single country is governed by a bad guy or a really bad guy, so pick your poison and pick it carefully. And I include Israel in my assessment, unless you think Moishe Dayan, Ben Netanyahu, or Ariel Sharon are charm-school alumni. A couple of these guys were almost as crude and lethal as Stalin or Putin. If you want my opinion, and you’re going to get it even if you don’t since we’re riding in the same cab, the whole region is a stink hole, and it’s going to blow up the world one of these days if the Western powers misplay their hand. And you know what? They have a long history of misplaying their hands. Look at two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Somalia-the list goes on and on.”

The driver turned another corner with a jerk, skidding tires, and a spewing a florid exchange of profanity with another driver.

Alex watched him. The driver’s censorious eyes kept alternating between the road and the rearview mirror. Several times, his eyes focused on hers. She kept her hand near her Beretta. Alex sensed something more than a little wrong with him, maybe something a little psycho. But she couldn’t place it.

“Americans might do better to try to understand the Middle East,” Voltaire said, easing back. He fished into his pocket, found a pack of Marlboros, and joined the driver in an illegal smoke.

“I’m not even talking about the average Joe driving a truck down the interstate in Iowa. I don’t expect those people to understand. I’m talking about the people in Washington, the ones who make the decisions and whose decisions are going to get us all blown up if they make the wrong ones. If only those people listened to what people in the streets and in the cafes in Cairo are saying. I’m the first person to admit that it’s an abomination. But the general view here is that even before September 11, the United States was not a fair broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Then it capitalized on the attacks to buttress Israel and undermine the Muslim Arab world. And you know what? There remains just enough historical truth to that to fuel every insane conspiratorial theory you hear in Cairo.”

The cab stopped for another light, then it came out of it like a jackrabbit on steroids, reeling across three lanes, cutting off the cab behind it.

Accelerator, brake, accelerator, brake.

Cab rides I have survived in the Third World, thought Alex.

Thought, but didn’t say. This driver was a piece of work.

There was a long blast of a horn from the rear and the sound of someone screaming. Alex’s driver made some sort of gesture over the roof of the car.

“Just get us there in one piece, would you, you idiot!” Voltaire barked at the driver. The driver glowered back and said nothing.

“The greatest proof in the eyes of the average Arab was the invasion of Iraq. Just try to convince people here that it was not a quest for oil or a war on Muslims. Just try! It’s like trying to convince many Americans that it was, and that the 9/11 attacks were the first step. It’s the result of widespread mistrust, the belief among Arabs and Muslims that the United States has a prejudice against them. So they never think the United States is well intentioned, and they always feel that whatever it does has some other motive behind it.”

Alex had no answer. Her hotel lay up ahead. Voltaire finished his smoke, flicked the butt out the window, and changed the subject, sort of.

“Anyway, I’ll phone Fitzgerald tonight after I drop you off. I’ll have him send you the merchandise we discussed. Don’t worry about it tonight. But start your day with it tomorrow.”

The taxi stopped in front of the hotel.

“Uplifting, isn’t it, all this?” Voltaire said. “It shows you what the West is up against in this part of the world. You know, it’s easy for Americans to dismiss such thinking as bizarre and something that goes on far from their Pennsylvania barbeques and their Wyoming rodeos. But that misses the point. Washington needs to understand. That such ideas persist represents the first failure in the fight against terrorism, the inability to convince people here that the United States is, indeed, waging a campaign against terrorism, not a crusade against Muslims.”

The driver waited, scanning the street, looking bored, watching a few well-dressed European and America women on the front promenade of the hotel.

Voltaire leaned to Alex and held her arm. He leaned to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Want to invite me up to your room?” he asked. “There’s still time.”

“Nope,” she said.

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” he said. “I’m the most experienced lover that you would ever have.”

“Is that right?” she asked.

“It is.”

“Then actually you’d be the most experienced lover that I might never have,” she said. “The answer is still no.”

“I didn’t think I’d be successful. But I thought I’d ask.”

The driver seemed intent on ignoring Voltaire and his advance.

“Good night,” she said. “Three p.m. tomorrow, correct?”

“Correct,” he said. She opened the cab door and pushed one leg out. Voltaire grabbed her arm to stop her. She turned back to him.

“One other thing, Josephine,” he said.

She waited.

“Keep your guard up at all times here. Don’t ever assume anything. Always question everything you see. Want me to give you another example, how things aren’t always how they seem?”

“Go for it,” she said.

He released her arm and turned back to address the driver.

“How you doing tonight, Tony?” he asked in English.

“I’m fine, Mr. Lamara, sir,” the driver answered in English with a broad smile. “How’s it going for you, aside from getting turned down by the lady?”

“Could be better, could be worse,” Voltaire said with a laugh. “This is my associate. Josephine. She’s going to be working with us on a mini- project.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” the driver said. “Welcome to Cairo. Hope you liked the crazy ride.”

Stifling her shock, Alex only stared at the driver.

“Tony is from New York,” Voltaire said. “He’s one of our street people in Cairo and one of my bodyguards. He came on duty when Abdul went home.”

The driver raised a hand, which now held a massive black pistol. He used the nose of the weapon to push back his Olympique de Marseille cap, giving it a polite tip. He grinned again, then stashed the weapon back under his jacket where it had been.

A beat while it sunk in. “I should have known,” Alex said.

“Yes, you should have. See you tomorrow,” Voltaire said.

FORTY-ONE

After ordering breakfast in her room the next morning, Alex pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. She sat down at the desk in her suite and opened her laptop. There was a double window open to the daylight, and the sounds of the city-traffic, voices, children, car horns, vendors-were more distant because her window faced the swimming pool and the hotel’s private enclave.

She sorted through personal emails from home, answered some, and put others on hold. She opened one from Janet, who was kicking back in New York and had developed a crush on one of her bodyguards. Well, at least things were under control on that front, Alex theorized. Maybe if Janet was really lucky she’d get taken to some velvet-rope mob joint with some of the guys. Who knew? She took Paul Guarneri at his word that Janet would be kept safe and well treated.

Alex’s breakfast arrived via room service. She tried to eat lightly in hot countries and stick to bottled water, fruits, and food that couldn’t easily contaminate. Looking back to her laptop, she found a transmission from Fitzgerald. Alex opened the CIA file and, wondering what impact it might have on her own operation, began to read.