The Cairo Affair

4

Afterward, once he’d made his way through the meticulous entry procedure to reach the seventh floor, he found Rashid el-Sawy walking the ministry corridors, looking for Busiri. “Rashid,” Omar said, waving him over. “A word, please.”

El-Sawy joined him in his office and closed the door. While he had been part of their section since the start of Busiri’s tenure seven years ago, coming with Busiri from the SSI, Omar had seldom spoken to el-Sawy one-on-one. The younger man had a way of entering and exiting the building without anyone noticing, and during meetings could maintain an unnatural silence as the men around him shouted and cajoled. Sometimes Omar suspected this was due to embarrassment over his flat American accent; other times he suspected that el-Sawy was calculating how best to dispose of everyone in the room. Over the years he had performed a variety of undercover jobs for the section, often using his American childhood to great advantage; his most common alias was Michael Khalil, Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was one of those loyal dogs who tie their entire future to the fate of another man, rather than to the fate of an office—which, in light of the imminent dissolution of the SSI, had clearly been the wiser choice.

“How are things?” Omar asked.

El-Sawy shrugged. He was a tall man, easily six feet, and he seemed to be aware of this, always preferring to stand rather than sit. “You’ve heard about the SSI raids?”

Omar shook his head.

“The protesters. They’ve started breaking into SSI buildings around town, and of course the guards are just letting them in. They’re collecting files. They say they want evidence of the SSI’s crimes. They’re going to start building guillotines soon.”

Omar hadn’t known this—he’d been too distracted by Jibril. He thought of el-Sawy’s long tenure in the SSI and wondered how many of those files chronicled his visits to torture cells. He imagined el-Sawy was worried out of his mind, but there was no sign of this in his face. “Have you heard anything from Libya?” Omar asked.

El-Sawy frowned. “Why would I have heard anything?”

“Because you tracked me yesterday. I assume it was you. You followed me all the way to the border. No?”

“No,” el-Sawy said.

“I’ve talked to Ali,” Omar went on, despite the denial. “I should have reported in, but Jibril Aziz is a friend. I wasn’t sure I’d get permission to keep an eye on him.”

El-Sawy nodded again, a sharp movement that suggested the subject was finished. “Is that it?”

“Well, yes,” Omar said, feeling vaguely insulted. “I want you to understand that I’m not complaining. You were doing your job.”

“I was doing my job,” el-Sawy said, “but not here. I wasn’t even in Cairo. I only just got back. Is that it?” He stepped back to the door.

Did it even matter who had been watching him yesterday? Not really. “Wait,” Omar said. “I want to look at some of the material we received from Sophie Kohl. The Stumbler file.”

“I’ll have to ask Ali.”

“I’ll ask him. Is he around?”

“Who do you think I’ve been looking for?” el-Sawy said before leaving.

It turned out that Busiri was not in the building, and so in lieu of the Stumbler documents he retrieved a file stocked with employees of the American embassy and looked through it until he’d found the big black man who’d driven Jibril to the border. He called Mahmoud and Sayyid to his office and explained that he wanted them to begin surveillance on an American, John Calhoun, who was living in Zamalek. “He may not be around yet, but either later today or tomorrow he’ll get home, and I want to know what he’s up to.”

When Busiri arrived in the afternoon, Omar asked to take a look at the Stumbler file.

Busiri leaned back, the heels of his hands resting on the desk. “Why?”

“Because I’ve never seen it. Jibril described it to me, but I never read the final draft.”

“I’m not sure you need to,” Busiri said. “Jibril Aziz wrote it, and now the Americans are running it.”

“Jibril certainly believes that, but he’s emotional. He’s young.”

Busiri shrugged. “I’ll have it sent over.”

Mahmoud called when John Calhoun got home on foot. “The man’s a mess. Filthy. Barely able to walk. Should we collect him?”

“No, no. Just watch.”

He received the Stumbler file at four and stayed late to read it. He was near the end when Mahmoud called again. “Harry Wolcott just visited him. I think they know we’re here.”

“They’re in a foreign country. They should expect it. Just stick to him.”

