Leon Uris (51 page)

Sonya called to her girls to round up the squad’s uniforms and bring soap and fresh towels to the fountain, where they had plunged in unison to cleanse their bodies of oil and clarify their minds. After they helped wipe the lads dry, Sonya sent the women from the villa and went off to make coffee—powerful coffee.

“From the beginning, Serjeant Yurlob.”

“I was working in Pig Island on the requisition list. Upon leaving I saw that the Major’s light was still burning and sought to get him to sign it. I knocked and upon entering saw that he was in a frightful state.”

“What do you mean?”

“He had the eyes of a madman and was sweating all over.”

“What in the name of God could it have been?”

“A letter was clutched in Major Hubble’s fist. He thrust it into his pocket as though I would attempt to read it.”

“I picked up the officers’ mail,” Johnny said. “The major had one letter. I personally took it to him.”

“I received letters from both my parents today,” Jeremy said. “There was nothing in mine to indicate any trouble.”

“The Major ordered me to leave, brusquely,” Yurlob went on, “but as I started out he said…‘Wait, do we have any transportation from the motor pool?’ There was
only a supply lorry, the one with the bad gears. The Major ordered me to bring it around.”

As they dressed, Yurlob sniffed a scent known to him as militarily improper. He studied the luxury about him with a straight face.

“Keep talking, I’m listening,” Jeremy said, lacing his boots.

“Fearing the Major was in no state of mind to drive the vehicle, and as the vehicle was not in such a good state to be driven, I offered to drive him. He tried to start the lorry alone but, after nearly stripping the gears, agreed to let me take him into Cairo.”

Sonya arrived with the first of the coffee and went to make more.

“I raced to Cairo just as Major Hubble instructed.”

“What did he say to you? Any orders? Any indication of what was disturbing him?”

“All he asked was to take him to an out-of-the-way hotel where no officers would be. There is a small Sikh club in the Shari el Haram District off Pyramid Road, but hardly a place one takes an officer of the British Army. However, he insisted.”

“I know that area from before the war,” Modi said. “It is a gangster place.”

“I stopped at the Hotel Aida. I registered for him and quickly took him to the room number twenty-two, the best in the place but hardly proper for a man of his stature. He commanded me to leave. I feared for him so I walked around outside to see if I could see his room. I did so. On the top of a building, off a very narrow alley, one could crawl to the edge and just see into a part of his room. I waited as several hours passed. Then others came into his room, quickly and quietly. As I reached his room, I was apprehended by two policemen guarding his door.”

“Didn’t the police draw a crowd?”

“No, no. They came in quietly without causing a disturbance, and there were whispers, only whispers from his room.”

“Are you smelling the same rat I’m smelling, Jeremy?” Rory asked.

“Yes, go on, Yurlob.”

“Inside his room are four policemen, a police inspector, and a civilian. Major Hubble is on the bed without clothing and only barely conscious. I would think, drugged. I smell chloroform. On the floor they pull back a sheet over a woman who has been murdered. It appears she is a prostitute. The civilian tells me to find Lieutenant Jeremy Hubble and gives me this address. He warns me to remain secret or it will be the Major’s life.”

“Farouk el Farouk,” Chester said.

“That’s him,” Jeremy agreed.

“Jaysus,” Rory muttered, “a dead whore on the floor and a British officer in a blown-out state. It’s a setup, Jeremy.”

“Did they ask you about ransom?”

“No,” Yurlob answered. “Only to bring you alone to the Hotel Aida at once.”

“The Lieutenant has refused to let us pay for the villa, as you know,” Rory said. “How have you been paying for it?”

“I set up a line of credit through Weed Ship & Iron in London. My mother runs the office. I’ve paid Farouk el Farouk through Cook’s Travel cheques.”

“Well, it looks like they’re after a nice big one. If that’s all there is to it, maybe we’re in luck,” Rory said. “They’re always scratching around for something like this. How many ranking officers do you suppose have been blackmailed in this city? It’s their game. Jeremy, why the hell would your brother want to go to such a dump?”

“Obviously, he got some terrible news. What makes you so optimistic we can get him back?”

“If it were cut and dried—officer goes to seedy hotel, gets a prostitute, murders her, is unconscious himself. Police arrive. What do they do in normal circumstances? They would take him in and book him on charges. But they didn’t do that.”

