The Glory Boys (43 page)

Endless, indistinct, faces played through his vision, sometimes blotting out and obscuring the reality of the plane.

The faces of his friends, of those who believed in him.

The plane was waved inside the cordon of soldiers.

More armoured cars were awaiting it, policemen beginning to scurry, and the wind brought the talk of their radios, faint but recognizable. The soldiers faced out of their arc, stern-eyed now, keyed up, expectant. The nearest was barely twenty feet from Famy. A corporal, two blackened V-stripes on his tunic arm, self-loading rifle, water bottle, emergency field dressing strapped to his webbing belt.

Famy saw his hands as they cradled the rifle. Finger on the lip of the trigger guard, thumb for the safety catch, a movement of a second and the gun was armed, deadly.

The soldier did not return his stare, gazed through him, used to being looked at. The Guards always were. And his position, the square of concrete on which he stood, had chosen to stand, made him Famy's opponent. As inconsequential as that, where a man placed his feet. That decided whether he would kill or be killed.

'Juno turning into Hatton perimeter entrance, sir.'

Corporal on the Land-Rover radio set to his company commander. The major raised his hand in acknowledgement. Bloody stupid names they always gave these affairs.

'Sunray getting it on the net?' the major asked.

'All getting it, sir, not just the CO, the convoy's hooked into all stations.'

'Put out the Instant Readiness.'

'Roger, sir.'

The major saw beyond his cordon a line of civilian trucks and cars and lorries held back a quarter of a mile from the plane. Have to wait till the show was over. No non-involved persons inside his line, perfect field of fire around three-sixty degrees. Just about perfect, anyway.

Only the corner hangar of the British Airways cargo complex jutting in and breaking the geometry of his protective circle. Saw the loaders there, standing and sitting and watching, anything for a chance not to work.

Shouldn't have been there, but no harm done. The corporal dominating them. No need to throw his weight about, make a scene, have them shifted. Saw the turban, creased and clean. It stood out in the light, the sun playing on it.

He turned toward the VIP suite past which the convoy would come.

The cars came fast down the straight line of the inner perimeter road, motorcycles in front, and all oncoming traffic blocked far ahead. Sokarev saw the arrowed signs to the right marking the route to the VIP suite.

Jimmy said, 'Just about there now, sir. No farewells out on the tarmac. The car goes right up to the steps and you're to be straight on to them. Don't stop. Don't hesitate. Just go straight on up. Inside don't look out of the windows, just get into the seat. They're not going to hang about, you'll be straight off.'

Sokarev did not reply. Jimmy could see the nerves on his ageing face, wrinkles accentuated, eyes wide open, staring, but at nothing, and the lips clamped fractionally apart, breathing coming in irregular sucked heaves. Poor sod, not taking it well. Ten to bloody nothing his legs will freeze half-way and we'll have to carry him on.

The convoy swept past the low-built lounge with its decoration of hot-house plants. Marigolds and snapdra-gons and embryo rhododendrons. In front was the Jumbo.

'Goodbye, Elkin,' Jimmy leaned across Sokarev, hand outstretched. It was not taken. The Israeli's attention was outside his window, fingers clamped on his sub-machine-gun.

The cars spattered through the gap in the fencing and raced toward the jet. Jones found himself reflecting at the vulgarity of it all. Big men, hunched and crammed together on the seats. All so difficult to take seriously, just a game for grown-ups. Only Sokarev playing, though. We're all in with the spectators, thought Jones, it's only the old man who goes on to the field. No dignity in the moment, nothing of the third floor at the department, and Jimmy lording it over everybody. Intolerable, really, and he'd have to be spoken to. The plane was huge now in its silver closeness, dwarfing them, a fortress in its own right. And the steps were there, in position, waiting for them.

The stiffening of the soldiers, the way their hands quickly changed the grip on their rifles, fingers to the trigger guard, telegraphed to Famy the imminence of the arrival.

His right hand ferreted down inside the overalls for the safety mechanism of the M1. Already cocked, already a bullet nestled in the breach of the firing chamber. A hundred yards to the steps of the plane. Take twelve to thirteen seconds. The problems were fading, over everything a devastating simplicity. When the cars came into sight that was when to start running. Fast, but weaving, ducking low, and the shot when the man was at the base of the steps. Bank on chaos. However much they have prepared for you, they will never quite have expected the presence, that was what the men had told him in the camp.

