The Levanter Part 16

'Of course. With two kilos of high explosive for the detonators to work upon we would have shaken a few windows in Der'a.'

'So I imagine. But what fired the detonators? I heard nothing before they went off.'

Ghaled looked pleased. 'No, you would hear nothing. It all worked well, didn't it?' He considered the arm again. 'It should feel easier tomorrow. If it does not, let Issa know. It may be necessary for me to put on a fresh dressing.'

'I'm sure it will be all right.'

'Well, if it is not you know how to communicate with me.'

He paused and then a strange expression appeared on his lips. It was very like a simper. 'I, too, like to play backgammon, comrade Michael.'

For a moment I could not believe my ears. He was actually asking for an invitation to the villa.

Michael managed to conceal his surprise by beaming fatuously. 'I am delighted to hear that, comrade Salah.'

'And perhaps better than Dr Hawa. Does he win or do you?'

'I am more lucky than skilful.'

'You would not rely upon luck, I think. Are you a cautious player?'

'Almost never.'

'Good. There is no sport in cautious play. We shall have a good contest. But that is for another day. Now you must go to bed and rest. You have work to do tomorrow.'

'Yes, indeed, on the directive, comrade Salah.' Michael held up his bandaged arm and again looked at it admiringly. 'No hospital could have done better. I am deeply grateful.'

Another simper. 'We look after our own, comrade Michael.'

They were both sickening.

In the car I said: 'So much for pressure.'

'What do you mean?' Michael sounded surprised.

'All you get is a burnt arm.'

'Nonsense. But for the directive we would not have been there tonight. We would certainly not have witnessed that demonstration. As it is, we at last know what sort of thing it is we are up against.'

I was too disgusted to argue.

As soon as we got home Michael, in defiance of 'doctor's' orders, poured himself a large brandy. Then, instead of going to bed, he told me to get my book and take notes.

'The weapon that Ghaled intends to use against the Israelis,' he dictated, 'is an explosive package consisting of two kilos of high explosive, detonated electrically by a system of remote radio control. The quant.i.ty of detonators available to him is in the hundreds. Allowing for wastage, misfires and the use of two detonators for each package, we must still a.s.sume that a large number, fifty or more, of these charges will be placed. It also seems likely that the intention is to explode them simultaneously.'

'How?'

He was thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. 'I don't know much about electronics.'

That was true. It was the main reason for his dislike of the electronic a.s.sembly plant. Though it did not make much of a profit it did not lose money. What he hated about it was not knowing exactly how everything they made there worked. "Worse, when he asked for explanations, they would usually be given in technical language that he only half understood; and, although he was good at framing his questions in a way that made them sound as if he knew what he was talking about, all he could do with most of the answers was to nod sagely and pretend to be satisfied.

'Who is this Taleb?' I asked.

'The foreman in charge of the Magisch stuff for the army and air force. We knew that Ghaled had an electronics man somewhere in the background. I thought it might be our Iraqi, but Taleb was always a possibility. They're both German-trained. Tell me what happened after I left with the flight bag. What did they do with that musical-box?'

I told him.

'You say that the bag exploded almost as soon as the noise started?'

'Yes, but the sound went much higher afterwards.' I gave him an imitation of the whine I had heard.

'I see. Well, I may not know much about electronics, but we can be pretty sure about what's been built into that old box of tricks.'

'Can we?'

'Isn't it obvious? First, a high-frequency oscillator with tape antenna. Second, a small generator which can be driven at high speed and full power for a few seconds. That's done by suddenly disconnecting the ordinary speed governor and by-pa.s.sing the main gear train. A little dog clutch would do it. Those things have hefty springs in them. Let one go all out for a moment or two and the torque would be terrific. And a moment or two is all you need. Just long enough for the oscillator signal to trip the relays.'

'The what?'

