The Alamut Ambush

anyway. Mongrel with a discernible fox terrier bloodline, unremarkable in any gathering. But that, of course, was the modern Special Branch trend; a hairy hitchhiking student had only recently complained to him that the special fuzz was becoming hard to pinpoint.

What was certain, though, was that Cox's ability would belie his appearance: there'd be no dead wood around Llewelyn and Stocker.

The same thoughts, or something like, must have been running through Audley's head. 'Even part of a name is a beginning,' he said encouragingly. 'A name and a feeling about it. I've started with no more man that often enough.'

Cox nodded. 'That's about it – a name and a feeling.'

'And the name?'

' Hassan.' Cox paused. 'It's a man, or the code name for a man, not a group. The man who gives the orders to a group, maybe an inner P.

F.L.P. wing, or an off-shoot, or maybe some-tiling entirely new –

we don't know.'

'And what has Hassan done so far?'

'Apparently nothing. The only references we've had to Hassan are in the nature of forecasts. Rather messianic forecasts, too.'

'Such as?'

'We've had four, possibly five. And when I say 'we' I mean the joint committee we set up with the Interpol people in '69. The West Germans got the first when they were rounding up everyone after the Zurich air crash. They all add up to the same thing, anyway –

when Hassan gets going he won't make any mistakes.'

dummy2

'Then that would seem to rule out Hassan in this instance, Tom,'

said Llewelyn.

'That depends, sir, on whether he intended to get you or merely to frighten you.'

'He's frightened me – no doubt about that. But he could have done that with far less trouble – and without any accidental bloodshed.'

Cox shook his head. 'I don't think he's fussy about that.'

'Which means, I take it,' said Audley, 'that something unpleasant happened to your five sources?'

Cox looked at him sharply. 'Yes – and no. Two of them were released – three if you count the one in France, but we don't really know for sure about him. The French aren't very cooperative these days. All three of them have disappeared, anyway.'

'And the other two?'

'They were held on weapons charges. Each of them had a sub-machine gun hidden in his digs – in each case, oddly enough, it was an Israeli Uzi they'd got, too.'

'Not so odd, really,' said Stocker. 'The Uzi happens to be the best thing on the market. It's standard issue in four or five gentile armies – what you might call an Israeli export triumph.'

'Well, the Germans didn't take kindly to it in the hands of a couple of Arab students – one was a Syrian, actually, and the other an Iraqi. They were going to throw the book at them.'

'But they didn't?'

'They never got the chance. The Syrian committed suicide – he was dummy2

in a secure jail in Bonn. But the Iraqi was picked up in a little town near the Swiss border.' Cox paused for effect. 'He was sprung by four masked men armed with Uzis. It was only a little police station, of course – and they weren't expecting anything. But it was a neat job all the same, and the Germans haven't had a smell of him since. And believe me, they've looked hard.'

'All of which is vastly exciting,' said Llewelyn, 'but doesn't prove a thing. I've seen your Hassan file, Tom. It's interesting, even disturbing. But if Hassan exists he doesn't appear to have reached England. And if he is here we don't even know what his aims are.

You just can't give me one single, useful, tangible fact to back this

'feeling' of yours.'

Llewelyn spoke lazily, only a few degrees from contempt, his Welsh origins again rich beneath his words — Roskill was reminded of a mineworkers' union organiser rejecting an absurd wage offer made by a not very bright Coal Board spokesman. For a man under possible sentence of death the union organiser was admirably cool, but nonetheless exasperating. The temptation to come to Cox's support was irresistible.

'I don't agree at all.' He tried to match the Welshman's lilt with the sort of public school drawl that would be most offensive. 'I don't know much about your Arab-Israeli feuds, but I do know that whoever fixed your car was well organised and ruthless and bloody-minded. And that goes for suicide and jail-breaking too. It means that this character Hassan looks after his own – one way or another. Which makes him a good prospect.'

He looked to Audley for support and was disconcerted to receive a dummy2

blank stare.

'We'll check him out,' said Audley noncommittsilly.

Like Llewelyn – irritatingly like Llewelyn – he was also playing it cool now. Roskill shrugged and relapsed into silence, masking his annoyance; this was presumably how the poor bloody pawns always felt.