"What are you thinking about, child?"
"Nothing… nothing," Susan Bailey Salaam said absently. "Thank you for the information. I need some rest now. Is there anything else?"
"Only to ask you once again-what do you want to do, here, in Egypt?" Baris asked, stepping over and standing beside her. "We are officially in protective custody, by order of the Supreme Judiciary, but I assure you, we can leave anytime we please-my friends in the Ministry of Defense and the Intelligence Bureau will see to that. The security forces of the Supreme Judiciary are nothing more than Khalid al-Khan's hired goons, easily brushed aside. I have access to aircraft, safe houses, visas, and many friends overseas, especially in the United States."
"I… I don't know, General," Susan said. "I don't want to leave Egypt now, at a time like this, with Libya threatening our very existence almost every day."
"Why? What are you concerned about, Sekhmet? Our nation is strong, despite Libya's aggression. They never had enough strength to destroy Egypt militarily, with or without nuclear weapons. We will survive." He paused, looking carefully at Susan; then: "Or are you concerned more about how you might be looked upon by the people of Egypt if you left?"
"Are you saying that because I'm American, I needn't be concerned about Egypt?" Susan retorted. "I've lived here for many years, General. I speak Arabic. I consider myself an Egyptian. Are you saying that I'm only concerned about myself and not Egypt?"
"Of course not, Sekhmet," Baris said. "What I'm concerned about is that you might put yourself in grave danger by staying, in some misguided notion that you need to stay because this is where your husband is buried… or, yes, because you may think that the people's memory of your late husband or yourself might be tarnished if you left now. Your loyalty for our country is inspiring, Susan, but you are not safe here."
"What if I were president?"
Finally, the truth comes out, Baris thought-this was the secret she had kept to herself all this time. "Being president will not relieve you of the danger you faced from Khalid al-Khan and the Muslim Brotherhood," Baris reminded her. "You will always be the wife of their political adversary, the wife of the man that Khan conspired to murder in order to form his ideal Islamic government. In fact, I believe you will face even greater dangers, greater pressures.
"The real struggles will be political. You and the National Democratic Party will be blamed for every wrong, every deficiency, and every failure. You will be accused of impeding progress and delivering privileged information to enemies of the state and to anarchists. There are many citizens and government officials who agreed with Khan and were happy to see your husband assassinated-and would happily do the same to you. Your enemies will know your every move-if they want to ambush yoti, they'll know exactly when and where you'll be at all times. You are putting yourself in the lion's jaws, Susan. Why?"
"Because I feel I can do more inside the government than outside," Susan replied. "As simply the widow of a dead president or leader of the opposition, I create nothing but background noise. Let me trade on my name and my being a widow. Maybe I can do some good."
Baris studied his young friend for a few moments. Her words sounded determined, conclusive, and decisive-but he still felt uneasy, uncertain. What else was wrong? What wasn't he noticing?
"I suggest you leave Egypt," Baris said evenly. "Once in Italy, or England, or the United States, you can get on all the talk shows and news programs and talk about your vision of Egypt. You can raise money, attract attention to your ideas, and gather support. If you try to do it now, with the nation in chaos and the Libyans threatening to blow the entire country into atoms, your voice will be lost in the cries of confusion and fear-not to mention your life will be in terrible danger, just because of who you are." He took her hands. "Think about it, my friend. I am only concerned for your safety now-Egypt can wait, for a little while."
"I'll think about it."
"Good." He kissed her hands, smiled warmly at her, and then departed.
Khalid al-Khan was dead. The government was disorganized, frightened. Egypt was in grave danger. She had to do something….
"They can't pin this on me," Jadallah Zuwayy said proudly. "An entire military base destroyed, and they have no idea who did it to them. God, I wish I could have seen it for myself." Beside him, General Tahir Fazani, his military chief of staff, and Juma Mahmud Hijazi, his foreign minister, looked on with disbelief and fear…
… but mostly they were trying to decide how to get out of this predicament with their skins still attached to their bodies. "Jadallah, let's not celebrate just yet," Juma Hijazi, the Libyan foreign minister, said. "Egypt and the entire world are going to be on high alert after that weapon went off at Mersa Matruh."
"Our plan to take the Salimah oil fields is still on schedule," Zuwayy said. "We still have almost fifty thousand troops surrounding Salimah, plus another twenty thousand Sudanese mercenaries. We can send in every piece of air defense equipment we own to protect them. Once we move in, we can wire the place with explosives and threaten to blow it up unless we make a deal for coproduction rights."
"Just a couple months is all we need," Fazani said. "Once we have the first shot of cash in our hands, we head for Malaysia or some island in Indonesia and relax."
"Or we can get the hell out now" Hijazi said. "Damn it, Jadallah, we've got more money than Bill Gates tucked away in secret bank accounts all over the world-why are we staying here acting like targets? Let's get the hell out."
"I can't leave!" Zuwayy retorted. "I am the king of united Libya! I am the head of the Muslim Brotherhood! I can't run! I am the leader of a quarter of a billion Muslims around the world…"
"Jadallah, give it up, will you?" Fazani interjected. "You are not a fucking king, and the Muslim Brotherhood would gladly turn you over to Kazakov or Salaam or anyone else for the right amount of cash."
"I say let's end it-right now," Hijazi insisted. "Let's get while the getting's good."
"If you want to go so badly, go," Zuwayy said morosely.
Hijazi had thought about doing exactly that, and he had spoken about it at length with Fazani. But they needed Zuwayy-not because of any misguided sense of loyalty, but because only Zuwayy had the bank account numbers and access codes they needed to tap into the full range of money they had stolen from the Libyan government's oil revenues. As the mastermind of their operation, Zuwayy had all the codes-Fazani and Hijazi had only the codes for — their own accounts. If they simply ran, Zuwayy would eventually hunt them down, slaughter them, and keep all the money.
"We're in this together, Jadallah," Hijazi lied. "We stay together." Together-until they got the codes from Zuwayy, at which time they would jettison his ass and be done with his delusions of grandeur. "Tahir, let's take another look at the military forces we have remaining-I think we should beef up security here in Tripoli and around our headquarters first, then see how many troops we can commit to Salimah." Fazani was more than happy to comply-and if it turned out that they needed all available troops to secure Tripoli and all of their secret headquarters and shelters, so be it. No one was anxious to march out into the open and have a cluster bomb dropped on them anyway.
While Zuwayy and Fazani worked to reallocate troops in the wake of the nuclear detonation at Mersa Matruh, Hijazi went to the outer office to have a cigarette and clear his head. The situation was becoming desperate, he thought. He had to try to convince Jadallah to escape. But if he wouldn't, Hijazi thought, he might have to hire his own strongmen to kidnap Zuwayy and force him to turn over the bank account numbers and access codes. He wasn't going to wait much longer for him to-