They moved off.
He was unaware of his shoulder sores and of his heel blister. Holt was aware only of each single, individual footfall.
They bypassed the sleeping village of Aitanit, and the silent village of Bab Maraa, they climbed high to avoid the village of Saghbine where dogs broke the quiet of the night.
Below him to the east was the moon-draped flatness of the floor of the Beqa'a valley. Holt thought of the valley as a noose.
16
In front of him, below him, in brilliant sunshine, lay the valley.
He could see right across to the grey-blue climb of the far wall. In the soft haze it was hard for him to make out clean-cut features in the wall. Behind the rising ground were the jebels that marked the line of the border between Lebanon and Syria. With difficulty, he could make out the far distant bulk of the Hermon range.
Holt and Crane had reached the lying up position in darkness, and Holt had taken the first guard watch, so that he had taken his turn to wrap himself in the lightweight blanket and tried to sleep under the scrim net while the dawn was spreading from the far away hill slopes. Crane must have let him sleep on beyond his hour. They were above the village of Saghbine. Crane had set his LUP in an outcrop of weathered shapeless rock over which the scrim net had been draped. Holt knew that Crane's bible decreed that they should never make a hiding place in isolated, obvious cover, but there was a scalped barrenness about the terrain around them.
The nearest similar outcrop would have been, he estimated, and he found it difficult to make such estimates over this ground, at least a hundred yards from their position. Lying among the rocks, in the filtered shade of the scrim netting, he felt the nakedness of their hiding place. It seemed impossible to him that they should not be seen should an enemy scour the hillside with binoculars. But Crane slept and snored and grunted, like a man for whom danger did not exist. There was mom between these rocks, under the scrim netting, for the two of them only if they were pressed against each other.
Their valley wall, on which jutted the occasional rock outcrop, shelved away to the floor. He could see that the rock of the sides gave way to good soil at the bottom, The fields were neatly laid out, delineated by the differing crops. The valley walls were yellowed, browned, the valley floor was a series of green shades, and Holt could make out the flow of the Litani winding, meandering, in the middle of the valley, and he could see also the straight cut ditches that carried the irrigating life run of water from the river into the fields. He played a game to himself and tried to make out the produce of the handkerchief fields. He could see the posts supporting the vines that were just beginning to show their spring shoots, and the cutback trees of the fruit orchards, and the hoed-between lines of the grain crop, and the more powerful thrusting traces of the marijuana plants, and the white streamers of the plastic tunnels under which the lettuces flourished.
Holt thought that luxury was a warm bath, and a razor, and a tube of toothpaste . . .
What few trees there were, pine or cypress, were in small clumps on the valley floor. He reckoned the village of Saghbine was about a mile away below them. The village was clear enough through the binoculars, but it was hard for him to make out the individual buildings when he relied only on his eyesight. He was interested in the village because in his imagination he exchanged the village houses for the aerial photograph he had seen of the camp, and he tried to imagine how it would be when they came to lie up a thousand yards from the camp. Terrifyingly open . . . If the camp had been where Saghbine was . . . if they had had to manoeuvre to within a thousand yards of Saghbine and rest up through long daylight hours . . . he couldn't see how it could be done.
And Crane, snoring and nestling against him, just slept, slept like tomorrow was another day, another problem.
The village was a sprawled mess of concrete block homes and older stone buildings with a mosque and minaret tower in the centre. The high pitched chanted summons to prayer from the minaret tower reached him.
"Fancy a brew?"
Crane had an eye open. Snoring one moment, thinking of tea the next. Holt thought that Crane might just turn over and give up the ghost if the crop failed in Assam and Sri Lanka.
"Wouldn't mind."
"Done the magazines?"
"Done them."
"What's new?"
"Place is like the grave."
Crane stretched himself full length. Holt heard his joints crack.
"Then you're a danger to me, youngster."
"How come?"
"Because, youngster, when you start thinking the Beqa'a is quiet as the grave then that's the time you start to get careless."
