Snap Shot

by A. J. Quinnell

  It seemed that Munger had been living in the area for some years. Details were sparse but apparently he had a small farm somewhere near Phini. Walter got the impression that Munger was not overjoyed to see him - in fact the opposite. Getting even the barest information had been akin to squeezing a dry sponge. Walter had invited him for a meal, even suggesting that he come along tonight. He assured him he would be welcome. As encouragement he told him that Duff had his camera. Told him the story of the auction. But Munger had refused. Talked lamely about being very busy - some other time perhaps.

  Finally Walter had given him his card and asked him to call him sometime. It was obvious that Munger had been made acutely uncomfortable by the contact,

  Of course, Duff was totally unsatisfied by all this. When had he come to Cyprus? And from where? What was he doing? How did he look?

  Walter could only answer the last of his enquiries. Obviously he looked older, but then Walter had not seen him for over eight years. That would put him in his late thirties. He was bearded and very tanned and his hands were calloused – so maybe he was a farmer. He talked in a curious, stilted way as though unused to conversation, at least in English. Walter’s description was full and accurate for he was a skilled and trained observer. Duff immediately wanted to go out and find Munger but Walter deterred him. The last thing Munger had said was that he did not want to be bothered - by anyone. He had Walter’s card and if he felt like getting in touch he would call him.

  Still Duff remained agitated and unconvinced. The thought of Munger living so close for several years was almost too much to bear. Surely they could find him; at least drop by and tell him he was always welcome to visit.

  Walter shook his head. There was something strange. Munger was not at the Hotel for lunch and when Walter enquired at reception they told him that he had checked out immediately after breakfast. They were surprised for he had arrived only the night before and had booked for three days. The register showed his address as being merely Thini, Cyprus’. A check of the register for the past five years showed that he had not been a guest during that time.

  Now Ruth interjected. From all that Walter had said it appeared that Munger had been about to emerge from a long period of seclusion. Being suddenly confronted with Walter had probably been a shock. She smiled at Walter to take away a hint that had it been anyone else the shock might have been less.

  Finally Duff agreed that it could be counterproductive to go chasing off looking for him. Anyway, he was leaving in two days and would be away at least a month. One thing was sure though. When he got back he was going to locate him and see if he needed anything. He looked again at the camera, solitary and glistening under its glass dome. The least he could do was offer it back to him.

  For the rest of the evening Duff reminisced about Munger. Told again the legion of stories about him, extolled his genius as a combat photographer. No one had ever matched him. No one ever would.

  Walter and Ruth listened in silence. As ever she was puzzled and slightly resentful. This one man had captured her husband’s mind like none other. It had to be more than just his talent. Duff himself was recognised as one of the most brilliant men in his field. There had already been several international exhibitions of his work, and a recent book of his photographs had been a bestseller. No, there was more to it than just respect for talent. She sighed - it was another of the ever-widening voids between them.

  Walter listened with interest. He had known Munger reasonably well during his time in Asia and had always been puzzled by him. He was one of the few men that Walter had never been able to understand and categorise. It was as though he lived in a vacuum, totally independent of those around him. Walter was a manipulator of people, of their fears, hopes and emotions, and a man who was immune to him was infinitely fascinating. He listened as Duff described yet again Munger’s uncanny ability to be in the right spot when something was about to happen. His skill in getting the ‘snaps’ he wanted and then extricating himself from the surrounding dangers. He had been like a wraith, like a shadow moving over the ground and through cordons and walls, padlocks and red tape. There had never been anyone like him. And the final days. What had happened on that last patrol to make him quit? To walk away from the only life he had ever known?

  Finally Walter had become sleepy. He had drunk a lot of wine and three Cognacs afterwards and even the presence of Ruth and Duff’s interesting stories could not keep him awake. So he pulled himself up, kissed Ruth on the cheek and told her that whatever else she did in life her ability to cook duck in red cabbage would ensure her a place in heaven. She laughed and promised to have lunch with him in Limassol next week. At the car he shook Spiro awake and squeezed himself into the back seat, wound down the window and said to Duff:

  ‘Be careful in Beirut, The last I heard it’s due for another eruption.’

  Duff grinned. ‘Don’t worry. Didn’t Hamlet say that “discretion is the better part of valour”?’

  Walter shook his head. ‘Wrong play. Falstaff said it, and he was a man who ate and drank to excess.’ He winked. ‘Never follow the advice of a man like that!’

  After Walter had left, Duff took a bottle of Cognac out onto the patio. His mind was too full of Walter’s news to allow him to sleep. Ruth sensed his mood and his wish to be alone. She kissed him goodnight and went through into the bedroom. It had been a long day and she was tired. But strangely, sleep eluded her also. She lay in the large double bed listening to the faint ticking of the bedside clock and the occasional muted passage of a car on the road behind the villa. The talk of Munger over dinner had also unsettled her. Not so much the man himself but the memories he evoked: the early days of her marriage in Hong Kong; the slow realisation that it was not following the perfect pattern that she had mentally projected; her own growing up in an alien environment; the discovery of aspects and facets of her character. She remembered the night when Duff had come home from the auction with Munger’s camera and her outrage when she learned that because of it he was no longer able to buy her the anniversary bracelet. Now she smiled to herself at the reaction. That was a time when her upbringing and education had tuned her to material things. When love and affection could and should be measured by the value of a gift. When marital fulfilment was a beautiful apartment or a new wardrobe of designer dresses. It was to be expected. Her parents had always rewarded her progress in a material way: a holiday in California when she graduated high school; an M.G. sportscar on her twenty first birthday. She had viewed her position and status as she would view paintings on her walls. That one meant security, that one a good marriage, that one a settled social life.

