The Alamut Ambush

And there was something else, too: further down were two holes –

new holes which had flaked the polished wood. Roskill looked in dummy2

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...

He shook his head and looked up across the field again.

Jesus Christ! They were half-way across it! He'd been maundering over the Lee Enfield while they'd been marching almost straight towards him, and he hadn't even decided what to do!

Shoot first at long range and drive them off, warning everyone?

But it wouldn't warn anyone, because the T.A. men were still blazing away in the distance – and he'd likely miss at anything except point-blank range.

Which meant letting them get close, to see the whites of their eyes, when they could rush him if he missed...

Three of them. He saw them clearly for the first time now: Jahein, grizzled and watchful, with a raincoat slung over his arm to conceal the Uzi, the Englishman, spare, sandy-haired; and the third man, Middle Eastern, carrying a long, shallow black suitcase: that would be the Shibasaki telescopic microphone.

The Englishman would run. He hadn't wanted to kill and hadn't even the stomach to search a body. It wasn't likely now that he would try to be a hero. That left two – and the two he could just possibly take. The two who mattered!

They were walking steadily, but not fast – three strangers out for a Sunday morning stroll in the country.

He lifted the rifle: the sole object of a rifle is to kill the enemy.

But the enemy heaved up and down in front of his foresight; it was like aiming at someone from a small boat in the ocean. He should dummy2

have practised aiming –

Steadying now, though. First pressure on the trigger — correct trigger pressing is essential.

Damn it to hell! The safety catch was still on!

They were very close now. Roskill's bottom was a fiery crater too: he wouldn't be able to sit down for months – first pressure again –

but if he missed now he'd never sit down again, ever.

He shot Jahein through the chest at five yards' range.

The bolt moved smoothly, ejecting the case, and slammed back.

Jahein was on his back in the grass –

If the third man had charged him then – or fled – the barrel waved so wildly he couldn't have hit a house. But the man dropped his case and clawed in the grass for the Uzi which had fallen from Jahein's hands.

The Uzi was a death warrant. It gave Roskill a second to steady the barrel and then an easier shot than the last: the man was bending, almost stationary, with the little machine-pistol just coming up from the ground when his second shot knocked him down, sending the Uzi spinning.

Like the chip of wood spinning...

Roskill lowered the rifle. All the saliva seemed to have drained from his mouth: it was like a lime kiln. Thousands of rounds he'd fired, cannon shells smashing the targets, clay pigeons puffing into fragments, and never a shot in anger until now, when two dead rnen lay there – Jahein's heels were drumming convulsively a few yards from him...

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The Englishman was running – not running, scuttling – like a rabbit across the field, twisting this way and that, towards the barbed wire fence.

Let him go then. The dead he had shot in self-defence and justice.

The third time would be cold-blooded murder. And he was utterly exhausted.

Then it struck Roskill like a blow that they all mattered equally: if they had seen Razzak meet Shapiro, what each one of them knew might be – might be —

No more time to think, for this was a difficult shot. No wind to aim off into, but God only knew where the old Lee Enfield threw its bullet, high or low, left or right.

Except the instructor always said it wasn't the gun but the concentration behind it that hit the target.

Concentrate then. At this range aiming off didn't matter: the man had to reach the wire; it was too high to jump, so he'd have to stop and climb.

Wait and concentrate. It wasn't a man, but a piece of knowledge running towards the wire. If it crossed the wire into the thicket beyond it would be on its way to Alamut. And whatever happened, nothing must wake Hassan to the truth.

Squeeze with the whole hand until you feel the first pressure — he was almost at the wire ... now he was climbing and it had snagged his coat sleeve – restrain the breathing and continue that steady squeeze!

God! Roskill winced as the kick seemed to travel down his body, dummy2

exploding low down and spreading outwards, fogging his vision momentarily.

The man was crucified on the wire, half hanging over it. Then, as Roskill watched, he started to slide backwards the way he had come, jerkily as each strand of wire caught his clothing, took the strain and then ripped free. Roskill stared sickened as the body crumpled in slow motion to the bottom of the fence, one arm finally harpooned on the lowest strand. Inside the field.

He felt cold. A killer ought to feel cold, though. Jack the Giant-Killer. Wyatt Earp. Dead-Eyed Dick – no, not Dead-Eyed Dick.

Dead-Eyed Someone, surely.

It would be nice to pass out now, warm and safe – cold and safe, anyway. But the damned adrenalin hadn't stopped pumping.

He frowned, trying to catch his thoughts: there was something else to do, that was why!

Something else to wait for with the family heirloom. Three more silver studs and room for a fourth now: two for safety, one for duty, but the fourth strictly personal – for Alan.

It was curious, he reflected, how it was possible to feel lightheaded and clear-headed at the same time. He would have to discuss it in the squadron mess tonight with Doc Farrell – say to him he was dead right about the fear of God sharpening the wits!

Damn it all – he'd been so close – and then Audley had twisted it and forced the wrong answer on him!

The Firle meeting had been the key, not because Razzak had met Shapiro there – but because those dead men in the field hadn't been dummy2

told about it by the Watcher who was dogging Razzak's footsteps.

Majid!

So Majid was the young man with the hot-headed little sister –

Razzak's man inside Alamut.

That was why Razzak and Shapiro had been so scared, so bloody scared – yet so confident today that Hassan wasn't on to them .. .

he'd never been on to them at all: so long as Majid had been

'watching', nothing of value ever reached Hassan ...

