The Levanter

Chapter 4

Michael Howell

May 16 to 17

I don’t see why Lewis Prescott should have taken such an instant dislike to Ghaled. To me it seems that at that interview the man was on his best behaviour. According to Prescott, he even smiled.

With Teresa and me twenty-four hours later it was a very different story. No soothing arrack for us; no seats, no politeness. Instead he sat in my office chair with my office bottle of brandy in front of him and glowered up at us. He knew we were afraid of him.

The office door was open and the two gunmen were there on guard. From the laboratory came Issa’s voice as he continued his interrupted lecture. He was on filtration now and telling the class how to dry out the fulminate of mercury on plates of glass. Youth training programs, Ghaled had said, must not be interrupted.

He took a swig of my brandy, slammed the bottle down on my desk, and pointed a finger at me.

“You will now answer questions. First, why are you here tonight? Who or what sent you?”

“I came here to confirm a suspicion.”

“What suspicion?”

‘That Issa was doing what in fact he is doing, making explosives.”

“Who told you?”

“Nobody told me. I guessed.”

He leaned forward across my desk. “I realize, of course, that you are at present experiencing feelings of confusion. The stupid night watchman turns out to be somewhat less stupid, and a person who gives orders instead of taking them. I am prepared to make allowances, but don’t try my patience too far. You will give truthful answers and you will give them promptly. No wriggling, no evasions, Mr. Howell. I ask you again. Who told you?”

“I have already answered you. I guessed.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I know my own business, Mr. Ghaled. I know which chemicals are needed in the laboratory and I know which are not needed. I can also read an invoice.”

“The invoices for the special chemicals have always been destroyed.”

Teresa spoke. “I asked Beirut for duplicates.”

“Why?” he snapped. “What made you ask?”

She was calm now, much calmer than I was. “Invoices may be destroyed, but bills have to be paid. These bills were too high. I wanted to know why. Then I showed the duplicate invoices to Mr. Howell.”

Ghaled was wearing a cotton kaffiyeh with a pink key pattern. He brushed it away from his face and sat back. His eyes shifted from her to me.

“Is that the truth?”

“That’s the truth,” I said.

“When did you make this discovery about the chemicals?”

“This evening.”

“Bid you tell anyone else?”

“There was no one else to tell.”

“And now?” He lit a cigar with an engraved silver lighter.

“Now what?”

“Who is there to tell now?”

I shrugged. “Still no one, I suppose.”

He nodded. “I am glad that you do not again insult my intelligence with foolish talk about informing the police. I don’t have to tell you why it was foolish, of course.”

“You know, I take it, that the police would do nothing.”

“Against me, little or nothing, that is true. But that was not what you were thinking, my friend, with your talk about the police.” His eyes narrowed. “You were thinking about the effect on Dr. Hawa of the news, which the police for their own protection would feel bound to pass on to higher authority, that one of his precious industrial progress cooperatives was busy making explosives for the PAF. Am I right?”

He was partly right. I shrugged helplessly and he leaned back, satisfied. “It would be amusing, would it not, to hear Dr. Hawa trying to explain it away to his seniors in the government? Would he try to brazen it out, do you think? Would he perhaps ask what was wrong with a sincere Ba’athist giving a little discreet, comradely assistance to the front fighters of the Palestinian movement? Or would he protest abjectly that he knew nothing of this terrible affair and put all the blame on you? You know him better than I do, Mr. Howell. What do you think he would do?”

I played along with him, sighing ruefully. “Probably he would announce it to the press as a new pilot project for the manufacture of munitions.”

His lips twisted. “If he thought the Minister of Defence would let him get away with that he might try, I agree. But more likely, I think, he would put the blame on you. However, since the police will not know, he will not know. So you really have nothing to worry about, have you?”

“I suppose not.” You could ask an atheist standing on a gallows with a rope around his neck whether he had anything to worry about, and receive the same reply.

“Then let us talk seriously.” He waved at us impatiently to sit down as if our standing before him had been an unnecessary deference on our part. “I have for some weeks had plans for extending the Agence Howell’s cooperation with us. However, your intrusion here this evening makes it necessary for me to change those plans slightly. As I am sure you realize, you now know more than you would otherwise have known.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we can remedy that. But so that there are no misunderstandings I will put plainly what I hope is now obvious to you. There will be no changes made here unless I say so. Specifically, Issa will not be dismissed. Nobody will be dismissed. I shall continue to use these facilities as a rear-echelon headquarters. Is that clear?”

I nodded.

“I asked you a question. I require an answer.”

“Yes, Mr. Ghaled.”

“Miss Malandra?”

“Yes, Mr. Ghaled.”

“Good. Now, I am going to take you some way into my confidence. You referred to Issa’s work, Mr. Howell, as amateur bomb-making. I realize that you were angry at the time and that your intention was to humiliate him. However, you were both right and wrong. Right, in that the processes we are obliged to employ at present are primitive. Wrong, in that we are concerned here with bomb-making. Our present concern is for the production of detonators of a certain kind, and in quantity. Lacking the proper apparatus, equipment for temperature control, and regulation of flow tables, for example, we must, having due regard for safety, do the best we can without it. You follow me?”

“I follow.”

“But why, you must be wondering, do we need detonators so urgently? Of what use are detonators without the explosives to detonate? The answer is that we have the explosives, but that our supplies of the means to use them have been cut off by our opponents in Cairo and elsewhere. Even some of our so-called friends have attempted to obstruct and control our operations in this underhand way. Weapons are delivered, but the necessary fuses, though promised, are unaccountably lost or delayed in transit. And when they do arrive, as often as not, they are unfilled, of the wrong type, or for some other reason useless. It is deliberate sabotage.”

An ingenious and wholly admirable form of sabotage, it seemed to me, but I nodded sympathetically.

“So,” he went on, “we must create our own sources of supply. That, Michael Howell, is where you will be coming in.”

“I, Mr. Ghaled?”

“You have knowledge and skills and resources at your disposal which can be of great value to us. Would you not agree?”

My smile must have looked sickly. “It seems to me, Mr. Ghaled, that you are already utilizing my resources, and Issa’s knowledge, to excellent effect. You have created a source of supply for the material you were lacking. My knowledge and skills, such as they are, don’t appear to be needed.”

“There you are quite mistaken,” he said firmly. “However, I shall not explain now. Naturally, I was not expecting this meeting with you this evening. If I had known about it in advance I would have been better prepared. As it is we shall have to postpone discussion of your work for us until tomorrow. I will be able them to tell you exactly and in detail what is required.” He stood up and we stood up, too. “Shall we say nine o’clock in the evening? Miss Malandra had better come, too. You may wish to take notes.”

“Very well.”

“There is one other matter to be dealt with.” He snapped his fingers loudly and the gunmen came in from the hall. “This man and this woman will be here again tomorrow night,” he told them. “They are to be treated as comrades.” He glanced at me. “Did you hear that, Mr. Howell?”

“Yes.”

“But do you understand? I used the word ‘comrades’.”

