The Alamut Ambush (28 page)

Majid!

So Majid was the young man with the hot-headed little sister – Razzak’s man inside Alamut.

That
was why Razzak and Shapiro had been so scared, so bloody scared – yet so confident today that Hassan wasn’t on to them .. . he’d never been on to them at all: so long as Majid had been ‘watching’, nothing of value ever reached Hassan …

So it didn’t matter what Alan had seen, but only that Majid’s lies about the Paris trip must never be exposed. For if they were blown, Majid was blown – and when Majid was blown there would be no Alamut flight, and Razzak’s chance would be gone forever!

Oh, Razzak had been good, and never leaked Majid’s true role to anyone! But he’d not been quite good enough all the same, because he’d fallen into the oldest pitfall of all: he’d despised his old dog, Jahein – his simple peasant soldier who was Hassan’s extra insurance, unknown even to Majid. And in the end it had been the faithful old dog that had the rabid bite, not the sleek hound at his side!

And yet it had been the sleek hound that had made Alan’s death a necessity.

Roskill patted the rifle. They wouldn’t be long now. The meeting would be over, and they’d be waiting for him to trot up obediently. And then they’d begin to worry.

All he had to do was to wait, all alone with his thoughts and his handiwork; resolved now, all those contradictions and inconsistencies he’d pushed unresolved to the back of his mind. His desire for vengeance had blinded him then, but now everything but vengeance was stripped away.

Another wave of pain, above the steady throb of it, brought tears to his eyes. Much more of that and he’d pass out. Think of something nice then.

Isobel.

High time he resolved that, too. What he had was the ashes of happiness, genteel planned adultery. But in a flash of despairing self-knowledge he knew that he could never give up Isobel, and no well-placed rifle bullet could cut that knot satisfactorily …

Think about Harry. That debt would be paid, if only indirectly, through Alan. No
wergild
for them…

One Roskill seemed to float away, to look down on the other one, the blood-stained, mud-caked wreck cradling the rifle and shivering in the sunlight.

The detached Roskill could see clearly. He could see the field. He could see the four of them at the stile. He could see Butler clap his field-glasses to his eyes and could hear – almost hear – his blasphemies.

A word to the others, and Butler was charging the meadow –

‘Over here. Jack!’ The wreck croaked.

Butler swerved past the bodies without a second glance.

‘Hugh – !’

‘It’s okay, Jack – I – look worse – than I am… Got all three of ‘em, Jack — pow, pow, pow!’

‘Hugh, don’t talk!’ Butler’s eyes compassionate, then doubtful. ‘Three?’

Must get this bit right.

‘One – over by the fence, Jack. But call the others, Jack – got something important for them – get them now!’

Butler signalled urgently.

Now.

‘In the woods, over the stream – Yaffe – help
him
…’

Never do for Jack to be around for the kill.

Butler stood up, glancing quickly from the men coming across the field to the wood.

‘They’re coming, Hugh lad. They’ll be here in a minute. We’ll have you out of here soon.’

Then Butler was gone, splashing through the stream.

‘You do that, Jack,’ Roskill murmured to himself, sliding the rifle forward, ‘you do that.’

The barrel swept the field. A good field of fire, no doubt about that – all three in sight and in the sights if he could only hold the damn thing still!

Left – David Audley!

Bastard, bastard, clever bastard, David! Just how long have you known what really happened at Firle? Did you guess at the Queensway? But all the time you wanted to know
why
, and you couldn’t have me running amok to spoil the game! So you headed me off and confused me with half-truths while you found out.

You clever bastard – even when you were bullying Razzak you were also telling him that he couldn’t trust me, so he had to trust
you
… I was the threat, wasn’t I?

Guilty, David. But no bullet for you – what else could I expect from you, David?

Centre – Muhammed Razzak.

You knew – and it would have been your order that killed Alan, Razzak – because you couldn’t have your brave boy Majid blown before you let him take the Aleppo flight to Alamut. Is that what you’ve done, Razzak? Did you tell him where he’s going? Just to make his cover perfect, did you forget to tell him about the Phantom?

Guilty, Raszak
. But no bullet for you, Razzak – because you’re quite a man — and you would have gone yourself if they’d have taken you!

They were very near now.

Jake Shapiro.

No style in killing, you said, Jake — but this is my style: an ex-British, ex-Arab, ex-Israeli rifle – just right for you if I can hold it still one second more…

You had the means and the motive and the opportunity, Jake, and everything said it was you from the start:
if he wanted you dead, you’d be dead
, they said.

Razzak wouldn’t have had the men or the know-how. It had to be done, so it had to be your kill – just like that poor bugger on the wire had to be mine!

The man on the wire …

Oh, sweet Christ! thought Roskill: I killed that man for the same reason you killed Alan – the same reason, the same risk, the same necessity.

The same act.

The same guilt!

Roskill tried to concentrate and failed. But the effort took his last shred of energy: the rifle barrel wavered, then sank into the grass as he fainted.

BEIRUT
, Wednesday.

Wreckage of the Trans-Levant air liner which has been missing since Sunday night has been sighted by an Iraqi Air Force plane near the Euphrates river.

An air force spokesman said that the wreckage appeared to be scattered over a wide area of the desert, and there was no sign of survivors.

Palestine guerrilla sources in Damascus have blamed the crash on Israeli agents, but there has so far been no official comment from Jerusalem. It is pointed out unofficially, however, that telephone threats had earlier been made against flights from Syria to Iraq by an extremist Kurdish organisation, the F.K.L.

The aircraft, which was on a scheduled flight from Aleppo to Mosul, carried 37 passengers and a crew of four. Among the passengers was Mr. Elliott Wilkinson, the well-known Arabist and a vice-president of the Ryle Memorial Trust.

The End