The Alamut Ambush (26 page)

‘Well, I can think of a hell of a lot of better places than this to meet,’ he said grumpily. ‘After last time it’s bloody well asking for trouble. Just because you happen to live here – ‘

‘There’ll be no trouble this time, that I can guarantee you absolutely,’ Yaffe interrupted him.

‘Did you guarantee that last time?’

‘That was — ‘ Yaffe sounded irritated rather than defensive ‘– bad luck.’

‘It was somebody’s carelessness.’

Undeniably it was somebody’s carelessness, whatever Yaffe said. But it obviously wasn’t Yaffe’s carelessness, because no one was allowed to make that sort of mistake twice – least of all, Roskill told himself thankfully, in the Israeli service. Which meant that if Yaffe said there was nothing to worry about, there was no percentage in getting flustered.

‘I agree it’s a poor place from the security angle.’ Yaffe was conciliatory now. ‘Not a place I would have chosen, even though I live here. But you’ll just have to take my word for its security today.’

Perhaps Shapiro’s men were lurking behind every bush. If so they were skilled woodsmen; but then the Israelis did most things competently these days.

‘Who did choose it then?’

‘Razzak did, indirectly — it’s rather unfortunate, but I believe he’s been having quite a lot of trouble ducking shadows. They’ve been sticking to him like leeches.’

Majid, presumably. There was a strong suspicion in Roskill’s mind now that the handsome captain might be one of Hassan’s Watchers.

‘I think the real trouble was that he couldn’t shake them off without making them more suspicious,’ Yaffe continued thoughtfully. ‘And the more he shook them, the more suspicious they’d get of course. That was why he set up that meeting near Newhaven when he was already en route to Paris – ‘

‘Which didn’t work too well!’

Yaffe shrugged. ‘It might have been worse.’

‘So you think!’ Roskill thought bitterly of Alan taking his early morning gallop. ‘And that was only because Hassan’s man ran into one of our chaps. So what makes you so sure they can’t do better this time?’

‘This time?’ Yaffe frowned. ‘Squadron Leader, this is
our
territory and
our
meeting.’

Roskill stared sullenly at the leaf-strewn path at his feet. It was as full of holes as gruyere cheese, full of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. Yet the Israeli was utterly confident – and so had been the Egyptian the day before when Audley had insisted in coming in on the final meeting.

And damn it – David Audley had been confident too. They were all so goddamn confident now.

‘And you see – ‘ said Yaffe, suddenly more cheerful again ‘ – we rather think the heat’s gone off Razzak now. With Majid on his way – ‘

‘Majid gone?’

‘Of course, you wouldn’t know that. He flew out last night. A sudden urgent family crisis.’

So that was it! And there’d be others like Majid across the Mediterranean and through the Middle East who’d be called away from duty by sick relatives and unforeseen family crises and every other excuse in the book to their final briefing in Alamut. It was no more than the expected pattern, after all. But it was a relief nevertheless to come up with one sound reason for this relaxation of tension.

‘Mind you,’ said Yaffe, ‘I do still agree with you about this place.’ He waved a hand at the woods around them. ‘But you can blame the Egyptians for that. They’re rather sensitive about meeting us, and they insisted it had to be well out of London.’

There was another distant rattle of machine-gun fire.

Yaffe grinned. ‘In the peace and quiet of the English countryside.’

‘What the devil is all that shooting?’

‘That’s the Territorial Army – or whatever you call it now – up on the Mereden Range,’ Yaffe’s seriousness seemed to melt. ‘Every Sunday morning they have it for several hours. Then they give it to us.’

Roskill looked at Yaffe in astonishment, whereupon the Israeli burst out laughing.

‘I don’t mean the Israeli army, Squadron Leader – the local Rifle Club, I mean.’ He patted the ancient golf bag over his shoulder. ‘I practise with the family heirloom every Sunday. It’s the only way an honest man can keep a gun licence in your law-abiding country. Sport – yes, self-defence – no!’

‘I still don’t see why they had to meet at all.’

‘Razzak and the Colonel?’ The boyish grin faded, and Yaffe nodded understandingly. ‘They insisted on that, too – it has to be face to face for the final agreement, just the two of them. I think when it comes to the final crunch they still don’t trust us– the only man they trust is Colonel Shapiro.’

