Snap Shot

by A. J. Quinnell

  Walter braced himself against the wall and pushed himself upright. He almost collapsed as his right leg took some of the weight. With a massive effort he stayed on his feet. Then he lurched forward and got both hands on the wooden table. Munger stood aside watching with narrowed eyes. Walter gauged the distance to the open door, then with a grunt he tottered over to it and out into the twilight. Spiro was waiting beside the car on the road. He saw Walter swaying on the track and ran up. He was old but strong and he got an arm halfway around his body and helped him hobble to the car and somehow got him stretched out on the back seat. He wanted immediately to go down to Limassol and get some ‘friends’ and mete out vengeance, but Walter curtly ordered him to drive to the house of Mrs Paget.

  Two hours later he lay on the couch in her lounge sipping from a large goblet of cognac. A doctor had been summoned and pronounced that Walter was badly bruised but nothing had been broken. It was fortunate, the doctor had remarked, that ample flesh had cushioned the various impacts. Walter had glared balefully at him. With the doctor’s prognosis and departure Ruth’s air of concern had been replaced by barely stifled amusement. She had pulled a chair close up to the couch and sat watching her unexpected guest.

  With a wince he put his glass on the coffee table and said: ‘You’re far too generous and intelligent to utter such inanities as “I told you so”.’

  She smiled. ‘So tell me what happened.’

  He told her. At first the meeting went well. Munger had been surprised and not at all happy to see him but he had reluctantly invited him in. Walter had explained that he had been in Platres, had heard of Duffs death and dropped by to give Munger the news. Munger had nodded and mumbled something about it being a pity. Duff had been a good photographer. He had then stood up and indicated that the visit was over. Walter had remained sitting and asked whether Munger ever intended to work again. Munger had shrugged and said that was his business. Walter had been perversely encouraged and at that point had revealed himself as being an Israeli agent. He would like Munger to consider working for him, using his photographic work as a cover.

  Munger had been startled into silence and for ten minutes Walter had used that silence to make his pitch. He had explained the situation vis-à-vis Iraq and its nuclear programme. Pointed out how difficult it was for him to get agents into Iraq. He talked of Duff and how he had been killed and why. Very casually he had taken out the slip of paper and put it in front of Munger and watched as he read the words he had written so many years ago in Saigon. There had been a flicker of expression in his eyes. Walter then talked a little about Ruth and how she still had Munger’s camera. He could pick it up any time.

  Munger had slowly raised his head, looked at Walter and asked what it had to do with him. Walter had paused and then said: ‘You can help. The fate of Israel is at stake. The fate of all the Jews.’

  ‘Fuck the Jews.’ Munger had said it flatly and Walter leaned forward and asked:

  ‘Does that include your mother?’

  ‘And that’s when he hit me,’ he said to Ruth.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  Walter sniffed. ‘I had no opportunity to develop my theme. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t get out. He meant it.’ He sat up, raised his glass and drained it.

  ‘Incidentally,’ she said. ‘I hardly slept last night. I thought about what you had told me and what you wanted me to do. Munger’s reaction has let me off the hook. I decided I wasn’t going to do it. I hate to lie, Walter. It’s not in my character. Sometimes I wish it was. It would make things easier . . .

  The glanced at her and sighed. ‘So I’ve had a very unproductive trip. Instead of recruiting two agents I got none.’

  She smiled in sympathy. ‘What will you do now?’ He sighed again, inflating his great bulk. She watched him closely, feeling sorry for him. He was looking down at the carpet and his round face had literally slumped, the fleshy cheeks hanging. His fat lips were pursed. He sat like that for over a minute, then she saw his expression change. He raised his head and his lips tightened in determination.

  ‘I’ll go back to the hotel,’ he said, ‘and try to get a good night’s sleep. In the morning I’m going back to see Munger.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Yes.’ He snarled and stood up. ‘Either he’s going to kill me or listen to me.’ He looked down at her, his face showing his anger. ‘Fuck the Jews, Munger said. OK – I’m a fucking Jew. So is he.’