"I just said the place was pretty peaceful, which it is."
Crane took the binoculars. Tea was going to have to wait. Holt bridled, and Crane didn't give a damn.
Crane started by looking south.
"Pretty peaceful, eh, that what I heard? Back where you kicked the stone last night, where they fired the flares, there's troops out there. Pretty blind if you didn't see them, but they're there..."
His head turned, his gaze moved north.
".. .There's a kiddie with some sheep, or didn't you see him? He's a mile back, not much more, he's about four hundred feet below us. He'll be watching for hyena because he's got lambs with him. If he sees anything that adds up to hyena then he'll yell, bet your backside..."
Again the twist of the head. Crane peered down at the village.
"Gang of guys going into the mosque for a knees down, or didn't you see them? They're in fatigues, or didn't you see that? They'll be Hezbollah, or didn't you know that? If the troops find a trail, if that kiddie spots you when you go to scratch your arse, then the God men'll be up here, too damn right."
"I hear you, Mr Crane."
"So, don't go giving me crap about it being quiet."
"It looked quiet."
"Looked? Heh, watch the kiddie..."
Crane passed the binoculars to Holt. He gestured where Holt should look. To himself, Holt cursed. When the boy and the sheep were pointed out he saw them.
Could have kicked himself. The boy with the sheep wore flopping dun-coloured trousers and he had a grey blanket over his shoulders, and the sheep and the lambs were dirty brown-white with black faces. He hadn't seen them, wouldn't have seen them without the prompting.
"I'm sorry."
"Doesn't help you, youngster. Waking up is what helps."
Holt watched the boy with the sheep. It was as if he were dancing to the music of a flute. Private dancing, because the boy was sure that he was not watched. The boy tripped in the air, and his arms circled above his head, skipping from foot to foot, bowing to something imaginary.
Crane whispered, "If he stops his act, if he starts running, then I get the shits. Do I piss you off, youngster?"
Holt grinned, "Why should you do that?"
"I'll give you a lecture. The troops back there, they hate you. The kiddie with the sheep, he hates you. The guys in the mosque, they hate you. Out here, I'm the only one on your side. Don't get a clever idea that somehow because you're a Brit, because you're not Yank and not Jew, that the troops and the kiddie don't hate you. Our problem was, before we came here in '82, that we never worked out just how much they'd hate us.
When they started to mess with us we kicked their arses, we blew up their houses, we carted their guys away to prison camps. They hate us pretty deep. They're dangerous because they've this martyr crap stuck in their skulls, aren't afraid of biting on a .762 round. Fight them and you're in a no win, you kill them and you've sent them to the Garden of Paradise which they don't object to. They go in hard. Kill 'em, and more come, there are more queuing up to get to that Garden. They made our life a three-year misery for sinners when we were in the Beqa'a. They sniped us, they mined us, they never let go of us. Bombing them is the same as recruiting them. And they don't fight by your nice rules.
When I'm in the Beqa'a I forget everything, every last thing, that I learned ab
out Hearts and Minds when I was in the British Paras. Treat each last one like he's an enemy, like he wants your throat, that's what I learned here. Don't ever hesitate, just kill, because they have no fear. The girl with the donkey, she had no f e a r . . . "
"Do you have fear, Mr Crane?"
"Only when I've got you hanging on my tail, telling me it's all peaceful."
The chanting from the minaret had stopped. In the fields work was resuming. Holt could see the women with their hoes, forks, spades, shovels.
Crane grabbed the binoculars from Holt.
He gazed down at the approach road into Saghbine.
He seemed to smile.
There was a billow of dust on the road. Crane passed the binoculars back to Holt.
Holt saw the car with the dust streaming from its wheels.
"Don't ever forget what that car looks like."
"Why?"
"Because I say don't ever forget that car."
