There was writing on many of the parapets. Arabic names and slogans written right to left, the chiselled names of a few lovers. But no mark. Perhaps he had miscounted the number of paces. The castle was still deserted. Should he start again? Then he saw it. A tiny swastika, drawn with white chalk. There was nobody in sight.
Levi walked exactly twenty-five more paces-strolling, ambling, gazing out over the city the way a tourist would. Then he stopped. He saw it hidden in a crack in the stone, just where the instructions had said it would be. A small brown envelope containing four rolls of microfilm of Syrian military documents, taken by a disgruntled Sunni military officer who believed that he was working for the Turks. Levi looked around. Still nobody. It was too easy. He slipped the envelope into his pocket, turned, and continued his slow stroll around the perimeter of the castle.
Levi returned to the hotel, packed his bags, and checked out. He gave a generous tip to the bellhop, who bowed and called him “Effendi.” He apologized to the owner that he was leaving so soon, but he was due for lunch at the home of a Syrian agribusinessman who lived thirty miles southeast of Aleppo. The Syrian was interested in exporting tomatoes to Europe, and Levi had the contract in his pocket. He relaxed slightly on the road south from Aleppo. One down and three to go.
The second drop was in the village of Sednaya, in the mountains between Homs and Damascus. The village was carved out of the rocky cliffs of the mountains, and in the dry and dusty climate of central Syria, it resembled the cave dwellings of Pueblo Indians in the American Southwest.
The residents of the area were Syriac Christians, an offshot of the Eastern Church. They maintained a convent just outside of the village, which made the village a tourist attraction, at least by Syrian standards. But the true pride and joy of Sednaya was something quite different. The men of the village, fathers and sons, were truck drivers, and they regarded themselves as the finest smugglers in the Arab world. Guns, hashish, whisky, whatever the market required. They knew hidden roads that traversed the peaks of Mount Lebanon, which no customs man had ever seen. They knew tracks in the trackless deserts of Arabia. The men of Sednaya made ideal agents, since they went everywhere and saw everything, but they were also dangerous. A smuggler, after all, is always ready to consider a better offer.
Levi’s agent was supposedly reliable. Ten years on the payroll and never a mistake. Providing purloined military and government documents, unaware that he was working for the Israelis. A man in it purely for the money. A man, thought Levi, who would probably sell his mother for the right price.
The drop was in a wooded area about a mile from the village. Levi approached it very carefully. Careful to avoid surveillance, careful to scout the terrain.
What terrified him, on a run like this, was the possibility that the agent had somehow been caught and turned. That he had been tortured and confessed that on this very day, in this very place, the agent of a foreign intelligence service would be retrieving information that had been left in a hollowed-out log. That at the very moment Levi put his hand into the log to retrieve the packet, a dozen security men would emerge from hiding and arrest him, and take him to a prison where they would torture him, break his bones one by one, until he confessed that he was an Israeli Jew.
Levi felt in his pocket for the tiny metal case that contained the poison tablet. He put it in his hand as he approached the drop. He had no doubt that he would take it if he was captured. That was part of being a coward. Preferring quick and certain death to the excruciating uncertainty of torture.
Levi retrieved the packet. He closed his eyes. There was dead silence. He looked around. Nothing. Empty space. Two down.
Levi was nearing the city center of Damascus when he noticed the traffic lights. Big and bright on nearly every street corner. That was remarkable enough in the Arab world. But the miracle was that the Damascene motorists actually stopped at the lights, yielded at the intersections, gave way to incoming traffic at the circles. Perhaps they were too scared not to obey the traffic regulations.
This was a country, Levi had been told, in which one in ten citizens was an informer for the secret police. It was a nation where the ruling Baath Party instructed the masses at election time with a huge neon sign on a mountain overlooking Damascus. The sign had just one word-“NAM”-the Arabic word for yes. It was a society that lived behind walls, hiding its wealth from public view. The plainest Damascene exterior of stucco and cement could contain a hidden palace decorated in gold and silver. Syria lived by the code of taqiyya- the permissible lie. Its Moslem population was ruled by a sect, the Alawites, who rejected the Prophet Mohammed. Its nominally socialist political leaders were among the most rapacious capitalists in the Middle East. Indeed, the Syrians seemed sincere about only one thing: their hatred of Israel.
Levi stayed overnight in Damascus, in a businessman’s hotel downtown called the New Omayed. It was clean and relatively comfortable. He checked to make sure that the two packets were secure in the false bottom of his briefcase. The case had been beautifully designed. Anyone searching it would have to destroy it to find the false bottom. And any forced entry into this secret compartment would release a vial of acid that would destroy whatever documents had been hidden there.
Levi was hungry. He walked to the diplomatic quarter and dined in an excellent French restaurant called Le Chevalier. He feasted on crevettes, grilled in garlic butter. He drank most of a bottle of wine. He felt relaxed, which made him tense. As he walked home, he could sense the inquisitive eyes watching the foreigner, slightly tipsy, as he walked down the street at midnight.
Levi serviced the first Damascus drop the next morning. He went to the agricultural exhibit at the Damascus trade fair. The agent, he had been told, was a Sunni professor of agronomy at the University of Damascus whose father had been killed by the Alawites. His chosen revenge was to provide documents about Syrian efforts to monitor Israeli communications.
Levi chatted casually with a member of the staff at the agricultural exhibit. On the exhibit table, right where it should be, was a prospectus on new techniques in chicken farming. He picked it up and turned the pages slowly until he felt a small envelope. When he was confident that nobody was looking, Levi slipped the envelope in his pocket. It was so easy, so simple.
The final pick-up was scheduled for the next morning. Levi spent the rest of the day touring the city. Perhaps he would make it back home after all.
When Levi returned to his hotel that night, he had a fright. Someone had gone through his things. Not just the maid, but a professional. He had left the briefcase closed on the bureau. Someone had opened it and gone through the commercial documents. The signs were obvious: the papers weren’t aligned the same way he had left them, and the piece of hair he had left on the top page of the agricultural contract was gone. Levi’s heart was pounding. His forehead was sweating. He went into the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror. What he saw was fear.
So what, he told himself. So they have looked at my papers. So much the better. They confirm that I am in the import-export business and have travelled to Syria to sign a contract. They will call the tomato farmer who gave me lunch, and he will confirm my alibi. They will call the hotel in Aleppo and they will confirm my alibi. So why am I worried? They haven’t found the false bottom of the briefcase and there is no other evidence-none-that I am anything other than a French businessman.