Brute Force

82

Lynn ducked under the shutter and went in first. A scabby-kneed kid came and hauled the shutter open as I followed, allowing sunlight to spill inside.

I grabbed the table closest to the pavement and sat down with my back against the wall. From here I could watch the street as well as what was going on inside.

There were about twenty tables under cover and five outside. Approximate head-count: fifty males. No women.

The low murmur of conversation dropped still further as Lynn approached the bar.

The kid who'd opened the shutter came to take my order. I pointed at myself and Lynn. 'Shay.'

I gave the whole area the once-over. There wasn't much to take in, unless you were the health inspector: an antique orange-presser on the bar counter that looked like it had squeezed its last around the time the Romans left, and a giant copper pot, tea-stained and beaten out of shape. A row of Turkish coffee pots bubbled away on a gas stove.

An old guy with a white handlebar moustache shooed flies away from a plate. He looked like he should have been flying Lancaster bombers over Nazi Germany. On the plate sat what looked like an over-sized haggis. I remembered they called this osban – a sheep's stomach filled with rice, herbs, liver, kidneys and other meats, then boiled. And the Jocks think they have a monopoly on all the delicacies.

Lynn started waffling away to the Wing Commander. A moment later, they shook hands.

The clientele, seeing this, visibly relaxed. People went back to doing what they'd been doing – smoking their hubble-bubbles, sipping shay, reading papers, playing draughts, talking.

The hubbub gradually filled the room again.

Lynn said something else to the Wing Commander. He nodded and produced a calculator from the folds of his gelabaya. The handlebars twitched alarmingly as he punched in some numbers and handed the calculator to Lynn. Lynn looked at the screen, muttered a couple of words and passed it back again. This charade continued for a minute or so, then the Wing Commander gave a big nod and they shook again.

Lynn handed over some dollars and got a fistful of local in return.

He waited a minute, then, above the background noise, I overheard him mention Mansour's name.

There wasn't a flicker of acknowledgement from the Wing Commander as he poured coffees from their little copper pots into some shot-glasses.

Lynn said it again, this time giving the full name – 'Mansour Al-Waddan?'

The Wing Commander shrugged and carried on pouring.

Lynn got to his feet. He clapped his hands and the conversation subsided. Then he started giving hubba-hubba to everyone in the room. Lynn's tone was apologetic and yet determined – I guessed that he was saying sorry for disturbing the peace, but had we seen his old mate?

The boy brought over our tea and Lynn carried on. At the mention of Mansour's name, I expected some kind of a reaction – something like the way the conversation had died when we'd entered the teahouse. But once everybody had got used to a foreigner talking to them in their native tongue, they just went back to what they'd been doing.

Lynn turned back to the bar, downed his coffee, put some money on the counter and walked over to me.

'Come on. I've paid for everything. We're leaving.'

I got up and followed him onto the street. We melted into the crowd on Sharia Hara Kebir. Lynn took a second to get his bearings, then motioned me to a table in front of an equally minging teahouse in the shadow of Marcus Aurelius's arch.

Lynn gave me the ghost of a smile. 'Let's see what that produces, shall we?'

As I sat down, I noticed that we had a perfect view of Osman's.

A waiter appeared. Lynn ordered shay and stretched back in his chair.

'Do you know the origin of the word Tripoli, Nick? It's named after the ancient Roman province of Tripolitania: from the Greek – 'the land of the three cities'. There was Oea, Greek originally, then Roman – its ruins actually lie beneath our feet. Then there was Sabratha to the west of Tripoli and, of course, Leptis Magna to the east. Don't worry about what I did back there. Think about it: what choice do we have?'

The waiter arrived and placed our tea on the table. Lynn turned to me. 'Breakfast? I don't know about you, but I'm absolutely starving. I'm also betting on the fact that we may have a bit of a wait ahead of us.'

As he gabbled his order, I kept my eyes on the entrance to Osman's. Behind the activity around the barbecue, the teahouse was as we'd left it.

I took a sip of the very sweet mint tea instead of ripping into him for putting the message out over the tannoy. It wasn't the way I would have done things.

I didn't have a contingency plan, but we were going to have to think of one. 'Nobody in there had ever heard of Mansour, had they? We're going to have to find a telephone directory or something, or—'

'No.' Lynn shook his head. 'Like I told you, Osman's is Al-Waddan. The old boy behind the counter has worked there all his life. I asked him. Seventy years, man and boy. He is also Al-Waddan. And yet, did you see how he completely blanked me? It was like Mansour never even existed.'

'Or they're too shit scared to admit knowing him.'

Lynn's eyes played over the arch. 'Perhaps you couldn't see it from where you were sitting, but there was a chap in the corner, rather funny-looking. He was smoking a nargileh and had a lazy eye.'

The waiter arrived with bread. Lynn tore off a chunk. 'Of all the people in the room, Lazy-Eye was the only one who kept listening.' He put the bread in his mouth but kept talking. 'He knows, Nick. And I made sure everyone saw me doing my money-changing routine, so he also knows I've got cash. He's not going to be in a hurry. It might be an hour or it might be two or three – he won't want anyone to make the connection with us. But when he makes his move, he'll either go straight to Mansour, in which case we'll follow him, or he'll be out here, looking for us. You'll see; I know these people.'