“I heard it. I hope they remember.”

“I see you don’t understand. Surely you cannot suppose that, after your discoveries here tonight, and our frank conversation, I can allow you to leave without, shall we say, making sure of you?”

I shrugged. “You have already made it abundantly clear that I have to be discreet, and why.”

“I am not talking of discretion now, but of loyalty and good faith.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”

“It must be obvious. You are a foreigner here, but in a privileged position. You are free to come and go more or less as you please. That is a situation which I may find it useful to exploit in the future, but in the meantime it permits you to have second thoughts. If, say, you were to decide that instead of meeting me tomorrow you would prefer to be in Beirut or Alexandria or Rome and withhold your cooperation, I would be forced to take steps that I would regret.”

He paused to make sure that I understood the threat. “As. I say,” he continued, “I would regret the necessity for such action. It would be expensive because we might have to go a long way to find you. Besides, we prefer to have you alive and working with us. You must see that there is only one solution to the problem. You and this woman here must become loyal and committed members of the Palestinian Action Force and subject to its discipline.”

“But we are foreigners,” I protested idiotically, “we could not… we…” I began to stammer.

He silenced me with a gesture. “Other foreigners have been granted membership, foreigners of both sexes.” He paused and then added coldly: “They consider themselves honoured to serve — honoured.”

I mumbled something about it all being so unexpected, which he ignored.

“You are not a Jew. Neither, I think, is Miss Malandra. There is therefore no obstacle. You will take the oath of loyalty in the Christian form, of course. Have you your passports with you?”

I had mine in my pocket. All Teresa had was her identity card. He took both passport and card.

“These will be photocopied for our files and returned to you tomorrow,” he said. “At that time you will also complete some paper formalities. However, the oath of loyalty can be administered now. I don’t suppose you keep a Bible in your office?”

“No.”

“Well, it is not absolutely necessary. You first, I think. Raise your right hand and repeat after me: I, Michael Howell, a Christian, swear by the Holy Trinity and on the scared book of Antioch, that of my own free will, with a whole heart and without inner reservation, I pledge my life and property to the service of the Palestinian Action Force, and swear …”

He was speaking in Arabic and in that language the words sounded odd. The reference to Antioch made it a Maronite oath, and as I was technically Greek Orthodox I suppose it didn’t really count for me; but my mother, who is a practicing Christian, would have had a fit. I don’t remember the exact wording of the rest of the rigmarole, but the substance of it was that I promised total and unquestioning obedience in perpetuity and recognized that the least faltering was punishable by death. The penalty for betrayal of the cause, described in rather sickening detail, was more complicated but had the same end result.

“In the presence of these fraternal witnesses,” Ghaled demanded finally, “you swear this?”

The fraternal gunmen looked at me expectantly.

“I swear it”

“You are accepted.”

He went through the whole thing again with Teresa. I thought that as a Catholic she might boggle at some of it, but she went through it briskly and impersonally, rather as if she were reading back from shorthand a letter that I had just dictated.

“I swear it.” By then she sounded slightly bored.

“You are accepted.” Ghaled got rid of the gunmen with another snap of the fingers and gave us a long look.

“Congratulations, comrades,” he said. “It is proper now for you to address me, respectfully, as Comrade Salah. Will you remember that?”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

He nodded graciously. “Until tomorrow night, then.”

We were dismissed.

It was not until we were in the car again that I realized how tired I was. My back was still painful. It had been a long day. I could try hopelessly to think of ways out of the predicament we were in, but I did not want to talk about it.

Unfortunately, Teresa did.

“What are we going to do?” she asked. There was more excitement than anxiety in her voice.

“I haven’t the slightest idea. At the moment all I want to do is go home and sleep.”

She drove in silence for half a minute.

“Shall you speak to Colonel Shikla?”

“No.”

I did not elaborate. Colonel Shikla was head of the Internal Security Service and an unpleasant man with a revolting reputation. I had met him socially, and in an effort to conceal my fear of him I had bean too affable. He must have been accustomed to that sort of reaction, for it had clearly amused him. The last thing I wanted was to meet him in his official capacity, even if it had made sense to do so.

But Teresa persisted. “You could talk to him privately, unofficially.”

“Unofficially about Ghaled? Don’t be silly. That sort of thing is Shikla’s business.”

“Officially, then. If someone else were to find out, we’d be covered if you had told Colonel Shikla.”

“We’d more likely end up in one of his interrogation rooms.”

“Why, if we’d told him the truth, everything?”

She was exasperating. “Because,” I said loudly, “that sort of man never believes that you’ve told him everything, even when you have. And let’s assume that for once he does believe. What then? The ISS has to do something about Ghaled. They may not want to. I may have told them something that they would rather not have known officially. But let’s also assume that they decide, reluctantly or not, that they have to act on our information. Where does that leave us?”

“We’ve covered ourselves.”

“With what? Transparent plastic? You don’t think they’re going to move against Ghaled without tipping him off first, do you? He’ll have plenty of time to put our names at the top of the next purification list. You call that covering ourselves? Talk sense, comrade.”

She actually giggled. “It’s a funny feeling, isn’t it, being a member of the PAF?”

“Funny?”

“Creepy, then. I wonder who those other foreign members are, what they’re like. He said they were of both sexes.”

“One of the women is almost certainly Melanie Hammad.”

“She had an article in one of the French fashion magazines this month — about kaftans. Nothing terrible seems to have happened to her.”

“She isn’t in Syria making explosives.”

“It’s Issa who is making them, not us.”

“But an our works.” I suddenly lost all patience. “My God, woman! Don’t you realize how serious this is, how dangerous?”

“Of course I do, Michael, but it’s no use getting upset. You’re tired now, but tomorrow you’ll think of a way of dealing with the situation. You always do.”

I wasn’t flattered by her confidence; I knew that it was misplaced. She thought that because I was usually able to solve business problems, outwit competitors, get around difficulties, bargain shrewdly, and cope with men like Dr. Hawa, I could handle Ghaled and the situation he had created. What she did not understand was that business skills are not always transferable, that when the commodity is violence and the man you are dealing with is an animal, they don’t work.

I have not often been frightened. As a child I used to have nightmares and wake up screaming, but of the nightmares from which there is no escape through waking up I have had little experience. There were some bad moments, of course, during the Cyprus troubles of the fifties, but most of them were shared with the rest of the community, and the dangers, though real enough, usually went away as suddenly and unpredictably as they had arrived. Ghaled, however, was not going to go away. For over twenty years he had dealt in death and violence, and would, presumably, go on doing so until he himself died violently.

Meanwhile, he frightened me. I admit it He would always frighten me. I knew even then that the only way for me to “deal” with Ghaled would be to kill him. I didn’t think, though, that I was going to get a chance to do so; nor did I believe that, given the chance, businessman Howell would ever consider taking it. I am not a man of violence.

A few hours’ sleep helped. When I woke up, my back was sore but no longer very painful. I was able to review the position more or less calmly.

