Snap Shot

by A. J. Quinnell

  ‘I’m sorry Ruth.’

  ‘I know, you liked each other.’

  There was an enigmatic silence. He felt she was having difficulty controlling herself.

  ‘Are you all right? Is there anything you need?’

  Her laugh was high-pitched. Bitter. ‘No, Walter. All my material needs are adequately catered for. There’s the insurance. Royalties on his book . . . and then the pension from the US Government.’

  He raised an eyebrow and she laughed again. It was not an attractive sound. She took a gulp of her wine and said:

  ‘He was a spy, Walter! Had been from before we were married.’ She looked up at him for a reaction and, seeing none, plunged on.

  ‘A nice little man came out from the Embassy. He was politely surprised that Duff had never told me. At first I didn’t believe him. It was monstrous. How can you be married to a man for nearly ten years and not know about something like that? It’s obscene.’ Again she waited for a reaction but Walter merely sipped his wine and looked at her steadily.

  ‘It’s obscene!’ She hissed. ‘I thought maybe it was regulations. Maybe that wives weren’t allowed to know. But the man said it was a matter of choice. Duff chose not to tell me.’ She looked away, out over the endless vista.

  ‘I grieved for him, Walter. I forgot about all his weaknesses, his lies, his infidelities. I remembered only the good. I even believed after those first hours that he had truly loved me - only me. I saw him, in my mind, lying dead in that dirty street. Shot down for doing only what he was paid to do. Only what he was brilliant at. Then that man came up here and in his precise, bureaucratic language told me that Duff was a spy. A very senior agent with half a dozen commendations. He gave me papers to sign. Told me I would be receiving a letter from the Director of the CIA. Duff had been killed in the line of duty. He was a hero - a great patriot.’

  She turned her head and looked at Walter. ‘The body has been flown back to the States. There’s going to be an important funeral. Colleagues and friends. Even the Director. I’m not going, Walter. He was theirs when he was alive. They can have him now he’s dead.’

  Walter reached forward, filled her class and asked:

  ‘So what will you do now?’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘You’re not surprised,’ she said. ‘You’re not shocked.’

  He shook his head. ‘No Ruth, I’ve known for several years that Duff was a spy.’

  She straightened in her chair, her lips parting in surprise.

  ‘He told you? Duff told you – and not me!’

  ‘He never told me.’

  ‘Then how?’

  ‘Because I’m also a spy. Have been for over twenty years.’

  Her expression now was almost comical. She shook her head.

  ‘You Walter? You work for the CIA?’

  He smiled. ‘No, I work for the Israelis – Mossad.’

  She put her glass on the table with a thump; some wine spilled out. Then she pushed her chair back, stood up and walked to the edge of the patio. Several minutes passed while she stood with her back to him. Then she turned and smiled. It was a nice smile, without rancour or irony.

  ‘So you tell me. But he never did. There must be a moral there somewhere.’

  ‘The moral, Ruth, is that in a way I think more of you than Duff did.’

  She cocked her head to one side and gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘Are you saying you love me?’

  He gave a short laugh and nodded. ‘Of course I love you. It’s ridiculous and we won’t talk of it any more. I won’t ever embarrass you with it and I hope you won’t even make me look foolish because of it. But that’s not why I just told you I was a spy. Now answer my question. What are you plans?’

  She came back to the table and sat down and suddenly burst out laughing. A high, tinkling sound.

  ‘Oh, Walter! You a spy! Of course I know you love me. A woman always knows – and you’ll never look foolish. But a spy – it’s incredible. Now I can see it in Duff. It so perfectly fitted him: his nature. God – even his looks. But you, Walter, I mean . . . you’re the last person . . . ‘

  He smiled complacently.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. After all, no spy wants to looks like one. Besides, I don’t creep around in the middle of the night. I don’t go dashing about following people or stealing secret papers or planting bombs. I run a network.’

