Chapter 12: Cairo: October 14
Cairo airport was an old friend. Nothing seemed to have changed, despite the tumult that had ravaged the seat of the Pharaohs of late. With a sense of well being, Clayton breathed in the warm desert air, listened in amusement to the animated Arabic gabble all around, appreciated the confusion and dilapidation that reigned unchallenged inside the airport terminal.
He was also glad to see that the British Embassy had sent a youngster to collect him. Impressionable and easy to commandeer, thought Clayton approvingly. No, he did not wish to stay in the Embassy’s guest suite. And no again, he did not wish to join the Ambassador’s Anglo-Egyptian soirée. He had other meetings that night. His instructions sent from London had been explicit and he intended this visit to be strictly off record.
‘Just take me to the Nile Sheraton in Garden City,’ he told Beale, the driver. ‘And be prepared to hang around. You might be in for a late night.’
Beale was driving an embassy Land Rover Discovery that gave the two Englishmen a superior view of the chaotic Cairene traffic. Neither man bothered with conversation. Clayton wound his window down to stare at the raucous nightlife. Above the furious clanking of car horns, interminable strains of Arab pop or Koranic verse blasted from roadside kiosks, fighting out their own battle between religion and secularism that had so recently almost plunged the country into civil chaos. Smells of barbecued meat and corncobs filled the air. The pavements seethed with the bustle of pedestrians in jellabas, thobes, abayas and western dress.
Clayton was familiar with the forty-minute drive from the airport to downtown Cairo, but he noted with frustration that the swelling Cairene population had more than doubled the journey time since his last visit. This had been his first posting back in 1980, shortly after he had joined the Service. Back then he had enjoyed Cairo, too—a pleasant base in the madness of the Middle East—before postings to increasingly risky trouble spots had forced him to work ever harder for his civil service pension.
Inside the lobby of the Nile Sheraton, Clayton collected the message he was expecting, checked in, and told Beale to wait around. A gentleman was waiting for Clayton in the bar, the receptionist informed him. Clayton grunted. This one could wait a few minutes while he freshened up and placed an important call. In any case, the man in the bar was paid well enough for his services.
The bar was quiet, the lighting dim, seemingly apologetic about its very presence in a country where so many would have wanted it banned. There were only a couple of executive types sipping imported beers in the darkness, lost inside their padded black leather chairs. Clayton found his man, an Egyptian businessman, sitting alone at a table at the far end of the bar. They shook hands, and Clayton ordered a beer to the Egyptian’s abstemious mineral water. He looked around. It was reassuringly quiet. They could get straight down to business.
‘So why do our Ramli friends want to spend so much money in Britain, Waleed?’ Clayton asked, munching a mouthful of peanuts.
The Egyptian was effusive but vague, unable to tell Clayton anything new. Which made him restless. And in his impatience he started to toy with the remains of the tasteless Egyptian peanuts, gulped his beer, ordered a second.
‘Thank you, Waleed,’ he cut in with an irritated swish of hand, ‘what about the chap they’ve sent to England to place all these contracts? Know anything about him?’
‘Sultan Adil’s adopted son. Responsible for putting down the attempted coup. Name of Al-Ajnabi—‘The Foreigner’.
‘Ah, yes. Russian, isn’t he?’
‘Russian? No. That is only a rumour, though it is believed by many, even in Ramliyya. There is no truth in it.’
This was more like it.
‘Not a Ruskie, eh? So where’s our foreigner from then?’
Waleed smiled briefly, then looked confused.
‘From Africa. Either South Africa or Zimbabwe, I think.’
Clayton narrowed his gaze and took a long swig of beer.
“South Africa, you say?” His voice had become distant and thoughtful. ‘OK. But tell me, Waleed, how does a South African come to be a Ramli prince?’
‘Well—,’ the Egyptian began, but Clayton put down his glass and cut in.
‘Wait, wait. Don’t give me the story of the coup and all the Lawrence of Arabia stuff. It’s before that I want to hear about. Tell me how our Boris Botha got to Ramliyya in the first place.’
Clayton knew how difficult it was to find good information from Ramliyya. That probably explained why Waleed was pulling such a contorted face.
‘Nobody can tell you about that for sure,’ he all but whispered, ‘but I have heard an interesting story.’
Clayton gave the Egyptian a sceptical frown.
‘No, no, this is from a good source,’ Waleed insisted. ‘It comes from one of the old Sultan’s brothers.’
‘Go on.’
The Egyptian lent closer to Clayton across the table.
