“But it’s different here.”
“Yes, but Mubarak and Ben Ali would certainly view it with trepidation.”
Jibril’s expression changed, as if he’d been drenched in cold water.
“Yet I suppose it could be accomplished,” Omar mused. “Libya’s borders are porous. If the exiles can get in on their own and gain control of one or two ports along the coast, then there would be no need for American troops to set foot in Tunisia or Egypt—the exiles can simply let them in themselves.”
“They would have to gather somewhere,” Jibril said, nodding as he considered this. “Marsa Matrouh, maybe.”
“It would take careful planning,” Omar said. “Preparation. The groundwork would have to be laid. But it may be possible.”
Jibril brightened.
“Muammar’s people will not be sitting still. Remember this. Remember how they caught you. Only four years ago. They are not amateurs.”
Jibril didn’t need to be reminded of anything.
“Did you ever find out how you were discovered?”
Jibril shook his head. “Never.”
They hammered at it until late in the evening, and, knowing that it was only a draft proposal, Omar felt no compunction about helping construct this castle. He soon realized that he was enjoying it. Finally, as they were getting ready for bed, Omar asked for the name of this plan.
For the first time, Jibril hesitated.
“Remember our agreement?”
Jibril smiled, almost embarrassed. “Stumbler.”
He laughed, for it sounded ridiculous. “Your idea?”
“A random name pulled off the computer.”
“Computers,” Omar said. “They will be the death of us all.”
By the time he next heard from Jibril, two years later, he and Fouada had almost forgotten about the young man, for their country had been turned upside down. Hosni Mubarak was under house arrest in Sharm el-Sheikh, and the nation was being ruled by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
The legions of Central Security foot soldiers, most of them un-educated country folk, had splintered, leaving real security to the army as the demonstrators continued, even after Mubarak’s ouster, to rip up asphalt and build barricades, demanding more. Busiri’s old employers, the SSI, were the protesters’ primary target, and everyone knew it was just a matter of time before the State Security Investigations Service was dissolved completely, its administrators jailed and placed on trial. No one believed the protesters would stop with the SSI, and the Central Security Forces, whose disheveled conscripts had become the black-clad enemy of those heady revolutionary days, was certainly going to be next. Everyone would be out, and many would be forced to mount vain defenses in kangaroo courts.
In the corridors you could hear the hum of paper shredders, and the officers had trouble looking each other in the eye. Some whispered hastily hatched ideas of flight, though only a few—notably Hassan Ghali and Rifaat Pasha from Special Operations Command—had actually disappeared. Then there were the unspoken ideas, the plans to build small fortunes before the purges, perhaps by selling secrets. To combat any sudden loss of patriotism, security was beefed up at all the exits, and by then entering or leaving the Interior Ministry building had become worse than boarding an international flight. The day after Jibril’s call, on February 23, former policemen demanding their jobs back set fire to cars and one of the buildings inside the Interior Ministry complex.
The chaos, coupled with a suddenly enormous workload, served only to exhaust Omar, who kept checking and rechecking his blood pressure. Home was hardly a relief, for a tight paranoia had taken hold of Fouada.
“See those men? Under that streetlamp. They’ve been there for three hours, Omar! Look how long their hair is! They’re taking revenge. Where’s your gun?”
Though her words flowed from a wellspring of paranoia, she was right to be worried. His trips to and from the office were often stalled by impromptu checkpoints set up by angry revolutionaries.
With all this going on, how could he even think of Jibril Aziz? He might have been reminded of him when the Day of Revolt occurred on February 17 next door in Libya, but that unprecedented demonstration of popular dissent had given him no more than a passing feeling for the young man who had slept in his guest bedroom and been loved by his wife. So when his phone rang a little before midnight on February 22 and he reached over, his pillow damp from the sweat of a nightmare he couldn’t remember, it took a moment for him to realize who he was talking to. “Omar, it’s me. Jibril.”
Omar got out of bed, padding out of the room in bare feet, whispering, “Jibril?”
“It’s me.”
“Where are you?” he asked as he continued to the kitchen and turned on the light. He was dressed in underwear, feeling the chill, but he didn’t want to go back to get his robe; he didn’t want to wake Fouada. “Are you here?”
“No,” Jibril told him, then hesitated. A transatlantic gap followed, then Jibril said, “They’re doing it, Omar.”
“What?”
“Stumbler. They’re doing it.”
It took another moment for him to reel back his memories to two years ago, that late-night conversation. At first, he didn’t quite understand Jibril’s anxiety. “Thank you for the information.”
“Omar, listen. What time is it there?”
“Midnight.”
“Right, right. Sorry. But pay attention. They’re doing it now, not five days ago. Are you following?”
Then, like a light being turned on, he saw it. Now, meaning five days after the Day of Revolt. Meaning: Libyan corpses in the street. Meaning: a swift overthrow of a regime being softened by the bodies of Libyan citizens. “I find this hard to believe,” Omar said finally. “As far as I know they have said nothing to us. They have not laid the groundwork.”
“They don’t have to, Omar. Ben Ali is gone. Mubarak is gone. No one’s going to stop a band of exiles from crossing the border. If the Benghazi ports aren’t open yet, they soon will be.”
He closed his eyes, trying to envision all of this, and it was frightening how easily it came to him. He opened his eyes, seeing 12:09 on the microwave. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to look into it,” Jibril said with a young man’s conviction. “There’s a man in Budapest who might be able to find out more. I think he’ll help.”
“Who?” Omar asked, a tingle already tickling his scalp.
“Emmett Kohl. He’s a deputy consul, used to work in Cairo.”
“Right,” Omar said, thinking of that man’s wayward wife. What a small world it was.
“I’ve gotten word to some exiles who can meet me in Budapest. Then I’ll fly to Cairo.”
Recovered now, Omar said, “Fouada will be happy.”
“Don’t tell her,” Jibril said quickly. “Don’t tell anyone. I don’t know who to trust yet.”
Though he promised to remain silent, it was a midnight promise made only half awake. So in the morning, after laboring over the issue as he suffered the indignities of front-door security, he knocked on Ali Busiri’s door and sat down to explain the situation. Busiri seemed angered by it, but said, “We know about Stumbler already.”
“How?”
“How do you think? Sophie Kohl passed it on to Zora Balašević.”
“Well, Jibril is going to meet with Emmett Kohl.”
Busiri frowned. “Why?”
“He thinks Kohl is trustworthy. Of course, he knows nothing about the wife.”