The Alamut Ambush

'Madame,' said Razzak gravely, 'I give you my word that we shall put out this fire.'

XV

'COLONEL SHAPIRO is a very remarkable man,' said Yaffe seriously. 'A very remarkable man indeed.'

Roskill glanced quickly at the Israeli agent, to make sure he wasn't taking the mickey. But of course he wasn't: he was a slender, schoolmasterish young man, old beyond his years and serious almost to the point of eccentricity, judging by his conversation so far.

'Then Razzak's equally remarkable,' said Roskill tendentiously.

Yaffe made him feel both irresponsible and argumentative.

Yaffe considered the proposition solemnly.

'Y–ess,' he conceded at length. 'Yes, I think you might bracket him with Colonel Shapiro. Just below, perhaps – but in the same general bracket. The men of the future!'

On the other hand, thought Roskill, in the present company of screwballs and mavericks the young man wasn't really remarkable: compared with Shapiro and Razzak – compared with David Audley, come to that – he was raving normal.

'Always supposing your people are willing to risk a Phantom far dummy2

from home,' he murmured. 'I rather gathered yesterday that it still wasn't cut and dried. If it goes sour now they're going to be men of no future at all, I shouldn't wonder — or have you got some inside information?'

Yaffe grinned at him knowingly, taking years off himself as he did so. 'I'm only an onlooker now – like you, Squadron Leader. But I don't think we'd be here if the plan had aborted.'

It was true enough. According to Razzak, the very possibility of the British knowing what was afoot had nearly put the project off altogether – it was evident that neither the Israelis nor the Egyptians trusted them to hold on to a secret successfully. It was a tribute equally to Audley's reputation for good faith and to his ability to spin a likely tale to his own side that this second meeting was taking place at all. But now at last it looked as though Shapiro was ready to accept the flight plan details that Razzak had promised him at Firle.

And there, thought Roskill, was the rub: they now were as far as he could judge, on the very edge of the New Forest, a rendezvous even less desirable than Firle. And though both the Israeli and the Egyptian had official engagements in this general area at midday, one on Salisbury Plain and the other at Portland, these woodlands struck him as being even less suitable than the open downlands.

As if to echo his disquiet there was a distant and incongruous stutter of gunfire, which he had been hearing at intervals ever since they had left the car: somewhere not too far off, just over the rise to their right, there was a firing range.

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'Well, I can think of a hell of a lot of better places than this to meet,' he said grumpily. 'After last time it's bloody well asking for trouble. Just because you happen to live here – '

'There'll be no trouble this time, that I can guarantee you absolutely,' Yaffe interrupted him.

'Did you guarantee that last time?'

'That was — ' Yaffe sounded irritated rather than defensive '– bad luck.'

'It was somebody's carelessness.'

Undeniably it was somebody's carelessness, whatever Yaffe said.

But it obviously wasn't Yaffe's carelessness, because no one was allowed to make that sort of mistake twice – least of all, Roskill told himself thankfully, in the Israeli service. Which meant that if Yaffe said there was nothing to worry about, there was no percentage in getting flustered.

'I agree it's a poor place from the security angle.' Yaffe was conciliatory now. 'Not a place I would have chosen, even though I live here. But you'll just have to take my word for its security today.'

Perhaps Shapiro's men were lurking behind every bush. If so they were skilled woodsmen; but then the Israelis did most things competently these days.

'Who did choose it then?'

'Razzak did, indirectly — it's rather unfortunate, but I believe he's been having quite a lot of trouble ducking shadows. They've been sticking to him like leeches.'

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Majid, presumably. There was a strong suspicion in Roskill's mind now that the handsome captain might be one of Hassan's Watchers.

'I think the real trouble was that he couldn't shake them off without making them more suspicious,' Yaffe continued thoughtfully. 'And the more he shook them, the more suspicious they'd get of course.

That was why he set up that meeting near Newhaven when he was already en route to Paris – '

'Which didn't work too well!'

Yaffe shrugged. 'It might have been worse.'

'So you think!' Roskill thought bitterly of Alan taking his early morning gallop. 'And that was only because Hassan's man ran into one of our chaps. So what makes you so sure they can't do better this time?'

'This time?' Yaffe frowned. 'Squadron Leader, this is our territory and our meeting.'

Roskill stared sullenly at the leaf-strewn path at his feet. It was as full of holes as gruyere cheese, full of 'ifs' and 'buts'. Yet the Israeli was utterly confident – and so had been the Egyptian the day before when Audley had insisted in coming in on the final meeting.

And damn it – David Audley had been confident too. They were all so goddamn confident now.

'And you see – ' said Yaffe, suddenly more cheerful again ' – we rather think the heat's gone off Razzak now. With Majid on his way – '

'Majid gone?'

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'Of course, you wouldn't know that. He flew out last night. A sudden urgent family crisis.'

So that was it! And there'd be others like Majid across the Mediterranean and through the Middle East who'd be called away from duty by sick relatives and unforeseen family crises and every other excuse in the book to their final briefing in Alamut. It was no more than the expected pattern, after all. But it was a relief nevertheless to come up with one sound reason for this relaxation of tension.

'Mind you,' said Yaffe, 'I do still agree with you about this place.'

He waved a hand at the woods around them. 'But you can blame the Egyptians for that. They're rather sensitive about meeting us, and they insisted it had to be well out of London.'

There was another distant rattle of machine-gun fire.

Yaffe grinned. 'In the peace and quiet of the English countryside.'

'What the devil is all that shooting?'

'That's the Territorial Army – or whatever you call it now – up on the Mereden Range,' Yaffe's seriousness seemed to melt. 'Every Sunday morning they have it for several hours. Then they give it to us.'

Roskill looked at Yaffe in astonishment, whereupon the Israeli burst out laughing.

'I don't mean the Israeli army, Squadron Leader – the local Rifle Club, I mean.' He patted the ancient golf bag over his shoulder. 'I practise with the family heirloom every Sunday. It's the only way an honest man can keep a gun licence in your law-abiding country.

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Sport – yes, self-defence – no!'

'I still don't see why they had to meet at all.'

'Razzak and the Colonel?' The boyish grin faded, and Yaffe nodded understandingly. 'They insisted on that, too – it has to be face to face for the final agreement, just the two of them. I think when it comes to the final crunch they still don't trust us– the only man they trust is Colonel Shapiro.'

In the end everything depended on Shapiro and Razzak. It was not really the logic of Israeli-Egyptian co-operation that was going to confound Hassan, because in real life the logical thing could usually be safely discounted; it was this million-to-one relationship between enemies.

'I don't know what he said to convince our people at home,' Yaffe murmured, almost to himself. He looked at Roskill pensively. 'It's very easy to be enlightened when you're not involved, Roskill. And when you don't have to make the decisions that involve your survival. We don't have that luxury – that's why so many of us have got a Masada complex.'