… If he was there I'd know him… If he had a beard
…? I'd know him…
Nothing further to look for at the camp. The men were at the machine gun still, three at a time, practising what they had learned. Mr Crane would have been disgusted. The fire in the cooking area was out, and the cook fellow was washing stainless steel dishes, and the sentry walked backwards and forwards across the road track to the camp looking as though he were asleep. The camp had nothing for him.
With the binoculars he tried to find Crane.
Couldn't find him, just as he could not find the man he'd come so far to see killed.
Holt was desolated, he had never been so alone.
'If there is no one else to whom you will communicate your information, then you have to wait.'
The traveller settled deeper into the comfort of the armchair. The outer office was cool, pleasantly furn ished. He had walnuts in a bag, their shells already cracked. 'My information is only for Major Said Hazan.'
The clerk did not trouble to hide his contempt. The man stank, was dressed like a peasant. His shoes had brought the street dirt onto the carpet.
'He has gone to a meeting, I do not have a time for his return.'
'Then I shall wait.'
The pieces of walnut shell flaked to the carpet. The traveller made no attempt to retrieve them. He chewed happily on the crisp interior.
Holt saw the dust plume spitting from behind the wheels of the jeep. He reached for the binoculars. He saw the markings above the jeep's engine, presumably Syrian army. He saw that a single passenger sat beside the driver.
His sight became a blur. Holt's head slashed sideways, away from the road view, away from the jeep. The magnified vision leaped from the roadway to the camp, from the tents to the camp entrance, from the sentry to the cook.
The cook had come out of the camp. He had skirted the wire. The cook now climbed the slope on the west side of the camp. Holt could see that he was scavenging.
In the hugeness of the binoculars' tunnel vision the cook seemed about to step into the overhang of rock. Holt could see that he whistled to himself. He watched him smile, pleased, because he had found a length of dried wood. He watched him tuck the length of wood under his arm and climb again. He watched him, slowly and unhurried, hunting for more wood, and climbing the slope.
Holt did not know where Noah Crane hid.
At the entrance to the camp Abu Hamid jumped clear of the jeep and strode through the gap in the wire. The jeep reversed away.
He saw Fawzi's lesson. He thought that Fawzi would have messed his trousers if he had ever been called on to fire a heavy machine gun in combat. His throat was dry. He walked to the cooking area. He saw the dead fire. No coffee warming. High on the hill slope above the camp he saw the cook foraging for wood.
The vision of the binoculars roved.
The cook had an armful of wood, so much now that he had wavered twice as if uncertain whether more was needed.
The open falling ground was devoid of cover except for long-dead trees lying strewn and ossified. The sun had burnt the bark from them.
The deep clumsily-dug ditch.
Refuse bags and the sheets of discarded newspaper, trapped on the coiled wire. The men were all sitting, bored and listless, no longer attentive to the gesturing officer in front of his class.
The new arrival…
The new man in the camp walked to stand behind the sitting instructor, listened for a few moments, turned away.
The binoculars followed him.
Something in the stride, something in the bearing.
The twin eyepieces were rammed against Holt's eyebrows and cheekbones. He had seen the right side of the face, he had seen the full of the face, he had seen the short curled hair at the back of the head.
The new man now seemed to walk aimlessly. A tent floated in front of him. Holt swore.
The man reappeared, doubling back, smoking Left side of the face.
Holt could hardly hold the binoculars steady. Breath coming in pants, hands trembling. He gulped the air down into his lungs. He forced the air down into his throat, breathing as a sniper would, winning control of his body. Crane's bible, breathing critical.
He saw the man's left hand raised to his face. He saw the finger peck at a place on the left cheek. He saw the hand drop.
Holt saw the crow's foot scar.
The breath shuddered out of his chest.
The vision of the binoculars bounced. The tunnel of sight bounced, fell. He had seen the crow's foot scar.
The shadow pit of the well of the scar, four lines of the scar spreading away from the dark centre.
The cook…
The cook still coming up the hill, bending here and there for a piece of wood, carefree.
Abu Hamid…
Seen beside the other men in the camp, Holt thought Abu Hamid was taller than he had remembered him, and thinner, and his hair was longer and falling to the olive green collar of his fatigue top. All doubt was gone.
He felt a huge surge of exhilaration – and he recognised it, a sudden, sharper, stronger fright. But Noah Crane and young Holt had done it, they had walked into the bloody awful Beqa'a valley, and they had found him.
They had him at close quarters, had traced him behind the lines, on the other side of the hill. And where the hell was Noah Crane?
The cook…
The cook had set down his gathered bundle, and come higher. He would collect another armful and then go back for the first. The cook meandered on the hill side, searching.
Abu Hamid…
Abu Hamid walked amongst the tents. To Holt he seemed a man without purpose. Sometimes he would insinuate himself close to the officer who lectured the young soldiers. Sometimes he would turn and walk away as if the lecture bored him. He flitted, he was aimless. Holt, in his mind, saw Jane and the ambassador.
He saw the blood rivers on the steps of the hotel. He saw the white pallor of death on her face, on his face.
He wondered if there was indeed a sweetness in revenge, or whether it would merely be a substitute, saccharine dose… He knew the excitement at the discovery of Abu Hamid, he could not imagine whether he would find pleasure, fruit, satisfaction in Abu Hamid dead. He had never hurt a human being in his life, not even at school, not even in a playground fight. No answers.
The cook…
As if struck by an electric shock, the cook jerked backwards, scattering the branches of wood behind him.
Crane appearing, seeming to thrust himself up from under the feet of the cook. Holt saw everything. The tunnel of his binoculars was filled with the cook trying to heave himself backwards, with Crane rising and groping and grasping for him. The cook screamed, a shrill, carrying scream. The scream winnowed over the hillside. The scream was clear to Holt who was four hundred yards from the cook, to the tent camp that was six hundred yards from the cook. Holt heard the rising cadence of the scream. He saw the flash of the blade.
He saw the body of Crane merge with the body of the cook. He heard the scream cut, snuffed out.
Fawzi's words had been lost. The recruits had first stiffened, swung, then jacknifed to their feet. They had seen the cook on the hillside, seen him try to twist away, break into flight. They had seen the assailant. They had heard the death of the scream. Abu Hamid charged from in front of his own tent towards the class, towards the DShKM heavy machine gun.
Holt lay on his stomach pressing his body as far as he could back into the recess of the rock overhang. He