Ghaled had said that he had plans for me and had spoken of exploiting my freedom to come and go as I pleased, which suggested that he meant to use me as a courier or go-between. But he had also talked about utilizing my “knowledge and skills and resources”. Until I knew what that meant there was no point in trying to make plans of my own.

I could, however, survey my defences, such as they were, and take a few obvious precautions.

I had to recognize that a time might come when I would have what Ghaled had described euphemistically as “second thoughts”. In other words, I might one day feel that, murder squads or no murder squads, I had to run for it. To do this I would need a passport, plenty of ready cash, a packed bag, and a place to go to ground.

The cash presented no problem and neither did the place to go to ground, though I would have to be desperate to use it. The doubtful quantity was the passport. If Ghaled could take my passport from me once “to make sure of me”, he was perfectly capable of doing so again. Clearly, Teresa and I would both have to have second passports to put in our packed bags. Western consular officials in the Middle East are generally helpful about providing second passports for business people who need them; those going to Israel, for example. An Israeli visa stamp invalidates a passport in the Arab countries, and although the Israelis are very good about not stamping if asked not to do so, travellers sometimes forget to ask until it’s too late.

I told Teresa to see about getting a second passport from the Italian consul. Getting mine would be more complicated. Although Cyprus has diplomatic relations with Syria, there was no Cypriot consul in Damascus at that time, so I telephoned our Famagusta office and instructed them to take the necessary action.

That done, I ran a security check. What Ghaled had done at the battery works he could also have done at the tile factory and the hardware, furniture, and electronic assembly plants. I could unknowingly be playing host to other PAF cells. If so, I wanted to know the worst. I gave Teresa the job of checking the purchase records for unusual items. I tackled the personnel records myself.

First, I got out Ghaled’s employment file to see who had recommended him to us under the name of Yassin. The recommendation, I found, had come attached to the usual Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare docket and was signed by a staff captain in the office of the Internal Security Service.

So much for Teresa’s bright idea about “covering” ourselves with Colonel Shikla! The Internal Security Service not only knew about Ghaled’s activities but was also giving him assistance and protection.

Next I went through the files on some of the other men we employed to see if this same ISS captain had recommended anyone else. I didn’t bother much with those actually engaged in production, bench workers and craftsmen; there were, in any case, too many of them for a thorough check Instead, I concentrated on the night staff and employees with keys in their charge.

I found two; one a maintenance man, the other a storekeeper. Both had been recommended by the ISS captain. Both worked in the hardware factory. They had been taken on at about the same time as Ghaled.

My first impulse was to get on to the works manager and tell him to fire them, but Teresa quite rightly objected. She must have slept better than I had.

“What reason will you give?”

“I’ll find a reason.”

“If they really are Ghaled’s men he will make you take them back, and then you will look foolish.”

“And your way I only feel foolish. All right. But I mean to know what they’re up to. Has there been much theft of materials there?”

“No, but there is one unusual purchase item. An order came through from hardware for a set of screw taps and dies of a type that doesn’t exist.”

“How do you know?”

“The tool suppliers wrote a letter, copy to us, that taps and dies for cutting the threads in question were not stocked by them, and, as far as they knew, not made. They suggested politely that there may have been a clerical error in the order.”

“Let me see the order.”

She showed it to me. I could see at once why the suppliers had thought that a mistake had been made. A machine shop apprentice in his first year would have known what was wrong with that order. I ran over in my mind the various items of hardware we manufactured and tried to think of a process or operation to which this attempted purchase of taps and dies might, however crazily, be linked. I could think of none.

The order had been signed by the works office chief clerk, so I telephoned him. He could not remember that particular order offhand but would consult his files and call me back. It was late afternoon before he did so, and he had nothing helpful to tell me. The order for tools had been one of a batch of orders presented for his signature by his assistant No, the assistant did not remember who had put in the requisition; he was consulting his files. Meanwhile, the chief clerk informed me solemnly there was a note on the order saying that the suppliers were temporarily out of stock. I told him that they would be permanently out of stock and hung up. It was hopeless. I had to console myself with the thought that, if any hanky-panky was being attempted at the hardware factory, it was unlikely to succeed. Issa had at least known enough to order correctly the materials he needed. His counterpart at the hardware factory was obviously incompetent.

The other defensive measure I took began with a call to Dr. Hawa’s Chef de Bureau.

After some preliminary chitchat I referred to the report on the Italian car-battery project which I had delivered to Hawa the previous day, and asked whether the Minister had had time to read it.

“It is on his desk, Mr. Howell, but he has not yet completely studied it, I think. There have been distractions, a finance committee meeting.”

“Naturally,” I said, “I would not expect the Minister to have already reached a decision. I ask only because I find that I omitted to include with the report a supplementary memorandum concerning the possible location of the new plant. It does not in any way change the maim conclusions of the report, but contains additional information and suggestions which the Minister may find useful. If I were to send yon copies of the memorandum today, could it be attached to the main report which the Minister is studying?”

He made difficulties at first so as to give his eventual consent the appearance of a big favour, but that was normal. I promised that he should have the memorandum within the hour.

I dictated it to Teresa in ten minutes. At the end she gave me a worried look.

“Is this wise, Michael?”

“It gives us a card to play.”

“Ghaled won’t like it.”

“I don’t suppose he will — if I show It to him. I may not, but I want to have it up my sleeve, just in case it could be useful. Date it three days ago and show it as having been written in Milan. Make am extra copy with an Arabic translation.”

After the memorandum had gone off I tried for a time to concentrate on real work. Our agent in Athens was bidding on an important tile contract, and, faced by penalty clauses, was asking urgently for firm guarantees from us on the delivery dates. I could not afford to be careless or casual in replying to him, yet I found myself being both. It was Teresa who suggested finally, and to my relief, that I delay replying for twenty-four hours and then cable him to make up for lost time.

That I should have been more concerned at that moment with my involvement in the PAF than with my obligations to the Agence Howell, its shareholders, and its faithful employees was no doubt most regrettable. The responsible, seasoned man of affairs should be able to put first things first and keep a cool head. Obviously, then, I must be irresponsible and unseasoned. So be it. I am not much interested in the devil I know, but the devil I don’t know gives me a pain in the neck. I knew what my obligations were to the business; what the PAF wanted from me I still had to find out.

We had martinis, as usual, but no wine or brandy. For one thing, I didn’t want us to go to the meeting breathing evidence of what might be interpreted as an attempt to fortify ourselves; nor did I want to have to excuse myself to go to the lavatory while I was there. I don’t know why I bothered. Probably, at that stage of the game, I was still, instinctively, thinking like a businessman in terms of bargaining sessions at which small psychological gains and losses counted. The idea that I was a member of the PAF pledged to do as I was told without argument took some getting used to.

It was a beautiful night, warm and still. The air in the courtyard was heavy with the scent of plants and there were bats flying. Suliman, the gardener, opened the gates for us. I told him that we might be late and not to wait up. He thought we were going to a party and wished us a happy evening.

