The Levanter (27 page)

“I’m surprised I wasn’t.”

“I told you he was insane.”

I didn’t answer. “Insane” was not the word I would have chosen. The only truly insane person I had known then - a man who worked for our company and who had one day tried to kill himself and his wife - I had pitied. I never pitied Ghaled. Nor do I now. On that particular evening, however, the last thing I was prepared to get into was a “mad-or-bad” argument with Teresa.

Later, in the office, I got the chart out again and put a scale ruler on it.

The written instructions and the track drawn in ink exactly corresponded. If the Israelis were going to intercept the ship, they would have to do so outside territorial waters, as I had suggested, and move in early, when the ship made her second course change south of Caesarea. They would also, I realized, have to bend the rules considerably, because if Touzani was able to follow the instructions I meant to give him, the ship was going to be even farther outside the six-mile limit than the track on the chart prescribed.

It was when I
was considering this point that I noticed the second track.

It had been pencilled in and then erased, but the line was still just visible. It gave a course about half a mile west of, and running parallel with, that indicated by the ink track below Caesarea.

I only noticed it; I didn’t pay it much attention. It could have been an alternative course pencilled in earlier and then rejected in favour of the one closer inshore. It could also have had nothing at all to do with the inked-in course. On that well-worn sheet of cartridge paper were other half-erased, smudgy pencillings, all clearly relics of past voyages.

I decided that I now had all I wanted.

“Is there a plane to Rome tomorrow?”

“Alitalia. Do you want me to try for a place?”

“You’ll get a place. Speak to Fawzi. In the morning send the cables you
would usually send to the hotel and to your lawyer.”

“What about the one to Famagusta?”

I’ll send that when you’re on your way.” I paused. “I don’t want you back here until after July the third, Teresa.”

She objected to that, of course, but I was firm.

“Supposing Ghaled gets suspicious.”

“I don’t see how he can.”

“He can always get suspicious.”

“Then I’ll send you a cable ordering you back. You answer that you’re catching the next plane, but you don’t. Instead, you send another cable saying you’re held up. Or go to Nicosia on your way back and get held up there. It’s only ten days to the third. You can spin that out. If there’s any trouble here I’ll be able to slide out of it, but I don’t want you involved unnecessarily.”

“I don’t like it.”

“But I do. I’ll have one thing less to worry about.”

Thing!”

“Your being involved is a thing. No more arguments, please. I have to work out the message you’re going to take.”

Teresa left for Rome the following afternoon.

I
didn’t go with her to the airport because I was known there and wanted no particular attention paid to her departure.

At four I called the airport to make sure her plane had taken off on time. I then drafted the warning cable, in the form agreed with Barlev, and told the clerk to get it to the Famagusta office.

After that I tried to put the whole business out of my mind. I didn’t quite succeed, but I worked until seven and gave the clerk his orders for the next day.

It was lonely in
the villa without Teresa. If she had really been away seeing her lawyer, I would have had an early dinner and gone to bed. As it was, she was going to be away ten days instead of forty-eight hours, and I was due to report to Ghaled at eight-thirty. So, I had the early dinner and then sat wondering how soon the man calling himself Michael Howell would contact her for the message I had sent. Tomorrow morning would it be? The afternoon? If Barlev got it by tomorrow he should have plenty of time. Anyway I had done what I had said I would do. Now it was all up to him.

There had been thunder and even a few spots of rain, unusual for June; it was an unpleasantly sticky night. My shirt was clinging to me by the time I reached the battery works.

Ahmad let me in. It was the first time that he had seen me without Teresa and he wanted to know where she was. I told him that she hadn’t been ordered to report, which was true, and he didn’t ask any more questions.

Ghaled, however, did.

“You did not say last night that she was going to Rome.”

There was no occasion to do so, Comrade Salah. She goes to meet with her lawyer on business. I expect her back on Thursday.”

“You yourself reported, correctly, and obtained my permission before you went to Beirut on business. The same when you went to your Famagusta office.”

