The Levanter

Chapter 6

Michael Howell

June 14 to 29

Three days later I went to Cyprus; first to Famagusta and then to Nicosia. It was then mid-June.

I was a fool. I admit it. By going at that moment I was making the very mistake that I had warned Teresa against: I was jumping the gun. I thought that by then I knew enough, and I didn’t. I should have waited.

I offer no excuses. The trouble was that, in working to put pressure on Ghaled so as to make him do stupid things, I had made insufficient allowance for the pressure that the situation was exerting on me. I don’t mean things like Ghaled’s sadistic little game with the flight bag — though I daresay that helped to distort my judgment — but the psychological pressures. It was easy enough for Teresa to talk of liquidation, but a family business like the Agence Howell isn’t a street-corner shop. You can’t just sell off the stock, put up the shutters, and walk away — even if you want to, even if you don’t mind tossing a three-generation going concern into the gutter, even if you’ll accept a nil valuation on the goodwill and can ignore the gloating of your competitors as they hasten to get their sticky hands on the pieces. What is being “liquidated” is an organism, an organism of which you are a part and which is as much a part of you as your stomach and intestines.

I am not going to describe here how I got in touch with Israeli intelligence in Cyprus; I am still hoping that the Israelis will be gracious enough to acknowledge publicly that I did so. The personal risks that Teresa and I ran in order to warn those people of an impending terrorist attack were considerable, and we cooperated with them in every way we could in order to avert a catastrophe. I don’t see why they should be so close-mouthed about it. I am not asking for gratitude; I never expected to be clapped on the back and given a public vote of thanks in the Knesset; I do not ask them to commend me. But a nod, even a very cool and distant nod of recognition would be a help. It would relieve me of at least some of the “Green Circle Incident” odium which now clings to me, and from which both Teresa and I have to suffer.

As I say, I still hope.

It is for that reason, too, then, that I am not giving a description of Ze’ev Barlev’s successor which would permit him to be identified and so “blown”. I will say only that he lacked charm, that his manner toward me was patronizing, when not offensive, and that the whole experience was thoroughly disagreeable.

My meeting with the successor — I may as well call him Barlev — took place in a house near Nicosia. We spoke in English; he had a “regional” British accent. All he offered me in the way of refreshment was a revolting bottled orangeade.

I began by explaining who and what I was, but he cut me short. He already knew all he needed to know about me, he said. What had I to tell him that I thought he didn’t know and should?

I started with my discovery of Issa’s private work in the laboratory, which seemed to amuse him, and went on to the appearance on the scene of Ghaled. That, I was glad to see, he found less funny. Ghaled had killed a lot of his people over the years and was taken seriously. The details of Teresa’s and my recruitment intrigued him and he wanted the exact wording of the oath we had sworn. When I told him about the bogus confessions we had been forced to sign, he nodded.

“Yes, I’d heard they were doing that. Awkward for you.”

Awkward, I thought, was an understatement, but I didn’t pursue the matter. He wasn’t really interested in Teresa and me as persons, only in what I knew. So I went on to tell him about the fuse adapter rings. He stopped me again.

“Hold it.” We were sitting at a desk and he pushed a note pad across to me. “How about drawing that gaine you saw?”

“All right.”

I made a rough sketch. When I started to put in the approximate dimensions, he stopped me again.

“That’ll do, Mr. Howell. We know all about those things.”

“What is it?”

“You guessed right. It’s from a rocket. The hundred and twenty millimetre Katyusha. Has a fifty-kilogram warhead and a maximum range of around eleven kilometres. Quite a lot of the terrorist gangs have them. Good for hit-and-run work. They attacked a hospital with one a few weeks back. A single round killed ten people. The launcher is a simple affair, easy to make with angle iron. They don’t mind leaving it behind them when they run.”

“Where do they come from?”

“Is that a serious question? Oh, I see what you mean — how does Ghaled get them? Well, he could have brought a few with him from Jordan. More likely the Algerians let him have them. Those Chinese fuses were probably smuggled in by the Turkish liberation underground. Or maybe — ’’ He broke off. “I thought you were here to tell me something I didn’t know.”

“I was just curious.”

“Well let’s get on. There’s nothing in this for us so far. I’d be surprised if Ghaled didn’t have a few Katyushas.”

So then I told him about the ship thing and about the remote-control radio detonators. I described the test firing and gave him the notes I had made on it.

He read the notes carefully enough; in fact, he read them twice, but of course he pretended to be unimpressed.

“This doesn’t tell us much, does it? Did you get a sample of this electronic component, this part you think may have been used?”

“Yes, I did.” I got it out of my briefcase. It looked more like a bar of toffee than an electronic component — very hard toffee with red, yellow, and green nuts embedded in it. Metal connector tags stuck out from one end.

He put it on the desk in front of him and peered at it “Does it have a name?”

“No, just a part number. It’s stamped on the end — U seventeen.”

“U for Ubertragen, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you find out exactly what it was?”

“The person to ask would have been Taleb. That didn’t seem a good idea.”

“Pity. Nothing was said about the radio frequency they’re using?”

“Nothing that we heard. I assumed that your people could find out by examining that thing.”

“It’s possible.”

“Well, there you are. All you have to do then is jam their transmission.”

“Do what?”

“Jam their transmission.”

“And detonate all their bombs for them? Are you kidding?”

“I’m not am expert. But surely with that knowledge you can do something.”

He regarded me pityingly. “Look, Mr. Howell, unless this thing is operated by a coded signal — that is, a combination of signals acting like the wards of a lock which won’t turn unless you use the right key — any jamming on the frequency it responds to is going to have the same effect as that music box gadget you saw. This relay, or whatever it is, doesn’t look complex enough to me for the kind of circuitry you need for an elaborate coded arrangement. As you call it in your notes, a small, simple device. Why, it could be set off accidentally.”

“Accidentally?”

For a moment he did not reply. He was gazing into the middle distance, rather as if he had lost the thread of his argument. Then he seemed to recover it.

“I’ll give you an example. A few months ago in Tel Aviv they had trouble with a new apartment building. The architect was an American and he had installed one of those fancy remote-control openers on the garage door. Each of the tenants was given a little thing with a press-button on it to keep in the glove compartment of his car. Press the button and the door opened, press again and it closed. Everything was fine except that the door would open and close sometimes when nobody pressed a button. In the end the door did its closing act while a tenant was actually driving in and the roof of his car got crushed. They had to do something then. It took time, but they solved the mystery eventually. There’s a hospital two blocks away. One piece of apparatus in the physiotherapy department was sending out a radio signal every time it was used. Not a very strong signal, but it was on the same frequency as the door opener and just strong enough to do the trick. See what I mean?”

“Yes, but. .”

“Let’s go back to this ship business.”

It was a very abrupt change of subject, and I didn’t understand the reason for it until very much later. At the time I made no attempt to resist the change.

“What about the ship?”

“Tell me again what was said.”

I told him.

“These four passengers — I take it that Ghaled will be one of them — are to be allowed to give orders about the ship’s course and speed. I’ve got it right?”

“That’s right.”

He frowned. “Why speed? Why course and speed? See what I’m getting at? If all this speculation of yours is correct — and it is only speculation — someone, let’s say Ghaled, wants to be a few kilometres offshore in the Tel Aviv area on the night of the third. There he’s going to press the button on the music box and set off some bombs planted ashore. That’s your idea, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, a simple change of course would bring him into a position to do his button-pressing. He doesn’t really have to nominate the course for that matter. All he has to do is ask what time the ship will be passing Tel Aviv and ask the captain to go in a bit closer so that he can see the pretty lights.”

“He’d have to be sure that he was within range.”

“All right, I’ll accept that. But it still doesn’t explain why speed matters.”

“Timing? The Herzl anniversary?”

“He stipulated the evening of the third before midnight, according to you.”

“Yes.”

“What other timing is involved? The charges to be exploded — certainly if there are to be as many as you think — will have to have been placed much earlier. You’ve no idea where he plans to have them placed, of course?”

“No.”

He sipped his orangeade. “It’s all very scrappy,” he complained. “Nothing solid.”

I pointed to the Magisch component “At least that’s solid.”

“It may tell us something, it may not. The question is now, what are you going to do?”

“Me? I’m here talking to you, aren’t I? I’ve done all I intend to do. It’s up to you now.”

“To stop Ghaled playing with that music box and pressing buttons? How do you suggest we do that, Mr. Howell? The Amalia Howell is your ship, not ours.”

You would have thought that he was doing the favours, not the other way around. The nerve of it took my breath away.

“You’re not suggesting that I stop the ship sailing, I hope. Because if so…”

“Perish the thought, Mr. Howell You’d be in trouble with Ghaled then, wouldn’t you? Miss Malandra, too, I shouldn’t wonder. He’d twist your arms right off, and that would never do. No, I’m not for a moment suggesting that you actually run any risks in defence of your high moral principles.”

