Olives (35 page)

‘
I will be
here, Aisha.’

She nodded
and reached out, touched my face. I looked into her eyes, put my
hand up to her cheek as she asked me, ‘Who is Gerald Lynch to
you?’

I tried to
conceal my surprise at the question, but I failed. ‘He works for
British intelligence.’

‘
And so do
you.’

The truth,
nothing but the truth. So help me God.

‘
I have done
things for Lynch, yes.’

‘
He pays
you.’

‘
No. Not
money.’

‘
Not
money.’

‘
I got caught
up with him. He drew me in. Once I had given him one thing, he
asked for another. I couldn’t go back.’

She turned
away from me. ‘The water contracts. The request for proposals. The
evaluation. Daoud’s bid.’

‘
Yes,’ I said
to her back. She had lifted a decorative plate from the kitchen
surface and was turning it in the light.

To earn you
freedom, the seven pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be
shining for me when we came.

‘
So he knew
about us.’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Why didn’t
you tell me about Lynch?’

‘
I didn’t
want it between us. I tried desperately to get away from him. I
wanted to be free so I could be with you.’

She nodded,
picking up her clothes and walking out of the kitchen into the
bedroom. I sat looking into the fire for a couple of minutes but
she didn’t come back. I followed her. She had dressed and was
standing in the darkened room, looking out into the rain through
the patio window. I spoke her name and she turned. She came to me
and collapsed in my arms. I felt the warmth of her, smelled her
soft woman-smell.

‘
I love you,
Paul.’

Death seemed
my servant on the road, till we were near and saw you waiting, when
you smiled

I don’t know
what stilled us as we stood there in each other’s arms, but
something made us both animal, alert. The sound of glass breaking
and a terrible concussion sucked the breath out of us, making us
both scream soundlessly, a high pitched whine in our ears, too loud
to bear. The force and sound dropped us both to our knees on the
instant before the smoke billowed up around us in choking
yellow-white clouds. We reached for each other, coughing, our eyes
streaming and bodies shaking.

Shapes in the
smoke, tall, dark, bulky alien forms with piercing bright lights
for eyes, masks and guns. We clung to each other, touch the only
sensation for a second before another concussion forced us apart
and I fell. Sound came back, men shouting and things breaking. I
retched, vomiting on the floor as I crouched on all fours like a
dog, choking and drooling saliva in a silvery band to the puke on
the ground. Aisha was dragged away, two of them holding her as she
screamed to me, reaching out for me. I could do nothing,
disoriented and sick, my eyes, nose and mouth burning and
streaming. I choked out her name, ‘Aisha,’ but she had been
swallowed by the fog. A bulky shape materialised in front of me,
twin pillars of light shining down and a terrible, crunching kick
to my stomach and another to my head as I started to go down,
falling into my own puke, my lips drawn back from my teeth in pain.
My back arched and he kicked me again.

I heard a
gunshot. A single gunshot. Aisha’s screaming stopped. I forced my
eyes open. The smoke billowed and parted. For a second, her marble
face stared sightlessly back at me. Then the curtain of smoke fell
and she was gone.

And in
sorrowful envy he outran me and took you apart into his
quietness

Fin

THANKS

I originally
wrote this book in four weeks, inspired by a dream of a girl
dancing in the rain after listening to George Winston’s
Winter Into
Spring
. It took a further
seven years to become the book you’re holding today. It’s been a
long road.

Travelling
along much of it with me has been a merry band of online
companions, the ‘Grey Havens Gang’, so here’s to Simon Forward,
Heather Jacobs, Peter Morin, Amethyst Greye, Dan Holloway, Sabina
England, Robb Grindstaff, Gail Egan, Bren MacDibble, Kate
Kasserman, Michelle Witte and Phillipa Fioretti.

Phillipa in
particular gave much of her time and considerable talent to working
with me on editing the original MS of
Olives
and Robb
was its final editor. Any faults in this work are obviously theirs
and nothing to do with me.

I have been
lucky to enjoy the friendship and support of many remarkable people
around the Middle East over the years. The exceptionally talented
Lebanese artist Naeema Zarif created the cover of this book. I owe
a deep debt of gratitude in particular for the contributions,
suggestions and patience shown by my friend Eman Hussein and to the
encouragement, friendship and support of Micheline Hazou, Sara
Refai, Roba Al Assi and Taline Tutunjian as
Olives
took shape. They have all, in one way or another,
influenced the relationship I have with my books and writing.
Matthew Teller made some critical corrections to the MS as did
Katie Stine.

My wife,
Sarah, has been encouraging me in this for something like ten years
now. I’ve long ago lost count of how many times she’s said ‘Don’t
give up’. It’s terribly conventional to thank your wife for her
support, but Sarah has been a rock of remarkable constancy as I
have pursued my ten year long career of collecting a quite wondrous
number of rejection slips.

Finally, I’d
just like to thank you for reading
Olives
and hope
you’ve enjoyed it.

If you’d like
to know more about Olives:

www.olivesthebook.com

Michel Freij
is a powerful man. But he wants more. Two hundred kilotons
more.

Ruthlessly
ambitious Lebanese businessman and politician Michel Freij is
slated to become the country’s next president.

The son of a
bloody Christian warlord, Freij’s calls for a new, strong Lebanon
take on a sinister note when European intelligence reveals he’s
bought two ageing Soviet nuclear warheads from a German arms
dealer. Cynical SIS man Gerald Lynch battles to find the warheads
before they reach Lebanon – and to discover what Freij plans for
the deadly weapons.

www.beirutthebook.com

www.alexandermcnabb.com

@alexandermcnabb