Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  “Colonel Beresford, please don’t make the error of assuming I did this for love of country. I did this because I was forced to or I would have been charged with something I had nothing to do with. I met and made the acquaintance of some radical students who turned out to be weirder than rat shit. I am half Arab. I have an interest in Middle Eastern affairs. I have relatives who are both Jewish and Arab. I’m in the bloody middle. My former husband, who has a habit of beating me up is a fanatical Muslim and a member of ‘The Brotherhood’. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive and I really don’t care about him or his drug dealing friends, I just want my life back. I don’t give a shit about British politics or whether, as Golda Meir once said, Israel is still the only place in the Middle East without oil. I don’t give a bugger whether it’s particularly intelligent with that disadvantage to settle in Israel! I just want MY LIFE BACK! No threats, no weapons, no covert operations. Just my child and me.” She placed her hands on his oak desk and grabbed the glass of sherry. “To your very good health, Colonel, and to the Queen! Cheers,” she said, knocking it back in one undignified gulp. “Now, has my check been deposited in Credito Commerciale?”

  “Yes, my dear, of course.”

  “In that case, sir, I’m off,” she spun around and headed for the door.

  “Weirder than rat shit. I rather like that Tony. I’ll use it myself! Do keep an eye on that silly bitch before our Israeli or American friends get hold of her. Our dear friend Hanna is after Khaled and probably Emily as well. Emmy’s father has some excellent Jacobean cabinets for me to look at. Wouldn’t want to jeopardize my friendship with the old dear, you know.”

  “Yes sir. I leave in two weeks for duty in the colonies, so to speak, I’m driving Emily to Chester and then on to Heidelberg. We’ll close up her apartment and then we’ll fly to Washington.”

  “Yes, it’s nice this time of the year. You’ll be using the house in Annapolis or the one in Centreville near the Russky compound?” he asked Shallal, pouring himself another sherry, “One for you old boy?”

  “No Sir, I don’t.”

  “Oh yes, religion forbids it eh?”

  “In a manner of speaking sir, yes.”

  “Doesn’t stop you from lusting after another man’s wife though?”

  “In our eyes she’s divorced already.”

  “Tony, that young woman is trouble and always will be. She’s too fiery and independent for her own good. She’d make an excellent agent though. See what you can do.”

  “She’s visiting the salon downstairs and will be converted back to her old self in a couple of hours. Perhaps she’ll need to recreate herself before we talk about such things, sir. But I will pursue it at some point.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Two hours later Shallal and Emily left for the drive from London to Chester. He was amazed at her transformation. Her hair was back to its normal ash blonde but her thick curls had been cut and styled to no more than two inches all over. Emily wore a long black skirt and cream colored tunic which bore Celtic symbols in black around its hem. She carried a three quarter length suede coat and black suede granny boots. Her jewelry was black jade, several bangles jingled on her arms and she wore enormous silver hoop earrings which attracted attention to her short hair. She carried a large black doctor’s bag and a set of luggage which seemed more suitable to Mary Poppins, giving her a most conspicuous appearance. There was no similarity between the chic older redhead on the plane and this boutique clad young woman.

  “You certainly do stand out Emily, but I suppose that’s good tradecraft in our business. A little reverse psychology.”

  “Tony, everyone is looking for a sleekly coiffed Jackie Kennedy in titian, not Julie Driscoll with curls.”

  “Who the hell is Julie Driscoll?”

  “Christ, Shallal do you ever listen to music? She’s with a group called ‘The Brian Auger Trinity’. They did a cover of Dylan’s ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’. They call her ‘the amazing face’. She’s bloody incredible!”

  “Nah, not my cup of tea, Mina. I like “The Zombies”. Total fanatic. I’ve got everything they’ve ever done.”

  “Really? I’m surprised. I figured you’d be a Beatle fan. I like Motown myself. Ever heard of ‘War’?”

