ARAB by Jim Ingraham Read Free Book Online Page A

are your plans for him?”
    “A bullet to the brain down by the banks of the Nile.”
    Jaradat nodded. “Quietly at night, of course. And we’ll have a taxi available at the airport to whisk Helene off?”
    “While Bashir is in the office handling the paper work. He won’t have any idea what has happened to her and probably won’t care. His only concern is the money we have promised him.”
    “And what of that?”
    “He won’t need it,” Esmat said.
    Jaradat laughed. “You’re very eager for action, aren’t you.”
    “Will there ever be a better time? The Americans are exhausting themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan. They won’t be inclined to send troops here. And the British have become skittish,” laughing at the witticism. “This is our time, Mustapha. Our time. We can’t waste it!”
    “I suppose you’re right,” he said, although his demeanor suggested something less than enthusiasm.
    “You don’t object to my meeting with Bashir?”
    Jaradat shook his head. “No, but be careful.”
    “I’ll have a man there to follow him when he leaves the restaurant. From now until D-Day we’ll know exactly where he is.”
    “Well, let’s get this going,” the colonel said. “Let’s hope Faisal Ibrahim knows what’s best for him.”
    “His defiance doesn’t trouble you?”
    “That’s nothing but pride. He’s dying, Esmat. He doesn’t want problems.”

Chapter Four
     
    At that moment across town, Bashir Yassin was sitting with his friend, the woman who had found a home for him when he was evicted from the government housing complex. They were at a table in a sidewalk café in Ismailiyyah near Groppi’s Corner House, a meeting place selected by Aleyya because of the French atmosphere in this busy downtown section of Cairo. She loved it here where she could see apartment houses with French balconies, French windows, shops with French names. She could buy French newspapers here if she liked. Bashir had never understood her fascination with the French. She disclaimed any desire to go to France; she would spend her entire life in Cairo, she often said; but the dream was hiding in her timidity, and one day he would fly her to Paris. He would do that in payment for her many kindnesses to him. He could never repay her for persuading her mother to take him in as a boarder.
    “They have an excellent patisserie here,” he said. “How about some French pastry?”
    “Coffee’s fine,” she said. “I’m fat enough.”
    He laughed. She was far from being fat.
    She started laughing. “You are a naughty boy,” waving her forefinger like a windshield wiper in front of his eyes.
    “No longer a boy, Aleyya,” Bashir said. “And no naughtier than the vaunted Osama bin Laden when he was my age.”
    “He got drunk and chased girls?”
    “And stayed drunk for days and who knows what else. Only he did it in Beirut where his parents wouldn’t learn of it.”
    “And that, by comparison, makes you brave because you do it here, openly?”
    “Don’t laugh at me.”
    “But you’re not rich, Bashir. You have a reputation to build. That girl, Amina al-Khalid, does she know about these antics of yours? Is she impressed by that? Is she a fool?”
    “She’s hardly that.”
    “Has she introduced you to anyone important?”
    “Just to be seen with her! That’s all I wanted. Do you know what an impression that makes? Me, an aircraft mechanic, a nobody, being seen with the daughter of a high official in the Department of Interior? It’s worth millions!” And the boastful laugh caused faces at nearby tables to turn.
    “But she’s now in America.”
    “Which is all right with me. She’s only a girl, Aleyya. It wasn’t for sex.”
    “Does she know the police are investigating you?”
    “Only because I’ve been seen in her company. They investigate all of her friends.”
    “So now you’re calling her a friend?”
    “If I say it enough, people will begin to believe it,” he said.
    “And now where are