The Levanter Part 15

'Do you believe that your employer remembers? Be careful how you answer. Your loyalty here is to me not to him.'

'Comrade Michael has certainly remembered his oath,' I said. 'He has done everything he can to carry out his a.s.signed tasks. In fact he has seriously neglected his own business in order to do so.'

I knew that Michael was looking at me balefully, but I kept my eyes on Ghaled.

'When did your employer last see Dr Hawa?'

I was afraid to lie. It was always possible that Ghaled already knew the answer. 'A few days ago, in the evening.'

Ghaled looked at Michael again. 'And he told you nothing of this directive about which you profess to be so surprised?'

'Our meeting was a social one.' Michael shrugged. 'We played backgammon as a matter of fact. No business was discussed. In any case the issuance of this directive would not have been a subject for discussion. As I said when I first raised the question, the policy decision about this works had already been made.'

'The policy decision which you had been ordered to reverse or modify?'

'The decision which I had hoped to be able to modify. These things cannot be done by edict, not my edict anyway. It is easier to make policy decisions than to reverse or modify them. One needs time. I thought I had time. Obviously I hadn't enough.' The committee had recovered its composure and was all lined-up again behind the managing director. 'As for my surprise, I have no reason to profess it. I am surprised. The explanation, presumably, is that, since the Agence Howell is not a princ.i.p.al in this affair, it was not thought necessary or appropriate to consult us before issuing the directive.'

Ghaled thought for a moment, then nodded. 'Very well. Pending my own inquiries, I will accept your explanation, your excuse for your failure. But -' he leaned forward - 'for your disrespect there can be no excuse.'

'No disrespect was intended, comrade Salah. I was merely stating the situation as I saw it.'

'So you say now. I warned you before against your arrogance. I also warned you that it would be punished. Did I or didn't I?'

'You did.'

'Then having ignored my warnings you must be punished. Who are you to question orders, to decide whether or not they are realistic? We must teach you humility, comrade Michael, the meaning of discipline. The punishment, therefore, must be one that you will remember. Do you find that reasonable and realistic?'

Michael was looking blandly impa.s.sive. I tried to, but less successfully.

'Do you?' Ghaled persisted.

'That depends on the punishment, comrade Salah.'

'Yes. Since you have other a.s.signed tasks to complete, an Action Force punishment, the kind that comrades Ahmad and Musa are used to inflicting for lapses in discipline, would -what is the phrase?'

'Defeat their own object, comrade Salah?'

'Yes.' Ghaled smiled unpleasantly. 'So you must not be hurt too much, comrade. Perhaps not at all if you are lucky. We shall have to see." He looked at Issa who had been listening avidly. 'Are you ready for the demonstration?'

'Yes, comrade Salah. All is prepared.'

'Let us go then.'

Ghaled rose and led the way from Michael's office, along the pa.s.sages to the zinc storeroom.

Waiting there was a man I had not seen before. Though neither he nor Michael said anything by way of greeting I saw an exchange of glances which said that they knew one another.

Ghaled addressed him as comrade Taleb. He was in his thirties, tall and thin with a Na.s.ser moustache and a very clean drip-dry s.h.i.+rt. He wore a tie. When he smiled, showing his teeth, two gold inlays were visible. He was standing behind Ghaled's trestle table which had been moved to the centre of the room.

My mind had been running sickeningly on instruments of torture, so that the two objects I saw standing on the table in front of Taleb were, though surprising, also rea.s.suring.

The most prominent was a big clockwork musical-box of a kind that I had not seen since I was a small child. There had been one like it on a side-table in my grandmother's house in Rome. That one had played four or five different melodies from the operas-arias. This was slightly smaller than the one I remembered and fitted into a battered black-leather carrying case with a purple plush lining; but the box itself was much the same, an oblong casket made of highly-polished mahogany with a narrow gla.s.s window in the top. Through the window you could see the big metal cylinder with the tiny pins bristling all over it and the long steel comb which sounded the notes. There were levers in front and, at the end, a bra.s.s key for winding the clockwork. A worn gold-leaf inscription just visible on the front panel said that this was La Serinette made by Gerard Freres of Paris and that the Tonotechnique Design was protected by patents.

Beside La Serinette on the table stood, incongruously, a Pakistan International Airlines plastic flight bag.

Ghaled looked with amused interest at the musical-box.

'Does it still play?' he asked.

'Certainly it plays, comrade Salah.' Taleb was obviously proud of his work, whatever that was. He touched one of the levers, the cylinder revolved and the box began to play Mozart's minuet in G. After two bars he switched it off.

'We must conserve the spring,' he said.

'Of course. Then let us proceed with the demonstration.'

'Yes, comrade Salah.'

Taleb reached inside the black flap of the carrying case and pulled something out of the plush lining. It was a narrow strip of metal rather like a steel tape-measure and about twenty centimetres long. He left it sticking up in the air above the box. Obviously it was not part of the original Serinette.

'That is all?'

'That is all, except for the controls, comrade Salah. The new ones are on what was the musical change lever here. The first stop now deactivates the speed regulator. The second stop allows the cylinder to revolve freely. The third stop engages the clutch which. . . .'

Ghaled broke in. 'Yes, comrade, we know what the third stop should do. That is what we are to test. Now, comrade Taleb, I think that this test demonstration would be more convincing if the target were to be moving. Do you not agree?'

'Moving or stationary, it makes no difference, comrade Salah.'

'For me,' Ghaled said firmly, 'a moving target would provide a much more satisfactory test. And since comrade Michael has volunteered to a.s.sist us. ... That is correct, comrade Michael, isn't it? You have volunteered?'

'If you say so, comrade Salah.'

'I say so.'

'Then I'm glad to be of a.s.sistance.'

