Free Tsunami Connection by Michael James Gallagher Page B

visiting her sick mother
in Alexandria. I am only human."
    "She must be expensive to keep."
    "You heard that tone in her voice. I don't care if it's
false. It stirs me to the point that cost is no object."
    "So this is what our little projects have
financed."
    "Among other things."
    They walked to the kitchen and took in the black coffee and
sweets on the table. Kamal bent under the kitchen sink and produced a plastic
garbage bag.
    "Your clothes," he said, "Put them in here. I
assume you are here for a change of clothes. That madness downtown last night!
You are lucky you escaped."
    "I have been walking for hours. Do you have tape to
seal this bag? I must take these garments with me. Where I am going I may need
them," said Shafiq.
    "Come with me to the guest room. Your change of clothes
is in there."
    "I need a phone as well."
    "There are four one-use phones beside the locked box
you gave me last year, above the clothes on the right. The phones are still
sealed in their original packaging, as per your strict instructions."
    "You are always competent."
    "The Jewess contacted me today. I thought you may be
paying a visit, otherwise I would never have opened the door," said Kamal,
lapsing into the singsong intonation pattern of India, his head bobbing from
side-to-side.
    "You knew I would break it down if you didn't
answer," replied Shafiq.
    ″I suppose I did," said Kamal, the double agent.
    "Your debt is paid. This is the last visit. There will
be a bonus if I get out of the country safely. I will deposit 1000 Euros in
your Swiss account when I arrive at my destination."
    "Allah be praised. There is only one God," he said
and added, "there is an American expression I learned from a US marine in
Pakistan near the Afghan border that seems appropriate: It's been business
doing pleasure with you.″
    "Your memory fails you, but not me. I remember where you
learned that expression," said Shafiq, anger rising in his voice.
    "No insult intended. No insult intended, even if I did
learn that expression from a pig selling filth, heroin, to children for his own
profit," said Kamal, his tone betraying his distaste with working with
non-believers like Shafiq.
    Some years earlier in Afghanistan, Shafiq, a circumcised
Coptic Christian, was on one of a series of missions buying Russian made AK-47s
and Czechoslovakian Semtex plastic explosive for Yochana. Mossad wanted to
frame some alleged terrorists using it. Kamal was Shafiq's in-country
connection. Kamal, who pleaded that he had never wanted to lead Shafiq into a
trap. The double agent swore he had not known of the ambush that ensued.
    At that time, the Taliban had captured Shafiq and Kamal.
Kamal had suffered a grazing gunshot wound to the head that left him dazed. For
no apparent reason, the young Taliban captor pulled down Shafiq's pants, then
exclaimed aloud that Shafiq was an Infidel, a 'Jew'.
    While the second Taliban guarded Kamal, the younger
assailant then moved to strangle Shafiq. Shafiq demonstrated years of
special-forces training. He jumped through the space between his bound hands,
head-butted his accuser and managed to stab both of his attackers with their
own knives. All this with his hands tied in front of him.
    Shafiq and Kamal barely escaped with their lives, due
entirely to Shafiq's skill and training. Shafiq had no proof, but he never
completely trusted Kamal again. Since that time, Kamal had been working off the
debt of getting them into that situation. The money that they were siphoning
off was just bach sheesh , or bribery, common in Egypt. Shafiq had never
really forgotten what he was sure was Kamal's treachery because Shafiq was a
Christian.
    As he walked toward the shower, he admired the Tombolini
linen suit he carried. He also brought one of the phones. Kamal went
downstairs. The GIS man washed quickly. He picked up the shrink-wrapped boxes
and checked the seams of the packaging. All seemed new. He opened one phone's
wrapping and dialed a number from memory. An