At Close Quarters

8

A light wind caught at the tent flaps and swayed them.

There were bell tents for the recruits. From the tent area a clear track had been trodden to a single smaller tent, and there was another path to the cooking area where a sheet of rusted corrugated iron, nailed to four posts, served as weather protection for the fire. Eight tents for the recruits, and a smaller tent for Abu Hamid and for Fawzi when he was there, and the cooking area, they were all in a tight group. Away from the tents and the cooking area, thirty yards away, was a stall with three sides of draped sacking that served as the latrine pit for the camp.

Near to the tents for the recruits were air-raid trenches that had been cut down through the topsoil and into the rock strata. They had been dug deep, approached by wooden slatted steps and covered over with tin to make a roof and then the displaced earth and stones. In one last trench slit a door had been made to fit close against the heavy wood of the surrounds, and in this trench were stored the Strela ground-to-air missiles that were a part of the camp's defence system. Further away, closer to the perimeter of the camp, were three separate ZPU-4 14.5 mm anti-aircraft multiple guns.

The inner perimeter of the camp was marked by a close coil of barbed wire on which had caught fragments of paper and cardboard, and into which had been thrown the debris of old ammunition boxes and packing cases.

The outer perimeter was a ditch, hewn out by bulldozers, and with steep enough sides to hinder the progress of a tank.

To the west of the camp was the wall of the side of the Beqa'a, to the north three miles away was a small Syrian camp housing a company of regular commandos, to the east was the full flat stretch of the width of the valley floor, to the south was a Shi'a Muslim village.

The camp had been sited 24 miles from the southern extremity of the Beqa'a. At its nearest point, the Israeli border was 36 miles from the camp. It was considered a safe haven.

Abu Hamid hated the place, hated the dirt and the filth and the smells of the camp. He hated the recruits who were his responsibility. He hated the flies in the day, and the mosquitoes that came at dusk from the irrigation ditch beyond the perimeter, and the rats that swarmed at night from the coiled wire. He hated the food that was cooked dry under the corrugated iron roof and over the open wood fire. He hated the relaxed calm of Fawzi who was the Syrian spy in place to watch over him. He hated the boredom of the training routine.

Most of all he hated the isolation of the camp.

He had requested of Fawzi the necessary pass that would have enabled him to get to Damascus to see his Margarethe. Of course, the requests were not refused.

Nothing was ever refused by the Syrians, the requests' were only diverted, there was just the hinted promise that later everything would be possible.

For two weeks he had been a prisoner.

In two weeks he had not seen Major Said Hazan, nor had he seen any of the big men of the Popular Front.

Of course, he knew that the Doctor, the inspiration of the Popular Front, could not travel into the valley, could not expose himself that close to the territory of the Zionist enemy, but there were others that could have come, others who could have demanded of the Syrians the right of access to himself and to the new recruits.

The place was hell to him. And there was a worm that ate at his confidence. Abu Hamid had performed a service to the Palestinian cause, to the government of the Syrian Arab Republic who were the sponsors of that cause. The service was secret, could not be spoken of.

That was the worm. Of course, the recruits knew that he had taken part in the battles of 1982 in Tyre and Sidon and Damour and in West Beirut. But the recruits too, every last one of them, had been inside one or more of those battles. As young teenagers they had carried back the casualties, carried forward the ammunition.

The young teenagers had been left behind in the Rach-idiye camp, and the Ein el Helwe camp and the Miye ou Miye camp and the Sabra and the Chatila camps when the fighters had been given safe passage by foreign peace-keeping troops and sailed away. The kids had stayed, under the Zionist occupation. They showed him a degree of respect for having been to the military academy at Simferopol and having passed out as top officer cadet, only a degree of respect. If only they had known…

"When can we go to Israel?" was their sole concern.

"When can we fight the real war?" the recruits pleaded with Abu Hamid. "When can we show that we have no fear?"

Abu Hamid had known men who had gone to Israel, fought the real war, shown that they had no fear. He had known them in the camps before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. He had seen them go. He had never seen one of them return.

One fact alone mitigated the hatred he felt for this filthy, stinking camp. It was a secret to his recruits, but he had proved himself at Simferopol, and he would never be required to prove himself again. It would never be demanded of him that he should go through the security zone into Israel.

A very secret thought. A thought that he would never share.

