The Accidental Spy

by Jacqueline George

  The soldier cursed and strained to see what was happening across the water. No sound came back to them. He cursed again and sat down on the sand. Obviously things could hardly be worse for him.

  “What will you do now?” asked Danka.

  He seemed to become aware of them again. With an effort he pulled his thoughts together. “Now I must go from here quickly.”

  “Can we help?” The Virgin found it hard to recognise his own voice offering help. It was probably just the fact that the soldier was a foreigner subjected to another outrageous twist of fortune. Living as they did in Sabah, all foreigners felt they had some kind of responsibility for their neighbours.

  The soldier was rapidly recovering his wits. “You have a car? Yes, of course, you must have a car. Yes please, you can help me to leave here quickly. First I must change into my escape clothes. Please wait.” Without delaying further, he started to pull off his boots. Soon he was standing in his underpants.

  From one of his belt pouches he pulled a tight roll that he shook out into a djellabiyah and waist coat.

  “You’re going to wear that?” The Virgin asked. “That’s no good if you’re travelling with us.” There was no alternative; he took off his track suit and offered it to the naked man.

  “What about gun?” asked Danka, practicality coming to the rescue.

  “Oh no. No guns. We get caught with you and a gun in the car, we’re dead. Throw it in the sea.”

  The soldier agreed. “Yes, OK. Guns make too much trouble. All of this has to go in the sea.” Working carefully he filled each boot with sand, and his empty pouch, and wrapped the whole uniform up into a tight bundle in his shirt. “First I put this in the sea, OK?” Without a hint of embarrassment he stripped off his underpants and stepped into the water. The gun he threw as far as he could. The bundle he first soaked to make sure it was going to sink, and then pitched that after it. He came back to the sand brushing as much water as he could from his body.

  Their route to the cars took them along the beach and past the Bash. The ceremonies were well under way and voices were raised in a raucous chorus as yet another hasher downed a compulsory drink for some sin, real or invented.

  “What is that?” asked the soldier.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Just the lads enjoying themselves. What do we call you?” asked The Virgin as they stumbled across the sand towards the cars.

  “Ah - Dov Nagel is good now. But in my escape clothes I am Ali Mohammed.”

  “We will take him to the Bash?” asked Danka.

  “Are you crazy? No-one’s going to see him. He’s going straight to the car and he’ll lie down in the back.” The Virgin was beginning to think properly now the pressure was on. That just left the Hash to deal with. “Here. Take the car key and go on. I’ll have to do something about the Hash.”

  He stopped and reached out for Danka’s arm. “Look - you’d better stay out of this. I’ll take him home with me tonight, and do something with him tomorrow. There’s no point both of us getting mixed up in this.”

  Dov agreed. “He’s right. It could be dangerous. Just give me somewhere safe tonight, and then tomorrow I will go into town. I know what to do there. I will be in no trouble.”

  Danka looked at them both and swallowed. “No. I come also. It will be better at checkpoints if you have woman in the car. They not want make too much trouble if I am with you. I come with you tonight. Tomorrow you take me early to Barani to get my uniform and I take taxi to hospital.” Neither of the men said any more.

  As The Virgin stepped into the firelight, he was welcomed with shouts and sly questions about how Danka was feeling. A foolish smile on his face, he went up to Noddy, standing on an upturned box with his clip-board in hand. He was about to punish The Virgin with a drink or worse for putting sex before beer, but he must have seen something in his eyes because he bent to listen. The Virgin drew him a little away from the Bash.

  “Noddy, you’ve got to listen to me. We’ve got a real problem here. We’ve just had a bunch of troops run over us and out to sea in boats.”

  Noddy would have been an old man anywhere else. Grey of hair and beard, he should have been wearing a jacket and tie to the office in Dublin during the day, and going home to the old suburban wife at night. With nothing more than a trip to the Public Library to brighten things up. Here his wiry legs stuck out of green running shorts and his tee-shirt proclaimed him as a veteran of many hashes. He was not drunk yet, but he had trouble getting his mind around what The Virgin was telling him.