‘About one year before the coup, the Sultan hired twenty foreign mercenaries. This was highly secretive for two reasons: Firstly, because Sultan Adil wanted the foreigners to form and train elite hit squads. These special squads were to mount cross-border raids into Yemen against the bases of the Sultan’s opponents. Secondly, the company hired to provide the mercenaries was South African, a company called Critical Interference. As you know, all the Arab states were still wary of South Africa because of its collusion with the Israelis in their atomic programme. That is why you will not hear of this from anybody inside or outside Ramliyya.’
‘Very well,’ continued Clayton, indifferent to the Egyptian’s vindication of his own veracity. ‘But can I be sure that all these mercenaries were actually South African citizens?’
‘According to Critical Interference, all the mercenaries hired were either veterans of the guerrilla war against SWAPO or of the more recent civil war in the Congo. It was their expertise gained in these conflicts that had recommended them to the Sultan.’
‘But that still doesn’t answer my question,’ Clayton pounced testily, his quest for a specific item of information making him insensitive to the Egyptian’s wounded pride.
‘For sure, for sure,’ Waleed shrugged, ‘but, ya sheikh, you will not find that information in Ramliyya, or anywhere else. Records of deals like this do not exist. You know how it goes in the jazeera, Mr Clayton. Cash paid. No questions asked. If it is Al-Ajnabi’s original nationality you wish to know, then you should try asking Critical Interference. Alternatively, you could ask in Eritrea. Al-Ajnabi’s help was crucial to the present regime in Asmara during the war of secession from Ethiopia. But I doubt if you will hear anything said about or against Prince Al-Ajnabi there, either. As in Ramliyya, Al-Ajnabi is a man who shuns attention. They say he is a kingmaker who dabbles behind the scenes in the affairs of many nations; that he has a network of agents all over the Middle East and beyond; that his organisation has tentacles far beyond the reach of Al Qaeeda’s, though religion has nothing to do with the man or his aims.’
Clayton was pensive and inattentive again, stroking the corners of his mouth with his fingertips. His mind had seized on a bizarre and impossible fixation.
‘Does anyone have a picture of this man?’ he asked eventually.
The Egyptian shook his head.
‘Al-Ajnabi is rarely seen in public and never officially, even though, as I have indicated, he travels often and far. He is a secretive man who can hide away, when he chooses, and it’s no coincidence that his known hideouts are in the most secretive of countries. When travelling, they say he usually travels as an ordinary man, not as an Arab prince, and that he keeps a very low profile; maybe even uses a different identity.’
Clayton lent across the table till he was almost eyeball to eyeball with Waleed. Then, in a barely audible whisper,
‘Ok, so photos are hard to come by. But have you ever seen Prince Al-Ajnabi face to face, Waleed?’
The Egyptian laughed, sipped his water, and muttered something in Ar
abic. Clayton pressed him to explain.
‘I have seen him only once. He is like you, Mr Clayton, very much like you indeed, if I may say so—a good-looking man. Maybe just a little shorter and fuller across the chest. Hair maybe blonder, eyes green, not blue like yours. That is all I can tell you, but really, you could almost be his twin brother!’
Clayton did not appreciate the flattery inherent in the Egyptian’s description. On the contrary, a strange sense of unease had overtaken him; something irrational that he couldn’t explain. The beer turned sour in his mouth and he left his glass unfinished on the table, making a quick getaway from the Egyptian and hurrying off to the lobby, where Beale was turning the pages of the day before yesterday’s Telegraph.
‘OK Beale, I’m going to make it easy on you,’ Clayton snapped. ‘You can drop me at a nightspot I’ll show you on the Pyramids Road, then bugger off to cocoa and bed back in the Diplomatic Quarter.’
The nightclubs Clayton remembered that fringed the road leading to the Giza pyramids were shady destinations whose very existence was now under threat from Islamic militancy. It hadn’t been like that in the good old days. The more salubrious attracted Western tourists to belly-dancing shows; others were no more than discreet pick-up joints, and it was one of these establishments that Clayton remembered with particular fondness. A faint whiff of nostalgic delight whetted his appetite when Beale told him with a sly grin that the Bayt El Faraha was still a going concern.
The Cairene traffic jams grated on Clayton’s nerves for forty-five minutes of stop-start exasperation, making his first glimpse of his long-lost old haunt more than doubly welcome by the time the Discovery pulled up besides its whitewashed walls, coronaded with glitzy pink neons. On top of the entrance, a blue pyramid flashed like a suggestive beacon to lusty sailors stranded in the sterile sea of the black veil. This talismanic frontispiece was just as Clayton remembered it, though in these harder times, only two sides of the gaudy blue outline actually lit up.
