CHAPTER TWENTY
Khan knew neither
night nor day. He was fed once with a plate of slop and given
water, which the guards snatched away after he had drunk only a
little. And he did not sleep. When the Egyptian and The Doctor were
out of the cell he was let down to a sitting position on the floor
with his arms still held above him by the rope. Except for an
intermittent prickling sensation caused by the lack of circulation,
he had lost the feeling in his hands. When he nodded off, or simply
fainted during moments when the pain became extreme, the guards
kicked him or banged the door with a truncheon.
Time had ceased to
exist. Thoughts came in snatches of telegraphese. He knew he could
not manipulate the situation to save himself from The Doctor
because he had already begun to tell him what drugs he would use.
He said they would paralyse him for hours, turn him mad, set rats
loose in his mind, make his skin burn, cause his eyes to flinch at
the light of a candle and give his body such discomfort he would
neither be able to rest nor sleep.
Khan thought, I did
this… I brought myself here… a journey of my devising… God have
pity on me… The Prophet (peace be upon him) please stop these men…
Stop these men, please… this is not your way… I beg you, stop these
men… I am… I am hurting… I don’t know myself… Let me
die.
Prayers and
self-recrimination circulated in his head for hours, or just
seconds, he could not be certain. He had the strange idea that his
mind was somehow becoming detached from his body, yet he knew this
was not true because he had never been more aware of his physical
self. They had locked his mind in a cage with a beast and the beast
was his pain. Why? He had no answer to that question. The question
no longer existed because there could not be an
answer.
Perhaps he should
have told the truth instead of all these fabrications about
terrorist training and targets. But he had told them the truth. That’s what he had done
when he had first seen The Doctor, and it hadn’t worked because the
man had begun to hurt him.
It was cooler now and
he guessed it was night. One of the two guards had propped himself
against the door and hung his head in sleep. Khan’s mind rambled
and he thought of the now unbearable sweetness of his early life.
Was it really his, or had he imagined it?
Then the cell door
opened, sending the sleeping guard into the centre of the cell.
When he recovered himself he struck Khan twice with his truncheon
as though punishing him for a violation that had just taken place.
In the light from the corridor, Khan glimpsed the guard’s guilty,
moronic face turn obsequiously to the Egyptian and The Doctor as
they walked in. Then he caught sight of the trolley being wheeled
behind them.
It was about the size
of a cocktail trolley, although like everything in the prison it
had been knocked together from scrap - an artless contraption with
wires coiled on the top, a box and a wooden board on which there
was a switch and a lever. One of the guards unravelled the flex and
ran it to a power point outside the cell. The other uncoiled the
wires lying on top. At the end of these were a couple of metal
crocodile clamps such as might be used to charge a car
battery.
The Doctor picked his
teeth while the Egyptian bent down and dipped a rag in a pail of
water, then handed it to the guard so it could be wrung
out.
Herrick slipped out
of the hotel early and went with Foyzi to buy a hijab, the head
scarf that covers the hair, ears, shoulders and part of the face.
Foyzi, himself wearing a long white jellaba and a red and white
cloth on his head, assured her that once she was wearing a hijab,
no one would look at her, particularly if they were together. She
bought a black one with a severe cut.
Already the air was
thick with pollution and the roads were teeming with every form of
motor vehicle, hand-cart and wagon. They reached Bur Said by 9.00
a.m. and took a turn round the traffic system, cruising past the
court and police buildings, then the museum where Munroe Herrick
and Christine Selvey were to be kept on ice amongst the collections
of incense burners and weaponry. They parked a little distance from
the café near the police headquarters and waited for Gibbons to
show. On the previous day one of Foyzi’s men had observed him
arrive at 10.30 a.m., but an hour and a half passed without sign of
him. Guthrie called Herrick twice on the mobile to tell her to get
out of the heat and into the café so she’d be sure to have a place
by the time either of them arrived. She insisted that she must wait
until she knew which table they were at.
The day dragged on,
and although the density and noise of the traffic did not subside,
there were fewer people walking on the streets. The women who had
improvised a vegetable market on the other side of the road
suddenly packed up and vanished in swirls of brightly patterned
cloth. The men who had been listlessly hoeing and watering a narrow
flower border separating the two streams of traffic had sunk to
their haunches in the shade of a tree to watch three hooded crows
fight over the seepage from their hose.
