The Alamut Ambush

by Anthony Price

  ‘Razzak and the Colonel?’ The boyish grin faded, and Yaffe nodded understandingly. ‘They insisted on that, too – it has to be face to face for the final agreement, just the two of them. I think when it comes to the final crunch they still don’t trust us– the only man they trust is Colonel Shapiro.’

  In the end everything depended on Shapiro and Razzak. It was not really the logic of Israeli-Egyptian co-operation that was going to confound Hassan, because in real life the logical thing could usually be safely discounted; it was this million-to-one relationship between enemies.

  ‘I don’t know what he said to convince our people at home,’ Yaffe murmured, almost to himself. He looked at Roskill pensively. ‘It’s very easy to be enlightened when you’re not involved, Roskill. And when you don’t have to make the decisions that involve your survival. We don’t have that luxury – that’s why so many of us have got a Masada complex.’

  ‘A what?’

  Yaffe shook his head pityingly. ‘You British always think you’re going to win the last battle, but we Jews expect to lose it – we’ve lost too many last battles. It takes a lot to trust an enemy when you feel like that.’

  ‘The Egyptians are trusting you as well.’

  ‘Not as much. We’re the ones taking the big risk if they want to double-cross us.’ Yaffe sighed. ‘Oh, I know we’ve been after Hassan too – and what Razzak’s given us fits in with our own information. And we can’t afford to have Hassan loose any more than they can. But our security’s a lot better than theirs. There’s a pretty good chance we could protect our people.’

  Roskill felt in no mood to argue. But what Yaffe couldn’t see – and what Shapiro had seen – was that if Israeli security succeeded in protecting its leaders from assassination when the Arabs failed to protect theirs, nothing would convince the Middle Eastern countries that Israel wasn’t at the bottom of it all. And maybe Hassan had calculated that too.

  The trees ahead of them were thinning. If Yaffe’s topography was right, the low ridge beyond the meadow just ahead was the vantage point from which they would be protediig the final rendezvous between Shapiro and Razzak, at which Audley was a self-invited observer. And there Alan would get the vengeance Roskill hadn’t dared to hope for – an overflowing measure of vengeance.

  It was strange that revenge no longer seemed to matter so much now that it was in someone else’s hands. It was as though Alan had once more become no more than the victim of a tragic accident – or an innocent battle casualty among the thousands who had perished in a whole generation of Middle Eastern bloodshed. What made it futile was that it was not his quarrel: no one would carve the old ‘duke et decorum’ tag on his grave.

  Roskill was suddenly reminded of the Latin words scratched in the Bunnock Street telephone kiosk, which he had not had the chance to put to Audley…

  ‘But we don’t really have any choice,’ Yaffe said philosophically. ‘We’ve either got to trust them or go on killing them, and I’m fed up with killing. I don’t ever want to – ‘

  Yaffe’s words strangled in his throat. He jerked forward convulsively, shouldering his way in front of Roskill and plucking frantically at his coat as he did so. The golf bag swung outwards, striking Roskill a tremendous blow in the chest —

  There was a chip of wood spinning in the air –

  There was noise –

  The spinning chip and the noise and the golf bag hitting him had all happened in the same fragment of time, and in that millisecond – that same millisecond – Roskill’s leg was swept from under him and Yaffe himself crashed back into him.

  And someone cried out in agony and shock.

  The trees whirled round him and the leaf-mould came up towards his face.

  There was blackness and a terrible weight on his chest. Blackness and wetness and the weight on his chest that pressed him down, expelling all the air from his luags.

  Can’t breath — dead — dying — the chip of wood spinning in the sunlight –

  ‘Are they dead?’

  A voice a long way away.

  A grunt. ‘At this range they are dead.’

  Roskill wanted to cry out that he was not dead – maybe dying, but not dead. And maybe not dying if only someone would take the weight from his chest.

  But that hoarse grunt and that voice had been familiar – appallingly recognisable. He thought: ‘If I cry out, if I move, then I am dead.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  An English voice.

