At Close Quarters

by Gerald Seymour

  "Don't be childish, Holt."

  He thought that he hated himself. He could have seen the boy knifed to death. He had never seen the face of the boy, he did not know the name of the boy. He was totally ignorant of the boy, and he could have cheered if Crane had felt the need to slide his short-bladed knife into the stomach of the boy, if Crane had drawn the sharp steel across the throat of the boy. If the boy had turned off the path, if the boy had come to see why his dog growled, then Holt would have cheered the boy's murder. As if a sea change had passed through him, as if he were no longer the man who had complained to Noah Crane about the torture of a Palestinian. He was dirtied in his soul.

  He could remember, like yesterday, when he was ten years old, three days past his tenth birthday, and he had been walking with a holiday friend beside the river that ran close to his home. He had found a fox with a hind leg held by the thin cutting wire of a rabbit snare. There had been a blood smear around the wire, a little above the joint of the hind leg of the dog fox where the wire had worked deep through the fur and skin. Below the wire the hind leg hung at a silly angle. He had known, and he was only three days past his tenth birthday, that the dog fox was beyond saving because the leg was impossibly damaged. And he could not have freed it anyway because the dog fox snarled its teeth at him and at his friend, and would have bitten either of them if they had come close enough to release the other end of the wire from the hazel stump around which it was wound. They had taken smoothed rocks from the river shore, and they had thrown them at the fox until they had stunned it, could approach it, and with more stones they had battered the fox to death. All the time that he had killed the fox he had cried out loud. He could still remember how he had cried, childlike, in his bedroom that night. And now he could have cheered if the boy had been knifed.

  He followed Crane. More of the Crane bible. He kept his eyeline to the right of Crane so that the moving shape was in the periphery of his vision. Crane had said that that way he would see better.

  He was learning. He was changing.

  Every late spring and every late autumn the ambassador of the United States entertained the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to dinner in the splendour of the official residence in London's Regent's Park. For those two evenings of the year the lights blazed, the drink flowed, the hospitality was warm. It was the style of these two evenings that the Prime Minister would attend in the company of selected Cabinet ministers with responsibilities particularly affecting relationships

  "across the drain", along with principal industrialists with commercial links to the United States. On the American side a secretary of state would make the flight across the Atlantic. They were social occasions primar-ily, but permitted the free exchange of ideas and views.

  A warm damp night. A fog rising from the park's grasslands. The mist outside was thickened in the drive-way by the exhaust fumes of the chauffeur-driven cars.

  The night air was rich with good humour, noisy with guests making their farewells.

  The Prime Minister warmly shook the hand of the ambassador.

  "A wonderful evening, as always."

  "A good night for a celebration, Prime Minister."

  Below the steps the Branch men surrounded the Prime Minister's car, the lit interior beckoned. There was the warble of the radio link in the police back-up car. If there was a weakness in the make up of the evening it was that the ambassador and the Prime Minister had sat at dinner at opposite ends of the table, had barely exchanged words.

  "You have the advantage over me, what is there in particular to celebrate?"

  "An American triumph in the war against terrorism.

  We're very proud, I've wanted to tell you all evening."

  "What triumph?"

  "We have an Air Force base at Vicenza in northern Italy. Two nights ago our base security, American personnel, picked up a Lebanese male on the perimeter fence. He was in a hide and checking out the wire security with a PNV pocket 'scope. Sorry, that's Passive Night Vision. Our guys whipped him straight inside, straight into the guard house."

  The Branch men fidgeted. Other guests stood respectfully out of earshot and in line to offer their thanks.

  "What do the Italians say?"

  "There's the beauty of it. About now my colleague down in Rome will be informing the Italians that our captive is currently on a USAF transporter and heading Stateside. No messing this time. But I'm jumping . . . I haven't got to the choice part."

  The guest line grew. The Prime Minister's driver switched off the engine of the Rover.

