At Close Quarters

16

In front of him, below him, in brilliant sunshine, lay the valley.

He could see right across to the grey-blue climb of the far wall. In the soft haze it was hard for him to make out clean-cut features in the wall. Behind the rising ground were the jebels that marked the line of the border between Lebanon and Syria. With difficulty, he could make out the far distant bulk of the Hermon range.

Holt and Crane had reached the lying up position in darkness, and Holt had taken the first guard watch, so that he had taken his turn to wrap himself in the lightweight blanket and tried to sleep under the scrim net while the dawn was spreading from the far away hill slopes. Crane must have let him sleep on beyond his hour. They were above the village of Saghbine. Crane had set his LUP in an outcrop of weathered shapeless rock over which the scrim net had been draped. Holt knew that Crane's bible decreed that they should never make a hiding place in isolated, obvious cover, but there was a scalped barrenness about the terrain around them.

The nearest similar outcrop would have been, he estimated, and he found it difficult to make such estimates over this ground, at least a hundred yards from their position. Lying among the rocks, in the filtered shade of the scrim netting, he felt the nakedness of their hiding place. It seemed impossible to him that they should not be seen should an enemy scour the hillside with binoculars. But Crane slept and snored and grunted, like a man for whom danger did not exist. There was mom between these rocks, under the scrim netting, for the two of them only if they were pressed against each other.

Their valley wall, on which jutted the occasional rock outcrop, shelved away to the floor. He could see that the rock of the sides gave way to good soil at the bottom, The fields were neatly laid out, delineated by the differing crops. The valley walls were yellowed, browned, the valley floor was a series of green shades, and Holt could make out the flow of the Litani winding, meandering, in the middle of the valley, and he could see also the straight cut ditches that carried the irrigating life run of water from the river into the fields. He played a game to himself and tried to make out the produce of the handkerchief fields. He could see the posts supporting the vines that were just beginning to show their spring shoots, and the cutback trees of the fruit orchards, and the hoed-between lines of the grain crop, and the more powerful thrusting traces of the marijuana plants, and the white streamers of the plastic tunnels under which the lettuces flourished.

Holt thought that luxury was a warm bath, and a razor, and a tube of toothpaste…

What few trees there were, pine or cypress, were in small clumps on the valley floor. He reckoned the village of Saghbine was about a mile away below them. The village was clear enough through the binoculars, but it was hard for him to make out the individual buildings when he relied only on his eyesight. He was interested in the village because in his imagination he exchanged the village houses for the aerial photograph he had seen of the camp, and he tried to imagine how it would be when they came to lie up a thousand yards from the camp. Terrifyingly open… If the camp had been where Saghbine was… if they had had to manoeuvre to within a thousand yards of Saghbine and rest up through long daylight hours… he couldn't see how it could be done.

And Crane, snoring and nestling against him, just slept, slept like tomorrow was another day, another problem.

The village was a sprawled mess of concrete block homes and older stone buildings with a mosque and minaret tower in the centre. The high pitched chanted summons to prayer from the minaret tower reached him.

"Fancy a brew?"

Crane had an eye open. Snoring one moment, thinking of tea the next. Holt thought that Crane might just turn over and give up the ghost if the crop failed in Assam and Sri Lanka.

"Wouldn't mind."

"Done the magazines?"

"Done them."

"What's new?"

"Place is like the grave."

Crane stretched himself full length. Holt heard his joints crack.

"Then you're a danger to me, youngster."

"How come?"

"Because, youngster, when you start thinking the Beqa'a is quiet as the grave then that's the time you start to get careless."

"I just said the place was pretty peaceful, which it is."

Crane took the binoculars. Tea was going to have to wait. Holt bridled, and Crane didn't give a damn.

Crane started by looking south.

"Pretty peaceful, eh, that what I heard? Back where you kicked the stone last night, where they fired the flares, there's troops out there. Pretty blind if you didn't see them, but they're there…"

His head turned, his gaze moved north.

"… There's a kiddie with some sheep, or didn't you see him? He's a mile back, not much more, he's about four hundred feet below us. He'll be watching for hyena because he's got lambs with him. If he sees anything that adds up to hyena then he'll yell, bet your backside…"

Again the twist of the head. Crane peered down at the village.

"Gang of guys going into the mosque for a knees down, or didn't you see them? They're in fatigues, or didn't you see that? They'll be Hezbollah, or didn't you know that? If the troops find a trail, if that kiddie spots you when you go to scratch your arse, then the God men'll be up here, too damn right."

