by Colin Smith
‘But I doubt Standartenfuhrer Koller is solely motivated by politics. Oh, no! What he wanted to do, more than anything else, was control me. And in the end he did. Fouche-Larimand told me it took them almost three years to track me and Siegfried down in Paris. And of course a two-man cell system with orders picked up from a dead-letter-box isn’t that difficult to control once you’ve got the right codes. They got those from Siegfried. They tortured him. They pulled his toe-nails out like the Gestapo used to - it must have made them feel very nostalgic. ‘After Siegfried was found in the river, and I thought the Israelis had got on to us, it all fitted. I received a message all in the right code, saying that we’re closing the dead-letter-box and going over to a live cut-out because the situation’s too fluid. The next thing I know I receive orders to use a particularly stupid sort of bomb to knock over the publishing gentleman in London. That was clever. It not only kept the quarrel between you and the Realists hot, just when it looked as though it was beginning to cool down, but also kills a passing innocent. Within twenty-four hours the press is demanding the rope for terrorists.
‘The weak part of their operation was Le Poidevin - the cutout. He just didn’t fit. He didn’t look like the sort of person we’d use. After the London fuck-up I smelt something. It was the bomb as well. So old-fashioned, absolutely dependent on the target’s timing. Why not a mercury fuse? We have them. So I took a chance and followed this cut-out home. We had quite an evening together. He got very pissed on Calvados. He even sang a German war song he said Fouche-Larimand was always singing. It’s a song my father likes very much, but I didn’t make the connection at the time.’
‘A Nazi song?’ she asked, draining her filfar.
‘No. A sentimental song about the promise of spring even after the darkest winter.
‘"Everything passes. One day it’ll be over, After every December, There’s always a May."‘
He spoke the words to her in English. ‘And do you like this song?’
‘Once I couldn’t stand it. Now sometimes I can see the attraction.’
‘It’s May very soon.’
‘Yes.’
‘When Le Poidevin had finished you killed him?’ It was more of a statement than a question.
‘No, I didn’t - although I might as well have for all the trouble the ungrateful bastard caused me. But I didn’t kill him, because there didn’t seem to be much point. He was a hopeless old queen who didn’t understand what he’d gotten into and they’d used him, blackmailed him because he was a collaborator. I just frightened the shit out of him. The only explanation I can think of is that he killed himself. Fouche-Larimand denied that they did it and since he seems to have told the truth about almost everything else I don’t know why he should have lied about that.’
‘Why didn’t you kill Fouche-Larimand?’
‘It would have been doing him too much of a favour. I’m not in the euthanasia business. I wanted him to suffer the way Siggy did.’
He told her about his brush with the same sword-stick the Frenchman used on himself and patted his hip.
‘It was my best revenge. He really enjoyed telling me about Standartenfuhrer Koller’s latest campaign, watching me squirm. Afterwards I wandered about Athens for hours - got drunk. It made me feel dirty, used. Almost as if I’d been incestuously raped.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I should go back to Germany and kill him. Probably I should have done it a long time ago - he’s the person I’ve been fighting all my life.’
‘But you won’t.’ She was looking directly at him, resting her hands on her chin. She had her sun-glasses off and her eyes sparkled like a fountain.
‘Perhaps you’re right. In a way it would be just what he’d want me to do. The final victory. Imagine what a ball Axel Springer would have with it: "Red Monster Slays Father".
‘Anyway, I’ve got a better idea. I’ve decided to write him a letter. I’m going to write him a letter telling him how he’d better watch himself every living minute of the day because the moment he drops his guard - the moment he drops his guard that’s when we’re going to get him. That’s worse in some ways, because it’s a real life-sentence. He’s going to have to ask for police protection or hire himself bodyguards to guard him from his own son. He’ll never be able to put his head on the pillow at night without wondering whether he will wake up in the morning or watch a car come up close alongside without wondering who is in it. And the police won’t protect him forever and the hired bodyguards will be expensive and lazy and he knows they’re no guarantee. And the important thing is that he won’t doubt for a moment that I intend to do this because that’s what he would do and he has never wanted to understand that I’m not him. His last years are going to be fucking tormented.’
