'But what I don't see – ' Butler frowned fiercely ' – there's nothing new about assassination in the Middle East. Or anywhere else, for dummy2
that matter. These last few years – damn it, the precautions are routine now.'
'True. But if the name Alamut means what I think it does, there's never been ainyone like Hassan before either — not in recent times, anyway. All the other Palestinian groups have had much broader aims . . . ' Audley sighed, and shook his head. 'It's plain madness, but there won't be any shortage of volunteers.'
He looked at them bleakly. 'In the old times they used to promise paradise to assassins, but they don't need to do that now. I was in the camps across the Jordan in '68. They were full of flies and dirty children and automatic weapons even then – and no hope. God knows what they're like now. But even then I could have gone into any of them and sworn in a hundred fedayeen – it's practically the same word as the Assassins had for their killers. Not with a promise of paradise – just to get them out of the hell they're in already, poor devils.'
He stopped abruptly as his eyes reached Butler, as though embarrassed at this descent into emotion.
'Which means we've got to crack down on Hassan hard – and quickly,' said Butler. 'Poor devils or not. Mooning over this Alamut List won't do a ha'porth of good – if we wait for them to start we've already lost half the battle!'
'Christ, Jack – !' The insane image of Butler in chain-mail, kite-shaped shield on his shoulder, swinging a great Crusading sword in the midst of a crowd of howling Arabs, rose in Roskill's mind.
'Who do we crack down on, for God's sake? We don't even know who they are!'
dummy2
'The girl downstairs has seen one of 'em,' snapped Butler. 'Start with him, and to blazes with diplomatic immunity and kid gloves!
Then move in on the Ryle Foundation – one good shake there, and something should come to the surface. And get in touch with the Arab governments – if Audley's right this is one time when they won't play awkward. It's their necks on the block even more than ours this time – they'll have their security wallahs moving like blue-bottomed flies.
'You've got to get things moving. I don't know what you and Audley have been up to, but you're both sitting tight on a keg of gunpowder, and any minute now it's going to blow you both to kingdom come!'
'I see.' But Audley's face had a blank, obstinate cast to it which Roskill recognised: if there was any force in Butler's argument there was evidently a more powerful force which moved him in the opposite direction. 'And what do you think, Miss Hunter?'
Butler's jaw tightened as he followed Audley's invitation to Mary, who had sat mouse-like through the exchange, her hands clasped on her lap. For one second Roskill thought Butler was going to explode – it was hard to imagine an appeal better calculated to make Jack see red; an appeal made on a violent issue of state security addressed to a grey-haired, crippled maiden lady. Women were Jack's blank spot at the best of times, and in this instance he could hardly be expected to penetrate that gentle expression to the uncrippled intelligence beneath.
But his control asserted itself in time – this might not be Jack's best dummy2
day, when he'd lost a day's cricket in order to save fools from the consequences of their folly and ended by crossing swords with Audley, but bullying sweet old ladies would clash with his image of himself, however much he was provoked by circumstances.
His subsidence was not lost on Mary, however.
'I don't really think I'm qualified to pass an opinion,' she said diffidently, placating Butler, but watching Audley.
Roskill saw that this time at least, Audley had not set out deliberately to niggle Butler. It was far more in character that he would wish to use Mary's unclouded judgment; if there was one thing Audley did superlatively well, it was to identify brains and then to pick them clean.
'I'd still very much like to hear what you think,' said Audley.
'Spectators have a way of seeing some things the players miss.'
Mary bowed her head, studying her hands briefly. Then she looked up directly at Audley.
'Very well, David. I must say I don't really understand why you don't want to tell anyone what happened here – I do see Major Butler's point . . . But' – her voice gained in determination – 'if the men above you already knew about this Hassan and his list, they certainly don't need to tell them what they already know. They must want you to do something – or find out something –
particular. Something only you can do, possibly.'
Roskill glanced at Butler out of the corner of his eye. Good for Mary.
'Quite right, Miss Hunter,' said Audley encouragingly. 'I think they dummy2
wanted me to make contact with Jake Shapiro again. If anyone can give the lowdown on Hassan it'll be Jake, but he wouldn't stop to give our friend Dai Llewelyn the time of day. That's the whole trouble – they kicked me out once for being too close to Jake. And with things as they are, they don't want to get involved with Israeli Intelligence. But if I happened to go back to my bad old ways off my own bat, unofficially – that would be different...'
'Yet it can't be this Alamut List that they want,' Mary said, frowning.
Audley perked up. 'Why not, Miss Hunter?'
'Well ... if I've understood what you've been saying, it would be a list of all the moderate men – people like nice young King Hussein
– the people who really want peace.'
'That's right. And Eban and Allon and Abu Khadra and all the others.'
'That's what I mean – you already know who'd be on the list, so it can't be that...' Mary trailed off. 'Of course, I only know what I read in the papers, but I always think the Israelis are great doers. I mean, they've been putting up with things, and having things done to them for so long, and now they've found out that they can do things just as well. Not just the wars they've fought, but the way they captured that Nazi – Eichmann – and the way they fought back against the guerrillas who tried to take their airliners – while other people talk, they do things...' Again she stopped uncertainly.
'Go on, Miss Hunter.'
'So – ' Mary rallied ' – so I'd want to know what they're planning to dummy2
do about Hassan, because they're the ones who wouldn't sit down and wait for him to start shooting and murdering. And they wouldn't expect anyone to help them. Unless – unless – ' she stared hard at Audley – 'unless that was why Colonel Shapiro met Colonel Razzak. Is that too stupid?'
Too stupid?
Not an exchange of information and a friendly word of warning between honest enemies, but something more: an alliance!
An Egyptian-Israeli entente!
It could be temporary, and must be unofficial and highly secret, with nothing on paper. But was it feasible?
Roskill glanced at Audley, and saw that he was smiling. So this, or something like it, was what Audley had been after all along. And given that Shapiro and Razzak were the only ones of their kind in that sea of hatred and distrust, who better than them to make the contact? They could be enemies still, but facing a more dangerous common enemy – with the Nazis at the gates, even the Russians and the West had made common cause once, without relaxing their deeper enmity.
'Now have I said something silly?'
'On the contrary, Miss Hunter,' Audley laughed, 'you have said what I hoped to hear. What drew Hassan's men wasn't so much the meeting as its subject. And that's why Razzak and Jake were both so keen to keep us from breathing down their necks just now: whatever they're negotiating has to be dynamite. And the moment you said you weren't going to give up, Hugh – even after Razzak dummy2
had promised to find out about Hassan – that was when Jake thought of me.'