J anet felt naked-like she had been literally spread-eagled, naked, at that earlier revelation-although now she was wearing clothes. And this time the exposure was worse, far worse: not just clothes stripped off. Skin too. A moment of flagellation. She sat scooped up in a leather-backed bucket chair, her arms encompassing her legs, her head virtually against her knees like a mollusk ready at a moment’s notice to retreat into its shell, never to come out again. She did not catch every word he said: every sentence even. It wasn’t necessary. The mentally chafing parts-the lump-in-the-stomach uncertainties-were finally fitting into the jigsaw: an incomplete outline was becoming a more tangible image.
“The Mossad!”
“Yes,” said Baxeter, an unfettered admission.
“Why does Israeli intelligence want to become involved?”
“Policy, from on high,” said Baxeter.
Almost a paraphrase of Willsher; Janet supposed there were a restricted number of ways an idea could be expessed without repetition or cliche. She said: “I want to know! Everything!”
“What?”
“Your approach, that first day? Journalism? Or intelligence?”
“Both.”
“No!” Janet said. “I don’t believe you!”
“All right!” Baxeter said. “It was to see.”
“See what?”
“If there were an advantage.”
“Jesus!”
“This isn’t easy for me.”
“How the fuck do you think it is for me!”
“Do you have to swear?”
“Yes, I fucking well have to swear!”
“Don’t!”
“Shit!” she snarled. “What about your getting involved in that demand for?1,000! That was a setup, wasn’t it! Your people!”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Why!”
“To get closer to you.”
“To make me feel dependent, you mean! To come to rely upon you?”
“Yes,” he said, admitting more.
“You bastard! All of you. Bastards!”
“Have you any idea what I’m doing? What I’m disclosing! The rules I’m breaking?”
“I don’t give a fuck about your rules!”
“I love you.”
“Stop it!” Janet cupped her hands over her ears to close out what he was saying.
“I’m trying to get through to you,” he said. “Make you understand. I was told to get close to you… OK, to see if you could be used. I wasn’t told to fall in love with you. Which is why I am being honest now: telling you truthfully. I came near to doing it before… thought you’d guessed that day at the Tembelodendron…”
Janet still had her hands up to her head. She moved it, jerkily, from side to side in refusal. “I don’t want to hear! Don’t want your lies!”
“That isn’t a lie,” Baxeter insisted. “Listen to me, for Christ’s sake!”
“He’s not your God.”
“Don’t be facile.”
“What do you expect me to be!”
“Sensible.”
“Go fuck yourself!”
“Go ahead,” Baxeter said. “Why don’t you go ahead and mouth off every swear word there is and get it out of your system?”
Janet took her hands from her head. “I’m not sure that’s what I need to get out of my system.”
“Are you going to listen to me?”
Janet sat with her arms around her legs again, staring at him, wanting to feel hatred-something like it at least-but nothing would come.
Baxeter waited but when he saw she was not going to speak he said: “Journalism is the cover, like the passport. It enables me to travel all over the Middle East. My first meeting with you was exactly what I told you: exploratory. How did I know how it was going to work out!”
“What about John?” Janet demanded. “The photograph and the address? Did you really go to Beirut to get them?”
“Collect them,” corrected Baxeter. “We’ve got a lot of sources there: a lot of operatives. We’ve got to have.”
“But why?” she pressed. “Why get involved? Is there an advantage there, too?”
“It would be a humiliation to the terrorists, if America were able to get in and get out one of their people,” said Baxeter. “And I hope there could be a personal advantage, too.”
“I don’t understand that last part.”
“You’re never going to be able to choose with John still in captivity, are you?” he said, simply.
Why couldn’t she hate this man! Janet asked herself. Why couldn’t she despise and detest him for using her like everyone else had used her! “No,” she said, almost to herself.
“Forgive me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I haven’t hurt you.”
Janet supposed he hadn’t, but it was difficult for her to work out. “I don’t know that either,” she said.
“I obviously couldn’t tell you in the beginning,” he said, trying to convince her. “And afterwards it was too late. Now it means there’s a chance of rescuing John!”
It was convoluted but true, she recognized. “I suppose you’re right,” she conceded.
