Countdown in Cairo

TWENTY-NINE

She blinked awake several hours later and looked at the clock by her bedside. It was almost 6:00. For several seconds she couldn’t figure out which 6:00 it was. Or where she was.

Then gradually she realized. It was evening. The disorientation of trans-Atlantic travel had caught up with her. She came to her feet. There was a coffeemaker in the kitchen area of her suite, and she put it to use.

She sat by a window and sipped coffee. The view of Rome from the Hotel Hassler had taken on the light blues and misty yellows of evening. From her window Alex watched the city grow darker and more vibrant as the evening approached.

She went to the hotel dining room at seven, early by Italian standards, but her dining companion that evening, Gian Antonio Rizzo, had made concessions to Alex’s circadian rhythm.

Carlo, the ramrod erect and proper maître d’, met her at the entrance to the dining room. She gave Rizzo’s name. Carlo managed a low bow and showed her to a reserved table set for three.

She sat. Then, moments later, Gian Antonio Rizzo appeared, arms wide in a gesture of reception. A smile swept across his face. He was dapper in a light brown suit that almost perfectly concealed the ever-present pistol that he wore on his hip.

“Well, well, well,” he said, greeting her in English.

She stood and let him embrace her. He kissed her on each cheek, he released her, and they sat.

“So?” he asked at length. “This hotel is usually up to my high standards. Is it up to yours?”

The hotel was lavish, one of the most distinctive in Rome. She took his question with several grains of salt. “It’s excellent,” she said.

“Ever stayed here before?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t.”

“But you’ll only be here for overnight?”

“That’s correct.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” he said. “I have a formula. An equation, as you will. Gian Antonio’s Rule of how to stay in a hotel and be remembered forever.”

“Leave bullet holes in the walls of your room?” she asked. “Or a body under the bed?”

“Very funny,” he said, “but that’s not quite the effect I was after. I mean, how to be remembered favorably. Here’s what you do. You book for a week. On the first day give them your order for breakfast, exactly what you want and the hour you want it. Tell them what kind of jam or mustard you like, what sort of coffee or tea. Tell them which newspapers you want, I suggest the best local newspaper, Le Monde in France or Il Messassero or Il Corriero della Sera here, plus the American one, The Herald Tribune. Don’t ask for USA Today; it’s only the American peasants who read that.”

“I get my news off the internet,” she said. “Maybe three or four sites per day.”

“Of course you do. We all do. Don’t be silly. That’s not the purpose of this. Order the newspapers anyway.”

“Okay,” she said, laughing.

“Give each doorman a ten-Euro note when you arrive. Learn the name of the room service manager, the concierge, and the desk manager and give each one a twenty when you arrive and when you leave. Take at least two saunas. You’re a woman, so be seen at least in one outfit with a daring skirt and boots in the middle of the day. In your case, swim at least once so the staff can get a good look at your fine figure. Have dinner or cocktails prominently with at least three different men. Always order the same cocktail and have the concierge book your dinner reservations away from the hotel. Come back in a year, and they will remember you.”

When she stopped laughing, she responded. “Gian Antonio, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to guide me through life,” she said.

“Oh,” he said modestly, “you would survive most likely. Some people do. Just not as long or as well.”

“Who’s the third?” she asked, indicating the third place setting. “Who’s joining us?”

“Ah!” he said. “Good that you inquired! A young lady. A friend of mine, very close. She was an intern with the police in Rome; now she’s studying art, but she might want to do a career in forensic sciences. So I’m teaching her the ropes.”

“Lucky her,” said Alex.

“Yes, very lucky girl,” Rizzo said with mock conceit, or at least Alex thought it was mock. “Knowing me is better than three years at any university. And learning the black arts from me is, I suppose, much like learning piano from Mozart.” Alex laughed, to his obvious pleasure. “But, my heavens,” he continued, “she’s young, so who knows? Even she doesn’t know what she wants to do. Her name is Mimi.”

“As in Puccini’s La Bohème,” she said, playing one of her best Italian cards and continuing the music motif.

