CHAPTER NINETEEN
A large wheel was
fitted into a wooden beam in the ceiling. Through it ran a dirty
brown rope that had been stretched and pulled until it had the
appearance of a rusty cable. One end of this hawser led through a
pulley fixed on the stone floor, then to a two-handed winding
mechanism, allowing the load to be lifted to the ceiling and held
there by a ratchet. The other end was attached to a number of
chains and manacles designed to be fastened round human
limbs.
Though elementary,
the capstan provided several options. A man could be hauled up by
both arms, or just one; he could be suspended with one arm behind
his back and bound to his leg; or he might be winched up by his
neck only, so that for what seemed like many minutes he experienced
the sensation of being garrotted. Usually, being hung by his arms
for several hours was all any normal man needed to persuade him to
talk.
The man in charge of
the interrogation understood perfectly well that most people would
talk when confronted with the prospect of this treatment, but in
his trade there was a saying, which translates as ‘squeezing the
lemon dry’. It summarised the belief that when a man was broken he
could always find something more to blurt out - the name of a
street or a person, some old gossip about the activities of a
neighbour. There is always another drop to coax from the crushed
fruit. Even if the persistence of the interrogators produced
stories and lies - for it was often the case that the man really
had nothing more to tell the security forces - the process was
still vindicated. The suspect was talking, wasn’t he? And talk in all its forms -
babbling, whispering, crying, pleading or cursing - is less
threatening to the state than silence. Put simply, the information
that came from a man experiencing such brutality was the
operation’s product and, like any diligent workforce, the men who
stepped into this hellish place every day had standards of
productivity, a yardstick by which they measured their output. The
stories and lies were merely the husk of the operation, the
off-cuts that would eventually be discarded after the creaking
security apparatus had checked out the statement through its
thousands of investigators and informers and established which
parts were unlikely to be true. But even this might result in some
innocent being lifted from the street and given similar
treatment.
Karim Khan entered
this brutal world at precisely 7.30 a.m. local time and was
straight away hoisted by his arms so that his whole body was
suspended four feet from the ground. The Doctor was in the cell
with him but an Egyptian was in charge and gave the order for
Khan’s feet to be beaten by two men with long rubber truncheons.
Khan cried out that he would tell them anything they wanted. They
stopped and the Egyptian shouted questions at him in Arabic. Khan
pleaded that he could only speak English. The men returned to
beating him and soon the pain in his feet, together with that in
his arms and shoulders, took hold of his mind, though he did
experience a fleeting astonishment that strangers would take such
care to hurt him. After several minutes they let him down to the
ground with a bump so that the force of his weight shot through the
injuries on his feet.
The Egyptian officer
approached him and spoke in English. ‘You will talk to us now.’ He
said it like a reprimand, as though Khan had been impossibly
obstructive.
Khan
nodded.
‘And make full
statement of your plans to make terrorist attacks.’
‘I will do this.’
Khan understood the pretence that he was Jasur Faisal had been
dropped.
He was put on a tiny
stool which required him to use his feet to balance, and the only
way of doing this was to turn them in so that the outside of his
soles rested on the floor. The Egyptian lit a cigarette and offered
one to The Doctor, who shook his head, and then with fastidious
care replaced the packet and lighter in the pocket of his jacket.
With the cigarette in his mouth and one eye closed against the
smoke, he put out a hand to one of the men who had been beating
Khan and snapped his fingers for the truncheon. He slapped it
gently into the palm of his left hand, then leaned forward and
brought it down on Khan’s collar-bone. Khan fell from the stool
screaming and had to be lifted up and held straight by the two
thugs.
‘I was… in
Afghanistan,’ he stammered. ‘I was trained to use explosives. I was
trained for political assassination and to eliminate large numbers
of civilians. I know the plans. I know what they are going to do.’
He threw these lines scattershot, hoping that one of them would
interest them.
‘We know all this.
Where were you trained?’
‘Khandahar… for six
months in 2000. I learned about political assassination. I know the
plans to attack buildings in the West.’
‘Which
buildings?’
