The Alamut Ambush

by Anthony Price

  ‘ . .. and so we come to what may be considered the dawn of modern times…

  The speaker paused to consult his notes. But as he raised his head, his mouth opening to greet the dawn, the fat Arab began to clap vigorously.

  For a moment it was touch and go; the speaker looked around wildly and those of the audience who were still with him stirred uneasily. But the Arab clapped more enthusiastically than ever, looking to left and right as though to shame the laggards into action.

  The crammer’s advice not to draw attention to himself flashed through Roskill’s mind, only to be instantly extinguished as his hands came together on their own initiative. The woman on his left looked at him briefly in surprise and then joined in, followed by the man on her left. Spontaneously applause flared up in a dozen different parts of the hall, those who genuinely thought the lecture had ended rushing to join the dissidents who knew all too well that it hadn’t.

  Last to join in were the handful who had actually been listening, but when they did so they clapped louder than the rest to hide their embarrassment. There were even a few shouts of ‘bravo’ – one coming from the Arab himself. Such was the storm of applause that in the end the speaker’s chagrin turned to gratification. He had probably never encountered such enthusiasm before.

  Altogether, thought Roskill as he joined the stampede towards the refreshment room, it was a notable landmark in Anglo-Arabian understanding: for once the silent majority had cooperated to liberate themselves.

  He held back until the worst of the crush along the tables had thinned out, disagreeably aware that the contents of the silver bowls ahead of him was as fruity as he had feared. After carefully scanning the faces of the waiters and waitresses dispensing it he edged his way towards a wizened little man whose magenta nose promised sympathy, even though he was presiding over a bowl in which sliced fruit floated like dead fish depth-charged to the surface.

  ‘Is there any alternative to this – this – ‘ Roskill indicated the bowl ‘whatever it is?’

  A glimmer of recognition lit the bloodshot eyes. There were some pale, intense English faces among the gathered friends of Arabia he had already seen, but there were also ageing, darkened skins which must have weathered in the forts of trucial levies and Arab Legion messes. There had to be something under the counter for them.

  The eyes took in Roskill’s tan, which had been started under Israeli skies and consolidated in Greece.

  Roskill slid a 50-penny piece across the white tablecloth, under the napkin by the man’s hand.

  ‘For the love of God,’ he hissed, ‘give me a decent drink.’

  ‘This is a very thirst-quenching drink, sir,’ said the little man, without looking down but with his fingers testing the coin’s heptagonal shape. ‘For the Arabian gentlemen, that is.’

  He bent down briefly behind the table, reappearing with a tall glass on the side of which he deftly fastened a sliver of cucumber.

  ‘Window-dressing, sir – merely window-dressing,’ he murmured reassuringly.

  It still looked more like a long drink suitable for the Arab gentlemen, and Roskill sniffed it suspiciously.

  It was Scotch. He took a slow sip. And not just Scotch, but the purest, mellowest, most exquisite malt whisky, unadulterated and possibly the largest straight measure he had ever received. The Foundation certainly looked after its own, and with his weak head for spirits he’d have to watch his tongue.

  He nodded gratefully and turned away to scrutinise the crowd again for the faces in Cox’s file of probables and possibles. So far he hadn’t seen one of them, wide though the range at the gathering was: pouchy, easy-living faces; lean, bitter faces; ugly, pitted complexions like the surface of the Moon and that almost feminine beauty which was the inheritance of Circassian ancestry.

  The faces reminded him of what the Foreign Office man had said in his enthusiasm: the Middle East had melted down so many races, conquerors and slaves alike, that spotting bloodlines was a game for the experts. Turks, Mongols, Greeks, Albanians, Normans, Napoleon’s veterans and Australians oif the Imperial Light Horse – the greatest of Islam’s admirals had been red-haired.

  The historical allusions had been lost on him – the fellow was as bad as Audley – but the roll of honour, or dishonour, had stuck. But with all those in the family tree, he had thought, it was surprising that there wasn’t more military talent around.

  None of which helped him now, anyway. He swung round to try another segment of the crowd, colliding with the man behind him as he did so. For a horrible second he was fearful lest some of his precious whisky might be lost, only to discover that he’d already drunk most of it.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he apologised quickly.

