Joseph had told him that he must beware of self-doubt, that he should not hate himself, that above all he should not entertain the luxury of conscience. If Joseph had only known, Samuel Bartholomew's conscience was long gone.
They reached the quayside at Sadich. The map shown to him told Caleb they were on the southern extremity of the Iranian coastline.
The dark seascape in front of him was the Gulf of Oman. He felt a raw, drifting excitement because he was about to take a further step in his journey.
The officer spoke in Arabic: 'You are, my friend, an enigma to me.
I cannot think of the last time that a man surprised me. You have achieved what I would have believed an impossibility, a confusion in my mind. I call you "my friend" because I do not know your given name or the name of your father. I am given tasks by my government that are of the greatest sensitivity, and trust is placed in me for the reason that I have a reputation for delving into the secrets of men's minds, but after eleven days in your company I have failed. You are not a taxi-driver – and I consider also that Abu Khaleb is only a temporary flag of convenience. Before I pass you on, who are you?'
It was certainly not a town, barely a village. They had left the Mercedes and the driver in the car park beside the building for the co-operative that boxed fish and put ice into the boxes before the lorries came. At the quayside there were trading dhows, fishing-boats and a little flotilla of a half-dozen launches with large twin outboards, all poorly lit by the high lights. The wind came in hard and sang in the rigging stays of the dhows, and rocked the launches at their moorings. Caleb gazed at the sea, did not respond to the officer's question, as he had not for the past eleven days and nights.
Some of those days had passed fast, some slowly. Some of the nights he had slept, for others there had been no end. He had been questioned by the colonel inside the locked, shuttered villa, but for most of the hours between meals he had watched Iranian television and had used the weights and the rowing machine offered him; he had alternately rested and built his strength. He imagined that messages had gone ahead, that answers had been received, but he did not know where the messages had been sent, or from where they had been returned. What he had learned, in those long days and longer nights, was that his importance and value to his family were confirmed further – as they had been during the time he had waited in the village in far-away Afghanistan. The sea's blow whipped his long robe and the importance gave him pride – not that he would boast of it.
'Do I need to know your true identity? No… but I like to have the loose threads tied. There is your accent. The Arabic I speak is from Iraq. I learned the Arabic of Iraq from prisoners of their army captured in the fighting on the Faw peninsula – but I do not know Egyptian Arabic or Yemeni, Syrian or Saudi. I tried tricks on you.. .
You remember the morning I woke you with a shout, an order, in English, but you did not respond? At lunch, two days ago, without warning I spoke to you in the German language. Five days ago when we walked in the garden, it was Russian… You are a man of great talent, my friend, because you did not betray yourself. You have no name, you have no origin -1 think that is your value.'
He looked out beyond the breakwater of heaped boulders, beyond the navigation light raised on rusted stanchions, and he saw the whipped white crests of the incoming waves. He felt the chill of the wind. At the villa behind the walls and the steel-plated gate, the robe had been taken from him and laundered. Now the wind plastered it against the outline of his torso and legs.
'And you have no history – perhaps because you are ashamed of it, perhaps because it is irrelevant to you, perhaps because you are in denial of it. You appear in Landi Khotal, on the Pakistan side of the common border with Afghanistan, some four years ago, a little less, and there is nothing before that, only darkness. You frustrate me.. .
You are recruited, trained, placed with the 055 Brigade, captured, and by deception – I promise you, I admire the deception – are freed.
Word is passed that you have escaped the Americans, and instructions are given at the highest level that you should be moved on
– your worth is weighed in gold. It is not my business, I know, I only carry out instructions given me in great confidence, but you are a man of value. I do not know who you are or what your history is, or what it is hoped you will achieve. I tell you, in great honesty, my friend, when you are gone I will wake in the nights and that ignorance will be like a stone in my shoe.'
On the quayside's rough concrete, men were working in the faint light to repair nets, and others were climbing down the quayside ladders to the launches. He heard the deep-throat roar of the outboards starting up.
'They cross the Gulf to the Omani shore – they go empty and come back with cartons of American cigarettes. We permit the trade. It is useful to have a route out of and into the country that is not observed
… You have to go, my friend… Time calls. May I say something more?… I am certain of you. If I had doubted you, I would have hanged you. I do not understand your motivation, your commitment, but I believe in its steel strength. You will strike a great blow against a common enemy – I do not know when or where, but I am satisfied that I will have played a humble and insignificant part in your strike, and I will listen to the radio and watch the television and when it happens I will be happy to have played a part. .. May God go with you.'
The officer put his arm on Caleb's and they walked together towards the launches.
'The war goes badly. There have been setbacks. Have regard to the power of the enemy and its machines – only the hardest man can succeed
… You look at the men who will carry you across the Gulf, and they will have seen your face. Have no worry. They will return with cigarettes, they will be taken by the Customs police and they will go to gaols in the north. They cannot betray you.'
He stood above the ladder. Five of the launches were already edging out into the harbour behind the breakwater; the last was held against the ladder.
'You have seen my face and I have seen yours. My friend, already I have forgotten you, even if I wake in the night, and I have no fear of your betrayal. You will never again be captured. You will taste sweet freedom or sweeter death. God watch you.'
Caleb went down the ladder. He felt the night close round him, and the cold.
'What the hell, man, I was asleep. What time is it?'
Marty blinked at the ceiling light.
The duty officer who manned night-time communications in the Agency's corral stood over him.
'The time is about ten minutes after the Best and the Brightest have finished a good lunch in the senior staff diner at Langley. An excellent time, they believe, to fuck with the lives of low-rank foot-soldiers. Local time, if you need it, is ten after midnight. Read this, Marty, and inwardly digest… Seems clear enough, even for a pretend pilot.'
Marty worked the sleep from his eyes, reached out and took the offered sheet, and read. He read it again. The duty officer was raking round the little room with its low ceiling and hardboard walls. He read it a third time, like he hoped it would go away but it didn't.
'Shit… Who's seen it?'
'George – well, he's the one who's going to have the headache. I felt he should be first.'
George Khoo, the Chinese-born mission technical officer, was responsible for keeping First Lady and Carnival Girl maintained and operationally ready. Down the corridor, through the thin door and the thin walls of the rooms, Marty heard a door slam, then boots hammering away, and he heard a shout of protest at the disturbance.