Noel Hynd - Countdown in Cairo

He slid in. He reached to the sun visor on the right side and removed what he had spotted from the outside: a remote clicker that he assumed operated the garage door. There was also some money between the seats. He took some of that too, but not all of it. All of it would have alerted the owner to the break-in, and he didn’t want that.

He checked the glove compartment, just out of curiosity, and looked at the car registration. The car belonged to a woman who lived in the building. The name meant nothing, but he prowled through the other paperwork, one eye on the rest of the garage in case some busybody intruded.

He found a few letters and some photographs. The woman’s name was Helen Jacobus, and she seemed to be a retired teacher. Good. She was older and apparently widowed. Nagib noted her name in case it might help him sometime. He stole some of the mail, just enough to have a record of the address, in case he ever wanted to steal an identity or break in again. There was also a twenty-dollar bill and two fives. Emergency money. He couldn’t resist. He helped himself to that too.

The woman lived in Apartment 303. Now if anyone ever asked him why he was in the building or hanging around it, he had a name he could use immediately, enough to allow getaway time.

Helen wasn’t the woman he was here to kill. A much younger, more troublesome woman held that honor. But Helen might be his unwitting accomplice.

Nagib pocketed what he needed from the car and locked the doors from within. Then he closed the car door. The damage done to the door and door frame by his break-in was almost nonexistent. It would take a close examination to tell how the break-in had occurred. And by that time, he theorized, his business at the Calvert Arms would be complete.

He pulled off his latex gloves. He walked back through the driving lanes to the garage door at street level. He pressed the button on his new remote and the sliding door opened.

This was fantastic! He now had access to the entire building whenever he wanted it. There was no doubt in his mind that this would be more productive than sitting in his car for days on end, waiting.

He was pleased with himself and his accomplishment for the evening. He went back to the old Taurus on the street where Rashaad waited.

“Tomorrow,” Nagib said. “Tomorrow I’ll get her.”

Then they gave up their watch for the evening. By any account, however, their day had been a success.

Alex checked out of the Gotham by 9:00 a.m. the next morning and took the Lexington Avenue subway down to Wall Street. The office building where her interview would be held was in the new enclave of federal offices at Liberty Place.

She took the elevator to the fifty-sixth floor where two different representatives of the United States Treasury interviewed her, first in English and then, because it had bearing on the eventual assignment, in Spanish.

The job in question was similar to what she was already doing, but she would be a department head. Most of the anticrime and antifraud work would be against operations launched from Central and South America. Given her expertise in the field, she was a natural for the assignment, although there were currently no women holding similar “senior” posts around the country. She would be the first, an idea that attracted her. She would also be the youngest, the interviewer mentioned. That flattered her too.

Part of the job would entail fieldwork, on-the-spot investigations, and probably a good deal of travel. Some of it would be dangerous. In some instances she would be working with local law enforcement in places like Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Chile. She would be required to carry a weapon on the job if only for her personal safety. The opponents would be some very dirty people. She noted that there was nothing new about that, she was already carrying a gun. She knew the drill.

She felt drawn to the job and repelled by it at the same time. One part of her was a poet and philosopher, the part that wanted to settle into a village like Barranco Lajoya and bring peace and civilization to people who had never known it. The other part of her was the righteous warrior, the woman who could pull on jungle fatigues or navigate through a rough inner city, a woman who could carry a weapon, use it, and go after the malefactors of the world where they lived.

She was often torn as to which was the dominant part of her personality. When there was too much violence and action, she longed for tranquility. When things were too calm, like now, she longed for activity.

The interviews were rigorous. They took two hours. But afterward, Alex left feeling that she had interviewed well. Then again, as she rode the subway back uptown to Pennsylvania Station, where she would take the afternoon Metroliner back to Washington, she knew that the government was interviewing several dozen highly qualified men and women for various jobs at the New York FinCEN office. She was just one of several, she reasoned, despite Joseph Collins’s high opinion. One never knew whether a personal favor or connection would pull through a long-shot applicant.

Well, that’s fine, she told herself. If the position is offered , I’m going to take it. If not, there will be something else. No point to get hung up on it.

The express train back to DC left on time. She relaxed again into her novel on the trip back to Washington. In the evening, she went by the gym to swim twenty laps and burn off the nervous energy from the trip.

She was back home at the Calvert Arms by 10:00 p.m.

Shortly after 11:00, as the Saudi waited in the getaway car down on the street, Nagib walked down the fifth floor corridor at the Calvert Arms. The corridor was long and carpeted with thick plush runners, making his footfall all but undetectable. He had pulled the neck of a turtleneck sweater up over the lower part of his face and kept a wool cap down low.

These people who lived in this building, these wealthy Americans, he thought to himself. They all had peepholes. And who knew when some old busybody who couldn’t sleep, or some young girl with a boyfriend, was going to look out into the hall.

Or, as had happened before, some night owl would step out to send a bag of kitchen garbage down the chute or go outside to smoke a cigarette. Americans were unpredictable. They were a disorderly, hypocritical population with a disorderly, hypocritical society. It was just one of many reasons why he hated them. Nonetheless, he had his assignment. He would complete it, get paid, and have his family come and join him in London.

He had his pistol tucked under his sweatshirt. It was at the small of his back with the safety catch on. He knew if someone looked out of one of those pesky peepholes and saw a man with a gun, the DC police would be called. There was a chance that the police would respond to the call, and then his whole assignment would be compromised. As it was, he was in the country illegally. They would do a background check, and who knew where he would land? So, literally, better not to show his hand until he was ready to use it.

He arrived at the apartment he wanted. Fortune smiled. The door to 506 was at a bend in the hallway where the corridor took a turn in a different direction. So he could lurk in the corner and none of the other peepholes could view him.

He stooped down and took a reading on his situation. Under the door to 505, there was darkness. Under the door to 506, the same. No music, no voices, not even the sound of a distant footfall. As he cocked his head, all he could hear was the distant steady rumble of Washington traffic.

He stood. He reached behind his back and pulled out his weapon. He wondered how much effort it would take to kick the door in. He theorized: if the young woman he wanted to kill was with a man-who knew?-maybe the man would have a gun and come out shooting.