“As in La Bohème,” he conceded with a nod. “In the future you should come by Rome, and I’ll take you to the opera. The greatest opera house in the world is here in Rome. Compared to the Italians,” he said with all the humility he could muster, “the French, the English, and the Germans sing like second-rate canaries. And the Americans don’t sing at all.”

“I’d love to do that with you sometime,” she said.

“Sing like a canary?”

“No, attend the opera in Rome,” she said, engaging his line of dialogue. “I can’t imagine the price of good seats at the Rome opera these days.”

“Oh, I never pay,” he said. He playfully raised his brown eyebrows. “The tickets don’t cost anything if you work it right,” he said over the top of the menu as he glanced at it. “It’s all a matter of whom you know. And this Mimi,” he continued, bringing the conversation back to La Bohème, “my Mimi, is much healthier and more fit than the one who perishes of mezzo-soprano disease in Puccini’s act five. I’m happy to report this. And from the appearance of you,” he said, examining her as he ran his gaze across her bare shoulders, “you would appear to be, also. Fit and healthy.”

“I’m in good shape, in good spirits,” she said. “Sorry to have only one night in Rome. I go on to Cairo tomorrow.”

“Cairo?” he said with no humor whatsoever, turning over the concept. “Cairo.”

“Ever been there?” she asked.

“Many times.” He paused. “Officially and unofficially. Noisiest city I’ve ever visited and I’ve visited many.”

“Noisy?”

“The racket on the street is beyond belief,” he said. “Take earplugs.”

“Sorry, I don’t have any.”

“Get some here at the hotel pharmacy. You’ll be pleased you did. You’ll thank me later.”

“I’ll try to remember,” she said.

“What’s your business in Cairo?” he asked, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Don’t tell me you’re fluent in Arabic now that I haven’t seen you for several weeks, and about to run a one-brave-lady operation against the whole bloody jihad.”

She laughed. “Not a chance,” she said. “Seriously, it’s starting to smell more Russian than anything.”

“Ha! Well, you’re becoming a bit of an expert there if you catch my drift.”

“I catch it, and I wouldn’t say that you’re wrong. So you’re ‘mentoring’?” Alex asked, going back to the place setting that remained unattended.

“You could say so,” he said. “Delightful girl. I’m enjoying it.”

“So it’s more than professional?” she asked.

“You could say so,” Rizzo said again.

“And we can still speak freely when she arrives, if she arrives,” Alex said.

“Absolutely.”

“I ask because there’s a bit of shop talk to get through.”

“I reckoned that ahead of time,” Rizzo said, “and I asked Mimi to come by at seven thirty. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Far from it,” Alex said. “That’s perfect.”

A waiter arrived to take an order for predinner drinks. Alex was hardly in the mood for another boozy evening, but allowed Rizzo to talk her into a Prosecco, which actually worked very well. Alex moved to business.

“One of the positives of the operation we just completed in Madrid,” she began, “was that for the first time, it allowed me to make some extensive personal contacts in the European intelligence community. Similarly, I had a very good relationship with an agent who worked for the Chinese service, the Guojia Anquan Bu.”

“I remember,” Rizzo said.

“Two days ago in Langley, I was shown a file about an Egyptian spymaster who went to his death out a window in London. One of those ‘jumped-or-pushed?’ cases.”

“What was the man’s name?”

“Dr. Ishraf Kerwidi,” she said. “He had links to several intelligence agencies.”

“I know of him, and I know of the case,” Rizzo said.

“In the report that I read, the name of one of the investigators rang a bell with me,” she said, “Rolland Fitzgerald.”

Rizzo was nodding. “Yes. The young Englishman from Scotland Yard. Pleasant fellow. He didn’t contribute much in Madrid, but I rather liked him.”

“Would you be able to contact him?” she asked. “Pick his mind a little. I can forward to you by secure internet a copy of the report I’m working with. See if there’s anything further he can provide.”

“You don’t want to contact him directly?”

