The pendant hung at her neck.
The pendant was a sapphire held by a fastening crescent of diamonds.
The pendant hung at her neck from a gold chain of close, fine links.
He heard the words. The drooled words slipping from the rebuilt mouth of Major Said Hazan . . . "in the presence of the orphans of the Palestine revolution you pledged your loyalty to the struggle" . . . He heard the words that had been used to taunt him.
The chain that supported the pendant lay on the smooth skin of her throat.
She was kissing his mouth, and the lobes of his ears.
She told him of her love. The flatness of her stomach undulated against his groin. The warmth of her breasts drifted through the cotton of his shirt.
Abu Hamid, standing just inside the room, leaning hack against the closed door, hearing the muffled i aucous sounds of the souq, knew that he would kill the girl he had loved.
He was calm. He felt no fear. It was not as it had been when the woman who was a spy for the Israelis had gazed back in contempt into his face. It was as it had been when he had gone to seek out the man who had stolen his transistor radio. It was as it had been when he had eased himself up from the bench outside the Oreanda Hotel, when he had walked, filtering between the traffic, towards the hotel steps. As it had been when he had raised the assault rifle to confront the old man and the young woman pushing through the glass swing doors.
Major Said Hazan had played with him as a child.
The toy that had won him had been the breasts and the cleft of Margarethe Schultz. He held her in his arms.
He smelled the cleanness of her hair and the dry pleasure of her body.
"I love you, brave boy."
"As you love him?" Abu Hamid murmured from the pit of his throat.
"I love you for your courage, brave boy."
She arched her head upwards, she stretched to kiss his forehead. Her neck was pulled taut. The pendant seemed to him to dance on her skin, and the candlelight caught the kingfisher brilliance of the sapphire and flashed upon the wealth of the diamonds.
"As you love him?"
He held the back of her head in his left hand, the fingers tight into the looseness of her hair. He held the back of her neck in his right hand, the fingers twined into the slender strength of the chain.
"I love only you, brave boy."
She had not looked into his face. She had not seen his eyes. She had not seen the smile curve at his lips. He thought of her cheeks against the reconstructed atrocity that was the face of Major Said Hazan. He thought of the fingerless hand groping to the smoothness of the skin of her thighs.
The fingers of his left hand that were tight in her hair jerked Margarethe Schultz's head back. He saw the shock sweep into her eyes. With his right hand he tore the pendant from her throat, snapping the chain clasp on her neck. He bent her head down so that it was lower than the level of his waist, so that she could see only his feet. In front of her, between her bare feet, between his boots, he dropped the pendant. He stamped on the sapphire, on the diamonds of the crescent. He thought of how she had shamed him from taking money, how she had burnt the letter from the Central Bank of Syria.
She had taken a pendant of sapphire and diamonds, she had taken the body of Major Said Hazan. He ground with his heel into the carpet. He heard the wincing gasp of her breath as he moved his foot aside, forced her head lower so that she could see the shattered pendant.
She had taken the love of Abu Hamid. She had taken his pledge that he would go into Israel, take the war into Israel, take his death into Israel.
When he pulled her head up, when she could look into his face, she spat.
She snarled, "You are scum . . . You are not even a good fuck, not even as good as him . . . "
He saw her eyes bulging towards him. He saw the blue sheen at her lips. He saw her fingers scrabble to hold his wrists. He saw her tongue jumping from her mouth.
When he let go of her throat, when she slid to the carpet, he crouched over her.
He could hear the choking of his tears. He lay across her. He could feel the wetness of her skin where his tears fell.
Percy Martins was on his bed.
It was hours since he had walked around the bare room. He had only had to walk round once to understand the nature of his confinement. Behind the curtains over the windows he had found the metal bars. He had noted that there was no light through the keyhole of the door. He had heard the coughing of a man in the corridor.
He was on his bed.
He was close to sleep when he was roused into alertness by the muffle of voices behind the door. He heard the rasp of the turning key. He sat upright on his bed.
It was the girl, Zvi Dan's assistant, Rebecca. She carried a mug of tea. He could see that it was freshly made, that it steamed in her hand. She passed him the mug.
"That's uncommonly civil of you."
"It is nothing."
"Why?"
"I thought you had been kicked, I thought they were queuing to kick you again. There were plenty of them in line to kick you."
"People like to kick a fool, when a fool is down."
Martins drank the tea, scalded the roof of his mouth.
"Kicking you does not help Holt."
He gazed into her face.
"I suppose it's stupid to ask, but there hasn't been any news?"
"There could only be news from the Syrian radio.
We are monitoring their transmissions, there has been nothing on their radio."
Martins slumped back onto his bed. "The waiting, it's so bloody awful, waiting for news of catastrophe, and for the inevitability of disgrace."
"What are your feelings for Holt?"
"He's one of the finest young men I've ever met, and I never got round to telling him."
She turned away, went out through the door. He heard the key turn. He lay in the darkness and sipped at the hot sweetness of the tea.
With three men to escort him Heinrich Gunter stumbled, tripped through the darkness over the rough ground on the slope of the hillside.
He was handcuffed to one man.
