The Alamut Ambush

by Anthony Price

  But before he could begin to reply Isobel appeared beside his right shoulder. The Arab swung half round and faced her, incorporating a little bow into the movement.

  ‘Lady Ryle – I do beg your pardon,’ he said quickly. ‘I was almost sure I’d seen you in the headlights…’

  ‘Colonel Razzak,’ said Isobel in her coolest Lady Ryle voice, ‘I thought I recognised you too, but in this light I wasn’t sure at first either.’

  Razzak!

  No wonder the man had behaved as though Roskill knew him – and no wonder he knew enough about Roskill to be suspicious in the first place.

  But – damn it – it wasn’t so much Razzak’s arrival as his physical appearance that beat everything. From Audley’s brief introduction he had imagined a lean, fanatical Bedouin – a throwback to those great days of Arab empire over which the Foreign Office man had enthused. He had never dreamed that the hero of Sinai would be hidden in the body of a roly-poly Levantine carpet salesman.

  ‘It is a compliment that you should recognise me in any light, Lady Ryle.’

  In another moment the fat slob would be kissing her hand. Except that the thought was hardly charitable to a man who had just broken the speed limit to stop them both being shredded into little pieces: no matter what his true motives were, and fat and ugly notwithstanding, Razzak’s account was in credit.

  And that, in itself, was an unforeseen complication. It didn’t exactly exculpate Razzak from Alan’s death. No sensible man resorted to violence in a foreign and neutral country if it could be avoided, and just because he had avoided it tonight it did not follow that he had done so in Alan’s case. It could simply be that Alan had known too much, whereas Roskill knew practically damn all – after the Ryle reception debacle that must have been obvious enough.

  But that only made tonight’s emergency more frightening: it meant that there was someone else beyond Razzak’s control – and that could include both Hassan and the Israelis — who was prepared to turn a London back-street into a shambles for no very good reason.

  The door behind him opened suddenly with a crash that made him jump. Framed in it was a Goliath of a man in shirtsleeves and a vast Fair Isle pullover.

  The Goliath took in the scene with one slow dance from right to left – Roskill, Razzak, Isobel and the Mercedes with its doors open and its headlights glaring – and then swung his own glare to Roskill.

  ‘I don’t know wot your game is, mate,’ he said in tones in which anger and scorn were carefully balanced, ‘but you just go and play it somewhere else!’

  Razzak stared coldly at the man for a moment, and then turned again towards Isobel.

  ‘Allow me to offer you the hospitality of my car,’ he said. He turned to Roskill. ‘And you, too, Squadron Leader.’

  The Goliath snorted.

  Roskill leant into the Triumph and gently slid the keys out of the ignition.

  ‘You can’t leave it outside my property,’ barked the Goliath, gratefully seizing the chance of being awkward. ‘I’ll have the bloody police take it away!’

  Roskill was almost relieved that the man had sworn at last; the absence of obscenities in his opening broadside had made his anger more threatening.

  ‘The bloody police will be coming for it very soon anyway,’ he replied with assumed indifference. ‘It’s a stolen vehicle. You lay a finger on it and you’ll be in trouble.’

  That might at least protect the car from outrage – and the Goliath from sudden death – until he could get the department’s specialists to look it over, and in the meantime it took some of the wind out of the man’s bellying sails.

  He locked the car doors carefully and followed Isobel into the Mercedes. Razzak leant forward and flashed the headlights off and on before settling back beside them.

  ‘You know, I have always admired, the independent spirit of the British working class,’ he said gravely. ‘But whenever I encounter it myself I have a great desire to kick it in the teeth. And yet I am a peasant myself, and I find my reaction most contradictory.’

  ‘I think he had the right of it, Colonel Razzak,’ replied Isobel equally seriously. ‘We were probably disturbing his television and we may have woken the baby. Those are two capital crimes in England, you must understand.’

  ‘The right of it?’ Razzak nodded thoughtfully. ‘He takes us for criminals, and there are several of us and only one of him — but he has the right of it! How admirable!’

  The gun-dogs came out of the churchyard and headed towards them, watched closely by Goliath. As he slipped into the driver’s seat the younger of the two shook his head at Razzak.

