‘You were gone, mate,’ Morgan said.
Stratton rubbed his face to push the sleep away.
‘Time you checked on your man.’
Stratton moved the seat back into the upright position.
‘’Ere you are, mate,’ Morgan said, holding a bottle of water for him.
‘Thanks,’ Stratton said as he took it, poured some into his mouth and splashed his face. He handed the bottle back to Morgan and rubbed the water around his neck. Consciousness had almost fully returned and he focused on the street ahead that was already looking busy.
At the end of it, a couple of hundred yards away, he could make out what appeared to be some life-sized stone lions but they were too far away and it was too crowded to pick out any particular individuals.
‘You carrying?’ Stratton asked.
‘Na. Ain’t worth the risk. The Israelis’d slap you in jail in a ’eartbeat if they found it. Maybe worse if they caught you at night and there were no witnesses.’
Stratton did not particularly care about those risks at the moment. He was beginning to feel more and more naked without a weapon the deeper he got into this operation. The no weapons policy of the MOD was political and getting worse each year. As usual, it would continue its trend until operatives started dying before the powers that be reviewed a change, and even then that was no guarantee. That didn’t help him right at that moment. He just hoped he would not be the operative who inspired the policy change.
Stratton glanced at Morgan to nod farewell and paused to study his face, seeing him for the first time in any proper light since meeting him the night before.
‘What?’ Morgan asked, wondering why Stratton was staring at him.
‘You’ve been putting in a lot of hours since you got here, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah . . . Why?’
‘Your nose and ear hairs stick out like rose bushes. You normally pluck ’em bald when you’ve got nothing to do.’
Morgan adjusted the rear-view mirror to have a look for himself, examining both ears and deep into his large nostrils. ‘Bloody ’ell. You’re right. Give me som’ing to do while I’m waiting for you.’
Stratton opened the door. ‘See you later,’ he said as he climbed out. Morgan didn’t reply, already busy gripping a large clump of hair sticking out of his nose which he ripped out with a small yelp.
‘Been a while,’ he said, his eyes watering.
Stratton closed the door and headed for the centre of Ramallah.
It was market day in the town. Barrows lined each side of the street stacked with all kinds of produce and sundry items. The smell of fresh bread filled the air and the traffic was increasing by the minute as vans arrived from both ends of the street to unload their goods. Stratton gave up trying to walk down the pavements strewn with crates and boxes and moved out on to the road.
As he reached the circle, he focused on the nearest lion on the right. Sure enough, it had a wristwatch carved on to its front leg. People and vehicles milled around the circle, moving in and out of the five roads that led from it like spokes on a wheel, but no one was waiting beside the lion with the wristwatch.
Stratton looked for any faces among the sellers and buyers that might be watching him but nothing was obvious. He was the only white man in the area and there were the inevitable curious looks from passers by. Nearby vendors offered him their wares but they were not pushy. A news crew appeared from a side street, three Westerners, and set up a camera to film the market, their presence making him feel less conspicuous.
Stratton’s gaze moved back to the lion, still sat by itself, and just as he was about to cross the road to stand beside it a man in jeans and a black leather jacket walked around the roundabout and paused by the great stone cat. He was in his twenties, dark skinned, handsome, with long jet-black hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. He raised a foot, planted it on the base of the lion, and proceeded to retie his shoelace. When he put his foot down, he stood up straight, put his hands in his pockets and looked directly at Stratton for a moment, his eyes intelligent and piercing.
Abed had not been given a description of the man he was to meet other than he would be white, and apart from the media crew this was the only white man around, and, what’s more, he was at the circle at the right time and without a doubt looking for someone. Abed stared at him long enough to make it obvious he was the one and then walked away. If it were not the right white man then he would not follow.
Abed did not check back to see, hoping they had sent someone smart enough to play the game and follow him without giving it away to anyone who might be watching. A lone white man in a notorious West Bank town would get some attention and the odds that someone in this square reported to Mossad or Shin Bet were high.
Abed crossed a busy junction and walked down a steep road that had shops either side. Halfway along it he turned off the pavement and up a short flight of steps that led into a small, low-roofed shopping precinct lined with dusty, dilapidated, glass-fronted kiosks. A short distance along the hall he climbed a flight of stairs that doubled back on itself. Abed glanced below, through the rails into the hall, but there was no sign of the white man. At the top of the stairs, at the end of a short corridor, was a set of double doors that he pushed open and walked through. He let them close behind him and stood inside a spacious, dirty room cluttered with odd pieces of dust-covered office furniture that looked like they had been there for years. Much of the false ceiling had collapsed adding to the litter on the floor.
He walked across the room towards the windows that lined one of the walls, the crunching of his shoes on the dirty concrete floor echoing in the room, and stared out across the rooftops. Ramallah was built on a series of steep hills and the northern edge of the town bristled on a crest half a mile away. On the highest point a tower block with sand-bags stacked on its roof, commanded the heights, evidence of an Israeli lookout post, the Israeli flag flying on top as a reminder to the local populace who the masters were.
This was his first time in Ramallah and he was eager to leave. He was looking forward to getting back to Lebanon, not only because it was dangerous for him to stay in this country, but he had a house in Beirut, and although it was not his own and was paid for by the sheiks, it was home. But for how long, he wondered. If the path he had taken to join the Jihad was a deadly and historically short-lived one, then this new alliance, working for the British, was certain to be suicide. But he had no choice now. He was committed.
