The bleakness in Hisham’s eyes deepened. “Any reason you’re revisiting my failures, Omar? That was six years ago.”
Omar shook his head. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m looking into other things, and wondering if this connects.”
Hisham seemed to relax, just a little. Being reminded of that black spot on his record still made him sore. “What’s to tell? It was an easy trick. Yousef was a queer. He’d been visiting boys over in Heliopolis, some dank little underground club. I offered him silence, as well as some compensation.”
“So what happened?”
He lit another cigarette, frowning as he remembered the news of the quick execution in Tripoli. “I don’t know, Omar. I ran it perfectly. No one could have known we were meeting. Full security procedures.” He shrugged. “Maybe Yousef broke down and admitted it to the embassy.”
“You believe that?”
Hisham shook his head.
“Then what other possibilities are there?”
Hisham opened his mouth, thought better of it, then shook his head again. “Ask Allah. You’re the religious one, aren’t you? Or you used to be.”
Omar climbed to his feet. He had been a religious man a long time ago, but he’d lost track along the way. He’d ignored the mosque and, until recently, prayer—that most basic requirement of a Muslim had seemed beyond his means. Praying with that frightened man in Marsa Matrouh, to his surprise, had made him feel lighter. Yet as he walked back to his office even his faith slipped from his mind, for he was thinking about the words Hisham hadn’t had the courage to speak aloud. The only possible way Yousef Rahim could have been uncovered was if someone in this office had leaked to Tripoli.
He had to wait until eleven for an audience with Busiri, whose morning had been full of meetings upstairs, discussing personnel changes. The revolution was trickling slowly down through the departments of the Interior Ministry, and Busiri had received a list of names whose continued employment in the Central Security Forces would be unpalatable to any new administration. He was collecting the files on these employees when Omar tapped on his door. “Omar! You look like hell.”
He came in and settled in a chair. “Fouada’s having sleepless nights,” he said. “Which means I’m having them, too.”
“I’m sure she’s worth it,” Busiri muttered, his eyes back on the files. “Did you know we have to say good-bye to seven people right in this office?”
He passed over the list of names, and Omar read it. He knew all these people, knew the ways in which they had, over the years, abused their position. He passed it back. “Nothing unexpected there.”
“But still,” Busiri said, and turned the paper facedown on his desk, finally giving him his full attention. “What news?”
Omar cleared his throat. “I’d like to know what Rashid el-Sawy is up to.”
“Rashid? Why do you ask?”
“Because last night he met with Sophie Kohl. He tried to convince her to work with him to find Jibril Aziz.”
Busiri looked around his wide desk until he’d spotted his Camels. He lit one. “Did Rashid tell you this?”
“Mrs. Kohl did.”
He nodded, smoke wafting around his head, as if he already knew they had talked. Perhaps he did. “Any idea where she is now?”
“Isn’t she in her hotel?” Omar asked, full of innocence.
“Apparently not.”
“Then she’s with Rashid.”
Busiri shook his head.
“Why was Rashid meeting with her?”
“He’s following leads on his own. I’ll be sure to ask him. Why were you meeting with her?”
“I wanted to question her about her husband’s murder.”
“Anything interesting?”
Omar nodded slowly. “She told me she’d been staying with Stanley Bertolli. Did you know about that?”
“Of course.”
“Apparently,” he said, breathing steadily to make his lie come off more smoothly, “Mr. Bertolli believes the solution to the mystery of her husband’s death lies not with the Americans, but with someone else. The Libyans, perhaps.”
Busiri’s eyebrows rose sharply. “Libya?”
Omar nodded, palms up, as if the proposition were just as ridiculous to him. “He thinks that the exiles who disappeared were taken by the Libyans, not by the Americans. Libya gets rid of the exiles, and Stumbler dies before it can start. The question is: How did the Libyans find out about Stumbler in the first place? This is the question Emmett Kohl wondered about. If Bertolli can figure that out, then he’ll be able to find Kohl’s murderer.”
There was only a moment’s pause before Busiri recovered. “But we know, don’t we? Zora Balašević’s ethical sense was about as lasting as Hosni’s portraits are now. She sold to us. She sold to Libya.”
It was an answer he had expected, for he’d gone through the various permutations of this conversation all night long. It was the only explanation he could have offered.
“Maybe I should get in touch with Paul Johnson, then,” Omar suggested. “I could tell him to pass that on to Bertolli.”
Busiri waved the proposition away. “I’m meeting with Bertolli this afternoon. I’ll tell him myself.”
“You’re meeting him?”
“He requested it.”
Omar nodded.
“Anything else?”
Omar shook his head and climbed to his feet. He took another walk down the corridor, and in the break room found Sayyid and Mahmoud talking on the sofa, a small television playing Al Jazeera. He nodded at the two men, then turned up the volume until it blared the gunfire of Libyan rebels into that small room. He sat close to Mahmoud while Sayyid pretended to be watching television. “I need you to watch someone today. Do not lose him.”
Mahmoud nodded gruffly, then said, “Who?”
4
He left a half hour early and was home by five, where he found Fouada in the kitchen surrounded by the pungent aroma of freshly fried falafel. Sophie Kohl was resting on the terrace. “I’m beginning to find her dull,” Fouada whispered to him. “Nothing like Jibril.”
“You just like boys,” he whispered back. Omar went to the bathroom in the rear of the apartment to wash up, then out to the terrace to sit beside Sophie. She was calmer now, rested, and as they spoke he remembered Zora Balašević’s advice: Don’t ever make an enemy of Sophie Kohl. Then she told him that Rashid el-Sawy had talked to her husband on the day he was killed.
He was shocked by this, then he wasn’t. “What did they speak about?”
“Stumbler, of course.”
Sayyid had arrived and was waiting in the terrace doorway. “We’re going to be up all night,” he told the young man in Arabic.
Sayyid shrugged. “This is the life I chose.”
When they got up for dinner, Omar’s phone rang—it was Mahmoud. “Yes?”
Mahmoud was breathing heavily. It sounded as if he’d been running. “Sir, it—he’s dead.”
“What? Who?” Omar walked inside, past Sayyid, heading for his bedroom.
“The American … Bertolli.”
“Tell me.”
Mahmoud took another breath. “I followed Ali to al-Azhar Park, and he met Stanley Bertolli. Ten, fifteen minutes. That was all. Ali started to walk back to his car, but after turning a corner he stopped and sat on a bench. Like he was waiting for something. After a short while, we both heard it. Quiet, but it was there. A gunshot. Ali got up again and walked to his car. I went back and found the American’s car. Rashid. It was Rashid el-Sawy. He was getting out of the backseat, taking plugs out of his ears, walking away. I waited, then went to check. It … it’s a mess.”