John Milton: The Jungle Part 13

"I know," Milton said. "You said. How would I find him?"

"You would go to Tripoli."

Part 3.

Libya.

Chapter Twenty-One.

MILTON LOOKED DOWN from the porthole window of the EgyptAir Embraer 170. They were over the coast, the ocean a vivid blue beneath them and the beaches of northern Egypt thin yellow ribbons lapped by the white spume of the incoming waves.

It had been a long day. Milton had driven from Dover to Heathrow and left his car in the long-stay car park. He had gone into the departures lounge, stopped at an ATM to draw out the money that he thought he might need and then changed it into an a.s.sortment of currencies: dollars, euros, Egyptian pounds and Lybian dinars. He had given careful thought to the best way to reach Libya. The political instability meant that there was an extremely limited selection of flights into the country, and it wasn't possible to fly direct from the UK.

He had three options.

He could have flown on Air Berlin from Heathrow to Orly and then transferred there to a Tunisair flight to Monastir Habib Bourguiba International Airport. Afriqiyah Airways had just announced a new flight into Tripoli, and Milton could have taken that. But he decided against it. He was travelling under one of his false pa.s.sports, but his doc.u.ments were English and he did not want to attract unnecessary attention by being one of the few Europeans with the bravery or stupidity to fly directly into Tripoli.

The second option was to fly Tunisair to Tunis, as before, and then drive the eight hundred kilometres east to Tripoli so that he could avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself upon his arrival at the airport. It was a ten-hour drive, but still quicker than driving west from Egypt, and it would have been his preference had it not been for the recent gains by ISIS along the northern coast road. He would have to pa.s.s through contested territory, and, after careful a.s.sessment, he decided that the risks inherent in that route were too severe.

That left him with one other option. He had purchased a flight from Heathrow to Alexandria, flying Aegean to Athens and then EgyptAir to Alexandria. He would make his way across country and cross the border at El Salloum.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the chief steward said over the intercom, "the captain has put on the fasten seat belts sign. Please return to your seats, fasten your seat belts, and put your tray tables in the upright position. We will be commencing our descent into Alexandria shortly."

Milton finished the bottle of sparkling water that he had purchased at Heathrow and dropped it into the black bin liner that was held open by a pa.s.sing steward. He clipped his belt around him and watched out of the window as they started to descend.

MILTON WAITED PATIENTLY before the kiosk while the immigration officer checked his pa.s.sport. The man looked down at the splayed-open doc.u.ment and then up at Milton. He was travelling under the name of John Smith and was using the false pa.s.sport that he had used the last time he had travelled into north Africa. He had had no trouble before, and the delay was a little concerning. He had chosen Alexandria rather than Cairo to shave a little time from his onward journey to Tripoli, but he second-guessed himself now. He wondered whether it might have been more prudent to fly into the busier Cairo International than this quieter airport. Alexandria was busy, but it would have been easier to hide within the greater mult.i.tudes that would have pa.s.sed through Egypt's main hub.

Too late for that now, though.

"What's your business in Egypt, Mr. Smith?"

"Pleasure."

"On your own?"

"Yes," he said. "I just want some sun and some peace and quiet."

"Where are you staying?"

"Here-Alexandria."

"Which hotel?"

"The Sheraton Montazah."

Milton had taken the precaution of booking a room. He had no intention of using it, but, since it would be unusual for a tourist to arrive with no accommodation arranged, he knew that his usual thoroughness was important.

The officer considered the information and turned to the computer screen on his desk. Milton wondered whether the Mukhabarat had a record of his reservation. Milton knew that the Egyptian intelligence service was still extant even after the overthrow of the regime that had sp.a.w.ned it.

He had travelled to the country on several occasions before this. The last time was the a.s.signment to Cairo for the joint MI6-Mossad-CIA operation that had sabotaged Iran's nuclear and long-range missile program. He and another Group Fifteen agent had been the British contingent. Milton remembered the meet-up with Avi Bachman, and the thought of the Mossad agent-put out of his mind since the events in Croatia-gave him a moment's pause. He remembered the expedition from Egypt to Iran's Zagros Mountains and the bombs that had degraded the likelihood of there ever being an Islamist nuke.