In the end everything depended on Shapiro and Razzak. It was not really the logic of Israeli-Egyptian co-operation that was going to confound Hassan, because in real life the logical thing could usually be safely discounted; it was this million-to-one relationship between enemies.

‘I don’t know what he said to convince our people at home,’ Yaffe murmured, almost to himself. He looked at Roskill pensively. ‘It’s very easy to be enlightened when you’re not involved, Roskill. And when you don’t have to make the decisions that involve your survival. We don’t have that luxury – that’s why so many of us have got a Masada complex.’

‘A what?’

Yaffe shook his head pityingly. ‘You British always think you’re going to win the last battle, but we Jews expect to lose it – we’ve lost too many last battles. It takes a lot to trust an enemy when you feel like that.’

‘The Egyptians are trusting you as well.’

‘Not as much. We’re the ones taking the big risk if they want to double-cross us.’ Yaffe sighed. ‘Oh, I know we’ve been after Hassan too – and what Razzak’s given us fits in with our own information. And we can’t afford to have Hassan loose any more than they can. But our security’s a lot better than theirs. There’s a pretty good chance we could protect our people.’

Roskill felt in no mood to argue. But what Yaffe couldn’t see – and what Shapiro had seen – was that if Israeli security succeeded in protecting its leaders from assassination when the Arabs failed to protect theirs, nothing would convince the Middle Eastern countries that Israel wasn’t at the bottom of it all. And maybe Hassan had calculated that too.

The trees ahead of them were thinning. If Yaffe’s topography was right, the low ridge beyond the meadow just ahead was the vantage point from which they would be protediig the final rendezvous between Shapiro and Razzak, at which Audley was a self-invited observer. And there Alan would get the vengeance Roskill hadn’t dared to hope for – an overflowing measure of vengeance.

It was strange that revenge no longer seemed to matter so much now that it was in someone else’s hands. It was as though Alan had once more become no more than the victim of a tragic accident – or an innocent battle casualty among the thousands who had perished in a whole generation of Middle Eastern bloodshed. What made it futile was that it was not his quarrel: no one would carve the old ‘duke et decorum’ tag on his grave.

Roskill was suddenly reminded of the Latin words scratched in the Bunnock Street telephone kiosk, which he had not had the chance to put to Audley…

‘But we don’t really have any choice,’ Yaffe said philosophically. ‘We’ve either got to trust them or go on killing them, and I’m fed up with killing. I don’t ever want to – ‘

Yaffe’s words strangled in his throat. He jerked forward convulsively, shouldering his way in front of Roskill and plucking frantically at his coat as he did so. The golf bag swung outwards, striking Roskill a tremendous blow in the chest —

There was a chip of wood spinning in the air –

There was noise –

The spinning chip and the noise and the golf bag hitting him had all happened in the same fragment of time, and in that millisecond – that same millisecond – Roskill’s leg was swept from under him and Yaffe himself crashed back into him.

And someone cried out in agony and shock.

The trees whirled round him and the leaf-mould came up towards his face.

There was blackness and a terrible weight on his chest. Blackness and wetness and the weight on his chest that pressed him down, expelling all the air from his luags.

Can’t breath — dead — dying — the chip of wood spinning in the sunlight –

‘Are they dead?’

A voice a long way away.

A grunt. ‘At this range they are dead.’

Roskill wanted to cry out that he was not dead – maybe dying, but not dead. And maybe not dying if only someone would take the weight from his chest.

But that hoarse grunt and that voice had been familiar – appallingly recognisable. He thought: ‘If I cry out, if I move, then I
am
dead.’

‘Are you sure?’

An English voice.

Grunt. The known grunt.

‘Uzis make no mistakes. But we can make sure.’

A third voice, not English, not known. Roskill felt the hope draining out of him and the lethargy of the inevitable
coup de grace
taking its place.

‘My God!’ The English voice again, closer and trembling. ‘You’ve cut them to pieces!’

‘I told you – at this range – ‘

Hope flickered again. Roskill forced himself to take tiny, shallow breaths; it was difficult enough to breath at all with the whole world crushing him down into the ground.

‘No choice. They would have seen us, and they knew me – both of them.’ Contemptuous.

