The Key to Rebecca

11

THE GREEK WAS A FEELER.

Elene did not like feelers. She did not mind straightforward lust; in fact, she was rather partial to it. What she objected to was furtive, guilty, unsolicited groping.

After two hours in the shop she had disliked Mikis Aristopoulos. After two weeks she was ready to strangle him.

The shop itself was fine. She liked the spicy smells and the rows of gaily colored boxes and cans on the shelves in the back room. The work was easy and repetitive, but the time passed quickly enough. She amazed the customers by adding up their bills in her head very rapidly. From time to time she would buy some strange imported delicacy and take it home to try: a jar of liver paste, a Hershey bar, a bottle of Bovril, a can of baked beans. And for her it was novel to do an ordinary, dull, eight-hours-a-day job.

But the boss was a pain. Every chance he got he would touch her arm, her shoulder or her hip; each time he passed her, behind the counter or in the back room, he would brush against her breasts or her bottom. At first she had thought it was accidental, because he did not look the type: he was in his twenties, quite good-looking, with a big smile that showed his white teeth. He must have taken her silence for acquiescence. She would have to tread on him a little.

She did not need this. Her emotions were too confused already. She both liked and loathed William Vandam, who talked to her as an equal, then treated her like a whore; she was supposed to seduce Alex Wolff, whom she had never met; and she was being groped by Mikis Aristopoulos, for whom she felt nothing but scorn.

They all use me, she thought; it’s the story of my life.

She wondered what Wolff would be like. It was easy for Vandam to tell her to befriend him, as if there were a button she could press which made her instantly irresistible. In reality a lot depended on the man. Some men liked her immediately. With others it was hard work. Sometimes it was impossible. Half of her hoped it would be impossible with Wolff. The other half remembered that he was a spy for the Germans, and Rommel was coming closer every day, and if the Nazis ever got to Cairo ...

Aristopoulos brought a box of pasta out from the back room. Elene looked at her watch: it was almost time to go home. Aristopoulos dropped the box and opened it. On his way back, as he squeezed past her, he put his hands under her arms and touched her breasts. She moved away. She heard someone come into the shop. She thought: I’ll teach the Greek a lesson. As he went into the back room, she called after him loudly, in Arabic: “If you touch me again I’ll cut your cock off!”

There was a burst of laughter from the customer. She turned and looked at him. He was a European, but he must understand Arabic, she thought. She said: “Good afternoon.”

He looked toward the back room and called out: “What have you been doing, Aristopoulos, you young goat?”

Aristopoulos poked his head around the door. “Good day, sir. This is my niece, Elene.” His face showed embarrassment and something else which Elene could not read. He ducked back into the storeroom.

“Niece!” said the customer, looking at Elene. “A likely tale.”

He was a big man in his thirties with dark hair, dark skin and dark eyes. He had a large hooked nose which might have been typically Arab or typically European-aristocratic. His mouth was thin-lipped, and when he smiled he showed small even teeth—like a cat’s, Elene thought. She knew the signs of wealth and she saw them here: a silk shirt, a gold wristwatch, tailored cotton trousers with a crocodile belt, handmade shoes and a faint masculine cologne.

Elene said: “How can I help you?”

He looked at her as if he were contemplating several possible answers, then he said: “Let’s start with some English marmalade.”

“Yes.” The marmalade was in the back room. She went there to get a jar.

“It’s him!” Aristopoulos hissed.

“What are you talking about?” she asked in a normal voice. She was still mad at him.

“The bad-money man—Mr. Wolff—that’s him!”

“Oh, God!” For a moment she had forgotten why she was here. Aristopoulos’ panic infected her, and her mind went blank. “What shall I say to him? What should I do?”

“I don’t know—give him the marmalade—I don’t know—”

“Yes, the marmalade, right ...” She took a jar of Cooper’s Oxford from a shelf and returned to the shop. She forced herself to smile brightly at Wolff as she put the jar down on the counter. “What else?”

“Two pounds of the dark coffee, ground fine.”

He was watching her while she weighed the coffee and put it through the grinder. Suddenly she was afraid of him. He was not like Charles, Johnnie and Claud, the men who had kept her. They had been soft, easygoing, guilty and pliable. Wolff seemed poised and confident: it would be hard to deceive him and impossible to thwart him, she guessed.

“Something else?” “A tin of ham.”

She moved around the shop, finding what he wanted and putting the goods on the counter. His eyes followed her everywhere. She thought: I must talk to him, I can’t keep saying, “Something else?” I’m supposed to befriend him. “Something else?” she said.

“A half case of champagne.”

The cardboard box containing six full bottles was heavy. She dragged it out of the back room. “I expect you’d like us to deliver this order,” she said. She tried to make it sound casual. She was slightly breathless with the effort of bending to drag the case, and she hoped this would cover her nervousness.

He seemed to look through her with his dark eyes. “Deliver?” he said. “No, thank you.”

She looked at the heavy box. “I hope you live nearby.”

“Close enough.”

“You must be very strong.”

“Strong enough.”

“We have a thoroughly reliable delivery man—”

“No delivery,” he said firmly.

She nodded. “As you wish.” She had not really expected it to work, but she was disappointed all the same. “Something else?”

“I think that’s all.”

She began to add up the bill. Wolff said: “Aristopoulos must be doing well, to employ an assistant.”

Elene said: “Five pounds twelve and six, you wouldn’t say that if you knew what he pays me, five pounds thirteen and six, six pounds—”

“Don’t you like the job?”

She gave him a direct look. “I’d do anything to get out of here.”

“What did you have in mind?” He was very quick.

She shrugged, and went back to her addition. Eventually she said: “Thirteen pounds ten shillings and fourpence.”

“How did you know I’d pay in sterling?”

He was quick. She was afraid she had given herself away. She felt herself begin to blush. She had an inspiration, and said: “You’re a British officer, aren’t you?”

He laughed loudly at that. He took out a roll of pound notes and gave her fourteen. She gave him his change in Egyptian coins. She was thinking: What else can I do? What else can I say? She began to pack his purchases into a brown-paper shopping bag.

She said: “Are you having a party? I love parties.”

“What makes you ask?”

“The champagne.”

“Ah. Well, life is one long party.”

She thought: I’ve failed. He will go away now, and perhaps he won’t come back for weeks, perhaps never; I’ve had him in my sights, I’ve talked to him, and now I have to let him walk away and disappear into the city.

She should have felt relieved, but instead she felt a sense of abject failure.

He lifted the case of champagne onto his left shoulder, and picked up the shopping bag with his right hand. “Good-bye,” he said.

“Good-bye.”

He turned around at the door. “Meet me at the Oasis Restaurant on Wednesday night at seven-thirty.”

“All right!” she said jubilantly. But he was gone.

It took them most of the morning to get to the Hill of Jesus. Jakes sat in the front next to the driver, Vandam and Bogge sat in the back. Vandam was exultant. An Australian company had taken the hill in the night, and they had captured—almost intact—a German wireless listening post. It was the first good news Vandam had heard for months.

Jakes turned around and shouted over the noise of the engine. “Apparently the Aussies charged in their socks, to surprise ’em,” he said. “Most of the Italians were taken prisoner in their pajamas.”

Vandam had heard the same story. “The Germans weren’t sleeping, though,” he said. “It was quite a rough show.”

They took the main road to Alexandria, then the coast road to El Alamein, where they turned onto a barrel track—a route through the desert marked with barrels. Nearly all the traffic was going in the opposite direction, retreating. Nobody knew what was happening. They stopped at a supply dump to fill up with petrol, and Bogge had to pull rank on the officer in charge to get a chitty.

Their driver asked for directions to the hill. “Bottle track,” the officer said brusquely. The tracks, created by and for the Army, were named Bottle, Boot, Moon and Star, the symbols for which were cut into the empty barrels and petrol cans along the routes. At night little lights were placed in the barrels to illuminate the symbols.

Bogge asked the officer: “What’s happening out here? Everything seems to be heading back east.”

“Nobody tells me anything,” said the officer.

They got a cup of tea and a bully-beef sandwich from the NAAFI truck. When they moved on they went through a recent battlefield, littered with wrecked and burned-out tanks, where a graveyard detail was desultorily collecting corpses. The barrels disappeared, but the driver picked them up again on the far side of the gravel plain.

They found the hill at midday. There was a battle going on not far away: they could hear the guns and see clouds of dust rising to the west. Vandam realized he had not been this near the fighting before. The overall impression was one of dirt, panic and confusion. They reported to the command vehicle and were directed to the captured German radio trucks.

Field intelligence men were already at work. Prisoners were being interrogated in a small tent, one at a time, while the others waited in the blazing sun. Enemy ordnance experts were examining weapons and vehicles, noting manufacturers’ serial numbers. The Y Service was there looking for wavelengths and codes. It was the task of Bogge’s little squad to investigate how much the Germans had been learning in advance about Allied movements.

They took a truck each. Like most people in Intelligence, Vandam had a smattering of German. He knew a couple of hundred words, most of them military terms, so that while he could not have told the difference between a love letter and a laundry list, he could read army orders and reports.

There was a lot of material to be examined: the captured post was a great prize for Intelligence. Most of the stuff would have to be boxed, transported to Cairo and perused at length by a large team. Today’s job was a preliminary overview.

Vandam’s truck was a mess. The Germans had begun to destroy their papers when they realized the battle was lost. Boxes had been emptied and a small fire started, but the damage had been arrested quickly. There was blood on a cardboard folder: someone had died defending his secrets.

Vandam went to work. They would have tried to destroy the important papers first, so he began with the half-burned pile. There were many Allied radio signals, intercepted and in some cases decoded. Most of it was routine—most of everything was routine—but as he worked Vandam began to realize that German Intelligence’s wireless interception was picking up an awful lot of useful information. They were better than Vandam had imagined—and Allied wireless security was very bad.

At the bottom of the half-burned pile was a book, a novel in English. Vandam frowned. He opened the book and read the first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” The book was called Rebecca, and it was by Daphne du Maurier. The title was vaguely familiar. Vandam thought his wife might have read it. It seemed to be about a young woman living in an English country house.

Vandam scratched his head. It was, to say the least, peculiar reading for the Afrika Korps.

And why was it in English?

It might have been taken from a captured English soldier, but Vandam thought that unlikely: in his experience soldiers read pornography, hard-boiled private eye stories and the Bible. Somehow he could not imagine the Desert Rats getting interested in the problems of the mistress of Manderley.

No, the book was here for a purpose. What purpose? Vandam could think of only one possibility: it was the basis of a code.

A book code was a variation on the one-time pad. A one-time pad had letters and numbers randomly printed in five-character groups. Only two copies of each pad were made: one for the sender and one for the recipient of the signals. Each sheet of the pad was used for one message, then torn off and destroyed. Because each sheet was used only once the code could not be broken. A book code used the pages of a printed book in the same way, except that the sheets were not necessarily destroyed after use.

There was one big advantage which a book had over a pad. A pad was unmistakably for the purpose of encipherment, but a book looked quite innocent. In the battlefield this did not matter; but it did matter to an agent behind enemy lines.

This might also explain why the book was in English. German soldiers signaling to one another would use a book in German, if they used a book at all, but a spy in British territory would need to carry a book in English.

Vandam examined the book more closely. The price had been written in pencil on the endpaper, then rubbed out with an eraser. That might mean the book had been bought secondhand. Vandam held it up to the light, trying to read the impression the pencil had made in the paper. He made out the number 50, followed by some letters. Was it eic? It might be erc, or esc. It was esc, he realized—fifty escudos. The book had been bought in Portugal. Portugal was neutral territory, with both German and British embassies, and it was a hive of low-level espionage.

As soon as he got back to Cairo he would send a message to the Secret Intelligence Service station in Lisbon. They could check the English-language bookshops in Portugal—there could not be very many—and try to find out where the book had been bought, and if possible by whom.

At least two copies would have been bought, and a bookseller might remember such a sale. The interesting question was, where was the other copy? Vandam was pretty sure it was in Cairo, and he thought he knew who was using it.

He decided he had better show his find to Lieutenant Colonel Bogge. He picked up the book and stepped out of the truck.

Bogge was coming to find him.

Vandam stared at him. He was white-faced, and angry to the point of hysteria. He came stomping across the dusty sand, a sheet of paper in his hand.

Vandam thought: What the devil has got into him?

Bogge shouted: “What do you do all day, anyway?”

Vandam said nothing. Bogge handed him the sheet of paper. Vandam looked at it.

It was a coded radio signal, with the decrypt written between the lines of code. It was timed at midnight on June 3. The sender used the call sign Sphinx. The message, after the usual preliminaries about signal strength, bore the heading: OPERATION ABERDEEN

Vandam was thunderstruck. Operation Aberdeen had taken place on June 5, and the Germans had received a signal about it on June 3.

Vandam said: “Jesus Christ Almighty, this is a disaster.”

“Of course it’s a bloody disaster!” Bogge yelled. “It means Rommel is getting full details of our attacks before they bloody begin!”

Vandam read the rest of the signal. “Full details” was right. The message named the brigades involved, the timing of various stages of the attack, and the overall strategy.

“No wonder Rommel’s winning,” Vandam muttered.

“Don’t make bloody jokes!” Bogge screamed.

Jakes appeared at Vandam’s side, accompanied by a full colonel from the Australian brigade that had taken the hill, and said to Vandam: “Excuse me, sir—”

Vandam said abruptly: “Not now, Jakes.”

“Stay here, Jakes,” Bogge countermanded. “This concerns you, too.”

Vandam handed the sheet of paper to Jakes. Vandam felt as if someone had struck him a physical blow. The information was so good that it had to have originated in GHQ.

Jakes said softly: “Bloody hell.”

Bogge said: “They must be getting this stuff from an English officer, you realize that, do you?”

“Yes,” Vandam said.

“What do you mean, yes? Your job is personnel security—this is your bloody responsibility!”

“I realize that, sir.”

“Do you also realize that a leak of this magnitude will have to be reported to the commander in chief?”

The Australian colonel, who did not appreciate the scale of the catastrophe, was embarrassed to see an officer getting a public dressing down. He said: “Let’s save the recriminations for later, Bogge. I doubt the thing is the fault of any one individual. Your first job is to discover the extent of the damage and make a preliminary report to your superiors.”

It was clear that Bogge was not through ranting yet; but he was outranked. He suppressed his wrath with a visible effort, and said: “Right, get on with it, Vandam.” He stumped off, and the colonel went away in the other direction.

Vandam sat down on the step of the truck. He lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. The news seemed worse as it sunk in. Not only had Alex Wolff penetrated Cairo and evaded Vandam’s net, he had gained access to high-level secrets.

Vandam thought: Who is this man?

In just a few days he had selected his target, laid his groundwork, and then bribed, blackmailed or corrupted the target into treachery.

Who was the target; who was giving Wolff the information? Literally hundreds of people had the information: the generals, their aides, the secretaries who typed written messages, the men who encoded radio messages, the officers who carried verbal messages, all Intelligence staff, all interservice liaison people ...

Somehow, Vandam assumed, Wolff had found one among those hundreds of people who was prepared to betray his country for money, or out of political conviction, or under pressure of blackmail. Of course it was possible that Wolff had nothing to do with it—but Vandam thought that unlikely, for a traitor needed a channel of communication with the enemy, and Wolff had such a channel, and it was hard to believe there might be two like Wolff in Cairo.

Jakes was standing beside Vandam, looking dazed. Vandam said: “Not only is this information getting through, but Rommel is using it. If you recall the fighting on five June—”

“Yes, I do,” Jakes said. “It was a massacre.”

And it was my fault, Vandam thought. Bogge had been right about that: Vandam’s job was to stop secrets getting out, and when secrets got out it was Vandam’s responsibility.

One man could not win the war, but one man could lose it. Vandam did not want to be that man.

He stood up. “All right, Jakes, you heard what Bogge said. Let’s get on with it.”

Jakes snapped his fingers. “I forgot what I came to tell you: you’re wanted on the field telephone. It’s GHQ. Apparently there’s an Egyptian woman in your office, asking for you, refusing to leave. She says she has an urgent message and she won’t take no for an answer.”

Vandam thought: Elene!

Maybe she made contact with Wolff. She must have—why else would she be desperate to speak to Vandam? Vandam ran to the command vehicle, with Jakes hard on his heels.

The major in charge of communications handed him the phone. “Make it snappy, Vandam, we’re using that thing.”

Vandam had swallowed enough abuse for one day. He snatched the phone, thrust his face into the major’s face, and said loudly: “I’ll use it as long as I need it.” He turned his back on the major and spoke into the phone. “Yes?”

“William?”

“Elene!” He wanted to tell her how good it was to hear her voice, but instead he said: “What happened?”

“He came into the shop.”

“You saw him! Did you get his address?”

“No—but I’ve got a date with him.”

“Well done!” Vandam was full of savage delight—he would catch the bastard now. “Where and when?”

“Tomorrow night, seven-thirty, at the Oasis Restaurant.”

Vandam picked up a pencil and a scrap of paper. “Oasis Restaurant, seven-thirty,” he repeated. “I’ll be there.”

“Good.”

“Elene ...”

“Yes?”

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am. Thank you.”

“Until tomorrow.”

“Good-bye.” Vandam put down the phone.

Bogge was standing behind him, with the major in charge of communications. Bogge said: “What the devil do you mean by using the field telephone to make dates with your bloody girlfriends?”

Vandam gave him a sunny smile. “That wasn’t a girlfriend, it was an informant,” he said. “She’s made contact with the spy. I expect to arrest him tomorrow night.”

12

WOLFF WATCHED SONJA EAT. THE LIVER WAS UNDERDONE, PINK AND SOFT, JUST as she liked it. She ate with relish, as usual. He thought how alike the two of them were. In their work they were competent, professional and highly successful. They both lived in the shadows of childhood shocks: her father’s death, his mother’s remarriage into an Arab family. Neither of them had ever come close to marrying, for they were too fond of themselves to love another person. What brought them together was not love, not even affection, but shared lusts. The most important thing in life, for both of them, was the indulgence of their appetites. They both knew that Wolff was taking a small but unnecessary risk by eating in a restaurant, and they both felt the risk was worth it, for life would hardly be worth living without good food.

She finished her liver and the waiter brought an ice-cream dessert. She was always very hungry after performing at the Cha-Cha Club. It was not surprising: she used a great deal of energy in her act. But when, finally, she quit dancing, she would grow fat. Wolff imagined her in twenty years’ time: she would have three chins and a vast bosom, her hair would be brittle and graying, she would walk flat-footed and be breathless after climbing the stairs.

“What are you smiling at?” Sonja said.

“I was picturing you as an old woman, wearing a shapeless black dress and a veil.”

“I won’t be like that. I shall be very rich, and live in a palace surrounded by naked young men and women eager to gratify my slightest whim. What about you?”

Wolff smiled. “I think I shall be Hitler’s ambassador to Egypt, and wear an SS uniform to the mosque.”

