Web of Spies

by Colin Smith

  In the village, the women were wailing around three shattered houses, one of them the house of Tamima and her grandfather. Beside it was a crater, about twenty feet across, made by the bomb whose blast had brought the house and its neighbour down. The roof of grey stressed concrete was almost intact, but no more than six inches off the ground in places because the walls had collapsed. Nearby a car lay on its roof like a stranded beetle.

  George and Dove joined the people clambering about the shattered masonry, peering under slabs into horrible little caverns of crushed furniture, tugging tentatively at clothes which proved empty, hoping they would not find what they were looking for. At one point the Palestinian groaned and emerged from one of these burrowing places clutching the wallet of coloured pencils he had given the child. They could not get under the main weight of the roof, but they tore at the rubble around the edges for over half an hour before all but George, his Kalashnikov slung across his back, gave up. Dove, exhausted by his own efforts, watched his frantic clawing, his fingers bruised and cut, saw him even trying to lift the roof single-handed.

  Then somebody told them that, after the first bombs, many people had run to the fields ‘where the little bombs had fallen’. They raced to the spot, and sure enough, a group of sobbing women were standing in a semi-circle facing the dark green of an orange grove. At their feet lay Tamima’s grandfather, bleeding and making convulsive little shudders. Dove ran up to him with the vague intention of stopping his wounds, but he was bleeding from so many places he didn’t know where to start. He had been caught running for the cover of the orange grove when the CBU’s bomblets hailed down. George bent down beside the dying old man and began to shout in his ear; the old man murmured something, and George ran off into the orange grove pursued by Dove. ‘Watch where you put your feet,’ yelled the Palestinian after him.

  Dove saw her first. She was standing under one of the trees, almost lost beneath the foliage, examining a green, unripened fruit.

  George called, ‘Tamima’, and started running towards her.

  Then suddenly he froze, and when he started moving again approached very slowly on the balls of his feet, whispering to her in the guttural Lebanese Arabic. Without turning to Dove, still looking at the child, he said in a calm voice pitched almost to a monotone: ‘Watch your feet man, watch your feet. She’s playing with a fucking bomb.’

  The schoolteacher looked again at the orange. He saw that its texture was smooth, metallic; it was not oval, but crimped into a hexagon shape and had a ridge running around its middle even more uncommon to oranges. He stopped and searched the long grass around his feet. About a metre from where he stood was another of these strange green fruit and nearby, the sunlight that filtered through the grove glinted on the bronze interior of a half-sphere that had split from its metal shell.

  Tamima smiled when she saw the Palestinian and threw the bomblet from one hand to the other, moving her head from side to side like a juggler warming up. The Palestinian continued to whisper to the girl and in the same quiet voice told Dove to sit down - carefully. This was a mistake because the child became alarmed at these strange adult antics. She held her new plaything in both hands, sensed that this was the cause of alarm and threw it from her in a startled little two-handed gesture.

  Dove had been squatting. Now he flung himself down on his belly, his fear of an immediate explosion overcoming the notion that he might be prostrating himself on more unexploded bomblets. He lay there for several seconds, his nose in the grass, dimly aware of the insect life buzzing around him. Nothing happened. He looked up. The Palestinian was standing with his arm around the little girl, the bomblet he had caught in his free hand. Dove scrambled to his feet expecting some scathing comment. Instead the Palestinian said, ‘Sweet student, you’re learning. These things are supposed to go off on impact. Sometimes, if they land on soft ground, they don’t, but it makes them about as touchy as a scorpion. You don’t even want to sneeze near them.’ Dove carried the girl on his shoulders while the Palestinian picked a route for them out of the grove. On the way he bent down and picked up the bronze half-sphere Dove had noticed shining in the grass. When they got back to the field he scooped out with his fingers what remained of the white explosive, fully revealing the bronze interior. It was pre-cut in half-centimetre squares, like a waffle iron, to make for easier fragmentation.

  ‘Now tell me who the terrorists are,’ he said.

