The Twisted Wire

by Richard Falkirk

  ‘I love you.’

  She smiled and the smile reached him and warmed him.

  She said: ‘They didn’t do anything more about the oil potential because they are, after all, Arabs. What have they ever done with the desert? It is we Israelis who make it bloom.’

  ‘All right,’ Bartlett said. ‘Forget the propaganda for a bit.’

  ‘We need to know where that oil is,’ Raquel said. ‘Who wants to give oil to Jews these days? We have enough trouble getting arms from you, let alone oil. If we had enough in the Sinai it wouldn’t matter to us if no one wanted to give us any.’

  ‘And you reckon one of those maps of mine can do the job for you?’

  ‘So do the Arabs and Russians. And the Americans – but their reasons are a little more complicated than ours.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘They are much more complicated,’ she said. ‘That’s why the President of the United States was on the phone. Unfortunately you weren’t the only one to overhear the call.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘It’s very simple. The United States wants peace in the Middle East. Make no mistake about that. They also want to be the boss – just as the Russians do. So they want all the cards. And they want the prestige of being the country that puts forward the formula for peace at the four-power talks. You can’t blame them.’

  ‘I see,’ Bartlett said. And he almost did. ‘You mean a settlement based on a withdrawal by the Israelis.’

  Raquel said quickly: ‘A limited withdrawal from the Sinai only. But to agree to that we’ve got to know where the oil is. We don’t want to pull out from territory oozing with oil which the Arabs can exploit. Whoever produces the formula for peace has got to know where those sites are.’

  Bartlett said: ‘What have your own geologists and petrologists been doing since the June war?’

  He thought wistfully of what they should have been doing. The search for outcroppings indicating alternating layers of porous and impermeable sedimentary rock, particularly when it was uplifted into domes or anticlines. And the latest geophysical techniques employing magnetic, seismic and gravitational theories.

  Raquel said: ‘Are you listening to me, Thomas?’

  He returned to the hotel. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think you were. I was pointing out that the June war never really finished for us. We have been fighting ever since. We’ve done some prospecting for oil but it’s very difficult under such circumstances.’

  Through the shell-hole Bartlett watched the first star materialise. Their guard stood up and spoke in Arabic.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Bartlett said.

  ‘I think he’s worried that he can’t see us properly.’

  The Arab picked her up and sat her on the sofa in front of the shell-hole. Then he put Bartlett next to her so that he could see both their silhouettes. He returned to his desk and lit a cigarette. In the light of the match Bartlett saw one drooping eye staring at him.

  The Arab put out the match and Bartlett felt behind him for the satchel left there after the maps had been removed. It was open. His hands had been tied so that the palms and fingers faced outwards. He touched trowel, hammer, knife. He felt the knife’s blade with his thumb. Somehow he had to wedge it so that he could rub the rope binding his wrists against it.

  He manipulated the knife for a couple of minutes until the handle was stuck through the buckle of the satchel. Then he began to work the rope against the cutting edge. Sweat gathered on his forehead and trickled into his eyes. His breathing gathered speed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Raquel said.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said in a quiet, casual voice. ‘The receptionist may know a few words of English.’ Then he whispered, ‘I’m trying to cut the rope.’

  He rubbed away, waiting to feel the first fibres breaking. But nothing happened.

  The guard spoke again in Arabic.

  Bartlett said: ‘What’s he on about now?’

  ‘He’s asking why your breathing is so quick.’

  ‘Tell him I’ve got a fever. Tell him I caught malaria in the Congo. Tell him anything.’

  Raquel managed a few phrases of Arabic. The guard grunted as if he were satisfied.

  The light through the shell-hole was silver from the moon and the stars. He thought of the wild red desert frozen now on its chill glow. His wrists began to ache, then to burn. He had intended to have the knife sharpened for a long time.

  As he sawed and suffered he contemplated the last decade of his life. Helen and her men. The first one and the sickness of discovery. His efforts at reconciliation interpreted as weakness and acquiescence.

