The Marching Season

airport and boarded an early afternoon Egypt Air flight to Cairo. He checked into a small hotel in downtown Cairo and changed into lighter clothes. He took a taxi to Ma'adi in the late afternoon. The driver raced along the Corniche, dodging cyclists and donkey carts, as the setting sun turned the Nile into a ribbon of gold.
    By dusk, Delaroche was taking sweet tea and pastries in the coffeehouse across from Ahmed Hussein's flat. The muezzin sounded the evening call to prayer, and the faithful streamed toward the mosque. Ahmed Hussein was among them, surrounded by his motley troop of bodyguards. Delaroche watched Hussein carefully. He ordered more tea and pictured how he would kill him tomorrow.
    The following day, Delaroche took lunch on the sun-drenched terrace cafe at the Nile Hilton. He spotted the blond man in the sunglasses, sitting alone among the tourists and rich Egyptians
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    with a large bottle of Stella beer and a half-empty glass. A thin black attache case rested on the chair next to him.
    Delaroche walked to the table. "Mind if I join you?" he asked, in Dutch-accented English.
    "Actually, I was just leaving," the man said, and stood up.
    Delaroche sat down and ordered lunch.
    He placed the attache on the ground next to his feet.
    After lunch Delaroche stole a motor scooter. It was parked outside the Nile Hilton, in the madness of Tahrir Square, and it took him a matter of seconds to pick the ignition lock and fire the engine. It was dark blue, coated in a fine layer of Cairo's powderlike dust, and seemed to be in good working order. There was even a helmet with a dark visor.
    Delaroche drove south through the Garden City section of Cairo—past the fortified American embassy, past dilapidated villas, sad reminders of a grander time. The contents of the attache case, a Beretta 9-millimeter automatic and silencer, were now in a holster beneath his left arm. He sped through a narrow alley, past the back of the old Shepheard's Hotel, turned onto the Cor-niche, and raced south along the Nile.
    He arrived in Ma'adi before sunset. He waited about two hundred yards from the mosque, purchasing flatbread and limes from a peasant boy on the street corner, head covered with the helmet. The amplified voice of the muezzin sounded, and the call to prayer echoed over the neighborhood.
    God is most great.
    I testify that there is no god but God.
    I testify that Muhammad is the Prophet of God.
    80 Daniel Silva
    Come to prayer. Come to success. God is most great. There is no god but God.
    Delaroche saw Ahmed Hussein emerge from his apartment house, surrounded by his bodyguards. He crossed the street and entered the mosque. Delaroche gave the boy a few crumpled piastres for the bread and limes, climbed on the motor scooter, and started the engine.
    According to the reports, Ahmed Hussein always stayed in the mosque at least ten minutes. Delaroche drove half a block and stopped at a kiosk. He leisurely purchased a pack of Egyptian cigarettes, some candy, and razors. He placed these items in the larger bag containing the bread and limes.
    The faithful were beginning to trickle out of the mosque.
    Delaroche started the engine.
    Ahmed Hussein and his bodyguards emerged from the mosque into the rose-colored dusk.
    Delaroche opened the throttle, and the motorbike leaped forward. He raced along the dusty street, dodging pedestrians and slow-moving cars, just the way he had practiced on the track above Merdias Bay, and brought the bike to a sliding stop in front of the mosque. The bodyguards, sensing trouble, tried to close ranks around their man.
    Delaroche reached inside his coat and withdrew the Beretta.
    He leveled it at Hussein, taking aim at his face; then he lowered the gun a few inches and pulled the trigger rapidly three times. All three shots struck Ahmed Hussein in the chest.
    Two of the four bodyguards were pulling weapons from beneath their garments. Delaroche shot one through the heart and the other through the throat. The last two bodyguards threw
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    themselves to the ground next to the bodies. Delaroche gunned the engine and raced away.
    He melted into the teeming slums of south Cairo, ditched the motorbike in an alleyway, and dropped the Beretta down a sewer. Two hours later he boarded an Alitalia flight to Rome.
    9
    LONDON
    "HOW LONG WILL YOU BE STAYING IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? " THE officer in the passport control booth asked rapturelessly.
    "Just a day."
    Michael Osbourne