But then they could try again tomorrow.
She told herself it was not her problem. She had provided the information: that was her job. The local police and the army must make the decisions.
She should probably leave.
She looked across the avenue and saw the General’s distinctive limousine coming slowly down the driveway towards the gates.
She had to act.
She took out her CIA card and approached the police sergeant with the moustache. ‘I’m with the American military,’ she said, speaking Arabic and showing him the card. She pointed to the man under the tree. ‘I think that man has something suspicious under his jacket. You might want to check it out. I advise you to grab both his hands before speaking to him, in case he has a weapon.’
The sergeant looked at her with suspicion. He was not going to take orders from an unknown woman, even if she did have an impressively official-looking plastic identity card with her photograph on it.
Tamara suppressed a rising panic and tried to keep her cool. ‘Whatever you do, you need to be quick, because the General seems to be coming.’
The sergeant looked across the avenue, saw the limousine on the drive approaching the gates, and made a decision. He barked orders to two of his men and they marched across the park towards the smoker under the tree.
Tamara sent up a prayer of thanks.
The palace guards stepped out into the avenue and stopped the traffic.
The boy mending the scooter got to his feet.
Across the side street, the gardener in the cathedral grounds dropped his spade.
The palace gates opened.
Tamara approached the boy mending the scooter. He hardly noticed her, he was concentrating so hard on the limousine. She smiled at him and put her hands firmly on his chest. Through the orange cotton robes she felt a hard object with cables attached, and fear seized her. She forced herself to keep her hands there a moment longer. She felt three cylinders, undoubtedly containing charges of C4 explosive buried in small steel ball bearings, with wires connecting the cylinders to one another and to a small box that would be the detonator.
She was a heartbeat away from death.
The boy was surprised and confused by her sudden appearance. He pushed at her ineffectually and stepped back.
In the split-second it took him to realize what was happening, she kicked his legs from under him.
He fell on his back. She dropped on him, knees in his belly, knocking the wind out of him. She grabbed the neck of his robe and ripped it open, exposing the black plastic and metal of the device strapped to his chest. Dangling from the detonator box she saw a cable that terminated in a simple green plastic trigger switch. Four dollars ninety-nine at the hardware store, she thought stupidly.
She heard a nearby woman scream.
If he got his hands on that switch he would kill himself and Tamara and a lot of other people.
She managed to grab both his wrists and push his arms to the ground, leaning forward to use all her weight. He bucked, trying to throw her off. The police nearby were staring in shock. She yelled: ‘Hold his arms and legs, before he blows us all up!’
After a stunned moment they did as she said. In normal circumstances they would not have followed her orders, but they could see the device and they knew what it was. Four cops grabbed the bomber’s limbs and held tight.
Tamara stood up.
All around her the bystanders were backing away, some running.
In the far corner of the park, the nervous smoker was being handcuffed.
The palace gates opened and the limousine came through.
In the cathedral grounds, the gardener ran at the fence.
The car crossed the avenue, picking up speed, and headed down the side street.
The gardener vaulted the fence onto the pavement. He reached inside his jalabiya and drew out a green plastic trigger switch.
Uselessly, Tamara yelled: ‘No!’
He ran into the road and threw himself at the car. The driver saw him and slammed on the brakes, too late. The bomber hit the windscreen and seemed to bounce, then there was a terrific bang and a flash. The windscreen shattered and the bomber was thrown into the road. The car continued to roll forward, leaving the corpse in the middle of the street. It veered to the right and crashed into the fence surrounding the cathedral. The fence was flattened but the car came to a stop.
No one got out.
Tamara ran across the park to the crashed vehicle. Others had the same idea and were close behind her. She threw open the passenger door and looked inside.
The back of the car was empty.
There was a smell of fresh blood. In the front was just one man, the driver, slumped and motionless. His face was too damaged and bloody to be recognizable, but he was small and thin with grey hair, and therefore not the General, who was massive and bald.
The General was not in the car.
For a moment Tamara was bewildered. Then she reasoned that the driver might simply have been going to get fuel. A darker thought was that he had been sent out as a test, to see whether the threat was real, in which case his life had been sacrificed. It was grim, but possible.
There were holes in the bodywork and steel balls all over the floor.
Tamara had seen enough. She turned away and walked back to the monument park.
I saved the General, she thought. I nearly lost my life. Was it worth it? Who the hell knows?
But she had not finished. Haroun had said that the government of Sudan was behind this. If true, it was important, but she wanted confirmation.
The boy with the scooter had been relieved of his suicide vest – Tamara would have waited for the bomb squad, if the choice had been hers – and now the police were putting handcuffs and leg restraints on him.
Tamara approached, and a cop said: ‘What are you doing?’
‘I gave the alarm,’ she said harshly.
Another cop said: ‘It’s true, she did.’
The first cop shrugged, and she took that for permission.
She moved closer to the bomber. He had light-brown eyes. She could see the wisps of adolescent hair on his cheeks: he was terribly young. Her closeness to him was a contradictory message, both intimate and threatening, and it confused him.
She spoke in a low voice. ‘Your friend in the cathedral garden is dead,’ she said.
The bomber looked at her, then looked away. ‘He is in heaven.’
‘You did this for God.’
‘God is great.’
‘But you were helped.’ She paused, staring hard into his eyes, trying to get him to look back at her, to make a human connection. ‘You were taught how to make the bombs.’
At last he looked at her. ‘You know nothing.’
‘I know that you were taught by the Afghan.’
She saw the surprise in his eyes.
She pressed her advantage. ‘I know that you got the materials from the friends in Sudan.’
She did not know this, though she strongly suspected it. His expression did not change. He continued to be startled by how much she knew.
She said: ‘It was the Sudanese friends who told you to kill the General.’
She held her breath. That was what she needed to confirm.
At last he spoke. His tone of amazement was unmistakably genuine. ‘How do you know?’
It was enough. Tamara walked away.
*
Back at the embassy she went to her room. Suddenly feeling completely wiped out, she lay down on her bed. She slept for a few minutes, then her phone rang.
Service had been restored.
She answered. Dexter’s voice said: ‘Where the hell are you?’
She almost hung up. She closed her eyes for a moment, summoning her patience.
He said: ‘Are you there?’
‘I’m in my room.’
‘What are you doing there?’
She was not going to tell him that she was recovering from an ordeal. She had learned long ago not to admit weakness to a male colleague. They would never tire of reminding you about it. ‘I’m freshening up,’ she said.
‘Get over here.’