LAST EXTRACT FROM MY MEMOIR

The Spy Who Fell to Earth: My Relationship With The Secret Agent Who Rocked the Middle East

---

AN AFTERTHOUGHT

27 June 2013, 1.40 p.m

---

I CHOOSE THE DAY AND time with precision. Today, six years ago, while I was waiting for him to phone, Ashraf Marwan plunged to his death. I am standing at 24 Carlton House Terrace, across the terrace from the white, Grade I listed building that overlooks St James’s Park, my face pressed against the railings, through which I can see the little rose garden where Marwan died.

24 Carlton House Terrace, where Marwan lived and died

I look up to the balcony of the fifth floor, trying to imagine how Ashraf climbed up the balcony fence, which is quite high - but then he was tall, over six feet - stepping on a plant pot or the air-conditioning system and then over the rails, `walking’ into the air and falling. I wonder: what was he thinking about when he fell? When he saw in front of his eyes the floors running faster and faster on his way down. Was he thinking that, in a split second, he would hit the ground, and it would all be over - his double life, the unceasing watchfulness, the loneliness? Was he thinking about his kids? About his wife, Mona? About his father-in-law, Egypt’s charismatic leader, President Gamal Abdel Nasser? Or did he think: well, Ahron, you can keep waiting for me at your office, but I am not going to show up for our meeting - that’s your punishment, let it be on your conscience.

---

People often ask me: `So what do you think happened to Ashraf Marwan? And quite frankly, I often ask myself the same question. When the Marwan family asked me, through their lawyers, to appear before the coroner and bolster the case that their husband and father was killed rather than committed suicide, I did so gladly. I think that I did deliver the goods, and I felt good about it. Even now, part of me still believes that it was not suicide but murder, perhaps by the Egyptians, who rejected my double-agent story and concluded that Marwan betrayed them. Or perhaps it was linked to Marwan’s murky business dealings. He was, after all, an arms dealer. Fuad Nasser, a former head of Military Intelligence in Egypt, when asked in an interview whether, in his opinion, Marwan had been killed or had committed suicide, said, `In my view, he was murdered … who did it? I don’t know, but generally speaking … there’s no doubt that this is an assassination operation.’

And yet, I must confess that for years now, there has been a little voice inside me insisting that it was not a murder but that Marwan did commit suicide after all. This nagging voice is not an abstract idea, but it has to do with a moment in my last telephone conversation with him on the day before he died, which was strange then and is even stranger now. During our conversation, I told Marwan I could not meet between two and three in the afternoon, as this was my office hour with my students. His response - or rather the tone of his words - as I thought then and more so now implied that I should not be concerned about it as he would not show up anyway.

You - the reader - will then surely ask, so why the three messages he left on my answering machine and the long telephone conversation to arrange a meeting - write down my telephone number, repeating it and so on - if he had no intention of being there? Well, it might be that this was Marwan’s way of organizing his post-death story. He, of course, did not want to shame his family with a suicide - it goes strongly against Muslim tradition, and Marwan, although secular in his daily life, did care about religion. Perhaps there was also a life insurance policy, which would not be paid in the case of suicide. He knew that I would explain to the world - as I indeed did - that Ashraf Marwan meant to meet me on that day, and, therefore, it did not make sense that his death was a suicide. Moreover, he also made sure that I could prove that we were in touch the day before he died by - uncharacteristically - leaving three telephone messages on my home phone. You might say that this is too far-fetched. Well, if you have reached this point in my story and internalized how Ashraf Marwan functioned, then you will not - I am sure - dismiss this explanation out of hand.