blazing with fury but kept his voice low. 'You might have blown the whole thing if you hadn't been a few minutes late.' 'I don't know what you mean,' Hassan said desperately. 'You think I don't know you've been running around the world looking for Dickstein? You think I can't have you followed just like any other bloody imbecile? I've been getting hourly reports on your movements ever since you left Cairo. And what made you think you could trust her?' He jerked a thumb at Suza. 'She led me here.' 'Yes, but you didn't know that then.' Suza stood still, silent and frightened. She was hopelessly confused. The multiple shocks of the morning-missing Nat, watching Cortone die, now this-had paralyzed her ability to think. Keeping the lies straight had been difficult enough when she had been deceiving Hassan and telling Cortone a truth that Hassan thought was a lie. Now there was this Rostov, to whom Hassan was lying, and she could not even begin to think about whether what she said to Rostov should be the truth or another, different lie. Hassan was saying, 'How did you get here?' 'On the Karla, of course. We were only forty or fifty miles off Sicily when I got the report that you had landed here. r also obtained permission from Cairo to order you to return there immediately and directly.'
'I still think I did the right thing,' said Hassan. 'Get out of my sight' Hassan walked away. Suza began to follow him but Rostov said, 'Not you.' He took her arm and began to walk. She went with him, thinking: What do I do now? ''I know you've proved your loyalty to us, , Miss Ashford, but in the middle of a project like this we can't allow newly recruited people simply to go home. On the other hand I have no people here in Sicily other than those I need with me on the ship, so I can't have you escorted somewhere else. I'm afraid yotere going to have to come aboard the Karla with me until this business is over. I hope you don't mind. Do you know, you look exactly like your mother.' They had walked out of the airport to a waiting car. Rostov opened the door for her. Now was the time she should ran: after this it might be too late. She hesitated. One of the thugs stood beside her. His jacket fell open slightly and she saw the butt of his gun. She remembered the awful bang Cortones gun had made in the ruined villa, and how she had scremed; and suddenly she was afraid to die, to become a lump of clay Me poor fat Cortone; she was terrified of that gun and that bang and the bullet entering her body, and she began to shake. 'V&a is it?' Rostov said. 'Al Cortone died.' 'We know,' Rostov said. 'Get in the car.' Suza got in the car.
Pierre Borg drove out of Athens and parked his car at one end of a stretch of beach where occasional lovers strolled. He got out and walked along the shoreline until he met Kawash coming the other way. They stood side by side, looking out to sea, wavelets lapping sleepily at their feet. Borg could see the handsome face of the tall Arab double agent by starlight. Kawash was not his usual confident self. 'Thank you for coming,' Kawash said. Borg did not know why he was being thanked. If anyone should say thank you, it was he. And then he realized that Kawash had been making precisely that point. The man did everything with subtlety, including insults. 'Me Russians suspect there is a leak out of Cairo,' Kawash said. 'They are playing their cards very close to their collective Communist chest, so to speak.' Kawash smiled thinly. Borg did not see the joke. 'Even when Yasif Hassan came back to Cairo for debriefing we didn't learn much-and I didn't get all the information Hassan gave.' Borg belched loudly: he had eaten a big Greek dinner. 'Don't waste time with excuses, please. Just tell me what you do know.' 'All right,' Kawash said mildly. 'Iley know that Dickstein is to steal some uranium.' 'You told me that last time.' 'I don't think they know any of the details. Their intention is to let it happen, then expose it afterward. Tbey've put a couple of ships into the Mediterranean, but they don't know where to send them.' A plastic bottle floated in on the tide and landed at Borg's feet. He kicked it back into the water. 'What about Suza Ashford?' 'Definitely working for the Arab side. Listen. There was an argument between Rostov and Hassan. Hassan wanted to find out exactly where Dickstein was, and Rostov thought it was unnecessary.' 'Bad news. Go on.' 'Afterward Hassan went out on a limb. He got the Ashford girl to help him look for Dickstein. They went to a place called Buffalo, in the U.S., and met a gangster called Cortone who took them to Sicily. They missed Dickstein, but only just: they saw the Stromberg leave. Hassan is in considerable trouble over this. He has been ordered back to Cairo but he hasn't turned up yet.' 'But the girl led them to where Dickstein had been?' stftactly.vs 'Jesus Christ, this is bad.' Borg thought of the message that had arrived in the Rome consulate for Nat Dickstein from his 'girlfriend.' He told Kawash about it. 'Hassan has told me everything and he and I are coming to see you.' What the hell did it mean? Was it intended to warn Dickstein, or to delay him, or to confuse him? Or was it a double bluff--an attempt to make him think she was being coerced into'leading Hassan to him? 'A double bluff, I should say,' Kawash said. 'She knew her role in this would eventually be exposed, so she tried for a Ionger lease on Dickstein's trust You won't pass the message on ... 'of course not.' Borg's mind turned to another tack. 'If they went to Sicily they know about the Stromberg. What conclusions can they draw from that? That the Stromberg will be used in the uranium theft?' 'Exactly. Now, if I were Rostov, I'd follow the Stromberg, let the hijack take place, then attack. Damn, damn, damn. I think this will have to be called off.' He dug the toe of his shoe into the soft sand. 'What's the situation at Qattara?' 'I was saving the worse news until last. Ali tests have been completed satisfactorily. The Russians are supplying uranium. The reactor goes on stream three weeks from today.' Borg stared out to sea, and he was more wretched, pessimistic and depressed than he had ever been in the whole of his unhappy life. 'You know what this fucking means don't you? It means we can't call it off. It means I can't stop Dickstein. It means that Dickstein is Israers last chance.' Kawash was silent. After a moment Borg looked at him. The Arab's eyes were closed. 'What are you doing?' Borg said. The silence went on for a few moments. Finally Kawash opened his eyes, looked at Borg, and gave his polite little half smile. 'Praying,' he said.
