Hellfire (2011)

by James Holland

  There had been a note waiting for him, however, which he had drunkenly read and had vaguely remembered when Lucie woke to get ready for work at five thirty that morning.

  ‘How’s the head?’ she had asked him.

  ‘Painful,’ Tanner had replied. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’ve felt better but I don’t think I drank as much as you and Stan.’ Soon after, she had gone – another farewell – having passed Vaughan’s note to Tanner. After he had dunked his head in cold water and swallowed a couple of Alka-Seltzer tablets, fizzing in water, he had reread the handwritten note.

  7.9.42

  Dear Jack,

  Apologies for missing our rendezvous this evening, and now you’re not here. No matter. I have a few things to attend to tomorrow, so I will meet you and Sykes in Alex. Take my jeep. It’s at GHQ, and should still have plenty of fuel. Ask for MO4 and someone will give you the key and show you where it is. When you reach Alex, go to the Naval Dockyard and ask for the 15th MTB Flotilla and Lt-Com Jim Allenby. I’ll be there by evening.

  Yours,

  Alex Vaughan

  Tanner had read it twice. No mention of Tanja, or of being questioned, or any suggestion that his part in C Detachment had come to a premature end. That was good, Tanner thought. But strange. And at GHQ, there had been no hint that anything was amiss. At MO4, they had been expecting him, the key to the jeep handed over without any fuss.

  ‘Have you seen Major Vaughan this morning?’ Tanner asked the young subaltern who took him to the jeep.

  ‘He was in briefly, but he left about –’ a glance at his watch ‘– about a quarter of an hour ago.’

  ‘And he seemed all right, did he?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ Curious.

  Reaching Lucie’s apartment block, Tanner jumped out, kites circling high overhead, and went up to the flat, where he found Sykes up, shaved and dressed, his hair freshly oiled and combed, with company: a young boy of perhaps ten or twelve years old.

  ‘This is Hanif,’ said Sykes. ‘We’ve been waiting for you. Hanif is the lad I paid yesterday to tail that Mustafa bloke when you got kneed by him in the nuts.’

  ‘All right, Stan, don’t rub it in.’

  ‘And I don’t know whether you remember this, Jack, but we decided even before we left Chanti’s that there wasn’t a chance in hell that Hanif and his mates would ever be seen again and that I’d lost twenty piastres and that was that.’

  ‘I do as you say,’ chirped Hanif now. ‘I come here yesterday once in the afternoon and then in evening, but you not here, Captain sir.’

  ‘It’s lieutenant, Hanif,’ said Tanner.

  ‘And then curfew,’ continued Hanif, ‘so I come this morning. We go now. Yallah! Yallah!’

  ‘Just hold your horses a moment,’ said Tanner. ‘I need an explanation here.’

  ‘They know where this Mustafa joker is but they think he’s moving soon,’ said Sykes. ‘He’s with two other blokes and one of them went to the railway station yesterday afternoon and bought tickets for the Alex train, not the express, though, the stopping one.’

  ‘So he leave any moment, Lieutenant sir,’ added Hanif.

  ‘All right, then,’ said Tanner. ‘Yallah, Hanif.’

  ‘What about our clobber?’ asked Sykes.

  ‘Leave it here for the moment.’ He picked up his MP40, a few magazines and spare rounds, which he put in his gas-mask case and slung over his shoulder. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I’m sniffing trouble,’ said Sykes, grabbing his Thompson. ‘Do you really think we should just go straight to where this bloke’s hiding?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Tanner.

  ‘No, I don’t. We should go to your mates in Field Security and hand it over to them.’

  Tanner paused, then asked. ‘Hanif, where is Mustafa?’

  ‘Near the El Mouayad Mosque.’

  ‘That’s east of here,’ said Tanner, ‘and the Field Security offices are to the south. I thought we were in a hurry. We can be there in ten minutes or so. By the time we get to Sansom and he gets a section together it could be another hour.’ He opened the door to the flat, and waved Hanif and Sykes on to the dark landing.

  ‘I just don’t see that it’s our problem, Jack,’ said Sykes, as they hurried down the stairs. ‘Haven’t we got other things to think about today? Such as making sure we get to Alex in one piece?’