“Miss Malandra’s business in Rome is purely private. I gave her permission to go, I am afraid.”

“As a comrade she has no private business, and you have no right to give such permission. The request should have been reported and permission obtained from me. What is this business?”

“Her father’s estate. She was left some land which is being sold, I think.”

“You mean she is rich?”

“There is some money. I don’t know how much, Comrade Salah.”

“Well, she shall tell us herself when she returns. Understand that, in future, permission to make journeys must always be obtained.”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Now. You wanted a list Here it is.”

I glanced at the paper he handed me. There were four names on it. One of them was Salah Yassin, the others I didn’t know. I looked up.

“One question I must ask, Comrade Salah.”

“What question? You have the list.”

“The port authorities may ask to see papers. Will the papers these persons carry have the same names as those on this list?”

“Of course. We are not fools.”

“I only wish to be sure that all the arrangements I make will go smoothly, Comrade Salah.”

“Quite right, Comrade Michael No, don’t go. And don’t stand there. Sit down.”

I
obeyed and waited.

“Since you are so anxious that arrangements go smoothly there is another matter you can help us with.”

“Gladly, Comrade Salah.”

For some reason my compliance annoyed him.

“Gladly, Comrade Salah.” He mimicked my accent as he repeated it and added a servile whine. ”How easily the words come and what a lot of thoughts they hide. I can almost hear them, Comrade Michael. I can almost hear them clicking away. What does he want now? What will it mean to me? Can I refuse? How much is it going to cost me?
Click, click, click!”

I
smiled amiably. “Force of habit, I
am afraid, Comrade Salah. As you yourself said, I think like a businessman.” No harm now in reminding him of those lost backgammon games. “And why not? That is what I am.”

“And therefore superior to the stupid soldier, eh?”

Obviously he had needed no reminder from me about the lost games; they were still rankling. He probably had a slight hangover, too.

“I know nothing of the soldier’s art, Comrade Salah.”

“No, you only see the surface of the plan. A ship, an electronic exploder, charges laid ashore. The rest of the work you take for granted. The businessman thinks it all easy.”

“Far from it I can imagine some of the difficulties.”

He snorted derisively, so I went on.

The explosive for the charges, for instance. That had to be obtained and taken across the border into Israel. Not easy at all. Then, it had to be conveyed, disguised as something else no doubt, to a secret dump or dumps. Again not easy. The same is true of the detonators made here and the firing mechanisms. They, too, have had to reach their planned destinations, the right places at the right times. Then the charges have had to be assembled, and, once assembled, planted without discovery in carefully chosen places. Even a businessman can see the complexities.”

“Very good.” He seemed slightly mollified but he still couldn’t let it alone. ‘’You can imagine difficulties and complexities, but could you find solutions for them? If I ordered you to obtain a hundred airline flight bags, say twenty-five each of four of the airlines using the Tel Aviv airport at Lod, what would you say?”

“Is that what you wish me to do, Comrade Salah?”

“If I did wish it, what would you say? Bags from Pan-American, Swissair, KLM, and Sabena, for example, twenty-five of each. Well?”

“I would say that it would be difficult. I would say that they would have to be stolen.”

“Then you would be wrong.” He was feeling better now. “Quite wrong. It required careful planning and much thought, but they were all obtained quite legally.”

“To contain the charges, I suppose.”

“Naturally. In all those crowded tourist coaches and hotels what could be more innocent than an airline flight bag waiting patiently for its owner to claim it?”

“I thought that all flight bags were searched at Lod.”

He sighed at my ignorance and simplicity. “Flight bags are searched before Israel-bound passengers board the planes. Obviously ours will not be carried by arriving passengers. They are already in the country, ready to be armed and distributed to their final destinations.”