  It had taken some time for her to see that the paintings were vague, given form only by the frames. At first she thought it might have been the transitory and temporary nature of their lives. After two years in Hong Kong they had relocated to Singapore for a year and then to Bangkok. It was only after they moved to Cyprus and bought the villa and furnished it with their collected pieces that she began to feel a sense of permanence and continuity. It was then that she recognized the emptiness in her life. All her pictures were in place and yet there was something missing. She had already learned of Duffs infidelities. Within the media community there were many so-called ‘friends’ eager to pass on confidential ‘snippets’.

  She had surprised herself in two ways. First, she had not been outraged and second, she had not confronted Duff on the subject. Perhaps her years in the East had conditioned her to see marriage in a more diffused light than her contemporaries. But still, during all those years she had been faithful to him. Fidelity had been another painting on the wall. A painting that was now a blank canvas.

  She rolled over in the bed and pounded the pillow into a more receptive shape. How many nights had she slept alone while Duff was away on assignments? More than half her married life. But that was not a measure of her emptiness. It went far deeper. It went into the core of love itself. She wanted to be needed - completely needed. She wanted
to be the centre of someone’s existence. In retrospect she realized that only two things could give her that: children of her own or the total, undivided love of a man. Children had proved impossible - at least with Duff - so it had been almost inevitable that when the second option clearly presented itself in the shape of Gideon she had moved into the affair with studied purpose. She was simply seeking fulfilment. In the beginning she was wary of the cloak of infatuation. She was well aware of her beauty and allure; over the years she had discouraged scores of advances. It was only after her trip to Israel and Gideon’s second visit to Cyprus that she abandoned her caution and basked in the certainty that he truly loved her. He was strong, accomplished and confident - and he needed her.

  Again she smiled to herself, but this time ruefully. Having sought out such an involvement, its very intensity created unease. What, after all, if she could not match it? Surely there must be a balance?

  She tried to analyse the emotion of love, but quickly gave up. She may as well try to slice a rainbow. Anyway love was organic. Sometimes it grew and, of course, sometimes it withered. Her love for Gideon would grow in intensity to match his. Especially if there were children. They would fertilize the common ground. It only remained for her to take that decision. To tell Duff and finally parade his infidelities in front of him. She could not clearly understand why she found that decision hard to take. Obviously in spite of everything a part of her still loved him. Maybe it was at the fainter edge of the rainbow’s spectrum. Again she pounded the pillow and settled herself and drifted into a shallow sleep.

  Walter had fallen asleep only seconds after he touched the pillow but it was not a good sleep. He tossed and turned in the oversized bed until three o’clock in the morning. Then, with a grunt of irritation, he reached out and switched on the bedside light. It was unusual for him, for normally he slept soundly with only the occasional dream. He lay for many minutes looking up at the slowly turning ceiling fan. Then he rolled over, swung his legs to the floor and shuffled his feet into a pair of slippers. He walked through into the lounge of the suite and poured himself a glass of Perrier water, then moved onto the balcony. It was a dark, moonless night, only a distant glow of light showed the location of Limassol far below. He knew that his subconscious had been working. Something was bothering his subconscious and until it was resolved he was going to have to stay awake. He was a methodical thinker and he reasoned that, as he had slept well the night before, his subconscious was being bothered by events of the previous day. He recapped on all that had occurred and, as so often happens in the hours before dawn, his mind was lucid and uncluttered and ideas that in daylight are shrouded and complex become stark and clear.

  It was Munger. He was going to need him. The morning meeting was providential. Wide awake, he turned, went back into the lounge and sat down at the writing table. For half an hour he composed a signal to be sent in the morning to Shimon Saguy at Mossad headquarters.

  As a matter of utmost urgency he wanted an in-depth report on one David Munger, sometime combat photographer. The report was to exclude nothing. Walter Blum wanted to know every single thing about him from the day he issued forth from his mother’s womb. He wanted details of his childhood, his parents, his relatives, his education, friends, enemies, likes, dislikes, medical history, political opinions, his favourite colour, food and drink. He also wanted a copy of every single photograph that Munger had ever taken. Finally he asked for a priority investigation to establish what might have happened during Munger’s last days in Vietnam. He thought back, straining his memory, correlating dates. Then he advised that Munger had gone on an operation near Vinh Long with a Special Forces patrol sometime during the month of October 1969. Mossad agents in the USA were to try to track down any surviving members of that patrol and find out what events had taken place. Similarly agents within the US Army were to try to locate and copy any reports relating to that time.

