Vertigo Read online

  This time, however, a new sensation was making its presence felt – a strong sense of guilt. How many innocents had he killed today in addition to the two designated targets? The orders had been clear: eliminate everyone. There must be no witnesses. Execute your orders and we’ll debate it later. Execute, then we can talk. That’s an order. An order.

  He held his position for five minutes, peering at a face he no longer recognised, then exited the bathroom to find that Somaya had switched off the lights and turned her back to him.

  Pulling back the covers, he slipped into bed. For a few moments he lay on his back then moved towards her, cradling her from behind and caressing her rounded belly with his palm. She gave no resistance and covered his hand with hers. She closed her eyes, the tears dampening her cheeks until she slept.

  3

  Two months prior to the massacre at the bar …

  One cold February night, somewhere inside that quiet building on the outskirts of town, an alert tone sounded fitfully from the speakerphone on the broad desk in Mustafa Arif’s office.

  ‘Mustafa basha?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Arrival at Gate 2, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He picked up the receiver of his telephone and waited two seconds. ‘Send the visitor straight in to the boss. Bring the files we prepared and get up to his office on the double.’

  He positioned his hand over a button to the top left of his telephone and counted out four seconds. ‘Your visitor has arrived, ya basha. Yes, sir. Already done, sir. I alerted them at the gate. Two minutes exactly, sir. As you wish, sir.’

  He replaced the receiver and sprinted to pluck his jacket from the back of the large leather chair that sat beneath an antique oil portrait. Switching off his mobile phone, he tightened his loosely knotted tie and leapt towards the small bathroom that led from the office. He checked his hair was lying flat, gave it a pat, inspected his eyebrows, then dabbed at his belly, trying as best he could to stuff it into his trousers. He exited into the corridor where a young man with a shaved head jumped to attention and saluted. He took a few paces along the red carpet, softly lit white walls on either side, and as he passed each doorway the man stationed there would leap up and raise his hand in a salute that he would languidly return. When he came to a halt at a door at the end of the corridor he gestured at the young man who had popped up in front of him like a jack-in-the-box.

  ‘Don’t interrupt us until I call for you. Now run along and prepare a tea, a medium-sweet coffee and a soft drink. We won’t wait for you to make it later on. Get going.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The youth dashed into the kitchenette next to the office and Mustafa glanced at his watch: quarter past eleven. Moments later a door at the other end of the corridor opened to reveal one of his colleagues waving in someone behind him. A few moments more, and Adel Nassar appeared.

  The man advanced as though on rollers; his upper half scarcely seemed to move. Despite being over sixty years old he had a broad, athletic frame and his tall body was topped by a head as bald as a butternut squash and adorned with liver spots. The hair above his ears was thick and, like his moustache, heavily dyed. His nose was straight and his chin bore a deep-set birthmark like a scar from a tyre wrench.

  Mustafa quickly leapt forward when the visitor appeared, covering the long corridor in four bounds, making sure the man was watching him as he extended his effusive greetings.

  ‘Welcome, sir. The department is graced by your presence.’

  Without breaking step Adel Nassar clasped Mustafa Arif’s trembling hand as he walked alongside him.

  ‘Hello Mustafa. How are you?’

  It was a voice deep enough to provoke the envy of legendary star of screen and stage Youssef bey Wahbi.

  ‘Fine, all thanks to you, sir.’

  ‘Is Safwan in?’

  ‘He’s ready and waiting, sir. Really, sir, it’s such an honour.’

  As Adel ignored him, Mustafa surged past with a theatrical gesture to open the door and give the signal that the visitor had arrived.

  ‘Please enter.’

  The room within was spacious yet cramped with furniture. A large wide desk was concealed behind a green partition, in front of which stood a dark wooden display case on which were ranged pharaonic statuettes, gold cups and medals, photographs of the owner shaking hands with dignitaries and receiving awards and honours, a framed Quranic verse, a picture of two children, another (seemingly older) photo of a chiselled young man surrounded by his comrades, with sand dunes in the background, a shot of a young cadet at military academy, a samurai sword and a vase containing plastic roses. At the centre of this collection sat a large television. On the wall next to the bookcase was a board on which were mounted military decorations and certificates, while beneath this a small refrigerator stood next to a sofa bed and an electric fan. A table occupied the middle of the room. On it sat an ashtray and over it hung the fragrance of air freshener sprayed five minutes earlier.

