The Levanter (16 page)

That I
should have been more concerned at that moment with my involvement in the PAF than with my obligations to the Agence Howell, its shareholders, and its faithful employees was no doubt most regrettable. The responsible, seasoned man of affairs should be able to put first things first and keep a cool head. Obviously, then, I must be irresponsible and unseasoned. So be it. I am not much interested in the devil I know, but the devil I don’t know gives me a pain in the neck. I
knew
what my obligations were to the business; what the PAF wanted from me I still had to find out.

We had martinis, as usual, but no wine or brandy. For one thing, I didn’t want us to go to the meeting breathing evidence of what might be interpreted as an attempt to fortify ourselves; nor did I want to have to excuse myself to go to the lavatory while I was there. I don’t know why I bothered. Probably, at that stage of the game, I was still, instinctively, thinking like a businessman in terms of bargaining sessions at which small psychological gains and losses counted. The idea that I was a member of the PAF pledged to do as I was told without argument took some getting used to.

It was a beautiful night, warm and still. The air in the courtyard was heavy with the scent of plants and there were bats flying. Suliman, the gardener, opened the gates for us. I told him that we might be late and not to wait up. He thought we were going to a party and wished us a happy evening.

We reached the battery works a little before nine and left the car outside as we had done the night before. This time the postern was unlocked, but as soon as we were inside, the two gunmen came out of the darkness by the loading bay and shone a light on us. We stopped.

“Greetings, comrades.” It was the man with the broken teeth who had hit me in the back.

“Greetings,” I said.

He came forward slowly and then suddenly thrust forward the flashlight in his hand. I thought he was trying to jab it in my face and started back.

He tutted reproachfully. “This light belongs to you, comrade. You left it behind last might. The glass is broken, but it still works.”

Thank you, but I have another.” I switched on the flashlight in my hand. “You see?”

“You do not want this one?” He sounded hopeful.

“Not if it is of use to you, comrade.” I decided that it was time to start winning friends. “But, as you say, the glass is broken. Why not take this light, which is unbroken, and I will use the broken one. Tomorrow I can get a new glass.”

Thanks, comrade, many thanks.” We exchanged the flashlights. “My name is Ahmad,” he said. His breath stank.

“And mine is Michael.”

“This is Comrade Musa,” he pointed to his companion. “He cannot speak because he has no voice box.”

Comrade Musa grinned and pointed to a big scar on his neck.

“A war wound?”

“Yes,” said Ahmad, “but he can hear the smallest sounds. He heard you last night before I did. What time were you ordered to report, comrade?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“Comrade Salah does not like to be kept waiting.”

“I’m sure of that.”

“Go on then, comrades,” he said affably. “You know the way.”

For a moment I thought that we were to be left to go on alone; then, as I started to turn, Ahmad chuckled and prodded me with his carbine. “March, comrades,” he said. It was not a hard prod but firm enough to let me know that a flashlight did not buy indulgence and that he was still in charge there.

When we got to the steps of the office building he told us to wait while he went in to report our arrival. Musa grinned at us while we waited but kept his finger on the trigger of his gun. There were lights on in the laboratory, but I could hear no voices. My office was in darkness. Ahmad had gone through to the back of the building.

After half a minute or so he came back onto the terrace and beckoned us up. When we reached him he told me to raise my arms above my head and frisked me. Then he took Teresa’s handbag from her and peered inside it. Satisfied that we were both unarmed he returned Teresa’s bag.

“Follow me, comrades.”

We went along the passage to the storeroom area. Changes had been made there that I hadn’t known about. The larger of the two rooms was now Ghaled’s command post. The rolls of zinc sheet-
my
zinc sheet-which should have been set out carefully in rows to keep the different gauges separate had all been stacked against one wall to make room for a trestle table, some chairs, and a bed. The place had a lived-in look, as well it might It had been months since I had time to bother with the battery works storage rooms. I had left them in Issa’s care. Perhaps it was the sight of him sitting there at the table and giving me a superior little smile as I entered the room that made me so angry.