"I hear you, Mr Crane."

"So, don't go giving me crap about it being quiet."

"It looked quiet."

"Looked? Heh, watch the kiddie…"

Crane passed the binoculars to Holt. He gestured where Holt should look. To himself, Holt cursed. When the boy and the sheep were pointed out he saw them.

Could have kicked himself. The boy with the sheep wore flopping dun-coloured trousers and he had a grey blanket over his shoulders, and the sheep and the lambs were dirty brown-white with black faces. He hadn't seen them, wouldn't have seen them without the prompting.

"I'm sorry."

"Doesn't help you, youngster. Waking up is what helps."

Holt watched the boy with the sheep. It was as if he were dancing to the music of a flute. Private dancing, because the boy was sure that he was not watched. The boy tripped in the air, and his arms circled above his head, skipping from foot to foot, bowing to something imaginary.

Crane whispered, "If he stops his act, if he starts running, then I get the shits. Do I piss you off, youngster?"

Holt grinned, "Why should you do that?"

"I'll give you a lecture. The troops back there, they hate you. The kiddie with the sheep, he hates you. The guys in the mosque, they hate you. Out here, I'm the only one on your side. Don't get a clever idea that somehow because you're a Brit, because you're not Yank and not Jew, that the troops and the kiddie don't hate you. Our problem was, before we came here in '82, that we never worked out just how much they'd hate us.

When they started to mess with us we kicked their arses, we blew up their houses, we carted their guys away to prison camps. They hate us pretty deep. They're dangerous because they've this martyr crap stuck in their skulls, aren't afraid of biting on a. 762 round. Fight them and you're in a no win, you kill them and you've sent them to the Garden of Paradise which they don't object to. They go in hard. Kill 'em, and more come, there are more queuing up to get to that Garden. They made our life a three-year misery for sinners when we were in the Beqa'a. They sniped us, they mined us, they never let go of us. Bombing them is the same as recruiting them. And they don't fight by your nice rules.

When I'm in the Beqa'a I forget everything, every last thing, that I learned about Hearts and Minds when I was in the British Paras. Treat each last one like he's an enemy, like he wants your throat, that's what I learned here. Don't ever hesitate, just kill, because they have no fear. The girl with the donkey, she had no f e a r…

"

"Do you have fear, Mr Crane?"

"Only when I've got you hanging on my tail, telling me it's all peaceful."

The chanting from the minaret had stopped. In the fields work was resuming. Holt could see the women with their hoes, forks, spades, shovels.

Crane grabbed the binoculars from Holt.

He gazed down at the approach road into Saghbine.

He seemed to smile.

There was a billow of dust on the road. Crane passed the binoculars back to Holt.

Holt saw the car with the dust streaming from its wheels.

"Don't ever forget what that car looks like."

"Why?"

"Because I say don't ever forget that car."

The car was an ancient Mercedes. Holt thought it not much less than a miracle that it still moved. The panels were rusty ochre. The front wing looked to have been in an argument. There were white smears of filler in the roof. He could see packing cases in the back, that the seats behind the driver had been stripped out. At his angle he could not see the face of the driver, only the width of his gut.

"I see the car."

"About time you learned how to make a brew. Get on with it."

The phone trilled on Major Zvi Dan's desk. Rebecca picked it up.

She listened, she passed it to him.

She saw the annoyance, because he liked to be told first who was calling him.

"Dan here… What name? Percy Martins. Yes, I am aware of the presence of Percy Martins at Kfar Giladi

… What do you mean, is he sensitive?… No, I will merely confirm that he is sensitive, but also that his role in Israel cannot be regarded as the legitimate business of the Shin Bet… I don't believe you… You have to be joking… I had a flight for this evening but I'll drive… listen, listen, everything to do with that man is sensitive… three hours."

He replaced the telephone. His head sank into his hands.

Rebecca looked at him. "Is it bad?"

"Unbelievable." As though the wound were personal to Major Zvi Dan.

"Is it bad for the young man?"

"The roof is falling in on him."

Mid-morning, and Percy Martins lay in the bed in his darkened room. He had bawled out the woman who had come to clean and change his bedclothes, sent her packing. He had ignored his wake-up call. There was a drumbeat behind his temples. He knew there was a calamity in the air, couldn't place the source of it. He seemed to think that if he got up and washed and shaved and dressed, then he would get to the bottom of the catastrophe… and he didn't want to. He shirked the discovery.

