The Glory Boys

FIFTEEN

As David Sokarev walked through the door of the lecture room in the Senate building of London University he came unnoticed. He was late, and the attention of the three hundred men who made their living from the study of nuclear physics had long since been diverted from the huddle of plain-clothes policemen with their bulging suits who blocked the only entrance.

He was close to half-way down the side of the room and heading toward the table adorned only with a stand microphone and a glass water jug sitting on a tray between four glasses when those he had passed reacted to the short figure in the grey suit who shuffled past them, hemmed in like a convict by the taller and more heavily-set bodyguards who jockeyed for space at his side. There were few who had come to listen who had not read their morning papers, listened to radio news broadcasts or watched a television news bulletin. All day the headlines had blared the information that a major terrorist plot existed with the sole purpose of assassinating the scientist now making his way the length of the room. Those who first recognized him, from the pictures they had seen in the last few hours, or who had met him in the past, rose from their seats and began to clap. Within seconds the entire room had taken their cue from those who had initiated the applause. The noise spilled into a cheer, self-conscious at first, the men used to working in silence and unaccustomed to venting their thoughts in such public manner. Those that were close enough saw the sad eyes of Sokarev, saw his tongue run with anxiety over his lips seeking to moisten their desert dryness. Perhaps the acclamation confused him, but as he turned to look behind to gauge the size of the room his feet became entangled and he pitched forward a few inches before one of the many hands of the men who surrounded him arrested his stumble.

By the time he reached the top table everyone in the room, excepting the security men, was standing pulping their palms together in a concerted gesture of solidarity.

The smile that dawned on his face was one of helpless gratitude. He tried not to look as they beamed and shouted their support for him, instead contenting himself with cleaning his spectacles, and when that was exhausted sorting his notes for the address.

It all meant little to Jimmy. He had permitted Mackowicz and Elkin to flank the scientist and had positioned himself a pace or so behind. That had been the inner yoke of the shell around the Israeli. Beyond had been the Special Branch men, six of them, two car loads who could get no closer than five to six feet from the man they had been ordered to protect. Now the shell fragmented as the guards moved to their appointed places. The only door had been locked behind him, a plain-clothes and unmistakable police guard on either side and equipped with walkie-talkie personal sets to co-ordinate any turning of the key.

There could be no sudden surprise entry from that quarter.

The two Israelis were at the raised table, Elkin standing to the side the door was found, Mackowicz opposite and close to the windows now draped in brown velveteen curtains. Jimmy saw that Mackowicz had brought his macintosh; warm summer evening, clear sky, indisputable weather forecast of sunshine for at least the next three days. The coat, held across his thighs, meant the Uzi was concealed there. Wonder if he's put the catch off, thought Jimmy, put one up the spout. Down the long walls that stretched the length of the room were four of the Branch men, two on each side. The remaining two were at the far end, facing Sokarev and the committee that had assembled to host the meeting. Nine armed and trained men in the room. Has to be enough, Jimmy said to himself, has to guarantee it. But the knowledge that Mackowicz had the sub-machine-gun grasped in his right hand aggravated him. Without permitting anyone in the packed ranks of seats to observe his action he drew the PPK from his holster and held it low behind him against the wall, and positioned himself so that he faced the windows, and could see Sokarev to his left and the men by the door to his right.

When silence at last settled on the hall the chairman rose to speak. He had already glanced with as great a force of anger and contempt as he could command at Mackowicz.

He found no reaction, but his experience of the morning in the hotel lobby still stung.

'Ladies and Gentlemen,' he threw his voice to the back of the hall, correctly gauging that some of the elderly might have difficulty in hearing in spite of the amplification system, it gives me the very greatest of pleasure to welcome to our gathering this evening that most distinguished of colleagues from the State of Israel, Professor David Sokarev.' He paused, and the clapping began immediately and with great fervour, till Christ-like he raised his hands to quell it. 'I think we are all aware that the Professor has done us a great honour in coming to visit us. If we believe only a half of what we read in our daily journals then there is no doubt in my mind that Professor Sokarev has displayed great courage in coming to our shores to honour this engagement. I think we can accept that in the highest offices of our land the dangers that Professor Sokarev is running are believed to be genuine — witness the number of gentlemen with us this evening who I regret wholeheartedly are going to find this evening's lecture extremely tedious.' There was a ripple of laughter as the greyed and balding heads of the audience strayed around the walls searching out the men with their close cuts, two-button suits and suede shoes. But the laughter did not last, and it was at best brittle and nervous. The presence of the interlopers was a factor beyond the experience of the men who had come to listen to the professor.