For me that anger was dangerous. Since there was no immediate way of giving expression to it I had to bottle it up. As a result, I became for a while less afraid of Ghaled and so less careful of what I said. I made mistakes.

It was all very formal to start with, rather like the first board meeting of a newly formed company.

Ghaled said, “Good evening, comrades.” Teresa and I said, “Good evening, Comrade Salah,” and were invited to sit down,

There were two other men besides Ghaled and Issa already seated at the table. Ghaled introduced them.

“This is Comrade Tewfiq. This is Comrade Wasfi. They are Central Committee members.”

Tewfiq was a sallow, pockmarked man with a heavy moustache and a paunch. Wasfi was a wiry young man with a very short upper lip and an unhappy half-smile which seemed permanent. I knew that I had seen both men before and could now guess where I had seen them. Tewfiq and Wasfi are fairly common names in those parts, but they also happened to be the given names of the hardware factory storekeeper and of the maintenance man whom I had marked down as suspect earlier in the day. It was reasonable to suppose that these were those same men.

They both gave me impersonal nods. They did not need telling who I was.

“Now,” Ghaled was saying briskly, “we have much work to do. Last night I described our supply problems and special needs in general terms to the new comrades. Tonight we will detail our requirements and make the necessary plans for their fulfilment. I must impress upon you the need now for the utmost urgency in carrying out assigned tasks. Every task, I repeat,
every
task must be completed within the next thirty days. Is that understood, comrades?”

There was a murmuring of, “Yes, Comrade Salah,” in which I didn’t join. Ghaled looked at me sharply.

“I did not hear you answer, comrade.”

“Because I have
not
understood. I have no knowledge of these tasks you mention.”

“You will have. But I have told you of the urgency. That you can understand, and will accept.”

“Very well.”

He stared at me for a moment. I was being insufficiently respectful, but he wasn’t quite sure that I realized that I was. I returned his stare with one of my own, innocent but expectant. He gave me the benefit of the doubt and turned to a paper in front of him.

“First,” he said, “the matter of detonators, those for electric firing. I will hear reports. Comrade Issa?”

“We have powder for five hundred, Comrade Salah. Samples have been tested in the laboratory and are satisfactory.”

“Comrade Tewfiq?”

“The copper tubes are on order, Comrade Salah, but not yet delivered.”

“Why not?”

Tewfiq spread out his hands. "They were promised for last week and the week before. I am in the supplier’s hands, Comrade Salah.”

Ghaled looked at me. “Perhaps Comrade Michael can help us. Fifty meters of one centimetre diameter copper tubing are required. It must be a hard grade of copper.”

“Who are the suppliers?” I enjoyed asking that question because I was sure that the truthful answer would have been that the hardware cooperative and I were the suppliers. After all, we would be paying for the stuff.

Of course he gave me the name of a metal wholesaler. It was the firm with which we normally dealt.

“There is a special government control on nonferrous metal purchases,” I said. “Was a quota number given with the order?”

Tewfiq was sweating now. “I do not know, comrade.”

“Why not?” snapped Ghaled.

“Because, Comrade Salah . . .” He foundered for a moment. “Comrade, you know that I do not actually issue the orders myself,” he went on, pleading for understanding with his eyes
. “I
am only the..
.”

“Yes, yes,” Ghaled waved him into silence and sat brooding. I knew what was going through his mind. If Tewfiq explained that he was only a storekeeper and that a works office clerk did the actual ordering, I would put two and two together and Tewfiq’s cover would be blown as far as I was concerned. Ghaled was trying to decide whether or not to take me into his confidence. He decided against doing so.

“You must press for early delivery,” he told Tewfiq severely.

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Continue your report.”

“We have the insulated connector wires, the tin caps, and the packing material. However” - he hesitated and then went on with a rush - ”I regret, Comrade Salah, deeply regret that there is still difficulty in obtaining the chrome-nickel alloy wire. It is not a material that I can reasonably order. I have tried. Comrade Wasfi will bear me out.”

