Cairo Countdown at-5 Read online

  4

  In a taxi moving through the traffic of Sharia el-Corniche, Lyons monitored Katz speaking with an Egyptian in Arabic, the conversation meaningless to the ex-LAPD cop. Limousines and little Fiats, crowded buses with young men riding on the bumpers and hanging from the windows passed the slow-moving taxi. On the curb, tourists leaving hotels waved for the taxi. Abdul the driver waved back, indicating Lyons in the back seat. To the west, the late afternoon sun flashed from the Nile.

  “You three Yanks are lucky,” Abdul told Lyons. “This is the tourist season. If Colonel Katzenelenbogen didn’t have the friends he does in Cairo, this operation would be much more difficult for you. Hotel rooms, rental cars, trustworthy translators…”

  “Yeah, helps to be tight with the Mossad, right?”

  “Sir! As I told you before…”

  “Cut the crap. You’re Israeli. Who else could say Katzen… Katzenelen… Katzenelenbogenlogen! I mean, I work with Katz, and I can’t even say his name.”

  “I speak several languages. It is a gift from Allah.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s just keep it straight. You know who I work for, and I know who you work for. I don’t mind an allied effort here.”

  “I can only repeat, sir, that I am an Egyptian.”

  “Like I said, allies.” Lyons ignored him, keyed his hand radio. “Wizard. Politician. We’re turning off the Nile Boulevard. We’re passing…” He leaned forward to Abdul. “What’s the name of that hotel there?”

  “Shepheard’s. We’re leaving the Corniche, turning east at the Sharia el-Hamy…”

  “We’ll be at the embassy in less than a minute. You got them in sight?”

  Gadgets answered. “Jam time. Some bus lost a wheel. The cars with Katz and the station officer and Sadek are still on the embassy grounds. Pass up this street and go on to the next boulevard, circle back. You catching Katz’s conversation clear?”

  “Sure, loud and clear, hearing every word. But don’t understand nothin’. What’s the point of…”

  “Be cool, man. If Katz wants us to hear something, he’ll say it in English. That Parks guy — the assistant to the dear departed station chief — his Arabic is way bad, so we’ll hear English again when he gets back in Katz’s limo.”

  Blancanales’s voice came on. “Ironman, you’re impatient. Just relax, tough guy. Play tourist. People pay money to come here. Could be mucho worse.”

  “Like how? We don’t know the language. We don’t know the city. We don’t know who we’re after. All we can do is follow Katz and a crew of CIA screw-ups and wait for those ragheads to hit them…”

  “Like I say,” said Blancanales. “Could be much worse…”

  “Like how?” Lyons demanded.

  “You want to cruise around in that limo?” Gadgets asked. “Cruise around waiting for an RPG to come through the window?”

  “Ah… yeah, you got a point. We’re turning on the boulevard. Hey, Abdul, what’s the name of this street?” Lyons asked.

  “Sharia el-Qasr el-Aini.”

  “Yeah, the main drag. What did they just say in the limo?”

  “Parks is back,” Gadgets answered. “They’re on their way to the airport.”

  “Ironman,” Blancanales’s voice came over the hand radio again. “Keep your distance. Tell your driver to start for the airport.”

  “Will do. Over.”

  Behind an old bus, Gadgets watched diesel smoke swirl around the taxi. The bus driver and several passengers crowded around the rear of the stricken vehicle. Two men rolled a wheel through the bumper-to-bumper traffic, weaving between cars, imploring drivers to back up, motioning other drivers to halt. But it was purposeless. The rear axle of the bus had snapped. In front of Schwarz’s taxi, the bus driver argued with the passengers, waving his arms, motioning for them to leave the bus. Drivers trapped in traffic screamed at the bus driver and the drivers around them. Horns sounded in an unending cacophony.

  “I tell you,” Mohammed said in the front seat, “these people, they loco. The bus, it breaks down. They think a horn will make it go. These streets, they crazy place.”

  “You learn to talk like that on a kibbutz?”

  “Oh, yeah, man. Kibbutzy on the Rio Grande.”

  *

  Gadgets’s hand radio buzzed. “Politician here. Cars coming out of the embassy.”

  “We can’t go anywhere.”

