Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews Page B

with refugees of every stripe and class—but only the most affluent and presentable were admitted to Shepheard’s.
    He strolled over to the bar and nodded at Joe. “Gin and tonic,” he said.
    While the grizzled Swiss reached for a bottle, Ian casually surveyed the room. In the far corner, almost lost in the draperies of the last window, sat a gray-haired man with a magnificent mustache. He was turning over the pages of the weekly
Étoile Égyptienne
. There was a saffron scarf neatly folded in the breast pocket of his dark gray suit.
    Ian paid for his drink and made his way to the newspaper rack. In the Long Bar, the top papers in the world were available—some only a few days old—and all were ironed and hung over separate wooden dowels. He fingered Beaverbrook’s flagship rag, the
London Evening Standard.
He’d read this edition at White’s club before flying out of England.
    The gray-haired man rose from his table with an audible sigh and joined Ian at the rack. He replaced the
Étoile Égyptienne
on its dowel. “So much betrayal in the news,” he said mournfully, his voice part gravel, part honey. “One no longer knows whom to trust.”
    â€œWell—as they say, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” Ian replied.
    The man smiled. “An old Arabic proverb. You’ve learned from your wandering in the desert, Commander.”
    Ian set down the
Standard
. “May I buy you a drink?”
    â€œVodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.”
    â€”
    C
ALL ME
N
AZIR
,
he said.
Everyone does—and I’ve long since forgotten my real name.
    It was clear he was no more Egyptian than his granddaughter, Fatima, whom he explained was the girl who’d led Ian to Shepheard’s. She was now back behind the counter of the small shop in the heart of Old Cairo where Nazir sold scavenged antiquities. A Russian family, Ian assumed—although it was possible Nazir was Georgian, like Stalin himself. Uncle Joe liked to keep his countrymen in positions of power, and Nazir’s position was very powerful indeed. Ian gathered from hints and boasts and things left unsaid that Nazir was the Soviet NKVD chief in Cairo.
    The NKVD, or People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, was responsible for many things in the Soviet Union. They ran the traffic police, the firefighters and the border guards; they secured the national archives. But what the NKVD was best known for, in Ian’s world, was knocking on doors in the dead of night and spiriting people away to the gulag. Within the Soviet Union, they served Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s chief of secret police. Outside it, they were his assassins and spies.
    In Cairo, Nazir explained, they sold antiquities—because he had been a passionate Egyptologist since his youth, and could not imagine doing anything else. Besides, his network of Cairene pit diggers knew everything that happened in Egypt half a day before it occurred. They were a natural intelligence force. And they didn’t ask to be paid. A fair price for pilfered artifacts was enough; information was free.
    â€œGood Communists, then, too,” Ian observed generously.
    â€œAren’t we all?” Nazir inclined his head. “We hate the Germans equally. Nazir’s pit diggers and Fleming’s Navy.”
    Ian did not bother to ask the Russian how he knew his name, or how he had traced him to the Citadel. Nazir would not have said; and besides, he was enjoying his role as all-seeing intelligence chief far too much. Ian preferred the
why
of things to the
how.
    â€œYou remember our countries’ joint invasion of Iran, two years ago?” Nazir persisted.
    â€œVividly.”
    â€œTogether we ran the Germans out of Tehran and toppled the King.”
    â€œAnd replaced him with his son.”
    â€œMohammad Reza
Shah
Pahlavi. He is not entirely easy on his throne.” Nazir shrugged. “And what boy would be?