“That is true, Comrade Salah.” Wasfi’s anguished smile stretched until it became clown like. “We said that it was fuse wire for electrical maintenance use, but they ordered fuse wire. I think they may not be the same thing.”

Ghaled looked at Issa. “Are they the same?”

Issa took refuge in some papers in front of him. “The specifications call for chrome-nickel alloy wire of thirty gauge,” he said.

“That is not an answer to my
question. Are they the same?”

“I do not know, Comrade Salah.”

Ghaled looked at me.

“No,” I said, “they are not the same. Chrome-nickel alloy, nichrome as it is called, is a resistance wire. It is
used in electrical heating elements because it can get hot without melting or oxidizing. Fuse wire melts when it gets hot. What is the chrome-nickel wire needed for?”

“Show him,” said Ghaled.

Issa pushed a sheet across the table to me. He hated doing it, I could see. He was the technical authority there, not I.

A drawing on the paper showed how the detonators were to be made. A six centimetre length of one centimetre copper tube was to contain five grams of mercury fulminate held between plugs of cotton wool.

One end of the copper tube was capped with tin; the other end had a wax seal holding the two insulated firing leads. The ends of these two leads were in the middle of the fulminate powder, where they were connected by a small loop of fine chrome-nickel wire. That was the firing circuit. All you needed then was a six-volt battery and a switch. When the circuit was closed, the chrome-nickel wire, no thicker than a hair, would become white-hot almost instantly and the fulminate would explode, blowing off the tin cap and detonating any high explosive with which it had been placed in contact.

It was a simple design but a practical one. If you followed the instructions it could be counted upon to work. I continued to study the drawing to give myself time to think. I was tempted to sabotage the whole detonator project by advising them to use the fuse wire, but decided that it would be too risky. Issa had said that the powder samples had been tested. They would certainly test the completed detonators. If the test sample didn’t work, any modification I had suggested would certainly be blamed.

I looked up.

“Well?” said Ghaled.

“A very thin fuse wire might get hot enough before it melted to ignite the powder charge, but I don’t think you could rely on it. I think you must have this fine-gauge chrome-nickel.”

“
We must
have it, comrade,” he admonished me. “The question now is, where do we
get it?”

Issa saw a chance to regain lost face. “If it is used on electric heating elements,” he said, “we can obtain it easily. Only four or five meters are required. We can get a few of these elements and strip them.”

Ghaled looked at me again.

“We could try,” I said, “but I don’t believe that heating elements are ever made using such a fine gauge. Indeed, I am sure they aren’t. It will have to come from a radio dealer who does repair work and has wire-wound hundred-ohm resistors in stock.”

“Comrade Salah!” Wasfi burst out excitedly. I know such a man. He has a shop in the souk.”

But Ghaled motioned Wasfi into silence. His eyes were on me.

“Do you not use these resistors in your own electronic assembly work?” he asked.

“None of the resistors we use are wire-wound, Comrade Salah.”

“Not even in the Magisch communications transceiver which you assemble for the army?”

That made me jump a little. The Magisch was supposed to be on the secret list.

“Especially not in the Magisch transceivers,” I replied. “They use miniaturized circuit units which we get from East Germany already sealed in plastic. We merely assemble the units. There are no individual components of the ordinary kind.”

He gave me a silent handclap. “Good. Very good.” His eyes were mocking. “A little test, Comrade Michael, that is all Fortunately you have passed it with credit. My own electronics expert gave me the same advice.”

I made show of being disconcerted, which seemed to please him. Identifying the “electronics expert” would not, I knew, be difficult. The reference to the Magisch had been the giveaway. I already had a short list of two suspects in mind and another look at the employment files would tell me which of them was guilty.

“Very well. Comrade Wasfi shall buy the wire resistors. Meanwhile we have another urgent matter on which you may be able to assist us, Comrade Michael.”

“Of course, Comrade Salah, I shall be glad to do anything that I can.”

He seemed not to hear me. He had risen to his feet and crossed to the bed. On it were two large metal objects which he
brought back and placed on the table.