Michael spoke easily and his apparent calmness clearly irritated Ghaled.

'Let us hope you will continue to be glad,' he snapped and pointed to the airline bag on the table. 'Pick that up.'

Michael reached out for the bag and his hand was about to touch it when Ghaled spoke again.

'Careful, comrade. It is not heavy, but handle it as if it were.'

Taleb started to make a protest. 'Comrade Salah, we do not know exactly. . . .'

'No, we do not know exactly,' said Ghaled quickly. 'That is why we are making the test.'

'It really is not necessary for the target to move.'

'That is for me to decide.' He turned to Michael who now had the bag in his hand. 'Comrade, you will walk out of here slowly. When you are outside walk in the direction of number one work shed and go past it to the boundary wall. We will follow you as far as the outer door. When you reach the wall, turn and start to walk back towards us, slowly so that we can keep you in sight all the time. You understand?'

'I understand.'

'Then go. Issa, you follow him with your light so that we do not lose sight of him in the shadows. Don't get too close. Taleb, I will give you the word.'

'Yes, comrade Salah.'

My heart was thumping and the sweat on my face was ice-cold. I followed them out to the door.

The guards, Ahmad and Musa, had come to see what was going on. Ghaled told them to stand to one side. From the pa.s.sage just behind Ghaled I could see Michael walking away across the yard with the bag and Issa stalking him with the flashlight. They might have been playing some sort of child's game.

As he reached the corner of number one work shed Michael stumbled on an uneven patch of ground and Ghaled shouted to him to be more careful. Michael was about a hundred metres away now and nearing the perimeter wall. When he began to turn Ghaled spoke to Taleb in the storage room behind us.

'Get ready.'

'Ready, comrade.'

'All right. Now!'

From the storage room came three notes of the minuet in G, then that sound was cut off and a whirring noise took its place, a noise that suddenly began rising in pitch to a whine.

Almost at the same moment there was a flash of light across the yard - it seemed to come from Michael's right hand - and a m.u.f.fled bang. Then the flight bag burst into flames and Michael flung it away from him.

He was obviously hurt because he was doing something to his right wrist with his left hand, tearing a scorched s.h.i.+rtsleeve away from the skin I know now, but that did not stop him satisfying his curiosity. The bag, still burning, had landed near the wall and Michael immediately went over to look at it.

He and Issa reached the bag at almost the same moment. Ghaled called to Taleb an order to switch off and went to join them. The whole incident had taken only a few seconds; but I noticed that, even before Ghaled's order to switch off, the pitch of the whirring noise had begun to fall.

Taleb came out of the storeroom.

'You saw it work?' he asked.

'I saw it. The bag caught fire.'

He looked across the yard. Issa was stamping out the remaining flames. Ghaled was carefully examining Michael's wrist.

'It was stupid of Mr Howell to carry it,' said Taleb.

'You'd better tell comrade Salah that. It was entirely his idea.'

'Oh.' He waited no longer and went out to receive the congratulations and words of praise which were no doubt due to him. From Issa they were effusive; but Ghaled's were more perfunctory. By then he was more concerned with Michael. Ghaled had for a moment become Sir Ghaled solicitously shepherding a stricken opponent from the field of honour. With me the reaction had set in, and, though I was hating Ghaled totally, I did not find Michael's brave smile particularly endearing. I made no attempt to return it as they approached.

'Is it bad?' I asked.

'No. Just a bit of a burn.'

'All burns are bad,' said Ghaled severely. 'They easily become infected. This must be treated at once.'

You would have thought that I had proposed not treating it at all.

In the storeroom Ghaled ordered Michael to sit down and produced an elaborate first-aid kit. He then proceeded to cut away the scorched s.h.i.+rt-sleeve with scissors.

The burn area extended about half way up the forearm. There was reddening but it did not look serious to me.

'First degree only,' remarked Ghaled as he examined the arm. 'But painful no doubt."

'Not as bad as it was at first.'

'It must still be treated with care. I did not realise that plastics were so flammable.'

'A lot of substances are if you raise the temperature high enough.'

'Well, I did not realise.'

It was nearly an apology. He busied himself now with pouring water from a jerrican into an enamel wash basin and stirring into it a white powder from the first-air kit. When it had dissolved he began very gently to swab the burn with the solution.

'Did you know that I was trained as a doctor?' he asked chattily as he worked.

'No, comrade Salah.'

'Yes, in Cairo. I have practised as a doctor, too, in my time. And on worse wounds than this I can tell you."

'I'm sure of that.'

Taleb came in with Issa and stood watching. Ghaled took no notice of them until he had finished cleaning up the arm. Then he looked at Taleb and nodded towards La Serinette.

'Your masterpiece can be put away now. Comrade Issa knows where it is to be stored. It will be safe there until we conduct the long range tests.'

'Yes, comrade Salah."

The musical-box was secured in its carrying case and taken away. I saw Michael watching the securing process out of the corner of his eye.

Ghaled had been rummaging in the first-aid box. 'The treatment of burns,' he said briskly as he turned again to Michael, 'has changed much in recent years. The old remedies, such as tannic acid and gentian violet, are no longer used. In this case penicillin ointment will be the answer.' He looked at me. 'Have you an a.n.a.lgesic at home? Codeine for example?'

'I believe so.'

'Then he may take that. But no alcohol tonight. A warm drink, tea would be suitable, and a barbiturate for sleep. That and the codeine.'

'Very well.'

I watched while he applied the ointment and then strapped on a gauze dressing. It was done neatly and without fuss. I could believe that he had once been trained.

'There,' he said finally; 'is that better?'

'Much, thank you.' Michael dutifully admired the dressing. 'What was in the bag, comrade Salah?' he asked.

'Haven't you guessed?'

'Some of Issa's detonators presumably.'