Page 59 of Sands of Sirocco
Alastair pulled a notebook from his breast pocket and scribbled the names with a pencil.He glanced over the edge of the book.“And the Osborne fellow?”
“He’s apparently investigating me for Lord Braddock’s crimes.”Noah’s lips twisted.He’d tried to confront Osborne three times the previous afternoon, both before and after the polo game.Somehow the man had skillfully avoided him.
He might have to pay a visit to the Foreign Office.
Alastair slipped the notebook back into his pocket and nodded toward the chess board.“Shall we play another round?”
“I suppose.Though I’ve never been inclined to do anything where I’m certain to lose.”Noah rolled his shoulders.
The laugh Alastair released was loud.“Truer words have never been spoken, my friend.At least you’re aware of it.”
The sun hadlong set when Noah approached Midan Suliman Pasha, but the streets near the square still bustled with activity.Turning his attention to Café Riche, Noah waited as a tram passed, its whistle merrily ringing in the air.This part of Cairo attracted tourists, who called it “the Paris on the Nile” because of the buildings artfully arranged along six streets radiating out from a traffic circle.Elegant and French neoclassical in style, the restaurants and shops here were a favorite among the Anglo-Cairo community.
He approached the dark wood-trimmed glass doors of Café Riche.The café was packed.
He’d donned a simple cottongalabeyahtunic and a mutedkeffiyehheadpiece, along with a wig.But with this many people still out at night, the risk of being seen and recognized seemed high.He wished his disguise could have been better.
Still, he made his way inside and headed toward the door that led to the basement, keeping his gaze down.When he reached the door, he gave a tap.
The door opened, and a man with thin wire-rimmed glasses peered at him.“As-salaam alykum.”Noah bent his head, the fabric of hiskeffiyehgrazing his cheek.He gave the greeting Alastair had instructed him to use.
He was admitted into a passageway that led to stairs.The man at the door directed him to move on.In the basement, he found a room guarded by two men with rifles, and inside two dozen men were gathered.They didn’t all sit together.Some stood, while others lounged on floor pillows.The room was dimly lit but adequate.In the corner was a large printing press.
Noah hung back near the door.Instinctually, he didn’t like the look of the place.If the only exit was the door he’d come through, the danger in being here increased exponentially.He preferred a place with multiple points of entry.
He scanned the room, then found a few more doors.Exits?
Who knew where they led.
He recognized some faces of the leaders of the nationalist movements the British had labeled as extreme, the ones now calling for the overthrow of the British.These were the men who encouraged resistance and riots.
Unlike the way the upper crust of Anglo-Cairo society liked to characterize these men, they were not peasants.Some were lawyers and writers.Others were members of distinguished families in Egypt.Men whose ardent sense of nationalism had bloomed under the likes of Mustafa Kamel and other nationalists who had come before the war.What they lacked, more than anything, was a leader to unite them.
Noah lifted his gaze at the sound of approaching footsteps.A tall man emerged from one of the other doors, hunched over.He straightened once inside.
“Al-Mashat,” one man said to the newcomer with a welcoming voice.“We were thinking you wouldn’t come.”
Khaled Al-Mashat?That was the name Stephen had given Noah as the leader of the Aleaqrab.Noah peered at him closer, then stiffened.
No wonder Alastair hadn’t been able to find him.
Though he’d been called Al-Mashat, that wasn’t his name.Noah knew him in an instant: Khaled El-Masry.The son of one of the most distinguished generals from the Mahdist war in Egypt in the late 1880s.
And Noah’s uncle.
Would Masry recognize him?The last time he’d seen his uncle, he’d thrown Noah from his doorstep and spat in his face.Noah had come to Egypt to learn about the family he’d never met.The few things Noah’s mother had told him, he’d kept close to his heart, repeating names and phrases.But the aunt that had raised him—his father’s sister—had done her best to encourage him to forget it.
“Tell no one your mother was Egyptian.They’ll hate you for it.”
Noah’s brother didn’t have the same interest in knowing.He’d been five when their parents died.Neal couldn’t remember their mother.Didn’t retain any of the Arabic she’d taught them as children.
But Noah had.He’d studied it in secret.Learned to read and write it.His aunt and uncle had a servant who spoke it.He’d taught Noah what he could, along with Farsi.Noah had soaked up every word thrown at him.And when his aunt had discovered it, she sent him to learn the languages “that mattered”—German, French, Spanish, and Italian.
But his longing to learn more of his roots had continued.And as an ignorant boy who thought he was a man, he’d set out to Egypt to find his family.
As the men in the basement discussed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Noah edged closer to the door he’d come from.If Masry recognized him, he’d need to flee.
However, the chances of that happening were remote.After all, it’d been ten years.And they’d only met that once.Noah resembled his father—but who knew how well Masry had known him.His aunt had claimed he sometimes looked like his mother, but Noah had only one picture to compare himself to.