'Electronic relays wired to the detonators. There was a relay in that flight bag. I saw the remains of it afterwards. It looks like the inside of a small pocket transistor radio-or a burnt-up Magisch unit component. I expect we'll find when we go into it that there are some shortages in that department. Of course, they may not be down as relays on the stock sheets. Taleb may have had to adapt or modify something else to make it work as a relay, but that's what they would need-a small, simple device that responds to a radio signal by closing a firing circuit.'

"I see.' I did see, dimly.

'Now put this down. Range of system is unknown, but there are some suggestive pointers. Demonstration range was only one hundred metres or so. On the other hand the relay was tripped several seconds before full transmitting power was achieved. What is more, there was a thick concrete wall between the transmitter and the relay. Effective range at full power, with some line-of-sight a.s.sistance - e.g. the transmitter operating from a ship at sea to activate relays ash.o.r.e - is probably to be measured in kilometres. Got that?'

'Yes.'

'We'll check the electronic plant stock-sheets in the morning for shortages. Then I'll want a sample or samples of whatever components they're short of. Taleb mustn't know of course.'

'Anything else?'

'Not for the moment. Don't make any copies of those notes, just the top. I'll be adding to them I expect.'

'All right. Michael, about the directive . . .'

'Yes, we shall have to think about that. But not now, my dear. Now, I think, I really will go to bed.'

'Shall I get you some codeine?'

'Is that the stuff the dentist gave me that time?'

'Yes.'

'It made me feel sick. Aspirin will do.'

When we were in bed I asked a final question.

'Michael, what are those notes for, and why do you want samples of this component?'

I hoped I knew the answer, but he did not give it for a moment. Instead, he turned over so that he could rest his bandaged arm outside the sheet.

Then he said slowly: 'I think we know enough to make sense now. I think it's time we stuck our necks out.'

Chapter 6.

MICHAEL HOWELL.

June 14 to 29 Three days later I went to Cyprus; first to Famagusta and then to Nicosia. It was then mid-June.

I was a fool. I admit it. By going at that moment I was making the very mistake that I had warned Teresa against: I was jumping the gun. I thought that by then I knew enough, and I didn't. I should have waited.

I offer no excuses. The trouble was that, in working to put pressure on Ghaled so as to make him do stupid things, I had made insufficient allowance for the pressure that the situation was exerting on me. I don't mean things like Ghaled's s.a.d.i.s.tic little game with the flight bag-though I dare say that helped to distort my judgement - but the psychological pressures. It was easy enough for Teresa to talk of liquidation; but a family business like the Agence Howell isn't a street-corner shop. You can't just sell off the stock, put up the shutters and walk away-even if you want to, even if you don't mind tossing a three-generation going-concern into the gutter, even if you'll accept a nil-valuation on the goodwill and can ignore the gloating of your compet.i.tors as they hasten to get their sticky hands on the pieces. What is being 'liquidated' is an organism; an organism of which you are a part and which is as much a part of you as your stomach and intestines.

I am not going to describe here how I got into touch with Israeli intelligence in Cyprus; I am still hoping that the Israelis will be gracious enough to acknowledge publicly that I did so. The personal risks that Teresa and I ran in order to warn those people of an impending terrorist attack were considerable; and we cooperated with them in every way we could in order to avert a catastrophe. I don't see why they should be so close-mouthed about it. I am not asking for grat.i.tude; I never expected to be clapped on the back and given a public vote of thanks in the Knesset. I do not ask them to commend me. But a nod, even a very cool and distant nod, of recognition would be a help. It would relieve me of at least some of the 'Green Circle Incident' odium which now clings to me, and from which both Teresa and I have to suffer.

As I say, I still hope.

It is for that reason, too, then, that I am not giving a description of Ze'ev Barlev's successor which would permit him to be identified and so 'blown'. I will say only that he lacked charm, that his manner towards me was patronising, when not offensive, and that the whole experience was thoroughly disagreeable.

