The Levanter (23 page)

I began by explaining who and what I was, but he cut me short. He already knew all he needed to know about me, he said. What had I to tell him that I thought he didn’t know and should?

I started with my discovery of Issa’s private work in the laboratory, which seemed to amuse him, and went on to the appearance on the scene of Ghaled. That, I was glad to see, he found less funny. Ghaled had killed a lot of his people over the years and was taken seriously. The details of Teresa’s and my recruitment intrigued him and he wanted the exact wording of the oath we had sworn. When I told him about the bogus confessions we had been forced to sign, he nodded.

“Yes, I’d heard they were doing that. Awkward for you.”

Awkward, I thought, was an understatement, but I didn’t pursue the matter. He wasn’t really interested in Teresa and me as persons, only in what I knew. So I went on to tell him about the fuse adapter rings. He stopped me again.

“Hold it.” We were sitting at a desk and he pushed a note pad across to me. “How about drawing that gaine you saw?”

“All right.”

I made a rough sketch. When I started to put in the approximate dimensions, he stopped me again.

“That’ll do, Mr. Howell. We know all about those things.”

“What is it?”

“You guessed right. It’s from a rocket. The hundred and twenty millimetre Katyusha. Has a fifty-kilogram warhead and a maximum range of around eleven kilometres. Quite a lot of the terrorist gangs have them. Good for hit-and-run work. They attacked a hospital with one a few weeks back. A single round killed ten people. The launcher is a simple affair, easy to make with angle iron. They don’t mind leaving it behind them when they run.”

“Where do they come from?”

“Is that a serious question? Oh, I see what you mean - how does Ghaled get them? Well, he could have brought a few with him from Jordan. More likely the Algerians let him have them. Those Chinese fuses were probably smuggled in by the Turkish liberation underground. Or maybe - ’’ He broke off. “I thought you were here to tell
me
something I didn’t know.”

“I was just curious.”

“Well let’s get on. There’s nothing in this for us so far. I’d be surprised if Ghaled
didn’t
have a few Katyushas.”

So then I told him about the ship thing and about the remote-control radio detonators. I described the test firing and gave him the notes I had made on it.

He read the notes carefully enough; in fact, he read them twice, but of course he pretended to be unimpressed.

“This doesn’t tell us much, does it? Did you get a sample of this electronic component, this part you think may have been used?”

“Yes, I did.” I got it out of my briefcase. It looked more like a bar of toffee than an electronic component - very hard toffee with red, yellow, and green nuts embedded in it. Metal connector tags stuck out from one end.

He put it on the desk in front of him and peered at it “Does it have a name?”

“No, just a part number. It’s stamped on the end - U seventeen.”

“U for
Ubertragen,
do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you find out exactly what it was?”

“The person to ask would have been Taleb. That didn’t seem a good idea.”

“Pity. Nothing was said about the radio frequency they’re using?”

“Nothing that we heard. I assumed that your people could find out by examining that thing.”

“It’s possible.”

“Well, there you are. All you have to do then is jam their transmission.”

“Do what?”

“Jam their transmission.”

“And detonate all their bombs for them? Are you kidding?”

“I’m not am expert. But surely with that knowledge you can do something.”

He regarded me pityingly. “Look, Mr. Howell, unless this thing is operated by a coded signal - that is, a combination of signals acting like the wards of a lock which won’t turn unless you use the right key - any jamming on the frequency it responds to is going to have the same effect as that music box gadget you saw. This relay, or whatever it is, doesn’t look complex enough to me for the kind of circuitry you need for an elaborate coded arrangement. As you call it in your notes, a small, simple device. Why, it could be set off accidentally.”

“Accidentally?”

For a moment he did not reply. He was gazing into the middle distance, rather as if he had lost the thread of his argument. Then he seemed to recover it.

