‘Right,’ Richter said. ‘I’d like to speak to your local contact, if you’ve no objection.’
‘None at all,’ Evans replied. ‘I can set up a meeting tonight, over dinner.’
‘Fine. Now, I gather from what Carole has told me that the suspect is in a local hospital, in a ward that’s under surveillance, and he’s surrounded by personal bodyguards. How, exactly, am I supposed to get inside and check him out?’
The taxi stopped near the city centre, and O’Hagan and Petrucci climbed out. They stood together on the pavement for a few moments as the vehicle shot back into the traffic amid a sudden angry blaring of horns, the driver — like most Egyptians — not bothering to look behind him or check his mirror.
‘Take your life in your hands every time you step into the street here,’ Petrucci grumbled.
‘You said it,’ O’Hagan replied. ‘Right, see you in ninety minutes.’
The two men headed off in opposite directions. O’Hagan knew exactly where he was going, because he’d checked the local directory and identified three vehicle-hire companies within walking distance. The first one he tried had nothing suitable, but the second offered a choice of two white Mercedes vans. Picking the one with the fewest dents, he signed a hire agreement for three days, paying with a credit card bearing a name that was not his own, and backed it up with an international driving licence in the same name. He spent a few minutes studying a street map of Cairo, then drove off.
There was about a twenty-minute wait before Petrucci appeared, clutching two bulky bags.
‘Get everything?’ O’Hagan asked.
‘Yup. Had to dig around a bit for the letters, is all.’
O’Hagan stopped the van outside a company offering storage solutions and they went inside. They emerged a few minutes later carrying lengths of racking and shelving, a cardboard box containing plastic storage boxes, and four small green tarpaulins.
Next, they stopped outside an electrical wholesaler and bought a selection of plugs, sockets, cable ties, junctions, chock-block connectors, insulating tape and a few other bits and pieces. They also purchased various tools: circuit testers, soldering irons, screwdrivers, pliers and so on. An electrician might have puzzled at their selection — they had soldering irons but neither solder nor flux, for example — but what they’d just purchased was never going to be used. It was simply camouflage to provide support for their cover story.
‘When do you want to do the van?’ Petrucci asked.
‘Now, I guess. Then we’ll be ready to move as soon as we get the call.’
O’Hagan steered the van down a narrow street near their hotel. At the far end was a block of six large garages, each secured by a padlocked metal up-and-over door, and owned by the hotel they were staying at.
They’d hired the biggest garage for a week, though they’d need it for no more than two days, but it had been essential to find somewhere they could do their work away from prying eyes.
As Petrucci released the padlock and lifted the door, a blast of heat rolled out to greet him. O’Hagan drove the van inside, keeping close to the right-hand wall, leaving the maximum possible space on the other side of the vehicle.
Petrucci took four sets of white overalls from one of the bags and tossed them to O’Hagan, then extracted a plastic sheet, some spray paint, masking tape, self-adhesive letters and a bunch of other stuff. At the rear end of the garage was a collapsible table. He took everything over to it, unrolled the plastic and secured it to the table top. Then he shook the adhesive letters out of the bag and started arranging them on the sheet.
Behind him, O’Hagan laid out the overalls face-down on the floor of the van. He took a stencil, a felt-tip pen and tape measure, and began marking the back of the first set.
Just under an hour later, Petrucci had finished at the table, and O’Hagan had completed his work. The two men then began securing the sheet of plastic in line with marks O’Hagan had already made on the side of the Mercedes. This took quite some time because it was important for the template to be stuck as firmly and accurately as possible to the metal before they started painting. For what they were planning, the finished job needed to be really sharp and professional-looking.
Once O’Hagan was finally satisfied, he pulled on one of the face masks, climbed onto an empty wooden box they’d found at the back of the garage, and began spraying the side of the vehicle through the template. Spray-painting wasn’t a skill either man possessed to any great degree, but O’Hagan knew enough to make a reasonably good job of it.
While they waited for each coat to dry, they busied themselves with erecting the racking. Inside the van, they built a line of shelves secured with horizontal braces, then arranged the plastic storage boxes on them and finally put the tools and electrical components inside them. By the time they’d finished, the rear of the van looked like any vehicle used by a technical tradesman.
After removing the stencil from the side of the vehicle, they opened the garage door, which did almost nothing to reduce the temperature inside. O’Hagan backed out the Mercedes and then reversed it into the garage so they could repeat the process on the other side.
‘We’re done,’ O’Hagan announced, some ninety minutes later. ‘Let’s go get a shower and a beer. My throat feels like the fucking Mojave Desert.’
‘Amen to that,’ Petrucci replied, stuffing all the tools and other things they’d used into one of the bags. He tossed it in the van, reopened the garage door and padlocked it behind them, safely locking away the Mercedes with its brand-new ‘Cairo Specialist Aviation Services’ decals affixed to each side.
They’d left the Range Rover at Riyadh Airport, but Massood had pre-booked a Land Cruiser to tow the horse trailer while in Dubai. After delivering Shaf to the stables the previous evening, Saadi had explained to the staff that there was a problem with the brakes on the transporter, and he promised it would be delivered the following day.
That morning, Massood and Saadi left the hotel after checking out. Massood climbed into a taxi while Saadi carried his own bag and Massood’s across to the transporter, which was backed up against a wall, with the Land Cruiser already attached to the towing arm.
Saadi knocked twice, and twice more, then inserted the key and swung open the side door of the transporter. Inside, Bashar was sitting on the pile of blankets that had formed his bed, a Kalashnikov for company.
‘You’re ready?’ Saadi asked, and Bashar nodded. ‘Do you need anything before we start?’
‘No, I’ll eat something when we return.’
‘Good. Massood’s collecting the hire car. It’s time to open the bales.’
They lifted all the bales from their storage. Saadi opened a clasp knife, sliced through the binding cords on the first one and pulled out the packet which had been concealed inside it. They stuffed the loose hay into the storage area and then opened the second bale.
Half an hour later, Saadi stopped the Toyota alongside a Renault Clio parked just off the Oud Metha Road, a little way beyond the Camel Racetrack. He walked back to the transporter and opened the door on the side facing away from the road. Massood opened the Renault’s boot and Bashar began handing the packages to Saadi.
Once the transfer was complete, they closed the boot of the Renault, which now contained three Kalashnikovs, two boxes of 7.62-millimetre ammunition and one box of fifty 9-millimetre Parabellum rounds, along with the eight sealed packages. Bashar started the Land Cruiser just as Massood and Saadi drove away in the Clio. All three men were now armed with loaded pistols.