“No,” she said. “Mr. Fitzgerald might be more inclined to share an extra detail with another member of a European service, rather than an American. Additionally, if I’m on my way to Cairo, I don’t want to raise any extra flags.”

Rizzo stared down at his hands, not answering but thinking. Then his gaze shot back up to meet hers. “And you want me to pass along any extra details that I can discover without revealing that I’m passing it along to you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Any small detail might be useful. But I also do not want to call any additional attention to myself by inquiring about a high profile spy case that touches upon the Egyptians.”

“So Fitzgerald should not know where the inquiry is coming from. Or where his information is going?”

“That’s correct,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t trust Fitzgerald, but who knows where his own contacts are compromised? If you make the inquiries, he won’t think much of it. Dr. Kerwidi used to live in Rome. If there’s a further inquiry from an American, he’ll be more guarded.”

“I’ll contact him for you,” Rizzo said. “Send me the information you have and give me two or three days to run things around. Would that suffice?”

“Yes, it would. You’re an angel,” she said.

“Or a demon,” he answered, “to go along with a request like that! What else before Mimi arrives? Anything?”

“Yes,” she said. “You’re European, you were in law enforcement, and you’ve worked in the same type of fields as I have. Have you ever been to Russia?”

“Three times in the last five years. Twice on assignment. Once to attend a funeral of a friend who died mysteriously. That should suggest something right there.”

“How much do you know about Vladimir Putin? And Russia under Putin?”

“Aside from what we all know?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Rizzo’s expression went faraway and journeyed back after several seconds. His face grew serious. “I can tell you what Europeans in law enforcement know and are talking about,” he said. “A few cases that are discussed in private circles.”

“That would be a good start,” she said.

“Just recently I was speaking to one of my other contacts at Scotland Yard,” Rizzo began. “He tells me that the British are seeking the extradition of one Andrei Lugovoi from Russia. He is to face a homicide charge in the poisoning death of former Soviet agent Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko was a former KGB operative who became a prominent dissident opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The people trying to kill him used a radioactive substance called metalloid polonium 210. They broke into his home and hid it there, gradually poisoning him with radioactive contamination day-by-day. Ninety percent of the world’s polonium 210 comes from a single facility in Russia. Scotland Yard found traces of polonium 210 not only in Litvinenko’s home in Britain but also in Hamburg, at locations visited by Lugovoi’s associate Dmitri Kovtun, the day before Kovtun and Lugovoi attended a meeting with Litvinenko in London. It is theorized that Kovtun and Lugovoi shipped the chemical from Russia and infiltrated Litvenenko’s home. But this was particularly messy, this case, because maybe another two hundred people came into contact with the polonium 210. These Russian hoods are like that Colombian cocaine gangster who blew up an airplane with a hundred people on it to kill his own victim.”

“Pablo Escobar,” she said.

“Yes. Human life means nothing to beasts like them. Only terror and death and the ability to get their way mean anything.”

“Any chance of the case being resolved?” Alex asked.

“Very little. The Russians and the British have so far not agreed on much about the case. The Russians suggest that Litvenenko’s murderer is more probably to be found among London’s community of exiled Russian dissidents and expatriates. This is nonsense, of course. Nothing like this happens without Putin’s approval.”

Alex’s eyes drifted from the table she shared with Rizzo. At the next table a roast duck was being carved for what appeared to be a Chinese couple.

“There was a story out of France last year,” Rizzo continued somberly. “The well-known Russian human rights lawyer, Karina Moskalenko, found mercury in her car. Moskalenko had pursued the Russian government in international courts for human rights abuses. She works out of France now, Strasbourg, I think, since Russian prosecutors sought to disbar her and destroy her work in Moscow. Before authorities found the poison, Moskalenko had complained of deteriorating health. Does this sound familiar?”

“It sounds similar to the case you just mentioned,” she said.

“Exactly. And Litvinenko was once Moskalenko’s client. Interesting?”

“Very,” Alex said. “We’re not too far removed from the era when the Russians tried to smuggle a live body out of Rome in a trunk, are we? Or when they stabbed a Bulgarian dissident in London with an umbrella with a poison tip.”