“You’d have to take off your jackboots.”

“Shall I visit you in your palace?”

“Yes, please—wearing your uniform.”

“Would I have to take off my jackboots in your presence?”

“No. Everything else, but not the boots.”

Wolff laughed. Sonja was in a rare gay mood. He called the waiter and asked for coffee, brandy and the bill. He said to Sonja: “There’s some good news. I’ve been saving it. I think I’ve found another Fawzi.”

She was suddenly very still, looking at him intently. “Who is she?” she said quietly.

“I went to the grocer’s yesterday. Aristopoulos has his niece working with him.”

“A shopgirl!”

“She’s a real beauty. She has a lovely, innocent face and a slightly wicked smile.”

“How old?”

“Hard to say. Around twenty, I think. She has such a girlish body.”

Sonja licked-her lips. “And you think she will ... ?”

“I think so. She’s dying to get away from Aristopoulos, and she practically threw herself at me.”

“When?”

“I’m taking her to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Will you bring her home?”

“Maybe. I have to feel her out. She’s so perfect, I don’t want to spoil everything by rushing her.”

“You mean you want to have her first.”

“If necessary.”

“Do you think she’s a virgin?”

“It’s possible.”

“If she is ...”

“Then I’ll save her for you. You were so good with Major Smith, you deserve a treat.” Wolff sat back, studying Sonja. Her face was a mask of sexual greed as she anticipated the corruption of someone beautiful and innocent. Wolff sipped his brandy. A warm glow spread in his stomach. He felt good: full of food and wine, his mission going remarkably well and a new sexual adventure in view.

The bill came, and he paid it with English pound notes.

It was a small restaurant, but a successful one. Ibrahim managed it and his brother did the cooking. They had learned the trade in a French hotel in Tunisia, their home; and when their father died they had sold the sheep and come to Cairo to seek their fortune. Ibrahim’s philosophy was simple: they knew only French-Arab cuisine, so that was all they offered. They might, perhaps, have attracted more customers if the menu in the window had offered spaghetti bolognaise or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding; but those customers would not have returned, and anyhow Ibrahim had his pride.

The formula worked. They were making a good living, more money than their father had ever seen. The war had brought even more business. But wealth had not made Ibrahim careless.

Two days earlier he had taken coffee with a friend who was a cashier at the Metropolitan Hotel. The friend had told him how the British paymaster general had refused to exchange four of the English pound notes which had been passed in the hotel bar. The notes were counterfeit, according to the British. What was so unfair was that they had confiscated the money.

This was not going to happen to Ibrahim.

About half his customers were British, and many of them paid in sterling. Since he heard the news he had been checking carefully every pound note before putting it into the till. His friend from the Metropolitan had told him how to spot the forgeries.

It was typical of the British. They did not make a public announcement to help the businessmen of Cairo to avoid being cheated. They simply sat back and confiscated the dud notes. The businessmen of Cairo were used to this kind of treatment, and they stuck together. The grapevine worked well.

When Ibrahim received the counterfeit notes from the tall European who was dining with the famous belly dancer, he was not sure what to do next. The notes were all crisp and new, and bore the identical fault. Ibrahim double-checked them against one of the good notes in his till: there was no doubt. Should he, perhaps, explain the matter quietly to the customer? The man might take offense, or at least pretend to; and he would probably leave without paying. His bill was a heavy one—he had taken the most expensive dishes, plus imported wine—and Ibrahim did not want to risk such a loss.

He would call the police, he decided. They would prevent the customer running off, and might help persuade him to pay by check, or at least leave an IOU.

But which police? The Egyptian police would probably argue that it was not their responsibility, take an hour to get here, and then require a bribe. The customer was presumably an Englishman—why else would he have sterling?—and was probably an officer, and it was British money that had been counterfeited. Ibrahim decided he would call the military.

He went over to their table, carrying the brandy bottle. He gave them a smile. “Monsieur, madame, I hope you have enjoyed your meal.”

“It was excellent,” said the man. He talked like a British officer.

Ibrahim turned to the woman. “It is an honor to serve the greatest dancer in the world.”

She gave a regal nod.

Ibrahim said: “I hope you will accept a glass of brandy, with the compliments of the house.”

“Very kind,” said the man.

Ibrahim poured them more brandy and bowed away. That should keep them sitting still for a while longer, he thought. He left by the back door and went to the house of a neighbor who had a telephone.

If I had a restaurant, Wolff thought, I would do things like that. The two glasses of brandy cost the proprietor very little, in relation to Wolff’s total bill, but the gesture was very effective in making the customer feel wanted. Wolff had often toyed with the idea of opening a restaurant, but it was a pipe dream: he knew there was too much hard work involved.

Sonja also enjoyed the special attention. She was positively glowing under the combined influences of flattery and liquor. Tonight in bed she would snore like a pig.

The proprietor had disappeared for a few minutes, then returned. Out of the comer of his eye, Wolff saw the man whispering to a waiter. He guessed they were talking about Sonja. Wolff felt a pang of jealousy. There were places in Cairo where, because of his good custom and lavish tips, he was known by name and welcomed like royalty; but he had thought it wise not to go to places where he would be recognized, not while the British were hunting him. Now he wondered whether he could afford to relax his vigilance a little more.

Sonja yawned. It was time to put her to bed. Wolff waved to a waiter and said: “Please fetch Madame’s wrap.” The man went off, paused to mutter something to the proprietor, then continued on toward the cloakroom.

An alarm bell sounded, faint and distant, somewhere in the back of Wolff’s mind.

He toyed with a spoon as he waited for Sonja’s wrap. Sonja ate another petit four. The proprietor walked the length of the restaurant, went out of the front door, and came back in again. He approached their table and said: “May I get you a taxi?”

Wolff looked at Sonja. She said: “I don’t mind.”

Wolff said: “I’d like a breath of air. Let’s walk a little way, then hail one.”

“Okay.”

Wolff looked at the proprietor. “No taxi.”

“Very good, sir.”

The waiter brought Sonja’s wrap. The proprietor kept looking at the door. Wolff heard another alarm bell, this one louder. He said to the proprietor: “Is something the matter?”

The man looked very worried. “I must mention an extremely delicate problem, sir.”

Wolff began to get irritated. “Well, what is it, man? We want to go home.”

There was the sound of a vehicle noisily drawing up outside the restaurant.

Wolff took hold of the proprietor’s lapels. “What is going on here?”

“The money with which you paid your bill, sir, is not good.”

“You don’t accept sterling? Then why didn’t—”

“It’s not that, sir. The money is counterfeit.”

The restaurant door burst open and three military policemen marched in.

Wolff stared at them openmouthed. It was all happening so quickly, he couldn’t catch his breath ... Military police. Counterfeit money. He was suddenly afraid. He might go to jail. Those imbeciles in Berlin had given him forged notes, it was so stupid, he wanted to take Canaris by the throat and squeeze—

He shook his head. There was no time to be angry now. He had to keep calm and try to slide out of this mess—

The MPs marched up to the table. Two were British and the third was Australian. They wore heavy boots and steel helmets, and each of them had a small gun in a belt holster. One of the British said: “Is this the man?”

“Just a moment,” Wolff said, and was astonished at how cool and suave his voice sounded. “The proprietor has, this very minute, told me that my money is no good. I don’t believe this, but I’m prepared to humor him, and I’m sure we can make some arrangement which will satisfy him.” He gave the proprietor a reproachful look. “It really wasn’t necessary to call the police.”

The senior MP said: “It’s an offense to pass forged money.”

“Knowingly,” Wolff said. “It is an offense knowingly to pass forged money.” As he listened to his own voice, quiet and persuasive, his confidence grew. “Now, then, what I propose is this. I have here my checkbook and some Egyptian money. I will write a check to cover my bill, and use the Egyptian money for the tip. Tomorrow I will take the allegedly counterfeit notes to the British paymaster general for examination, and if they really are forgeries I will surrender them.” He smiled at the group surrounding him. “I imagine that should satisfy everyone.”

The proprietor said: “I would prefer if you could pay entirely in cash, sir.”

Wolff wanted to hit him in the face.

Sonja said: “I may have enough Egyptian money.”

Wolff thought: Thank God.

Sonja opened her bag.

The senior MP said: “All the same, sir, I’m going to ask you to come with me.”

Wolff’s heart sank again. “Why?”

“We’ll need to ask you some questions.”

“Fine. Why don’t you call on me tomorrow morning. I live—”

“You’ll have to come with me. Those are my orders.”

“From whom?”

“The assistant provost marshal.”

“Very well, then,” said Wolff. He stood up. He could feel the fear pumping desperate strength into his arms. “But either you or the provost will be in very deep trouble in the morning.” Then he picked up the table and threw it at the MP.

He had planned and calculated the move in a couple of seconds. It was a small circular table of solid wood. Its edge struck the MP on the bridge of the nose, and as he fell back the table landed on top of him.

Table and MP were on Wolff’s left. On his right was the proprietor. Sonja was opposite him, still sitting, and the other two MPs were on either side of her and slightly behind her.

Wolff grabbed the proprietor and pushed him at one of the MPs. Then he jumped at the other MP, the Australian, and punched his face. He hoped to get past the two of them and run away. It did not work. The MPs were chosen for their size, belligerence and brutality, and they were used to dealing with soldiers desert-hardened and fighting drunk. The Australian took the punch and staggered back a pace, but he did not fall over. Wolff kicked him in the knee and punched his face again; then the other MP, the second Englishman, pushed the proprietor out of the way and kicked Wolff’s feet from under him.

Wolff landed heavily. His chest and his cheek hit the tiled floor. His face stung, he was momentarily winded and he saw stars. He was kicked again, in the side; the pain made him jerk convulsively and roll away from the blow. The MP jumped on him, beating him about the head. He struggled to push the man off. Someone else sat on Wolff’s feet. Then Wolff saw, above him and behind the English MP on his chest, Sonja’s face, twisted with rage. The thought flashed through his mind that she was remembering another beating that had been administered by British soldiers. Then he saw that she was raising high in the air the chair she had been sitting on. The MP on Wolff’s chest glimpsed her, turned around, looked up, and raised his arms to ward off the blow. She brought the heavy chair down with all her might. A corner of the seat struck the MP’s mouth, and he gave a shout of pain and anger as blood spurted from his lip.

The Australian got off Wolff’s feet and grabbed Sonja from behind, pinning her arms. Wolff flexed his body and threw off the wounded Englishman, then scrambled to his feet.

He reached inside his shirt and whipped out his knife.

The Australian threw Sonja aside, took a pace forward, saw the knife and stopped. He and Wolff stared into each other’s eyes for an instant. Wolff saw the other man’s eyes flicker to one side, then the other, seeing his two partners lying on the floor. The Australian’s hand went to his holster.

Wolff turned and dashed for the door. One of his eyes was closing: he could not see well. The door was closed. He grabbed for the handle and missed. He felt like screaming. He found the handle and flung the door open wide. It hit the wall with a crash. A shot rang out.

Vandam drove the motorcycle through the streets at a dangerous speed. He had ripped the blackout mask off the headlight—nobody in Cairo took the blackout seriously anyway—and he drove with his thumb on the horn. The streets were still busy, with taxis, gharries, army trucks, donkeys and camels. The pavements were crowded and the shops were bright with electric lights, oil lamps and candles. Vandam weaved recklessly through the traffic, ignoring the outraged hooting of the cars, the raised fists of the gharry drivers, and the blown whistle of an Egyptian policeman.

The assistant provost marshal had called him at home. “Ah, Vandam, wasn’t it you who sent up the balloon about this funny money? Because we’ve just had a call from a restaurant where a European is trying to pass—”

“Where?”

The APM gave him the address, and Vandam ran out of the house.

He skidded around a corner, dragging a heel in the dusty road for traction. It had occurred to him that, with so much counterfeit money in circulation, some of it must have got into the hands of other Europeans, and the man in the restaurant might well be an innocent victim. He hoped not. He wanted desperately to get his hands on Alex Wolff. Wolff had outwitted and humiliated him and now, with his access to secrets and his direct line to Rommel, he threatened to bring about the fall of Egypt; but it was not just that. Vandam was consumed with curiosity about Wolff. He wanted to see the man and touch him, to find out how he would move and speak. Was he clever, or just lucky? Courageous, or foolhardy? Determined, or stubborn? Did he have a handsome face and a warm smile, or beady eyes and an oily grin? Would he fight or come quietly? Vandam wanted to know. And, most of all, Vandam wanted to take him by the throat and drag him off to jail, chain him to the wall and lock the door and throw away the key.

He swerved to avoid a pothole, then opened the throttle and roared down a quiet street. The address was a little out of the city center, toward the Old Town: Vandam was acquainted with the street but not with the restaurant. He turned two more corners, and almost hit an old man riding an ass with his wife walking along behind. He found the street he was looking for.

It was narrow and dark, with high buildings on either side. At ground level there were some shop fronts and some house entrances. Vandam pulled up beside two small boys playing in the gutter and said the name of the restaurant. They pointed vaguely along the street.

Vandam cruised along, pausing to look wherever he noticed a lit window. He was halfway down the street when he heard the crack! of a small firearm, slightly muffled, and the sound of glass shattering. His head jerked around toward the source of the noise. Light from a broken window glinted off shards of falling glass, and as he looked a tall man ran out of a door into the street.

It had to be Wolff.

He ran in the opposite direction.

Vandam felt a surge of savagery. He twisted the throttle of the motorcycle and roared after the running man. As he passed the restaurant an MP ran out and fired three shots. The fugitive’s pace did not falter.

Vandam caught him in the beam of the headlight. He was running strongly, steadily, his arms and legs pumping rhythmically. When the light hit him he glanced back over his shoulder without breaking his stride, and Vandam glimpsed a hawk nose and a strong chin, and a mustache above a mouth open and panting.

Vandam could have shot him, but officers at GHQ did not carry guns.

The motorcycle gained fast. When they were almost level Wolff suddenly turned a corner. Vandam braked and went into a back-wheel skid, leaning the bike against the direction of the skid to keep his balance. He came to a stop, jerked upright and shot forward again.

He saw the back of Wolff disappear into a narrow alleyway. With- , out slowing down, Vandam turned the corner and drove into the alley. The bike shot out into empty space. Vandam’s stomach turned over. The white cone of his headlight illuminated nothing. He thought he was falling into a pit. He gave an involuntary shout of fear. The back wheel hit something. The front wheel went down, down, then hit. The headlight showed a flight of steps. The bike bounced, and landed again. Vandam fought desperately to keep the front wheel straight. The bike descended the steps in a series of spine-jarring bumps, and with each bump Vandam was sure he would lose control and crash. He saw Wolff at the bottom of the stairs, still running.

Vandam reached the foot of the staircase and felt incredibly lucky. He saw Wolff turn another comer, and followed. They were in a maze of alleys. Wolff ran up a short flight of steps.

Vandam thought: Jesus, no.

He had no choice. He accelerated and headed squarely for the steps. A moment before hitting the bottom step he jerked the handlebars with all his might. The front wheel lifted. The bike hit the steps, bucked like a wild thing and tried to throw him. He hung on grimly. The bike bumped crazily up. Vandam fought it. He reached the top.

He found himself in a long passage with high, blank walls on either side. Wolff was still in front of him, still running. Vandam thought he could catch him before Wolff reached the end of the passage. He shot forward.

Wolff looked back over his shoulder, ran on, and looked again. His, pace was flagging, Vandam could see. His stride was no longer steady and rhythmic: his arms flew out to either side and he ran raggedly. Glimpsing Wolff’s face, Vandam saw that it was taut with strain.

Wolff put on a burst of speed, but it was not enough. Vandam drew level, eased ahead, then braked sharply and twisted the handlebars. The back wheel skidded and the front wheel hit the wall. Vandam leaped off as the bike fell to the ground. Vandam landed on his feet, facing Wolff. The smashed headlight threw a shaft of light into the darkness of the passage. There was no point in Wolff’s turning and running the other way, for Vandam was fresh and could easily catch him. Without pausing in his stride Wolff jumped over the bike, his body passing through the pillar of light from the headlight like a knife slicing aflame, and crashed into Vandam. Vandam, still unsteady, stumbled backward and fell. Wolff staggered and took another step forward. Vandam reached out blindly in the dark, found Wolff’s ankle, gripped and yanked. Wolff crashed to the ground.

The broken headlight gave a little light to the rest of the alley. The engine of the bike had cut out, and in the silence Vandam could hear Wolff’s breathing, ragged and hoarse. He could smell him, too: a smell of booze and perspiration and fear. But he could not see his face.

There was a split second when the two of them lay on the ground, one exhausted and the other momentarily stunned. Then they both scrambled to their feet. Vandam jumped at Wolff, and they grappled.

Wolff was strong. Vandam tried to pin his arms, but he could not hold on to him. Suddenly he let go and threw a punch. It landed somewhere soft, and Wolff said: “Ooff.” Vandam punched again, this time aiming for the face; but Wolff dodged, and the fist hit empty space. Suddenly something in Wolff’s hand glinted in the dim light.

Vandam thought: A knife!

The blade flashed toward his throat. He jerked back reflexively. There was a searing pain all across his cheek. His hand flew to his face. He felt a gush of hot blood. Suddenly the pain was unbearable. He pressed on the wound and his fingers touched something hard. He realized he was feeling his own teeth, and that the knife had sliced right through the flesh of his cheek; and then he felt himself falling, and he heard Wolff running away, and everything turned black.

13

WOLFF TOOK A HANDKERCHIEF FROM HIS TROUSERS POCKET AND WIPED THE blood from the blade of the knife. He examined the blade in the dim light, then wiped it again. He walked along, polishing the thin steel vigorously. He stopped, and thought: What am I doing? It’s clean already. He threw away the handkerchief and replaced the knife in the sheath under his arm. He emerged from the alley into the street, got his bearings, and headed for the Old City.

He imagined a prison cell. It was six feet long by four feet wide, and half of it was taken up by a bed. Beneath the bed was a chamber pot. The walls were of smooth gray stone. A small lightbulb hung from the ceiling by a cord. In one end of the cell was a door. In the other end was a small square window, set just above eye level: through it he could see the bright blue sky. He imagined that he woke up in the morning and saw all this, and remembered that he had been here for a year, and he would be here for another nine years. He used the chamber pot, then washed his hands in the tin bowl in the corner. There was no soap. A dish of cold porridge was pushed through the hatch in the door. He picked up the spoon and took a mouthful, but he was unable to swallow, for he was weeping.

He shook his head to clear it of nightmare visions. He thought: I got away, didn’t I? I got away. He realized that some of the people on the street were staring at him as they passed. He saw a mirror in a shop window, and examined himself in it. His hair was awry, one side of his face was bruised and swollen, his sleeve was ripped and there was blood on his collar. He was still panting from the exertion of running and fighting. He thought: I look dangerous. He walked on, and turned at the next comer to take an indirect route which would avoid the main streets.

