Read Online The Rainy Day Man: Contemporary Romance (Suspense and Political Mystery Book 1) by Amnon Jackont - Free Book Online

I went down to the kitchen and asked for a sandwich.  The cook, who was also in charge of the stores, sold me a packet of cigarettes.  The courtyard gate was open.  A soldier was listening to a transistor and reading an old newspaper.  I stood beside him, watching the passing cars.  I thought about my man, still unknown.  Had he passed by me in one of those cars?  At about nine I saw the Rolls Royce heading west.  The top was up.  The boy was driving.  I recognized him by his shock of fair hair.  Half an hour later he came by in the other direction.  Someone was sitting beside him.  Was it a woman?
                  It was not the first time I had found myself in a remote place, alone, somewhat tense and deeply involved in the lives of others.  But this time I had no identity with which to cover myself.  I was myself, Danny Simon..

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
    I was not yet impatient. The following days, which marked some festival or commemoration, provided an excuse for waiting.  Work stopped in the village.  Processions left from the church and wended their way to sacred trees and graves which were scattered over the mountain.  My man, it could be assumed, was in one of them, too experienced and wise to reveal himself before life returned to normal.
                  Tel Aviv had not made contact either.  Perhaps they assumed that the connection had not yet been established, or they were working slowly, calculatedly, preparing my mission down to the last detail. 
                  Scheckler was the only one who ventured guesses.  With rapid, hopeful sentences, he enveloped my presence with endless speculations:  "...It's unusual for someone like you to suddenly appear in a place like this.  There's got to be a reason.  Everything that's happening along the coast is just a diversion, isn't it?  The real action's going to be here.  Whoever controls the mountains controls all of Lebanon...  That's what the paratroops said before they left.  Where are they now, the paratroops?  Hiding somewhere?  Waiting for the order?  You can tell me..."
         The attention he lavished on me constituted royal favor, as it were.  He was the bureaucratic governor of the place, the brain and to a certain extent the leader too.  He was the only one who knew his way around the maze of forms, rules and regulations.  On the basis of the paragraphs he cited, leave time, activity time and the pace of life were determined.  His orders, which included a plethora of military abbreviations and initials, protected the officer in charge of the repair shop from having to contend with over thirty homesick drivers and mechanics.  Scheckler provided them with a faithful copy of the culture which they were used to, turning the repair shop into something very Israeli in character:  an island of activity in what was regarded as a sea of rural indolence.
                  Sheckler also saw to it that our evenings were filled. With great ceremony he moved silhouettes of tanks and tiny infantrymen across the map on the office wall, according to information that came from day-old censored versions of the newspapers.  I could not help but be swept along as unwilling adviser.  My silences were interpreted as secretiveness, my embarrassed ignorance as modesty.  My aura was enhanced by the resourcefulness of an unknown clerk, who sent an envelope to Dura addressed to me with an official stamp on it.  Predictably, it was Scheckler who brought it to me.
                  "I think your instructions have come." 
                  He was wrong.  It was my pay slip.
                  Something, perhaps the way I pushed the envelope into the desk drawer, brought us back to the events of a few days ago. 
                  "The priest," Scheckler said, "every time he passes our gate with a procession, he peers in… maybe he's waiting for his