  He swayed around the coffee table and moved towards the door, shouting over his shoulder:

  ‘And so are fucking you!’

  Long after he had gone Ruth sat straight in her chair, then she slumped back and gurgled with laughter. For once Walter had not needed Shakespeare to express his feelings.

  Like embers smothered with coal overnight, Walter’s anger smouldered and glowed. With the dawn it was white hot and it made him do something totally alien to a lifetime’s habit: he forsook breakfast.

  Instead he summoned Spiro and drove straight to Phini. He sat in the back of the Mercedes and during the twenty minute drive wrestled to clamp steel hoops round his expanding fury. He told Spiro to stop the car a few hundred yards from the farmhouse. As he started to walk down the road the old man called after him, begging to be allowed to come along. Walter snarled at him to wait.

  In spite of his bulk he was, like an elephant, light on his feet and he hardly made a sound as he crept up the track to the open door, briefcase in hand.

  For all his efforts, his anger was out of control and as he filled the door and his gaze alighted on the sitting form of Munger, the words spewed out.

  ‘You! You‘re a fucking Jew! So was your fucking mother! Now kill me if you can!’

  Then it was all pandemonium. A dog was snarling and barking. A young girl clung to its collar, her face a mask of fear as she stared up at the colossus in the doorway. Walter, his eyes centred on Munger, had not seen them. A coffee pot crashed to its side as Munger jumped up. Instinctively he grabbed for it, knocking it to the floor. The hot coffee splashed onto the girl’s legs and she yelped in pain arid let go of the dog. In one leap it crossed the room and sank its jaws into Walter’s calf. He screamed, dropped his briefcase, grabbed the dog by the neck and flung it out of the door. It bounced onto its side, scrabbled to its feet, turned and started to come back. Then came the crack of a gun. Dust spurted up in front of the dog and it veered away and disappeared in a slithering run. Spiro stood on the track, fumbling another cartridge into the breech of a long-barrelled, old-fashioned shotgun.

  It was the girl’s searing concern for her dog that restored order. She broke away from Munger with a wail and dashed for the door. Walter scooped her up under his arm, shouting at Spiro to put down the gun. The old man stood there quivering with uncertainty. Munger’s head appeared over Walter’s shoulder.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘My driver. He thinks you’re going to kill me.’

  ‘I might - but it can wait. Tell him to put it down.’

  Walter handed him the writhing girl. “Her dog’s all right. He missed.’

  Again he called out to put the gun down. To go back to the car. He was all right. His voice was heavy with authority and slowly the old man lowered the gun.

  He would wait at the gate, he shouted. Walter should call out if he needed him.

  So order was restored. Androulla was calmed down and sent off home. Walter hobbled to a chair and slumped into it and then examined his calf. His trousers were torn and blood-soaked. He looked up at Munger standing by the door.

  ‘I’ve had more violent abuse in the past twenty-four hours than in the whole of my life! Is the dog rabid?’

  ‘Unfortunately not.’

  Munger bent down and picked up the coffee pot. He turned, looked at Walter for a moment, then carried the pot over to the sink, filled it with water and put it on the stove.

  ‘Take your trousers off,’ he said.

  Twenty minutes later Walter sat trouserless with
his right calf neatly bandaged and a mug of coffee in front of him. Munger sat opposite.

  ‘You have ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Then I’d like you to get out of my life - and stay out.’ It was the last thing he said.

  Walter spent a minute of his time thinking. Then he opened his briefcase and took out two files and a photograph which he put face down on the table. He placed one of the files in front of Munger and said:

  ‘I explained about the Iraqi nuclear programme. That file contains all the proof that they’re planning to build nuclear weapons which will be aimed at Israel. It’s my responsibility to see that they don’t succeed.’

  He picked up the photograph, turned it over and slid it across. ‘Duff Paget took that seconds before he died. It’s an enlargement of a face looking out of the rear window of a car. He was shot dead from that car.’