‘Christian buildings,
embassies and water supplies also.’ This was remembered from one or
two newspapers that Khan had read in Pakistan and
Turkey.
‘Which
buildings?’
‘A big church in
England - London.’
‘When are these
attacks due to take place?’
‘Soon - next
month.’
‘Next month? Then how
were you expected to be in place? A man like you with no money
walking through the mountains? ’
‘That was the plan,
to enter Europe illegally. Then if I was caught, I would say that I
was a man looking for work. That is all. They send you back to
where you came from, but they don’t put you in jail. They know
terrorists have money and travel on planes, so they are watching
the airports. But with all these men on the road they don’t know
who people are. It’s much safer. I came with many other men. Many,
many men. And I know who they are, where they went, what their
plans are.’
The Eygptian turned
to The Doctor, who shook his head. ‘These are stories,’ said the
Egyptian.
Khan looked up at
him. ‘Ask yourself why you’re questioning me. Ask yourself if I
would lie about these things when I know what you can do to
me.’
The officer threw the
cigarette away into the gloom of the cell and returned the look.
Khan noticed the whites of his eyes were muddied and that his skin,
a degree or two darker than his own colour, was very thick and
plump, as if blown up slightly from the inside. The Egyptian shook
his head and without warning stepped behind and hit him several
times. ‘You will answer my
questions.’
‘I am,’ he cried out.
‘I am trying.’
Khan now understood
the game he had to play. The Egyptian must be seen to win. If he
failed to make this happen The Doctor would take over, and this he
had to avoid at all costs. So the Egyptian became a kind of ally.
Khan had to work with him and make it look as though it was his
skill that was persuading him to talk, and that there was no need
of The Doctor’s expertise. But this meant he would have to endure
much more pain while letting the information out
slowly.
He was terrified by
this conclusion. He was taken up to the ceiling again and began to
experience a quite new level of pain. He lost count of the times he
passed out during these hours but the investment of pain seemed to
be working. The gaps between the beatings grew longer and a man was
summoned to write down what he said in English, which was a slow
process because he had to stop and ask Khan how to spell certain
words. This gave Khan time to collect his thoughts, however, and
add convincing detail to the story of his training in an al-Qaeda
camp. He found that the things he just made up out of desperation
were the most readily accepted by the Egyptian.
Night came and the
questions continued under a naked bulb. At some point in these
hours, Khan’s faith in humanity, more particularly his assumptions
about his fellow men, slipped away. He had been changed, although
his mind was in no state to hold such an idea or to know what it
meant.
Herrick noticed that
the prospect of the adventure in Egypt instantly took ten years off
her father. His eyes shone with animation and he seemed to be
moving less stiffly. Besides the essentials of the plan, he had
mastered the hand-radios, the encryption phones and the topography
of the district of Cairo where Khan was believed to be held. On the
way to Heathrow he explained to Herrick and Christine Selvey that
he’d spent two weeks in Cairo before leaving for Palestine in 1946,
exploring the medieval quarter and the area around Khan al Khalili
souk. He understood that little had changed.
They were booked, not
into one of the modern hotels along the Nile, but the more central
Devon Hotel that once acted as a kind of officers’ mess for the
British Army. Munroe had stayed there when the more exclusive
Shepheard’s had been full. He was astonished to find the same 1930s
switchboard behind the front desk and the ancient lift that carried
guests up to the rooms in a steel cage and stopped short of each
floor by about a foot. He was even more taken by the scorched
canvas which had once been a hunting scene and still hung in the
dining room as a reminder of the anti-British riots that coincided
with Nasser’s coup in 1952. ‘Of course they were right to kick us
out,’ he murmured. ‘We had no business being here.’
‘And what about now?’
asked Herrick.
‘That’s another
matter, as you well know, Isis.’ He shook his head with
affectionate despair. ‘Anyway, we haven’t time for this. We’ve got
a rendezvous to make.’
They left Selvey at
the hotel and caught a cab to the Sunset café, which was still
nearly full even though it was well past midnight. They didn’t know
which member of the team to expect, just that someone would arrive
with details of the next day.
When they had ordered
tea and a hookah, Herrick said, ‘You have to admit this is bloody
weird, Dad.’
