Palace Circle (48 page)

“That would seem to be about it.”

“And did so from aboard the
Egyptian Queen
?”

“That would seem to be about it as well.”

Jack drew in his breath. “The transmitter. Where the devil did you hide it?”

“Inside a radiogram. Below the turntable. All your men
did, when they searched the houseboat, was lift the lid. And now you know all that, Jack, what are you going to do about it? Because if you're thinking of taking me back to Cairo to be tried as a spy, I think it's only fair to tell you that I won't let you.”

He moved his hand slightly and Jack heard the sound of metal grazing the top of the well wall. Whether it was a revolver or merely the cigarette lighter, Jack couldn't tell.

Determined to find out, he threw his cigarette away. “If that's what I wanted to do,” he said, steel in his voice, “I'd have done it already. And it may come to that if you don't see sense.”

Darius remained silent, the tip of his cigarette still gleaming red in the darkness.

“Why did you throw in your lot with the Germans, Darius? They're slaughtering Jews in their thousands and you're well educated enough to know that Arabs, too, are a Semitic people. You can't really believe that if Hitler wins the war, he will allow Egypt to govern itself.”

“It's a possibility, and any possibility is better than none.”

“There's another possibility I like far better.”

“And what's that?”

“Throw me back the lighter and I'll tell you.”

The lighter came winging through the darkness.

Jack caught it, hoping he wouldn't hear further sounds of metal scraping brick.

“Until tonight I didn't know about your involvement with Sholto. And I didn't know Constantin was his radio operator. But I did know that you had close links with the Free Officers Movement—and particularly close links with Anwar Sadat. The Americans know too, and are very interested.”

“The Americans? Of what interest is Egypt to the Americans?”

“America will end up entering the war—and Egypt will be
of great importance to them. They are republicans and anti-imperialists, Darius. They will want to deal with a free Egypt without a monarchy, and without a British presence carrying the baggage of an imperialist past. Which is exactly what the Free Officers Movement wants as well.”

Darius was again silent, but Jack knew he had his full attention.

“The government of an independent Egypt would be up for grabs. The Muslim Brotherhood have huge popular support. A mullah-led theocracy would not be the easiest for Western governments to work with. America prefers Nasser and his friends.”

“Are you sure? Aren't you forgetting that Nasser and Sadat are both Muslims?”

“No, I'm not forgetting. What matters to the Americans is that they've never gone along with the extremism of the Muslim Brotherhood. And you are a Copt. American intelligence believes Nasser and Sadat have earmarked you for a role in any future government they might form. The Americans—always looking to the future—want to nurse you along as their main contact in that government.”

“Which means they wouldn't want to see me shot as a spy?”

“Which means they very definitely wouldn't want to see you shot as a spy.”

“Then that's just as well—for the British.” Dry, dark humor entered Darius's voice. “The British wouldn't, after all, want to shoot an innocent man, would they?”

The silence that followed was so profound Jack could hear his heart beating.

“Run that past me again,” he said, terrified he might have heard wrongly.

“I said that the British wouldn't want to shoot an innocent man.”

“Are you innocent?” Jack felt giddy with hope. “Explain.”

Darius flicked the ash from his cigarette. “I always knew Constantin gathered information for the Germans. It was all petty stuff. Things barbers, waiters, prostitutes overheard. And as far as I knew, all he did with it was report it to his superiors at the legation. Then he told me that a ‘big fish’ at the British embassy had contacted him. On the surface it was pretty startling information, but I didn't think the big fish was a serious spy. I reckoned Constantin was bragging. He never told me the name.”

“So when did you know that it was Monck?”

“When he boarded the
Egyptian Queen
two hours or so ago with Constantin and Zahra and a revolver in his hand.”

“It's a nice try, Darius, but it doesn't explain why the transmitter was aboard the
Egyptian Queen
—and why British intelligence picked up regular signals.”

“That's easy.” Darius tossed his cigarette stub into the darkness. “It was Constantin who introduced me to Sadat and, before you ask, I don't believe Sadat knew about Sholto, or that Sholto knew about Sadat. Constantin had many irons in the fire and kept them all separate. Sadat was mulling over whether an uprising within the Egyptian army—an uprising timed to help Rommel take Cairo—would be beneficial or not to Egypt. He didn't have faith in Germany's promise to give Egypt full independence. He'd drawn up a treaty. That was why Constantin brought the transmitter to the houseboat. So that Sadat—who is a signals officer—could make direct arrangements with Rommel for a member of the Free Officers Movement to fly to Libya with the treaty.”