Beale had grown cocky.
‘This is more like it, Sir,’ he winked.
‘Like what?’
‘You know, what the Service life is supposed to be like, Sir: rendezvous in exotic nightclubs with dusky tarts flitting about in the shadows. Wouldn’t mind checking it out myself one night, on the quiet, like, I mean.’
‘Bugger off, Beale,’ Clayton snarled, slamming the door. ‘Fuck off back to the Embassy Club and treat yourself to a few free rounds telling stories about what a naughty boy the Number 2 from London is!’
Beale took the offence in the spirit it was meant and made a gruff getaway. Clayton was happy with his handiwork as he watched the Discovery snarl off like an angry night wasp. Turning on his heal, Clayton straightened his jacket and took a wistful glance around his old stamping ground, before approaching the bouncers hidden in the palm fronds that secluded the shady entrance.
Most of the pleasures in the Bayt El Faraha occurred on the terrace outside, where dull pink lights glowed from small round tables covered with starched white tablecloths. At his own suggestion, Clayton was escorted to a corner table, even more discreet than its sequestered peers. On a podium in the centre of the terrace, a belly dancer careened to piped Arab folk music. The waitresses, Clayton noted with approval, were all suspiciously attractive; and yes, he would have champagne.
“Which one? Why the most expensive, of course!” he winked suggestively to the waitress. His extravagant request prompted the swift arrival of the most fastidious and attentive brand of Egyptian manager, whose crisp finger clicks from fat, sweaty hands heralded the arrival of three attractive women, who seated themselves around the table and smiled at Clayton with cat-slit eyes.
The wait for his source lasted Clayton half an hour’s worth of pleasurable sipping in alluring company. He was particularly pleased with the attentions of one of his new companions in particular, a girl called Aisha, whose fulsome curves and Cleopatra face he drank in with deep desire, impressing her with a smattering of his broken, long-lost Arabic. For the Middle East, glimpses of Aisha’s bare arms and neck was about as provocative as things got. A hint of cleavage popping out of a white tunic girded by a thick gold sash was the coup de grace. Clayton was mightily relieved that for now, at least, the Islamic Brotherhood hadn’t closed the doors of the Bayt El Faraha and made Aisha veil up.
The Egyptian manager was astute enough to understand that the other two ladies were soon surplus to requirements. A second click of his fingers dispersed them back to the shadows.
By the time a second bottle of the establishment’s most expensive champagne had arrived, the burly man Clayton was waiting for appeared out of the patchy light near the entrance.
‘Max! Good to see you again. Just like the old days, eh? The long-beards haven’t done away with all this yet!’
‘Thank God,’ Clayton smiled, casting another lascivious glance over Aisha’s cleavage before rising to greet his old friend.
Colonel Ronny Eitan of the Israeli Mossad offered a firm but moist hand before slumping his huge frame down on one of the cushioned chairs opposite Clayton and wiping a film of sweat from his walnut-dark bald pate. When he got his breath back, he stooped to light a local cigarette.
‘Ah, they must be looking after you in London,’ Eitan smiled, accepting a glass of champagne which Aisha decanted from the new bottle. ‘You’re in great shape, man. Still got all your hair, hardly a day older. And you’ve moved up to number 2 in the organisation, I hear.’
Clayton smiled, partly in sly recognition of Ronny Eitan’s compliments; more specifically to encourage Aisha’s increasingly flirty attentiveness. But Ronny Eitan had other ideas. After exchanging a few curt words in Arabic with the manager, he waited till both the manager and Aisha had withdrawn.
‘Don’t worry, Max,’ Eitan laughed. ‘I’ve already reserved her for you. You remember the drill, surely? She’ll be back with you just as soon as we’ve finished business?’
‘To business then,’ Clayton laughed, holding up a glass for Ronny Eitan to chink with his own.
‘To you, Max, for you know how much your success means to me. Indeed, when you do eventually make it to the top job, Max, we at Mossad will feel we’ve as good as got our own man as the head of MI6, what with all the scrapes and games you and I have been through together!’
Clayton smiled again, but his stare hardened.
‘That’s laying it on a little thick, Ronny. But sure, old friends stick together. Well, usually…’
‘And now you want another little favour. You said you wanted to know what the Ramlis are up to, Max.’
