The Alamut Ambush (12 page)

‘Safe? Safe line?’ Audley repeated vaguely. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. But if it isn’t, then some poor devil’s been wasting an awful lot of time listening to nothing. What’s up?’

Roskill gritted his teeth. ‘I think I’m blown, for a start,’ he said. ‘Somebody recognised me at – at that meeting I went to.’

‘The Ryle do?’

Roskill beat his fist against the side of the telephone box. Audley had to be doing this deliberately.

‘You’re quite sure this line’s safe?’

‘I tell you – I haven’t a clue,’ said Audley. ‘But it doesn’t matter anyway. All that sort of thing is grossly exaggerated. Nobody’s got the manpower or equipment to tap phones just on the off-chance – they only tap when they’re sure. And if anyone’s on my line, God help them – they’ll have had a job breaking the code Faith uses when she orders her groceries. I tell you, Hugh, you’re all hagridden with bugging and half the time it’s a lot of cock!’

He snorted derisively down the line at Roskill. ‘And if they’ve got one of those voice-actuated things clipped on somewhere, how do they know we don’t know about it? We could be staging this for their sole benefit… So you were spotted. Well, who spotted you?’

Roskill carefully described the fat Arab.

‘A Lebanese?’ Audley demurred. ‘No, he’s certainly not a Lebanese. Before I was kicked out I’d already been sidetracked there for six months and I know all their top men – he can’t be all that new. But never mind: I’ll identify him for you tomorrow morning. It shouldn’t be difficult. Now – tell me about the Ryle Foundation. Obviously Cox was right about that!’

‘Yes, but – ‘ The trouble was that Havergal’s memory had proved suspiciously disappointing when it came down to hard identifications. The session had left him with the feeling that the old man had to some extent outsmarted him in the end, and he tried hard to conceal this now in reporting the dialogue.

But Audley merely grunted approvingly as he listened.

‘A neat line of reasoning – I think I’d like this Colonel Havergal of yours, Hugh. He was before my time, of course, but I can see why Fred would have wanted to get hold of him – if it was Fred. And I agree with you it might be Elliott Wilkinson he’s gunning for. The Arabs would be damn difficult to unseat with things as they are, but Wilkinson’s not quite invulnerable.’

‘You know him?’

‘I used to. But I didn’t know he was mixed up with the Ryle people. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that he’s up to no good, though.’

‘He’s pro-Arab?’

‘He isn’t pro anything – it wouldn’t be so bad if he was. He’s just old-fashioned anti-semitic. Thirty years ago he’d have ended up behind the wire on the Isle of Man – if he hadn’t got to Berlin first. Horrible bloody character. If it wasn’t Jews it’d be Catholics or blacks – if he’d lived in the sixteenth century he’d have been a champion witch-smeller. The devil of it is that he’s got some very close contacts with our Arab section now – too damn close. And Llewelyn trusts him, the fool.’

‘But there’s still nothing to connect him with Hassan. We’ve only got Cox’s instinct and a handful of names.’

‘Cox is a good man, Hugh. And we’ve got more than that now. Things are beginning to come together.’

‘Things?’

It was all very well for Audley to retire comfortably to his country seat to think beautiful, complicated thoughts while he, Roskill, crouched in smelly Bunnock Street.

‘I’ve been doing my homework, Hugh – catching up on Master Llewelyn.’

Llewelyn. Always the Welshman was uppermost in Audley’s thoughts. Alan Jenkins’s killers were probably a secondary consideration, a mere means to an end, whatever he might maintain. They were still each looking for revenge, but not the same revenge.

‘It seems he’s one of the errand boys between the Americans and the Russians at Jarring, the U.N. mediator – strictly an errand boy, whatever he likes to think. But a busy one. I can see how mortifying he’d find being blown up just now, when things are moving.’

‘He said there was a chance of peace in the Middle East.’

‘I doubt that. But there
is
going to be a cease-fire, that’s certain – the Rogers Plan is definitely on.’

The radio that morning had seemed very much less certain, but Audley obviously had better sources.

‘It’s all cut and dried. The Egyptians will accept first, and the Russians are going to lean on the Syrians … Then the Israelis will argue among themselves – that’s probably laid on so that the Gahal right-wing bloc can be kicked out of the government – but they’ll agree in the end. It’s all set for early August. Myself, I don’t think it’ll go as smoothly as – as my informant thinks.’

