The terrorists travelled into Israel via the Beqa'a valley in Lebanon . . . "
"Don't give me a yesterday's newspaper lecture."
" . . . in Lebanon. They were brought through the U N I F I L sector, through the security zone, across the border, hidden in United Nations transport."
"So?"
"Your private soldier drove that transport."
"God . . . " The breath seeped from Percy Martins.
"Your private soldier, to whom you confided the existence of an infiltration team, is an agent of the enemy."
"Christ . . . " Martins slumped. He felt the looseness in his bowels, a feebleness in his legs. "I don't suppose
. . . he didn't understand . . . "
"It is our belief that the information you provided him with is already en route to Damascus."
Martins said, "You cannot know that."
With great deliberation, Major Zvi Dan lifted from the floor a brown paper envelope. From the envelope he spread out on the table a series of photographs.
His finger settled on one, and he pushed it towards Martins.
Martins saw the back of the head of the UNIFIL
private soldier. He saw a man leaning forward to kiss the cheek of Olaffson.
"It is how they show their gratitude," Major Zvi Dan said.
"I couldn't have had any idea," Martins said.
"You were drunk, you knew nothing." The savage reply.
"What can I do?"
"If you are not too proud to pray, you can pray. You came here in your naivete to play a game of political chess. You came here to further your career. Now all you can do is to pray for the lives of the men you have criminally endangered."
"Will you tell them in London?"
"That they sent an idiot here? Maybe they are all idiots in London, maybe they all seek to play games."
"What do you propose to do with me?"
"You will be confined in the camp area, where you can do no further damage."
"And afterwards?"
"Afterwards you will live with your shame."
"What have I done?"
"You have confirmed to the Syrians that there is a mission. You have told the Syrians of British interest in that mission. If the Syrians can make an equation between the mission and the killings at Yalta then they will know the target. They will remove the target from view, and also they will ambush your man and my man.
If the Syrians make the equation then the mission is lost, our men are lost."
Martins murmured, "God, I am so sorry."
"Pray that the Syrians are as idiotic as you are .
Myself, I do not think it likely."
There was the scratching of Major Zvi Dan's chair as he stood up. The door opened. The two men led Martins away to confinement, his head sagging.
They had studied the map, they had covered the trail they would use and the position of the rally points.
"How long tonight?"
"Eight hours."
"And then the camp?"
"In eight hours we should be above the camp, youngster."
"How are the eyes?"
"Just stick to worrying about yourself, whether you'll recognise the target. I don't need your worry."
"You should come back with me, Mr Crane, afterwards, back to England."
"You talk too much, Holt."
"I've done nothing in my life. If I'd done everything you've done in your life there's nothing I'd want more than to go away, bury myself, live on the moor, walk beside the rivers, know the peace of where I live. I haven't earned that peace, Mr Crane. You have."
"Is it that good there?" Crane asked.
"You could walk free. The animals are free, the people are free, the light and the air are wonderful. No rifles, no fighter bombers, no bloody minefields, you deserve that peace, Mr Crane. Will you think about it?"
"Might just."
They had the Bergens high on their backs. Holt let Crane get fifteen yards ahead, then moved out after him.
The start of the last night march.
As a matter of routine, Major Said Hazan received in the early evening a report covering the previous 24-hour period as prepared by army headquarters at Chtaura.
He read every detail of the report, as he always did. Far down in the list he read that a patrol in position west and south of the Beqa'a village of Aitanit had fired flares in response to unidentified movement further west of them. The report stated that a follow-up search in daylight centred on an animal track, but had failed to provide evidence that would justify further sweep searches of the area.
The major went to his wall map. He put a red-headed pin into the map over the area of the U N I F I L sector through which it had been reported that an infiltration had been made. He drove in another red-headed pin at the point of the unconfirmed contact with the patrol.
He stood back. He extended a line from the infiltration point to the supposed contact. They were going north, the shortest possible route into the foothills on the west side of the Beqa'a.
In the valley, marked on his map, were the camps of 18 different Syrian army concentrations, and in addition the camps of the Popular Front, the Democratic Popular Front, the Abu Moussa faction, the Sai'iqa group, the Popular Struggle Front. There were also the villages used by the Hezbollah, and the houses occupied by the men of Islamic Jihad. There were the communities that played host to the revolutionary guards who had sat in the Beqa'a unmoving after their despatch from Iran. In all, indicated on his map, there were 43 locations that could prove of interest to an infiltration team of the enemy.
At the moment he was helpless. But he was a man of patience.
In the camp the cook's fire guttered. The cook thought that in the morning he would use the last of his wood to prepare the breakfast, that he would spend the morning scavenging for more.
17
It was a crisp, sharp night.
