Betrayals (24 page)

Stavos did not reply at once. Then he said: “People who want a message passed.”

“I don't understand.”

“Beirut is very much divided now,” said Stavos. “In East Beirut, it is difficult to believe there is any sort of conflict: it is practically like it was before 1975. The battleground is in the West, where the Shia, the Hezbollah, fanatics are.”

Janet nodded her head in agreement, further impressed by his knowledge. “I know all this,” she said.

“There is a particular district,” continued Stavos, as if she had not interrupted. “The Basta area.”

“What about it?”

“It is in the Basta district that Sheridan is being held,” the man announced.

Once more Janet felt reality swim away from her: they could have been discussing the whereabouts of a casually met acquaintance, as she and Harriet used to talk about people after one of Harriet's Georgetown parties. She swallowed and said: “Where in Basta?”

There was the shrug that Janet had hoped not to see. “I don't know that,” Stavos said.

It sounded convincing but it was not information worth £10,000, Janet decided: nothing, in fact, that was positive at all. She said: “What do you mean, about meeting people who want a message passed?”

“The group that are holding him want a public statement made, by the American government.”

“What!”

“That's what I was told,” Stavos insisted. “That if Washington publicly apologized for spying … for interfering in the area … then Sheridan would be set free.”

This was something! The sensation—the excitement and the relief—flooding through Janet now was more intense than the initial optimism. “Where is it, this statement?”

There was another shrug. “I was not given it. They thought you would need proof.”

“We talked about a photograph before,” remembered Janet.

“More than that,” said Stavos. “They are prepared to meet you. There were no promises, not undertakings, but I had the impression you might even be taken to see him. If you could bring back a photograph of the two of you together the authorities would know that you were speaking the truth, wouldn't they? Have to react.”

Janet found it impossible initially to speak. Thoughts crowded her head and the words clogged in the back of her throat. She coughed. “See him …!” she said, incredulous. “A photograph together!”

“Nothing definite was said,” the man repeated, cautiously. “Just an impression.”

“How could I do this!” Janet demanded, recovering. “How could I get to West Beirut … meet these people!”

“With us,” the man replied, as if he were surprised by the question. “How else?”

“You would take me?”

“How otherwise would you know who they were? How to meet them?”

“When?”

“You could go today? Now?”

She could, Janet realized: she even had her passport in her handbag, although she did not imagine their entry was going to be official. “Yes,” she said, pressing her legs beneath the table in an effort to quieten their renewed trembling. “Yes, I can quite easily go now.”

Dimitri turned sideways again, for another inaudible conversation. The captain listened, nodding in agreement. He looked over the table at Janet and said: “We have kept our side of the agreement?”

“I think so,” said Janet.

“So we get the money?”

“When we get back,” said Janet. “You can keep the letter and when we get back we can go to a bank together and it will be cashed.” There was no way she could be cheated: the bearer document was non-negotiable without her signature.

Stavos looked down at the draft and then handed it sideways to Dimitri, who studied it for several moments, before returning it. Passingly Janet wondered if either of them could read English.

“Which bank?” demanded Stavos.

“Any bank,” assured Janet.

“Here in Larnaca?”

“Yes.”

The captain folded the letter carefully, so that the sides aligned, and just as carefully put it into a worn and scuffed wallet which he eased into a rear pocket of his trousers, making sure that the flap was buttoned over it. He looked up at her: “It is agreed. You are ready?”

“Yes,” said Janet. “I am ready.”

This time Stavos paid for the drinks. Janet filed out between the men, Dimitri and the younger man ahead, Stavos behind. Stavos said: “We will take your car.”

Janet had imagined their boat would be nearby and was surprised they had to drive somewhere. Stavos got authoritatively into the front passenger seat and the other two men wedged themselves into the back. The smell of their work was stronger in the confined space and Janet wound her window fully down. “Which way?” she asked.

Stavos gestured: “On towards Dhekelia.”