They were coming down the gentle lower slope of the valley wall. The recruits were in a loose formation, twenty ranks of three abreast, and Abu Hamid played the part of a non-commissioned instructor at the military academy and strode at the side of them and shouted for the step to be maintained. The recruits were singing, with fervour, an anthem of the Popular Front, a song of killing and victory. The anthem was of death, was of battle, but the valley was a place of peace. From the elevation of the track, looking out across the cultivated floor of the valley, and across the sharp ridge lines of the irrigation ditches, and the light sweep of the unsurfaced road that fed their camp, Abu Hamid could see a scene of undamaged tranquillity. There were women from the Shi'a village pruning in the grove of olive trees, more women bent amongst the marijuana crop. There were men working between the lines of the vineyards, more men shepherding flocks of sheep towards brighter pastures amongst the gullies in the rock scrub. Smoke spirals drifted into the air above the commandos' camp.

He could hear birds singing. He could see two jeep vehicles kicking up short dust storms as they approached the camp along the unsurfaced road.

They came down the hillside. They reached the gate of the camp, the gap in the coiled wire, when the nearest of the jeeps was a hundred yards from the perimeter.

Abu Hamid gave his orders. The RPG-7 launchers to be returned after cleaning to the underground armoury.

The rifles to be cleaned and inspected. The cooking for the midday meal to be started.

He waited at the entrance of the camp. The first jeep ground to a stop in front of him. The second jeep had pulled up fifty yards further down the track. The engines were switched off. Both jeeps carried the red and white flashes of the military police of the Syrian Army on their dust-coated flanks. He saw that the driver of the near jeep wore the white helmet of the military police, he saw Fawzi climb out from the passenger seat.

Fawzi had been away for three days and three nights.

He saw the grin, the expectant pleasure on Fawzi's face.

Fawzi acknowledged Abu Hamid, a casual waft of the hand, then walked to the back of the jeep, threw it open.

The woman was chicken trussed. She was carried easily by Fawzi from the back of the jeep. Her ankles, below the length of the long hem of her skirt, were bound many times with the sort of twine that is used to bind straw or hay for cattle fodder. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her back. Fawzi carried her over his shoulder. She did not whimper, she did not writhe. Abu Hamid could not see her face which lay limp against the chest of Fawzi. She had no headscarf, her long hair was dirt-streaked, the pale soil of the Beqa'a smeared into the black tresses. He saw the military policeman, the driver, stay in his seat, light a cigarette. He followed Fawzi into the camp, behind the unmoving legs of the woman. The woman had no shoes and the soles of her feet were raw and blood-caked. Abu Hamid's finger flicked at the scar well in his cheek.

Beside the tents, Fawzi heaved the woman to the ground. She fell hard, on her hip and her shoulder. No sound from her lips, only the heave of her lungs to replace the breath punched from her body.

Abu Hamid swallowed. The recruits were gathering, forming a hesitant circle around Fawzi and Abu Hamid, and the woman. Fawzi was panting, but silent, preparing his speech. Abu Hamid saw the face of the woman. He thought that her nose was broken because of the twist of the point of her nose as if it were putty and could be moved easily sideways. Her eyes were closed, perhaps she did not care to open them, perhaps the bruising was too heavy for her to be able to open them; there was dark vivid bruising on the soft sallow skin. He could see that the buttons of her heavy blouse had been torn away, he could see the sears on her throat and on the upper skin of her breasts.

Abu Hamid thought that she had been burned with cigarette butts. He was struggling to suppress his vomit nausea.

"This woman is Leila Galah," began Fawzi. "Her parents live in Nablus, in the Occupied Territory. She herself comes from the Bourj el Barajneh camp in Beirut. She is 23 years old. She left the Occupied Territory seven years ago to join the Popular Democratic Front – all this she has told us."

No one looked at Fawzi. Every eye in the circle of recruits was fixed on the still body of the woman lying at Fawzi's feet.

"Also she has told us that for two years she has been an agent of the Zionist enemy… "

Abu Hamid heard the anger growl from his recruits.

He heard the sucked breath. He saw the smile sweeping Fawzi's face. He wondered if the woman heard her denunciation.

"She has told us that she is a spy."

Abu Hamid had gone, after the evacuation from Beirut, to the port of Aden, the capital city of the People's Republic of South Yemen. He and friends had once gone in a fishing boat out to sea, beyond the sight of land, and they had tossed over the side a sack of offal and entrails, and when the sharks had closed on the blood-soaked meat, they had fired at them with their automatic rifles… for sport. He could remember the surging interest, the relentless approach of the sharks to the meat and the blood and the skin. The woman was the meat, that she was a spy for Israel was the blood scenting the water, the recruits were the sharks of the scarlet-streaming Red Sea.

