Snap Shot

by A. J. Quinnell

  He was treating himself to an expensive dinner on this night because he was feeling expansive and important. Being made ‘case officer’ to ORANGE BLUE was a definite promotion and the job was going well. That afternoon he had debriefed Munger after his trip to Kurdistan. The debriefing had taken place in an apartment in the Nabaa district. As a cover, Misha ran an import-export agency and his office building adjoined the apartment building. Like the headquarters of the ORANGE network in Limassol a secret door had been constructed between the office and the apartment. He and Munger had sat there for over three hours while Munger had talked. No notes had been taken, for Misha had the gift of total recall. He had sat still and quiet with his eyes half closed, listing and cataloguing as Munger’s voice had droned on. It had been a useful trip. Munger had met many of the Kurdish leaders, both in Iraq and Iran, and he had discovered which of them could be effective and useful. He presented a plan whereby Mossad would channel arms and ammunition to be stockpiled in Kurdistan for the time when the next rebellion would break out. In return the Kurds in Iraq would give Munger support and information. They had many safe houses in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities. Munger described exactly what weapons the Kurds wanted; how they could be smuggled in through the Kurdish network in Turkey, and where they would be stored.

  It was a good plan and Misha had congratulated him and wished him a good holiday, for he was leaving for Cyprus in the morning.

  He looked up as the owner, George, approached his table and handed him a menu with his usual smile. Misha only ate in the restaurant about once a month and he enjoyed it because George always made him feel like an important regular.

  ‘How are you, Melim?’ George said, addressing him by his cover name and believing him to be a full-blooded Arab. ‘But don’t look at the menu - I’ve made Chawarma beef on the upright spit tonight and you’ll offend me if you don’t try it.’

  Misha nodded his head in acceptance and George stayed for a few minutes chatting about politics and the forthcoming festival which he and other traders in the area organised every year. It was named ‘Makhoul’ after the street and was George’s way of thumbing his nose at the civil war and proving that life goes on.

  After he departed Misha sat back in his chair, warmed with the contact and contented by the atmosphere. The restaurant and tables were decorated with plants and works of art, for most of the clientele were artists and artisans and George liked to use their work.

  There were several local journalists and foreign correspondents among the diners for ‘George’s place’, as it was known, was one of the few good eating places outside the big hotels.

  Misha did not know any of them personally but he knew a lot about them for, as a matter of course, Mossad kept extensive files on media personnel. Two tables in particular interested him. At one sat Gordon Frazer with a very beautiful Arab girl. His hand covered hers on the lace table cloth and he was bent forward talking to her earnestly and persuasively. Misha felt a stab of jealousy. Frazer, after all, was at least fifty and by no means handsome, and yet he was very successful with women. Misha, on the other hand, was the eternal wallflower. He tried to remember when he had last taken a beautiful woman out for dinner . . . God, it was months ago, when he was on leave in Jerusalem and she hadn’t really been beautiful. She hadn’t been very compliant either.

  The other table to attract Misha’s interest was in the far corner and was occupied by Sami Asaf and Janine Lesage. Two people whose activities took up much of Misha’s waking hours. Apart from being Munger’s case officer he also still ran the Beirut ORANGE network and its three other resident agents. He had tried without success to bug Janine’s Lesage’s apartment and her office.

  She was a woman who completely fascinated him, both by her appearance and personality and by her dual professions. She had such beauty, poise and confidence and was the antithesis of his own character. Perhaps due to lack of a complete sex life Misha was prone to frequent sexual fantasies and of late Janine Lesage had been very active in them. Only last night as he lay in bed trying to sleep he had masturbated with her in mind: her flowing hair brushing across his chest and face; her long, slim legs entwined with his and her tongue probing his mouth.

  He felt his breath shortening at the memory and he was relieved when the waiter distracted him with the first course - a mixed salad. For a while he concentrated on eating. With Munger’s long debriefing he had missed lunch and now he was ravenous. It was fifteen minutes before he looked up again. His gaze naturally travelled to the corner table and the French woman and he was disconcerted to find her gaze travelling back on a reciprocal bearing. She quickly looked away but Misha had the distinct feeling that she had been studying him. He would have been even more disconcerted had he overheard what she next said to Sami Asaf.

  ‘Are you sure, Sami? He looks like an overfed mouse.’

  ‘We’re not sure,’ Sami replied. ‘The PLO came to us with a request to help trace his background. Apparently he claims to have an Iraqi mother.’

  ‘And his father?’

  ‘Lebanese from Batrum. Apparently that checks out, but he’s long dead and these days it’s difficult to get hard facts in this country.’

  She turned again and shot a quick glance across the room. The man was watching her again, but that was not unusual. A lot of men watched her.

  ‘He’s been seen too often around sensitive PLO installations,’ Sami said, ‘and although he operates a genuine and successful business that’s no alibi. A lot of Mossad agents do the same. Mossad make sure they’re successful.’

  ‘And if he is?’

  Sami shrugged. ‘I’ll try to persuade the PLO to leave him alone for the time being. We’ll put a full-time cover watch on him and see where he leads us. One thing is sure: the Mossad effort against us will come from here and so far we’re in the dark. Your little mouse could provide a ray of sunshine.’