‘I suppose it is,’ he
said. ‘I was even less keen than you, but I believe the Chief needs
our help, and you have to admit I’m an excellent
cover.’
‘But you’re part of
the operation, not just cover. That’s what worries me. And what
about the Chief? Even if we manage to pick up the package, this is
bound to get out sooner or later.’
‘I’m certain you’re
right. But he’s not furthering his own interests. He’s only trying
to protect the Service from Vigo and Spelling.’ He looked at her
with a sudden, intense concern. ‘The Chief told me what happened to
you. He said it was almost certainly Vigo who’d put those two
bloody Albanians on to you. You did well to fight them off. I’m
impressed and immensely relieved.’
‘That’s what I mean.
You shouldn’t know about this stuff. How can I possibly be expected
to work if I know you’re being told about every minor danger?
Anyway, they weren’t after me. They were searching the place and I
happened to turn up.’
‘What were they
looking for?’
‘I don’t know,’ she
said. It had now become almost a matter of faith that she told no
one about the package from Beirut.
He smiled
sceptically. ‘But Vigo knew it was there.’
‘Yes, that means he
was listening to a phone conversation I had a few hours before with
a friend. Though God knows why he would bother.’
‘Come off it, Isis.
You surely understand?’
‘No.’
‘He’s jealous of your
talent. You’re a natural. The Chief never stops telling me how good
you are. The idea that anyone could possess the sort of flair he
once showed would certainly grate with him. Besides that, you’re
critical of his operation. He’s bound to be put out.’
She shrugged and
moved a little closer. ‘What chance do you think we’ve got
here?’
‘Fifty-fifty. It
relies on quick, accurate information and if we don’t get that,
we’re jiggered.’
‘Jiggered! Where did
that word come from?’ She looked at his eyes moving over the café’s
customers, discreetly noting who was showing an interest in them.
‘Well, I suppose this is better than looking at snail shells
through a magnifying glass.’
‘Not a patch on it,
but the change is certainly refreshing.’
They waited a further
half hour gossiping about Hopelaw, and then a young man who had
been browsing along a magazine stand twenty yards away came to sit
at their table and ordered a pipe and coffee. He was pale and
sickly looking with eyes set wide. Herrick noticed he moved
awkwardly as though he had damaged his back or pelvis, and she
asked him what was the matter.
‘Big lorry jump on
little car. Everyone dead except Mr Foyzi.’
‘I’m glad you
survived, Mr Foyzi,’ she said.
‘Yes, but treatment
at hospital very, very expensive. Mr Foyzi needs money to make back
straight. You want buy papyrus?’ He handed Munroe Herrick a card.
‘This address of best papyrus shop in all Cairo.’ His arms danced
in the air as he described the splendour and size of his brother’s
factory. ‘Okay, you come. We have coffee and make
party.’
‘This sounds exactly
what we want,’ said Munroe. He handed the card to Isis. It read,
‘Go with Foyzi - Harland.’
‘What time should we
come?’
‘But of course now.
There is not long distance to factory.’
They left money on
the table and were ushered from the alley by Foyzi, who made a
great show of leading his new and valued clients to the factory.
They crossed at the intersection of two large streets then plunged
into another alley. Either side of them rose elegant
turn-of-the-century apartment blocks with balcony windows that
jutted over their heads. They passed men labouring over tiny fires
in dimly lit work-shops and others loitering, picking at grilled
corn cobs, smoking makeshift hookahs and offering advice from the
street with the exaggerated movements of a mime troupe. No women
were about and Herrick, dressed in jeans and a shirt, felt
conspicuous, although Foyzi’s presence seemed to reassure the men
and they gave her barely a second glance. For fifteen minutes they
dodged back and forth, moving through the dark maze of alleys until
eventually they came to a courtyard where a man with welding
equipment squatted by a car door. The sparks flew into the dark,
illuminating three trees and washing lines that swayed in the warm
breeze.