  "The choice part is this . . . T W A flight 840, Rome to Athens in the spring of '86, an explosion at 15,000

  feet takes a hunk out of the fuselage through which four passengers are sucked. Three of those four are American citizens. The source of the explosion was under a seat occupied by a Lebanese woman who had hidden the explosives before getting off in Rome. Okay, you're with me? Choice bit. That woman boarded at Cairo for the leg to Rome. She was seen off by a male, tagged as Palestinian, we have his description, we have his finger marks on the ticket stubs left at Cairo T W A check-in.

  We have him as the organiser, and the woman just as the courier. That man is one and the same as the joker on the fence at Vicenza. The prints match. That bastard is up in a big bird right now, Prime Minister, he's going to Andrews base then a tight little military cell. That's why you can join me in celebration."

  "Remarkable," the Prime Minister said softly.

  "You'll remember what the President said. He said to these swines, 'You can run, but you cannot hide'. That's what we're proving. It's the first time we're able to put deeds to words, make action out of talk. We reckon this to be the turning point in the war against international terrorism. You're not cold, Prime Minister ...?"

  "Not cold."

  "It's the first time this has happened, and it's the first time that counts. Sam leads the way, Sam is first in, that's our celebration."

  "A fine stroke of luck," the Prime Minister said distantly.

  "In this game you earn your luck. Look, we've known for a year this man was in and out of Lebanon, in Damascus or in the Beqa'a valley. We went through all the military evaluations about getting a force into the Beqa'a to drop him there. Can't be done, no way. The Beqa'a would swallow a marine division, that was our best advice, and even if we got in we'd never get out."

  "You're very well informed."

  "Secondhand, my number three here was in Beirut previously . . . we would have faced the risk of prisoners being paraded through Damascus, hell of a mess. Going into Lebanon wasn't on that's diversion. It's being the first that matters. Prime Minister, not at your expense of course, but we're feeling very comfortable at this moment, very bullish. You see, what really matters is not just confronting these people, it's putting them into court. Assassination is small beer when set against the full rigour of a court of law."

  The Prime Minister smiled congratulation, and walked away down the steps to the car. The engine coughed, the doors slammed shut. The car pulled away, trailed by the back-up.

  The Prime Minister's age showed, the tiredness of office and responsibility. There was a long sigh of weariness.

  "Inform my office to have the Director General stand by. I'll be calling him from Downing Street as soon as I get there."

  The Prime Minister sagged back in the seat. The Branch man in the front passenger seat relayed the instruction.

  "What have you to do?" the private secretary asked quietly.

  "I just have to cancel something. Nothing for you to worry about."

  He had been dreaming of the fish he would catch, in the sleeping recesses of his mind was the recollection of the conversation he had had in the guest house bar with a tractor driver from the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi. Not a fast river to fish in, but a fish farm pond, not flies nor lures for bait, but worms from a compost heap. And to hell with tradition. Percy Martins dreamed of tight lines . . .

  until the bell exploded in his ear, like
a big rainbow jumping.

  He groped, he found the light. He lifted the telephone.

  "Martins."

  "Is that a secure line?"

  "No."

  " D G here."

  "God . . . good evening, sir."

  "Good morning, Percy. Our friends, where are they?"

  "Gone."

  "Can you reach them?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  Martins sat straight up in his bed. "Because sir, they have no, ah, telephone. As it is they are carrying in excess of eighty pounds weight. I would hazard, sir, that you or I could barely lift eighty pounds weight, let alone walk a long way with it."

  "Thank you, Percy. That's all the detail I need. Just confirm for me that you've some means of communicating with them in case you wanted them back in a hurry."

  "That's not on, sir. In fact it's quite out of the question. We've no means at all."

  "Thank you, Percy. Keep up the good work. And goodbye."

  Martins replaced the telephone. He switched off his light.

  He could not find again for his mind the pleasure of an arching rod. He thought of two men struggling through the night, moving further from safety, and he was damned pleased those two men carried no radio transmitter/receiver, were beyond recall.