  ‘No one there now, Colonel,’ he said obsequiously.

  Razzak nodded again, and turned back to Isobel and Roskill. ‘Can I take you now to wherever you were going, perhaps?’

  Isobel glanced at Roskill. ‘I think I’d prefer to go home, if you don’t mind, Hugh. I’ve rather lost my appetite.’

  ‘If that’s what you wish, Lady Ryle.’ Roskill was not quite able to keep the relief out of his voice. But her common sense would tell her what he was thinking, anyway: if he was someone’s target – and bizarre though that thought was, it appeared to be the case – she would only be a liability to him now.

  Isobel reached for the door handle. ‘I’ll take the short cut home, then – don’t worry about me. I’m sure you and Colonel Razzak have important things to discuss.’

  Razzak cut in before Roskill could reply. ‘Allow me to send Captain Majid with you just in case, Lady Ryle – he would be honoured to accompany you.’

  ‘Colonel, I couldn’t possibly – ‘

  Razzak held up his hand. ‘Please! Let us say no more about the matter. Captain Majid will accompany you and make his own way home when you are safely in your house. Jahein here can drive me perfectly well, so long as he remembers it is a car he controls, not a tank.’

  The driver got out of the car – rather sulkily, Roskill thought – and the older Arab moved behind the wheel.

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Colonel,’ murmured Isobel. ‘One thing, Hugh – when is the funeral?’

  Roskill frowned, perplexed. ‘The funeral?’

  ‘Your friend,’ she said with a hint of irritation. ‘I would like to send a wreath, old-fashioned as that may seem to you.’

  Isobel had known the Jenkins family in Harry’s day, Roskill remembered – in the halcyon time when they’d all been equal and innocent recipients of the Ryle hospitality. And Isobel, who never forgot a birthday or an anniversary, would undoubtedly be an inveterate wreath-sender. It was the side they had not got in common: strange, but he hadn’t once thought of Alan’s funeral – only of his death.

  ‘I’ll phone you when I know,’ he said.

  He watched her walk away beside the Egyptian captain, very tall and straight and entirely Lady Ryle now. It was at times like this that he wondered what the hell he was doing with his life, while knowing that if he could have the same time again he would make exactly the same decisions. A part share in Isobel was worth ten times a whole share of any other girl he had ever known.

  VIII

  ‘A REMARKABLE WOMAN,’ murmured Razzak.

  ‘Yes, she is. And it was civil of you to send your man with her, Razzak.’

  The man behind the wheel gave a suppressed snort, and Razzak himself chuckled.

  ‘Not civil at all, Squadron Leader – a mere trick to rid me of the noble captain. If I had thought there was any danger I would have despatched Jahein – is that not so, Jahein?’

  The grizzled head bobbed.

  ‘You see, we are old soldiers, Jahein and I, and the captain is a new soldier set beside us to see that we don’t get into trouble. He is like a – what is that shellfish that fastens itself to the rocks?’

  ‘A limpet?’

  ‘A limpet! Yes. Or a pilot fish that swims beside the shark – that might be more like it. But every now and then we give him the slip, don’t we, Jahein?’

  Jahein spat out a few words o
f Arabic in a hoarse, almost strangled voice. Their meaning was lost on Roskill, but they sounded so marvellously obscene that no translation was necessary.

  Razzak laughed. ‘Sergeant-Major Jahein has a very low opinion of Captain Majid – and bad as it is for discipline, I must agree with him. Majid is a nuisance. But fortunately he is an obedient nuisance, so he doesn’t get in the way too much – like now, for instance. Let’s get out of here before he comes back, Jahein.’

  Jahein jerked the big car forwards, narrowly missing the Triumph, and embarked on a clumsy turning operation, swearing continuously under his breath.

  ‘A tank driver – I warned you,’ said Razzak. ‘And not even a very good tank driver. But there’s nothing wrong with his nerve. Slow down, man – I must give a word of praise to the man who had the right of it.’

  They were alongside the open doorway in which the big man in the Fair Isle pullover was still standing, evidently determined to see them out of Bunnock Street.

  Razzak wound down the window and leaned out.

  ‘Bloody Gyppo,’ the man said loudly and clearly.