Janet jolted out of the car park and turned along the bay, driving with it to her right. The sweeping beach was crammed with oil-shiny tourists and technicolored umbrellas. The lowering sun was on the other side of the car and Janet was glad she had the shade. The men seemed untroubled by the heat and uninterested in anything around them: Stavos stared directly ahead, and in her rear-view mirror Janet saw the other two were doing the same. She passed the signs to Leivadie and Xylotymvou before Stavos gestured to his right and Janet saw a huddle of working boats in the fishing shelter. Closer, Janet saw, there was a public car park. Stavos said: “Leave the car there.”

Janet did, locking it, and following Stavos's lead crossed the main road to walk parallel with the beach. At this part of the bay sheets of nets hung from their poles or were laid out on the sand, drying, and a lot of lobster pots lay in apparent disorder. Flocks of gulls screeched and argued overhead, suddenly dipping to scavenge what bits there were still among the netting. The smell was overwhelming and there were no holidaymakers or parasols for a long way. The working area was quieter than Janet had expected, too: practically deserted, in fact, with no one in any of the boats.

To Stavos she said: “Where is everybody?”

“This is the between time,” he said. “The morning boats are back, with their catches …” He indicated the drying nets. “Those are theirs,” he said. “The night boats won't go out for another three or four hours.”

“When do you normally fish?”

“When it suits.”

Janet look at her watch. It was 2
P.M.
“What time will we get to Beirut?”

“Depends on the sea. The forecast is good so I would expect around midnight.”

“They are expecting you?”

“I know a way to make contact.”

“So I could be taken to see John tonight?” Janet asked, feeling another sweep of excitement.

“That will be for them to decide,” Stavos said. He halted at the water's edge and said something in Greek. The younger man waded immediately out to a flat-bottom dory tethered to a buoy about five yards offshore. He did not bother to remove his shoes or roll his trousers up: by the time he reached the boat the sea was up to his thighs. He released the line and hauled it into shore. In the daylight Janet guessed he was younger than she'd first thought, probably little more than twenty.

To Dimitri she said: “Your son?”

“Cousin,” said the older man. It was the first time Janet had heard him speak. The English was thickly accented.

The man halted the dinghy about a yard offshore and Stavos said: “I could carry you out?”

“No,” Janet said, at once. She quickly took off her shoes and waded into the water without attempting to roll up the bottom of her jeans. Remembering Sheridan's teaching she got easily into the boat, wedging her behind over the gunwales first and then swinging her legs inboard.

Both men followed without bothering to remove their shoes. The youngest man rowed, pulling them out to the fishing boat anchored furthest from the shore. As they passed the stern Janet saw there was no name but a lettered number. She thought it was C-39 but the marking was worn by sea and weather so she could have been mistaken.

The younger man vaulted easily from the dinghy into the larger boat, while the other two steadied it against the side. He leaned over, reaching out to help her. Janet accepted his offer: after hauling her halfway out he changed his grip, cupping both hands beneath her arms finally to bring her into the boat. It meant his fingers brushed briefly against her breasts. Janet pulled away at once, deciding it was an accident. The man appeared unaware of what he'd done, paying her no overt attention, instead taking the line from Stavos to trail the dory to the stern, where it would be winched from the water into its davits.

Janet thought the condition of the fishing boat was appalling. She was accustomed to Sheridan's immaculately maintained vessel, with its neatly curled and stowed lines, tightly reefed sails, scrubbed and stoned deck and burnished metalwork.

This boat was squat and bulge-stemmed, lobster pots discarded where they'd clearly fallen, weed-clogged nets tangled and lumped in the stern. Amongst it all were bamboo-poled fishing lines and several ropes of cork floats. There was a central wheelhouse and alongside a minute cowl over steps leading below to what Janet supposed were cabins or at least some sort of sleeping accommodation. Directly behind, amidships, was the engine flap which Dimitri already had open, his body upended over the machinery. The working area where Janet presumed fish were gutted or prepared on homeward journeys was behind the engine area. There were actually knives in some kind of frame and the deck here was slimed with guts and scales which had not been washed down from the previous trip and which, inexplicably, had escaped the seabirds. Perhaps, thought Janet, even they had been unable to confront the stench. It was more than soured and rotting fish and their innards. There were exhaust fumes from the diesel engines which at that moment shuddered into life and the smell of the diesel itself and then something more for which she could find no comparison or identification: just a general odorous miasma of dirt and neglect.