  “You mean the Army’s on the beach?”

  “No, no. Not the local army anyway. These guys were something else completely. Foreigners. Not Americans. Nor Europeans either – well, not north Europeans. I don’t know who they were, but they weren’t screwing around. They just came running down the beach, held us up with guns, and took off in two inflatables. You’ve got to get everyone out of here before the locals catch on.”

  Noddy shook his head, not wanting to believe. “Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. There’s going to be shit everywhere. Oh Christ. I’ll get them moving; come and tell them what happened.”

  “No, Noddy, I can’t. Danka’s in trouble, I’ve got to go to her. Don’t tell them everything. Just say we got stopped by a couple of soldiers who are going back for their sergeant. That’ll move everyone. Don’t say anything about the foreigners, or word will get around and Danka and I are toast. Please! You’re the only one who knows.”

  Noddy could understand the position, and The Virgin knew the man would not talk. “OK,” he said, “I’ll get them moving. Better have them split up; we don’t all want to go in procession. I’ll send some left and along the ring road. And I’ll wash out the beer cooler. We’d better tip the beer into the sand, dammit.” As he returned to the Bash, The Virgin ran for the car.

  Dov and Danka were sitting in the darkness. He leapt into the car and started back up the dirt track to the road. Thorn bushes, looking remote and threatening in this new world, swung in and out of his headlights as they jolted along.

  “Er - Dov. What documents do you have?”

  “I have an Egyptian ID card for Mohammed Ali. Nothing else.”

  “Right. This is how we’ll do it. If we get stopped, it will probably be just to check the vehicle papers, so don’t worry. If they get personal, say you’re a business man staying in the Bab al Sabah hotel and we’re giving you a lift from the Hash. Don’t say too much and you’ll probably get away with it. If they ask you for more, I don’t know what you can say. You’re on your own.

  “Maybe you’d heard about the Hash from a friend in Cairo who had telephoned some-one to find out the location, so you came by taxi to meet some of the foreign business men. That would do. But you stopped in the wrong place and got there late. We’re just giving you a lift back to town. OK?”

  Dov listened intently; the threat to his life was very real. “OK. It’s thin, but it might keep you two out of trouble. Are they likely to ask?”

  “No. It’s never happened to me yet. We’ll be alright. Relax and enjoy the ride.” The Virgin found he could kid himself that everything was fine most of the time, but every now and then an icy hand would reach up out of his stomach and threaten to strangle him. The car bumped onto the blacktop and he headed for town. Dodging the old pick-ups and taxis without lights kept his mind occupied. He began to wonder about his guest.

  “What the hell were you guys doing here anyway?” he asked.

  Dov thought for a while. “ I don’t suppose it matters if you know. It will be all around town tomorrow anyway. There was a little Palestinian doctor of chemistry who was making a nuisance of himself. So we shot him.” He made it sound quite a natural thing to do.

  “Jesus - what sort of nuisance was that?”

  “Chemical weapons. He was working up some cheap and nasty production line here. Not a good man at all.” Dov sounded calm and unperturbed. Perhaps such things were natural for him.

  “But that means they’re going t
o be running all over town looking for you!”

  “Don’t worry about that. They won’t find him until tomorrow at the earliest, if the dogs have left anything. We didn’t make any trouble, and he’s well hidden now. We just rang his door bell and told him to come along. He thought we were Tabrizi.” Horror piled on horror in The Virgin’s mind. They had just called the little doctor into their car - did they have a car? Where was it? Where was the doctor?

  “You didn’t leave him back there did you?” If the body was found near to the Hash, they could expect some very uncomfortable times ahead.

  Dov laughed. “No, don’t worry. We killed him somewhere along here I think. One of the side tracks on the right, in the reeds at the edge of the swamp. Then we hid him and dropped our van near the pick-up point. I was making sure the van was taken away OK, and the bastards left me behind. Now I have to find my own way home.”

  “Who are you anyway?”