  They stepped outside into the bright morning air, and Tanner felt his head throb once more. ‘Get in,’ he said to Hanif, who skipped into the narrow rear seat of the jeep, his face lit with delight.

  As Tanner started the engine and pulled away, he was conscious that Sykes had not said another word. ‘Look,’ said Tanner, ‘if they’re still there, we’ll stake it out and one of us can go and get the FS lads, or we can send Hanif here. How about that?’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ said Sykes. ‘At least we won’t be conspicuous, driving round the Islamic city in a jeep.’

  ‘No more conspicuous than the FS boys.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s their job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Listen, Stan, I thought time was of the essence here. I spent a week trying to catch Mustafa, and Vaughan and the boys at SIME have been after him for weeks. He’s important – a big fish. If we go via Red Pillars, valuable time really will be lost.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Sykes, ‘as long as it’s got nothing to do with you trying to get one over on a bloke who got the better of you yesterday.’

  Tanner said nothing. We don’t have time to get Field Security involved, he told himself, but Sykes’s comment rankled. Perhaps he did want to catch Mustafa himself, but time was forcing his hand, not bloody-mindedness.

  They reached the enormous gateway of Bab Zuweila at the south-eastern corner of the mosque. ‘Drive through the gate, Lieutenant sir,’ said Hanif, squatting on his haunches between the two front seats.

  Tanner did so, the sound of the engine reverberating loudly through the huge stone archway. The towers and minarets built above the stone arches loomed high into the cloudless sky.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Hanif. They drove on another hundred yards or so and then, as they pulled into a small square, Hanif asked them to stop.

  Tanner parked beside an Egyptian policeman. ‘Here,’ he said, handing him a five-piastre coin, ‘keep an eye on this, will you?’

  The policeman took the coin and positioned himself on the bonnet.

  ‘Follow me, sirs,’ said Hanif, nimbly climbing out of the jeep. Traffic and people thronged the street, but almost immediately he led them left down a dark, narrow side-street, and then, thirty yards further on, down another lane to the right. The buildings seemed to close around them, casting the alley in shadow. A shrouded woman watched them from a doorway, as a cat skulked past. Refuse and excrement lay in the gutters that ran either side. Forty yards ahead, a lone car – an old Austin – stood parked in the street.

  Hanif stopped and gave a low whistle. Immediately, a head appeared over the top of the building beside them, grinned, then disappeared.

  ‘He come down,’ said Hanif.

  ‘Where are they, then?’ whispered Sykes.

  ‘In that building by the car, sir,’ said Hanif.

  Hanif’s friend popped out of an alleyway across the street and scurried over to them. He began jabbering at Hanif.

  ‘Ahmed say they moving about the house. Arba’a men.’ He held up three fingers.

  Ahmed was talking again. Hanif translated, ‘Another man come this morning in car. An afrangi.’

  ‘A white man?’ said Tanner. ‘A European?’

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant sir.’

  Tanner’s mind raced. The mole? ‘Is he still there?’

  ‘No, Lieutenant sir. He go. Ahmed think they ready to leave soon.’

  Sykes turned to Tanner. ‘So what now, boss?’

  Tanner thought a moment. ‘Can we get up on that roof too?’ he asked Hanif
.

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant sir,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Stan, you go up and give me cover, and then I’ll go to the house and arrest the bastards.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got a better plan?’

  Sykes shook his head. ‘All right – but if you get yourself shot, don’t blame me.’

  ‘I won’t, Stan, I promise.’ He patted Sykes on the shoulder and watched him hurry across the road with Ahmed.

  Suddenly, there was movement ahead.

  ‘Lieutenant sir!’ hissed Hanif, his eyes wide. ‘They coming!’

  Tanner cursed. A man emerged from the building, walking around the car to the driver’s side, then Mustafa, his red tarboosh still firmly on his head, but his face now clean shaven. Glancing down the street, he immediately saw Tanner standing in a doorway and shouted some urgent commands.