While he remained in his room, while he lay in his pyjamas, he was unaware that a man from Shin Bet sat on a chair beside the staircase where he could look down the corridor, watch the door of Percy Martins's room. -

A quiet morning in the N O R B A T sector.

The troops had checked and searched only four cars and two cartloads of market produce in the previous three hours. The sun was sprawled in the skies, a lethargy hung over the road block, shimmer burnished up from the roadway. Two of the Norwegians dozed in the oven area under the tin roof that topped their sandbagged position, a third played patience at the lightweight table beside the entrance to the position.

Hendrik Olaffson, smartly turned out in a freshly laundered uniform, carried his NATO self-loading rifle easily on the bend of his elbow. He stared up the road.

He watched the bend. He waited to see if the traveller would come to visit.

He realised they had taken a diversion.

The driver of the jeep turned frequently to give the l ace of Abu Hamid a sharp glance, as though he was the possessor of a private joke. The driver had few teeth. A grin for Abu Hamid to see, and foul breath seeping through the gaps above and below the few there were.

Abu Hamid was not familiar enough with Damascus to know where they went. He would not ask why they had taken a diversion from the usual roads they used to get from the Beirut road across the city to Air Force headquarters, would not give the bastard the satisfaction.

They were in narrow streets. Abu Hamid thought the driver a lunatic. He had the belt on, and that had been a sign of fear, and he knew that he would be ignored if he asked the bastard to go more slowly, or to pay heed to the pedestrians and cyclists. He would just give the bastard pleasure if he told him to pay attention to the traffic signs.

In surges that shook Abu Hamid, lurched him forward against the belt, the jeep hammered down narrow streets, scattered women with their shopping bags, grazed a cart drawn by a ragged, thin horse.

They came into a square. The square seemed over-hung, squashed in, by the buildings around. It was a dark square because the buildings were tall and cut out the sun. Abu Hamid thought that only at the middle of the day would the sun fall into the cobbled centre of the square. There were balconies at many levels of the surrounding buildings, with washing suspended from them, and the stucco facades were peeled raw.

He felt the tug at his sleeve. He realised the driver had slowed. He saw the squinted amusement in the driver's eyes. The driver jabbed with the nicotined tip of his finger, showed Abu Hamid that he should look to the centre of the square.

He was not prepared.

He retched, choked, he tried to swallow down the bile that pitched into his mouth.

There were three men suspended from the gallows beam.

It was late morning. There was the bustle of traffic, and the cries of the hawkers, and the shouts of the traders, and there were three men hanging from three ropes from the scaffold. Their heads were hooded, their arms were pinioned behind their backs, their ankles were tied with rope. He knew they were men because under the long white robes in which they were draped he could see the ends of their trousers, and he could see also that they wore men's shoes. There was no movement in the three bodies because no freshness of wind could enter the confines of the square. Fastened to the robes on each man was a large black painted sign.

The driver split his face in a delighted grin.

"You like it?"

"Who are they?"

"Can you not read?"

"Who are they?"

"They are Iraqis."

"What did they do?"

"Who knows what they did? They were accused of

'jeopardising state security to the Israeli enemy'. They are Iraqis, they let off bombs in Damascus, they killed many people…"

The jeep idled past the rough cut, fresh wood gallows.

Abu Hamid stared. He saw that the shoe lace of one man was undone, that his shoe was all but falling from his foot. A fast flash thought for Abu Hamid. He saw a man in terror, crouched on the floor of a cell. He heard the tramp of feet in a passageway. He felt the shame of a man who was to be taken out to be hanged in a public square and whose fingers would not allow the small dignity of retying his shoe lace.

"… That is what I heard, that they set bombs in the city. The government says they are agents of Israel.

Who am I to say they are not? They were hanged at dawn. You like to see it?"

The driver chuckled. Abu Hamid saw the stains at the groin of each man. Abu Hamid nodded dumbly.

"It is good," the driver said. "It is not often that they hang the enemies of the state where we can see them. It should be more often. .. "

The driver slammed his foot down onto the clutch, went up through his gears. He hit the horn.

They went fast out of the square. Within a few minutes they were back into the system of wide boulevards that were the public face of Damascus. They were heading for the air ministry headquarters.

"Did Major Said Hazan give orders that I was to be brought this way, that I was to see them?"

