Countdown in Cairo

The highway that led south from Cairo to the morgue at the “new city” of Bahjat al-Jaafari was four lanes, two in each direction, and as gray as the sandstone buildings that were visible beyond the highway’s edge. High walls ominously enclosed the roadway. To Alex’s mind the walls gave the road a claustrophobic air, even though the desert beyond was long and flat and stretched into the hazy sky. Traffic was intermittently either very fast or very slow. The road was cratered with cracks and potholes.

Alex had traveled this road once before, the day she went to see the pyramids and the Sphinx, but that had been a pleasant day and this one was not. The best she could ask for was to get through it and survive.

Operations I have known, she thought to herself. Lulls before storms. Somewhere almost all of them blew dangerously off course. The chainsawed car in Lagos. The RPG attack in Kiev. The near-death in a subterranean tunnel in Madrid.

And today?

Alex’s driver was an American Marine named Len, a twentysomething and one of the usual guards from the embassy in the capital. He was not in uniform but instead wore a gray shirt and black slacks with a military sidearm on his right hip. His foot tended to be heavy on the floorboards, and he didn’t miss a bump.

As Len drove, he spoke with a deep-Dixie accent and took an immediate liking to her, much as a man would take a liking to a woman who reminded him of an older sister. Man of the world that he was, he boasted about the German girlfriend he had in Munich whom he visited a few times a year.

“My fraw-leen,” he called her. Alex listened indulgently.

They rode together in a black Hummer with deeply tinted windows and doubly reinforced panels and windows. There was a third person in the vehicle too, another Marine, also in plainclothes, which in his case was a white polo shirt and jeans. He went by his last name, which was McWhorter. He was a lieutenant from Virginia, and he sat with an automatic submachine gun across his lap.

They drove on the highway that went out toward the pyramids, then exited the main road and accessed a tributary road that led east over tougher terrain. Alex felt her anxieties heighten. About two miles behind them, another vehicle followed, this one an unmarked van with three more Marine bodyguards, all disguised as laborers.

McWhorter spoke little the whole ride but chipped in when a settlement came into view down the road. “That’s Bahjat al-Jaafari,” he said. “The tallest building in the settlement is the hospital. The morgue is attached to it.”

“I recognize it from the pictures,” Alex said. She felt her heart race. Her sweat glands started to misbehave. What if this operation somehow had been compromised? Was she at greater risk here than she had previously imagined? Would there be a final irony that attempting to play dead would end with her being dead for real?

As she did in such circumstances, she spoke a small silent prayer. It had never hurt before. She was sure it would do no harm now.

The SUV turned from the tributary road onto an uneven, bumpy stretch of sand and gravel. The roadway passed for the access route to the hospital and the morgue. Len cut the speed out of self-preservation.

Alex was dressed in the garb of a middle-class Egyptian woman, in an ankle-length linen dress. She wore a beige hijab on her head. She had a veil but it was not yet in place.

She pulled out a cell phone and hit Rizzo’s number. They had fresh phones but had worked up this charade for whoever might be listening. One never knew. She spoke in Italian.

Two rings. A third.

That’s right. He’s waiting, she thought to herself. No need to sound as if he were waiting for a call. He’d pick up after three but before-

“Allo?” he answered.

“Signor Rizzo?”

“Si.”

Alex assumed the role of a clerk calling from a Fiat dealership back in Rome. She cheerfully conveyed the bad news that Rizzo’s 1987 Spider needed a new gearbox. Rizzo responded with a graphic obscenity, designed to sully the ears of anyone eavesdropping.

“How long will a repair take?” he asked in a vexed tone.

“Maybe three weeks,” she said. “The part needs to be special-ordered from Torino and the inventory is already backordered.”

Another salty profanity. Then, “How much?”

“About three hundred Euros. I could call back with a specific sum if we place it on order.”

“Si, si. Go ahead,” he said with exasperation. “Do the blasted overpriced work.”

“Grazie, signor.”

