Noel Hynd - Countdown in Cairo

Then they were underway, a small cortege of three vehicles, traveling at about twenty miles an hour down the paved road, through the sandy landscape of the barracks, through the gates, and into the outside world. Alex’s SUV was the second in the progression, and the third SUV followed them.

“You have your luggage, your passport, everything you need for your return to America?” Voltaire asked.

“I have everything,” she affirmed. For a moment, she started to relax.

“Good. In a short while you’re going to feel very lucky to be leaving this dreadful place.”

“Why?” she asked. “Where are they taking Cerny?”

“Not far,” Voltaire laughed. “Remember those five agents of mine who were murdered? I did mention that, correct?”

“No, I don’t remember that,” she said.

“Oh. Dreadful oversight on my part,” he said in a voice that indicated that it wasn’t. “See, that’s part of my personal tab with Mr. Cerny. I’ve lost people here in Egypt thanks to him. Same way you lost someone in Kiev, same way that girl lost her boyfriend via the car bomb at the hotel. Compris? ”

“Oh, Lord,” she said.

Watching over the shoulder of Tony, the driver, through the front windshield, Alex saw the armored car accelerate and pull away from them. It went from being fifty feet ahead of them to one hundred feet, and then to maybe one hundred and fifty. And as the armored vehicle pulled away, she felt Tony ease up on the gas. He allowed the interval between cars to grow.

Then the SUV from behind them did something that at first appeared crazy. It overtook Alex’s vehicle and went speeding beyond them. Everything played out as if it were slow motion. The armored car up ahead pulled to the side of the road and its driver and its guard jumped out. They walked with a leisurely pace away from their vehicle as the trailing SUV pulled to an abrupt halt behind it.

Two executioners stepped out, their feet hitting the ground almost before the car had stopped, Uzis across their chests. Tony eased to a crawl, and they continued to approach the scene of the stopped vehicles. But Tony didn’t overtake them. He slowed almost to a halt and stayed distant.

The armed men went to the gun portals in the armored car and pushed their own automatic weapons inward. The van wasn’t so much a security vehicle now as much as it was an execution chamber. As Alex watched, she knew that Cerny was a dead man this time. And he probably even knew it himself. She didn’t hear him scream, but she was sure he did.

Even over the air-conditioning of their van, Alex could hear several seconds of gunfire. There must have been fifty shots all fired into the armored car. The man in the back, no doubt chained into the most vulnerable position, had no chance at all.

The gunmen followed with a second burst and stepped back.

They gave Tony a wave and he accelerated. Seconds later, they passed the armored car. The gunmen were masked with light camouflage kerchiefs, and Alex could not see their faces. Nor would she have wanted to. The armored car was surrounded in a small noxious cloud of gun smoke, and the men waved to them as Tony’s vehicle slid past. Then Alex looked away, feeling nauseous.

“There,” Voltaire said calmly. “That’s done. Excellent.”

Alex was silent.

“Which airline again?” Voltaire asked her. “Swiss International? That’s a good choice. Can’t go wrong with Swiss International. I understand the hors d’oeuvres are excellent.”

Several minutes passed before Alex answered.

On December 24, Alex observed her thirtieth birthday. The event was a bittersweet occasion, considering the events of the year. But she celebrated with a small group of friends in Washington. As was frequently the case with her birthday, falling on the day it did, it was a half-Christmas half-birthday celebration. Friends from work filtered in, as well as friends from the gym. Don Tomas dropped by to speak five languages and keep everyone amused. And once again, Alex missed Robert horribly.

She went to a Christmas Eve service at her church in Washington and then went home alone. On Christmas morning, she did something unusual. She slept.

Over the next two days, she packed. The job in New York had been offered to her, and she had accepted it. The moving men arrived on the twenty-seventh. Her personal bags were packed and stashed in the trunk of her car. The listening devices she had personally disabled. One morning when she was out for a walk, she threw them into the Potomac.

As the moving men worked, she dropped by a few of the establishments that she had patronized in the neighborhood. She said her good-byes.

When she went back to her apartment, it was empty. She stood and looked at it for a long, cold moment. An instinct told her to take a walk through and then another instinct warned her not to. Enough was enough. She closed the door.

She rapped softly on Don Tomas’s door to say good-bye.

He answered. She gave him a shrug and tried to keep her eyes from welling. He did much the same. Then they embraced in a wordless hug. He had been as close to family as anyone in the last days-older brother, uncle, and advisor. She would miss him.

Then she went down to her car.

She turned the key in the ignition, came up out of the garage, and left her block for the final time as a resident. She drove past the monuments again and then watched them recede in her rearview mirror. Thus, on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday afternoon, Alex moved out of Washington and drove north to New York.

By this time, Janet, her protegee, had found her own friends, her own apartment, and a new job. She was happy, living in Brooklyn, and anxious to introduce Alex to her new boyfriend, who-against Alex’s best advice-was one of her former bodyguards.

Six weeks later, Alex was at her desk in her new office in Manhattan when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the LED and read the incoming number.

She recognized the country code: 39. Italy. She also recognized the number.

She smiled. She picked up. “ Ciao, Gian Antonio,” she said.

He laughed. “I should be used to the technology by now, but I’m not,” he said in English. “You know who’s calling before you answer.”

“Consider yourself flattered,” she said. “I knew it was you and I picked up.”

“I’m deeply humbled, Signora,” he said with evident amusement.

She glanced at her watch. “What time is it there?”

“Evening,” he said. “So buona sera,”

“Buona sera.”

Within a minute, he moved to the objective of the call. “Your Russian has lost track of you,” Rizzo said.

“Which Russian?”

“There’s more than one? Federov. He’s been quite ill, you know.”

“I knew he was ill,” she said in a more somber tone. “I didn’t know how ill he was. Where is he?”

“Geneva,” Rizzo said. “He’s residing in a place called Le Clinique Perrault.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

There was a heavy pause. Rizzo’s voice assumed a grim tone. “He’s in a-What do you call it in English?” he asked. He switched to Italian to be clear. “Uno ospedale per i malati in fase terminale. Un ospizio.”

“A hospice,” Alex said, her chair moving forward. It took a moment for it to sink in. “Terminale?” she asked, making sure she had heard right.

“Terminale,” he said again.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“He phoned me. He says there is something enormously important,” Rizzo continued, changing back to English. “And he will only talk to you.”

“Give him my number,” she said gently. “He can phone me anytime that he-”

“No, no. He wishes to speak to you- and only you- in person,” Rizzo advised.