The Network

by Jason Elliot

  ‘Hello, ladies,’ I say, and a kaleidoscope of fanciful scenarios tumbles into my mind. I’m in the grip of that perverse longing for closeness devoid of intimacy, and my devil is suggesting a bold approach. ‘If I’d known you were both here I’d have cancelled my plans for the evening.’ There’s an exchange of smiles, and the blonde speaks first.

  ‘We don’t talk to strangers,’ she says in a tone of counterfeit coyness that suggests just the opposite. ‘But we might change our minds if you introduce yourself.’ She has a Southern accent which I inexplicably associate with sexual voracity. ‘I’m Summer,’ she says, looking me squarely in the eye as we shake hands. I resist the temptation of allowing my gaze to fall towards her chest, but it’s not easy.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I reply, looking towards her friend. ‘You’re Pudding.’ But the joke misses its mark, evoking looks of confusion.

  ‘Summer,’ I point to them in turn, ‘and Pudding. It’s a special dessert we make in England. The secret is to make sure the fruit is really ripe. You have to squeeze it without bruising it. I miss it terribly. I have a permanent craving for ripe fruits of every kind.’

  ‘Do you ever give in to your cravings?’ Summer asks.

  This is a green light if ever there was. They accept my suggestion to move from the bar to a table, around which we settle into soft armchairs. I order a bottle of champagne. We chat for half an hour. Summer takes the lead, and the Tigress is sultry and largely silent. They can’t get over my accent, they tell me, so I make the most of that. They’re matching my innuendos as fast as I can produce them. The guests fade away, and when the pianist plays a final version of ‘Georgia on my Mind’, we’re the only ones clapping.

  ‘It’s getting late, ladies,’ I say, because it’s decision time. ‘What does a man do in this town when it gets this late?’

  ‘Depends what you enjoy doing most,’ says Summer with a lascivious smile.

  ‘Well, there is one thing I’m into,’ I say, ‘but it’s not really what you’d call conventional.’

  ‘Try us,’ says Summer, dipping a finger into her champagne.

  ‘Think I should trust you with such a private thing?’ I ask.

  ‘We won’t tell,’ says Summer, and puts her finger in her mouth.

  The moment is definitely ripe to let them know.

  ‘Pond life.’

  ‘Pond life?’ They giggle uncertainly.

  ‘Ponds,’ I say. ‘Absolutely fascinating. The whole of life is represented in even the smallest pond. As small as this very table. Every kind of life is in it. Things that swim, run, crawl, fly, burrow and slither. I don’t just mean toads and frogs and newts. Everybody loves them, right?

  ‘Right,’ says Summer, exchanging glances with her equally perplexed friend.

  ‘Think of all the lesser creatures that people never bother to mention: water beetles, water scorpions, water fleas, damselflies, skaters, dragonfly nymphs, nematodes, flukes and tapeworms. They’re all there.’

  ‘I’m with you, kind of,’ says Summer, but I can tell she’s wondering where I’m going with this. Understandably.

  ‘But it’s right at the bottom of the pond where things get interesting,’ I say. ‘That’s where all the debris sinks to, where you find all the life that has no place in ordinary pond society. There’s a whole world down there with its own rules. That’s where you get the mud dwellers and the scavengers, the parasites and the leeches.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I say. ‘Some of the creatures that live in the mud are actually beautiful, so beautiful you can’t really imagine what they’re doing down there.’

  I’m watching their faces quite closely now. Summer is confused, but trying hard not to let it show. The Tigress is ahead of her and close to glowering at me.

  ‘There’s a family of parasitic worms, I think they’re called planarians, which produce slime that allows them to move over any surface. There’s little hydras which hunt by waving their tentacles around to entrap their prey. Then there’s the medusa. Surely you’ve heard of them. They belong to the Coelenterata phylum. They’re free-swimming. Free agents, you might say. Difficult to identify if you’re not trained to spot them of course, but unmistakable if you know their distinguishing features.’

  The girls exchange glances again, and their body language is betraying their restlessness. Neither of them is smiling any more. There’s actually a frown on the face of the black woman.

