Eric Ambler - The Levanter

They had. Mourad’s assistant took us in the office panel truck to the ship, and we weren’t stopped once. There was no customs examination. We were not even asked to show our papers.

The Amalla Howell was built in a Dutch yard in the late thirties. We bought her in 1959 and since then she has had two complete refits. Still, she does look her age. When we got out of the track on the quayside and Ghaled saw her for the first time, he stopped short and put down the Serinette.

“ That is the ship?”

“Yes, Mr. Yassin.”

“But it is old and filthy. The paint is coming off. It cannot be seaworthy.”

“She is perfectly seaworthy, and the crew have been chipping off the old paint You can’t judge by outward appearances, Mr. Yassin.”

“You said that the Amalia looked like that model in your office.”

“She does.”

“Not to me.”

“Models don’t go to sea,” I said shortly and walked away. He followed after a moment.

Mourad’s assistant was waiting at the gangplank. I told him that he would not be needed any more and led the way on board.

They were still working cargo on the after well-deck but the first mate, Patsalides, had been warned of our arrival and came forward to receive us, or, rather, to greet me. He merely glanced at the rest.

“The Captain asks that you take your party to the saloon, Mr. Howell. The baggage can be left here for the time being.”

Although he could speak some Arabic he used Greek now. I translated to Ghaled.

“We will keep our baggage with us,” he announced firmly.

I could have done without that. Patsalides understood, of course, and his mouth tightened, but he glanced at me for guidance instead of responding as he would have liked to.

“That’s all right, Mr. Patsalides,” I said hastily. “I can see you’re busy. I know the way.”

The saloon was immediately below the bridge and at the end of the alleyway serving the officers’ cabins. It wasn’t much of a place, I admit; just functional.

On one side was the table where the officers took their meals, on the other were some scruffy armchairs and a recently recovered leatherette sofa. There was a door to the galley and a second door opened onto a narrow strip of covered deck. From there an iron companionway led up to the bridge. Inside, the smells of cooking oil and stale cigarette butts mingled with that of the new leatherette.

Ghaled looked about him as if he had been used to better things.

“A little different from the Howell villa,” he observed. “I see you don’t believe in pampering your officers.”

The comment irritated me. “They don’t have to be pampered, Mr. Yassin.”

I didn’t wait to see how he took the suggestion that front-fighters did have to be pampered; I went in search of the captain. I found him on the starboard wing of the bridge looking down at the quay.

“In the saloon?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Which is Mr. Yassin?”

The one in the white shirt How much have you told Mr. Patsalides, Captain?”

“That they are fedayeen and that we are to be cautious in dealing with them for the present. I could scarcely tell him less.”

“No. I am interested in their baggage, Captain. Not that strange-looking case with Yassin, I know what’s in that, but their other baggage. I’d like to know what arms they have with them.”

“So would I, Mr. Howell.”

“Do you think Patsalides could organize a discreet search? Perhaps while we are at the evening meal?”

“I think so. I have arranged for a cabin for Yassin, as you asked. The other three will be in the special compartment aft.”

There had been a time, before it became strictly illegal, when the Agence Howell had done a little business, mainly with American dealers acting for museums, in newly excavated Greco-Roman antiquities. The dealers said what they wanted; we had it shipped out of the area in which it had been found. Hence the special compartments.

“I had forgotten you had one.”

“We still find uses for it occasionally.” His expression was bland. “They will not be too uncomfortable. They can sleep on palliasses.”

“What kind of door is there on the compartment?”

“It has a clip that is very difficult to move, unless you know how, and can also be padlocked. Perhaps I should now go below and introduce myself.”

I had not been wrong in choosing Captain Touzani. It was almost a pleasure to introduce him to Ghaled.

“Mr. Salah Yassin, Captain Touzani.”

They nodded, eying one another; two very different Arabs.

“And Mr. Aziz Faysal.”

More nods. I didn’t bother with the other two.

Captain Touzani smiled expansively. “Gentlemen, you are all most welcome aboard this ship. Mr. Howell will have told you that we do not normally carry passengers, so the accommodation I can offer you is limited. However, the second officer has offered to share another cabin until we reach Alexandria. His berth is therefore available to Mr. Yassin. Mr. Howell as owner will naturally berth with me. The other gentlemen will be accommodated aft.” He pressed a bell-push. “The steward, Kyprianou, will show you where to go. Meals will be taken here. There will be separate sittings for passengers at times of which you will be told. I must ask you to observe certain rules. The bridge is strictly out of bounds to passengers at all times. You may walk anywhere on the main deck, that is the one below this.”

The steward, a dirty little man in a clean white jacket, had come through the galley door in answer to the bell.

The captain pointed Ghaled out to him. “This is Mr. Yassin, Kyprianou,” he said in Greek. “Show him and his companions to their quarters.”

Ghaled was glaring at the captain. Clearly he hadn’t liked being told what he could and could not do, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about registering his displeasure.

Touzani looked him straight in the eye. “The weather forecasts are good, Mr. Yassin. I see no reason why we should not have a smooth and pleasant journey.”

Then he turned and went back up to the bridge.

We sailed shortly after dawn.

I had dozed fitfully on a couch in Captain Touzani’s office cabin. The results of the baggage search the previous evening had not been reassuring.

The front-fighters each had machine pistols. Ghaled had in his case, in addition to a new black suit, a Stechkin automatic in a webbing holster and a small transistor walkie-talkie set.

It was this set that worried me. When Patsalides told me about it I immediately asked if he didn’t mean a pair of walkie-talkie sets. That’s what I hoped he had meant, but he shook his head.

“No, Mr. Howell, just one.”

When he had left us Touzani looked at me curiously. “Why should you mind about this set? If he has one that only means that someone on the boat coming from the shore has the other.”

“Yes.”

“What difference does it make? You can’t use those things as direction finders, at least not effectively. A boat from the shore would be looking for our lights.”

I didn’t tell him what I was worrying about was not a boat from the shore, but Hadaya from the sea. It looked as if Ghaled intended to control and coordinate the whole operation from the Amalia.

I should have worried more about that walkie-talkie, seen the danger it really represented and so been better prepared to counter it. The trouble was that in my own mind at that moment I was quite certain that I knew what the Israelis were going to do. It wasn’t just wishful thinking on my part; I had been using the ship’s radio.

As soon as we had left Syrian waters that morning I had begun sending messages to Famagusta, a series of three. They could not be explicit; I had to wrap everything up in commercial jargon; but they made and remade three points.