Abu Hamid saw the black tooth gaps, and the yellowed stumps, and he heard the cackle of the driver's mirth.

"Ourselves, we are not sure of him," the Brother said.

"He has proven himself."

"We are not certain of his determination."

Major Said Hazan wriggled in his chair. He fancied he could still feel the sharpness of her nails in the skin at the small of his back. The skin on his back and down over his buttocks was of an especial sensitivity, because it was from there that the surgeons had taken the live tissue for grafting onto the uncovered flesh of his face. "He was the top student in Simferopol, and in the military academy he showed us the extent of his determination."

The Brother shrugged. It was many years since the Popular Front had been able to take decisions for themselves.

"If you are certain…"

"It is what I have decided."

Major Said Hazan went to the door of his office. In the outer office he saw the young Palestinian sitting with his head drooped. He thought the young man seemed tired.

He made his pretence of a welcoming smile, he waved Abu Hamid into his office.

"You had a good journey, Hamid?"

"I had a good journey," Abu Hamid muttered.

"You saw the sights of Damascus?"

"I saw the hanged bodies."

Major Said Hazan stretched out his arms, rolled his shoulders. "We are like an old city, Hamid, with enemies at every gate, but if we are ruthless in our struggle our enemies will never scale our walls nor force our gates. Please, Hamid, be seated." Major Said Hazan took from a cabinet refrigerator a chilled bottle of fruit juice and poured it for Abu Hamid. He went back to his desk, he took from a drawer the plan of the Defence Ministry on Kaplan, and spread it over the surface of the desk. With the heel of the hand that had no fingers he smoothed the plan flat.

"You are a fortunate young man, Hamid. You have been chosen ahead of others. You have been chosen to strike a great blow for your p e o p l e.. "

The Brother said, "We ask you to lead an attack into Israel."

Major Said Hazan watched the young man's jaw tremble. He saw that the soles of his boots fretted on the pile of the carpet.

There was a syrup in the voice of Major Said Hazan,

"You hesitate, Hamid, of course you hesitate. You wonder to yourself, are your shoulders sufficiently broad to carry the weight of such responsibility? Your immediate concern is whether you have the competence to carry out a mission of this importance… Hamid, because you hesitate there might be others who would take such hesitation as a mark of cowardice, not I. Hamid, it is I who have faith in you. I could not believe that you have less courage than a girl child who would walk against her enemy with a donkey and with explosives."

He saw Abu Hamid's eyes waver, stray to the Brother.

"I would refuse to believe that you had less courage than had Mohammed and Ibrahim, chosen by yourself, for the glory of carrying a bomb onto the Jerusalem b u s… "

He saw that the young man now held his head in his hands.

"… Look at me, Hamid, look at my face. I carry the scars of being in the front line of the struggle against Israel. I would not be amongst those who might say that because you hesitate you do not have the courage to follow where I lead…"

He saw Abu Hamid's head rise. He held him, eye to eye.

"I know, Hamid, that the money draft of the Central Bank of Syria has never been cashed. I know, too, that in the presence of the orphans of the Palestine revolution you pledged your loyalty to the struggle…"

He saw Abu Hamid's eyes gape open. He saw the confusion spread.

"Because I know everything of you, I have chosen you."

"We ask you to lead an assault against the Defence Ministry of the Zionist state," the Brother said.

"You would go from here to the bed of your girl.

You are the modern day inheritor of the mantle of the Assassins, Hamid. You are honoured amongst your equals, you are loved by the weak and the young and the aged who cannot fight, but who stand behind you, who pray for you."

"We have to have your answer, Hamid," the Brother said.

"You would go from the bed of your girl, from the perfume of her body… There is a clear choice, Hamid.

Either you are worthy of the love of your people, or you are branded a coward. You would not prove me wrong, Hamid, I who have trusted you."

Major Said Hazan saw the trance in the eyes of Abu Hamid. He knew that he had won. He wondered why the shit scared bastard took so long to clear away his hesitation. It did not concern him that Abu Hamid would be shit scared when he led his squad against the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv. No way out, no escape then, a rat under a boot, and the rat would fight. The rat would claw and bite for survival. Shit scared was desperate, shit scared was good. He thought the boy would fight well.

"I will," Abu Hamid said.

It was over. Major Said Hazan said that the Brother could take Abu Hamid for an initial planning briefing, that he should stay the night in Damascus, that he should return to the camp in the Beqa'a and choose ten men who would accompany him into Israel.

