Betrayals

by Brian Freemantle

“They’re further north, nearer the Turkish coast.”

  “What about their radar?”

  The Israeli smiled at her naivete. “There are more baffling and confusing devices aboard than most other countries, including those in the West, know we have invented.”

  Janet looked along the table. “Isn’t this division a bit unnecessary?”

  “Not to men like these,” said Baxeter. “They work in groups, teams that take months to train together. They think like each other, react like each other, know each other. That way they stay alive. An intrusion, like you, throws the synchronization out. Because you’re here they think they might get killed.”

  “I didn’t understand,” said Janet, deflated.

  “That’s why they’re not accepting you: won’t accept you.”

  “What about when we get ashore?”

  “You’re my responsibility,” said Baxeter.

  “Your burden?” suggested Janet, trying for a more accurate word.

  “You speak Hebrew?”

  “No,” she said.

  He smiled, briefly. “That was the word Tel Aviv used to describe you.”

  There was the soft noise of muffled descent on the rubberized companionway and the fair-haired man came into view, carrying a snakes’ nest of radio links. He handed them out individually to the waiting men and then stayed by them, staring down at Baxeter and Janet. There was a curt question to which Baxeter replied with equal curtness: two of the seated men sniggered and Janet guessed Baxeter had scored with his retort because the man flushed, slightly, and tossed one of the connectors towards him. Baxeter caught it easily.

  “There’s no purpose in your having a headset,” said Baxeter. “It’s minimal communication anyway, it’s in Hebrew and it’s coded. Just understand one thing. Don’t ever lose me. Don’t get separated, and don’t fall back into one of the other groups: they’ll either intentionally abandon you—or kill you.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “That’s their training, to kill or be killed,” insisted Baxeter. “You’re as near to being an enemy as makes no difference.”

  Janet tried to subdue her shudder but couldn’t: Baxeter was connecting his radio links, intent on the hood of his uniform, and Janet did not think he’d seen her reaction. In case he had, she said: “It frightens me, this matter-of-factness.”

  “It’s meant to.”

  There was a perceptible reduction in engine power. Baxeter called out to the other end of the table and one of the men replied, in agreement. Baxeter said: “We’re getting close: they’ll be putting out a lot of deceptive electronics now and transferring to a much quieter engine. We’ll do the last mile by rubber dinghy.”

  There was a curt, tin-voiced order over the tannoy and the men began to assemble, picking up weapons and multi-pocketed rucksacks. There were eight of them, and Janet watched fascinated as they formed up in two lines of four, one man facing another, each reaching out and touching the one opposite, checking off equipment and packs, each ensuring that the other had overlooked nothing. Synchronized teams, she remembered. Baxeter had to prepare himself alone and Janet wished she could have helped him: closer she saw all the buckles and fastenings were rubber that would make no noise under movement.

  By the time they reached the deck the dinghies had been dropped overboard, six of them, trailed by short lines along the sides of the now barely moving patrol vessel. Janet made out eight men additional to those in the mess from which they’d just come. Again the entry was perfectly coordinated. Groups of four dropped without any apparent instruction in perfect order into their boats—eight commandoes to each boat—and towed off the one behind them, empty, to make room for the next entry. Janet and Baxeter were allocated the last boat: everyone else was inboard and she felt them watching for her to stumble and make a fool of herself. She hit the slatted bottom unsteadily but retained her balance and managed to sit without any need for help. She would have liked to see their disappointment, but it was too dark.

  The dinghy churned away from its mother ship and Janet looked curiously to its stern, where a single coxswain hunched at the tiller. There was the foam of a wake but hardly any noise at all. She decided the engine had to be electric, so quiet was it: a line of propellers dropped straight into the water from a straight-bar assembly, and Janet was reminded of the food blender in the kitchen of her Rosslyn apartment.

  She felt a demanding tug and leaned towards Baxeter. His mouth directly against her ear, he said: “When we’re ashore don’t try to talk: whatever the circumstances, don’t say anything to make a sound that will carry. If you want to communicate with me do what I’ve just done, so that we can get as close together as this. Understand?”