  She smiled again at the mental image of Walter creeping around in a dark cloak with a round, smoking bomb in his hand. Then she said very seriously:

  ‘Then tell me about it, Walter. Tell me who you are and what you do. If you’re going to tell me then make it everything. I’m so tired of being told bits and pieces or nothing at all.’

  So he told her. Right from the early days. He told her something of General Dayan and Isser Harel and General Hofti. He told her a little about his network and what it had done. He talked for over an hour and she was so engrossed that she did not see the sun going down and the sky shading from blue to red to black. Only when it was almost dark did she get up and switch on the lights and fetch another bottle of wine. He had finished his story and as she filled his glass she said:

  ‘It’s fascinating, and it sort of completes your character. It gives you a different dimension. I mean, I always looked on you as rich and extravagant. Oh, a good friend and generous, but only interested really in making more and more money, but now I see you in a different way. It’s wonderful what you are doing. It gives your character meaning.’ A thought struck her.

  ‘If you were married, would you have told your wife?’, ‘Of course, she would have to be part of it. Share the hopes and disappointments. Believe in it as I do.’

  She nodded, watching his face.

  ‘Exactly. I could have done that with Duff. It would have made such a difference. It could have brought us together.’

  Walter tried to ease her feelings. ‘Maybe he worried that you wouldn’t approve.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. In the beginning maybe. I can imagine his early reticence. I was looking for a settled life: a family, security. But later I accepted a life without that. After all, his cover job was dangerous enough, I had accepted that kind of life; No, Walter. It was the fact of the secret that he enjoyed - it was his nature.’

  There was a silence and then she asked: ‘So what do you want of me?’

  ‘First answer my question. What are your plans? What about Gideon?’

  ‘He phoned and wanted to come immediately. He was going to apply for compassionate leave.’ She gave him a wry look. ‘Compassionate leave on the grounds of Duff’s death! I told him to wait. Anyway, I’d planned to go to the States for the funeral. I told him I needed time to think.’

  ‘Will you marry him?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s what he wants and maybe what I want - and need. But I’ll wait a year at least. I’m a bit old-fashioned like that.’ Walter kept his face impassive but inside he was massively relieved.

  ‘And in the meantime?’

  She paused her hands in a throw-away gesture. ‘I’ll stay here. I have friends, I have my work at the orphanage and,’ she smiled weakly, ‘I’m financially independent.’

  ‘Good.’ Walter pushed himself to his feet, went into the lounge and reappeared with his briefcase. He put it on the table, opened it, took out the two yellow files and placed them in front of her.

  ‘I would like your opinion on something. Would you please read those. The thick one first. I shall go back to the Forest Park. I’ll send the car for you at 8.30. I’d like you to join me for dinner. We can discuss it then.’

  She had opened the top file and was looking down at the single name typed on the otherwise blank front page.

  ‘David Munger,’ she said softly. ‘Is he also a spy?’

  ‘No, but with a little help he’s going to be.’

  They shared a very large Chateaubriand. Walter had four-fifths of it and Ruth the remainder. They sat at a corner table in the half empty r
estaurant and did not talk much until they had cleared their plates. Walter was wearing a green sports coat and a tie over a pale yellow shirt into which he had tucked his green napkin. Ruth wore a plain black dress cut square over her breasts. Her hair was up and she wore a thin gold necklace with a small Star of David. Two of her acquaintances – retired, formidable English women - sat at a table across the room and eyed her disapprovingly. First it was rumoured that she was not even going to attend her dead husband’s funeral and here she was dining out before the body was hardly cold. Furthermore she was in the company of a man known to consort with loose women and one whose profligate ways were scandalous. They clucked and whispered to each other in an orgy of self-righteousness.

  ‘Dessert?’ Walter asked after he swallowed the last of his steak.

  Ruth smiled. ‘No thanks. You go ahead while I give you my opinion.’