There will always be confusion; it is the greatest weapon in your hand, they had said.

Three cars in the convoy, snouting round the corner, braking because of the angle they were negotiating. Famy was on his feet.

Without hesitation, a continuous rippling movement, he pulled the zip fastener down the length of his chest. The Guardsman was barely aware of his action that produced the rifle before the bullet hit him low in the muscle wall of his stomach, throwing him back and clear from the path of Famy's sprint.

In front of him, as if in slow motion, the doors of the car were opening, the men in their suits jumping out.

Unaware, they don't realize. The insane exhilaration that he had achieved surprise. Run, weave, duck, maintain the rhythm, give no one a clear sight. When do the bullets come? How long? The bundle in grey, half out of the car, helped by the darker suits, reluctant to come, slowing them down, impeding them. The first bullet spat into the ground close to his feet. Fools, idiots, crazy men, firing low. Half-way there. Sokarev in sight, his head clear, the body half-shielded by the men around him. The orange groves, upright, regimented, before the spring brings the sun of Palestine to make fertile their leaves and their fruit; merging together the fantasy of the trees and the sharpness of the men as he pounded his way forward.

More bullets now edging closer, the little puffs of nothing in the concrete and the hostile, honed whine of the ricochets off the concrete. And the ranging blast, wide but creeping, of the big machine-gun. Sokarev near the steps, wrestling with the men around him. They taking him toward the plane. Doesn't want to go, the little bastard, wants to crawl and hide and bury himself. The moment to shoot.

In full stride Famy flung himself, arching forward in a swallow dive, with a strange grace, on to the tarmac. His knees and elbows took the impact, ripping at the cloth that covered his body. The gun was at his eye, down the barrel, down the needle sight. Eyes smarting with the pain from the fall, blinking the moisture out. The man in the grey still struggling. He fired, finger released the trigger.

Knew with that deadening instinct that he was wide, high as well, knew it even as he felt the jolt in his shoulder, heard the empty clatter of the discarded shell case. A moment, breathtaking, of silence, then again the machine-gun.

No more to see of Sokarev, so still everything in front of him, no man standing. Gone, all of them, at a stroke.

Disappeared, vanished. At the steps no target.

Four in a burst they teach the soldiers to fire when they feed the belt into the machine-gun. More than that and the barrel waves too greatly for the accuracy to be maintained.

One in the right foot, two in the calf, fourth in his hip. As if a man with a pickaxe was striking him. Not aiming at a rock face, but at muscle, vulnerable tissue, and the delicacy of his flesh. There was nothing in his hands, only the flat oil-smeared concrete for his fingers to grasp at. The rifle was far to the front, pitched clear, beyond reach, beyond his chances of hope and salvation. In the distance, and to his ears the words echoed and had a strange quality, came the ordered shout, voice of command.

'Stop firing.'

Between them Jones and Elkin carried Sokarev up the flight of steps to the plane. The strength he'd summoned earlier to resist them had gone. Elkin at his shoulders, Jones at his thighs. Both men panting, and the narrowness of the steps preventing further aid.

Jimmy rose from his knees where he had taken cover in front of the scientist between the steps and the door of the car, and began to walk toward Famy. Slow paces, all the time in the world now, the end of the stampede. Around him soldiers were lifting themselves from their firing positions, uncertain what to do, and uneasy in the sudden silence. So many of them, and so many rifles and revolvers, and only this one enemy in contention.

He saw the eyes of the prone man still locked on his rifle, tantalizing, out of range, far from the capability of heroics. Jimmy swung his foot, lazily and without care, and kicked it noisily into the middle distance.

'Good try, boy,' Jimmy said, quietly spoken, a private remark. Famy watched him, awkward from the ground, neck stretched back, face unmarked. 'Good try. Just not good enough.'

Jimmy raised his voice so the Arab could hear him.

'McCoy told us you'd be here. Told us this morning.

We didn't think you'd get this far. But it wasn't far enough, boy. One shot you got off, just one. Way off target. Looked good, looked dramatic, but set yourself too much. Should have been an aimed shot. Never works, all the running around, not with a pop gun like that, anyway.'