  Behind the desk was Safwan el-Bihiri.

  Thirty-two years of service sat behind this desk, years of gradually rising through the ranks until he had scaled the highest summit of all. In his late fifties, athletic and handsome with blue eyes and silver hair, he was dressed in a brown suit and a thickly knotted yellow tie.

  He came around the desk ready to greet his visitor, a man who only ever came to bring news. He switched off the Al Jazeera channel and silence descended, a silence broken by the entrance of Adel Nassar.

  ‘Safwan! How are you?’

  Safwan bowed as he grasped Adel’s hand.

  ‘Welcome, sir. As long as you continue to honour us with your presence I’m good. And how are you?’

  ‘How’s the work going?’ asked Adel, sitting on the sofa.

  ‘All credit to your advice. But first, what will you have to drink?’

  ‘Your usual coffee, sir?’ Mustafa interjected, like one of those bystanders waving at the camera from behind the presenter’s head.

  ‘A medium-sweet coffee.’

  ‘At your service, sir.’

  Safwan signalled to Mustafa that he should disappear until he was called, but before he could leave a young man came in bearing a trembling tray. Not brave enough to meet anyone’s eye, he put it down with a bottle of water and made a hasty exit.

  Adel took a sip from his cup and looked over at Safwan who sat uncomfortably at the far end of the sofa, far enough away to convey his sense of decorum and respect. Adel’s silence allowed Safwan to prepare himself for whatever had prompted this visit, question marks bobbing inside him as he waited for the first blow to fall. Adel calmly sipped his coffee.

  ‘The big basha isn’t happy, Safwan.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You know we’re entering a difficult period, Safwan, and the basha’s in a tricky position. Certain matters have to be sorted out before things can settle down.’

  ‘Have we fallen short in any way, Adel bey?’

  ‘No, but there are a few loose ends we want to tie up. First of all the basha has been given a recording of Hisham Fathi talking about his son with some whore. He got it from a guy who’s trying to make his mark and let the basha know he’s got his wits about him. As you know there’s a thousand like him, dying to serve the basha and show him that we’re sleeping on the job. That idiot Hisham Fathi has really blown it. The basha wants him gone and we won’t stand for anyone talking about his sons, especially these days when people are ready to believe anything. Secondly, Hisham has forgotten himself and has started knocking on the door of Ayman Anwar from the Future Party. He’s funding him, thinks it will help him, but he’s gone too far now. Enough’s enough.’

  ‘What are your orders, sir?’

  ‘A high-society scandal, like the time Karim el-Sawaisi killed his wife and committed suicide. Something where the case can be closed before it ever begins. The country will be in turmoil for a few days and when the investigation closes people will forget all
about it. Maybe start a rumour at a café in Ramses Square: the trains will take it all over Egypt in the blink of an eye. People will get the idea that women are involved.’

  ‘Understood, sir. Leave it to me.’

  Adel extracted a cigarette from a gold box and adjusted the position of his legs.

  ‘There’s something else.’

  He blew out smoke and looked at Safwan.

  ‘Muhi Zanoun.’

  Safwan thought he hadn’t heard correctly.

  ‘Is he all right, sir? Someone bothering him?’

  ‘On the second of February Muhi Zanoun suddenly transferred extremely large sums abroad. We’d also asked him to make an arms deal but he begged off on the grounds that there were manufacturing flaws, something we know for certain isn’t true. Plus a few other things. As you’re aware, he’s one of the old guard from the days of Abdel Nasser. There’s no place for someone like Muhi Zanoun in the future of this country. The main reason, though, is that he isn’t giving someone like Ayman Wasfi the chance to enter the market. Ayman’s a close friend of the basha; he sees him every other day, and besides, the basha has no time for monopolies, especially if you start playing games. We want someone to give him a stiff warning, something that’ll really get to him – break him – so he’s around but not around, if you see what I mean. Understand me, Safwan? Have I made myself clear?’

