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  “Kidnap her?”

  “And hold her for ransom. Something not unheard of in Lebanon.” “Will you tell the police?”

  “No.” Halib sat forward. “Now, Colin. I know you will find that strange. But the ramifications could be horrifying.” Seeing Colin about to protest, he held up a hand. “Please! This is England, yes, I know. But you see, Leila will one day come home to Beirut, marry her beloved fiancé Yusif, and believe me, life will be simpler for her there if we just forget all about today. Under the carpet, eh? Will you promise not to go to the police? Will you?”

  His mouth was full of almost blindingly white teeth. The smile on the face of the tiger? Colin didn’t know. All he knew was that Leila had a fiancé called Yusif, she was engaged, she’d been toying with him. Well, why not? Every queen needed a jester. He hated her—no, he didn’t. He hated himself.

  He glanced at Leila. She smiled at him and nodded briefly, puckering up her mouth, showing her laughter lines. She wanted it kept away from the police too. Right, then.

  “Um … no harm was done, I supp—”

  “Good. Fine, wonderful, great.”

  Halib bounded up; Colin instinctively rose also. Now he was being shepherded to the door by an ebullient Halib. Leila came to his rescue, taking him by the arm, her fingers tight around his flesh.

  “Don’t mind him,” she whispered. “He’s adorable once you get to know him.”

  He looked at her, trying to instill contempt into his gaze and consciously failing. Just get out, he told himself wearily. Cut it short. Go! He was almost halfway down the corridor before something prompted him to throw over his shoulder, “Leila, I live on the High—Number sixty-two, first floor.”

  Then he was being thanked yet one more time; the door was closing; he caught a final glimpse of Halib standing with arm raised to wave farewell; he was dismissed.

  It felt like that, he mused, as he wandered along Turl Street. I’m a servant, I did a good deed, I’ve been thanked by the master, and now here I am, belowstairs again, in my place.

  He returned to his room on the High, with its view of the garden at the back, now at the very height of summery charm, and put on an LP: Puccini, Madame Butterfly. After a while—it was stupid but he couldn’t help himself—he felt water on his cheeks. He swore, dashing away the tears. He began to knit all the bad words into oaths of great intricacy, attempting to weave a spell, a curse, on the woman who’d reduced him to such weakness. To such a pile of puke.

  A few minutes into Act Two, there came a light knock on the door. Colin ignored it. But then the visitor knocked again, and spoke. A woman’s voice. “Colin?” One word, just that.

  But what a word. What a voice.

  Colin, his heart beating fast, ran over to lift the needle. His hand was shaking so much that he scratched the LP—his favorite, too, and he didn’t care. He switched off the machine. He took a deep breath.

  “Come in, Leila,” he called.

  20 JULY 1984:

  0500: LONDON

  HALIB had taken no chances over the reservation. He’d telexed the Penta Hotel as long ago as May, specifying the room number he required and charging it to a Diner’s Club card. From his vantage point by the soundproofed window he had a panoramic view of Heathrow Airport’s Terminal Three. In the early light, with the aid of binoculars, he could even make out the tail insignia of a certain Lockheed TriStar that was parked on stand Juliet Fourteen.

  Halib lowered his glasses long enough to consult his watch: less than an hour to go. They would be loading the fuel, the food and drink, checking individual suitcases against the list of issued boarding passes. The cleaners would have finished by now, leaving the cabin crew to set up the galleys ready for service after climb-out. The copilot would be walking around the plane, completing his visual check for oil leaks before testing whether there was sufficient nitrogen in the tires to support a fully laden landing in case of emergency. Early passengers would already be assembling in the holding lounge. Duty-free liquor and cigarettes would be coming across from the bonded warehouse, ready for stowage. The captain was reading his weather reports, calculating weights and speeds, updating his list of radio frequencies, studying today’s Notices to Airmen. And maybe, just maybe, some bright member of the cabin staff had thought to check the life rafts in case they had to ditch

  Halib raised the thumb and middle finger of his left hand to the bridge of his nose, massaging it gently. He took another look at his watch before once more lifting his binoculars. Thirty-six minutes to push-back.

