The Egyptian Assassin by Fishere Ezzedine C.;

Author:Fishere, Ezzedine C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

6

The Red Line

Abu Omar spent forty days in the desert before reaching Asyut. Forty days along the same route he had often traveled. He remembered his travels in Darfur with the sheikh, and his adventures in the desert when he was protecting the Versace consignments coming from Libya, but the memories came without any nostalgia, as just reminiscences of places and events. He had left Egypt a defeated outcast, but he was coming back as a man whose fate was in his own hands, determined to settle old scores. He was not coming just to exact revenge, but to set right the scales on a balance that was faulty. He was coming back to establish justice in a cause that the law couldn’t see because it had been suppressed. It didn’t require an inquiry because he was well aware who had killed Ali and Nasser and driven the others into exile. He would come back to settle scores and set the scales right, nothing more and nothing less. Throughout forty days of travel in the desert, with two camels and a mare, under the stars that shone so bright at night and the scorching sun by day, he thought about the practicalities of his plan. What identity should he adopt? Was he still Eissa al-Naggar or should he resume his old identity? Should he declare his arrival to family and friends, or stay in hiding? How would the security agencies treat him in each case? What work would he do? The sheikh had provided him with enough money, but he would have to find work. What could he do? And where would he live? Where should he start?

In Asyut he sold the animals, got rid of his desert clothes, and shaved his beard. Now he looked like a secondary-school teacher on his way to spend a vacation in his hometown. He sat at a café drinking tea and reading the newspapers. It was then that he realized what had happened. He looked at the front page of the newspaper and the news stunned him. He devoured the news reports to understand properly what had happened in the past forty days. Now he understood why they had insisted on killing Ahmed Shah Massoud and why the sheikh had insisted that he cross into Egypt before the end of the first week of September. He had known that the security on the roads and at places of entry would be tighter after that. The newspapers said that the United States had started bombing Afghanistan and Taliban rule was collapsing. They were abandoning the towns one by one and the Arab fighters had dispersed. He looked at the papers and could hardly believe that all this could have happened in just forty days. It was like driving through a tunnel and when you come out at the other end you find that the city’s roads and landmarks have changed. He had known that things were moving toward a confrontation of this kind, but the confrontation was much bigger than he had expected.

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