  ‘There’s little crustacea. They’re very active. Nocturnal too. They swim on their backs and capture their prey with their legs. Imagine that. I mean, what creature would fall for that?’

  ‘We need to go,’ says the black woman, quietly but abruptly.

  ‘I do believe you’re right,’ says Summer, or whatever her name really is. The smile hasn’t entirely left her face, but it’s a different kind of smile now. Her lips are held tighter against her teeth than before, in the manner of someone swallowing a bitter medicine. The two of them reach for their handbags.

  ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘I haven’t told you about the best creature of all. It’s a beetle which beats the surface of the water with its little feelers to attract its prey. They say it’s a sexual signal, but who knows what sex with a beetle is really like. Anyway, there’s another beetle that knows this trick, so you know what it does? It swims up and goes through all the motions of being attracted to the other one, and it gets really close, and just as the other one is getting ready for its snack – gotcha! It swallows it whole. Doesn’t even chew.’

  I don’t get up as they stand. They leave without looking back.

  I feel bad that I’ve deceived them. It isn’t pond beetles that trick their prey at all, but a tropical species of land beetle, which flashes fake signals to fireflies. Somehow I don’t think this detail will get as far as the reports they have to make. But I do wonder if Seethrough will reconsider when he’s about to make another joke about ponds.

  I finish the champagne and walk back to the lobby. I give a twenty-dollar bill to the concierge and thank him for his vigilance, because it’s he who’s told me about the two good-looking women asking after me by name earlier in the evening.

  Then I’m alone in my room. My mind spins in a black whirlwind of thoughts. Soon I will meet Gemayel and confront him with the news that one of his own staff will attempt to be the instrument of his murder. I’m sickened at the deceitfulness of the people I’m mixing with. I wonder if I will be sent to the Sudan. And I wonder about a friend I haven’t seen for ten years.

  But it’s something Grace said that worries me the most. All they need is an excuse, she says, and there’ll be war in Afghanistan.

  I loathe the duplicity of some of my own countrymen, but I am even more afraid of the power of America, and of what will happen if the giant is unexpectedly provoked.

  9

  In the few days that I’ve been in America Seethrough has been busy, as usual. He’s liaised with the Italian intelligence service, SISMI, and managed to borrow a team of watchers to help arrange a meeting with Gemayel. The Italians have been kind enough to let us know that on Fridays Gemayel has the habit of walking from his apartment on Via Hongaria and strolling along the shady gravel paths that criss-cross the gardens of the Villa Borghese. He is accompanied by two armed Arab or Italian bodyguards, who trail discreetly behind him in expensively tailored casual jackets and Ray-Bans. So on the chosen afternoon, instead of calling up Gemayel and requesting a meeting like a normal person, I’m sitting in the back of an Italian telecom van watching him from half a mile away through a high-powered miniature telescope.

  My partner for the day is a former Italian special forces soldier from Naples called Gaetano, who tells me a funny story about surrendering to a troop of British paras on a joint escape and evasion exercise in Germany. When he’s caught, which is not supposed to happen on E & E training, he produces a fine bottle of Montepulciano and a large Parmesan from his Bergen, and settles down with his captors to a picnic, after which they generously d
ecide to let him go. Mysteriously, he is the only member of the Italian team to successfully complete the exercise, and receives a commendation from his proud commanding officer.

  The old rule of surveillance applies. We must assume at all times that our target is being observed, so the plan is to deliver a message directly to one of Gemayel’s bodyguards under cover of an innocent encounter. The message is a piece of paper on which I’ve written a note requesting an urgent meeting. There’s enough detail for Gemayel to know who I am, and though I don’t put my name, I’ve given him details of my hotel. I have to trust that his memory is still intact and he isn’t too upset about the past.

  For the contact, two SISMI officers, a couple posing as American tourists, have rented bicycles for an afternoon ride through the Villa Borghese. Directed by Gaetano through their hidden body comms, they’re able to position themselves ahead of Gemayel as he turns along one of the tree-lined pathways. They keep their backs to him and pretend to be consulting their tourist map of the park from the saddles of their bikes. The timing has to be just right. Gemayel walks past the couple, and the bodyguards are a few yards behind.

