The Cairo Affair (47 page)
“I don’t buy it,” Wolcott said. “You’re saying this was all about one guy’s
greed
?”
“Yes.”
“I mean…” Wolcott shook his head. “Where is he now?”
Omar shrugged. “Disappeared. In the desert, for all I know.”
“What does his wife say?”
Omar shifted, but tried to show no other sign. Mrs. Busiri had been a problem, watching her husband head off in Omar’s car. Had he known what he was going to do when he picked up Ali, he would have done differently. “She knows nothing. Like a lot of men, he kept his wife in the dark.”
In fact, after this meeting he would visit her once again to settle his offer. He was lucky that she had despised her husband, but Mrs. Busiri’s cooperation would still be expensive.
“Wait, wait,” Wolcott said, patting the air with a hand. He really wasn’t taking any of this well. “Busiri hires Ahmeti. But it’s not like he’s calling up the guy for a chat. It’s not
done
that way. He had to have at least one accomplice. Another one of your men?”
“Nobody.”
“Nobody, or
a
nobody?”
Add your bullets to his body,
he had told Rashid.
You shoot this corpse, and we begin our relationship anew
. Omar hadn’t wanted to lose someone so valuable, someone who could help to clean up what Ali had left behind. Rashid was that rarest of creatures—a loyal monster. He had stuck with Ali until the very end, and with this act of mercy Omar hoped to gain the beast’s devotion.
He gave Wolcott a smile. “Harry, Egypt’s friendship with the United States of America remains crucial. Once all the facts have come to light, I will give you a copy of the report. You will know all.”
Harold Wolcott’s face darkened. He looked past Omar at the film crew—the whole table was singing “Happy Birthday.” Then he focused on Omar again. “You’re not giving me shit, are you?”
Omar didn’t answer.
Wolcott put out his cigarette, drained his glass, and stood up. “You can pay for the goddam drinks yourself,” he said, then walked out.
3
Again, she was late. He had been waiting a full twenty minutes in Steaks, dressed better than before. He’d been given the week off, and he’d spent his first free day once again cleaning his apartment. He’d taken out a fine suit that he’d kept covered in thin plastic in the back of his closet. He had showered twice that day—once after taking Sophie Kohl to the airport in the morning, again before dressing to come here—and was by now in perfect shape. At least, in as perfect shape as John Calhoun would ever be. After class, he would meet Maribeth at Deals, and they would see how that went.
The aroma of grilling meats made him light-headed, so to quell his stomach he ordered a beer. As he took his first sip, he remembered what Harry had said yesterday, after he’d brought Sophie Kohl back to his home.
Don’t jump to conclusions, John. You may think you understand what’s happened, but you’re just a bit player. So am I. Hell, maybe everyone is, and there is no lead in this play. Only the Egyptians can put it all together—that, I’m sure of. I doubt they’ll give me the whole story, but they have to give us something. Stan’s dead, for Christ’s sake.
John had agreed with that—a bit player was all he wanted to be. It was how you stayed alive.
Or was it? How much had Stan known? How about Jibril? The truth, which gnawed at him as he tried to enjoy his beer, was that it didn’t matter how much he knew—what mattered was how much other people
thought
he knew.
He was halfway through his beer when Mrs. Abusir showed up, her long skirts fluttering as she approached. He put down his glass and stood to shake her hand. Her smile lit up the room.
She was in a delightful mood, though he began to despair of ever perfecting her English, yet he tried. When she said, “I seen a wonderful film on the Martin Luther King Jr.,” he replied. “I have seen a wonderful film about Martin Luther King Jr. You don’t put ‘the’ before someone’s name.”
A shade of her excitement slipped away. “Yes, exactly.” Then it was back, for she believed that by watching the hardships suffered by midcentury African Americans in Selma, Birmingham, and Albany, she had gained new insights into her English teacher. John found this relentlessly charming, and let most of her awkward sentences slide by unnoticed. She gazed at him with eyes full of sorrow, as if he had been lynched by Klansmen only last week.
He was basking in this great wave of sympathy when, looking past her and through the large window, he saw a man loitering on the sidewalk. A tall man who looked Egyptian but spoke like an American. Who claimed to be FBI, but was not.
“What I have saw was terrible,” Mrs. Abusir said, her English breaking down with her emotion. “How does your people cope?”
“What I saw was terrible,” John corrected, though from the look on her face he knew that she hadn’t understood his meaning. She nodded heavily, eyes so sad, and reached over to cover his hand with hers. John’s hand was cold, and because hers was so warm he didn’t bother setting her straight.
ALSO BY OLEN STEINHAUER
An American Spy
The Nearest Exit
The Tourist
Victory Square
Liberation Movements
36 Yalta Boulevard
The Confession
The Bridge of Sighs
About the Author
OLEN STEINHAUER, the
New York Times
bestselling author of eight previous novels, is a two-time Edgar Award finalist and has also been short-listed for the Anthony, the Macavity, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, and the Barry awards. Raised in Virginia, he lives in New York and Budapest, Hungary.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE CAIRO AFFAIR.
Copyright © 2014 by Third State, Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Ervin Serrano
Cover photograph by Julian Love/Getty Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-03613-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-03614-8 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781250036148
First Edition: March 2014