  The overhead lockers were all still open when Senior Steward Alex Perkins began his routine check of the passenger cabin. He started at the back, giving each cavity more than a cursory glance before slamming shut the door. One of his responsibilities was to examine potential hiding places for weapons and explosives; despite the fact that he’d never found anything, he took the job seriously. A friend of his had been killed in 1982 when Abu Ibrahim and the Organization of 15 May blew up a Pan Am jet as it landed at Honolulu.

  He worked his way forward, out of economy and into club, until at last he reached the first class cabin. He crossed the forward galley and set off down the port side. In the very last locker, right at the back of the plane, was the familiar gray canvas bag marked child’s life raft. He reached up and pushed it to the end of the locker, where it would not slip during takeoff. It seemed heavy for a life raft. He was about to lift it down for inspection when a nearby phone buzzed. Cockpit. Alex picked up the receiver.

  “Perkins.”

  “Three coffees, if you’ve got a moment.”

  Alex had nothing against Captain Thorneycroft, a morose little man who always looked as if he were on the point of losing his temper, though he’d never yet done so, at least not in Alex’s presence. But for all his punctiliousness, he commanded the kind of instant obedience every captain longs for, few merit, and a tiny minority obtain.

  “Three coffees,” Alex murmured. “Coming up.”

  Before returning to the forward galley he remembered to slam the overhead locker shut.

  Colin and Robbie sat in one corner of the departure lounge. After his father had finished telling him the story of how he’d met Leila, Robbie spent a long time staring out of the window. To one side he could see their waiting aircraft; beyond that, an expanse of grass and concrete, distant houses, a pale, early morning sky. Somewhere beyond all those things, his mother roamed the surface of the earth. He did not know where she was or why she had gone, and he missed her hands around him when his face ached with the strain of keeping back tears, missed the stories she used to read before kissing him good night, missed her like a sick man craves the sense of well-being he took for granted before illness struck him down.

  For the last two years he’d known it was his fault that his mother had taken off like that. Must have been. Something he’d said, something he’d done. But what? She’d not stayed around to tell him. No second chance …

  “You miss her,” he said suddenly. “Don’t you?”

  He turned to his father, willing him to answer honestly. For a moment Colin’s face remained set in marble, with eyes to match. Then he opened his mouth to speak, but before he could do so another voice interrupted.

  “No one’s sitting here.”

  Not a question but a statement; had there actually been someone occupying the seat next to Colin’s it would perhaps have amounted to an order to vacate. Colin looked up to see a middle-aged, middle-height, bespectacled man glowering over him in challenging contempt.

  “Not as far as I know,” he replied shortly.

  “Be so kind as to watch my bag.”

  Colin was about to refuse to accept responsibility for someone else’s hand luggage when the man stalked away without a backward glance, leaving his briefcase on the next seat where Colin could not help but read its label, written in angry red capitals: jan van tonder.

  “What a cunt.”

  “Robbie!”

  “Well… talking to
you like that.”

  “You just watch your language, son. They won’t appreciate words like that in K.L., and Celestine’d kill you.”

  Robbie’s expression turned sulky for a moment. He muttered something, keeping his voice low enough to prevent his father from hearing, but Colin knew it would be along the lines of “All the other guys say it all the time.” Being a sensible father, he ignored that.

  “Funny accent,” Robbie said, emerging from his mood as quickly, and as unpredictably, as he’d entered it.

  “Seth Efrican.” Colin grinned. “Not that there aren’t a few English schoolboys who could show him the door where rudeness is concerned.”

  “Oh, p—ish. Pish off.”

  They laughed. “Look out,” Colin said, “he’s coming back.”

  Van Tonder strode up to take possession of his seat, carrying a copy of the Herald Tribune. He sat down without a word of thanks to Colin for minding his case and opened the paper. After a few seconds he began to snuffle and snort. He hurled the paper onto his lap and reached into his jacket pocket for an inhaler, which he proceeded to ram up each nostril in turn. The Raleighs watched in guilty fascination. Suddenly the man’s beady eyes swung around to glare at them.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Sorry,” Colin muttered.