“Not far at all,” Rizzo said, finding a perverse humor in it. “Same dog, new tricks. Where’s James Bond when we need him, right? From Russia with Love. One could do a modern sequel called From Russia with Lovely Polonium Tablets,” he said. “I dislike the new James Bond, by the way. Daniel Craig. Makes Bond look like a homicidal thug. He behaves like a bouncer in a Corsican mob joint. But what do I know? All I know about movies is that I don’t enjoy going to see them anymore.”

Still no Mimi, which was fine. A beautiful young waitress appeared wordlessly and refreshed their glasses of Prosecco. Rizzo gave her an adoring smile, then turned back to Alex to dwell further on politics, death, and assassination.

“Moskalenko was a very high-profile target,” Rizzo said. “She had won thirty cases of rights abuses against Russian authorities before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Her offices and her assistants have another hundred pending. Moskalenko represented the jailed former oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky whom Putin had imprisoned, as well as the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who now leads anti-Putin opposition in the old Soviet. Moskalenko also once represented a woman named Anna Politkovskaya. She was a journalist, but she was shot to death two years ago as she was entering her house in Moscow. Moskalenko was poisoned just as she was set to travel to Moscow to take part in pretrail hearings for the Politkovskaya murder. Flagrante, no? If the Putin people go after her like that, they’d go after you or me in half a heartbeat. And where does it come from? It comes from orders right at the top. Putin and his thug gangster friends who run the country.”

“How far is their reach?” Alex asked.

“Their reach is everywhere,” Rizzo said. “Their reach could be around your neck as you sleep. Even to America. In Europe, they operate with impunity. Rome, Paris. London. Who’s to stop them? Putin’s killers are quick and devious, and they retreat immediately into a criminal Russian underground and beat it back to Russia before Western European law can catch up with them. Frankly,” he said and then paused, “if I could, if I needed to, I’d use my own weapon to take one out before he could disappear with lawyers and diplomatic cover.”

A basket of warm bread arrived. Alex made herself busy with it. What she was hearing was deeply disturbing, but she listened intently and absorbed everything.

“Look,” said Rizzo. “Politkovskaya’s murder even agitated strong public disgust over what was seen as a blatantly political assassination. Politkovskaya was one of the most trusted journalists on the subject of Chechnya. She had many ties to moderate Chechnyans and wrote scathing articles critical of the way Putin dealt with the secession crisis. Politkovskaya had survived a previous attempt on her life: someone attempted to poison her as she prepared to cover the siege and massacre in Beslan in 2004. So her funeral turned into a powerful outcry against the brutality of Russia’s politics. She was buried at the Troyekurovsky Cemetery in Moscow. Before Politkovskaya was buried, two thousand anti-Putin pro-democracy Russians filed past her coffin to pay last respects. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony. Eventually, there were some suspects charged, but a jury refused to convict them.”

“So the police and the judicial system are useless once again?” Alex said.

“Completely. The assassins sent forth by Putin operate with impunity. No one in Russia or Europe or the Middle East is surprised at anything. Saddened, maybe. But shocked, no. Listen, this month marks the anniversary of the murder of Dmitri Kholodov. Kholodov was an investigative journalist killed while he was investigating corruption in the Russian army. His attaché case had been booby-trapped. The trial of his alleged murderers ended in acquittal. A colonel charged with the murder won compensation for his forced retirement and pretrial confinement. He was rewarded, in other words, and given decorations by the Putin government. Kholodov’s friends complain but nothing will be done. The murder goes unpunished like thousands of similar crimes under Putin and Stalin.”

At the next table, a champagne cork popped with all the proper subtlety of five-star dining.

“Five years ago, for a final example,” Rizzo said, “my acquaintance Yuri Shchekochikhin mysteriously died. He was a member of the Duma, the Russian parliament. He too was poisoned. Putin’s people love poison and give it to people they wish to be rid of because the poisons they use cause slow, horrible, painful deaths. Officially Shchekochikhin died of an allergy, but his body was cremated before an independent analysis could be done of his remains.”