  Ever since his arrival in Israel they had diagnosed weakness. Yosevitz the Polish Jew, Everett the dead American, the thieving Arab in Jerusalem, Ralston with his detective ways. And probably Raquel.

  They had all presumed too much. Bartlett smiled in the glacial darkness despite the pain burning his wrists as if someone were holding a candle flame to them. He would escape: if he didn’t then he deserved to die because they were right – he was weak.

  Still he couldn’t detect any give in the thin, nylon rope. Or could he?

  The first strand seemed to break as the first shell exploded in Israeli-held Kantara. The foyer of the hotel was lit briefly with orange and white light. The crack of the explosion followed almost immediately and the brickwork in the shell-hole grated uneasily.

  Raquel said: ‘You see who starts it?’

  Bartlett stopped sawing for a moment. ‘You never give up do you?’ he said.

  ‘Why do you say that? It is quite plain – they have started the shooting.’ Bartlett imagined her shrugging with contemptuous eloquence.

  The guard paced the foyer restlessly.

  Raquel said: ‘He is very upset. I do not think the Egyptians were supposed to start shooting just yet. But they get everything wrong.’

  Bartlett began to work again. He looked at Raquel’s luminous watch. It was 8 p.m. He guessed that Yamani would be back soon.

  The ground shook with the detonations of heavy artillery. Shells ruining ruins. Explosions of raucous, monotonous futility. And still he could not sever the thin nylon rope with the blunt knife. The pain in his wrists told him he couldn’t continue much longer.

  Shells, mortars, rockets. Through the shell-hole in the wall he saw tracers crayoning the sky. The walls moved, the ruptured earth protested. Then the sharper bark of the Israeli artillery mounted on Sherman tanks answering the Egyptian guns.

  Raquel said: ‘The shooting by the Egyptians was bound to happen, I promise you.’

  ‘Why? Because it happens every night?’

  ‘Not just that. Because of the refugees as well. As soon as refugees have been exchanged the Egyptian guns always start up.’

  He rested because he had no alternative. The sweat was icy beneath his bush shirt. ‘Don’t the Israelis ever start it?’

  ‘Ask the United Nations.’

  A shell exploded so close that rubble and slivers of shell-casing peppered the walls and roof of the hotel.

  The guard picked up his Uzi and went to the door. He swore succinctly in Arabic and returned to the desk.

  ‘What do they propose to do with us?’ Bartlett said. He had started sawing again.

  ‘Kill us, I suppose. Just like Yamani said. Do you feel frightened, Thomas?’

  ‘Scared stiff,’ he said. He was pleased with his voice because it belied the fear he felt.

  ‘I wish I could kiss you.’

  ‘I wish so, too.’

  ‘I think that he will probably leave an explosive charge here because he will not want Israeli soldiers to find us here with bullet holes in us.’

  ‘That’s very reassuring,’ Bartlett said.

  As he spoke a shell exploded outside the gap in the wall. The detonation fired arrows of pain into the eardrums. It was louder than Bartlett had imagined anything could be. Part of the wall collapsed a
nd he heard metal flying around him.

  He also heard metal strike flesh and bone. The guard cried out once. A thin high-pitched scream that sounded alien to his physique.

  The sounds and sensations faded.

  ‘Raquel,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m all right. Are you, Thomas?’

  ‘Yes, I’m all right.’

  But he knew that Raquel and he were the only people alive in the ruins of the hotel on the devastated outskirts of the old Arab town of Kantara.

  Bartlett said: ‘You can move closer to me now and have a go with this knife.’ Her wrists were still bound but if they sat back-to-back, she would be able to saw against the rope.

  The big guns were still firing. Occasionally he heard a stuttering bark which Raquel identified as a Gruyanov wheel-mounted machine gun firing from the Egyptian side.

