She saw the annoyance, because he liked to be told first who was calling him.
"Dan here… What name? Percy Martins. Yes, I am aware of the presence of Percy Martins at Kfar Giladi
… What do you mean, is he sensitive?… No, I will merely confirm that he is sensitive, but also that his role in Israel cannot be regarded as the legitimate business of the Shin Bet… I don't believe you… You have to be joking… I had a flight for this evening but I'll drive… listen, listen, everything to do with that man is sensitive… three hours."
He replaced the telephone. His head sank into his hands.
Rebecca looked at him. "Is it bad?"
"Unbelievable." As though the wound were personal to Major Zvi Dan.
"Is it bad for the young man?"
"The roof is falling in on him."
Mid-morning, and Percy Martins lay in the bed in his darkened room. He had bawled out the woman who had come to clean and change his bedclothes, sent her packing. He had ignored his wake-up call. There was a drumbeat behind his temples. He knew there was a calamity in the air, couldn't place the source of it. He seemed to think that if he got up and washed and shaved and dressed, then he would get to the bottom of the catastrophe… and he didn't want to. He shirked the discovery.
While he remained in his room, while he lay in his pyjamas, he was unaware that a man from Shin Bet sat on a chair beside the staircase where he could look down the corridor, watch the door of Percy Martins's room. -
A quiet morning in the N O R B A T sector.
The troops had checked and searched only four cars and two cartloads of market produce in the previous three hours. The sun was sprawled in the skies, a lethargy hung over the road block, shimmer burnished up from the roadway. Two of the Norwegians dozed in the oven area under the tin roof that topped their sandbagged position, a third played patience at the lightweight table beside the entrance to the position.
Hendrik Olaffson, smartly turned out in a freshly laundered uniform, carried his NATO self-loading rifle easily on the bend of his elbow. He stared up the road.
He watched the bend. He waited to see if the traveller would come to visit.
He realised they had taken a diversion.
The driver of the jeep turned frequently to give the l ace of Abu Hamid a sharp glance, as though he was the possessor of a private joke. The driver had few teeth. A grin for Abu Hamid to see, and foul breath seeping through the gaps above and below the few there were.
Abu Hamid was not familiar enough with Damascus to know where they went. He would not ask why they had taken a diversion from the usual roads they used to get from the Beirut road across the city to Air Force headquarters, would not give the bastard the satisfaction.
They were in narrow streets. Abu Hamid thought the driver a lunatic. He had the belt on, and that had been a sign of fear, and he knew that he would be ignored if he asked the bastard to go more slowly, or to pay heed to the pedestrians and cyclists. He would just give the bastard pleasure if he told him to pay attention to the traffic signs.
In surges that shook Abu Hamid, lurched him forward against the belt, the jeep hammered down narrow streets, scattered women with their shopping bags, grazed a cart drawn by a ragged, thin horse.
They came into a square. The square seemed over-hung, squashed in, by the buildings around. It was a dark square because the buildings were tall and cut out the sun. Abu Hamid thought that only at the middle of the day would the sun fall into the cobbled centre of the square. There were balconies at many levels of the surrounding buildings, with washing suspended from them, and the stucco facades were peeled raw.
He felt the tug at his sleeve. He realised the driver had slowed. He saw the squinted amusement in the driver's eyes. The driver jabbed with the nicotined tip of his finger, showed Abu Hamid that he should look to the centre of the square.
He was not prepared.
He retched, choked, he tried to swallow down the bile that pitched into his mouth.
There were three men suspended from the gallows beam.
It was late morning. There was the bustle of traffic, and the cries of the hawkers, and the shouts of the traders, and there were three men hanging from three ropes from the scaffold. Their heads were hooded, their arms were pinioned behind their backs, their ankles were tied with rope. He knew they were men because under the long white robes in which they were draped he could see the ends of their trousers, and he could see also that they wore men's shoes. There was no movement in the three bodies because no freshness of wind could enter the confines of the square. Fastened to the robes on each man was a large black painted sign.
The driver split his face in a delighted grin.
"You like it?"
"Who are they?"
"Can you not read?"
"Who are they?"
"They are Iraqis."
"What did they do?"
"Who knows what they did? They were accused of
'jeopardising state security to the Israeli enemy'. They are Iraqis, they let off bombs in Damascus, they killed many people…"
The jeep idled past the rough cut, fresh wood gallows.
Abu Hamid stared. He saw that the shoe lace of one man was undone, that his shoe was all but falling from his foot. A fast flash thought for Abu Hamid. He saw a man in terror, crouched on the floor of a cell. He heard the tramp of feet in a passageway. He felt the shame of a man who was to be taken out to be hanged in a public square and whose fingers would not allow the small dignity of retying his shoe lace.
"… That is what I heard, that they set bombs in the city. The government says they are agents of Israel.
Who am I to say they are not? They were hanged at dawn. You like to see it?"
The driver chuckled. Abu Hamid saw the stains at the groin of each man. Abu Hamid nodded dumbly.
"It is good," the driver said. "It is not often that they hang the enemies of the state where we can see them. It should be more often. .. "
The driver slammed his foot down onto the clutch, went up through his gears. He hit the horn.
They went fast out of the square. Within a few minutes they were back into the system of wide boulevards that were the public face of Damascus. They were heading for the air ministry headquarters.
"Did Major Said Hazan give orders that I was to be brought this way, that I was to see them?"
Abu Hamid saw the black tooth gaps, and the yellowed stumps, and he heard the cackle of the driver's mirth.
"Ourselves, we are not sure of him," the Brother said.
"He has proven himself."
"We are not certain of his determination."
Major Said Hazan wriggled in his chair. He fancied he could still feel the sharpness of her nails in the skin at the small of his back. The skin on his back and down over his buttocks was of an especial sensitivity, because it was from there that the surgeons had taken the live tissue for grafting onto the uncovered flesh of his face. "He was the top student in Simferopol, and in the military academy he showed us the extent of his determination."
The Brother shrugged. It was many years since the Popular Front had been able to take decisions for themselves.
"If you are certain…"
"It is what I have decided."
Major Said Hazan went to the door of his office. In the outer office he saw the young Palestinian sitting with his head drooped. He thought the young man seemed tired.
He made his pretence of a welcoming smile, he waved Abu Hamid into his office.
"You had a good journey, Hamid?"
"I had a good journey," Abu Hamid muttered.
"You saw the sights of Damascus?"
"I saw the hanged bodies."
Major Said Hazan stretched out his arms, rolled his shoulders. "We are like an old city, Hamid, with enemies at every gate, but if we are ruthless in our struggle our enemies will never scale our walls nor force our gates. Please, Hamid, be seated." Major Said Hazan took from a cabinet refrigerator a chilled bottle of fruit juice and poured it for Abu Hamid. He went back to his desk, he took from a drawer the plan of the Defence Ministry on Kaplan, and spread it over the surface of the desk. With the heel of the hand that had no fingers he smoothed the plan flat.