World War II Thriller Collection (12 page)

There was a silence. Kemel had the answer to this question, too, but it would look better coming from one of the others.

Imam rose to the occasion. “We could send some useful military information along with the message.”

Kemel now pretended to oppose the idea. “What sort of information could
we
get? I can't imagine—”

“Aerial photographs of British positions.”

“How is that possible?”

“We can do it on a routine patrol, with an ordinary camera.”

Kernel looked dubious. “What about developing the film?”

“Not necessary,” Imam said excitedly. “We can just send the film.”

“Just one film?”

“As many as we like.”

Sadat said: “I think Imam is right.” Once again they were discussing the practicalities of an idea instead of its risks. There was only one more hurdle to jump. Sadat knew from bitter experience that these rebels were terribly brave until the moment came when they really had to stick their necks out. He said: “That leaves only the question of which of us will fly the plane.” As he spoke he looked around the room, letting his eyes rest finally on Imam.

After a moment's hesitation, Imam stood up.

Sadat's eyes blazed with triumph.

 

Two days later Kernel walked the three miles from central Cairo to the suburb where Sadat lived. As a detective inspector, Kernel had the use of an official car whenever he wanted it, but he rarely used one to go to rebel meetings, for security reasons. In all probability his police colleagues would be sympathetic to the Free Officers Movement; still, he was not in a hurry to put them to the test.

Kernel was fifteen years older than Sadat, yet his attitude to the younger man was one almost of hero worship. Kemel shared Sadat's cynicism, his realistic understanding of the levers of political power; but Sadat had something more, and that was a burning idealism which gave him unlimited energy and boundless hope.

Kernel wondered how to tell him the news.

The message to Rommel had been typed out, signed by Sadat and all the leading Free Officers except the absent Nasser and sealed in a big brown envelope. The aerial photographs of British positions had been taken. Imam had taken off in his Gladiator, with Baghdadi following in a second plane. They had touched down in the desert to pick up Kernel, who had given the brown envelope to Imam and climbed into Baghdadi's plane. Imam's face had been shining with youthful idealism.

Kernel thought: How will I break it to Sadat?

It was the first time Kernel had flown. The desert, so featureless from ground level, had been an endless mosaic of shapes and patterns: the patches of gravel, the dots of vegetation and the carved volcanic hills. Baghdadi said: “You're going to be cold,” and Kernel thought he was joking—the desert was like a furnace—but as the little plane climbed the temperature dropped steadily, and soon he was shivering in his thin cotton shirt.

After a while both planes had turned due east, and Baghdadi spoke into his radio, telling base that Imam had veered off course and was not replying to radio calls. As expected, base told Baghdadi to follow Imam. This little pantomime was necessary so that Baghdadi, who was to return, should not fall under suspicion.

They flew over an army encampment. Kernel saw tanks, trucks, field guns and jeeps. A bunch of soldiers waved: they must be British, Kernel thought. Both planes climbed. Directly ahead they saw signs of battle: great clouds of dust, explosions and gunfire. They turned to pass to the south of the battlefield.

Kernel had thought: We flew over a British base, then a battlefield—next we should come to a German base.

Ahead, Imam's plane lost height. Instead of following, Baghdadi climbed a little more—Kemel had the feeling that the Gladiator was near its ceiling—and peeled off to the south. Looking out of the plane to the right, Kernel saw what the pilots had seen: a small camp with a cleared strip marked as a runway.

Approaching Sadat's house, Kernel recalled how elated he had felt, up there in the sky above the desert, when he realized they were behind German lines, and the treaty was almost in Rommel's hands.

He knocked on the door. He still did not know what to tell Sadat.

It was an ordinary family house, rather poorer than Kernel's home. In a moment Sadat came to the door, wearing a galabiya and smoking a pipe. He looked at Kemel's face, and said immediately: “It went wrong.”

“Yes.” Kernel stepped inside. They went into the little room Sadat used as a study. There were a desk, a shelf of books and some cushions on the bare floor. On the desk an army pistol lay on top of a pile of papers.

They sat down. Kernel said: “We found a German camp with a runway. Imam descended. Then the Germans started to fire on his plane. It was an English plane, you see—we never considered that.”

Sadat said: “But surely, they could see he was not hostile—he did not fire, did not drop bombs—”

“He just kept on going down,” Kernel went on. “He waggled his wings, and I suppose he tried to raise them on the radio; anyway they kept firing. The tail of the plane took a hit.”

“Oh, God.”

“He seemed to be going down very fast. The Germans stopped firing. Somehow he managed to land on his wheels. The plane seemed to bounce. I don't think Imam could control it any longer. Certainly he could not slow down. He went off the hard surface and into a patch of sand; the port wing hit the ground and snapped; the nose dipped and plowed into the sand; then the fuselage fell on the broken wing.”

Sadat was staring at Kernel, blank-faced and quite still, his pipe going cold in his hand. In his mind Kemel saw the plane lying broken in the sand, with a German fire truck and ambulance speeding along the runway toward it, followed by ten or fifteen soldiers. He would never forget how, like a blossom opening its petals, the belly of the plane had burst skyward in a riot of red and yellow flame.

“It blew up,” he told Sadat.

“And Imam?”

“He could not possibly live through such a fire.”

“We must try again,” Sadat said. “We must find another way to get a message through.”

Kernel stared at him, and realized that his brisk tone of voice was phony. Sadat tried to light his pipe, but the hand holding the match was shaking too much. Kemel looked closely, and saw that Sadat had tears in his eyes.

“The poor boy,” Sadat whispered.

WOLFF WAS BACK AT SQUARE ONE: HE KNEW WHERE THE SECRETS WERE, BUT he could not get at them.

