The Levanter (24 page)

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.