The sarcasm came with a tight little smile. He was a good hater that one.

“Just talking to you is for me a risk,” I retorted. “If your people can’t work out am effective counter to this relay device, if that means that Ghaled’s going to have to be stopped physically from pressing the button, you’ll have to do the stopping. I’ll cooperate passively, if I can reasonably do so, but that’s the limit.”

“What do you mean by cooperate passively?” He made it sound like cyanide of potassium.

The Amalia is going to be in Ancona until Friday of next week, when she sails for Latakia. I could arrange to take on a man of yours, a trained agent I mean, as an extra crewman.”

“One man against Ghaled with an armed bodyguard? What use would one man be in that situation?”

“Send two then, do-or-die boys.”

“Armed with what? Hand grenades? Our people are not that expendable.”

“All right, then, use superior force. You’ve got a navy. Send out an armed patrol vessel and intercept the Amalia before she gets near enough for Ghaled to do any damage. Board her and take him off, and his bodyguard. What’s wrong with that?”

“You’re asking me?”

“That’s right.”

“You, a shipowner? You’re asking me why we can’t board a merchant ship flying a British Commonwealth flag on the high seas and kidnap some of her passengers?”

“A state of war exists.”

He gave me a long-suffering look. “You want to read up on your international law, Mr. Howell. A state of war may exist, even though there’s a cease-fire in force. What does not exist is a proclaimed blockade with some pretensions to being effective. Stopping and searching neutral vessels on the high seas without the justification of a recognized blockade is totally illegal. As for the kidnapping bit…” He threw up his hands.

“I assure you that the owners of the Amalia Howell would not complain.”

“Will the owners of the Amalia, or you as their representative, be on board the ship at the time?”

I saw the trap opening and backed off at once. “I most certainly will not be on board.”

“Then the captain of the ship would undoubtedly complain. He would have to, and rightly. The Defence Ministry would never authorize such an action.”

“Well, if the Defence Ministry don’t want Ghaled pressing that button in the vicinity of Tel Aviv, they’d better authorize something.”

He ignored that “Distances and the appearance of things can be deceptive at sea,” he said thoughtfully. “Couldn’t Ghaled’s plan go a little wrong?”

“How?”

“Well, you will be passing on Ghaled’s orders to the captain. Supposing you changed them a bit. Couldn’t the Amalia find herself in the vicinity of Ashdod instead of Tel Aviv at the appointed time?”

“Yes, and in near-zero visibility that might work. But Ghaled is no fool. In the sort of weather we can expect at this time of year, he would have to be half blind as well as stupid to mistake the lights of Ashdod for those of Tel Aviv.”

“Then perhaps the Amalia could stray accidentally into territorial waters farther north. Say, somewhere just south of Haifa?”

“Stray! Did you say stray?”

“These things happen.”

“The Amalia isn’t a fishing boat with a clapped-out compass. She’s a four-thousand-ton freighter with a competent captain and crew sailing in familiar waters.”

“You said that you wished to cooperate, Mr. Howell. You ask for an Israeli patrol vessel and a boarding party to deal with Ghaled. All I’m asking is some slight assistance from you in creating the conditions in which we can oblige you.”

“You’re not obliging me. I’m trying to oblige you.”

“Why can’t the captain simply radio requesting assistance?”

“On what grounds? That he has a man with a music box on board that he doesn’t like the look of? No, the initiative will have to come from you.”

“But what sort of initiative?”

“As you’ve pointed out, distances at sea can be deceptive. Let’s say your coastal radar makes a slight error. He’s really a mile outside, but your people insist that he’s a mile inside. Anyway, he’s acting suspiciously. So you order him into Haifa as a suspected smuggler or for verification of ship’s papers. Under protest he agrees to obey. You could always apologize later.”

“Is that the best you can do, Mr. Howell?”

“Yes. The ball’s in your court. If you people are too fussy to bend the international rules a bit, I’m sorry. Mind you, I don’t think you are too fussy. You’re just hoping that I’ll do the bending for you. Well, I won’t. I have enough bending of my own rules to keep me busy, my own company rules. The captain of a ship may be an employee of the owner, but he’s not going to behave like an incompetent just because the owner starts issuing foolish orders. The captain is still responsible.”

“Even if the owner is on board and willing to take the responsibility?”

“Even then. And anyway, this owner will not be on board.”

He sighed theatrically. “Cooperation? Ah well. Let’s add up the score. We don’t know the radio frequencies Ghaled’s going to be using. We don’t know the course changes he’s going to give you to pass on to the captain. Correction! The course and speed changes. We don’t know why speed comes into it. We don’t know where ashore these charges are going to be placed or how. Don’t know, don’t know. When will you be given these course and speed changes? Don’t tell me, let me guess. You don’t know.”

“That’s right. As soon as I do know I'll get in touch again.”

“Not with me you won’t Don’t even try.”

I got a beady stare with that, so I gave him one back.

“Okay. That suits me. Well just forget the whole thing.”

“I understood that you were offering passive co-operation. Are you now regretting the offer and now withdrawing it?”

That’s up to you. Let’s say that I find your reception of the offer discouragingly unattractive. Yes, I wouldn’t mind withdrawing it.”

He snorted. “Bullshit, Mr. Howell! You just don’t like plain speaking. You came here to get something off your conscience. What did you expect? Bouquets of roses?”

“Ordinary courtesy would have done.”

“Oops! Sorry. We’re very grateful indeed, Mr. Howell, believe me. Very, very grateful for all this information and non-information you’ve brought us. Will that do? Now have some more orangeade and cool off.”

“No thank you.”

He refilled my glass anyway. “It’s full of vitamin C. Don’t like it? All right, don’t drink it I’ll tell you, very courteously if I can, what I’m going to do. First, I’ll have this component analysed. Maybe we’ll find something, maybe not Another don’t know, but what’s one more among so many? Second, I’ll propose this interception you suggest Mind you, I can’t do more than propose. Other people will make the decisions. Third, whatever is decided about interception and, if there is to be one, the manner of it, I’ve got to have those course and speed changes well in advance. What do you say about that?”

“Ghaled is shrewd and always suspicious. He doesn’t trust anyone completely.”

“How far does he trust you?”

“He can’t quite make up his mind. If you’re suggesting that I might just casually ask for the information and get it, I can tell you now that wouldn’t work. The initiative will have to come from him. I can prod him, of course.”

“How?”

“Amalia will be three days in Latakia discharging and loading cargo. I could convincingly argue that in order to get the captain to accept the passengers in the first place and then to acquiesce in the course changes wanted, I will have to work on him a bit.”

“Will you have to?”

“Not much.”

“So it will still be last-minute information.”

“I’ll try and figure out a way of getting it earlier, but I’m not going to promise. And while on the subject of promises, you’ll have to understand a couple of things very clearly.”

“You’re wagging your finger again, Mr. Howell What do I have to understand?”

“My private orders to Captain Touzani of the Amalia are going to leave him with a lot of discretion. I don’t yet know how much I’ll have to tell him, but he’s an experienced man and can be relied upon to act sensibly. If the course which Ghaled dictates will, with a slight modification, make it easy for your people to intercept the ship near Haifa, Touzani will make that modification. But if, unavoidably, he is obliged to steer a course that will take him directly into the Tel Aviv area, then my orders will impose restrictions.’’

“Such as?”

“Ghaled proposes to operate this transmitter of his from somewhere just outside the six-mile limit, say seven miles. At a guess that probably means that its extreme range is eight miles or nine. My orders to Captain Touzani will be to keep at least ten miles offshore — if he cam do so without arousing suspicion, You might expect to get away with a three-mile position error with the ship out of sight of land. But close offshore, where there are charted lights on which bearings can be taken, that’s not so easy,”

“So?”

“So you have to face the fact that, if the Amalia gets within ten miles of Tel Aviv, your people will have to be ready, rules or no rules, to take instant action. What’s the range of the Tel Aviv coast radar? Fifteen, sixteen miles?”

“About that.”

“Well, then, there you are. Touzani may or may not be able to keep his distance. Your lot have got to be watching, and prepared to move in to intercept if he can’t.”

“Supposing he can.”

“Then, presumably, there’d be no explosions ashore that night and, presumably, Ghaled would soon know that something has gone wrong. Maybe he’d come back and try again another night. He’d certainly be looking for scapegoats. Captain Touzani’s orders will be to see that there is no risk of his being among them. My people are not expendable either.”

“What about you?”

“As far as Ghaled is concerned I will have carried out my orders. Don’t worry. I intend to be in the clear.”

