He had the powder ready mixed, he had the peperone laid out, he had the granolas ready. When he had mixed the chicken and rice they could get stuck in while the water heated for the tea bags.
Holt looked up. He saw Crane's head, bowed, his eyes closed tight. Shouldn't have bloody looked…
"Dinner is served, Mr Crane."
He saw the face snap back to life, saw Crane grin, as if there was no problem.
"Brilliantly done, young Holt."
They ate. Holt was learning from watching Crane.
The izotonic drained, and the sachet held upside down over the mouth for the drips, and the peperone lingeringly held on the tongue for the spice taste, and the fingers wiping the remnants of the chicken and rice from the sides of the canteen, the tea drunk.
"What's your problem, Mr Crane?"
Crane twisted his head, as if he were caught on the wrong foot. "I've got no problem."
"Give it to me."
"Being in fucking Lebanon, is that a problem…?"
"If you've got a problem then I've a right to know."
Crane snarled, "Being here with you, that's enough of a problem."
"Mr Crane, we are together and you are in pain. It seems to me you have a pain in your eyes… "
"Get the canteens cleaned, get the rubbish stowed."
"If you have a problem with your eyes then I have to help."
Crane was close to him. Holt saw the anger in his face.
"How are you going to help?"
Holt shook his head. "I don't know, but I… "
"What do I need eyes for?"
"For everything."
"To shoot, crap kid. I need eyes to shoot. I need eyes that can put me into five inches at a thousand yards."
"What is it with your eyes?"
Crane slumped back. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, like he was trying to gouge something out of them. "Disease of the retina."
"Can you shoot?"
"I shot at the road block."
"You had two hits at the road block."
"I don't know why, truly. Okay, I had two hits, but she wasn't going anywhere. I suppose it didn't matter.
Perhaps that's why I had the hits… "
"Is that why you took the job, for the money, for treatment?"
"There's a place in Houston. They have a one in five success rate, that's one more than anywhere else. It's my shooting eye, youngster."
"Mr Crane, if you can't shoot, then what's going to happen?"
Holt looked into Crane's right eye. He saw the blood red veins creeping towards the iris.
"Bet your life, Holt, I'll shoot one last time."
Holt wiped out the canteens. He cleared up the rubbish and put it in the plastic bag. He rubbed down the Model PM and the Armalite. He changed the ammunition rounds in the magazines. He felt the light had gone out. He smeared insect repellent cream onto his cheeks and his throat and onto the backs of his hands. He felt that he had been tricked. He took off his boots and peeled down his socks so that he could renew the plasters across his blister. They had given him a man who was over the hill. He let a glucose tablet dissolve in his mouth. He had gone into the Beqa'a with a marksman whose sight was failing. That was a good laugh.
"It's worse, isn't it, worse than it's been before?"
Crane nodded.
Inside the perimeter of the base camp at Kiryat Shmona, in a position far removed from the sight of the camp's main gate, were the prefabricated offices used by the Shin Bet. In previous times the principal occupation of the Israeli internal security apparatus had been to watch over the Arab population of the West Bank of the Jordan river. Since the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the main thrust of Shin Bet work had been in the northern frontier and the security zone. Building had not kept pace with the development of the new and onerous duties.
It was as if the prefabricated, sectionalised buildings represented a pious hope that the diversion of resources to matters affecting Lebanon was merely temporary. A hope only. The men of the Shin Bet found their resources absorbed by the fierce thirst for violence and revenge among the Shi'a villagers of the security zone and the countryside to the north. There was no sign that the crowded offices in the base camp would in the near future be emptying.
Major Zvi Dan had left Rebecca outside, left her to sit in the afternoon sunshine on a concrete step. He was in a cubbyhole of a room with three officials of the Shin Bet. He brooded miserably that in their temporary quarters they had failed to install a halfway decent coffee machine.
He was hellishly tired from the drive out of Tel Aviv.
"… So that is the situation, Major, concerning the Norwegian soldier and the situation concerning the Briton, Martins."
"Martins is mine."
"The case of Private Olaffson is a very delicate matter."
"I don't know what you do. While he is in the U N I F I L area we have no jurisdiction over him, and the U N I F I L command will not respond favourably to a request that he be interrogated."
The senior Shin Bet man tidied his papers together.
"This Olaffson, he drove the two Popular Front bombers to Tel Aviv?"
"Confirmed."
"He knew their mission?"
"Probably not, but he would have to have assumed that they were heading towards a terrorist target."
"Then Private Olaffson will have to discover at first hand what is a terrorist target."
Major Zvi Dan was passed the report compiled by the two agents who had tailed Olaffson to the guest house of the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, who had sat in the bar, who had listened to the conversation between the Norwegian soldier and a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service.
He read fast. He winced.
"Martins I will deal with."
"Friend, you are a warrior of the cause of freedom."
"I only tell you what I heard."
"Repeat it for me, friend."
"He said, 'How did you know about an infiltration team moving off last night?', that was what he said."
Hendrik Olaffson spelled it out. He spoke slowly. He gave time for the traveller to write the words on a sheet of paper.
The traveller put away his paper. He took the hands of the young man and he kissed him on each cheek.
"It is worth something?"
"It is worth much," the traveller said. "We will show you our gratitude."
When he had gone, the four soldiers at the checkpoint huddled together. They talked about quantity, they talked of the monies that could be charged for the quantity of hashish that would be supplied as a matter of gratitude.
Far away across the valley, invisible amongst scrub bushes, a photographer bent over the camera on which was mounted a 2000 mm lens and carefully extracted a roll of film.
Martins had made himself a prisoner in his room, he had not drawn the curtains back. Through the centre gap he had seen the start of the day and the middle of the day and then the end of the day. It was dark now and he had abandoned his unmade bed and sat crosslegged on the floor, his back against the furthest wall from the door. He knew they would come for him.
He wore his suit trousers and his shirt and his socks, and he had not shaved. Though he had eaten nothing during the day he felt no hunger. He was cocooned in pity for himself.
When there came the knock at the door he flinched.
Not the chambermaid's inquiring tap, but the thump of a closed fist on the door panel.
He didn't reply.
He watched as the door crashed open, and as the man whose shoulder had been against it lurched into the room. The man wore a leather jacket, scuffed at the wrist and the elbows. He knew the man from somewhere, his jaded memory could not tell him from where. There was another man framed in the doorway. Slowly, Martins pushed himself upright. There were no words necessary. Martins went to his disturbed bed and bent to find his shoes. He wondered if they knew yet at Century. He wondered how many of them would be celebrating his fall from grace.