Eric Ambler: The Levanter

What Ghaled meant by “purification” and “purified” had soon become clear. Only five or six well publicized “courts-martial” death sentences and “purification” squad executions had been necessary. After those demonstrations there were few men of sense and substance in the Fertile Crescent who did not see that it was better to contribute to the PAF’s fighting fund than to run the risk of being named on one of Ghaled’s purification lists.

The PLO denounced him as a criminal extortionist. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine dissociated itself from the PAF and its “revisionist” leader Ghaled’s “adventurism”. The Jordanian government outlawed him. In Lebanon he was wanted on various felony charges. As Frank Edwards had said, he was poison.

“As far as I can see,” I said, “this character is completely unrepresentative of the Palestine guerrilla movement. I’m not talking about what he used to be when he was with Al Fatah, Frank. I’m talking about what he has become lately.”

He nodded. “I Suppose it’s the extortion bit that you don’t like. Would you feel that he was more representative if he planted bombs on foreign airliners or in Israeli supermarkets?”

“Yes I would.”

“I can tell you one thing. This extortion thing wasn’t started to line his own pockets. The PLO cut off his supplies and subsidies. He had to turn somewhere. Maybe the Russkis are helping him, maybe the Chinese, but he still has to have some cash to operate.”

“But to operate what? Does he really believed that he is serving the Palestinian cause with this purification racket of his?”

“No, that’s a means to an end.”

“What end?”

“Why not ask him? You talk as it you already know what he’s become lately — a mere extortionist. That’s the PLO line and I don’t buy it I don’t know what he’s become. That’s why I’m interested in him, and curious. I’d like to know what he’s up to.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try and find out.”

I called Melanie Hammad then and told her to go ahead with the arrangements for the interview.

“At once,” she said. “I am pleased to be of service, Mr. Prescott. There will, of course, be certain conditions.”

I would have been surprised if there had not been. “What conditions, Miss Hammad?”

“The interview must not be published until two days after it has taken place. Security, you understand. And there can be no photographs taken.”

“Okay. Accepted. What else?”

“The interview must be tape-recorded.”

“I don’t use a tape recorder for interviews. I take notes.”

“Salah will wish it. He will not ask you to submit your copy to him before you file your story. Obviously that would be difficult but he will wish for an exact record of what is said.”

“Very well.”

“I will supply the two recorders.”

“Two?”

“You also must have an identical record.”

“I don’t need one.”

“That will be Salah’s wish.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“I will telephone you tomorrow with arrangements for the following day.”

We met in the early afternoon at the museum in Beirut — ”I am known to too many people at the St. Georges Hotel, Mr. Prescott” — and two tape recorders on the front seat of the car were committed to my care.

Miss Hammad drove as if we were being pursued. The mountain road we were soon climbing was narrow and poorly surfaced, the Buick softly sprung. Clutching the armrest as she flung the car through the hairpin bends, I began to wonder if, for the first time in my life, I was going to be carsick. I was about to protest that we had made good time from Beirut and that there was really no need to go so fast when she braked hard. I had to grab the two tape recorders on the seat beside me to stop them slithering to the floor.

We had just come through a very sharp bend onto a short, level stretch. I saw now that there was a roadblock ahead of us. It consisted of a striped barrier which could be raised and lowered, and, to prevent anyone crashing the barrier, a staggered arrangement of concrete posts on either side of it. A concrete guardhouse with weapon slits crouched beside the barrier, and three Lebanese army men with sub-machine guns stood outside. As the car rolled to a halt one of the soldiers lounged forward.

By the time he reached the car Miss Hammad had her window down and was talking fast. The soldier talked back while looking at me. I wasn’t unduly concerned. I didn’t speak or understand Arabic myself, but I had heard enough of it spoken to know that, although Miss Hammad’s conversation with the soldier might sound like an exchange of threats or insults, it could very well be an exchange of pleasantries. This judgment was proved correct when she gaily laughed at something he had said, wound up the window, and was waved on past the barrier.

“What was all that about?” I asked.

“We have entered the military zone,” she said. “Because this is near the Syrian and Israeli borders the army polices the area. You see how it is? Those cowards in Beirut use the army to oppress the fedayeen.”

“Those fellows didn’t seem very oppressive. They didn’t even ask for our papers.”

“Oh, they know me and they know the car. It is my father’s. He has a chalet in the hills here. I said that you were an American friend of his.”

“Is that where we’re going, your father’s chalet?”

“Only until it is time to go to the rendezvous. That is at another place.”

We had passed through an Arab village and were climbing steeply again. Although it was May, up there in the mountains the snow was still unmelted in the gullies. Soon after we left the roadblock behind us she switched on the car heater.

“You didn’t tell me I might be needing a topcoat,” I said.

“Someone at the hotel might have thought it curious if you had left with an overcoat to go to the museum in Beirut. But it is all right. There are coats at the chalet that we can use.”

The chalet proved to be a sizable house with servants to welcome us and a wood fire blazing in a big stone fireplace. Sandwiches had been prepared and there was a well-stocked bar.

“I know it is early for dinner,” she said, “but we shall get nothing to eat where we are going.”

“Which is where?”

“There is a village two kilometres from here, and above it an old fort. That is the rendezvous. What will you drink?”

“Can I say that the interview took place in an old fort near the Syrian frontier?”

“Of course. There are dozens of them in the mountains here.” She smiled. “You could call it a ruined Crusader castle if you like.”

“Why?”

“It would sound more romantic.”

“Is it a ruined Crusader castle?”

“No, it was built by Muslims.”

Then it’s an old fort. Thanks, I’ll have Scotch.”

Over the drinks she tried to pump me about the sort of questions I was going to ask. I replied vaguely and as if I had not given the matter much thought. She became irritated, though she tried not to show it. Conversation flagged. I ate most of the sandwiches.

When the sun began to set she said that it was time to go. She donned a voluminous, poncho like garment, which looked as if it had been made out of an old horse blanket, and black felt ankle boots. I was handed a fur-lined anorak belonging to her father that was uncomfortably tight across the shoulders. The Buick had been put away and we travelled now in a Volkswagen fitted with snow tyres. She had a haversack with her. I carried the tape recorders on my knees. The two kilometre journey over weather-scoured tracks took twenty minutes.

We stopped just short of the village by a ramshackle stone barn that smelled strongly of animals.