“But you’d still like us to pick him up for you, if we can.”

“Don’t you want to pick him up, for God’s sake?”

“All right. Point taken. Intercept early if practical to do so, or later if he looks like getting too close. We’ll do what we can for you.” For me! He was insufferable. “Now, Mr. Howell, about communications. As I said, nothing direct from you.”

“My Famagusta office could handle it indirectly.”

“Don’t you know that Colonel Shikla’s people monitor everything you send out?”

“I could make a change of course look like a price quotation.”

“That’s hanky-panky. We don’t want any mistakes. I’d sooner you used Miss Malandra.”

“How?”

“She goes to Rome every so often to see the lawyers for her family estate. About all that unusable land in the mezzogiorno that they’re still trying to unload for her, right?”

He waited for me to ask how he knew about that, but when I only nodded he went on.

“The moment you have the information, put her on a plane for Rome with it. Then send a wire to your Famagusta office authorizing the payment of her hotel expenses in Nicosia if she stops over on the way back. No more. I’ll know.”

“Will she stop over?”

“No. We’ll pick up the message from her in Rome. She always stays at the Hassler, doesn’t she? We’ll contact her there, giving your name. Right?”

“Supposing Ghaled objects. Don’t forget, we’re supposed to be under PAF orders.”

“He’s really got you locked in, hasn’t he? I should have thought it was easy enough. Don’t tell him, and don’t wire Famagusta until she’s on the plane. Then play innocent if you have to. That shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Supposing I don’t get the information, supposing there’s some last-minute change of plan.”

“Send Miss Malandra to tell us. Same routine.”

“It’s all very chancy.”

“Whose fault is that? You’re the one with access to the information.”

“You could shadow the Amalia and get the course change yourselves with what I’ve already told you.”

“Do you know the size of the Israeli navy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, talk sense, Mr. Howell. One fast patrol boat to make an interception, that’s feasible. We might even send a destroyer at a pinch. But let’s keep this thing in proportion. We’re not the U. S. Sixth Fleet and we have plenty to keep us busy as it is. Shadow one unarmed merchant ship all the way from Latakia? If I proposed that they’d think I’d gone round the bend.”

“Well it’s your skin, not mine. I just think we’re leaving a lot to chance and introducing unnecessary complications.”

“Why? You send that innocent little wire to your office here and we’ll act on it. We’ll get your message then, in clear and with no possibility of error, within hours, very little more than the air-time from Damascus to Rome. What’s complicated about it?”

I didn’t answer immediately because I was by then confused as well as annoyed. What was annoying me, of course, in addition to the man gazing smugly across the desk, was the realization that the Palestinian Action Force was not the only underground organization to have infiltrated the Agence Howell without my knowing it. The source of the confusion had to do with Teresa. The thought of her being safely out of the way in Rome when the Ghaled thing became operational was more of a relief than I would have expected. Naturally, I assumed that there must be something wrong with the idea.

But I couldn’t see what. In the end I nodded.

“Okay,” I said, and without thinking drank some more of the orangeade.

Barlev smiled his approval.

“Full of vitamin C, that stuff,” he said again. “The right kind of sugar, too. Good for you, Mr. Howell.”

Although I had been away three days and had no time to waste on travelling, I went to Beirut by air and returned to Damascus by road.

The truth was that, while I didn’t just then feel up to going through the airport VIP routine, I was uneasily aware of the fact that if I arrived by air at Damascus without having given the usual advance notification, Dr. Hawa might wonder why. That is the way in which contact with intelligence people affects me; I start looking over my shoulder, I become furtive. In their line of work I wouldn’t last five minutes.

There was the usual backlog of office work waiting for me, but I made no attempt to tackle that with Teresa. Our extracurricular activities had precedence now.

I told her, more or less, what had happened with “Barlev.” She listened calmly enough until I came to that part of the discussion which had concerned her. Then she became indignant.

“You mean to say that those Israelis have been prying into my affairs?”

“They pry into all their enemies’ affairs, Teresa.”

“I am not their enemy.”

“Here we are all enemies. So they keep dossiers on us. It’s no use getting cross.”

“But I am cross.”

“Not too cross to go to Rome, I hope.”

“Oh, I will go if I must, but these are private things. How could they know about them?”

“Land ownership, wills, and trusteeships are matters of public record. They only have to look.”

“Well, I do not like it.”

“If the worst that’s going to happen to us is some slight invasion of privacy, we won’t be doing badly. So stop fuming and tell me your bad news.”

“First, you are to report to Issa. That is very urgent. Second, you are to call Abouti. That is also very urgent. Third, you are to speak at the earliest possible moment with Dr. Hawa’s Chef de Bureau. These are all connected urgencies, I think.”

“The battery works directive?”

“Yes, but I could get no details. They will only talk to you.”

“I’ll start with the Chef.”

He was his usual long-winded self, but we got to the point in the end. “Concerning the new surveying and clearing work being carried out at your Green Circle site, Mr. Howell, some questions have been raised.”

“By whom, Chef?”

“By, ah, that is to say in — ah — ‘Certain Quarters’.”

‘Certain Quarters’ was the accepted euphemism for Colonel Shikla and his merry men of the Internal Security Service.

“Questions?”

“As to the, ah, security arrangements and allocation of responsibilities to the local police. I understand that the questions have been raised particularly in connection with the night work.”

“Would it be convenient if night work could be suspended until these questions can be resolved at the appropriate level?”

“Yes, Mr. Howell, it would indeed. I realize, and the Minister realizes, that the work is urgent, but if, without undue inconvenience, there could be am accommodation, a temporary easement…?”

“I understand, Chef. You need say no more. It shall be attended to immediately.”

He was grateful. Life could be made very unpleasant for a chef de bureau when ‘Certain Quarters’ did not get what they wanted from him.

I was encouraged by one thing: Ghaled, it seemed, had decided to accept my plea of impotence in the matter of the directive, and had applied to his allies in the ISS for protection. I was not, at any rate for the moment, unduly suspect.

However, I would have to act.

Abouti was inclined to be obstructive at first. As he was charging treble for the night work, and paying out for it, at best, time and a half, my instruction to him to stop it was not well received.

“My dear, you asked for the utmost speed,” he wailed. “I have allocated my best men to the job at the expense of other work. I must plan in order to do this for you. I cannot chop and change.”

“The difficulties are only temporary, my friend, only temporary, I assure you.”

“They are not difficulties, my dear, only bêtises. I know all about it. I have Rashti’s reports. An argument or two with your watchmen who are exceptionally stupid. An absurd dispute with the driver of your truck. That is all.”

I nearly said, “What truck?” but a warning bell rang in my head just in time.

I said instead: “Which truck? Which driver?”

“Which? You have so much night business, so many loadings from that place? Does it matter? Wait, Rashti is here. I will ask him.”

Ever cautious, he put his hand over the telephone while he spoke to Rashti. Then he came back on.

“He says the truck is a Mercedes diesel and that the driver is a little cockroach whom he will crush with two fingers of his left hand if you will authorize him to do so.”

“Unfortunately, my dear friend, it is not so simple. As I said, the difficulties are only temporary. But the incidents to which you refer are not the difficulties we are concerned with now. These, which I think it better that we do not discuss on the telephone, have been created in ‘Certain Quarters’. There are matters of border security and police jurisdiction involved.”

Even Abouti could not shrug off ‘Certain Quarters’.

He was silent for a moment and then said, “Ah,” three times in three different and highly expressive ways. After that he waited for me to cue him.

“A little patience?” I suggested.

“Yes, yes, my dear. In such circumstances one should not be hasty.”

“Good. We shall keep in touch, them. But for the present no more night work. Agreed?”

“Agreed. I do not wish …” He did not say what he did not wish, which was to be involved in any way with ‘Certain Quarters’. “Yes, we will keep in touch,” he ended and hung up.

“When were the fuse adapter rings delivered?” I asked Teresa.

The day after you left for Famagusta.”

That meant that somewhere — most probably in the battery works — the adapter rings were now being married by night to the Katyusha rocket bodies.

I didn’t have many trucks in the Damascus area. There was a transport pool, based at the tile factory, which served the various cooperatives as and when needed. I used mostly Fiats. The biggest vehicle I had was a Berliet van generally used for handling the furniture shipments. I hadn’t one Mercedes diesel. The “little cockroach” — Issa by the sound of it — was utilizing some other unfortunate’s transport to convey the Katyushas to their secret destination.

I didn’t give the matter any more thought then. Barlev had said that it would have been surprising if Ghaled had not had a few Katyushas. It was no concern of mine where they were going; or so I thought in my innocence. I did, however, bear the Mercedes diesel truck in mind. That, too, was a pity.

“What about Ghaled?” Teresa asked. “And reporting to Issa. They know you’re back.”