'Because of the difficulties that have surrounded Professor Sokarev since his arrival here I myself have not yet had the opportunity of speaking to him, but when I extended the invitation that he should come and talk to us I suggested he might care to discuss in our company the distinguished work connected with lasers that has been associated with his name. Now whether that is what he has eventually decided on, I do not know.. I t was clear the chairman had more to say, and Jimmy was prepared to shut out the rest.

The gun, he had now decided, was unnecessary. It could rest as easily in the holster, enough of the melodrama. He turned to the wall, as a child does when it wishes to urinate out of sight of adults. With the PPK again weighted against his chest he faced back into the room, wondering how many had seen his movement. The speech of introduction droned on. Jimmy felt himself beginning to relax. Two moments of priority danger, he told himself, and one already successfully negotiated. Arrival and Departure — those were the hitting times for the opposition. Not in here, not with the screened and searched and checked-out audience. The departure would be the time for maximum vigilance, not Jimmy's phrase but Jones's. And Helen was out there waiting. Soft and comfortable. She'd follow them back to the hotel, and when they'd dropped Sokarev off, all tucked up in his pit, they'd go back to the flat together, and stay awake together.

The policemen who were beyond the locked door, outside in the corridor, shared Jimmy's feelings. They had formed a close knot together, sufficiently at ease to light up their cigarettes and talk about the ordinariness that dominated their lives. Mortgage rates were swapped, the cost of holidays, gossip about superiors and desk men.

And in the creeping darkness beside the towering shape of Britain's largest university complex the officers posted there also felt an easing of the tension that had gripped and alerted them at the time the professor had driven to the building. There would be ample warning of his exit.

Then the pocket radios would chatter and there would be the noise of the car engines revving. Time enough to supervise their closely chosen watching points. One group had gathered at the main entrance, dwarfing and formidable. Another had drawn together by the side door through which Sokarev had entered the building. From neither position was it possible to view the windows of the lecture hall; that part of the building butted out too far for them to see beyond its corners.

The constable who had been assigned the duty of watching the windows of the lecture hall now lay at McCoy's feet.

He had not been armed, and even if he had carried a gun he would not have had the opportunity to use it. Nor had he spoken into his radio, attached to his tunic lapel, before the crashing blow came down on the soft rear area of his head, below the line of his reinforced helmet and where skull base and vertebrae come together. It had been mercilessly simple, Famy advancing with his tourist map, stuttering ineffective English, distracting the constable's attention as they peered together at the street divisions while McCoy moved cougar-quick with the metal tube of plumber's piping. The thieves' charter of keys McCoy had gained at the garage in the morning was next employed. A parked car opened, hand-brake released, and the vehicle pushed in silence to the place of the scratched star underneath the window.

Famy saw the Irishman never looked at the sprawling figure beneath him. Again the glossy coldness that meant there would be no hesitation at the moment of contact, and all who trespassed in their way obliterated without concern. It was as he would be when the time of firing came. Famy was aware of the flooding excitement bursting through him. Now at last they would savour victory, triumphant over endless obstacles. It was the ultimate moment of his mission.

McCoy said, quietly and slowly, so that he did not have to repeat it, 'There's been one round of clapping. That's the entry. The next one means he's on his feet. We go, straight then.'

Famy extended the shoulder rest of the M i, locked it in its extended position, checked the magazine was in place, cocked the gun — quickly and fearfully lest the noise of the mechanism would arouse curiosity — and eased off the safety catch.

Beside him McCoy had pulled the heavy black glove on to his right hand, the metal tube grasped in the grotesque finger-shapes. But no gun; Famy saw he had picked up no weapon.

