The guard would wait till the last moment before he fired. Till she crossed the ruined orchard at the top, full silhouette. Giving her time to think about it, turn back.
Steadily up the steps cut in the clay hill, no houses now, splintered lemon stumps, her footsteps whispering, the sun's red crescent up out of the towering Shouf, spilling like dusty lava down through wracked pine forests and smoky ruined villages. Not looking back she passed the crest, beyond the guard's field of fire, round a blasted tractor, a ruined almond orchard with demolished stone walls and the carious upjutting jaws of a burnt house. Someone had dragged olive boughs to the path to cut up for firewood. There was the stench of death, human or animal, she couldn't tell. She went in dawn's light down the far side of the hill into the outskirts of Beirut.
“THIS WILL BE THE LAST TIME,” Beverly said. She took a sip of her coffee and it left a creamy mark on her upper lip. Neill forced down the annoyed urge to wipe it away. Let her look how she looks.
“I've tried, too, Bev,” he said softly. His leaving made everything here seem easy, made him feel affection for it all. With the back of a finger he wiped the milk from her lip. All was packed, the kids already gone, no reason to linger but for some moment of clarity that never came.
He put his dishes in the dishwasher, went upstairs, brushed his teeth, took a leak, as if marking territory for the last time, he thought, and came down with his bag over one shoulder.
“I said I'd take you to the airport,” she said.
“You've got clients this morning.”
She fingered half a caress down his temple and cheek. “Thank God you're going...” She gave him her reluctant half-shy smile, the one to make him feel guilty for her having to smile. For her having to overcome the sorrow of living with him.
He kissed her, thinking of when their kisses might have meant something. The house felt dusty, full of ashes and chill; he couldn't breathe he was so anxious to leave, the knot in his stomach something he could nearly reach inside and tear out.
“Remember how you always said, Neill, we have to choose between being kind and winning? See, you've proved yourself wrong: you've done neither.”
He went down the front steps into the early morning street and turned toward Earls Court station, across Cromwell and right at the corner into Hogarth Road, glancing back at the traffic.
A taxi slowed but he waved it on. Another, a red one, came idling up and stopped beside him. He glanced into the back, opened the door and got in beside a short stocky balding man in a gray suit and mac. The man held a black hat, The Times, and a briefcase on his lap. The driver turned into Earls Court and continued past the station. The small man opened his briefcase, raising its lid so the driver could not see inside it. “Came in last night. Bloody perfect.”
Inside the briefcase was a photo of a dark-bearded man, high forehead, clear expression, narrow deepset eyes, thick long nose, sharp lips in a wide mouth. A straight-ahead, fear-nothing face. Staring toward the camera but not seeing it, not squinting despite the sun in his face. Behind him, out of focus, a clay brick wall.
“What if this guy didn't blow the Marines' barracks, the French paratroopers?”
“That's what we'd like to find out.”
“I still don't understand why you've got the hots for him –”
“You let us worry about that. Just get to see him.”
“Us?”
“You don't have to be British to serve the Queen, Neill. We appreciate what you've done, over the last twelve years...”
“Screw the Queen, Adam. I do it for the money.”
“That's an honorable motive, too. We respect that.”
“If I see him, I'm doing it my way.”
“Then we can't back you up.”
“Even after twelve years, Adam, I wouldn't depend on you.”
“Nor we on you.”
“That's a bloody lie!”
Freeman sat back in the taxi seat with a pricked stiff face. As if, Neill thought, I could ever hurt them. “What I meant,” Freeman said, “is I don't know how far we can leverage for you.”
“First time you want you'll drop me dead. We both know that.”
“And you'll drop us too, any time you want.”
“Everybody shafts everybody, Adam. What are you getting at?”
“It's two stitches up under your arm. Nobody will ever see it or know it's there. Soon as you come back we take it out.”
“Until then, every second, you know where I am –”
“Most of the time we couldn't care less. But if you're in trouble we can be there.”
“You blind bastards couldn't rescue the PM from the Royal Loo. You don't even dare show your ass in Beirut since the Hez came.”
Freeman smiled, a teacher tolerating the tantrum of a child. “We've decided that if you want to go through with it, we need you wired.”
“I'll go without you. Do my interview with Mohammed for the paper and leave.”
“I can't imagine you giving up ten thousand that easily.”
“So that's what you're saying? No transmitter, no money?”
“Imagine how we'd look if you got into trouble.”
The taxi swerved round a bicycle, a girl in a brown suit and long black scarf. “Whatever happens,” Neill answered, “you're clean. You know that or you wouldn't be here.”
“It takes about five minutes and you're on your way. You won't even feel it. By the time you reach Amsterdam you'll have forgotten all about it. But it could save your life. Do it for us.”
Neill watched the traffic, the grim dirty fenders and windshields, sheets of the Telegraph windscattered along King's Road, the wind-wrenched boughs and muddy grass behind the curb, the sense of living on decay. How good it would be, he thought, to start anew. “Once and for all, Adam, tell me who us is?”
“I do and I'll be out of a job and in prison. Official secrets, all that.”
“Just between me and you, Adam? After all these years –”
“There is no between you and me.” Freeman nodded at the taxi roof. “We're on record.”
Neill stared out of the window, seeing nothing. “Fifteen thousand.”
“It isn't a money thing, Neill. For this protection, we should ask you to pay.”
Neill smiled. See, there is a God, for only a God would have invented us. “Fifteen thousand, instead of the original ten. If you want to follow me around, that's what it's going to cost you.”
“I'll speak to them.”
“No speaking, Adam. I want your agreement, now. Half sent now and a half later.”
Freeman checked the locks on his briefcase. “We've always tried to bend over for you, Neill –”
“Don't say that, Adam. Makes you sound like a fag.”
Freeman snorted, turned away. Neill could not find him in the mirror. Beside Neill a Mini throbbed, dark-haired girl inside, red scarf, red lips; beyond her and around them cars, trucks, and buses floated in a writhing gray sea that had risen up and stained the buildings, the morning sky. Under the Albert Bridge the Thames was dirtier than the sky. Dirty as our lungs, Neill thought.
At Gatwick they went into a locked hospitality suite. Inside was