  ‘No damage done.’

  A tall, grey-haired man – one of the leathery English. Roskill’s eyes dropped: sure enough there was one of the tall glasses in the man’s hand, with an identical piece of cucumber window-dressing on its rim.

  The pale blue eyes twinkled at him in recognition.

  ‘Havergal. I don’t believe we’ve met?’

  There had been a Havergal on the official programme, among the Ryle committee members – a colonel with a string of decorations.

  ‘Roscoe,’ said Roskill, slurring the last syllable unidentifiably. The collision had brought him into a mixed discussion group from which there could be no quick escape: they were all looking at him. ‘Desalination’s my field,’ he said. If the crammer was right that should slow them down.

  ‘And is there anything growing in your field?’ It was the same fat Arab who had rescued them all in the lecture hall.. ‘Are you going to make the desert bloom?’

  ‘Given time and money,’ Roskill replied guardedly. All scientific enterprises needed time and money.

  ‘You don’t think atomic energy might offer a short cut, then?’ the Arab persisted. ‘Van Pelt’s report is premature in your opinion?’

  Roskill drained his glass. The only Van Pelt he knew was Lucy, the pint-sized virago in the Peanuts comic strip. He pretended to consider the question, to the obvious irritation of the gaunt young man opposite him who looked as if a banner rather than a glass of fruit cup ought to have been grasped in his fist.

  There was a chance there.

  ‘Given time and money,’ he repeated dogmatically, ‘we can win enough land to resettle every refugee in the Middle East.’ He looked the young man in the eye and was relieved to meet the glare of fanaticism.

  ‘The land they need,’ said the young man belligerently, ‘is the land that was taken away from them. They want justice – not bloody resettlement.’

  Roskill saw his own role in sudden perspective: a fanatical desalination man was born inside him – a cutter of political knots with a sharpened slide-rule, as oblivious of reality as the hot-tempered young man and the maxi-skirted amazon who was nodding her head in unison beside him. Once start them up properly and Van Pelt’s inconvenient report would be forgotten.

  ‘Crops don’t grow on justice – they grow on land. And one bit of land is no different to a peasant from another – ‘ – he bulldozed his way over shocked expressions – ‘ – providing he can get his plough into it. If half the capital that goes into arms went into desalination research – ‘

  His heretical views were drowned in a chorus of protest; they were suddenly all talking at once about Palestine and Zionism and ‘bourgeois city-dwellers’ – all except Havergal and the Arab, who had evidently heard it before.

  ‘Desalination research!’ The young man made it sound like a nasty branch of biological warfare. ‘The sine qua non of peace in the Middle East isn’t research – it is the overthrow of the economic, political and militarist base of the racist-chauvanist state of Israel!’

  ‘We must cure the moral schizophrenia of World Jewry at the same time,’ cried the amazon. ‘That cannot be done until every last refugee has been restored to her homeland.’

  They all started to talk again, so loudly that people nearby turned
to look at them. Roskill felt suddenly like a boy scout who had made a fire with two sticks and set the whole forest ablaze. And he could see no quick way of stopping them before everyone’s attention was drawn to him.

  It was the Arab who doused the flames – simply by raising a plump hand from which the index finger was missing.

  ‘I think Mr. Roskill isn’t denying that there is a refugee problem,’ he interceded. ‘He’s merely emphasising that our military struggle must never blind us to our long-term aims. As one of your own prime ministers said – Lloyd George, I think it was – “a land fit for heroes”. And doesn’t Chairman Mao himself say “Today’s fighter on the battlefield is tomorrows worker in the paddy field”?’

  Roskill mumbled agreement, in confusion not so much because he had said no such thing as from hearing Lloyd George recruited with Chairman Mao to support what he hadn’t said.

  Christ! The man had called him — ‘Roskill’!

  He couldn’t have heard what hadn’t been said, which could only mean that he knew already. Which meant in turn that not only had Roskill himself failed to spot anyone, but that he’d been spotted himself – and by someone whose face was not in the suspect file.