Just past midday a
hot wind blew up, whipping eddies of dust along the road and
tearing at the flags outside the court. The crows took to the wing
and flapped in the air above the traffic. Herrick and Foyzi slipped
down in their seats and took sips from a bottle of mineral water.
They moved the car several times to keep in the shade and at two
o’clock saw a convoy of three police trucks making its way up the
side street. The back of each vehicle was open, and as they swung
into Bur Said, Herrick saw past the
guards to the tiny steel cubicles which held the
prisoners.
‘They must roast in
those things,’ she said.
Foyzi nodded sadly
then straightened in his seat. ‘Here’s the American. Look! Look! In
the mirror!’
Herrick glanced in
the right wing mirror and saw Gibbons stepping out of a taxi. She
pulled down the sunshade to check the hijab and the Jackie O dark
glasses and then plugged in her telephone earpiece and the
microphone that ran up her right sleeve. He passed quite close to
them and made straight for the café. After some indecision, he
settled at an outside table in the breeze. They watched him while
he ordered, then got out and walked together, rowing in Arabic
about Foyzi’s driving, and sat down just inside the door where
there was both shade and a breeze. Foyzi had his back to Gibbons
which meant that she could observe quite easily over his shoulder
while talking. They ordered tea. Twenty minutes passed during which
Gibbons made two short calls on his cell phone, allowing Herrick to
test her skill on him. He was speaking to The Doctor, asking where
the fuck he was. A few moments later she saw The Doctor lumbering
up the side street in a pale green robe. He was with another Arab,
a much smaller man who wore a jacket over his shoulders that
flapped in the wind and revealed a pale blue lining. This man had a
rather fussy manner and brushed the chair before sitting down with
his back to Foyzi and Herrick, then plucked at the crease in his
trousers. The Doctor let himself down heavily in profile to them
and produced a bag of sunflower seeds which he proceeded to
eat.
Once they’d given
their orders, Gibbons leaned forward and began to speak. Herrick
dialled Guthrie, raised her right hand to her face and murmured
into her sleeve, looking away slightly but never letting her eyes
move from Gibbons’ lips. She gave Guthrie a verbatim account, only
sometimes pausing to say which of the men he was addressing. ‘What
have you got for me?’ Gibbons asked the Egyptian. He replied at
great length. Gibbons examined him closely. ‘Do you have definite
dates? What about names? Did you get the names of his
contacts?’
The man shook his
head and The Doctor interrupted, slicing the air with his
hand.
Gibbons ignored him.
‘You say this was going to happen in Paris and London
simultaneously. What about the States? Did you get anything about
the postcards?’ He nodded as the Egyptian replied. Again The Doctor
interrupted, but Gibbons’ eyes remained fixed on the other man. ‘So
he admits they were coded messages? Right, what about the Empire
State? Is he saying the attacks will be coordinated in the States
as well as Europe?’ As they both attempted to answer, Gibbons began
shaking his head. ‘You guys gotta realise that’s what we’re all
here for. We need to know. Right now, all I’m hearing is maybe
this, maybe that, maybe now, maybe later. We have a ticking bomb
here. My people need accurate information.’ He stubbed his index
finger on the surface of the table then slumped back in his chair
and looked away in frustration. The Doctor also turned his gaze
elsewhere, leaving the ball in the other man’s court.
He made a long speech
that seemed not to impress Gibbons, who ordered another drink and
then dialled a number on his phone.
‘No information… no
real details of the plan… right… okay... sure… I’ll tell him…
that’s right… yeah, yeah. Leave it to me.’ He lowered the phone and
spoke to the Egyptian. ‘Okay, so my people think we should pursue
the second option. I’m sorry Mr Abdullah, but that’s what they say.
It’s out of my hands. You got to see I’m in a bind here. We’re very
grateful for what you have already done and the US Embassy will
make a formal recognition of your service to us with a letter of
thanks. Here is something to be going on with. A kind of personal
thanks.’ He reached for the top pocket of the man’s jacket and
stuffed a roll of money into it.
Herrick now gave the
first piece of commentary. ‘He’s paying off the Egyptian security
officer. The interrogation is going to be handed over to The
Doctor.’
‘Tell Foyzi to
activate his sources and find out when Khan’s going to be
transferred,’ rasped Guthrie. ‘We want to know which bloody vehicle
he’s in.’
Foyzi didn’t need
telling and gave Herrick a nod to say he understood.