I made up my mind. “Tell Issa that there will be no more night work.”

“Just that?”

“No. Tell him also to convey a social invitation to our master.”

“Do we really have to?”

“Yes. I've got to get him off his own ground and onto ours. Dinner and backgammon the day after tomorrow, or, if that doesn’t suit him, any other evening he chooses.”

“When will I be going to Rome?”

“That’s why we’re asking him to dinner — to see if we can find out.”

The following morning I drove to Latakia and saw our agent there.

His name was Mourad, Gamil Mourad, and if I speak of him in the past tense it is because he has recently severed all connection with the Agence Howell.

A shipping agent like Mourad is rarely the employee of a single company; generally he is in business on his own account, finding cargoes for and serving the interests of several owners, and handling all the paperwork involved with discharging and loading: cargo manifests, bills of lading, insurance, and so on. He is a sort of traffic manager.

I don’t blame Mourad for disowning us. I didn’t level with the old man and he has grounds for complaint; although, to be frank, I never knew a time when he did not complain. He was the complaining kind; it was his way of doing business. My father thought highly of him.

He was very fat, suffered from bronchial catarrh, and always carried in his right hand a large bandanna square. This he used as a fly-whisk, a fan, and an expander of gestures as well as a handkerchief.

When I saw him he was still brooding over the rearrangement of schedules which had followed the, for him, extraordinary delay of Amalia in Tripoli.

He made downward flapping motions with the bandanna to signify his displeasure.

“I did not realize,” he wheezed, “that those Libyans had become so difficult.”

By “difficult” he meant “more than reasonably venal.”

“Now that they have oil,” I said, “they all expect to become rich.”

“Oil! Ah yes.” In Syria, the only Arab country with no oil of its own, you can blame almost any commercial misfortune on oil. “But such petty harassment is new.”

It was not only new but had also proved extremely expensive to me personally. I had had to employ a man I knew to be a crook as intermediary and pay him five hundred dollars of my own money; this in addition to the Libyan bribes. He would keep his mouth shut for the time being because I had promised him further similar commissions, and because he would still be trying to figure out why I was sabotaging my own ships; but eventually he would talk. Even if he were not wholly believed, his tale would leave a certain smell in the air.

“This delay has cost us money,” Mourad persisted.

“Perhaps this will make up for it. Here.” I gave him a list of the shipments I would be making from the cooperatives in the Amalia. They were substantial.

He shook his head over the list. “Is this all?”

“What have you got for her?”

“A hundred tons or so of scrap iron-briquettes. She will be half-empty.”

He never described a ship as being half-full; unless loaded to the gunwales she was always half-empty.

“She will also have passengers.”

“Passengers!”

If I had said chimpanzees he could not have been more astounded.

“That’s right For Alex. Four of them.”

“Paying deck passengers?”

“Deck passengers, of course.” As there was no passenger accommodation on the Amalia they couldn’t be anything else. “As to whether they will be paying or not, I don’t know.”

He was looking at me oddly and I don’t wonder. “Mr. Howell, this is a new departure.”

“As you well know, Mr. Mourad, we have become steadily more involved here with government business.”

“Yes, yes.” It was a wheezed lament for the Agence Howell’s lost virginity.

“And that this involvement has brought us many business advantages.”

“Many, you think? I would say a few, only a few.”

“Few or many, advantages have sooner or later to be paid for.”

“Ah!” Doom-laden.

“Having received certain favours we must expect that we will sometimes be asked to repay them.’’

“That is always the trouble.”

“And in ways that we ourselves cannot choose, Mr. Mourad. We are not consulted, we are told, instructed.”

“By whom?”

“In this case an agency of the government of which few approve. It is a branch of the security service.’’

He hawked loudly and raised his right hand to his lips. Phlegm neatly disposed of, he slightly rearranged the folds of the bandanna.

“ISS, you mean?” No ‘Certain Quarters’ nonsense, no beating about the bush for Mr. Mourad.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Who are these passengers?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Why must they go by ship to Alex?”

‘’I think we should not ask that question, Mr. Mourad. It is possible that Captain Touzani may be given certain orders. There may be a rendezvous with another vessel off Haifa, something of that kind.”

“You are willing to tolerate this sort of thing?”

“It has been made plain that I have to.”

“Touzani may have other views.”

“I will speak to Touzani.”

“No doubt.” He brooded for a moment. “Your father had a somewhat similar situation to deal with in ‘46.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, very similar it was. He dealt with it.”

“How?”

“He knew the right man to go to in the military administration.”

“Which military administration?’’

The British, of course. The French had gone. Are you too young to remember? Perhaps. Well, British or French, whoever ruled the roost, your father always knew the right man to go to and the right things to say. He would never tolerate interference. He knew whom to pay and how much, and he would always get his way. He had a high-handed way with politicos. Troubles were brushed aside.”

It might have been my mother speaking. I was tempted to point out that times had changed, that the “right man” in this case was Colonel Shikla, and that anyone in my position attempting to high-hand him would have to be out of his mind; but then I would have had to explain about Ghaled and other things, and frightening old Mourad would not have helped. He might have started fumbling things because he was scared. As long as he did as I told him without fuss, I didn’t care if he thought me a weakling.

“I prefer to handle this in my own way, Mr. Mourad.”

He floated his bandanna horizontally in a brief gesture, as though drawing a line under a column of figures. He had given his advice and it had been rejected, unwisely rejected in his opinion, but so be it.

‘’I shall want the names of these passengers, Mr. Howell, for Amalia’s muster roll.”

“You shall have them, Mr. Mourad.”

We spoke of other things for a few minutes and drank some more coffee. Then I went back to Damascus.

Teresa had had a reply from Ghaled.

“He will come tomorrow night at eight.”

“What about transport?”

“He assumes that we will pick him up in the car, I think. I said that I would let Issa know.”

“Do you mind fetching him? I want to be alone with him for a while when he gets here. When you’ve put the car away give us half an hour by ourselves.”

“All right.”

“Offer to pick him up at seven thirty at the works. When you speak to Issa tell him to pass on the news also that Amalia may be docking a day early, on the twenty-sixth.”

“Is she docking early?”

“Not as far as I know. I just want him thinking that she may be. And I want the map put back on the office wall.”

“Have we still got it?”

“We must have.”

The wall map I was talking about was a big one covering the eastern Mediterranean and most of the Middle East, and had been specially drawn to display the Agence Howell organization. All the places where we had offices and main agencies were ringed in blue, and the principal tracks used by Howell ships were drawn in red. It was quite an elaborate affair. I had it taken down only because, one evening some months earlier, Dr. Hawa had made a nasty crack about it. Looking at the map he had commented acidly that Syria still seemed to be part of “the Howell empire.” Was that how I saw it? He had called me Emperor Michael once or twice after that.

So the map had been put away.

But now I had a use for it.

One of the things most clearly marked on it was the main shipping lane between Latakia and Alexandria.

I had not expected to enjoy entertaining Ghaled, but I had not been prepared for quite such a ghastly evening. It was humiliating, too. Although I planned everything very carefully — and, I thought, rather artfully — I got what I wanted from him not because I was clever, but because he chose to give it.

I received him with full ceremony in the big room which opened onto a courtyard of its own. There was a fountain in the courtyard, and it was very cool and pleasant.

That evening was the first time I had seen him in “civilian” clothing; that is, without his khaki bush shirt He had put on a white shirt for the occasion, with tie, and was carrying a tatty-looking briefcase, the kind without a handle that the French call a serviette. I assumed at first that this was a prop carried to make him look respectable in the city, but when he refused to let the servant take it, and I had had a closer look, I realized that he was using it to conceal a gun. Even on territory that could be presumed friendly he was taking no chances.

I gave him a champagne cocktail with plenty of brandy in it, which he drank thirstily as if it were water. I gave him a cigar and lit it for him. He sat back in his chair and looked around. Though he was clearly impressed he seemed perfectly at ease. That suited me. I wanted him relaxed and in as expansive a mood as possible. All the stiffness was going to be on my side. I continued to address him respectfully as Comrade Salah, and fussed a little. As soon as he had finished his first cocktail I immediately gave him another in a fresh glass. Then I suggested that he might like to inspect the rest of the villa.

He agreed, indulgently, with a soggy little quip about viewing my “capitalist decadence’’. I invited him to bring his drink. He thus had a cigar and a drink in his hands. I thought that he was going to leave his briefcase behind, but, though he hesitated for an instant, he ended by taking it with him.

The object of the exercise, from my point of view, was to get him to the office; but I took it slowly, lingering over things that took his fancy — he was pleased to let me know that he knew a Feraghan carpet when he saw one — and drawing him into giving opinions. When, at last, I took him along the passage leading to the office suite I murmured an apology.

