The Secret Servant

Paris in winter. It had been many days since the sun had made its last appearance, and even then it was only a furtive peak from behind the blanket of cloud. Ramadan longed to be back in Cairo: the thunder of the traffic, the smells both putrid and magical, the music of a thousand muezzins, the kiss of the desert wind at night…It had been six months since his last visit. Soon , he thought. Soon it would be over and he would go home again. And if things went according to plan, the country to which he would return would be very different from the one he had left behind. Strange to think that it had all been set in motion here, in dreary Paris, from his tiny office in the eighteenth arrondissement.
    He pulled on his overcoat and hat, then snatched up his briefcase and umbrella and stepped into the corridor. As he passed by the staff lounge he saw several colleagues gathered around the television, watching a briefing by the commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police. Mahmoud Aburish, the tubby, owl-like director of the institute, motioned for Ramadan to join him. Ramadan walked over and looked up at the screen.
    “What’s he saying?”
    “No word yet from the kidnappers,” said Aburish. “And no clues about the woman’s whereabouts.”
    “Do you believe him?”
    “The British are very good, but judging from the expression on that man’s face, he’s not holding any cards up his sleeve.” Aburish regarded Ramadan through his smudged eyeglasses. “You’re the resident expert on matters like these, Yusuf. Who do you think has kidnapped this woman? And what on earth do they want?”
    “I suppose we’ll know soon enough,” Ramadan said.
    “How goes the writing?”
    “It goes, Mahmoud, just not as quickly as I had hoped. In fact, I’m having drinks with my French publisher in a few minutes to tell him I won’t be able to deliver the manuscript on time. He’s not going to be pleased. Neither are my British and American publishers.”
    “Is there anything the institute can do?”
    “You’ve done more than you’ll ever know, Mahmoud.”
    Aburish gazed toward the television as Dame Eleanor McKenzie, the director general of MI5, stepped before the television cameras. Yusuf Ramadan, the man known to the Egyptian security services only as the Sphinx, slipped silently from the lounge and headed downstairs.
     
     
     
    Though Yusuf Ramadan had been far from forthright during his brief encounter with Mahmoud Aburish, he had been truthful about one thing. He was indeed having drinks with his French publisher that evening—at Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysées, to be precise—but not until five o’clock. He had one appointment before then, however, on the Quai de Montebello directly across the Seine from Notre-Dame. The man waiting for him there was tall and heavily built, dressed in a dark cashmere overcoat with a silk scarf knotted rakishly at his throat. His real name was Nidal Mutawalli, though Ramadan referred to him only as Abu Musa. Like Ramadan, he was from the Fayoum Oasis. They had grown up together, attended school together, and then gone their separate ways—Ramadan into the world of books and writing, Abu Musa into the world of finance and money. The jihad and their shared hatred of the Egyptian regime and its American backers had reunited them. It was Abu Musa, Yusuf Ramadan’s childhood friend, who allowed him to keep his identity a secret from the Egyptian security services. They were, quite literally, two of the most dangerous men on earth.
    A light drizzle was drifting through the lamplight along the Seine embankments and beading like teardrops on the plastic sheets covering the stalls of the bouquinistes . Ramadan wandered over to a trestle table stacked with books and thumbed a worn volume of Chekhov. Abu Musa joined him a moment later and picked up a copy of L’Etranger by Camus.
    “Have you read him?” Abu Musa asked.
    “Of course,” said Ramadan. “I’m sure you’ll find it to your liking.”
    Ramadan moved on to the next table of books. Abu Musa joined him again a moment later, and again they exchanged a few harmless-sounding words. On it went like this for the next ten minutes as they moved slowly together down the row of booksellers, Ramadan leading, Abu Musa trailing after him. I’ve always enjoyed the poetry of Dryden…. I saw this play the last time I was in London…. The DVD has been shot and is ready to be handed over…. We’re ready to make the phone call on