  But Dove was not listening. He was watching the road, where a Mercedes had just drawn up with an escort of fedayeen in Land Rovers, front and rear. Out of the car stopped the lawyer; he waved them over. ‘Maybe you’re in business,’ said George. He took the little girl off the Englishman’s shoulders.

  Dove walked up to the Mercedes. ‘That’s a problem,’ said the lawyer. ‘We know where Koller is, but there’s a Scotland Yard man in town looking for you.’

  9. Fitchett and the Funny

  ‘Stephen Dove?’ said the gaunt Lebanese detective with iron grey in his hair. He declined one of Fitchett’s Senior Service with a slap of his chest and a wan smile - a local gesture that could mean anything from indigestion to lung cancer. ‘I don’t recall the case. Our Interpol messages often get lost nowadays. It’s the events, you know - telex links are not what they were.’

  Fitchett didn’t mind the evasion. He could not imagine the Yard exactly jumping through hoops of fire over a Lebanese request for assistance, either. ‘These things happen,’ he said.

  This time the Lebanese smiled his best smile, rang a little bell on his desk and asked the Englishman if he preferred tea or coffee.

  ‘Tea,’ said the Special Branch man gruffly, apparently about to incinerate his cigarette with a blazing torch. On closer inspection the Lebanese saw that it was an old-fashioned petrol lighter.

  ‘According to some British reporters in town,’ said Fitchett, ‘he first disappeared from his hotel, then, a couple of days later, so did some of his things.’

  ‘He didn’t pay the bill and he - he did a bunk,’ said the Lebanese triumphantly, proud of his idiom. It had taken about ten seconds to establish that Fitchett’s French barely covered a menu and, of course, Arabic was too much to expect from an English policeman.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Fitchett, ‘his things were taken after he disappeared. It looks like somebody grabbed him then went back for his belongings.’

  ‘And the journalists told your embassy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You say he’s wanted for, what is it, grieving bodies?’

  ‘Grievous bodily harm. He beat up a girl - badly.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Lebanese, who plainly didn’t. He brought out a tipped cigarette, screwed it into a long holder, and lit it with a Dunhill. ‘A crime of passion?’

  ‘No, but she was a cabinet minister’s daughter - a big man in our government,’ added Fitchett, just in case he had missed the point. Fitchett believed all foreigners were stupid, some more than others.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Lebanese. It was a friendly, knowing, Levantine ‘aah’, which said that politicians were the same the world over and a policeman’s lot was not a happy one. ‘Now I see why you’re here.’

  The tea arrived, brought in by a youth who carried it on a little grey aluminium tray which he held by a short chain. To Fitchett’s horror it was served in glasses and without milk.

  ‘Any milk?’ he enquired.

  ‘Milk?’ The Lebanese looked puzzled.

  ‘For the tea.’

  ‘Ah, le anglais!’ The Lebanese said something to the youth, who had been waiting for payment. When he had gone he placed a large, uneven lump of sugar in his mouth and proceeded to dissolve it with sips of tea.

  ‘Why did he beat up the girl?’ he asked when his mouth was free.

  Fitchett told him. In the course of his explanation the youth returned bearing a whole glass of milk, most of which Fitchett managed to pour over the carpet.

  ‘No matter,’ said his host sadly.

  ‘No wonde
r this place is such a shit-hole,’ thought the Special Branchman. ‘They can’t even make tea.’

  ‘But surely there is no problem,’ said the Lebanese when Fitchett had finished with the milk. ‘If this unfortunate man has been seeking Koller among the Palestinians here then he is almost certainly dead. That is your explanation. They killed him and then came back to examine his papers.’

  ‘If that’s the case,’ said Fitchett, ‘we’d like to find his body.’

  ‘Why? There are so many bodies here.’

  ‘Well, there’s a lot of interest in this case in London and now the press are sniffing around, although so far they’ve got it wrong - they think he’s a spy.’

  ‘Naturally, he isn’t?’

  ‘I think we could do a bit better than that,’ said Fitchett stiffly, although privately he had his doubts.

  ‘Forgive me - it’s the national paranoia.’

