Free Tsunami Connection by Michael James Gallagher Page A

tactic. Luckily for him, he decided not to use
Yochana's exit strategy. Without Shafiq's knowledge, the new secret police of
the Muslim Brotherhood had recorded the conversation with Yochana and planned
to booby trap the tunnel she had mentioned. Had Shafiq used Yochana's exit
strategy, he would have perished. His paranoia saved his life.
    Shafiq's next stop was to visit the apartment of a
co-conspirator from Shafiq's trips to Afghanistan as an arms procurement officer
for Yochana and Mossad. During these clandestine trips, Shafiq often worked
with a man called Kamal.
    On this night, at the end of President Mubarak's reign,
Shafiq could change into business attire while in Kamal's home and contact a
senior executive at Royal Dutch Petroleum. Over the years, he and the Dutch
Petroleum executive, called Haqikah, a name ironically meaning 'honest', had
often used a company-sponsored airport near the oil development sector of
Egypt, and a Learjet available to Haqikah to transport people, but never
weapons, to many different parts of the world.
    Since recent political instability was forcing Royal Dutch
to move people out of the country, Shafiq could be part of the exodus and go
unnoticed using one of the three legends, or false personalities, including
safe cell phones, credit cards and passports that he had built up over the
years for just this purpose. Money he had put aside from arms purchases in
Afghanistan for Yochana would cushion him.
    His Egypt was gone. It was time to accept reality and move
on. Oddly, for someone who prided himself as a patriot, the prospect of
changing allegiance appealed to him, yet the speed of his acceptance of his
betrayal surprised him. He had always thought of himself as above treason, an agent's
agent.
    Despite years of taking Shafiq's money, Kamal received the
GIS man less warmly than he had expected. At the door to a luxury villa in Al
Rehab City that Shafiq's lucrative payments had helped finance over the last
few years, there was the sound of modern music and the scent of freshly cooked
food. Spices filled Shafiq's nostrils.
    "There's no work needed here, father," said a
slender, Indian-born gentleman, whose bearing suggested military training gone
soft. His Arabic accent betrayed time spent in Pakistan. He moved to close the
door in Shafiq's face, but the GIS man anticipated his gesture and forced the
hardwood switch that he held under his gellabiya between the frame and
the door. Shafiq uttered a previously agreed upon code word and a surprised man
looked again as he opened the door.
    "We agreed never to meet at my home," said the
man, as he reluctantly let Shafiq through the door.
    " Salaam Alaikum, " answered the GIS
man, using a Somali pronunciation of Allah that Kamal and Shafiq had shared on
another mission together.
    "The tongue of the Prophet always sticks in your
throat. Though I expected you might be required to break our understanding, I
would never have recognized you. You even stink like a camel."
    The yielding voice of a young woman cooed an affectionate
name from the next room, "Alby, Who's that?"
    A soft-skinned, round, young woman in her early twenties
came into the entranceway. Her dark, watery, eyes took in the scene in front of
her and her nose flinched, but her good manners took over. She glanced
downward, taking her eyes from the two of them, the picture of submission.
    "I told you never to come to the door," snapped
the older man. "This is business, child. Prepare coffee for my guest.
Leave the coffee on the kitchen table and go downstairs to watch one of your
music videos. We must not be disturbed."
    Shafiq's eyes roamed over the young woman as she turned and
left the two of them alone in the entranceway. Always the consummate actor,
Shafiq imitated the young woman's tone and repeated her affectionate name for
the middle-aged Indian.
    "Alby," he said, using exactly the sensuous roll
of the tongue that the young woman had expressed.
    "So you caught me. My wife is