“A most ingenious plan, Comrade Salah.” It had, at least, the merit of simplicity. I wondered if Barlev had had the wit to deduce it from my account of the test. Probably not. I wasn’t even certain that I had used the description “flight bag”. I could have just said “bag”. It had been a Pakistani bag anyway, and the Pakistani airline didn’t fly to Israel. If they had used a Swissair or El Al bag I might have cottoned on, but they hadn’t; and in any case there was nothing I could do about it now. There was no way of getting the word to Barlev, even if it had been useful to do so. What could he have done at that stage? Banning all airline flight bags wouldn’t have been a very practical proposition.

“Can you see any weaknesses?”

“None, Comrade Salah, absolutely none.” If his organization and planning were as good as he thought they were, it would be up to the
Amalia Howell
to inject the necessary weakness into the plan later.

“Unfortunately, not all our affairs go so well. Minor hitches occur. I was speaking to you last night about diesel engines. In that connection you can make yourself useful.”

For a moment I had an absurd vision of myself haggling with the Mercedes-Benz agency in Damascus over the price of a reconditioned fuel pump. Then he went on.

“Do you know what a Rouad coaster is?”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Good. We have the use of one of these vessels. It is used to bring in supplies from the north.”

“I see.” And I thought I did see. Barlev had said that the PAF received supplies smuggled through Turkey.

“It has a diesel engine.”

“An auxiliary engine you mean?” The Rouad coaster is a schooner, a sailing vessel.

“An engine,” he said firmly. “We cannot wait for fair winds in our work. It is with that engine that you will concern yourself.”

“This is the one with the defective fuel pump?”

“It was. We are not the fools you seem to think, Your brilliant suggestion that a new pump should be installed had been anticipated. The new pump has already been fitted. However, the engine still does not work properly.”

“What kind of engine is this, what make?”

“Sulzer.”

“Where did the new pump come from?”

“Beirut.”

“Who fitted it?”

“A local mechanic. He said he knows these engines.”

“Local where? Latakia? Rouad?”

“Hareissoun. That is where the ship is berthed.”

Hareissoun is a scruffy little fishing port just north of the Baniyas oil terminal. The chances of finding a competent diesel fitter there would be remote. I said so.

“What solution do you propose?”

“Let the vessel go to Latakia under sail. There is a man there who will do the job properly.”

“What man?”

“His name is Maghout. He is a foreman in the Chantier Naval Cayla by the South Basin.”

“Our ship must stay in Hareissoun. This man of yours must go to her there and do the work.”

“Unfortunately, he is not my man, Comrade Salah. I can’t give him orders. I could make a request to Cayla.”

“The matter is now urgent. Would they act on your request?”

“You can’t expect them to release Maghout at a moment’s notice. He’d have to drop everything to go and do a job like that. It really would be simpler to take the vessel to him.”

“That is out of the question. I have already told you
so. If this Cayla will not oblige you, he will oblige u
s.
I have my people in Latakia, remember.”

“I remember.” They had once been going to plant bombs in Howell ships.

“All this foreman Maghout has to do is diagnose the cause of the trouble and tell the man in Hareissoun what to do. Am I right?”

“I don’t know, Comrade Salah. The local man diagnosed a faulty fuel pump. He may have been wrong. The fault could be elsewhere. Other spares may be needed.”

“Exactly. It is a problem of organization, a business matter. Go to Hareissoun tomorrow, Comrade Michael. Consult with Hadaya, the ship’s master. Consult with this local incompetent if necessary. Ask your questions, decide what is best to be done, and coordinate the work. Report progress to me tomorrow night at this time. If you decide that you need this foreman from Latakia, let Issa know earlier so that Cayla may be approached at once. You understand?”

“I am not qualified to make judgments about engines, Comrade Salah.”

“You are qualified to make use of those who can judge.” He smiled maliciously. “Imagine that it is an Agence Howell ship in Hareissoun, one of those of which you have models. Imagine that this defective engine is costing your business money. The difficulties will very soon disappear, I think Don’t you?”

“I don’t believe in magic, Comrade Salah.”

“No, but you always do your best That will be good enough.” He paused. “Mr. Hadaya, the master, will be warned to expect you tomorrow and told that you are acting for me in this matter. When you report to me, Comrade Michael, I shall expect only good news.”