‘We will,’ Hassad snapped. ‘Trust me.’
They picked up some speed. The road flattened out as they put the roadblock behind them. There were fewer potholes in the tarmac, and the landscape looked less damaged. On the left-hand side of the road, they were snaking close to Israeclass="underline" at some points it was perhaps only twenty miles to the west of them. Another hour or so to the border point, Hassad told them. It was nearly nine now. They should hit it at around ten.
The Fiat pushed on into the darkness. Nobody was speaking. Porter was scanning the road ahead, keeping a watch out for more Hezbollah patrols. There were miles of empty countryside, broken only by the occasional small village. He saw some vans go by, and a couple of private cars. At one point he saw a truck full of Hezbollah fighters, their arms bristling with weapons, but they paid no attention to the van. As the countryside rolled by, Porter was thinking, planning. The pain in his mouth was terrible, the jawbone aching in a dozen different places, but he knew he had to concentrate on what happened next. With any luck, in the next couple of hours they would get across the border into Israel. But could they get in touch with the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, or would that just alert Collinson?
‘Does Sky have a correspondent in Tel Aviv?’ he said to Katie.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Jamie Breakton. You’ll get him at the Tel Aviv bureau. If he’s not answering, I can call the Fox News bureau, or The Times’s guy.’
‘Then we’ll ring him just as soon as we get over the border.’
Katie pushed her burka aside, and Porter saw her face for the first time in hours. There was still a starved, vacant appearance to her eyes, but her strength and confidence were steadily recovering.
‘The sooner we get this story on the air the better. The reason is, we can’t trust the British government, not with that fucker Collinson on the loose,’ said Porter, shaking his head. ‘Get Sky News to pick us up rather than the embassy, and we’ll be OK. If Collinson wants to shoot us, then he’ll have to do it live on TV.’
‘He wouldn’t —’
‘He bloody would,’ Porter snapped. ‘He’s already tried to kill us twice. Me, three times.’
The town of Beit Yahoun loomed up in the distance. A few lights, and some smoke rising in the air were all there was to mark it out from the rest of the desolate landscape. Porter saw the road sign, and then the outskirts of the place itself. The road worsened as they pulled into the first street leading down towards the demilitarised zone. The tarmac was cracked in so many places it might have been better to get out and complete the trip on foot, Porter thought. Along the way, there were the remains of houses, but they had been shelled virtually to oblivion. All that was left were the foundations, and the heaps of rubble that had collapsed into them. There were no street lights working, but about a mile away there were some streaks of neon shooting up into the night sky.
‘The demilitarised zone runs for about a mile to the west of here,’ said Hassad. ‘Get into there, and we’ll be OK.’
‘Any checkpoints?’ asked Porter.
Hassad nodded. The strain was evident in the man’s eyes, Porter noted. He was delivering them to the border, just the way he promised. But now he was up against his own people, and you could tell that troubled him. ‘One, and it’s heavily guarded,’ he replied. ‘But we got through the last one, so we have to hope for the same again.’
The suspension on the Fiat was creaking as it ploughed through the potholes in the road. Porter reckoned the machine wouldn’t hold out much longer. You needed an off-roader and preferably a jeep for this kind of territory. As they drew closer to the checkpoint, he could see a few men on the streets, but they were all soldiers or militia. Either the civilians had fled or they were cowering in their houses.
‘Just keep your faces covered, and don’t say anything,’ said Hassad. ‘I’ll take you to the border, then drop you there and make my own way home.’
Porter nodded.
Even if I wanted to say something, my mouth hurts too much, he thought.
At his side, he could feel Katie shaking. He gripped the side of her arm to provide some reassurance: the fear was getting to her, the same way he had seen it get to Collinson seventeen years ago. ‘Just try and hold yourself together,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll be out of here soon.’
The checkpoint was brightly lit. There were two big wooden watchtowers, reaching thirty feet into the sky, each one with a searchlight flashing onto the ground. Porter glanced up. A machine gun was placed in the centre of each tower, on a pivot so that it could fire in any direction. The road led to a gate. There were two sentry posts on either side of it, and beyond that the empty desolate scrubland of the demilitarised zone. Cross that, Porter told himself, and we’re safe.
‘What’s your story?’ said Porter, glancing across at Hassad.
‘My story?’
‘You’ve got to give them some reason why you’re driving a van into Israel. What is it?’
Hassad paused. ‘Medical supplies,’ he answered. ‘I’ll tell them we’re delivering some blood.’
‘With a couple of dozen chickens in the back?’
Hassad laughed. ‘This is the Lebanon. Everyone trades in chickens on the side.’
Porter looked back ahead. There were two soldiers manning the sentry posts, and three more checking the vehicles moving through. It was just before ten at night, Porter noted. Not a time when many people were likely to be attempting to get across any border, never mind the boundary between Lebanon and Israel. There was no more dangerous crossing anywhere in the world, he thought. No one would try to get through it unless they had to.
Back in Britain, people would be anxiously waiting for news about Katie. They might be starting to suspect something had happened. So far, however, they would have no idea what.
Two vehicles were parked at the side of the road: one van and one car. The car looked to be empty, and the van’s driver was standing outside it, smoking a cigarette. No traffic was coming through from the Israeli side. Hassad had pulled the Fiat up, but left the engine idling. One of the soldiers was walking towards them. Porter pulled the scarf up high around his neck, and made sure that Katie’s burka was drawn completely across her face. His hand was dropped beneath the seat, cradling the tip of his AK-47.
The soldier’s eyes flashed through the cabin of the Fiat. He was no more than twenty-five, with a clean-shaven face, and close-cropped black hair. But from the neat creases to his uniform, Porter reckoned he was some kind of Rupert, or Mustafa, or whatever the hell they called them out in this place. He was looking closely at Katie, his eyes running over her head, and down the length of her body. She was sitting rock still. How do they feel about lifting a burka round here? Porter wondered. In Britain, the border police are too politically correct, but I reckon around here they don’t give a toss. If they want to take a look they will.
The soldier snapped a couple of brief commands at Hassad.
Hassad tried to smile, then shrugged and muttered a few words in reply.
The soldier barked another command. One of his colleagues walked over from the gate, and stood right behind. His finger, Porter noticed, was twitching on the finger of his AK-47. No more than a teenager. Trigger-happy didn’t even begin to capture the look on his face. Trigger-bloody-ecstatic, Porter told himself grimly.
He gripped harder on the tip of his own assault weapon. Every muscle in his body was poised for action.
Another series of barked commands. Hassad was arguing, his face turning red. Then he suddenly smiled. He turned to look at Porter. ‘They’re letting us through,’ he said. ‘You’re out of here.’
TWENTY-SEVEN