He had eaten only bread in the last 24 hours, he had drunk only water. He was moved in the black boot of a car, his eyes hidden in darkness by the hood, every few hours. He spoke no Arabic, so he did not understand the low voices of his captors. Heinrich Gunter, trussed, strapped, blind, had long since ceased to concern himself with the outside world, the world beyond the boot of a car and the basement of a building. He no longer thought of his wife and his children, nor the actions of his government, nor the position that his bank would have taken. If his hands had been free, if his tie had still been around his throat collar, he would have attempted to end his life. He knew enough to recognise that he was the classic kidnap victim. He was the man who had disregarded the warnings, who had thought that he had arranged the safe passage into the city.
Rolling painfully in the boot of the car Gunter knew the pit depths of despair. He could think of no corner into which he could crawl in his mind, where he would find comfort. He could think of no power to help him.
Into the coarse material of the hood he sobbed his tears. He had seen on the television back at home the photographs of the men held hostage. Cheerful, smiling faces from family snapshots and company archives of journalists and business men and priests and academics.
He had also seen the photographs of those few who had returned from captivity, haunted men whose cheeks had sunk and whose eyes were buried in dark sockets. The rare few who had been brought out to freedom.
But Gunter no longer cared about the many who were held, or the few who had been freed. He did not believe in the possibility of freedom, he believed only in the blessing of death.
In the middle of the day, when the car had halted, bumped off a road, he was given food. The hood was lifted an inch or two. Bread was fed to him, given him in small pieces, each piece replaced when he had chewed and swallowed.
He had no idea where he might be, what part of Lebanon he was in, and it did not seem to him to matter.
Holt played the chef. It had been a bit of a joke between them that Holt had been allowed to plan the menu for the main meal of the day.
His gut ached with hunger. More of Crane's bible.
The bible said it was good to be hungry. If you were hungry you weren't drowsy. If you were drowsy you were halfway to being ambushed.
Crane sat under the scrim netting with his legs folded and his back straight and the binoculars at his face. Holt was on his hands and knees over the hexamine tablets heating in their frame, and on the frame the canteen of water boiled. Crane's bible said that the hexamine tablets were the only source of fire they could use, anything else would give off a smoke signature and a smell signature. Two tablets the size of the firelighter pieces that his mother used at home to get the sitting room logs alight.
They were going to have a hell of a good meal. Had to be a good meal. God alone knew where they would be in 24 hours' time. Overlooking the camp, that's where they should be all through tomorrow, watching for Abu Hamid on the binoculars. Crane's plan said they should go for a dusk shot. Holt couldn't imagine having much room for stewing up a meal, or much appetite for it, when the time was getting close for action with the Model PM. So a good meal, that afternoon, a long rummage round the Bergen for the ration packs, all that was choice and best in the sachets.
Holt heard the low whistle between Crane's teeth. He looked, he saw Crane had the binoculars away from his lace, that his lower lip was bitten white by his upper teeth. Crane saw Holt's attention, relaxed his mouth, returned the binoculars to his eyes. Holt looked away.
It wasn't the first time, nor the second nor the third that Holt could recall the sight of screwed up pain on Crane's forehead, in Crane's eyes, at Crane's mouth.
He looked away. He didn't want to look into Crane's face because he was afraid.
It was the best menu he could manage.
Not a prawn cocktail or marinated mackerel for hors d'oeuvre, but a sachet of izotonic powder mixed with water to give a lemon-tasting vitamin boost. Not a bisque or a consomme for the soup course, but a short and stubby stick of peperone to chew. Not steak and chips or lamb cutlets for entree, but the boiling water into the plastic sac that held the dehydrated chicken and rice flakes. Not a strawberry flan or a sherry trifle for dessert, but a granola cereal bar that seemed to explode and expand and bulge the mouth full. Not coffee to wash it down, but a brew with a teabag. And a piece of chewing gum to wind up the feast. That added up, Holt reckoned, to a hell of a meal.
He had the powder ready mixed, he had the peperone laid out, he had the granolas ready. When he had mixed the chicken and rice they could get stuck in while the water heated for the tea bags.
Holt looked up. He saw Crane's head, bowed, his eyes closed tight. Shouldn't have bloody looked…
'Dinner is served, Mr Crane.'
He saw the face snap back to life, saw Crane grin, as if there was no problem.
'Brilliantly done, young Holt.'
They ate. Holt was learning from watching Crane.
The izotonic drained, and the sachet held upside down over the mouth for the drips, and the peperone lingeringly held on the tongue for the spice taste, and the fingers wiping the remnants of the chicken and rice from the sides of the canteen, the tea drunk.
'What's your problem, Mr Crane?'
Crane twisted his head, as if he were caught on the wrong foot. 'I've got no problem.'
'Give it to me.'
'Being in fucking Lebanon, is that a problem…?'
'If you've got a problem then I've a right to know.'
Crane snarled, 'Being here with you, that's enough of a problem.'
'Mr Crane, we are together and you are in pain. It seems to me you have a pain in your eyes… '
'Get the canteens cleaned, get the rubbish stowed.'
'If you have a problem with your eyes then I have to help.'
Crane was close to him. Holt saw the anger in his face.
'How are you going to help?'
Holt shook his head. 'I don't know, but I… '
'What do I need eyes for?'
'For everything.'
'To shoot, crap kid. I need eyes to shoot. I need eyes that can put me into five inches at a thousand yards.'
'What is it with your eyes?'
Crane slumped back. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, like he was trying to gouge something out of them. 'Disease of the retina.'
'Can you shoot?'
'I shot at the road block.'
'You had two hits at the road block.'
'I don't know why, truly. Okay, I had two hits, but she wasn't going anywhere. I suppose it didn't matter.
Perhaps that's why I had the hits… '
'Is that why you took the job, for the money, for treatment?'
'There's a place in Houston. They have a one in five success rate, that's one more than anywhere else. It's my shooting eye, youngster.'
'Mr Crane, if you can't shoot, then what's going to happen?'
Holt looked into Crane's right eye. He saw the blood red veins creeping towards the iris.
'Bet your life, Holt, I'll shoot one last time.'
Holt wiped out the canteens. He cleared up the rubbish and put it in the plastic bag. He rubbed down the Model PM and the Armalite. He changed the ammunition rounds in the magazines. He felt the light had gone out. He smeared insect repellent cream onto his cheeks and his throat and onto the backs of his hands. He felt that he had been tricked. He took off his boots and peeled down his socks so that he could renew the plasters across his blister. They had given him a man who was over the hill. He let a glucose tablet dissolve in his mouth. He had gone into the Beqa'a with a marksman whose sight was failing. That was a good laugh.