  Janet nodded, without trying to reply even here. From the wind on her face she could tell it was cold, but she was perfectly warm otherwise inside her special suit. Her mouth was unnaturally dry and she would have liked a drink. She hadn’t used a toilet—hadn’t thought of it—before she’d left the patrol boat, and hoped there would not be the need. Ahead she could make out the lighter glow of land and habitation although they did not seem to be coming as close to the city itself as she had on the fishing boat. She turned to Baxeter to ask before remembering the injunction against unnecessary noise. She turned back, to look ahead, saying nothing.

  Directly in front of her in the dinghy the commandoes were putting on night goggles: they made their faces look frog-like. Beside her Baxeter did the same. Baxeter handed her a set, which she fitted on awkwardly.

  They were close enough now to hear the surf against the shore over the hardly audible pop of their engine. Beirut was definitely away to their left but so dark was it, even with the benefit of the night vision equipment, Janet found it impossible to judge how far.

  Baxeter tugged at her again, indicating that she would soon have to go over the side to wade the last few yards through the water. The men began to leave the dinghy, once more in perfect unison, first port, then starboard, then port again, with scarcely a disturbance of the craft to show their departure. Baxeter prodded her and Janet edged doubtfully over the side, apprehensive of dropping into water she couldn’t see, not knowing what she would encounter underfoot. There was another shove, harder this time, which actually propelled her over the edge. She tensed for the shock of coldness but there wasn’t any because the suit was completely waterproof: nothing brushed against her in the waist-high water and hard-packed sand was even underfoot.

  She stood there, knowing a surge of uncertainty, and then felt Baxeter’s hand upon her arm, guiding her towards the shore. She tried to wade like him, with slow, long strides, so that there was no sound from the water.

  When they reached it the beach was deserted. Baxeter urged her forward more quickly. Janet stumbled once because the beach had patches of shingle and rock outcrops. Impatiently, Baxeter got directly ahead and felt backwards with his hands, showing her where it was safe to walk. Janet was conscious of ascending a rising slope and as it became lighter she realized they had climbed an incline to a shore-road. Ahead was the uneven outline of vehicles, three or four quite low, jeep-like, then a higher-sided lorry and more jeeps. It was a considerable convoy and Janet wondered how they had managed to get a fleet that size undetected across the border and up through Southern Lebanon.

  Baxeter led her to the last jeep and they sat in it alone, apart from the driver. Baxeter was leaning forward but not too close to the driver, his head automatically bent as he whispered into the throat mike that formed part of his communications set. They moved off at staged intervals and Janet very quickly lost sight of the leading vehicles.

  They traveled only briefly, not more than fifteen minutes, before pulling into a walled yard in what had to be the southernmost suburb of the city. As their jeep, the last, went through the gate, shadowy figures closed it immediately behind them. Janet squinted around the parking area, sure there were not as many vehicles now as there had been when they set out.

  Groups of men were
assembled in absolute silence and in marked separate units. She could make out heavier equipment she guessed had been hauled ashore in the supply dinghies: there were two long-barreled guns she thought must be rocket launchers and quite near a man was harnessed into a cumbersome tank from which a nozzle led. A flamethrower, she supposed.

  They exited on foot at timed intervals, with her and Baxeter bringing up the rear. There were city sounds now: music strained through walls and windows, the occasional headlight glare of a car, people huddled in cafes they were careful to skirt, always getting past by going around and keeping the block of the building between them. At first Janet had been able to make out quite a few of the commandoes, but it became increasingly difficult and then Baxeter pulled her away from the direction they had been following up a very narrow, darkened alley, little more than a footpath between two buildings.

  Janet followed dutifully, conscious once more of a slope underfoot and bending forward to climb it. Once again the devastation was all around, as it had been when she’d fled her attackers: Janet supposed they would have not have been able to move around the city with such comparative ease unless the lighting had been practically nonexistent. The chief danger of attention came from foraging dogs which barked and snarled and sniffed after them: twice windows above opened and there were Arabic shouts for the animals to be quiet. Each time Baxeter was ahead of any movement, moving her quickly into the shadows of a doorway.