  Walter cocked a finger and a primed waiter wheeled over the dessert trolley and, without waiting for instructions, served Walter with a large wedge of lemon pie. When he had left, Ruth started talking.

  She agreed with Professor Nardi’s analysis. She said it diffidently. After all, she pointed out, he was one of the world's foremost experts. On the other hand she had the advantage of having met and observed Munger. With the benefit of hindsight many of his character traits now fell into place. She agreed that his mother and her abandonment of Munger as a child had been the pivotal influence on his life. As to the reason for his total withdrawal, that could only be understood with knowledge of what had happened on that last patrol. She then asked what Walter had in mind.

  He finished the lemon pie, eyed the trolley again, then sighed and shook his head at the watching waiter. He then proceeded to tell Ruth all about his current mission and the difficulties he was facing in getting agents into Iraq. She listened carefully and made one or two incisive points, both about the dangers of nuclear proliferation in general and to Israel in particular. She was intelligent, well-travelled and observant and Walter found himself unloading onto her many of his doubts and anxieties. More than once she found herself thinking with great sadness that if only Duff had done the same, things might have been so different.

  Finally Walter talked of Munger and how he was convinced that this one man might be crucial to his plans. It was no accident that Duff had been recruited by the CIA. A combat photographer was a perfect cover. Munger, although he had not worked in years, had an unassailable reputation. He was known to be non-political and his contacts must still be widespread.

  'How will you try to convince him?' Ruth asked.

  'Through his dead mother. She was a Jew. That means Munger is Jewish even if he doesn't want to acknowledge it.

  He went on to describe the approach he would make when he visited Munger the following afternoon and the words and expressions he would use. Ruth listened attentively, then shook her head.

  'It's so risky, Walter. You're going to use shock treatment and it could go either way. You might drive him deeper into the hole he's dug for himself.'

  He spread his hands. 'What else can I do? He's got a skin like a rhino hide. Since his mother, no one has ever got close to him. Evoked any deep emotion. He's never let his guard down. Never made a friend unless it was to obtain help for his work.’ Ruth held up her hand and then reached for her evening bag. ‘That’s not strictly true. I don’t really understand it but I came across something very curious yesterday.’ She took a small piece of paper from her bag. It was old and brown crease lines showed where it had been long folded.

  ‘I was going through Duffs things. He had a briefcase containing his very private papers. It was understood between us that I would never look in it. We had the same arrangement about some of my things. Well, obviously, I had to open it. At first I thought I would have to cut it open; it had a combination lock. But then I tried the numbers of his birthday and it opened.’ She smiled wanly. ‘Not very professional for a spy. Anyway, there were various letters from girlfriends past and present; a copy of an old will; some other papers that I gave to the man from the Embassy - and this.’

  She passed it to Walter and then suppressed a smile as he took it carefully between the fingers of one hand and, with the other, screwed his monocle into his left eye socket: It was the first time she had ever seen him use it and he looked hilarious. Walter read the note.

  I don’t know how you did today but I got more snaps than I need. Use the enclosed if you wish. It will be between you, me and the gatepost.

  If you’re looking for a reason, the fact that you attacked the mirror instead of me is good enough.

  DM.

  Walter carefully laid the paper onto the table, contorted his face and the monocle dropped down and dangled on its black silk thread. ‘What do you make of it?’ he asked.

  Ruth reached forward, turned the paper and read the words again.

  ‘I think I know about the incident with the mirror. I heard the story from the wife of a journalist who had been there. It seems that Duff had been under great pressure. He’d only been in Vietnam a couple of months and hadn’t come up with any spectacular photographs. I know it was weighing heavily on him. Apparently there was a party in a bar in Saigon and he sort of cracked and threw a glass at the mirror. That’s all I know. I asked him about it later but he shrugged it off as a drunken incident.’

  She looked up at Walter’s face and said solemnly: ‘But I’ve worked out the timing. It was only a couple of days later that Duff filed the first of his really great Vietnam snaps.’