“Only offices here, I am afraid, Comrade Salah. Nothing of interest.” I opened one half of a pair of double doors to prove it.

“Nothing of interest in Comrade Howell’s office?’’

It was exactly the sort of reaction I had counted upon. Immediately, I opened the other door and switched on all the lights.

The map was staring him in the face. It covered practically the entire wall, a splendid mass of bright colours all bristling with little yellow and green flags.

He had started toward it, heading straight for the Latakia-Cyprus area, and what I had hoped would develop into a revealing little illustrated chat about his plans for the Amalia Howell; he was almost within touching distance of the map, and then, maddeningly, he suddenly turned away.

He had seen the ship models.

They had been one of my father’s few extravagances. This thing of his for scale models had started soon after he had bought the Pallas Howell.

Pallas was the first ship of over 1,500 tons owned by the Agence Howell. She was also the first to have a modern funnel. The narrow stovepipes of the older ships had always been painted black; but, with the acquisition of the Pallas, named after my mother, Father had decided that we must have a “company” funnel like the big lines. He had designed it himself: yellow with a black “boot-top” and a big dark green H on the yellow ground. Below the H, and seeming from a distance to underline it, was a transliteration in Arabic characters of the name Howell.

When he saw the Pallas newly painted, he had ordered a scale model made for his office. By the time he died there were eight Howell ship models, three in his office and the rest in the board room, all in big glass cases on mahogany stands. They were made by a firm in England and cost a great deal of money, but my father said that they impressed visitors and were good for business. Although there may have been some truth in that, it was only an excuse really; he just liked them. And why not? They are soothing things to look at. There in the Damascus office I had three of the original eight: Pallas, Artemis, and Melinda.

They fascinated Ghaled. I tried to steer him back to the map, but it was no use. He put his glass and the briefcase down on my desk and returned to the models. Then he began to ask questions.

What was this and what was that? And then: “Which is the Amalia?”

“We haven’t a model of the Amalia, Comrade Salah. I can show you a picture of her if you like.’’

But he was only interested in models. “Is the Amalia like any of these?”

“Very like the Artemis. That’s this one. She’s a three-island ship, too.”

“Three-island?”

“Well, that’s what they’re sometimes called. You see she has these big well-decks fore and aft. They have a comparatively low freeboard, so that when the ship is hull-down on the horizon, all you see are the bow and stern sections and the bridge superstructure sticking up. From a distance they look like three little islands.”

“And where will we be on the Amalia? Which of these windows will we see from?”

“I’m afraid there’s no regular passenger accommodation on any of our ships, but there’s a saloon, where the officers mess, Just there. The Amalia’s saloon has portholes. She’s not quite the same.” I made another attempt to steer the conversation into a more useful path. “I daresay Captain Touzani will try to make your party comfortable.”

“Touzani? Is he Italian?”

“Tunisian.”

“Oh.” That did not please him. Tunisia tends to be lukewarm in the Palestinian cause.

“Is he loyal, this Captain Touzani?”

“If you mean will he obey orders, yes, I think he will. Providing, of course, that they do not endanger the ship.” This was more like it, I thought. “And, naturally, providing that the orders he gets from me are clear and practical.”

“You will give him the orders personally?”

“Oh yes, Comrade Salah. When I have them.” I tried to pursue the advantage. “There is additional information that I will also have to have very soon.”

“Have to have?”

“I shall want the names of the passengers to be carried. By law these must be entered on the ship’s muster roll That is the list of all on board when she sails.”

He decided to make a joke of it. “I can tell you one name — Salah Yassin.”

I smiled dutifully. “And no doubt Ahmad and Musa will be on the list, too?”

“Those old men! No. They are good fighters and loyal certainly. For guard duties there are none better. But on operations we must have the younger men, the front-fighters. Why is it that this ship has two propellers and the others, not much smaller, have only one each?”

We were back to the models again. It was with difficulty that I persuaded him downstairs to dinner, and even then he kept on about ships. The different ways of measuring tonnage had to be explained. Teresa helped by asking sillier questions than his, but the going was heavy. He drank brandy.

The backgammon later was torture.

He played a reckless “Arabian” game and nothing else. He was out to slaughter me every time or die in the attempt. Mostly, he died. Backgammon is a very difficult game to lose intentionally without letting your opponent know that you are trying to lose. He sees the dice you throw. You can’t keep on making gross errors. With an all-or-nothing player like Ghaled you don’t have to play even reasonably well to defeat him. You just make the conventional, flat-footed “back” moves and nine times out of ten he defeats himself. That was what Ghaled did, though naturally he couldn’t see it. It was the fault of the dice, then of my good luck, and, finally and inevitably, of my lack of imagination, of dash.

“You are too cautious. You play like a businessman.”

“You force me onto the defensive, Comrade Salah.”

“You must not allow yourself to be forced. You must hit out, reply in kind.”

Play his game, in fact, and lose.

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

By playing so wildly that he was obliged for once to do the obvious, I managed to lose two games in a row, but even that didn’t please him.

“If you were a front-fighter,” he nagged, “you would soon learn when to attack and when to hold your fire, when to assault and when to ambush.”

He had had quite a lot to drink by then, much more, probably, than he was used to in one evening, and the effects were showing.

I gave some noncommittal reply and he glared at me. The suspicion that I had let him win those last two games was beginning to surface now. Someone had to be punished. He used Teresa to start with.

“You do not comment, Miss Malandra.” The “Miss” was a sneer. “Would you not like, perhaps, to be a front-fighter, as some of the Zionist women are? Do you have no ambition to imitate them?”

Teresa replied coolly. “I have no particular wish to imitate anyone, Comrade Salah.”

“Then-perhaps we can change your mind. Perhaps when you see what the Zionist women can do you will think differently.”

He had reached for his briefcase and was plucking clumsily at the zipper. My guess that he carried a gun there had been right, but it was not the only thing in the briefcase. When at last he got it open I saw that it contained papers and a leather wallet as well — it was the wallet he thrust at Teresa.

“Look and see for yourself. You, too, Comrade Michael. See what the Zionist women can do.”

From what I saw during the next few minutes, and from later reading of Lewis Prescott’s description, I am fairly certain that the photographs Ghaled showed us were the ones he produced at the Prescott interview. In other words, the same photographs shown to Mr. Prescott as evidence of Druse commando atrocities were shown to Teresa and me as evidence of atrocities committed by Israeli women.

As a former war correspondent, Lewis Prescott may, as he says, have found it necessary to become used to horrors. I am glad that he also found it possible. I had not, at that stage, found it necessary, with the result that I was not only completely unprepared for what I saw, but also when my nose was rubbed in it, quite unable to cope. I don’t know, or care, who was really responsible for the things shown in those photographs. I thought at the time, insofar as I was able to think, that the “Zionist women” claim had to be false, and Mr. Prescott’s account suggests that I was right. Obviously Ghaled would change his story about the photographs to suit his audience.

But changing the story didn’t change the photographs. I wished I could have done what Teresa did. After one glance she just got up and moved right away, saying that she would get more coffee. She stayed away, and Ghaled took no more notice of her. But he made me sit there and look at the lot, not just once, but three times with no skipping, and all the time he watched my face.

The only defence I could think of was to take my glasses off as if to see better; he could not know that without my glasses everything blurred a bit But I had left it too late, because, having once seem what was there, I could not blur what was already clear in my mind’s eye.

“Front-fighting, Comrade Michael, front-fighting.”

He kept intoning the words as if they were an incantation. In the end I managed to break the spell I did that by straightening up suddenly, putting my glasses on, handing him back the wallet with one hand, and reaching with the other for the brandy bottle.

“Very instructive, Comrade Salah," I said as briskly as I could, and refilled his glass.

He smiled as he took the wallet I hadn’t deceived him; he knew all right that he’d shaken me.

“Let us say inspirational, Comrade Michael,” he corrected me. “You know now the kind of thing we, and you with us, have to avenge.” He dropped the wallet back into the briefcase and took something eke out. “You were asking about your orders. Clear and practical you said they must be.” He shoved a wad of paper at me. “Are those orders clear and practical enough for you?”

What he gave me was a copy of the standard British Admiralty chart number 2834. That number covers the eastern Mediterranean seacoast from Sour in the north down to El Arîsh. Tel Aviv-Yafo is about half-way up.

The cartridge paper on which it was printed was limp and grubby from much handling and it had been folded and refolded too often, but it was still readable. On it, someone had plotted, in purple ink, a course for a southbound vessel.

As far south as the Caesarea parallel the course was normal enough, about twenty miles offshore on a heading of 195 degrees in deep water. Then there was a twenty-degree swing to the east which continued as far as the hundred-fathom line. At that point the course changed again, running parallel to the coast on a 190-degree heading for about twelve miles. Just south of Tel Aviv it turned west again, rejoining the original open-sea course somewhere off Ashdod.