Those imbeciles in Berlin had given him counterfeit money! No wonder they were so generous with it—they were printing it themselves. It was so foolish that Wolff wondered if it might be more than foolishness. The Abwehr was run by the military, not by the Nazi Party; its chief, Canaris, was not the staunchest of Hitler’s supporters.

When I get back to Berlin there will be such a purge...

How had it caught up with him, here in Cairo? He had been spending money fast. The forgeries had got into circulation. The banks had spotted the dud notes—no, not the banks, the paymaster general. Anyway, someone had begun to refuse the money, and word had got around Cairo. The proprietor of the restaurant had noticed that Wolff’s money was fake and had called the military. Wolff grinned ruefully to himself when he recalled how flattered he had been by the proprietor’s complimentary brandy—it had been no more than a ruse to keep him there until the MPs arrived.

He thought about the man on the motorcycle. He must be a determined bastard, to ride the bike around those alleys and up and down the steps. He had no gun, Wolff guessed: if he had, he would surely have used it. Nor had he a tin hat, so presumably he was not an MP. Someone from Intelligence, perhaps? Major Vandam, even?

Wolff hoped so.

I cut the man, he thought. Quite badly, probably. I wonder where? The face?

I hope it was Vandam.

He turned his mind to his immediate problem. They had Sonja. She would tell them she hardly knew Wolff-she would make up some story about a quick pickup in the Cha-Cha Club. They would not be able to hold her for long, because she was famous, a star, a kind of hero among the Egyptians, and to imprison her would cause a great deal of trouble. So they would let her go quite soon. However, she would have to give them her address; which meant that Wolff could not go back to the houseboat, not yet. But he was exhausted, bruised and disheveled: he had to clean himself up and get a few hours’ rest, somewhere.

He thought: I’ve been here before—wandering the city, tired and hunted, with nowhere to go.

This time he would have to fall back on Abdullah.

He had been heading for the Old City, knowing all along, in the back of his mind, that Abdullah was all he had left; and now he found himself a few steps from the old thief’s house. He ducked,under an arch, went along a short dark passage and climbed a stone spiral staircase to Abdullah’s home.

Abdullah was sitting on the floor with another man. A nargileh stood between them, and the air was full of the herbal smell of hashish. Abdullah looked up at Wolff and gave a slow, sleepy smile. He spoke in Arabic. “Here is my friend Achmed, also called Alex. Welcome, Achmed-Alex.”

Wolff sat on the floor with them and greeted them in Arabic.

Abdullah said: “My brother Yasef here would like to ask you a riddle, something that has been puzzling him and me for some hours now, ever since we started the hubble-bubble, speaking of which ...” He passed the pipe across, and Wolff took a lungful.

Yasef said: “Achmed-Alex, friend of my brother, welcome. Tell me this: Why do the British call us wogs?”

Yasef and Abdullah collapsed into giggles. Wolff realized they were heavily under the influence of hashish: they must have been smoking all evening. He drew on the pipe again, and pushed it over to Yasef. It was strong stuff. Abdullah always had the best. Wolff said: “As it happens, I know the answer. Egyptian men working on the Suez Canal were issued with special shirts, to show that they had the right to be on British property. They were Working On Government Service, so on the backs of their shirts were printed the letters W.O.G.S.”

Yasef and Abdullah giggled all over again. Abdullah said: “My friend Achmed-Alex is clever. He is as clever as an Arab, almost, because he is almost an Arab. He is the only European who has ever got the better of me, Abdullah.”

“I believe this to be untrue,” Wolff said slipping into their stoned style of speech. “I would never try to outwit my friend Abdullah, for who can cheat the devil?”

Yasef smiled and nodded his appreciation of this witticism.

Abdullah said: “Listen, my brother, and I will tell you.” He frowned, collecting his doped thoughts. “Achmed-Alex asked me to steal something for him. That way I would take the risk and he would get the reward. Of course, he did not outwit me so simply. I stole the thing—it was a case—and of course my intention was to take its contents for myself, since the thief is entitled to the proceeds of his crime, according to the laws of God. Therefore I should have outwitted him, should I not?”

“Indeed,” said Yasef, “although I do not recall the passage of Holy Scripture which says that a thief is entitled to the proceeds of his crime. However ...”

“Perhaps not,” said Abdullah. “Of what was I speaking?”

Wolff, who was still more or less compos mentis, told him: “You should have outwitted me, because you opened the case yourself.”

“Indeed! But wait. There was nothing of value in the case, so Achmed-Alex had outwitted me. But wait! I made him pay me for rendering this service; therefore I got one hundred pounds and he got nothing.”

Yasef frowned. “You, then, got the better of him.”

“No.” Abdullah shook his head sadly. “He paid me in forged banknotes.”

Yasef stared at Abdullah. Abdullah stared back. They both burst out laughing. They slapped each other’s shoulders, stamped their feet on the floor and rolled around on the cushions, laughing until the tears came to their eyes.

Wolff forced a smile. It was just the kind of funny story that appealed to Arab businessmen, with its chain of double crosses. Abdullah would be telling it for years. But it sent a chill through Wolff. So Abdullah, too, knew about the counterfeit notes. How many others did? Wolff felt as if the hunting pack had formed a circle around him, so that every way he ran he came up against one of them, and the circle drew tighter every day.

Abdullah seemed to notice Wolff’s appearance for the first time. He immediately became very concerned. “What has happened to you? Have you been robbed?” He picked up a tiny silver bell and rang it. Almost immediately, a sleepy woman came in from the next room. “Get some hot water,” Abdullah told her. “Bathe my friend’s wounds. Give him my European shirt. Bring a comb. Bring coffee. Quickly!”

In a European house Wolff would have protested at the women being roused, after midnight, to attend to him; but here such a protest would have been very discourteous. The women existed to serve the men, and they would be neither surprised nor annoyed by Abdullah’s peremptory demands.

Wolff explained: “The British tried to arrest me, and I was obliged to fight with them before I could get away. Sadly, I think they may now know where I have been living, and this is a problem.”

“Ah.” Abdullah drew on the nargileh, and passed it around again. Wolff began to feel the effects of the hashish: he was relaxed, slow-thinking, a little sleepy. Time slowed down. Two of Abdullah.’s wives fussed over him, bathing his face and combing his hair. He found their ministrations very pleasant indeed.

Abdullah seemed to doze for a while, then he opened his eyes and said: “You must stay here. My house is yours. I will hide you from the British.”

“You are a true friend,” Wolff said. It was odd, he thought. He had planned to offer Abdullah money to hide him. Then Abdullah had revealed that he knew the money was no good, and Wolff had been wondering what else he could do. Now Abdullah was going to hide him for nothing. A true friend. What was odd was that Abdullah was not a true friend. There were no friends in Abdullah’s world: there was the family, for whom he would do anything, and the rest, for whom he would do nothing. How have I earned this special treatment? Wolff thought sleepily.

His alarm bell was sounding again. He forced himself to think: it was not easy after the hashish. Take it one step at a time, he told himself. Abdullah asks me to stay here. Why? Because I am in trouble. Because I am his friend. Because I have outwitted him.

Because I have outwitted him. That story was not finished. Abdullah would want to add another double cross to the chain. How? By betraying Wolff to the British. That was it. As soon as Wolff fell asleep, Abdullah would send a message to Major Vandam. Wolff would be picked up. The British would pay Abdullah for the information, and the story could be told to Abdullah’s credit at last.

Damn.

A wife brought a white European shirt. Wolff stood up and took off his torn and bloody shirt. The wife averted her eyes from his bare chest.

Abdullah said: “He doesn’t need it yet. Give it to him in the morning.”

Wolff took the shirt from the woman and put it on.

Abdullah said: “Perhaps it would be undignified for you to sleep in the house of an Arab, my friend Achmed?”

Wolff said: “The British have a proverb: He who sups with the devil must use a long spoon.”

Abdullah grinned, showing his steel tooth. He knew that Wolff had guessed his plan. “Almost an Arab,” he said.

“Good-bye, my friends,” said Wolff.

“Until the next time,” Abdullah replied.

Wolff went out into the cold night, wondering where he could go now.

In the hospital a nurse froze half of Vandam’s face with a local anesthetic, then Dr. Abuthnot stitched up his cheek with her long, sensitive, clinical hands. She put on a protective dressing and secured it by a long strip of bandage tied around his head.

“I must look like a toothache cartoon,” he said.

She looked grave. She did not have a big sense of humor. She said: “You won’t be so chirpy when the anesthetic wears off. Your face is going to hurt badly. I’m going to give you a painkiller.”

“No, thanks,” said Vandam.

“Don’t be a tough guy, Major,” she said. “You’ll regret it.”

He looked at her, in her white hospital coat and her sensible flat-heeled shoes, and wondered how he had ever found her even faintly desirable. She was pleasant enough, even pretty, but she was also cold, superior and antiseptic. Not like-

Not like Elene.

“A painkiller will send me to sleep,” he told her.

“And a jolly good thing, too,” she said. “If you sleep we can be sure the stitches will be undisturbed for a few hours.”

“I’d love to, but I have some important work that won’t wait.”

“You can’t work. You shouldn’t really walk around. You should talk as little as possible. You’re weak from loss of blood, and a wound like this is mentally as well as physically traumatic—in a few hours you’ll feel the backlash, and you’ll be dizzy, nauseous, exhausted and confused.”

“I’ll be worse if the Germans take Cairo,” he said. He stood up.

Dr. Abuthnot looked cross. Vandam thought how well it suited her to be in a position to tell people what to do. She was not sure how to handle outright disobedience. “You’re a silly boy,” she said.

“No doubt. Can I eat?”

“No. Take glucose dissolved in warm water.”

I might try it in warm gin, he thought. He shook her hand. It was cold and dry.

Jakes was waiting outside the hospital with a car. “I knew they wouldn’t be able to keep you long, sir,” he said. “Shall I drive you home?”

“No.” Vandam’s watch had stopped. “What’s the time?”

“Five past two.”

“I presume Wolff wasn’t dining alone.”

“No, sir. His companion is under arrest at GHQ.”

“Drive me there.”

“If you’re sure ...”

“Yes.”

The car pulled away. Vandam said: “Have you notified the hierarchy?”

“About this evening’s events? No, sir.”

“Good. Tomorrow will be soon enough.” Vandam did not say what they both knew: that the department, already under a cloud for letting Wolff gather intelligence, would be in utter disgrace for letting him slip through their fingers.

Vandam said: “I presume Wolff’s dinner date was a woman.”

“Very much so, if I may say so, sir. A real dish. Name of Sonja.”

“The dancer?”

“No less.”

They drove on in silence. Wolff was a cool customer, Vandam thought, to go out with the most famous belly dancer in Egypt in between stealing British military secrets. Well, he would not be so cool now. That was unfortunate in a way: having been warned by this incident that the British were on to him, he would be more careful from now on. Never scare them, just catch them.

They arrived at GHQ and got out of the car. Vandam said: “What’s been done with her since she arrived?”

“The no-treatment treatment,” Jakes said. “A bare cell, no food, no drink, no questions.”

“Good.” It was a pity, all the same, that she had been given time to collect her thoughts. Vandam knew from prisoner-of-war interrogations that the best results were achieved immediately after the capture, when the prisoner was still frightened of being killed. Later on, when he had been herded here and there and given food and drink, he began to think of himself as a prisoner rather than as a soldier, and remembered that he had new rights and duties; and then he was better able to keep his mouth shut. Vandam should have interviewed Sonja immediately after the fight in the restaurant. As that was not possible, the next best thing was for her to be kept in isolation and given no information until he arrived.

Jakes led the way along a corridor to the interview room. Vandam looked in through the judas. It was a square room, without windows but bright with electric light. There were a table, two upright chairs and an ashtray. To one side was a doorless cubicle with a toilet.

Sonja sat on one of the chairs facing the door. Jakes was right, Vandam thought; she’s a dish. However she was by no means pretty. She was something of an Amazon, with her ripe, voluptuous body and strong, well-proportioned features. The young women in Egypt generally had a slender, leggy grace, like downy young deer: Sonja was more like... Vandam frowned, then thought: a tigress. She wore a long gown of bright yellow which was garish to Vandam but would be quite à la mode in the Cha-Cha Club. He watched her for a minute or two. She was sitting quite still, not fidgeting, not darting nervous glances around the bare cell, not smoking or biting her nails. He thought: She will be a tough nut to crack. Then the expression on her handsome face changed, and she stood up and began pacing up and down, and Vandam thought: Not so tough.

He opened the door and went in.

He sat down at the table without speaking. This left her standing, which was a psychological disadvantage for a woman: Score the first point to me, he thought. He heard Jakes come in behind him and close the door. He looked up at Sonja. “Sit down.”

She stood gazing at him, and a slow smile spread across her face. She pointed at his bandages. “Did he do that to you?” she said.

Score the second point to her.

“Sit down.”

“Thank you.” She sat.

“Who is ‘he’?”

“Alex Wolff, the man you tried to beat up tonight.”

“And who is Alex Wolff?”

“A wealthy patron of the Cha-Cha Club.”

“How long have you known him?”

She looked at her watch. “Five hours.”

“What is your relationship with him?”

She shrugged. “He was a date.”

“How did you meet?”

“The usual way. After my act, a waiter brought a message inviting me to sit at Mr. Wolff’s table.”

“Which one?”

“Which table?”

“Which waiter.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Go on.”

“Mr. Wolff gave me a glass of champagne and asked me to have dinner with him. I accepted, we went to the restaurant, and you know the rest.”

“Do you usually sit with members of the audience after your act?”

“Yes, it’s a custom.”

“Do you usually go to dinner with them?”

“Occasionally.”

“Why did you accept this time?”

“Mr. Wolff seemed like an unusual sort of man.” She looked at Vandam’s bandage again, and grinned. “He was an unusual sort of man.”

“What is your full name?”

“Sonja el-Aram.”

“Address?”

“Jihan, Zamalek. It’s a houseboat.”

“Age?”

“How discourteous.”

“Age?”

“I refuse to answer.”

“You’re on dangerous ground—”

“No, you are on dangerous ground.” Suddenly she startled Vandam by letting her feelings show, and he realized that all this time she had been suppressing a fury. She wagged a finger in his face. “At least ten people saw your uniformed bullies arrest me in the restaurant. By midday tomorrow half of Cairo will know that the British have put Sonja in jail. If I don’t appear at the Cha-Cha tomorrow night there will be a riot. My people will burn the city. You’ll have to bring troops back from the desert to deal with it. And if I leave here with a single bruise or scratch, I’ll show it to the world onstage tomorrow night, and the result will be the same. No, mister, it isn’t me who’s on dangerous ground.”

Vandam looked at her blankly throughout the tirade, then spoke as if she had said nothing extraordinary. He had to ignore what she said, because she was right, and he could not deny it. “Let’s go over this again,” he said mildly. “You say you met Wolff at the Cha-Cha—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I won’t go over it again. I’ll cooperate with you, and I’ll answer questions, but I will not be interrogated.” She stood up, turned her chair around, and sat down with her back to Vandam.

Vandam stared at the back of her head for a moment. She had well and truly outmaneuvered him. He was angry with himself for letting it happen, but his anger was mixed with a sneaking admiration for her for the way she had done it. Abruptly, he got up and left the room. Jakes followed.

Out in the corridor Jakes said: “What do you think?”

“We’ll have to let her go.”

Jakes went to give instructions. While he waited, Vandam thought about Sonja. He wondered from what source she had been drawing the strength to defy him. Whether her story was true or false, she should have been frightened, confused, intimidated and ultimately compliant. It was true that her fame gave her some protection; but, in threatening him with her fame, she ought to have been blustering, unsure and a little desperate, for an isolation cell normally frightened anyone—especially celebrities, because the sudden excommunication from the familiar glittering world made them wonder even more than usually whether that familiar glittering world could possibly be real.

What gave her strength? He ran over the conversation in his mind. The question she had balked at had been the one about her age. Clearly her talent had enabled her to keep going past the age at which run-of-the-mill dancers retired, so perhaps she was living in fear of the passing years. No clues there. Otherwise she had been calm, expressionless and blank, except when she had smiled at his wound. Then, at the end she had allowed herself to explode, but even then she had used her fury, she had not been controlled by it. He called to mind her face as she had raged at him. What had he seen there? Not just anger. Not fear.

Then he had it. It had been hatred.

She hated him. But he was nothing to her, nothing but a British officer. Therefore she hated the British. And her hatred had given her strength.

Suddenly Vandam was tired. He sat down heavily on a bench in the corridor. From where was he to draw strength? It was easy to be strong if you were insane, and in Sonja’s hatred there had been a hint of something a little crazy. He had no such refuge. Calmly, rationally, he considered what was at stake. He imagined the Nazis marching into Cairo; the Gestapo in the streets; the Egyptian Jews herded into concentration camps; the Fascist propaganda on the wireless...

People like Sonja looked at Egypt under British rule and felt that the Nazis had already arrived. It was not true, but if one tried for a moment to see the British through Sonja’s eyes it had a certain plausibility: the Nazis said that Jews were subhuman, and the British said that blacks were like children; there was no freedom of the press in Germany, but there was none in Egypt either; and the British, like the Germans, had their political police. Before the war Vandam had sometimes heard Hitler’s politics warmly endorsed in the officers’ mess: they disliked him, not because he was a Fascist, but because he had been a corporal in the Army and a house painter in civilian life. There were brutes everywhere, and sometimes they got into power, and then you had to fight them.

It was a more rational philosophy than Sonja’s, but it just was not inspirational.

The anesthetic in his face was wearing off. He could feel a sharp, clear line of pain across his cheek, like a new burn. He realized he also had a headache. He hoped Jakes would be a long time arranging Sonja’s release, so that he could sit on the bench a little while longer.

He thought of Billy. He did not want the boy to miss him at breakfast. Perhaps I’ll stay awake until morning, then take him to school, then go home and sleep, he thought. What would Billy’s life be like under the Nazis? They would teach him to despise the Arabs. His present teachers were no great admirers of African culture, but at least Vandam could do a little to make his son realize that people who were different were not necessarily stupid. What would happen in the Nazi classroom when he put up his hand and said: “Please, sir, my dad says a dumb Englishman is no smarter than a dumb Arab”?

He thought of Elene. Now she was a kept woman, but at least she could choose her lovers, and if she didn’t like what they wanted to do in bed she could kick them out. In the brothel of a concentration camp she would have no such choice... He shuddered.

Yes. We’re not very admirable, especially in our colonies, but the Nazis are worse, whether the Egyptians know it or not. It is worth fighting. In England decency is making slow progress; in Germany it’s taking a big step backward. Think about the people you love, and the issues become clearer.

Draw strength from that. Stay awake a little longer. Stand up.

He stood up.

Jakes came back.

