"I love only you, brave boy."
She had not looked into his face. She had not seen his eyes. She had not seen the smile curve at his lips. He thought of her cheeks against the reconstructed atrocity that was the face of Major Said Hazan. He thought of the fingerless hand groping to the smoothness of the skin of her thighs.
The fingers of his left hand that were tight in her hair jerked Margarethe Schultz's head back. He saw the shock sweep into her eyes. With his right hand he tore the pendant from her throat, snapping the chain clasp on her neck. He bent her head down so that it was lower than the level of his waist, so that she could see only his feet. In front of her, between her bare feet, between his boots, he dropped the pendant. He stamped on the sapphire, on the diamonds of the crescent. He thought of how she had shamed him from taking money, how she had burnt the letter from the Central Bank of Syria.
She had taken a pendant of sapphire and diamonds, she had taken the body of Major Said Hazan. He ground with his heel into the carpet. He heard the wincing gasp of her breath as he moved his foot aside, forced her head lower so that she could see the shattered pendant.
She had taken the love of Abu Hamid. She had taken his pledge that he would go into Israel, take the war into Israel, take his death into Israel.
When he pulled her head up, when she could look into his face, she spat.
She snarled, "You are scum… You are not even a good fuck, not even as good as him… "
He saw her eyes bulging towards him. He saw the blue sheen at her lips. He saw her fingers scrabble to hold his wrists. He saw her tongue jumping from her mouth.
When he let go of her throat, when she slid to the carpet, he crouched over her.
He could hear the choking of his tears. He lay across her. He could feel the wetness of her skin where his tears fell.
Percy Martins was on his bed.
It was hours since he had walked around the bare room. He had only had to walk round once to understand the nature of his confinement. Behind the curtains over the windows he had found the metal bars. He had noted that there was no light through the keyhole of the door. He had heard the coughing of a man in the corridor.
He was on his bed.
He was close to sleep when he was roused into alertness by the muffle of voices behind the door. He heard the rasp of the turning key. He sat upright on his bed.
It was the girl, Zvi Dan's assistant, Rebecca. She carried a mug of tea. He could see that it was freshly made, that it steamed in her hand. She passed him the mug.
"That's uncommonly civil of you."
"It is nothing."
"Why?"
"I thought you had been kicked, I thought they were queuing to kick you again. There were plenty of them in line to kick you."
"People like to kick a fool, when a fool is down."
Martins drank the tea, scalded the roof of his mouth.
"Kicking you does not help Holt."
He gazed into her face.
"I suppose it's stupid to ask, but there hasn't been any news?"
"There could only be news from the Syrian radio.
We are monitoring their transmissions, there has been nothing on their radio."
Martins slumped back onto his bed. "The waiting, it's so bloody awful, waiting for news of catastrophe, and for the inevitability of disgrace."
"What are your feelings for Holt?"
"He's one of the finest young men I've ever met, and I never got round to telling him."
She turned away, went out through the door. He heard the key turn. He lay in the darkness and sipped at the hot sweetness of the tea.
With three men to escort him Heinrich Gunter stumbled, tripped through the darkness over the rough ground on the slope of the hillside.
He was handcuffed to one man.
He had been given back his shoes, but they rubbed and calloused his feet and it was more years than he could remember since he had last worn lace up shoes without socks. He had been given back his shoes, but they had retained his shirt and his suit jacket and his trousers. He wore his vest and his underpants that now smelled and over his shoulder was draped a coarse cloth blanket.
Where they had left the car, his photograph had been taken. All very quick, and he had hardly been aware of the process. The hood had been snatched up from over his face, the light had blasted him. Time for him to identify the gun barrel that had been the sharp pain under his chin, and the face mask of the one who held a camera level with his eyes. Two workings of the camera, and the flash, and the hood retrieving the darkness and falling. The taking of his photograph had disturbed him. As if the photograph brought him back towards a world that he understood, a world of ransom demands and bribery, and of newspaper headlines and radio bulletins, and of the government in Bonn, and of the helplessness of the world that he knew. The taking of the photograph had forced his mind to his family, his wife and his children, and his home. Forced him to think of his wife sitting numb in their home and of th dazed confusion of his children.
It was easier for him when he was in their world, not his own, when he lived the existence of his captors Their world was the gun barrel and the handcuffs, taking a hooded hostage across the rough sloping ground below the Jabal al Barouk.
Crane froze.
Holt, behind him, had taken three more steps before he registered Crane's stillness.
Crane held the palm of his hand outstretched, fingers splayed, behind his back, so that Holt could see the warning to stop.
It was the fifth hour of the night march. Holt was dead on his feet. The moon, falling into the last quarter, threw a silver light on them.
Crane, very slowly, sunk to his knees and haunches.
A gentle movement, taking an age to go down.
Holt followed him. The Bergen straps cut into his shoulders. Pure, blessed relief, to sink low and not to have to jar the Bergen on his back.
Crane turned his head, his hand flicked the gesture for Holt to come forward.
Holt sensed the anxiety growing in his body. When Crane had first stopped he had been walking as an automaton, no care other than not to disturb a loose stone or tread on a dried branch. Gone from him, the sole concentration on his footfall. He came forward, he strained his eyes into the grey-black stillness ahead, he saw nothing. He found that his hands were locked tight on the stock of the Model PM and the bloody thing was not even loaded and the flash eliminator at the end of the barrel was still covered with the dirt-stained condom. Hell of a great deal of use young Holt would be in defending the position.. . He was close to Crane, crouched as he moved, close enough for Crane to reach back and with strength force him lower.
Crane had him down, pushed Holt so that he lay full length on the narrow track.
Holt heard the stone roll ahead of them. A terrible quiet was in him, the breath stifled in his throat. A stone was kicked ahead of him. They shared the path. So bloody near to the tent camp, and they shared the track.
Crane was reaching for his belt, hand moving at glacier speed.
They shared the bloody path. All the tracks in south Lebanon, all the trails running on the hill slopes of the west side of the Beqa'a, and they, by God, shared it.
Holt breathed out, tried to control himself, tried not to pant.
He heard the voices, clear, as if they were beside him.
Words that he did not understand, a foreign language, but a message of anger.
He could see nothing, but the voices carried in the night quiet.
A guttural accent, speaking English, seeking communication.
"I cannot see, I cannot know what I hit."
"More careful."
"But I cannot see… "
Holt heard the impact of a kick. He heard the gasp, muffled, then the sob.
"I cannot see to walk."
A noise ahead as if a weight were dragged, and new voices, Arabic, urging greater pace. Holt did not understand the words, knew the meaning.