So it didn't matter what Alan had seen, but only that Majid's lies about the Paris trip must never be exposed. For if they were blown, Majid was blown – and when Majid was blown there would be no Alamut flight, and Razzak's chance would be gone forever!

Oh, Razzak had been good, and never leaked Majid's true role to anyone! But he'd not been quite good enough all the same, because he'd fallen into the oldest pitfall of all: he'd despised his old dog, Jahein – his simple peasant soldier who was Hassan's extra insurance, unknown even to Majid. And in the end it had been the faithful old dog that had the rabid bite, not the sleek hound at his side!

And yet it had been the sleek hound that had made Alan's death a necessity.

Roskill patted the rifle. They wouldn't be long now. The meeting would be over, and they'd be waiting for him to trot up obediently.

And then they'd begin to worry.

All he had to do was to wait, all alone with his thoughts and his handiwork; resolved now, all those contradictions and dummy2

inconsistencies he'd pushed unresolved to the back of his mind. His desire for vengeance had blinded him then, but now everything but vengeance was stripped away.

Another wave of pain, above the steady throb of it, brought tears to his eyes. Much more of that and he'd pass out. Think of something nice then.

Isobel.

High time he resolved that, too. What he had was the ashes of happiness, genteel planned adultery. But in a flash of despairing self-knowledge he knew that he could never give up Isobel, and no well-placed rifle bullet could cut that knot satisfactorily ...

Think about Harry. That debt would be paid, if only indirectly, through Alan. No wergild for them...

One Roskill seemed to float away, to look down on the other one, the blood-stained, mud-caked wreck cradling the rifle and shivering in the sunlight.

The detached Roskill could see clearly. He could see the field. He could see the four of them at the stile. He could see Butler clap his field-glasses to his eyes and could hear – almost hear – his blasphemies.

A word to the others, and Butler was charging the meadow –

'Over here. Jack!' The wreck croaked.

Butler swerved past the bodies without a second glance.

'Hugh – !'

'It's okay, Jack – I – look worse – than I am... Got all three of 'em, dummy2

Jack — pow, pow, pow!'

'Hugh, don't talk!' Butler's eyes compassionate, then doubtful.

'Three?'

Must get this bit right.

'One – over by the fence, Jack. But call the others, Jack – got something important for them – get them now!'

Butler signalled urgently.

Now.

'In the woods, over the stream – Yaffe – help him ...'

Never do for Jack to be around for the kill.

Butler stood up, glancing quickly from the men coming across the field to the wood.

'They're coming, Hugh lad. They'll be here in a minute. We'll have you out of here soon.'

Then Butler was gone, splashing through the stream.

'You do that, Jack,' Roskill murmured to himself, sliding the rifle forward, 'you do that.'

The barrel swept the field. A good field of fire, no doubt about that

– all three in sight and in the sights if he could only hold the damn thing still!

Left – David Audley!

Bastard, bastard, clever bastard, David! Just how long have you known what really happened at Firle? Did you guess at the Queensway? But all the time you wanted to know why, and you dummy2

couldn't have me running amok to spoil the game! So you headed me off and confused me with half-truths while you found out.

You clever bastard – even when you were bullying Razzak you were also telling him that he couldn't trust me, so he had to trust you... I was the threat, wasn't I?

Guilty, David. But no bullet for you – what else could I expect from you, David?

Centre – Muhammed Razzak.

You knew – and it would have been your order that killed Alan, Razzak – because you couldn't have your brave boy Majid blown before you let him take the Aleppo flight to Alamut. Is that what you've done, Razzak? Did you tell him where he's going? Just to make his cover perfect, did you forget to tell him about the Phantom?

Guilty, Raszak. But no bullet for you, Razzak – because you're quite a man — and you would have gone yourself if they'd have taken you!

They were very near now.

Jake Shapiro.

No style in killing, you said, Jake — but this is my style: an ex-British, ex-Arab, ex-Israeli rifle – just right for you if I can hold it still one second more...

You had the means and the motive and the opportunity, Jake, and dummy2

everything said it was you from the start: if he wanted you dead, you'd be dead, they said.

Razzak wouldn't have had the men or the know-how. It had to be done, so it had to be your kill – just like that poor bugger on the wire had to be mine!

The man on the wire ...

Oh, sweet Christ! thought Roskill: I killed that man for the same reason you killed Alan – the same reason, the same risk, the same necessity.

The same act.

The same guilt!

Roskill tried to concentrate and failed. But the effort took his last shred of energy: the rifle barrel wavered, then sank into the grass as he fainted.

EPILOGUE

BEIRUT, Wednesday.

Wreckage of the Trans-Levant air liner which has been missing since Sunday night has been sighted by an Iraqi Air Force plane near the Euphrates river.

An air force spokesman said that the wreckage appeared to be scattered over a wide area of the desert, and there was no sign of survivors.

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Palestine guerrilla sources in Damascus have blamed the crash on Israeli agents, but there has so far been no official comment from Jerusalem. It is pointed out unofficially, however, that telephone threats had earlier been made against flights from Syria to Iraq by an extremist Kurdish organisation, the F.K.L.

The aircraft, which was on a scheduled flight from Aleppo to Mosul, carried 37 passengers and a crew of four. Among the passengers was Mr. Elliott Wilkinson, the well-known Arabist and a vice-president of the Ryle Memorial Trust.

The End

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