  Grunt. The known grunt.

  ‘Uzis make no mistakes. But we can make sure.’

  A third voice, not English, not known. Roskill felt the hope draining out of him and the lethargy of the inevitable coup de grace taking its place.

  ‘My God!’ The English voice again, closer and trembling. ‘You’ve cut them to pieces!’

  ‘I told you – at this range – ‘

  Hope flickered again. Roskill forced himself to take tiny, shallow breaths; it was difficult enough to breath at all with the whole world crushing him down into the ground.

  ‘No choice. They would have seen us, and they knew me – both of them.’ Contemptuous.

  ‘They would probably have recognised all of us.’ The third voice was matter-of-fact. ‘And the Jew was reaching for his gun anyway. It is unfortunate, but he is right.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ The English voice still shook. ‘God! What a mess they’re in!’

  ‘We get them off the path. Then we go on.’

  ‘Go on? We leave them?’

  ‘We leave them until we find out what Razzak is doing and who he’s meeting. These two won’t go away.’

  ‘Someone may find them, damn it!’

  ‘Don’t panic.’

  ‘Panic?’ Anger overlaid the fear in the Englishman’s voice now. ‘There was to be no killing in England – that was an order! You can’t kill people here and walk away, can’t you understand that?’

  ‘We’re not going to walk away. When we’ve got what we came for, we’ll come back and deal with them. But Razzak comes first.’ The voice hardened. ‘How much time do we have, Jahein?’

  ‘He left five minutes ago – we have no time to spare.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ There was a sob in the English voice: the man was crumbling.

  ‘Look – ‘ The third voice softened now, as though its owner recognised the danger that lay in the Englishman’s collapse. Roskill strove to listen with a part of his mind, while the other part attempted to control his body – to make it lifeless. They already thought him dead, and half the possum’s trick was in the mind of the hunter…

  The third voice was wheedling, justifying, explaining: Majid had been wrong to have been so sure Razzak was a harmless fool – the dead Jew was proof of that … so he had missed something, maybe during the Paris trip when he’d been alone with Razzak… he had been over-confident and careless. It was even possible he was treacherous, and if so it had been a blessing that they’d sent Jahein to watch too without telling him. But until they knew for certain they were all at risk now … and they needed him to operate the Shibasaki microphone –

  ‘ – We’ll just carry them off the path – down there – in the groundsheet. Here, Jahein – help me with the Jew.’

  Roskill summoned up every last reserve of self-control: he mustn’t brace himself as the crushing weight was lifted off him, mustn’t breathe, mustn’t twitch… he must be dead!

  ‘Get his pistol, Jahein -‘

  The weight was gone.

  ‘And get the other’s gun while we hide the Jew.’

  There was a pause, and then a hand touched Roskkill’s shoulder, started tentatively to move him – and then stopped. There was a spasm of retching…

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He – he didn’t have one.’

  ‘Huh! Well, it wouldn’t have done him any good. Here – set the sheet beside him and we’ll roll him on to it.’

  Unfeeling butcher’s hands rolling dead meat – Roskill flopped awkwar
dly, heavily and loosely as he guessed dead meat would flop. The sheet enclosed him like a shroud.

  ‘Hurry, now!’

  There was a numbness in his leg and along his side — not pain, but numbness. That was the side on which he had fallen when Yaffe cannoned into him … As he was clumsily swung into the air, jumbled in the groundsheet, Roskill was suddenly fully aware at last that he had been hit, how badly he couldn’t tell. But it couldn’t be too badly, otherwise he wouldn’t be conscious – or did one retain consciousness as clear as this while shock kept the pain at bay?

  The swinging stopped and he was thumped down and half rolled out of the sheet, face down again … They were scattering something over him, leaves or dead bracken…

  Someone – not Jahein – spoke urgently in Arabic.

  Silence. Merciful, life-giving silence.

  He must not spoil it now: he must wait and let the silence flower into safety.

