Because he wanted to be sick, because he thought the woman was beautiful, because the target was bound tight and not free to walk through the glass doors of the Oreanda Hotel, because there was not the adrenalin excitement of the escape from the streets of Yalta, he knew the squeal of weakness in his body.
Abu Hamid shouted, 'We will kill the spy pig.'
The shout was the hiding of his weakness.
The baying for blood boiled around the woman. The shout of Abu Hamid for the right to slaughter her, the shouts of the recruits for the right to participate in the letting of blood.
Fawzi stood now over the top of the trussed woman.
His straddled legs were over her hips. The woman showed no fear. The woman was a clinging fascination to Abu Hamid. Why did she not beg?
'… Because she endangered you, it will be you that carry out the sentence of the tribunal.'
Why did she not spit at her tormentors? Why did she not shriek in fear?
'Remember this. You are here under the protection of Syria. You are safeguarded by the vigilance of the Syrian security service. There is no safety for traitors in the Beqa'a. Traitors will be rooted out, destroyed.'
Inch by inch, stamped foot by stamped foot, the circle was closing on the trussed woman. Abu Hamid gazed into her face. For a moment he saw a flicker of animation from her eyes, he saw the curl of her lips. She stared back at him. If it had been himself… If it had been Abu Hamid tied at the ankles, handcuffed at the wrists, waiting for the lynch death, would he have been able to show no fear? Abu Hamid understood the power of Syria over the recruits of the Popular Front. A spy had been brought for them to revile, to massacre, just as the Syrians had provided the chickens for those samel recruits to despoil at the Yarmouq camp. The power on Syria mocked them, made scum of them. The means of their learning was a bound and handcuffed woman. She stared back at Abu Hamid. At last he saw the contempt in her eyes, the sneer at her mouth.
Abu Hamid wrenched back the cocking arm of his Kalashnikov.
Into the contempt and sneer of the woman's face he fired a full magazine. He raked the body of the woman long after the life had been blitzed from her. The gunfire boom had died, died with the life of a woman branded a spy. The barrel of the rifle hung limp against his thigh and his knee. The body was a mess of blood and cloth and flesh. The circle had grown, had widened. The recruits had seen the trance in which Abu Hamid had fired – none had felt safe to stand close to the shooting.
He saw the tremble at Fawzi's jaw.
He walked away. He left the circle and the Syrian and the body of the woman. He walked to the wire coil at the perimeter.
Down the unmade track, leaning on the bonnet of the second jeep, was Major Said Hazan.
Major Said Hazan was clapping the palms of his hands, applauding.
Abu Hamid turned away. He walked to the far side of the camp. The moment before he was lost behind a wall of tent canvas he looked back to where he had shot the woman. He saw the bouncing shoulders and the leaping heads, and he knew that the recruits danced on the bloody corpse of the woman who had been a spy for Israel.
He went behind the tents and vomited until his stomach was empty, until his throat burned.
He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then he went through the camp entrance gap and down the track.
He gasped the question to Major Said Hazan.
'Why was she here?'
'The Israelis always want to know what is the situation in the Beqa'a.'
'Why my camp? Why the camp where I am?'
'Chance, nothing more than chance.'
'Was she searching for me?'
'You should not acquire for yourself too great an importance. You are as a flea on a dog's neck. Your bite has been felt, but you cannot be found… ' The voice of Major Said Hazan steeled. 'Why did you not permit your young men to execute the spy?'
'It is my role to lead, to lead by example,' Abu Hamid said.
'A fine answer… in a few days you will be brought to Damascus.'
He saw the smooth skin of Major Said Hazan's face wrinkle in the attempted warmth of a smile.
'Why did you choose me for Yalta, Major?'
'I knew of you.'
'What did you know?'
'Had you ever killed, Hamid, before Yalta?'
He blurted. 'I fought at Bent Jbail in 1978. I was young then. I fought in 1982. I was at Tyre and then at Sidon and then at Damour and then at Beirut city.
Many times… '
'Answer the question I asked.'
'I have fought many times.'
'The question is so very simple. Had you ever killed, Abu Hamid?'
'I have fought the Israeli… of course, I have killed the Israeli…'
The calming voice. The voice of endless patience.
'Had you looked into a man's eyes, a man who is alive, looked into his eyes and then killed him? Tell me, Abu Hamid.'
He could not control his stammer. 'When you are fighting the Israeli you cannot stand about, look for a target… It is necessary to use a great volume of fire.'
'Into his eyes, and then killed him?'
'If you are that close to the Israeli you are dead.'
'Seen the fear in his eyes, because he has the certainty you will kill him?'
'Once.' Abu Hamid whispered.
'Recall it for me.'
The words in a rush, a torrent flow. 'When we had left Beirut, after we had evacuated, we went to South Yemen. We were allowed to take out only one small bag and our rifle. The great men of the Arab world let us be humiliated, after we had fought with sacrifice the battle of the whole Arab world… '
'In South Yemen… ' An encouragement, not a rebuke.
'We were in a tent camp, I had a transistor radio and one day my radio was taken. I found the thief. I went into his tent. He was playing a cassette tape on my radio.
First he laughed at me, I waited until he was crying – yes, until he was certain, and then I shot him.'
His hand was taken, gripped between the stumps and the thumb. He closed his eyes. He felt the brush of the silk skin across his face. He felt lips that had no moisture kiss his cheek.
'I had heard of it. It was why I chose you.'
For a long time he watched the dust cloud spurting up from the back wheels of the jeep as it drove away.
The merchant had been through two road blocks of the Syrian army. He travelled the route every Monday and Saturday from Beirut, and returned by the same road to the capital every Tuesday and Sunday. He was well-liked by the commando sentries. The main trade of the merchant was in small electrical components, anything from light bulbs and plugs to drums of flex wire to parts for the small generators that provided much of the power in those areas of the Beqa'a that were off the two main roads and distant from the main supply. The merchant always offered the soldiers insignificant gifts, crates of soft drinks, throw-away lighters. Beside the wind-blown, weather- blasted and cardboard-mounted photograph of the stern-faced President of the Syrian Arab Republic at the road blocks he had made his small talk, offered his passes for cursory inspection, and been waved on. He was lighter in his load by two cartons of Camel cigarettes.
The merchant drove south, taking the straight main road, the eastern side of the Beqa'a. His car was a Mercedes, eleven years old and with 180,000 kilometres on the clock. The back seat had been torn out to provide him with additional carrying space for his wares. He always drove slowly, and would tell the sentries at the road blocks that he thought his motor was on the last legs and close to collapse. He always made a joke of it.
The snail speed of the laden, rust-coated Mercedes was a familiar source of amusement. By travelling slowly
