There was a syrup in the voice of Major Said Hazan,
"You hesitate, Hamid, of course you hesitate. You wonder to yourself, are your shoulders sufficiently broad to carry the weight of such responsibility? Your immediate concern is whether you have the competence to carry out a mission of this importance . . . Hamid, because you hesitate there might be others who would take such hesitation as a mark of cowardice, not I. Hamid, it is I who have faith in you. I could not believe that you have less courage than a girl child who would walk against her enemy with a donkey and with explosives."
He saw Abu Hamid's eyes waver, stray to the Brother.
"I would refuse to believe that you had less courage than had Mohammed and Ibrahim, chosen by yourself, for the glory of carrying a bomb onto the Jerusalem b u s . . . "
He saw that the young man now held his head in his hands.
" . . . Look at me, Hamid, look at my face. I carry the scars of being in the front line of the struggle against Israel. I would not be amongst those who might say that because you hesitate you do not have the courage to follow where I lead..."
He saw Abu Hamid's head rise. He held him, eye to eye.
"I know, Hamid, that the money draft of the Central Bank of Syria has never been cashed. I know, too, that in the presence of the orphans of the Palestine revolution you pledged your loyalty to the struggle..."
He saw Abu Hamid's eyes gape open. He saw the confusion spread.
"Because I know everything of you, I have chosen you."
"We ask you to lead an assault against the Defence Ministry of the Zionist state," the Brother said.
"You would go from here to the bed of your girl.
You are the modern day inheritor of the mantle of the Assassins, Hamid. You are honoured amongst your equals, you are loved by the weak and the young and the aged who cannot fight, but who stand behind you, who pray for you."
"We have to have your answer, Hamid," the Brother said.
"You would go from the bed of your girl, from the perfume of her body . . . There is a clear choice, Hamid.
Either you are worthy of the love of your people, or you are branded a coward. You would not prove me wrong, Hamid, I who have trusted you."
Major Said Hazan saw the trance in the eyes of Abu Hamid. He knew that he had won. He wondered why the shit scared bastard took so long to clear away his hesitation. It did not concern him that Abu Hamid would be shit scared when he led his squad against the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv. No way out, no escape then, a rat under a boot, and the rat would fight. The rat would claw and bite for survival. Shit scared was desperate, shit scared was good. He thought the boy would fight well.
"I will," Abu Hamid said.
It was over. Major Said Hazan said that the Brother could take Abu Hamid for an initial planning briefing, that he should stay the night in Damascus, that he should return to the camp in the Beqa'a and choose ten men who would accompany him into Israel.
Major Said Hazan turned briskly back to his desk. "I have work," he said curtly.
He had eaten only bread in the last 24 hours, he had drunk only water. He was moved in the black boot of a car, his eyes hidden in darkness by the hood, every few hours. He spoke no Arabic, so he did not understand the low voices of his captors. Heinrich Gunter, trussed, strapped, blind, had long since ceased to concern himself with the outside world, the world beyond the boot of a car and the basement of a building. He no longer thought of his wife and his children, nor the actions of his government, nor the position that his bank would have taken. If his hands had been free, if his tie had still been around his throat collar, he would have attempted to end his life. He knew enough to recognise that he was the classic kidnap victim. He was the man who had disregarded the warnings, who had thought that he had arranged the safe passage into the city.
Rolling painfully in the boot of the car Gunter knew the pit depths of despair. He could think of no corner into which he could crawl in his mind, where he would find comfort. He could think of no power to help him.
Into the coarse material of the hood he sobbed his tears. He had seen on the television back at home the photographs of the men held hostage. Cheerful, smiling faces from family snapshots and company archives of journalists and business men and priests and academics.
He had also seen the photographs of those few who had returned from captivity, haunted men whose cheeks had sunk and whose eyes were buried in dark sockets. The rare few who had been brought out to freedom.