‘So what’s all this got to do with us?’

‘With us? Well, in the long run God only knows what will happen – I’ve been out too long to make any useful guesses. I suppose it depends on what sort of deal the Americans and the Russians have cooked up … and whether the Middle East hawks can queer things … But in the short run they’re just coming up to the maximum risk period. Once the cease-fire’s agreed, maybe it can stand up to a certain amount of double-crossing, I don’t know. But just
before –
that’s right now – this is the time the guerrilla groups ought to be trying to wreck it.’

Audley paused. ‘And there’s one thing that’s gingering up the Great Powers – there’s a rumour that Nasser is a sick man. The word is that when he was in Russia earlier this year the doctors there told him to take things very easy. But the way doings are, he can’t, and that’s what’s got the Russians moving – they don’t want peace, but they want to take the steam out of things just in case.’

‘Whereas Hassan wants trouble?’

‘Exactly. In fact I think that’s what Llewelyn’s been expecting. And not just him either – there’s an unofficial clampdown in Israel at the moment, and Egypt’s on the alert too. There are a lot of nervous people in the Middle East just now, Hugh, and that’s a fact!’

It was all high-powered, big league stuff and it made Roskill’s own research seem a schoolboy enterprise in comparison. But it didn’t get them any closer to knowing what to do next.

‘There are some bloody nervous people here in London, too, David,’ Roskill reminded Audley. ‘It’s them we’ve got to worry about.’

‘Ah – I was coming to them. There are two men who could really tell us what all this is about – Jake Shapiro and the Egyptian, Razzak.’

‘Did Razzak get the early boat from Newhaven?’

‘If he did it took him a remarkably long time to get to his eribassy in Paris. He seems to have lost a few hours on the way somewhere, that’s certain.’ Audley paused. ‘As a working theory I agree with your reading of things this morning. It’s far too much of a coincidence, all three of them being roughly in the same place. It does sound as though Razzak met someone down there, and Shapiro was watching them. And one way or another your friend Jenkins saw something he wasn’t meant to. And if it was big enough to get Jake out of bed that early it could be a killing matter right enough!’

‘You still think Razzak met Hassan, whoever Hassan may be?’

‘Not Hassan himself – that was never likely. But maybe one of his top men. Razzak didn’t go walking on the Sussex Downs for fun – that’s for sure. The trouble is that we don’t know enough about the man; he’s new in London and I daren’t go checking on him in records in case someone gets wind of what I’m doing.’

‘I thought you knew all the brass,’ Roskill needled him.

‘Blast it, Hugh – I do – but – ‘ Audley stuttered for a moment. ‘That’s the whole trouble: he’s not really a coming man. Maybe he was ten years ago, but from Suez to the June War he was just a field officer – a tank man. He had a regiment on the frontier in ‘67.’

‘Then you do know something about him.’

‘I do,’ said Audley rather reluctantly. ‘But I only know what Jake Shapiro himself told me when we had lunch last week – the day Razzak’s appointment came through, apparently.’

‘Shapiro spoke about him?’

Audley bridled. ‘It was just – conversation. Jake and I don’t talk shop much any more. We haven’t got anything useful to say to each other.’

‘But what did he say?’ Roskill persisted.

‘He said Razzak was… brave.’

From Audley it sounded strange, almost a criticism.

‘Brave?’

Audley seemed to shrug down the telephone. ‘When the Israelis were beating the stuffing out of the Egyptians in ‘
67
Razzak was one of those who dug their heels in – apparently he put up a real fight.’

One of the hard-faced, bitter ones, he’d be. Roskill remembered the blank, irreconcilable stares he had noticed at the Ryle reception. For men like that any talk of cease-fire would be a betrayal, and that brought Razzak shoulder to shoulder with Hassan.

‘But I’ll be able to tell you more about him soon,’ Audley went on. ‘I’m having breakfast with a man who knows all about him tomorrow morning.’

Roskill grunted. That, of course, was half the secret of Audley’s success: if he didn’t know something, he could usually be relied on to know someone who would.

‘I should have thought Shapiro would be your man. He knows Razzak – and he was down there at Firle. If you can get your hooks into him – ‘

‘Nobody gets their hooks into Jake. The best we can hope for is that he’ll be willing to trade with you, Hugh.’