Foyzi stopped and
beckoned them to the side of the courtyard. ‘No speaks now,’ he
whispered, putting both hands to his lips, then turned to watch the
entrance of the courtyard. A minute or two later the welder lifted
his visor and snapped off the flame. The courtyard became utterly
dark and silent. Foyzi guided them to an entrance, knocked on the
door and spoke through a grille. Locks were turned heavily and
bolts drawn back. Inside there were some candles in red glass pots
and a figure wrapped in white cloth and a headdress who immediately
slipped away into a recess. Without explanation, Foyzi hurried them
along a corridor heavily scented with flowers and the smell of
candle wax, then they burst into a brightly lit room with
chandeliers and show cases full of bottles.
‘Where the hell are
we?’ asked Herrick.
‘A perfume factory, I
think,’ replied her father.
‘Gentleman is
correct, but we not stay here,’ said Foyzi officiously. ‘You buy
lotus oil some other time, missus. We see your friends now in next
store.’
A communicating door
was opened and they were propelled into another cavernous space
hung with carpets and huge brass lanterns. Foyzi took their arms
and navigated them through the piles of rugs on the floor. When
they reached a better-lit part of the shop, Herrick checked her
father’s face. He showed no signs of strain
whatsoever.
‘Isis, I will say
this once,’ he murmured as they approached a room where they heard
voices. ‘Do not fuss over me. I am perfectly all
right.’
Inside, she saw
Harland, Colonel B and, to her surprise, Colin Guthrie, who
explained that it had been decided in London at the last moment
that he would oversee the operation. Harland greeted them both with
an enigmatic grin and said that Loz was already under guard at the
place where they would take Khan. Foyzi sat down at one of the
chairs and tipped a little liquid from a flask into a cup of
coffee.
Guthrie unrolled a
map on the table. ‘Over the past twenty-four hours we have been
observing the route taken from the police headquarters to the jail
on the southern margins of the city. Without exception the trucks
and cars making this journey have travelled along the streets
marked in red. We have no reason to believe they will vary the
routine for Khan. At the moment our sources say that the security
people are exhausting their methods and are likely to hand over to
The Doctor sometime tomorrow. That leaves us with very little time,
yet also too much of it. While we have to be ready to go tomorrow
we must also remember that it will be a considerable challenge to
mount any kind of watch in an area which is at all times crawling
with police and security personnel. ’
Guthrie laid four A4
photographs on the table and joined them together to create a
continuous picture of the street named Bur Said. He pointed to a
three-storey stone Italianate building and a much larger and more
modern office block, painted white and turquoise. ‘The older
building holds the courts. This is joined on the right to the
police headquarters. At the back is the jail complex where Khan is
being held. The truck carrying him will leave an entrance at the
rear and take the crowded side-street to Bur Said. Beginning at
this junction there is a run of shops, restaurants and cafés where
The Doctor - Ibrahim al Shuqairi - has been observed talking to a
CIA man whom Bobby Harland has identified in surveillance
photographs as Lance Gibbons. He has been seen there four times in
the last thirty-six hours and it is believed that he has been
unofficially briefing the American on the progress of the
interrogation. On the last occasion, earlier this evening, the
couple appeared to have a falling out. We think Gibbons has failed
to recommend that the responsibility for the interrogation should
be given to The Doctor. Information from the police HQ, produced by
Mr Foyzi this afternoon, would seem to confirm this. We know also
that communications traffic from the US Embassy has featured the
interrogation and its results. Unsurprisingly, Khan has admitted to
being involved in a plot to blow up a number of churches and other
prominent targets, but he has given them no definite date for an
attack. Perhaps he senses that this is the one thing he still has
to play with.’
Guthrie looked up
from the pictures and moved a lamp to shine on them. ‘This run of
cafés is where you will be stationed, Isis. Your job will be to
observe Gibbons and try to overhear what he says. We will have
other people in the café, but you will be the person to signal the
operation is on. Foyzi will be with you. The important point of
course is that Gibbons and The Doctor both know you, which means
you have to go well-disguised.’
Herrick nodded
agreement that this would not present the slightest
problem.
