Countdown in Cairo

THIRTY

The next morning, Alex took the elevator down to the lobby. She checked out and was about to ask the concierge to summon a taxi for the airport but instead felt a hand on her arm.

“Alex, my dear,” came a smooth male voice in Italian.

Startled, she turned and found Gian Antonio Rizzo next to her. He was clean-shaven, sharp-eyed, and obviously refreshed, even wearing a different suit, this one every bit as impeccable as the last.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I never left. I’ve been here all night.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Yes, I am. Of course I went home, but now I’m back. I came over to drive you to the airport,” he said.

“That’s so kind of you. But completely unnecessary,” she said.

“Yes, of course, but what is unnecessary in life and what one does of one’s own volition is often a pleasure, as is this. So I insist,” he said. “I am a man of leisure these days, or at least give the impression of being one. Come along. I’ve been wanting to show you my car since the day we met.”

He took her bag for her.

“What is it they say in America? ‘Pimp my ride.’ Well, look at the ride that I’ve pimped for you today.”

Outside the front entrance, gradually drawing a small crowd, was a sparkling white 2009 Maserati GranTurismo, Rizzo’s set of wheels.

He held the passenger side door for her, and she slid in to cool leather that made her sorry she was leaving Italy so soon. Rizzo hustled around to the other side and took the wheel. Six figures’ worth of Maserati trumped a Fiat taxi any day. A few minutes later they were out on the highway leading to Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport. The drive felt like a lift on a magic carpet. One could enjoy an auto like this for getting around town every day.

“How does a career policeman afford such a beautiful automobile?” Alex finally mused aloud in Italian on the journey to the airport.

Rizzo laughed. “The same way that a career policeman might afford such a beautiful woman,” he said with a laugh. “Come se dici in Inglese? ‘You find a way if you are smart.’ ”

“I suppose you do,” she answered with dual meaning to match the Maserati’s dual exhausts.

Almost protectively, almost like a big brother or maybe even an uncle, Rizzo revealed another facet of himself. Using his own security passes as a retired member of the brigade omocido in Rome, he escorted Alex all the way to her gate. Then, before she boarded the flight to Cairo, he pulled her to a safe distance from the other travelers. He held her hand and spoke to her with urgency.

“Alex,” he said, “I must impress upon you: you are not just dealing with criminals now. You are dealing in espionage. This is dangerous, venal, and dirty. It is not fun and games. There is always the chance that an operation will blow up and your career will be ruined in ten seconds. You can be disfigured or killed in even less time than that. In World War II-my father’s day, your grandfather’s day-we knew what our objective was: to defeat the Nazis and the Fascists. In the days of the cold war, we knew also a clear enemy, a clear objective: the Russians and the Communists.”

Rizzo’s eyes were narrowed and his voice was low and succinct.

“Today, the armies are often invisible until they attack,” he said. “Our national borders mean nothing. Saudis fly airplanes into the beautiful skyline of New York, and American fighter planes attack weddings in Pakistan in return. There are no heroes, only villains. It is very hard to discern your motivation when the objective is vague, dear Alex. I worry about you so much on this ‘adventure.’ “ He shook his head, and she saw tears well in his hard brown eyes, much as they might at Mimi’s death in La Bohème.

He put his strong arms around her and hugged her so hard and dearly that her feet lifted from the ground. Then he set her down again.

“Who are you going to be dealing with in Cairo?” he asked. “Arabs and Russians, correct?”

“Probably.”

“If hell itself emptied out tomorrow morning we would discover that it was mostly filled with Arabs and Russians,” he grumbled. “I do not like this for you!”

“I’ll be all right,” she said. “Really! I’ll be all right.”

“Let me go with you,” he said. “I can join you in a day.”

“I can’t do it that way,” she said. “I have specific orders from Langley how this is supposed to be done. There will be a team in Cairo and-”

“I don’t trust your team in Cairo,” he said. “And you shouldn’t either.”

On the airport public address system, the last call was made for boarding Flight 34 from Rome to Cairo.

“I need to go, Gian Antonio,” she said.

“Va bene,” he said at length. “And I will contact Rolland Fitzgerald for you. But I know how these things go. One holds to all game plans until the first shot is fired. Then chaos. So when there’s chaos, you’re allowed to call in people whom you trust. Those are the rules of engagement. I will stand ready. I will be your chevalier, your cavalier, when you need one.” He paused. “I would not want anything to happen to you,” he said again.

He held her as long as he could, then released her to a world he knew to be cruel and calculating. At the last step before the gate, she turned and gave him a smile and a wave. She knew he would still be watching. To Alex’s eyes, he looked sad and overly concerned.

Then she boarded another Alitalia jet.

She was seated in 5-H of business class, a window. She had a wonderful view of Rome and Naples as they flew south. Her eyes then followed the bold coastlines of Corsica and Sicily and the boot of Italy in the Mediterranean as the plane banked and turned to the southeast. The geography had not changed since the time of Christ, and with suddenly refreshed eyes, she was thrilled to gaze upon it.

She watched out her window with fascination as the flight traveled southeast and crossed the Mediterranean. She was finally on the final leg of her trip to Egypt.