The Levanter Part 5

This factory was to be a present from Russia via East Germany and I wasn't supposed to know about it. My indiscretion threw him for a moment.

'Why do you ask?'

'The battery cases could be made there.'

'Have you a plan on paper yet for this project? Figures, estimates?'

I opened my briefcase and handed over the bound presentation that I had worked up with the people in Milan. It was quite a tome and I could see that the size and weight of it impressed him. He leafed through it for a moment or two before looking up at me.

'In the matter of phasing out the present operation,' he said thoughtfully, 'if that is finally decided upon. There would have to be continuity, Michael. If we were to go ahead with this revised Green Circle plan there could be no sudden changes, no loss of employment. The two would have to overlap.'

SI understand, Minister.' What he meant was that he didn't want the press or radio picking up the story until we had papered over the cracks.

'Then I will study these proposals and we will have a further meeting. Meanwhile, this will be treated as confidential. There must be no premature disclosure.'

'No, of course not.' It was all right to browbeat the Agence Howell into squandering its money on a half-baked experiment after sounding off about it to the press; but to release the news of a sizeable joint-venture deal involving an Italian company and his agency before clearing it with the Ministries of Finance and Commerce would be asking for trouble. I was fairly sure that he would get the clearance, however. All I could do now was hope that he would get it quickly. The sooner I could start 'phasing out' the dry battery fiasco the better.

Still, I was pleased with the way things had gone. Back at the house I told Teresa all about the meeting and we had some champagne to celebrate.

It wasn't until after dinner when we were in bed that I thought again about Issa. We had taken a bottle of brandy with us, and, as I poured some into her gla.s.s, the fact that it was alcohol reminded me.

'I was trying to work it out earlier,' I said. Ten rottols of alcohol would be how many litres?'

She shrugged. 'I don't know how much alcohol weighs. Over fifty litres I suppose. Can you drink that stuff?'

'Absolute alcohol? Heavens no, it would kill you. What you could do, though, if you had fifty litres of it, would be to dilute it with a hundred and twenty-five litres of water and add a little burnt sugar flavouring. You would then have over two hundred bottles of eighty-proof whisky. Whisky of a sort anyway.'

I did not have to tell her what that would be worth on the black market; we bought our own drink supplies there.

She was thoughtful for a moment. 'You know, Michael,' she said then, 'alcohol isn't the only expensive stuff that Issa has been ordering. I told you about that because of the duty we had to pay on it.'

'What else? Gold dust?'

'Mercury. There have been orders for mercury.'

'Mercury?'

'Four orders, each for one oke. I did ask him about those because two were marked urgent and we had to pay extra delivery charges.'

'What did he say?'

'That he was experimenting with mercury cells. He said that the Americans make a lot of them. They have an extra long life." She gave me a sidelong look. 'I gathered that you knew all about it.'

'Did he say that I knew?'

'Not in so many words, but he conveyed that impression.'

'Well, 1 didn't know.' The idiocy of it hit me. 'Mercury cells, for G.o.d's sake! It's almost more than we can do to make the ordinary kind. What sort of mercury did he order, Mercuric oxide or the chloride?'

'Just mercury, I think, the kind you have in thermometers. He said that it was a very heavy metal and that one oke wasn't much.'

I swallowed my brandy and put on my gla.s.ses. 'Teresa, have you still got those invoices here?'

'They're in the office, yes.'

I got out of bed. She followed me through to the office and found the invoices for me in the files.

It took me about twenty minutes to go through them all and mark the items which should not have been there. By the end of that twenty minutes I wasn't concerned any more about bootlegging. I was, though, both angry and alarmed.

I glanced across at Teresa. Even with no clothes on she managed, sitting at her desk in front of the s.h.i.+p-models in their gla.s.s cases, to look businesslike.

'Have we a spare set of keys to the battery works stores?' I asked.

'Yes, Michael.'

'Would you get it for me, please?'

'Now?'

'Yes.'

Ts it something very bad?'

'Yes, I think it may be very bad indeed,' I said; 'but I'm not spending a sleepless night waiting to find out. I'm going to the battery works to do a little stock-taking.'

'I'll come with you.'

'There's no need.'

'I'll drive if you like.' She knows that I dislike driving at night.

'All right.'

We got dressed in silence. It was after ten, so the servants were off duty and in their own quarters. I opened the gates in the courtyard and closed them again after Teresa had driven out. Then I got in beside her and we set off.

