The Hidden Oasis (38 page)

Kiernan strode over to the table where her shoulder bag was sitting and pulled out her Nokia. She brandished it.

‘This is an Agency phone, Flin. It cannot be hacked. There are passwords, PINs, specialist IDs – it’s ring-fenced. Even the goddam Russians couldn’t get in.’

Another first. Never, ever had Flin heard Kiernan use an expletive. He took another sip of the whisky.

‘Someone in-house?’

She opened her mouth, closed it and bit her lip.

‘No,’ she said eventually. And again: ‘No. Not possible. The CIA does not go around gatecrashing its own operatives’ private communications. Sure the technology’s there, but to use it against an Agency employee – you’re talking top-level authorization here. It’s not … I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. There has to be some other explanation.’

Flin shrugged and downed the remainder of the whisky. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, he pulled out the card Angleton had given him back in the Windsor Hotel and handed it across.

‘Either way I think you should check this guy out.’

Kiernan took the card.

‘He’s been keeping an eye on me. Turning up in places he shouldn’t be turning up. At the museum for example, just as Girgis’s goons were hustling us away. I can’t prove anything, but I’d lay strong odds however they found out we were there, that’s how he found out. Whatever else he is, he sure as hell doesn’t work in Public Affairs.’

Kiernan was examining the card, eyes boring into it, her face suddenly devoid of colour, as though this last revelation had agitated her more than anything that had come before. The hiss of the shower tailed off, leaving the flat silent. Then, stepping over to her bag, Kiernan dropped the card and mobile into it and swung back to face Flin.

‘You’re getting out of Cairo,’ she said, her tone firm suddenly, authoritative. ‘Out of Egypt. Both of you. Tonight. It’s too dangerous. Things are getting out of hand. Have already got out of hand.’

‘No offence, Molly, but I’m a civilian, you can’t order me around. I do what I want.’

‘You want to end up dead?’

‘I want to find the oasis,’ he said, his eyes hard and unblinking. ‘And I’m not going anywhere till I do.’

For a moment it looked as if Kiernan was going to flare up at him. Instead she came over and put a hand on Flin’s shoulder.

‘Is this just about the oasis?’

He looked up at her and then down into his glass.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning is there more to this than just an interest in Egyptology and a desire to stop Girgis?’

‘You’re sounding dangerously like a psychoanalyst, Molly.’

‘I was hoping I sounded like a friend who cares about you and doesn’t want you to get hurt.’

He sighed and laid his hand on Kiernan’s.

‘I’m sorry, that was churlish. It’s just, you know …’

He tailed off. Kiernan twisted her hand, clasped his.

‘What happened with the girl happened, Flin. It’s in the past, long in the past. And whatever debt of penance you might think you owe, you’ve more than paid it off by now. It’s time to let go.’

He continued staring down, mute.

‘I know how important this is to you,’ she said, ‘but right now I have enough on my plate without having to worry about you and Freya as well. Please, cut me some slack. Indulge an old woman and get out of town. At least until things have quietened down and I’ve dealt with all the
fallout from the last twenty-four hours, which believe you me is going to be considerable.’

Flin lifted his glass to his mouth even though it was empty.

‘There’s more I can do,’ he mumbled.

‘Oh please, Flin!’ Kiernan shook her head, exasperated. ‘What more can you possibly do that you haven’t already done in the ten years you’ve been working with Sandfire? What? Tell me?’

‘I can go through my notes again. The satellite stuff. The magnetometry data – maybe I missed something.’

There was an edge of desperation to his voice, like a child trying to persuade a parent to let them stay up late, watch some forbidden television programme.

‘There has to be something,’ he insisted. ‘There has to be.’

‘Flin, you have gone through that stuff a thousand times. Ten thousand times and you’ve not yet found anything. It’s a dead end.’

‘I can go out to the Gilf … I can … I can …’

‘The only place you’re going is Cairo international airport where you’re getting on the first flight—’

‘I can go and see Fadawi.’ He practically shouted it.