Gibbons looked at his
watch and said something she couldn’t read, because he had raised a
glass to his lips and held it there for some time without drinking.
The Doctor felt in his robes for something and pulled out a set of
black worry beads which he handled like a rosary, then repeatedly
flipped over his index finger.
Gibbons lowered the
glass and said, ‘We need something tonight or tomorrow. The work
has got to be finished by Monday.’
All this she
communicated to Guthrie. Occasionally she heard him speaking on
other lines to her father and Colonel B.
She hung up and
started to speak to Foyzi in Arabic. Had he checked the car? Didn’t
he think he ought to be leaving? Foyzi allowed himself to smile at
Herrick’s portrayal of a nagging wife and made as though to
grumble. He paid and left the café saying that he would see her in
twenty minutes.
Herrick planned to
return to the car the moment The Doctor left. From behind the
sunglasses she looked ahead of her without acknowledging their
presence or bothering to see what they were saying. Gibbons lit a
cigarette and threw occasional interested glances in her direction,
but she was certain he wouldn’t recognise her and sat with what she
hoped was the unapproachable poise of a young middle-class Arab
woman.
After a desultory
exchange The Doctor got up. Gibbons did not rise or offer a hand.
Herrick thought she saw a fleeting look of distaste sweep across
his expression. ‘We’ll speak soon.’
Herrick decided to
leave, but just as she stood up, her phone began to vibrate. The
momentary distraction meant that she did not pay attention to the
wind, as the Arab women on the street do, and a gust took hold of
the hijab, revealing her hair, neck and some of her face. She
pulled it down swiftly and made for the car. As she opened the door
she saw Gibbons rise, sling some money onto the table and start
purposefully towards her. In a matter of seconds he had reached the
car and shouted through the window. ‘I’ll be damned if that isn’t
Isis Herrick.’ He bent down to her level. ‘Shit! That is you, isn’t it?’
She looked ahead of
her without moving, realising that she couldn’t just sit there -
one call from Gibbons and the whole operation would be blown. She
got out, pushed him away and shouted in Arabic to the passers-by
that the American was bothering her.
‘Well, what do you
know,’ he said, leering down at her. ‘The cold-assed British spook
has followed me all the way to Cairo for a little loving.’ He felt
in one of the pockets of his photographer’s vest and pulled out a
phone. She knocked it from his hands and spun round, cursing him in
Arabic. The filthy American was making indecent suggestions -
wouldn’t someone help a virtuous woman?
Gibbons seemed to
find this funny. ‘Oh, you’re good,’ he said, unhurriedly bending
down to retrieve his phone. ‘You’re very good, Isis. But I just
gotta tell my people you’ve gate-crashed the donkey roast.’ He
stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder, dialling a number with
the thumb of his other hand. Suddenly Foyzi appeared from nowhere
and pulled Herrick away from him.
‘Who’s this? Omar
Sharif?’
Foyzi smiled up at
him. ‘I have gun aimed at your heart, sir. Get into the
car.’
‘Yeah, and I’m King
Farouk,’ said Gibbons. ‘Step aside, buster. This lady and I have
business.’
Foyzi manoeuvred so
he could show Gibbons the gun without displaying it to the rest of
the street. ‘I will kill you unless you
get in the car, sir.’
‘Okay,’ said Gibbons,
trying to maintain his dignity. ‘So you’re going to kidnap an
American citizen. You can’t get away with this, Isis - you and your
little towel-head friend.’
‘Such company we have
to keep,’ said Foyzi despairingly. He opened the back door and
prodded Gibbons. ‘Get in.’
Gibbons obeyed, but
with a thunderous look that said he would soon have the upper hand.
‘I’ll see you on the fucking rack for this.’
She climbed behind
the wheel. ‘What now?’
‘No problem,’ said
Foyzi, pointing ahead of them. ‘No problem at all.
Drive!’
She edged the Fiat
into the traffic.
‘Oh, I get it. You’re
going to try to spring Khan!’ said Gibbons, laughing. ‘Jesus, I’m
gonna be ringside on fucking amateur night.’
‘Last thing I heard,
you said he was Faisal, not Khan,’ said Isis over her
shoulder.
‘Right,’ said Gibbons
sourly.
They passed the
police HQ and courts, then turned left to travel in the opposite
direction. Foyzi wrested Gibbons’ phone from him and crushed it
underfoot on the floor of the car. Then he called someone on his
own phone and spoke rapidly.
