Betrayals (46 page)

Behind there was the crump of yet another explosion and Janet squinted back in time to see the lorry and the jeeps burst one after the other into a solid wall of flame. It was not casual destruction, she realized: they had been arranged so that they formed a solid, blazing barrier against any pursuit. As the awareness came to her Janet saw in the light of the flames the dark outlines of pursuing army vehicles moving along the coast road after them.

The dinghy started off at once. There were far more people aboard than when they had come in from the patrol boat, and when they reached it men milled around on deck, laughing and hugging and patting each other on the back: she could see four men on stretchers but there were no obvious bloodstains to show that they had been wounded in the assault. Baxeter moved into the apparent celebration. Janet stayed by the wheelhouse, ignored.

No attempt was made to bring the dinghies inboard. A number of men threw things into them as the patrol boat surged off and almost at once there were grenade bursts and the rubber boats started to settle and sink.

Janet clung on to the wheelhouse, grateful for the wind that whipped into her face, drying the perspiration that soaked her: as close as she was, she could hear a continuous radio commentary in Hebrew and see the blips against the radar screen. The heavy concentration to one side would be the American fleet, she supposed: there were other isolated markings, one directly ahead.

She was aware of someone next to her and turned to see Baxeter. “All right?” he said.

Janet shrugged, not replying, her mind at that moment blank of any thought.

“It worked,” said Baxeter.

Again Janet did not reply.

She was conscious of the obvious drop in power, knowing they had not traveled as long this time as they had ingoing from the fishing boat. And then she realized the rendezvous was not with the fishing boat but with two other patrol vessels exactly like the one on which they were already traveling. Again they came expertly together and there was a scrambled transfer, the stretcher cases going across first. Janet watched, counting. It was achieved very quickly, hardly more than minutes. There were shouted farewells and the two new vessels creamed away in convoy. Only she and Baxeter remained, aside from the crew.

“Thirteen,” she said to Baxeter, as the patrol vessel climbed back on top the water again.

“What?” said Baxeter.

“Making allowances for those ashore in your vehicles when we got there I'd guess we came back with thirteen more people than when we went in.”

“Actually,” said Baxeter, “it was twelve. And they weren't our vehicles; they were hijacked from the Lebanese army.”

31

B
axeter had tried to speak, to explain, but Janet had refused him, choked by this, the final betrayal, tricked by a man she thought had loved her. She spat out that she hated him. He said he didn't believe her and she screamed back that she didn't give a fuck what he believed: that all she wanted to do was get back to Cyprus. He'd reached out to touch her, but she'd shrugged him away, not wanting even the slightest physical contact.

“You're being juvenile,” he said.

“
Have
been juvenile,” she qualified. “Welcome to the graduation.”

“You're not very good at sarcasm: it comes out wrong.”

“What the fuck are you good at?”

“What I do.”

“What's that?”

“John's free: you saw it happen. That's what I'm good at.”

“I'm impressed!”

“You should be. And the sarcasm still isn't working.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“The barnyard language doesn't work, either. Never has.”

Like everything else in the operation, which Janet now accepted Baxeter had personally organized, the reunion with the fishing boat went perfectly and there was no difficulty landing at the shoreline break near Cape Pyla from which they'd embarked.

He did not immediately try to start the car, looking across at her. “I said I wanted to explain.”

“Shut up! Just shut up and get me back to the hotel!”

“Your choice.”

“I just made it.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

They drove in silence through the still-dark night towards Nicosia. They'd crossed from the Lebanon in an incredibly brief time and there wasn't yet the peach and pink tinge of dawn on the horizon: but a helicopter would have been quicker, and the American plan was for John to be helicoptered in at once to the British base at Akrotiri, she remembered. What if they'd tried to reach her at the hotel? What reason could she convincingly give for not being there? Nothing right, Janet thought, dismally: from the very outset she had done nothing right. She'd fumbled and thrashed out and made ripples—maybe even waves—but not once had she got anything right. Not once. Fucked up, all the way along. Baxeter's distaste of her swearing forced itself upon her: fucked up, she thought again, defiantly. And then again, fucked up.

Baxeter started to drive into the hotel gate but Janet stopped him there.

“We have to talk,” he said, as she got out.

Janet slammed the door, saying nothing.

The skeletal night staff were still on, the clerk hastily buttoning his shirt collar as she approached the desk. When she asked, he assured her there were no outstanding messages: relief lifted Janet. She felt the physical need to cleanse herself of everything and everybody with whom she had been in contact during the previous hours. She showered for a long time, twisting the water control from cold to hot, first to chill and then to burn herself but soon became irritated at the obvious scourging, snapping off the pretense. She didn't sleep when she finally got into bed, lying wide-eyed but able to see nothing clearly as the day lightened through the window. Fucked up, she decided once more and then confronted another truism: her cursing was thought-out and artificial, words without the necessary gut-felt emotion.

The telephone shrilled at six o'clock. It was Willsher. Janet had to force the excitement befitting the announcement that John Sheridan was a free man, using words like wonderful and fantastic and agreed to be ready when the limousine arrived, in an hour's time.

