The jetty was an extension of the Al-Fatih Highway, jutting into the harbor. New but already dirty, paint-stained, chipped where something massive had run into it. The smell of rotting fish hung in the air. Within its concrete elbow a few shabby craft were tied up, but obviously most were absent. He’d noticed the fishing dhows, bound out early on their daily routine, returning at the setting of the sun. They reminded him of his own boats, in Sudan, and for a moment he wondered if the exhaust in Number Five was holding where he’d welded it… Workers in coveralls were repairing a piling below him. They ignored him after one glance. A trim, erect figure in gray suit and white shirt, looking across the water to the much larger jetty to the east.
The warship was huge and intimidating. Built for the deep sea. It looked very dangerous and very powerful. Its sides went up and up for many meters. To guns and antennas and electronic equipment. Figures stood on a stage, repainting the side. They wore hard hats and at this distance he could not tell if they were men or women, American or Arab.
He went to stand on the far side of a concrete building, placing it between him, and the workers, and the shore. Taking a camera out of his jacket, he snapped several photographs. Slipped it back, then stood watching for several more minutes.
He was about to leave when a small craft appeared from behind the jetty. He unfolded his paper. Looking down at it, then at his watch, as if waiting for someone, he observed the boat, a gray inflatable with three men in it, as it patrolled slowly around the ship. It turned in his direction, and he tensed. But then it turned away. It swept out a wide circle, accelerating, throwing up waves that rocked across the harbor and plashed on the rocky riprap at his feet. A few hundred meters out, it throttled back again. One of the men in it, in camouflage fatigues, was searching the surface with field glasses.
He folded the newspaper with a snap and walked briskly toward the shore. Turned right, and after a brisk march along the waterfront, de-touring inland through narrow streets to avoid a repair dock, men chipping barnacles off the hulls of dhows, came out again onto the harbor front. He walked briskly down it, noting a cruise liner moored across from the warship.
“Excuse me, sir. Sir!”
“Yes?” He turned impatiently.
She was in a white uniform and a white cap. A pistol hung at her belt. A dark-haired woman no taller than he was. He was so startled and disgusted he did not at first react. Then he took off his sunglasses. Americans did not trust people in sunglasses. He said in his best English, “Good morning. I’m Doctor al-Ulam. I’ve been called to the cruise ship, there? May I pass, please?”
“Doctor?” She glanced at the white towering walls of the liner. Then back at him. “Where’s your bag?”
He smiled. “I don’t carry a bag, miss. The ship’s well equipped. I’m a specialist.”
He saw she didn’t, but that she’d let him pass. “Well… I guess that’s all right.”
He thanked her and went on. Past the smaller warship, the one with the Rising Sun flag of the Japanese. Putting his dark glasses back on so he could examine the American without seeming to.
It grew larger as he neared. The bow was a great wedged blade of gray-painted steel. It was painted with strange ghostly numbers, as if meant to be invisible at a distance. Behind it the upper works mounted up, and up, till they terminated in spinning devices so high he could hardly make them out. The ship’s voice came to him, a menacing hum of blowers and machinery. A crane idled, engine rumbling. Men in coveralls and uniforms stood back as it slowly lowered a long box to a flat area he recognized after a moment as a landing pad. A metal bridge led up to the deck. Uniformed guards glanced his way as he went by, then away.
The great machine looked armored and invulnerable. The Crusaders were proud in their strength. But so had the unbelievers been in the battle of Badr, the battle of the Trench, the battle of Yarmuk.
He walked on, noting with hate the flaunting of their gaudy flag. The only weapon he saw, however, was a cannon, and it did not seem large. There must be other weapons, hidden. He saw no sentries other than those at the metal bridge. And in the inflatable boat; but he didn’t see it now.
He turned away, and climbed the steps into the hull of the cruise ship. He asked if the captain would be interested in hiring a well-qualified physician. After some time he was told the ship already had a doctor. He thanked them quietly, looking out over the bay from the lofty deck.
There was the inflatable, idling a hundred meters off. He saw no weapons, though.
Then he smiled. One man had a fishing rod in his hands. As he watched, he cast, then fixed the rod in a holder. The motor purred and the boat eased past, trailing a V-shaped wake.