‘You’, not ‘me’! Roskill groaned. This was the same convenient formula Audley had invoked earlier at the Queensway Hotel, but after his objection to it Roskill had hoped it would be allowed to die a natural death.

‘Hell, David – he’s your buddy. I hardly know the fellow. You go trade with him.’

‘I want to keep out of it as long as I can, Hugh. As soon as Jake knows I’m involved he’ll be likely to raise the price.’

‘But you’re a friend of his.’

‘Friendship doesn’t stretch this far. But don’t worry – he’s not likely to ask you anything about aircraft. Missiles, maybe, but most likely tanks, and I can get you that Anglo-Belgian report on the Scorpion and the Scimitar. Offer him the inside information on that welded aluminium armour of theirs. He’ll be sure to like that’

Audley sounded suspiciously like the Foreign Office man who thought no one would know anything about desalination.

‘But supposing he doesn’t?’

‘Give him the Ryle Foundation, then – I’m damn certain he’ll go for
that
.’

It was lamentably clear that Audley was perfectly prepared to see Roskill compromise himself with anybody and everybody in the higher cause of his own tortuous designs, so there was no point in prolonging the conversation. Any moment now Isobel would be arriving beside the car, and he hated the idea of her standing waiting for him in the shadows of Bunnock Street.

‘Where do I find Shapiro, then? And don’t forget I’ve got to go down to Firle tomorrow morning, either.’

‘That’s just it, Hugh. You can reach him tonight: he’ll be in a fly-blown club called Shabtai’s in Silchester Lane – just behind St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He’ll be there about ten thirty – he’s currently wooing a doctor in Bart’s.’

‘A doctor?’

‘A female doctor, man – there’s nothing odd about Jake. He’s ambitiously normal, you might say. His sense of humour’s neanderthal, but he’s a decent chap if you don’t try to double-cross him too obviously. Just don’t let him bully you, and whatever you do don’t try and keep up with him when he’s drinking – he’s got a leather liver.’

Razzak and Shapiro sounded equally formidable in their different ways, Roskill reflected unhappily. They were both tank men and therefore had to be mad to start with – anyone who chose to enclose himself in a slow, vulnerable steel coffin couldn’t be wholly normal, whatever Audley might say.

He could only hope that Audley had guessed correctly, and that he was about to enlist the aid of the right madman.

By the time he had returned to the car he had managed to convince himself that it could hardly be so very far from the mark. If it was based on what looked like a string of coincidences, that was in its favour. Strings of coincidences were like unicorns and mermaids – they simply didn’t exist in nature, and sensible men treated them with suspicion.

Alan had been killed deliberately and Alan had been at Firle when Shapiro and Razzak had passed so close to each other. And certainly, if anyone was mixed up with Hassan it would be Razzak – and if anyone had reason enough to spy on them it was Shapiro.

Yet for all that he would have preferred to have met the Israeli after his expedition to Firle, not before it. He had great hopes of Firle: if there had been any sort of meeting there, it had probably been set up in the belief that those wide open downs were a private place. But that was a very typical mistake a foreigner and a townsman might make; in reality there were very often watching eyes in the countryside, ready to note strange faces which would have passed unnoticed in the anonymity of a crowded city street.

Perhaps no one else had seen as much as Alan had, but the chances were at least fair that someone else had seen something.

There was a click from the passenger’s door and a rapid tapping on the window – Isobel’s characteristic tap.

He reached over and unlocked the door, and Isobel slid hurriedly on to the seat.

‘Start the car, Hugh,’ she said urgently. ‘Drive off!’

Roskill frowned at her: Isobel was not totally unflappable, but this urgency had the sound of fear in it.

‘There are two men in the churchyard watching you,’ she whispered. They’re just out of the lamplight – I took the shortcut and I almost bumped into them. I’m certain they were watching you – let’s get away from here, Hugh, please.’

He fought the urge to turn around. If they were watching him from just inside the churchyard, beyond the radius of the last lamp, then he wouldn’t be able to see than anyway. Whereas underneath the lamp beside the car his every movement would be clear to them.

He looked, ahead down Bunnock Street, which stretched empty and malevolent before him. Isobel could hardly be imagining things: there was nothing else here for anyone to watch. And her instinct for flight was simple common sense – Bunnock Street was not a place to linger in when seventy-five yards and five seconds away, beyond the curve of the terraced houses, was the safety of the main road.