But Gunter no longer cared about the many who were held, or the few who had been freed. He did not believe in the possibility of freedom, he believed only in the blessing of death.
In the middle of the day, when the car had halted, bumped off a road, he was given food. The hood was lifted an inch or two. Bread was fed to him, given him in small pieces, each piece replaced when he had chewed and swallowed.
He had no idea where he might be, what part of Lebanon he was in, and it did not seem to him to matter.
Holt played the chef. It had been a bit of a joke between them that Holt had been allowed to plan the menu for the main meal of the day.
His gut ached with hunger. More of Crane's bible.
The bible said it was good to be hungry. If you were hungry you weren't drowsy. If you were drowsy you were halfway to being ambushed.
Crane sat under the scrim netting with his legs folded and his back straight and the binoculars at his face. Holt was on his hands and knees over the hexamine tablets heating in their frame, and on the frame the canteen of water boiled. Crane's bible said that the hexamine tablets were the only source of fire they could use, anything else would give off a smoke signature and a smell signature. Two tablets the size of the firelighter pieces that his mother used at home to get the sitting room logs alight.
They were going to have a hell of a good meal. Had to be a good meal. God alone knew where they would be in 24 hours' time. Overlooking the camp, that's where they should be all through tomorrow, watching for Abu Hamid on the binoculars. Crane's plan said they should go for a dusk shot. Holt couldn't imagine having much room for stewing up a meal, or much appetite for it, when the time was getting close for action with the Model PM. So a good meal, that afternoon, a long rummage round the Bergen for the ration packs, all that was choice and best in the sachets.
Holt heard the low whistle between Crane's teeth. He looked, he saw Crane had the binoculars away from his lace, that his lower lip was bitten white by his upper teeth. Crane saw Holt's attention, relaxed his mouth, returned the binoculars to his eyes. Holt looked away.
It wasn't the first time, nor the second nor the third that Holt could recall the sight of screwed up pain on Crane's forehead, in Crane's eyes, at Crane's mouth.
He looked away. He didn't want to look into Crane's face because he was afraid.
It was the best menu he could manage.
Not a prawn cocktail or marinated mackerel for hors d'oeuvre, but a sachet of izotonic powder mixed with water to give a lemon-tasting vitamin boost. Not a bisque or a consomme for the soup course, but a short and stubby stick of peperone to chew. Not steak and chips or lamb cutlets for entree, but the boiling water into the plastic sac that held the dehydrated chicken and rice flakes. Not a strawberry flan or a sherry trifle for dessert, but a granola cereal bar that seemed to explode and expand and bulge the mouth full. Not coffee to wash it down, but a brew with a teabag. And a piece of chewing gum to wind up the feast. That added up, Holt reckoned, to a hell of a meal.
He had the powder ready mixed, he had the peperone laid out, he had the granolas ready. When he had mixed the chicken and rice they could get stuck in while the water heated for the tea bags.
Holt looked up. He saw Crane's head, bowed, his eyes closed tight. Shouldn't have bloody looked...
"Dinner is served, Mr Crane."
He saw the face snap back to life, saw Crane grin, as if there was no problem.
"Brilliantly done, young Holt."
They ate. Hol
t was learning from watching Crane.
The izotonic drained, and the sachet held upside down over the mouth for the drips, and the peperone lingeringly held on the tongue for the spice taste, and the fingers wiping the remnants of the chicken and rice from the sides of the canteen, the tea drunk.
"What's your problem, Mr Crane?"
Crane twisted his head, as if he were caught on the wrong foot. "I've got no problem."
"Give it to me."
"Being in fucking Lebanon, is that a problem ... ?"
"If you've got a problem then I've a right to know."
Crane snarled, "Being here with you, that's enough of a problem."
"Mr Crane, we are together and you are in pain. It seems to me you have a pain in your eyes . . . "
"Get the canteens cleaned, get the rubbish stowed."
"If you have a problem with your eyes then I have to help."