Vandam said: “She’s an Anglophobe.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Sonja. She hates the British. I don’t believe Wolff was a casual pickup. Let’s go.”

They walked out of the building together. Outside it was still dark. Jakes said: “Sir, you’re very tired—”

“Yes. I’m very tired. But I’m still thinking straight, Jakes. Take me to the main police station.”

“Sir.”

They pulled away. Vandam handed his cigarette case and lighter to Jakes, who drove one-handed while he lit Vandam’s cigarette. Vandam had trouble sucking: he could hold the cigarette between his lips and breathe the smoke, but he could not draw on it hard enough to light it. Jakes handed him the lit cigarette. Vandam thought: I’d like a martini to go with it.

Jakes stopped the car outside police headquarters. Vandam said: “We want the chief of detectives, whatever they call him.”

“I shouldn’t think he’ll be there at this hour—”

“No. Get his address. We’ll wake him up.”

Jakes went into the building. Vandam stared ahead through the windshield. Dawn was on its way. The stars had winked out, and now the sky was gray rather than black. There were a few people about. He saw a man leading two donkeys loaded with vegetables, presumably going to market. The muezzins had not yet called the first prayer of the day.

Jakes came back. “Gezira,” he said as he put the car in gear and let in the clutch.

Vandam thought about Jakes. Someone had told Vandam that Jakes had a terrific sense of humor. Vandam had always found him pleasant and cheerful, but he had never seen any evidence of actual humor. Am I such a tyrant, Vandam thought, that my staff are terrified of cracking a joke in my presence? Nobody makes me laugh, he thought.

Except Elene.

“You never tell me jokes, Jakes.”

“Sir?”

“They say you have a terrific sense of humor, but you never tell me jokes.”

“No, sir.”

“Would you care to be candid for a moment and tell me why?”

There was a pause, then Jakes said: “You don’t invite familiarity, sir.”

Vandam nodded. How would they know how much he liked to throw back his head and roar with laughter? He said: “Very tactfully put, Jakes. The subject is closed.”

The Wolff business is getting to me, he thought. I wonder whether perhaps I’ve never really been any good at my job, and then I wonder if I’m any good for anything at all. And my face hurts.

They crossed the bridge to the island. The sky turned from slate-gray to pearl. Jakes said: “I’d like to say, sir, that, if you’ll pardon me, you’re far and away the best superior officer I’ve ever had.”

“Oh.” Vandam was quite taken aback. “Good Lord. Well, thank you, Jakes. Thank you.”

“Not at all, sir. We’re there.”

He stopped the car outside a small, pretty single-story house with a well-watered garden. Vandam guessed that the chief of detectives was doing well enough out of his bribes, but not too well. A cautious man, perhaps: it was a good sign.

They walked up the path and hammered on the door. After a couple of minutes a head looked out of a window and spoke in Arabic.

Jakes put on his sergeant major’s voice. “Military Intelligence—open up the bloody door!”

A minute later a small, handsome Arab opened up, still belting his trousers. He said in English: “What’s going on?”

Vandam took charge. “An emergency. Let us in, will you?”

“Of course.” The detective stood aside and they entered. He led them into a small living room. “What has happened?” He seemed frightened, and Vandam thought: Who wouldn’t be? The knock on the door in the middle of the night...

Vandam said: “There’s nothing to panic about, but we want you to set up a surveillance, and we need it right away.”

“Of course. Please sit down.” The detective found a notebook and pencil. “Who is the subject?”

“Sonja el-Aram.”

“The dancer?”

“Yes. I want you to put a twenty-four-hour watch on her home, which is a houseboat called ]ihan in Zamalek.”

As the detective wrote down the details, Vandam wished he did not have to use the Egyptian police for this work. However, he had no choice: it was impossible, in an African country, to use conspicuous, white-skinned, English-speaking people for surveillance.

The detective said: “And what is the nature of the crime?”

I’m not telling you, Vandam thought. He said: “We think she may be an associate of whoever is passing counterfeit sterling in Cairo.”

“So you want to know who comes and goes, whether they carry anything, whether meetings are held aboard the boat ...”

“Yes. And there is a particular man that we’re interested in. He is Alex Wolff, the man suspected of the Assyut knife murder; you should have his description already.”

“Of course. Daily reports?”

“Yes, except that if Wolff is seen I want to know immediately. You can reach Captain Jakes or me at GHQ during the day. Give him our home phone numbers, Jakes.”

“I know these houseboats,” the detective said. “The towpath is a popular evening walk, I think, especially for sweethearts.”

Jakes said: “That’s right.”

Vandam raised an eyebrow at Jakes.

The detective went on: “A good place, perhaps, for a beggar to sit. Nobody ever sees a beggar. At night ... well, there are bushes. Also popular with sweethearts.”

Vandam said: “Is that right, Jakes?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.” He realized he was being ribbed, and he smiled. He gave the detective a piece of paper with the phone numbers written on it.

A little boy in pajamas walked into the room, rubbing his eyes. He was about five or six years old. He looked around the room sleepily, then went to the detective.

“My son,” the detective said proudly.

“I think we can leave you now,” Vandam said. “Unless you want us to drop you in the city?”

“No, thank you, I have a car, and I should like to put on my jacket and tie and comb my hair.”

“Very well, but make it fast.” Vandam stood up. Suddenly he could not see straight. It was as if his eyelids were closing involuntarily, yet he knew he had his eyes wide open. He felt himself losing his balance. Then Jakes was beside him, holding his arm.

“All right, sir?”

His vision returned slowly. “All right now,” he said.

“You’ve had a nasty injury,” the detective said sympathetically.

They went to the door. The detective said: “Gentlemen, be assured that I will handle this surveillance personally. They won’t get a mouse aboard that houseboat without your knowing it.” He was still holding the little boy, and now he shifted him onto his left hip and held out his right hand.

“Good-bye,” Vandam said. He shook hands. “By the way, I’m Major Vandam.”

The detective gave a little bow. “Superintendent Kernel, at your service, sir.”

14

SONJA BROODED. SHE HAD HALF EXPECTED WOLFF TO BE AT THE HOUSEBOAT when she returned toward dawn, but she had found the place cold and empty. She was not sure how she felt about that. At first, when they had arrested her, she had felt nothing but rage toward Wolff for running away and leaving her at the mercy of the British thugs. Being alone, being a woman and being an accomplice of sorts in Wolff’s spying, she was terrified of what they might do to her. She thought Wolff should have stayed to look after her. Then she had realized that that would not have been smart. By abandoning her he had diverted suspicion away from her. It was hard to take, but it was for the best. Sitting alone in the bare little room at GHQ, she had turned her anger away from Wolff and toward the British.

She had defied them, and they had backed down.

At the time she had not been sure that the man who interrogated her had been Major Vandam, but later, when she was being released, the clerk had let the name slip. The confirmation had delighted her. She smiled again when she thought of the grotesque bandage on Vandam’s face. Wolff must have cut him with the knife. He should have killed him. But all the same, what a night, what a glorious night!

She wondered where Wolff was now. He would have gone to ground somewhere in the city. He would emerge when he thought the coast was clear. There was nothing she could do. She would have liked him here, though, to share the triumph.

She put on her nightdress. She knew she ought to go to bed, but she did not feel sleepy. Perhaps a drink would help. She found a bottle of Scotch whiskey, poured some into a glass, and added water. As she was tasting it she heard footsteps on the gangplank. Without thinking she called: “Achmed ... ?” Then she realized the step was not his, it was too light and quick. She stood at the foot of the ladder in her nightdress, with the drink in her hand. The hatch was lifted and an Arab face looked in.

“Sonja?”

“Yes—”

“You were expecting someone else, I think.” The man climbed down the ladder. Sonja watched him, thinking: What now? He stepped off the ladder and stood in front of her. He was a small man with a handsome face and quick, neat movements. He wore European clothes: dark trousers, polished black shoes and a short-sleeved white shirt. “I am Detective Superintendent Kernel, and I am honored to meet you.” He held out his hand.

Sonja turned away, walked across to the divan and sat down. She thought she had dealt with the police. Now the Egyptians wanted to get in on the act. It would probably come down to a bribe in the end, she reassured herself. She sipped her drink, staring at Kemel. Finally she said: “What do you want?”

Kemel sat down uninvited. “I am interested in your friend, Alex Wolff.”

“He’s not my friend.”

Kemel ignored that. “The British have told me two things about Mr. Wolff: one, that he knifed a soldier in Assyut; two, that he tried to pass counterfeit English banknotes in a restaurant in Cairo. Already the story is a little curious. Why was he in Assyut? Why did he kill the soldier? And where did he get the forged money?”

“I don’t know anything about the man,” said Sonja, hoping he would not come home right now.

“I do, though,” said Kemel. “I have other information that the British may or may not possess. I know who Alex Wolff is. His stepfather was a lawyer, here in Cairo. His mother was German. I know, too, that Wolff is a nationalist. I know that he used to be your lover. And I know that you are a nationalist.”

Sonja had gone cold. She sat still, her drink untouched, watching the sly detective unreel the evidence against her. She said nothing.

Kemel went on: “Where did he get the forged money? Not in Egypt. I don’t think there is a printer in Egypt capable of doing the work; and if there were, I think he would make Egyptian currency. Therefore the money came from Europe. Now Wolff, also known as Achmed Rahmha, quietly disappeared a couple of years ago. Where did he go? Europe? He came back—via Assyut. Why? Did he want to sneak into the country unnoticed? Perhaps he teamed up with an English counterfeiting gang, and has now returned with his share of the profits, but I don’t think so, for he is not a poor man, nor is he a criminal. So, there is a mystery.”

He knows, Sonja thought. Dear God, he knows.

“Now the British have asked me to put a watch on this houseboat, and tell them of everyone who comes and goes here. Wolff will come here, they hope; and then they will arrest him; and then they will have the answers. Unless I solve the puzzle first.”

A watch on the boat! He could never come back. But—but why, she thought, is Kernel telling me?

“The key, I think, lies in Wolff’s nature: he is both a German and an Egyptian.” Kernel stood up, and crossed the floor to sit beside Sonja and look into her face. “I think he is fighting in this war. I think he is fighting for Germany and for Egypt. I think the forged money comes from the Germans. I think Wolff is a spy.”

Sonja thought: But you don’t know where to find him. That’s why you’re here. Kemel was staring at her. She looked away, afraid that he might read her thoughts in her face.

Kernel said: “If he is a spy, I can catch him. Or I can save him.”

Sonja jerked her head around to look at him. “What does that mean?”

“I want to meet him. Secretly.”

“But why?”

Kemel smiled his sly, knowing smile. “Sonja, you are not the only one who wants Egypt to be free. There are many of us. We want to see the British defeated, and we are not fastidious about who does the defeating. We want to work with the Germans. We want to contact them. We want to talk to Rommel.”

“And you think Achmed can help you?”

“If he is a spy, he must have a way of getting messages to the Ger mans.”

Sonja’s mind was in a turmoil. From being her accuser, Kernel had turned into a coconspirator—unless this was a trap. She did not know whether to trust him or not. She did not have enough time to think about it. She did not know what to say, so she said nothing.

Kernel persisted gently. “Can you arrange a meeting?”

She could not possibly make such a decision on the spur of the moment. “No,” she said.

“Remember the watch on the houseboat,” he said. “The surveillance reports will come to me before being passed on to Major Vandam. If there is a chance, just a chance, that you might be able to arrange a meeting, I in turn can make sure that the reports which go to Vandam are carefully edited so as to contain nothing ... embarrassing.”

Sonja had forgotten the surveillance. When Wolff came back—and he would, sooner or later—the watchers would report it, and Vandam would know, unless Kemel fixed it. This changed everything. She had no choice. “I’ll arrange a meeting,” she said.

“Good.” He stood up. “Call the main police station and leave a message saying that Sirhan wants to see me. When I get that message I’ll contact you to arrange date and time.”

“Very well.”

He went to the ladder, then came back. “By the way.” He took a wallet from his trousers pocket and extracted a small photograph. He handed it to Sonja. It was a picture of her. “Would you sign this for my wife? She’s a great fan of yours.” He handed her a pen. “Her name is Hesther.”

Sonja Wrote: “To Hesther, with all good wishes, Sonja.” She gave him the photograph, thinking: This is incredible.

“Thank you so much. She will be overjoyed.”

Incredible.

Sonja said: “I’ll get in touch just as soon as I can.”

“Thank you.” He held out his hand. This time she shook it. He went up the ladder and out, closing the hatch behind him.

Sonja relaxed. Somehow she had handled it right. She was still not completely convinced of Kemel’s sincerity; but if there was a trap she could not see it.

She felt tired. She finished the whiskey in the glass, then went through the curtains into the bedroom. She still had her nightdress on, and she was quite cold. She went to the bed and pulled back the covers. She heard a tapping sound. Her heart missed a beat. She whirled around to look at the porthole on the far side of the boat, the side that faced across the river. There was a head behind the glass.

She screamed.

The face disappeared.

She realized it had been Wolff.

She ran up the ladder and out onto the deck. Looking over the side, she saw him in the water. He appeared to be naked. He clambered up the side of the little boat, using the portholes for handholds. She reached for his arm and pulled him onto the deck. He knelt there on all fours for a moment, glancing up and down the riverbank like an alert water rat; then he scampered down the hatch. She followed him.

He stood on the carpet, dripping and shivering. He was naked. She said: “What happened?”

“Run me a bath,” he said.

She went through the bedroom into the bathroom. There was a small tub with an electric water heater. She turned the taps on and threw a handful of scented crystals into the water. Wolff got in and let the water rise around him.

“What happened?” Sonja repeated.

He controlled his shivering. “I didn’t want to risk coming down the towpath, so I took off my clothes on the opposite bank and swam across. I looked in, and saw that man with you—1 suppose he was another policeman.”

“Yes.”

“So I had to wait in the water until he went away.”

She laughed. “You poor thing.”

“It’s not funny. My God, I’m cold. The fucking Abwehr gave me dud money. Somebody will be strangled for that, next time I’m in Germany.”

“Why did they do it?”

“I don’t know whether it’s incompetence or disloyalty. Canaris has always been lukewarm on Hitler. Turn off the water, will you?” He began to wash the river mud off his legs.

“You’ll have to use your own money,” she said.

“I can’t get at it. You can be sure the bank has instructions to call the police the moment I show my face. I could pay the occasional bill by check, but even that might help them get a line on me. I could sell some of my stocks and shares, or even the villa, but there again the money has to come through a bank ...”

So you will have to use my money, Sonja thought. You won’t ask, though: you’ll just take it. She filed the thought for further consideration. “That detective is putting a watch on the boat—on Vandam’s instructions.”

Wolff grinned. “So it was Vandam.”

“Did you cut him?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t sure where. It was dark.”

“The face. He had a huge bandage.”

Wolff laughed aloud. “I wish I could see him.” He became sober, and asked: “Did he question you?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I hardly knew you.”

“Good girl.” He looked at her appraisingly, and she knew that he was pleased, and a little surprised, that she had kept her head. He said: “Did he believe you?”

“Presumably not, since he ordered this surveillance.”

Wolff frowned. “That’s going to be awkward. I can’t swim the river every time I want to come home ...”

“Don’t worry,” Sonja said. “I’ve fixed it.”

“You fixed it?”

It was not quite so, Sonja knew, but it sounded good. “The detective is one of us,” she explained.

“A nationalist?”

“Yes. He wants to use your radio.”

“How does he know I’ve got one?” There was a threatening note in Wolff’s voice.

“He doesn’t,” Sonja said calmly. “From what the British have told him he deduces that you’re a spy; and he presumes a spy has a means of communicating with the Germans. The nationalists want to send a message to Rommel.”

Wolff shook his head. “I’d rather not get involved.”

She would not have him go back on a bargain she had made. “You’ve got to get involved,” she said sharply.

“I suppose I do,” he said wearily.

She felt an odd sense of power. It was as if she were taking control. She found it exhilarating.

Wolff said: “They’re closing in. I don’t want any more surprises like last night. I’d like to leave this boat, but I don’t know where to go. Abdullah knows my money’s no good—he’d like to turn me over to the British. Damn.”

“You’ll be safe here, while you string the detective along.”

“I haven’t any choice.”

She sat on the edge of the bathtub, looking at his naked body. He seemed ... not defeated, but at least cornered. His face was lined with tension, and there was in his voice a faint note of panic. She guessed that for the first time he was wondering whether he could hold out until Rommel arrived. And, also for the first time, he was dependent on her. He needed her money, he needed her home. Last night he had depended on her silence under interrogation, and—he now believed—he had been saved by her deal with the nationalist detective. He was slipping into her power. The thought intrigued her. She felt a little horny.

Wolff said: “I wonder if I should keep my date with that girl, Elene, tonight.”

“Why not? She’s nothing to do with the British. You picked her up in a shop!”

“Maybe. I just feel it might be safer to lie low. I don’t know.”

“No,” said Sonja firmly. “I want her.”

He looked up at her through narrowed eyes. She wondered whether he was considering the issue or thinking about her newfound strength of will. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll just have to take precautions.”

He had given in. She had tested her strength against his, and she had won. It gave her a kind of thrill. She shivered.

“I’m still cold,” Wolff said. “Put some more hot water in.”

“No.” Without removing her nightdress, Sonja got into the bath. She knelt astride him, facing him, her knees jammed against the sides of the narrow tub. She lifted the wet hem of the nightdress to the level of her waist. She said: “Eat me.”

He did.

Vandam was in high spirits as he sat in the Oasis Restaurant, sipping a cold martini, with Jakes beside him. He had slept all day and had woken up feeling battered but ready to fight back. He had gone to the hospital, where Dr. Abuthnot had told him he was a fool to be up and about, but a lucky fool, for his wound was mending. She had changed his dressing for a smaller, neater one that did not have to be secured by a yard of bandage around his head. Now it was a quarter past seven, and in a few minutes he would catch Alex Wolff.

Vandam and Jakes were at the back of the restaurant, in a position from which they could see the whole place. The table nearest to the entrance was occupied by two hefty sergeants eating fried chicken paid for by Intelligence. Outside, in an unmarked car parked across the road, were two MPs in civilian clothes with their handguns in their jacket pockets. The trap was set: all that was missing was the bait. Elene would arrive at any minute.

Billy had been shocked by the bandage at breakfast that morning. Vandam had sworn the boy to secrecy, then told him the truth. “I had a fight with a German spy. He had a knife. He got away, but I think I may catch him tonight.” It was a breach of security, but what the hell, the boy needed to know why his father was wounded. After hearing the story Billy had not been worried anymore, but thrilled. Gaafar had been awestruck, and inclined to move around softly and talk in whispers, as if there had been a death in the family.

With Jakes, he found that last night’s impulsive intimacy had left no overt trace. Their formal relationship had returned: Jakes took orders, called him sir, and did not offer opinions without being asked. It was just as well, Vandam thought: they were a good team as things were, so why make changes?