The car was an ancient Mercedes. Holt thought it not much less than a miracle that it still moved. The panels were rusty ochre. The front wing looked to have been in an argument. There were white smears of filler in the roof. He could see packing cases in the back, that the seats behind the driver had been stripped out. At his angle he could not see the face of the driver, only the width of his gut.
"I see the car."
"About time you learned how to make a brew. Get on with it."
The phone trilled on Major Zvi Dan's desk. Rebecca picked it up.
She listened, she passed it to him.
She saw the annoyance, because he liked to be told first who was calling him.
"Dan here . . . What name? Percy Martins. Yes, I am aware of the presence of Percy Martins at Kfar Giladi
... What do you mean, is he sensitive? . . . No, I will merely confirm that he is sensitive, but also that his role in Israel cannot be regarded as the legitimate business of the Shin Bet . . . I don't believe you . . . You have to be joking . . . I had a flight for this evening but I'll drive . . . listen, listen, everything to do with that man is sensitive . . . three hours."
He replaced the telephone. His head sank into his hands.
Rebecca looked at him. "Is it bad?"
"Unbelievable." As though the wound were personal to Major Zvi Dan.
"Is it bad for the young man?"
"The roof is falling in on him."
Mid-morning, and Percy Martins lay in the bed in his darkened room. He had bawled out the woman who had come to clean and change his bedclothes, sent her packing. He had ignored his wake-up call. There was a drumbeat behind his temples. He knew there was a calamity in the air, couldn't place the source of it. He seemed to think that if he got up and washed and shaved and dressed, then he would get to the bottom of the catastrophe . . . and he didn't want to. He shirked the discovery.
While he remained in his room, while he lay in his pyjamas, he was unaware that a man from Shin Bet sat on a chair beside the staircase where he could look down the corridor, watch the door of Percy Martins's room. -
A quiet morning in the N O R B A T sector.
The troops had checked and searched only four cars and two cartloads of market produce in the previous three hours. The sun was sprawled in the skies, a lethargy hung over the road block, shimmer burnished up from the roadway. Two of the Norwegians dozed in the oven area under the tin roof that topped their sandbagged position, a third played patience at the lightweight table beside the entrance to the position.
Hendrik Olaffson, smartly turned out in a freshly laundered uniform, carried his NATO self-loading rifle easily on the bend of his elbow. He stared up the road.
He watched the bend. He waited to see if the traveller would come to visit.
He realised they had taken a diversion.
The driver of the jeep turned frequently to give the l ace of Abu Hamid a sharp glance, as though he was the possessor of a private joke. The driver had few teeth. A grin for Abu Hamid to see, and foul breath seeping through the gaps above and below the few there were.
Abu Hamid was not familiar enough with Damascus to know where they went. He would not ask why they had taken a diversion from the usual roads they used to get from the Beirut road across the city to Air Force headquarters, would not give the bastard the satisfaction.
They were in narrow streets. Abu Hamid thought the driver a lunatic. He had the belt on, and that had been a sign of fear, and he knew that he would be ignored if he asked the bastard to go more slowly, or to pay heed to the pedestrians and cyclists. He would just give the bastard pleasure if he told him to pay attention to the traffic signs.
In surges that shook Abu Hamid, lurched him forward against the belt, the jeep hammered down narrow streets, scattered women with their shopping bags, grazed a cart drawn by a ragged, thin horse.
They came into a square. The square seemed over-hung, squashed in, by the buildings around. It was a dark square because the buildings were tall and cut out the sun. Abu Hamid thought that only at the middle of the day would the sun fall into the cobbled centre of the square. There were balconies at many levels of the surrounding buildings, with washing suspended from them, and the stucco facades were peeled raw.
He felt the tug at his sleeve. He realised the driver had slowed. He saw the squinted amusement in the driver's eyes. The driver jabbed with the nicotined tip of his finger, showed Abu Hamid that he should look to the centre of the square.
He was not prepared.
He retched, choked, he tried to swallow down the bile that pitched into his mouth.