Gibbons talked over
him, affecting not to mind the silencer lodged in his armpit. ‘You
understand what you’re doing, Isis? You’re interfering with the
legitimate investigation of a terrorist suspect by the United
States. If an attack should result from your actions you and your
friend will be named as accessories. They’ll come after you,
wherever the fuck you are.’
‘I understand just
one thing about your activities,’ she said calmly. ‘You’ve
instigated the torture of a man who hasn’t been found guilty of a
crime and—’
‘That’s the trouble
with you fucking Europeans,’ interrupted Gibbons. ‘You want all the
benefits of American power but you don’t want to get your hands
dirty.’ He paused. ‘Let me tell you, this is the big new game, and
it’s played with a whole new set of rules. Frankly, you don’t cut
it. You don’t even come near. ’
‘There’s nothing new
about your big new game,’ she said.
‘You told me that yourself. You were right. Torture was used by the
regimes in South America, all of them endorsed by the US
government. Torture is actually a very old, very desperate game and
it doesn’t work. You don’t get results by tearing a person’s body
apart.’
This gave Gibbons
some pause. ‘We’re against the clock. There’s no other way
now.’
‘There is,’ said
Isis. ‘There always is.’
They were alongside
the museum and Foyzi told her to drive two hundred yards further
and take the first turning right. She negotiated a hand-cart loaded
with crates of vegetables and swerved right into a shaded street
where huge pieces of awning and cloth hung vertically from wires
overhead. Foyzi was on the phone. They turned right again into a
yard where there was a white Nissan van. Four men in jellabas
rushed towards them. One opened the door on Gibbons’ side and
rammed a needle into his arm. Almost immediately the American’s
eyes closed and his body went slack. He was dragged from the car,
carried off to the van and lifted into the back. Two of the men
jumped in with him and the van moved off in a cloud of dust. Foyzi
got out, ran round to take the wheel from Herrick and reversed out
of the yard at a furious speed, span 180 degrees and rushed to
rejoin Bur Said.
‘Who were they?’
shouted Herrick, thinking it was certainly fitting that Gibbons had
now himself been drugged and driven off unconscious.
‘My backup, my
people,’ he said.
‘Who’re your
people?’
‘Another time,’ he
replied, straining left and right to look for an opening in the
traffic. ‘The transport is about to leave the police building. We
must get into position.’
‘What will they do
with Gibbons?’
‘Take him somewhere
and dump him. He’ll be fine, but he won’t remember who he is or
where he is for a day or two.’
They found a way
through the jam that brought them near to the café, and stopped
alongside a line of minibuses disgorging passengers and admitting
others with equal numbers of cumbersome packages. For a few minutes
they waited in the sweltering heat. Foyzi’s eyes darted between the
screen of his mobile and the throng of people around the car. Then
the phone beeped twice with a text message.
‘It’s coming,’ he
said. ‘He’s on the next truck.’
He nosed forward
through the crowd and within a very short time they saw the truck
moving out of the side street. It was accompanied by a car that had
edged round the truck and was forging through the traffic with
occasional blasts on its siren. Herrick relayed all this
information to Guthrie. There were four policemen in the car, and
two guards carrying automatics could be seen through the open back
of the truck. She caught sight of The Doctor in the passenger seat
of the truck. Khan had to be inside. Guthrie told her to use the
radio from now on so that everyone could hear.
Foyzi worked the
little Fiat into position, about three vehicles behind the truck,
which was moving at about 15 mph. There was much competition among
the other cars around them to fall into the truck’s slipstream, but
Foyzi held their place effortlessly.
They reached the Kahn
al Khalili souk where the traffic became less responsive to the
police siren, and they stopped for minutes at a time. Herrick used
the fan fixed to the Fiat’s dashboard to cool her face and glanced
idly down the warren of passages into the souk. A further ten
minutes passed. Then the traffic seemed suddenly to ease and the
truck moved away at a speed of 40 mph. Foyzi dodged to keep in
touch, but was forced to stop at some traffic lights where they
knew the first lookout man was positioned. They heard his terse
commentary over the radio and then shot off in pursuit of the
truck, which to their relief followed the predicted route, turning
left on a road called Salah Salem and then right into the cemetery.