"From her own mouth, she is an agent of the Shin Bet. She has taken the shekels of the Israeli security service. She has betrayed her name, the name of her father and of her mother. She has betrayed her own people, the Palestinian people. She has betrayed you, the fighters and defenders of the Palestinian revolution."

The circle was closing, tightening. The growl had become a scream. Abu Hamid looked from the face of the woman to the faces of the recruits. Eyes ablaze, mouths cracked with hate, fists clenched tight and shafting the air in fury. He saw himself walking across the street in front of the Oreanda Hotel of Yalta, and discarding the light anorak that covered the Kalashnikov.

He saw himself gazing at the features of the girl as she came through the door that was held open for her by the man who was his target. He saw himself raising the extended shoulder stock to fit hard against his collar bone. He saw himself squeezing the trigger of the Kalashnikov… He thought he was going to vomit… He saw the girl flying back, lifted from her feet, flailing against the body of the target, and then the target going down. He had felt no rage… He had not felt the tempest emotion of the recruits.

He thought the woman was beautiful, even with the bruises and the burns. He saw the dignity of her quietness, her silence in pain.

"She was arrested by the agents of the military eight days ago. She has been interrogated, she has made a full confession of her criminal betrayal, she has been sentenced by a tribunal. She is to die."

Because he wanted to be sick, because he thought the woman was beautiful, because the target was bound tight and not free to walk through the glass doors of the Oreanda Hotel, because there was not the adrenalin excitement of the escape from the streets of Yalta, he knew the squeal of weakness in his body.

Abu Hamid shouted, "We will kill the spy pig."

The shout was the hiding of his weakness.

The baying for blood boiled around the woman. The shout of Abu Hamid for the right to slaughter her, the shouts of the recruits for the right to participate in the letting of blood.

Fawzi stood now over the top of the trussed woman.

His straddled legs were over her hips. The woman showed no fear. The woman was a clinging fascination to Abu Hamid. Why did she not beg?

"… Because she endangered you, it will be you that carry out the sentence of the tribunal."

Why did she not spit at her tormentors? Why did she not shriek in fear?

"Remember this. You are here under the protection of Syria. You are safeguarded by the vigilance of the Syrian security service. There is no safety for traitors in the Beqa'a. Traitors will be rooted out, destroyed."

Inch by inch, stamped foot by stamped foot, the circle was closing on the trussed woman. Abu Hamid gazed into her face. For a moment he saw a flicker of animation from her eyes, he saw the curl of her lips. She stared back at him. If it had been himself… If it had been Abu Hamid tied at the ankles, handcuffed at the wrists, waiting for the lynch death, would he have been able to show no fear? Abu Hamid understood the power of Syria over the recruits of the Popular Front. A spy had been brought for them to revile, to massacre, just as the Syrians had provided the chickens for those samel recruits to despoil at the Yarmouq camp. The power on Syria mocked them, made scum of them. The means of their learning was a bound and handcuffed woman. She stared back at Abu Hamid. At last he saw the contempt in her eyes, the sneer at her mouth.

Abu Hamid wrenched back the cocking arm of his Kalashnikov.

Into the contempt and sneer of the woman's face he fired a full magazine. He raked the body of the woman long after the life had been blitzed from her. The gunfire boom had died, died with the life of a woman branded a spy. The barrel of the rifle hung limp against his thigh and his knee. The body was a mess of blood and cloth and flesh. The circle had grown, had widened. The recruits had seen the trance in which Abu Hamid had fired – none had felt safe to stand close to the shooting.

He saw the tremble at Fawzi's jaw.

He walked away. He left the circle and the Syrian and the body of the woman. He walked to the wire coil at the perimeter.

Down the unmade track, leaning on the bonnet of the second jeep, was Major Said Hazan.

Major Said Hazan was clapping the palms of his hands, applauding.

Abu Hamid turned away. He walked to the far side of the camp. The moment before he was lost behind a wall of tent canvas he looked back to where he had shot the woman. He saw the bouncing shoulders and the leaping heads, and he knew that the recruits danced on the bloody corpse of the woman who had been a spy for Israel.

He went behind the tents and vomited until his stomach was empty, until his throat burned.

He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then he went through the camp entrance gap and down the track.

He gasped the question to Major Said Hazan.

"Why was she here?"

"The Israelis always want to know what is the situation in the Beqa'a."