Major Said Hazan turned briskly back to his desk. "I have work," he said curtly.

He had eaten only bread in the last 24 hours, he had drunk only water. He was moved in the black boot of a car, his eyes hidden in darkness by the hood, every few hours. He spoke no Arabic, so he did not understand the low voices of his captors. Heinrich Gunter, trussed, strapped, blind, had long since ceased to concern himself with the outside world, the world beyond the boot of a car and the basement of a building. He no longer thought of his wife and his children, nor the actions of his government, nor the position that his bank would have taken. If his hands had been free, if his tie had still been around his throat collar, he would have attempted to end his life. He knew enough to recognise that he was the classic kidnap victim. He was the man who had disregarded the warnings, who had thought that he had arranged the safe passage into the city.

Rolling painfully in the boot of the car Gunter knew the pit depths of despair. He could think of no corner into which he could crawl in his mind, where he would find comfort. He could think of no power to help him.

Into the coarse material of the hood he sobbed his tears. He had seen on the television back at home the photographs of the men held hostage. Cheerful, smiling faces from family snapshots and company archives of journalists and business men and priests and academics.

He had also seen the photographs of those few who had returned from captivity, haunted men whose cheeks had sunk and whose eyes were buried in dark sockets. The rare few who had been brought out to freedom.

But Gunter no longer cared about the many who were held, or the few who had been freed. He did not believe in the possibility of freedom, he believed only in the blessing of death.

In the middle of the day, when the car had halted, bumped off a road, he was given food. The hood was lifted an inch or two. Bread was fed to him, given him in small pieces, each piece replaced when he had chewed and swallowed.

He had no idea where he might be, what part of Lebanon he was in, and it did not seem to him to matter.

Holt played the chef. It had been a bit of a joke between them that Holt had been allowed to plan the menu for the main meal of the day.

His gut ached with hunger. More of Crane's bible.

The bible said it was good to be hungry. If you were hungry you weren't drowsy. If you were drowsy you were halfway to being ambushed.

Crane sat under the scrim netting with his legs folded and his back straight and the binoculars at his face. Holt was on his hands and knees over the hexamine tablets heating in their frame, and on the frame the canteen of water boiled. Crane's bible said that the hexamine tablets were the only source of fire they could use, anything else would give off a smoke signature and a smell signature. Two tablets the size of the firelighter pieces that his mother used at home to get the sitting room logs alight.

They were going to have a hell of a good meal. Had to be a good meal. God alone knew where they would be in 24 hours' time. Overlooking the camp, that's where they should be all through tomorrow, watching for Abu Hamid on the binoculars. Crane's plan said they should go for a dusk shot. Holt couldn't imagine having much room for stewing up a meal, or much appetite for it, when the time was getting close for action with the Model PM. So a good meal, that afternoon, a long rummage round the Bergen for the ration packs, all that was choice and best in the sachets.

Holt heard the low whistle between Crane's teeth. He looked, he saw Crane had the binoculars away from his lace, that his lower lip was bitten white by his upper teeth. Crane saw Holt's attention, relaxed his mouth, returned the binoculars to his eyes. Holt looked away.

It wasn't the first time, nor the second nor the third that Holt could recall the sight of screwed up pain on Crane's forehead, in Crane's eyes, at Crane's mouth.

He looked away. He didn't want to look into Crane's face because he was afraid.

It was the best menu he could manage.

Not a prawn cocktail or marinated mackerel for hors d'oeuvre, but a sachet of izotonic powder mixed with water to give a lemon-tasting vitamin boost. Not a bisque or a consomme for the soup course, but a short and stubby stick of peperone to chew. Not steak and chips or lamb cutlets for entree, but the boiling water into the plastic sac that held the dehydrated chicken and rice flakes. Not a strawberry flan or a sherry trifle for dessert, but a granola cereal bar that seemed to explode and expand and bulge the mouth full. Not coffee to wash it down, but a brew with a teabag. And a piece of chewing gum to wind up the feast. That added up, Holt reckoned, to a hell of a meal.

He had the powder ready mixed, he had the peperone laid out, he had the granolas ready. When he had mixed the chicken and rice they could get stuck in while the water heated for the tea bags.

Holt looked up. He saw Crane's head, bowed, his eyes closed tight. Shouldn't have bloody looked…

"Dinner is served, Mr Crane."