“So you forgive me?” he asked again.
“I said I don’t know. I need to think: understand everything.”
Would she ever understand everything!
“I want you to stay tonight.”
Janet realized, despising herself, that she wanted very much to stay. “No,” she said, as strongly as she could. She accepted-just-his explanation but she’d still been used and couldn’t dismiss it as lightly as this, as if it hardly mattered.
“I guess it was too much to ask.”
“Too much to expect.”
“That too,” he agreed.
“Was it true what you said, about the possibility of John being moved?”
“That’s the way they operate, precisely to prevent rescue.”
“Why me!” demanded Janet abruptly, as the query occurred to her. “Why bother to use me as a conduit? Israel and America are allies: you rely enormously on Washington. Why not deal direct, agency to agency?”
Baxeter nodded, acknowledging the question. “Ready for the cynicism?”
“Yes.”
“Damage limitation,” said Baxeter. “This way it remains entirely an American operation. They get the credit if it goes right, the criticism if it goes wrong. We’re prepared to sacrifice one to avoid getting caught up in the other.”
“How do you learn to think like that!”
“Years of practice,” Baxeter said.
Janet shuddered, involuntarily. “It’s creepy.”
“Sure about not staying?”
No, she thought. “Positive,” she said.
“You know everything you have to tell the Americans?”
Janet wished he had tried harder to persuade her. “Yes,” she said.
Hart was at the hotel to collect her in the chauffeur-driven limousine within thirty minutes of Janet’s call. They assembled again in the pine-paneled conference room and the three men huddled excitedly around the paper that Janet offered, with the Kantari address.
“Know it?” Willsher asked.
The Beirut agent nodded. “We’ve more than enough photographs and plans of the street for the mockup at Fort Pearce,” he promised.
“What about checking it out ourselves on the ground: trying to establish if it really is where John’s being held?” came in Hart.
Knox made an uncertain movement with his hand. “We could try, I suppose. But what if we’re spotted?”
They seemed to have forgotten her presence, thought Janet. She said: “Don’t forget the possibility of his being moved.”
Willsher looked back to her.
Janet repeated the warning that Baxeter had given, together with the assurance of her being able to learn any new location.
“Sure you’ll be able to find out?” Willsher asked.
“Yes,” Janet said. She was now, she thought: now that she knew what Baxeter really did. She supposed she should feel reassured and wondered why she didn’t.
“We’ll have to build that contingency in, of course, through every stage of the planning,” Willsher said, to the other two men. “And blanket Kantari with every sort of listening device that’s been invented, as a backup.” The man turned back to Janet. “Looks as if you’re going to remain an important part of the team,” he smiled.
“It’s good to be involved,” said Janet. Should she feel a hypocrite? Only about her romantic involvement with Baxeter, she decided: everything else was being moved along the labyrinthine paths that Baxeter and these three men trod all the time. If it had not all been literally in such deadly earnest-so important-Janet could imagine laughing at the absurdity of it.
“Still keep in daily contact,” Willsher told her. “There’ve been more thoughts from Washington, too.”
“What?” she asked.
“We’ve decided to maximize the impact of getting John out,” said Willsher, confidently. “I’m to ask you if you’d agree to reunion publicity?”
Janet swallowed, not able immediately to respond. What would that moment be, the ultimate hypocrisy or the ultimate, inevitable choice? “Aren’t you planning ahead a little?” she said.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” Willsher chose not to acknowledge her caution. “Everything that can be planned for is being planned for.”
“Of course I agree,” she said. Hypocrite, she thought: what right did she of all people have to criticize Baxeter or anyone else for lying and cheating and being labyrinthine?
“We’re not going to fail,” Willsher said confidently. “This isn’t going to be another Iran hostage screwup. We’re going to get John out and leave an awful lot of bloody noses behind, believe me!”
“I’d like to,” said Janet. “I’d like to believe you very much indeed.”
“Perfect!” said Baxeter enthusiastically, an hour later.
“Is it?” said Janet.
The Israeli became serious, matching her mood. “There always had to be a decision time, sooner or later.”
“I know.”
“So this is it.”
“Not quite,” she said.