"You are a fortunate young man, Hamid. You have been chosen ahead of others. You have been chosen to strike a great blow for your p e o p l e.. "
The Brother said, "We ask you to lead an attack into Israel."
Major Said Hazan watched the young man's jaw tremble. He saw that the soles of his boots fretted on the pile of the carpet.
There was a syrup in the voice of Major Said Hazan,
"You hesitate, Hamid, of course you hesitate. You wonder to yourself, are your shoulders sufficiently broad to carry the weight of such responsibility? Your immediate concern is whether you have the competence to carry out a mission of this importance… Hamid, because you hesitate there might be others who would take such hesitation as a mark of cowardice, not I. Hamid, it is I who have faith in you. I could not believe that you have less courage than a girl child who would walk against her enemy with a donkey and with explosives."
He saw Abu Hamid's eyes waver, stray to the Brother.
"I would refuse to believe that you had less courage than had Mohammed and Ibrahim, chosen by yourself, for the glory of carrying a bomb onto the Jerusalem b u s… "
He saw that the young man now held his head in his hands.
"… Look at me, Hamid, look at my face. I carry the scars of being in the front line of the struggle against Israel. I would not be amongst those who might say that because you hesitate you do not have the courage to follow where I lead…"
He saw Abu Hamid's head rise. He held him, eye to eye.
"I know, Hamid, that the money draft of the Central Bank of Syria has never been cashed. I know, too, that in the presence of the orphans of the Palestine revolution you pledged your loyalty to the struggle…"
He saw Abu Hamid's eyes gape open. He saw the confusion spread.
"Because I know everything of you, I have chosen you."
"We ask you to lead an assault against the Defence Ministry of the Zionist state," the Brother said.
"You would go from here to the bed of your girl.
You are the modern day inheritor of the mantle of the Assassins, Hamid. You are honoured amongst your equals, you are loved by the weak and the young and the aged who cannot fight, but who stand behind you, who pray for you."
"We have to have your answer, Hamid," the Brother said.
"You would go from the bed of your girl, from the perfume of her body… There is a clear choice, Hamid.
Either you are worthy of the love of your people, or you are branded a coward. You would not prove me wrong, Hamid, I who have trusted you."
Major Said Hazan saw the trance in the eyes of Abu Hamid. He knew that he had won. He wondered why the shit scared bastard took so long to clear away his hesitation. It did not concern him that Abu Hamid would be shit scared when he led his squad against the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv. No way out, no escape then, a rat under a boot, and the rat would fight. The rat would claw and bite for survival. Shit scared was desperate, shit scared was good. He thought the boy would fight well.
"I will," Abu Hamid said.
It was over. Major Said Hazan said that the Brother could take Abu Hamid for an initial planning briefing, that he should stay the night in Damascus, that he should return to the camp in the Beqa'a and choose ten men who would accompany him into Israel.
Major Said Hazan turned briskly back to his desk. "I have work," he said curtly.
He had eaten only bread in the last 24 hours, he had drunk only water. He was moved in the black boot of a car, his eyes hidden in darkness by the hood, every few hours. He spoke no Arabic, so he did not understand the low voices of his captors. Heinrich Gunter, trussed, strapped, blind, had long since ceased to concern himself with the outside world, the world beyond the boot of a car and the basement of a building. He no longer thought of his wife and his children, nor the actions of his government, nor the position that his bank would have taken. If his hands had been free, if his tie had still been around his throat collar, he would have attempted to end his life. He knew enough to recognise that he was the classic kidnap victim. He was the man who had disregarded the warnings, who had thought that he had arranged the safe passage into the city.
Rolling painfully in the boot of the car Gunter knew the pit depths of despair. He could think of no corner into which he could crawl in his mind, where he would find comfort. He could think of no power to help him.
Into the coarse material of the hood he sobbed his tears. He had seen on the television back at home the photographs of the men held hostage. Cheerful, smiling faces from family snapshots and company archives of journalists and business men and priests and academics.
He had also seen the photographs of those few who had returned from captivity, haunted men whose cheeks had sunk and whose eyes were buried in dark sockets. The rare few who had been brought out to freedom.
But Gunter no longer cared about the many who were held, or the few who had been freed. He did not believe in the possibility of freedom, he believed only in the blessing of death.
In the middle of the day, when the car had halted, bumped off a road, he was given food. The hood was lifted an inch or two. Bread was fed to him, given him in small pieces, each piece replaced when he had chewed and swallowed.
He had no idea where he might be, what part of Lebanon he was in, and it did not seem to him to matter.
Holt played the chef. It had been a bit of a joke between them that Holt had been allowed to plan the menu for the main meal of the day.
His gut ached with hunger. More of Crane's bible.
The bible said it was good to be hungry. If you were hungry you weren't drowsy. If you were drowsy you were halfway to being ambushed.
Crane sat under the scrim netting with his legs folded and his back straight and the binoculars at his face. Holt was on his hands and knees over the hexamine tablets heating in their frame, and on the frame the canteen of water boiled. Crane's bible said that the hexamine tablets were the only source of fire they could use, anything else would give off a smoke signature and a smell signature. Two tablets the size of the firelighter pieces that his mother used at home to get the sitting room logs alight.
They were going to have a hell of a good meal. Had to be a good meal. God alone knew where they would be in 24 hours' time. Overlooking the camp, that's where they should be all through tomorrow, watching for Abu Hamid on the binoculars. Crane's plan said they should go for a dusk shot. Holt couldn't imagine having much room for stewing up a meal, or much appetite for it, when the time was getting close for action with the Model PM. So a good meal, that afternoon, a long rummage round the Bergen for the ration packs, all that was choice and best in the sachets.
Holt heard the low whistle between Crane's teeth. He looked, he saw Crane had the binoculars away from his lace, that his lower lip was bitten white by his upper teeth. Crane saw Holt's attention, relaxed his mouth, returned the binoculars to his eyes. Holt looked away.
It wasn't the first time, nor the second nor the third that Holt could recall the sight of screwed up pain on Crane's forehead, in Crane's eyes, at Crane's mouth.
He looked away. He didn't want to look into Crane's face because he was afraid.
It was the best menu he could manage.
Not a prawn cocktail or marinated mackerel for hors d'oeuvre, but a sachet of izotonic powder mixed with water to give a lemon-tasting vitamin boost. Not a bisque or a consomme for the soup course, but a short and stubby stick of peperone to chew. Not steak and chips or lamb cutlets for entree, but the boiling water into the plastic sac that held the dehydrated chicken and rice flakes. Not a strawberry flan or a sherry trifle for dessert, but a granola cereal bar that seemed to explode and expand and bulge the mouth full. Not coffee to wash it down, but a brew with a teabag. And a piece of chewing gum to wind up the feast. That added up, Holt reckoned, to a hell of a meal.