He had been given back his shoes, but they rubbed and calloused his feet and it was more years than he could remember since he had last worn lace up shoes without socks. He had been given back his shoes, but they had retained his shirt and his suit jacket and his trousers. He wore his vest and his underpants that now smelled and over his shoulder was draped a coarse cloth blanket.
Where they had left the car, his photograph had been taken. All very quick, and he had hardly been aware of the process. The hood had been snatched up from over his face, the light had blasted him. Time for him to identify the gun barrel that had been the sharp pain under his chin, and the face mask of the one who held a camera level with his eyes. Two workings of the camera, and the flash, and the hood retrieving the darkness and falling. The taking of his photograph had disturbed him. As if the photograph brought him back towards a world that he understood, a world of ransom demands and bribery, and of newspaper headlines and radio bulletins, and of the government in Bonn, and of the helplessness of the world that he knew. The taking of the photograph had forced his mind to his family, his wife and his children, and his home. Forced him to think of his wife sitting numb in their home and of th dazed confusion of his children.
It was easier for him when he was in their world, not his own, when he lived the existence of his captors Their world was the gun barrel and the handcuffs, taking a hooded hostage across the rough sloping ground below the Jabal al Barouk.
Crane froze.
Holt, behind him, had taken three more steps before he registered Crane's stillness.
Crane held the palm of his hand outstretched, fingers splayed, behind his back, so that Holt could see the warning to stop.
It was the fifth hour of the night march. Holt was dead on his feet. The moon, falling into the last quarter, threw a silver light on them.
Crane, very slowly, sunk to his knee
s and haunches.
A gentle movement, taking an age to go down.
Holt followed him. The Bergen straps cut into his shoulders. Pure, blessed relief, to sink low and not to have to jar the Bergen on his back.
Crane turned his head, his hand flicked the gesture for Holt to come forward.
Holt sensed the anxiety growing in his body. When Crane had first stopped he had been walking as an automaton, no care other than not to disturb a loose stone or tread on a dried branch. Gone from him, the sole concentration on his footfall. He came forward, he strained his eyes into the grey-black stillness ahead, he saw nothing. He found that his hands were locked tight on the stock of the Model PM and the bloody thing was not even loaded and the flash eliminator at the end of the barrel was still covered with the dirt-stained condom. Hell of a great deal of use young Holt would be in defending the position . . . He was close to Crane, crouched as he moved, close enough for Crane to reach back and with strength force him lower.
Crane had him down, pushed Holt so that he lay full length on the narrow track.
Holt heard the stone roll ahead of them. A terrible quiet was in him, the breath stifled in his throat. A stone was kicked ahead of him. They shared the path. So bloody near to the tent camp, and they shared the track.
Crane was reaching for his belt, hand moving at glacier speed.
They shared the bloody path. All the tracks in south Lebanon, all the trails running on the hill slopes of the west side of the Beqa'a, and they, by God, shared it.
Holt breathed out, tried to control himself, tried not to pant.
He heard the voices, clear, as if they were beside him.
Words that he did not understand, a foreign language, but a message of anger.
He could see nothing, but the voices carried in the night quiet.
A guttural accent, speaking English, seeking communication.
"I cannot see, I cannot know what I hit."
"More careful."
"But I cannot see . . . "
Holt heard the impact of a kick. He heard the gasp, muffled, then the sob.
"I cannot see to walk."
A noise ahead as if a weight were dragged, and new voices, Arabic, urging greater pace. Holt did not understand the words, knew the meaning.
Crane had the pocket night sight to his eye. He rarely used it. Crane's bible said that reliance on a night sight was dangerous, hard to switch back and forth between a night sight and natural night vision. They were making as much noise ahead as Holt had conjured up on the first of the night march tests in the Occupied Territories - so bloody long ago, back in the time before history books Holt thought the man who complained, who could not see, might be German or Austrian or Swiss German.
There was a stampede of stones away from the path, and the sound of another kicking, and the sound of another whimper. He thought they were moving faster, he thought the noises moved away.
Holt waited on Crane.
He heard the call of a hyena above. He heard the barking of a dog behind and below from among the village lights of Ain Zebde. He waited on Crane.
Methodically, as was his way, Crane replaced the pocket night sight in the pouch on his belt.
"It's a European," Crane whispered.
"What's a European doing . . . ?"
"God, didn't you learn adding at school? There are three hoods with a European prisoner on our track. A European, with a bag over his head, who cannot see where he's going, with Arabs, that adds to the movement of a hostage."
"A hostage . . . " Holt repeated the word, seemed to be in awe of the word.
"Moving a hostage on my bloody route." A savageness in Crane's whisper.
"What do we do?"
"Keep going, have to."
"Why, have to?"
"Because, youngster, we have a schedule. We have an appointment. We have to move behind them, and move at their pace. I don't have the time to lie up. And I'm better keeping them in sight, I'm better knowing where they are."
"A hostage?"
"That's what I said."
"Definitely a hostage?"
"He's tied to one of them. He's got a European accent.