'You should have the other Mx with you,' he hissed, amplifying his worry.

'No need. Your pigeon now, remember? I'm going to give you the clear shot, then it's all yours.' it will be a famous success for our people… '

'Keep that fucking nonsense till you've hit the bastard.'

They heard the swell of applause build behind the blackness of the curtain, prolonged fierce clapping and shouts. Famy went up the back of the car and on to the roof that buckled and heaved under his weight. He needed to steady himself with his free hand, nerves gripping at his legs. McCoy came the other way, climbing over the bonnet and stretching up past the windscreen till both stood together, uncertain of balance on the shifting platform.

They were exactly above the mark Famy had drawn against the wall, and level with the join of the curtain. The Irishman pushed his face close to Famy's

'Remember it then. When I've done the window and got the curtain back he'll be forty-five degrees to you. And don't bugger about. If they all start blasting chuck the grenades. Right?'

He waited for Famy to bring the rifle up to his shoulder in the aim position, waited till it was snug against the shoulder and the right cheek, and then smashed the tubing into the expanse of glass. Famy winced away from the noise as McCoy's fist, protected by the glove, beat at the obstinate and remaining slivers still fastened in the mortar-work of the frame. The hand grabbed for the curtain and pulled it back; instinctively Famy lunged forward, still in the fire posture, raking the brightness of the room for his target.

Where was he? Where was the whore? Which was the one he sought? Which of the uncomprehending, blank faces that had turned and now stayed motionless and transfixed peering at the source of the commotion? The answer was not long coming. The man who stood at the table while all round him sat, the man who had begun to cower, who knew the blow was near and sought to avoid it, who could not urge his muscles to follow the racing orders of his brain. That one, that one was Sokarev.

Famy steadied to fire, aiming for the chest where the white shirt and the dark tie disappeared into the greyness of his suit. So big, so easy, through the shape of the gunsight.

'Speed it up, for Christ's sake,' screamed McCoy, and as the finger closed round the trigger, squeezing as he'd been told, Famy twisted his gaze to the agony of impatience on the Irishman's face.

When he looked back he saw the man at the far end of the table thrusting a way toward Sokarev, and the man closer to him was wrestling with a coat swinging the billowed shape of it up toward his shoulder.

Famy fired.

As the curtain exploded with the noise of the breaking glass, Jimmy's hand moved to the holster under the breast pocket of his jacket. His fingers found the harshness of the handle, fastening on the ridging there to aid his grip. Then there was the protruding gun barrel, barely thirty feet from him. The pistol was coming fast, out in front, arm extended, level with the eyes as he heard the shout from far in the night, and then the first shot. Fractionally later Jimmy pulled the hair trigger, without finesse and conscious of the need not for accuracy but for a volume of shots. Some were to hit the curtain, some to disappear he knew not where.

Jimmy had fired six times, shouting all the time in the direction of Sorakev.

'Get him down. Get the bloody man on the floor. Get him under the table.'

Elkin reached the scientist first, taking off in a leap when still five feet from him to pinion Sokarev to the floor among the tangle of chair and table supports and feet.

Jimmy saw the chairman sag in his chair and then fall forward, casually and without effort on to the open surface of the table.

Again and again the rifle at the window fired and with each succeeding shot Jimmy was surer in his knowledge.

'He's missed, the little mother fucker, and he knows it!'

It was almost a shout, exhilaration at the contact, half-smile playing on his mouth. But the eyes were cold — focused, taking in the scene around him.

The two Branch men along the same wall as Jimmy had begun to fire, not standing but crouched in the taught posture, classic but slower. He's not going to take it, too much for him, it'll finish him, the little rat, thought Jimmy.

He saw Sokarev far under the table, Elkin covering him, saw Mackowicz bring the Uzi to his shoulder, rid himself of that useless coat, and he began to make for the door.

He had reached it, elbowing aside the policemen, shouting for the door to be opened above the nerve-shattering noise of the long burst fired by Mackowicz, when from the corner of his eye he saw the puny, dark grey and rounded shape loop its way from the window toward the top table.

Mackowicz far back in the room shouted the one terrifying choked word, 'Grenade!'

