McCoy was almost amused at the other man's discom-fiture. And it was a failure, that much had penetrated to him, through the cloud and the haze. Without his wound he would have felt savage hatred at being associated with the fiasco, but the injury dissipated his anger, rendered it obsolete.
'… There was shooting from the wall facing us. Three or four men. And the bodyguard near the table, another one, not the one that went to Sokarev, he had the small machine-gun. He had stared to fire when I threw the grenade. The grenade would have taken Sokarev, but the man fell on it. Then I could see nothing. He just exploded, and then there was smoke. The men who were shooting had an aim by then, one could not stay at the window.'
'One of those bastards took me.' There was finality in McCoy's words. To Famy it seemed the pain of the inquest was over, and the car was still moving. McCoy could cope with the disability. Famy watched the cars behind and those alongside but could find nothing to sustain his earlier anxiety. He put the M1 on the floor, under his legs, easy to reach but invisible to any driver who might glance at them casually from an adjacent car.
McCoy said, the trace of a smile playing at the side of his mouth, 'I thought this was the one where you stood up and had yourself counted, where you took Sokarev, or they took you. Bugged out early, didn't we?' it was impossible to continue shooting with all the firing from the wall.'
'Hand gun stuff, not accurate at that range. Lucky shot that hit me.'
'You started to run, and you were pulling at me.'
'But it's not my war, remember? You could have stayed.
You were the bloody marksman. I'm just the chauffeur.
So, why did you do the scamper?'
'I couldn't see any more… only the smoke… I couldn't aim.' But Famy knew they were just words. There was no recollection of making a decision to run. He was already moving long before the awareness of it. There had never been a moment when he had the choice, choice of life and death.
They had swung to the west now, and the traffic was lighter as they navigated a by-pass route which avoided the heart of the city. McCoy was able to keep the speedometer flickering a path between twenty and thirty miles an hour.
'They won't react well, your masters. Won't have wanted you hanging about able to fight another day and Mr Bloody Sokarev coming out clean.' McCoy was turning the screw. Knew it, and enjoyed the process. Retribution for his pain.
Famy stayed silent.
'My crowd wouldn't take kindly to it — not with all the investment. If it's cocked then it would have been better it had never started. Victory for them, bad news in your parish.'
McCoy was talking as if to himself, softly and winning no response.
'The Provies have their own way if it doesn't work out.
If it's yellow, if the bugger sprinted to save his neck, then it's court martial. Not as formal as all that, nothing pompous. Half a dozen guys, in a barn or in a garage.
Sentence comes a bit formal, though. Hood and a pistol-shot behind the ear. Leave a note on them too, so the next lot know why.'
Famy had his eyes closed, lids tightly drawn together, but was unable to shut out the message as McCoy expanded. if it's just because they didn't think, mucked the scene, then it's easier. Call it knee-capping. Bullet through each, from the back. They walk again, but they never run, and they, stand out from the crowd because they're on sticks for weeks. The Proddies, the other mob, they're worse… use a Black and Decker. It's a drill, used for putting holes in the wall. Takes longer than a bullet — obvious isn't it?
But they're real bastards, those Proddies.'
Famy said, 'There was one who went into Israel, and came back alone. All the rest were taken or killed, only this one survived and they found his Kalashnikov had not been fired. And they took him with ten of his friends to the open ground. He had a start of fifty metres, and then his friends began to fire. They all had to shoot, and the guns were checked afterwards, and they were watched to see they did not shoot wide. He did not go many metres, and it only happened once. There was no need for a repetition.'
'You'd better think of something good to say,' said McCoy. The game had gone far enough. There were other preoccupations for McCoy. Where to go, what to do about the wound? All men who go to the lonely war, the guerrilla's war, have a common fear, multiplied in their fantasies till it controls and dominates them. It is the horror of sepsis, of gangrene, of the putrefaction of their flesh. McCoy needed a den, where he could go and curl his legs and watch the entrance, and be safe, and needed it for many days, with hot water and clean towels
… What to do with the bloody Arab? No place for him in the den, the lair for one only. Perhaps kill him — easiest solution, attractive. Something to think on, half an hour more for the driving, and a decision by then.
The problem engrossed him as he drove, and Famy too was quiet, but with what thoughts McCoy neither knew nor cared.
For a full three minutes after the firing of the last shot Elkin covered Sokarev's body. When the scientist tried to move and shift his suppressed left arm from under his body the security man firmly pressed him down again flat on to the polished boards of the floor. There was a great calmness about Elkin's face, and the eyes were very clear, traversing the room for any further threat, and outstretched in front of him as an antenna his arm and the service revolver he preferred to the Uzi.
The Branch man who had taken a position nearest the table had bent down and asked the one inevitable question.
Was Sokarev hurt? Elkin had shaken his head.
'Keep him there, then,' the detective said. 'First we'll clear the casualties, then empty the room. After that we'll work out how to shift him.'
Sokarev was aware that his legs were trembling, uncontrollably, the flesh of his upper thighs lapping together, and he was powerless to stop it. He could remember little of what had happened, just the noise of the window, and then the sight of the shortened barrel of the rifle poking and weaving in the curtain gap, locking on to him. He could recall the moment that Elkin had hit his legs and pulled him down, and then the horrific, unending exchange of gunfire. He had seen Mackowicz dive and lie still and then lift off into the air, and his ears felt pierced by the sound of the grenade.
The stretchers came fast. That on which the chairman lay was covered, end to end, by a grey hospital blanket and left at the far end of the room. What remained of Mackowicz was beside it. The policeman who had helped the ambulance team to lift the Israeli's disembowelled corpse on to the stretcher had vomited as soon as the pink and softened organs were covered over. The ambulances had come from University College Hospital less than half a mile away. It was to there that seven casualties were hurried; four suffering from gunshot wounds, one from grenade shrapnel injuries and two from coronary heart attacks.
The detectives had already started to examine the fire position outside the window when one of their number, walking beside the car used as the platform, stumbled on the body of the constable. When they lifted the young man on to the stretcher it was with care, a degree of gentleness, conscious they were handling their own.
In strange, shuffling silence the guests were ushered from the room and across the wide corridor to a similar lecture hall. Their patience was requested and it was explained to them that though they would not be detained for long it was impossible that they could be allowed to wander from the building while the large-scale search of the immediate area of the university was still under way. After the door had been closed on them few had anything to say. The conflict between Israel and her neighbours was not a thing that many understood. For a few moments they had been exposed to the unfamiliar; but the experience would do little to aid their comprehension.
When everyone had gone Sokarev was helped to his feet.
They stood him back to the wall and hemmed in by policemen, Elkin right beside him, the gun still in his hand but resting against his trouser pocket. Later they brought him a glass of water. He found he could scarcely hold it, and Elkin took the glass and put it against the professor's lips and tilted it to such an angle that some spilled from his mouth and dribbled on to the front of his suit.
Jones had stayed in his office alone that night. Helen, vague about her movements, had been gone three hours.
From a long way down the empty corridors he heard the laboured footsteps of the messenger from communications.