Al Hart was the escort once again. He was unshaven and haggard and wore denim fatigues and Janet knew he had somehow been involved. As soon as she got into the car, Hart said: “It was a Cakewalk: we annihilated them!”

Janet thought how easily Baxeter had been prepared to shoot the group of innocent men who'd almost come unexpectedly upon them. She said: “What were the casualties?”

“We lost ten men: maybe twenty-five wounded,” disclosed the CIA man. “None captured, though: that would have been the disaster.”

Ten men—probably with wives and kids—who this time yesterday had been alive, Janet reflected. She said: “So it's being regarded as a success?”

The stubbled man grinned at her across the car. “There's already been a congratulatory telephone call—and a follow-up cable—from the President. What do you think?”

Janet wished—as she'd wished all too often—that she knew what to think. She said: “So how's John?”

“I only saw him briefly: a few minutes,” said Hart, guardedly. “He looked OK to me: bewildered, not quite able to grasp what was happening, but basically OK.”

“I hope to Christ you're right,” said Janet. How many more disappointments could there possibly be?

At Akrotiri, Hart actually had to get from the car to complete the necessary formalities: an armed escort entered the limousine next to the driver to take them through the military complex. The soldier pointed out the infirmary buildings when they were still some way off and Hart came forward eagerly in his seat: his leg began pumping up and down, a nervous mannerism.

There must have been the sort of warning of their approach that there had been when Janet had made her entry into the American embassy (a week, a month, an eon ago?) because Professor Robards emerged immediately from the hospital entrance when the car stopped. Janet had expected the psychologist to be wearing a white coat and maybe carrying some tool of his trade, whatever a tool of his trade was; instead he had on the same crumpled jacket and check shirt of their previous encounter. Janet wondered if the man bathed.

“How is he?” Janet demanded.

Robards smiled. “Better than I expected. I want a day or two to be sure—the damned press conference can wait—but he's better than I expected him to be.”

Janet was conscious of a stir within her which she put down as relief. Was it enough? she asked herself. She said: “That's good. I'm very glad,” disappointed in herself as she spoke. From the emptiness of her voice she could have been speaking about a casual acquaintance.

Robards didn't notice. He said: “It's more than good: it's astonishing. Your fiancé is one hell of a tough guy, mentally as well as physically.”

My fiancé, thought Janet. Why didn't she feel any longer that John Sheridan was her fiancé? She said: “I can see him right away?”

“He's insisting on it,” said Robards, smiling again.

“Is there anything I should say? Shouldn't say?”

Robards made a sharp, dismissive gesture with his head. “Don't hold back on anything. If you feel like saying something, say it. He's quite tense, coiled-up. He'd recognize in a moment any sort of hesitation: be unsettled by it.”

Janet walked with the psychologist through gleaming, polished corridors, conscious of the man's crepe-soled shoes squeaking over the tiles. She expected the hospital smell of disinfectant and formaldehyde but it wasn't present and then she remembered it was not physical injury that was treated in this wing. Having posed the question she was unsure what she was going to say.

John Sheridan was in a single-bedded side ward, an all-glass cubicle where he was always visible to the nurses from their central control desk area. There were three nurses at the desk and another was leaving Sheridan's room as they approached. Through the glass Janet could see Sheridan staring directly ahead, eyes unfocused. His hair remained as thick as it had always been but it was almost completely white now. His cheeks were sunken and emaciated and his eyes were blinking. Both thin hands were outstretched, without movement, on top of the sheet, and the veins were corded black across their backs.

“Are you coming in with me?” asked Janet, suddenly needing support.

“Do you want me to?”

“I don't … No … perhaps not …” she stumbled, awkwardly.

“It would probably be better, just the two of you.”

“Yes.”

“But if you want …?”

“No.”

“I'll be at the desk: all you need to do is call.”

“Yes,” Janet accepted. So what the hell was she going to say?

“Good luck,” encouraged Robards. Janet wished he hadn't said it.

She stopped in the frame of the doorway, looking in. For a few brief moments he did not appear to see her and then recognition came into his eyes and his face filled with happiness.

“Hello,” he said. “Hello, my darling.” His voice was thin and uneven.

“Hello,” said Janet. It sounded vacuous and inadequate. Which it was. Go on in! she urged herself; go in! go in! She did at last, hesitantly, her feet sliding one after the other over the polished floor. Janet got to the bedside and smiled down, and when he smiled back she was shocked to see that some of his teeth were missing. She didn't know if she'd kept her reaction from showing. She reached tentatively out and he stretched his hand up to hers: his skin felt strange, like paper. An old person's hand, she thought. Kiss him! She had to kiss him!

Janet started to lean forward but Sheridan twitched back, turning his head away. “No!” he said.

“Why not?”

“Not clean,” he mumbled. “Not clean yet.”

“What do you mean, not clean?”

“Haven't washed, not properly, for a long time,” said Sheridan. “They bathed me this morning but there's some skin infection, from the dirt. I hate dirt!”