He saw the face snap back to life, saw Crane grin, as if there was no problem.

"Brilliantly done, young Holt."

They ate. Holt was learning from watching Crane.

The izotonic drained, and the sachet held upside down over the mouth for the drips, and the peperone lingeringly held on the tongue for the spice taste, and the fingers wiping the remnants of the chicken and rice from the sides of the canteen, the tea drunk.

"What's your problem, Mr Crane?"

Crane twisted his head, as if he were caught on the wrong foot. "I've got no problem."

"Give it to me."

"Being in fucking Lebanon, is that a problem…?"

"If you've got a problem then I've a right to know."

Crane snarled, "Being here with you, that's enough of a problem."

"Mr Crane, we are together and you are in pain. It seems to me you have a pain in your eyes… "

"Get the canteens cleaned, get the rubbish stowed."

"If you have a problem with your eyes then I have to help."

Crane was close to him. Holt saw the anger in his face.

"How are you going to help?"

Holt shook his head. "I don't know, but I… "

"What do I need eyes for?"

"For everything."

"To shoot, crap kid. I need eyes to shoot. I need eyes that can put me into five inches at a thousand yards."

"What is it with your eyes?"

Crane slumped back. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, like he was trying to gouge something out of them. "Disease of the retina."

"Can you shoot?"

"I shot at the road block."

"You had two hits at the road block."

"I don't know why, truly. Okay, I had two hits, but she wasn't going anywhere. I suppose it didn't matter.

Perhaps that's why I had the hits… "

"Is that why you took the job, for the money, for treatment?"

"There's a place in Houston. They have a one in five success rate, that's one more than anywhere else. It's my shooting eye, youngster."

"Mr Crane, if you can't shoot, then what's going to happen?"

Holt looked into Crane's right eye. He saw the blood red veins creeping towards the iris.

"Bet your life, Holt, I'll shoot one last time."

Holt wiped out the canteens. He cleared up the rubbish and put it in the plastic bag. He rubbed down the Model PM and the Armalite. He changed the ammunition rounds in the magazines. He felt the light had gone out. He smeared insect repellent cream onto his cheeks and his throat and onto the backs of his hands. He felt that he had been tricked. He took off his boots and peeled down his socks so that he could renew the plasters across his blister. They had given him a man who was over the hill. He let a glucose tablet dissolve in his mouth. He had gone into the Beqa'a with a marksman whose sight was failing. That was a good laugh.

"It's worse, isn't it, worse than it's been before?"

Crane nodded.

Inside the perimeter of the base camp at Kiryat Shmona, in a position far removed from the sight of the camp's main gate, were the prefabricated offices used by the Shin Bet. In previous times the principal occupation of the Israeli internal security apparatus had been to watch over the Arab population of the West Bank of the Jordan river. Since the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the main thrust of Shin Bet work had been in the northern frontier and the security zone. Building had not kept pace with the development of the new and onerous duties.

It was as if the prefabricated, sectionalised buildings represented a pious hope that the diversion of resources to matters affecting Lebanon was merely temporary. A hope only. The men of the Shin Bet found their resources absorbed by the fierce thirst for violence and revenge among the Shi'a villagers of the security zone and the countryside to the north. There was no sign that the crowded offices in the base camp would in the near future be emptying.

Major Zvi Dan had left Rebecca outside, left her to sit in the afternoon sunshine on a concrete step. He was in a cubbyhole of a room with three officials of the Shin Bet. He brooded miserably that in their temporary quarters they had failed to install a halfway decent coffee machine.

He was hellishly tired from the drive out of Tel Aviv.

"… So that is the situation, Major, concerning the Norwegian soldier and the situation concerning the Briton, Martins."

"Martins is mine."

"The case of Private Olaffson is a very delicate matter."

"I don't know what you do. While he is in the U N I F I L area we have no jurisdiction over him, and the U N I F I L command will not respond favourably to a request that he be interrogated."

The senior Shin Bet man tidied his papers together.

"This Olaffson, he drove the two Popular Front bombers to Tel Aviv?"

"Confirmed."

"He knew their mission?"

"Probably not, but he would have to have assumed that they were heading towards a terrorist target."

"Then Private Olaffson will have to discover at first hand what is a terrorist target."

Major Zvi Dan was passed the report compiled by the two agents who had tailed Olaffson to the guest house of the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, who had sat in the bar, who had listened to the conversation between the Norwegian soldier and a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service.