  “Perhaps you are one of those people who find illness in others amusing. If so, I am sorry for you. After spending ten days here I have to tell you that I am sorry for your pathetic little country, and I am sorry for you also.”

  He replaced the inhaler in his pocket, picked up the paper, and was soon lost in its foreign pages, with only an occasional catarrhal grunt to punctuate the silence.

  Colin shrugged. He took a coin from his pocket. “Which of us is going business class to Bahrain? Toss you for it.”

  “Okay.”

  “You call.”

  “Heads.”

  Colin spun. “Tails.” “Shit.”

  “It’s not so bad, actually. Between Bahrain and Kuala Lumpur it’ll mostly be night; you’ll sleep much better up front.”

  “Suppose so.”

  Passengers had started to board the aircraft. There was the usual holdup on the jetway; then the two of them were turning right at the door, heading through the galley and the small first class cabin into club, where they parted company for the time being.

  Colin had been allocated a window seat on the star-board side of the plane. The mere act of settling into it filled him with childlike excitement. There was plenty of leg room and he only had one other person next to him, not two, as in the rear cabin. Somebody was offering him a hot towel. Somebody else was carrying a tray on which stood tall glasses of orange juice, beer, and something straw-colored that fizzed; surely not…

  “Champagne, sir? Or would you rather have—”

  “Champagne will be quite simply wonderful.”

  Everything, in fact, was wonderful—the stereo headphones, the leg rest, the bag filled with Crabtree & Evelyn cosmetics for men—right up to the moment when the altercation began.

  “I have to get past. Excuse me.!”

  Impossible to mistake Van Tonder’s obstreperous tones. Colin’s lips twitched, but he did not allow the South African to distract him from his magazine. Only when he heard the response did his head jolt up and Time fall from his hands.

  “Look,” another voice was saying. “My friend. We all have to get past. Now would you mind—”

  The second speaker seemed to become conscious of Colin’s eyes upon him, for he suddenly broke off and looked along the aisle. The South African seized the moment, pushing past his opponent with an angry flurry of his squared shoulders, until he could drop into the seat next to Colin’s.

  “What are you doing here?” Colin’s voice came out in a light, hollow monotone. His throat hurt. Tension, fueled by champagne, had wrapped a multilayered bandage around his forehead and was busy twisting the tourniquet.

  “This is my seat,” Van Tonder replied huffily.

  “No, my friend, it is not.” The other man, the one who’d quarreled with Van Tonder, was standing over him. “It is mine. First you shove me aside; then you steal my seat. Move, please.”

  Colin spoke again. “What are you doing here?” he asked Van Tonder, in the same vacant monotone.

  “I’m flying to Malaysia,” Van Tonder replied with vigor. “So is that suddenly a crime?”

  “This seat,” said the man in the aisle, “has been assigned to me. Here is my boarding pass. Look.”

  There was a long silence while Van Tonder looked between his own pass and the one that had been thrust under his nose. At last he gave a nasal grunt and stood up, but with no hint of apology.

  Sharett lowered himself into the seat next to Colin’s with a shrug that did not quite amount to doing a Raful. He was irritated by his spat with Van Tonder.

  “So,” Colin said. “A long time. New York, I seem to remember?”

  “As I recall.” Raful smiled. “Thanks for defending my seat. You look well.”

  Colin grunted. “Sorry if I woke you this morning,” he said after a pause, and his voice was low. “I was feeling—”

  “I know.”

  Raful’s mouth wrinkled into a smile; he held up both forefingers to pursed lips. Both men lapsed into silence. Colin picked up his magazine again. Raful settled himself low in his seat and tried to clear his head, but disturbing images had been aroused there and he could not concentrate. He kept remembering how Colin had twice asked Van Tonder, “What are you doing here?”

  The same question had been put to him years ago in a similarly challenging tone, and the unwanted memory grated in his brain, much as the airline’s salted peanuts were going to scrape his ulcer raw.

