The sign on the door was in Arabic, badly written and peeling, Nahnu Filastin. Someone had taken a fibre tip pen and scrawled beneath it the initials WAP.
Ethan knocked on the door. He made it a loud knock. They had to think he was confident about turning up here unannounced. In fact, he had seldom felt so vulnerable. It reminded him of the times he’d knocked on doors as a beat policeman, never knowing who or what might lie in waiting: a Yardie with a gun, a pissed-off gangster with a baseball bat, a pit bull terrier on a short leash.
It took several knocks, then someone shuffled across the floor and opened up. Ethan’s host was a man aged about thirty, on the scruffy side, smoking a very pungent reefer of locally grown kif. He looked barely alive, as though the hashish had wandered into dangerous recesses of his brain.
‘Sabah al-khair,’ he muttered, then, beneath his breath, ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m not the fuck at all, son,’ answered Ethan. ‘I’ve come for a friendly chat, and it’s time you woke up or missed the opportunity of a lifetime. Can I come in?’
Taken aback, Mr WAP tried to extend a limp hand, failed, and shoved it back inside his trouser pocket. He stood aside to let Ethan pass inside.
As he did so, a woman’s voice came from the first room.
‘Bob? What the fuck’s going on. Who is it?’
To Ethan’s surprise, the woman who emerged from the dingy, poorly lit office, was not the raddled harridan he’d expected, but a pretty young woman wearing a burnous and with henna tattoos on the backs of her hands. She had blonde hair, tied back behind her head, and twinkling eyes. Ethan guessed she must be about twenty-one.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Been to a wedding last night. I had my hands hennaed. Like them?’
Ethan smiled and nodded. Her slim hands seemed wrapped in brown lace.
‘Would you like me to come back at a better time?’ asked Ethan.
The woman shook her head.
‘Better get it over with, eh? It’s a bit of a relief to talk to somebody who speaks bloody English.’
She looked past Ethan to where Bob stood, bewildered, holding the door close to his chest as though he feared it might run away.
‘Bob,’ she said, ‘why don’t you close the door and go back inside and have a nice sleep?’
Bob hesitated for about five seconds, then recollected himself and went to a door in the far wall. It closed behind him with a heavy clunk.
‘What can I do for you, stranger?’ she asked, obviously taken by the contrast between Bob and Ethan. ‘Why don’t you take a seat? Over there, just toss the books off.’
She pulled a seat up beside him.
‘My name’s Ethan,’ he said. ‘Ethan Taylor.’ It had occurred to him that even this woman, buried away in the heart of old Tripoli, might have heard of him and his devilish deeds.
‘Helena,’ she said. ‘Helena Mayberry. I’m Bob’s assistant, at least that’s what they sent me out here to do. Bob’s not very together at the moment. He thinks Pete Doherty sent him a message. Well. You’ll have to put up with me instead. I hope that doesn’t upset you.’
‘It certainly doesn’t.’ Ethan had gathered from Helena’s smiles and body language that Bob was probably dreadful in the sack, and that she thought herself an English rose languishing in the far, far realms of Barbary and just longing to be properly shagged. Maybe it was just as well, Ethan thought. He didn’t fancy using the subtle arts of seduction on Bob.
They talked for over an hour. Helena was puzzled by Ethan’s offer, and even more by his demand, but she was relatively new to the Palestine Aid game, and thought this must be the sort of thing that went on all the time over here. She knew all about the weapons smuggling into Gaza and the West Bank. They didn’t take stuff across by sea much now. The Israeli boats didn’t come this far across, but they kept a tight watch on the Gaza coast. The Italians had started patrolling in Libyan waters, to turn back would-be migrants heading for Europe. Most of the arms went by the desert route.
‘Where are you staying?’ she asked. She’d told him she had graduated from Bolton with a degree in post-structural literary studies. Her attempt to explain it was shipwrecked on her own incomprehension of any of the books she’d read or lectures she’d attended. She was one of those popular girls in a gap year, a 2:2 or a third in her pocket, yet never really educated, a party-pooper girl, all blotched mascara and bad judgement, her pale eyes and golden hair suffering under a too hot sun.
‘I make it a rule not to give out my address,’ he said. ‘This is enemy country. You need to be careful. Mossad have been sniffing round, I think they’re on to me. Keep your door locked and don’t go out for a few days. You’ll be all right once I leave Tripoli.’
‘You wouldn’t like me to come along, would you?’ she asked. ‘I’m a bit fed up here, to tell you the truth. I mean, the Israelis are pigs and that, and the Palestinians should have their own state, right? But I have to tell you, I’m pissed off with Bob. The next boyfriend will have to be a lot more together. And a lot more use in bed.’
She smiled a come-on smile and licked her lips. She was pretty enough and probably hot stuff beneath the burnous, but Ethan withdrew from her mentally. His thoughts were with Sarah. He hadn’t spoken to her since the unfortunate incident in Romania, but as often as they met there was electricity between them. Their eyes would meet and pass, then return to each other and rest.
‘I’d better get going,’ he said. ‘When should I come back?’
He’d left a list of arms that Gavril had drawn up.
‘Give me till tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘Come here late. Come on your own.’
He shook his head.
‘I’ll need help to carry it all.’
She looked disappointed, then sniffed once and shrugged.
‘Bring your fucking friends, then. We’ll have a party.’
To Ethan’s surprise, the arms were waiting for them when they turned up at the WAP office. Bob was nowhere in sight, but another man, a Libyan, handled the transaction smoothly while Helena looked on. His luxuriant black hair was combed back and fell down almost to his shoulders. He wore a white silk burnous and fingered a string of amber prayer beads while he talked. Helena eyed Ethan all the time, but he noticed that she sometimes let one nail-varnished hand rest on the Libyan’s, and that he did not draw his hand away. He gave his name as Tariq, but revealed nothing more of himself. His English gave away the fact that he had spent some time in the United States.
Ethan had been accompanied by Gavril and two other monks. As they began to carry the weapons, wrapped in sacks, out to the alleyway, the Libyan turned to Ethan.
‘I had things to see to in the new harbour,’ he said. ‘While I was there, I heard of someone, a German or an Austrian, I can’t be sure, who was also buying guns. Perhaps he is a friend of yours. Perhaps you and he work together?’
Ethan shook his head.
‘I know of no Germans,’ he said. ‘Though I’m sure there are many Germans who try to help the people of Palestine.’
They said their farewells. Gavril and Ethan waited till they were safely back at the hotel before speaking. They knew Aehrenthal was ahead of them. They would have to leave on the following day.
26
The Road to Kufra
After the coast comes the sand. Beyond a certain point, the Sahara is inevitable. It stretches right across, from Morocco in the west to the shores of the Red Sea in the east. It is not a sea but a vast ocean that has swallowed worlds. It runs south to the Sahel region, engulfing entire nations, gathering their bones, turning men and animals and stone to dust.