Eric Ambler: The Levanter

“From here we must walk,” she said and produced a flashlight from her haversack.

It was still light enough to see the outline of the fort; a squat, ugly ruin perched on a ledge of rock jutting out from the hillside above. It wasn’t far, but the way up to it was rough and we needed the flashlight. In some places there were stone steps and these were dangerous because most of them were broken or loose. Unimpeded by having to carry tape recorders, Miss Hammed bounded ahead, however, and was obviously impatient when I failed to keep up with her. Finally, as the track straightened out and we approached the scrub-covered glacis of the fort, she told me to wait and went on alone. At the foot of the glacis she made some sort of signal with the flashlight. When it was answered from above she called to me that all was well. I plodded on up. By then I didn’t much care whether all was well or not. My chief concern was to avoid spraining an ankle.

The stone archway which had been the entrance to the fort had long ago collapsed, and stunted bushes grew in the rubble. There was, however, a path of sorts through it, to which she guided me with the light. There was an Arab in a black wool cape waiting. He motioned me forward with the lantern he carried.

Inside there was more rubble and then a clearing. One of the old walls was still intact, and against it had been built, probably by some local goatherd using stone from the ruins, a lean-to. It had a roof made of bits of rusty iron sheeting patched with tar paper, and a door with cracks in it through which light filtered. In the clearing beside the hut were tethered three donkeys.

“I will go first,” said Miss Hammad. “Give me the recorders, please, and wait here.”

She said something in Arabic to the man in the cape, who grunted an assent and moved up beside me as she went to the hut. When the light spilled out from the opening door he peered at me curiously and licked his lips. He had a gray stubble on his jaw and very bad teeth. He smelled bad, too. He asked me in halting, guttural French if I spoke Arabic. I said I didn’t and that was that. Two minutes went by, then Miss Hammad reappeared and beckoned to me.

The light in the hut came from a kerosene pressure lamp standing on a battered oil drum. The only other furniture consisted of a crude bench-like table and two stools; rags had been spread to cover the earth floor for the occasion and a smell of cigar smoke almost masked those of kerosene and goat.

As I entered, the cigar-smoker, who wore a sheepskin coat and a knitted wool cap, rose from one of the stools and inclined his head.

“Mr. Prescott,” Miss Hammad announced with awe. “I am permitted to present to you the commander of the Palestinian Action Force, Comrade-leader Salah Ghaled.”

He was not handsome; he had a beak of a nose that was too big for his head and a thin moustache that emphasized the disproportion, but in his hawk like way he was impressive. The eyes, heavily lidded, were both keen and wary. Although I knew that he had only just turned forty, he seemed to me to be a much older man. A very fit one, however; every movement he made was precise and economical, and those of his hands had a curious grace about them.

He inclined his head fractionally and then straightened up.

“Good evening, Mr. Prescott,” he said in strongly accented, hesitant English. “It is good of you to make this journey. Please sit down.” His cigar hand motioned me to the second stool.

Thank you, Mr. Ghaled,” I replied. “I am glad of this opportunity of meeting you.”

We sat down on the stools.

“I regret,” he said, “that I am unable to offer you coffee here, but perhaps you will accept a glass of arrack and a cigarette.”

He stumbled over the words and they were the last he said in English. Miss Hammad now took over as interpreter.

A bottle of arrack and two glasses stood on the bench beside the tape recorders along with a pack of the cigarettes I usually smoke. Obviously the arrack, the glasses, and the cigarettes had been brought by her in the haversack.

“Mr. Ghaled does not, of course, normally drink alcohol,” she said as she opened the bottle, “but he is not bigoted in these matters and as this is a private occasion he will join you in a glass of arrack made in Syria.”

I happen to loathe arrack, wherever made, but this did not seem the moment to say so.

“I am told that Syrian arrack is the best kind.”

She translated this as she poured.

Ghaled nodded and motioned to the glasses. We each picked one up and took ceremonial sips.

“I will now prepare the tape recorders,” said Miss Hammad. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor now and went on talking alternately in English and Arabic as she set up the microphones and inserted the cassettes.

“Each tape will record for thirty minutes at the slow speed, and I will warn you when I am about to change them. Perhaps it will be as well if I repeat the conditions under which the interview is conducted.”

She did so. Ghaled said something.

“Mr. Ghaled has no objections if Mr. Prescott wishes to take written notes to supplement the tape recording.”

“Thank you.” I put my glass down and took out the scratch pad on which I had already made notes of the preliminary questions I would ask — the easy ones. I could feel Ghaled watching me as I thumbed through the pages; he was trying to weigh me. I took my time looking over the notes and lit a cigarette to extend the silence. If he became impatient, so much the better.

It was Miss Hammad who became impatient.

“If you will say something into the microphones to test them, Mr. Prescott, we can begin.”

“It is an honour to be received by Mr. Ghaled.”

She translated his reply. “It is gracious of Mr. Prescott to say so.”

She played it back on the recorders. They were both working. She pressed the “Record” buttons again and said in English and Arabic: “Interview of the commander and leader of the Palestinian Action Force, Salah Ghaled, by Lewis Prescott, correspondent of the American Post-Tribune news service syndicate, meeting in the Republic of Lebanon on. .” She looked at her watch to check the date before adding it.

It was the fourteenth of May.

Michael Howell

May 15 to 16

On the fourteenth of May I was in Italy, and I wish to God I had stayed there.

Even an airport strike — if it had delayed me for twenty-four hours or so — would have helped. At least my ignorance would have been preserved a little longer. With luck I might even have escaped direct involvement. But no. I went back on the fifteenth and walked straight into trouble.

The fact that the poison had already been in the system then for over five months — ever since the man calling himself Yassin had come to work for me — was something I did not know. I have been accused of having turned a blind eye until circumstances forced me to do otherwise. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, those who know me best, business friends, for example, have found the fact that I was both ignorant and innocent hard to accept. My admission that never once during those months had I had the slightest inkling of what was going on seems to them no more than a highly unconvincing, but in the circumstances necessary, claim to incompetence. Well, I can scarcely blame them, but I am sorry. That admission, which I certainly did not enjoy making and of which I am anything but proud, happens to be true.

One thing I would like to be clearly understood. I am not trying to justify myself or my conduct; I am only attempting to repair some of the damage that has been done. It is not my personal reputation that matters now, but that of our company.