He read fast. He winced.

"Martins I will deal with."

"Friend, you are a warrior of the cause of freedom."

"I only tell you what I heard."

"Repeat it for me, friend."

"He said, 'How did you know about an infiltration team moving off last night?', that was what he said."

Hendrik Olaffson spelled it out. He spoke slowly. He gave time for the traveller to write the words on a sheet of paper.

The traveller put away his paper. He took the hands of the young man and he kissed him on each cheek.

"It is worth something?"

"It is worth much," the traveller said. "We will show you our gratitude."

When he had gone, the four soldiers at the checkpoint huddled together. They talked about quantity, they talked of the monies that could be charged for the quantity of hashish that would be supplied as a matter of gratitude.

Far away across the valley, invisible amongst scrub bushes, a photographer bent over the camera on which was mounted a 2000 mm lens and carefully extracted a roll of film.

Martins had made himself a prisoner in his room, he had not drawn the curtains back. Through the centre gap he had seen the start of the day and the middle of the day and then the end of the day. It was dark now and he had abandoned his unmade bed and sat crosslegged on the floor, his back against the furthest wall from the door. He knew they would come for him.

He wore his suit trousers and his shirt and his socks, and he had not shaved. Though he had eaten nothing during the day he felt no hunger. He was cocooned in pity for himself.

When there came the knock at the door he flinched.

Not the chambermaid's inquiring tap, but the thump of a closed fist on the door panel.

He didn't reply.

He watched as the door crashed open, and as the man whose shoulder had been against it lurched into the room. The man wore a leather jacket, scuffed at the wrist and the elbows. He knew the man from somewhere, his jaded memory could not tell him from where. There was another man framed in the doorway. Slowly, Martins pushed himself upright. There were no words necessary. Martins went to his disturbed bed and bent to find his shoes. He wondered if they knew yet at Century. He wondered how many of them would be celebrating his fall from grace.

He walked to the door. As they moved into the corridor the man who wore the leather jacket laid his hand on the sleeve of Martins's shirt and he shook it away.

There was one of the men ahead of him and one behind. He walked free of them. He felt a great tiredness, a great sadness. They went out into the fresh air, onto the fire escape. Martins understood. If he had been the man in the leather jacket he would have done the same.

He was driven to the base camp at Kiryat Shmona There was a standard procedure used. He had ducked into the back seat of the car and been waved across towards the far door. He knew the door would have a locking device. The man with the leather jacket sat beside him. He thought that this was the way a traitor or a dangerous criminal or a sex offender would be dealt with. He stared straight ahead of him. He shook his head when the man in the leather jacket offered him a cigarette.

Once in the camp he was taken into a small, bare room. He sat at a table. He stared across the surface of the table at Major Zvi Dan. Two men sitting on hard chairs separated from each other by a narrow plastic-topped table. He heard the door close behind him.

Martins thought he had never stared into eyes so filled with contempt.

"Are we to be taped?"

"Of course."

"I don't think that's really appropriate."

"Mr Martins, in your position you should not presume to tell me what is appropriate."

"I should not be treated as an enemy agent." He felt the confidence slowly ebbing back to him. He sat straighter in his chair.

"That is how we view you."

"That's preposterous."

Major Zvi Dan spoke very quietly, he spoke as though he were nervous that he might lose control of his temper.

"You have behaved like an enemy agent. You have endangered lives."

"Rubbish. I was merely foolish. I drank too much."

"You endangered the lives of Holt and Noah Crane and at the very least you put their mission at risk."

"Quite ludicrous. I was drunk, men get drunk. I was indiscreet, it happens. Whatever I said would have been gobbledygook to that Scandinavian, he wouldn't have understood a word of it."

"You passed information of vital importance to the enemy."

"The enemy?" Martins snorted. "Your sense of the theatrical does you credit, Major. I was talking merely to a private soldier of the NORBAT… "

"To an agent of the enemy." There was the appearance on Major Zvi Dan's face that he thought he was talking to an idiot, a retarded creature. He spelled out each word. "A bomb exploded in the central bus station in Tel Aviv, you may remember. Holt and Crane will not have forgotten. Two terrorists were responsible.

The terrorists travelled into Israel via the Beqa'a valley in Lebanon… "

"Don't give me a yesterday's newspaper lecture."

"… in Lebanon. They were brought through the UNIFIL sector, through the security zone, across the border, hidden in United Nations transport."

