Betrayals (42 page)

Janet sat with her arms around her legs again, staring at him, wanting to feel hatred—something like it at least—but nothing would come.

Baxeter waited but when he saw she was not going to speak he said: “Journalism is the cover, like the passport. It enables me to travel all over the Middle East. My first meeting with you was exactly what I told you: exploratory. How did I know how it was going to work out!”

“What about John?” Janet demanded. “The photograph and the address? Did you really go to Beirut to get them?”

“Collect them,” corrected Baxeter. “We've got a lot of sources there: a lot of operatives. We've got to have.”

“But why?” she pressed. “Why get involved? Is there an advantage there, too?”

“It would be a humiliation to the terrorists, if America were able to get in and get out one of their people,” said Baxeter. “And I hope there could be a personal advantage, too.”

“I don't understand that last part.”

“You're never going to be able to choose with John still in captivity, are you?” he said, simply.

Why couldn't she hate this man! Janet asked herself. Why couldn't she despise and detest him for using her like everyone else had used her! “No,” she said, almost to herself.

“Forgive me?”

“I don't know.”

“I haven't hurt you.”

Janet supposed he hadn't, but it was difficult for her to work out. “I don't know that either,” she said.

“I obviously couldn't tell you in the beginning,” he said, trying to convince her. “And afterwards it was too late. Now it means there's a chance of rescuing John!”

It was convoluted but true, she recognized. “I suppose you're right,” she conceded.

“So you forgive me?” he asked again.

“I said I don't know. I need to think: understand everything.”

Would she ever understand everything!

“I want you to stay tonight.”

Janet realized, despising herself, that she wanted very much to stay. “No,” she said, as strongly as she could. She accepted—just—his explanation but she'd still been used and couldn't dismiss it as lightly as this, as if it hardly mattered.

“I guess it was too much to ask.”

“Too much to expect.”

“That too,” he agreed.

“Was it true what you said, about the possibility of John being moved?”

“That's the way they operate, precisely to prevent rescue.”

“Why me!” demanded Janet abruptly, as the query occurred to her. “Why bother to use me as a conduit? Israel and America are allies: you rely enormously on Washington. Why not deal direct, agency to agency?”

Baxeter nodded, acknowledging the question. “Ready for the cynicism?”

“Yes.”

“Damage limitation,” said Baxeter. “This way it remains entirely an American operation. They get the credit if it goes right, the criticism if it goes wrong. We're prepared to sacrifice one to avoid getting caught up in the other.”

“How do you learn to think like that!”

“Years of practice,” Baxeter said.

Janet shuddered, involuntarily. “It's creepy.”

“Sure about not staying?”

No, she thought. “Positive,” she said.

“You know everything you have to tell the Americans?”

Janet wished he had tried harder to persuade her. “Yes,” she said.

Hart was at the hotel to collect her in the chauffeur-driven limousine within thirty minutes of Janet's call. They assembled again in the pine-paneled conference room and the three men huddled excitedly around the paper that Janet offered, with the Kantari address.

“Know it?” Willsher asked.

The Beirut agent nodded. “We've more than enough photographs and plans of the street for the mockup at Fort Pearce,” he promised.

“What about checking it out ourselves on the ground: trying to establish if it really is where John's being held?” came in Hart.

Knox made an uncertain movement with his hand. “We could try, I suppose. But what if we're spotted?”

They seemed to have forgotten her presence, thought Janet. She said: “Don't forget the possibility of his being moved.”

Willsher looked back to her.

Janet repeated the warning that Baxeter had given, together with the assurance of her being able to learn any new location.

“Sure you'll be able to find out?” Willsher asked.

“Yes,” Janet said. She was now, she thought: now that she knew what Baxeter really did. She supposed she should feel reassured and wondered why she didn't.

“We'll have to build that contingency in, of course, through every stage of the planning,” Willsher said, to the other two men. “And blanket Kantari with every sort of listening device that's been invented, as a backup.” The man turned back to Janet. “Looks as if you're going to remain an important part of the team,” he smiled.

“It's good to be involved,” said Janet. Should she feel a hypocrite? Only about her romantic involvement with Baxeter, she decided: everything else was being moved along the labyrinthine paths that Baxeter and these three men trod all the time. If it had not all been literally in such deadly earnest—so important—Janet could imagine laughing at the absurdity of it.

“Still keep in daily contact,” Willsher told her. “There've been more thoughts from Washington, too.”

“What?” she asked.

“We've decided to maximize the impact of getting John out,” said Willsher, confidently. “I'm to ask you if you'd agree to reunion publicity?”

Janet swallowed, not able immediately to respond. What would that moment be, the ultimate hypocrisy or the ultimate, inevitable choice? “Aren't you planning ahead a little?” she said.

“That's exactly what we're doing.” Willsher chose not to acknowledge her caution. “Everything that can be planned for is being planned for.”

“Of course I agree,” she said. Hypocrite, she thought: what right did she of all people have to criticize Baxeter or anyone else for lying and cheating and being labyrinthine?

“We're not going to fail,” Willsher said confidently. “This isn't going to be another Iran hostage screwup. We're going to get John out and leave an awful lot of bloody noses behind, believe me!”