‘That’s right, the Ramlis, Ronny. Got anything for me?’
Eitan smiled.
‘Yes and no. What I’ve got might not help you answer the question you asked when you called from London, but it’s related—and big.’
‘Go on, Ronny, I’m listening.’
A claim which Eitan knew to be true, for Clayton’s legendary drinking prowess was exceeded only by his ability to recall almost verbatim the conversations he picked at between bottles.
Eitan pulled a black and white photo out of his jacket pocket, placing it on the table by Clayton’s champagne glass.
‘Recognise this man, Max?’
‘Can’t say I do. Short, plump, balding, trim moustache, looks Arab. Should I know him?’
‘Maybe you won’t know the face, but you’ll know the name and will have heard of his work: Lockerbie (we suspect), inside Israel (many times), and, we think, mixed up in the World Trade Center bombing in New York, some say 9/11 too. Name’s Abu Fawaz, a Palestinian who travels on a Jordanian passport. Best explosives expert on the wrong side. Member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.’
Clayton scowled at the picture and passed it back.
‘So this is what Abu Fawaz looks like today,’ he whistled. ‘Hasn’t grown any prettier, has he? But why are you showing me his murderous Palestinian face, Ronny?’
Eitan lit a second cigarett
e.
‘One of my men in Lebanon spotted Abu Fawaz moving quite openly in Beirut not long ago. Crossed, we reckon from the chaos in Syria. We tailed him to the airport, where he boarded an Emirates flight from Beirut to Cairo. Naturally, my man called ahead and had someone in Cairo meet our friend at this end. But Abu Fawaz only changed planes here. Three hours later he boarded a Yemenia flight from Cairo to Sana’a. Fortunately, we have people in Yemen these days, so again the same airport welcoming committee was organized for Sana’a.’
‘Getting closer to Ramliyya,’ Clayton teased, ‘but when does our villain cross the border?’
‘He doesn’t. He is driven from Sana’a to an isolated villa on the Red Sea coast, near Al-Hudaydah. Next day he’s joined by this man.’
Eitan pulled out another photo. ‘Name of Khalid Chentouf. Algerian. Mixed up in the hijacking of that oil refinery in the Algerian desert. One of sources has him as the brains behind the attack.’
‘Go on,’ Clayton urged. Eitan always spun a good story.
‘My man in Yemen waited for three days. Nothing happening. Nobody coming and going in or out of the villa. But the fourth day was more interesting.’
Eitan took out another grainier photo. Like all good card players, his better cards came out later, even if they looked more dog-eared.
‘Does the name Toshi Yokochi mean anything to you, Max?’
Clayton stared at the photo. The shot was angular and unclear.
‘Yokochi? You’re pulling my leg, Ronny!’ Clayton chuckled. For in MI6’s South Bank HQ the name of the world’s most elusive terrorist planner had become a standing joke. The prevailing opinion was that Yokochi didn’t exist, or if he did, was an amalgam of several separate identities. ‘I’ll put it in the Yokochi file,’ had become the byword for admitting a complete balls-up.
But Eitan sighed with genuine regret.
‘Had the video run on longer we would have obtained proof that Yokochi does exist, and is still active. Unfortunately, the operative who took this video met with certain difficulties shortly after taking the still you see before you.’
Clayton looked sceptically at Eitan.
‘So if it’s true then, Ronny, that Yokochi is still in the business, what the hell would he and those other undesirables be planning? Why the secret powwow in Yemen?’
Methodical to the end, Eitan rummaged inside his jacket for the ace of trumps.
‘What are they planning, Max? Who knows? But your call got me thinking. Funny time you picked me to start asking questions about the Ramlis.’
The Israeli handed his last photo to Clayton.
‘You probably don’t know this man. Name’s Hasan Mahmoud. Ramli of Somali extraction. Leading figure in General Madani’s rebellion. Captured and sentenced to be beheaded with nine other officers from Madani’s rebel units. Story my boys heard was that Hasan is standing in line watching impassively as his eight co-conspirators are sliced one after the other in front of his eyes. The sword, as you can imagine, is getting blunter all the time; the executioner’s arm is growing tired, too. It’s taking two or three chops for him to get the heads off by now. Hasan is pulled out, forced to kneel in the pool of blood that has spewed out of his friends’ necks. He hears the babble of excited voices all around, waits for the blow that will come any second at the base of his neck. Suddenly, there’s a commotion behind him. Hasan hears an authoritative voice speaking in broken Arabic. The voice tells the executioner to stop. The next thing Hasan knows, he’s being forced to his feet; handcuffs are whisked from his wrists. Seconds ago only a blade away from hell, now Hasan is standing in the blood-stained square a free man.’