  He finished the draft, locked it into his briefcase and looked at his watch. Then he picked up the phone and told the night porter to call him at 6.30 a.m.

  This time he slept soundly, if only for two hours, but within a minute of waking he remembered some words that Duff had spoken the night before.

  ‘Munger was like a wraith; like a shadow.’

  Chapter 5

  Her orgasm had been above average and Janine Lesage reached down and patted Sami Asaf’s black hair. He raised his head and looked up at her face across the undulations of her belly. He was panting slightly and his moustache glistened with her juices.

  ‘You are so good Sami,’ she murmured.

  His teeth showed in a smile and he started to slide up her long body. She felt his erection rasping up her left leg and mentally sighed. It had been a long time now since she could achieve an orgasm in the conventional way. It may have been a matter of over-indulgence or merely a vivid imagination, but she needed more subtle stimulation than an engorged penis pumping in and out of her. In any event she would have to take care of Sami’s needs. He had laboured long and hard and would now have to be rewarded. He settled over her, wriggled into position and slid deep. She felt almost no sensation but she made appropriate noises into his ear. It would, she knew, take quite a long time for Sami Asaf was one of those men who equated sexual prowess with coital longevity. While she lay under him, stroking his back and rhythmically twitching her buttocks, Janine’s mind was elsewhere.

  She had deliberately seduced Sami a month before, shortly after being given the assignment of working as liaison between her own service, SDECE and the Iraqi Mukhabarat. The job had been a direct result of the nuclear reactor deal. She remembered the briefing at SDECE headquarters in Paris. It had been conducted by the Director himself, Alexandre de Marenches.

  The Mossad would be unrelenting, he had told her, in its attempts to thwart the deal. They had been very active in France during the past two years and once the reactor was shipped they would concentrate their efforts in Iraq. They would most likely use Beirut as a base of operations. As Janine had been working in that area for six years she was the ideal candidate both to co-ordinate the SDECE counter-offensive and to liaise with the Iraqi Mukhabarat. It was fortunate that she was acquainted with Sami Asaf from the Far East days, because he was now a Deputy Director of the Mukhabarat and the man responsible for the protection of the, reactor and the French personnel working on it.

  Now Janine smiled to herself as she lay under the grunting Iraqi. ‘Acquainted’ was no longer an adequate description of their relationship.

  De Marenches had gone on to quantify the opposition. Although Mossad were not believed to be in Iraq in strength they were well entrenched in Beirut. Recent reports had indicated that a special section had been set up within Mossad to concentrate on the reactor. It was vital to France, he told her, that the reactor came on stream without interruption. Certain major commercial and arms deals would only be confirmed on that date.

  ‘Have the Israelis genuine reason to be suspicious about the reactor’s ultimate purpose?’ she had asked.

  De Marenches had given her an enigmatic look and a very Gallic shrug. They are always suspicious,’ he had said. ‘Anyway the Iraqis have signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Something the Israelis have never done.’

  She had smiled at him cynically and answered ‘Of course, then that makes everything all right.’

  Finally de Marenches had briefed her about the role of the CIA. She must assume that because of President Carter’s paranoia about nuclear proliferation they would be intensely curious about the whole project. The State Department had already brought great pressure to bear, on the French Government to cancel the deal. It was due partly, of course, to the Jewish lobby in Congress.

  So apart from watching out for Mossad she must also keep an eye on the CIA. There were two prime factors in her favour. Firstly, the CIA and Mossad were no longer co-operating. In fact since the early severities the opposite was true. Secondly, de Marenches told her with a bleak smile, SDECE agent
s in Washington had recently infiltrated a hitherto unknown section of the CIA. It was known as ‘Equine’ and it was believed to be particularly active in the Middle East. He had passed her a sheet of paper listing the known or suspected ‘Equine’ agents in her area. There were seven names. The top one was Duff Paget.

  De Marenches had seen her smile-a combination of delight and malice.

  ‘You know any of them?’ he had asked. ‘Yes, I know three of them. One in particular.’

  He had warned her to be circumspect when dealing with the Americans and she had nodded dutifully.

  Sami was beginning to increase his tempo and Janine felt a certain vaginal dryness. Another two minutes, she decided, and then I’ll pop him off, whether he’s ready or not. Sami Asaf was, of course, vital to her schemes both personal and official. It was one of the reasons she had seduced him a month before. She always liked to be in full control of an operation and she had learned long ago that there were two prime ways to control a man - money and sex. Her experience had shown that of the two, sex was by far the more potent.

  She was definitely in control. She ran her left arm up his back to the top of his bobbing head, turned her wrist and glanced at her Cartier watch. It was getting late and she had things to discuss with Sami.

  She knew what to do. After a month of frequent sex she understood exactly the fine edge separating Sami’s sadism and masochism. First she raised her feet and locked them round his ankles. Then she gripped his hair tightly with her left hand. The fingernails of her right hand dug deep into his left buttock. He gasped at the pain and she pulled his head up and fastened her teeth to the underside of his chin, close to his throat. He began pounding into her, their hips slapping together wetly. Any second now, she thought, and tightened her grip with teeth and fingers. Then he was spurting into her and crying out in a mixture of agony and ecstasy.