"Why my camp? Why the camp where I am?"

"Chance, nothing more than chance."

"Was she searching for me?"

"You should not acquire for yourself too great an importance. You are as a flea on a dog's neck. Your bite has been felt, but you cannot be found… " The voice of Major Said Hazan steeled. "Why did you not permit your young men to execute the spy?"

"It is my role to lead, to lead by example," Abu Hamid said.

"A fine answer… in a few days you will be brought to Damascus."

He saw the smooth skin of Major Said Hazan's face wrinkle in the attempted warmth of a smile.

"Why did you choose me for Yalta, Major?"

"I knew of you."

"What did you know?"

"Had you ever killed, Hamid, before Yalta?"

He blurted. "I fought at Bent Jbail in 1978. I was young then. I fought in 1982. I was at Tyre and then at Sidon and then at Damour and then at Beirut city.

Many times… "

"Answer the question I asked."

"I have fought many times."

"The question is so very simple. Had you ever killed, Abu Hamid?"

"I have fought the Israeli… of course, I have killed the Israeli…"

The calming voice. The voice of endless patience.

"Had you looked into a man's eyes, a man who is alive, looked into his eyes and then killed him? Tell me, Abu Hamid."

He could not control his stammer. "When you are fighting the Israeli you cannot stand about, look for a target… It is necessary to use a great volume of fire."

"Into his eyes, and then killed him?"

"If you are that close to the Israeli you are dead."

"Seen the fear in his eyes, because he has the certainty you will kill him?"

"Once." Abu Hamid whispered.

"Recall it for me."

The words in a rush, a torrent flow. "When we had left Beirut, after we had evacuated, we went to South Yemen. We were allowed to take out only one small bag and our rifle. The great men of the Arab world let us be humiliated, after we had fought with sacrifice the battle of the whole Arab world… "

"In South Yemen… " An encouragement, not a rebuke.

"We were in a tent camp, I had a transistor radio and one day my radio was taken. I found the thief. I went into his tent. He was playing a cassette tape on my radio.

First he laughed at me, I waited until he was crying – yes, until he was certain, and then I shot him."

His hand was taken, gripped between the stumps and the thumb. He closed his eyes. He felt the brush of the silk skin across his face. He felt lips that had no moisture kiss his cheek.

"I had heard of it. It was why I chose you."

For a long time he watched the dust cloud spurting up from the back wheels of the jeep as it drove away.

The merchant had been through two road blocks of the Syrian army. He travelled the route every Monday and Saturday from Beirut, and returned by the same road to the capital every Tuesday and Sunday. He was well-liked by the commando sentries. The main trade of the merchant was in small electrical components, anything from light bulbs and plugs to drums of flex wire to parts for the small generators that provided much of the power in those areas of the Beqa'a that were off the two main roads and distant from the main supply. The merchant always offered the soldiers insignificant gifts, crates of soft drinks, throw-away lighters. Beside the wind-blown, weather-blasted and cardboard-mounted photograph of the stern-faced President of the Syrian Arab Republic at the road blocks he had made his small talk, offered his passes for cursory inspection, and been waved on. He was lighter in his load by two cartons of Camel cigarettes.

The merchant drove south, taking the straight main road, the eastern side of the Beqa'a. His car was a Mercedes, eleven years old and with 180,000 kilometres on the clock. The back seat had been torn out to provide him with additional carrying space for his wares. He always drove slowly, and would tell the sentries at the road blocks that he thought his motor was on the last legs and close to collapse. He always made a joke of it.

The snail speed of the laden, rust-coated Mercedes was a familiar source of amusement. By travelling slowly the merchant observed so much more.

He was south of the village of Haouch el Harime, he was north of the small town of Ghazze. He slowed the car, drove off the tarmac and came to stop on the hard shoulder. He walked from his car to a small clump of olive trees. He pulled down the zip of his trousers.

While he urinated he had the time to check that the old upturned bucket beside the tree in front of him had not been moved since the previous time that he had checked.

There was no need for him to check the hidden space under the bucket. If the bucket had not been moved then no message had been left. He shuddered. If any man had watched him, from a distance with the aid of binoculars, they would have thought that he merely finished by shaking clear the remnant droplets. He shuddered in sadness and in fear.

The merchant had known since his last journey back from the Beqa'a to Beirut that an agent had been held.

The conversations at the road blocks had given him the bare information. The unmoved bucket told him which agent had been taken. The spy would not know the identity he assumed, but the spy could have revealed the location of the dead letter box under interrogation.