  Slowly, like a cat beside a fireplace that is minutely disturbed, Major Zvi Dan opened his eyes. He looked from just above his hands across the room.

  The girl, Rebecca, sat on the one easy chair in the room, a new book was in her hands.

  "Message?"

  She shook her head.

  He grimaced. "There is nothing more I can do. If I go higher then I antagonise."

  "You have to wait. Coffee?"

  He moved his hand, declined. They would not be drinking coffee, Noah Crane and Holt who were heading towards the Beqa'a.

  "If they hit the tent camp, I quit. If they bomb that camp, they'll have my resignation."

  She looked at him curiously, "Why does it matter to you?"

  "Because . . . because . . . " Major Zvi Dan rubbed hard to clear his eyes of sleep. He coughed at the phlegm in his throat. "Because . . . because of that boy, because of Holt. He shouldn't be there, he is not equipped to be there. It would be a crime if we screwed up their effort."

  He let his head fall back to his hands. His eyes closed.

  Beside him the telephone stayed silent.

  "Prime Minister, they cannot be recalled because they have no radio transmitter/receiver. Each of them, without a radio transmitter/receiver, is carrying in excess of eighty pounds weight. I would hazard that you or I could barely lift eighty pounds weight, let alone walk across country with it."

  The Prime Minister sat in a thick dressing gown before the dead fire in the private sitting room. The Director General had lit his pipe, was careless of the smoke clouds he gusted around the small room.

  "They are not carrying a radio because a radio and reserve batteries would have increased each man's weight burden by at least 10 pounds. In addition, radio transmissions, however carefully disguised, alert an enemy.... Am I permitted to ask you what has under-mined your enthusiasm for this mission?"

  The Prime Minister fumbled for words, stumbled in tiredness. The conversation with the American ambassador was reported. The Prime Minister slumped in the chair.

  "I want them called back."

  "And you cannot have what you want."

  Four o'clock in the morning. The chimes of Big Ben carried on the squalling wind, bending around the great quiet buildings of Whitehall.

  "I was talked into something that I should never have allowed myself to accept."

  "We are an independent country, we are not beholden to the opinions of the United States of America."

  "I was beguiled into something idiotic, by you."

  "You told me that then you would claim my head."

  The Director General had no fear of the head of government. A wintry smile. "Would it be your head you are nervous for?"

  "That's impertinent."

  "Prime Minister, it would distress me to think that the sole reason for your authorising this mission was to enable you to brag to our cousins over the water."

  "You have made me a hostage."

  "To what?"

  "To the fortune, the fate, of these two men. Think of ill think if they are captured, think if they are paraded through Damascus, think what the Syrian regime can make of that, think of the humiliation for us."

  The Director General stabbed the air with his pipe item. "You listen to me. This is nothing to do with point scoring over our American allies, with boasting to the Oval Office.... Listen to me. Your ambassador was assassinated. That would be enough, enough to justify much more destructive a response than this mission, but Miss Jane Canning was one of mine. Miss Jane Canning too was murdered. I do not tolerate the murder of one of mine. The arm of my vengeance reaches to the other side of the hill, reaches to the throat of a wretched man who was stupid enough to murder Miss Jane Canning. Do you hear me, Prime Minister?"

  He towered above the Prime Minister. He glowered into the face of the Prime Minister. He sucked at his pipe. He reached for his matches.

  "How soon will I know?"

  "Whether it is Abu Hamid's head that is on a salver, whether it is my head or yours?" The Director General chuckled. "Three or four days."

  He let himself out. The Prime Minister thought the door closing on his back was like the awakening from a nightmare.

  Exactly an hour before dawn they reached the first lying up position.

  The LUP had been chosen by Crane from the aerial photographs. The photographs of this stretch of upper ground high over the Litani and the village of Yohmor had shown no sign of troop tracks, nor of grazing herds.

  There was a mass of large, jagged wind- and snow-fractured rocks.