We reached the battery works a little before nine and left the car outside as we had done the night before. This time the postern was unlocked, but as soon as we were inside, the two gunmen came out of the darkness by the loading bay and shone a light on us. We stopped.

“Greetings, comrades.” It was the man with the broken teeth who had hit me in the back.

“Greetings,” I said.

He came forward slowly and then suddenly thrust forward the flashlight in his hand. I thought he was trying to jab it in my face and started back.

He tutted reproachfully. “This light belongs to you, comrade. You left it behind last might. The glass is broken, but it still works.”

Thank you, but I have another.” I switched on the flashlight in my hand. “You see?”

“You do not want this one?” He sounded hopeful.

“Not if it is of use to you, comrade.” I decided that it was time to start winning friends. “But, as you say, the glass is broken. Why not take this light, which is unbroken, and I will use the broken one. Tomorrow I can get a new glass.”

Thanks, comrade, many thanks.” We exchanged the flashlights. “My name is Ahmad,” he said. His breath stank.

“And mine is Michael.”

“This is Comrade Musa,” he pointed to his companion. “He cannot speak because he has no voice box.”

Comrade Musa grinned and pointed to a big scar on his neck.

“A war wound?”

“Yes,” said Ahmad, “but he can hear the smallest sounds. He heard you last night before I did. What time were you ordered to report, comrade?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“Comrade Salah does not like to be kept waiting.”

“I’m sure of that.”

“Go on then, comrades,” he said affably. “You know the way.”

For a moment I thought that we were to be left to go on alone; then, as I started to turn, Ahmad chuckled and prodded me with his carbine. “March, comrades,” he said. It was not a hard prod but firm enough to let me know that a flashlight did not buy indulgence and that he was still in charge there.

When we got to the steps of the office building he told us to wait while he went in to report our arrival. Musa grinned at us while we waited but kept his finger on the trigger of his gun. There were lights on in the laboratory, but I could hear no voices. My office was in darkness. Ahmad had gone through to the back of the building.

After half a minute or so he came back onto the terrace and beckoned us up. When we reached him he told me to raise my arms above my head and frisked me. Then he took Teresa’s handbag from her and peered inside it. Satisfied that we were both unarmed he returned Teresa’s bag.

“Follow me, comrades.”

We went along the passage to the storeroom area. Changes had been made there that I hadn’t known about. The larger of the two rooms was now Ghaled’s command post. The rolls of zinc sheet-my zinc sheet-which should have been set out carefully in rows to keep the different gauges separate had all been stacked against one wall to make room for a trestle table, some chairs, and a bed. The place had a lived-in look, as well it might It had been months since I had time to bother with the battery works storage rooms. I had left them in Issa’s care. Perhaps it was the sight of him sitting there at the table and giving me a superior little smile as I entered the room that made me so angry.

For me that anger was dangerous. Since there was no immediate way of giving expression to it I had to bottle it up. As a result, I became for a while less afraid of Ghaled and so less careful of what I said. I made mistakes.

It was all very formal to start with, rather like the first board meeting of a newly formed company.

Ghaled said, “Good evening, comrades.” Teresa and I said, “Good evening, Comrade Salah,” and were invited to sit down,

There were two other men besides Ghaled and Issa already seated at the table. Ghaled introduced them.

“This is Comrade Tewfiq. This is Comrade Wasfi. They are Central Committee members.”

Tewfiq was a sallow, pockmarked man with a heavy moustache and a paunch. Wasfi was a wiry young man with a very short upper lip and an unhappy half-smile which seemed permanent. I knew that I had seen both men before and could now guess where I had seen them. Tewfiq and Wasfi are fairly common names in those parts, but they also happened to be the given names of the hardware factory storekeeper and of the maintenance man whom I had marked down as suspect earlier in the day. It was reasonable to suppose that these were those same men.

They both gave me impersonal nods. They did not need telling who I was.

“Now,” Ghaled was saying briskly, “we have much work to do. Last night I described our supply problems and special needs in general terms to the new comrades. Tonight we will detail our requirements and make the necessary plans for their fulfilment. I must impress upon you the need now for the utmost urgency in carrying out assigned tasks. Every task, I repeat, every task must be completed within the next thirty days. Is that understood, comrades?”

There was a murmuring of, “Yes, Comrade Salah,” in which I didn’t join. Ghaled looked at me sharply.

“I did not hear you answer, comrade.”

“Because I have not understood. I have no knowledge of these tasks you mention.”

“You will have. But I have told you of the urgency. That you can understand, and will accept.”

“Very well.”

He stared at me for a moment. I was being insufficiently respectful, but he wasn’t quite sure that I realized that I was. I returned his stare with one of my own, innocent but expectant. He gave me the benefit of the doubt and turned to a paper in front of him.

“First,” he said, “the matter of detonators, those for electric firing. I will hear reports. Comrade Issa?”

“We have powder for five hundred, Comrade Salah. Samples have been tested in the laboratory and are satisfactory.”

“Comrade Tewfiq?”

“The copper tubes are on order, Comrade Salah, but not yet delivered.”

“Why not?”

Tewfiq spread out his hands. "They were promised for last week and the week before. I am in the supplier’s hands, Comrade Salah.”

Ghaled looked at me. “Perhaps Comrade Michael can help us. Fifty meters of one centimetre diameter copper tubing are required. It must be a hard grade of copper.”

“Who are the suppliers?” I enjoyed asking that question because I was sure that the truthful answer would have been that the hardware cooperative and I were the suppliers. After all, we would be paying for the stuff.

Of course he gave me the name of a metal wholesaler. It was the firm with which we normally dealt.

“There is a special government control on nonferrous metal purchases,” I said. “Was a quota number given with the order?”

Tewfiq was sweating now. “I do not know, comrade.”

“Why not?” snapped Ghaled.

“Because, Comrade Salah. .” He foundered for a moment. “Comrade, you know that I do not actually issue the orders myself,” he went on, pleading for understanding with his eyes. “I am only the...”

“Yes, yes,” Ghaled waved him into silence and sat brooding. I knew what was going through his mind. If Tewfiq explained that he was only a storekeeper and that a works office clerk did the actual ordering, I would put two and two together and Tewfiq’s cover would be blown as far as I was concerned. Ghaled was trying to decide whether or not to take me into his confidence. He decided against doing so.

“You must press for early delivery,” he told Tewfiq severely.

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Continue your report.”

“We have the insulated connector wires, the tin caps, and the packing material. However” — he hesitated and then went on with a rush — ”I regret, Comrade Salah, deeply regret that there is still difficulty in obtaining the chrome-nickel alloy wire. It is not a material that I can reasonably order. I have tried. Comrade Wasfi will bear me out.”

“That is true, Comrade Salah.” Wasfi’s anguished smile stretched until it became clown like. “We said that it was fuse wire for electrical maintenance use, but they ordered fuse wire. I think they may not be the same thing.”

Ghaled looked at Issa. “Are they the same?”

Issa took refuge in some papers in front of him. “The specifications call for chrome-nickel alloy wire of thirty gauge,” he said.