He looked at his wristwatch. It was seven-thirty. He lit another cigarette. At any moment now Alex Wolff would walk through the door. Vandam felt sure he would recognize Wolff—a tall, hawk-nosed European with brown hair and brown eyes, a strong, fit man—but he would make no move until Elene came in and sat by Wolff. Then Vandam and Jakes would move in. If Wolff fled the two sergeants would block the door, and in the unlikely event that he got past them, the MPs outside would shoot at him.

Seven thirty-five. Vandam was looking forward to interrogating Wolff. What a battle of wills that would be. But Vandam would win it, for he would have all the advantages. He would feel Wolff out, find the weak points, and then apply pressure until the prisoner cracked.

Seven thirty-nine. Wolff was late. Of course it was possible that he would not come at all. God forbid. Vandam shuddered when he recalled how superciliously he had said to Bogge: “I expect to arrest him tomorrow night.” Vandam’s section was in very bad odor at the moment, and only the prompt arrest of Wolff would enable them to come up smelling of roses. But suppose that, after last night’s scare, Wolff had decided to lie low for a while, wherever it was that he was lying? Somehow Vandam felt that lying low was not Wolff’s style. He hoped not.

At seven-forty the restaurant door opened and Elene walked in. Vandam heard Jakes whistle under his breath. She looked stunning. She wore a silk dress the color of clotted cream. Its simple lines drew attention to her slender figure, and its color and texture flattered her smooth tan skin: Vandam felt a sudden urge to stroke her.

She looked around the restaurant, obviously searching for Wolff and not finding him. Her eyes met Vandam’s and moved on without hesitating. The headwaiter approached, and she spoke to him. He seated her at a table for two close to the door.

Vandam caught the eye of one of the sergeants and inclined his head in Elene’s direction. The sergeant gave a little nod of acknowledgment and checked his watch.

Where was Wolff?

Vandam lit a cigarette and began to worry. He had assumed that Wolff, being a gentleman, would arrive a little early; and Elene would arrive a little late. According to that scenario the arrest would have taken place the moment she sat down. It’s going wrong, he thought, it’s going bloody wrong.

A waiter brought Elene a drink. It was seven forty-five. She looked in Vandam’s direction and gave a small, dainty shrug of her slight shoulders.

The door of the restaurant opened. Vandam froze with a cigarette halfway to his lips, then relaxed again, disappointed: it was only a small boy. The boy handed a piece of paper to a waiter then went out again.

Vandam decided to order another drink.

He saw the waiter go to Elene’s table and hand her the piece of paper.

Vandam frowned. What was this? An apology from Wolff, saying he could not keep the date? Elene’s face took on an expression of faint puzzlement. She looked at Vandam and gave that little shrug again.

Vandam considered whether to go over and ask her what was going on—but that would have spoiled the ambush, for what if Wolff should walk in while Elene was talking to Vandam? Wolff could turn around at the door and run, and he would have only the MPs to get past, two people instead of six.

Vandam murmured to Jakes: “Wait.”

Elene picked up her clutch bag from the chair beside her and stood up. She looked at Vandam again, then turned around. Vandam thought she was going to the ladies’ room. Instead she went to the door and opened it.

Vandam and Jakes got to their feet together. One of the sergeants half rose, looking at Vandam, and Vandam waved him down: no point in arresting Elene. Vandam and Jakes hurried across the restaurant to the door.

As they passed the sergeants Vandam said: “Follow me.”

They went through the door into the street. Vandam looked around. There was a blind beggar sitting against the wall, holding out a cracked dish with a few piasters in it. Three soldiers in uniform staggered along the pavement, already drunk, arms around each other’s shoulders, singing a vulgar song. A group of Egyptians had met just outside the restaurant and were vigorously shaking hands. A street vendor offered Vandam cheap razor blades. A few yards away Elene was getting into a taxi.

Vandam broke into a run.

The door of the taxi slammed and it pulled away.

Across the street, the MPs’ car roared, shot forward and collided with a bus.

Vandam caught up with the taxi and leaped onto the running board. The car swerved suddenly. Vandam lost his grip, hit the road running and fell down.

He got to his feet. His face blazed with pain: his wound was bleeding again, and he could feel the sticky warmth under the dressing. Jakes and the two sergeants gathered around him. Across the road the MPs were arguing with the bus driver.

The taxi had disappeared.

15

ELENE WAS TERRIFIED. IT HAD ALL GONE WRONG. WOLFF WAS SUPPOSED TO have been arrested in the restaurant, and now he was here, in a taxi with her, smiling a feral smile. She sat still, her mind a blank.

“Who was he?” Wolff said, still smiling.

Elene could not think. She looked at Wolff, looked away again, and said: “What?”

“That man who ran after us. He jumped on the running board. I couldn’t see him properly, but I thought he was a European. Who was he?”

Elene fought down her fear. He’s William Vandam, and he was supposed to arrest you. She had to make up a story. Why would someone follow her out of a restaurant and try to get into her taxi? “He ... I don’t know him. He was in the restaurant.” Suddenly she was inspired. “He was bothering me. I was alone. It’s your fault—you were late.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly.

Elene had an access of confidence after he swallowed her story so readily. “And why are we in a taxi?” she demanded. “What’s it all about? Why aren’t we having dinner?” She heard a whining note in her voice, and hated it.

“I had a wonderful idea.” He smiled again, and Elene suppressed a shudder. “We’re going to have a picnic. There’s a basket in the trunk.”

She did not know whether to believe him. Why had he pulled that stunt at the restaurant, sending a boy in with the message “Come outside.—A.W.” unless he suspected a trap? What would he do now, take her into the desert and knife her? She had a sudden urge to leap out of the speeding car. She closed her eyes and forced herself to think calmly. If he suspected a trap, why did he come at all? No, it had to be more complex than that. He seemed to have believed her about the man on the running board—but she could not be sure what was going on behind his smile.

She said: “Where are we going?”

“A few miles out of town, to a little spot on the riverbank where we can watch the sun go down. It’s going to be a lovely evening.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I hardly know you.”

“Don’t be silly. The driver will be with us all the time—and I’m a gentleman.”

“I should get out of the car.”

“Please don’t.” He touched her arm lightly. “I have some smoked salmon, and a cold chicken, and a bottle of champagne. I get so bored with restaurants.”

Elene considered. She could leave him now, and she would be safe—she would never see him again. That was what she wanted, to get away from the man forever. She thought: But I’m Vandam’s only hope. What do I care for Vandam? I’d be happy never to see him again, and go back to the old peaceful life—

The old life.

She did care for Vandam, she realized; at least enough for her to hate the thought of letting him down. She had to stay with Wolff, cultivate him, angle for another date, try to find out where he lived.

Impulsively she said: “Let’s go to your place.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That’s a sudden change of heart.”

She realized she had made a mistake. “I’m confused,” she said. “You sprung a surprise on me. Why didn’t you ask me first?”

“I only thought of the idea an hour ago. It didn’t occur to me that it might scare you.”

Elene realized that she was, unintentionally, fulfilling her role as a dizzy girl. She decided not to overplay her hand. “All right,” she said. She tried to relax.

Wolff was studying her. He said: “You’re not quite as vulnerable as you seem, are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I remember what you said to Aristopoulos, that first day I saw you in the shop.”

Elene remembered: she had threatened to cut off Mikis’ cock if he touched her again. She should have blushed, but she could not do so voluntarily. “I was so angry,” she said.

Wolff chuckled. “You sounded it,” he said. “Try to bear in mind that I am not Aristopoulos.”

She gave him a weak smile. “Okay.”

He turned his attention to the driver. They were out of the city, and Wolff began to give directions. Elene wondered where he had found this taxi: by Egyptian standards it was luxurious. It was some kind of American car, with big soft seats and lots of room, and it seemed only a few years old.

They passed through a series of villages, then turned onto an unmade road. The car followed the winding track up a small hill and emerged on a little plateau atop a bluff. The river was immediately below them, and on its far side Elene could see the neat patchwork of cultivated fields stretching into the distance until they met the sharp tan-colored line of the edge of the desert.

Wolff said: “Isn’t this a lovely spot?”

Elene had to agree. A flight of swifts rising from the far bank of the river drew her eye upward, and she saw that the evening clouds were already edged in pink. A young girl was walking away from the river with a huge water jug on her head. A lone felucca sailed upstream, propelled by a light breeze.

The driver got out of the car and walked fifty yards away. He sat down, pointedly turning his back on them, lit a cigarette and unfolded a newspaper.

Wolff got a picnic hamper out of the trunk and set it on the floor of the car between them. As he began to unpack the food, Elene asked him: “How did you discover this place?”

“My mother brought me here when I was a boy.” He handed her a glass of wine. “After my father died, my mother married an Egyptian. From time to time she would find the Muslim household oppressive, so she would bring me here in a gharry and tell me about ... Europe, and so on.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

He hesitated. “My mother had a way of spoiling things like that. She was always interrupting the fun. She used to say: ‘You’re so selfish, just like your father.’ At that age I preferred my Arab family. My stepbrothers were wicked, and nobody tried to control them. We used to steal oranges from other people’s gardens, throw stones at horses to make them bolt, puncture bicycle tires ... Only my mother minded, and all she could do was warn us that we’d get punished eventually. She was always saying that—‘They’ll catch you one day, Alex!’ ”

The mother was right, Elene thought: they would catch Alex one day.

She was relaxing. She wondered whether Wolff was carrying the knife he had used in Assyut, and that made her tense again. The situation was so normal—a charming man taking a girl on a picnic beside the river—that for a moment she had forgotten she wanted something from him.

She said: “Where do you live now?”

“My house has been ... commandeered by the British. I’m living with friends.” He handed her a slice of smoked salmon on a china plate, then sliced a lemon in half with a kitchen knife. Elene watched - his deft hands. She wondered what he wanted from her, that he should work so hard to please her.

Vandam felt very low. His face hurt, and so did his pride. The great arrest had been a fiasco. He had failed professionally, he had been outwitted by Alex Wolff and he had sent Elene into danger.

He sat at home, his cheek newly bandaged, drinking gin to ease the pain. Wolff had evaded him so damn easily. Vandam was sure the spy had not really known about the ambush—otherwise he would not have turned up at all. No, he had just been taking precautions; and the precautions had worked beautifully.

They had a good description of the taxi. It had been a distinctive car, quite new, and Jakes had read the number plate. Every policeman and MP in the city was looking out for it, and had orders to stop it on sight and arrest all the occupants. They would find it, sooner or later, and Vandam felt sure it would be too late. Nevertheless he was sitting by the phone.

What was Elene doing now? Perhaps she was in a candlelit restaurant, drinking wine and laughing at Wolff’s jokes. Vandam pictured her, in the cream-colored dress, holding a glass, smiling her special, impish smile, the one that promised you anything you wanted. Vandam checked his watch. Perhaps they had finished dinner by now. What would they do then? It was traditional to go and look at the pyramids by moonlight: the black sky, the stars, the endless flat desert and the clean triangular planes of the pharaohs’ tombs. The area would be deserted, except perhaps for another pair of lovers. They might climb a few levels, he springing up ahead and then reaching down to lift her; but soon she would be exhausted, her hair and her dress a little awry, and she would say that these shoes were not designed for mountaineering; so they would sit on the great stones, still warm from the sun, and breathe the mild night air while they watched the stars. Walking back to the taxi, she would shiver in her sleeveless evening gown, and he might put an arm around her shoulders to keep her warm. Would he kiss her in the taxi? No, he was too old for that. When he made his pass, it would be in some sophisticated manner. Would he suggest going back to his place, or hers? Vandam did not know which to hope for. If they went to his place, Elene would report in the morning, and Vandam would be able to arrest Wolff at home, with his radio, his code book and perhaps even his back traffic. Professionally, that would be better—but it would also mean that Elene would spend a night with Wolff, and that thought made Vandam more angry than it should have done. Alternatively, if they went to her place, where Jakes was waiting with ten men and three cars, Wolff would be grabbed before he got a chance to—

Vandam got up and paced the room. Idly, he picked up the book Rebecca, the one he thought Wolff was using as the basis of his code. He read the first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” He put the book down, then opened it again and read on. The story of the vulnerable, bullied girl was a welcome distraction from his own worries. When he realized that the girl would marry the glamorous, older widower, and that the marriage would be blighted by the ghostly presence of the man’s first wife, he closed the book and put it down again. What was the age difference between himself and Elene? How long would he be haunted by Angela? She, too, had been coldly perfect; Elene, too, was young, impulsive and in need of rescue from the life she was living. These thoughts irritated him, for he was not going to marry Elene. He lit a cigarette. Why did the time pass so slowly? Why did the phone not ring? How could he have let Wolff slip through his fingers twice in two days? Where was Elene?

Where was Elene?

He had sent a woman into danger once before. It had happened after his other great fiasco, when Rashid Ali had slipped out of Turkey under Vandam’s nose. Vandam had sent a woman agent to pick up the German agent, the man who had changed clothes with Ali and enabled him to escape. He had hoped to salvage something from the shambles by finding out all about the man. But the next day the woman had been found dead in a hotel bed. It was a chilling parallel.

There was no point in staying in the house. He could not possibly sleep, and there was nothing else he could do there. He would go and join Jakes and the others, despite Dr. Abuthnot’s orders. He put on a coat and his uniform cap, went outside, and wheeled his motorcycle out of the garage.

Elene and Wolff stood together, close to the edge of the bluff, looking at the distant lights of Cairo and the nearer, flickering glimmers of peasant fires in dark villages. Elene was thinking of an imaginary peasant—hardworking, poverty-stricken, superstitious—laying a straw mattress on the earth floor, pulling a rough blanket around him, and finding consolation in the arms of his wife. Elene had left poverty behind, she hoped forever, but sometimes it seemed to her that she had left something else behind with it, something she could not do without. In Alexandria when she was a child people would put blue palm prints on the red mud walls, hand shapes to ward off evil. Elene did not believe in the efficacy of the palm prints; but despite the rats, despite the nightly screams as the moneylender beat both of his wives, despite the ticks that infested everyone, despite the early death of many babies, she believed there had been something there that warded off evil. She had been looking for that something when she took men home, took them into her bed, accepted their gifts and their caresses and their money; but she had never found it.

She did not want to do that anymore. She had spent too much of her life looking for love in the wrong places. In particular, she did not want to do it with Alex Wolff. Several times she had said to herself: “Why not do it just once more?” That was Vandam’s coldly reasonable point of view. But, each time she contemplated making love with Wolff, she saw again the daydream that had plagued her for the last few weeks, the daydream of seducing William Vandam. She knew just how Vandam would be: he would look at her with innocent wonder, and touch her with wide-eyed delight; thinking of it, she felt momentarily helpless with desire. She knew how Wolff would be, too. He would be knowing, selfish, skillful and unshockable.

Without speaking she turned from the view and walked back toward the car. It was time for him to make his pass. They had finished the meal, emptied the champagne bottle and the flask of coffee, picked clean the chicken and the bunch of grapes. Now he would expect his just reward. From the backseat of the car she watched him. He stayed a moment longer on the edge of the bluff, then walked toward her, calling to the driver. He had the confident grace that height often seemed to give to men. He was an attractive man, much more glamorous than any of Elene’s lovers had been, but she was afraid of him, and her fear came not just from what she knew about him, his history and his secrets and his knife, but from an intuitive understanding of his nature: somehow she knew that his charm was not spontaneous but manipulative, and that if he was kind it was because he wanted to use her.

She had been used enough.

Wolff got Wolff got in beside her. “Did you enjoy the picnic?”

She made an effort to be bright. “Yes, it was lovely. Thank you.”

The car pulled away. Either he would invite her to his place or he would take her to her flat and ask for a nightcap. She would have to find an encouraging way to refuse him. This struck her as ridiculous: she was behaving like a frightened virgin. She thought: What am I doing—saving myself for Mr. Right?

She had been silent for too long. She was supposed to be witty and engaging. She should talk to him. “Have you heard the war news?” she asked, and realized at once it was not the most lighthearted of topics.

“The Germans are still winning,” he said. “Of course.”

“Why ‘of course’?”

He smiled condescendingly at her. “The world is divided into masters and slaves, Elene.” He spoke as if he were explaining simple facts to a schoolgirl. “The British have been masters too long. They’ve gone soft, and now it will be someone else’s turn.”

“And the Egyptians—are they masters, or slaves?” She knew she should shut up, she was walking on thin ice, but his complacency infuriated her.

“The Bedouin are masters,” he said. “But the average Egyptian is a born slave.”

She thought: He means every word of it. She shuddered.

They reached the outskirts of the city. It was after midnight, and the suburbs were quiet, although downtown would still be buzzing. Wolff said: “Where do you live?”

She told him. So it was to be her place.

Wolff said: “We must do this again.”

“I’d like that.”

They reached the Sharia Abbas, and he told the driver to stop. Elene wondered what was going to happen now. Wolff turned to her and said: “Thank you for a lovely evening. I’ll see you soon.” He got out of the car.

She stared in astonishment. He bent down by the driver’s window, gave the man some money and told him Elene’s address. The driver nodded. Wolff banged on the roof of the car, and the driver pulled away. Elene looked back and saw Wolff waving. As the car began to turn a comer, Wolff started walking toward the river.

She thought: What do you make of that?

No pass, no invitation to his place, no nightcap, not even a good-night kiss—what game was he playing, hard-to-get?

She puzzled over the whole thing as the taxi took her home. Perhaps it was Wolff’s technique to try to intrigue a woman. Perhaps he was just eccentric. Whatever the reason, she was very grateful. She sat back and relaxed. She was not obliged to choose between fighting him off and going to bed with him. Thank God.

The taxi drew up outside her building. Suddenly, from nowhere, three cars roared up. One stopped right in front of the taxi, one close behind, and one alongside. Men materialized out of the shadows. All four doors of the taxi were flung open, and four guns pointed in. Elene screamed.

Then a head was poked into the car, and Elene recognized Vandam.

“Gone?” Vandam said.

Elene realized what was happening. “I thought you were going to shoot me,” she said.

“Where did you leave him?”

“Sharia Abbas.”

“How long ago?”

“Five or ten minutes. May I get out of the car?”

He gave her a hand, and she stepped onto the pavement. He said: “I’m sorry we scared you.”

“This is called slamming the stable door after the horse has bolted.”

“Quite.” He looked utterly defeated.

She felt a surge of affection for him. She touched his arm. “You’ve no idea how happy I am to see your face,” she said.

He gave her an odd look, as if he was not sure whether to believe her.

She said: “Why don’t you send your men home and come and talk inside?”

He hesitated. “All right.” He turned to one of his men, a captain. “Jakes, I want you to interrogate the taxi driver, see what you can get out of him. Let the men go. I’ll see you at GHQ in an hour or so.”

“Very good, sir.”

Elene led the way inside. It was so good to enter her own apartment, slump on the sofa, and kick off her shoes. The trial was over, Wolff had gone, and Vandam was here. She said: “Help yourself to a drink.”