Teresa is in the habit of crossing herself in the Catholic manner before she starts to drive a car. The gesture is made briskly, almost casually-she is fastening a spiritual seat belt - and it seems to work very well. She has never had a traffic accident or even scratched a fender. On Syrian roads and with Syrian drivers all about you, that is a considerable achievement.

However, on that occasion - perhaps because I was opening and shutting the gates instead of the houseman -1 think that she must have neglected to take her routine precaution. I don't know which saint she counts upon for this security arrangement, but I am quite sure that he, or she, was not alerted. We made the journey not only safely, but also in record time.

A divine agency with any concern at all for our welfare that night would have guided us gently but firmly to a soft-landing in the nearest ditch.

The battery works was on the Der'a road, ten kilometres south of the city. During the French mandate it had been a district gendarmerie. When I took the place over it had been empty for several years and stripped of everything removable, including the roof and the plumbing fixtures. All that remained had been the reinforced concrete structures-a latrine, the sh.e.l.l of the old HQ building and the high wall which enclosed the compound.

In a country where pilfering is a way of life, walls which cannot easily be scaled are extremely useful. I chose the site partly because the government would lease it to me cheaply, but partly because of the walls. Inside the compound I had built three work sheds. When refurbished, the old HQ building housed the offices and the laboratory. Two rooms in it had been set aside for safe storage under lock and key of the more marketable of our raw materials, such as the zinc sheet.

At the entrance to the compound there was an iron-bar main gate with a chain-link postern on one side. Both were secured by padlock. Just inside the postern was a hut which during working hours was occupied by the timekeeper, and at night by the watchman. Beyond the hut was the loading platform of number three work shed where the finished batteries emerged.

There was some moon that night and I could see the shapes of all this from outside. What I could not see was any sign of the watchman; and there was no light in the hut. I a.s.sumed that he was on his rounds. As he was supposed to carry a heavy club and I had no wish to be mistaken for an intruder, I kept my flashlight switched on after I had unlocked the postern.

'What about the car?' Teresa asked.

'Leave it. We won't be long.'

Further evidence of divine indifference! The sound of the car would have made our presence inside the compound known sooner and given those already inside time to avoid a decisive confrontation. It was my fault. The main gate was very heavy and hinged so as to stay closed. I would have had to drag it open and hold it there while Teresa drove in.

That meant getting my hands dirty and probably scuffing my shoes as well. I couldn't be bothered.

We went in. I relocked the postern and we walked towards the loading platform and the path leading to the office building.

The battery works was not the tidiest of places, and hi that particular area empty containers and loops of discarded baling wire were hazards to be watched for. So I had the flashlight pointing down and my eyes on the ground in front of me. It was Teresa who first saw that there was something wrong.

'Michael!'

I glanced back. She had stopped and was looking towards the office building. I looked that way too.

There was a light on in the laboratory.

For a moment I thought that it might be the watchman's lantern, though he wasn't supposed to enter the office building except in a case of an emergency such as fire. Then, as I moved along the path and my view became un.o.bstructed, I saw that all the lights hi the laboratory were on. And I could hear voices.

I had stopped, staring; as I started to go on Teresa put a hand on my arm.

'Michael,' she said softly, 'I think it might be better to leave now and come back in the morning, don't you?'

'And lose a chance of catching him at it red-handed?'

I was too incensed to realise that, as I had not told her what I now suspected, she could not know what I was talking about. Her mind was still on bootleggers, eighty-proof whisky and black-marketeering. She thought that what we had stumbled on was either a drinking party or an illicit bottling session, neither of which it would be useful or wise to interrupt.

'Michael, there is no point...' she began; but I was already going on and she followed without completing her protest.

The place had been built on high concrete footings with an open s.p.a.ce between the ground floor and the bare earth. Concrete steps led up to a roofed terrace which ran the length of the building. The offices were to the right of the entrance, the laboratory to the left.

The window openings were barred with no shutters or gla.s.s in them, only wire mesh screens of the old meatsafe type to keep out the larger insects. You could see through them fairly well and hear through them easily. Issa's voice was distinctly audible as we went quietly up the steps.

'For the process of nitrosis,' he was saying, 'the nitric acid must be pure and have a specific gravity of one-point-four-two. I have shown you how we use the hydrometer. Always use it conscientiously. There must be no slovenly work. Everything must be exactly right. For the reactive process, which you see going on, the alcohol must be not less than ninety-five per cent pure. Again we use the hydrometer. What is the specific gravity of ninety-five per cent ethyl alcohol?'