“I see it,” Modi said. “A middle-ranking British officer and a murder would draw a crowd. There is no crowd. Cairo becomes a small town. The word gets to the right people that there is a live fish on the line at Hotel Aida.”

“Ruddy bastards,” Jeremy grunted.

“Thank God all they want is money. That gives us an opening,” Rory said, moving into command.

“You’re bloody right, cobber,” Johnny said. “I say we pick up a couple dozen troops in some bars and rush the place.”

“No, no brute tactics. We can’t get anyone else involved. They want to keep it hush-hush. We have to protect the Major.”

“He’s right, Johnny,” Jeremy said.

“How’d you get here, Yurlob?” Rory asked.

“Taxi. He is waiting down the street.”

“Where’s the lorry?”

“About three blocks from the hotel.”

“Shit, I hope it still has wheels on it.”

“It is fine,” Yurlob assured. “I put it in the yard of military police station. There is a small Sikh unit. My cousin is guarding it.”

“Chester, can you drive it?”

“We’ll find out,” Chester answered.

“You say the lobby seems as if everything is normal?”

“Yes.”

“Big lobby, little lobby?”

“Fair size. A very active hotel.”

“Do you think, like, Modi and Johnny can just walk in and up the stairs to the Major’s room?”

“Yes, but what about the police?”

“There are some short lengths of pipe left over from repairs on the fountain. Knee-cap the cops at the door and take their pistols.”

Johnny and Modi nodded.

“I’ll find the place on the roof where Yurlob watched. Can you reach the Major’s room from there?”

“With a leap.”

“Can you hear the railroad bell clock?”

“Clearly.”

Rory looked at his watch. “When it strikes six, it means five o’clock. On the fifth bong…Johnny and Modi hit the cops at the door. I’ll come through the window. Yurlob, throw the Major under the bed and guard him.”

“I want Farouk el Farouk,” Jeremy hissed.

“I’ll take the inspector,” Rory said.

“But what of the other four armed policemen?” Yurlob asked.

“We’ll think of something. We’ll improvise. Jeremy, you and Yurlob take the taxi. We’re five minutes behind you.”

“Rory!” Sonya cried.

“Oh Christ, are they going to take this out on you?”

“Do not worry. I am halfway to Alexandria. You are wonderful boys. Please smash in Inspector Rawash’s face. He has given me twenty years of misery.”

The room was much as Serjeant Yurlob had described it. Christopher was strewn on a dirty, lumpy mattress with a dirtier sheet half covering him and he was mumbling incoherently.

“It’s me, Jeremy!”

Christopher was glassy-eyed, but focused to some sort of recognition, then flopped back down.

“Where is his uniform?”

Inspector Rawash, who was very easy to identify, nodded to the closet door. Jeremy fished through the pockets and found what he was looking for—a vial and a letter. He lifted the cap on the vial and sniffed it.

“Cyanide,” Rawash said.

“Yours or his?” Jeremy asked.

“His.”

The letter was from Christopher’s wife, Hester. It was
but a page in length. She wrote that she had never really loved him and that life in the confines of the earldom was insufferable. She had fallen in love with an ordinary fellow, a musician. She had become pregnant and they had run off together, far away from Ireland and the British Isles.

Any malice, any anger Jeremy had ever known for the poor, limp, blubbering creature had flown.

“You’re going to be all right, Chris,” Jeremy said to his uncomprehending brother. “Yurlob, find some water and clean him up and get him into his uniform.”

“There are some matters to be settled, Viscount, m’lord,” Farouk el Farouk said. “May I introduce you to Chief Inspector Rawash who commands the eastern side of Cairo.”

“I am honored,” Rawash said.

“Sure, so am I.” Jesus, a slithering pair of vipers out of some terrible novel, they were. What a dirty lousy game. Connections…we’ve a live one…praise Allah, his brother is Viscount Hubble, the Lieutenant of Villa Valhalla!

“We have a very serious situation. A woman is murdered in your brother’s room and your brother at this moment does not do great honor to the British Army. If we take him in to the magistrate and prefer charges…well, I have no further control over matters,” Rawash recited.

“When the Inspector found your brother’s papers, he came to me on the small chance I may know of this gentleman, in that I deal with dignitaries.”