The dog, which had been quiet for a while, began barking again.

Jack thought of the British Gladiator that had been shot down over the German lines. Whatever arrangements Sadat had made with Rommel for his officer's safe arrival obviously
hadn't filtered down to the gunners on the Libyan border who had inadvertently done Britain a big favor.

“Transmissions to Rommel about flying out an officer wouldn't account for the number of transmissions we picked up from the
Egyptian Queen
.”

“No, probably not. Throw me another cigarette.”

Jack lit one from his own cigarette, and walked close enough to Darius to hand it to him.

There was no gun, he noticed, either in Darius's hand or on the top of the wall.

“I think what happened,” Darius said, “was that after Constantin's colleague was booted back to Bucharest on charges of spying, the legation, or wherever Constantin was transmitting from, became too hot. Once the transmitter was aboard the
Egyptian Queen
for Sadat's use, I think Constantin used it to transmit for Sholto. I once found him on board when I came home early from a party.”

Jack not only wanted to believe him. He did believe him.

Turning around, he lifted himself up on the wall so that they were sitting companionably next to each other.

“Just out of curiosity,” Darius said, pushing a lock of hair away from his brow, “how did you reconcile the idea of me being a British spy with my love for Davina? And before you answer that, you'd better let American intelligence know that I'm going to marry her.”

“I don't think marrying Davina will queer your pitch with Nasser and Sadat. She's half American, for one thing. For another, her years of volunteer work among the fellahin is testimony of her loyalty to Egypt. Did anyone else think you were a spy, by the way? Did Petra?”

Darius grinned and shook his head. “No, though Petra's never liked me too much, mainly because she thought I was going to make Davina unhappy. When she knows differently,
I'm hoping our relationship will change. Fawzia assumes I'm a spy, though. And Fawzia will always assume I'm a spy. It's the reason I never wasted time trying to convince her otherwise. Just to cinch the fact that I'm not, I've got something for you. I pocketed it when Constantin was looking elsewhere.”

From his back trouser pocket he withdrew a slim, dogeared paperback book.

“It's Constantin's codebook,” he said as he handed it over. “No transmitter, though. That's on its way to Tripoli.”

As Jack's fingers closed on the book, he knew that Darius had provided all the commitment that American and British intelligence would need.

He thought of Sholto Monck.

“I would have liked,” he said fiercely, “to have seen Monck before a firing squad.”

Darius's mouth tugged into a wry smile. “He didn't much like you, either. On our drive out here he had quite a few choice things to say. One of them I should pass on to you.” He took a long draw on his cigarette. “He told me that Petra is your father's daughter.”

Jack chuckled. “No, she isn't. When I was five my father had mumps. It left him infertile. It's why I'm an only child. And there's a six-year age difference between Petra and me. You can work out the math for yourself.”

“Then perhaps you should have a word with Petra. According to Sholto, your mother's husband, Theo Girlington, told her years ago that Jerome was her father. She's believed it ever since.”

Jack ceased to breathe.

In one flashing moment, everything was clear.

He knew why Petra had fled London, and him, in such distress.

He knew why she had been terrified of having the slightest physical contact with him.

And he knew why Delia had so fiercely vetoed their love affair. She'd had suspicions; suspicions she had obviously never voiced to his father, suspicions she had kept a secret.

A secret that was now dust in the wind.

He sucked in air. The world revolved again.

“Come on,” he said to Darius, joy roaring through his veins. “It's time the two of us got back to Cairo.”

Together they walked across the village square to the jeep.

Jack slid behind the wheel. In Cairo Petra was waiting for him, just as Davina was waiting for Darius, and he knew now—had known from the moment he had seen the terror in her eyes when he had left her to hunt Sholto down—that she still loved him. That she had always loved him, just as he had always loved her.

He put the jeep into gear, and as he headed out of El-Laban, he began whistling “Dixie” as loudly and as jubilantly as his lungs would allow.