Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the Men Behind

Jullians pointed out the two men. They were standing some way up the street, apparently deep in conversation. Owen, mindful of Nikos’s comments, took a good look at them. There was little to distinguish them from hundreds of others. They were Egyptians—Arab not Copt—in their early twenties and wearing shirt and trousers. He tried to fix their faces in his memory but knew that the trackers would do it better.

‘OK now?’

Jullians nodded and went back into the shop. He was pale but seemed determined. He probably had a strong sense of duty. You needed one to be a judge in Egypt.

A little later he must have emerged from the front entrance, for the two men looked up and began to move unobtrusively down the street. Even more unobtrusively the trackers fell in behind them.

Owen, waiting in a side street, looked for the guns as the two men went past. They would have to be in their shirts but the shirts were loose and he could not really tell.

He had been wondering how to use Abdul Kerim. He would like him to be pretty close, in case of accidents, but not so close as to constrict the trackers. The Khan el Khalil was crowded and they would have a difficult enough job as it was.

He himself kept well back. Provided they didn’t know him, and there was no reason why they should (unless they had been the two who had followed him? Were they? He couldn’t be sure), there was nothing to make Owen stand out. He was wearing a tarboosh , the pot-like hat with a tassel of the educated Egyptian, and with his dark Welsh colouring could easily be taken for a Levantine.

There was the doubt, though, about whether the two men knew his identity, so he kept well back. In any case this kind of thing was best left to the trackers.

He didn’t find it very easy to leave it to them, however. He was taking a risk, a risk with Jullians’s life. It was always open to him to pick the two men up. The fair-minded Jullians might object that it would be improper to charge merely on his say-so, but other judges might well think differently.

Besides, if the two men were out of the way, only temporarily, until the political crisis was over, that might be enough.

Well, it wouldn’t really be enough. If they were terrorists, real or potential killers, they had to be got. Arresting on suspicion and then releasing wouldn’t do.

Besides, there might be more of them.

Going through the crowded bazaars, Owen found it difficult to keep them in sight. Occasionally he lost them for a few moments. When he did, and when he saw them again, he was relieved to see that the trackers were always with them, back a little and always with people in between, but near enough.

Owen doubted whether an attack would be made in the bazaars. It would be easy to escape but interference was always likely. They would probably wait until Jullians reached the more open streets. Still, if they started moving up, the trackers would know what to do. They would intervene at once. Risk with Jullians’s life was acceptable but only up to a point.

Jullians was leaving the bazaars now. The two men were still making no attempt to approach.

An arabeah came up alongside Jullians. Owen cursed and began to run forward. He hadn’t allowed for this!

Somebody got out of the arabeah and embraced Jullians effusively. They began talking animatedly. They obviously knew each other.

Owen hastily stopped running and hoped he had not been noticed.

The two men had been taken by surprise too, for they stopped for a moment as if at a loss and then turned quickly into a nearby shop.

He didn’t see the trackers at all.

He caught Abdul Kerim’s eye, however. Abdul Kerim was standing in a doorway. He nodded slowly.

Jullians was trying to walk on but his friend, a portly Egyptian, was stopping him. He was clearly trying to persuade Jullians to get into the arabeah with him. He insisted. Jullians declined. Jullians made as if to go, the Egyptian seized his arm. He began almost dragging him towards the arabeah.

In any other country it would have looked almost sinister. In Egypt it was quite normal. Egyptians carried hospitality almost to the point of it being a vice. If you had something and your friend refused to share it, you were really quite hurt. It might be a meal, a pot of coffee or an arabeah. If you had it and you met a friend he had to share it.

Jullians looked despairingly over his shoulder.

The friend could not be denied. Jullians made a little apologetic gesture with his hand and climbed into the arabeah.

Everyone was undecided: the two men, the trackers, Abdul Kerim, Owen.

The arabeah-driver cracked his whip and the arabeah began to roll off down the street.

The two men turned away.

Owen made up his mind. He signalled urgently to the trackers to keep with them. Abdul Kerim he sent after the arabeah.

The friend seemed harmless but it was as well to be sure. The arabeah was proceeding at a steady walk. Abdul Kerim would have no difficulty in keeping up with it. Even if it increased its pace he would probably be able to stay with it, which was certainly not true of Owen himself.

He waited until they had all departed and then went back to his office.

Abdul Kerim was the first to return. He reported that the friend had delivered Jullians to his own doorstep. He had seen Jullians get out and go in.

Jullians rang next. He was very apologetic.

‘It couldn’t he helped,’ said Owen.

‘Did you get them?’

‘That remains to be seen.’

One of the trackers was the next to contact him. They had followed the two men into the Law Schools but there, in the crowded buildings with their many corridors, they had lost them. One of them was staying there in the hope of seeing them again, but for the moment they had lost them.

Owen told the other tracker to go back there too and stay there for a few days.

‘If they’re students,’ he said to Nikos, ‘they’ll see them sooner or later. If they’re not students and just using it as a cover that makes it more difficult.’

There for the moment they had to leave it; but Nikos rejoiced in the accession of hard data: properly observed, as he pointed out to Owen.

‘There is, of course, another thing that is becoming clear,’ he said. ‘The more examples you get, the more evidence you have, not just about the followers or attackers but also about the sort of people who are followed or attacked.’

‘Well?’

‘Every single one so far has been in Government service—a civil servant.’

‘I don’t think I like that,’ said Paul.

‘Of course, there’s not much to go on yet.’

‘Not many people dead, you mean?’

‘There isn’t anybody dead yet. All we’ve got to go on is one attempted shooting and several cases of suspected following. It’s early days.’

‘Look,’ said Paul, ‘you may take a detached view but there are a lot of people who won’t. All civil servants for a start.’

‘Do they have to know?’

‘Don’t you think they ought to be warned?’

‘I’m wondering. You see, it’s like this. At the moment we’ve got, I think, only one terrorist group operating. They’re different from the usual terrorist group in that the usual group concentrates on one particular target, the Consul-General, say, whereas this group aims at a whole class. I suppose they think that way they’ll undermine morale over a much wider area.’

‘They’re dead right,’ said Paul.

‘But the point is there’s only one small group. And while it stays like that we’ve got a hope of localizing it. Now if we warn everybody, it’s not just the civil servants who are going to hear. What I’m worried about is if the idea gets around—have a civil servant for breakfast—other groups are going to say, what a good idea, we’ll join in.’