She looked at him. His eyelids had narrowed to slits. It was much more like the Koller she had heard about. Except there was a rough edge to his voice and when she looked again she saw that his eyes were brimming with tears.
Afterwards, as she drove back to her flat in the MG, they passed an EOKA memorial in the form of a bronze statue of a young guerrilla, forever hurling a grenade at the perfidious British. ‘A shrine for a terrorist,’ grinned Koller. His depression seemed to have lifted. When she changed gear she made sure her hand brushed his knee.
In the early evening Koller was woken by several loud explosions. ‘Rebecca’ felt his body tense besides her, sensed him peer around the darkened room.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s only fireworks. The Greek kids let them off for Easter. It goes on for days.’
‘It sounds like a whole army out there. I thought the Turks were coming for us.’ He was ashamed of his nervousness, trying to laugh it off.
‘They’re home-made. It’s illegal, but all the kids do it. Sometimes they blow their hands off.’
As she spoke there was a particularly spectacular report. ‘Neutron bomb,’ said Koller - but he still sounded uncertain. ‘They put them in empty buildings - half-built ones - so that they echo.’
She sprang naked from the bed and ran over to the window to peer through the venetian blinds. ‘No Turks,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’
‘And a brandy,’ he commanded.
He watched her leave the room, still naked, a dancer’s silhouette of firm muscle with a maid’s arrogant breasts.
Their love-making had been as uneven as it had been sudden. When they got back to the flat she had produced her own bottle of filfar and insisted that they drank several more glasses. She had been coquettish then, giggling, sometimes staring intently into his eyes, sitting close enough for him to feel her heat. It had reminded Koller of a whore’s synthetic seduction, the smiling mask always betrayed by the dead eyes. It had not stopped him wanting her.
In the end, he had seasoned lust with caution by taking her to bed in his room, where they had sweated out the alcohol in laboured, vengeful climaxes above the pistol he had stolen from her. Yet afterwards, he noticed a change in her mood. The mask slipped and the eyes came to life. There had been odd, puzzling moments of tenderness. Once she had caressed the wound on his hip and whispered, ‘Maybe you should go. Maybe you should leave here.’
‘Why? Am I in danger?’
‘Not while I’m with you.’
But he noted how she avoided the question, and made sure he was not asleep until she was.
She told herself she was weak, susceptible to feeble female emotions. After all, she wasn’t a prostitute. She reasoned that if she slept with a man, even a traitor, then it was only normal that a certain animal affection developed. But although she tried to suppress these feelings she knew there was more to it than sheer physical infatuation. After the first night she could not believe that this Hans Koller, a man who had sacrificed much to fight for her cause, was a traitor. For once the organisation was wrong. Intuition fought blind obedience and won. She was convinced he was telling the truth, just as later she had to face up to the
fact that there had been no need to sleep with him - he wasn’t going anywhere. He had nowhere to go. And in their pillow-talk he had told her he had dreamed of her and she believed him.
Next morning, when the time came to telephone Beirut, she decided to hell with discipline; she told them what she thought. It would be a terrible tragedy, she said. They must not take action without hearing his side of things.
The person who took the call was George, now back in Beirut helping to arrange Dove’s departure for Cyprus. The Lebanese detective’s information had not been entirely correct. It was true there had been a plan to get the Englishman out by boat, but there were difficulties. Now they were going by car to Damascus and by air from there. The hold-up had been getting Dove a Syrian visa. George relayed ‘Rebecca’s’ misgivings to Abu Kamal.
‘What did you tell her?’ his boss asked.
‘I told her that perhaps she was right and that, in any case, there had been another delay and we wouldn’t be there until the day after tomorrow at the earliest,’ he said in his terrible Arabic.