  ‘Anyway, we’d like to clear it up one way or the other. If the papers find out who he really is they’ll make a hero out of him.’

  ‘You don’t approve of what he tried to do?’ As far as the Lebanese was concerned Dove was undoubtedly in the past tense.

  ‘We’re policemen. We don’t have a point of view. It isn’t allowed.’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was an awkward silence. ‘Let’s say I have some sympathy for the bloody fool,’ said Fitchett.

  The Lebanese smiled one of his sad smiles. ‘Monsieur,’ he said. ‘You realise the situation here. This isn’t your Scotland Yard. Oh, don’t misunderstand me. Once, before the events, we were quite good and criminals got arrested. Now it’s different. Perhaps the civil war is over, officially they say it’s over at least, but nobody could pretend that things are back to normal.’

  As if to emphasize his point the Syrians chose that moment to lob another rocket salvo into East Beirut and the explosions floated in above the traffic noise outside. The Lebanese didn’t appear to hear them. ‘Sometimes one of my policemen might hand out a traffic ticket,’ he continued. ‘But only if the unfortunate motorist doesn’t have enough money to bribe him. Occasionally, we may even arrest someone for a crime - providing he is poor and inoffensive, which means that he is not connected in any way with any of the militias, whether Christian, Leftist or Palestinian. In the meantime, people like myself send our families abroad, come into the office, pretend to work, and pray for better days.’

  Fitchett sat back and fished in his pockets for another cigarette, uncomfortable with such honesty from a stranger. ‘But even if you can’t do anything about it you might be able to find out what happened to him?’

  ‘It’s possible. We still have our informers – if the price is right.’ This was more like it, thought Fitchett; he was expecting this.

  The Funny at the embassy had even rehearsed him for it. ‘And don’t ask for a receipt,’ he had concluded. Patronizing bastard. ‘Of course, there’ll be expenses,’ said Fitchett. ‘And we realise that there’s no reason why the Lebanese police should pay for them. What we thought we might do is make an ex-gratia payment of say, five hundred pounds sterling to cover payment to the informers, etcetera. It’s a very unofficial payment.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Lebanese, shrugging and turning both palms upwards, ‘it would help. There is no doubt it would help.’

  ‘Good,’ said Fitchett. He pulled out a bulging wallet and began to count out fifty twenty-pound notes. There had been a lot of aggravation back at the Yard about taking the money in cash rather than travellers’ cheques. Accounts kept twittering on about Bank of England regulations. In the end, the man at the top had had to take responsibility, and they had given Fitchett a thousand pounds. He was wondering whether he should help himself to a drink out of the rest. It was tempting.

  ‘I’ll get you a receipt,’ said the Lebanese. It was almost as if he was reading his thoughts. ‘It’s not necessary.’

  ‘I insist. If you’re one of the last honest policemen left in Beirut then you must have proof,’ he laughed.

  He called for a secretary and the receipt was prepared on paper letter-headed in Arabic and French. The document was completed with a large rubber stamp under his signature. Fitchett folded it carefully into his inside pocket and thought - just my luck. But he was relieved that the temptation was over.

  ‘How long will you be in the Lebanon, Inspector?’

  ‘I was hoping no more than a week.’

  ‘Give me two or three days. Perhaps I will have something for you.’

  ‘Extraordinary - an honest copper,’ the Funny said when he heard the story about the receipt. Fitchett didn’t like that. His tone implied that all coppers, from Lithuanians to Lebanese and not excluding Scotland Yard, were bent.

  ‘It’s been known,’ said Fitchett. ‘Cheers.’

  The Funny raised his whisky glass to his lips in silence. ‘Damn,’ thought Fitchett, ‘Funnies don’t say Cheers. Too pleb.’ Then his embarrassment annoyed him. ‘Bottoms up,’ he added aggressively, and drained his glass.

  He wondered when his dislike of Funnies began. Partly the Philby affair he supposed- a bunch of Oxbridge pansies shielding one of their own. But there was something else. Something Fitchett found even more difficult to stomach. They were above the law, licensed criminals accountable only to remote tribal chiefs who made their own rules. Even blackmail and murder could be sanctified.