"So?"

"Your private soldier drove that transport."

"God… " The breath seeped from Percy Martins.

"Your private soldier, to whom you confided the existence of an infiltration team, is an agent of the enemy."

"Christ… " Martins slumped. He felt the looseness in his bowels, a feebleness in his legs. "I don't suppose

… he didn't understand… "

"It is our belief that the information you provided him with is already en route to Damascus."

Martins said, "You cannot know that."

With great deliberation, Major Zvi Dan lifted from the floor a brown paper envelope. From the envelope he spread out on the table a series of photographs.

His finger settled on one, and he pushed it towards Martins.

Martins saw the back of the head of the UNIFIL private soldier. He saw a man leaning forward to kiss the cheek of Olaffson.

"It is how they show their gratitude," Major Zvi Dan said.

"I couldn't have had any idea," Martins said.

"You were drunk, you knew nothing." The savage reply.

"What can I do?"

"If you are not too proud to pray, you can pray. You came here in your naivete to play a game of political chess. You came here to further your career. Now all you can do is to pray for the lives of the men you have criminally endangered."

"Will you tell them in London?"

"That they sent an idiot here? Maybe they are all idiots in London, maybe they all seek to play games."

"What do you propose to do with me?"

"You will be confined in the camp area, where you can do no further damage."

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards you will live with your shame."

"What have I done?"

"You have confirmed to the Syrians that there is a mission. You have told the Syrians of British interest in that mission. If the Syrians can make an equation between the mission and the killings at Yalta then they will know the target. They will remove the target from view, and also they will ambush your man and my man.

If the Syrians make the equation then the mission is lost, our men are lost."

Martins murmured, "God, I am so sorry."

"Pray that the Syrians are as idiotic as you are.

Myself, I do not think it likely."

There was the scratching of Major Zvi Dan's chair as he stood up. The door opened. The two men led Martins away to confinement, his head sagging.

They had studied the map, they had covered the trail they would use and the position of the rally points.

"How long tonight?"

"Eight hours."

"And then the camp?"

"In eight hours we should be above the camp, youngster."

"How are the eyes?"

"Just stick to worrying about yourself, whether you'll recognise the target. I don't need your worry."

"You should come back with me, Mr Crane, afterwards, back to England."

"You talk too much, Holt."

"I've done nothing in my life. If I'd done everything you've done in your life there's nothing I'd want more than to go away, bury myself, live on the moor, walk beside the rivers, know the peace of where I live. I haven't earned that peace, Mr Crane. You have."

"Is it that good there?" Crane asked.

"You could walk free. The animals are free, the people are free, the light and the air are wonderful. No rifles, no fighter bombers, no bloody minefields, you deserve that peace, Mr Crane. Will you think about it?"

"Might just."

They had the Bergens high on their backs. Holt let Crane get fifteen yards ahead, then moved out after him.

The start of the last night march.

As a matter of routine, Major Said Hazan received in the early evening a report covering the previous 24-hour period as prepared by army headquarters at Chtaura.

He read every detail of the report, as he always did. Far down in the list he read that a patrol in position west and south of the Beqa'a village of Aitanit had fired flares in response to unidentified movement further west of them. The report stated that a follow-up search in daylight centred on an animal track, but had failed to provide evidence that would justify further sweep searches of the area.

The major went to his wall map. He put a red-headed pin into the map over the area of the U N I F I L sector through which it had been reported that an infiltration had been made. He drove in another red-headed pin at the point of the unconfirmed contact with the patrol.

He stood back. He extended a line from the infiltration point to the supposed contact. They were going north, the shortest possible route into the foothills on the west side of the Beqa'a.

In the valley, marked on his map, were the camps of 18 different Syrian army concentrations, and in addition the camps of the Popular Front, the Democratic Popular Front, the Abu Moussa faction, the Sai'iqa group, the Popular Struggle Front. There were also the villages used by the Hezbollah, and the houses occupied by the men of Islamic Jihad. There were the communities that played host to the revolutionary guards who had sat in the Beqa'a unmoving after their despatch from Iran. In all, indicated on his map, there were 43 locations that could prove of interest to an infiltration team of the enemy.

At the moment he was helpless. But he was a man of patience.

In the camp the cook's fire guttered. The cook thought that in the morning he would use the last of his wood to prepare the breakfast, that he would spend the morning scavenging for more.