It bounced, seemingly consumed with inertia, on to the floor between the table and the front row of the audience's seats, made a gentle parabola before bouncing again and then rolling unevenly, toward the shelter of the table where Elkin protected Sokarev. Mackowicz jumped for it. There was a moment when he was airborne and Jimmy could see the grenade wobbling, nearly stationary, then it disappeared beneath the big body. Stillness, fractional but complete. Then Mackowicz was lifted high toward the ceiling, Jimmy did not see him fall — he was through the door, now unlocked and running toward the main entrance.

The detonation of the grenade was still battering in Jimmy's ears as he went down the corridor through the confusion of the milling policemen. Because the shots and explosion had come from inside the lecture room every man, in or out of uniform, saw it as his duty to crowd as close as physically possible to the source of the gunfire.

Behind Jimmy as he shouldered his way through the advancing charge came a cry for 'Stretchers.' He knew where to go. He dug his heels into the soft gravel immediately outside the doorway, ran out into the night and to his left and then swerved again to get himself along the side of the building and to the marksman's position. In the shadows far in front he saw two men jump from the roof of a parked car and start to run for the low boundary wall that separated the university precincts from Malet Street and the free-flowing traffic. Still sprinting, Jimmy fired — stupid really — carried away with the cowboy game, only one shot, and the magazine was expended. There was a shot in return, wide and high and to the right, barely close enough for him to distinguish the 'crack' that signalled its incoming. As his finger moved uselessly on the trigger, bringing home the message of his wastefulness, he slowed, couldn't get close now, not with an empty bloody shooter.

Across the road he heard the frantic, piercing sound of dispute, and the noise, belatedly, of a car revving. Jimmy was panting now, out of condition, not enough time in the gym, striving to fill his lungs with air.

'Helen. Helen. Where in God's name are you?'

It seemed deep eternity before the car pulled up sharply alongside him.

'Get out. Get out of the bloody thing.' His voice came in short staccato bursts. She hesitated, disorientated by the distant noise of gunfire and now the heaving wild-eyed form of Jimmy.

'Get out, you stupid bitch. Get out of the bloody car.'

She began to unfasten the clasp of her safety belt worn across her body. Always in position, however far she went, reflex. Jimmy wrenched open the door, took hold of the collar of her coat and pulled her from the wheel. One action, out of the seat and clear of the door. The background cacophony; of police whistles blowing, of a radio screeching with static, of orders bellowed. Jimmy had taken her place and the car was already spinning in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree half-circle as he headed for the one gap in the wall and toward where he had seen the running men and heard the starting car.

Seventy yards in front the Cortina struck out into the main stream. It was a laboured movement, that of a winged animal, one certain in the knowledge that it must escape but with its limbs damaged and impaired. Jimmy heaved with relief. He was in contact, the vacuum space between the cars would lessen. He cut right from the centre of the road to avoid a racing police car, light revolving, siren at volume, travelling in the other direction. Flashed his headlights, but it was past him, his gesture unseen by driver or navigator. No system of communication from Helen's car, no radio telephone. He pulled out again, avoided the bus that lumbered in front and cursed that the girl had purchased a slow-acceleration family car. But the gap would close.

The Cortina went through the traffic lights on red and was in Goodge Street, long, Georgian and geometric, heading south. Jimmy followed, was faintly aware of a car skidding to an emergency stop to avoid collision, and settled himself easily into the seat. Not good yet, Jimmy, had you with your Y-fronts on your knees, not often it goes that way, but it'll get better, and the little bastards up front'll wonder what hit them. The PPK rested on his lap.

Another magazine was in his jacket, right pocket. He would wait for an opportunity to reload.

They had run from the window close together, Famy with his head bent round, covering the area behind them, the small rifle ready to fire, ready to head off pursuit, McCoy leading with his right arm pressed hard against the upper shoulder. When Famy had turned once to fire away into the distance McCoy had savagely pulled him forward, destroying his aim. it's distance we have to have. Hang on here and we're screwed.' The words sobbed out, but with little tone as they emerged from the clamped and pain-creased mouth.