  ‘Let’s charge your glass again, my dear chap,’ said Havergal genially.

  Sobered, Roskill allowed himself to be steered away from the group. The crowning indignity was that the Arab actually covered their retreat.

  ‘These technological people,’ Roskill heard him begin deprecatingly, ‘experts in their own spheres, but politically naive …’

  By God, it was true enough!

  Havergal pushed him gently through the crowd to the wizened waiter’s corner.

  ‘Same again, Wadsworth,’ he commanded, conjuring up more of the elixir from under the table,

  He handed Roskill back his glass. ‘Nearly a nasty accident there, Ross – it is Ross or haven’t I got it right?’

  All the British top brass on the Ryle Foundation were politically respectable – reliable even – except Llewelyn’s friend Wilkinson, against whom Audley had warned him. In any case, it was hard to imagine Havergal taking any part in the sort of enterprise he must have fought for most of his military career. And the cat was out. of the bag, anyway.

  ‘Roskill.’

  ‘Roskill?’ Havergal tested the name. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you at any of our gatherings before. I take it you’re just back from the field. Are you Red Sea or the Gulf or the Med?’

  Havergal was far too courteous to say ‘Who the hell are you, sir?’ but that was what it amounted to. There would be no putting off a wily old bird like him for long, either – it would be far safer to conscript his help. But that could only be attempted after positive clearance, and in the meantime put off he had to be.

  ‘I’m a friend of Sir John and Lady Kyle’s.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Havergal craned his neck and peered over the heads around them. His intention was obvious.

  ‘Lady Ryle doesn’t know that I’m here tonight.’ He had known in his bones that his failure to reach her during the afternoon might turn out awkward.

  ‘She doesn’t?’ Havergal’s tone was neutral rather than disbelieving. ‘Well, it will be a pleasant surprise for her, won’t it? She’s coming this way – shall we go and meet her?’

  The courtesy was rock-hard now – and the good-mannered gesture allowing Roskill to lead the way was a command.

  If you only knew, Colonel, thought Roskill, if you only knew…

  He saw her first: the dark head so carefully tinted that only an expert might guess the first grey hairs were being kept at bay, her outward air of confidence and breeding tempered as ever by an equally evident inner warmth and gentleness No wonder all those charities liked to have her on their committees. ‘My dear, I believe I’ve got a friend of yours here,’ Havergal sounded less assured now, as though he found the prospect of embarrassing her distasteful. She saw him. ‘Hugh!’

  ‘Isobel.’

  Hints and lies about desalination clogged in his throat, even though he knew she’d be quick to pick them up: practice had made that second nature for them. Already she was covering her surprise with pleasure.

  ‘Hugh – how lovely to see you!’ She turned to Havergal. ‘Squadron Leader Roskill and I are very old friends, Archie – it was kind of you to help him to find me. But Hugh – I thought you were up at Snettisham?’

  ‘Snettisham?’ Havergal snorted the name as though he knew it, frowning. The rank and the place name added up to an active profession which had nothing to do with desalination, but the beard and the clumsy deception contradicted the addition. Even the fact that he might connect the Ryles and Snettisham wouldn’t account for the reason why someone like Isobel Ryle should be so happy to meet so dark a horse. ‘I know your C.O., Roskill – or I used to know him.’

  ‘Valentine?’ said Roskill. Valentine had flown Hunters in Aden and up the Gulf in his younger days. That placed Havergal appropriately.

  Havergal nodded, measuring Roskill speculatively.

  ‘Something came up to change my plans,’ said Roskill. And to change my plans this evening, too, he thought. However much he hated to involve her it was unavoidable now. ‘Can I see you later tonight?’

  He glanced at Havergal, coming to an immediate decision. ‘And you, too, Colonel Havergal?’

  ‘Are you going to the dinner after this reception, my dear?’ Havergal asked Isobel.

  ‘No, Archie. I’ve – I’ve only just got back from holiday. I’ve got a million things to do.’

  ‘I’m not going to the dinner either,’ said Havergal. ‘I had a prior engagement.’ He looked at Roskill. ‘Which I shall break.’

  ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow, Hugh?’ Isobel sounded doubtful. ‘I really do have a lot to do – and I’m awfully tired.’

  ‘I don’t think it can wait, can it, Roskill?’ said Havergal. ‘And if it concerns both of us, I’m afraid it’s something I’ve been afraid of for a long time.’

  VI

  IT WAS ONLY after he had actually parked there that Roskill realised he had driven into Bunnock Street from habit, not necessity.

  He hated the dingy cul-de-sac, with its blank-faced houses; it always had orange peel and empty cigarette packets in its gutters, a place altogether out of place in what was otherwise a rather smart district. Even the people who lived in it seemed ashamed of it, for he had rarely seen any of them coming or going; presumably there were back entrances which let into what were now more salubrious mews, leaving their front doors to visiting dustmen.

  All that could be said of it now was that it looked better by night, by the barely adequate street lighting.

  The trouble was the Bunnock Street had three advantages which in the past had always triumphed over his distaste. It invariably offered parking space, as though those of its residents who had cars were unwilling to trust them to it; it was discreetly placed in relation to the Ryles’ flat, which was a good five minutes by road, but only an eerie two-minutes’ walk through St. Biddulph’s churchyard; and, since discretion was all that was normally required, it had a phone box conveniently sited at its junction with King’s Row. No adulterer could ask for more.

  After he had carefully turned the car round and located it beside one of the lamp posts, Roskill made himself comfortable in the passenger’s seat and sat for a time staring down the curving street, as he had done so often before when waiting for Isobel. The waiting then had had a meaning which cancelled out the beastliness of the view, but now it was duty and not even the excellence of the Ryle Foundation’s whisky could prevent it from being depressing.

  After a time he looked at his watch. It was nearly forty-five minutes since he had left the reception and now half an hour since he had phoned the Department – but that, too, had been depressing with its odds-against encounter with someone who knew him well – and who now almost certainly knew him even better.

  ‘… Archibald Havergal? You must be joking!’

  Howe�
��s Etonian-Oxonian drawl had packed a world of patronising incredulity Into the words.

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Know him? My dear old Hugh – I can’t even believe in him! I didn’t know they christened anyone “Archibald” since Queen Victoria’s day – but I suppose he could date from her times – Colonel Archibald Havergal – marvellous!’

  ‘Just get me his record and a security clearance on him, you idiot. And – ‘ he had steeled himself to say the name ‘ – a clearance for Isobel Ryle, too. Sir John Kyle’s wife. R-Y-L-E – ‘

  ‘You don’t need to spell it out, old boy. I’ve seen the Lady Isobel from afar. Strictly Horse of the Year Show, Crafts and Good Works – a dishy piece in a do-gooding sort of way, but a bit long in the tooth for you and me …. Not to worry, though! Your name’s back on the V.I.P. card again, so we’ll put a girdle round the world for you in thirty minutes if you like – was it thirty minutes? It’ll take us half an hour, anyway, Hugh. It’s not the facts, but the clearance – we have to find the decision milkers for that…’

  Roskill had been squirming by then, and he was squirming still. Even the certainty that Howe himself would probably be vastly embarrassed when what he’d said in jest caught up with him. didn’t help. It might have been better if he’d tried to get straight through to Stocker, but the evening had been disastrous enough without being quizzed on it wliile it was still fresh in his mind and before it could be suitably edited on to paper.

  But now he couldn’t delay the evil moment any later: Howe had had his half an hour and Havergal would soon be at the flat.

  He opened the door on the passenger’s side to step out on to the pavement, only to discover that it just failed to clear the lamp-post. It was just that sort of night, he warned himself…

  As he feared, it was Howe chastened almost into seriousness who answered his call.

  ‘Havergal’s straight up-and-down and true blue – absolutely to be trusted. When he came back from Hadhramaut in ‘64 -he’d been somewhere back-of-beyond north of Saywun – they wanted him to work for us out there. But he’s nobody’s fool and he wasn’t having any. He said the sun had set on the Empire and he was too old to be out after dark. Also he rather likes the Arabs, warts and all. That’s why he agreed to help the Ryle Foundation – though he made damn sure it was above board first: he checked it out with us.’