The Levanter (14 page)

“What’ll he get?”

“Eight to ten years. He was caught armed, you see.” He picked up the tapes. I'll have these transcribed for you right away.”

“No hurry, Frank,” I said. “I’m not filing any story yet on Ghaled.”

“No story?”

“Yet. You wanted to know what he’s up to. You’ll read some of it to the transcript, but I can sum up. He’s out to defeat the State of Israel. No less.”

“They all are, to a manner of speaking.”

“He means it literally. I quote: 'Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world.' Well, he claims to have found a fulcrum. Incidentally, he told me that the Israelis blew up that man Ali’s house. He probably thought that I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, trouble to check. Stupid of him, and a bit odd, because he didn’t strike me as a stupid man, at least not stupid in that way. Very close-mouthed. Lots of cute double-talk about M's plans. I got more out of La Hammad afterwards.”

“What sort of thing?”

I told him.

“What did you make of it?”

“I don’t think she knows as much as she thinks she knows,” I said. “All that stuff about internal pressures in Israel, pricked balloons, and disintegration through factional hatreds are her personal fantasies. I’m inclined to believe that Ghaled has a definite plan of action involving a terrorist attack on some tourist centre inside Israel. By 'defeat’ all I think
he
means is that the location and nature of the place or installation attacked would make prompt Israeli armed countermeasures difficult or impossible. My guess is that this fulcrum he babbles about is simply the vulnerability of innocent bystanders - visitors, tourists - about whom he is openly callous. ‘While we in Palestine fight for justice, no bystander is innocent’. He enjoyed saying that. What he’s after, I think, is political mileage. If - a very big
if
- he could show that the PAF was capable of striking with impunity inside Israel, Cairo would have to take him seriously again, wouldn’t they?”

He nodded. “Something showy, well inside Israel, yes.
That would certainly give him a leg up. If he could get away with it - and that, as you say, is a big if - without being squashed like a bedbug.” He grinned. “It’s just occurred to me why he told you that phony story about the Majd el-Krum case.”

“Why?”

“Because he wanted to impress upon you the fact that there are PAF men operating in the Haifa area.”

“But why lie about it?”

“If he’d told you the true story
about the Israeli judge suspending sentence, would you have bothered to check the story? Wouldn’t you have forgotten about it?”

“Probably. But why does he want to draw my attention to the Haifa area?”

“I’d say because that’s where the operation he’s planned will
not
take place. He wanted to put you off the scent.”

“Sounds farfetched to me.”

“Maybe, but that’s the way these birds’ minds work. Lew, I think you’re wrong about this. I think you ought to file some sort of story now. In personal interview PAF leader Salah Ghaled threatens new guerrilla strikes in Israel. Something like that. Portrait of a terrorist. What makes such men tick?”

“Do what Hammad wants, in fact? Give her hero the needed boost?”

“I don’t imagine that she’d consider what you’d write about him a boost.”

“To her I compared him with a punchy fighter who’s still kidding himself that he can make the big time. I think I was right. If - big
if
again - he delivers what he promises, or even attempts to do so, there’ll be a story. Until then, as far as I am concerned, he’s a waste of time - just a lot of talk.”

I was wrong, of course; inexcusably wrong, moreover, because I had allowed my personal dislike of Ghaled to influence my judgment.

Michael Howell

May 16 to 17

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

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

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

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

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

“I came here to confirm a suspicion.”

“What suspicion?”

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

“Who told you?”

“Nobody told me. I
guessed.”

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

“I have already answered you. I guessed.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

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

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

Teresa spoke. “I asked Beirut for duplicates.”

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

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

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

“Is that the truth?”

“That’s the truth,” I said.

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

“This evening.”

“Bid you tell anyone else?”

“There was no one else to tell.”

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

“Now what?”

“Who is there to tell now?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

I nodded.

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

“Yes, Mr. Ghaled.”

“Miss Malandra?”

“Yes, Mr. Ghaled.”

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

“I follow.”

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

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

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

“I, Mr. Ghaled?”

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

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

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

“Very well.”

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

“Yes.”

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

“I heard it. I hope they remember.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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