‘Can I get back to you tomorrow on that? Just between us, we’re a little ahead of ourselves. I need to catch up on the paperwork.’
Raz smiled insincerely, his suspicions increasing that these people were playing some kind of game with him. He was not concerned though. He was used to it. The CIA were always coming into town on their fact-finding tours and then secretly, or so they thought, meeting with Hamas and other terrorist groups, negotiating behind the Israelis’ backs. The Americans’ partners, the British, usually preferred more clandestine methods, disguising themselves as members of NGOs, non-governmental organisations such as the Red Cross and UN, or as human rights observers. But they were on Raz’s turf and therefore vulnerable. Raz had his own extensive spy network that included the NGOs, hotels, media organisations such as the BBC and CNN, and, of course, the various Palestinian terrorist organisations. He thought about inviting Stratton to dinner as was customary when a fellow intelligence operative came to town, but decided against it. He could detect a level of tension in the two men, which suggested their concerns were more immediate than long term. It would be prudent to give them as much room as they wanted and set up a surveillance team right away.
‘Fine,’ Raz said. ‘Why don’t you get settled and I’ll come by in the morning.’
‘Sounds good,’ Stratton said, and climbed out of the car.
Raz and his driver watched Stratton walk into the hotel. The two men shared a look, then, on Raz’s nod, the driver pulled away and they left the grounds.
Darkness fell around 7 p.m. and three hours later Stratton was in his sumptuous ground-floor room in an annexe building situated the other side of a large garden from the main hotel. On the coffee table was a tourist map showing the main roads across Israel and the West Bank, and on the reverse side a gaily illustrated guide to the old city. He had spent the past few hours considering how he was going to get into Ramallah and then back to the hotel by the morning. Getting there and back was not the problem. Taxis were in ample supply in the city, and from what he could gather from talking to the receptionists, disguising his intent with dozens of questions about all aspects of travel in the West Bank and Gaza, there was also no difficulty in finding one in those places either. His problem was getting out of the hotel without being seen. He had found at least one reason why Raz had chosen this place. It was surrounded by a high wall on all sides that backed on to well-lit streets, private gardens and a school that was in itself surrounded by a high-fenced wall. Basically, it would need only a small surveillance team to watch all possible exits and there was little doubt Raz would have that covered. It was beginning to look as if it might require something radical to get out of the area. That category included ruses such as calling in the emergency services, the fire department or bomb disposal, or anything that brought a lot of activity with it and required people to leave the hotel grounds. Stratton would rather avoid going that far but his choices were beginning to look limited.
As he sat on the bed studying the map, the patio light outside the French windows went out, plunging the immediate area into darkness. There were lights across the other side of the garden but none strong enough to illuminate Stratton’s garden entrance.The light switch was inside the room on the wall near the door, which meant the bulb must have gone. Stratton remained still, his eyes fixed on the small gap in the curtains, when something moved across the window.
There were a couple of light taps on the glass and he got up and moved to the side, away from the gap in the curtains.
The tap came again.
Stratton looked at the door handle, the key in the lock beside it. Someone obviously wanted him to come to the door but did not want to be seen themselves. If they meant him any harm, all they had to do was knock at the front door as he would have been less suspicious. There was only one way to find out who it was.
Stratton walked to the front door and turned off the light inside the room. He went back to the French windows, turned the key, pushed down the handle and opened the door. He waited behind the curtain a moment but no one ventured inside. He moved to the door, opened it fully and stepped through it.
‘All right, mate?’ a voice said in a forced whisper from the darkness across the patio where there were several large bushes. ‘It’s me - Morgan.’
Stratton checked to see there was no movement in the gardens and walked towards the bushes.
‘’Ow you doin’, mate?’ Morgan said. Stratton moved to where he could see his big friend’s beaming face.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘Long story. Tell you later. I’m here to take you to Ramallah.’