  ‘É proprio dietro di te,’ whispers Gaetano into his microphone. Right behind you. ‘Cinque secondi – adesso, vai vai vai.’

  I watch through the scope as the female team member, pretending to lose patience with the map, turns around and catches the attention of one of the bodyguards as he passes and asks him directions to the exit of the park. They talk for a couple of seconds. Then her partner reaches out his arm in thanks to the bodyguard, and shakes his hand.

  ‘Fatto,’ says Gaetano. It’s done. The bodyguard is well enough trained not to show any reaction to the message that’s been pressed into his palm, but closes his hand and walks on. The bikes speed away, but the message has been passed.

  By the time Gaetano has taken me on a tour of his several favourite bars in Rome it’s not only dark but I’m pleasantly drunk. I take a taxi to my hotel, recounting to myself the list of things which Gaetano says the Italians have invented.

  ‘Everything that matters in life,’ is how he puts it. Electricity, the radio, opera, fashion, the violin, the atom bomb, the best cars in the world, and pizza. Not to mention the most beautiful women of infamy in the world, he says with a wink, calling them donne di costume facile, meaning easy virtue. A pair of whom, he adds, are available to us this very evening.

  It’s a kind offer, which I decline politely.

  There’s no message for me at the desk. I’m wondering how and when Gemayel will get in touch when the answer is unambiguously provided. As I open the door of my room and reach for the light switch, I feel a sudden and overwhelming force pulling me down. I’m totally off my guard and whoever’s doing the pulling has done this kind of thing before. Before I hit the floor my arm’s already in a half nelson, and pressing into my temple is the muzzle of a pistol, which now emits a series of clicks as the hammer is drawn back. It’s a little too close to be in focus and I can’t turn my head, but I can just make out the design from the configuration of the slide assembly, which I recognise from my evenings spent poring over H’s weapons manuals.

  ‘Bella pistola,’ I say. ‘Beretta 92.’ Another very accomplished Italian invention, it now occurs to me.

  ‘Chi cazzo sei?’ says a voice at the other end of the weapon. Very colloquial Italian, somewhat lacking in humour, with what I suspect is a Lebanese accent.

  ‘Sono un amico del tuo capo.’ I’m hoping if I tell him I’m a friend of his boss, he’ll think twice about misbehaving.

  ‘Cosa vuoi da lui?’

  ‘É una faccenda privata.’ It’s time to switch to what seems likely to be his native language. ‘Haida beini w’beinu w’bein Allah,’ I say, switching to my best Lebanese. That’s between him and me and God.

  While his partner watches me from a standing position beside the door, he turns me over, returns the Beretta to its holster and frisks me carefully twice, emptying my pockets in the process.

  ‘Siediti,’ he says, more calmly now. I oblige by sitting in the chair by the window, as he tosses my phone, wallet and passport onto the bed. I massage the side of my head as he scrutinises my things. Then he takes a mobile phone from his pocket, dials a number and speaks briefly in Arabic. The phone is passed to me and, as I’ve hoped, I hear Gemayel’s voice. He sounds older and I’m unexpectedly reminded of how much time has passed since I last saw him. But the tone is unmistakable.

  ‘I will be happy to meet an old friend,’ he says. ‘You have some news?’

  ‘I can give it only to you.’

  ‘My men will bring you. Forgive me if I do not tell you the location on the telephone.’

  Without much further ado, because Gemayel’s men don’t seem to be the type for small talk, I’m escorted in silence to a black Mercedes parked outside the hotel. We speed through the Roman night. To judge from the number of times we change direction, I’m guessing the driver is doing his best to disguise the location we’re heading for, and he’s succeeding because I don’t know Rome and we might be anywhere. But I’m not too bothered. Even though it’s switched off, my phone will keep track of me and, more importantly, I’ve got my meeting.

