“This delay has cost us money,” Mourad persisted.
“Perhaps this will make up for it. Here.” I gave him a list of the shipments I would be making from the cooperatives in the Amalia. They were substantial.
He shook his head over the list. “Is this all?”
“What have you got for her?”
“A hundred tons or so of scrap iron-briquettes. She will be half-empty.”
He never described a ship as being half-full; unless loaded to the gunwales she was always half-empty.
“She will also have passengers.”
“Passengers!”
If I had said chimpanzees he could not have been more astounded.
“That’s right For Alex. Four of them.”
“Paying deck passengers?”
“Deck passengers, of course.” As there was no passenger accommodation on the Amalia they couldn’t be anything else. “As to whether they will be paying or not, I don’t know.”
He was looking at me oddly and I don’t wonder. “Mr. Howell, this is a new departure.”
“As you well know, Mr. Mourad, we have become steadily more involved here with government business.”
“Yes, yes.” It was a wheezed lament for the Agence Howell’s lost virginity.
“And that this involvement has brought us many business advantages.”
“Many, you think? I would say a few, only a few.”
“Few or many, advantages have sooner or later to be paid for.”
“Ah!” Doom-laden.
“Having received certain favours we must expect that we will sometimes be asked to repay them.’’
“That is always the trouble.”
“And in ways that we ourselves cannot choose, Mr. Mourad. We are not consulted, we are told, instructed.”
“By whom?”
“In this case an agency of the government of which few approve. It is a branch of the security service.’’
He hawked loudly and raised his right hand to his lips. Phlegm neatly disposed of, he slightly rearranged the folds of the bandanna.
“ISS, you mean?” No ‘Certain Quarters’ nonsense, no beating about the bush for Mr. Mourad.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Who are these passengers?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why must they go by ship to Alex?”
‘’I think we should not ask that question, Mr. Mourad. It is possible that Captain Touzani may be given certain orders. There may be a rendezvous with another vessel off Haifa, something of that kind.”
“You are willing to tolerate this sort of thing?”
“It has been made plain that I have to.”
“Touzani may have other views.”
“I will speak to Touzani.”
“No doubt.” He brooded for a moment. “Your father had a somewhat similar situation to deal with in ‘46.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, very similar it was. He dealt with it.”
“How?”
“He knew the right man to go to in the military administration.”
“Which military administration?’’
The British, of course. The French had gone. Are you too young to remember? Perhaps. Well, British or French, whoever ruled the roost, your father always knew the right man to go to and the right things to say. He would never tolerate interference. He knew whom to pay and how much, and he would always get his way. He had a high-handed way with politicos. Troubles were brushed aside.”
It might have been my mother speaking. I was tempted to point out that times had changed, that the “right man” in this case was Colonel Shikla, and that anyone in my position attempting to high-hand him would have to be out of his mind; but then I would have had to explain about Ghaled and other things, and frightening old Mourad would not have helped. He might have started fumbling things because he was scared. As long as he did as I told him without fuss, I didn’t care if he thought me a weakling.
“I prefer to handle this in my own way, Mr. Mourad.”
He floated his bandanna horizontally in a brief gesture, as though drawing a line under a column of figures. He had given his advice and it had been rejected, unwisely rejected in his opinion, but so be it.
‘’I shall want the names of these passengers, Mr. Howell, for Amalia’s muster roll.”
“You shall have them, Mr. Mourad.”
We spoke of other things for a few minutes and drank some more coffee. Then I went back to Damascus.
Teresa had had a reply from Ghaled.
“He will come tomorrow night at eight.”
“What about transport?”
“He assumes that we will pick him up in the car, I think. I said that I would let Issa know.”
“Do you mind fetching him? I want to be alone with him for a while when he gets here. When you’ve put the car away give us half an hour by ourselves.”
“All right.”
“Offer to pick him up at seven thirty at the works. When you speak to Issa tell him to pass on the news also that Amalia may be docking a day early, on the twenty-sixth.”
“Is she docking early?”
“Not as far as I know. I just want him thinking that she may be. And I want the map put back on the office wall.”
“Have we still got it?”
“We must have.”
The wall map I was talking about was a big one covering the eastern Mediterranean and most of the Middle East, and had been specially drawn to display the Agence Howell organization. All the places where we had offices and main agencies were ringed in blue, and the principal tracks used by Howell ships were drawn in red. It was quite an elaborate affair. I had it taken down only because, one evening some months earlier, Dr. Hawa had made a nasty crack about it. Looking at the map he had commented acidly that Syria still seemed to be part of “the Howell empire.” Was that how I saw it? He had called me Emperor Michael once or twice after that.
So the map had been put away.
But now I had a use for it.
One of the things most clearly marked on it was the main shipping lane between Latakia and Alexandria.
I had not expected to enjoy entertaining Ghaled, but I had not been prepared for quite such a ghastly evening. It was humiliating, too. Although I planned everything very carefully — and, I thought, rather artfully — I got what I wanted from him not because I was clever, but because he chose to give it.
I received him with full ceremony in the big room which opened onto a courtyard of its own. There was a fountain in the courtyard, and it was very cool and pleasant.
That evening was the first time I had seen him in “civilian” clothing; that is, without his khaki bush shirt He had put on a white shirt for the occasion, with tie, and was carrying a tatty-looking briefcase, the kind without a handle that the French call a serviette. I assumed at first that this was a prop carried to make him look respectable in the city, but when he refused to let the servant take it, and I had had a closer look, I realized that he was using it to conceal a gun. Even on territory that could be presumed friendly he was taking no chances.
I gave him a champagne cocktail with plenty of brandy in it, which he drank thirstily as if it were water. I gave him a cigar and lit it for him. He sat back in his chair and looked around. Though he was clearly impressed he seemed perfectly at ease. That suited me. I wanted him relaxed and in as expansive a mood as possible. All the stiffness was going to be on my side. I continued to address him respectfully as Comrade Salah, and fussed a little. As soon as he had finished his first cocktail I immediately gave him another in a fresh glass. Then I suggested that he might like to inspect the rest of the villa.
He agreed, indulgently, with a soggy little quip about viewing my “capitalist decadence’’. I invited him to bring his drink. He thus had a cigar and a drink in his hands. I thought that he was going to leave his briefcase behind, but, though he hesitated for an instant, he ended by taking it with him.
The object of the exercise, from my point of view, was to get him to the office; but I took it slowly, lingering over things that took his fancy — he was pleased to let me know that he knew a Feraghan carpet when he saw one — and drawing him into giving opinions. When, at last, I took him along the passage leading to the office suite I murmured an apology.