He's short of trousers, just a blanket over him. We're in an area of Syrian control, so they move him at night They'll be from Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah, they don't trust the shit Syrians any more than I do . . . Don't kick any bloody stone, youngster."
Carefully, with so much care, Holt pushed himself upright. He stood. All the time he could hear the fading sounds of movement ahead. He let Crane move off, get the fifteen paces in front. He struggled to ease the pressure of the straps on his shoulder.
Best foot forward, on a shared path.
He could not help himself. He should have concentrated solely on each footfall. There should have been nothing else in his mind, no chaff, no clutter, nothing other than the weight of the ball of his foot testing for the loose stone, for the dried branch, for the crisped leaf.
The chaff and the clutter in his mind were the thoughts of love and vengeance.
He had told his girl, his Jane Canning who was the personal assistant to the military attache, that he loved her. A long time ago, he had told his girl that he loved her. His girl was ashes, he did not even know where the parents of his girl had scattered her ashes. Too distant from them to know whether they had taken her ashes to a sea shore or taken them to a heathland of heather flowers or taken them to the serenity of a woodland. His girl was ashes, gone, dust, earth. So many things that he could remember of her. Meeting in the canteen at the School of East European and Slavonic Studies and thinking she was stunning. Waiting for her when she was late and the tryst was the pavement outside the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square and hoping to God that she hadn't stood him up. Coming to her own bachelor girl flat, with a bunch of freesias and a bottle of Beaujolais and wondering whether he would get back to his own place before the end of the weekend. Holding her and kissing her when she had told him that she had landed Moscow for a posting, and wasn't it marvellous because he was headed there in a few weeks' time, and cursing that for those few weeks he would be without her and she would be without him. Scowling at her because she had put him down for ever and ever, amen, in the corridor of the Oreanda Hotel in Yalta . . .
"Don't be childish, Holt."
He had told his minder, his Mr Martins who worked the Middle East Desk of the Secret Intelligence Service, that he wanted vengeance. Bloody light years ago. He would know the man that they called Abu Hamid the moment that he could focus the lenses of the binoculars upon him. No doubt. He had seen the man they called Abu Hamid for nine, ten seconds. He didn't believe he would ever forget the face and the crow's foot scar.
Bloody light years ago he had wanted vengeance, he had told Martins that he wanted the eye and the tooth, both.
He thought that his desire for vengeance was sapped, he thought that he had simply never had the guts to walk away from Mr Martins in England, to walk away from Mr Crane in Israel. He thought that he was on the west slopes of the Beqa'a because he had never had the guts to turn his back on something as primitive as vengeance. He thought that he would in no way benefit from the sniping of Abu Hamid. He knew that nothing would change for Jane, nor for her parents either, even if they would ever know. And would anything change for him?
"I'd want him killed."
They were at the seventh rally point of the night.
It was where Crane had told him they would spend the few minutes of rest. An exact man was Crane, each rally point reached on time, the perfect instrument of vengeance.
Holt huddled against Crane. The wind caught at the sweat running on his body and chilled him.
"Can I talk?"
"Whisper, youngster."
"Where are they?"
"Ahead, perhaps a quarter of a mile."
"And it's a hostage?"
"What I reckon."
Holt swallowed hard. He caught at the sleeve of Crane's tunic shirt.
"He's more
valuable."
"Riddles, youngster."
' 'A hostage is more valuable than sniping Abu Hamid."
"You know what you're saying?"
"There is more value in bringing back a hostage alive than in leaving Abu Hamid dead behind us."
"I didn't hear that." Crane tugged his sleeve clear.
"To bring back a hostage alive, that is a genuine act of mercy."
"Then you're forgetting something, youngster."
"I am not forgetting a fellow human being in danger."
"Forgetting something big."
"What is bigger than rescuing a man from that sort of hell?"
"Your promise, that's what you're forgetting."
"A hostage is alive, a hostage is an innocent..."
Crane turned away, his voice was soft and cut the edge of the night wind. "I gave my word, youngster. I don't play skittles with a promise."
"A hostage is worth saving. Is Abu Hamid worth killing?"
"I gave my promise. Pity you don't see that that's important."
"They aren't worth it, the people who've got your promise."
"Time to move."
"A hostage's freedom is worth more than your promise."
"I said it was time to move."
Holt stood.
"If I ever get out of this I'll hate you, Mr Crane, for abandoning a hostage."
"If you ever get out of this, youngster, it'll be because of my promise . . . Just stop pissing in the wind."
Crane searched the ground ahead with the pocket night sight. They moved off. The gap between them materialised. Holt could hear the distant sounds ahead of the progress of a hostage and his captors. To the east of them, below them, was the village town of Khirbet Qanafar. They went quiet, traversing the slope side of the valley wall. When they next stopped they would be at the lying up position overlooking the tent camp.
In the village town of Khirbet Qanafar the merchant lay on a rope bed and snored away the night hours.
Many years before, when he had first forsaken his lecture classes at Beer Sheba and moved into his clandestine life in Lebanon, he had found sleep hard to come by, he had felt the persistent fear of discovery. No longer; he slept well covered by a blanket that he fancied had come from the headman's own bed.
At Close Quarters Page 32