Clayton looked absorbed.
‘Want to know Hasan’s rescuer? The very same foreign mercenary who put down the coup, the man known today as Prince Omar Adil ‘Al-Ajnabi’ Al-Janoubi. Want to know what Hasan does today? Personal assistant to Prince Omar Al-Ajnabi.’
‘And now both men are in England,’ whistled Clayton, ‘keeping the whole country guessing about where and when they’re going to start chucking the Ramli petrodollars around. Thanks, Ronny, this is interesting stuff. I’d better have a close look at our beneficent Prince Al-Ajnabi. Don’t like the sound of some of the friends his PA keeps. By the way, do you know where Yokochi and company were heading when they left Yemen?’
‘We don’t, Max. My men were busy getting out themselves. Not much of this kind of work is done in Yemen in person any more; mostly comes form US drones as you know,’ he laughed. ‘Naturally, you’ll keep your eyes on our Ramli friends in Britain. And if there’s anything going down that may interest us, you’ll let us know, yes?’
‘Of course, Ronny, Clayton smiled. ‘That is, if your boys in Britain haven’t got to the goodies first.’
Eitan seemed to be stirring himself to leave. But before he rose, he poked a podgy finger at Clayton.
‘And if Abu Fawaz turns up, remember we want him, Max. Any others you can keep—even Yokochi, if he surfaces again.’
‘That’s a deal, Ronny,’ Clayton grunted, swigging the last of his champagne.
‘With anyone else I’d feel duty bound to stay, Max,’ the Israeli smiled. ‘But I know my going won’t spoil your night.’
‘Don’t worry, Ronny. I’m sure I’ll find other company.’
Clayton stood up, shaking Eitan’s hand warmly. But just as Eitan was about to leave he remembered something and reached inside his jacket pocket.
‘Oh, nearly forgot. You might as well keep the photographs, Max. There’s one other you should take a look at, too. Westerner. Tall, well-built, blond, close-cropped hair. Didn’t mean anything to us. Have your lot look him up.’
Clayton looked straight past his friend and his eyes rested on Aisha, sitting alone at a distant table. Eitan guessed the direction of his old friend’s thoughts, turned and called over in Arabic, taking his leave as Aisha returned with a sly smile.
Clayton watched Eitan’s corpulent profile retreating past the front of the podium towards the exit. At one point the Israeli’s balding head was almost brushed by a belly dancer’s modestly covered breasts. Clayton smiled at Aisha and invited her to join him. Time to throw out the champers and hit the Scotch. He summoned the manager and gave his order.
Now, with Aisha’s hand gently stroking the inside of his thigh, Clayton sat back and admired the belly dancer, regurgitating what the Egyptian and Eitan had told him that evening as he watched her swaying abdomen and swollen breasts careening to the soft music. It was the Egyptian’s unconnected mention of South Africa that had first sent his thoughts spinning back to the past, a destination they were now reluctant to leave.
Of course, he was aware that the Egyptian’s mention of South African mercenaries, and especially Critical Interference, had to be a simple coincidence, but it had resurrected a psychologist’s database of memories he did not care to remember. So why was he still thinking that way? South Africa? Mercenaries? Critical Interference? Impossible, Max! he mumbled to himself, loud enough to elicit a look of surprise from Aisha. Impossible! For he had done all the legwork himself and seen the evidence with his own eyes. He had been all the way to Walvis Bay to match the charred fragment of jaw to the dental records. The man was dead. That was certain. So why the sudden flash of paranoid guilt after all these years? He was being ridiculous. Ridiculous, but piqued nevertheless. Oh yes, he would follow this one up carefully and personally when he got back to London from Hong Kong.
He gulped the Scotch in one go and winked at Aisha. The sight of her sweet face channelled his recollections in another direction, to the distant memory of another woman—a woman who had left a very bitter taste in his mouth. He rattled the remaining ice cubes in his glass like conjuror’s dice that transported him to a magical world somewhere between the delicious exoticism of the present and the nostalgia of the past. He was on a high; time to leave while the mood was right. Putting a hand on Aisha’s knee he popped the question.
‘Mafii mushkula, nimshi al attuul,
’ she whispered, giggling, and they headed to the exit hand-in-hand after the Egyptian manager had accepted a very large sweetener in his sweaty palm.