The Levanter (22 page)

“Get ready.”

“Ready, comrade.”

“All right
Now!
”

From the storage room came three notes of the Minuet in G, then that sound was cut off and a whirring noise took its place, a noise that suddenly began rising in pitch to a whine.

Almost at the same moment there was a flash of light across the yard - it seemed to come from Michael’s right hand - and a muffled bang. Then the flight bag burst into flames and Michael flung it away from him.

He was obviously hurt because he was doing something to his right wrist with his left hand, tearing a scorched shirt sleeve away from the skin I know now, but that did not stop him satisfying his curiosity. The bag, still burning, had landed near the wall and Michael immediately went over to look at it.

He and Issa reached the bag at almost the same moment. Ghaled called to Taleb an order to switch off and went to join them. The whole incident had taken only a few seconds, but I noticed that, even before Ghaled’s order to switch off, the pitch of the whining noise had begun to fall.

Taleb came out of the storeroom.

“You saw it work?” he asked.

“I saw it. The bag caught fire.”

He looked across the yard. Issa was stamping out the remaining flames. Ghaled was carefully examining Michael’s wrist

“It was stupid of Mr. Howell to carry it,” said Taleb.

“You’d better tell Comrade Salah that. It was entirely his idea.”

“Oh.” He waited no longer and went out to receive the congratulations and words of praise which were no doubt due to him. From Issa they were effusive, but Ghaled’s were more perfunctory. By then he was more concerned with Michael. Ghaled had for a moment become Sir Galahad, solicitously shepherding a stricken opponent from the field of honour. With me the reaction had set in, and, though I was hating Ghaled totally, I did not find Michael’s brave smile particularly endearing. I made no attempt to return it as they approached.

“Is it bad?” I asked.

“No. Just a bit of a burn.”

“All burns are bad,” said Ghaled severely. “They easily become infected. This must be treated at once.”

You would have thought that I had proposed not treating it at all.

In the storeroom Ghaled ordered Michael to sit down and produced an elaborate first-aid kit. He then proceeded to cut away the scorched shirt sleeve with scissors.

The burn area extended about halfway up the forearm. There was reddening, but it did not look serious to me.

“First degree only,” remarked Ghaled as he examined the arm. “But painful no doubt.”

“Not as bad as it was at first.”

“It must still be treated with care. I did not realize that plastics were so flammable.”

“A lot of substances are if you raise the temperature high enough.”

“Well, I did not realize.”

It was nearly an apology. He busied himself now with pouring water from a jerry can into an enamel washbasin and stirring into it a white powder from the first-aid kit. When it had dissolved he began very gently to swab the bum with the solution.

“Did you know that I was trained as a doctor?” he asked chattily as he worked.

“No, Comrade Salah.”

“Yes, in Cairo. I have practiced as a doctor, too, in my time. And on worse wounds than this, I can tell you.”

“I’m sure of that.”

Taleb came in with Issa and stood watching. Ghaled took no notice of them until he had finished cleaning up the arm. Then he looked at Taleb and nodded toward
La Serinette.

“Your masterpiece can be put away now. Comrade Issa knows where it is to be stored. It will be safe there until we conduct the long-range tests.”

“Yes, Comrade Salah.”

The music box was secured in its carrying case and taken away. I saw Michael watching the securing process out of the corner of his eye.

Ghaled had been rummaging in the first-aid box. “The treatment of burns,” he said briskly as he turned again to Michael, “has changed much in recent years. The old remedies, such as tannic acid and gentian violet, are no longer used. In this case penicillin ointment will be the answer.” He looked at me. “Have you an analgesic at home? Codeine, for example?”

“I believe so.”

“Then he may take that. But no alcohol tonight. A warm drink, tea would be suitable, and a barbiturate for sleep. That and the codeine.”

“Very well.”

I watched while he applied the ointment and then strapped on a gauze dressing. It was done neatly and without fuss. I could believe that he had once been trained.

“There,” he said finally. “Is that better?”

“Much, thank you.” Michael dutifully admired the dressing. “What was in the bag, Comrade Salah?” he asked.

“Haven’t you guessed?”

“Some of Issa’s detonators presumably.”

“Of course. With two kilos of high explosive for the detonators to work upon we would have shaken a few windows in Der’a.”

“So I imagine. But what fired the detonators? I heard nothing before they went off.”

Ghaled looked pleased. “No, you would hear nothing. It all worked well, didn’t it?” He considered the arm again. “It should feel easier tomorrow. If it does not, let Issa know. It may be necessary for me to put on a fresh dressing.”

“I’m sure it will be all right.”

“Well, if it is not, you know how to communicate with me.” He paused, and then a strange expression appeared on his lips. It was very like a simper. “I, too, like to play backgammon, Comrade Michael.”

For a moment I could not believe my ears. He was actually asking for an invitation to the villa.