  She edged along the sofa. Halfway across she stopped.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘A shell splinter,’ she said. ‘It’s hot.’ He heard her gasp. Then she was beside him cutting at the rope around his wrists with the jagged sliver of shell-casing.

  ‘Is it very hot?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and he heard the wince in her voice.

  One strand of the rope parted, then another. A Katyusha rocket exploded nearby and he heard the crash of falling masonry.

  ‘The other two Arabs will be back soon,’ he said.

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ she said.

  The shell splinter was sawing into his flesh but he said nothing. Her breath was rapid. He saw her face, marble-white in the exploding light, and kissed her. He felt the blood from his wrists flowing down his fingers. He hoped she was nowhere near the artery.

  He said: ‘When you’ve freed my hands I’ll get the guard’s gun from the desk.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I know how to use it.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t explain. But it has to be me.’ He didn’t know if he could stand the pain in his wrist much longer without crying out.

  A ruined house across the road was burning and the hotel foyer was lit by its flames.

  Raquel said: ‘You’re bleeding. I didn’t know …’

  ‘Just don’t stop,’ he said.

  Over his shoulder he could see the shell splinter she was wielding catching the light from the flames. Smoke hung in one heavy layer. The artillery duel continued. Bartlett remembered how he had anticipated witnessing the newspaper headlines jerking into life like marionettes …

  Another strand broke and he forced his wrists apart. The blood was flowing freely from the wounds. He continued the outward pressure with his hands. A snap and they were free.

  At the same moment the door swung open and the other Arab under Yamani’s command stood there, Uzi at the ready. He spoke rapidly in Arabic.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Bartlett said.

  ‘I don’t know. Something about Yamani coming back.’

  Then the Arab saw the body of his colleague slumped over the reception desk. The shell splinter had opened up the back of his skull and the impact had split the tender scar on his face. His gun lay on the desk beside him.

  The Arab cried out and ran to the body. As he turned it over Bartlett threw the hammer from the satchel. It hit the Arab on the side of the face with a crunch. His right hand reached for the butt of the Uzi; then he collapsed on the floor.

  Bartlett ran across the foyer and knelt beside him. He was still breathing but very slowly. There was a dent at his temple where the hammer had struck him. Bartlett picked up the Uzi.

  Raquel said: ‘Please, Thomas, give it to me. I know how to use it.’

  He shook his head. ‘I know how to press a trigger.’

  The flames across the road were reaching high into the shell-scarred night. Their light was incongruously mellow in the foyer and shadows pranced on the walls.

  Raquel took his hands and looked at the wounds. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Bartlett said: ‘So you should be.’ He picked up the gun again. ‘Yamani will be back any minute. We’ll have to surprise him. I’ll get behind the door. You stay over on the sofa.’

  ‘We must get the map,’ she said.

  ‘To hell with the bloody map.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not to hell with the bloody map. I must have it. Israel must have it.’

  ‘I said to hell with the bloody map. Now you get over there while I wait behind the door.’

  ‘All right, Thomas.’

  Through the shell-hole he saw tracer shells darning the sky. Then there was a pause in the shooting and all he could hear was the crackle of the flames across the road. After a few seconds the Gruyanov cleared its throat and barked again. And the big guns followed its lead.

  ‘Raquel sat quite still in the firelight. She said: ‘Thomas.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Will you ever forgive me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I had to do it.’

  ‘I know.’

  A Katyusha exploded nearby and the shell-hole ground its bricks.

  She said: ‘Thomas.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have been very wonderful. I didn’t believe you could be like this.’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  ‘You are as brave as any Israeli soldier.’

  He grinned in the shifting light. ‘That’s praise indeed.’

  ‘I love you,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now just tell me how to fire this damn thing.’

  ‘Let me,’ she said.

  ‘No. Just tell me.’