In the blank space above the compass rose, the plotter of the course had written out in Arabic a precise description of the change sequence and the timing of it. The description ended with this Instruction: On 190° south heading from 21.15 hrs. until 23.00 hrs. ship’s speed is on no account to exceed 6 knots.

I didn’t take all this in at once, of course, but I didn’t want to display too keen an interest. After a brief glance I refolded the chart.

“Well?” he asked.

“No difficulty, I think, Comrade Salah. The instructions seem perfectly clear to me. I am not a seaman myself but this looks like the work of a trained navigator.”

“It is.”

“If the captain has any questions, answers can be obtained, I imagine.”

“There should be no questions. Just see that the captain understands that he is to obey those orders strictly.”

“Yes, Comrade Salah. The captain will have to choose his own sailing time, however. Otherwise he cannot be in the correct position on the evening of the third. In the port of Latakia all movement of shipping is prohibited between sunset and sunrise. Embarkation should probably take place, I think, before sunset on the second of July so that departure can be very early on the third. But the captain must be consulted on these points.”

“Very well, consult him and submit your proposals. But understand this. The timings of the course changes must be strictly adhered to.”

“I understand.”

“Then I will thank you for your hospitality and ask you to drive me back. Before I cam sleep there is work to be done.”

As he spoke he leaned forward with his hand outstretched. The briefcase was still open and for a moment I thought that he wanted to take the chart back. Then I realized that he was simply reaching for his brandy glass; but the movement had made me nervous.

“If you will excuse me,” I said, “I will put these orders in my private safe.”

He shrugged. “Very well.”

I was gone several minutes because, before putting the chart in the safe, I scribbled out a copy of the sailing instructions written on it. I was afraid, you see, that he might suddenly change his mind about letting me hold on to it. The fact that I took this unnecessary precaution is a good indication of my own state of mind at the time — edgy, overanxious, reacting instead of thinking calmly, and all set to make crass errors of judgment.

They were already in the car when I went down, Teresa in the driver’s seat, Ghaled in the back. He had his door still open as if expecting me to get in beside him, so I did so.

For a time he spoke only to Teresa. He was the worst sort of back-seat driver; he told her not only which way to go; even though she obviously knew the way, but how. “Slow, this corner is dangerous. Turn here, turn here! Keep right. Now you can go faster. Are your headlights on?” Teresa kept her temper very well. Of course, she had had him earlier in the evening and so knew what to expect. Even so, her “Yes, Comrade Salahs” became quite curt. It was a relief when, on our reaching the Der’a road, he turned his attention to me.

“What experience have you with diesel engines?” he asked.

The question was so unexpected that I was off balance for a moment.

“Of using them, Comrade Salah?”

“Of maintaining and repairing them.”

And then the penny dropped, or seemed to. I remembered what Abouti had said about the little cockroach who drove a Mercedes diesel truck. They must be having trouble with the thing. It was a natural enough conclusion to jump to. How was I to know that it was the wrong conclusion and that I had jumped too hastily?

“My only experience with diesel engines,” I said, “is of what you must not do. That is to allow any untrained person, however resourceful he may be, to lay a finger on them. Diesel engines do not respond to semiskilled tinkering.”

“If it were a question of repairing a fuel injection pump?”

“Don’t try to repair it Have it replaced, and have the work done by the maker’s agent.”

“And if this is not possible?”

That puzzled me, because I was reasonably certain that there was a Mercedes agent in Damascus. Then, I thought I saw what the trouble was. The truck didn’t belong to Ghaled, he was only “borrowing” it. Even if he had the owner’s willing consent, direct dealing with the Mercedes agent might present a problem.

“You could order the replacement pump from Beirut and employ a local diesel fitter to do the work.”

This answer obviously didn’t satisfy him. “Why shouldn’t the pump be repaired?”

I tried to explain that they were tricky things and that it was better to replace when they gave trouble. Thinking that it could be the expense that was bothering him, I suggested that it might be possible to exchange the old pump for a factory-reconditioned one. He listened, but obviously didn’t care for what he heard. If I had been functioning properly and had been more perceptive, I would probably have suspected after a while that the wires had become crossed and that what I was telling him was, though true, for some reason irrelevant.

But I didn’t suspect, and so failed to ask him the questions that should have been asked. As we neared the battery works he dropped the subject of diesel engines and returned to back-seat driving.

To me he said as we pulled up at the works gate: “You asked for a list of the special ship’s passengers.”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Then you had better report tomorrow night at eight thirty. I will give you the names then.”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.” I got out and opened the door for him.

Ahmad and Musa were already at the postern, waiting for him. They had the overhead lights on.

Once out of the car, he straightened up, tucked his briefcase under his left arm, and marched briskly to the gate, where he received and returned salutes. He had said nothing more to us and he did not look back. Presumably, we could go.

I shut the rear doors and got into the car beside Teresa. Abouti’s men and machines had made a mess of the surface there and she had to be careful turning. We did not speak until we were on the main road again.

“Is everything you wanted on that chart?” she asked then.

“I think it’s all there. I hope it is.”

“Were those pictures very nasty?”

“Very.”

“I thought so. You looked as if you were going to be sick.”

“I’m surprised I wasn’t.”

“I told you he was insane.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

I decided that I now had all I wanted.

“Is there a plane to Rome tomorrow?”

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

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

“What about the one to Famagusta?”

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

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

“Supposing Ghaled gets suspicious.”

“I don’t see how he can.”

“He can always get suspicious.”

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

“I don’t like it.”

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

Thing!”

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

Teresa left for Rome the following afternoon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ghaled, however, did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You mean she is rich?”

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

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

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

“Now. You wanted a list Here it is.”

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

“One question I must ask, Comrade Salah.”

“What question? You have the list.”

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

“Of course. We are not fools.”

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

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

I obeyed and waited.

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

“Gladly, Comrade Salah.”

For some reason my compliance annoyed him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He snorted derisively, so I went on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“To contain the charges, I suppose.”

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

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

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

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

“Can you see any weaknesses?”

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

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

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

“Do you know what a Rouad coaster is?”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

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

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

“It has a diesel engine.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Sulzer.”

“Where did the new pump come from?”

“Beirut.”

“Who fitted it?”

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

“Local where? Latakia? Rouad?”

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

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

“What solution do you propose?”

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

“What man?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Early the following morning I drove to Hareissoun.

It wasn’t an easy or pleasant drive, but I didn’t mind. Strange as it may seem, I was, in spite of everything, rather looking forward to that day. In a sense I was making a sentimental journey.

The Ile de Rouad is a port south of Latakia which used to have a small shipyard. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, this yard began building two-hundred-ton schooners and made itself something of a reputation in that part of the world. They were all wood but very sturdy, fully decked, and Bermudian rigged with two raked pole-masts and a heavy bow-sprit; useful little ships. Although no new ones have been built for years, there are still quite a few of them coasting in the Levant.

When I was a small boy the Agence Howell owned three of these Rouad schooners and my father used to make a joke about them. He wasn’t much given to making jokes about things we owned, so I have always remembered this one. It’s a bit complicated, because you have to understand the background. All ships have to have their bottoms cleaned from time to time. The ordinary small coaster is hauled out of the water on a skid-cradle so that the job can be done. At Rouad, however, they used to careen the schooners; that is, pull them over onto their sides in the water by the masts. Then, instead of scraping them clean, they would drench the exposed bottom side with kerosene, set light to it, and bum off all the barnacles and muck. My father took me once to see them do it. That was where the joke came in. He said that the Agence Howell was “burning its boats”. Not very funny, I admit, though it made me laugh at the time. The strange thing was that there were never any accidents; only the kerosene and the barnacles and the muck would burn. It must be harder to set a wooden hull alight than one would think.

So, I was looking forward to seeing a Rouad schooner again. On the outskirts of Hareissoun I left the car and walked down to the harbour. I saw her masts first. She was moored by the stern at the mole. I went along to her.

I had forgotten how small these boats were. Seventy feet on the waterline isn’t much, and the high stem and massive bowsprit made it seem even less. She must have been over forty years old. There were traces of paint on her topside but not many; she was a work boat, and her paint — black, tarry stuff — was where it mattered, on the hull. She had no name of her own now. There was faded yellow lettering on her bow: jeble, the name of her home port, and the Arabic numeral khamseh: number five out of Jeble. Before being taken over by the PAF she had probably been sponge-fishing. Now she was back to carrying cargo and lying low enough in the water to suggest that she had a full load aboard.

The old man I could see on deck was dressed like a fisherman and could have been the skipper, but when I called up to him he shouted to someone below.