‘You did right,’ said Kamal, ‘although I’ve never doubted her before. Do you think she believed you?’
‘No doubt about it,’ said George. ‘Women often keep their brains between their legs.’
‘It’s usually the way,’ agreed Kamal, whose Marxism had not entirely overcome the prejudices of a traditional upbringing.
‘He’s a lucky man. His last days will have been sweet. When will you be there?’
‘Tonight at the latest.’
‘Good. See that it’s tidy.’
When she returned from making her call Koller came up quietly behind her, kissed her on the back of her neck and cupped her breasts. ‘Tell me your real name, goddess,’ he commanded. It was the first time he had asked.
‘Nadia.’ She said it hesitantly, as if she had almost forgotten it herself.
‘Does Rebecca have news for Benjamin he said, reverting to their code-names.
‘They say there’s been another delay. They say they’ll definitely be here the day after tomorrow.’
There would be time to tell him more. She wanted to think about it. To warn him was one sort of treachery; not to was betraying herself. And she was certain of his innocence. What had he said? ‘We never make little mistakes.’
It was her duty to see that this time there were no mistakes. She would have to make sure they held Dove back while Hans told his story. Perhaps they would end up killing the Englishman. That would be better. The man was obviously a maniac. Her eye caught the label on a bottle of Othello wine. ‘If I don’t tell him,’ she shuddered, ‘he’ll think I betrayed him like the Moor misjudged Desdemona.’
‘Time for a siesta,’ he said.
It was not yet noon, but she allowed him to lead her back to bed. Somewhere close by a church bell began to chime. It was the Orthodox Good Friday.
12. No Shrines for a Terrorist
Dove watched as a National Guard band in unpressed battledress and scuffed boots slow-marched the Easter procession from the church with a rolling dirge, their kettle-drums draped in black crepe. Behind them came a solemn platoon of infantry, old British bolt-action rifles reversed and pointing to the ground. After the soldiers the flanks were guarded by a troop of boy scouts, who held their long poles horizontally so that they formed a fence around the venerable white-bearded bishops displaying icons and the curly-haired choir-boys swinging incense. At the roadside old ladies crossed themselves as the huge wooden crucifix went by and teenage boys in jeans and sweaters slunk off into the night to ignite more of their homemade explosives behind walls or under culverts. The fireworks went off with monstrous reports, sometimes drowning out the band’s mournful clarinets.
A familiar long-haired figure detached himself from the crowd and came up close to the Englishman so that when he spoke Dove could smell the whisky on his breath. ‘It’s looking good,’ said George. ‘Her car’s there and I don’t think they’d go out without it. Remember - leave the chick alone unless she tries to pull a piece on you. We want to talk to her.’
And if she’s dumb enough to come out shooting, thought George, then fuck her luck. He had enough problems tonight. It was like being asked to put down a dog you had trained. He had the feeling he wasn’t going to forget this one in a hurry. He patted the hip-flask. The whisky helped a bit. Not much. Hash might have been better, but he didn’t trust himself on it. In Nam Charlie had stomped all over dudes too stoned to fight.
Dove wondered exactly what ‘a talk’ meant and whether he might not be doing the woman a favour if he did shoot her, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he asked, ‘What do you think the chances are of the girl getting to a gun?’
‘She’ll probably have one around, but not that close and the key should give you the edge. They won’t be expecting somebody straight through the front door. Just remember - drop Koller right away. Don’t stand there telling him your goddamn life history and why you’re doin’ it. Just waste the bastard. I’ll be right behind you and take the girl. But don’t look round for me I’ll watch your back. Keep your eyes on Koller and keep putting holes in him until he stops moving. Don’t be afraid to empty the magazine.’
‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ said Dove. Yet even as he said it he wondered if it would be. It was so preposterously neat. More like an execution. They had not only found out where Koller was staying, but George had even managed to get a key made. How had he done that? It worried him - but he had come too far and had loved Emma too much to turn back now.