  But she didn’t because at that moment they heard a Jeep draw up. Bartlett tightened his grip on the gun. The engine stopped and they heard footsteps crunching on the rubble.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The hotel manager said: ‘All we know, ma’am, is that he went out into the Sinai. We had expected to hear from him by now.’

  Helen Bartlett who had called the manager directly put the receiver down. She knew now that her husband was in trouble. And she knew with a sickening certainty that it was her fault.

  She went into the lounge and poured herself a gin and tonic. Then she put on her new summer coat and got the Singer Gazelle out of the garage.

  She drove fast through the gathering darkness along roads still wet from the day’s showers. Within two hours she was in the outskirts of London. She drove first to the American Embassy.

  The duty officer said: ‘Hi there, Mrs Bartlett.’

  ‘Do you know where the Ambassador is tonight?’ Helen Bartlett said.

  ‘I guess he’s at some cocktail party or other. I can’t remember which one offhand.’

  ‘Can you find out for me, Joe? I’m supposed to be at a cocktail party tonight. The only thing I can remember about it is that the Ambassador was going there as well.’

  ‘I sure can, Mrs Bartlett. But you’ll be kind of late, won’t you?’

  ‘Better late than never,’ Helen Bartlett said.

  The duty officer checked on a diary. ‘He’s at the West German Ambassador’s home,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Helen Bartlett said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  When she reached the German Ambassador’s home the last guests were already leaving. She walked straight in and waited beside her husband’s namesake who was talking to the French Ambassador.

  The French Ambassador moved away. Ambassador Bartlett turned and noticed Helen Bartlett for the first time. Surprise hardened into suspicion on his tough, pouchy face.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Mrs Bartlett, isn’t it? Is there anything I can do for you? If it’s anything connected with your past employment perhaps you would be good enough to call at the embassy in the morning?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with the fact that you had me fired,’ she said.

  He fingered his pouches and sipped his Scotc
h. ‘What has it got to do with, Mrs Bartlett?’

  In the elegant background a French security officer hovered uneasily.

  ‘It’s got to do with my husband. I think he’s in trouble in Israel.’

  ‘But he’s a British subject, Mrs Bartlett. Surely the British Foreign Office are the people to consult?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Because you know what it’s all about.’

  ‘I know nothing about geology.’

  ‘Are you going to offer me a drink?’

  ‘I’m not the host but there still seems to be a hell of a lot of it around.’

  ‘A gin and tonic, please.’

  He beckoned a waiter and said: ‘Now please explain yourself, Mrs Bartlett.’

  She said: ‘I know why I was fired now. It was because of my association with a diplomat at the Jordanian Embassy, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Go on, Mrs Bartlett.’ His wife hovered at the door of the room but he signalled to her to go away. There were now only about half a dozen guests left.

  ‘You decided I was a bad security risk so you got rid of me. I don’t blame you one little bit. But now I’ve put two and two together, Mr Ambassador. The diplomat from the Jordanian Embassy was interested in what I said about Tom’s maps. I also talked about them at another of these damned parties. I guess your people must have been just as interested. Now Tom’s in Israel and he’s disappeared.’

  ‘Disappeared? Are you sure, Mrs Bartlett?’

  ‘I couldn’t get him on the phone just now. His hotel at Jerusalem said they had expected him to call. They said he was out in the Sinai Desert somewhere. And he’s due to address the conference tomorrow.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry too much. There aren’t too many telephones in the Sinai, you know. I reckon he’ll ring his hotel when he finds one.’

  She drained her gin and tonic. ‘Be honest with me, Mr Ambassador, is Tom in some sort of danger because of me?’

  ‘I think you’re jumping to conclusions, Mrs Bartlett. I don’t know what these maps are that you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ she said.

  The Ambassador nodded at the French security officer. ‘I think it’s about time you left,’ he said. ‘If you’re really worried I recommend you to try your own Foreign Office.’ He finished his whisky. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t get around to worrying when you were consorting with your friend from the Jordanian Embassy. Or before that even.’