The border guard looked down at the pa.s.sport and back to him once again, and then pushed the doc.u.ment through the slot in the Plexiglas screen.

"Welcome to Egypt, Mr. Smith," he said.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

MILTON TOOK a taxi from the airport to Misr railway station. Alexandria was teeming with life, its inhabitants going about their daily business under the cosh of a brutal noonday sun. He paid the driver, went into the station concourse and then joined the queue for the ticket office. There were four queues, in fact: three for men and women and one for women alone. It took thirty minutes to get to the head of the line but, as he was about to approach, the clerk pulled down the blind and went for lunch. Milton shook his head with wry recognition, remembering similar experiences of Egyptian customer service, and joined the end of one of the other queues. He waited another twenty minutes, was finally successful in purchasing a ticket, and then made his way to the platforms.

The Egyptian railway network was of variable standard. The line that ran down the spine of the country, connecting Alexandria in the north to Cairo and then Luxor and Aswan in the south, was a prestige line that was provided with lavish funding. Milton remembered it well: the carriages were plush, modern, and air conditioned, and the long journey could be enjoyed in some very decent accommodation.

The other main line, running east to west along the northern coast, was not so pleasant. It connected Alexandria and Sallum, on the border with Libya. Milton had never used it before but, as he boarded and found his way through the busy carriage to his seat, he decided that the accommodation could only be generously described as third cla.s.s. The carriage was a French design and made from stainless steel, which promised to amplify the heat, and the air conditioning was not particularly impressive.

Milton sat down. The seats were arranged in twos, with pairs facing each other. He was sitting next to an elderly woman and opposite a younger woman with a young child on the seat next to her. The old woman looked at Milton, said something in Arabic that he took to be derogatory, and then looked away. The mother was too busy keeping her child in line to afford him more than a quick glance.

The journey was almost exactly five hundred kilometres and was timetabled to take six hours. The child promised to be distracting but, on the other hand, her small legs meant that Milton could stretch his out until they were beneath her seat. He took his phone from his pocket, plugged in his earphones, and scrolled through his music until he found the Happy Mondays compilation he wanted. He closed his eyes and waited for the train to leave.

MILTON STEPPED DOWN from the train and crossed the platform to the exit. The journey had been long and arduous. Instead of the advertised six hours, the train had been delayed outside El-Agamy and, by the time they reached the end of the line, they had been travelling for closer to nine. It was dusk, and the temperature, although still warm, was more pleasant now than it had been earlier.

The station was basic. A concrete platform was alongside the carriages, a curved wooden roof suspended overhead by a series of wooden pillars. Milton had his ticket ready, but there was no one to show it to. The exit was open and Milton followed the handful of other pa.s.sengers who had travelled this far until he was outside.

The town of Sallum was a mainly Bedouin community that survived as a regional trading centre. It was rich with Roman history, with wells and the remains of villas nearby, but despite a pleasant beach, it had escaped the relentless tide of commercialism that had changed the rest of the country and did not see many visitors. That was unfortunate. Milton knew that he would be noticed and also that it was unlikely that he would be able to find anywhere to hire a car for his onward journey.

He would be as quick as possible.

The landscape around and about was dominated by the arid countryside. The town was situated on the slopes that led down from higher ground to the sea, with low-slung buildings and a collection of taller hotels by the water. Milton walked away from the station toward the centre of the town and kept going until he reached the collection of cafes down on the dockside. There were a couple of cars parked up against the wall that guarded the drop to the water below. They were both old Ladas, painted black and white in the fas.h.i.+on that marked them out as taxis. The cafes had laid out a row of tables in haphazard fas.h.i.+on, some of them arranged in the road to create an unofficial patio area, and several men were sat around them, smoking from a s.h.i.+sha pipe and drinking qasab, the sugarcane drink that was served cold as refreshment against the heat.

Milton approached the men.

"Do any of you speak English?"

The men looked across at him with no attempt to conceal their scorn. One man, swarthy and grizzled, spat down at Milton's feet.