TEL AVIV TO MV STROMBERG PERSONAL BORG TO DICKSTEIN EYES ONLY MUST BE DECODED BY THE ADDRESSEE BEGINS SUZA ASHFORD CONFIRMED ARAB AGENT STOP SHE PERSUADED CORTONE TO TAKE HER AND HASSAN TO SICILY STOP THEY ARRIVED AFTER YOU LEFT` STOP CORTONE NOW DEAD STOP THIS AND OTHER DATA INDICATES STRONG POSSIBILITY YOU WILL BE ATTACKED AT SEA STOP NO FURTHER ACMON WE CAN TAKE AT THIS END STOP YOU FUCKED IT UP ALL ON YOUR OWN NOW GET OUT OF IT ALONE ENDS
The clouds which had been massing over the western Mediterranean for the previous few days finally burst that night, drenching the Stromberg with rain. A brisk wind blew up, and the shortcomings of the ship's design became apparent as she began to roll and yaw in the burgeoning waves. Nat Dickstein did not notice the weather. He sat alone in his little cabin, at the table which was screwed to the bulkhead, a pencil in hand and a pad, a codebook and a signal in front of him, transcribing Borg's message word by crucifying word. He read it over and over again, and finally sat staring at the blank steel wall in front of him. It was pointless to speculate about why she might have done this, to invent farfetched hypotheses that Hassan had coerced or blackmailed her, to imagine that she had acted from mistaken beliefs or confused motives: Borg had said she was a spy, and he had been right. She had been a spy all along. That was why she had made love to him. She had a big future in the intelligence business, that girl. Dickstein put his face in his hands and pressed his eyeballs with his fIngertips, but still he could see her, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, leaning against the cupboard in the kitchen of that little flat, reading the morning paper while she waited for a kettle to boil. The worst of it was, he loved her still. Before he met her he had been a cripple, an emotional amputee with an empty sleeve hanging where he should have had love; and she had performed a miracle, making him whole again. Now she had betrayed him, taking away what she had given, and he would be more handicapped than ever. He had written her a love letter. Dear God, he thought, what did she do when she read that letter? Did she laugh? Did she show it to Yasif Hassan and say, 'See how rve got him hooked?' If you took a blind man, and gave him back his sight, and then, after a day made him blind again during the night while he was sleeping, this was how he would feel when he woke up. He had told Borg he would kill Suza if she were an agent, but now he knew that he had been lying. He could never hurt her, no matter what she did. It was late. Most of the crew were asleep except for those taking watches. He left the cabin and went up on deck without seeing anyone. Walking from the batch to the gunwale he got soaked to the skin, but be did not notice. He stood at the rail, looking into the darkness, unable to see where the black sea ended and the black sky began, letting the rain stream across his face like tears. He would never kill Suza, but Yasif Hassan was a different matter. If ever a man had an enemy, he had one in Hassan. He had loved Eila, only to see her in a sensual embrace with Hassan. Now he had fallen in love with Suza, only to find that she had already been seduced by the same old rival. And Hassan had also used Suza in his campaign to take away Dickstein!s homeland. Ob, yes, he would kill Yasif Hassan, and he would do it with his bare hands if he could. And the others. The thought brought him up out of the depths of despair in a fury: he wanted to hear bones snap, he wanted to see bodies crumple, he wanted the smell of fear and gunfire, he wanted death all around him. Borg thought they would be attacked at sea. Dickstein stood gripping the rail as the ship sawed through the unquiet sea; the wind rose momentarily and lashed his face with cold, hard rain; and he thought, So be it; and then he opened his mouth and shouted into the wind: 'Let them come-let the bastards comet'
Chapter Fifteen