A young man's voice answered him. By then I had moved! along the terrace and could see into the room.

Issa was standing behind one of the lab tables wearing his denim lab coat and looking every inch the young professor. His 'cla.s.s', squatting or sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him, consisted of five youths, Arabs, with dogeared notebooks and ball-point pens. Lounging in Issa's desk chair, looking very neat and clean in a khaki bush s.h.i.+rt and well-pressed trousers, was the watchman. He had an open book in his lap, but his eyes were on the cla.s.s.

'Very good,' said Issa. He was speaking mostly Jordanian Arabic but using English technical terms. 'Now observe.' He pointed to an earthenware jar on the table in front of him from which fumes were rising. 'The reaction is almost complete and precipitation has begun.'

From where I stood I could smell the fumes. It was not hard to guess what was about to be precipitated.

'What will be the next procedure?' asked Issa.

One of the young men said, 'Filtration, sir?'

'Filtration, exactly.' Issa was obviously a natural pedagogue who enjoyed the teaching role. As he droned on I found myself remembering his application to the Ministry people for a post as an instructor, and wis.h.i.+ng that they had been less punctilious about checking up on his qualifications. Why did it have to be me who had to deal with this little menace?

I was wondering how to handle the immediate situation, whether to clear my throat before entering or just fling the door open and make them jump, when the two men moved in.

I smelt them before I heard them, and so did Teresa. We both turned at once and she clutched at my arm. Then we saw the carbines in their hands and froze.

The carbines were very clean; but, in their filthy work-clothes and faded blue kaffiyehs, the men who held them looked like labourers from a road gang. They were middle-aged, leathery and tough; they were also tense and, quite clearly, trigger-happy.

They stopped well clear of us, the carbines pointing at our stomachs. The older man motioned with his carbine to the flashlight in my hand.

'Drop it. Quick!' He had a loud, harsh voice and broken teeth.

I obeyed. The gla.s.s of the flashlight shattered as it hit the concrete.

'Back! Back!'

We backed against the wall.

By this time Issa, followed by his cla.s.s, was coming out to see what was going on.

Issa's face when he saw me was a study in confusion; but before he could say anything the man with the broken teeth started to make his report.

'We saw them come stealthily. We have been watching them for minutes. They were listening, spying. The man had a light. Look, there it is.'

He made the flashlight sound highly incriminating.

I said: 'Good evening, Issa.'

He tried to smile. 'Good evening, sir. Good evening, Miss Malandra.'

'They were listening, spying,' said broken teeth doggedly.

That's right, we were,' I said; 'and now we'll go inside.'

I had started to move towards the entrance when the man hit me hard in the kidneys with the b.u.t.t of his carbine. It was agonising for a moment and I fell to my knees.

When I got up Teresa was protesting angrily and Issa was muttering under his breath to the two men. I leaned against the wall waiting for the pain to subside. Finally, Issa told the cla.s.s to wait there on the terrace and the rest of us went into the laboratory. Issa led the way, Teresa and I followed, the armed men brought up the rear.

The watchman had not moved from Issa's desk chair. As we came in he gave me a vague nod, as if he had been expecting me but could not quite think why. It struck me that he was behaving very oddly; I wondered if he were drunk. Then I decided to ignore the watchman; I would deal with him later.

'All right, Issa,' I said briskly; 'let's have your explanation. I lake it you have one?'

But he had had time to recover and was ready now to bluff his way out. 'An explanation for what, sir?' He was all injured innocence. 'If, as you say, you have been listening, you will know that I was instructing a cla.s.s of students in the techniques of chemistry. Having had the advantages of higher education. I consider that I also have a duty to pa.s.s some of those advantages on, when I can do so, to those less fortunate. I would only do so in my own time, of course. If you think that I should have asked your permission before using the laboratory out of working hours as a cla.s.sroom, I apologise. It did not occur to me that a man of your character could conceivably refuse.'

He was really quite convincing. If I had not been through those invoices and if my back had not been hurting as it was, I might almost have believed him.

'And these two men behind me?' I asked. 'Have you been instructing them also in the techniques of chemistry?'

He tried a deprecating smile. 'They are uneducated men, sir, older men from the village where my students live. They come to see that the young man behave themselves.'

'They need guns to do that? No, Issa, don't bother to answer. You have given your explanation. It is not acceptable.'