wished him a thousand lifetimes of pleasure and handed over his purchase.
Ferguson continued ambling around the bazaar. He spotted Rankin and one of the CIA station people buying some food from a man with a small charcoal burner and decided to walk over. He heard their accents, or so it seemed, and introduced himself as a fellow tourist, new in the city, just a tourist, happy to say hello, his name was Benjamin Thatch, and if they were ever in New Mexico and needed an accountant, they should look him up.
Now that he had announced his name for the benefit of any nearby lookouts, Ferguson went into the cafe. Tourists mixed with locals in the main room. Though it was early in the afternoon, the place was crowded, and Ferguson had to wait for a table, which suited his purpose perfectly. He pulled out a hundred-dollar traveler’s check and his passport, asking if it was possible to get the check changed. The cashier obliged, and he managed to say “Thatch” loudly enough that the waiter at the end of the counter waiting for a coffee looked up. Ferguson looked at the money he lost on the exchange rate as an investment.
Shown to a postage stamp of a table at the side of the room, Ferguson ordered
The lone exception — an Egyptian woman in western dress — approached Ferguson and asked if he was a tourist.
“Yup. Seeing the sights,” he told her.
“Many sights here.”
“Beautiful ones. Name’s Ben, Benjamin Thatch.” He shook her hand, the sort of faux pas an American tourist would be likely to make. She smiled at him but then turned and walked to another table.
Ferg concentrated on his coffee, sipping slowly. He had a second but declined a third, not sure his teeth would survive another infusion of sugar. He got up slowly and made his way out, walking lazily back to the street. He got to the end of the block before he was sure he was being followed.
Guns pulled the earphones down, figuring that the wireless bugging system they’d planted inside the cafe was no longer of much use. He pulled his shirt collar up, repositioning the small microphone that was clipped to the inside of his front collar.
“Two guys following him,” he told Rankin and the others.
“Yeah,” said Rankin, watching a video feed on a small handheld device about the size of a PDA. “With our luck they’ll turn out to be pickpockets.”
Ferguson was supposed to walk back in the general direction of the hotel after making contact, and they had set up their plans accordingly. Guns feigned interest in a stand selling cloth wallets as he waited for Ferg and the others to pass. The two CIA people they’d borrowed for the operation — Phil Thalid, a resident officer who worked with the Egyptian security forces, and Aim Yeklid, an agent who was technically a free-lancer — were waiting just up the street. Thalid and Yeklid would pick up the trail at close range.
Ferguson walked twenty yards past Guns then promptly turned around, ambling diagonally through the different bazaar stalls.
“What the hell is he doing?” grumbled Rankin. “He’s supposed to go back to the hotel. He’s heading back toward the cafe.”
“Maybe he forgot something.”
“I wish he’d stick to the game plan just once.”
Ferguson continued down the block, trying to judge whether anyone besides the two men he’d spotted were following him. They had the stiff necks and stooped shoulders he associated with Jihaz Amn al Daoula, the State Security Service, which was part of Mukhabath el-Dawla, the interior ministry’s General Directorate of State Security Investigations.
Though to be honest, the fact that he remembered one of the men from an assignment a year before was a surer giveaway. The men had either decided to trail him because he was acting suspicious or because they were bored. More likely the latter.
Ferguson passed near the empty alley next to the cafe and then found a watch repairman’s window, where he stopped to admire the man’s small display. Discovering that his own watch was several minutes behind those in the window, he reset it slowly, debating whether he should talk to the Egyptian agents. He had just decided to do that next when the woman who’d approached him in the cafe came out of the door and walked hurriedly past. Ferg smiled at her; she stared ahead as she passed.
“Excuse me,” said a man walking a few paces behind, nearly bumping into him.
“Sorry,” said Ferguson.
“Qasim’s Tailor Shop in an hour,” said the man. “Give your name.”
They’re Egyptian intelligence,” Thalid told Rankin as Ferguson entered a carpet shop near the edge of the Islamic quarter. “Ferguson must have figured it out.”
“Maybe we should tell them who we are,” Guns suggested.
“I wouldn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut,” answered Thalid. “Besides, then they’ll have to ask all sorts of questions.”
“Ferg’ll shake them,” predicted Guns. “That’s why he’s going into the carpet shop.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” Rankin leaned out from the corner where they’d stopped. The two Egyptian agents were standing about half a block away, just lighting up a pair of cigarettes. “Guns, go around the back. You other guys, get the cars.”
If the Egyptian agents had been trying even a little, they would have seen Ferguson going out the back of the carpet place. That told him they didn’t know who he was, and so with his trail shorn he made his way over to the tailor’s.
The front door opened into a room packed with jackets and trousers in every conceivable stage of construction. Bolts of fabric lined the walls, and the place smelled of exotic tobacco and hashish. Two Egyptians, one fat, one skinny, stood on separate pieces of carpet nearby, submitting to the ministrations of young tailor assistants who poked and prodded their pinned suits into shape. A short, harried-looking man emerged from the back, a roll of measuring tape partially wrapped around the thumb of one hand and a swatch of fabric in the other. Speaking in rapid-fire Arabic, he berated one of the helpers, then turned to the skinny customer and displayed the sample, which the man reached for but was not allowed to take. At this point he turned to Ferguson and asked in Arabic who he was and what he wanted. Ferguson pretended not to understand, and the man repeated the question in English.
“Ben Thatch,” Ferguson said. “I was told this was the best tailor in Cairo, which must mean it is the best in the world.”
The man called him a jackass and easy mark in Arabic, then said in English that he must have an appointment in order to get a suit.
“Well, then I’ll make one,” Ferguson said.
“Yes, yes,” said the man, who turned to the customer at his left and began a harangue about the importance of choosing the proper shade of gray.
“Can I use your phone?” Ferg asked. “I want to check my itinerary.”
The man waved at him dismissively.
Ferguson stepped over to the desk, which was partly obscured by fabric and a pile of large, yellowing papers that proved to be customer invoices. He picked up the phone and punched the numbers rapidly, connecting with a local line that had been set up for the First Team. The line was being monitored by Corrigan.
“Jack, how are ya?” he said brightly. “I’m standing here in Qasim’s Tailor Shop and looking to know—”
Something prodded him in the ribs. Ferg turned and saw one of the assistants holding a Beretta.
“It’s just a local call,” he said, but when the boy poked him again he thought it best to replace the receiver on the cradle.
