Betrayals (41 page)

“Ms. Stone,” said Willsher, level-voiced. “This is foolish. We're planning an incursion into another country. OK, so it's a pretty screwed-up country but by international law it's still sovereign territory. If we do it there's going to be hell to pay. That's been allowed for: to stop being shoved around by any bunch of bums who think they can take a pop at us. Washington—the President—is prepared to take whatever flak is thrown afterwards, at any international forum. But we've got to get it right. If we lose too many men …” The man stopped, awkwardly. “… and I've got to say it, if we lose John, in the attempt, then it's all going to blow right up in our faces. You understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes,” said Janet. “I understand what you're saying.”

“We've got to plan, to get as much detail as we can. Rehearse, if possible, in some sort of mock-up: outside of Washington we've a training facility, at Fort Pearce. We can have a street re-creation ready there in twenty-four hours and we've got men standing by to build it. This has got to go as clean as the Israeli rescue did in Entebbe. So we must have access to your source.”

“No,” said Janet again. Willsher was right, of course: by telling her of the rescue operation being considered they'd met her demand for action—the reason she'd put forward before for refusing—so to go on refusing
was
foolish. But her possible access to the knowledge—through Baxeter—of where John might be was her only bargaining strength. So she wouldn't surrender it: wouldn't be cut out and discarded, yet again.

“Janet!” pleaded Knox, familiarly. “You've got to!”

“It won't work,” improvised Janet. “I asked, after bringing the photograph here … after talking to Hart. They said no: that they won't cooperate directly with you. They'll only pass the information through me.”

The three men stared at her, the skepticism obvious.

“They?” isolated Hart. “More than one person then?”

“Yes,” floundered Janet.

“Why won't they trade direct?” pressed Hart.

“I wasn't told, not openly. There was some talk about not trusting you.”

“You think it's a group with which we've worked before?” said Willsher.

Janet thought she was sweating and that it would be noticeable to them. “I don't know what to think,” she avoided. “Like I said, I wasn't told directly: it's an inference.”

“What nationality?” said Knox.

“They speak Arabic,” Janet tried to sidestep.

“Syrian Arabic, Lebanese Arabic, what Arabic?” insisted the Beirut officer.

She was out of her depth, Janet decided: out of her depth and sinking, without any means of support. “Syrian Arabic,” she said.

“What's the deal?” demanded Willsher. “What are they getting out of it?”

Thinking desperately Janet realized the Americans would probably have access to her account, through Zarpas. “Money,” she said. “I've agreed to pay £20,000. But since being conned like I was before I've said I won't pay anything until
after
John's got out.” She thought it had sounded all right: she wished she were able to tell more from the expression on their faces.

“And they've gone for that?” asked Hart, doubtfully.

“They gave me the photograph, didn't they?”

“How can you contact them?”

“I can't,” said Janet, vaguely aware of firmer ground underfoot. “They've got to contact me.”

“No planned dates then?”

“No planned dates.”

“I don't like this,” said Willsher. “I don't like this at all.”

“I don't like it either,” said Janet, aware they were the first honest words she had uttered for a long time. “This is the way they insist it has to be.”

“You think you'll get a location?” said Knox.

“I've no way of knowing.” Honest again, she thought, gratefully.

“So we just sit and wait?” said Willsher.

“And hope,” Janet said.

“You think some sort of personal protection might be a good idea?” Hart suggested.

“No!” Janet said, too quickly, frightened of what surveillance might disclose—Baxeter. “I'm sure they won't come near me if they see any sort of official escort.”

“Let's not take the risk of blowing it,” Willsher said.

“You will tell us!” Knox said. “You won't try anything like before: try to do something yourself?”

“I brought the photograph here,” reminded Janet. “If I had intended doing anything myself I would not have done that, would I? I recognize well enough that you're the only people with a chance of getting John out.”

“Just don't forget it,” Willsher cautioned. “This is big league stuff now: the biggest.”

“Let's keep in daily contact,” Hart suggested. “Just to keep the lines open.”

“Of course,” Janet agreed.

“And don't forget what I said before, will you, Ms. Stone?” Hart said. “Be very careful.”

Despite the apparent assurance Janet expected them to attempt some sort of surveillance and over the following days she tried to detect it. She actually set her idea of traps, staying entire days in the hotel and around the pool, alert for obvious attention, and at other times going for long drives through the Greek parts of the island where there were tourist spots and lingering at them, intent for a familiar face following her. Not once did she detect anything. She maintained the daily contact and once accepted Willsher's invitation to dinner, which was an appalling mistake. The Washington officer resumed the embassy interrogation and Janet sweated and lied again, sure by the end of the evening that Willsher knew she was lying.

It was a fortnight before Baxeter returned. So resigned had Janet become to his absence that she did not expect the call to be from him when she lifted the receiver. As soon as she recognized his voice she erupted in a babble of questions and he had to shout her down to be able to speak himself.