  Safwan’s mind reeled with disbelief. Muhi Zanoun? Top dog and pillar of the establishment: as eternal and unchanging as Qasr el-Nil Bridge and its statues or Downtown and its public squares. He couldn’t remember a time before Muhi Zanoun; it was as though he had been present since the dawn of time. There were probably reliefs on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples that bore the name Mu-Hi Za-Nun, yet here he was, being asked to declaw Muhi.

  Not that Safwan el-Bihiri was unduly troubled. He had seen worse. That creature we call conscience had long ago died inside him, victim of a heart attack, its place taken by a black car with curtained windows and minions greeting him and scurrying around at his beck and call. The last time he had heard the call of his conscience was some thirty-two years previously, when he was beginning his career under the guidance of Sherif Amin, a leading political figure back in 1963.

  His mission had been to carry out a surveillance of a famous film star who was selling herself for three hundred Egyptian pounds a night, which though a considerable sum at the time was nothing to the sweetheart of Egyptian cinema. She was abetted by a burly woman, her friend and pimp, who arranged assignations for the amusement of her fat-pocketed fans. The plan was to tempt her into a meeting with a plant, a foreign lover prepared to pay an enormous sum, and at the moment when he had her alone with their fig leaves fallen, investigators would raid the flat that had been rigged beforehand with 16mm cameras. She was arrested on a charge of prostitution, with the recorded footage as evidence. The real shock came when they persuaded her that the man was none other than an Israeli spy and that she would be indicted for conspiring with a foreign state. After suffering a nervous breakdown, she became putty in their hands and was sent out after any Arab or foreign official they chose. The target would be filmed with her and the footage used in order to obtain his cooperation: either bid farewell to your reputation or provide us with valuable information.

  The very depths of cynicism had been reached when one of the supervisors responsible for the filmed tapes had suggested in the late sixties that instead of burning them the tapes could be sold in Lebanon, thus providing an additional source of income.

  Safwan was brought back to earth by Adel’s voice.

  ‘Do you understand me, Safwan?’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  ‘I want this matter dealt with as soon as possible. If the basha entrusts me with something he won’t rest until its carried out. I don’t want him to start worrying because we’re taking our time. I shouldn’t have to emphasise that this should be a clean job. Organise your people and get a forensic pathologist, as well as the press and the opposition. Got any new faces that can do the job?’

  Safwan’s gaze wandered towards the bookshelf.

  ‘There’s an excellent kid,’ he said. ‘He’s just finished six months training in America and he’s ready to go.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Tariq Hassan Abdallah.’

  ‘Just so long as he’s smart and can deliver the message to Muhi. Any mistakes will land us in big trouble.’

  ‘Don’t worry about a thing, sir. The kid’s top notch.’

  Adel rose to his feet, followed by Safwan, and made for the door.

  ‘Get everything ready and give me the OK so I can tell the basha.’

  ‘Yes, sir. You’ll get a call very soon indeed.’

  As he approached the door Adel suddenly remembered something.

  ‘What news of Amr Hamid?’

  ‘Sheikh Khalid Askar and Ibrahim Shafie flew out to see him yesterday. They’ll meet with him tomorrow in London.’

  ‘He won’t play ball. The guy likes to play politics.’

  ‘But sir, Ibrahim Shafie will offer him a permanent weekly column in his paper. What more could he want? Khalid Askar’s bringing him an offer from a satellite channel.’

  Adel’s mood soured suddenly and he roared, ‘That guy’s getting too well known for comfort. If he decides to get to his feet after prayers and tell the thirty thousand people who listen to him that the government’s crooked we’ll have a crisis on our hands. Kids these days are morons and they can’t get enough of characters like him. I don’t have to tell you how influential religion can be. If he doesn’t back down I’ll make sure he never spends another night in Egypt. I won’t let him over the doorstep!’