Herrick called out, ‘Three minutes to landing. Repeat. ETA - three
minutes.’
Harland had moved
very little in the heat, but when he heard Herrick’s voice he got
out of the Isuzu and lifted his binoculars to the cemetery road.
From his vantage point 150 yards away, he had seen the blue and
white Peugeot stop some ten minutes before and Munroe Herrick leave
the car with Selvey. Despite Munroe’s reputation, Harland was
extremely doubtful about allowing a man in his eighties to take
part in the operation. However, he observed him now, moving without
the slightest sign of age or heat fatigue. He was dressed in a
light summer jacket and a broad-brimmed straw hat. Selvey was in a
long floral skirt and a hat tied with a scarf under her chin.
Together they looked as though they were about to attend the
Chelsea Flower Show or a vicarage garden party.
Harland saw Munroe
set up an easel in the shade of one of the monuments that bordered
the road. Very soon he was sitting on a collapsible fishing stool,
sketching the view that Harland had been staring at these past few
hours - the parched sandstone necropolis and, beyond it, Cairo and
the flood plain of the Nile in a dusty blue haze. It was a pity
he’d never finish the picture.
In almost every
respect the place was perfect for an ambush. The traffic was very
light indeed. Just four cars had passed in the previous five
minutes. The walls either side of the road were never less than ten
feet high, so no one would be able to see what was going on when
the police convoy was intercepted. And there would be very little
danger from stray bullets. There were many open doorways into the
cemetery either side of the road and the numerous smaller byways
which criss-crossed the area. At two different points these held
the vehicles that the snatch squad would use in their
escape.
For a moment
Harland’s attention was caught by three or four black kites
wheeling in the sky high above the cemetery. His concentration
snapped back to earth and he moved the binoculars down the incline
to settle on a group of barefoot children playing in the stretch
about 200 yards from Munroe. He hoped they wouldn’t get wind of the
old man. If they were drawn to him for baksheesh it would badly
complicate things. He swept the cemetery on the far side of the
road, pausing to examine the figures moving between the memorials.
One or two people were sleeping in the shade of the more elaborate
tombs. He wasn’t sure which of these belonged to Colonel B’s squad
of SAS veterans, but he knew they were there because of the radio
checks every ten minutes.
He saw the police
vehicles leave the main road and begin the steady climb towards
Munroe. The car in front moved a little too quickly for the truck
and twice had to slow down to wait.
Harland got back
behind the wheel, started the engine and, leaving it in neutral,
let the handbrake off so that the Isuzu began to creep down the
narrow stony track to the cemetery road. If all went well, he would
arrive behind the police truck, ready to receive Khan, Herrick and
Foyzi. But the timing had to be just right.
The radio sprang to
life. ‘Final positions, please. Runway clear.’ Then Sarre’s voice
could be heard counting away the distance - ‘Five hundred yards and
closing. Four hundred. Three-fifty.’ When he reached two hundred,
Munroe got up, felt in his pocket and handed something to Selvey.
They were replacing their radio earpieces with
earplugs.
Not far from them, a
bundle of rags moved slightly - a beggar dozing in the dappled
shade of a eucalyptus tree shifting something hidden in the
sackcloth. Across the road a cart loaded with sugar cane seemed to
move of its own accord. Harland could just make out two pairs of
boots beneath it.
The police car showed
round the first part of the Z bend and climbed the rutted stretch
towards Munroe. Then came the truck, heeling as it took the
potholes. Some way off, the little Fiat driven by Foyzi tore
through the dust kicked up by the two bigger vehicles.
As Harland inched
forward, his view of the road remained unimpaired. The whole plan
began to unfold in front of him. Munroe was the first to move. He
got up from his seat and managed to dislodge his hat, which rolled
off across the road. This seemed to cause the old man some distress
and he went in pursuit of it, holding his back and moving with
great difficulty. He added further to the impression of frailty by
waving a stick in the air and knocking over his easel. At this
moment the police vehicle came round the bend and, without slowing
down, drove between him and the hat. Munroe seemed to become
disorientated in the cloud of dust, fell forwards and rolled onto
his side. Harland prayed the driver of the truck would see him. He
did brake, but only just in time, at which point several things
happened. Smoke grenades went off in the road behind and in front
of the two vehicles. The load of sugar cane erupted and three men
wearing gas masks jumped into the road, shooting out the police
car’s tyres and radiator. The vehicle juddered to a halt with its
blue light still flashing in vain. At this, another man sprang from
an opening in the wall and propelled a small canister of knockout
gas through the window. None of the four men had any time to
react.