  She smiled, reached out and ran the fingernails of her left hand firmly down his forearm. ‘You’ll keep me informed, of course?’

  He looked down at the four parallel scratch marks, pale against his dark skin.

  ‘Of course, Janine,’ he said huskily.

  Across the room Misha finished the last of his grilled beef and discreetly burped in satisfaction.

  Chapter 12

  Ruth Paget had spent a satisfying day. In the early morning Gideon had phoned from Tel Aviv. The conversation had contained nothing momentous: he had the weekend off and was staying with his parents and was missing her. So he just called to tell her that he loved her and was literally counting the days until the wedding; His mother was already fussing about the arrangements even though it was months away.

  Ruth had lain in bed with the phone cradled between her ear and the pillow and listened to his deep voice and slowly shed the shadows of sleep. It seemed extraordinary to contemplate the details of a wedding reception. In her comatose state she cast her mind back to the reception when she had married Duff. Such hopes, such love. A beautiful young couple with only happiness stretching out before them. She didn’t allow her thoughts to sadden her. Gideon’s low, vibrant voice in her ear kept her on the edge of contentment.

  He had spoken to her for twenty minutes and then she had heard his mother in the background, scolding him like a child about the phone bill. But then she had come on the phone herself for a quick word and chatted on for fifteen minutes. Ruth’s own mother had died several years before and, as she listened to Gideon’s mother telling her to eat well and keep healthy and be sure to wear a sweater in the cool mountain evenings, Ruth had smiled and felt warm from the maternal contact. It was nice to have plans again; to think solidly about the future; to contemplate finally having a family of her own. During the past ten years it had been the greatest gap in her life. She realised with the merest twinge of conscience that her planned marriage to Gideon was influenced more by her desire for a child than any other factor. Of course, she loved him. He was honest and sincere and handsome. He was also ta
lented and that was important to her. Talent in whatever field gave a man mental stature, even an air of authority. She knew that Gideon was a superbly gifted pilot in the most highly trained and dedicated air force in the world. He was destined one day to be a general, both by his talent and his ambition. Of course she loved him. He would make a wonderful father. His own parents were loving and secure. His lack of doubts, his confidence and his purposefulness were testaments to his upbringing. Of course she loved him.

  The rest of the day she had spent at the orphanage. Stavros had finally come out of his mental bunker and was to be picked up by his new foster parents. They were a childless middle-aged couple from Nicosia. Ruth had selected them from a score of couples who had wanted to adopt a war orphan. She had been careful for she knew that the boy needed just the right mixture of authority and love to allow him to develop. Consequently she had insisted that the couple first visit him at the orphanage over a period of months so that confidence could be established. It had worked well and, as she watched him carry his small suitcase to their car and turn to wave goodbye, she had felt pride and satisfaction. Deep down she well knew that it was her patient work that had saved him from spending his life trapped in a mental maze.

  In a way he was the last of her worries and when she got home in the evening and poured herself a drink and sat on the patio to watch the sunset, she felt totally at peace with herself. Friends had invited her out for dinner but she had phoned and begged off. She preferred to be alone. To enjoy, by herself, her contentment and both the view in her vision and the prospects in her mind.

  So she was slightly irritated when she heard the car in the driveway and the faint knock on the door. It could be any one of the half a dozen friends dropping by. Normally she would offer them a drink but as she walked to the door she decided that on this day she would politely but firmly send them on their way.

  A determined expression had already formed on her face as she opened the door and Munger, seeing it, felt a stab of doubt. They stood looking at each other for a startled moment, then he said:

  ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no phone at my farmhouse. Are you busy?’

  She recovered. ‘No, of course not.’ Then her gaze dropped and she saw he was holding a bunch of flowers wrapped, in paper. He self-consciously lifted them and showed her the deep hue of red roses. She smiled. ‘It’s been a very long time since anyone bought me roses.’

  He smiled back. ‘It’s the very first time I’ve ever bought them - they’re to say thank you.’

  She took them and held them close to her face and inhaled the fragrance.

  Thank me for what?’

  ‘I came here to tell you.’

  She realised they were still standing in the doorway. She moved aside and gestured a welcome.

  ‘Come in. Go through to the patio. I’ll put these in water and fetch you a drink.’

  She got the drink first and, as she arranged the flowers in the lounge, she glanced at him frequently through the French windows. He sat stiffly in a cane chair, looking down at the view. His face was in profile and she remembered back to the day she had first seen him at that party in Hong Kong. How at first his features and demeanour had made no impression on her. How only later she had held his gaze and seen something in those deep blue eyes and caught the spark.

  He hadn’t changed much, she decided. If anything his lean face was slightly thinner, but he was tanned and looked fit.

  As she came out onto the patio she said:

  ‘I have to give my thanks first. For the photographs. They were beautiful - the children loved them.’

  He shrugged off her thanks. He now appeared tense, even nervous. She picked up her drink and took a sip and then, to break the silence, told him about Stavros and his new foster parents and how pleased she was that it had worked out so well.

