Free The Profession by Steven Pressfield Page B

.45. It would be an insult to el-Masri’s hospitality to bring it into the house.
    Affluent Eastern residences are often built around courts. You enter through a stronghold door in an exterior wall, in this caseopened by el-Masri himself when I ring the copper bell. My old friend is reinforced by two bull-necked gentlemen, one of whom carries an S74U, the snub-nosed version of an AK-47. The other comes forward and pats me down. El-Masri greets me with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks. He has been eagerly awaiting me, he says.
    “You are still trim, Gent!”
    He beams and pats his own jelly roll. In we go. While a boy fetches iced drinks, the phone rings; it’s the lady from the tangerine two-story, wondering why a strange man has just climbed onto her roof and inquiring whether this outrage has anything to do with the Englishman who has just entered el-Masri’s court. The conversation is in Arabic but el-Masri, grinning and holding his palm over the receiver, translates.
    “By the way,” he asks me, “you’re not here to kill me, are you?”
    He apologizes to the lady, feeds her some story that she clearly doesn’t buy, then sends his boy across the street to tell William to come down.
    “Seriously, are you here to assassinate me?”
    I tell el-Masri I’m not sure his stature merits the term “assassinate.”
    “Don’t fuck with my head, Gent.”
    I’m a friend, I swear.
    “I would not hold it against you …”
    I repeat my denial.
    “… in fact, I would respect Salter more if I knew he was operating with such prudence.”
    A spread of hummus, sliced tomatoes, onions, and olives appears, served by the bodyguards, whom el-Masri introduces as his brothers—“Jake” and “Harry.” The pair either live here in the compound or are doing a hell of a job of faking it; one is barefoot, the other wears pajama bottoms.
    “Brothers, we can learn much from our guest,” says el-Masri.“I have seen him take the head off a man, like this”—he pantomimes two backhand hacking blows—“and blast an entire village down a mountainside into a river. He is a one-man wrecking crew, believe it!”
    I assure el-Masri that I have come only to talk and to deliver an offer of employment. We sip John Collinses—the English version of a Tom Collins—on a shaded terrace that overlooks a court where el-Masri’s two children play around a fountain. Temperature, I’m guessing, is 105. El-Masri speaks English with a New Jersey accent. He says “tie-yid” for “tired” and “ma-fack” for “matter of fact.”
    El-Masri tells me about tough times in Egypt. In place of his former profession in the Awn al-Dawla, the secret police, he (and his brothers) now work in the furniture business; they own a factory at a town called Damietta, which is the artisanal center of the country for hand-carved chairs, desks, cabinetry. “Ninety percent of our shit is for export, but with gas through the roof, we’re fucked. Then the tariffs. Don’t get me started!” He tells me he’d give anything to get back to Jersey.
    “Go,” I say. “You’re an American citizen.”
    “Tell that to Homeland Security. Why do you think I was with you in Yemen in ’19, Gent? Because my name came up on a list. The CIA promised they’d get me home after that hump. Guess what? I’m still here. I can’t go near the States, me or my brothers.” He waves as if to say, What are ya gonna do?
    “Well,” I say. “Maybe I can change that.”
    There’s a festival in Egypt called the “Ascent,” commemorating the overthrow of the secular state. The Islamic calendar is lunar; this year the date falls on August 7. But for those in government service who cannot celebrate at that time, there’s a second feast called “Little Ascent” two weeks later. That’s tonight. Before el-Masri can quiz me about Salter’s proposition, or I can offer it, we must celebrate. Everyone in the clan shows up.
    “I have fallen down in my faith,” shouts el-Masri