The person who came on deck then was not at all the fisherman type. Except for the suit of blue dungarees that he was wearing he might have been the young headwaiter at the Semiramis Hotel, an impression reinforced by the fact that he was holding a clipboard in his hand like a menu.

“Mr. Hadaya?” I asked.

“Mr. Howell?”

“Yes.”

“Just a moment, please.”

The old man shoved a rope ladder over the stern counter and I climbed up awkwardly. Hadaya helped me down onto the deck.

“A little inconvenient, I’m afraid,” he said, “but we don’t encourage visitors.”

“That’s all right.”

He sounded like an Algerian. His shirt was unbuttoned to disclose a hairless chest and a gold chain with a gold identity disk on it. A flashlight stuck out of his breast pocket. His smile was affable.

“May I say how surprised I am suddenly to be conversing with Mr. Howell as a comrade.”

“Have we met before, Mr. Hadaya?”

“No, but once I very nearly worked for you. There was a vacancy for a second mate. Your regular man had broken a leg. In Bône that was. I applied, but someone else got the berth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It would only have been temporary.” He flashed the smile again. “Like this one. Would you like to see the engine first or hear about it?”

“Hear about it, I think. What about this local mechanic? Is he still working?”

“No, I sent him away. He was well recommended and he had a kit of tools. I let him remove the old pump and install the new one. With the old pump the engine had worked unevenly, but it had worked. With the new one it does not work at all. I think the timing is all wrong.”

“I see”

“I am only guessing.” He grinned. “The mechanic suggested that the trouble might be with the ignition.’’

“Oh.”

“Yes. That was when I got rid of him. I don’t think he can have done any real damage, but after that I knew that he wasn’t going to do any good. The fishing boats he is used to all have gasoline engines. I found that out later.”

“What about the owners in Jeble? Won’t they help?”

“We are the owners, or rather, Comrade Salah is.”

“I had the impression that she’d been chartered.”

“We bought her cheap. Too cheap.” He tapped his chest. “It is my fault entirely. I have told this to Comrade Salah. He is always tolerant of error when a comrade confesses it freely to him. I should have anticipated this trouble. She is the right size for the job, but that engine is twenty years old and we have overworked it.”

“The trips north?”

He nodded. “Never under sail. Engine all the time. No maintenance to speak of, either. What can you expect? Of course, it would have to happen now, but better now than later. Do you want to see it?”

There was a separate hatchway and a ladder down to the “engine room.” Originally, I suppose, it had been part of the after hold. A bulkhead had been added to make a compartment for the auxiliary, but it had been made as small as possible. There was scarcely room to move and the place stank; but although everything else was filthy, the engine wasn’t. There may have been no maintenance to speak of, but there hadn’t been total neglect.

“What did she give you?” I asked. “Before the pump started going, I mean.”

“Six knots. Sometimes a little more.” He pointed the flashlight beam. “There’s the old pump.”

It was on an oil drum chocked against the bulkhead. I wasn’t really interested in the old pump, but I made a show of looking at it.

“Have you an engineer?”

“One of the crew knows enough to act as a greaser, but he’s ashore now. Except for the old man on anchor watch they’re all ashore. Comrade Salah’s orders. One of them might have recognized you and started talk.”

“You’d better send them ashore tomorrow, too. I’m going to try to get a foreman fitter down from Latakia to attend to the engine. It may be tomorrow or the day after, but you’ll be kept advised. His name is Maghout.”

“A comrade?”

“No, but he won’t ask questions or talk. If the job’s simple he’ll just do it and go. I’m hoping it’s simple, but he could still need odd spares, gaskets or something like that. He’ll have been forewarned of the nature of the problem, but I’ll take the type and serial numbers of the engine. They may give him an idea of what he ought to bring with him.”

He turned his light on the clipboard. “I had expected that you would need that information.”

“You have it there? Good.”

He tore the top sheet off the clipboard and handed it to me with a little bow.

“I could not ask Comrade Howell to crawl about this engine room on his hands and knees looking for numbers.”

“Very thoughtful of you, comrade.”

I glanced at the paper and he shone the light on it. The information was all there — written in purple ink. I folded the paper and put it in my pocket before climbing back up the ladder.

Hadaya was behind me and stopped to close and secure the engine compartment hatch, so I strolled forward along the deck. Although I had seen the bottom-burning done I had never actually been aboard a Rouad schooner and I was curious. She had no wheel but an enormous tiller. I was remembering my father telling me that in heavy weather two helmsmen were not enough and that they had to rig relieving tackles to hold the ship on course, when I stumbled and stubbed a toe.

What I had stumbled over was a heavy bulk of timber which had been bolted to the deck. A meter away and parallel to it was a second one. Both were about two meters long and the work was new; the bolts that held them hadn’t even begun to rust. And there were freshly drilled holes in them as yet unused. A shadow fell and I looked up.

“Bearers for deck cargo,” Hadaya said.

He kept a perfectly straight face as he said it, so I just nodded. Forward of the cargo hatch I could now see a second pair of “bearers.”

“There is a place in the town where we could eat if you wish,” he went on.

“Is that wise?”

“Wise?”

“I was thinking of Comrade Salah’s orders about my being recognized. No, it will be better if I go straight back, Comrade Hadaya. There is a lot of telephoning to be done and I have to report later to Comrade Salah.”

“Then I must not detain you.”

He walked with me to the car. I learned on the way that my guess about his being Algerian had been correct, that he had served as a cadet officer with Messageries Maritimes, and that none of his subsequent seagoing appointments had lasted very long. There was bitterness behind the smile. He had been recruited personally by Ghaled for the PAF gunrunning operation and was devoted to him; and, of course, to the Palestinian cause. A curious young man; not quite a mercenary but near to it.

As soon as I arrived home, I telephoned Issa and gave the necessary instructions on the subject of Maghout. Even if my newly formed suspicions were justified there was no way of stalling the engine repair. Ghaled already knew Maghout’s name and place of work. If I didn’t follow through promptly, he would do so himself, and I would have become suspect. I could not afford that. Unless I managed to retain some measure of his confidence during the critical days ahead I would be helpless.

After the telephoning I got out the chart he had given me and studied it again, along with the sheet of paper from Hadaya’s clipboard.

The purple ink used was the same and so was the writing. The course changes, then, had been plotted by Hadaya.

That was point one. By itself there would have been nothing particularly sinister about it; things would have been no worse than they already were. But it was not by itself.

There was point two. The speed of the Amalia while steaming close to the Israeli shoreline would be six knots. Six knots was the standard speed, when running on her engine, of the Jeble 5.

There was point three. The sort of deck cargo that it would be possible to load onto a small vessel like the Jeble 5 could not conceivably need lengths of four-by-four bolted to the deck to support it. Therefore, they had been installed to support, or hold down, something else. What? The Jeble 5 already had a full cargo in her hold.

Point four: there was that second track which had not been completely erased from the chart.

I remembered what Barlev had told me about the 120 mm. Katyusha rocket: fifty-kilo warhead, range of about eleven kilometres, the launcher a simple affair and easy to make with angle iron — "They don’t mind leaving it behind them when they run”.

Presumably they would not mind dropping it into the sea when they’d finished with it, either. All they would have to do would be to remove it from the “bearers” and heave it overboard.

I looked again at the second track and recalled then something that Ghaled had said when I had been arguing him out of using the Euridice. Speaking of the ship I would provide for him instead, he had told me: “It must be an iron ship and no smaller than the Amalia Howell”.

At the time, I had dismissed the “iron” qualification as an exhibition of ignorance. It had been years since the Agence Howell had owned ships made of anything else. Now, however, I wondered. It could have been a slip of the tongue, an indiscretion.

]eble 5 was of all-wood construction. Unless she had one of those special radar reflectors that wooden yachts are beginning to carry now, she wouldn’t show up clearly on a coastal radar screen. However, metal objects, particularly if they were carried on her deck, might act as reflectors. In that case, the best way for her to approach the Tel Aviv-Yafo area unobserved would be to use her engine to motor along on the same course and speed as, but just beyond and masked by, a larger iron or steel vessel. As far as the coastal radar was concerned Jeble 5 would then be invisible.

The Katyusha’s range was eleven kilometres. From ten kilometres offshore Jeble 5 could do a lot of damage. I had no idea what the rate of fire might be, but there would be two launchers on her deck. I had made a hundred adapter rings, so there would be no shortage of ammunition. Even if each launcher fired only ten rounds before the schooner turned away and the crew began jettisoning the launchers, there would have been a thousand kilos of high explosive discharged.