  Walter was nodding his huge head in understanding. ‘You’re saying that they were Munger’s work?’

  For an answer she gestured at the note.

  ‘Duff would have done that?’ Walter asked incredulously.

  She was silent for a moment, then said: ‘At the time I would never have believed it, but after all these years I’m sure he would have, and rationalised it to himself very convincingly. Oh, I guess it was just that once. I know just about every snap he ever took in that war and they were his own. I imagine he needed help to get started.’ She paused to give weight to what was coming.

  ‘The fact is that Munger helped him. Not the action of a totally selfish or uncaring man.’

  Walter looked down again at the paper, then stroked his pudgy fingers over it as if to iron out the brown creases and persuade it to yield more information.

  ‘It would explain,’ he said, ‘why Duff was obsessed with the camera. Why he bid for it at the auction.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ruth agreed and smiled at the memory. ‘I used to hate that camera. It cost me a gold and jade bracelet. I was going to throw it out but somehow I couldn’t. Yesterday, after I found that note, I even took it down and cleaned it. Don’t ask me why.’

  Walter stopped stroking the paper. He picked it up and carefully folded it along the original crease lines.

  ‘Can I borrow it?’ he asked. ‘I’ll let you have it back.’

  ‘Of course. Keep it. You’ll show it to Munger?’

  ‘I might. It depends how things go. Now let’s have a coffee and a liqueur. I want to tell you how you can help - if I’m successful tomorrow.’

  So they moved into the lounge under the disapproving gaze of the two old women. For the next hour Walter explained what he wanted her to do. She listened, at first merely bemused, then indignant, then angry. Walter was blatantly manipulating her. How could he profess to love her and a few hours later try to use her in such a way?

  Walter was unrepentant. He had a job to do. The future of Israel was at stake. That fact transcended all personal considerations. She was Jewish and coincidentally was now free to help him in his task. She would become one of his agents.

  It was an incredible dialogue. Half the time she felt she was in a dream. The events of the past few days had left her punch drunk. And now here was this garishly dressed mound of blubber blatantly recruiting her as an agent and spelling out the details of a bizarre assignment. And yet it was all so matter of fact as to be
reassuring. As though such things and what she was being asked to do were commonplace. Her anger dissipated but she was unable to give him a coherent answer. There was just too much on her mind. Apart from anything else there was Gideon Galili to think of. It was possible that she loved him and would want to make a future with him.

  Walter was sanguine. Why not? She herself had decided to wait at least a year before committing herself. Within that year she would render a great service to Israel. She would lose nothing. Galili would wait. She knew that.

  She agreed that it was possible but what Walter was asking her to do was dishonest and bad. She would have to think hard about it. Anyway, it was premature. He still had to see Munger.

  Chapter 7

  The farmhouse shuddered as Walter Blum’s great body hit the floor. He was not unconscious, though he pretended to be. There was a sharp pain in his right buttock where he had first made contact with the ground. His stomach and jaw were numb from the two lightning blows. He lay very still with his eyes closed, his mind a kaleidoscope of impressions and pain. He could hear Munger breathing: short gasps, not of effort but of anger. It was the first time in his life that anyone had ever hit Walter and he did not like it. His predominant emotion though was fear. In the split second before Munger hit him, Walter had seen the blood lust in his eyes. They had literally filmed over red.

  His head began to clear. He knew he was very close to death. A short, birdlike man kept entering his brain, warning him of the dangers of amateur psychology.

  He lay still for a long time, willing his body not to move. He heard Munger’s breathing begin to slacken and the scrape of a shoe as he moved. A second later Walter’s eyes opened in shock and his head jerked upright. Munger was standing by the table holding a jug. The contents had been emptied over Walter.

  ‘Get up.’

  Walter was not about to get up. He scrabbled backwards into a corner, wincing with pain.

  ‘Get up and get out or I’ll kill you.’ Munger’s voice was flat and unemotional and all the more sinister for it.