  “We can. Break free when you get the chance.”

  On the other side of the Sharia Latin America, Cairo police stepped into traffic, blew whistles, held up white-gloved hands. The gates of the American Embassy opened. The tan-uniformed cops held traffic back as a Fiat with Cairo police department markings led two black Lincoln Continental limousines from the compound. The three cars accelerated away and swept around a corner.

  Two teenagers on motor scooters darted past the officers holding traffic. One policeman blew a whistle at them. The other officer called to his partner. They hurried to return from the street to their positions at the gate. With clouds of exhaust clouding around the cars, the wall of traffic rushed forward.

  As Blancanales passed in his taxi, Gadgets keyed his hand radio. “You see those two on motorbikes?”

  “Looked like students.”

  “Big rush to get to school, too much of a rush.”

  “I’ll watch for them.”

  “We’ll get out of this jam as soon as we can. Later.”

  Weaving through the traffic, the driver of Blancanales’s taxi, a taciturn, methodical young man named Zaki, kept one foot on the accelerator, the other on the brake, speeding to close the distance behind the limousines, touching the brake only when drivers ignored his horn.

  Blancanales buzzed Lyons. “This is the Pol. We’re going west, staying about a hundred yards behind them.”

  “Moving. We’ll parallel you, stay out of sight. See anyone interesting?”

  “Not really. Over.” Blancanales watched the vehicles around him. Italian and Japanese compacts zipped in and out of lanes. Buses packed solid with commuters lurched over cracks and potholes in the pavement as men in Levi’s and white robes clung to the sides. On one bus, a teenager gripped the front door’s handrail while he studied a text with a German title. Faces in the bus windows stared down at Blancanales.

  He checked the attache case beside him. Concealed inside was an Uzi with one hundred fifty rounds of 9mm hollowpoints. The silenced Beretta 93-R rode in an oversize holster under his jacket. He kept his hand radio covered with a map of the city. Blancanales looked up at the faces staring at him, grinned. A small boy grinned back and gave him a two-fingered peace sign.

  “Motorcycles are still with the limousines,” Zaki called back.

  Leaning forward, Blancanales saw a teenager behind the Lincolns. Zaki pointed. The other teenager kept his motor scooter behind a Mercedes van, where the limo driver could not spot him in the rearview mirror. The second teenager lifted a walkie-talkie to his lips, spoke a few words, then concealed the radio in a handlebar basket full of books and papers.

  Blancanales glanced to both sides, covered his hand radio with his jacket sleeve as he said, “One of the students on the motorbikes has a radio. I think they’re running a pattern behind the limos.” As Blancanales spoke, a battered and smoking Fiat sedan swerved into the lane. The first motorbike braked, cut across traffic, made a right turn. The motorbike behind the van maintained position.

  Two men rode in the front seat of the Fiat. One saw the student on the motorbike, nodded. The student returned the nod.

  “They are most definitely running a pattern. Repeat, a pattern. One talked on a radio, a tail car cut in, and the other student dropped out.”

  “This is the Wizard. I’m finally moving.”

  “And I’m on some side street,” Lyons told them. “Going like crazy.”

  Traffic slowed as the wide boulevard veered to the northeast. As his taxi pulled up to the bumper of the battered Fiat, Blancanales slid low in the seat. He looked around, saw th
e student on the motor scooter one lane to his right. Keeping his hand radio below the window level, Blancanales clicked the transmit key twice, then twice again.

  “That close?” Lyons asked. “This could get serious.”

  A Japanese mini-van hit the back bumper of the taxi. Zaki leaned out the window, delivered a curse in Arabic. No one answered. Blancanales looked back and saw the driver leaning through curtains screening the back of the van, speaking to someone.

  Visible above the van’s dashboard, protruding from a wrapping of newspaper, was a familiar assembly of steel: the front sight and muzzle of a Soviet AKM.

  Wrapping the map of Cairo around his hand radio, Blancanales keyed the transmit. He leaned forward as if questioning the taxi driver. “This is the Politician. Things are now serious. There’s a mini-van behind me. Driver’s got an AK. The back’s curtained off, and he’s talking to someone there. This could be a hit squad.”

  “Think they’ve spotted you?” Lyons asked.

