Brian Freemantle - Betrayals

“Yes,” said Janet. “I understand what you’re saying.”

“We’ve got to plan, to get as much detail as we can. Rehearse, if possible, in some sort of mock-up: outside of Washington we’ve a training facility, at Fort Pearce. We can have a street re-creation ready there in twenty-four hours and we’ve got men standing by to build it. This has got to go as clean as the Israeli rescue did in Entebbe. So we must have access to your source.”

“No,” said Janet again. Willsher was right, of course: by telling her of the rescue operation being considered they’d met her demand for action-the reason she’d put forward before for refusing-so to go on refusing was foolish. But her possible access to the knowledge-through Baxeter-of where John might be was her only bargaining strength. So she wouldn’t surrender it: wouldn’t be cut out and discarded, yet again.

“Janet!” pleaded Knox, familiarly. “You’ve got to!”

“It won’t work,” improvised Janet. “I asked, after bringing the photograph here… after talking to Hart. They said no: that they won’t cooperate directly with you. They’ll only pass the information through me.”

The three men stared at her, the skepticism obvious.

“They?” isolated Hart. “More than one person then?”

“Yes,” floundered Janet.

“Why won’t they trade direct?” pressed Hart.

“I wasn’t told, not openly. There was some talk about not trusting you.”

“You think it’s a group with which we’ve worked before?” said Willsher.

Janet thought she was sweating and that it would be noticeable to them. “I don’t know what to think,” she avoided. “Like I said, I wasn’t told directly: it’s an inference.”

“What nationality?” said Knox.

“They speak Arabic,” Janet tried to sidestep.

“Syrian Arabic, Lebanese Arabic, what Arabic?” insisted the Beirut officer.

She was out of her depth, Janet decided: out of her depth and sinking, without any means of support. “Syrian Arabic,” she said.

“What’s the deal?” demanded Willsher. “What are they getting out of it?”

Thinking desperately Janet realized the Americans would probably have access to her account, through Zarpas. “Money,” she said. “I’ve agreed to pay?20,000. But since being conned like I was before I’ve said I won’t pay anything until after John’s got out.” She thought it had sounded all right: she wished she were able to tell more from the expression on their faces.

“And they’ve gone for that?” asked Hart, doubtfully.

“They gave me the photograph, didn’t they?”

“How can you contact them?”

“I can’t,” said Janet, vaguely aware of firmer ground underfoot. “They’ve got to contact me.”

“No planned dates then?”

“No planned dates.”

“I don’t like this,” said Willsher. “I don’t like this at all.”

“I don’t like it either,” said Janet, aware they were the first honest words she had uttered for a long time. “This is the way they insist it has to be.”

“You think you’ll get a location?” said Knox.

“I’ve no way of knowing.” Honest again, she thought, gratefully.

“So we just sit and wait?” said Willsher.

“And hope,” Janet said.

“You think some sort of personal protection might be a good idea?” Hart suggested.

“No!” Janet said, too quickly, frightened of what surveillance might disclose-Baxeter. “I’m sure they won’t come near me if they see any sort of official escort.”

“Let’s not take the risk of blowing it,” Willsher said.

“You will tell us!” Knox said. “You won’t try anything like before: try to do something yourself?”

“I brought the photograph here,” reminded Janet. “If I had intended doing anything myself I would not have done that, would I? I recognize well enough that you’re the only people with a chance of getting John out.”

“Just don’t forget it,” Willsher cautioned. “This is big league stuff now: the biggest.”

“Let’s keep in daily contact,” Hart suggested. “Just to keep the lines open.”

“Of course,” Janet agreed.

“And don’t forget what I said before, will you, Ms. Stone?” Hart said. “Be very careful.”

Despite the apparent assurance Janet expected them to attempt some sort of surveillance and over the following days she tried to detect it. She actually set her idea of traps, staying entire days in the hotel and around the pool, alert for obvious attention, and at other times going for long drives through the Greek parts of the island where there were tourist spots and lingering at them, intent for a familiar face following her. Not once did she detect anything. She maintained the daily contact and once accepted Willsher’s invitation to dinner, which was an appalling mistake. The Washington officer resumed the embassy interrogation and Janet sweated and lied again, sure by the end of the evening that Willsher knew she was lying.

It was a fortnight before Baxeter returned. So resigned had Janet become to his absence that she did not expect the call to be from him when she lifted the receiver. As soon as she recognized his voice she erupted in a babble of questions and he had to shout her down to be able to speak himself.

“I’ve got something,” he announced, simply.

Janet swallowed, unable to respond. Or think clearly-properly-how she should have thought. Her immediate impression was that the moment of decision was drawing inexorably nearer, like a noose tightening. She said: “I’ll come to the flat.”

She used the same avoidance technique as she’d tried before, driving openly to the communication complex and even more openly parking the car, then hurrying into the walled section of Nicosia to come out again by the rank on Eleftheria Square. Like before she drove away straining through the rear window: there was no indication of pursuit.

They thrust into each other’s arms, neither speaking for a long time. Then Janet said: “I don’t ever want you to go away again,” and Baxeter said: “I won’t.”

They separated at last and Janet said: “You’ve got an address?”

Baxeter nodded and said: “It’s in the Kantari district.”

“Genuine?”

He shrugged: “Who knows, until someone goes there?”

“Someone is going there,” disclosed Janet. She told him everything about the encounter at the American embassy and the assurances from Willsher and how-and why-she’d refused to disclose Baxeter’s identity to the Americans. Throughout Baxeter sat nodding, not looking directly at her but slightly to one side, deep in concentration.

“And they agreed to it?” he demanded as soon as she finished. “You’re still the conduit?”

“Yes.”

Baxeter nodded in further contemplation and said: “And they must continue to do so.”

Janet thought the tone of his voice was strange. “Why?”

Baxeter blinked out of his reverie. “The address could change,” he said. “You must tell them that. Let them rehearse the Kantari rescue but make them understand they can’t exclude you because John might be shifted at the last moment.”

Janet stared curiously at him, aware of that sensation of a barrier arising between them again. She said: “And you would know, if there were a last minute change?”

“I have a promise,” he said.

Abruptly Janet recalled Hart’s remark that day at the U.S. embassy when she produced the photograph of John, in captivity. The lone amateur showing all the professionals how to do it, she remembered, the words echoing in her head. Very quietly she said: “David, what do you do? Really do?”

“You know what I do.”

“Tell me,” she insisted.

“I’m genuinely employed by a Vancouver magazine,” he insisted.