'What exactly does that say?' Eleanor asked.

She can't really have meant that since the document was written in both Arabic and French and a lot of legal pomposities besides, so I gave her the quick-lunch version: 'It's a sort of court order -asaisie-conservatoire-attaching the aeroplane. Freezing it here.'

'So we don't fly?'

'Not in this aircraft.' I looked at the deputy airport manager – we were sitting in his office – and asked: 'Does this affect any of us personally?'

'Not that I know of.' He was a thin, good-looking man with a sharp widow's peak of black hair, and a half-apologetic, half-intrigued attitude to our troubles.

I looked back at the document. 'It's bloody silly. He claims Miss Braunhofowes him money so he gets an order seizing somebody else's aeroplane.'

The deputy manager spread his hands in mock surrender. 'Please, it does not help to tell me. You must tell the court.'

'On Saturday?' Ken said.

I said: 'Aziz obviously wasn't keeping court-room hours. He got hold of some judge at home-'

'There was one at the party,' Eleanor chipped in.

'Easier yet. And he convinces him he's got a claim and he gets anex parte order.'

'What is that?' Mitzi asked.

'Without the other side needing to be there,' Ken said. 'But hell, a court won't give an injunction or order unless there's a proper case being brought.' He looked at Mitzi. 'You haven't been served a summons or something like that?'

She shook her head.

I said: 'It seems that doesn't work in French law. Thissaisie-conservatoire lapses in five daysunless he's started an actionde recouvrement de dette by then. Is that right?'

The deputy manager nodded gently. 'Our civil code is still mostly the French pattern."

'But is it going to stick?' Eleanor demanded.

He smiled sadly at her chest. 'I am afraid I have to enforce it.'

Ken said: 'It's a plain bloody swindle.'

I stood up. 'Come on. Let the man get on deputy managing. We've got time for coffee now.'

So at takeoff time we were sitting in the airportcafé finishing a second breakfast, Eleanor frowning over a xeroxed copy of the order. 'As I see it, we just get hold of some lawyer to represent us-'

'On Saturday?' Ken said again.

'-and then get hold of this judge. I guess that's his signature at the bottom-'

'And he'll have gone fishing.'

'-and get the order lifted.' She gave Ken a stiff look, I nodded and began lighting a pipe. 'That's how it would go in London or New York, and Aziz would get his balls in solitary confinement for making a fool of the court – forgive the legal language. But this is Beirut. Aziz knows what he's doing: he wants us stuck here. We can run around until we turn blue and I bet we get no action for five days."

'What will he have done by then?' Mitzi asked. She looked a little pale, and I wasn't blaming her. She was the one Aziz was after; Ken and I were just obstacles and, on the morning's showing, not much of that.

I shrugged. 'I dunno. He must already have tried to get you arrested-' she went positively white; '-but even a Beirut judge probably wouldn't wear that.'

Eleanor was back studying the order. 'At least it shows how much he lent your father.'

'How much?' Mitzi asked shakily.

'Twelve thousand dollars, US.'

It didn't sound much, not in one way. In another, it sounded like the cost of space flight. 'Even if we'd got it, it isn't really what he wants. It's that document. Except if we could pay twelve thousand into the court they'd free the aeroplane.'

Ken suggested: 'Why not put up Eleanor as a bond? In Beirut she must be worth-'

She straightened her back, chin and breasts pointing a broadside at him. 'And why not your own mother?'

I said: 'Oh, he traded her in years back, when she still had some mileage left on-'

'For God's sake be serious! ' she snapped.

I slapped my hands on the table, tilted back my chair and said: 'Right, one serious thought coming up. We catch the lunchtkne flight for Cyprus. Let him have the aeroplane – it isn't ours, anyway. In a way, that order's our safe-conduct. It implies he'd settle for the aeroplane, so if we give him that Ken shook his head. 'Hell, no, Roy. I just hate to let go of an aeroplane – and it won't look good on your reputation, bugging out so easy.'

He had a point there. 'So, let the girls take the flight. We stay here and see what we can do. It'll be more without you hanging on our sword arms.'

Eleanor looked momentarily wistful, then resigned herself. 'I guess that's the best idea."

Mitzi stilllooked worried.'Herr Aziz… he will not stop us leaving?'

He might try. One thing he'd almost certainly do was have a man sitting around the airport to see what we did next.

I slapped the table. 'Third great thought coming up. We give you back to the deputy manager; he'll get the tickets for you on the quiet. May I?' I leant across and undid another button on Eleanor's blouse. 'Now he wouldn't hand you over to God or the "Gestapo."

Ken and I lunched in one of the little Arabcafés up on the Comiche de Chourane by the new hotels built by and for the gulf oil sheikhs. It isn't the European end of town, but we wanted to stay clear of obvious places. We hadn't been followed from the airport, but they could have been so bad that they'd lost us by accident.

'After all,' I said, 'Aziz isn't a mobster. He doesn't have real professionals on his staff; he's just improvising with what he's got.'

'There's some hard boys around Beirut, and I don't mean those jazzy guerrilla groups.' We were eating a coldmezze sort of thing: spicy olives, pickled cucumbers, houmus, sliced Kafta sausage and other cold meats. It was pretty good, though maybe not as much as Ken thought it was. Anything that wasn't served with four stone walls around it still tasted like the day you lost your virginity.

'They're there,' I agreed, 'but Aziz himself wouldn't know them, and he might be careful not to know the people who do know them. He's doing all right in straight business and he'd screw himself if he went in for the narcotics and prostitution and stuff.'

He looked up from his plate, unconvinced. 'How d'you know he isn't in already?'

'Because he's too vulnerable. The boys in those trades don't believe in competition, and the easiest way to get rid of him would be to send out a whisper that hewas involved. He's got to talk to people like Hilton and Sheraton and Coca-Cola and any smell of dope-peddling and white-slavery would rub off on them. They'd be looking for a new contact man as from yesterday.'

Ken stuck an olive in his mouth and chewed it with grudging agreement. 'All right, so from nine to five he loves small animals and big children. What was he doing after hours last night?'

Thecafé doors swung open and a couple of well-built characters in bulging lightweight jackets stood looking coldly around. The waiters froze in a relaxed, familiar way, and everybody else gave one glance and then looked at their plates.

The bodyguards' eyes fixed on us, the obvious strangers. Ken's right hand crawled on the table.

I hissed: 'Keep still. You know the form in this town.'

He nodded and relaxed. A small, tubby man in a blue silk suit and Arab head-dress walked in between the tough guys, and the proprietor made a small gesture towards a reserved corner table. The bodyguards watched us warily as they followed him across.

The room quickly got back to its normal murmuring and clattering. 'Cheap millionaire,' Ken commented. 'What were you saying about Aziz?'