  “Me? Or us? Well, can’t you guess? Let’s just say we don’t have too many Palestinian friends.”

  They drove on in silence.

  - 3 -

  It was a good time to drive through the check-points. The assorted soldiers, police and paramilitary security men were all comfortably full of their evening cous-cous, and too concerned with sitting and chatting to their friends to give any trouble. The Virgin was just nodded through, an uninteresting foreigner with his wife and a friend, unable to speak Arabic no doubt and with all his documents in order. Before they got home he had Dov lie down in the back seat and stay there until the car was out of sight in the garage. With their high walls, Arab homes are designed to give their families privacy and Dov could be smuggled inside unseen.

  Danka busied herself in the kitchen and The Virgin opened a beer. This brew was not too bad. He was no expert and often produced beer only fit for the Hash, but this time it had turned out well, clear, gassy and full of hops. He decanted it carefully into an iced jug and took it through to the front room. Dov took a sip, and winced. Not a long term Sabah resident and quite unable to appreciate the distinctive flavour.

  “What is this? This is from Tabriz?” he asked, making no effort to be polite.

  The Virgin shrugged. “I made it. Stay a while and you’ll learn to like it. Some people even miss it so much when they go home that they have to take up brewing. Go easy - it’s stronger than it seems.”

  Dov looked unconvinced. “It is a very good reason to leave quickly, I think.”

  “Boże, piwo!” Danka came in carrying an empty glass. “Na zdrowie!” The first glass disappeared and she poured another.

  “Dov is being rude about my beer.”

  Danka laughed. “He should stay some more longer and run with me to the Hash. Then he will see bad beer. This is very good. We open one more. The spaghetti will be half hour or some more.” She settled back in the armchair, unworried.

  The Virgin opened the next bottle. He also felt unworried; home seemed safe and the unpleasant side of Tabriz stopped at the gate. He left the jug with the others and went for a shower. Nancy would have some extra washing this week; first Evelina and now two more guests. He would have to look out some more sheets, pillow-cases and towels.

  The boiler could only manage a tepid shower and he washed quickly. As he dried himself, he probed his emotions, unable to leave them alone. It was like coming back from the dentist after an extraction and being unable to stop his tongue wandering to the empty hole. He was now a bit-part player on the world stage. Interfering with the Middle Eastern balance of terror and military retaliation. It should have been more remarkable, more frightening. Instead, he was taking a shower and waiting for the spaghetti. Was this what it was always like? Were the racks of violent thrillers at the airport not telling the whole truth? He supposed that, like many other things in the world, the reality was far more ordinary than the telling of it.

  They turned in early that night. It would be a six o’clock start next morning and the tension had made them all sleepy. The Virgin lay in his bed with the light turned down, waiting for Danka to finish her shower. It took a long time. He heard the water stop, and then she must have found the hair-dryer. Its low hum was soporific. He was dozing when he heard the bathroom door open. Then the creak of the guest room door and a firm click as it latched shut. He switched the light off.

  He rose to Danka’s knocking. “Virgin, is nearly six o’clock.” He struggled up and cleared the bathroom without really waking. Dov appeared for breakfast unshaven and wearing his djellabiyah. He had a rough length of white cotton wound around his head. Another day’s growth of beard and he would look perfect.

  “Hey, Mohammed Ali! For Christ’s sake, don’t stand up like that. You’ll look like a soldier in a bed sheet if you don’t slow down.”

  “Yes. You are right. I must think like Mohammed Ali also. But for now, I will be myself.” He sat down to toast and coffee.

  “Do you have somewhere to go?”

  “Do not concern yourself with me. I know what to do in this circumstance. I have instructions.” He sounded icy calm.

  “How about money? Or anything else? Food?”

  “I have with me seventy-two dinars. I think this will be enough. Also some dollars. But you may give me some sandals if you have old ones. Or I will go in bare feet.”

