The Levanter (19 page)

“No,” she said, “you’ll always work. But not here. You don’t often give yourself away, but you did this morning.”

“I did?”

“That one place where we could go to ground quickly and be absolutely safe from the PAF.”

“What about it?”

“It was Israel you were talking about, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Naturally, that would only be a last resort.”

“Naturally. The presence of Michael Howell in Israel, as soon as it was known about, would make the trading position of the Agence Howell extremely difficult. Liquidation would no longer be a matter of choice. It would become involuntary.”

“I'm well aware of that. As I said, a last resort in an emergency situation.”

“But you did consider it. Bad for business, yes, but not out of the question even so. You see, Michael?”

I wasn’t prepared to listen to much more. “Do you want to run?” I demanded.

“Alone, you mean?”

I said nothing.

She persisted. “Alone, leaving you to explain my defection to Ghaled?”

“You can if you want to.”

“That, Michael, is either unkind or silly.”

“I’m tired. Let’s go home.”

“Very well.”

It wasn’t until we were reentering the city that she spoke again.

“What did Ghaled mean by the thirty-second parallel?” she asked.

I was thinking about metric thread tables and did not reply for a moment.

“Michael?” She started to repeat the question, when I answered her.

“Thirty-two degrees north is the approximate latitude of Tel Aviv,” I said.

Teresa Malandra

May 18 to June 10

The reason why Michael is so difficult to understand - especially for journalists - is that he is not one person but a committee of several. There is, for instance, the Greek money-changer with thin fingers moving unceasingly as he makes lightning calculations on an abacus; there is the brooding, sad-eyed Armenian bazaar trader who pretends to be slow-witted, but is, in fact, devious beyond belief; there is the stuffy, no-nonsense Englishman trained as an engineer; there is the affable, silk-suited young man of affairs with smile lines at the corners of wide, limpid, con man eyes; there is the mother-fixated managing director of the Agence Howell, defensive, sententious, and given to speechifying; and there is the one I particularly like, who . . . but why go on? The Michael Howell committee is in permanent session, and, though the task of implementing its business decisions is generally delegated to just one of the members, the voices of the others are usually to be heard whispering in the background. Ghaled certainly detected the faint sounds of those prompting voices, but to begin with he positively identified only the engineer. About that member of the committee, at least, his judgment was correct; the Englishman’s professional pride borders on the obsessional.

In the days that followed that second meeting with Salah Ghaled there seemed to be no more enthusiastic and devoted adherent to the cause of the Palestinian Action Force than Comrade Michael. Within forty-eight hours the drawings and specifications of the fuse adapter ring had been completed and sent to the Beirut machine shop. A day later, after a telephone discussion, a price had been agreed and work on the sample ring put in hand. Meanwhile, the probable Howell shipping movements for the months of June and July had been analysed and a number of projections made. Then the possibilities of change and manipulation were explored.

It was like a mad chess problem.

On July 2 the
M.
V.
Amalia Howell
(4,000 tons, Captain Touzani) must sail, possibly though not necessarily in ballast, from Latakia bound for Alexandria. Problem: bring this sailing about in
not more than three moves, none of which may be observed by your opponent (in this case your own shipping agents) or, if observed, not recognized as moves.

Michael thought about it on and off for days. In the end he found a solution requiring only two moves: first, the contrived, temporary withdrawal of the
Amalia’s
Deratization Exemption Certificate (required under Article 17 of the International Sanitary Regulations) which would hold her idle in port for three or more days; second, a consequential rearrangement of Howell freighter sailings which would send the
Amalia
, when released, to Ancona to pick up a cargo for Latakia. His eyes gleamed with pleasure as he went over the mechanics of it with me.

“Tell Issa to pass the news on,” he said finally. “No details, just the name of the ship. You can tell him, too, that the sample ring will be in our hands on Monday next. Ghaled will want to see it. Request orders. We want to appear to be cooperating one hundred percent.”

“Why do you say ‘appear’ to be?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well we
are
cooperating, aren’t we?”