  They went past the LUP, moved on another two hundred yards and then looped back in a cautious circle.

  According to Crane's bible, the way to make certain that they were not followed.

  Amongst the rocks Crane helped Holt to ease off the Bergen. For an hour they sat back to back, alert, listening and watching.

  Crane whispered, "I suppose you think you've earned some sleep."

  Holt was too tired to punch him, too exhausted to laugh.

  The dawn came fast, a spreading wash of grey over the rough ridges of Jabal bir ed Dahr. A new morning in Lebanon.

  14

  Abu Hamid stretched, spat onto the dirt floor beside his ramp bed, and shook himself awake.

  The light knifed through the poorly fastened join in the tent flaps. He glanced across the short interior, saw that Fawzi's bed had not been slept on.

  There was never any explanation of Fawzi's coming and going. Abu Hamid spat again, then untied the strings that held the flaps together. He yawned, arcing his head back. He had slept for seven hours and was still exhausted. He had slept but not rested because his mind had turmoiled through the night, scattering thoughts with the drive of an old engine. His mind had clanked with memories spread out over many years of his life.

  The sun beat into the tent. His opening the flaps was a signal for the flies to begin their daily persecution.

  From under his bed he took his personal roll of lavatory paper. He had so little in the world that was his own, he valued his personal lavatory paper so greatly. He set off for the latrine.

  The fire was alight in the cooking area. There was the rich smell of a slowly simmering meat stew, and the dry aroma of cooking bread. He had chosen well with their cook, a good boy who earned his absence from the firing range and from the day-long exercises out on the hill slopes and the wadis. He might make every last one of them a fighter, except the cook. The cook would never be a fighter against Israel, but not one of the other recruits would prepare goat stew like this boy. He deserved to be left to forage for wood, to snare rabbits, to dig out a cold store, to go to the village to buy vegetables. He walked by the cooking area. He dipped a f
inger into the slow-bubbling whirlpool of the pot. He bowed his head, he made a play of his satisfaction, and the cook inclined his head with a wide grin to take the compliment.

  There was a line of recruits waiting outside the latrine's screen. From yards away Abu Hamid could hear the howl of the flies.

  His memories were of what he had been told of the times long past, the times before he had been born, of his grandfather who had been a corn merchant, sufficiently successful to have owned a villa near to the sea in Jaffa, the town that was now called Yafo by the Zionists and which had been swallowed in the spread of Tel Aviv. From the time he was a small child he had been told of his grandfather's home in what was now Israel. His father had told him that the building was now a restaurant serving Italian food. In his family there had been no photographs of the house, but he had been told that the rooms led off a small courtyard that in the times long past had been shaded with a trellis of vines.

  He had told his father once, years back, that he would one day set foot in that house, he would stand in that courtyard or he would die on the route to that house.

  His father had shrugged, muttered the words "if God wills . . . " and kissed his cheek as he had gone away to the ranks of the Popular Front.

  His inherited memory told him that his grandfather and his grandmother, and his father and his mother, and his uncles and his aunts, had been put out of their homes in Jaffa in 1948 when the war had gone against the Arab armies. The house of his grandfather was left behind, the grain storage warehouse in the docks had been forsaken and was plundered to feed the flood of Jewish settlers arriving from Europe.

  Abu Hamid arrived at the line waiting to use the latrine. He went to the front of the line, he stood at the head and he yelled for the recruit inside to stir himself and get out.

  His grandfather and the tribe that he led had settled in a refugee camp on the hills above Jericho in the winter of 1948. He had learned of the hunger and cold and lack of shelter in the camp on the West Bank of the Jordan river, of the lack of funds from the government of the boy king Hussein, of the lack of materials provided by the fledgling relief organisations. His parents had been married in Jaffa, little more than children, his father had worked for his grandfather in the accounts office of the business, but their own first children had not been born until they had reached the damp cold of the refugee camp. He had been told that he had been born in 1960