  The Virgin was taken aback by his poise. Dov found himself alone in enemy territory, many kilometres from the nearest frontier, which in itself was not particularly friendly, and yet he appeared unperturbed. He had been well drilled and prepared for his job. Nothing but the grossest bad luck could stop him now. He went to find some old flip-flops.

  Getting Dov out of the house was as easy as getting him in. There were no eyes on the street to see The Virgin drive out with his girl-friend who had just spent a very un-Islamic and probably illegal night in his house. Or so it appeared. In fact, The Virgin had no doubt that at all that some of his neighbours already knew he had taken another whore nurse home, Polish this time. He had only the vaguest impression of what would be going through the local men’s repressed minds, the lurid pictures, the insane jealousy of his forbidden life-style. And the women folk would be equally fascinated at the thought of a shameless harlot having sex with who-ever she wanted, right next door to them.

  Out on the open road, Dov sat up. The day was still grey but a brave sun gilded the undersides of the clouds. Another fine day in the Mediterranean holiday resort. There was a scatter of traffic on the roads; no-one liked an early start in autumn or winter. They drove towards the old vegetable market where already the Egyptian and Sudanese casual labourers had begun to gather in the hope of a day’s work. Dov slipped out at a road junction. A simple ‘Shukran - masalama’ and he had gone. In the mirror The Virgin saw him start to shuffle along the road in his borrowed flip-flops, no hurry, no destination, just another homeless Egyptian looking for a few cents.

  They drove to the apartments at Barani. Tall concrete blocks, straight from the outskirts of Budapest, but planted here in bare earth and surrounded by rubbish and pools of diluted sewage. He delivered Danka to the door under the eyes of a group of her compatriots waiting for the hospital transport. She would make the bus if she hurried.

  She closed the door and put her head through the window. “I am sorry, Virgin, but he was alone... Next time I come with you, yes?”

  The Virgin was feeling definitely piqued as he drove off. His reputation had suffered again. Evelina would know before coffee break that he had been making love to Danka. He did not know why that should bother him, but it did. And he was not sure that he wanted the consolation prize that Danka had offered. She could be fun sometimes, but she was not The Virgin’s dream girl. Too fat, too old, East European dentistry - he did not know what it was, but she did not stir him. He would not make himself too available.

  There was a police station-wagon waiting outside his office block, and his stomach turned over. It was full of young policemen wearing black leather jackets. They were chattering animatedly and
smoking. He forced himself to look at them without interest as he passed by. There was no response.

  He peeped down at the street from his office window. The station wagon was still there, but no-one appeared to be watching. After twenty minutes, two of the policemen got out and started hand-in-hand down the road. The others drove off. He told himself that they had just stopped for a chat and a cigarette together.

  Over the next few days, The Virgin began to realise that his initial reaction to the events of Saturday night had been wrong. They had not been ordinary events, and he felt far from ordinary inside. Nothing was happening, but nothing seemed to be the way it had been. At least, he thought nothing was happening. Now every time he passed a police car or was stopped at a road block he had a flashback of what he had seen and done. His waking thoughts were occupied incessantly with wondering if the police and army presence had increased, or if that he just noticing them more.

  He heard no news of ‘the little doctor’. None in European circles, anyway. He would have liked to ask Abdul in the office but his hints brought out no news. Apparently nothing had been said on the television about commando raids or captured assassins. He found the lack of information coloured everything he did and thought, and he slept badly.

  His daily visits to Tayfun to hammer out the details of the 13-3/8” job had become drudgery. Surprisingly, Tayfun’s reaction to his lack of interest was to let the design move ahead without too much interference. The Virgin brought him the lab test results on the proposed cement formulation, and he made no request for further testing of cheaper formulations. The job looked set to blossom into something quite substantial.

  He ran into Evelina again when he visited a darts match. She played for one of the teams, played competently, and did not seem to mind the drinking that went along with the matches. The Virgin had not joined a team. He could not work up any feeling for the game and the meetings went on very late at night. But darts matches were the next best thing to visiting the pub, and the flash was free. He generally took along a big bottle of coke or lemonade as a mixer so his freeloading was not too obvious.