My meeting with the successor-I may as well call him Barlev-took place in a house near Nicosia. We spoke in English; he had a 'regional' British accent. All he offered me in the way of refreshment was a revolting bottled orangeade.

I began by explaining who and what I was, but he cut me short. He already knew all he needed to know about me, he said. What had I to tell him that I thought he didn't know and should?

I started with my discovery of Issa's private work in the laboratory, which seemed to amuse him, and went on to the appearance on the scene of Ghaled. That, I was glad to see, he found less funny. Ghaled had killed a lot of his people over the years and was taken seriously. The details of Teresa's and my recruitment intrigued him and he wanted the exact wording of the oath we had sworn. When I told him about the bogus confessions we had been forced to sign, he nodded.

'Yes, I'd heard they were doing that. Awkward for you."

Awkward, I thought, was an understatement, but I didn't pursue the matter. He wasn't really interested in Teresa and me as persons, only in what I knew. So I went on to tell him about the fuse adapter rings. He stopped me again.

'Hold it.' We were sitting at a desk and he pushed a note pad across to me. 'How about drawing that gaine you saw?'

'All right.'

I made a rough sketch. When I started to put in the approximate dimensions, he stopped me again.

'That'll do, Mr Howell. We know all about those things.'

'What is it?'

'You guessed right. It's from a rocket. The hundred and twenty millimetre Katyusha. Has a fifty kilogram warhead and a maximum range of around eleven kilometres. Quite a lot of the terrorist gangs have them. Good for hit-and-run work. They attacked a hospital with one a few weeks back. A single round killed ten people. The launcher is a simple affair, easy to make with angle iron. They don't mind leaving it behind them when they run.'

'Where do they come from?'

'Is that a serious question? Oh, I see what you mean - how does Ghaled get them? Well, he could have brought a few with him from Jordan. More likely the Algerians let him have them. Those Chinese fuses were probably smuggled in by the Turkish liberation underground. Or maybe. . . .' He broke off. 'I thought you were here to tell me something I didn't know.'

'I was just curious.'

'Well let's get on. There's nothing in this for us so f r. I'd be surprised if Ghaled didn't have a few Katyushas.'

So then I told him about the ship thing and about the remote control radio detonators. I described the test firing and gave him the notes I had made on it.

He read the notes carefully enough; in fact he read them twice; but of course he pretended to be unimpressed.

'This doesn't tell us much, does it? Did you get a sample of this electronic component, this part you think may have been used?'

'Yes, I did.' I got it out of my briefcase. It looked more like a bar of toffee than an electronic component - very hard toffee with red, yellow and green nuts embedded in it. Metal connector tags stuck out from one end.

He put it on the desk in front of him and peered at it. 'Does it have a name?'

'No, just a part number. It's stamped on the end-U seventeen.'

'U for Ubertragen do you think?"

'I don't know.'

'Didn't you find out exactly what it was?'

'The person to ask would have been Taleb. That didn't seem a good idea.'

'Pity. Nothing was said about the radio frequency they're using?'

'Nothing that we heard. I a.s.sumed that your people could find out by examining that thing.'

'It's possible.'

'Well there you are. All you have to do then is jam their transmission."

'Do what?'

'Jam their transmission."

'And detonate all their bombs for them? Are you kidding?'

'I'm not an expert. But surely with that knowledge you can do something.'

He regarded me pityingly. 'Look, Mr Howell, unless this thing is operated by a coded signal - that is a combination of signals acting like the wards of a lock which won't turn unless you use the right key-any jamming on the frequency it responds to is going to have the same effect as that musical-box gadget you saw. This relay, or whatever it is, doesn't look complex enough to me for the kind of circuitry you need for an elaborate coded arrangement. As you call it in your notes, a small, simple device. Why, it could be set off accidentally.'

'Accidentally?'

For a moment he did not reply. He was gazing into the middle distance, rather as if he had lost the thread of his argument. Then he seemed to recover it.