  It’s past midnight. I have no sense of where we are. The car pulls to a halt in a narrow cobbled street and I’m hastened towards a heavy wooden door in a high wall. Beyond it I find myself descending several steps from street level towards a crypt-like space which smells faintly of incense and ancient stone. A second door opens into a small windowless church, its vaulted roof supported on three pairs of polished pillars in oak-coloured Carrara marble. The walls are ochre and the lines of the vaults are decorated with elaborate floriated mouldings in white plaster. There are a dozen dark wooden pews on the chequerboard marble floor, and the whole space is poorly lit by a pair of bulbs inside frosted domes.

  I’m shown forward to the apse, to one side of which is a dusty velvet curtain. Another, smaller door lies behind it, and opens onto stone steps leading down. I count twenty-four, which means we are a good way underground and the signal from my mobile won’t survive. Nor will any sound carry to the outside world. It’s the perfect site for a clandestine meeting. A transmitter won’t work, and there’s no chance of eavesdropping through the walls. But the isolation makes me uncomfortable.

  There’s a crossroads of passages and we descend again as the walls roughen and take on a prehistoric look. They are cold to the touch, though the air is surprisingly warm. One of the bodyguards leads and the other follows me as we turn into a long broad tunnel with horizontal niches on either side. I realise now we are in a portion of one of the city’s many catacombs, and the ghostly mounds lying in the niches are the calcified contours of human skeletons. Then the tunnel opens into a series of rooms decorated with ancient murals depicting gardens and animals. They have a primitive beauty about them but it isn’t really the moment to stop and lecture my escort on the iconography of pre-Christian murals.

  We pass into a larger chamber almost as big as the church above us. The floor is bare but the walls are covered with more faded but colourful murals of mythological landscapes and encounters. There are blind windows and door frames carved meticulously out of the pale stone and, running the length of the base of the walls, a low platform. On this platform, at the far side of the chamber, sits Gemayel.

  The guards settle on either side of the entrance we have come through. Gemayel stands up and greets me warmly. His hair and moustache are grey now, but he looks in good health. There’s a patrician look of approval on his face.

  ‘You were a boy when I met you,’ he says. ‘Now I see a man.’

  ‘I did not expect to meet you again in a church,’ I say, for lack of a better reply.

  ‘Our Prophet recommends that if you cannot find a mosque to pray in, then you should go to a church.’

  ‘Better than a prison, I think.’

  ‘For some, even a church can be a prison.’ He smiles. ‘But for me the churches of
Rome are the most beautiful in the world. This is the best city in which to take the Prophet’s advice.’

  He knows I have an important reason for calling a secret meeting but is happy to delay the moment of asking until we have caught up. We talk a little of our lives and are led back to the fateful events of his capture by the Israelis, ten years earlier.

  ‘I do not forget what you did,’ he says. ‘I am still in your debt.’

  ‘There is no debt,’ I tell him. ‘What I did was my duty.’

  ‘To protect me, you killed a man.’

  ‘I failed to protect you.’

  ‘There is honour even in failure,’ he says, and smiles again.

  It’s strange, but at this simple statement I feel a burden lifted from me. It’s as if he’s exorcised an old and troublesome ghost that’s been haunting me for years, and I feel suddenly grateful towards him.

  ‘Ask anything of me, and it will be repaid,’ he says.

  ‘Insha’allah, the opportunity for that will come. Now I have other news.’

  I tell the truth, as much as I’m able. He will never know the full story: that his violent release from prison was a favour to the Israelis for providing the cover for Manny’s infiltration. That he was sold, in effect. But the rest is true. I explain I’ve come not only as a friend but as a representative of my government, and that we are seeking his people’s help in Sudan for any word of the Stinger purchases. If bin Laden is involved, we need to know. He listens attentively and nods in agreement at the request. He can guarantee no result, he says, but will alert me to any news as to whether Sheikh Osama, as he calls bin Laden, is connected or not. He reminds me that his own organisation wholly rejects the killing of civilians and has no policy of contact with any of the groups calling themselves al-Qaeda. But he will ask his people to listen.