Stratton was surprised to say the least and had he a few minutes to think about it, he might have been able to figure it out, but now was not the time. One thing he had no doubt about and that was Morgan was on his side.
‘I’ll grab my coat,’ Stratton said as he walked back into his room.
He met Morgan at the corner of the block, where he was scanning the ground ahead which was in darkness.
‘There’s a door in the back gate over there just behind those bushes,’ Morgan said.
‘And it’s got a huge padlock and chain on it and it opens directly on to the street,’ Stratton said.
‘I broke open the bottom of the street lamp and killed the light, one of the links on the chain is broken and simply unhooks and I’ve got a car parked tight up against the door so no one will see you climbing in,’ Morgan said matter-of-factly. ‘That good enough for you?’
‘That’ll do nicely.’
‘Good. Shall we?’
Morgan led the way to a large red gate used for bringing heavy supply trucks into the back of the hotel and unhooked the chain as he described. He carefully opened a door in the gate enough to look out on to the street.
‘All clear,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first, open your door and you can jump in,’ he whispered.
And with that, he walked casually to the driver’s side, climbed in and a second later the passenger door opened to touch the wall. Stratton closed the gate door behind him, moved quickly to the car and climbed in. He closed the door quietly as Morgan started the engine and, without turning his lights on, moved up the road. Stratton kept down and out of sight as Morgan turned on to the main road and headed away from the hotel. He turned his lights on as he accelerated up the hill and into a street, then quickly turned into another, all the time keeping a watchful eye on his rear-view mirror. A minute later they were on a major artery and mingling with the light traffic.
‘You’re okay, mate,’ Morgan said. ‘No one’s backing us.’
Stratton sat up and reclined the chair a little just to be on the safe side. He took a look at Morgan who was wearing one of his familiar broad smiles.
‘’Allo, me old mate. How are you?’ he said.
Stratton smiled, enjoying the surprising company. There was definitely something about being with your own kind, he thought.‘Let me guess.They called you in to work against Al Qaeda.’
‘Did you put a word in for me?’
‘I wouldn’t do that to a friend,’ Stratton said, somewhat seriously.
Morgan’s smile dropped off a little as he glanced at him.
‘It’s good to see you, though,’ Stratton added.‘How long you been out here?’
‘I’m supposed to do a six-week course but they needed me out here right away. I got the call the day after you left. They said they’ll pull me back in for the course when I’m burnt. D’you know a bloke called Sumners?’
‘Yeah, I know Sumners.’
‘Seems like a good bloke.’
Stratton kept his eyes on the road ahead and gave nothing away. He used to think the same about Sumners in the early days.
‘What’s your job?’ Stratton asked.
‘Go between. Handling intelligence from field agents. Quite interesting really. Got four fuckin’ apartments and four cars. One in Ramallah, Jenin, Gaza and Jerusalem.’
‘How’s your Arabic?’
‘Comin’ along. Trick is to keep a low profile. I reckon you can last a couple months before getting burnt. Israelis have people everywhere. No one knows where I’m from when they see me. They know I ain’t local when they ’ear my fuckin’ gash Arabic,’ he said, ending with his famous guffaw.
Morgan checked the rear-view again. There were several headlights but it was impossible to tell if they were being followed.
‘Don’t know ’ow good these Israelis are at surveillance, ’ he said. ‘I expect they’re all right though. Been doin’ it long enough . . . We’ll be out of the city in about ten minutes, then a couple of long stretches of road with hardly any traffic this time of night. We’ll know if we’re being backed. Couple a places we can lose ’em if we think we are. Can you say what you’re doing?’
‘Looking for a bloke. A big Russian. Former Spetsnaz. Possible connections with Al Qaeda.’
Morgan wouldn’t know anything about the operation but there was always a slim chance he’d run into a big Russian. He obviously had not or he would have said something.