  She and Baxeter had been moving apparently alone for longer than Janet had expected and she wished she knew Beirut well enough to know when they actually got into the Kantari district. She should have asked to look at the maps or the photographs in Willsher’s room in Cyprus: the Americans had relaxed sufficiently in her presence and she was sure they would have allowed it. She longed to stop Baxeter, to ask him, but recognized that the question did not constitute the sort of emergency he’d stipulated.

  They came to an intersection with a wider, better-lit thoroughfare and once more Baxeter pulled her into the concealment of a doorway while he edged forward to reconnoiter their crossing. It gave Janet the opportunity to look around, particularly behind her. She did so, frowning. She made out the glint of the sea and the brighter harbor area (was that the area through which she’d fled, in gut-tightening fear of being caught?) and even the faraway bright normality of East Beirut. Was Kantari on a hill? She had imagined it to be further down, in the flatter part of the city.

  Baxeter was back beside her, sign-languaging an occupied cafe to the left on the main road, where it sloped back down towards the waterfront, and gesturing for her to move at once and hurriedly when he gave the signal. Janet nodded her understanding, pushing away from her concealment and going head bent, looking neither left nor right, across the road. The illumination was still comparatively low and the highway deserted but Janet walked with the feeling of scurrying beneath an inquiring spotlight, tensed for a shout of challenge. Nothing came. She was panting, more through apprehension than effort, when she reached the other side, finding her own concealing doorway. She looked back, trying to locate Baxeter but couldn’t. She checked her watch. One-thirty: thirty minutes to go before the American assault. Why had they split from the rest of the group?

  Janet did not see Baxeter start out. He was suddenly in the street, moving low and very fast. Janet actually held her breath, waiting for the challenge that had not come when she crossed, but once again there was nothing. She gestured as he pushed into the alley and he halted, close against her in the doorway.

  Seizing the opportunity Janet gestured him even nearer. He eased the hood away from the side of his face and she heard a staccato spurt of Hebrew from the headset. She hissed: “Why have we separated from the others!”

  “Safer,” he whispered back, closing off the exchange by pulling the hood back into place.

  Baxeter led off again, going to the end of the alley and then breaking to their right, running parallel with the road they had just crossed. From the camber Janet knew they were still climbing.

  They made a detour around another coffeehouse from which there was thin music and the mumble of conversation and once had to pull, unmoving, into a rubble-strewn courtyard to evade a sudden gaggle of men who appeared ahead of them, walking in their direction. The group passed, unaware. Janet expected she and Baxeter to move out at once but Baxeter held her back. She thought it was to let the men get further away but then realized Baxeter was reholstering into his backpack a short hand-weapon that bulged with a fat-nosed silencer. Just innocent men, merely walking home from some late-night outing, Janet thought: it would have been murder.

  He urged her on until they reached the junction at which they’d first seen the approaching men. Baxeter hesitated for a moment, orienting himself, led her about ten yards to the left and then stopped, hunkering down against a large, deserted building beside which there was a completely open space, pulling her down to his level. Across the open space there was a perfect view of the entire city, much better than when she’d first looked down, laid out for inspection in the sharp moonlight.

  She indicated she wanted to speak again and he pulled aside his cowl. Janet said: “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “Wait,” he said, brusquely.

  The explosions split the night open, appearing to be all around her, so near and so loud that the pain seared through her ears. She was partially deafened but still able to hear the sudden roar of aircraft and then everything became fiercely white—lighter than the brightest day—as dozens of phosphorus illuminating shells burst from what seemed every point in the sky. Janet blinked against the glare, able to see everything. There was a fresh eruption of noise, of machine-gun fire and the slower-paced crack of rifles and handguns and the crump of shells: there were spurts of flame where the shells landed. All along the waterfront landing craft were spewing men ashore: they emerged firing from behind the drop-fronted ramps and several fell almost immediately. Janet recognized that the overhead roar was not that of aircraft but of helicopter gunships. They hovered all along the waterfront, continuous streams of flame coming from their Catling cannons protruding from either side.