  He asked several questions about the boy and she explained his history and his struggle to readjust. He looked out over the view as he listened: it was twilight and the colours on the horizon were deepening and melting. Every few moments he would turn his head to look at her - always directly into her eyes- only for a second but always a look of arresting intensity.

  When her voice trailed off there was another silence. It was now quite dark and she could only see the outline of his profile. She could sense the build up of emotion in him and was surprised. Everything she knew about him precluded his showing or even feeling emotion.

  ‘For what do you want to thank me?’ she asked.

  When he spoke his voice was very low and it carried the emotion as a radio wave carries a message.

  ‘For saving my life.’

  She just didn’t know what to say. She sat in her chair with her mind in disarray.

  ‘It’s like that boy Stavros. I don’t know how or why, but like him you saved my mind and in my case that meant saving my life.’

  At last she found her composure and her voice.

  ‘Aren’t you being melodramatic?’

  ‘No.’ The single, flat negative destroyed the practical line she was attempting to formulate.

  She plunged back into confusion.

  ‘How? What are you talking about?’

  He stood up and walked to the edge of the patio. She could hear his laborious breathing. Over his shoulder he said: ‘I’m talking about suicide.’

  At last - a word she could understand and get to grips with. Briskly she stood up, walked into the lounge and switched on lights. She glanced at her watch and as she came back out, said:

  ‘You’d better stay for dinner. I’ve a couple of steaks in the fridge.’ She gestured at a barbecue on the edge of the patio. ‘There’s coke in it. You get a fire started and I’ll toss a salad.’

  He stood looking at her hesitantly but before he could say anything she turned on her heel and went inside.

  He cooked the steaks: his well done, hers very rare. He explained that after half a lifetime of having to eat terrible meat, burning it black had become a habit. He became more relaxed with the activity and, as they sat down to eat, she said:

  ‘Let’s not talk seriously until we’ve finished.’

  So they ate mostly in silence but there was a very positive mental communication. It built up slowly like an old steam engine moving away from a platform and gathering speed. She was totally aware of him: his slight frame, his thin face and fair, lank hair. She was in a mental magnetic field and nothing intruded. Not the sound of an owl hooting in nearby pine trees, or the distant crackle of fireworks from a village fiesta, or the occasional car passing on the road behind the house. A sense of expectancy was building within her. She knew that whatever he was going to tell her when the meal ended would have a profound effect: certainly on him, in the telling; probably on her. So the expectancy was tinged with trepidation. Her sanguine mood of an hour ago had already been cracked. She wondered if it was about to be shattered.

  There was another feeling within her, and that too was growing. It was a simple physical attraction: the magnet was not purely mental. It surprised her and made her deeply uneasy, for it was linked to Walter Blum and what she had refused to do for him. Her unease turned to resolve and when they finished eating she said:

  ‘First, before you tell me anything, there’s something I want you to know.’

  So she told him in detail how, on the night before Walter had tried to recruit him, he had first tried to recruit her. How he had shown her Professor Nardi’s report and then, over dinner at the Forest Park, had explained that the great enigma was the sexual aspect of Munger’s trauma. He wanted her to try to solve that enigma even if it meant seducing him. Walter could never truly relax until he knew exactly how Munger ticked - until he himself could regulate the mechanism.

  Munger was not surprised by this revelation. By now he knew that Walter would go to any lengths to achieve his aim. He said:

  ‘It’s ironic . . . and you’re very honest.’

  She smiled wanly. ‘It’s been one of my problems. I’d have had
an easier life if I’d learned to lie a bit.’

  He was studying her and shaking his head and she felt again the ratchet pull of physical attraction. To try to smother it, she asked:

  ‘So, now, what was that about suicide?’

  He pulled out a dark, thin cigar from his top pocket. ‘Do you mind?’

  She shook her head and watched as he lit the cigar and tasted the smoke and settled back in his chair.

  ‘You’re a psychologist. Maybe you’ll understand - at least more than I do. I’m going to tell you about a nightmare.’

  So he smoked his cigar and talked, and she listened. It took a long time for he told her in detail, from when he first had the nightmare nearly ten years ago until it finally stopped in the hotel in Beirut. He told her how he had looked down at the street below and in his mind had seen the image of his dead body, and how close he had come to making that image a reality. How he had developed the film and seen something in the photographs and worked on them and in the dawn had produced a print that exorcised the nightmare.

  She listened intently and when he finally fell silent it was as though he had peeled away a layer of skin to show a different face beneath - the face of a human being - not just a composite of features.

  She had long finished her wine but she still held the empty glass in her hand, twirling it mindlessly. Now she reached forward and placed it carefully on the table as though not to make a sound to break the spell. She tried to imagine him in that room, sitting by the window trying to banish a pair of eyes in his head with a pair of eyes on a piece of paper. She tried to formulate a sentence, to say something that would sound remotely sensible. It was impossible. Maybe he sensed her difficulty. He reached into an inside pocket, pulled something out and laid it in front of her. It was the photograph. She looked down at it and her own eyes looked back. Munger had said that he saw compassion. She also saw it - and more. Slowly she lifted her gaze. He was watching her. Finally she found her voice.