“That is not an answer to my question. Are they the same?”

“I do not know, Comrade Salah.”

Ghaled looked at me.

“No,” I said, “they are not the same. Chrome-nickel alloy, nichrome as it is called, is a resistance wire. It is used in electrical heating elements because it can get hot without melting or oxidizing. Fuse wire melts when it gets hot. What is the chrome-nickel wire needed for?”

“Show him,” said Ghaled.

Issa pushed a sheet across the table to me. He hated doing it, I could see. He was the technical authority there, not I.

A drawing on the paper showed how the detonators were to be made. A six centimetre length of one centimetre copper tube was to contain five grams of mercury fulminate held between plugs of cotton wool.

One end of the copper tube was capped with tin; the other end had a wax seal holding the two insulated firing leads. The ends of these two leads were in the middle of the fulminate powder, where they were connected by a small loop of fine chrome-nickel wire. That was the firing circuit. All you needed then was a six-volt battery and a switch. When the circuit was closed, the chrome-nickel wire, no thicker than a hair, would become white-hot almost instantly and the fulminate would explode, blowing off the tin cap and detonating any high explosive with which it had been placed in contact.

It was a simple design but a practical one. If you followed the instructions it could be counted upon to work. I continued to study the drawing to give myself time to think. I was tempted to sabotage the whole detonator project by advising them to use the fuse wire, but decided that it would be too risky. Issa had said that the powder samples had been tested. They would certainly test the completed detonators. If the test sample didn’t work, any modification I had suggested would certainly be blamed.

I looked up.

“Well?” said Ghaled.

“A very thin fuse wire might get hot enough before it melted to ignite the powder charge, but I don’t think you could rely on it. I think you must have this fine-gauge chrome-nickel.”

“We must have it, comrade,” he admonished me. “The question now is, where do we get it?”

Issa saw a chance to regain lost face. “If it is used on electric heating elements,” he said, “we can obtain it easily. Only four or five meters are required. We can get a few of these elements and strip them.”

Ghaled looked at me again.

“We could try,” I said, “but I don’t believe that heating elements are ever made using such a fine gauge. Indeed, I am sure they aren’t. It will have to come from a radio dealer who does repair work and has wire-wound hundred-ohm resistors in stock.”

“Comrade Salah!” Wasfi burst out excitedly. I know such a man. He has a shop in the souk.”

But Ghaled motioned Wasfi into silence. His eyes were on me.

“Do you not use these resistors in your own electronic assembly work?” he asked.

“None of the resistors we use are wire-wound, Comrade Salah.”

“Not even in the Magisch communications transceiver which you assemble for the army?”

That made me jump a little. The Magisch was supposed to be on the secret list.

“Especially not in the Magisch transceivers,” I replied. “They use miniaturized circuit units which we get from East Germany already sealed in plastic. We merely assemble the units. There are no individual components of the ordinary kind.”

He gave me a silent handclap. “Good. Very good.” His eyes were mocking. “A little test, Comrade Michael, that is all Fortunately you have passed it with credit. My own electronics expert gave me the same advice.”

I made show of being disconcerted, which seemed to please him. Identifying the “electronics expert” would not, I knew, be difficult. The reference to the Magisch had been the giveaway. I already had a short list of two suspects in mind and another look at the employment files would tell me which of them was guilty.

“Very well. Comrade Wasfi shall buy the wire resistors. Meanwhile we have another urgent matter on which you may be able to assist us, Comrade Michael.”

“Of course, Comrade Salah, I shall be glad to do anything that I can.”

He seemed not to hear me. He had risen to his feet and crossed to the bed. On it were two large metal objects which he brought back and placed on the table.

“Do you know anything about ammunition, Comrade Michael? I mean about such things as heavy mortar bombs and artillery projectiles.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then I will explain. Heavy projectiles have three main parts. The main explosive charge and the fuse you must know about, in principle anyway.”

“Yes.”

“In between those two parts there is a third. We call it the booster or gaine. High explosives of the kind used in large projectiles are insensitive stuff, and a small detonator is not enough. So we place this large detonator, the gaine, in the middle of it and let the fuse explode the gaine. “This” — he picked up the larger of the metal objects- “is the gaine.”

It was a bronze-coloured cylinder about thirty centimetres long and five thick with a heavy steel collar at one end. The collar was threaded on the outside, for insertion into the “projectile”, I assumed, and there was a hole in the top, also threaded.

Ghaled pointed to the hole. “That is where the impact fuse should go.” He picked up the smaller object, which was painted gray and shaped rather like an oversized spark plug. It was threaded at one end with hexagon facings just like a plug. “And this is the fuse,” he said. “Now, Comrade Michael, take the gaine in your left hand. It is filled with tetryl, but do not be afraid. There is no danger. Now take the fuse. A little more care with that is advisable. It has a setback safety mechanism but should not be dropped or struck hard. Now try to fit the fuse to the gaine.”

What he was getting at was immediately obvious. The threaded hole in the gaine was slightly bigger than the threaded end of the fuse. The two threads were also of a different pitch. I examined both more closely and had a revelation. I looked across at Tewfiq.

“So that’s what you wanted those taps and dies for,” I said.

There was a short silence. Tewfiq and Wasfi appeared to be stunned. Ghaled leaned forward.

“Explain yourself, Comrade Michael.”

“To make these two fit together you need an adapter ring with an outer thread to fit the gaine and an inner one to fit the fuse. The threads are both standard metric by the look of them, and you have to cut them by machine. Taps and dies in those diameters are only made for pipe threads, which have completely different profiles. Comrade Tewfiq did not know that. He thought that the adapter rings could be made by hand with taps and dies, so he ordered them. The suppliers wrote back saying that the order could not be filled.”

Ghaled had a very unpleasant expression on his face. “How long have you known that Tewfiq and Wasfi were our comrades?” he asked quietly.

“Not for certain until this evening, but I had my suspicions earlier in the day.”

“Why did you have suspicions?”

I told him.

He sighed and glanced at Issa. “You see now why it was so necessary to make sure of him last night?”

And then to me: “What excuse have you to offer?”

“My curiosity was natural, I think, Comrade Salah. You did not tell me not to exercise it.”

“Then I tell you now.”

“Surely no harm has been done.”

“That is for me to decide. The comrades in the field, the front-fighters, must know one another, but those who work in cells under cover must know only those with whom they have to work directly. So, there will be no more looking into records, Comrade Michael. You understand? I am giving you an order.”

“I understand.” I didn’t see how he would know whether or not I obeyed the order, and, since he had now made it plain that there were other members of the PAF on my payrolls, I had every intention of disobeying.

Anger was still at work in me. I think he had sensed it, because he stared at me long and hard before adding: “I hope you do understand, Comrade Michael You would not like any disciplinary action I was forced to take.”

“I understand.”

“Then let us get back to work. How is this adapter ring to be made?”

“There is only one way to make it, on a screw-cutting lathe.”

He looked at Tewfiq. “You have this machine in the factory?”

