In the valley, marked on his map, were the camps of 18 different Syrian army concentrations, and in addition the camps of the Popular Front, the Democratic Popular Front, the Abu Moussa faction, the Sai'iqa group, the Popular Struggle Front. There were also the villages used by the Hezbollah, and the houses occupied by the men of Islamic Jihad. There were the communities that played host to the revolutionary guards who had sat in the Beqa'a unmoving after their despatch from Iran. In all, indicated on his map, there were 43 locations that could prove of interest to an infiltration team of the enemy.
At the moment he was helpless. But he was a man of patience.
In the camp the cook's fire guttered. The cook thought that in the morning he would use the last of his wood to prepare the breakfast, that he would spend the morning scavenging for more.
17
It was a crisp, sharp night.
The heat of the day had dissipated into the rocky slopes. In the night there was a fresh wind that caught at the sweat that ran in rivers on the throat and chest of young Holt. The pace of the night march was no greater and no less than it had been on the two previous nights, but he sweated, as he thought, like a pig. The pace of the night march remained, give or take a few yards or a few minutes, at one mile in one hour. The going should have been easier because each man was lighter from the consumption of water, close to a half of the water had been used, but still he sweated in the cool of the night march. He felt as if, along with the perspiration, the strength oozed from his body. When they reached there, when they were on the high ground overlooking the tent camp, Holt thought he would be reduced to a wrung out rag. There were no more kicked stones, there were no cracked twig branches, there was no scuffling through sun crisped leaves. Each step was concentration, each short checked stride was care.
Crane was a shape ahead of him. It was a blurred shape that only came to life at the rally points when Crane stopped and squatted and Holt reached him to slump beside him. They did not speak at the first rally points of the night. They sat and allowed their leg muscles to soften and Holt let his mind wander from the concentration and care and exhaustion of the march.
There were no words, no whispers, because Holt did not have to be told that they were now deep behind the lines. It was all in his head, it had all been told him and was remembered. They were moving north on the hill slopes between the valley floor and the peaks of the Jabal al Barouk. On the Jabal al Barouk was a state-of-the-art Soviet-built complex of radar dishes and antennae manned by the Syrian air force. Sensitive country. The dishes and antennae were protected from surprise attack. Scattered round the air defence and signals listening equipment would be, according to Crane's bible text, the GS-13 divisional level surveillance radars operating from 50 kW power packs and with a twelve kilometre competence to detect personnel and a 25 kilometre range for seeing the movement of vehicles.
Moving on the slopes above the valley and below the installations on the summit of Jabal al Barouk, Crane led Holt in darted spurts as a sailor would tack before the wind. They changed the angle of their progress every fifty, sixty, yards, as if by that manoeuvre Crane believed he could throw the attention of a drowsing ground surveillance radar screen operator. Of course, it would have been faster to have moved lower down onto the gentler slopes of the valley sides, but Crane had explained at the last lying up position that further behind the Syrian positions the risk increased of blundering into mine fields, of drifting into the wadis where the anti-personnel mines would be set around the heavy pressure anti-armour concentrations. That night, on the marches between the rally points, Holt learned much.
He learned of the methods of evasion from the dishes of ground surveillance radar, and of the way in which the cover of the terrain could be used to prevent discovery of their progress at the hands of thermal imagery equipment. He learned of the hazard of a low flying aircraft, droning above them without even navigation lights, when Crane had plotted the aircraft's path and scuttled to get clear of its flight line in case it carried infra-red targetting screens.
They moved on. Holt could not assess the threat. He could only remember the warnings that had been given him in a gravel whisper before they had left the lying up position. They lurched from rally point to rally point. The exhaustion spread through Holt's legs, through his back, through his shoulders. His recovery in the short breaks at the rally points became steadily less restorative.
He understood why the exhaustion seeped through him… He was helpless… He was led on and on by a man with disease clawing at the retina of his right eye.
He was with a marksman who had taken a contract in order to finance a one in five chance operation to reverse the decline in the sight of the shooting eye. He himself was blind, his king's good eye was done for… and he had to live with it. In the first part of that night's march, up to the first rally point, he had felt a bursting anger towards Crane. The anger was gone, knocked away by the tiredness in his legs, the soreness of his feet. He felt a sort of sympathy. But it was bloody pointless, feeling sympathy for Crane. Sympathy was no salve for the disease in the retina.
They went west and high to bypass the village of Ain Zebde. They would climb to avoid the village town of Khirbet Qanafar. Beyond the glow of Khirbet Qanafar, two and a half miles ahead, they would come down the hill slope until they overlooked the tent camp.
It was late into the evening.
The city was a mysterious place of flickering headlights and of candle-thrown shadows.
Another power cut in Damascus. The cutting of the electricity supplies was more frequent that month, a cut that would last five hours and there was nothing remarkable in that. The traffic moved through a wraith like haze of exhaust fumes. The cafes were lit by the wavering flames of the candles. Abu Hamid saw that few of the cafes had lanterns lit. There was a shortage of oil for the power station, also a shortage of paraffin lor the public.
His mind was bent by the weight of detail forced upon him by the Brother. Through the afternoon, through the rvening, he had listened and attempted to absorb the attack plan against the Defence Ministry on Kaplan as described to him by the Brother. He had been allowed to write nothing down, everything he had been told had to be committed to memory. He knew the numbers of the men involved. He knew the fire power they would carry. He knew the harbour from Cyprus out of which he would sail, he knew the times of the tide changes that would dictate the time of sailing. He knew the speed at which the coastal tramp ship would travel. He knew of the diversionary tactic that had been planned to draw away the patrolling missile boats. He knew of the two closed vans that sympathisers would drive to the shore line at Palmahim, south of Tel Aviv. He knew of the driving time from the shore line to the buildings on Kaplan. He knew of the defences of the ministry complex.
Through the cacophony of the horns, through the darkened traffic lights, through the swirling crowds of the souq, the jeep pressed its way towards the alley.
The jeep shuddered to a halt. The headlights lit a drover who flailed at the back of a horse that refused to pull further a cart laden with vegetables. From the way the horse refused to ground its left front hoof, Abu Hamid thought the horse to be lame. The jeep driver was shouting at the drover. The drover was shouting at his horse. He slipped open his door. He slammed the door shut after him. He was gone into the night, into the flow of the crowds. He was no longer the Palestinian who had been chosen to sail onto the beach at Palmahim which was south of the city of Tel Aviv. He was no longer the man on whose forehead the spot of the martyr had been painted. He could have turned, he could have cut into the narrow lanes. He could have fled. He was a moth, the alley was the lamp, the woman was the light.