  1974: JERUSALEM

  The year 1973 had been a bad one for Mossad Bitachon Leumi, Israel’s Institute of State Security, better known simply as “the Mossad”: first there was the Norwegian business at Lillehammer when they killed the wrong Arab, then came the series of high-level intelligence reports—lofty in more ways than one—that new Syrian troop concentrations were merely routine. Unfortunately, however, far from being routine, they turned out to be the first stages of the Yom Kippur War.

  Once the dust had settled, there was time for the big men to sit down and decide who to break, who to make. Eliahu Zeira, head of Aman, Israel’s military intelligence, had to go, of course; Memuneh Zamir was also for the chop. As new intelligence supremo they appointed Major General Yitzhak Hofi, commander of the northern front during the 1973 war, and a national hero. So the game of musical chairs began. Raful Sharett, trailing in the wake of half a dozen bigger players, moved rapidly from Political Action and Liaison to the Collection Department, himself collecting a promotion to the rank of aluf mishne, or colonel, on the way. When in the summer of 1974 the music finally stopped—and after the various debacles of 1973 the band played on for a long time—he found himself Director of the Operational Planning Division, which was exactly where he’d wanted to be ever since they’d blown up his daughter in London, five years before.

  Avshalom Gazit, young Yigal’s father, had seen through him. He was the only man who ever could. “Why are you here?” he’d asked, that famous day in the summer of 1974. “What are you doing here?”

  “We moved office in 1967,” Raful had answered disingenuously. “That year in Jerusalem; down the highway from Tel Aviv, you make a left at—”

  Avshalom lowered himself into the chair opposite and tapped gently on the desk, calling for silence. Raful complied, in itself a telling measure of his companion’s authority.

  “You could have stayed in Tel Aviv.”

  This was true. The Ministry of Defense had remained in Hakirya, avoiding the general migration to Jerusalem, and Aman was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense. When Avshalom became number two in Aman he’d invited Raful to join his staff, with better pay immediately and the prospect of promotion in a few years’ time, but although Raful would have re
lished becoming a major general he had declined the offer.

  “You should have stayed in Tel Aviv,” Avshalom added.

  This was not so much true as debatable. Aman lacked an executive arm operating outside Israel. Raful now required certain facilities—good neutral word, “facilities"—beyond those supplied by military intelligence, facilities such as kidnapping, torture, every kind of sudden and unwelcome death; these were to be the tools of his trade. So on balance he was glad he had not stayed in Tel Aviv.

  “Yet you are here. Still.” Avshalom’s long, significant pause was followed by a question larded with irony: “I wonder why?”

  Raful knew his oldest friend had not given up half a Shabbat to come down the road to Jerusalem and shoot the breeze. Avshalom was one of those rare men who might have modeled for a biblical patriarch, if only he hadn’t kept his white beard so short and tidy. The chin was prominent, and because he always held his head upright it jutted out like a physical challenge. His eyes were huge and blue, better lie detectors even than the microwave respiration monitors they kept at the Allenby Bridge. But that weary, lined face was incapable of concealment: a bad trait for a professional spy, which is perhaps one reason why Avshalom Gazit never aspired to be other than somebody else’s deputy.

  “I wanted to be where the action is,” Raful replied. “The biggest game in town has moved here: You know it, I know it.”

  Avshalom nodded slowly, his whole torso moving, not just his head. “And yet,” he said, “I think that is only half the truth.”

  By looking a fraction to one side Raful could glimpse the Western Wall out of his window. It shimmered in that very special kind of debilitating heat that only September Saturday afternoons seemed to generate. Sweat soaked his open-necked shirt. He felt tired, a little ill maybe, but there was nothing to go home to and here, in the Mossad’s headquarters, he could at least derive a crumb of comfort from the physical proximity of stenographers, communications staff, duty officers. He was stuck in this temple of truth, listening to his old friend speculate about half-truths, and for a moment Raful wanted to die because he couldn’t think of a single thing worth living for.