“I’ll give you an example. A few months ago in Tel Aviv they had trouble with a new apartment building. The architect was an American and he had installed one of those fancy remote-control openers on the garage door. Each of the tenants was given a little thing with a press-button on it to keep in the glove compartment of his car. Press the button and the door opened, press again and it closed. Everything was fine except that the door would open and close sometimes when nobody pressed a button. In the end the door did its closing act while a tenant was actually driving in and the roof of his car got crushed. They had to do something then. It took time, but they solved the mystery eventually. There’s a hospital two blocks away. One piece of apparatus in the physiotherapy department was sending out a radio signal every time it was used. Not a very strong signal, but it was on the same frequency as the door opener and just strong enough to do the trick. See what I mean?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Let’s go back to this ship business.”

It was a very abrupt change of subject, and I didn’t understand the reason for it until very much later. At the time I made no attempt to resist the change.

“What about the ship?”

“Tell me again what was said.”

I told him.

“These four passengers - I take it that Ghaled will be one of them - are to be allowed to give orders about the ship’s course and speed. I’ve got it right?”

“That’s right.”

He frowned. “Why speed? Why course
and
speed? See what I’m getting at? If all this speculation of yours is correct - and it is only speculation - someone, let’s say Ghaled, wants to be a few kilometres offshore in the Tel Aviv area on the night of the third. There he’s going to press the button on the music box and set off some bombs planted ashore. That’s your idea, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, a simple change of course would bring him into a position to do his button-pressing. He doesn’t really have to nominate the course for that matter. All he has to do is ask what time the ship will be passing Tel Aviv and ask the captain to go in a bit closer so that he can see the pretty lights.”

“He’d have to be sure that he was within range.”

“All right, I’ll accept that. But it still doesn’t explain why speed matters.”

“Timing? The Herzl anniversary?”

“He stipulated the evening of the third before midnight, according to you.”

“Yes.”

“What other timing is involved? The charges to be exploded - certainly if there are to be as many as you think - will have to have been placed much earlier. You’ve no idea where he plans to have them placed, of course?”

“No.”

He sipped his orangeade. “It’s all very scrappy,” he complained. “Nothing solid.”

I pointed to the Magisch component “At least that’s solid.”

“It may tell us something, it may not. The question is now, what are
you
going to do?”

“Me? I’m here talking to you, aren’t I? I’ve done all I intend to do. It’s up to you now.”

“To stop Ghaled playing with that music box and pressing buttons? How do you suggest we do that, Mr. Howell? The
Amalia Howell
is your ship, not ours.”

You would have thought that he was doing the favours, not the other way around. The nerve of it took my breath away.

“You’re not suggesting that I stop the ship sailing, I hope. Because if so...”

“Perish the thought, Mr. Howell You’d be in trouble with Ghaled then, wouldn’t you? Miss Malandra, too, I shouldn’t wonder. He’d twist your arms right off, and that would never do. No, I’m not for a moment suggesting that you actually run any risks in defence of your high moral principles.”

The sarcasm came with a tight little smile. He was a good hater that one.

“Just talking to you is for me a risk,” I retorted. “If your people can’t work out am effective counter to this relay device, if that means that Ghaled’s going to have to be stopped physically from pressing the button, you’ll have to do the stopping. I’ll cooperate passively, if I can reasonably do so, but that’s the limit.”

“What do you mean by cooperate passively?” He made it sound like cyanide of potassium.

The
Amalia
is
going to be in Ancona until Friday of next week, when she sails for Latakia. I could arrange to take on a man of yours, a trained agent I mean, as an extra crewman.”

“One man against Ghaled with an armed bodyguard? What use would one man be in that situation?”

“Send two then, do-or-die boys.”

“Armed with what? Hand grenades? Our people are not that expendable.”

“All right, then, use superior force. You’ve got a navy. Send out an armed patrol vessel and intercept the
Amalia
before she gets near enough for Ghaled to do any damage. Board her and take him off, and his bodyguard. What’s wrong with that?”

“You’re asking me?”

“That’s right.”

“You, a shipowner? You’re asking
me
why we can’t board a merchant ship flying a British Commonwealth flag on the high seas and kidnap some of her passengers?”

“A state of war exists.”