The heat of the day had dissipated into the rocky slopes. In the night there was a fresh wind that caught at the sweat that ran in rivers on the throat and chest of young Holt. The pace of the night march was no greater and no less than it had been on the two previous nights, but he sweated, as he thought, like a pig. The pace of the night march remained, give or take a few yards or a few minutes, at one mile in one hour. The going should have been easier because each man was lighter from the consumption of water, close to a half of the water had been used, but still he sweated in the cool of the night march. He felt as if, along with the perspiration, the strength oozed from his body. When they
reached there, when they were on the high ground overlooking the tent camp, Holt thought he would be reduced to a wrung out rag. There were no more kicked stones, there were no cracked twig branches, there was no scuffling through sun crisped leaves. Each step was concentration, each short checked stride was care.
Crane was a shape ahead of him. It was a blurred shape that only came to life at the rally points when Crane stopped and squatted and Holt reached him to slump beside him. They did not speak at the first rally points of the night. They sat and allowed their leg muscles to soften and Holt let his mind wander from the concentration and care and exhaustion of the march.
There were no words, no whispers, because Holt did not have to be told that they were now deep behind the lines. It was all in his head, it had all been told him and was remembered. They were moving north on the hill slopes between the valley floor and the peaks of the Jabal al Barouk. On the Jabal al Barouk was a state-of-the-art Soviet-built complex of radar dishes and antennae manned by the Syrian air force. Sensitive country. The dishes and antennae were protected from surprise attack. Scattered round the air defence and signals listening equipment would be, according to Crane's bible text, the GS-13 divisional level surveillance radars operating from 50 kW power packs and with a twelve kilometre competence to detect personnel and a 25 kilometre range for seeing the movement of vehicles.
Moving on the slopes above the valley and below the installation
s on the summit of Jabal al Barouk, Crane led Holt in darted spurts as a sailor would tack before the wind. They changed the angle of their progress every fifty, sixty, yards, as if by that manoeuvre Crane believed he could throw the attention of a drowsing ground surveillance radar screen operator. Of course, it would have been faster to have moved lower down onto the gentler slopes of the valley sides, but Crane had explained at the last lying up position that further behind the Syrian positions the risk increased of blundering into mine fields, of drifting into the wadis where the anti-personnel mines would be set around the heavy pressure anti-armour concentrations. That night, on the marches between the rally points, Holt learned much.
He learned of the methods of evasion from the dishes of ground surveillance radar, and of the way in which the cover of the terrain could be used to prevent discovery of their progress at the hands of thermal imagery equipment. He learned of the hazard of a low flying aircraft, droning above them without even navigation lights, when Crane had plotted the aircraft's path and scuttled to get clear of its flight line in case it carried infra-red targetting screens.
They moved on. Holt could not assess the threat. He could only remember the warnings that had been given him in a gravel whisper before they had left the lying up position. They lurched from rally point to rally point. The exhaustion spread through Holt's legs, through his back, through his shoulders. His recovery in the short breaks at the rally points became steadily less restorative.
He understood why the exhaustion seeped through him . . . He was helpless . . . He was led on and on by a man with disease clawing at the retina of his right eye.
He was with a marksman who had taken a contract in order to finance a one in five chance operation to reverse the decline in the sight of the shooting eye. He himself was blind, his king's good eye was done for . . . and he had to live with it. In the first part of that night's march, up to the first rally point, he had felt a bursting anger towards Crane. The anger was gone, knocked away by the tiredness in his legs, the soreness of his feet. He felt a sort of sympathy. But it was bloody pointless, feeling sympathy for Crane. Sympathy was no salve for the disease in the retina.
They went west and high to bypass the village of Ain Zebde. They would climb to avoid the village town of Khirbet Qanafar. Beyond the glow of Khirbet Qanafar, two and a half miles ahead, they would come down the hill slope until they overlooked the tent camp.
It was late into the evening.
The city was a mysterious place of flickering headlights and of candle-thrown shadows.
Another power cut in Damascus. The cutting of the electricity supplies was more frequent that month, a cut that would last five hours and there was nothing remarkable in that. The traffic moved through a wraith like haze of exhaust fumes. The cafes were lit by the wavering flames of the candles. Abu Hamid saw that few of the cafes had lanterns lit. There was a shortage of oil for the power station, also a shortage of paraffin lor the public.
His mind was bent by the weight of detail forced upon him by the Brother. Through the afternoon, through the rvening, he had listened and attempted to absorb the attack plan against the Defence Ministry on Kaplan as described to him by the Brother. He had been allowed to write nothing down, everything he had been told had to be committed to memory. He knew the numbers of the men involved. He knew the fire power they would carry. He knew the harbour from Cyprus out of which he would sail, he knew the times of the tide changes that would dictate the time of sailing. He knew the speed at which the coastal tramp ship would travel. He knew of the diversionary tactic that had been planned to draw away the patrolling missile boats. He knew of the two closed vans that sympathisers would drive to the shore line at Palmahim, south of Tel Aviv. He knew of the driving time from the shore line to the buildings on Kaplan. He knew of the defences of the ministry complex.
Through the cacophony of the horns, through the darkened traffic lights, through the swirling crowds of the souq , the jeep pressed its way towards the alley.