Guthrie turned to
Munroe. ‘The first part of your day will be spent in the newly
restored Islamic Museum directly opposite the courts. This should
not be arduous. The museum is air-conditioned and I believe
possesses an unequalled collection of manuscripts and ornamental
art. You will remain there with Selvey until such time as you
receive a message. Then you will make your way out and look for a
blue and white Peugeot with the words Zamalek Limousine printed on
its side. You will be driven to this point here in the Northern
Cemetery, about ten to fifteen minutes away, depending on the
traffic. You will see that there are a number of right-angle bends
there which require the truck to slow down to about ten miles an
hour. It is here that the interception will take place. You will
remain in the car until you hear from Philip Sarre and Gregor
Laughland who will be positioned close by in the cemetery. One of
them will radio you when they have visual contact. At this point,
you will both get out and prepare to create the diversion we’ve
already discussed. Once the wagon has stopped you will move as
quickly as you can to the Peugeot and make your escape. It is
likely to be hot so you will need to reserve all your energy for
that walk, Munroe.’
Guthrie sat down.
There was silence in the room for several seconds. This was the
signal for Colonel B to speak.
‘What you all need to
know about the end of the operation is minimal,’ he said. ‘We will
be in the area of the cemetery, but you won’t see us before the
truck arrives. We’ve spent most of the day recceing the area and in
many respects have found it the perfect spot. There is very little
traffic and the road there is poorly made. Our main object of
course is to release Khan without loss of life, but there will be
one or two bangs that will attract attention, so we’ll be aiming to
move out of the area with Khan very quickly.’ He placed a packet of
earplugs on the table and shoved them towards Munroe.‘These are for
you and your colleague, sir. Once you’ve got the signal, be sure to
ram them right in.’
‘And me?’ said
Herrick. ‘How do I hook up with you? Where’s Harland going to
be?’
‘Harland is going to
be with us, so we will need the medical kit you brought out from
England.’
‘Right, I can get
that to you. But after the truck has passed what do I do? Follow
it?’
‘Exactly. We want you
to watch for an escort. Generally these trucks travel alone, but
given the interest in Khan there may well be a couple of cars
following with some armed police. They shouldn’t present too much
of a problem, but we’ll need a description of the vehicles and the
number of men inside.’
‘There’s one thing I
don’t understand,’ said Harland. ‘Why does Isis have to hang around
the café and then pursue the truck? Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler to
put Sarre or Laughland there to do the initial watch and have Isis
tucked away in the cemetery ready to leave with me and
Khan?’
Guthrie shook his
head. ‘No. For one thing Isis will be far less conspicuous. Two,
she can dress in the traditional manner for an Egyptian woman and
be to all intents and purposes unapproachable. Three, she has a
rather special talent which I was reminded of only the other day by
one of our colleagues in the Company.’
Munroe nodded and
smiled. Harland looked mystified.
‘She can lip-read
English, and as long as she gets a good line of sight on Gibbons,
we shouldn’t have any problem finding out what’s going
on.’
‘That’s excellent,’
said Foyzi in the perfect intonation of a middle-class
Englishman.
Herrick and her
father turned round to see him lying on a pile of rugs with his tea
precariously balanced on his chest.
‘Mr Foyzi is not what
he appears to be,’ said Guthrie. ‘In fact Mr Foyzi is not even
Egyptian.’
Foyzi gave him a
demure nod.
‘So between Isis and
Foyzi we should be in business. Now communications. The first call
will be made by Isis on her mobile phone. That will go to me in the
control van, positioned halfway between the police HQ and the
cemetery. Thereafter we should use the radios, earpieces and
clip-on mikes which you all have. But chatter should be kept to a
minimum. Specific details of the truck and any escort should be
phoned to me and I’ll pass them on in suitably obscure terms.
Right, Foyzi will take you two back to the Devon and Harland can
collect the medical bag. We should aim to be in place by 10.00 a.m.
and let’s hope we get a hint of movement sooner rather than later.’
He gathered up the photos and map and stood up.
Later at the hotel
Herrick told her father, ‘This is just about the daftest plan I’ve
heard. Practically everything can go wrong.’
‘Well, there’s an
awful lot of room for manoeuvre. And that’s no bad
thing.’
‘That doesn’t make me
feel any better.’