When they reached the Cortina McCoy had thrust his left hand across his body into the opposite trouser pocket and pulled clear the laden key ring. It took him several seconds to select the one he wanted, small and bright and fresh-cut. He tossed it to Famy.

'You drive,' he said, and flung open the passenger door, left unlocked when they had parked the bare forty minutes earlier. Should have left the keys in the ignition.

Famy had the rifle to his shoulder. It was small, a child's toy, too insignificant to be a killing weapon. The people who had paused on the far pavement did not believe in it and now stood and watched — not with great fear, nor petrified beyond movement, but curious. Famy was jolted from the image by McCoy's words.

'Come on, you stupid bloody eejit. You'll have to drive.'

Still Famy held the rifle up, peering over its sights, watchful of pursuit.

'Shift yourself, you bastard.'

Famy lowered the rifle, and held it at his side, as a man who walks with a stick, and is resting. 'I cannot,' he said.

McCoy seemed not to have heard him. 'Don't piss about. Get behind the bloody wheel.'

'I cannot drive.' Famy said it slowly. Humiliation, abject and total.

'Course you can bloody drive,' McCoy's voice rose in exasperation and temper.

'I don't know how. I have never driven.'

McCoy waved his right arm in Famy's face. 'Can't you see, there's a bloody great bullet in there? Stop farting about and move the car off.' it is impossible. I have never driven. I cannot.'

The monotonous recitation slid home to McCoy. The obscenity he yelled at the Arab was vicious and wounding.

McCoy ran round the car and draped himself into the driving seat. He laid his right arm along the wheel for support and from the street light Famy could see his face whitened. With his left hand McCoy inserted the key into the ignition, and then put the car into gear. By pushing his whole body forward he was able to turn the wheel toward the direction of the road before he could bring his left hand into play again with the gear stick.

Famy wondered whether the Irishman would faint. He wound down the passenger window and looked back across the road, rifle aimed again. In his jacket pocket were three grenades — he could run his fingers over them.

Grip-bag in the rear, where it had been left, more ammunition, more grenades, needed the reassurance, and then the car was moving. He cringed as they went through the lights, bracing himself for an impact that did not happen.

And another car came through the lights, clearly visible to him, unmistakable.

'Another car followed us,' near-panic, near-hysteria.

'What am I supposed to do about it?'

'I cannot see it now, not as an individual car, there are just lights.'

'Forget it,' said McCoy, if it gets close blast it. If not forget it.'

McCoy could tell that his concentration was slipping, felt the weakness drifting uncontrollably over him. The wound itself fascinated him. Little to see, but he glanced obsessively at it. Just the neatly driven hole that lay in the centre of the blood patch where the cloth had darkened and stained on the upper forearm. The pain ebbed, rising only when he tried to use the hand, and then sliding into numbness when he rested his fingers on the wheel.

'Did you get the bastard?' McCoy said.

They were on the move now. If he did not have to go fast, and drive under pressure, then he could manage. If there was pursuit… There was a vagueness, an absence of care, caused by the loss of blood, but that was the option that he did not care to consider.

'I don't know.' Famy's reply was little more than a whisper.

"Course you bloody know. Either you saw him go down or you didn't. You know when you've hit a man, the way he goes.' McCoy said it with patronizing knowledge. Seen at first hand — the way a man was raised in the air, thrown up rag-doll and the way he then slumped out of control, unable to protect his head. There was a lapse of the co-ordination that maintained the living. it was difficult to know.' Famy paused. He studied the road in front, the thinning traffic of late evening in central London, then glanced behind. Only a myriad of jumbled lights, some stationary, some on the move, none so close as to threaten danger. Famy wanted to explain, wanted the other man to understand, 'I was about to fire at Sokarev when you shouted. There was distraction. As I fired there was a man across the room who began to shoot.

One of the men pulled Sokarev under the table, I was firing all the time he did that, but he was on the ground and then was gone from my sight. The man who sat beside Sokarev, he was hit… '

'Big deal, they'll be singing and dancing in Beirut if you've drilled a Brit geriatric.'