“No, thanks.”

“What went wrong, anyway?”

Vandam sat down opposite her and took out his cigarettes. “We expected him to walk into the trap all unawares—but he was suspicious, or at least cautious, and we missed him. What happened then?”

She rested her head against the back of the sofa, closed her eyes, and told him in a few words about the picnic. She left out her thoughts about going to bed with Wolff, and she did not tell Vandam that Wolff had hardly touched her all evening. She spoke abruptly: she wanted to forget, not remember. When she had told him the story she said: “Make me a drink, even if you won’t have one.”

He went to the cupboard. Elene could see that he was angry. She looked at the bandage on his face. She had seen it in the restaurant, and again a few minutes ago when she arrived, but now she had time to wonder what it was. She said: “What happened to your face?”

“We almost caught Wolff last night.”

“Oh, no.” So he had failed twice in twenty-four hours: no wonder he looked defeated. She wanted to console him, to put her arms around him, to lay his head in her lap and stroke his hair; the longing was like an ache. She decided—impulsively, the way she always decided things—that she would take him to her bed tonight.

He gave her a drink. He had made one for himself after all. As he stooped to hand her the glass she reached up, touched his chin with her fingertips and turned his head so that she could look at his cheek. He let her look, just for a second, then moved his head away.

She had not seen him as tense as this before. He crossed the room and sat opposite her, holding himself upright on the edge of the chair. He was full of a suppressed emotion, something like rage, but when she looked into his eyes she saw not anger but pain.

He said: “How did Wolff strike you?”

She was not sure what he was getting at. “Charming. Intelligent. Dangerous.”

“His appearance?”

“Clean hands, a silk shirt, a mustache that doesn’t suit him. What are you fishing for?”

He shook his head irritably. “Nothing. Everything.” He lit another cigarette.

She could not reach him in this mood. She wanted him to come and sit beside her, and tell her she was beautiful and brave and she had done well; but she knew it was no use asking. All the same she said: “How did I do?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “What did you do?”

“You know what I did.”

“Yes. I’m most grateful.”

He smiled, and she knew the smile was insincere. What was the matter with him? There was something familiar in his anger, something she would understand as soon as she put her finger on it. It was not just that he felt he had failed. It was his attitude to her, the way he spoke to her, the way he sat across from her and especially the way he looked at her. His expression was one of ... it was almost one of disgust.

“He said he would see you again?” Vandam asked.

“Yes.”

“I hope he does.” He put his chin in his hands. His face was strained with tension. Wisps of smoke rose from his cigarette. “Christ, I hope he does.”

“He also said: ‘We must do this again,’ or something like that,” Elene told him.

“I see. ‘We must do this again,’ eh?”

“Something like that.”

“What do you think he had in mind, exactly?”

She shrugged. “Another picnic, another date—damn it, William, what has got into you?”

“I’m just curious,” he said. His face wore a twisted grin, one she had never seen on him before. “I’d like to know what the two of you did, other than eat and drink, in the back of that big taxi, and on the riverbank: you know, all that time together, in the dark, a man and a woman—”

“Shut up.” She closed her eyes. Now she understood; now she knew. Without opening her eyes she said: “I’m going to bed. You can see yourself out.”

A few seconds later the front door slammed.

She went to the window and looked down to the street. She saw him leave the building, and get on his motorcycle. He kicked the engine into life and roared off down the road at a breakneck speed and took the comer at the end as if he were in a race. Elene was very tired, and a little sad that she would be spending the night alone after all, but she was not unhappy, for she had understood his anger, she knew the cause of it, and that gave her hope. As he disappeared from sight she smiled faintly and said softly: “William Vandam, I do believe you’re jealous.”

16

BY THE TIME MAJOR SMITH MADE HIS THIRD LUNCHTIME VISIT TO THE HOUSEBOAT, Wolff and Sonja had gotten into a slick routine. Wolff hid in the cupboard when the major approached. Sonja met him in the living room with a drink in her hand ready for him. She made him sit down there, ensuring that his briefcase was put down before they went into the bedroom. After a minute or two she began kissing him. By this time she could do what she liked with him, for he was paralyzed by lust. She contrived to get his shorts off, then soon afterward took him into the bedroom.

It was clear to Wolff that nothing like this had ever happened to the major before: he was Sonja’s slave as long as she allowed him to make love to her. Wolff was grateful: things would not have been quite so easy with a more strong-minded man.

As soon as Wolff heard the bed creak he came out of the cupboard. He took the key out of the shorts pocket and opened the case. His notebook and pencil were beside him, ready.

Smith’s second visit had been disappointing, leading Wolff to wonder whether perhaps it was only occasionally that Smith saw battle plans. However, this time he struck gold again.

General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the C in C Middle East, had taken over direct control of the Eighth Army from General Neil Ritchie. As a sign of Allied panic, that alone would be welcome news to Rommel. It might also help Wolff, for it meant that battles were now being planned in Cairo rather than in the desert, in which case Smith was more likely to get copies.

The Allies had retreated to a new defense line at Mersa Matruh, and the most important paper in Smith’s briefcase was a summary of the new dispositions.

The new line began at the coastal village of Matruh and stretched south into the desert as far as an escarpment called Sidi Hamza. Tenth Corps was at Matruh; then there was a heavy minefield fifteen miles long; then a lighter minefield for ten miles; then the escarpment; then, south of the escarpment, the 13th Corps.

With half an ear on the noises from the bedroom, Wolff considered the position. The picture was fairly clear: the Allied line was strong at either end and weak in the middle.

Rommel’s likeliest move, according to Allied thinking, was a dash around the southern end of the line, a classic Rommel outflanking maneuver, made more feasible by his capture of an estimated 500 tons of fuel at Tobruk. Such an advance would be repelled by the 13th Corps, which consisted of the strong 1st Armored Division and the 2nd New Zealand Division, the latter—the summary noted helpfully—freshly arrived from Syria.

However, armed with Wolff’s information, Rommel could instead hit the soft center of the line and pour his forces through the gap like a stream bursting a dam at its weakest point.

Wolff smiled to himself. He felt he was playing a major role in the struggle for German domination of North Africa: he found it enormously satisfying.

In the bedroom, a cork popped.

Smith always surprised Wolff by the rapidity of his lovemaking. The cork popping was the sign that it was all over, and Wolff had a few minutes in which to tidy up before Smith came in search of his shorts.

He put the papers back in the case, locked it and put the key back in the shorts pocket. He no longer got back into the cupboard afterward—once had been enough. He put his shoes in his trousers pockets and tiptoed, soundlessly in his socks, up the ladder, across the deck, and down the gangplank to the towpath. Then he put his shoes on and went to lunch.

Kernel shook hands politely and said: “I hope your injury is healing rapidly, Major.”

“Sit down,” Vandam said. “The bandage is more damn nuisance than the wound. What have you got?”

Kemel sat down and crossed his legs, adjusting the crease of his black cotton trousers. “I thought I would bring the surveillance report myself, although I’m afraid there’s nothing of interest in it.”

Vandam took the proffered envelope and opened it. It contained a single typewritten sheet. He began to read.

Sonja had come home—presumably from the Cha-Cha Club—at eleven o’clock the previous night. She had been alone. She had surfaced at around ten the following morning, and had been seen on deck in a robe. The postman had come at one. Sonja had gone out at four and returned at six carrying a bag bearing the name of one of the more expensive dress shops in Cairo. At that hour the watcher had been relieved by the night man.

Yesterday Vandam had received by messenger a similar report from Kemel covering the first twelve hours of the surveillance. For two days, therefore, Sonja’s behavior had been routine and wholly innocent, and neither Wolff nor anyone else had visited her on the houseboat.

Vandam was bitterly disappointed.

Kernel said: “The men I am using are completely reliable, and they are reporting directly to me.”

Vandam grunted, then roused himself to be courteous. “Yes, I’m sure,” he said. “Thank you for coming in.”

Kernel stood up. “No trouble,” he said. “Good-bye.” He went out.

Vandam sat brooding. He read Kernel’s report again, as if there might have been clues between the lines. If Sonja was connected with Wolff—and Vandam still believed she was, somehow—clearly the association was not a close one. If she was meeting anyone, the meetings must be taking place away from the houseboat.

Vandam went to the door and called: “Jakes!”

“Sir!”

Vandam sat down again and Jakes came in. Vandam said: “From now on I want you to spend your evenings at the Cha-Cha Club. Watch Sonja, and observe whom she sits with after the show. Also, bribe a waiter to tell you whether anyone goes to her dressing room.”

“Very good, sir.”

Vandam nodded dismissal, and added with a smile: “Permission to enjoy yourself is granted.”

The smile was a mistake: it hurt. At least he was no longer trying to live on glucose dissolved in warm water: Gaafar was giving him mashed potatoes and gravy, which he could eat from a spoon and swallow without chewing. He was existing on that and gin. Dr. Abuthnot had also told him he drank too much and smoked too much, and he had promised to cut down—after the war. Privately he thought: After I’ve caught Wolff.

If Sonja was not going to lead him to Wolff, only Elene could. Vandam was ashamed of his outburst at Elene’s apartment. He had been angry at his own failure, and the thought of her with Wolff had maddened him. His behavior could be described only as a fit of bad temper. Elene was a lovely girl who was risking her neck to help him, and courtesy was the least he owed her.

Wolff had said he would see Elene again. Vandam hoped he would contact her soon. He still felt irrationally angry at the thought of the two of them together; but now that the houseboat angle had turned out to be a dead end, Elene was his only hope. He sat at his desk, waiting for the phone to ring, dreading the very thing he wanted most.

Elene went shopping in the late afternoon. Her apartment had come to seem claustrophobic after she had spent most of the day pacing around, unable to concentrate on anything, alternately miserable and happy; so she put on a cheerful striped dress and went out into the sunshine.

She liked the fruit-and-vegetable market. It was a lively place, especially at this end of the day when the tradesmen were trying to get rid of the last of their produce. She stopped to buy tomatoes. The man who served her picked up one with a slight bruise, and threw it away dramatically before filling a paper bag with undamaged specimens. Elene laughed, for she knew that the bruised tomato would be retrieved, as soon as she was out of sight, and put back on the display so that the whole pantomime could be performed again for the next customer. She haggled briefly over the price, but the vendor could tell that her heart was not in it, and she ended up paying almost what he had asked originally.

She bought eggs, too, having decided to make an omelet for supper. It was good to be carrying a basket of food, more food than she could eat at one meal: it made her feel safe. She could remember days when there had been no supper.

She left the market and went window-shopping for dresses. She bought most of her clothes on impulse: she had firm ideas about what she liked, and if she planned a trip to buy something special, she could never find it. She wanted one day to have her own dressmaker.

She thought: I wonder if William Vandam could afford-that for his wife?

When she thought of Vandam she was happy, until she thought of Wolff.

She knew she could escape, if she wished, simply by refusing to see Wolff, refusing to make a date with him, refusing to answer his message. She was under no obligation to act as the bait in a trap for a knife murderer. She kept returning to this idea, worrying at it like a loose tooth: I don’t have to.

She suddenly lost interest in dresses, and headed for home. She wished she could make omelet for two, but omelet for one was something to be thankful for. There was a certain unforgettable pain in the stomach which came when, having gone to bed with no supper, you woke up in the morning to no breakfast. The ten-year-old Elene had wondered, secretly, how long people took to starve to death. She was sure Vandam’s childhood had not suffered such worries.

When she turned into the entrance to her apartment block, a voice said: “Abigail.”

She froze with shock. It was the voice of a ghost. She did not dare to look. The voice came again.

“Abigail.”

She made herself turn around. A figure came out of the shadows: an old Jew, shabbily dressed, with a matted beard, veined feet in rubber-tire sandals ...

Elene said: “Father.”

He stood in front of her, as if afraid to touch her, just looking. He said: “So beautiful still, and not poor... ”

Impulsively, she stepped forward, kissed his cheek, then stepped back again. She did not know what to say.

He said: “Your grandfather, my father, has died.”

She took his arm and led him up the stairs. It was all unreal, irrational, like a dream.

Inside the apartment she said: “You should eat,” and took him into the kitchen. She put a pan on to heat and began to beat the eggs. With her back to her father she said: “How did you find me?”

“I’ve always known where you were,” he said. “Your friend Esme writes to her father, who sometimes I see.”

Esme was an acquaintance, rather than a friend, but Elene ran into her every two or three months. She had never let on that she was writing home. Elene said: “I didn’t want you to ask me to come back.”

“And what would I have said to you? ‘Come home, it is your duty to starve with your family.’ No. But I knew where you were.”

She sliced tomatoes into the omelet. “You would have said it was better to starve than to live immorally.”

“Yes, I would have said that. And would I have been wrong?”

She turned to look at him. The glaucoma which had taken the sight of his left eye years ago was now spreading to the right. He was fifty-five, she calculated: he looked seventy. “Yes, you would have been wrong,” she said. “It is always better to live.”

“Perhaps it is.”

Her surprise must have shown on her face, for he explained: “I’m not as certain of these things as I used to be. I’m getting old.”

Elene halved the omelet and slid it onto two plates. She put bread on the table. Her father washed his hands, then blessed the bread. “Blessed art thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe ...” Elene was surprised that the prayer did not drive her into a fury. In the blackest moments of her lonely life she had cursed and raged at her father and his religion for what it had driven her to. She had tried to cultivate an attitude of indifference, perhaps mild contempt; but she had not quite succeeded. Now, watching him pray, she thought: And what do I do, when this man whom I hate turns up on the doorstep? I kiss his cheek, and I bring him inside, and I give him supper.

They began to eat. Her father had been very hungry, and wolfed his food. Elene wondered why he had come. Was it just to tell her of the death of her grandfather? No. That was part of it, perhaps, but there would be more.

She asked about her sisters. After the death of their mother all four of them, in their different ways, had broken with their father. Two had gone to America, one had married the son of her father’s greatest enemy, and the youngest, Naomi, had chosen the surest escape, and died. It dawned on Elene that her father was destroyed.

He asked her what she was doing. She decided to tell him the truth. “The British are trying to catch a man, a German, they think is a spy. It’s my job to befriend him... I’m the bait in a snare. But ... I think I may not help them anymore.”

He had stopped eating. “Are you afraid?”

She nodded. “He’s very dangerous. He killed a soldier with a knife. Last night ... I was to meet him in a restaurant and the British were to arrest him there, but something went wrong and I spent the whole evening with him, I was so frightened, and when it was over, the Englishman ...” She stopped, and took a deep breath. “Anyway, I may not help them anymore.”

Her father went on eating. “Do you love this Englishman?”

“He isn’t Jewish,” she said defiantly.

“I’ve given up judging everyone,” he said.

Elene could not take it all in. Was there nothing of the old man left?

They finished their meal, and Elene got up to make him a glass of tea. He said: “The Germans are coming. It will be very bad for Jews. I’m getting out.”

She frowned. “Where will you go?”

“Jerusalem.”

“How will you get there? The trains are full, there’s a quota for Jews—”

“I am going to walk.”

She stared at him, not believing he could be serious, not believing he would joke about such a thing. “Walk?”

He smiled. “It’s been done before.”

She saw that he meant it, and she was angry with him. “As I recall, Moses never made it.”

“Perhaps I will be able to hitch a ride.”

“It’s crazy!”

“Haven’t I always been a little crazy?”

“Yes!” she shouted. Suddenly her anger collapsed. “Yes, you’ve always been a little crazy, and I should know better than to try to change your mind.”

“I will pray to God to preserve you. You will have a chance here—you’re young and beautiful, and maybe they won’t know you’re Jewish. But me, a useless old man muttering Hebrew prayers... me they would send to a camp where I would surely die. It is always better to live. You said that.”

She tried to persuade him to stay with her, for one night at least, but he would not. She gave him a sweater, and a scarf, and all the cash she had in the house, and told him that if he waited a day she could get more money from the bank, and buy him a good coat; but he was in a hurry. She cried, and dried her eyes, and cried again. When he left she looked out of her window and saw him walking along the street, an old man going up out of Egypt and into the wilderness, following in the footsteps of the Children of Israel. There was something of the old man left: his orthodoxy had mellowed, but he still had a will of iron. He disappeared into the crowd, and she left the window. When she thought of his courage, she knew she could not run out on Vandam.

“She’s an intriguing girl,” Wolff said. “I can’t quite figure her out.” He was sitting on the bed, watching Sonja get dressed. “She’s a little jumpy. When I told her we were going on a picnic she acted quite scared, said she hardly knew me, as if she needed a chaperone.”

“With you, she did,” Sonja said.

“And yet she can be very earthy and direct.”

“Just bring her home to me. I’ll figure her out.”

“It bothers me.” Wolff frowned. He was thinking aloud. “Somebody tried to jump into the taxi with us.”

“A beggar.”

“No, he was a European.”

“A European beggar.” Sonja stopped brushing her hair to look at Wolff in the mirror. “This town is full of crazy people, you know that. Listen, if you have second thoughts, just picture her writhing on that bed with you and me on either side of her.”

Wolff grinned. It was an appealing picture, but not an irresistible one: it was Sonja’s fantasy, not his. His instinct told him to lay low now, and not to make dates with anyone. But Sonja was going to insist—and he still needed her.

Sonja said: “And when am I going to contact Kemel? He must know by now that you’re living here.”

Wolff sighed. Another date; another claim on him; another danger; also, another person whose protection he needed. “Call him tonight from the club. I’m not in a rush for this meeting, but we’ve got to keep him sweet.”

“Okay.” She was ready, and her taxi was waiting. “Make a date with Elene.” She went out.

She was not in his power the way she had once been, Wolff realized. The walls you build to protect you also close you in. Could he afford to defy her? If there had been a clear and immediate danger, yes. But all he had was a vague nervousness, an intuitive inclination to keep his head down. And Sonja might be crazy enough to betray him if she really got angry. He was obliged to choose the lesser danger.

He got up from the bed, found a paper and a pen and sat down to write a note to Elene.

17

THE MESSAGE CAME THE DAY AFTER ELENE’S FATHER LEFT FOR JERUSALEM. A small boy came to the door with an envelope. Elene tipped him and read the letter. It was short. “My dear Elene, let us meet at the Oasis Restaurant at eight o’clock next Thursday. I eagerly look forward to it. Fondly, Alex Wolff.” Unlike his speech, his writing had a stiffness which seemed German—but perhaps it was her imagination. Thursday—that was the day after tomorrow. She did not know whether to be elated or scared. Her first thought was to telephone Vandam; then she hesitated.

She had become intensely curious about Vandam. She knew so little about him. What did he do when he was not catching spies? Did he listen to music, collect stamps, shoot duck? Was he interested in poetry or architecture or antique rugs? What was his home like? With whom did he live? What color were his pajamas?

She wanted to patch up their quarrel, and she wanted to see where he lived. She had an excuse to contact him now, but instead of telephoning she would go to his home.