He frowned impatiently. “What else do you suggest we do?”

“Is this adapter ring going to work?”

“Of course it’s going to work.” He was indignant for a moment, then he shrugged. “Oh, I see. You think it would be better if the ring didn’t work.”

“Don’t you think so?”

“Aren’t we out to sabotage this criminal operation of Ghaled’s, you mean? Of course we are. But how can we sabotage it when we don’t know exactly what he’s planning?”

“We know some things.”

“Bits of things. Not enough. Anyway, messing about with the adapter ring wouldn’t do any good. I considered changing the flange dimensions slightly.

Maybe that would have made a difference, but how could I be certain? I don’t know enough about ammunition to say. Anyway, he’s not going to take it on trust. He’s bound to try it out.”

We were in the villa office and he tried to change the subject then by opening the
Urgent
file on his desk and starting to go through it. I had already dealt with the really urgent things there and wasn’t going to be put off like that.

“Michael, I’ve been thinking,” I said.

“Yes?”
His tone was a clear intimation that he wasn’t interested.

“About those confessions we signed.”

That caught him. “What about them?”

“We’re both supposed to have been in touch with the Israeli intelligence service.”

“Standard incriminatory stuff. Mandatory death sentence.”

“They gave the name of an Israeli agent in Cyprus.”

“I know. Ze’ev Barlev.”

“Well, why
don’t
we get in touch with him? He must exist
or they wouldn’t have named him.”

Michael sat back. I had his attention. “Oh yes, Barlev exists. He was based on Nicosia.”

‘Well, then.”

“I said was. He hasn’t been in Nicosia for six months. There was a little trouble. He was blown.”

“He must have been replaced by now.”

“I daresay.”

“Famagusta could find out about the replacement.”

“You make it sound very easy, but let’s say, for the purposes of your argument, that they could find out. One of us gets in touch with him? Is that your idea?”

“We’ve already confessed to being in touch with Barlev. Why shouldn’t we really be in touch with his successor?”

“Be hanged for a fact instead of a fantasy?” The con-man was wrinkling his eyes at me now, roguish and extremely tiresome.

“I was hoping to avoid hanging,” I said tartly. “I assume you are, too. Among the other things I am hoping to avoid is any responsibility, direct or moral, for whatever atrocity this Ghaled is planning. You say we can’t go to the authorities here. In the case of Colonel Shikla and the Internal Security Service, that I accept. We know now that Ghaled has
ISS
sympathizers. But there are others who would listen to us. Colonel Shikla has enemies who would be glad of a chance to embarrass him.”

“And you think Shikla would not know that we were responsible? Of course he would know. And so would everyone else.”

“Yes, it would be bad for business. Poor Agence Howell.”

“That is unfair!” The managing director had suddenly emerged from the committee room. “We have been over all this a dozen times. It is not a matter of business but of our personal safety. Any action, official or unofficial, that we initiate here against Ghaled will result in action, direct action, against us. I am not talking about cargo fires and engine room explosions in company ships, but personal attacks.”

“We could demand protection.”

“Against Colonel Shikla when Ghaled has passed him our confessions and they are sitting on his desk? You know better than that, Teresa.”

“Very well. So we have a choice. We either run away or we sabotage Ghaled without his knowing it. And since you say we mustn’t run ...”

“I have already accepted the policy of sabotage, providing that it can be carried out without personal risk. What more do you want?”

“Some assurance that the sabotage is going to be effective.”

“We’re going to get that by sticking our necks out with Israeli intelligence? Is that what you believe?”

“Our necks are already sticking out.”

“There is a certain difference, as I have been endeavouring to point out,” he said coldly, ‘’between the words in a false confession and the deeds you are proposing. Do you think I haven’t already considered the possibility of contact with the Israelis? Of course I have.”

“Well, then.”

“This isn’t the time.” He eyed me sullenly for a moment and then his forefinger shot out, pointing at my nose. “All right, my girl, let’s say you’re going to meet an Israeli agent tonight. It’s all been arranged cutouts, the safe house, everything. What are you going to tell him?”