He gave me a long-suffering look. “You want to read up on your international law, Mr. Howell. A state of war may exist, even though there’s a cease-fire in force. What does not exist is a proclaimed blockade with some pretensions to being effective. Stopping and searching neutral vessels on the high seas without the justification of a recognized blockade is totally illegal. As for the kidnapping bit...” He threw up his hands.

“I assure you that the owners of the
Amalia Howell
would not complain.”

“Will the owners of the
Amalia,
or you as their representative, be on board the ship at the time?”

I saw the trap opening and backed off at once. “I most certainly will not be on board.”

“Then the captain of the ship would undoubtedly complain. He would have to, and rightly. The Defence Ministry would never authorize such an action.”

“Well, if the Defence Ministry don’t want Ghaled pressing that button in the vicinity of Tel Aviv, they’d better authorize something.”

He ignored that “Distances and the appearance of things can be deceptive at sea,” he said thoughtfully. “Couldn’t Ghaled’s plan go a little wrong?”

“How?”

“Well, you will be passing on Ghaled’s orders to the captain. Supposing you changed them a bit. Couldn’t the
Amalia
find herself in the vicinity of Ashdod instead of Tel Aviv at the appointed time?”

“Yes, and in near-zero visibility that might work. But Ghaled is no fool. In the sort of weather we can expect at this time of year, he would have to be half blind as well as stupid to mistake the lights of Ashdod for those of Tel Aviv.”

“Then perhaps the
Amalia
could stray accidentally into territorial waters farther north. Say, somewhere just south of Haifa?”

“Stray! Did you say stray?”

“These things happen.”

“The
Amalia
isn’t a fishing boat with a clapped-out compass. She’s a four-thousand-ton freighter with a competent captain and crew sailing in familiar waters.”

“You said that you wished to cooperate, Mr. Howell. You ask for an Israeli patrol vessel and a boarding party to deal with Ghaled. All I’m asking is some slight assistance from you in creating the conditions in which we can oblige you.”

“You’re not obliging me. I’m trying to oblige you.”

“Why can’t the captain simply radio requesting assistance?”

“On what grounds? That he has a man with a music box on board that he doesn’t like the look of? No, the initiative will have to come from you.”

“But what sort of initiative?”

“As you’ve pointed out, distances at sea can be deceptive. Let’s say your coastal radar makes a slight error. He’s really a mile outside, but your people insist that he’s a mile inside. Anyway, he’s acting suspiciously. So you order him into Haifa as a suspected smuggler or for verification of ship’s papers. Under protest he agrees to obey. You could always apologize later.”

“Is that the best you can do, Mr. Howell?”

“Yes. The ball’s in your court. If you people are too fussy to bend the international rules a bit, I’m sorry. Mind you, I don’t think you are too fussy. You’re just hoping that I’ll do the bending for you. Well, I won’t. I have enough bending of my own rules to keep me busy, my own company rules. The captain of a ship may be an employee of the owner, but he’s not going to behave like an incompetent just because the owner starts issuing foolish orders. The captain is still responsible.”

“Even if the owner is on board and willing to take the responsibility?”

“Even then. And anyway, this owner will not be on board.”

He sighed theatrically. “Cooperation? Ah well. Let’s add up the score. We don’t know the radio frequencies Ghaled’s going to be using. We don’t know the course changes he’s going to give you to pass on to the captain. Correction! The course
and
speed changes. We don’t know why speed comes into it. We don’t know where ashore these charges are going to be placed or how. Don’t know, don’t know. When will you be given these course and speed changes? Don’t tell me, let me guess. You don’t know.”

“That’s right. As soon as I do know I'll get in touch again.”

“Not with me you won’t Don’t even try.”

I got a beady stare with that, so I gave him one back.

“Okay. That suits me. Well just forget the whole thing.”

“I understood that you were offering passive co-operation. Are you now regretting the offer and now withdrawing it?”

That’s up to you. Let’s say that I find your reception of the offer discouragingly unattractive. Yes, I wouldn’t mind withdrawing it.”