  Roskill started to count slowly, first to one hundred – with an extra ten because he had a feeling he’d jumped from seventy to ninety. Then another slow hundred…

  His eyes wouldn’t open: his eyelids seemed gummed together. Gently he eased his right hand towards his face and wiped them. He tried again: there was a small beetle, shiny black, exploring a twig six inches in front of him, and beyond that a wall of green. Somewhere close at hand a bird took flight, carrying its shattering alarm cry through the woods.

  Roskill began to explore his body. The side was still numb, but he could twitch his toes inside his shoe. So far, so good.

  With his right hand he began to feel gingerly down his back: it was soaked with blood – poor Yaffe’s blood. As if the thought focused his vision he saw just to his right the Israeli’s feet sticking out from under the edge of the groundsheet. He didn’t want to look any further; Yaffe must have taken most of that burst of fire…

  He felt the bitter anger swell up in his throat – after all the warnings he had had, to be chopped down –

  The thought was cut off dead as his hand touched an enormous crater in the left cheek of his backside — Christ! He’d been shot in the arse!

  He forced himself to touch the edge of the crater again. It couldn’t be as big as his fingertips told him it was, but by the size of it, it had to be an exit wound. As he touched it he felt pain for the first time: his brain was telling him what his body wasn’t yet ready to admit.

  The question was – where was the entry wound?

  Sudden fear drenched him again. It didn’t matter where he was hit, but only that he get to hell out of here before they came back.

  He wrenched the groundsheet back, scattering the bracken and sending arrows of pain up his left side from the mangled buttock.

  He raised himself stiffly on his hands and looked around. He was still close to the edge of the wood – he could see the light through the trees – but down an incline away from the path. He lifted his head higher and took his weight on his right knee.

  Still not a movement anywhere. Away to his left he could now see the sunshine bright in the meadow, beyond a steep, sandy bank – there was a stream there at the meadow’s edge.

  He glanced down and caught his breath: he was covered in blood, saturated in it, his shirt and trousers sodden. God! No wonder they hadn’t looked twice at him — he was like a slaughter house!

  The thing now was to get away fast. He stood up – and cried out in pain and surprise as he pitched forward.

  His leg wasn’t there at all!

  No, blast it – he rolled desperately to protect his backside – of course it was there! But it felt as though it wasn’t and whatever was wrong with it, he wasn’t going anywhere on it.

  Roskill pounded the soft earth in fear and anguish. He couldn’t stay here, but he couldn’t go far hopping or dragging himself. He felt thirsty and dizzy – two of the classic shock signs the squadron M.O. had dinned into his heads. He was hurt worse than he’d thought.

  Falling blood pressure, rapid irregular pulse; skin pale, cold, clammy and moist… he could remember Doc Farrell reciting the litany.

  But there was something else Farrell was always preaching in his survival course – what was it?

  ‘The sympathetic system overrides the central nervous system in emergency – the sympathetic reactions are directed towards the mobilisation of the resources of the body for the expenditure of energy in dealing with crises.’

  Man — when you’re in danger the adrenalin pumps and you work at a tremendous peak of efficiency. If you went on living like that you’d burn yourself out in no time. But if you don’t panic while you’re there on top, you’re a superman!

  The superman wiped the blood-stained tears from his eyes and looked round him again.

  The golf bag!

  Trying not to look at Yaffe, Roskill slid the bag off the dead man’s arm. The straps were stiff and slippery – like everything else the bag was blood-soaked.

  The family heirloom: God, let it not be some ancient muzzle-loader!

  He knew before he’d slid three inches of it out what it was: an old Lee-Enfield – the blunt terrier’s muzzle, with the wooden stock and hand-guard, was unmistakable: the immortal S.M.L.E.

  Bullets? He jerked back the bolt feverishly.

  There was nothing there. But of course there was nothing there: Yaffe would never carry a loaded rifle in his golf bag. Not to panic; there had to be rounds in the bag somewhere …

  Unless he collected them at the Rifle Club!