  He paused as Munger studied the photograph; saw Munger’s hands come up and block out the curly black hair surrounding the woman’s face.

  ‘Yes,’ Walter said. ‘Janine Lesage. Your ex-lover. She works for SDECE. Right now she is probably co-operating with the Iraqi Mukhabarat against us. She hated Duff. He outbid her for your camera. At the time he was killed he was operating against the PLO. She almost certainly arranged his death.’

  He waited for a reaction but there was none. Munger sat looking down at the photograph.

  Walter picked up the second file, placed it in front of him and opened it. Clipped to the inside cover was a large photograph of a woman in her early thirties. She had an attractive but severe face, made more so by the sepia colours of the print. Walter spoke quietly but with tension in his voice.

  ‘Rita Helen Munger, née Rothstein. Born July 20th, 1914. Daughter of Benjamin and Rachel Rothstein. Wife of William Munger. Died June 14th, 1948, in Jerusalem.’

  The silence was heavy in the room. Walter’s throat was dry. He desperately wanted to pick up his mug and drink some coffee but he kept perfectly still. Munger sat looking down at the old photograph. Walter could read no expression on his face. He took a deep breath and continued.

  ‘In that file are the details of the work your mother did for Israel. The lives she saved; the hardships she endured. I don’t think you know how she died. It’s time you did. She was captured by elements of the Jordanian Arab legion. They cut her throat, but before that they raped her . . . more than twenty of them.’

  Now Munger’s head came up. He took a breath, appeared about to say something but then his mouth closed. Walter could see the rigid control being reimposed. With a mounting fear of failure he plunged on.

  ‘All right, so she abandoned you. But she did it from a belief: from a certainty that she was needed to help create a Jewish state and so save the Jewish people after the depredations of the holocaust. You may never understand that, but there are millions of Jews that do. I do.’

  Another silence. Munger’s gaze never left Walter’s face.

  ‘There are things not in the file,’ Walter continued. ‘No one can judge what she suffered in leaving her only child. I believe she did it to make a commitment. She recognised what she was. Her work helping the inmates of the German concentration camps must have brought it about. It must have been a terrible struggle of conscience. A terrible decision. Her child, or the future of the Jewish people. She made her decision. She died for it.’

  He did not care now. He picked up his mug and took a gulp of coffee. He felt a deep despair. He was not getting through. He reached again into his briefcase and flipped his card across the table.

  ‘You may have lost the last one - or thrown it away. If you decide to help, reach me there. Ask for ORANGE ONE. Wherever I am, they’ll find me.’

  He shut his briefcase, picked up his trousers from the chair beside him and stood up. He knew he presented a ridiculous sight but he did not care. For once in his life he believed that the dignity he felt was reflected in his appearance. He hobbled to the door and turned.

  ‘On every Sabbath,’ he said, ‘since June 1948, children go to the place where your mother is buried. They put flowers on her grave and they pray for her soul. That will happen always . . . or for as long as the State of Israel exists.’

  He turned and went through the door.

  Chapter 8

  Summer turned to autumn and in the Troödos mountains cones fell from the pines. The garden of Ruth’s home was littered with them. One Sunday some children came from the orphanage to help her rake them into a pile. There was much laughter and gaiety. She had prepared some fruit juices and plates of snacks and tried without much success to arrange things so that the cones were actually piled and not redistributed. Finally, in desperation, she organised the children into two teams. She would make a race of it. A contest. She would end up with two piles of cones but no matter. She put Miriam, a ten-year-old girl with a sensible disposition, in charge of one team. For the other team she chose Stavros, her problem child. It was an attempt to concentrate his mind. To give him a sense of purpose and importance. The contest had just begun when the maid called to her from the patio. Someone had arrived.

  She shouted encouragement to Miriam and Stavros and walked briskly to the house. She was wearing jeans, a blue mohair sweater and a scarf around her hair. Uninvited visitors were rare and she wondered who it could be.