“No, Comrade Salah.”

“Then you must obtain one.”

“That” I said, “is impossible.”

“Why?”

“Government permission has to be obtained for all machine tool purchases and the need for them justified. We would have no valid reason to support this purchase.”

“Then invent a reason.”

“It would take weeks, even then, to get delivery. We would also need a skilled machinist to do the work. Besides, it is unnecessary.”

“You have just said that it is essential.”

“The use of the machine is essential, yes, and a machinist to do the work, but if I needed this part or one like it for something we were manufacturing I would subcontract the job to a machine shop in Beirut.”

“That is out of the question, obviously. Do you not yet understand the need for secrecy?”

“There would be no breach of secrecy. I have used this machine shop several times. A draftsman makes proper drawings of the part to be machined. The material to be used and permitted tolerances are specified, the quantity we need is given. We do not say what the part is for. That is our business, and the subcontractor is not interested anyway. He does what the drawings and specifications tell him to do. He submits a sample for approval. If we approve it he completes the order and delivers.”

He thought for a moment “The draftsman would have to know what the adapter is for.”

“In this case I would do the drawings myself.”

“Here?”

“No. There are no drawing-office facilities here. A rough sketch will not do. There must be clean, accurate machine drawings.”

“These parts cannot be taken away.”

“There is no need to take them away. All I need take are the necessary measurements and particulars. I can do that here. There are callipers and a micrometer gauge in the laboratory. Issa knows where they are.”

Ghaled nodded to Issa, who scurried away. I began to examine the gaine and the fuse again, more carefully this time. There were Chinese markings on the fuse, I noticed.

“I take it,” I said, “that this is one of the wrong size fuses you mentioned last night?”

“Yes.”

“Have you one of the right size?”

“Yes. Why?”

“When the fuse is inserted it has to be tightened, I assume, with a wrench.”

“Yes. That is done just before firing.”

“You realize that with a plain adapter ring the wrong-size fuse will only be tightened when the wrench forces it up against this disk inside the collar of the gaine? It could fracture it. Would that matter?”

“It would matter very much. There must be no forcing.”

“Then we need a flange on the ring which will allow the wrong-size fuse to penetrate only as far as the right one.”

“I do not understand.”

I reached for Teresa’s note pad and drew a sketch for him.

He nodded. “Yes, I see. But we need a hundred of these rings. This is more complicated to make.”

“Not really,” I said. “Turning the flange is easy. The difficult part is cutting the threads. But I must have the right fuse to measure for depth of penetration. It is no use trying to guess.”

“Very well.”

He went to a gray-painted wooden box which was under the bed. He had to pull the box out to raise the lid and I saw that it had Russian lettering stencilled on it. He tried, too late, to conceal the lettering. I pretended not to have seen by busying myself with the things Issa had by now brought in from the laboratory.

Meanwhile, I could draw conclusions. Although I knew nothing about ammunition, some things were obvious. The length and thickness of the gaine suggested that the projectile that contained it was a fairly hefty weapon. It wouldn’t be an artillery shell because guerrillas like the PAF did not have big guns. It seemed likely, then, that what Ghaled had was rocket-launchers from Russian sources. The friendly Russians, however, had, intentionally or through negligence, failed to deliver enough fuses to go with them. The Chinese, or persons with access to Chinese supplies, were trying to help him out.

“That is the right fuse,” he said.

It was practically the same as the wrong one. The only basic difference was in the diameter of the threaded section. I took all the measurements I needed from it and Teresa jotted the figures down as I called them out. Then I turned my attention to the wrong fuse. Ghaled watched intently as I used the gauge.

“You take each measurement twice,” he remarked.

“It’s as well to be certain.”

That is very thorough.’”

In fact, I wasn’t being particularly thorough; I couldn’t be because I hadn’t all the needed measuring tools, but it didn’t matter. I knew that these were standard metric threads and that, as long as I got the diameters and pitches exactly right, I could get the other details from a metric series table in the drawing office. I wasn’t going to explain all that, though.

“If I am not thorough,” I said, “the adapter ring will not work properly and I shall be to blame.”

Tewfiq chuckled — he was obviously delighted to have been relieved of this responsibility — but Ghaled did not answer immediately.

He watched me in silence for almost a minute before he said: “I do not think so, Comrade Michael.”

“I would not be blamed?”

“I do not think that it is fear of blame that drives you at the moment. Nor do I think that it is loyalty to our cause.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, so I pretended to be absorbed in re-counting threads and checking the figures with Teresa. Another half minute went by.

“I think that it is pride,” Ghaled continued thoughtfully. “The pride that makes it difficult for a man to permit work, any work, to be done poorly when he knows how to do it well.”

That sounded better. I put the Russian fuse down. Ghaled picked it up and weighed it in his hand as he went on.

“And you know how to do many things well, don’t you, Comrade Michael? You are a merchant as well as an engineer, a manager as well as a successful capitalist exploiter. You have so many sources of pride to inflate your conceit. No wonder you so easily become arrogant.”

He said the last word very deliberately and for a moment the heavy fuse became still in his hand. He was waiting for me to answer the charge.

“I am sorry,” I said mildly, “that you should think me arrogant, Comrade Salah. You said that you wished to make use of my knowledge and resources. I have been doing my best to comply.”

“But not without reservations. You see, your arrogance leads you into giving yourself away, Comrade Michael. For example, you concealed your prior knowledge of Tewfiq’s and Wasfi’s cover occupations. But when a moment came when you could show them to be, in your eyes, ignorant men, you did so. You could not resist the temptation.”

He got up and put the fuse back to its box under the bed before turning to me again.

“I told you last night that I had other plans for securing your wholehearted cooperation. They would have involved damage to your company’s bank balances rather than to your personal conceit. Perhaps that would have been more effective.”

I said nothing.

“Well, we can still find out if it becomes necessary. Agence Howell ships constantly use the ports of Beirut, Latakia, and Alexandria. We have cells in all those places. The cargo fires and engine room explosions we had arranged for can easily be reordered. Meanwhile, remember that you have been warned.” He sat down again at the head of the table. “How soon will the drawings of the adaptor ring be ready?”

“It will take me some time, Comrade Salah. As a draftsman I am a little out of practice. The day after tomorrow I should have it finished.”

“And how long then to make the rings?”

“Ten days to two weeks for the sample. When that is approved a week should be sufficient to produce a hundred.”

“Very well.” He looked around the table. “Comrades Tewfiq and Wasfi have their assigned tasks. They are now excused. Comrade Issa will get the print maker.” He waited until they had left the room, then opened a folder — one of my office filing folders — which was lying on the table in front of him. On top of the papers inside were Teresa’s identity card and my passport. He looked at us. “For you two, before your other duties are assigned, there are membership formalities to be completed.” He selected two papers from the folder and glanced at them before pushing them across the table to us. “Read them carefully before signing, both of you.”

What I read was this:

I, Michael Howell, a British Commonwealth citizen resident in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Syria and subject to its laws in all respects, do hereby confess, freely and of my own will, to having transgressed those laws by illegally transporting arms and explosives for the use and on the orders of the Zionist secret intelligence service.

