The Alamut Ambush

Before I was kicked out I'd already been sidetracked there for six months and I know all their top men – he can't be all that new. But never mind: I'll identify him for you tomorrow morning. It shouldn't be difficult. Now – tell me about the Ryle Foundation.

Obviously Cox was right about that!'

'Yes, but – ' The trouble was that Havergal's memory had proved suspiciously disappointing when it came down to hard identifications. The session had left him with the feeling that the old man had to some extent outsmarted him in the end, and he tried hard to conceal this now in reporting the dialogue.

But Audley merely grunted approvingly as he listened.

'A neat line of reasoning – I think I'd like this Colonel Havergal of yours, Hugh. He was before my time, of course, but I can see why Fred would have wanted to get hold of him – if it was Fred. And I agree with you it might be Elliott Wilkinson he's gunning for. The Arabs would be damn difficult to unseat with things as they are, but Wilkinson's not quite invulnerable.'

'You know him?'

'I used to. But I didn't know he was mixed up with the Ryle people.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that he's up to no good, though.'

'He's pro-Arab?'

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'He isn't pro anything – it wouldn't be so bad if he was. He's just old-fashioned anti-semitic. Thirty years ago he'd have ended up behind the wire on the Isle of Man – if he hadn't got to Berlin first.

Horrible bloody character. If it wasn't Jews it'd be Catholics or blacks – if he'd lived in the sixteenth century he'd have been a champion witch-smeller. The devil of it is that he's got some very close contacts with our Arab section now – too damn close. And Llewelyn trusts him, the fool.'

'But there's still nothing to connect him with Hassan. We've only got Cox's instinct and a handful of names.'

'Cox is a good man, Hugh. And we've got more than that now.

Things are beginning to come together.'

'Things?'

It was all very well for Audley to retire comfortably to his country seat to think beautiful, complicated thoughts while he, Roskill, crouched in smelly Bunnock Street.

'I've been doing my homework, Hugh – catching up on Master Llewelyn.'

Llewelyn. Always the Welshman was uppermost in Audley's thoughts. Alan Jenkins's killers were probably a secondary consideration, a mere means to an end, whatever he might maintain. They were still each looking for revenge, but not the same revenge.

'It seems he's one of the errand boys between the Americans and the Russians at Jarring, the U.N. mediator – strictly an errand boy, whatever he likes to think. But a busy one. I can see how dummy2

mortifying he'd find being blown up just now, when things are moving.'

'He said there was a chance of peace in the Middle East.'

'I doubt that. But there is going to be a cease-fire, that's certain –

the Rogers Plan is definitely on.'

The radio that morning had seemed very much less certain, but Audley obviously had better sources.

'It's all cut and dried. The Egyptians will accept first, and the Russians are going to lean on the Syrians . . . Then the Israelis will argue among themselves – that's probably laid on so that the Gahal right-wing bloc can be kicked out of the government – but they'll agree in the end. It's all set for early August. Myself, I don't think it'll go as smoothly as – as my informant thinks.'

'So what's all this got to do with us?'

'With us? Well, in the long run God only knows what will happen

– I've been out too long to make any useful guesses. I suppose it depends on what sort of deal the Americans and the Russians have cooked up ... and whether the Middle East hawks can queer things . . . But in the short run they're just coming up to the maximum risk period. Once the cease-fire's agreed, maybe it can stand up to a certain amount of double-crossing, I don't know. But just before – that's right now – this is the time the guerrilla groups ought to be trying to wreck it.'

Audley paused. 'And there's one thing that's gingering up the Great Powers – there's a rumour that Nasser is a sick man. The word is that when he was in Russia earlier this year the doctors there told dummy2

him to take things very easy. But the way doings are, he can't, and that's what's got the Russians moving – they don't want peace, but they want to take the steam out of things just in case.'

'Whereas Hassan wants trouble?'

'Exactly. In fact I think that's what Llewelyn's been expecting. And not just him either – there's an unofficial clampdown in Israel at the moment, and Egypt's on the alert too. There are a lot of nervous people in the Middle East just now, Hugh, and that's a fact!'

It was all high-powered, big league stuff and it made Roskill's own research seem a schoolboy enterprise in comparison. But it didn't get them any closer to knowing what to do next.

'There are some bloody nervous people here in London, too, David,' Roskill reminded Audley. 'It's them we've got to worry about.'

'Ah – I was coming to them. There are two men who could really tell us what all this is about – Jake Shapiro and the Egyptian, Razzak.'

'Did Razzak get the early boat from Newhaven?'

'If he did it took him a remarkably long time to get to his eribassy in Paris. He seems to have lost a few hours on the way somewhere, that's certain.' Audley paused. 'As a working theory I agree with your reading of things this morning. It's far too much of a coincidence, all three of them being roughly in the same place. It does sound as though Razzak met someone down there, and Shapiro was watching them. And one way or another your friend Jenkins saw something he wasn't meant to. And if it was big dummy2

enough to get Jake out of bed that early it could be a killing matter right enough!'

'You still think Razzak met Hassan, whoever Hassan may be?'

'Not Hassan himself – that was never likely. But maybe one of his top men. Razzak didn't go walking on the Sussex Downs for fun –

that's for sure. The trouble is that we don't know enough about the man; he's new in London and I daren't go checking on him in records in case someone gets wind of what I'm doing.'

'I thought you knew all the brass,' Roskill needled him.

'Blast it, Hugh – I do – but – ' Audley stuttered for a moment.

'That's the whole trouble: he's not really a coming man. Maybe he was ten years ago, but from Suez to the June War he was just a field officer – a tank man. He had a regiment on the frontier in '67.'

'Then you do know something about him.'

'I do,' said Audley rather reluctantly. 'But I only know what Jake Shapiro himself told me when we had lunch last week – the day Razzak's appointment came through, apparently.'

'Shapiro spoke about him?'

Audley bridled. 'It was just – conversation. Jake and I don't talk shop much any more. We haven't got anything useful to say to each other.'

'But what did he say?' Roskill persisted.

'He said Razzak was... brave.'

From Audley it sounded strange, almost a criticism.

'Brave?'

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Audley seemed to shrug down the telephone. 'When the Israelis were beating the stuffing out of the Egyptians in '67 Razzak was one of those who dug their heels in – apparently he put up a real fight.'

One of the hard-faced, bitter ones, he'd be. Roskill remembered the blank, irreconcilable stares he had noticed at the Ryle reception.

For men like that any talk of cease-fire would be a betrayal, and that brought Razzak shoulder to shoulder with Hassan.

'But I'll be able to tell you more about him soon,' Audley went on.

'I'm having breakfast with a man who knows all about him tomorrow morning.'

Roskill grunted. That, of course, was half the secret of Audley's success: if he didn't know something, he could usually be relied on to know someone who would.

'I should have thought Shapiro would be your man. He knows Razzak – and he was down there at Firle. If you can get your hooks into him – '