  “No, can’t say that I have,” he replied

  ‘Should listen to them Shallal. They’re the sound of the future. Where are you staying in Heidelberg?” she asked.

  “Probably ‘Hotel Goldene Rose’.”

  “Look Tony, I’m not trying to be funny or anything but you could stay with me. My place is gigantic and you’d be much more comfortable. I’ve got lots of tapes and records.”

  “Alright. Nice of you to ask.”

  “That’s settled then. Where do you go from here? Marriage? Do you like children?”

  “Don’t know Emily. In my business, relationships that lead to children are frowned upon. We play; we seldom marry out, if you understand. It’s too complicated a life. After a while you get tired of the lies and deceit and I don’t think I can put an outsider at risk. In the past few years, I’ve been in action in the Middle East, Belfast, Turkey, and Germany. There’s no security, no life for a family and once you’re identified it’s a desk job and an early retirement, if you’re lucky, a mention on a marble monument and a little pension for parents who don’t need it anyway.”

  “So why don’t you get out of it?”

  “Like you Emily? To study and teach?”

  ‘I’m not part of it Tony. I’m free.”

  “Emily,” he said taking her hand as he drove his TR6 down the motorway, “Honestly love, you amaze me. So gullible. They own you now.”

  “Never, Shallal. Emily Desai belongs to me.”

  “And Amina, her alter ego?”

  She laughed, closed her eyes and in rhythm with the sound of tires on the road fell asleep, thinking of her son.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Masud was beautiful, his eyes black as coal and his skin amber. His dark brown hair was thick with waves and as he’d grown, it more resembled Emily’s father’s than his own. She had never seen her parents so happy. They obviously doted on the baby. They were convinced that he was the most intelligent infant they had seen. Her mother held him constantly. Emily felt very much on the outside of this circle of attachment. He was her son. She didn’t want to be told how to change him or feed him. He was hers alone. Her parents hovered over him like ministering angels, attending to his every need. Even Mrs. Offlands was in on the act. The news that he would be leaving with Emily and Tony the following day proved to be traumatic for everyone.

  “Leave him here,” her father said, outraged at the suggestion. Her mother cried, “We’ll bring him to America to you or he’ll be traumatized twice.”

  What was worse, Emily bitterly thought, was that Tony Shallal agreed with them! Let them bring him to America, he told her in front of her family, once you are settled Masud can stay with you and will be used to your attention and they can leave him without fear. The more she thought about it the more comfortable she became with the idea. It would only be for a few weeks more and then she would have him forever. She agreed, and promised her son they would never, ever be apart again.

  The only other thing she wanted was to sink into a bathtub filled with bubbles, to wrap herself in her terry towel dressing gown and curl up on her window seat. Emily longed to be a child again herself, to look outside onto the rose garden, breathe the clean Chester air and forget Amina Desai, Palestinian politics and Lebanon forever!

  While she rested, Tony Shallal had mint tea with Ibrahim in his library and there was little doubt where the conversation was going. On meeting Shallal, Ibrahim Desai wondered why his daughter was suffering from such blindness. This was a good looking young man. An Anglo-Iraqi, a Muslim, from a wealthy background and well-educated. He would make a fine husband and father and he obviously adored Emily. Thus, as any good father would do and without finesse or pretension he asked Tony Shallal pr
ecisely what his intentions were.

  “Sir, I must admit I’m flattered by your questions and I think I know where this is going, but I belong to the British Government lock, stock and barrel. There is no room in my life at present for marriage. When there is, Emily would be the type of woman I would look for and I will make my presence known.”

  “Insh’allah,” her father replied.

  “If God wills it,” Shallal echoed, hoping in his heart that God, whoever he was would discretely place that decision on the back burner with a very low flame.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  They left for Heidelberg the next day. Tony’s car would be picked up by Archie Beresford within the week. The couple was taken to Speke Airport where they boarded a flight for London. At Euston Station they left for Dover and crossed the Channel to Calais, boarding the overnight Taurean Express to Mannheim, arriving at the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof exactly nineteen hours after they left Chester. They took a typically German Mercedes taxi to the little town of Ziegelhausen.

