The Alamut Ambush

'David Audley did yesterday at the Queensway – he couldn't resist telling them to their faces, could he?' Butler's lips curled. 'And I remember how quiet you went when I told you about Maitland.'

'So you checked.'

Butler nodded. He wasn't the fastest man alive, but he was very, very sure. And if he'd checked, he'd not have missed anything.

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'Which still doesn't explain why you're here, Jack.'

Butler looked down at his highly polished boots, then slowly raised his eyes to meet Roskill's. 'To teach you that two and two can be made to equal minus one, lad, that's why. Do you know who you're up against? If you'd just get off that creature I might tell you something interesting.'

There were times when Butler's almost fatherly concern for him irritated Roskill unbearably. But also there were times when the man's caution paid off, and this could be one of them. Roskill disengaged his feet from the stirrups and slid awkwardly off Sammy. Over her back, away to the north-east, he saw the great dark rain column, which now blotted out half the scene below them.

'You'd better make it quick, Jack, or we're both going to get wet.'

Butler looked carefully round the naked hilltop, ignoring the rainclouds, before answering.

'I don't know why they asked me to the Queensway yesterday. Just to put you at ease, I suppose – as I said, my brief was just to hook you both, no more, no less,' Butler still wasn't apologising, merely stating facts. 'Only I got there a shade ahead of time.'

He watched Roskill. 'You can claim what you like for your electronic toys, Hugh – but there's nowt to beat the human ear.

Listen before you knock, that's what my old Dad always used to say!'

Butler's father had been a printer – a head printer, as Butler liked to remind people – in darkest Lancashire, Bolton or Blackburn.

Roskill had always suspected from the way Butler spoke of him, dummy2

half proud, half rueful, that the old man had considered his son's preference for the army instead of an apprenticeship the equivalent of a daughter's choice of prostitution rather than the mill.

'They were arguing,' said Butler, 'Llewelyn and Stocker were arguing over just how expendable you were. The Welshman said that Audley mustn't be risked, but you could be. And Stocker said you were one of Fred's kindergarten and there'd be the devil to pay if you were damaged.'

Butler had an exact memory as well as a good ear; if he said

'expendable', then that was the word Llewelyn had used. The bastards had discussed him as though he was a piece of fairly expensive equipment!

'And Llewelyn asked the Special Branch man how he rated the risk

– '

'How did he rate it?'

'He said if they were right about Audley he'd pretty soon find the right hole and then he'd put you down it like a ferret. Only you weren't a trained ferret and Hassan was no rabbit.'

'So I'm an untrained ferret now!'

Butler shook his head sadly. 'You're a bright lad, Hugh — with your weapons systems. But you're being used for something different this time.'

'They warned me, Jack – you were there when they did it. You're forgetting I'm supposed to go running back to them every time David blows his nose.'

'But you aren't, are you?'

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Roskill shrugged. 'It doesn't happen to suit me.'

'Aye – it doesn't suit you!' said Butler, scowling. 'Man, they've got Audley summed up properly, and you too, I'm sorry to say. He's a bloody genius at research, but when he has a job of his own to do he goes his own sweet way, and they know it. When they warned you they were just covering themselves with Sir Frederick, that's all.'

He paused for breath, running his hand through his hair again.

'Have they bothered you at all? Have they tried to get in touch with you?' He didn't wait for an answer. 'They bloody haven't, have they? I tell you, Hugh, they're just waiting for you two to get things really stirred up. And you'll do exactly just that, if I know you!'

'We haven't done anything exactly spectacular yet, you know, Jack,' Roskill protested mildly. It was odd – he'd never seen Jack to vehement, at least not since the cancellation of the South African cricket tour.

'Enough to get your track rods fixed.'

Roskill gazed at Butler, overwhelmed suddenly with curiosity.

'What's all this got to do with your sudden urge to come bird watching here?'

'I knew I could pick you up here as soon as I found out about Jenkins. It was the one place I was sure you'd turn up.'

'But why, Jack? It's not your affair any more – you ought to be home with your girls, or watching the cricket.'

Butler glowered at him. 'Aye, but somebody's got to watch your back for you. And in my book you don't send anyone out without dummy2

telling him the score...'

He clipped off the sentences abruptly, as though their implicit criticism of his superiors were against the grain of his character.

Roskill eyed him with astonishment: he'd always regarded Jack as a fundamentally simple man, who did his job and minded his business, sustained only by a rather old-fashioned patriotism, the three small female Butlers and the latest cricket scores. But now it looked as though his loyalties were rather more complex.

'Besides, if I want to go bird-watching in my own time – ' the hint of Lancashire broadened as Butler gestured to the darkening landscape '– I can watch where I bloody well please, and– '

He stopped suddenly, his freckled, hairy hand frozen in mid-sweep and his attention snatched away from Roskill by something which had caught his eye below them.

'Blue and white Cambridge saloon in the drive beside your car.

Isn't that – ?'

'One wing mirror?' Roskill cut in. 'And there'll be a patch of rust on the white strip, forward of the door?'

Butler lifted his field-glasses.

'Aye – it's Audley's car, isn't it!' Butler turned back to him. 'Did you expect him to come down here?'

They both knew well enough that Audley never strayed abroad on business from the department or his home if it could be avoided.

And in this instance Audley had even spelt it out: If I were spotted there it might give the game away.

'He'd only come here in an emergency. Jack.'

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'Likely there's an emergency, then. Or maybe he's not as thick as you are.'

'It's simpler than that,' said Roskill. 'Before I came down here I phoned him up – he wasn't in and I left a message with Faith.'

'A message?'

A big raindrop spattered on Roskill's cheek, rolling down to the corner of his mouth. He brushed it away.

'I told her to ask him what Alamut was.'

XII

'JAKE'S QUITE RIGHT,' said Audley. 'I probably do know more about Alamut than he does. But the Alamut List is something different.'

Roskill looked at Mary doubtfully. It was typical of David to shoot his mouth off in front of civilians; it wasn't so much lax security this time as that calculated and deliberate amateurishness of his –

the flouting of the rules to prove that he was a gentleman rather than a player. Except that this time David might not be wholly to blame – if Mary had crooked her little finger at him.

Audley caught his look and waved his hand airily.

'Miss Hunter and I have already had a talk, damn it – she already knows enough to ruin us, thanks to you.'

Mary's eyes rested on the big man approvingly, as though he had dummy2

already been compacted into her inner circle. So the charm had not been one-way, Roskill thought with a twinge of jealousy: when Audley put himself out, which wasn't often, he too had a way with him.

But having blabbed already himself, Roskill knew he was in no position to protest, even though he could sense Butler's disapproval. It would be interesting to see how long it took Mary to crack Butler's shell wide open too.

'Who is he, then?' Butler asked. 'Hassan?'