She changed her instructions to the driver, and they reached the café in a couple of minutes. She hurried inside and saw, with great relief, that Karim was still there. She was only just in time: he was putting on his jacket preparatory to leaving. She had the irrelevant thought that he was getting fatter.
‘I’m so glad I caught you,’ she said. ‘The phones have been cut off by ISGS.’
‘Really?’ Shrugging on his jacket, he fished in the pocket for his phone and looked at the screen. ‘You’re right. I didn’t know they could do that.’
‘I just talked to an informant. They’re planning to assassinate the General.’
His mouth dropped open in shock. ‘Now?’
‘I thought you were the best person to raise the alarm.’
‘Of course. How do they plan to do it?’
‘Three suicide bombers outside the palace gates, waiting for his car.’
‘Clever. A route he must use, a moment when the vehicle must move slowly – he’s at his most vulnerable.’ He hesitated. ‘How reliable is the information?’
‘Karim, no informant is totally trustworthy – they’re all deceivers at heart – but I think this tip might be true. The General should certainly take special precautions.’
Karim nodded. ‘You’re right. Such a warning must not be ignored. I’ll go at once. My car is out the back.’
‘Good.’
He turned away to leave, then turned back. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Tamara left by the front door and got back into her car.
Again she thought about going to the embassy; again she decided there was nothing to be done there. The operations manual did not have a protocol for a combined assassination attempt and telephone breakdown. She briefly entertained the idea of getting Susan Marcus to lead a squad to the neighbourhood of the palace to hunt down the bombers. But the US army could not act independently of the local army and police – the confusion would be disastrous. And by the time they got the chain of command sorted out it would be too late.
She decided to go there herself. At least she could reconnoitre the street and try to identify the jihadis.
She directed the driver south on the freeway and right onto the Avenue Charles de Gaulle. There was no stopping outside the palace, so she got out of the cab a couple of hundred yards short of the entrance and told the driver to wait.
She checked her phone again. There was still no signal.
She looked along the broad boulevard ahead. The big iron gates of the palace were on the right-hand side of the road, guarded by rifle-toting soldiers of the National Guard in their uniforms of green, black and tan desert camouflage. Opposite were a monument park and the cathedral. The no-parking rule was enforced strictly here, so the jihadis would be on foot.
A black Mercedes squealed to a halt in front of the gates and was admitted immediately. She hoped that was Karim.
She thought for the first time about how dangerous this was for her. Any time soon, anywhere along this street, a bomb could explode; and if she was nearby it would kill her.
She did not want to die, not when she had just found Tab.
Death was not the worst thing that could happen. She could be maimed, blinded, paralysed.
She tied her scarf more firmly under her chin. She murmured to herself: ‘What the hell am I doing?’ Then she walked briskly towards the palace.
On the palace side of the street there was no one but the guards: everyone steered clear of men with rifles. On her side a hundred or so people were in the monument park, tourists looking at the grandiose sculptures and locals enjoying the space, eating their lunch or just hanging out. I must try to identify the bombers, she thought, and I don’t have much time!
A contingent of armed police, led by a moustached sergeant, watched the crowd. The cops were dressed in a camouflage pattern slightly different from that of the National Guard. Tamara knew from experience that their main job was to enforce a rule against photographing the palace, and she doubted that they would be quick to spot a real terrorist.
Making herself calm, she carefully scanned the people in the park. She ignored middle-aged and elderly men and women: jihadis were always young. She also dismissed anyone wearing close-fitting modern clothing such as shirts and jeans, because they had nowhere to hide a suicide vest. She concentrated on men and women in their late teens or twenties wearing traditional robes, and on women in the hijab.
She made a mental note of each of the remaining possibilities. A young man in white robes and a white cap was sitting on the edge of a plinth reading the newspaper Al Wihda; he looked too relaxed to be a terrorist, but Tamara could not be sure. A woman of uncertain age had lumps under her black hijab, but that might just have been her figure. A teenage boy in orange robes and a turban was squatting at the roadside mending his Vespa motor scooter, the front wheel detached and lying on the dusty ground amid a scatter of nuts and bolts.
To one side of the park she noticed a bearded young man standing in the shade of a tree, perspiring. He wore a floor-length robe of the type called a thawb, a jalabiya or a dishdasha, but over it he had a shapeless loose-fitting cotton jacket buttoned to the neck. He was near the side street next to the park, and he glanced every now and again at the narrow road, where there was nothing to look at. He smoked nervously, with repeated quick puffs, burning the cigarette down fast.
When the president’s car emerged from the palace complex it would probably turn left or right on the wide Avenue Charles de Gaulle, but it could go straight across to the side street that ran down towards the river. Logically there should be one suicide bomber this side of the entrance, one the other, and one near the side street.
She crossed the side street to the cathedral.
She looked across the avenue to the palace gates as she drew level with them. She could see the long straight driveway that led majestically up to the distant building, which looked more like a modern office than a palace. There were half a dozen more soldiers inside the gates, but they were simply lounging around, talking and smoking. Tamara was disappointed: if Karim had raised the alarm, surely by now a squad would be assembling to clear the area and protect the public in case of an explosion? But the street was busy, and cars and motorcycles continued to pass in both directions. A bomb here might kill hundreds of innocent bystanders. Was Karim’s warning being ignored in there? Or were they perhaps concerned about the General but not the public?
The Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace was a spectacular modern church. However, the site was fenced and the gates were closed. There was no one in the grounds except for a gardener, in dark robes and a headdress, planting a small tree on the west side, close to the fence, only a few yards from Tamara. From his position he could clearly see the palace gates and the long driveway up to the building, and he could quickly cross the fence to the side street. Could he be an impostor? If so, he was taking a risk: a priest might say to him: ‘Who told you to plant a tree there?’ On the other hand, there did not seem to be any priests around.
She returned to the monument park.
It was a matter of probabilities, but she thought the assassins were the boy mending the scooter, the sweating man under the tree, and the cathedral gardener. Each fitted the profile, each had room under their robes for a sizeable bomb.
Could they be arrested? Some suicide devices had dead man’s ignition, a system in which the bomb would go off when the bomber released a cord, which guaranteed an explosion even if the bomber was killed. However, all three of her suspects were using their hands: one to mend a scooter, one to light cigarettes, and one to plant a tree. That meant they could not have dead man’s ignition.
All the same, they would have to be handled carefully. They must be immobilized before they could reach the trigger. It would be a matter of a second or two.
She checked her phone. Still no signal.
What should she do? Probably nothing. Karim would make sure the General stayed out of harm’s way. Sooner or later the police would close the monument park and clear the street. The assassins would slip away with the crowds.