The Deceiver

small stone hut among the cherry trees on the mountainside opposite the hotel terrace. They had carefully removed one of the stones of the wall facing across the valley, which gave them a nice aperture from which to observe the hotel at a range of seven hundred yards. Their high-powered field glasses brought the dining terrace to a range that appeared to be twenty feet.

Dusk was deepening when they called up McCready and gave him directions to approach their hideout from the other side of the mountain. Bertie Marks drove according to the instructions, out of Pedhoulas and down two tracks, until they saw Danny standing in their way.

Abandoning the car, McCready followed Danny around the curve of the mountain. They disappeared into the cherry orchard and made the hut without being perceived from across the valley. There, Bill handed McCready his image-intensifying night glasses.

On the dining terrace the lights were coming on, a ring of colored bulbs strung around the perimeter of the dining area, with candles in sconces on each table.

“We’ll need Cypriot peasant clothes tomorrow, boss,” murmured Danny. “Can’t move around this hillside dressed as we are for long.”

McCready made a mental note to have Marks go to a village some miles away in the morning and buy the sort of canvas smocks and trousers they had seen farm workers by the wayside wearing. With luck, the hut would remain undis­turbed; in May it was too late for the spraying of the blossom and too early for the harvest. The hut was clearly abandoned, its roof half-collapsed. Dust was everywhere; a few broken-hafted hoes and mattocks stood against one wall. For the SAS sergeants, who had lain for weeks among soaking scrapes on the hillsides of Ulster, it was like a four-star hotel.

“Hallo,” muttered Bill, who had taken back the night glasses. “Tasty.” He passed the glasses to McCready.

A young woman had entered the terrace from the recesses of the hotel. A beaming waiter was showing her to a table. She wore a simple but elegant white dress over a golden suntan. Blonde hair hung about her shoulders. She sat down and apparently ordered a drink.

“Keep your minds on your work,” grumbled McCready. “Where’s Rowse?”

The sergeants grinned. “Oh yeah, him. One line of windows above the terrace. Third window to the right.”

McCready swiveled his glasses. None of the windows had their curtains drawn. Several had lights on. McCready saw a figure, naked but for a towel around his waist, emerge from the shower room and cross the floor of the bedroom. It was Rowse. So far, so good.

But none of the bad guys had shown up. Two other guests took their places on the terrace: a plump Levantine business­man with flashing rings on both hands, and an elderly man who sat alone at one corner of the terrace and studied the menu. He sighed. His life had involved a hell of a lot of waiting, and he still hated it. He handed back the glasses and checked his watch. Seven-fifteen. He would give it two hours before he took Marks back to the village for supper. The sergeants would keep the vigil through the night. It was what they were best at—apart from violent physical action.

Rowse dressed and checked his watch: seven-twenty. He locked his room and went down to the terrace for a drink before dinner. Beyond the terrace the sun had dropped below the mountains, bathing the far side of the valley in thick gloom while the silhouette of the hills was brilliantly back-lit. On the western coast, Paphos would still be enjoying a warm late-spring evening with another hour of sunshine to go.

There were three people on the dining terrace: a fat man of Mediterranean look, an old fellow with unlikely black hair, and the woman. She had her back to him, staring at the view across the valley. A waiter approached. Rowse nodded to the table next to the woman’s, up against the terrace balustrade. The waiter grinned and hastened to show him to it. Rowse ordered ouzo and a carafe of local spring water.

As he took his seat, she glanced sideways. He nodded and murmured, “Evening.” She nodded back and continued to gaze at the view of the darkening valley. His ouzo arrived. He too looked at the valley.

After a while he said, “May I propose a toast?”

She was startled. “A toast?”

He gestured with his glass to the shadow-shrouded sentinels of the mountains all around them and the wash of blazing orange sunset behind them.

“To tranquility. And spectacular beauty.”

She gave a half-smile. “To tranquility,” she said, and drank a sip of her dry white wine. The waiter brought two menus. At separate tables they studied their cards. She ordered mountain trout.

“I can’t better that. The same for me, please,” Rowse told the waiter, who left.

“Are you dining alone?” asked Rowse quietly.

“Yes, I am,” she said carefully.

“So am I,” he said. “And it worries me, for I’m a God­-fearing man.”

She frowned in puzzlement. “What’s God got to do with it?”

He realized her accent was not British. There was a husky twang; American? He gestured beyond the terrace. “The view, the peace, the hills, the dying sun, the evening. He created all of this, but surely not for dining alone.”

She laughed, a flash of clear white teeth in a sun-golden face. Try to make them laugh, his dad had told him. They like to be made to laugh.

“May I join you? Just for dinner?”

“Why not? Just for dinner.”

He took his glass and crossed to sit opposite her. “Tom Rowse,” he said.

“Monica Browne,” she replied.

They talked, the usual small talk. He explained that he was the writer of a moderately successful novel and had been doing some research in the area for his next book, which would involve Levantine and Middle East politics. He had decided to end his tour of the eastern Mediterranean with a brief break at this hotel, recommended by a friend for its good food and restfulness.

“And you?” he asked.

“Nothing so exciting. I breed horses. I’ve been in the area buying three thoroughbred stallions. It takes time for the shipment papers to come through. So”—she shrugged— “time to kill. I thought it would be nicer here than stewing on the dock side.”

“Stallions? In Cyprus?” he asked.

“No, Syria. The yearling sales at Hama. Pure Arabs, the finest. Did you know that every race horse in Britain is ultimately descended from three Arabian horses?”

“Just three? No, I didn’t.”

She was enthused by her horses. He learned that she was married to the much older Major Eric Browne and that to­gether they owned and ran a breeding stud at Ashford. Origi­nally she was from Kentucky, which was where she had gained her knowledge of bloodstock and horse-racing. He knew Ashford vaguely—it was a small town in Kent, on the road from London to Dover.

The trout arrived, deliciously grilled over a charcoal bra­zier. It was served with a local dry white wine from up the Marathassa Valley.

Inside the hotel, beyond the patio doors open to the terrace, a group of three men had moved into the bar.

“How long will you have to wait?” asked Rowse. “For the stallions?”

“Any day now, I hope. I worry about them. Maybe I should have stayed with them in Syria. They’re terribly mettlesome. Get nervous in transit. But my shipping agent here is very good. He’ll call me when they arrive, and I’ll ship them out personally.”

The men in the bar finished their whiskey and were shown out onto the terrace to a table. Rowse caught a hint of their accents. He raised a steady hand to his mouth with a forkful of trout.

“Ask yer man to bring another round of the same,” said one of the men.

Across the valley, Danny said quietly, “Boss.”

McCready jackknifed to his feet and came to the small aperture in the stone wall. Danny handed him the glasses and stood back. McCready adjusted focus and let out a long sigh.