The jeep shuddered to a halt. The headlights lit a drover who flailed at the back of a horse that refused to pull further a cart laden with vegetables. From the way the horse refused to ground its left front hoof, Abu Hamid thought the horse to be lame. The jeep driver was shouting at the drover. The drover was shouting at his horse. He slipped open his door. He slammed the door shut after him. He was gone into the night, into the flow of the crowds. He was no longer the Palestinian who had been chosen to sail onto the beach at Palmahim which was south of the city of Tel Aviv. He was no longer the man on whose forehead the spot of the martyr had been painted. He could have turned, he could have cut into the narrow lanes. He could have fled. He was a moth, the alley was the lamp, the woman was the light.
When he knocked at the door, she opened it to him.
She wore the loose dress of an Arab woman.
He saw the soft whiteness of the skin on her throat.
He saw the curved fullness of her breasts and of her hips.
He saw the hands that reached for his face in welcome.
She was Margarethe Anneliese Schultz.
At Wiesbaden in the Federal Republic of Germany, in the computerised records section of the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz, the printout directly relating to her history, biography and activities would, on a continuous roll of paper, stretch to 235 inches. That part of the Federal Internal Security Office devoted in its work to the destruction of urban guerrilla movements inside the state was indeed familiar with Margarethe Anneliese Schultz.
She was now 33 years of age. She had been born the only daughter of a pastor serving a small community a few kilometres to the north of Munich. As an only daughter she had been a spoilt and privileged child.
Early in her life she had learned the art of winning her way either by tantrums or by sweet smiles. Within the budget of her parents' household her every whim had been granted.
Excellent grades in her final school examinations led to her admission as a student of social sciences to the Free University of West Berlin. Her father had a married cousin living in the city. Her father had believed that it would be a good thing for the young girl to continue her education away from home, while at the same time remaining under the eye of the family. It had been the summer of 1974 when Margarethe Anneliese Schultz had left home with her two suitcases to take a train to Frankfurt, and another train to West Berlin.
That late summer the Federal Republic recovered from the excesses brought on by victory in the World Cup soccer tournament, and awaited the death of a judge shot dead at his front door, and the death of Holger Meins from self-inflicted starvation, and the sentencing of Ulrike Meinhof.
From the day they waved their goodbye, as the long distance express train pulled away from the platform at Munich's Hauptbahnhof, Doktor and Frau Schultz had not set eyes on their beloved daughter. One letter only had been received by them, written a week after her arrival in West Berlin. Margarethe Anneliese Schultz had within a month of her arrival in West Berlin dropped out of her course, dropped into underground cover. She had been recruited into a cell of a Red Army faction that sought to revive the drive of armed insur-rection on behalf of an oppressed proletariat as first initiated by Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin and Holger Meins.
In a world of heady excitement she became a part of the small core of revolutionaries living in sympathisers'
apartments, stretching her legs to the newest young man who carried a Firebird 9 mm Parabellum pistol, eating in restaurants on the proceeds of bank robberies, moving in stolen BMWs and Mercedes saloons.
Her parents had reported her missing to the Munich city police.
Eight months after she had left them, men of the
"P0P0", the political police, had called on the pastor.
had interviewed him in the living room of his home, and after 35 minutes had left him in prayer on his knees and with the comfort of his wife.
The pastor's daughter was a bank ro
bber. The pastor's sweet child had driven the getaway car from a robbery in which a policeman had been fatally shot.
The pastor's angel was on the list of those hunted by the political police, the criminal police and the security police.
Her induction had been through a working circle, photography. It had been her initial role to photograph targets for assassination, targets for bombing. Her hand was steady. Her photographs were crystal sharp in focus. The years passed. The Red Army faction slaughtered the high and the mighty of the state. The capitalist exploiters were cut down. Chief Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback, executed. Chief Executive of the Dresdner Bank Jurgen Ponto, executed. Military attache to the FRG embassy in Stockholm, Baron von Mirbach, executed. President of the Federation of Industries Hanns-Martin Schleyer, executed. The government stood firm. The killings did not win the freedom of the founding fathers and mothers of the movement. There was a week when despair became a plague. A Lufthansa holiday jet hijacked to Mogadishu in the African state of Somalia was retaken by the intervention of the Grenzschutz Gruppe Neun. The principal imprisoned activists hanged or shot themselves in their cells. The movement sagged under the failure of action and the loss of the star participants. Margarethe Anneliese Schultz, her face on the wanted posters, her name on the charge sheet of a Federal court, her future likely to be 20 years behind bars, drove into Switzerland, took a train to Italy, bought an airline ticket to Damascus.
She threw off the cause of the bovine proletariat of her homeland, she embraced the cause of the Palestinian people. She was careful with her favours, she dispensed them only where they could be of advantage to her.
She had sought out a protector, a man of such influence that she would not be repatriated to the maximum security women's prisons of West Germany.
He was a repulsive bastard, the major in Syrian Air Force Intelligence, but he had influence. She warmed his bed. She worked hard to please him. In obedience to the wishes of Major Said Hazan, she had, many months before, given herself to a young Palestinian fighter of the Popular Front.
At Close Quarters Page 31