Read Online The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer - Free Book Online

the previous year or so, leaked hundreds of thousands of classified cables and e-mails to the world at large. In the automated list, Jibril Aziz appeared on one entry among a thousand others:
AMEMBASSY CAIRO to SECSTATE WASHDC: FALSE PREDICTIONS RE: STUMBLER. ( link ) TAGS: AE/STUMBLER , Africa , ALF , American , Arab , China , CNPC , Frank Ingersoll , Geneva , IFG , Jabal al Akhdar , Jibril Aziz , Libya , London , Muammar Gadhafi , Muslim , Paris , Revolutionary Guard , Rome , Washington , WRAL
    She followed the link and was rerouted to WikiLeaks.org, where she found herself in a section called “Cablegate: 250,000 US Embassy Diplomatic Cables,” faced with a communiqué from December 2009, more than a year ago. It was the first of three cables dealing with something called Stumbler, but a search proved that the other two cables were not available.
    She read it once, then sent it to the wireless laser printer in the closet and read it again. December 2009: She and Emmett had been in Cairo when the embassy worked on Stumbler—an operation, it seemed, that had originated with one Jibril Aziz. Which meant, she supposed, that Emmett had been working on it as well.
    She took the printout to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of rosé from a half-sized Napa Valley bottle. As she was reading it a third time a voice said, “What’s that?”
    She nearly dropped her glass.
    Fiona grinned. “Sorry. Just saw the light.”
    Instinctively, she folded the paper and slipped it into the pocket of her robe. “Old stuff. Memories.”
    Fiona nodded mournfully. “I can’t imagine.”
    “Maybe not,” Sophie said, “but thanks.” Then, “By the way, have you seen Emmett’s computer? It was in the bedroom.”
    “I meant to tell you. Mr. Strauss took it. For the investigation. I’ve got a receipt around here somewhere.”
    “I see,” she said, but she wasn’t thinking of the laptop. She was thinking of tomorrow, for while reading the secret cable it had dawned on her that she wasn’t going with Emmett back to Boston. She wasn’t going to sit around dealing with Glenda. She wasn’t going to do anything that she’d done before in her life. Emmett had been too good and too strong, and so she would try to at least be something better than what she had been.
    She returned to bed and picked up her cell phone, again turning it on. It was three thirty in the morning, and there were twenty-eight missed calls. Mother, father, friends, unknown numbers, and, twice, Stan Bertolli. Dependable Stan. She pressed the green button to call her old lover in Cairo.

 
    7
    Not surprisingly, Glenda was amenable to morning drinks, though when Sophie told her where they were going she paused, silence over the line, wondering if grief had driven her friend mad. “But it’s full of Hungarians, ” she whispered.
    “It’s full of people who don’t know me.”
    “Ahh…”
    It was a real fear, but not for the reason Glenda suspected.
    When she told Fiona that she was going out with Glenda, her babysitter frowned. “You think that’s a good idea?”
    “I think it’s an excellent idea. For the next week I’m not going to be able to get away from anyone—family, press, police—and right now, while it’s still calm, I’m going to have a drink and a chat with my best friend.”
    “Your plane’s at three forty-five.”
    “And everything’s packed. I’ll come back a little tipsy, and you’ll guide me into the taxi. Really, Fee. Don’t worry.”
    Eventually, she nodded her acquiescence, as if with Emmett’s murder she had become Sophie’s mother. “Shall I come along?”
    “I’m a big girl.”
    “At least tell me where you’ll be, in case there’s some emergency.”
    “Menza, in Liszt Ferenc,” she said, her fifth or sixth lie of the day.
    The paparazzi had finally arrived, but it was a small contingent—two photographers lounging with cigarettes in the sharp cold just outside the gate to the apartment building. When she came