McCoy was almost amused at the other man's discom-fiture. And it was a failure, that much had penetrated to him, through the cloud and the haze. Without his wound he would have felt savage hatred at being associated with the fiasco, but the injury dissipated his anger, rendered it obsolete.

'… There was shooting from the wall facing us. Three or four men. And the bodyguard near the table, another one, not the one that went to Sokarev, he had the small machine-gun. He had stared to fire when I threw the grenade. The grenade would have taken Sokarev, but the man fell on it. Then I could see nothing. He just exploded, and then there was smoke. The men who were shooting had an aim by then, one could not stay at the window.'

'One of those bastards took me.' There was finality in McCoy's words. To Famy it seemed the pain of the inquest was over, and the car was still moving. McCoy could cope with the disability. Famy watched the cars behind and those alongside but could find nothing to sustain his earlier anxiety. He put the M1 on the floor, under his legs, easy to reach but invisible to any driver who might glance at them casually from an adjacent car.

McCoy said, the trace of a smile playing at the side of his mouth, 'I thought this was the one where you stood up and had yourself counted, where you took Sokarev, or they took you. Bugged out early, didn't we?' it was impossible to continue shooting with all the firing from the wall.'

'Hand gun stuff, not accurate at that range. Lucky shot that hit me.'

'You started to run, and you were pulling at me.'

'But it's not my war, remember? You could have stayed.

You were the bloody marksman. I'm just the chauffeur.

So, why did you do the scamper?'

'I couldn't see any more… only the smoke… I couldn't aim.' But Famy knew they were just words. There was no recollection of making a decision to run. He was already moving long before the awareness of it. There had never been a moment when he had the choice, choice of life and death.

They had swung to the west now, and the traffic was lighter as they navigated a by-pass route which avoided the heart of the city. McCoy was able to keep the speedometer flickering a path between twenty and thirty miles an hour.

'They won't react well, your masters. Won't have wanted you hanging about able to fight another day and Mr Bloody Sokarev coming out clean.' McCoy was turning the screw. Knew it, and enjoyed the process. Retribution for his pain.

Famy stayed silent.

'My crowd wouldn't take kindly to it — not with all the investment. If it's cocked then it would have been better it had never started. Victory for them, bad news in your parish.'

McCoy was talking as if to himself, softly and winning no response.

'The Provies have their own way if it doesn't work out.

If it's yellow, if the bugger sprinted to save his neck, then it's court martial. Not as formal as all that, nothing pompous. Half a dozen guys, in a barn or in a garage.

Sentence comes a bit formal, though. Hood and a pistol-shot behind the ear. Leave a note on them too, so the next lot know why.'

Famy had his eyes closed, lids tightly drawn together, but was unable to shut out the message as McCoy expanded. if it's just because they didn't think, mucked the scene, then it's easier. Call it knee-capping. Bullet through each, from the back. They walk again, but they never run, and they, stand out from the crowd because they're on sticks for weeks. The Proddies, the other mob, they're worse… use a Black and Decker. It's a drill, used for putting holes in the wall. Takes longer than a bullet — obvious isn't it?

But they're real bastards, those Proddies.'

Famy said, 'There was one who went into Israel, and came back alone. All the rest were taken or killed, only this one survived and they found his Kalashnikov had not been fired. And they took him with ten of his friends to the open ground. He had a start of fifty metres, and then his friends began to fire. They all had to shoot, and the guns were checked afterwards, and they were watched to see they did not shoot wide. He did not go many metres, and it only happened once. There was no need for a repetition.'

'You'd better think of something good to say,' said McCoy. The game had gone far enough. There were other preoccupations for McCoy. Where to go, what to do about the wound? All men who go to the lonely war, the guerrilla's war, have a common fear, multiplied in their fantasies till it controls and dominates them. It is the horror of sepsis, of gangrene, of the putrefaction of their flesh. McCoy needed a den, where he could go and curl his legs and watch the entrance, and be safe, and needed it for many days, with hot water and clean towels

… What to do with the bloody Arab? No place for him in the den, the lair for one only. Perhaps kill him — easiest solution, attractive. Something to think on, half an hour more for the driving, and a decision by then.