She decided to change her dress, then she decided to take a bath first, then she decided to wash her hair as well. Sitting in the bath she thought about which dress to wear. She recalled the occasions she had seen Vandam, and tried to remember which clothes she had worn. He had never seen the pale pink one with puffed shoulders and buttons all down the front: that was very pretty.

She put on a little perfume, then the silk underwear Johnnie had given her, which always made her feel so feminine. Her short hair was dry already, and she sat in front of the mirror to comb it. The dark, fine locks gleamed after washing. I look ravishing, she thought, and she smiled at herself seductively.

She left the apartment, taking Wolff’s note with her. Vandam would be interested to see his handwriting. He was interested in every little detail where Wolff was concerned, perhaps because they had never met face to face, except in the dark or at a distance. The handwriting was very neat, easily legible, almost like an artist’s lettering: Vandam would draw some conclusion from that.

She headed for Garden City. It was seven o’clock, and Vandam worked until late, so she had time to spare. The sun was still strong, and she enjoyed the heat on her arms and legs as she walked. A bunch of soldiers whistled at her, and in her sunny mood she smiled at them, so they followed her for a few blocks before they got diverted into a bar.

She felt gay and reckless. What a good idea it was to go to his house—so much better than sitting alone at home. She had been alone too much. For her men, she had existed only when they had time to visit her; and she had made their attitudes her own, so that when they were not there she felt she had nothing to do, no role to play, no one to be. Now she had broken with all that. By doing this, by going to see him uninvited, she felt she was being herself instead of a person in someone else’s dream. It made her almost giddy.

She found the house easily. It was a small French-colonial villa, all pillars and high windows, its white stone reflecting the evening sun with painful brilliance. She walked up the short drive, rang the bell and waited in the shadow of the portico.

An elderly, bald Egyptian came to the door. “Good evening, Madam,” he said, speaking like an English butler.

Elene said: “I’d like to see Major Vandam. My name is Elene Fontana.”

“The major has not yet returned home, Madam.” The servant hesitated.

“Perhaps I could wait,” Elene said.

“Of course, Madam.” He stepped aside to admit her.

She crossed the threshold. She looked around with nervous eagerness. She was in a cool tiled hall with a high ceiling. Before she could take it all in the servant said: “This way, Madam.” He led her into a drawing room. “My name is Gaafar. Please call me if there is anything you require.”

“Thank you, Gaafar.”

The servant went out. Elene was thrilled to be in Vandam’s house and left alone to look around. The drawing room had a large marble fireplace and a lot of very English furniture: somehow she thought he had not furnished it himself. Everything was clean and tidy and not very lived-in. What did this say about his character? Perhaps nothing.

The door opened and a young boy walked in. He was very good-looking, with curly brown hair and smooth, preadolescent skin. He seemed about ten years old. He looked vaguely familiar.

He said: “Hello, I’m Billy Vandam.”

Elene stared at him in horror. A son—Vandam had a son! She knew now why he seemed familiar: he resembled his father. Why had it never occurred to her that Vandam might be married? A man like that—charming, kind, handsome, clever—was unlikely to have reached his late thirties without getting hooked. What a fool she had been to think that she might have been the first to desire him! She felt so stupid that she blushed.

She shook Billy’s hand. “How do you do,” she said. “I’m Elene Fontana.”

“We never know what time Dad’s coming home,” Billy said. “I hope you won’t have to wait too long.”

She had not yet recovered her composure. “Don’t worry. I don’t mind—it doesn’t matter a bit ...”

“Would you like a drink, or anything?”

He was very polite, like his father, with a formality that was somehow disarming. Elene said: “No, thank you.”

“Well, I’ve got to have my supper. Sorry to leave you alone.”

“No, no ...”

“If you need anything, just call Gaafar.”

“Thank you.”

The boy went out, and Elene sat down heavily. She was disoriented, as if in her own home she had found a door to a room she had not known was there. She noticed a photograph on the marble mantelpiece, and got up to look at it. It was a picture of a beautiful woman in her early twenties, a cool, aristocratic-looking woman with a faintly supercilious smile. Elene admired the dress she was wearing, something silky and flowing, hanging in elegant folds from her slender figure. The woman’s hair and makeup were perfect. The eyes were startlingly familiar, clear and perceptive and light in color: Elene realized that Billy had eyes like that. This, then, was Billy’s mother—Vandam’s wife. She was, of course, exactly the kind of woman who would be his wife, a classic English beauty with a superior air.

Elene felt she had been a fool. Women like that were queuing up to marry men like Vandam. As if he would have bypassed all of them only to fall for an Egyptian courtesan! She rehearsed the things that divided her from him: he was respectable and she was disreputable; he was British and she was Egyptian; he was Christian—presumably—and she was Jewish; he was well bred and she came out of the slums of Alexandria; he was almost forty and she was twenty-three... The list was long.

Tucked into the back of the photograph frame was a page torn from a magazine. The paper was old and yellowing. The page bore the same photograph. Elene saw that it had come from a magazine called The Tatler. She had heard of it: it was much read by the wives of colonels in Cairo, for it reported all the trivial events of London society—parties, balls, charity lunches, gallery openings and the activities of English royalty. The picture of Mrs. Vandam took up most of this page, and a paragraph of type beneath the picture reported that Angela, daughter of Sir Peter and Lady Beresford, was engaged to be married to Lieutenant William Vandam, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Vandam of Gately, Dorset. Elene refolded the cutting and put it back.

The family picture was complete: Attractive British officer, cool, self-assured English wife, intelligent charming son, beautiful home, money, class and happiness. Everything else was a dream.

She wandered around the room, wondering if it held any more shocks in store. The room had been furnished by Mrs. Vandam, of course, in perfect, bloodless taste. The decorous print of the curtains toned with the restrained hue of the upholstery and the elegant striped wallpaper. Elene wondered what their bedroom would be like. It too would be coolly tasteful, she guessed. Perhaps the main color would be blue-green, the shade they called eau de Nil although it was not a bit like the muddy water of the Nile, Would they have twin beds? She hoped so. She would never know.

Against one wall was a small upright piano. She wondered who played. Perhaps Mrs. Vandam sat here sometimes, in the evenings, filling the air with Chopin while Vandam sat in the armchair, over there, watching her fondly. Perhaps Vandam accompanied himself as he sang romantic ballads to her in a strong tenor. Perhaps Billy had a tutor, and fingered hesitant scales every afternoon when he came home from school. She looked through the pile of sheet music in the seat of the piano stool. She had been right about the Chopin: they had all the waltzes here in a book.

She picked up a novel from the top of the piano and opened it. She read the first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” The opening sentences intrigued her, and she wondered whether Vandam was reading the book. Perhaps she could borrow it: it would be good to have something of his. On the other hand, she had the feeling he was not a great reader of fiction. She did not want to borrow it from his wife.

Billy came in. Elene put the book down.suddenly, feeling irrationally guilty, as if she had been prying. Billy saw the gesture. “That one’s no good,” he said. “It’s about some silly girl who’s afraid of her husband’s housekeeper. There’s no action.”

Elene sat down, and Billy sat opposite her. Obviously he was going to entertain her. He was a miniature of his father, except for those clear gray eyes. She said: “You’ve read it, then?”

“Rebecca? Yes. But I didn’t like it much. I always finish them, though.”

“What do you like to read?”

“I like tecs best.”

“Tecs?”

“Detectives. I’ve read all of Agatha Christie’s and Dorothy Say ers’. But I like the American ones most of all—S. S. Van Dine and Raymond Chandler.”

“Really?” Elene smiled. “I like detective stories too—I read them all the time.”

“Oh! Who’s your favorite tec?”

Elene considered. “Maigret.”

“I’ve never heard of him. What’s the author’s name?”

“Georges Simenon. He writes in French, but now some of the books have been translated into English. They’re set in Paris, mostly. They’re very ... complex.”

“Would you lend me one? It’s so hard to get new books, I’ve read all the ones in this house, and in the school library. And I swap with my friends but they like, you know, stories about children having adventures in the school holidays.”

“All right,” Elene said. “Let’s swap. What have you got to lend me? I don’t think I’ve read any American ones.”

“I’ll lend you a Chandler. The American ones are much more true to life, you know. I’ve gone off those stories about English country houses and people who probably couldn’t murder a fly.”

It was odd, Elene thought, that a boy for whom the English country house might be part of everyday life should find stories about American private eyes more “true to life.” She hesitated, then asked: “Does your mother read detective stories?”

Billy said briskly: “My mother died last year in Crete.”

“Oh!” Elene put her hand to her mouth; she felt the blood drain from her face. So Vandam was not married!

A moment later she felt ashamed that that had been her first thought, and sympathy for the child her second. She said: “Billy, how awful for you. I’m so sorry.” Real death had suddenly intruded into their lighthearted talk of murder stories, and she felt embarrassed.

“It’s all right,” Billy said. “It’s the war, you see.”

And now he was like his father again. For a while, talking about books, he had been full of boyish enthusiasm, but now the mask was on, and it was a smaller version of the mask used by his father: courtesy, formality, the attitude of the considerate host. It’s the war, you see: he had heard someone else say that, and had adopted it as his own defense. She wondered whether his preference for “true-to-life” murders, as opposed to implausible country-house killings, dated from the death of his mother. Now he was looking around him, searching for something, inspiration perhaps. In a moment he would offer her cigarettes, whiskey, tea. It was hard enough to know what to say to a bereaved adult: with Billy she felt helpless. She decided to talk of something else.

She said awkwardly: “I suppose, with your father working at GHQ, you get more news of the war than the rest of us.”

“I suppose I do, but usually I don’t really understand it. When he comes home in a bad mood I know we’ve lost another battle.” He started to bite a fingernail, then stuffed his hands into his shorts pockets. “I wish I was older.”

“You want to fight?”

He looked at her fiercely, as if he thought she was mocking him. “I’m not one of those kids who thinks it’s all jolly good fun, like the cowboy films.”

She murmured: “I’m sure you’re not.”

“It’s just that I’m afraid the Germans will win.”

Elene thought: Oh, Billy, if you were ten years older I’d fall in love with you, too. “It might not be so bad,” she said. “They’re not monsters.”

He gave her a skeptical look: she should have known better than to soft-soap him. He said: “They’d only do to us what we’ve been doing to the Egyptians for fifty years.”

It was another of his father’s lines, she was sure.

Billy said: “But then it would all have been for nothing.” He bit his nail again, and this time he did not stop himself. Elene wondered what would have been for nothing: the death of his mother? His own personal struggle to be brave? The two-year seesaw of the desert war? European civilization?

“Well, it hasn’t happened yet,” she said feebly.

Billy looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “I’m supposed to go to bed at nine.” Suddenly he was a child again.

“I suppose you’d better go, then.”

“Yes.” He stood up.

“May I come and say good night to you, in a few minutes?”

“If you like.” He went out.

What kind of life did they lead in this house? Elene wondered. The man, the boy and the old servant lived here together, each with his own concerns. Was there laughter, and kindness, and affection? Did they have time to play games and sing songs and go on picnics? By comparison with her own childhood Billy’s was enormously privileged; nevertheless she feared this might be a terribly adult household for a boy to grow up in. His young-old wisdom was charming, but he seemed like a child who did not have much fun. She experienced a rush of compassion for him, a motherless child in an alien country besieged by foreign armies.

She left the drawing room and went upstairs. There seemed to be three or four bedrooms on the second floor, with a narrow staircase leading up to a third floor where, presumably, Gaafar slept. One of the bedroom doors was open, and she went in.

It did not look much like a small boy’s bedroom. Elene did not know a lot about small boys—she had had four sisters—but she was expecting to see model airplanes, jigsaw puzzles, a train set, sports gear and perhaps an old, neglected teddy bear. She would not have been surprised to see clothes on the floor, a construction set on the bed and a pair of dirty football boots on the polished surface of a desk. But the place might almost have been the bedroom of an adult. The clothes were folded neatly on a chair, the top of the chest of drawers was clear, schoolbooks were stacked tidily on the desk and the only toy in evidence was a cardboard model of a tank. Billy was in bed, his striped pajama top buttoned to the neck, a book on the blanket beside him.

“I like your room,” Elene said deceitfully.

Billy said: “It’s fine.”

“What are you reading?”

“The Greek Coffin Mystery.”

She sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, don’t stay awake too late.”

“I’ve to put out the light at nine-thirty.”

She leaned forward suddenly and kissed his cheek.

At that moment the door opened and Vandam walked in.

It was the familiarity of the scene that was so shocking: the boy in bed with his book, the light from the bedside lamp falling just so, the woman leaning forward to kiss the boy good night. Vandam stood and stared, feeling like one who knows he is in a dream but still cannot wake up.

Elene stood up and said: “Hello, William.”

“Hello, Elene.”

“Good night, Billy.”

“Good night, Miss Fontana.”

She went past Vandam and left the room. Vandam sat on the edge of the bed, in the dip in the covers which she had vacated. He said: “Been entertaining our guest?”

“Yes.”

“Good man.”

“I like her—she reads detective stories. We’re going to swap books.”

“That’s grand. Have you done your prep?”

“Yes—French vocab.”

“Want me to test you?”

“It’s all right, Gaafar tested me. I say, she’s ever so pretty, isn’t she.”

“Yes. She’s working on something for me—it’s a bit hush-hush, so ...”

“My lips are sealed.”

Vandam smiled. “That’s the stuff.”

Billy lowered his voice. “Is she, you know, a secret agent?”

Vandam put a finger to his lips. “Walls have ears.”

The boy looked suspicious. “You’re having me on.”

Vandam shook his head silently.

Billy said: “Gosh!”

Vandam stood up. “Lights out at nine-thirty.”

“Right-ho. Good night.”

“Good night, Billy.” Vandam went out. As he closed the door it occurred to him that Elene’s good-night kiss had probably done Billy a lot more good than his father’s man-to-man chat.

He found Elene in the drawing room, shaking martinis. He felt he should have resented more than he did the way she had made herself at home in his house, but he was too tired to strike attitudes. He sank gratefully into a chair and accepted a drink.

Elene said: “Busy day?”

Vandam’s whole section had been working on the new wireless security procedures that were being introduced following the capture of the German listening unit at the Hill of Jesus, but Vandam was not going to tell Elene that. Also, he felt she was playacting the role of housewife, and she had no right to do that. He said: “What made you come here?”

“I’ve got a date with Wolff.”

“Wonderful!” Vandam immediately forgot all lesser concerns. “When?”

“Thursday.” She handed him a sheet of paper.

He studied the message. It was a peremptory summons written in a clear, stylish script. “How did this come?”

“A boy brought it to my door.”

“Did you question the boy? Where he was given the message and by whom, and so on?”

She was crestfallen. “I never thought to do that.”

“Never mind.” Wolff would have taken precautions, anyway; the boy would have known nothing of value.

“What will we do?” Elene asked.

“The same as last time, only better.” Vandam tried to sound more confident than he felt. It should have been simple. The man makes a date with a girl, so you go to the meeting place and arrest the man when he turns up. But Wolff was unpredictable. He would not get away with the taxi trick again: Vandam would have the restaurant surrounded, twenty or thirty men and several cars, roadblocks in readiness and so on. But he might try a different trick. Vandam could not imagine what—and that was the problem.

As if she were reading his mind Elene said: “I don’t want to spend another evening with him.”

“Why?”

“He frightens me.”

Vandam felt guilty—remember Istanbul—and suppressed his sympathy. “But last time he did you no harm.”

“He didn’t try to seduce me, so I didn’t have to say no. But he will, and I’m afraid he won’t take no for an answer.”

“We’ve learned our lesson,” Vandam said with false assurance. “There’ll be no mistakes this time.” Secretly he was surprised by her simple determination not to go to bed with Wolff. He had assumed that such things did not matter much, one way or the other, to her. He had misjudged her, then. Seeing her in this new light somehow made him very cheerful. He decided he must be honest with her. “I should rephrase that,” he said. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that there are no mistakes this time.”

Gaafar came in and said: “Dinner is served, sir.” Vandam smiled: Gaafar was doing his English-butler act in honor of the feminine company.

Vandam said to Elene: “Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“What have we got, Gaafar?”

“For you, sir, clear soup, scrambled eggs and yoghurt. But I took the liberty of grilling a chop for Miss Fontana.”

Elene said to Vandam: “Do you always eat like that?”

“No, it’s because of my cheek, I can’t chew.” He stood up.

As they went into the dining room Elene said: “Does it still hurt?”

“Only when I laugh. It’s true—I can’t stretch the muscles on that side. I’ve got into the habit of smiling with one side of my face.”

They sat down, and Gaafar served the soup.

Elene said: “I like your son very much.”

“So do I,” Vandam said.

“He’s old beyond his years.”

“Do you think that’s a bad thing?”

She shrugged. “Who knows?”

“He’s been through a couple of things that ought to be reserved for adults.”

“Yes.” Elene hesitated. “When did your wife die?”

“May the twenty-eighth, nineteen-forty-one, in the evening.”

“Billy told me it happened in Crete.”

“Yes. She worked on cryptanalysis for the Air Force. She was on a temporary posting to Crete at the time the Germans invaded the island. May twenty-eighth was the day the British realized they had lost the battle and decided to get out. Apparently she was hit by a stray shell and killed instantly. Of course, we were trying to get live people away then, not bodies, so ... There’s no grave, you see. No memorial. Nothing left.”

Elene said quietly: “Do you still love her?”

“I think I’ll always be in love with her. I believe it’s like that with people you really love. If they go away, or die, it makes no difference. If ever I were to marry again, I would still love Angela.”

“Were you very happy?”

“We ...” He hesitated, unwilling to answer, then he realized that the hesitation was an answer in itself. “Ours wasn’t an idyllic marriage. It was I who was devoted ... Angela was fond of me.”

“Do you think you will marry again?”

“Well. The English in Cairo keep thrusting replicas of Angela at me.” He shrugged. He did not know the answer to the question. Elene seemed to understand, for she fell silent and began to eat her dessert.

Afterward Gaafar brought them coffee in the drawing room. It was at this time of day that Vandam usually began to hit the bottle seriously, but tonight he did not want to drink. He sent Gaafar to bed, and they drank their coffee. Vandam smoked a cigarette.

He felt the desire for music. He had loved music, at one time, although lately it had gone out of his life. Now, with the mild night air coming in through the open windows and the smoke curling up from his cigarette, he wanted to hear clear, delightful notes, and sweet harmonies, and subtle rhythms. He went to the piano and looked at the music. Elene watched him in silence. He began to play “Für Elise.” The first few notes sounded, with Beethoven’s characteristic, devastating simplicity; then the hesitation; then the rolling tune. The ability to play came back to him instantly, almost as if he had never stopped. His hands knew what to do in a way he always felt was miraculous.

When the song was over he went back to Elene, sat next to her, and kissed her cheek. Her face was wet with tears. She said: “William, I love you with all my heart.”

