Noel Hynd - Countdown in Cairo

Nagib did not know the layouts to these apartments either. If only his victim would step out quietly, Nagib could just stick his gun to her face and finish her with one pop.

But he knew better than to count on wishful thinking.

He looked at the doorknobs, first the one to 506, then to 505. They were solid-looking knobs. The building was maybe fifty years old, he reasoned, but the closing and locking apparatus was much newer.

Nagib had once killed a man in Egypt whose door could be pushed in with a steady shoulder. In Munich, he had once gone into a dissident Iranian’s apartment as part of an execution team. The victim had piled furniture against the door from the inside, but the locks had given up virtually the moment Nagib and his team looked at them.

He hoped for the same here.

He put one powerful hand on the knob to 506 and gripped it. Then he turned. He held the pistol aloft in his other hand, the safety catch off. He squeezed the knob hard and twisted it. He turned it hard. He turned it with all his strength and waited for the snap that would be like music from heaven, a sign from God. He squeezed and turned so hard that the veins started to pulse on the side of his neck.

He wanted to hear the snap. Where was it?

It wouldn’t come.

He cursed. The lock had held.

He released the knob from his hand.

He withdrew slightly. He looked in all directions. The coast remained clear.

He reached to his sleeve where he hid a burglar’s picking pin in the material of his sweatshirt just above his right forearm. He pulled the pin out, crouched down, and went to work picking the lock. If he could just get one or two of the tumblers within the lock to cooperate, he was home free.

The sweat poured off him as he worked. The hallway remained quiet. He attempted to pick the lock for several minutes. It was so quiet that he could hear the soft rattling and scratching from within the lock. He heard a couple of faint clicks, two and maybe even a third. A good sign.

He stood and tried the knob again.

He tried with all the strength in his hand. Then he tucked the gun into his belt and tried with two hands.

Still nothing. The lock held. He sighed. He cursed to himself. He stepped back.

Then, about fifty feet behind him down the hall, a door opened. Nagib heard music and voices. Two men, two women, laughing, talking loudly, as if a social gathering was breaking up.

Then they were joined by more.

He turned away from them and away from the doors where he stood. He walked in the opposite direction, keeping his head low so no one would see his face, and one hand on his pistol in case someone did.

He arrived at the door that led to the emergency staircase. He ducked into the stairwell and hurried back down. He was sure no one had seen him. But he wasn’t sure whether he’d be back again that night.

Two minutes later, Nagib was downstairs in the garage. He listened to his own footsteps echo as he walked to the automatic door. He used his remote clicker to open it and walked outside.

His assistant sat in the car, waiting, the engine running. Nagib slid into the passenger’s side in the front seat. The door had been unlocked. His cohort looked to him, unable to tell by his expression whether he had killed anyone or not.

“I can’t get into the apartment,” he said. “Next time we see her on the street, we take her out then.”

Rashaad maintained a steely expression. He let a minute pass and didn’t move.

“She’s there tonight,” he said softly. “I saw her go in.”

Nagib drew a long breath and exhaled.

“It’s quiet down here; it’s a rainy night,” Rashaad said. “It’s perfect.”

Nagib eased back. “Okay. We wait a little. Then I’ll go in again.”

Alex was about to change and shower for bed when her doorbell rang. It gave her pause. Normally, visitors didn’t show up at the door unexpectedly, and they never did this late. Her friends normally knew better to drop in on her unannounced.

She glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes past 11:00 p.m. Who was in the hall?

An emergency of some sort? She wondered. A problem in the building?

She stood and walked to the door. She thought of taking her weapon with her. One could never be too careful in her line of work, but she decided against it, maybe out of pure laziness.

She arrived at the door and looked through the peephole. A little wave of relief swept across her. It was her neighbor, Mr. Thomas, the older gentleman she affectionately called “Don Tomas,” the retired diplomat. He was definitely a friend.

With him stood a young woman, a girl maybe a third his age.

Alex suppressed a mischievous smirk. Maybe the old boy wanted to borrow a bottle of champagne. Then she suppressed her smile, undid the latch, and opened the door.

Immediately, before Alex could speak, Don Tomas held up a finger to his lips to indicate silence. Then he spoke in a barely audible whisper.

“Good evening, Alex,” he said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” His tone was serious. She picked up on it right away.

She shook her head to indicate that, no, he was not disturbing her at all.

“I have some new music that I downloaded,” he said, continuing a low tone tinged with a conspiratorial air. “I wondered if you’d like to come over and take a listen. Some of them might be of interest to you. I’d be glad to lend you a few of my bootleg CDs if you’d like to rip them.”

Alex was about to open her mouth to respond softly when Don Tomas moved his firm finger from his lips to a few inches in front of Alex’s. At the same time, the young woman held forth a note scrawled on the open pages of a writing tablet.

Alex glanced at it and her eyes widened. Her heart skipped as she read. The note said,

I used to work for the CIAI once planted a listeningdevice in your apartmentI think it’s still there

Alex raised her gaze and looked into the girl’s eyes. The girl looked frightened and agitated, hunted, like a doe in deer season. Her appearance also rang a distant bell to Alex. It took a second, but Alex realized that she was Don Tomas’s niece. Her name was Janet; Alex had seen her from time to time in the building and had even been introduced briefly once in the hallway.

Abruptly, Janet turned the page of the writing tablet and presented a second written message.

I used to work for Michael CernyWe need to talk

Alex blinked in surprise and looked back up. She saw more fear in the girl’s eyes.

Alex raised her own finger to indicate they should wait for a moment. She ducked back into her apartment, found her pistol, and clipped it to the right side of the belt on her jeans. Then she returned to her door and followed her neighbor across the hallway to his place.

As she crossed the hall, Alex saw no one other than Don Tomas and Janet. The corridor was as quiet as a tomb, although there was a strange scent of something cooking, or, more accurately, overcooking.

“Mrs. Rothman down the hall has gone complete daffy,” Don Tomas said as explanation. “Poor old woman burns food at all hours. Puts stuff in the toaster and forgets. One of these days an onion bagel is going to turn this whole place into an inferno.”

They entered Don Tomas’s apartment and closed the door.

Alex hadn’t been in this apartment for some time, not since having had a pleasant brunch there almost a year earlier with Robert. Now her presence keyed the bittersweet memory. For a moment she struggled to get past it.

Don Tomas threw a second bolt on his door. Alex looked at the bolt. It was newly installed and top-of-the-line with steel plating underneath which would make a push-in almost impossible.