He saw Famy smile, overcoming the pain, mouth moving but no sound.

'That was what they gave you, the M1? Not very generous, not very suitable. Would have liked something with a bit more guts, right, boy?'

Famy nodded, slight movement, agreement. As far round as his eyes could see the men were now advancing on him, soldiers and police, their guns no longer aimed.

Pointed at the ground and the sky.

Jimmy put his hand in his pocket, under the cover of the cloth, and when it emerged the PPK was there. He saw Famy begin to squirm away, trying to move, but pinioned by the damage to his legs and his hip. Whimpering, like a dog that expects a beating but is too trained to run from the threat.

'Don't make it difficult, boy. You knew what it was all about when you came on the joy-ride. And you did well, considering.'

Jimmy fired into the centre of the pale brown forehead, below the clear white rim of the turban. Even with a moving target he was usually accurate.

The noise of the shot was drowned by the four fan jet engines of the taxiing 747.

From beside the car, still stationary, still with the engine ticking quietly over and with the front and rear doors open, Jones had watched it all. There had been words that he'd tried to say, some sort of call, helpless and faint, for Jimmy to come back, but the roar of the engines prevented his being heard by any other than those immediately beside him.

He had seen the pistol in Jimmy's hand, small and blurred in the distance but silhouetted as a recognizable shape against the great emptiness of the tarmac. He hadn't looked after that. The plane was turning toward the runway, its power rising into deafening, ear-blasting crescendo as it eased its way clear of the group of men with their dark suits and hardened eyes.

'Bloody good job and all,' muttered the Branch man, whose eyes had never wavered from Jimmy and who now stared over Jones's shoulder.

Jones swung back. Jimmy walking toward him now, the one he knew just by the name of Famy abandoned and unmoving behind the erect and brisk figure that was soon close enough for him to see the almost boyish grin of satisfaction that wreathed the mouth. Cat with the cream, thought Jones, as if he's scored a bloody try at Twickenham.

'Bloody good job, the way it should be every time,' the Branch man said again, and Jones bit on his lip, unable to speak his mind, out of step with the mood.

Well, they'd had their money's worth out of Jimmy-boy this time. Earned his retainer, hadn't he? There'd be a mass of paperwork to be getting on with, the predictable escape mechanism, and Jones went in search of a car heading for Central London. Knifing through his mind the continuous thought... it was what they'd wanted, it was what they'd asked for, those bloody politicians with their directives from on high, and they'd been gratified.

In the first-class cabin, occupying two seats at the rear, were Sokarev and Elkin. The pilot had swung the plane hard round and lined himself on to the 36oo-metre-long Runway 5, given precedence over all other flights. Clearance from the control tower was immediate, and the aircraft hammered its way into the slight wind down 28L.

Just before the moment of lift-off Sokarev whispered, straining to Elkin's ear, that he felt sick.

'Don't worry,' Elkin said, it's all over. It's finished now.

We are going home. There is nothing more to fear.'

They were all going home. Mackowicz in the tin box on the freight deck beneath them, Elkin who had been his friend, Sokarev who had been his charge. The security man noted the pallor of the scientist, and the perspiration on his balding head and the way that he struggled to reach upward to direct the cold air nozzles toward his face.

When they were airborne it would be easier. He told himself that, and settled back, deep, into the comfort of his seat.

TWENTY-ONE

At first the pains were slight and concentrated in the centre of his chest, but the nausea and desire to vomit were uppermost. As Elkin slept beside him Sokarev was able to worm a path over the legs of his bodyguard and into the aisle towards the lavatories. He'd had little food and his retching was painful and hard. By the time they were flying over the Mediterranean the pain was spreading in area and intensity, and still Elkin's eyes were closed, insensible to the outer world. When at last a stewardess noticed Sokarev's distress he was doubled up in his seat, his hands across his body. Over the loudspeaker system of the aircraft the chief steward called for a doctor.

Elkin stood out in the aisle now, for once helpless, unable to offer aid to the man he had been ordered to protect. The doctor reached low over the heaving form of Sokarev, whom they had stretched across the two seats, centre arm rest pulled out.