  “They’ve seen us. We’re parked between their cars. But I’m just one more tourist in a taxi.”

  “Stay with them.”

  Blancanales laughed. “Can’t get away.”

  A police siren stopped cross traffic. The Cairo PD car led the two Lincoln limousines through the intersection. A wave of buses and trucks and taxis followed. As they accelerated, Blancanales pointed to the right. Zaki saw a gap in the cars and buses and whipped into the space.

  The mini-van sped forward. Blancanales watched the driver and windows. The driver kept his eyes on the limousines. The curtained side windows didn’t move.

  “The van is on our left now. They’re closing on the limos.”

  “I’m buzzing Katz right now,” Gadgets answered.

  “No!” Lyons broke in. “You’ll give us away to the ones that are with him. The CIA and the Egyptian.”

  “He’s got an earphone.” Gadgets cut off.

  “We’re in motion!” Lyons’s voice blared out. “Badman to the rescue…”

  The shriek of screaming metal, shouts and a blasting horn came through the open channel.

  “Are you all right? Sounded like a crash.”

  “Slow bus, fast taxi,” Lyons answered. “But we’re gaining fast again. What’s going on with the limos?”

  “Nothing. The mini-van and the Fiat are closing on them. The kid on the motorcycle’s staying back. He’s got the radio in his hand…”

  Speeding bumper to bumper, the mini-van and the battered sedan approached the limousines. Only a bus separated the limousines from the two pursuing vehicles.

  Blancanales leaned forward to Zaki. “Faster. Keep even with them if you can do it.”

  Zaki saw the curb lane open. He accelerated in a smooth sweep to the right. They passed the teenager on the motor scooter. In his peripheral vision, Blancanales saw the boy lift his walkie-talkie, then they left him behind.

  The taxi passed an open-bed cargo truck and a bus. The bus slowed as a passenger stepped off. Zaki whipped the taxi to the left. They came parallel with the mini-van. Blancanales saw a face at a back window watching the traffic. In the front seat of the Fiat, the passenger spoke into a walkie-talkie. The man riding in the back of the mini-van lifted a walkie-talkie to his lips, answered.

  Jabbing for the transmit key through the map that wrapped his hand radio, Blancanales shouted, “Wizard! Get Katz moving! They’re making their move, they’re going to do it!”

  Engine screaming, white smoke pouring from the exhaust, the Fiat varoomed to the left, over the center divider. The mini-van followed, horns sounding as the oncoming traffic skidded and swerved around the two wrong-way vehicles. In the instant before the van disappeared behind the bus, the side door flew open. Two men with rocket launchers knelt in the interior.

  “RPGs! Wizard, get Katz out!”

  In a coordinated maneuver, both Lincolns swerved to the right and hit their brakes, thus putting the bus between them and the hit squad. The Fiat and the van carrying the rocket-launcher team raced into the open but saw no targets. The limousines stopped dead in traffic, tires smoking. Hundreds of tires squealed behind them, bumpers smashed into bumpers, headlights and taillights shattered, horns blared in one vast sound. The police car’s siren wailed.

  Blancanales flashed past the limousines as Zaki maintained the taxi’s speed. They passed the police car. The Fiat and the mini-bus were racing away up the boulevard. Blancanales looked back, saw the limousines accelerate, then skid through a right turn onto a side street.

  “Keep that car and van in sight,” Blancanales told his driver, then keyed his hand radio. “The limos are safe. We’ve got the hit team in sight, will follow.”

  “Plan is to take prisoners, right?” Lyons asked, back in the traffic jam.

  “You got it,” Blancanales answered.

  “Not yet, but give me a minute…”

  “What?”

  *

  Dropping his hand radio, Lyons leaned forward to his driver. “Abdul, see the kid on the motorbike?”

  “Yes, sir. We follow him?”

  “For about fifteen seconds.”

  Two car lengths ahead in the stalled traffic, the teenager on the motor scooter held the walkie-talkie to his ear. Without uncovering the Atchisson, Lyons grabbed the autoshotgun and the tourist maps covering it, placed it all on the floor of the taxi. Watching the teenager, Lyons checked the Velcro securing the silenced Colt .45 Government Model under his sports coat and waited.