  This particular product of Century House was under embassy cover, a Second Secretary whose official duties included being the mission’s press officer. He annoyed Fitchett by punctuating his conversation with a silly, humourless grin which lit up an otherwise immobile face like a candle in a Hallowe’en turnip. He was also infuriatingly relaxed. While Fitchett sat on the edge of his chair, dapper but proper in a lightweight suit and tie, the Funny, wearing jeans and a striped shirt, lounged on a huge suede pouffe against the wall. He reminded Fitchett of a sneering con-man he had once arrested for flogging dud real estate to old ladies. His prejudice was confirmed by the fact that, despite the gathering dusk, his host wore canvas yachting-shoes without socks.

  They were sitting in the Funny’s flat near the American University. On the walls were photographs of College sports teams. Fitchett noted that the dates on them made the Funny slightly older than he had thought. They took their drinks to the balcony and watched, through the conifers below, the night swallowing up the Mediterranean. Syrian shelling had started something burning near the port.

  ‘It’s terrorism, you know,’ said the Funny quietly.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Shelling civilians. They won’t go after the gunmen. They’re too well dug in and the Israelis have given them some good antitank stuff. It’s as if the British Army blasted the Falls Road every time they’re sniped at. It’s always the civilians who cop it. They want to turn them against the militias.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Fitchett. Sometimes he could see little wrong with shelling the Falls Road.

  ‘I know one or two people,’ the Funny said, suddenly business-like. ‘I’ll make some enquiries myself. But your policeman friend is probably right - he’s almost certainly dead.’

  ‘Poor bugger.’

  ‘Yes, it would have been interesting to see how the amateur fared against the player. "A hero perish, or a sparrow fall".’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pope. Alexander Pope. Not that Koller’s much of a sparrow. More like a hawk.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fitchett, thoroughly irritated.

  At the door the Funny said: ‘I’ll try and keep the press off your back.’

  Neither of them had broken the official fiction that he was the press officer.

  It was three days before the Lebanese detective called Fitchett, at the three-quarters-empty hotel he had chosen because the Beirut press corps seemed unaware of its existence. He sounded excited. Fitchett wanted to see him right away, but he said it was ‘difficult’. They agreed to meet for dinner and the Lebanese named a French restaurant. ‘I think it is the best one
,’ he said. ‘It was robbed last night so it probably won’t be robbed again tonight.’

  When they had placed their orders and the wine had arrived, the Lebanese policeman said: ‘The first thing I have to tell you is that he is alive.’

  He looked at Fitchett, expecting some reaction, but the Yardman was too old a hand for that. Disappointed, he went on, slapping down his ace long before he meant to. ‘He’s more than alive. He’s free-and training with the Front.’

  At first Fitchett’s only reaction was to search his pockets for cigarettes and flame-thrower. When he had taken a deep drag he said: ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that they’ve turned him that he’s England’s answer to Patty Heart.’

  The Lebanese looked hurt and assured him it was the truth. ‘My God. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. If I knew I would be a clever man. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Somewhere in the south. If I had to guess I would say probably around Beaufort Castle.’

  ‘Can we get to him?’

  ‘No, not there. It’s fedayeen territory. Our only chance is if he tries to leave the country through the airport. We still have some control there - an army unit which is supposed to be loyal.’

  ‘I see. What sort of training are they giving him? Do you know?’

  ‘The way I understand it they are teaching him to shoot. I’m hoping to find out more.’

  But it was the Funny who came up with the rest of the story. ‘It’s quite sexy stuff,’ he said. Fitchett winced. They were standing on the Funny’s balcony again, sipping watery whiskies. The night smelled of blossom and there was hardly any shelling.

  ‘The Front have cried pax. They want to make it up with the other lot. Claim that they were infiltrated - that Koller wasn’t obeying their orders when he started exploding things in London. But the Realists want their pound of flesh - Koller. He’s to be the sacrificial lamb and Dove the executioner.’