Crane was close to him. Holt saw the anger in his face.
"How are you going to help?"
Holt shook his head. "I don't know, but I . . . "
"What do I need eyes for?"
"For everything."
"To shoot, crap kid. I need eyes to shoot. I need eyes that can put me into five inches at a thousand yards."
"What is it with your eyes?"
Crane slumped back. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, like he was trying to gouge something out of them. "Disease of the retina."
"Can you shoot?"
"I shot at the road block."
"You had two hits at the road block."
"I don't know why, truly. Okay, I had two hits, but she wasn't going anywhere. I suppose it didn't matter.
Perhaps that's why I had the hits . . . "
"Is that why you took the job, for the money, for treatment?"
"There's a place in Houston. They have a one in five success rate, that's one more than anywhere else. It's my shooting eye, youngster."
"Mr Crane, if you can't shoot, then what's going to happen?"
Holt looked into Crane's right eye. He saw the blood red veins creeping towards the iris.
"Bet your life, Holt, I'll shoot one last time."
Holt wiped out the canteens. He cleared up the rubbish and put it in the plastic bag. He rubbed down the Model PM and the Armalite. He changed the ammunition rounds in the magazines. He felt the light had gone out. He smeared insect repellent cream onto his cheeks and his throat and onto the backs of his hands. He felt that he had been tricked. He took off his boots and peeled down his socks so that he could renew the plasters across his blister. They had given him a man who was over the hill. He let a glucose tablet dissolve in his mouth. He had gone into the Beqa'a with a marksman whose sight was failing. That was a good laugh.
"It's worse, isn't it, worse than it's been before?"
Crane nodded.
Inside the perimeter of the base camp at Kiryat Shmona, in a position far removed from the sight of the camp's main gate, were the prefabricated offices used by the Shin Bet. In previous times the principal occupation of the Israeli internal security apparatus had been to watch over the Arab population of the West Bank of the Jordan river. Since the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the main thrust of Shin Bet work had been in the northern frontier and the security zone. Building had not kept pace with the development of the new and onerous duties.
It was as if the prefabricated, sectionalised buildings represented a pious hope that the diversion of resources to matters affecting Lebanon was merely temporary. A hope only. The men of the Shin Bet found their resources absorbed by the fierce thirst for violence and revenge among the Shi'a villagers of the security zone and the countryside to the north. There was no sign that the crowded offices in the base camp would in the near future be emptying.
Major Zvi Dan had left Rebecca outside, left her to sit in the afternoon sunshine on a concrete step. He was in a cubbyhole of a room with three officials of the Shin Bet. He brooded miserably that in their temporary quarters they had failed to install a halfway decent coffee machine.
He was hellishly tired from the drive out of Tel Aviv.
" . . . So that is the situation, Major, concerning the Norwegian soldier and the situation concerning the Briton, Martins."
"Martins is mine."
"The case of Private Olaffson is a very delicate matter."
"I don't know what you do. While he is in the U N I F I L area we have no jurisdiction over him, and the U N I F I L command will not respond favourably to a request that he be interrogated."
The senior Shin Bet man tidied his papers together.
"This Olaffson, he drove the two Popular Front bombers to Tel Aviv?"
"Confirmed."
"He knew their mission?"
"Probably not, but he would have to have assumed that they were heading towards a terrorist target."
"Then Private Olaffson will have to discover at first hand what is a terrorist target."
Major Zvi Dan was passed the report compiled by the two agents who had tailed Olaffson to the guest house of the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, who had sat in the bar, who had listened to the conversation between the Norwegian soldier and a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service.
He read fast. He winced.
"Martins I will deal with."
"Friend, you are a warrior of the cause of freedom."
"I only tell you what I heard."
"Repeat it for me, friend."
"He said, 'How did you know about an infiltration team moving off last night?', that was what he said."
Hendrik Olaffson spelled it out. He spoke slowly. He gave time for the traveller to write the words on a sheet of paper.
