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―Yes, but it‘s unclear whether its leader, Akbar Ganji, would be pro-Western. My guess is probably not. For one thing, he‘s been ca
―Which is why you‘ll be part of the forensics team,‖ Hart said. ―However, as you can see, the Black River intel doesn‘t concern Ganji or his people. We aren‘t talking here about a velvet revolution, but one steeped in blood.‖
―Ganji has said that he doesn‘t want war, but his policy has been floundering for some time. You know as well as I do that the regime wouldn‘t allow him to survive, let alone to speak out, if his power was substantial.
Ganji‘s of no use to Halliday, but this new group‘s aims would suit his purposes to a T.‖
Hart nodded. ―That‘s just what I was thinking. So while you‘re in Egypt I want you to nose around. Use Typhon‘s Egyptian contacts to find out what you can about the legitimacy of this group.‖
―That won‘t be easy,‖ Soraya said. ―I can guarantee you that the national secret police are going to be all over us—especially me.‖
―Why especially you?‖ Hart asked.
―Because the head of al Mokhabarat is Amun Chalthoum. He and I had a heated confrontation.‖
―How heated?‖
Soraya‘s memory immediately clamped down. ―Chalthoum is a complex character, difficult to read—his entire life seems wrapped up in his career in al Mokhabarat, an organization of thugs and assassins to which he‘s been given a life sentence.‖
―Lovely,‖ Hart said with no little sarcasm.
―But it would be naive to believe that‘s all there is to him.‖
―Do you think you can handle him?‖
―I don‘t see why not. I think he‘s got a thing for me,‖ Soraya said, not quite understanding why she wasn‘t telling Veronica the whole truth.
Eight years ago, on a courier mission, she‘d been captured by agents of al Mokhabarat who, unbeknownst to her, had infiltrated CI‘s local network to which she was to deliver a microdot on which was etched the network‘s new orders. She had no idea what was on the microdot, had no desire to know. She was thrown in a basement cell of al Mokhabarat‘s offices in downtown Cairo.
Three days later, with no sleep and only water and a crust of moldy bread to eat once each day, she was taken upstairs and brought before Amun Chalthoum, who took one look at her and immediately ordered her cleaned up.
She was shown to a shower, where she scrubbed every inch of her body with a soapy washcloth. When she stepped out, a set of new clothes was waiting for her. She assumed her old clothes were being ripped apart and scrutinized by an al Mokhabarat forensics team searching for the intel she was carrying.
Everything fit her perfectly. To her surprise, she was then escorted out of the building. It was night. It occurred to her that she‘d had no idea of time passing. In the boiling street a car was waiting at the curb, its headlights illuminating plainclothes guards watching her with studied attention. When she climbed in she had another shock: Amun Chalthoum sat behind the wheel. He was all alone.
He drove very hard and very fast across the city, heading west into the desert. He said nothing, but from time to time when traffic allowed, he watched her with his avid hawk‘s gaze. She was famished but was determined to keep her hunger to herself.
He took her to Wadi AlRayan. He stopped the car, told her to get out.
They stood facing each other in the blue moonlight. Wadi AlRayan was so desolate, they could have been the last two humans on earth.
―Whatever you‘re looking for,‖ she said, ―I don‘t have it.‖
―Yes, you do.‖
―It‘s already been delivered.‖
―My sources tell me otherwise.‖
―You don‘t pay your sources nearly enough. Besides, you‘ve checked my clothes and everything else.‖
He didn‘t laugh, nor would he ever during the time she was with him.
―It‘s in your head. Give it to me.‖ When she didn‘t respond, he added, ―We‘ll stay out here until you give me the intel.‖
She recognized his threat, recognized, too, the impetus behind it. In his eyes she was an Egyptian female. As such, she was brought up to unquestioningly obey males; why should she be any different from any of the other females he knew? Because she was half American? He spit on Americans.
Immediately she saw the advantage his mistake gave her. She stood up to him; she kept to her story; she defied him every step of the way; most importantly, she proved she couldn‘t be intimidated.
In the end, he‘d backed down, had taken her back to Cairo, to the airport. At the boarding gate he handed back her passport as a gentleman might. It was a formal and somehow touching gesture. She turned away, certain she‘d never see him again.
The DCI nodded. ―If you can use his attraction for you to your advantage, do so, because I have an uncomfortable feeling that Halliday is about to propose a major new military initiative based on the premise of an armed insurrection from inside Iran.‖
Leonid Arkadin was sitting in a café in Campione d‘Italia, a picturesque Italian tax haven tucked away in the Swiss Alps. The tiny municipality rose steeply off the glassy ultramarine-blue surface of a clear mountain lake, studded with vessels of all sizes from rowboats to multimillion-dollar yachts, complete with the helipads, the copters, and, on the largest of these, the females to go with them.
In a haze of detached amusement, Arkadin watched two long-stemmed models with the kind of perfectly bronzed skin only the privileged and wealthy know how to acquire. As he sipped a small cup of espresso, which was all but lost in his large, square hand, the two models climbed on top of a bald man with an exceedingly hairy body, stretched out on the sea-blue cushions of the yacht‘s rear deck.
He lost interest because for him pleasure was such an ephemeral concept, it lacked both form and function. His mind and his body were still bound to the iron-and-fire wheel of Nizhny Tagil, which just went to prove the old saw: You can take the man out of hell but you can‘t take hell out of the man.
The acrid taste of the toxic Nizhny Tagil sky was still in his mouth when, moments later, a man with skin the color of his espresso approached.