"You should meet Holt, Major."
Major Zvi Dan stared Holt up and down. "How's he done?"
"Acceptable."
"Is he good enough to go?"
"The first day he'd have had us identified three times. Second day once, third day once. He's just been under your glasses for an hour, that makes him acceptable."
"Get in the back," the major said coldly.
Rebecca watched. She saw that Crane carried his back pack easily, like it was a part of his body, along with the rifle with the elongated telescopic sight. She saw that the younger man came more slowly, as if the back pack were a burden, as if he had never before carried an Armalite rifle.
"What's your time table, Crane?"
"Shit and shower first, long sleep. Tomorrow, aerial photographs and maps, pack the kit. Move tomorrow night."
She watched Crane climb easily into the open back of the truck, slinging his backpack ahead of him, she saw the young man struggle to scramble aboard and get no help.
The Mercedes was clean, the merchant carried the code in his head.
In the darkness of early night, before the stars were up, the merchant had lifted the bonnet of the car and loosened a battery cable.
He was a little off the main road. He was parked above the sparse lights of the village of Qillaya.
It was a routine for him. If he had been bounced by a Syrian patrol or by a group of Shi'a militia, or by a band of the Hezbollah, then he would have had the explanation that his car's engine was broken, that he could not put it right in the darkness.
He wrote his message, a jumble of numerals on a scrap of paper.
He had to walk some fifty yards from the car to the angle of the road. There was always danger in these moments, on the approach to a dead letter drop. He could take every precaution during his travelling, during his halts, but the moment of maximum danger was unavoidable. If the dead letter drop was compromised he was gone. He was breathing hard. On the angle of the road was a rain ditch, cut to prevent the tarmacadam surface being eroded during the spring floods when the higher snows melted. In the ditch was a rusted, holed petrol drum. He left his messages in the drum, he received his messages from the drum. He was not more than 2000 yards from the U N I F I L zone, there was a checkpoint of NORBAT 2000 yards down the main road. He was eleven miles from the Good Fence, the Israeli frontier. He was a few minutes' walk, a few minutes' drive, from the sanctuary of the NORBAT checkpoint, from the safety of his country's frontier.
It was always the worst time for him, when he was within touch of sanctuary, safety, when he was short moments from turning his back on the checkpoint and the Good Fence and starting the drive back into the Beqa'a.
He had the paper in his hand. The merchant bent over the drum, searched for the hole into which he would place his coded report of the progress south through the valley of a girl with a donkey bomb.
The torch light flooded his face.
He thought he was losing his bowels.
He could see nothing behind, around, the blinding beam of the torch.
He waited for the shot.
The urine was driving from his bladder.
"It's Zvi, Menny. Heh, I am sorry."
The torch light went out. The merchant stood his ground, could see nothing.
There was an arm around his shoulder, stifling the trembling of his body.
"I think you pissed yourself. Heh, I am truly sorry.
There was someone who had to see your face."
The merchant saw the shadow looming behind the shape of his friend, but the shadow came no closer.
The merchant whispered, "Couldn't you have used a night sight?"
"He wanted clear light on your face, it was important… "
For ten minutes the merchant and Zvi Dan sat by the rain ditch. The merchant made his report in incisive detail. Zvi Dan gave his instructions, handed over the package.
The merchant went back to his car. First he collected an old pair of slacks from the boot and quickly changed into them, then he refastened the battery cable. He drove back to the main road and then on to the village of Yohmor where he would spend the night. In the morning he would advise the elders of the village on the spare parts they needed to buy for the repair of their communal generator, and how much those parts would cost.
Holt started up in his chair. He had been dozing. He was brought back to life by the thud of the boots on the plank slats of the verandah. God, and was he lucky to have dozed. Percy Martins was still in full flow and the station officer seemed to suffer from a private agony, and the girl was reading a Hebrew romance with a lurid cover.
The verandah was outside the officers' canteen at the army base. There were pots of flowers, and a jungle of vine leaves overhead, and there was coffee and Coca-Cola to drink if anyone could be bothered to go inside to the counter to get it for himself.
The girl was reading the book and ignoring Martins like Jane had been able to do when they were in his or her London flat and he was watching the cricket on television. The station officer hadn't quite the nerve to turn his back on the reminiscing. Martins was remem bering his time in Cyprus, spook on the staff of Government House, recommending his old strategies for application in the Occupied Territories.
Holt looked behind him, turned in his chair. He could see that both the major and Crane were still wet from face washing, and he could see that it had been a fast job because there were still smears of dark camouflage cream under the ear lobes and down at the base of their throats.
Crane said, "Long day tomorrow, H o l t… "
Martins said, "Pleased you've returned from wherever, Major. Something I'd like sorted out. I am informed I have to sleep in an hotel. I would have thought you could put me up on camp."
Major Zvi Dan said, "Not possible."
The girl, Rebecca said, "Do you like cocoa?"
Holt said, "Ages since I've had it. Quite."
Crane said, "Get to your bed, Holt. Now."
The station officer said, "I'm off early in the morning, back to Tel Aviv, I'll be gone before you've surfaced
… Give it your best effort. Look forward to welcoming you back. Holt. Sergeant."
Holt stood and shook the station officer's hand, a damp hand and a limp grip. Crane wandered off towards the counter in search of food.
Percy Martins drummed his fingers on the table. "I would like to discuss the matter of my accommodation further."
The girl, Rebecca, was back in her book. Holt saw the mud dirt on the major's boots.
"Goodnight all," Holt said.
He went to the room they had allocated him. A white painted cubicle, with a bed and a table and a chair, and three hangers on a nail behind the door. He didn't bother to wash, and he wasn't allowed to use toothpaste.
He peeled off his jogging shoes and his shirt and trousers. He switched off the light, flopped on the bed.
He had slept fourteen hours the night before, and he was still tired. The day had been divided in two. There had been the kit part of the day, and there had been the route planning part of the day. He didn't think it was from choice, he assumed it was from necessity, but at least Crane had talked to him, at him. Down the corridor was Crane's room, and next door to that the kit was laid out for packing in the morning. Crane had talked to him, at him, when they were with the Intelligence guys, when they were looking at the aerial photographs that footprinted the Beqa'a.
He heard the knock at the door.
He didn't have the time to reply. The door opened.
He saw the silhouette of the girl against the lit corridor. He saw that she carried a mug, steaming.
Holt laughed out loud, "Not the bloody cocoa?"
She laughed back at him. The curtains were thin, and when she kicked the door shut behind her, the floodlights outside streamed through. He could see that she was laughing.
"It's the best thing to make you sleep."