‘I can go and see Hassan Fadawi,’ he repeated, looking up at Kiernan. ‘He’s been saying he knows something. About the oasis. That’s what I heard. It’s probably bullshit but at least I can go and talk to him.’

Kiernan opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. She stared at Flin through narrowed eyes, weighing things up.

‘You said he wouldn’t speak to you,’ she said eventually. ‘Said he’d rather cut out his own tongue.’

‘So he tells me to bugger off. It has to be worth a try. With the stakes this high it has to be worth a try, you can see that.’

He could sense her starting to weaken and pushed home his advantage.

‘I’ll go and see him. If he sends me packing I’ll do what you want – take a sabbatical, piss off back to England for a few weeks. Please, Molly, let me give it a go. I’ve come this far, for heaven’s sake. Don’t cut me out now. Not when there are still options open. Not now, not yet.’

She stood where she was, her hand coming up to the cross around her neck.

‘What about Freya?’

‘Well, in an ideal world she
would
get on the first flight out of here,’ he replied. ‘But from what I’ve seen of her so far she’s not going to go quietly.’

Kiernan folded her arms. Another pause.

‘OK,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Go talk to Fadawi. See if he knows anything. But if it’s a red herring …’

‘Then I’m out of here. Spooks’ honour.’

He touched a hand to his forehead in mock salute.

She smiled, squeezed his shoulder again and walked across the room. Picking up a cordless phone from its holder on a bookcase beside the door, she disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later her voice could be heard: brisk, businesslike, instructing someone to arrange two emergency passports and check availability on all flights out of Cairo over the next twelve hours.

Flin was right, Freya didn’t go quietly.

She reappeared ten minutes later, dressed in the clothes Kiernan had found for her-jeans, shirt, cardigan, plimsolls.
The outfit was a surprisingly good fit, although she’d had to turn up the jean bottoms and the shirt and cardigan were just a little too tight. She hadn’t bothered with the bra, which was three sizes too big.

When Kiernan explained what had been decided, that for her own safety she was going to be put on the next available flight out of Egypt, she refused point blank. She owed it to her sister to stay, she said, and wasn’t going anywhere till she had seen Girgis in either a police cell or a coffin. They tried to persuade her, tell her that there was nothing she could do that wasn’t already being done, but she was having none of it and insisted on going with Flin.

‘Here’s the score,’ she said, standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. ‘Either we work together, or I go to the police. Or you keep me here against my will, which I’d like to see you try.’

She planted her feet and clenched her fists as if she was about to launch into a prizefight. Kiernan gave an impatient shake of the head. Flin smiled.

‘I think we’re fighting a losing battle, Molly. Freya and I will go and see Fadawi together, and if nothing comes of it we’ll fly out together.’

Kiernan still wasn’t happy – ‘For goodness sake, we’re not haggling in a bazaar here!’ – but Freya was adamant and in the end the older woman was forced to back down.

‘Like dealing with a pair of naughty children,’ she muttered. ‘It’s come to a fine pass when I have to negotiate how to run my own intelligence operation.’

She sounded more cross than she looked, and although her voice was sharp, there was an amused glint in her eye.

‘Please don’t make me regret this,’ she said.

Flin got himself showered and changed, his clothes a rather less successful combo than Freya’s. ‘I look like some sort of gay clubber,’ he grumbled, indicating his baggy pink shirt and embroidered jeans. Grabbing her shoulder bag, Kiernan then took them downstairs and out of the building. A couple of blocks along the street a silver Cherokee Sport was parked beside a children’s play area.

‘You can take my car,’ she said, handing Flin the keys, tapping a permit on the inside of the windscreen. ‘It’s got Embassy ID so it’ll get you through any security points without too many questions. You OK for money?’

Flin nodded.

‘If what you’ve told me’s true probably best not to call me on my mobile from now on. Or any of my landlines either.’

‘So how do I contact you?’