  Razzak observed him in silence for five seconds. Finally he extended two fingers of his mangled right hand in the universal signal of contempt.

  ‘Up yours, Jack!’ he said without heat. ‘Drive on, Jahein.’

  Jahein jammed his foot down on the accelerator and his hand down on the horn and shot down the street in a deafening turmoil of noise which ended with a squeal of tyres as he skidded out of Bunnock Street on to the main road without either slowing or looking for other traffic.

  ‘Diplomatic immunity is a wonderful thing,’ Razzak said happily. ‘It’s a great comfort to Jahein, anyway – he thinks it covers accidental death too.’

  Jahein shook his head in disagreement and gabbled again hoarsely in Arabic.

  ‘Speak in English, man! I’ve told you before it is disrespectful to speak so in front of my guests!’

  Jahein tossed his head and grunted.

  Razzak shrugged his shoulders and. turned to Roskill. ‘It isn’t that the old dog can’t learn new tricks,’ he apologised. ‘He speaks English perfectly well – though with a slight Australian accent. The Australians taught him all he’s ever learnt – to swear, fight dirty, drive a tank and hate Pommie bastards. Perhaps that’s why I can’t get him to talk in English, the obstinate swine: you can thank the 9th Australian Division for that. But a loyal old swine – all he was saying was that if the Israelis wouldn’t kill me, then I was born to hung and not die in a car crash.’

  Roskill watched the traffic lights ahead turn from amber to red and prayed that Jahein’s instinct was sound as the Mercedes whipped across the intersection.

  ‘And he may be right at that,’ mused Razzak. ‘If Captain Majid has his way I shall probably hang sooner or later. But in the meantime, where can we take you, Squadron Leader?’

  Meeting Razzak, the unknown quantity, had not been on the schedule for tonight. But perhaps the Egyptian wasn’t quite such a question mark since he’d turned up at the Ryle reception: once more it brought him face to face with Hassan. Except that seemed to make nonsense of what had just happened – and not happened – in Bunnock Street.

  Unless…

  Roskill relaxed. ‘Your driver seems to know where he’s going already.’

  ‘Jahein?’ Razzak chuckled. ‘Jahein simply likes driving – give him a car and a tankful of petrol and he’ll drive nowhere for hours on end. He isn’t going anywhere at the moment. Just away from Captain Majid. And he’s still learning to find his way round London too.’

  Roskill watched Jahein slide the big car through a gap in the traffic just ahead of a taxi which had the right of way. Whatever the old dog didn’t know, he had nothing to learn about driving; that first impression had been false.

  The light from a blue neon sign momentarily illuminated Razzak’s face sharply. There was nothing left of the chuckle on it: the eerie blueness stripped away the fat, leaving it hard and serious. That was another first impression gone – there was always supposed to be a thin man screaming to get out of every fat one, and that flash had betrayed a lean bedouin inside the carpet salesman.

  ‘Well, if you could drop me near St. Paul’s, that would do very well,’ said Roskill. ‘It’s not far from here.’

  ‘I think Jahein can manage that,’ Razzak murmured, settling back comfortably, his hands interlocking over the bulge of his stomach. The gesture transmitted itself to the man behind the wheel as if by telepathy; as Razzak sat back the car’s speed dropped to a sedate crawl. Getting to any destination too quickly wasn’t part of the action.

  ‘I suppose you’re curious about my having you followed tonight,’ the Egyptian began conversationally.

  ‘Under the circumstances I think I should be grateful.’

  ‘My dear fellow! Think nothing of it! I’m sure you would have done as much for me. Besides, I owe you an apology – I couldn’t think what there was to interest you in the Ryle Foundation. But there obviously is something, that’s quite clear.’

  Razzak was evidently prepared to be disingenuous. But it was a game two could play.

  ‘You owe me an apology for the Van Pelt report, certainly.’

  ‘The Van Pelt – ?’ Razzak began to laugh. ‘Yes, that was rather naughty I must admit. The Van Pelt report – quite unforgiveable!’

  The hands across the stomach shook as he laughed. ‘Naughty’, with its nursery and pansy connotations, struck Roskill as both inadequate and out of place in Razzak’s excellent vocabulary. Unless – a second thought arrived almost simultaneously – unless it was literally accurate: that saying of Chairman Mao’s hadn’t struck quite true either.

