The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer Read Free Book Online Page B

Davis was trying to communicate to him. Whatever it was, the Hungarian didn’t seem interested in playing ball. “It’s up to Mrs. Kohl,” he said.
    She said, “Please. Show me your photographs.”
    Gerry Davis pulled out the chair beside her and sat close. Despite how scrubbed he looked, he smelled of sweat. “There may be security issues here, Sophie. That’s my only concern.” To Kiraly, he said, “May I see the pictures first?”
    A laconic shrug, and the Hungarian reached into his jacket and took out some passport-sized snapshots that he passed on to Gerry Davis, who held them up like a hand of tiny cards to examine. There were four in all, she saw, and on one he paused. He took it out and placed it facedown on the table. He pushed it over to Kiraly. “The rest are fine, just not that one.”
    Kiraly lifted the photo, glanced at it, and slipped it into his pocket. “Please,” he said. “Let Mrs. Kohl see the others.”
    Reluctantly, Gerry Davis gave her the three remaining photos, and she saw two men in their late thirties or early forties and a much older man, nearly sixty. She didn’t recognize any of the faces, but what struck her was the color of their skin. “I don’t understand,” she said aloud.
    “Yes?” asked Kiraly.
    “These men—they’re not Hungarian, are they? I mean, unless they’re Roma.”
    He shook his head. “No, they are not.”
    “Where are they from?”
    “Do you recognize them?”
    She gave them another look. Not only different ages, but different forms of dark-skinned masculinity. Middle Eastern or North African. The overweight one who looked addicted to smiles. The thick-necked thug—a darker model of the one who killed Emmett. The older one in glasses, maybe their leader, or maybe just nearsighted. “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen them before. What about the other?”
    “They’re from different places,” Kiraly said, ignoring her question by answering her previous one. “Turkey, Egypt, Bosnia.”
    “And what do they have to do with Emmett?”
    Kiraly pursed his lips, then reached out to accept the photographs. “Nothing, perhaps. But we sometimes follow many different cases, and if incidents occur around the same time, then it’s a good idea to see if they are connected.”
    “These aren’t?”
    More of the lips, then he shrugged.
    “I think Mrs. Kohl has answered enough. She’s tired.”
    “I’m not tired,” she said, tired only of Gerry Davis’s shepherding. “And I’d like to know who you’re hiding in your jacket pocket.”
    Kiraly looked as if he might bow to her demand, but instead he deferred to Gerry Davis, who just gave back a cool stare. Sophie turned on him.
    “Why not, Gerry?”
    He inhaled, finally giving her his full attention. “National security, Sophie. And if those other men aren’t connected to Emmett, then this one won’t be, either.”
    “But I’d like to see the picture.”
    Kiraly said in a tired voice, “Gerry, it’s just a face.”
    Gerry Davis turned to the Hungarian, maybe angry, and after a full four seconds dredged up a smile. “Well, okay. If it’ll make you feel better. Go ahead, Andras.”
    Kiraly reached into his jacket and handed over the final photograph. It wasn’t, despite what she was beginning to suspect, the gunman, nor was it Zora Balašević. Instead, it was another swarthy man in his thirties, a shadow of a smile on his face. Clean cheeks, dark eyes. He seemed different from the others, though she couldn’t place how. Healthier, maybe. Less a victim of a hard life.
    She looked up at Kiraly. “Egyptian?”
    He shook his head and began to speak, but Gerry Davis cut him off: “You don’t recognize him?”
    She didn’t, and she admitted as much.
    Like the CIA men, Kiraly gave her his business card and asked her to call if anything occurred to her. Perhaps sensing that Sophie was angry with him, Gerry Davis left with Kiraly, promising to remain in touch.
    Then it was a home of women. Glenda