The Levanter by Eric Ambler Read Free Book Online Page A

ones to talk to about nationalization of industry. How can we pay them if they nationalize us, eh? Watch and wait, my boy, watch and wait. It’s the only way.
    The temporizers, I thought, might be in for some surprises. I went my own way, exploring.
    Obviously, yet another application to the Central Bank for the release of our blocked funds would fail unless I could apply some sort of leverage. Just as obviously, the only kind of lever that would work with the Central Bank would be one operated by its masters in the government. What I needed, then, was an endorsement of my application by a government department. It would have to be a high-level endorsement, too, preferably ministerial. What did Ihave to offer in exchange for such a thing?
    At that point, the catch phrase, “If you can’t lick ‘em, join em,” came to mind. After that, once I had accepted the fact that I might do better working with the government people than by attempting artfully to outwit them, I made progress. The problem was then simplified. How could I join them in a way which would ultimately benefit us both?
    I did a lot of thinking, some intensive market research, and formulated the plan.
    In ‘63 I was not as used to negotiating with government officials as I am now. If I had been, I would not have given the proposition I was out to sell them even a fifty-fifty chance of success. Perhaps the fact that I was only thirty-two at the time, and consumed by the need to prove myself, helped. I was very aggressive in those days, too, and, I am afraid, given to finger-wagging exhortation when opposed.
    My first encounter with the decision-making machinery in Damascus was a meeting with two bureaucrats, one from the Ministry of Finance, where the meeting took place, and one from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Commerce. They listened to me in silence, accepted copies of an aide-mémoire which summarized my proposals in veiled, but what I believed to be intriguing, terms, and indicated politely that they had other appointments.
    A month went by before I was summoned by letter to a meeting at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Commerce. This meeting was in the office of a senior official to whom I had once been introduced at a Greek Embassy picnic. Also present were the two bureaucrats who had interviewed me before, and a younger man who was introduced as representing the recently created Department of Industrial Development. After the usual preliminary politenesses had been exchanged the senior officials invited this younger man to question me on the subject of my proposals.
    His name was Hawa - Dr. Hawa.
     
    My subsequent dealings with Dr. Hawa have been the subject of much misrepresentation. He himself has lately seen fit to assume the role of innocent betrayed, and to accuse me publicly of every crime from malfeasance to murder on the high seas. Under the circumstances it may be thought that no account I give of our relationship can be wholly objective.
    I disagree. I have every intention of remaining objective. As far as I am concerned the only effect of his diatribes has been to relieve me of any lingering disposition to pull my punches.
    Dr. Hawa is a thin, hard-faced man with tight lips and dark, angry eyes; obviously a tough customer, and particularly formidable when met for the first time. Iremember that it was something of a relief to find that he was a chain-smoker; I knew then that he wasn’t as formidable as he appeared. Though we later became better acquainted I never discovered the academic discipline to which his doctorate belonged. I do know that he had a degree in law from the University of Damascus and that he later spent a year or two in the United States under a post-graduate student-exchange arrangement. There, I gather, he managed to pick up a Ph.D. from some easygoing academic institution in the Midwest. His English is fluent, with North American intonations. However, that first conversation was conducted mainly in Arabic with