  Tires crunched over the broken glass and plastic of the rear-end collisions. The taxi was inching up on the motor scooter. Traffic moved faster as smashed and dented cars, their drivers shouting and waving fists at one another, pulled to the side. Lyons braced himself.

  The taxi passed the motor scooter. Lyons waited until the teenager returned the walkie-talkie to his basket, then swung open the door.

  In rush-hour traffic, with drivers watching, Lyons threw an arm around the teenager’s neck as if he was greeting the boy like a long-lost son. Simultaneously he took hold of the left handlebar. As the boy struggled, Lyons walked the motor scooter to the curb, let it fall and grabbed the walkie-talkie. Choking, kicking, flailing with his fists, the teenager tried to break free. He couldn’t. Lyons dragged him into the taxi.

  Tires screeched again as the taxi roared away, slicing through traffic.

  Lyons keyed his hand radio. “We got one.”

  5

  Clutching a folded-stock Kalashnikov rifle, Sadek leaned forward from his rear-facing auxiliary seat. Today, he wore a powder blue summer suit. He lowered the limousine’s power window a few inches, observed the traffic behind the limousines. At the other window, Katz held a Colt Commander .45 as he watched parked cars and trucks, bicyclists, sidewalk crowds and vendors flash past. The two Lincolns were careening through the boulevard’s traffic.

  Parks looked back through the rear window and spoke into the intercom microphone. “We’ve lost them,” he told the chauffeur and the bodyguard in the front seat. “But radio ahead to the airport, tell them to send out an escort car to meet us on the Heliopolis road.”

  “It is very fortunate you saw them, Mr. Steiner,” Sadek said to Katz. Sweat beaded the Egyptian’s sharp features. He clicked up the lever safety of the AK. “They were, without a doubt, attempting an assassination.”

  “You recognize them?” asked Katz, alias Steiner.

  “Of course not! Do you mean their nationality? Perhaps Libyans, perhaps radical Palestinians. Foreigners certainly.”

  “Certainly,” Katz agreed. He set the safety of the Colt, held the autopistol below the level of the window.

  “Why not the Brotherhood?” Parks asked.

  “Because our security forces broke those fanatics,” Sedak pronounced. “However, there are other groups. Foreigners have come to make war in my country. Unfortunate, but true.”

  “Is it possible your police could capture one of them?” Katz continued in his role of Steiner, speaking English with a slight German
accent. “Then we would know…”

  “There will be an investigation, have no doubt.”

  Katz smiled. “I have no doubt.”

  *

  Low in the back seat, map wrapping the radio, Blancanales buzzed his partners. Zaki kept the Fiat and mini-van in sight by speeding, then braking, often swerving to maintain his rate through traffic. Horns and screeches came from all sides.

  “We’re staying behind them. My man’s driving like a drunken trucker. But they’ll see us gaining on them any second now.”

  “East on Azhar!” Zaki called back. “They turned east on Sharia el-Azhar.”

  “Mo-man’s moving!” Gadgets’s voice told them. “Says we’re on… Qua… la… We’re on that street, we turned, we’re going north. He says we might make it. Watch them.”

  “Watching. Making the turn now.”

  “This is…” Lyons voice came on. Another voice cried out, then Blancanales heard what could only be a fist smashing into flesh, once, twice. “Sorry, but I got a detainee who’s acting up. We’re right behind you and gaining. Making the turn…”

  Looking back, Blancanales saw a taxi take the corner on two wheels. A white-uniformed policeman and many drivers saw the side-slipping taxi approach. The policeman commanded them all to stop with his white-gloved hand. The drivers responded with panic, some hitting their brakes, others standing on their accelerators. Metal smashed, glass fell, another wail of horns began.

  Missing one car by inches and losing a taillight to a bus, the taxi then did the impossible: it recovered from the two-wheel turn and sped after Blancanales.

  “I do not believe what I just saw. Who do you have driving that car, Ironman?”

  “Man, this is wild. Here we come. I’ll take point, you fall back. We’ll rotate with the Wizard, chase these freaks wherever they go. But lose them or not, we got this prisoner.”

  As he listened, Blancanales saw the taxi carrying Lyons pass. Lyons gave him a salute. Ahead, the cars of the hit team made another right turn.