He turned. If any man watched him through the magnification of binoculars he would have seen the merchant pull back up the zip of his fly before shambling back to the Mercedes. He would not again break his journey by the clump of greening olive trees.

The merchant drove on through Ghazze, and took the winding road south of Joub Jannine that climbed the Jabal Aarbi hills, until he came to the village of Baaloul. At the village he was welcomed like a hero because he brought a new magneto for the petrol driven pump of the community's drinking well. In the morning, after talking late with the villagers, after sleeping in the concrete block house of the head man, he would go south again. He would drop his own message beyond the town of Qaraaoun, and then swing first west and then north for his return to Beirut.

The merchant was a man of middle age, grossly over-weight, a man of Moroccan origin and of the Jewish faith, a citizen of the state of Israel, and in the employ of the Mossad.

In the house of the head man of the Shi'a village of Baaloul, the merchant had slept poorly. His mind could not escape from the vision of a tortured colleague, of the fate of a captured agent.

Major Zvi Dan said, "We cannot confirm that the recruits are at the camp, nor that they are under the command of Abu Hamid."

"You didn't tell me that you were trying to confirm it," Tork said.

"We were trying to, but sadly we did not succeed.

We had an agent in that region, but the agent has been taken… " Major Zvi Dan sighed, as if this were a matter of personal grief.

"You had someone in that camp?"

"We had an agent in the area."

"That's insanity. You may have alerted them, blown the whole show."

"We committed a valued, trusted agent, now lost.

Don't shout at me."

" S h i t… you may have blown it, Zvi."

"Wrong. The information requirements given to the agent were vague and covered various areas. Whatever those pigs beat out of her will not identify our target."

"Her? You sent in a woman?"

Major Zvi Dan slammed his fist onto his desk. "Spare me your British chivalry crap. We are at war. We use what we have. Old men, women, children, what we have. You miss the point."

"The point being…?"

"My friend, you may make all your preparations, you may – Crane may and the boy may – walk into the Beqa'a, take up a sniping position above the camp, and find that your target isn't there, perhaps never was there.

That is what I tried to save you, that chance."

"I'm sorry," the station officer said softly.

"For what?"

"That you lost your agent."

"Friend, do not be sorry for me. Be sorry for her, a human being taken by animals. I will have lost a skirmish, she will lose her life, maybe already has."

"London will be grateful," the station officer said softly.

"That'll be nice," Major Zvi Dan said, "but I don't want their gratitude. What I want is that your people will very seriously weigh the risks before it is too late.

Tell them, so that they understand about real war."

"I'm better than I was." The sweat soaked into his tracksuit top. "Can't you admit I'm improving?"

"Your sit-ups are average, your push-ups are average, your squat-thrusts are average. And all the time you're yapping, you're losing strength," Crane said. "You're still a passenger, Holt, so work."

"I'm fit, and you haven't the decency to admit it."

"Is that right?"

"Too damn right. You've such a bloody ego on your shoulders that you can't admit that I'm fit to walk with you. I know your sort, Crane, you're the sort that hasn't the bigness to admit that I've done well."

"Done well, have you?" Crane smiled grimly.

Holt gazed up at the wall of the house. He saw Mrs Ferguson's face at the upper window. She was always there when he was performing his morning exercise ritual, when he went for his shower she would go down to the kitchen. The start of every day.

"I tell you what I think, I think I'm a bloody sight fitter than you are… " Christ, that was stupid. "I'm sorry," he said, sagging back on the damp slabs.

"Wait there." Crane snapped the instruction. He strode away, into the house.

Holt lay on his back. The sweat was cooling on his skin. His anger cooled too, but he knew what had scratched him. Planning and logistics were between Percy Martins and Crane. They huddled in front of the living room fire, they pored over the maps and over the inven tory of required equipment, and over the aerial photographs. Never was Holt asked for his opinion. He was the bloody passenger. He had not even been shown the aerial photographs of the camp. He had not been lectured on the Beqa'a, what he would find there.

He had not been told how they would go in; he had most certainly not been told how they would get out.

George was standing a few yards from Holt and watching him. He had a sly smile, as if there were some sport to be had. The dog was sitting beside George, quiet for once, interested. Martins had followed George out of the house. He was sniffing at the air as if that would tell him whether it would rain this day. Neither George nor Martins had the time of day for Holt. Something they thought bloody clever was being cooked.