“What we know.”

“Which is what? That Ghaled is planning something against them? That’ll be no news to him. That he’s got arms of a sort, rockets perhaps? No news again.”

“What about the night of July the third?”

“What about it? An anniversary day in Israel. Did you think I hadn’t looked it up? Tammuz
twenty in the Hebrew calendar. Anniversary of
the death of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism. From Ghaled’s point of view a symbolic day on which to strike. Yes, indeed!”

“There’s going to be a ship, the
Amalia
, off Tel Aviv that night with some of Ghaled’s men aboard. We know that much.”

“A neutral ship outside Israeli territorial waters? What are these men of Ghaled’s going to do? Spit in the sea? But go on. You also know that five hundred electrically operated detonators are being manufactured in our battery works. How are they going to be used? Do you know? You do not. How do you think this good Israeli agent is going to respond to your tidings? I’ll tell you. He’s going to say, ‘Thank you very much, Miss Malandra, this is all very interesting and suggestive. Will you please now go back and discover what this alleged plan of Ghaled’s really is? That is, Miss Malandra, if you really want to help us as you say you do’.” He threw up his hands. “You see? You don’t yet know enough to be useful. Why then run the risk of making this dangerous contact? Why not wait until the information you have - if you can get it - makes the risk worth taking? Why take useless chances?”

I should have mentioned another member of the committee-the hectoring Grand Inquisitor.

There was nothing I could say, of course; he was right. However, I didn’t have to reply because letting off steam like that had started him thinking again. He pushed the
Urgent
file away from him and watched a fly that was circling the office. After a time he opened the deep drawer in his desk and took out the aerosol insecticide spray he always kept there. He shook it absently.

“Pressure,” he murmured. “We must apply pressure.”

He took the cap off the spray, waited for
the fly to come around again, and then gave it a short burst.

When he was sure that the fly was doomed he returned the spray to the drawer.

“I want to speak to Elie Abouti,” he said.

That was one of the last things I had expected to hear. Abouti was the contractor who had built the electronics assembly plant. He was completely unscrupulous and had been clever enough to conceal the depths of his infamy until it was too late for us to take countermeasures. He had made a fantastic profit on the job, which, thanks to his ingenious use of substandard materials, had become a major maintenance problem almost before it had been completed. Michael had vowed vengeance to the most bloodcurdling terms. If he now wanted to talk to Abouti it could only be that the hour of vengeance was at hand. I was curious to see what form it would take, and wondered what connection it could have with the Ghaled situation.

When Abouti came on the line you would have thought that he and Michael were the best of friends. I could hear Abouti’s high voice quacking happily as they exchanged compliments, and Michael was oozing camaraderie. I waited patiently for him to come to the point, but when he did I could hardly believe my ears.

“My dear friend,” Michael said unctuously, “I am most happy to tell you that I see a chance, a good chance, of our being able to work together again.”

The quacking at the other end became slightly guarded in tone. Small wonder. Although the vengeance had been vowed privately, Abouti could not have been unaware of Michael’s feelings on the subject of the electronics plant buildings.

“I
am delighted to hear it, my dear friend, delighted,” Michael was saying, and then he chuckled.

“But this time, my dear Abouti, I hope you will not take it amiss if I ask that I may be allowed a little personal share in your profit.”

The quacking immediately became more animated. A man who wants to share with you in an illegal profit to be made out of a government contract cannot be seriously ill-disposed toward you.

“Have you still got Rashti working for you?” Michael asked.

Rashti was Abouti’s overseer and as big a crook, if that were possible, as Abouti himself. He, too, had been marked down for vengeance.

“Good. Can he be made available at short notice with a survey team? Possibly next week? I ask because we may have to act quickly to secure this business without competition. Best to move in and occupy the site. There is an Italian interest involved. Yes, it will be a Ministry development contract. The Der’a area. But the foreign interest will try to exercise control unless the door is firmly closed.”