It then became more specific. I had, with others whom I could name, conspired to blow up the house of one Hussein Mahenoud Saga’ir in the Lebanese village of Bleideh on the night of the fifteenth day of Murharram in that year. I had actually manufactured the plastic bomb which had destroyed the house of this Palestinian patriot, killing him and all his family. The name of the Zionist secret agent who had recruited me for this filthy work was Ze’ev Barlev, and I had been contacted by him during one of my frequent visits to Cyprus.

In the hands of the Syrian police such a confession would be tantamount to a death sentence — after torture to extract the names of my co-conspirators. The Lebanese police might omit the torture and commute the death sentence to life imprisonment, but that would be the best treatment I could hope for in any of the Arab League countries.

I glanced at Teresa. Her face was pale and still. I reached for her confession and read it. She had been my confederate in the murder of the Saga’ir family and also a courier for the Israeli intelligence service. Her father had been a Jew. The two confessions were more or less the same.

As I finished reading I saw that Ghaled was watching me for signs of a reaction. I forced myself to appear unmoved.

“As a matter of interest,” I asked, “who is — who was — this man Saga’ir?”

“A traitor who was executed.”

“And why am I supposed to have helped to execute him?”

“All the comrades sign confessions. In that way all can feel safe.”

“I must say, Comrade Salah, that this confession does not make me feel safe.”

“Your confession is for the other comrades’ safety. Their confessions are for your own. Any comrade who thinks of betraying us must think again when he remembers what the cost to him will be. So do as you are told without further argument. Sign. You will not leave here alive unless you do so.”

Teresa and I signed. As we did so Issa came back into the room carrying a small wooden box which he put on the table.

Ghaled looked at our signatures, then handed the confessions to Issa. “Those comrades who cannot write their names sign only with a thumb print,” he said. Those who can write, however, give a thumb print, too. It is better so. Signatures can be denied, but not prints. Issa knows the way. Follow his instructions.”

The box contained a portable fingerprinting outfit of the kind used by the police. Issa rolled ink onto the metal plate and went to work. He obviously enjoyed giving me orders. He declared my first print insufficiently clear, inked my thumb again, grasped my forearm, and pressed the thumb onto the paper with his other hand. He did the same with Teresa.

Ghaled took the papers from him, satisfied himself that the prints were clear, and then handed me my passport. Teresa received her identity card.

That is exactly how our much-publicized “terrorist confessions” were obtained. We neither wrote nor dictated them and there is not a word of truth in the admissions they contain.

I have been asked repeatedly if we knew what we were doing when we signed, and I answer again — of course we knew, dammit! What we did not know was how to avoid signing. We signed under duress; we had no choice.

In the circumstances I can’t blame Teresa for misunderstanding what I did then. To her it seemed that I was merely trying, ill-advisedly and even childishly, to hit back at Ghaled in the only way I could think of on the spur of the moment.

In fact, there was nothing impulsive about my move. I wasn’t trying to hit back at Ghaled, but to needle him into hitting out at me. A man with his kind of secrets is always under pressure. Anger him suddenly by goosing him with bad news, and, nine times out of ten, he will overreact. Then, in his desire to demolish you and dispose of your bad news, he tends to forget discretion and give himself away. Of course, it was a dangerous game to play with a violent man like Ghaled, but I desperately needed information and the risk seemed worth taking.

As I put my passport back in my pocket, I said casually: “By the way, Comrade Salah, there is something that I think you should know.”

“What?”

“You said last night that there were to be no changes made here, that there were to be no dismissals and that you would continue to use these premises as a headquarters.”

“What of it?”

“I am afraid that the matter will shortly be taken out of my hands.”

“Why? By whom? What do you mean?”

I told him about the projected switch to car-battery manufacture. I went on: “This place has been running at a loss for months. The original plan was to close it down altogether and build a new factory at Homs for the Italian operation. Later it was felt that would be a wasteful proceeding and that this works should be changed and extended to accommodate the new plant. This building, for instance, will be modified and enlarged for use as offices. The laboratory and storerooms will be accommodated in the new factory extensions which have been planned.”

“He is lying,” Issa shouted excitedly, “I work here and I know nothing of these plans.”

“Comrade Issa knows nothing about a great many things,” I retorted. “I am reporting the facts.”

“Why did you say nothing of this last night?” Ghaled asked quietly.

“Because it didn’t occur to me to do so. I accepted your orders then without question. Understandably, I think. I didn’t realize until tonight that I should have warned you that my ability to obey those orders might have a time limit.”

“What time limit? How many weeks?”

“That will be for the Minister, Dr. Hawa, to say, I am afraid.”

“But he will base his decision on your advice.”

“Unfortunately, my advice has already been given.” I drew from my pocket the copy of the memorandum I had written and handed it to him.

As he read it his mouth tightened grimly. That didn’t surprise me. The moment that what I had proposed in the memorandum was agreed to, his snug little headquarters, hard by the Der’a refugee camp where his goon squads hid out and conveniently near the Jordanian and Lebanese borders, was going to become the centre of a building site, swarming with outsiders and about as secure from his point of view as a floodlit frontier post.

He stared at me bleakly and for so long that I began to think that he had seen through my ploy.

“I thought that you should be aware of this situation,” I said to break the silence.

“Quite right, Comrade Michael. And now you will think of a way of changing it.”

“Unfortunately — ”

He held up his hand. “No excuses. You will change your advice, you will do whatever is necessary. Just understand that under no circumstances may this headquarters be disturbed in any way for the next six weeks.”

“I will do my best.”

“Of course you will. But make certain that your best succeeds.” He paused. “Have you any other surprises for me, Comrade Michael?”

“Surprises?”

He frowned. “Come now. I have already warned you once against trying to play your slippery little businessman tricks with me. What else have you to reveal?”

“Nothing, Comrade Salah. I am merely trying to be open with you, not to play tricks.”

“I hope so, for your sake. But to make quite sure, I am going to tell you what will be required of you in our forthcoming operation. In that way you will have ample time to overcome any difficulties you may foresee, or pretend to foresee, in carrying out your tasks. You will have no excuses for failure.”

“I have already said that I will do my best for you, Comrade Salah.”

“I have heard you say it. I hope you are to be believed. We shall see.” He paused. “Your company owns a motor ship, the Euridice Howell.”

It was a statement, not a question, but I nodded. “Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Carrying mixed cargoes regularly between five major ports of call — Famagusta, Iskenderun, Latakia, Beirut, and Alexandria. Am I right?”

Those are her most usual ports of call, yes, but she goes where the business takes her — Izmir, Brindisi, and Tripoli — Genoa and Naples sometimes.”

“Nevertheless her captain acts on your orders.”

“He acts on our agents’ orders. I don’t give the orders personally.”

“But you could do so.”

