The car took side lanes to skirt Syrian army road blocks on the highway leaving Beirut. From a post that was jammed sturdily through the top gap in the front window flew the flag of Hezbollah. On a white cloth had been painted the word "Allah", but the second "1" had been transformed to the shape of a Kalashnikov rifle.
The car used a rutted, deserted road and climbed, twisted, towards the mountains to the east.
The station officer read the teleprinter sheet. At home the local wine had been flowing free. His suit jacket was on the back of the chair. He took off his tie, loosened his collar.
" S h i t… "
He did not concern himself with the demand for
"especial vigilance" for a spy in the Beqa'a. He read over and over the order for "maximum attention is to be given to the interception of this group".
"… So bloody soon."
"For Crane it would be natural to assume that the enemy is alert." Major Zvi Dan hesitated. "But he has Holt."
"And the boy's green. I shall have to tell them in Century… "
"Tell them also that there is nothing you can do, nothing we can do."
It would be two hours before the station officer returned, sobered, to his guests.
His message, sent in code from his embassy office, reported the probability, based on intercepted Syrian army transmissions, that the mission of Noah Crane and Holt was compromised.
He thought that he had made a fool of himself at the fish pond.
The first fish was exciting, the second fish was interesting, the following 34 fish were simply boring. If he had not pulled out the pellet-fattened trout then they would have used a net for the job.
But time had been killed, and it had been made plain to him that he was denied access to the Intelligence section at the Kiryat Shmona base, and that news – whatever it might be – would reach Tel Aviv first.
He had taken a bath. He had put on a clean shirt and retrieved his trousers, pressed, from under the mattress of his bed. Percy Martins had smoothed his hair with his pair of brushes.
Dinner in the dining room. Trout, of course. A half a bottle of white Avdat to rinse away the tang of the artificially fed rainbow.
Before dinner and after dinner he had tried to ring the station officer. No answer from his direct line at the embassy. No help from the switchboard. Inconceivable to him that the station officer would not have left a contact number at the embassy's switchboard, but the operator denied there was such a number. He walked to the bar. He could read the conspiracy, those bastards at Century in league with that supercilious creep, Tork, a mile off. They had shut him out. Actually it was criminal, the way that a man of his dedication to the Service and his experience was treated. The Service was changing, the recruitment of creatures like Fenner and Anstruther, and their promotion over him, that showed how much the Service had veered off course.
Good work he had put in over the long years of his time in the Service. He had had his coups, and damn all recognition. He reckoned that his coups, their full extent, had been kept from the Director General… if the Director General only knew the half of it, Percy Martins would have been running the Middle East Desk long since, sitting in Anstruther's chair, kicking the arse off Fenner. He would have bet half of his pension that the Director General had never been told that he had crowned his Amman posting with, as near as dammit, a prediction that the Popular Front were about to launch a hijack fiesta. In his three years in Cyprus he had actually gone to his opposite number at the American shop, warned him of the personal danger to the ambassador, all there in his report – he bet the Director General had never been told, certainly never been reminded when the ambassador had been shot dead. First categ-oric and specific news of the Israeli nuke programme out of Dimona, that had been his climax on a Tel Aviv tour – he hadn't had the credit, the credit had gone to the Yanks. God, and he had made sacrifices for the Service. Sacrifices that started with his marriage, followed with his son. He hadn't complained, not when he was given his postings, not when his wife had said she wasn't going Married Accompanied, not when his son had grown up treating him like an unwanted stranger.
A record of total disappointment at home, and he had never once let it show, hadn't let his work suffer.
Holt and Crane into the Beqa'a, Percy Martins's last big one, by Jesus, he would not let the last big one go unnoticed on the nineteenth floor of Century.
He had a good record, nothing to be ashamed of, and less recognition for it than the man who sat behind the reception desk at Century. Meanwhile he was stuck in a kibbutz, where there was no fishing, where there was no access to a damn good mission going into Lebanon, Of course, he should have insisted that there was proper preparation of the ground rules before he ever left London. And no damned support from the station officer. The station officer's balls would be a decent enough target when he made it back to Century…
He had signed his bill, should have had a full bottle of Avdat but he had never gone over the top with expenses, he had strolled to the bar.
Percy Martins had never been able to understand why so many hotels dictated that drinking should be carried out in semi-darkness and to the accompaniment of loudspeaker music. There were Americans in the shadows, from the air-conditioned bus that had arrived in the afternoon. He preferred solitude to them. Blue rinse, check trousers and damn loud voices for both sexes.
The Americans had all the tables except one. Two men sat at the table, and bloody miserable they seemed to Martins because in front of each of them was a tall glass of fresh pressed orange juice. Not young and not old, the two men. Obvously Israelis. One wore an old leather jacket, scarred at the cuffs and elbows, the other wore a bleach scrubbed denim jacket. They were not talking; they looked straight ahead.
And there were the young Scandinavians. He knew they were Scandinavians, impossible language they were speaking, like English taped and played backwards. And drinking, and loud. All that Martins associated with Scandinavians.
There were four of them. He had the choice between several loud American women and their husbands, the teetotal Israelis, and four merry Scandinavians. They were at the bar, they were ordering another round. He assumed them to be UNIFIL. At the bar he nodded to them, made his presence known, then ordered himself a beer.
He had drunk half his beer, not made contact, when t he young man closest to him lurched backwards on the punchline of a joke, stumbled against Martins' elbow while he was sipping, spilled a mouthful down the laundered shirt.
It was the beginning of the conversation. Handkerchiefs out, apologies first in Norwegian and then English when Martins had spoken. Introductions.
He learned that the young man who had jogged him was Hendrik. He learned that Hendrik was with UNIFIL's NORBAT. He learned that Hendrik and his friends were allowed one evening a week in Kiryat Shmona.
He was rather pleased. A stained shirt was a cheap price to pay for introductions.
A replacement beer was called for by Hendrik.
"You are English, Mr Martin?"
"Martins. Yes, I am English… Cheers."
"Here for holiday?"
"You could say I am here for a holiday, Hendrik."
"For us it is not a holiday, you understand. No holiday in south Lebanon. What does an Englishman find for a holiday in Kiryat Shmona?"
"Just looking around, just general interest… Your glass is empty, you must allow me."
Martins clicked his fingers for the barman. Had he looked behind him, he would have seen that the two glasses of orange juice remained untouched, that the Israelis leaned forward, faces set in concentration. Four beers for the soldiers, a whisky and water for Martins.