  ‘It’s just a question of time, sir. If he refuses there are other solutions. For instance, we’ve kept the press quiet so far; we’ll just set them on him again. Start a rumour that he’s making a quarter of a million per episode, or one of our pet actresses can claim he asked her to marry him in secret or that he’s having an affair with her. People’s trust in him will be shaken, and not just here, abroad as well. That would scare anyone in his position. Khalid Askar will make sure he gets the message.’

  ‘You sure you’ve got Khalid under control?’

  ‘Khalid belongs to us. If he forgets himself, his tapes are with me and his file’s full. He’s a lapdog, to be honest, and anyway, the satellite stations have really helped him out: he’s making good money these days. Where’s he going to find better than that?’

  Adel wagged his head and looked at Safwan.

  ‘Just keep me informed.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  Adel left the room followed by Safwan, who accompanied him as far as his car, Mustafa Arif bringing up the rear. Safwan and Mustafa stood beside the car as it started to move off, their waving hands raised aloft until it disappeared from sight.

  Safwan turned. ‘Mustafa. I want you in my office right now. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.’

  4

  May 2006

  A year had passed since the incident at the bar, a year which had witnessed the passing of Zeinab Hassan Nasr, Ahmed’s diabetic mother, at the age of sixty-five, her toes preceding her to the grave one after the other.

  Three years had passed since Aya’s engagement to Mahmoud Hasib, the neighbour’s portly son.

  Aya was slender and black-haired with a delicate nose and finely drawn eyebrows. She had graduated from the Faculty of Arts with a degree in sociology and now worked as a secretary for an import company in the Shubra district, easily reached by metro from Sayyida Zeinab, where she lived together with her brother following their mother’s death.

  She had been in love with Mahmoud since middle school, that unspoken love whose gradual evolution began with glances from the balcony, then letters, meetings after school, a gift of a red teddy bear (eighteen pounds from Boutique Valentine), a leaf pendant on a chain with the words There is no god but God, and Mohammed is His messenger inscribed across its tw
o sides, a bottle of Touch perfume and late-night phone calls. Then came strolls through Cairo’s public parks like pilgrims visiting saints’ shrines, the boat trip from the television building to the Nile barrages, bicycle rides, furtive hand-holding and nervous embraces, all of which culminated in the lengthy engagement to the next-door paramour – or Professor Mahmoud as he was dubbed by the doorman of the building (half of which was the property of Hajj Hasib, Mahmoud’s father), ecstatic with the monthly twenty-pound rent he collected from each apartment.

  Mahmoud had graduated from a computer science academy and like any self-respecting graduate had looked for employment as far removed as possible from his field of study. He worked first for a pay-phone company, then a currency exchange. In the afternoon he clocked in at Piety Wholesale, a clothes company in Moski owned by Sheikh Akram, a man who showed Mahmoud a world of which he knew nothing. Once a young man whose enthusiasms (aside from cigarettes, listening to pop songs and watching dubious films with his friends) had been confined to attending prayers on Fridays and feast days, he began punctiliously observing the prescribed prayer times at the mosque following in the footsteps of his employer and co-workers. He turned away from former friends, kept his eyes directed earthward and stopped greeting women from his neighbourhood. The hem of his robes were shortened, his trouser legs were taken up and shoes were discarded in favour of leather sandals with toe loops. A ragged beard crept across his face and toothpaste gave way to the Prophet’s toothpick, siwak, while his vocabulary was augmented by phrases like, ‘May God reward you with His bounty’ and ‘Our Lord grant you the finest of fates’. Leaving his morning job at the exchange to distance himself from suspicion, he settled on working full-time for Sheikh Akram. And so it went, until the day came when he strapped on a bomb belt and blew himself up in Tahrir Square, fragments of his body scattering …

  But no: he never blew himself up. Mahmoud did not belong to a terrorist cell and the clothes company was nothing more than a group of individuals who saw it as the ideal way to achieve closeness to God.