The traveller put away his paper. He took the hands of the young man and he kissed him on each cheek.
"It is worth something?"
"It is worth much," the traveller said. "We will show you our gratitude."
When he had gone, the four soldiers at the checkpoint huddled together. They talked about quantity, they talked of the monies that could be charged for the quantity of hashish that would be supplied as a matter of gratitude.
Far away across the valley, invisible amongst scrub bushes, a photographer bent over the camera on which was mounted a 2000 mm lens and carefully extracted a roll of film.
Martins had made himself a prisoner in his room, he had not drawn the curtains back. Through the centre gap he had seen the start of the day and the middle of the day and then the end of the day. It was dark now and he had abandoned his unmade bed and sat crosslegged on the floor, his back against the furthest wall from the door. He knew they would come for him.
He wore his suit trousers and his shirt and his socks, and he had not shaved. Though he had eaten nothing during the day he felt no hunger. He was cocooned in pity for himself.
When there came the knock at the door he flinched.
Not the chambermaid's inquiring tap, but the thump of a closed fist on the door panel.
He didn't reply.
He watched as the door crashed open, and as the man whose shoulder had been against it lurched into the room. The man wore a leather jacket, scuffed at the wrist and the elbows. He knew the man from somewhere, his jaded memory could not tell him from where. There was another man framed in the doorway. Slowly, Martins pushed himself upright. There were no words necessary. Martins went to his disturbed bed and bent to find his shoes. He wondered if they knew yet at Century. He wondered how many of them would be celebrating his fall from grace.
He walked to the door. As they moved into the corridor the man who wore the leather jacket laid his hand on the sleeve of Martins's shirt and he shook it away.
There was one of the men ahead of him and one behind. He walked free of them. He felt a great tiredness, a great sadness. They went out into the fresh air, onto the fire escape. Martins understood. If he had been the man in the leather jacket he would have done the same.
He was driven to the base camp at Kiryat Shmona There was a standard proced
ure used. He had ducked into the back seat of the car and been waved across towards the far door. He knew the door would have a locking device. The man with the leather jacket sat beside him. He thought that this was the way a traitor or a dangerous criminal or a sex offender would be dealt with. He stared straight ahead of him. He shook his head when the man in the leather jacket offered him a cigarette.
Once in the camp he was taken into a small, bare room. He sat at a table. He stared across the surface of the table at Major Zvi Dan. Two men sitting on hard chairs separated from each other by a narrow plastic-topped table. He heard the door close behind him.
Martins thought he had never stared into eyes so filled with contempt.
"Are we to be taped?"
"Of course."
"I don't think that's really appropriate."
"Mr Martins, in your position you should not presume to tell me what is appropriate."
"I should not be treated as an enemy agent." He felt the confidence slowly ebbing back to him. He sat straighter in his chair.
"That is how we view you."
"That's preposterous."
Major Zvi Dan spoke very quietly, he spoke as though he were nervous that he might lose control of his temper.
"You have behaved like an enemy agent. You have endangered lives."
"Rubbish. I was merely foolish. I drank too much."
"You endangered the lives of Holt and Noah Crane and at the very least you put their mission at risk."
"Quite ludicrous. I was drunk, men get drunk. I was indiscreet, it happens. Whatever I said would have been gobbledygook to that Scandinavian, he wouldn't have understood a word of it."
"You passed information of vital importance to the enemy."
"The enemy?" Martins snorted. "Your sense of the theatrical does you credit, Major. I was talking merely to a private soldier of the N O R B A T . . . "
"To an agent of the enemy." There was the appearance on Major Zvi Dan's face that he thought he was talking to an idiot, a retarded creature. He spelled out each word. "A bomb exploded in the central bus station in Tel Aviv, you may remember. Holt and Crane will not have forgotten. Two terrorists were responsible.
At Close Quarters Page 30