‘OK. Let’s go. Yaller,’ said the Palestinian. Again Dove got a whiff of the whisky. It surprised him. He had expected George to be as cool as he was when the Israeli planes attacked.
Koller was sitting at the kitchen table trying to finish the letter he had outlined to Nadia at lunch the day before. He wrote on lined yellow paper in a forward-slanting, almost gothic script, that was very similar to the hand of the parent he was writing to. Around his feet lay several scrunched-up drafts. In the end he settled for just three lines. When he had finished he took the letter into his room where he had some envelopes. Nadia was next door in her bedroom, her body wrapped in an orangecoloured towel, using a hair-drier. They were not long out of bed and intending to dine out. She had decided that this would be the moment to warn him that they didn’t believe: his story about The Circle.
Dove and George came up in the lift. The first thing the schoolteacher noticed was that there was a spy-hole in the front door and, for a second or two, this alone was enough to bring him to a halt. He imagined Koller behind the woodwork watching every move he made. What had George said? No modern door could stop a pistol bullet. He was sweating now and there was a tight pain coming up across his chest that reminded him of the way he felt after training sessions with the fedayeen. On the right of the front door there was a strip of frosted glass and through it he could see that the light was on in the hallway. The sound of church bells and explosions floated up from outside.
He checked that the Walther’s safety was off and then carefully replaced it in the waistband of his trousers; his palm was sticky with sweat. Behind him George was breathing heavily and Dove thought: ‘He’s as scared as I am.’
He took out the door-key the Palestinian had given him and wondered again how they had so quickly found a safe-house belonging to a rival organisation. The key was not very new looking. Its metal was dull and the ridges felt worn. He inserted it and suddenly found himself hoping that the woman had changed the lock or bolted the door. This was madness. What was he doing here? The key turned easily. He pushed the door and they stepped inside.
George had told him the layout several times, although never how he knew it. On the right there was a long, open-plan drawing and dining room entered through a sliding glass door. Unlike the hallway this room was in darkness. At the end of the hallway facing him was a door that had been left slightly ajar: he could see that a light was on inside. He had been told that this would most probably be Ko
ller’s bedroom. ‘Go get him,’ hissed George.
Dove walked quickly along the grey marble floor, pistol in his right hand, arm almost fully outstretched. When he got to the bedroom door he kicked it open and saw a fair-haired man sitting on the bed addressing an envelope which lay on a pad across his knees. For a fraction of a second they stared at each other. Terrorist pen in hand, the schoolteacher with his gun. Dove fired twice. The shots deafening in the confines of the small room, and then in a voice he hardly recognized as his own: ‘I’m Stephen Dove.’
The first bullet was wild, the consummation of blind panic. It caught the terrorist high up on the fleshy part of the thigh as he dropped the pen and his hand ran back along the mattress. The second shot was aimed the way George had taught him to do it, the left hand steadying his right wrist. The special soft-nosed bullet hit Koller just below his heart, ripped through a lung and exited near his backbone. He stopped moving then and fell back onto the bed, his left arm taking his weight while the stain spread on his shirt and his face began to drain to the colour of stone. ‘Stop an elephant with this gun,’ George had said. But Koller was still alive - just.
Somewhere a woman was shouting in Arabic. Dove was hardly aware of it. ‘You killed my wife,’ he said. It was important to explain why he had done this thing to him. The Englishman’s finger was still on the trigger, but the arms were relaxed now and the pistol pointing almost to the floor.
Koller slowly nodded his head in comprehension. His mouth was open and he was trying to fight down the shock. He felt no real pain yet; he was reminded of being winded on a school football field.
The woman was shouting again, this time in English for the benefit of Koller. ‘He told me they were coming tomorrow. You must believe me. He told me it was tomorrow.’ The German seemed to nod again.