A second or two
before, Munroe rolled over in the road and aimed a machine pistol
with one hand at the truck’s front tyres and engine. He was joined
by Selvey, who raised her sidearm in a textbook two-handed aim. The
rear tyres were cut to ribbons by two other men who had leapt from
behind a wall, and for good measure they threw a stun-grenade in
the general direction of the truck. The driver had been on the
point of jumping down when it exploded and he fell to earth like a
dead bird.
Harland plunged
through the narrow opening, scraping the underside of his vehicle
on a boulder, and landed in the road just behind the truck. He saw
the Fiat parked with both its front doors open and Isis Herrick
running up the road into the smoke. This was the very last thing
she should have been doing because three policemen, who had been
protected from the worst effects of the stun-grenade, had spilled
from the open door at the back of the truck with their rifles.
Harland had no choice but to steer the Isuzu into one and then
slammed a second by opening his door while the vehicle was still
moving. The third man had scuttled round the truck and was taking
aim. Harland got out and sprinted to tackle him. The gun went off
at the moment he collided with his upper thighs and sent him into
the dirt. Harland was aware that his back wouldn’t take the jolt
but pushed the thought to the back of his mind. While Colonel B’s
men disarmed the three policemen, Harland picked himself up
painfully and went to the front to find Isis bent over her father.
He appeared to have sprained his right wrist but that was all. The
Peugeot getaway car had already been summoned, and before long
Munroe and Selvey were being rushed towards it through the smoke.
Isis stood looking utterly stricken, but then her father bent down
to pick up his hat and waved a cheery goodbye over his
shoulder.
It was a bizarre
sight, and no one was more astonished than The Doctor, who remained
in the passenger seat of the truck as if he had suffered a seizure.
Foyzi opened the door and pulled him down into the road at gunpoint
uttering many imprecations under his breath, then took him by the
scruff of the neck and marched him to the rear of the truck.
Harland and Herrick followed.
They went through all
the cells. Two men were released but neither bore the slightest
resemblance to Khan and were told to make a run for it while they
could.
‘Maybe they’ve got
him on another truck,’ suggested Colonel B, wiping his face.
‘Inform this cunt that you will shoot him if he doesn’t tell us
where Karim Khan is.’
Foyzi placed the
silencer of his pistol against The Doctor’s temple. After a moment
of deliberation, The Doctor lifted his head and pointed inside the
truck.
‘There’s a
compartment in the floor,’ shouted Isis. ‘Look, there are two
hinges.’
They wrenched the
door up with crowbars. Beneath the steel plate Khan was lying
bound, gagged and blindfolded in a space not much larger than a
coffin. His feet were a blackened mess and his groin was stained
with blood and urine. The rest of his clothes were sodden. They
lifted him from this hold with infinite care and moved him to the
light. Herrick took off the blindfold and gag and told him he was
in safe hands, but he seemed not to understand and moved his head
rhythmically from side to side like a blind singer.
‘For the love of
God…’ said one of Colonel B’s men.
‘No,’ said Harland,
remembering with an almost physical pain his own time at the hands
of a torturer. He shook his head and turned to The Doctor ready to
kill him.
The Colonel put up
his arm. ‘We’d better be about our business,’ he said. ‘Get Khan
into Harland’s vehicle and give him a shot of
morphine.’
‘What about this
man?’ Harland asked, pointing to The Doctor. ‘He knows Isis. We
can’t leave him here.’
The Colonel nodded.
‘I rather thought we’d take him with us.’
‘And?’ said
Harland.
‘Well, obviously we
can’t take him all the way home to Syria or Iraq, or wherever the
devil he comes from, but we can certainly give him a ride to, say,
the middle of the Sinai desert.’
Harland, Isis and
Foyzi got in with Khan and made their way through the remainder of
the smoke. Colonel B’s men melted into the cemetery, two of them
running The Doctor towards a container lorry waiting with its
engine ticking over a little way off.
The radio came to
life again. It was Guthrie. ‘I’m sure you’ll want to join me in
thanking the Captain for a perfect landing. Local time is 4.25 p.m.
The temperature is ninety-two degrees. Welcome to Cairo. Please
remain seated until the aircraft has stopped moving.’