Kiernan took a small notepad and pen out of her bag, tore off a sheet of paper and scribbled a number on it.

‘Until I get all this checked out you can leave messages for me here. It’s a secure service, no one knows anything about it except me so unless they’re monitoring every line in and out of Egypt it should be foolproof.’

She handed the number over and they climbed into the Jeep. Sitting behind the wheel Flin adjusted the driver seat, started the engine and lowered his window.

‘Keep in touch,’ said Kiernan. ‘And watch yourselves.’

‘You watch yourself,’ said Flin.

There seemed nothing else to say and with a nod, he slid the automatic shift into Drive and they started to move off. Kiernan called after him.

‘This has nothing to do with the girl, Flin. You don’t owe anyone anything. Remember that. It’s history.’

He just tooted and, without looking back, headed down the street and round the corner, pointedly ignoring the quizzical stare he was getting from Freya.

Kiernan waited until the car had disappeared before rummaging in her bag and removing her mobile phone.

‘Shit,’ she murmured. ‘How the hell … Shit!’

Cy Angleton had a gun, a Colt Series 70 – a beautiful thing, nickel-plated, and with a rosewood grip inlaid with tiny lozenges of platinum and pearl. It had been given to him years back by a Saudi businessman in return for services rendered, and just as some people like to name their cars or their houses, regarding them not as inanimate objects but as actual people, so Angleton’s pistol also had a name. She was called Missy, after the freckle-faced girl who had sat behind him in class when he was a kid and was the one person who’d shown him any sort of kindness, who had not teased him about his size and his voice and all his various medical infirmities.

Although he practised regularly with Missy – blasting cans off fences, punching holes through the target sheets of his local firing range – and always took her with him wherever in the world he travelled, he had never once used her in an operational situation. Never once even come close to using her, preferring to leave her tucked up in the bottom of his suitcase like a baby in its cot, content in the knowledge that she was there if needed.

Tonight was different. Tonight he had brought Missy out, cleaned and oiled her, slotted in a new magazine and tucked
her into the buckskin shoulder holster beneath his jacket. Which is where she now rested, cushioned against the rolls of flesh just beneath his heart, keeping him company as he sat in his hire car and watched Brodie and the girl climb into the Cherokee and drive off down the street in front of him.

He’d followed Kiernan out here earlier in the evening. It had been an easy tail despite the heavy Cairo traffic and he’d kept pace with her the whole way, tagging along three or four cars behind and parking in a side street as she disappeared into the apartment block. He hadn’t known about that – she was clever, slippery. Twenty minutes later Brodie and the girl had turned up, as he’d had a hunch they might, the three of them remaining in the flat for the best part of an hour before they all reappeared and the younger couple climbed into the Cherokee. Which left him with a quandary. Should he stick around and see what Kiernan did, or follow the car? He started the engine and patted Missy, aware that a swift decision was needed.

They were on to him, of that Angleton was convinced. Why else would Brodie have written his earlier text to Kiernan in some sort of code, the first time he had ever done such a thing? How on to him Angleton couldn’t be sure, but his guess was general suspicion rather than specific facts.

It was still a nuisance, an intense nuisance, if not a wholly unexpected one. Things were starting to speed up and narrow down, as they always did on this sort of job. First came the subtle stalking, the game of cat and mouse, then the full-on chase, and, finally, the catch and kill – although who exactly was going to end up dead in this instance remained unclear. Which is why he’d wanted Missy with
him. Things, he sensed, were about to turn nasty. Had already turned nasty.

The Cherokee rounded a corner and disappeared from view. Angleton desperately wanted to know what was going on with Kiernan. There were still so many missing pieces. But for the moment instinct told him he needed to stick with Brodie and Hannen. Throwing a final look up the lamp-lit street – was he imagining it or was Kiernan scowling at her mobile? – he pulled out after the Jeep, keeping one hand on the steering wheel while with the other he tapped a number into his mobile and held it to his ear.