There were three men suspended from the gallows beam.
It was late morning. There was the bustle of traffic, and the cries of the hawkers, and the shouts of the traders, and there were three men hanging from three ropes from the scaffold. Their heads were hooded, their arms were pinioned behind their backs, their ankles were tied with rope. He knew they were men because under the long white robes in which they were draped he could see the ends of their trousers, and he could see also that they wore men's shoes. There was no movement in the three bodies because no freshness of wind could enter the confines of the square. Fastened to the robes on each man was a large black painted sign.
The driver split his face in a delighted grin.
"You like it?"
"Who are they?"
"Can you not read?"
"Who are they?"
"They are Iraqis."
"What did they do?"
"Who knows what they did? They were accused of
'jeopardising state security to the Israeli enemy'. They are Iraqis, they let off bombs in Damascus, they killed many people..."
The jeep idled past the rough cut, fresh wood gallows.
Abu Hamid stared. He saw that the shoe lace of one man was undone, that his shoe was all but falling from his foot. A fast flash thought for Abu Hamid. He saw a man in terror, crouched on the floor of a cell. He heard the tramp of feet in a passageway. He felt the shame of a man who was to be taken out to be hanged in a public square and whose fingers would not allow the small dignity of retying his shoe lace.
" . . . That is what I heard, that they set bombs in the city. The government says they are agents of Israel.
Who am I to say they are not? They were hanged at dawn. You like to see it?"
The driver chuckled. Abu Hamid saw the stains at the groin of each man. Abu Hamid nodded dumbly.
"It is good," the driver said. "It is not often that they hang the enemies of the state where we can see them. It should be more often . . . "
The driver slammed his foot down onto the clutch, went up through his gears. He hit the horn.
They went fast out of the square. Within a few minutes they were back into the system of wide boulevards that were the public face of Damascus. They were heading for the air ministry headquarters.
"Did Major Said Hazan give orders that I was to be brought this way, that I was to see them?"
Abu Hamid saw the black tooth gaps, and the yell
owed stumps, and he heard the cackle of the driver's mirth.
"Ourselves, we are not sure of him," the Brother said.
"He has proven himself."
"We are not certain of his determination."
Major Said Hazan wriggled in his chair. He fancied he could still feel the sharpness of her nails in the skin at the small of his back. The skin on his back and down over his buttocks was of an especial sensitivity, because it was from there that the surgeons had taken the live tissue for grafting onto the uncovered flesh of his face. "He was the top student in Simferopol, and in the military academy he showed us the extent of his determination."
The Brother shrugged. It was many years since the Popular Front had been able to take decisions for themselves.
"If you are certain..."
"It is what I have decided."
Major Said Hazan went to the door of his office. In the outer office he saw the young Palestinian sitting with his head drooped. He thought the young man seemed tired.
He made his pretence of a welcoming smile, he waved Abu Hamid into his office.
"You had a good journey, Hamid?"
"I had a good journey," Abu Hamid muttered.
"You saw the sights of Damascus?"
"I saw the hanged bodies."
Major Said Hazan stretched out his arms, rolled his shoulders. "We are like an old city, Hamid, with enemies at every gate, but if we are ruthless in our struggle our enemies will never scale our walls nor force our gates. Please, Hamid, be seated." Major Said Hazan took from a cabinet refrigerator a chilled bottle of fruit juice and poured it for Abu Hamid. He went back to his desk, he took from a drawer the plan of the Defence Ministry on Kaplan, and spread it over the surface of the desk. With the heel of the hand that had no fingers he smoothed the plan flat.
"You are a fortunate young man, Hamid. You have been chosen ahead of others. You have been chosen to strike a great blow for your p e o p l e . . "
The Brother said, "We ask you to lead an attack into Israel."
Major Said Hazan watched the young man's jaw tremble. He saw that the soles of his boots fretted on the pile of the carpet.
At Close Quarters Page 29