Holt stood. He rocked. His legs felt weak. Of course he was weak, he had done the circuit of the sit-ups, push-ups, squat-thrusts, he had done the triple sprint, he had done the endurance run. He breathed deep, he pulled the oxygen back into his body, down into his lungs, deep into his blood stream…

Crane came through the French windows, out onto the patio. He carried an old rucksack and a set of bathroom scales. He put the scales down and walked into the garden. George was laughing quietly. Martins had the look of a headmaster who has to punish a boy caught smoking – this hurts me more than it will you. Crane was in the rockery, tugging loose the stones. Crane loaded stones into his rucksack. When he had brought it to the scales Holt saw that it weighed five and a half stones, 77 lbs. Crane swept the rucksack onto his shoulders.

"You say that you are fitter than I am. When we are in the Beqa'a this is what I carry, and you will carry the same. Now we shall go six times round the lawn, the endurance… but you won't have the weight, and I shall beat you."

"I already apologised."

"I don't hear you." Crane growled.

Holt led the first time round. He tried to run easily, loosely, he tried to save himself. Past the decaying summer house, past the bare beech tree, past the rose beds, past the rhododendron jungle, past the straggling holly hedge, past the patio where George was smiling, where Martins was still looking pained. All the time the pounding feet of Crane behind him.

The second time round, Holt led.

The third time round, Holt led. The third time round hurt him, because he tried to increase his speed. Ten years since he had run competitively, school sports, and even then he hadn't cared for it. Stepping up the stride, trying to break Crane, trying to open the gap. Legs hurting, guts hurting, lungs hurting, and all the time the stamping tread of the man behind him, and the bastard carried 77 lbs weight on his back.

The fourth time round, Holt led. As though they were held together by elastic, when Holt lengthened his stride, Crane stayed with him. When Holt slowed then Crane stayed back. The fourth time round and Holt understood. He was a plaything.

The fifth time round, Holt led. His own breath coming in hurt surges, his legs leaden, his head rolling.

Crane was behind him, struggling more now, but in touch. No chance now of Holt running him out. Survival was the game. Survival was keeping going. Survival was pride. He could not win, he knew the bastard would take him on the last circuit. Jane's face was in his mind.

Jane's face back in his mind after being gone, absent, for days. .. Jane, darling, lovely Jane… Jane whose body he had known.. . Jane who was going to share his life… Jane who was watching him

… Jane who was now safe… He was screaming, "Why did you have to stand in front of the old fool?" Couldn't hear his own voice. Could only hear the beat of Crane's feet, and the wheeze of his breath.

The sixth time round, Holt led. He led at first. He led past the summer house. He led past the beech tree.

He led past the rose beds, but Crane was at his shoulder.

He led past the rhododendrons, but Crane was beside him, only fractionally behind. He saw Crane's face. He knew he had lost when he turned his jerking head to see the composure of Crane's face. Past the holly hedge and he was following Crane home. His legs were jelly. When he reached the patio, Crane was already unslinging the rucksack. He lay on the grass, beaten.

"Put those stones back where I found them," Crane said. "Then go take a shower."

The dog was licking his face, large and gentle strokes of the dog's tongue. The patio was empty. Crane and Martins and the grinning George had left young Holt to his self pity, to his picture of his girl. He retched, he had nothing to lose. It was raining. At first he could not lift the rucksack. He crawled to the rockery, dragging the dead weight behind him with the dog nuzzling at his ears. He tipped the stones out of the rucksack onto the wild strawberry strands.

The dog followed him inside and he didn't care that the dog, with muddied feet, was not allowed in the house, didn't give a damn.

Holt stood at the door of the dining room.

Martins and Crane sat at a table at the far end of th room. Crane was wiping the perspiration from his neck with his napkin.

His voice was a stammer, the weakness of it betraye him.

"Why, Mr Crane? Why was that necessary?"

"So you get to understand my meaning of fitness."

"What happens if I am not fit?"

"On the way in, you slow me down because I have to travel at your speed. On the way out if you are not fit, I ditch you. And if I ditch you, you're dead or you're captured. If you're captured you'll wish you were dead."

Martins said, "You're making a fool of yourself, Holt."

"I'm not your son, Mister Martins. Don't talk to me as if I were your poor bloody son."

"Watch your mouth, and remember that I was a field operative for the Service before you were born. I won't get another show like this, I'm going to make damn certain this one works. So get a grip on yourself. She was your girl, and you never heard me say it would be a picnic. And get that bloody dog out of here."