“Time for the Hydra Star to sail?” said Grearson.
Azziz nodded. “Are Evans and his people ready?”
“Absolutely.”
“Evans knows to expect a message off Algiers?”
“Yes,” said Grearson. “There’s no radio-telephone communication, so it will have to be by cable. There’s no way they will be able to know it isn’t Deaken replying.”
Azziz looked at the collection of tapes. “On your next contact we should get the handover instructions then?”
“Right.”
“I want you to be the one who collects him,” said Azziz. “Personally.”
Grearson hesitated and then said, “Of course.”
“You’ll need someone to act as a liaison,” said Azziz suddenly. “There can’t be any response from the men on the boat until we’ve got the boy back.”
“Evans would be the obvious candidate,” said Grearson.
Azziz shook his head. “There needs to be a command on the boat. Take one of the others.”
“I’ll arrange it,” said Grearson.
Azziz looked down at the most recent pictures showing the fading traces of his son’s beating, then up at the lawyer. “I want them hurt,” he said quietly. “Make sure Evans understands that. They’ve hurt my son and now I want them hurt in return.”
They were all assembled at the villa on the Aubagne road when the lawyer arrived. He took the photographs, wanting them all to know what the boy looked like if the handover was made anywhere near the supposed weapons’ exchange. Evans studied them first, then passed them round to the assembled group.
“Do you think they’re marks of a beating?” asked Grearson.
“Could be,” said Evans.
“Mr. Azziz wants retribution.”
“Sure,” said Evans. “You’ve already made that clear.”
“There was to be half payment in advance,” reminded Marinetti, forever practical.
Grearson unclipped the briefcase and passed around the envelopes. To Marinetti he said, “There’ll be little need for any expert explosive use?”
“It wouldn’t seem so,” said Evans.
“So I’ll have Marinetti as the liaison,” decided the lawyer. “He can come back with me to the yacht and be with me when we exchange the boy.”
Marinetti smiled around at the others. “I’ll be thinking of you guys cramped up in that shitty old barge,” he said.
“Getting the boy back safely is the most important part of the operation,” said Grearson.
The smile was wiped from Marinetti’s face. “We’ll get him back,” he said.
Evans stood, a signal for the rest. As they started to file from the room Grearson said, “Good luck.”
“Luck hasn’t got anything to do with it,” said Evans.
The photographs had to be developed, so it was not until evening that they were brought to the Hotel Negresco. By then there had already been protracted telephone conversations with Muller, in Pretoria, about the location of the kidnap house and of the second arms-carrying freighter. Aware of Deaken’s concern, Swart let him examine them first. Deaken stared down at Karen, blinking the mistiness from his eyes. Neither picture was perfectly in focus and each was obscured by the blurred foliage in the immediate foreground of the shubbery through which they were taken. Karen didn’t look as Deaken had expected her to. He had anticipated that the strain of captivity would show; that she would look as rigid-faced as the boy. Instead she appeared relaxed, almost carefree.
He looked up at Swart, white-faced, and said, “The promise was to help me get her out.”
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet!”
Swart nodded towards the telephone. “My instructions are to find out a little more first… we don’t understand enough.”
The difference of interest, remembered Deaken. “Fuck understanding enough,” he said. “We know where she is… where they both are. Let’s get them out.”
“No.”
“I don’t need you,” said Deaken.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Swart. “You can’t do anything by yourself. You’d be killed… and get your wife and the boy killed as well.”
“Help me, then!”
“We will,” said Swart. “But not yet. We know she’s all right… that they’re both all right. Wait.”
“How the hell can you expect me to wait?”
Swart looked at the photographs of his own family. “No,” he said distantly. “How can I expect you to?”
Deaken was about to speak when the telephone rang. It was a short conversation. As he replaced the receiver, Swart said, “The ship has sailed from Marseilles. Some men went aboard at the last moment. And then it sailed. Half an hour ago.”
32
They maintained the separation of Rixheim, Levy taking his meals with Karen and the boy, while everyone else ate in the kitchen. That night Azziz said he felt too unwell to eat, so it was just the two of them at dinner, a subdued, awkward meal, with long silences between them.
“What is it?” said Karen at last. She pushed her plate away, revolving her wine glass between her hands.
“1 hope he isn’t going to become ill again,” said the Israeli.
“I don’t think he is.” Karen hadn’t told him about her escape conversation with Azziz. If the boy got away it would upset whatever it was they were planning, possibly extend the time she could be with the man she loved.
He looked at her curiously. “Why do you say that?”
“I looked in,” she said. “There’s no fever.” She paused then and said, “It’s not just the boy. is it?”
“No,” he admitted.
“What then?”
“There was some other discussion today, apart from the row. Everything is almost ready.” He couldn’t look at her.
“When?”
“Tomorrow. We’ve got to be ready for tomorrow.”
She felt sick and a weakness seemed to permeate her body, numbing her legs. “What’s going to happen?”
“The weapons we’re getting from Azziz are on a boat. It’ll be here very soon now. When we get the shipment, the boy is to be returned to his father.”
“What about me?”
“Both of you,” said Levy. He reached out to grasp her hand.
“What are we going to do?”
He didn’t answer. She took her hand away. “Tell me what we’re going to do.”
“I don’t know,” he said, empty-voiced and still not looking at her.
“Do you want me?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Do you want me?”
“Yes.”
“But you want Rebecca as well?”
He humped his shoulders, a gesture of helplessness. “It’s more than that,” he said. “There’s the protest about the settlements. There’s got to be the protest.”
“But it’s Rebecca as well, isn’t it?” she persisted. “You love her, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said shortly. “Shit! Why’s it got to be like this?”
“I don’t want to go back to Richard,” she said. “It’s not his child; it’s yours. I won’t go back to him.” Karen knew she was being irrational, ridiculous. But everything that happened to her was irrational and ridiculous. She refused to be shaken awake from the dream.
“I don’t want you to go back to Richard.”
“So tell me the alternative.”
“There’s no way we can stay together, not immediately anyway.”
She snatched at the straw. “Not immediately?”
“You didn’t think I was going to abandon you, did you?”
Karen was near to tears. “Something like that,” she said.
He raised his hand to caress her cheek. “Fool,” he said softly.
She bit at his fingers, enjoying his touch. “I love you so much,” she said.
“I don’t know how, not yet,” he said. “Or how long it will take. But it won’t end tomorrow or the next day. I’ll make something work.”
Karen smiled. Whatever it was he decided, however difficult, she would go along with it. She was consumed by him, indifferent to anything or anyone else.
Four hundred yards from where Karen sat, her husband drove slowly by the house, straining through the darkness to make out its shape, managing only to locate the tiny squares of light at various windows.