They drove in silence for a while until they had cleared the checkpoint on the outskirts of the city and headed out into the black desert.There was always a point in a conversation between operatives on different tasks, even when they are friends, when shop talk ceased. Then it was idle chit chat about the lads in the Service and things back home. The road to Ramallah was long and straight and although there were a couple of headlights behind, they were in the far distance. By the time they turned on to the Ramallah circular that led to the DCO checkpoint, they were alone.
The checkpoint was uneventful and after a brief stop to inspect their press passes, the soldiers let them through with only a cursory search of the vehicle.
As they headed into Ramallah it showed all the signs of a town that had endured a major conflict of conventional war proportions. Many buildings had been turned into rubble, the roads and pavements were chewed up by tank-tracks and there were a number of cars flattened where they were parked. On one street corner the locals had created a bizarre sculpture out of a dozen cars flattened by tanks, placed neatly on top of one another and painted white. Few houses had electricity and there was little sign of life this late at night. Some roads were blocked, either by locals trying to screw with the Israeli patrols, or the Israelis screwing with the locals. There was no road discipline for cars and if there was a clear route, no matter what side of the road, even against oncoming traffic, it was taken.
Near the centre of the town, Morgan pulled over to the kerb and turned off the lights and engine.
‘The main square is just down there,’ he said, indicating straight ahead.‘There’s a small roundabout with four lions pointing outwards.Your man will be near the one on the right and closest to you as you approach.’
‘The lion with the wristwatch.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you know who I’m meeting?’ Stratton asked.
‘All I know is he’s Jihad or Al Qaeda and works for us. Sumners said it was a real coup to get this bloke but if you ask me I think it’s a bit dodgy.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘You don’t work for Al Qaeda unless you’re real committed, do you? Know what I mean? They fuckin’ ’ate us. Enough to top ’emselves. So why does one of ’em suddenly want to work for us?’
‘Money?’
‘They ain’t into that. My point is they totally ’ate us. We represent everything that goes against what they believe in. They ’ate the Jews and they say the Jews own America and so they ’ate America. You know what this lot believe around ’ere? They believe the nine-eleven attack was planned and carried out by the Israelis and CIA. I ’eard that from the mouth of the president of a university in Gaza. If someone as intelligent as him believes that, then what do the thousands of ’is students believe? Na, I’d watch me back, mate. I mean, you obviously know what you want ’im for, but just watch your back, that’s all.’
Stratton wanted to say he wished he did know what this guy was about. It was obviously something to do with Zhilev the Russian but the connection was eluding him thus far. Sumners’ boss never said anything because he was protecting his source in case the meeting didn’t happen. That was fair enough. It’s one thing that operatives know there’s a tout within Al Qaeda working for MI6. If it got out what his connection was, it would provide a clue to who he was.They were giving the terrorist to Stratton because this operation was big, but if it fell through, if Stratton could not meet him, then the spy was still protected.
‘He won’t be there before first light,’ Morgan said. ‘If you wanna get your head down for a bit I’ll stay on watch.’
That wasn’t a bad idea, Stratton thought. He felt more tired than he should have, and in this game you took your sleep when you could. ‘Maybe I will,’ he said, reclining his seat fully and closing his eyes. ‘It’s been a long day.’ And a new day was coming, he thought, and no doubt one full of surprises.The most frustrating thing about the assignment was he had no idea what his next move was going to be. He couldn’t imagine how a member of Al Qaeda would be any help and made an effort to clear his head of thoughts so he could rest for a while. He did not expect to get any real sleep but a long rest, thinking of nothing, was almost as good.
Stratton quickly drifted off, and what seemed to be only minutes later he felt a nudge in his side, but for some reason he could not respond as if he was confused about its origin. It came again, this time stronger and he fought to find himself and take control of his limbs and pull himself together. He opened his eyes and light streamed into them, and for a couple of seconds he did not know where he was. Then it came rushing back like a freight train.
‘Stratton,’ he heard a voice say, recognising it was Morgan’s.
It was daylight. He sat up and checked his watch. Nearly 7 a.m.