  Roskill fumbled with the strap on the ball pocket: small, stout cardboard boxes with metal edges. And nestling in the boxes lovely .303 cartridges, five in each of the little black chargers. Thank you, God!

  Remember how it was in the old A.T.C. days, when the Flight Sergeant forced them to learn the drill – and he had always found it easy to learn things by heart…

  Draw back the rifle and hold it with the left hand at the point of balance …

  It was easy still – place the charger in the bridge charger guide. Place the ball of the thumb on the top round just in front of the charger …

  The rounds went down smoothly in a clean sweep. Roskill took another charger, pressed the rounds home and closed the breech with one round up the spout – no practice this time, with that last round safe in the magazine. He stuffed two of the little boxes into his coat pocket for good measure.

  Superman was armed now, anyway – Lee Enfield against Uzi!

  But not here. This was Uzi country; the old rifle liked the open spaces best, not the woodlands.

  The meadow.

  They would be coming back across the meadow.

  Roskill set off, propelling himself up the incline on his right hip with his right foot, the rifle resting painfully on his collar bone, his useless left foot dragging behind him. But before he’d gone three yards he knew he’d never make the distance back up to the path and then along to the meadow – not in the time that must be left to him now. Not even that pumping adrenalin could disguise the weakness and the spreading pain down his leg.

  He veered off to the left, towards the stream.

  Downhill, even on the uneven surface of the wood, the going was easier – it was no more than agonising. And the stream itself refreshed him: he lay in it, he dipped his face into it, and at the last he drank from it, watching the water redden as it washed some of the blood from him.

  The cattle, or whatever used the meadow, had used this point in the high bank to get to the water – there was a mud wallow, but beyond it a broad track worn to the top.

  Leaving a slimy trail of blood and water behind him, Roskill inched his way up the track. He knew the effort was squandering his energy reserve as he crawled, anchoring each advance with the rifle butt. But the line of meadow grass at the top was the Promised Land; to fail to reach it now would be to lose everything.

  At last he could peer over the top, between the tufts. For a moment he couldn’t focus: the landscape swam before his eyes.

  Then it became an empty fie
ld – a much bigger field than he had imagined, at least from this worm’s-eye view, with a barbed wire fence marking its frontier with a low ridge of heathland and forest scrubland. And there in the far corner to his left was the stile which he and Yaffe should have crossed just a few minutes ago.

  Yaffe….

  The hay-makers had taken the first growth from the field, and it was trimmed to an even stubble. But they had left an awkward patch providentially close to where he lay, beside the stump of an old tree whose roots had been stretching down out of the bank towards the water.

  Roskill crawled the final yards to the protection of the stump. For half a minute he rested his face against the rough bark, breathing deeply.

  Another sign that he was slipping.

  But not yet, damn it, not yet!

  Roskill carefully placed the rifle on its side in the grass and took the spare cartridge boxes out of his pocket. He opened them and placed the spare slips ready beside the stump. He was appalled to see that his hand was white and shaking like an old man’s, the veins huge and blue.

  He looked methodically around him again.

  A good fire position should permit free use of the weapon, have a good field of fire, be inconspicuous and bulletproof.

  Wasn’t there something else, though?

  Be easy to move from …

  Well, it was all those except perhaps the last. But that didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t be moving from it, one way or another!

  He slid the rifle forward, checking the safety catch. It was undoubtedly a very old one, with the open U-shaped backsight which he’d heard of, but never seen. At least the aiming rule was simple enough though: the top of the foresight must be in the middle of the U, in line with the shoulders.

  He could feel a roughness on the stock – there were Arabic letters carved into it, and five little bright silver studs carefully hammered in line below.

  Trophies, by God! One stud for each life the Arab owner had taken, until Yaffe – no, Yaffe’s father more likely – had missed becoming a stud and won it from its owner. The War of ‘47, maybe…

  And there was something else, too: further down were two holes – new holes which had flaked the polished wood. Roskill looked in awe at the stock. No wonder the golf bag had hit him so hard! Like its owner, it had taken bullets which had his name on them…