  After the bright sunshine it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside. Then she saw him standing by the high table in the corner. The glass dome had been lifted off and he was holding the camera in his hand. Anger flooded over her, washing away her high spirits.

  ‘Put it down! You’re not to touch it!’

  He turned and she started to move forward.

  ‘Who are you?’

  But now her eyes had completely readjusted. She saw a man dressed in beige corduroy trousers and a blue jacket. He had a beard and long hair and very blue eyes. He held the camera easily. His’ right hand was through the metal attachment on the side, the fingers resting on the lens case.

  She came to a halt and drew a deep breath. They stood looking at each other. The laughter of the children tinkled in through the open window. Very softly she asked:

  ‘Do you still know how to use it?’

  He turned to the shelf next to him. There were half a dozen boxes of film that she had left there since Duffs death a few months ago. He reached out and picked one up. Weighed it in his hand, then looked at the specifications on the side. When he moved again it was sudden; one action flowing into the other in a rhythmic sequence. The empty box dropped to the carpet. There was a snap as the camera back opened and then another, seconds later, as it closed. He was moving away to the side and the camera came up and she heard the click of the shutter and the ratchet sound of the film being driven through. She stood absolutely still as he moved in front of her. The autumn sun shafted in through the window, highlighting the contours of her face and glistening on the tears that had inexplicably coursed down her cheeks.

  Chapter 9

  Walter chaired the meeting, even though General Hofti had made a clandestine visit to Cyprus to attend. They sat at each end of the oval table. On Walter’s left was Isaac Shapira and Misha Wigoda who, in the intervening months, had been promoted to head the Beirut section of the ORANGE network and was now designated ORANGE 14.

  On Walter’s right sat Efim Zimmerman, ORANGE 4 from Paris. A pedestal fan had been exactly placed so that it blew a stream of air directly in front of General Hofti’s face, thereby diverting Walter’s cigar smoke away from his nostrils. The General had thanked Walter for this courtesy in a way that he knew would much please him. In an effort to communicate better with his star agent, Hofti had been reading Hamlet.

  ‘For this relief much thanks,’ he said.

  Walter grinned. ‘I would wish you free of “a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours”.’

  So the meeting got off to a light-hearted start, but it soon turned serious. It had been called to review progress made against the Tammuz I reactor and to plan
future strategy. Efim Zimmerman spoke first.

  He was a huge bear of a man with snowy hair. A white Russian who had worked for Walter’s father in Shanghai since before the war. Although in his late sixties, he refused to retire. He had told Walter that if it were only a question of making more money for himself and Walen Trading he would have gone out to pasture years ago. But ever since the ORANGE network was set up he had been one of its most effective agents. He loved the work and was brilliant at it. His section had penetrated deep into the French Civil Service, police, intelligence branches and industry. As he spoke the other men listened respectfully.

  He made three recommendations. The first concerned the reactor itself. It was scheduled to be completed in June ‘79. Eight months away. He had now succeeded in infiltrating two agents into the work force in the factor at La Seyne-sur-Mer. One was a Jew - part of his own network. Zimmerman planned to plant a bomb in the factory shortly before the reactor was due to be shipped. It would be impossible to destroy it, but serious damage could be done with a resultant delay of months or even years.

  Secondly he proposed a terror campaign against those French scientists who were working on the project.

  Thirdly, he had discovered that the man in charge of the Iraqi nuclear programme was an Egyptian scientist called Yahia el Mashad. He made frequent trips to Paris to consult with French officials. Zimmerman proposed that on one of those trips the Egyptian be assassinated.

  For the next hour the meeting debated these three proposals. It was quickly agreed that Zimmerman should go ahead with his plans to sabotage the reactor. General Hofti vetoed the terror campaign against the French scientists. It would only serve to isolate Israel still further. Besides, there was another factor: it had been learned recently that President Sadat of Egypt was seriously considering offering a separate peace to Israel. Some moves were expected any day. Nothing must be done to weaken Israel’s international reputation in the light of that possibility.