‘They would probably have recognised all of us.’ The third voice was matter-of-fact. ‘And the Jew was reaching for his gun anyway. It is unfortunate, but he is right.’

‘So what do we do now?’ The English voice still shook. ‘God! What a mess they’re in!’

‘We get them off the path. Then we go on.’

‘Go on? We leave them?’

‘We leave them until we find out what Razzak is doing and who he’s meeting. These two won’t go away.’

‘Someone may find them, damn it!’

‘Don’t panic.’

‘Panic?’ Anger overlaid the fear in the Englishman’s voice now. ‘There was to be no killing in England – that was an order! You can’t kill people here and walk away, can’t you understand that?’

‘We’re not going to walk away. When we’ve got what we came for, we’ll come back and deal with them. But Razzak comes first.’ The voice hardened. ‘How much time do we have, Jahein?’

‘He left five minutes ago – we have no time to spare.’

‘Oh, God!’ There was a sob in the English voice: the man was crumbling.

‘Look – ‘ The third voice softened now, as though its owner recognised the danger that lay in the Englishman’s collapse. Roskill strove to listen with a part of his mind, while the other part attempted to control his body – to make it lifeless. They already thought him dead, and half the possum’s trick was in the mind of the hunter…

The third voice was wheedling, justifying, explaining: Majid had been wrong to have been so sure Razzak was a harmless fool – the dead Jew was proof of that … so he had missed something, maybe during the Paris trip when he’d been alone with Razzak… he had been over-confident and careless. It was even possible he was treacherous, and if so it had been a blessing that they’d sent Jahein to watch too without telling him. But until they knew for certain they were all at risk now … and they needed him to operate the Shibasaki microphone –

‘ – We’ll just carry them off the path – down there – in the groundsheet. Here, Jahein – help me with the Jew.’

Roskill summoned up every last reserve of self-control: he mustn’t brace himself as the crushing weight was lifted off him, mustn’t breathe, mustn’t twitch… he must be dead!

‘Get his pistol, Jahein -‘

The weight was gone.

‘And get the other’s gun while we hide the Jew.’

There was a pause, and then a hand touched Roskkill’s shoulder, started tentatively to move him – and then stopped. There was a spasm of retching…

‘Well?’

‘He – he didn’t have one.’

‘Huh! Well, it wouldn’t have done him any good. Here – set the sheet beside him and we’ll roll him on to it.’

Unfeeling butcher’s hands rolling dead meat – Roskill flopped awkwardly, heavily and loosely as he guessed dead meat would flop. The sheet enclosed him like a shroud.

‘Hurry, now!’

There was a numbness in his leg and along his side — not pain, but numbness. That was the side on which he had fallen when Yaffe cannoned into him … As he was clumsily swung into the air, jumbled in the groundsheet, Roskill was suddenly fully aware at last that he had been hit, how badly he couldn’t tell. But it couldn’t be too badly, otherwise he wouldn’t be conscious – or did one retain consciousness as clear as this while shock kept the pain at bay?

The swinging stopped and he was thumped down and half rolled out of the sheet, face down again … They were scattering something over him, leaves or dead bracken…

Someone – not Jahein – spoke urgently in Arabic.

Silence. Merciful, life-giving silence.

He must not spoil it now: he must wait and let the silence flower into safety.

Roskill started to count slowly, first to one hundred – with an extra ten because he had a feeling he’d jumped from seventy to ninety. Then another slow hundred…

His eyes wouldn’t open: his eyelids seemed gummed together. Gently he eased his right hand towards his face and wiped them. He tried again: there was a small beetle, shiny black, exploring a twig six inches in front of him, and beyond that a wall of green. Somewhere close at hand a bird took flight, carrying its shattering alarm cry through the woods.

Roskill began to explore his body. The side was still numb, but he could twitch his toes inside his shoe. So far, so good.

With his right hand he began to feel gingerly down his back: it was soaked with blood – poor Yaffe’s blood. As if the thought focused his vision he saw just to his right the Israeli’s feet sticking out from under the edge of the groundsheet. He didn’t want to look any further
;
Yaffe must have taken most of that burst of fire…

He felt the bitter anger swell up in his throat – after all the warnings he had had, to be chopped down –

The thought was cut off dead as his hand touched an enormous crater in the left cheek of his backside — Christ! He’d been shot in the arse!