  Her landlady had rendered Emily’s apartment “tip top zauber” and as always it was brilliantly clean. The plush snow-white featherbed was plumped, fragrant with lavender and seductively inviting. There were vases of fresh flowers everywhere. In the refrigerator were cheese, fruit, and a decidedly non Islamic wurst salad with fresh brotchen. Several bottles of wine, and fresh schwarzewalde torte followed for dessert but most enjoyable and what Emily had longed for was the last bottle of Russian Crème Sekt. As a finishing touch, a large bottle of her favorite bath oil “Vitabad” was in her private bathroom amid the soft, luxurious towels.

  After his shower, Tony lit candles and chose some 45’s from the stack of records Emily had brought with her while she relaxed in the bathtub. When she emerged, bare of makeup, wrapped in her bathrobe, he though he had never seen anyone look quite so lovely or so inviting. She dropped down on the couch and sighed, “It’s so good to be home.” He poured her a glass of bubbling Russian champagne which she drank thirstily, laying her head back against the couch. They sang along with The Dells’ “Stay in My Corner”, holding the last note until they both ran out of breath. The mood was set with The Stylistics’ “You Are Everything”. He sat next to her. They sang the chorus together. He looked into her eyes and watched the tears fall as he took her lips to his. He loosened her robe and gently placed her on the soft sheepskin rug before the roaring fireplace, where parting her thighs, she hungrily received him over and over again.

  In future years she would look back on these few days of emotional transition and wonder how and why their lives turned out the way they did. She had several romantic liaisons after this brief interlude but nothing until her second marriage remained so firmly entrenched in her psyche. She would remember all of his powerful seductiveness, every nuance, quirk, every scar and mole on the body of this man and yet while he was her nemesis, her lover and her adversary, liberating her both sexually and spiritually, he never became her friend. They lay in bed for hours at a time discussing religion, family history, relationships and sexual fantasies but never would they touch on the continuance of what they had become. This was an interlude, nothing more, nothing less. A simple pleasure, he told her, a benefit of the job. This was accepted without question. Part of Emily had, of course been insulted and appalled at his frankness as he had hungrily taken her body. It was mutual use, sating a need she kidded herself, but in her secret heart she knew she had given herself freely and with a careless abandon so atypical of her nature that it would never be repeated. It was not love, she rationalized. Neither was it “like” with great sex. It was just there, a passing of the time nothing else, she would later muse. It was autumn in Heidelberg, where people, as the old song said, lost their hearts.

  Their enchanted reverie ended a few days later with a phone call from London. It was the ninth day of September. Tony Shallal was to report to the Embassy in Frankfurt immediately and alone. He could return to Heidelberg later to clear quarters and then he must report to the United States for his new assignment. Emily was given a polite peck on the cheek and no forwarding address. Tony Shallal had no idea that their brief liaison would result in Emily’s second child.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demanded Leila Khaled’s release. To drive their point home they hijacked another plane, this time a BOAC VC-10 en-route from Bombay to Beirut. They took six hundred hostages and the British Government; bound by their formal pledge not to negotiate with terrorists would now summarily sentence sixty-five British subjects on board the flight to their deaths if they did not comply. Thirty years later, released documents would show that in this time of national crisis the Conservative government concluded in response to the PFLP ultimatum that, “The cabinet faces a difficult and complex decision. A woman named Leila Khaled is being held in the country. Her release is an essential element in the bargain the PFLP leaders are trying to strike.” The government, after much consideration determined that she should be transferred out of their jurisdiction, therefore surrendering to terrorism while sparing the lives of the passengers, conceding that this would be in violation of the Tokyo accord in 1963. The Pilots and Airlines worldwide were vehemently opposed to capitulating to the terrorist demands and rumors of a strike action which would close down trade and commerce were rampant. All eyes were on Prime Minister Edward Heath, who would lose all creditability in worldwide aviation circles if Britain surrendered to extortion and blackmail.

