I tried to explain that they were tricky things and that it was better to replace when they gave trouble. Thinking that it could be the expense that was bothering him, I suggested that it might be possible to exchange the old pump for a factory-reconditioned one. He listened, but obviously didn’t care for what he heard. If I had been functioning properly and had been more perceptive, I would probably have suspected after a while that the wires had become crossed and that what I was telling him was, though true, for some reason irrelevant.
But I didn’t suspect, and so failed to ask him the questions that should have been asked. As we neared the battery works he dropped the subject of diesel engines and returned to back-seat driving.
To me he said as we pulled up at the works gate: “You asked for a list of the special ship’s passengers.”
“Yes, Comrade Salah.”
“Then you had better report tomorrow night at eight thirty. I will give you the names then.”
“Yes, Comrade Salah.” I got out and opened the door for him.
Ahmad and Musa were already at the postern, waiting for him. They had the overhead lights on.
Once out of the car, he straightened up, tucked his briefcase under his left arm, and marched briskly to the gate, where he received and returned salutes. He had said nothing more to us and he did not look back. Presumably, we could go.
I shut the rear doors and got into the car beside Teresa. Abouti’s men and machines had made a mess of the surface there and she had to be careful turning. We did not speak until we were on the main road again.
“Is everything you wanted on that chart?” she asked then.
“I think it’s all there. I hope it is.”
“Were those pictures very nasty?”
“Very.”
“I thought so. You looked as if you were going to be sick.”
“I’m surprised I wasn’t.”
“I told you he was insane.”
I didn’t answer. “Insane” was not the word I would have chosen. The only truly insane person I had known then — a man who worked for our company and who had one day tried to kill himself and his wife — I had pitied. I never pitied Ghaled. Nor do I now. On that particular evening, however, the last thing I was prepared to get into was a “mad-or-bad” argument with Teresa.
Later, in the office, I got the chart out again and put a scale ruler on it.
The written instructions and the track drawn in ink exactly corresponded. If the Israelis were going to intercept the ship, they would have to do so outside territorial waters, as I had suggested, and move in early, when the ship made her second course change south of Caesarea. They would also, I realized, have to bend the rules considerably, because if Touzani was able to follow the instructions I meant to give him, the ship was going to be even farther outside the six-mile limit than the track on the chart prescribed.
It was when I was considering this point that I noticed the second track.
It had been pencilled in and then erased, but the line was still just visible. It gave a course about half a mile west of, and running parallel with, that indicated by the ink track below Caesarea.
I only noticed it; I didn’t pay it much attention. It could have been an alternative course pencilled in earlier and then rejected in favour of the one closer inshore. It could also have had nothing at all to do with the inked-in course. On that well-worn sheet of cartridge paper were other half-erased, smudgy pencillings, all clearly relics of past voyages.
I decided that I now had all I wanted.
“Is there a plane to Rome tomorrow?”
“Alitalia. Do you want me to try for a place?”
“You’ll get a place. Speak to Fawzi. In the morning send the cables you would usually send to the hotel and to your lawyer.”
“What about the one to Famagusta?”
I’ll send that when you’re on your way.” I paused. “I don’t want you back here until after July the third, Teresa.”
She objected to that, of course, but I was firm.
“Supposing Ghaled gets suspicious.”
“I don’t see how he can.”
“He can always get suspicious.”
“Then I’ll send you a cable ordering you back. You answer that you’re catching the next plane, but you don’t. Instead, you send another cable saying you’re held up. Or go to Nicosia on your way back and get held up there. It’s only ten days to the third. You can spin that out. If there’s any trouble here I’ll be able to slide out of it, but I don’t want you involved unnecessarily.”
“I don’t like it.”
“But I do. I’ll have one thing less to worry about.”
Thing!”
“Your being involved is a thing. No more arguments, please. I have to work out the message you’re going to take.”
Teresa left for Rome the following afternoon.
I didn’t go with her to the airport because I was known there and wanted no particular attention paid to her departure.
At four I called the airport to make sure her plane had taken off on time. I then drafted the warning cable, in the form agreed with Barlev, and told the clerk to get it to the Famagusta office.
After that I tried to put the whole business out of my mind. I didn’t quite succeed, but I worked until seven and gave the clerk his orders for the next day.
It was lonely in the villa without Teresa. If she had really been away seeing her lawyer, I would have had an early dinner and gone to bed. As it was, she was going to be away ten days instead of forty-eight hours, and I was due to report to Ghaled at eight-thirty. So, I had the early dinner and then sat wondering how soon the man calling himself Michael Howell would contact her for the message I had sent. Tomorrow morning would it be? The afternoon? If Barlev got it by tomorrow he should have plenty of time. Anyway I had done what I had said I would do. Now it was all up to him.
There had been thunder and even a few spots of rain, unusual for June; it was an unpleasantly sticky night. My shirt was clinging to me by the time I reached the battery works.
Ahmad let me in. It was the first time that he had seen me without Teresa and he wanted to know where she was. I told him that she hadn’t been ordered to report, which was true, and he didn’t ask any more questions.
Ghaled, however, did.
“You did not say last night that she was going to Rome.”
There was no occasion to do so, Comrade Salah. She goes to meet with her lawyer on business. I expect her back on Thursday.”
“You yourself reported, correctly, and obtained my permission before you went to Beirut on business. The same when you went to your Famagusta office.”
“Miss Malandra’s business in Rome is purely private. I gave her permission to go, I am afraid.”
“As a comrade she has no private business, and you have no right to give such permission. The request should have been reported and permission obtained from me. What is this business?”
“Her father’s estate. She was left some land which is being sold, I think.”
“You mean she is rich?”
“There is some money. I don’t know how much, Comrade Salah.”
“Well, she shall tell us herself when she returns. Understand that, in future, permission to make journeys must always be obtained.”
“Yes, Comrade Salah.”
“Now. You wanted a list Here it is.”
I glanced at the paper he handed me. There were four names on it. One of them was Salah Yassin, the others I didn’t know. I looked up.
“One question I must ask, Comrade Salah.”
“What question? You have the list.”
“The port authorities may ask to see papers. Will the papers these persons carry have the same names as those on this list?”
“Of course. We are not fools.”
“I only wish to be sure that all the arrangements I make will go smoothly, Comrade Salah.”
“Quite right, Comrade Michael No, don’t go. And don’t stand there. Sit down.”
I obeyed and waited.
“Since you are so anxious that arrangements go smoothly there is another matter you can help us with.”