When he got home, he found Fouada napping in front of the television. There was a plate of dinner in the kitchen, and he ate quietly, trying not to wake her. His phone, however, rang loudly, and as he answered it he heard her saying, “What! What?”

“He’s at a bar now,” said Mahmoud. “Deals. Expatriate place. Sayyid just went in to take a look. Oh—he’s coming back. What?”

“You’re here,” Fouada said, stumbling into the kitchen. Her hair looked like a bird’s nest.

He smiled at her and said into the phone, “What is it?”

“Sayyid tells me John Calhoun is talking with Rashid el-Sawy.”

“What?”

Fouada opened the refrigerator, saying, “We’re almost out of water.”

Sayyid took the phone. “He’s talking as if they’re friends. They’re with a woman—a friend of Calhoun’s, I think. The three of them at a table. What should we do?”

Fouada took out a half-full bottle of Evian and, seeing what was on Omar’s plate, said, “Don’t tell me you’re eating that chicken cold.”

Why was el-Sawy meeting with the man who had taken Aziz over the border? Was he following his own investigation? “Don’t approach,” he told Sayyid. “Did he see you?”

“I stopped at the door. No, he didn’t see me.”

“Then pull back. Both of you. Let me find out what’s going on.”

He hung up and submitted to Fouada’s mothering, waiting as she microwaved the remaining chicken and steamed some couscous for him. He listened to her stories of the day. Her paranoia, he was happy to hear, had ebbed. Her husband had not been ripped apart by angry mobs. Their place had not been ransacked. She had not been raped. She was beginning to realize that when the world changes, most of it remains the same.

After dinner, he withdrew to the guest room and called Busiri to ask about el-Sawy’s interest in Calhoun. Busiri paused before answering. “Don’t take this badly, Omar, but I’d like you to pull back from the Aziz situation. It’s too personal for you. Rashid is better equipped to deal with it. He’s used to working undercover—he’s nearly American, after all. He’ll find out what happened to Jibril, and then I’ll tell you.”

It was a brush-off, but Omar accepted it. Busiri was right—he was getting emotional over this, though no one outside of his skin could have really suspected it. Certainly Fouada couldn’t tell; she just fed him and prepared for bed talking about the lack of water, and how could she have been so distracted to have forgotten about it?

He wasn’t thinking of water, though, and as she drifted to sleep beside him, he remembered Stumbler.

Stage 1: Collect exiles right off the street. London, Paris, Brussels, New York. They disappear in the middle of their lives, no one the wiser.

Stage 2: Reassemble them just outside the Libyan border with a contingency of approximately a hundred American troops—Special Forces, each of North African descent, dressed in civilian clothes—as well as volunteers previously collected from the exile population. Half sit in wait in Medenine, Tunisia, while the other half hole up in Marsa Matrouh. The plan even listed the addresses of two ideal locations, one in each town—houses owned by sympathetic Libyans. They await the signal.

Stage 3: The signal. Networks within Libya rise up in three cities: Zuwarah, Ajdabiya, Benghazi.

Stage 4: Entry. The exile forces cross into Libya, surprising the Libyan armed forces, while the networks move their focus to the ports. Undercover ships begin supplying arms.

Jibril’s predictions for success ranged from two to six months, but the primary objective of Stumbler was less a quick end to Gadhafi’s regime than the post-Gadhafi political landscape. Having been viewed as early saviors of the revolution, the exiles would naturally form the new power elite who owed their sudden good fortunes to one country, and one country alone.

There was a time when this plan would have been less cynical than it now appeared. Now, the only moral course was to arm the rebels and let them take care of their own future.

Omar felt the weight of guilt. He could have squelched the operation during the planning stages, simply by insisting to Jibril that Mubarak and Ben Ali would treat any such incursion on their territories as acts of war. Jibril would have been dejected, but he very likely would have accepted his opinion and tossed Stumbler into the wastebasket.

He imagined Jibril at that very moment, over in Ajdabiya, making harried contact with his network, telling them that America, the country they had once risked their lives for, was now preparing to take advantage of their sacrifices. How would he put it? How could he break such news to them? Would they believe him? Yes, for they would be able to read the conviction in his face. Such an earnest young man.