Eric Ambler, creator of suspense, part 2

Eric Ambler wrote Background to Danger in the late 1930s on the eve of World War 2. Forty years later he was still demonstrating his talent for creating suspense with a slow buildup of dread, giving the reader one little tidbit of information and then another and another until suddenly the protagonist is in a situation of great danger for which there is no obvious escape.

The Levanter was written in the early 1970s. It takes place in the Middle East of that time. It starts in Beirut, where we are introduced briefly to Salah Galed, a Palestinian terrorist, murderer, and extortionist who is so dreaded even the PLO want him dead. Arab governments hunt him. He hides in an abandoned medieval fort in the mountains outside of Beirut. This is Ambler’s first fact, and it is allowed to sit there in the reader’s mind while the narrative shifts to the protagonist, Michael Howell.

Howell runs his family business, a small company based in Cyprus that acts as a selling agent across the Middle East, and owns factories in Syria that, in partnership with the Syrian government, manufactures, among other things, batteries. Howell has arrived in Damascus to check on his business concerns. At his office he learns something concerning: someone in his battery factory has been spending a great deal of money on an expensive order of absolute alcohol, even though this substance is not needed in the manufacture of batteries. Ambler has added the next salient fact.

Ambler lets that sit for a while as he spends a great deal of time describing the history of Howell’s family business, and in some detail, his business dealings with the socialist oriented Syrian government. Then a new fact: aside from absolute alcohol, the battery factory is receiving shipments of Mercury. The chemist Howell hired to supervise quality control at the factory is a Jordanian chemist named Issa. He was a recommendation from the Syrian government and Howell hired him even though he was caught lying about his education, or lack thereof, and his qualifications.

When he learns about the Mercury, Howell becomes worried. Even though it is late at night, he sets out unannounced with his assistant (and lover) Teresa, to the factory to check out the inventory.

The factory is well out of town in an isolated and deserted area. It is a former police headquarters from French colonial days and is surrounded by an impenetrable high wall. To get in he must drive through a padlocked iron fence. Instead, he leaves his car outside the fence, and he and Teresa go on foot through a padlocked chain-link gate. He re-locks the gate behind him. He is now locked inside the factory grounds.

The watchman he hired is supposed to be there at the entrance but isn’t. He sees lights on in the office and in the laboratory. He hears voices. At this time of night no one should be in there, not even the watchman. He spies through a window. There is his chemist Issa, apparently lecturing a group of men taking notes. The lecture is about chemistry. Howell realizes what it’s really about. But before he can do anything, two men with machine guns appear out of the darkness.

Issa recognizes his boss but is unapologetic. One of the gunmen slams Howell in the kidney. In agony, he is brought into the laboratory. The watchman is in there, sitting in a chair, also taking notes. Howell accuses Issa of bombmaking and fires him on the spot. He fires the watchman. He threatens to report them to the police.

The watchman hasn’t moved. Now he gets up. He speaks. He reveals to Howell his true identity. He is the terrorist Salah Galed.

Howell has stumbled upon the clandestine bombmaking operation of a dangerous terrorist who has killed before. Howell is the prisoner of that terrorist in the middle of the night in a deserted area outside of Damascus in a compound surrounded by padlocked gates and an impenetrable wall. No one knows he is there but his assistant who is also a prisoner. He is a known partner with and friend of the Syrian government, yet at the same time the terrorist activity is taking place in his factory by men he hired.

Once again Ambler has, through a series of small but accumulating facts, and the character’s deliberate responses to those facts, created a situation of extreme peril. Although the peril flows directly and logically from those facts and responses, it appears to be sprung on the reader suddenly and alarmingly. Ambler was truly a suspense writer of great skill.