“There's a bench in the wheelhouse,” Stavos said.

Looking more intently Janet saw that a plank had been fixed along the bulkhead furthest from the wheel itself: it was padded with various pieces of sagging cloth and blanket, some of which hung down like lank hair to reach the decking. Pointing to her wet jeans bottoms Janet said: “I'll stay outside for these to dry.”

“Please yourself,” shrugged the man, going towards the bench himself.

Neglected though the boat might be, there was nevertheless an oddly disjointed sort of efficiency about the fashion in which the group got it underway. Janet never once saw Stavos give any obvious command but the other two men went through what appeared an established routine, slipping anchor and stowing things unstowed—although doing little to clear the mess, rather moving it from one jumbled area to another—and preparing themselves and the vessel for sea. Janet tried to find herself a convenient place on one of the clearer sections of the deck directly in the dropping sunlight; although it was still comparatively hot, her trouser hems clung uncomfortably wet and cold around her ankles, sometimes actually making her shiver and she was anxious to dry them as much as possible. The ship had a flat stern and she wedged herself into the corner it made with the starboard rail, stetching her foot out on top of a lobster pot to catch the warmth. Because she was thinking about her feet she turned to the two seamen and saw both had, unseen by her, discarded their footwear and rolled up their sodden trouser bottoms: they moved flat-footed and assuredly around the boat, their toes splayed almost like fingers as they felt their way.

Janet was not conscious of their clearing the lee of Larnaca Bay but realized they must have done so by the increased movement of the boat. It obviously had a shallow draft, and the square back made it even more vulnerable, so very quickly it began to pitch and roll, although the swell was comparatively small. Janet had to take her leg down from the pot for balance. In the wheelhouse the moustached man hung nonchalantly against the spoked steering, a spilling handmade cigarette stuck precariously to his bottom lip. She decided against going there yet.

The sun was losing its heat, and the sea was becoming dulled from bright silver into soft gold. There were a lot of yachts and pleasure boats, both sail and engine driven: some, she thought, were too small to have ventured this far. Caught by the thought she looked back, surprised how low Cyprus was becoming on the skyline: it was just a continuous black and vaguely undulating shape, from which it was difficult to pick out positive landmarks. From the direction she imagined they had come Janet guessed a hazed white area to be the pier and marina at Larnaca but she couldn't be sure. She wondered how Stavos navigated: there did not appear to be any aerials or electronic equipment but she knew there had to be: a radio, at least.

The younger man plodded wide-footed from the stem of the boat towards her. The other was bent over pots, finally putting them into some sort of order, on the opposite side of the stern. He saw her look and smiled, surprisingly white-teethed, and Janet smiled back, deciding it was ridiculous not being able to properly address him. She said: “How are you called?”

He hesitated, still smiling, and said: “Costas.”

The other man continued working over the pots but said something in Creek. Costas responded and Dimitri spoke again, louder this time. The younger man's reply was just one word and Janet wondered if it were an obscenity.

Janet's jean bottoms were drier but not by much, and she acknowledged there was hardly enough heat left in the sun to make any further improvement. What did it matter? she asked herself, not knowing why she was even thinking of something so inconsequential. What did anything matter—this awful stinking ship or £10,000 or anything—beyond the fact that she was on her way to Beirut! To Beirut and people who might actually let her see John: people who certainly knew about him and wanted her to convey some message, back to America, to gain his freedom. And she could most definitely get any message conveyed, Janet knew, after her experience of publicity in Washington. She didn't give a damn what sort of crap it was—she'd get the Koran published if that were one of the demands—just as long as it got John out from wherever he was. She should, Janet supposed, be feeling some sort of “I told you so” satisfaction from what she'd achieved but she didn't. Just relief: excited relief. Any other emotion would have been an intrusion. Unnecessary. The only satisfaction she sought was that of having John back with her, safely.