“I could instruct our agents to do so, but that would be an unusual interference on my part. There would have to be some feasible commercial justification for it. If you could tell me what sort of orders you have in mind, Comrade Salah, I would be better able to assess the possibilities.”

“Finding the commercial justification, as you call it, is your affair. I want the ship to sail from Latakia on or about July the second and to be on passage to Alexandria in the vicinity of the thirty-second parallel during the evening of the third before midnight. That is all.”

“Carrying what cargo?”

“A normal cargo. The nature of it is immaterial. She will, however, be required to take on four passengers in Latakia. During the night of the third the course and speed of the ship will, for a short time, be those dictated by the passengers.”

I shook my head. “You must know, Comrade Salah, that no ship’s master is going to take orders about the course and speed of his ship from passengers.”

“Not even if those orders are transmitted to him by the owners before sailing?”

I hesitated. “That would depend on the orders. No captain is going to hazard his ship or his crew, and on that coast no Agence Howell captain would take even the smallest risk. In particular, he would take the greatest care,” I added meaningly, “not to enter territorial waters.”

“He would not be required to enter territorial waters, nor to hazard his ship. The course would take him very slightly out of the normal shipping lanes for a period of two hours at reduced speed. Nothing more.”

I thought for a moment about the captain of the Euridice Howell. He was a middle-aged Greek, a dignified, highly respectable man with a plump wife and seven children. Ashore as well as afloat he was a strict disciplinarian. The prospect of having to persuade this valued employee that Ghaled’s orders about course and speed, however innocuous they might appear, were to be obeyed without question was not one that I cared to contemplate.

“Have you any special reason for using the Euridice?” I asked.

“Only that this is a normal passage for her to make and that she is known to make it regularly.”

“We have other ships making it all the time. You said, Comrade Salah, that finding convincing commercial Justification for this sailing at this precise time and with passengers is my affair. I must tell you that with the Euridice Howell it would be difficult to find convincing justification. It is really a question of how discreet we have to be. If discretion does not matter …”

“Of course it matters. There must be absolute discretion.”

“Then we should not use the Euridice.”

“What ship, then?”

“I would like time to think about that, Comrade Salah.” In fact, I had already thought, but in terms of amenable captains rather than suitable ships. The captain I had in mind was a swashbuckling Tunisian who had been a prosperous hashish smuggler until business rivals had shot him up in his fast motorboat off the toe of Italy. After some time on the beach he had come to work for us. Touzani was an efficient captain, but although he had kept his nose clean with us, I suspected that he was still in touch with his former associates. He wouldn’t question strange orders, I thought, whatever he might think of them privately; and he would keep his mouth shut.

“Very well,” said Ghaled, “but do not say that you have not been given sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements. As soon as you have the name of the ship you will inform me.”

“At once.”

“It must be an iron ship, you understand, and no smaller than the Euridice Howell.”

“She would be of about the same tonnage.”

“Progress reports on your various tasks should be made through Comrade Issa, who will also transmit further orders.”

‘’Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Then you may go now.”

We went. Teresa, tight-lipped, was obviously seething with various suppressed emotions. I assumed that the predominant ones would be a sense of outrage and indignation directed against Ghaled. It wasn’t until Ahmad and Musa had left us at the gate that I found that I had been mistaken. Her quarrel was with me.

“You think that he’s insane, don’t you?” she said abruptly. There was accusation in her voice.

The question disconcerted me. Until then I had thought of Ghaled as a violent and dangerous animal. It hadn’t occurred to me to think about him in terms of sanity or insanity. I am not a psychiatrist.

I said as much.

“But you have been treating him as if he were insane, haven’t you? Insane or stupid?”

“I certainly don’t think he’s stupid.”

“Hearing you this evening one would never have guessed it.”

“You mean I humoured him too obviously?”

“I mean that you humoured him one moment and challenged him the next. Worse, you pretended to be afraid of him and then demonstrated that you weren’t.”

“Well, I am, dammit! I am afraid of him.”

“You concealed the fact too well. Now, he doesn't know what to make of you. Are you to be trusted or aren’t you? That’s what he’s wondering. Your attitudes weren’t consistent.”

I sighed. “I’m not used to dealing with Ghaled. What would you have done?”

“Given in on all points. Created no obstacles. Agreed to everything.”

“And then what?”

“Run. At least we can still do that. Get out as soon as we can.”

“And hide from his killer squads?”

“He was bluffing. What could he do to us in Rome?”

“Our businesses are in the Arab countries, and he knows it. We’re also foreigners and vulnerable. There’s no bluff about that.”

“Then liquidate the businesses, Michael. Sell the ships. Your family wouldn’t care. You’d all still be rich.”

I stared at her in amazement. She made a performance of shoving the key into the ignition, but wouldn’t look at me.

“Liquidate because of Ghaled?” I demanded. “Are you serious?”

She paused before answering. “You’ve thought of it yourself,” she said. “You know you have. And not just because of Ghaled and the PAF. You don’t think the Agence Howell has a future in the Middle East. You think that it has had its day. I know, Michael. I know very well.”

“Splendid! May I know how?”

“It’s no good taking that tone with me, Michael. You must know that I, at least, am not stupid. What is all this business you are doing here but a process of liquidation? You won’t admit it, but getting out is what you really want-on your own terms, of course, and in good order-but soon. The Howells have had a good run for their money, but for them there is no longer security of tenure in this part of the world. Your mother knows it, I am quite sure.”

“Mama?” I laughed.

“Certainly. She as good as told me so once, before I became persona non grata. She must have told you. The best suites in five-star French hotels, plenty of bridge with good players, and remote control over the upbringing of her grandchildren-that’s her plan for the future. Monaco in winter, Evian in Summer, a Rolls-Royce and chauffeur and her Lebanese personal maid. You know it’s true, Michael.”

“And you think I share my mother’s tastes?”

“No,” she said, “you’ll always work. But not here. You don’t often give yourself away, but you did this morning.”

“I did?”

“That one place where we could go to ground quickly and be absolutely safe from the PAF.”

“What about it?”

“It was Israel you were talking about, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Naturally, that would only be a last resort.”

“Naturally. The presence of Michael Howell in Israel, as soon as it was known about, would make the trading position of the Agence Howell extremely difficult. Liquidation would no longer be a matter of choice. It would become involuntary.”

“I'm well aware of that. As I said, a last resort in an emergency situation.”

“But you did consider it. Bad for business, yes, but not out of the question even so. You see, Michael?”

I wasn’t prepared to listen to much more. “Do you want to run?” I demanded.

“Alone, you mean?”

I said nothing.

She persisted. “Alone, leaving you to explain my defection to Ghaled?”

“You can if you want to.”

“That, Michael, is either unkind or silly.”

“I’m tired. Let’s go home.”

“Very well.”

It wasn’t until we were reentering the city that she spoke again.

“What did Ghaled mean by the thirty-second parallel?” she asked.

I was thinking about metric thread tables and did not reply for a moment.

“Michael?” She started to repeat the question, when I answered her.

“Thirty-two degrees north is the approximate latitude of Tel Aviv,” I said.