She rang off. The call meant they were safely accessing the hospital. The three meant she expected to be there in three minutes. Her two solders listened in like a couple of terriers, but if they understood Italian, she wasn’t aware of it.

Next, they were driving on sand, then fine gravel. They arrived at a semicircle in front of the hospital at Bahjat al-Jaafari. Alex scanned for trouble. So did her soldiers. Did she see any or not?

She couldn’t tell. Their vehicle slowed but didn’t stop. No one in the Hummer spoke. Alex moved her hand under her dress to grip her pistol. It was awkward. She had to pull the window side of the dress all the way up to where the gun lay on her lap. But the Beretta was her final line of security.

Near the entrance was a solitary man leaning against the building. He was in Arab garb, moustache, soul patch, and dark glasses. Six-two maybe, she guessed. Unusual height, potentially one of their thugs. He was smoking and he carried a small canvas bag. A weapon within or overnight clothing? A bomb or his dinner?

Not far away was a small van. No one in the driver’s seat. Were there gunmen in the back, assassins waiting?

Then again, they thought she was dead, didn’t they? They had announced her missing and then her body found. So why would the opposition be here? Or then again, why wouldn’t they be here? And why didn’t the thuggish man glance their way? If he were waiting for arrivals, would he be curious?

Why was he now walking away the way he was? Shouldn’t a black Hummer have attracted his attention, his curiosity? There was also a gaggle of women sitting by the bus station. No problem there-they looked fat and middle-aged-unless they weren’t women, had weapons stashed and were going to spray the vehicle as soon as a door opened. They had bags with them. Big bags. Ominous. The tall Arab threw his cigarette away. A sign?

There were two other small knots of Arabs, all men. Alex took a quick census. Four in one group, three in the other. Good Lord, if she was walking into a trap and there were five to eight guns out there, she didn’t stand a chance. They wanted her dead, and they wanted to make sure, so, again, why wouldn’t they be here?

“Our instructions are to take you to the rear entrance,” Len said. “The morgue, not the hospital.”

“I know. Follow the instructions. Do everything by the book.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

The SUV rolled through the semicircle. No one paid them much notice. She heaved a long breath, then assumed-or hoped-they were clean.

McWhorter turned in his seat and looked at a vehicle behind them. He smiled.

“Our backup is on our tail,” he said. He raised a hand and gave a slight wave.

Alex pulled the veil up onto her face. It felt strange, like a mask she would use to examine toxic evidence. She wished she were back on the friendly beaches of Spain, wearing almost nothing. Or maybe back in Washington at her desk. Or anywhere but here right now-not that there was any turning back.

“I thought they were two minutes behind us,” Alex said.

“He must have hauled ass and caught up,” McWhorter said. “Anyway, he’s here. That’s good.”

“We’re going around back,” Len said.

“Good thing,” she said.

On the side of the building, at the base of the wall, a man was lying down. Dead? Rotting in the sunlight and heat? Sleeping? Faking? She didn’t know.

Len turned the corner. The back of the building was void of people and vehicles. A good sign. She scanned. Nowhere to take a shot from either.

No trees, just sand.

She looked carefully, keeping the Beretta in her palm.

She checked her veil to make sure it was secure.

Len came in close to the building. Then they rolled to a halt. She flicked a glance through the car’s rear window. The backup vehicle came around the corner and stopped about twelve feet away. She glanced at it carefully, then turned to McWhorter.

“Are the right people in that car?” she asked.

He looked, squinting. The driver gave a thumbs-up signal.

“Yeah. We’re cool,” he said.

McWhorter put a hand of support and caution on her shoulder.

“I know it’s not in the plan, but do you want me to go through that door first?” he asked.

“That would give us away, wouldn’t it?”

“It might, but-”

“I’ll be okay,” she said, hand on the door.

“Good luck,” Len said.

“Yeah,” McWhorter added.

She gave him a nod. Then she was out the door, prim and proper, like a middle-class Arab woman calling on a medical facility.

For some reason, her feet felt strange on the sand. Must have been her slippers. The heat radiated upward. She carried her bag. A change of