“I'd like to,” said Janet. “I'd like to believe you very much indeed.”

“Perfect!” said Baxeter enthusiastically, an hour later.

“Is it?” said Janet.

The Israeli became serious, matching her mood. “There always had to be a decision time, sooner or later.”

“I know.”

“So this is it.”

“Not quite,” she said.

28

I
t would have been fatuous for Janet not to think about the choice she had to make: it was constantly at the forefront of her mind. At best she could refuse to consider it, with any finality, which was how she went through the succeeding days: aware but uncommitted. If she could remain uncommitted, that is, spending every available moment with Baxeter and making love every night—and sometimes during the day—and feeling content only in his presence or when he was near. They drove to the mountains again and this time there was none of the aching nostalgia she'd experienced when she'd made the journey alone, and he took her to a production of Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing
at a restored Roman amphitheater in the low seacliffs near Limassol: the backdrop was breathtaking, the performance magnificent and the irony of the title not lost on them. After the play they went to a restaurant near Lady's Mile. Baxeter said it was the one he'd had in mind after the photographic session in the mountains when he'd asked her to dinner.

“That was the first time I knew,” he said. “Thought I knew, anyway.”

“Me, too,” said Janet.

Janet maintained daily contact with the CIA group at the American embassy and on the fifth day, at Willsher's invitation, went to the legation, intrigued by what she found. The room in which they had always met had been transformed into what she could only think of as a war room. There were three separate blackboards on their easels—two draped with maps with blown-up inserts of Kantari, the third covered with ground and aerial photographs—and an additional cork pinboard upon which photographs had been given map references. Neither Hart nor Knox were present, but during their meeting a hard-boned, crewcut man in unmarked jungle camouflage fatigues came into the room, consulted an index on the pinboard and withdrew. He paid no attention whatsoever to either of them and Willsher made no effort to introduce him.

“It looks positive,” Willsher said. “We've had lots of image-intensified pictures—movie as well as still—blown up to their maximum enlargement of the area and particularly the street. Under analysis there seems to be a lot of activity. We've identified Amal militia groupings: weaponry, stuff like that. Also there is some indication of a radio installation. The British are giving us a tremendous amount of cooperation: we think we've isolated their wave band and we're backing up with our own satellite intercepts, as well.”

“What about Fort Pearce?” asked Janet.

Before replying Willsher looked towards the door through which the soldier had just left the room. “Why I asked you to come today,” he revealed. “They've finished the mockup exercises. They're here.”

“Here!” echoed Janet, surprised. Nearer and nearer, she thought.

“We're on countdown, Ms. Stone. Which is where you come in. We want to hear from you that John's still there: that we haven't got to re-direct.”

“Yes,” Janet accepted, emptily.

“How long?”

“I don't know,” answered Janet, honestly. It seemed absurd, but it was something she had not discussed with Baxeter.

“Could you give me some idea tomorrow?”

“I hope so,” said Janet. “What's the plan?”

“That's classified,” refused Willsher.

“I didn't mean the details of the incursion,” elaborated Janet. “What about afterwards? If you find John where are you going to take him?”

“Here,” said Willsher. “The British are making their air base at Akrotiri available. Already on its way towards the Lebanese coast is a major part of the Sixth Fleet, including the aircraft carrier. They won't enter territorial waters but there'll be blanket air support. John will be helicoptered here to undergo medical checks while we set up the press briefing.”

The planning appeared to be absolute. “Where you want me to be present?” she said.

“Right alongside the man you love,” smiled Willsher.

It felt like a physical blow, a punch low in the stomach. She managed a smile and said: “It should be quite a media event.” Would Baxeter attend, as the journalist he was supposed to be?

“And show these fanatic bastards up to be the useless idiots they are,” said Willsher, with sudden vehemence.

What else would it show up? “It could all be over in days?” she said, distantly.

“That's the scale we're working to,” Willsher confirmed. “Over and finished in days.” He smiled. “All we're waiting for is the word from you.”

Once again Baxeter heard her out with the distracted attitude she found disconcerting, concentrating upon what she was saying but not upon Janet herself.

“Days?” he queried.

“That's what Willsher said: all they're waiting for is my confirmation.”

“I'll need their definite date,” said Baxeter.

“Why?” asked Janet.

“It's important.”

“Why?” she repeated.

“Trust me.”

“Will you have to go back to Beirut?”

“Maybe not this time.”

“How long?”

Baxeter pulled down the corners of his mouth. “Maybe forty-eight hours.”

Over and finished in days, she remembered. What, exactly, would be finished? Baxeter left early the following morning, but this time there was none of the earlier emptiness because her mind was in a turmoil of indecision. How could she dispassionately pick one against the other! The very word was a mockery: passion had every thing to do with it. Uncomfortably, her mind held by it, Janet decided that if she were making a comparison, which was what she had to do, then Baxeter was a better lover than John. But that was only a part of it. She knew she loved Baxeter because she'd been with him: practically lived with him. It seemed so long ago with John: almost difficult to remember. So she had to have time with him again. Not for herself, she thought quickly. To be fair to John, that's all. Was she capable of that sort of hypocrisy, going through the charade of the media reunion and all the time conducting some sort of mental trial? She didn't think she was:
couldn't
think, properly, of anything.