Milton's Arabic was basic, but he could make himself understood. "I'm looking for a taxi."

The man who had spat at him waved a hand dismissively, pushed his chair away from the table and got up. Milton tensed, expecting trouble, but the man shook his head at him, crossed the road and got into one of the taxis. He started the engine and pulled away.

There were three men left around the table and one taxi. Milton turned and pointed to it. "Who drives that car?"

One of the men raised a finger and, to Milton's mild surprise, he spoke in halting English. "What are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You are not tourist. We get no tourist here."

"I'm a journalist."

"Why would a journalist come here? There is nothing."

Milton took the chair that the first driver had vacated and sat down in it. He looked more carefully at his interlocutor: he was middle-aged, with dark brown eyes and deeply tanned skin. The s.h.i.+sha pipe had four hoses; the man was holding his between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, the skin stained a dirty yellow from cigarettes.

"Do your friends speak English?"

The man drew on the pipe, inhaled the smoke, and then put the hose down on the table. "No," the man said. "Only me."

Milton would have preferred the conversation to be more private than this. He was miles from Cairo and Alexandria, but close to the border with a volatile neighbour; the Mukhabarat would certainly be present in Sallum. What he was about to say would have interested them if they ever came to hear of it, but trusting that the man was telling the truth was a risk that Milton considered worth taking.

"I'm not here for a story. I want to get over the border."

"Why would you want to do something stupid like that?"

"I've been asked to write a story about what's happening there. I need to get across the border without anyone knowing. Is that your taxi?"

The man didn't answer the question. "It is a dangerous thing you ask," he said instead.

"I know. I'm willing to pay."

The man took up the pipe between his nicotine-stained fingers and inhaled again. "How much?"

"What would you charge?"

"One thousand."

"Egyptian?"

"Dollars."

"Too much. Five hundred."

"Then good luck, sir. I will stay here and you will find another driver."

"Six."

The man inhaled, turned his head a little and blew a jet of smoke just past Milton's head. "Eight."

Milton might be able to find another driver, but every person he spoke to increased the risk that the secret police would hear stories of the Englishman who was asking to be taken across the border into Libya. Milton was confident that there would be no way for the Mukhabarat to tie him back to his previous visits to the country, but risks, however small, had the tendency to acc.u.mulate until something really bad happened. There would be the delay, too, and every wasted hour was another for Nadia to spend in the custody of the Albanians.

"Fine," Milton said. "Eight hundred."

The man shook his head, as if surprised that his offer had been accepted, replaced the pipe in its clip and stood. He said goodbye to the two remaining men and nodded that Milton should follow him across the road. He did not walk to the taxi. He carried on, following the road around the corner. Milton saw a few simple food stands on the edge of the road, serving falafel and kebabs, a couple of fuel vendors, and another cafe with tables equipped with s.h.i.+sha pipes.

There were more cars parked opposite the cafe, and the man took Milton to one of them. It was a Mercedes-Benz S-Cla.s.s. It was the old model in which chrome figured prominently: chrome-tipped fins, chrome trim to the left and the right of the radiator, a chrome-plated air intake grid and chrome wheel caps. The car had been badly cared for, with dents in the bodywork and a crack down the middle of the windscreen.

"No," Milton said.

"This is my car. Other drivers available at cafe."

"How old is this?"

"1959 model," the man said with a flicker of what Milton took to be pride.

"It's older than I am."

"And very reliable. It has never stopped working."

"It's also very conspicuous."

The man looked blankly at him.

"It is obvious. It will stand out."

"No," the man said. "It will not. Lots of old cars in Sallum. Not unusual."

Milton paused and turned back to look at the cafe. Their conversation was being observed by the men who were smoking at the tables. Milton couldn't very easily go back there now.

"Fine."

"Money."

"In the car," Milton insisted.

The man nodded his a.s.sent and went around to the other side of the Mercedes. He opened the door and slid inside and then leaned across to open the pa.s.senger door. Milton opened it all the way and settled into his seat.

Chapter Twenty-Three.