They whisper.

She says, “I like your ears.”

He says, “Nobody has ever licked them before.”

She giggles. “Do you like it?”

“Yes, yes.” He sighs. “Can I ... ?”

“Undo the buttons—here—that’s right—aah.”

“I’ll put out the light.”

“No, I want to see you—”

“There’s a moon.” Click. “There, see? The moonlight is enough.”

“Come back here quickly—”

“I’m here.”

“Kiss me again, William.”

They do not speak for a while. Then:

“Can I take this thing off?” he says.

“Let me help... there.”

“Oh! Oh, they’re so pretty.”

“I’m so glad you like them ... would you do that harder... suck a little... aah, God—”

And a little later she says:

“Let me feel your chest. Damn buttons—I’ve ripped your shirt—”

“The hell with that.”

“Ah, I knew it would be like this ... Look.”

“What?”

“Our skins in the moonlight—you’re so pale and I’m nearly black, look—”

“Yes.”

“Touch me. Stroke me. Squeeze, and pinch, and explore, I want to feel your hands all over me—”

“Yes—”

“—everywhere, your hands, there, yes, especially there, oh, you know, you know exactly where, oh!”

“You’re so soft inside.”

“This is a dream.”

“No, it’s real.”

“I never want to wake up.”

“So soft ...”

“And you’re so hard... Can I kiss it?”

“Yes, please... Ah ... Jesus it feels good—Jesus—”

“William?”

“Yes?”

“Now, William?”

“Oh, yes.”

“... Take them off.”

“Silk.”

“Yes. Be quick.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve wanted this for so long—”

She gasps, and he makes a sound like a sob, and then there is only their breathing for many minutes, until finally he begins to shout aloud, and she smothers his cries with her kisses and then she, too, feels it, and she turns her face into the cushion and opens her mouth and screams into the cushion, and he not being used to this thinks something is wrong and says:

“It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right—”

—and finally she goes limp, and lies with her eyes closed for a while, perspiring, until her breathing returns to normal, then she looks up at him and says:

“So that’s how it’s supposed to be!”

And he laughs, and she looks quizzically at him, so he explains:

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Then they both laugh, and he says:

“I’ve done a lot of things after... you know, afterwards... but I don’t think I’ve ever laughed.”

“I’m so glad,” she says. “Oh, William, I’m so glad.”

18

ROMMEL COULD SMELL THE SEA. AT TOBRUK THE HEAT AND THE DUST AND THE flies were as bad as they had been in the desert, but it was all made bearable by that occasional whiff of salty dampness in the faint breeze.

Von Mellenthin came into the command vehicle with his intelligence report. “Good evening, Field Marshal.”

Rommel smiled. He had been promoted after the victory at Tobruk, and he had not yet gotten used to the new title. “Anything new?”

“A signal from the spy in Cairo. He says the Mersa Matruh Line is weak in the middle.”

Rommel took the report and began to glance over it. He smiled when he read that the Allies anticipated he would try a dash around the southern end of the line: it seemed they were beginning to understand his thinking. He said: “So the minefield gets thinner at this point... but there the line is defended by two columns. What is a column?”

“It’s a new term they’re using. According to one of our prisoners of war, a column is a brigade group that has been twice overrun by Panzers.”

“A weak force, then.”

“Yes.”

Rommel tapped the report with his forefinger. “If this is correct, we can burst through the Mersa Matruh Line as soon as we get there.”

“I’ll be doing my best to check the spy’s report over the next day or two, of course,” said von Mellenthin. “But he was right last time.”

The door to the vehicle flew open and Kesselring came in.

Rommel was startled. “Field Marshal!” he said. “I thought you were in Sicily.”

“I was,” Kesselring said. He stamped the dust off his handmade boots. “I’ve just flown here to see you. Damn it, Rommel, this has got to stop. Your orders are quite clear: you were to advance to Tobruk and no farther.”

Rommel sat back in his canvas chair. He had hoped to keep Kesselring out of this argument. “The circumstances have changed,” he said.

“But your original orders have been confirmed by the Italian Supreme Command,” said Kesselring. “And what was your reaction? You declined the ‘advice’ and invited Bastico to lunch with you in Cairo!”

Nothing infuriated Rommel more than orders from Italians. “The Italians have done nothing in this war,” he said angrily.

“That is irrelevant. Your air and sea support is now needed for the attack on Malta. After we have taken Malta your communications will be secure for the advance to Egypt.”

“You people have learned nothing!” Rommel said. He made an effort to lower his voice. “While we are digging in the enemy, too, will be digging in. I did not get this far by playing the old game of advance, consolidate, then advance again. When they attack, I dodge; when they defend a position I go around that position; and when they retreat I chase them. They are running now, and now is the time to take Egypt.”

Kesselring remained calm. “I have a copy of your cable to Mus solini.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket and read: “The state and morale of the troops, the present supply position owing to captured dumps and the present weakness of the enemy permit our pursuing him into the depths of the Egyptian area.” He folded the sheet of paper and turned to von Mellenthin. “How many German tanks and men do we have?”

Rommel suppressed the urge to tell von Mellenthin not to answer: he knew this was a weak point.

“Sixty tanks, Field Marshal, and two thousand five hundred men.”

“And the Italians?”

“Six thousand men and fourteen tanks.”

Kesselring turned back to Rommel. “And you’re going, to take Egypt with a total of seventy-four tanks? Von Mellenthin, what is our estimate of the enemy’s strength?”

“The Allied forces are approximately three times as numerous as ours, but—”

“There you are.”

Von Mellenthin went on: “—but we are very well supplied with food, clothing, trucks and armored cars, and fuel; and the men are in tremendous spirits.”

Rommel said: “Von Mellenthin, go to the communications truck and see what has arrived.”

Von Mellenthin frowned, but Rommel did not explain, so he went out.

Rommel said: “The Allies are regrouping at Mersa Matruh. They expect us to move around the southern end of their line. Instead we will hit the middle, where they are weakest—”

“How do you know all this?” Kesselring interrupted.

“Our intelligence assessment—”

“On what is the assessment based?”

“Primarily on a spy report—”

“My God!” For the first time Kesselring raised his voice. “You’ve no tanks, but you have your spy!”

“He was right last time.”

Von Mellenthin came back in.

Kesselring said: “All this makes no difference. I am here to confirm the Fuehrer’s orders: you are to advance no farther.”

Rommel smiled. “I have sent a personal envoy to the Fuehrer.”

“You ... ?”

“I am a Field Marshall now, I have direct access to Hitler.”

“Of course.”

“I think von Mellenthin may have the Fuehrer’s reply.”

“Yes,” said von Mellenthin. He read from a sheet of paper. “It is only once in a lifetime that the Goddess of Victory smiles. Onward to Cairo. Adolf Hitler.”

There was a silence.

Kesselring walked out.

19

WHEN VANDAM GOT TO HIS OFFICE HE LEARNED THAT, THE PREVIOUS EVENING, Rommel had advanced to within sixty miles of Alexandria.

Rommel seemed unstoppable. The Mersa Matruh Line had broken in half like a matchstick. In the south, the 13th Corps had retreated in a panic, and in the north the fortress of Mersa Matruh had capitulated. The Allies had fallen back once again—but this would be the last time. The new line of defense stretched across a thirty-mile gap between the sea and the impassable Qattara Depression, and if that line fell there would be no more defenses, Egypt would be Rommel’s.

The news was not enough to dampen Vandam’s elation. It was more than twenty-four hours since he had awakened at dawn, on the sofa in his drawing room, with Elene in his arms. Since then he had been suffused with a kind of adolescent glee. He kept remembering little details: how small and brown her nipples were, the taste of her skin, her sharp fingernails digging into his thighs. In the office he had been behaving a little out of character, he knew. He had given back a letter to his typist, saying: “There are seven errors in this, you’d better do it again,” and smiled at her sunnily. She had nearly fallen off her chair. He thought of Elene, and he thought: “Why not? Why the hell not?” and there was no reply.

He was visited early by an officer from the Special Liaison Unit. Anybody with his ear to the ground in GHQ now knew that the SLUs had a very special, ultrasecret source of intelligence. Opinions differed as to how good the intelligence was, and evaluation was always difficult because they would never tell you the source. Brown, who held the rank of captain but was quite plainly not a military man, leaned on the edge of the table and spoke around the stem of his pipe. “Are you being evacuated, Vandam?”

These chaps lived in a world of their own, and there was no point in telling them that a captain had to call a major “sir.” Vandam said: “What? Evacuated? Why?”

“Our lot’s off to Jerusalem. So’s everyone who knows too much. Keep people out of enemy hands, you know.”

“The brass is getting nervous, then.” It was logical, really: Rommel could cover sixty miles in a day.

“There’ll be riots at the station, you’ll see—half Cairo’s trying to get out and the other half is preening itself ready for the liberation. Ha!”

“You won’t tell too many people that you’re going ...”

“No, no, no. Now, then, I’ve got a little snippet for you. We all know Rommel’s got a spy in Cairo.”

“How did you know?” Vandam said.

“Stuff comes through from London, old boy. Anyhow, the chap has been identified as, and I quote, ‘the hero of the Rashid Ali affair.’ Mean anything to you?”

Vandam was thunderstruck. “It does!” he said.

“Well, that’s it.” Brown got off the table.

“Just a minute,” Vandam said. “Is that all?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What is this, a decrypt or an agent report?”

“Suffice it to say that the source is reliable.”

“You always say that.”

“Yes. Well, I may not see you for a while. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Vandam muttered distractedly.

“Toodle-oo!” Brown went out, puffing smoke.

The hero of the Rashid Ali affair. It was incredible that Wolff should have been the man who outwitted Vandam in Istanbul. Yet it made sense: Vandam recalled the odd feeling he had had about Wolff’s style, as if it were familiar. The girl whom Vandam had sent to pick up the mystery man had had her throat cut.

And now Vandam was sending Elene in against the same man.

A corporal came in with an order. Vandam read it with mounting disbelief. All departments were to extract from their files those papers which might be dangerous in enemy hands, and burn them. Just about anything in the files of an intelligence section might be dangerous in enemy hands. We might as well burn the whole damn lot, Vandam thought. And how would departments operate afterward? Clearly the brass thought the departments would not be operating at all for very much longer. Of course it was a precaution, but it was a very drastic one: they would not destroy the accumulated results of years of work unless they thought there was a very strong chance indeed of the Germans taking Egypt.

It’s going to pieces, he thought; it’s falling apart.

It was unthinkable. Vandam had given three years of his life to the defense of Egypt. Thousands of men had died in the desert. After all that, was it possible that we could lose? Actually give up, and turn and run away? It did not bear contemplating.

He called Jakes in and watched him read the order. Jakes just nodded, as if he had been expecting it. Vandam said: “Bit drastic, isn’t it?”

“It’s rather like what’s been happening in the desert, sir,” Jakes replied. “We establish huge supply dumps at enormous cost, then as we retreat we blow them up to keep them out of enemy hands.”

Vandam nodded. “All right, you’d better get on with it. Try and play it down a bit, for the sake of morale—you know, brass getting the wind up unnecessarily, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll have the bonfire in the yard at the back, shall we?”

“Yes. Find an old dustbin and poke holes in its bottom. Make sure the stuff burns up properly.”

“What about your own files?”

“I’ll go through them now.”

“Very good, sir.” Jakes went out.

Vandam opened his file drawer and began to sort through his papers. Countless times over the last three years he had thought: I don’t need to remember that, I can always look it up. There were names and addresses, security reports on individuals, details of codes, systems of communication of orders, case notes and a little file of jottings about Alex Wolff. Jakes brought in a big cardboard box with “Lipton’s Tea” printed on its side, and Vandam began to dump papers into it, thinking: This is what it is like to be the losers.

The box was half full when Vandam’s corporal opened the door and said: “Major Smith to see you, sir.”

“Send him in.” Vandam did not know a Major Smith.

The major was a small, thin man in his forties with bulbous blue eyes and an air of being rather pleased with himself. He shook hands and said: “Sandy Smith, S.I.S.”

Vandam said: “What can I do for the Secret Intelligence Service?”

“I’m sort of the liaison man between S.I.S. and the General Staff,” Smith explained. “You made an inquiry about a book called Rebecca ...”

“Yes.”

“The answer got routed through us.” Smith produced a piece of paper with a flourish.

Vandam read the message. The S.I.S. Head of Station in Portugal had followed up the query about Rebecca by sending one of his men to visit all the English-language bookshops in the country. In the holiday area of Estoril he had found a bookseller who recalled selling his entire stock—six copies—of Rebecca to one woman. On further investigation the woman had turned out to be the wife of the German military attaché in Lisbon.

Vandam said: “This confirms something I suspected. Thank you for taking the trouble to bring it over.”

“No trouble,” Smith said. “I’m over here every morning anyway. Glad to be able to help.” He went out.

Vandam reflected on the news while he went on with his work. There was only one plausible explanation of the fact that the book had found its way from Estoril to the Sahara. Undoubtedly it was the basis of a code—and, unless there were two successful German spies in Cairo, it was Alex Wolff who was using that code.

The information would be useful, sooner or later. It was a pity the key to the code had not been captured along with the book and the decrypt. That thought reminded him of the importance of burning his secret papers, and he determined to be more ruthless about what he destroyed.

At the end he considered his files on pay and promotion of subordinates, and decided to burn those too since they might help enemy interrogation teams fix their priorities. The cardboard box was full. He hefted it onto his shoulder and went outside.

Jakes had the fire going in a rusty steel water tank propped up on bricks. A corporal was feeding papers to the flames. Vandam dumped his box and watched the blaze for a while. It reminded him of Guy Fawkes Night in England, fireworks and baked potatoes and the burning effigy of a seventeenth-century traitor. Charred scraps of paper floated up on a pillar of hot air. Vandam turned away.

He wanted to think, so he decided to walk. He left GHQ and headed downtown. His cheek was hurting. He thought he should welcome the pain, for it was supposed to be a sign of healing. He was growing a beard to cover the wound so that he would look a little less unsightly when the dressing came off. Every day he enjoyed not having to shave in the morning.

He thought of Elene, and remembered her with her back arched and perspiration glistening on her naked breasts. He had been shocked by what had happened after he had kissed her—shocked, but thrilled. It had been a night of firsts for him: first time he had made love anywhere other than on a bed, first time he had seen a woman have a climax like a man’s, first time sex had been a mutual indulgence rather than the imposition of his will on a more or less reluctant woman. It was, of course, a disaster that he and Elene had fallen so joyfully in love. His parents, his friends and the Army would be aghast at the idea of his marrying a wog. His mother would also feel bound to explain why the Jews were wrong to reject Jesus. Vandam decided not to worry over all that. He and Elene might be dead within a few days. We’ll bask in the sunshine while it lasts, he thought, and to hell with the future.

His thoughts kept returning to the girl whose throat had been cut, apparently by Wolff, in Istanbul. He was terrified that something might go wrong on Thursday and Elene might find herself alone with Wolff again.

Looking around him, he realized that there was a festive feeling in the air. He passed a hairdresser’s salon and noticed that it was packed out, with women standing, waiting. The dress shops seemed to be doing good business. A woman came out of a grocer’s with a basket full of canned food, and Vandam saw that there was a queue stretching out of the shop and along the pavement. A sign in the window of the next shop said, in hasty scribble: “Sorry, no makeup.” Vandam realized that the Egyptians were preparing to be liberated, and looking forward to it.

He could not escape a sense of impending doom. Even the sky seemed dark. He looked up: the sky was dark. There seemed to be a gray swirling mist, dotted with particles, over the city. He realized that it was smoke mixed with charred paper. All across Cairo the British were burning their files, and the sooty smoke had blotted out the sun.

Vandam was suddenly furious with himself and the rest of the Allied armies for preparing so equably for defeat. Where was the spirit of the Battle of Britain? What had happened to that famous mixture of obstinacy, ingenuity and courage which was supposed to characterize the nation? What, Vandam asked himself, are you planning to do about it?

He turned around and walked back toward Garden City, where GHQ was billeted in commandeered villas. He visualized the map of the El Alamein Line, where the Allies would make their last stand. This was one line Rommel could not circumvent, for at its southern end was the vast impassable Qattara Depression. So Rommel would have to break the line.

Where would he try to break through? If he came through the northern end, he would then have to choose between dashing straight for Alexandria and wheeling around and attacking the Allied forces from behind. If he came through the southern end he must either dash for Cairo or, again, wheel around and destroy the remains of the Allied forces.

Immediately behind the line was the Alam Halfa Ridge, which Vandam knew was heavily fortified. Clearly it would be better for the Allies if Rommel wheeled around after breaking through the line, for then he might well spend his strength attacking Alam Halfa.

There was one more factor. The southern approach to Alam Halfa was through treacherous soft sand. It was unlikely that Rommel knew about the quicksand, for he had never penetrated this far east before, and only the Allies had good maps of the desert.

So, Vandam thought, my duty is to prevent Alex Wolff telling Rommel that Alam Halfa is well defended and cannot be attacked from the south.

It was a depressingly negative plan.

Vandam had come, without consciously intending it, to the Villa les Oliviers, Wolff’s house. He sat in the little park opposite it, under the olive trees, and stared at the building as if it might tell him where Wolff was. He thought idly: If only Wolff would make a mistake, and encourage Rommel to attack Alam Halfa from the south.

Then it hit him.

Suppose I do capture Wolff. Suppose I also get his radio. Suppose I even find the key to his code.

Then I could impersonate Wolff, get on the radio to Rommel, and tell him to attack Alam Halfa from the south.

The idea blossomed rapidly in his mind, and he began to feel elated. By now Rommel was convinced, quite rightly, that Wolff’s information was good. Suppose he got a message from Wolff saying the El Alamein Line was weak at the southern end, that the southern approach to Alam Halfa was hard going, and that Alam Halfa itself was weakly defended.

The temptation would be too much for Rommel to resist.

He would break through the line at the southern end and then swing northward, expecting to take Alam Halfa without much trouble. Then he would hit the quicksand. While he was struggling through it, our artillery would decimate his forces. When he reached Alam Halfa he would find it heavily defended. At that point we would bring in more forces from the front line and squeeze the enemy like a nutcracker.

If the ambush worked well, it might not only save Egypt but annihilate the Afrika Korps.

He thought: I’ve got to put this idea up to the brass.

It would not be easy. His standing was not very high just now—in fact his professional reputation was in ruins on account of Alex Wolff. But surely they would see the merit of the idea.

He got up from the bench and headed for his office. Suddenly the future looked different. Perhaps the jackboot would not ring out on the tiled floors of the mosques. Perhaps the treasures of the Egyptian Museum would not be shipped to Berlin. Perhaps Billy would not have to join the Hitler Youth. Perhaps Elene would not be sent to Dachau.

We could all be saved, he thought.

If I catch Wolff.