  And then Janet recognized something else.

  She stared wildly around, convinced she knew the imposing government building about two hundred yards away as one she had driven past on her way to the American embassy that morning after she’d toured the harbor looking for the fishing boat that had first brought her to Beirut. Then she saw the embassy itself and knew she was right.

  Furious, eyes bulging in her anger, Janet snatched and tugged and Baxeter staggered sideways, surprised. He jerked the head cover off. Because noise didn’t matter any more—had to be yelled over, in fact—he shouted: “What the hell’s going on!”

  “This isn’t Kantari!” Janet shouted back. “I know this place. It’s Yarzy and that’s the American embassy. Why aren’t we in Kantari?”

  “Because it was absurd and laughable, like I told you,” he said. “That is the American embassy and if anything goes wrong get the hell to it: you’ll be safe there.”

  “But John …”

  “… Shut up and stop being a fool!” said Baxeter. He tugged binoculars from his backpack, thrust them towards her and gestured far away, to their right. “There,” he said. “Focus there!”

  Janet hesitated, then did as she was told. It took her a moment to adjust the binoculars, a moment in which there was a fresh spray of phosphorus. It was like a firework display, she thought: an obscene, killing firework display, and she had the ringside seat.

  The enlargement was perfect. She could see the American commandoes spreading through the street, and other men, civilians, desperately firing at them as they retreated. The gunships moved with the advance, pouring down cannon shells: she saw one Arab practically cut in half by the concentration of fire and an already shattered building actually collapsed. And then she saw black-suited and black-helmeted men.

  Janet tried to count but stopped at seven. Th
ey were all in one street, with two in a side alley, and all facing the direction from which the Americans were approaching, so that the Arabs were pincered in between. Twice groups of Arabs tried to get into the street and only then did the Israelis fire, blasting the entry and preventing them.

  Janet turned beseechingly to Baxeter. “What …?”

  “Just watch!”

  When she looked back the Arabs had stopped trying to get into the Israeli-sealed street and were being forced further along another road to escape. Camouflaged Americans were everywhere now, entering the street itself and moving house-to-house along bordering and parallel alleys but she could no longer see any Israelis. There was an abrupt concentration of troops around one house halfway along. She watched one man’s arm move and the door was blown in and she realized he’d thrown a grenade. The house was rushed and into the street—quiet and secured now—another coordinated group moved, a stretcher between them.

  And then she saw John.

  He was at the doorway, supported by two American commandoes: his arms were along their shoulders and theirs were around him and he sagged between them. Janet whimpered, hearing herself make the sound, and a huge feeling of pity welled up inside her. There was an obvious indication towards the stretcher and John shook his head, trying to walk but almost at once he stumbled and allowed himself to be shakily lowered on to it. They moved off at once, the stretcher completely encircled by men with their backs to it, most literally walking backwards, forming a tight circle of protection.

  “OK!” Baxeter said. “You had to be here to see him freed. And you were. Now let’s get out!”

  Janet did not move, still watching the progress of the rescue squad, and Baxeter jerked her upright, pulling the binoculars from her. “I said we’ve got to get out!”

  Dully, bewildered, she stumbled after him, conscious that the night was becoming black again because no more phosphorus was exploding: there was still firing from below but it was sporadic now and the gunships had stopped blasting. They appeared to be going back along exactly the same route they had climbed but at the brighter thoroughfare Baxeter halted longer than before, head lowered as he mumbled into his throat microphone. Janet had an abrupt spurt of fear as a shadow became the figure of a man and then there were others and she realized they had linked up with some of the other Israelis. At once they moved off, in their own tight circle of protection. They were practically across the street before the shout came: at once two of the Israelis stopped, turning towards the cafe. One fired a short burst and the other hurled a grenade. Baxeter was dragging her along, her hand in his, and they were in an alley before the blast of the explosion rippled up the street.