“I've got something,” he announced, simply.

Janet swallowed, unable to respond. Or think clearly—properly—how she should have thought. Her immediate impression was that the moment of decision was drawing inexorably nearer, like a noose tightening. She said: “I'll come to the flat.”

She used the same avoidance technique as she'd tried before, driving openly to the communication complex and even more openly parking the car, then hurrying into the walled section of Nicosia to come out again by the rank on Eleftheria Square. Like before she drove away straining through the rear window: there was no indication of pursuit.

They thrust into each other's arms, neither speaking for a long time. Then Janet said: “I don't ever want you to go away again,” and Baxeter said: “I won't.”

They separated at last and Janet said: “You've got an address?”

Baxeter nodded and said: “It's in the Kantari district.”

“Genuine?”

He shrugged: “Who knows, until someone goes there?”

“Someone is going there,” disclosed Janet. She told him everything about the encounter at the American embassy and the assurances from Willsher and how—and why—she'd refused to disclose Baxeter's identity to the Americans. Throughout Baxeter sat nodding, not looking directly at her but slightly to one side, deep in concentration.

“And they agreed to it?” he demanded as soon as she finished. “You're still the conduit?”

“Yes.”

Baxeter nodded in further contemplation and said: “And they must continue to do so.”

Janet thought the tone of his voice was strange. “Why?”

Baxeter blinked out of his reverie. “The address could change,” he said. “You must tell them that. Let them rehearse the Kantari rescue but make them understand they can't exclude you because John might be shifted at the last moment.”

Janet stared curiously at him, aware of that sensation of a barrier arising between them again. She said: “And you would know, if there were a last minute change?”

“I have a promise,” he said.

Abruptly Janet recalled Hart's remark that day at the U.S. embassy when she produced the photograph of John, in captivity.
The lone amateur showing all the professionals how to do it
, she remembered, the words echoing in her head. Very quietly she said: “David, what do you do? Really do?”

“You know what I do.”

“Tell me,” she insisted.

“I'm genuinely employed by a Vancouver magazine,” he insisted.

“But that's not all, is it?”

Baxeter stared back at her for several moments. Then he said: “No, that's not all.”

27

J
anet felt naked—like she had been literally spread-eagled, naked, at that earlier revelation—although now she was wearing clothes. And this time the exposure was worse, far worse: not just clothes stripped off. Skin too. A moment of flagellation. She sat scooped up in a leather-backed bucket chair, her arms encompassing her legs, her head virtually against her knees like a mollusk ready at a moment's notice to retreat into its shell, never to come out again. She did not catch every word he said: every sentence even. It wasn't necessary. The mentally chafing parts—the lump-in-the-stomach uncertainties—were finally fitting into the jigsaw: an incomplete outline was becoming a more tangible image.

“The Mossad!”

“Yes,” said Baxeter, an unfettered admission.

“Why does Israeli intelligence want to become involved?”

“Policy, from on high,” said Baxeter.

Almost a paraphrase of Willsher; Janet supposed there were a restricted number of ways an idea could be expessed without repetition or cliche. She said: “I want to know! Everything!”

“What?”

“Your approach, that first day? Journalism? Or intelligence?”

“Both.”

“No!” Janet said. “I don't believe you!”

“All right!” Baxeter said. “It was to see.”

“See what?”

“If there were an advantage.”

“Jesus!”

“This isn't easy for me.”

“How the fuck do you think it is for me!”

“Do you have to swear?”

“Yes, I fucking well have to swear!”

“Don't!”

“Shit!” she snarled. “What about your getting involved in that demand for £1,000! That was a setup, wasn't it! Your people!”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Why!”

“To get closer to you.”

“To make me feel dependent, you mean! To come to rely upon you?”

“Yes,” he said, admitting more.

“You bastard! All of you. Bastards!”

“Have you any idea what I'm doing? What I'm disclosing! The rules I'm breaking?”

“I don't give a fuck about your rules!”

“I love you.”

“Stop it!” Janet cupped her hands over her ears to close out what he was saying.

“I'm trying to get through to you,” he said. “Make you understand. I was told to get close to you … OK, to see if you could be used. I wasn't told to fall in love with you. Which is why I am being honest now: telling you truthfully. I came near to doing it before … thought you'd guessed that day at the Tembelodendron …”

Janet still had her hands up to her head. She moved it, jerkily, from side to side in refusal. “I don't want to hear! Don't want your lies!”

“That isn't a lie,” Baxeter insisted. “Listen to me, for Christ's sake!”

“He's not your God.”

“Don't be facile.”

“What do you expect me to be!”

“Sensible.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“Go ahead,” Baxeter said. “Why don't you go ahead and mouth off every swear word there is and get it out of your system?”

Janet took her hands from her head. “I'm not sure that's what I need to get out of my system.”

“Are you going to listen to me?”