The problem engrossed him as he drove, and Famy too was quiet, but with what thoughts McCoy neither knew nor cared.

For a full three minutes after the firing of the last shot Elkin covered Sokarev's body. When the scientist tried to move and shift his suppressed left arm from under his body the security man firmly pressed him down again flat on to the polished boards of the floor. There was a great calmness about Elkin's face, and the eyes were very clear, traversing the room for any further threat, and outstretched in front of him as an antenna his arm and the service revolver he preferred to the Uzi.

The Branch man who had taken a position nearest the table had bent down and asked the one inevitable question.

Was Sokarev hurt? Elkin had shaken his head.

'Keep him there, then,' the detective said. 'First we'll clear the casualties, then empty the room. After that we'll work out how to shift him.'

Sokarev was aware that his legs were trembling, uncontrollably, the flesh of his upper thighs lapping together, and he was powerless to stop it. He could remember little of what had happened, just the noise of the window, and then the sight of the shortened barrel of the rifle poking and weaving in the curtain gap, locking on to him. He could recall the moment that Elkin had hit his legs and pulled him down, and then the horrific, unending exchange of gunfire. He had seen Mackowicz dive and lie still and then lift off into the air, and his ears felt pierced by the sound of the grenade.

The stretchers came fast. That on which the chairman lay was covered, end to end, by a grey hospital blanket and left at the far end of the room. What remained of Mackowicz was beside it. The policeman who had helped the ambulance team to lift the Israeli's disembowelled corpse on to the stretcher had vomited as soon as the pink and softened organs were covered over. The ambulances had come from University College Hospital less than half a mile away. It was to there that seven casualties were hurried; four suffering from gunshot wounds, one from grenade shrapnel injuries and two from coronary heart attacks.

The detectives had already started to examine the fire position outside the window when one of their number, walking beside the car used as the platform, stumbled on the body of the constable. When they lifted the young man on to the stretcher it was with care, a degree of gentleness, conscious they were handling their own.

In strange, shuffling silence the guests were ushered from the room and across the wide corridor to a similar lecture hall. Their patience was requested and it was explained to them that though they would not be detained for long it was impossible that they could be allowed to wander from the building while the large-scale search of the immediate area of the university was still under way. After the door had been closed on them few had anything to say. The conflict between Israel and her neighbours was not a thing that many understood. For a few moments they had been exposed to the unfamiliar; but the experience would do little to aid their comprehension.

When everyone had gone Sokarev was helped to his feet.

They stood him back to the wall and hemmed in by policemen, Elkin right beside him, the gun still in his hand but resting against his trouser pocket. Later they brought him a glass of water. He found he could scarcely hold it, and Elkin took the glass and put it against the professor's lips and tilted it to such an angle that some spilled from his mouth and dribbled on to the front of his suit.

Jones had stayed in his office alone that night. Helen, vague about her movements, had been gone three hours.

From a long way down the empty corridors he heard the laboured footsteps of the messenger from communications.

Too old to hurry, and why should he in his ignorance of the message he carried to Room 3/146? He was a little out of breath when he knocked on the outer door, and surprised that the Section head had bounced across two offices to be there to snatch the paper from his hand. There were no thanks from Jones who now concentrated on what the other man could see were three bare lines of type.

They didn't explain much. An attack on Sokarev — unsuccessful rifle fire and an explosion — casualties, large local-scale hunt started for two men — no immediate result.

In his office again Jones sagged back into his chair, read the message three, four times, looking unsuccessfully for any word or interpretation that he might earlier have missed. And nothing from Jimmy. Where was he when all this was going on? Why hadn't he intervened? Why hadn't he called? Half the reason for the man being there was that he'd be on the phone, so the department wasn't relying on the police for information. Should have called in by now. He swivelled half round in his chair and looked at the picture, in deep shadow now because of the angle at which the lights were hung. Pretty little boy, nice smile, big eyes, neat head, looked as harmless as a butterfly, but he'd concealed the wasp sting. Bloody-near pulled it off, him and that Irishman. Jones felt a great sadness that pulled him down, his head deep in his arms on the table.