Michael managed to conceal his surprise by beaming fatuously. “I am delighted to hear that, Comrade Salah.”

“And perhaps better than Dr. Hawa. Does he win or do you?”

“I am more lucky than skillful.”

“You would not rely upon luck, I think. Are you a cautious player?”

“Almost never.”

“Good. There is no sport in cautious play. We shall have a good contest. But that is for another day. Now you must go to bed and rest. You have work to do tomorrow.”

“Yes, indeed, on the directive, Comrade Salah.” Michael held up his bandaged arm and again looked at it admiringly. “No hospital could have done better. I am deeply grateful.”

Another simper. “We look after our own, Comrade Michael.”

They were both sickening.

In the car I said: “So much for pressure.”

“What do you mean?” Michael sounded surprised.

“All you get is a burned arm.”

“Nonsense. But for the directive we would not have been there tonight. We would certainly not have witnessed that demonstration. As it is, we at last know what sort of thing it is that we are up against.”

I was too disgusted to argue.

As soon as we got home Michael, in defiance of “doctor’s” orders, poured himself a large brandy. Then, instead of going to bed, he told me to get my book and take notes.

“The weapon that Ghaled intends to use against the Israelis,” he dictated, “is an explosive package consisting of two kilos of high explosive, detonated electrically by a system of remote radio control. The quantity of detonators available to him is in the hundreds. Allowing for wastage, misfires, and the use of two detonators for each package, we must still assume that a large number, fifty or more, of these charges will be placed. It also seems likely that the intention is to explode them simultaneously.”

“How?”

He was thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t know much about electronics.”

That was true. It was the main reason for his dislike of the electronic assembly plant. Though it did not make much of a profit it did not lose money. What he hated about it was not knowing exactly how everything they made there worked. Worse, when he asked for explanations, they would usually be given in technical language that he only half understood; and, although he was good at framing his questions in a way that made them sound as if he knew what he was talking about, all he could do with most of the answers was to nod sagely and pretend to be satisfied.

“Who is this Taleb?” I asked.

“The foreman in charge of the Magisch stuff for the army and air force. We knew that Ghaled had an electronics man somewhere in the background. I thought it might be our Iraqi, but Taleb was always a possibility. They’re both German-trained. Tell me what happened after I left with the flight bag. What did they do with that music box?”

I told him.

“You say that the bag exploded almost as soon as the noise started?”

“Yes, but the sound went much higher afterwards.” I gave him an imitation of the whine I had heard.

“I see. Well, I may not know much about electronics, but we can be pretty sure about what’s been built into that old box of tricks.”

“Can we?”

“Isn’t it obvious? First, a high-frequency oscillator with tape antenna. Second, a small generator which can be driven at high speed and full power for a few seconds. That’s done by suddenly disconnecting the ordinary speed governor and bypassing the main gear train. A little dog-clutch would do it. Those things have hefty springs in them. Let one go all out for a moment or two and the torque would be terrific. And a moment or two is all you need. Just long enough for the oscillator signal to trip the relays.”

“The what?”

“Electronic relays wired to the detonators. There was a relay in that flight bag. I saw the remains of it afterwards. It looks like the inside of a small pocket transistor radio - or a burned-up Magisch unit component. I expect we’ll find when we go into it that there are some shortages in that department. Of course, they may not be down as relays on the stock sheets. Taleb may have had to adapt or modify something else to make it work as a relay, but that’s what they would need - a small, simple device that responds to a radio signal by closing a firing circuit.”

“I see.” I did see, dimly.

“Now put this down. Range of system is unknown, but there are some suggestive pointers. Demonstration range was only one hundred meters or so. On the other hand the relay was tripped several seconds before full transmitting power was achieved. What is more, there was a thick concrete wall between the transmitter and the relay. Effective range at full power, with some line-of-sight assistance - e.g. the transmitter operating from a ship at sea to activate relays ashore is probably to be measured in kilometres. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll check the electronic plant stock sheets in the morning for shortages. Then I’ll want a sample or samples of whatever components they’re short of. Taleb mustn’t know, of course.”

“Anything else?”

“Not for the moment. Don’t make any copies of those notes, just the top. I’ll be adding to them, I expect”

“All right Michael, about the directive...”

“Yes, we shall have to think about that But not now, my dear. Now, I think, I really will go to bed.”

“Shall I get you some codeine?”

“Is that the stuff the dentist gave me that time?”

“Yes.”

“It made me feel sick. Aspirin will do.”

When we were in bed I asked a final question.

“Michael, what are those notes for, and why do you want samples of this component?”

I hoped I knew the answer, but he did not give it for a moment Instead, he turned over so that he could rest his bandaged arm outside the sheet.

Then he said slowly: “I think we know enough to make sense now. I think it’s time we stuck our necks out.”

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.