He might have stolen another briefcase the way he had taken the first, but that would begin to look, to the British, like a conspiracy. He might have thought of another way to steal a briefcase, but even that might lead to a security clampdown. Besides, one briefcase on one day was not enough for his needs: he had to have regular, unimpeded access to secret papers.

That was why he was shaving Sonja's pubic hair.

Her hair was black and coarse, and it grew very quickly. Because she shaved it regularly she was able to wear her translucent trousers without the usual heavy, sequined G-string on top. The extra measure of physical freedom—and the persistent and accurate rumor that she had nothing on under the trousers—had helped to make her the leading belly dancer of the day.

Wolff dipped the brush into the bowl and began to lather her.

She lay on the bed, her back propped up by a pile of pillows, watching him suspiciously. She was not keen on this, his latest perversion. She thought she was not going to like it.

Wolff knew better.

He knew how her mind worked, and he knew her body better than she did, and he wanted something from her.

He stroked her with the soft shaving brush and said: “I've thought of another way to get into those briefcases.”

“What?”

He did not answer her immediately. He put down the brush and picked up the razor. He tested its sharp edge with his thumb, then looked at her. She was watching him with horrid fascination. He leaned closer, spread her legs a little more, put the razor to her skin, and drew it upward with a light, careful stroke.

He said: “I'm going to befriend a British officer.”

She did not answer: she was only half listening to him. He wiped the razor on a towel. With one finger of his left hand he touched the shaved patch, pulling down to stretch the skin, then he brought the razor close.

“Then I'll bring the officer here,” he said.

Sonja said: “Oh, no.”

He touched her with the edge of the razor and gently scraped upward.

She began to breathe harder.

He wiped the razor and stroked again once, twice, three times.

“Somehow I'll get the officer to bring his briefcase.”

He put his finger on her most sensitive spot and shaved around it. She closed her eyes.

He poured hot water from a kettle into a bowl on the floor beside him. He dipped a flannel into the water and wrung it out.

“Then I'll go through the briefcase while the officer is in bed with you.”

He pressed the hot flannel against her shaved skin.

She gave a sharp cry like a cornered animal: “Ahh, God!”

Wolff slipped out of his bathrobe and stood naked. He picked up a bottle of soothing skin oil, poured some into the palm of his right hand, and knelt on the bed beside Sonja; then he anointed her pubis.

“I won't,” she said as she began to writhe.

He added more oil, massaging it into all the folds and crevices. With his left hand he held her by the throat, pinning her down. “You will.”

His knowing fingers delved and squeezed, becoming less gentle.

She said: “No.”

He said: “Yes.”

She shook her head from side to side. Her body wriggled, helpless in the grip of intense pleasure. She began to shudder, and finally she said: “Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh!” Then she relaxed.

Wolff would not let her stop. He continued to stroke her smooth, hairless skin while with his left hand he pinched her brown nipples. Unable to resist him, she began to move again.

She opened her eyes and saw that he, too, was aroused. She said: “You bastard, stick it in me.”

He grinned. The sense of power was like a drug. He lay over her and hesitated, poised.

She said: “Quickly!”

“Will you do it?”

“Quickly!”

He let his body touch hers, then paused again. “Will you do it?”

“Yes! Please!”

“Aaah,” Wolff breathed, and lowered himself to her.

 

She tried to go back on it afterward, of course.

“That kind of promise doesn't count,” she said.

Wolff came out of the bathroom wrapped in a big towel. He looked at her. She was lying on the bed, still naked, eating chocolates from a box. There were moments when he was almost fond of her.

He said: “A promise is a promise.”

“You promised to find us another Fawzi.” She was sulking. She always did after sex.

“I brought that girl from Madame Fahmy's,” Wolff said.

“She wasn't another Fawzi. Fawzi didn't ask for ten pounds every time, and she didn't go home in the morning.”

“All right. I'm still looking.”

“You didn't promise to
look
, you promised to
find
.”

Wolff went into the other room and got a bottle of champagne out of the icebox. He picked up two glasses and took them back into the bedroom. “Do you want some?”

“No,” she said. “Yes.”

He poured and handed her a glass. She drank some and took another chocolate. Wolff said: “To the unknown British officer who is about to get the nicest surprise of his life.”

“I won't go to bed with an Englishman,” Sonja said. “They smell bad and they have skins like slugs and I hate them.”

“That's why you'll do it—because you hate them. Just imagine it: while he's screwing you and thinking how lucky he is, I'll be reading his secret papers.”

Wolff began to dress. He put on a shirt which had been made for him in one of the tiny tailor shops in the Old City—a British uniform shirt with captain's pips on the shoulders.

Sonja said: “What are you wearing?”

“British officer's uniform. They don't talk to foreigners, you know.”

“You're going to pretend to be British?”

“South African, I think.”

“But what if you slip up?”

He looked at her. “I'll probably be shot as a spy.”

She looked away.

Wolff said: “If I find a likely one, I'll take him to the Cha-Cha.” He reached into his shirt and drew his knife from its underarm sheath. He went close to her and touched her naked shoulder with its point. “If you let me down, I'll cut your lips off.”

She looked into his face. She did not speak, but there was fear in her eyes.

Wolff went out.

 

Shepheard's was crowded. It always was.

Wolff paid off his taxi, pushed through the pack of hawkers and dragomans outside, mounted the steps and went into the foyer. It was packed with people: Levantine merchants holding noisy business meetings, Europeans using the post office and the banks, Egyptian girls in their cheap gowns and British officers—the hotel was out of bounds to Other Ranks. Wolff passed between two larger-than-life bronze ladies holding lamps and entered the lounge. A small band played nondescript music while more crowds, mostly European now, called constantly for waiters. Negotiating the divans and marble-topped tables Wolff made his way through to the long bar at the far end.