“And there’s the matter of the Villa Valhalla,” Rawash continued. “It is illegal that you are there and having illegal parties smoking hashish, a very serious crime in Cairo.”

“You have a lot of serious criminals in Cairo. And, you don’t have to smoke it. All you have to do is walk down the street and breathe,” Jeremy said.

Farouk el Farouk gave a small smile at the humor. “I have convinced Chief Inspector Rawash that there is a better way than to imprison your brother and bring total disgrace to your family.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“My dear Viscount. We did not invite you to Cairo. But now that you have invited yourself, please do not try to change twenty-five centuries of custom.”

“This city is going to be torn apart by the troops. You must know that,” Jeremy said.

“Cairo has known five hundred riots and still stands. How will your father’s earldom stand after this?”

“How much do you want?”

“We are prepared to keep this totally quiet, but a lot of people must be favored to ensure that it absolutely did not happen.”

“How much?”

“You make it sound so rude!”

“How much?”

The Egyptians went to the corner of the room and put their heads together. Yurlob was busy assembling Chris to a reasonable state. Jeremy wanted to get him to the infirmary as quickly as possible.

“We must wait here until the Cook’s Travel office opens at half past seven,” Farouk el Farouk said. “I and you will go down there and clear a cheque for ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand!”

“No bargaining, no bargaining. Believe me, by the time everyone is taken care of there won’t be five quid in it for me.”

“I can’t make a cheque of that size.”

“But of course you can. Everything of yours clears. If there is a problem, I have reserved a telephone line to London. You can explain it to the party at Weed Ship & Iron.”

“You are garbage. All you live for is the slimy fucking deal. What a way to live!”

“And your father has not become the Earl over deals and dead bodies, m’lord? I am sorry you do not understand certain traditions. Opportunities such as we have at this moment only happen once in a lifetime. Your troops rape our city. We rape you.”

“You murdered this woman and planted her here.”

“She is of no consequence. No one forced your brother to this hotel. Are you prepared, yes or no, to go with me to Cook’s? Do you wish him back, yes or no?”

“All right. You win,” Jeremy said.

Large smiles from beaming faces. “Good, good.” Farouk el Farouk glowed. “We have time till daybreak. Do you play backgammon, Lord Viscount?”

BONG
rang the railroad tower clock.

“No, I don’t play.”

“Ah, too bad.”

“I’ll play with you,” Rawash said.

BONG!

“First we had better send out for some food.”

Yurlob placed himself before his Major as Jeremy looked down at the floor, appearing disconsolate, but staying within an arm’s length of Farouk el Farouk.

BONG!

BONG!

“I set up the board at the table.”

BONG!

Jeremy counted, a thousand one, a thousand two, a thousand three, oh Christ, a thousand…

“YOWWWW!”

“AHURRRGGG!”

The door blew off its hinges as Mordechai Pearlman and Johnny Tarbox crashed into the room brandishing a pair of pistols taken from the guards.

Rory flew through the window, bowling over two of the policemen. As they groped to their knees, he banged their heads together. Yurlob shoved Major Hubble under the bed, then dived himself as the other two police fired. Jeremy brought an uppercut into Farouk el Farouk’s jaw, dropping him like a mummy.

There was a short but violent smashing of furniture amid screams and bursts of bright red blood. Inspector Rawash slid along the wall and was about to make it
through the door when Rory caught him and got him in an armlock.

“Tell them to drop their pistols!” Rory commanded.

The inspector, screaming in pain, babbled orders to surrender, NOW!

AHUGAH! AHUGAH!
The lorry horn sounded from the street.

“Modi! Johnny! Bring these two cops from the hall in here, quick.”

AHUGAH! AHUGAH!

The six police were cuffed with their own handcuffs and stuffed into the closet. Rory had proudly remembered to bring the belt cords from their robes at Villa Valhalla. He shut the door.

“Come on, Rory, let’s get the hell out of here,”

“Give me just a minute.” Rory was dancing on his toes throwing out his jab. He had not gotten his fill, not just yet.

AHUGAH! AHUGAH!

Rory walked to Inspector Rawash, who was too terrified to plead out loud. “I got into a fight with this big Aussie at Fort Albany, see…”