  ‘Damn it!’ muttered Tanner. What to do? He looked up, but there was still no sign of Sykes. Ahead, the car engine turned over, fired, and now a third and fourth man were hurrying from the house. Tanner cursed again, then ran forward, cocking his Schmeisser.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Stop there!’ He heard the driver put the car into gear, and then a sub-machine gun was pointing from the window, bullets spitting wildly around him, zinging as they ricocheted off the stone, and Tanner was diving on to the ground. When he looked up again, the car was speeding away.

  ‘Stan!’ he shouted. ‘Get back down here quick!’ Then he turned and saw Hanif cowering in a doorway. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant sir, but I need extra cash for being shot at.’

  In spite of himself, Tanner laughed. ‘All right – and I’ll give you another ten piastres if you can get us to the railway station in time.’

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant sir,’ said Hanif. ‘No problem. The bad men have very narrow roads to get through first.’

  ‘Stan!’ shouted Tanner again.

  ‘All right, all right!’ Sykes appeared, breathless, on the road.

  Tanner started running back towards the jeep, Hanif, Ahmed and Sykes following. At the end of the road, several men had gathered, peering down it anxiously, alarmed by the gunfire. Tanner ignored them and ran on, back to the main road and to the little square where he was relieved to see the policeman still guarding the jeep.

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ he said, hoisting himself into the driver’s seat, as Hanif and Ahmed scrambled in behind him.

  ‘I knew this was going to be a bloody cock-up,’ said Sykes.

  ‘Stop grumbling, Stan,’ said Tanner, as the jeep roared into life.

  ‘Dughri, Lieutenant sir,’ said Hanif. Straight on.

  ‘You could have got Hanif killed,’ said Sykes.

  ‘Give over, Stan,’ said Tanner, gunning the throttle and forcing pedestrians to hurry out of their way. ‘Anyway, if we’d gone to get the FS boys as you suggested, we’d have missed them altogether.’

  A loaded cart held them up but Tanner yelled and revved the engine, then raced past and soon they were turning left on to the wider Sikket El Gedida, accelerating towards Ezbekiyeh Gardens.

  ‘Keep your eyes peeled!’ Tanner called.

  Heavy traffic clogged the road, and Hanif said, ‘Ruh alyeminak, Lieutenant sir!’ urgently pointing to the right.

  Tanner took the turning, narrowly avoiding an oncoming bus, and immediately found himself in the calmer back-streets of the Rosetti Quarter. He drove past elegant French-built town houses, lush gardens, then into a square and eventually into a narrow winding lane, which ended in a marketplace. They were briefly held up by a number of camels and a raging argument between the drivers of two carts, but Tanner nudged one of the carts, which stopped the argument dead. The anxious-looking driver skittered out of the way. At last they were turning on to Sharia Clot Bey, which led them straight to the central station.

  ‘Where the hell are they?’ muttered Tanner.

  ‘There, Lieutenant sir!’ shouted Hanif.

  Tanner strained his eyes and saw, before it disappeared behind a passing tram, the Austin.

  ‘Good work, Hanif!’ said Sykes.

  ‘More baksheesh, sir?’ Hanif asked.

  ‘If we get ’em, yes, mate.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested,’ said Tanner.

  ‘Well, there’s no point in chasing something if you never get a chance to catch it, is there?’

  Tanner speeded up again, weaving through the traffic and slowly gaining on the Austin, which was now about a hundred yards ahead.

  ‘What happens when we catch up with them?’ said Sykes.

  ‘I don’t know, Stan,’ said Tanner. ‘We jump out and nobble them. We’ll think of something.’

  ‘Here,’ said Sykes, handing some notes to the boys. ‘Thanks – you’ve been really helpful, lads.’

  ‘Tank you, sir!’ Hanif grinned.

  ‘I gave ’em five quid,’ said Sykes. ‘That’s good money for urchins like them.’

  As they neared Midan Bab El Hadid, the large interchange outside the railway terminus, they saw the Austin just ahead, but as two trams converged, it sped forward, narrowly passing between them, and was then immediately blocked from view.

  ‘Bollocks!’ shouted Tanner, but then the trams moved off and they saw the Austin again, this time pulling over between the gharries and taxis at the front of the station. Three of the men got out and hurried towards the station entrance. Tanner pulled over behind a taxi and leaped out with Sykes.