  To the Cabinet of Prime Minister Heath in London however, rescuing the hostages was neither feasible nor practical, and covert overtures were made in due course to negotiate with the terrorists. Somehow, by fair means or foul, the PFLP must be forced to grant an extension. They could not be allowed to blow up the planes! All channels of communication were now open with or without the sanctity of government, media or public opinion.

  When Emily’s Aunt Yacouta received the call from Hanna Shavit in Tel Aviv she was watching the Egyptian news coverage of the crisis. She knew that there had been a 72 hour ultimatum issued by the PFLP. Shavit’s instructions were simple. The Prime Minister, Madam Meir had requested woman to woman that Yacouta use all of her contacts and connections to discretely alert the PFLP leadership that Leila Khaled was found and targeted and that one village would be completely obliterated for each of every man, woman and child harmed if the hostages were not freed! She added succinctly that Yacouta should note that while Hermes scarves were always a good gift for family members, blue was not a good color for her niece. Yacouta D’Aboville laughed but firmly responded with the conditions of her service. Neither her niece, nor any member of her family would be harmed in any way whatsoever.

  “We are warrior women, my good friend,” Hanna Shavit lit another cigarette and rasped down the phone, “of the old lineage. You and your Isis. Me and my Judith. Do not worry, Yacouta. Unlike our men, we still have principles. What I don’t have however, are French cigarettes or perfume at a reasonable price.”

  Yacouta knew the number to call. Fearing observation, she drove herself to a public telephone in a Cairo hotel lobby, made a note of the number and purchased a cup of mint tea in the hotel café while she gathered her thoughts, then she left, carefully checking for surveillance. An old hand in the art of espionage and cover, she carefully checked her surroundings then selected a second telephone booth in a different hotel lobby further away and placed her call. She rang a person who would, without further question walk to the apartment in Beirut of the man they called “The Master” with instructions. “The Master” would in turn contact her within the hour at the first location. They were old adversaries but with much mutual respect. If Yacouta would risk her own well-being to contact him, it must indeed be a critical situation.

  Yacouta D’Aboville had known “The Master” Wadi Haddad for decades. He was the child of Greek-Orthodox parents whose father, Elias Nasralla had been an academic of considerable repute. Haddad had studied Dentistry at American Univers
ity in Beirut and had helped to found the Arab Nationalist Movement twenty years before. He was a strong willed rebel leader capable of brilliant strategy with, as his enemies said evil undertones. His only motive was to secure the return to Palestine of all the land the Israelis had captured in the 1967 war. Until that time Haddad had led a movement of peace and rational action. A devout Marxist, he simply wanted a fair share for his people. But as the Six Day War had robbed the Arabs of pride and military credibility, his actions were now honed to brutal, covert operations. As a result the PFLP was formed. Their cause celebre was to vindicate their shameful defeat by acts of terrorism which hopefully would result in liberation based on fear. His first terrorism success had been to mastermind the 1968 El-Al Rome to Tel Aviv Flight 707 hijacking which resulted in the release of sixteen Palestinians in exchange for the passengers.

  Yacouta D’Aboville had, he said, interrupted his daily meal with his wife and children. “What was of such great importance that she could play with the time Allah allows a man with a family?”

  “If, Wadi, you can forward this message to the powers that be, you can be assured of more meals with your family,” she said, refusing to pick up the bait. There was no question in her mind who actually gave the orders for this particular arm of the PFLP. He alone, she had learned from her servants, was responsible for the planning and implementation of the Algerian hijacking. He was George Habbash’s operations officer. Some said he was the leader, not Habbash. Haddad himself had discovered Leila Khaled, saving her from an early martyrdom of blowing herself to pieces as she clumsily handled hand grenades. “Master indeed!” Yacouta said to herself after she had passed on the message, “Master of Death is more like it.”