What was the point of it all, when all the king's horses and all the king's men could be pushed off centre-stage by that little rat? Shouldn't have been an equal contest, shouldn't have been allowed to throw the sucker punch, and he had, and nearly won.

The Soviets sniffing round the Defence establishments, or the Czechs, or East Germans… they were so straight forward. Bit of a game when you became involved with them. Reckoned on the odds, didn't they? And if they didn't think they could win they didn't come in. But this little sod, he hadn't worked out his chances of survival — couldn't have done, or he'd have stayed at home — and yet he was in there kicking. Jones didn't know what his feelings were toward the young Arab. Probably there was a tinge of admiration, that of the older man for youth which does something no longer possible for the other through age. But it was balanced quickly by the anger and frustration that the Arab had put them through the hoops, and laughed at them and lived.

Had to be brave, too, Jones acknowledged that. The old labels weren't any good. Courage if he was from your lot, fanaticism if he was on the other side. He'd learned the futility of the tags when he was still young, when he saw an ME no night fighter with its two-man crew peel away in its tail of flame, known they wouldn't survive, and known too that they'd pressed their attack long after the chance of success had vanished. They were brave men, and they were the enemy, and they'd earned respect, and been prepared to die. The Arab had been prepared to die too, as a sacrifice for his army, whatever bunch of twisted idiots they turned out to be. And all such a waste, and everyone scared out of their wits by the implications of it all — everyone except his Jimmy.

The telephone broke in, shrill and insistent, bursting over the quietened room. Helen on the line, chill and matter of fact. Jimmy in her car… hot pursuit… a get-away vehicle disappearing from the scene… God only knows where he's gone… shots in the street.. she was coming back to the office. Just the staccato statements, without emotion or involvement, and then she'd rung off. Jones put the receiver down. Funny the way she'd used Jimmy's name, usually a laugh when she mentioned him, but not this time. Jones, long sensitive to intonation and emphasis, noted it, and wondered what the hell she was doing there anyway. Then he put it from his mind. Unimportant, silly girl — should have stayed at home. His thoughts were surging with Jimmy. Just what he would have wanted, he thought, the big challenge and the chance to prove himself where all else had failed. And he'd have to kill them, wouldn't he? Have to kill the Arab. Only way now.

Under pressure Jones would normally have resorted to the palliative of work, buried himself in the paperwork of the operation, twisted his mind away from the generalities with the specifics of detail. But he had no function now; it was all out of his hands. There was nothing he could usefully do. That's how far down those bastards have brought us, he thought, right down to the base area, where the Jimmys are waiting.

He screwed up the teletype message, crumpled the paper in his fist and tossed it unsuccessfully in the direction of his waste-bin.

None of the photographers and television crews who had been covering the arrivals and who were scheduled to film the departures had any worthwhile pictures of the event.

Now they crowded against the side door from which they believed the Israeli scientist would emerge. A fierce argument broke out when a police inspector called them to silence and informed the gathering that under no circumstances would flash bulbs or arc lights be permitted. Thirty voices were raised in protest, but when they died the inspector's message was even more explicit.

'Gentlemen,' he said. 'I am not prepared to have the person of Mr Sokarev either impeded or in any way illuminated on this step. If you think about it there's no way I can say anything else. If you don't play ball you're down the station, charged and in court tomorrow, and I wouldn't vouch your cameras will survive.'

The Prime Minister, called from the dinner table, suffered three agonizing minutes of uncertainty. The first message relayed to him by the Commissioner, telephoning from Scotland Yard, merely stated that there was heavy shooting and an explosion inside the room where Professor Sokarev was speaking. More details would follow.

He had waited for them alone in his personal office, unwilling to face his guests again before he knew the worst. When the telephone rang again he expected catas-trophe, but was told that whereas there were casualties the professor was not among them. There was no more reliable and confirmed information.

He had barely resumed his meal when his Parliamentary Private Secretary brought in a folded slip of paper. The Israeli Ambassador was demanding a meeting, and that night.

'Put the bloody man off till the morning,' he said, and motioned for the butler to replenish his glass. 'Right to the top,' he urged.