  ‘Boys, stay here,’ said Tanner, and held up another coin as Mustafa’s red tarboosh disappeared from view. Then, with Sykes in tow, he ran.

  They entered the station concourse, Tanner scanning the mass of people and platforms. Plenty of khaki, plenty of turbans, but too many tarbooshes. An announcement was broadcast in Arabic, then in English, the voice crackling and reverberating around the concourse. ‘The eight thirty-five stopping service to Alexandria is about to depart.’

  Frantically, Tanner glanced at the platform numbers, then spotted an arrow towards Platform 1. At the same moment, he saw Mustafa hurrying across the far end of the concourse, out of the main atrium.

  ‘There!’ he cried, and was already running, but a train had just arrived on Platform 4 and hordes of people were rushing towards the concourse and blocking their way.

  ‘Please!’ called Tanner. ‘Out of my way!’ He and Sykes forced their way through, then tore across the rest of the concourse and back out of the main station hallway to an outside platform. Even before they reached it, Tanner could hear the great puffs as the engine began to move out. Amid clouds of steam, the last of the five carriages was slowly clacking past him.

  ‘Bugger it!’ said Sykes.

  ‘I can make a dash for it!’ said Tanner, sprinting forward. He was gaining on it, and reached out his hand towards the rear carriage but the train was gathering speed and stretching away from him. Tanner gave up, gasping, his hands on his knees. He glanced up, and saw Eslem Mustafa wave at him from an open carriage window.

  ‘Damn him!’

  ‘Listen, mate,’ said Sykes, coming towards him, ‘we gave it our best shot.’

  ‘That’s the second time he’s got away from me,’ growled Tanner. ‘I swear the bastard’s not going to do it again.’

  21

  Tanner brushed past Sykes. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we need to get a move on.’

  ‘Why?’ said Sykes. ‘We haven’t got to be in Alexandria until this evening.’

  ‘Because we’re going after that train, that’s why.’

  ‘What?’ said Sykes. ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘I’ve seen it before. It’s bloody slow and it’s a stopping train. If we’re a bit jaldi about it, then I reckon we’ll soon catch it up.’ He was running again, back through the concourse. Passing a bookstand he picked up a folded timetable, left a one-piastre coin on the counter, and gave it to Sykes. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Look through this while I drive us back to the flat.’

 
The boys were still beside the jeep.

  ‘You no get the bad men, Lieutenant sir?’ asked Hanif, jumping down.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Tanner, passing him another five piastres, ‘but we will.’ He started the engine. ‘Shukran, boys,’ he said. With Sykes beside him, he put the vehicle into gear and sped away.

  He drove straight down the Sharia Abbas, the widest thoroughfare in central Cairo, past the Egyptian Museum and Kasr El Nil Barracks, and around Midan Ismailia. In five minutes flat they had reached Lucie’s apartment. Three minutes to collect their kit and then they were on their way, back up Sharia Abbas, over the Bulaq Bridge alongside the railway, and speeding through Embabah, a town on the far side of the river and the first of the train’s stops.

  Logic suggested Mustafa would not have alighted there. ‘He’s got to be heading some distance,’ said Sykes, the open timetable flapping in the wind, ‘otherwise why get on the train in the first place?’

  ‘I agree,’ said Tanner, ‘but let’s think about this. He can’t be going all the way to Alexandria either, or he’d have got on an express.’

  ‘There’s a map of the rail network here,’ said Sykes. ‘It looks like it joins the main line again at a place called Tel El Baroud.’

  ‘Where in God’s name is that?’

  ‘Give me a moment,’ said Sykes, as he made a rough measurement. ‘I’d say about seventy miles south-east of Alex. The last stop before it joins the main line is a place called Waked.’

  ‘Then somewhere between here and Waked,’ said Tanner.

  They reckoned they were twenty minutes behind when they left Lucie’s flat, but the journey to Alexandria took nearly seven hours, which meant the train was travelling at an average of less than thirty miles per hour. The jeep could do forty-five at a push, but thirty-five comfortably, even on the rough desert roads – barely more than tracks in the sand – that ran alongside the railway line. The train’s second stop was at Station Aoussin, but the third was at El Manachi, some twenty-two miles north-west of Cairo.