For a moment, Rizzo seemed to be thinking of several other stories to add but then preferred to leave them out of the evening’s chat.

“The Russian gangsters who now run the country are a blight upon the civilized world,” he said. “There is no defeating them because we are limited by our democratic means. Thousands of crimes are committed, never to be resolved. You know, my uncles were Communists in the auto factories of northern Italy. They were foolish in their time, though their foolishness was understandable. They idolized Lenin and Stalin and that pig Khrushchev. They were workers, my uncles, and they reacted against the fascisti here in Italy. I loved my uncles, but I was forced to hear quotes from those old red bastards. Here’s one I remember. Stalin once theorized, ‘No man, no problem.’ You see what that means?”

“Eliminate the man and you’ve eliminated the problem,” said Alex.

“Not only are you very intelligent but you understand too well the basest forms of human behavior,” Rizzo said. “I don’t know if that is good or bad for you, Alexandra LaDuca, but it is what it is. And you are correct. Stalin spoke of killing the man who causes the problem in order to kill the problem. The Putin management style is exactly the same. In the latest government-sanctioned high-school history text, Stalin is described as someone who used ‘terror as a pragmatic means of resolving social and economic problems.’ Understand that? Russian society under Putin now sees individual murder as a means of social management. Want to call it, ‘godless neo-Stalinism’? I would.”

Alex nodded. “I would too,” she said.

“Putin is Stalin’s disciple, just as John, Mark, and Paul were disciples of Jesus. Now,” he said, his eyes flicking away for a moment, “have I answered your question?”

“More than adequately,” Alex said. “Thank you.”

“Good! Here’s Mimi.”

A smile swept Rizzo’s face, and Alex quickly located the indiscreet object of his desire.

A young woman of about twenty had entered the room. She had Technicolor hair, chopped short in a trendy fashion. It was streaked with blue, green, and yellow in a blend of Japanese schoolgirl and manga fashion. She was trim and lithe and wore a snug red miniskirt. Most of the male eyes in the room followed her as Carlo, the starchy maître d’, led her to their table.

Rizzo embraced her with a long hug and a kiss on each cheek. Then he introduced her to Alex. She giggled slightly, flirted with him outrageously, and Rizzo held her chair as he seated her. It wasn’t a matter of her being half his age; she was closer to a third.

“Now,” he said. “Where were we?”

The topics of Russia and Putin did not come up again over dinner.

Alex dined amiably with her old friend and his new friend. They switched into Italian after Mimi joined them, but during the meal Mimi demonstrated a thorough ability in English. Alex’s instincts told her that she could like the young girl and trust her. She, Mimi, seemed to have one foot in several different cultures, or perhaps one long sleek leg if Rizzo described it, and reminded Alex of herself. Alex brought them both up to speed on her assignment in Egypt. Alex also wondered if there would be a way she would work them into the equation. Mimi could easily be an asset. One never knew.

Rizzo and Mimi listened carefully as Alex briefed them, interrupting occasionally to ask questions. Rizzo offered suggestions about dealing with Arabs and Russians: useful stuff such as, with a smile, “They’re cutthroats. Don’t trust any of them.”

At the end of the evening, Rizzo insisted on paying. He tipped generously and, again demonstrating his legère de main, if not his outright kleptomania, pocketed a blue and white porcelain ashtray in front of his headwaiter friend, Carlo, who rolled his eyes and suppressed a laugh. Later, in the hotel lobby, Rizzo gave the ashtray to Mimi as a souvenir of the evening. She made a complex verbal joke out of her previous knowledge of Rizzo’s light fingers and deft touch. Having consumed perhaps too much wine, they all exchanged a bawdy laugh. To end the evening, Rizzo walked both women, their combined age not quite approaching his, to the elevator that led to Alex’s suite. He held Alex’s hand and had his other arm wrapped around Mimi’s waist.

He gave Alex a kiss on both cheeks to wish her a good night, turned, and headed toward where he had left his car as Alex rode the elevator up to the fifth floor.