The Alamut Ambush

List is just a piece of theatre – like Robespierre's black book that put the fear of God up all his colleagues. He's using fear as his fifth column – before long, whoever dies, he'll get the credit. Without lifting a finger.'

It was true, thought Roskill. Hassan was as nebulous as morning mist, but already his name was doing his work for him. Fear and uncertainty emanated from it – it was a mist in which men saw dead men's faces, and looking closer saw the faces were their own.

He shrugged off the nightmare; in another moment he'd see his own reflection in his mind if he let his imagination work.

'So they all think this is the beginning of a massacre,' he said harshly. 'But we know it isn't, because it was Alan they were after, not Llewelyn.'

'But Razzak and Shapiro met, Hugh. And as everyone's already said, with the cease-fire coming up now's the time Hassan has got to make his play. God knows whether the Americans and the Russians can make the cease-fire stick, but if Hassan really is the hardliner they say he is, he's not going to wait and see.'

It was all circumstantial evidence, just one or two degrees from bluff. But Razzak and Shapiro weren't fools to be stampeded by mere suspicion, and neither was Llewelyn. And although Audley's knowledge of what was really going on in the Middle East was rusty and out-of-date, he had always had an uncanny instinct for distinguishing reality from illusion.

'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!'

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'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 –