According to Barlev, one Katyusha hit on a hospital had killed ten persons. Well, there were a lot of hospital-size buildings clustered along the Tel Aviv beaches. Some had names like Hilton, Sheraton, Park, and Dan, but there were apartment buildings as well as hotels, and all so thick on the ground that, even with rockets fired from a ship at sea, a high percentage of direct hits could be expected.

All this, of course, was to be in addition to the charges already set to be exploded ashore.

I had told Ghaled that his plan was ingenious. I hadn’t really thought it so. There is nothing ingenious about a bomb in a suitcase or a flight bag. Killing or maiming noncombatants who can’t defend themselves is an easy game. All that is needed to play it, apart from the high explosive, is a touch of megalomania fortified by the delusion that campaigns of terror can end in happiness ever after.

The novelty of Ghaled’s plan was not in the nature of it, but in its size. A lot of bombs going off together in a number of locations would probably cause some panic as well as heavy casualties. A simultaneous bombardment from the sea would add confusion as well as further destruction. If the operation were even partially successful, Ghaled could count on international headlines. The smiles of the other Palestinian leaders might be forced, and their congratulations less than, wholehearted, but smiles there would be and congratulations, too. The PAF would have become a force to reckon with politically.

Meanwhile the Israelis would be burying the dead, and, no doubt, considering the nature of their reprisal.

I sat there for a long time, feeling sick and trying to think.

There was no way of letting Barlev know about this second part of the plan. In my anxiety to make sure that he knew about the first part, I had, by sending Teresa to Rome, closed down my only safe and clear channel of communication. I could send a cryptic wire to Famagusta and try to alert him that way; but in order to get past Colonel Shikla’s monitors it would have to be very cryptic indeed. I could not be in any way explicit. The most I could hope to convey would be a hint that all was not quite as had been expected. I had no idea at that moment what form the hint could take.

And there was Captain Touzani to be considered. It was one thing to give a captain a rather unusual set of instructions and then tell him in confidence that if, as a result of his carrying them out, he got into a little argument with the Israeli navy not to worry; that he would under no circumstances be blamed or censured and could count on a nice bonus later. Admittedly, I had not been looking forward to telling him all that, but I had been prepared to do so. What I was not prepared to do, however, was, while giving him those unusual instructions, then neglect to warn him that in carrying them out he, a Tunisian, would find himself steaming in company with, and virtually escorting, an armed vessel all set to bombard Tel Aviv with rockets right under, or possibly right over, his very nose. That I could not do.

What I could have done, of course, was to tell Captain Touzani the whole truth and hope that, with a devil-may-care wave of his hand, he would relieve me of all the responsibilities created by the situation. I could have done that, but I didn’t seriously consider it. Captain Touzani’s early career may have been a trifle colourful, and under some circumstances I can see him cutting a corner or two, but he is a rational man, a realist. If I had wanted his instant resignation, taking him into my confidence would have been the way to get it; and his officers would have fully supported his stand.

So, I took the only other course open to me.

Ghaled was in a good mood when I arrived that evening.

Chantier Naval Cayla had proved accommodating. Maghout’s immediate boss had very quickly sized up the situation and no overt threats had been necessary. The PAF squad leader in Latakia had reported that Maghout would go to Hareissoun the following day to attend to the fuel pump and would stay with the job until it was satisfactorily completed.

Ghaled was so pleased that he even praised me, and I had difficulty in getting him off that subject and on to the one that now concerned me. He mistook my air of gloom for modesty, and, when I disclaimed that, accused me again of arrogance.

“Comrade Michael does not need our praise,” he told Issa. “His own self-praise is enough.”

I was suddenly tired of his nonsense. I discarded the oblique approach and went at it crudely.

“One who certainly merits praise,” I said, “is Comrade Hadaya.”

“You found that young man interesting?”

I ignored the leer. “He has good judgment. He made a mistake about the local mechanic and when he realized that he had done so he acted to correct it. Some men would have tried to muddle through and cover up the mistake. I was glad to see that he didn’t.”

“He will be commended, never fear.”

“One thing he said struck me particularly. It was about you, Comrade Salah.”

That secured his attention. “Indeed?”

“He said you were always tolerant of error when a comrade freely confesses it to you.”

“Concealment of error is despicable and can amount to betrayal. Candid self-criticism earns respect.”

“I am relieved to hear you say it, Comrade Salah.”

He became jocular. “Why? Has the immaculate Comrade Michael something to confess?”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

He looked at me sharply. “Well?”

“An error of judgment.”

“What error?”

I glanced at Issa as if I were unwilling to let him hear of my shame. “It is in the matter of the Tunisian.”

I eyed Issa again and Ghaled took the hint. He motioned to Issa to leave.

“Now then, what is this? Speak up.”

“I think that I underestimated the problem presented by Captain Touzani.”

“What problem? The owner gives him his orders. He, your captain, carries them out.”

“Regrettably, Comrade Salah, it is not as straightforward as that. There has been a development which I should have foreseen but did not.”

“What development? Speak plainly.”

I told him in some detail about the method I had used to delay the Amalia in Tripoli. His face cleared. I had used capitalist low-cunning; I had corrupted. He liked that.

“However,” I went on, “there have been, unfortunate repercussions. I hear from Ancona that Captain Touzani has complained bitterly of administrative inefficiency in the Agence Howell, of blunders at the top causing delays and losses for which he is now being held responsible. Our agents in Tripoli and Ancona were not as tactful as they might have been. There has been ill-feeling and injured pride. Now, when Captain Touzani arrives in Latakia in two days’ time he is going to be confronted with yet another unusual situation. He is going to be ordered to take passengers, and, en route to Alexandria, make a detour at sea which will obviously delay his arrival there. Almost certainly he will object vigorously to these orders.”

“Then dismiss him. Get another captain.”

“That is not practical, I am afraid, Comrade Salah. The mate on the Amalia does not hold a master’s ticket, and even if he did there would be difficulties. Captain Touzani is popular with his crew.”

“Are you telling me that this man will and can refuse to obey the owner’s orders?”

“I am saying that he may accept them only under protest and with private reservations. These Tunisians can be very stubborn.”

His mouth thinned. “Stubborn? We have comrades who know how to deal with the stubborn, Comrade Michael. Give me your Tunisian for half an hour. He will not be stubborn after that, I promise you.”

“Unfortunately, that is not a practical solution, either, Comrade Salah. Captain Touzani will remain in his ship with his crew. Besides, as a captain he has special legal powers and privileges that not even the police can ignore. Punishment of Captain Touzani might well result in the Amalia not sailing as planned. What we need from Touzani is not resentful submission but ready and willing cooperation.”

“That is your affair. I warned you. You have had ample time. Yours is the responsibility.”

“And I have accepted it, Comrade Salah. But in order to secure Captain Touzani’s cooperation I need authority from you for a slight change of plan.”

“What change?”

“When the Amalia sails I must be on board.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Impossible.”

“May I ask why, Comrade Salah? Captain Touzani is in charge, but he must defer to me as owner. Nobody could censure him for delays occurring that I had sanctioned while we were at sea. With me on board at the captain’s side there would be no question of his withholding cooperation, I assure you.”

He was silent again. Then: “I do not like it.”

“Without the captain’s cooperation I can guarantee nothing, Comrade Salah. As you say, it is my responsibility. All I ask now is full authority to assume it.”

There was another silence. At last he sighed irritably. “Why did it have to be this Tunisian?”

After talking so much rubbish and telling so many lies I was exhausted. When I got home I very much wanted to go to bed, but I knew that I wouldn’t sleep until I had finished what I had started.

Late that night I drafted two cables.

The first was to Teresa ordering her back to take charge of the office in my absence. She would ignore it, as I had told her, but it was for Colonel Shikla’s eyes and would cover the oddity of the second cable.

This was to our Famagusta office:

INSTRUCTED MALANDRA RETURN IMMEDIATELY TAKE CHARGE DURING MY ABSENCE. TAKING PASSAGE IN AMALIA TO ALEXANDRIA SAILING JULY 2. ADVISE ALEXANDRIA OFFICE. CONFER MALANDRA. ACKNOWLEDGE.

HOWELL

They would think that I had gone raving mad in Famagusta. That was what I counted on. There was no chance of the news that I was going to travel as a passenger in the old Amalia being treated as routine. Barlev’s informer in the office would be bound to let him know.

And when he did? Well, Barlev had twice suggested to me that I should be in the Amalia in my capacity as owner’s representative when she was intercepted, and I had twice refused. For him, my sudden change of mind could only mean that the situation had changed radically in some way and that additional precautions were now necessary.

And, once on the ship clear of Syrian waters, I would have a radio channel at my disposal. True, I would still have to be fairly cryptic — merchant ships’ radio traffic is listened to by many ears — but at least the ears of Colonel Shikla would not be among them.

I had done the best I could.