There were several reasons Abed had turned against the Jihad. The most powerful was his conscience. What he took part in on the supertanker had horrified him, and it was only a matter of time before they asked him to do something like it again. He believed in the fight against Zion and its allies, but not in the form of a worldwide Jihad, and quitting the organisation now would be difficult, if not impossible. He did not have the funds or documentation to go anywhere outside of the Middle East, and if his masters knew his intentions they would turn on him. If they could not get to him themselves, the West would soon track down the man who led the attack on the tanker once they had a name and photograph, which would be mysteriously provided. The only option left to him was the one he was now pursuing, and that was to sell himself to his enemy. All he wanted was to live in peace somewhere far from the madness of the world he had been born into.
The idea that changing sides was his only option came during the attack on the tanker, but he did not have a clue how he would go about it. The masters kept a tight rein on their men for a variety of security reasons and he did not have the freedom of movement to make contact with an embassy or consulate. The vile killing spree was enough to convince him he had to get out of the Jihad even if it required desperate measures. What affected him most about the attack was the hate and enthusiasm with which his men cut the crew to pieces. None of the murdered men was asked his nationality, religion, or beliefs. The fact that they were on a Western ship was enough. He watched throats slit, bowels sliced open, hearts ripped from chests and flesh literally slashed from the bodies of men as they ran. Blood was everywhere, on the walls, ceilings, stairways and in large pools in rooms and corridors. Being the leader, directing his men,Abed had avoided taking part in the actual carnage until the big engineer in the bosun’s locker. As Abed’s men charged down the long metal stairs in pursuit of the two Asian crewmen, the engineer had managed to give them the slip at the bottom and scramble up the ladder. Abed was standing on a midway landing, alone and the only obstacle to the open deck. He would have let the man get past if he could but the stairway was narrow and the engineer was fighting for his very life having seen his two comrades cut to pieces below. He was much bigger and stronger than Abed and came at him with great ferocity, eyes wild and determined. At the last second Abed held his scimitar above his head and as the man lunged across the small platform, he brought it down with such force on to the side of the man’s neck, it cut halfway through it. Had he not done so, the engineer would surely have thrown him over the rails.
Looking down on the dying man as the blood poured from a severed artery he saw a pen and notepad poking from his breast pocket and an idea immediately came to him as to how he might be able to contact the West. He tore a page from the pad, scribbled his name on it, wet his thumb in the man’s blood and pressed it on to the paper. As his men came back up the stairs, Abed stuffed the note into engineer’s wallet, pushed him under the lower rail and watched him fall to the bottom of the ship.
Abed was surprised how quickly the British had found him and was impressed by the subtlety of the contact. His handler was Lebanese, or so he said, and treated him like a son, giving him friendly advice and always begging him to take care of himself. Abed did not expect them to use him for any kind of assignment as soon as this, and so it came as a surprise when, the day before, he was told to come to Ramallah to meet with a British agent. It was not an inconvenience since he was already on his way to Palestine on personal matters with special permission from his sheiks. Not an inconvenience yet, but then he did not know what the British wanted him to do. He knew he was going to have to pay a price for his freedom and that would not come cheaply, or even soon. Perhaps never, he was realistic about that. But it was something he would look forward to anyway. At least he had a guarantee they would not exact retribution on him for the tanker, if the British were to be trusted, that is. They had not yet asked him to identify the others on that mission but they soon would. But saving his skin by sacrificing his associates did not sit well with him and he was not sure how he would handle that yet. He knew that at least one of them was already dead. Ibrahim. A few days after the tanker he left to join the fight in Iraq and was killed by the Peshmerga, the Kurdistan border guards, while crossing over from Iran to join the battle in Fallujah. Abed expected that he would be ordered into Iraq eventually. It was the nexus of the fight against the West. The world was the battlefield, but Iraq was the central battleground. If it fell to democracy, a wedge would have been driven right through the heart of the Middle East and Islam.Abed did not know what he would do when that order came. He was playing it day by day. Perhaps that was the place he could earn his freedom working for the British. But that could be weeks or months away and too far in the future for an Ansar Islam, a supporter of the Jihad.Tomorrow was far enough into the future for him to look.
Abed did not know how much control the British had over the Israelis. He told the British he would not work on behalf of Israel, but if the Israelis discovered who he was, what would happen to him then? The British might barter for his life as long as they had a use for him. It was a difficult and complex game and one that Abed knew he was not equipped to play, but he would do his best to learn quickly and find a value for himself that the British would appreciate. Hoping to be free one day was possibly naïve but if he could just stay alive, it might become a reality. He would eventually be too old or spent to be of any value and perhaps they might allow him to slip away into the mist. The odds were stacked against him but that was the way of his life for now. He was a double agent and that probably meant it halved his chances of survival. He was playing the most dangerous game there was, working between the East and the West.
The door opened and closed behind him and he turned to look at the white man standing in the room.
‘
Salam alaykom
,’ Stratton said.
Abed could not see him clearly in the shadows but he appeared to be somewhat scruffy: unshaven, tousled hair, his brown, leather jacket older and more worn than Abed’s.
‘
Alaykom salam
,’ Abed replied.
‘
Ana issmi
Stratton.
Wa issm hadritak?
’ Stratton said in halting Arabic.
‘My name is Abed,’ he replied. ‘Would you prefer to speak in English?’
Abed had learned English in school and although he had forgotten much of it by the time he left Gaza, his masters had encouraged him to take it up once again. English was the most common language of the enemy and if the fight was to be taken to his lands, the warriors had to be able to speak it. Several of those Abed worked with had been educated in England or America and for months he had spoken nothing else. This was the first time he had spoken it to an Englishman.
‘Sure. My Arabic’s a bit rusty anyhow,’ Stratton said.
‘What do you want of me?’ Abed asked, getting to the point.
Stratton did not have an answer to that question just yet. All they had told him about this man was that he had played a part in this operation. The only part Stratton could think of was the beginning.
‘Does the Orion Star mean anything to you?’ Stratton asked.