The Alamut Ambush

How about Hassan?'

Shapiro looked at him quickly, like a teacher faced, with a suspiciously sharp question.

Then he nodded to himself slowly — the teacher smugly satisfied that he had seen right through the question and the questioner to the instigators.

'So that's what it's all about, then!' he murmured, still more to himself than to Roskill. 'Hassan's really got off the ground at last!'

He whistled softly. 'That's a thought to conjure with, and no mistake. We shall all have to fasten our safety belts now, shan't dummy2

we?'

'You know about Hassan?'

'Know about him? My friend, until you just mentioned him I hoped he was only a nasty rumour. But if you British are worried about him, then I'm worried about him too!'

'What do you know about him?'

'Very little. I tell you, I thought he was only a crazy rumour,'

Shapiro spread his hands.

'We don't think he is.'

'Indeed?' The Israeli looked directly into Roskill's eyes. 'Well, in that case I should move very carefully, Squadron Leader. Very carefully and slowly. What did Razzak have to say about him?'

'He said very much the same thing, Colonel Shapiro.'

'Then for once I agree with him. He's giving you good advice.'

One thing was certain now: neither Razzak nor Shapiro wanted trouble. And as the threat of trouble had moved the Egyptian to offer a deal, it might serve equally well to get something out of the Israeli...

'That's one thing we can't do, I'm afraid. This time we're not going to take things lying down.' Roskill fumbled for the right formula.

'Llewelyn may not be as important as he thinks he is, but he still pulls a lot of weight. So if you can't give me a line on Hassan, we're going to have to take this city apart hunting for him.'

He carefully kept his voice casual. Even as it was it sounded bloody thin – all Shapiro had to do was to tell him to go ahead and dummy2

do his worst. The Israelis had nothing to lose – and the proof of that sat across the table: while Razzak had been seeking him out, Shapiro had been boozing contentedly!

The Israeli sat silent for a moment, doodling with a fingernail on the tablecloth. Finally he looked up again at Roskill, a conspiratorial glint in his eye.

'Very well... then if you want to play it the hard way I'll tell you what I'd do if I were you' – the finger wagged at Roskill – 'I'd have a word with David Audley, that's what I'd do.'

' David!' Roskill had no need to feign surprise. 'But David isn't even in the Middle East section now.'

'You don't need to tell me that!' Shapiro gave a short, bitter laugh.

'But in or out, he's still the best man you've got – and you're a friend of his. He's not in quarantine, is he?'

Roskill frowned. The best man – maybe; but this hadn't been in the best man's calculations!

'Look, Roskill' – the finger pointed at him like a pistol – 'you don't want to go at this half-arsed. You need someone who can calculate the angles. You go to David, and tell him I sent you. Tell him about Hassan – and Llewelyn. And tell him that what's scaring the pants off everyone is the Alamut List.'

'The Alamut List?'

Shapiro nodded. 'Alamut. He'll know exactly what it means when he hears it – in fact, he'll probably know better than any of us!'

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X

EAST FIRLE WAS its eternal, unquestioning self, tucked comfortably in the shadow of Beacon Hill.

As Roskill steered the hired MG carefully round its blind corner he felt unreality pressing in on him. It was impossible to relate feuding Arabs and Jews to privet hedges and japonica; outside the pub only four years since – a lifetime's four years – he had sat with Harry and an old man who had spent his working life making waggon wheels. They had talked for an hour about the war, and it had been fifteen minutes before he had realised that the war the wheelwright was remembering was the Kaiser's, not Hitler's.

It might just as well have been Napoleon's, when the old chap's grandfather had probably done his duty with the other beacon watchers on the hill, serving his turn beside the great pile of furze and pitch and damp hay, waiting for the French as other lads had once waited for the Spaniards and the Normans and God knows how many other invaders down the ages. The past still ran deep and strong in East Firle; it was the present that was blurred.

Unchanged, it was all unchanged. Even the immense wooden gates were still immovably open for him at the bottom of the Old Vicarage drive, decrepit, but too expensive to replace four years ago and now far beyond a widow's pension. The tattered white paint had flaked a bit more perhaps, and the straggling lilac thicket behind had grown wilder. But it was the same old place exactly, run down yet welcoming.

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The neat electric button on the front door buzzed confidently, though. That would be some of Alan's work; in the old days the house had always been full of his electrical enthusiasm, from shaving points in unlikely places to a complete internal telephone system, all beautifully installed – to the chagrin of visiting electricity board experts.