  So the inconvenient report had simply been a figment of Razzak’s imagination – a mere joke at Roskill’s expense, damn the man!

  ‘And you really don’t think there’s anything to interest us in the Ryle?’

  ‘Not nothing of interest, Squadron Leader, but nothing to interest you. I thought weapons and guidance systems were your specialities, not – ‘ Razzak paused momentarily ‘ – counter-subversion. I thought that was the Special Branch’s job.’

  He sounded perfectly matter-of-fact and only mildly curious. Far too mild and matter-of-fact to be true: they both knew that this was the opening bid.

  ‘You know about the Foundation then?’

  ‘My dear fellow – I know it’s being used by someone, if that’s what you mean. You don’t think I’d be interested in good works for their own sake, surely?’

  ‘And who would “someone” be?’

  ‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it! Can you tell me what’s happened to make it so interesting?’

  ‘Is that the basis for an exchange, Colonel Razzak?’

  ‘It could be.’

  Roskill thought furiously. Of all men, Razzak probably had most to offer and would give least. But even what he didn’t give aught be of interest. And after Bunnock Street it was possible that the Egyptian’s role might not be quite what they had imagined…

  ‘Didn’t you know the heat was on?’

  ‘The heat?’

  ‘Someone – possibly your “someone” – tried to kill one of our civil servants a couple of days ago. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘Civil servants?’ Razzak sounded surprised.

  ‘A rather top man. And you haven’t heard?’

  ‘I only got back from Paris this afternoon. Who was it?’

  ‘A man called Llewelyn. I think you know him.’

  ‘Llewelyn!’

  ‘Does that surprise you?’

  Razzak didn’t reply immediately. It looked very much as though the news had genuinely surprised him. And that, Roskill thought grimly, was significant in itself, because it hadn’t surprised Llewelyn. Yet what seemed to have thrown the Egyptian was not the deed itself, but the target.

  ‘Llewelyn!’ Razzak muttered to himself. ‘The fools! The stupid, criminal fools!’

  ‘Which fools do you mean?’r />
  Razzak turned towards him. ‘You say they failed though? They didn’t get Llewelyn?’

  Roskill blessed the semi-darkness of the car which concealed the anger he felt burning his cheeks: No, you bastard, they didn’t get Llewelyn – they got Alan Jenkins. Is that what you want to hear?

  The flare of irrational rage died down, dowsed by the knowledge that it was dangerous – that hot emotional involvement was always to be avoided because it betrayed both men and judgment. Only cold, professional anger was permitted, and not too much of that.

  Razzak had had one chance of incriminating himself. Now he could be given another.

  ‘Oh, they missed him all right.’ Not too casually, now; that would spoil it. ‘They killed some poor devil of a technician who was checking out his car, though.’

  Again Razzak fell silent, giving away nothing this time.

  ‘It was a bomb in the car?’

  That was another good feel line. It would be worth finding out just what sort of job the Egyptian could make of throwing them off the scent of Hassan and on to that of the Israelis.

  ‘They used T.P.D.X.’

  Razzak whistled softly. ‘Ah – now I see why you were so quick off the mark back there at your car. It’s tricky stuff, that T.P.D.X. – I don’t blame you being nervous! A very little goes a long way.’

  ‘And you know who might use it?’

  The Egyptian shrugged. ‘The Russians flew in a load of it to Amman a few months ago, the idiots. By now every fedayeen group between there and Mount Hermon has some. You aren’t going to learn anything from that.’

  There was a note of exasperated contempt in Razzak’s voice which embraced both the Russians and the fedayeen. And he was being damnably slow off the mark.

  ‘And the Israelis?’

  The Israelis?’ Razzak seemed mystified. ‘So what about them?’

  ‘They’ve got some too.’

  ‘Got some?’ Another shrug. ‘Probably they have – the thieving swine have got plenty of other people’s property these days. You’re not going to tell me – ‘ he stared at Roskill in the flickering light of the passing shopfronts’ – my dear Squadron Leader Roskill – you’re not going to tell me the Israelis fixed that car?’