dadi spoke into his radio, telling base that Imam had veered off course and was not replying to radio calls. As ex~,ected, base told Baghdadi to follow Imam. This little pantomime was necessary so that Baghdadi, who was to return, should not fall under suspicion. They flew over an army encampment. Kernel saw tanks, trucks. field guns and jeeps. A bunch of soldiers waved: they must be British, Kernel thought. Both planes climbed. Directly ahead they saw signs of battle: great clouds of dust, explosions and gunfire. They turned to pass to the south of the battlefield. Kernel had thought: We flew over a British base, then a battlefield–next we should come to a German base. Ahead, Imam’s plane lost height. Instead of following, Baghdadi climbed a little more-KemeI had the feeling that the Gladiator was near its ceiling-and peeled off to the south. Looking out of the plane to the right, Kernel saw what the pilots had seen: a small camp with a cleared strip marked as a runway. Approaching Sadat’s house, Kernel recalled how elated he had felt, up there in the sky above the desert, when he realized they were behind German lines, and the treaty was almost in Rommel’s hands. He knocked on the door. He still did not know what to teU Sadat. It was an ordinary family house, rather poorer than Kemel’s home. In a moment Sadat came to the door, wearing a galabiya and smoking a pipe. He looked at Kernel’s face, and said immedi,,)tely: “It went wrong.” “Yes.” Kernel stepped inside. They went into the little room Sadat used as a study. There were a desk, a shelf of books and some cushions on the bare floor. On the desk an army pistol hay on top of a pile of papers. They sat down. Kernel said: “We found a German camp with a runway. Imam descended. Then the Germans started to fire on his plane. It was an English plane, you see-we never considered that.” Sadat said: “But surely, they could see he was not hostile-he did not fire, did not drop bornbs-” “He just kept on going down,” Kernel went on. “He waggled his wings, and I suppose he tried to raise them on THE KEY TO REBECCA 77
the radio; anyway they kept firing. The tail of the plane took a hit.” “Oh, God.” “He ~eemed to be going down very fast. The Germans stopped firing. Somehow he managed to land on his wheels. The plane seemed to bounce. I don’t think Imam could con trol it any longer. Certainly he could not slow down. He went off the hard surface and into a patch of sand: the ‘ port wing hit the ground and snapped: the nose dipped and plowed into the sand: then the fuselage fell on the broken wing.” Sadat was staring it Kemel, blank-faced and quite still. his pipe going cold in his hand. In his mind Kernel saw the plane lying broken in the sand, with a German fire truck and ambulance speeding along the runway toward it, followed by ten or fifteen soldiers. He would never forget how, like a blossom opening its petals, the belly of the plane had burst skyward in a riot of red and yellow flame. “It blew up,” he told Sadat. “And Imam?” “He could not possibly live through such a fire.” “We must try -igain,” Sadat said. “We must find another Way to get a message through.” Kernel stared at him, and realized that his brisk tone of voice was phony. Sadat tried to light his pipe, but the hand holding the match was shaking too much. Kemel looked closely, and saw that Sadat had tears in his eyes. “The poor boy,” Sadat whispered. 7
Wolff was back at square one: he knew where the secrets were, but he could not get at them. He might have stolen another briefcase the way he bad taken the first, but that would begin to look, to the British, like a conspiracy. He might have thought of another way to steal a briefcase, but even that might lead to a security clampdown. Besides, one briefcase on one day was not enough for his needs: he had to have regular, unimpeded access to secret papers. That was why he was shaving Sonja’s pubic hair. Her hair was black and coarse, and it grew very quickly. Because she shaved it regularly she was able to wear her translucent trousers without the usual heavy, sequined GString on top. The extra measure of physical freedom-and the persistent and accurate rumor that she had nothing on under the trousers-had helped to make her the leading belly dancer of the day. Wolff dipped the brush into the bowl and began to lather her. She lay on the bed, her back propped up by a pile of pillows, watching him suspiciously. She was not keen on this, his latest perversion. She thought she was not going to like it. Wolff knew better. He knew how her mind worked, and he knew her body better than she did, and he wanted something from her. He stroked her with the soft shaving brush and said: “I’ve thought of another way to get into those briefcases.” “What?” He did not answer herimmediately. He put down the 78 THE KEY TO REBECCA 79