The Alamut Ambush Read online

  To Katherine, James and Simon

  PROLOGUE

  JENKINS WALKED SLOWLY round the Princess, fumbling with the buttons of his overalls.

  It was late – he had heard the chimes of midnight on his way in from Blackheath – and he was dog-tired. And it was also an imposition to be called out during what were at least technically the last hours of his leave, which he had purposed to spend getting some order into his new flat.

  Yet he knew that it was neither the hour nor the imposition which were sapping his concentration, but the suppressed excitement of the day’s events. For a year now he’d felt ambition stirring, and for the last three months he’d sensed the faint scent of promotion trailing him like after-shave. Tonight it was strong in his nostrils: he had the feeling that life hadn’t let him down after all.

  The trick was to do things right, and there he had Hugh Roskill to help him. Hugh could be trusted to advise him without trying to steal any of the credit – although it wasn’t like the old days, Hugh was still almost family.

  He ran his finger idly along the thin buff-gold line that ran the whole length of the Princess, just below the meeting place of the black and the grey, the line that was the last lingering memory of the great days when there was coachwork to car bodies.

  He’d never quite been able to make his mind up about Hugh. Up on the Eighth Floor they all had some sort of fagade, and Hugh’s was the familiar, nonchalant R.A.F. one that he’d long grown accustomed to during his childhood, when Hugh and poor old Harry had been inseparable. Yet Harry had been no great brain, and it was certain that nonchalance alone never got anyone to the Eighth – which was where he himself intended to go. So there had to be a lot more to Hugh somewhere, as Aunt Mary had always maintained there was …

  He shrugged, running the finger down from the line into the mud splashes.

  The mud was the most obviously interesting thing about the Princess. No rain for ten days, and the gale tonight blowing miniature dust devils in the dry gutters, but nevertheless the lower half of the car was thickly coated with mud, and undeniably recent mud.

  It might be this that had alerted someone, even though it was the oldest and crudest cover-up trick in the book. But the Special Branch man who’d delivered the Princess had been uncommunicative. It was far more likely that the unknown but influential owner of the car had delusions of grandeur…

  Jenkins yawned, rubbed his eyes and looked down at the red rexine-covered handbook, with its gold lettering – another subtle touch of class there. It reminded him that he’d never had a Princess through his hands before — a few months ago that would have been a challenge in itself, to prove that no matter what came along, he was the best. But now it was just another car to be cleared, just routine, and he was mildly niggled that Maitland had found himself some other pressing engagement while McClure and Bennett were still snarled up in Northern Ireland.

  Abstractedly, his mmd still half on Roskill, he plugged in the tape recorder and began to unwind the flex … It was true that Hugh did seem more serious these days, almost preoccupied, on the occasions they had met. But that wouldn’t make any difference now; It was serious advice he wanted.

  He shook his head. Best to get the matter in hand over quickly, to salvage some horns from the night. For tomorrow he’d need to be on top form…

  He picked up the little microphone.

  ‘Vanden Plas Princess 4-litre-R, black and grey, registration number…’

  I

  THE RATTLE OF the chain was much louder than the bell itself: after one dull clunk the bell had jammed, but the chain went on rasping and clattering against the stonework.

  It was, thought Roskill, almost the last bit of Audley’s old house that hadn’t yet been transformed by his new wife. The carpets were new and the curtains were new, and the new central heating roared away in the distance. The splendid old furniture was still in place, but now it shone with polish in the candlelight. The house even smelt different, with the mustiness of age overlaid by an amalgam of odours suggesting female efficiency. And there didn’t seem to be any back-teasing draughts any more – the place was almost cosy.

  But the bell was a genuine piece of Audley before the Age of Faith, as eloquent as a ‘Do not disturb’ sign.

  The only other unchanged object was – surprisingly – Audley himself, for the evening had so far revealed exactly the same confusing mixture of arrogant humility and courtly rudeness which had first fascinated Roskill years before the famous Mirage briefing, when the big man had casually forecast Israeli intentions with such uncanny accuracy.

  Roskill had marked him then as an acquired taste worth cultivating for the future and possibly one day the man who’d take Sir Frederick’s job. It was only when he had come to know him better that the doubts had been born: the ruthlessness was there, and the brains, but the singleminded drive was lacking. At heart Audley was an amateur.

  Yet out of this insight had come a curious, almost masochistic affection. He didn’t really trust Audley, but he liked him.

  ‘That frightful bell!’ Faith grinned at Roskill as she rose from the table. ‘I must get it fixed so that David can’t just sit there ignoring it. You know, Hugh, I sometimes think he’s got — what do you call it? – xenophobia, is that it?’

  Audley regarded his young wife tolerantly.

  ‘Xenophobia? Perhaps I have. But then it’s an ancient and very sensible disease, love. The xenophobes survive long after the xenophils have been knocked on the head during the night by the strangers they’ve let into their homes.’

  Roskill gestured to the table in front of him. ‘And the law of hospitality? Isn’t that ancient too?’

  ‘A simple extension of the laws of self-preservation, Hugh. And a fiction more often than not: “The raven is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements”. That’s the true face of hospitality. And the other face shows the guests quietly opening the back door for their friends outside after lights out.’

  The bell chain rattled again and the clapper briefly un-jammed itself.

  ‘And I suppose I should say “the bell invites me” now!’ Faith started for the dining room door. ‘I wish I could tell you that he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, Hugh, but I’m afraid he does believe it. Only I’m miscast as Lady Macbeth, hopelessly.’

  Audley watched her out of the room. ‘And I’ll tell you something else. Bells that ring after ten at night are alarm bells.’

  Roskill frowned across the candlelight towards the grandfather clock which ticked away heavily in the shadows. The front door banged and there was a murmur of voices.

  ‘So now it’s only a question of whether the trouble is yours or mine. Probably mine, but I can still hope it’s yours. In fact it puts me in mind of the old tale of the Rake and the Hounds – do you know it?’

  Roskill shook his head. He had heard and disbelieved that there was an irrational side to Audley, and now here it was. Perhaps the flicker of the candles brought it out.

  ‘It’s a Hebridean tale. The rake was coming home over the hills early one morning after a night’s debauch when he saw a man running in the valley below, looking over his shoulder all the while. And although there was nothing else to be seen the rake knew at once that the man was being pursued by the hounds of Hell.

  ‘Then the man looked up the hillside and saw the rake, and he turned and ran straight towards him. And when he reached the brow of the hill he stopped to catch his breath, looked at the rake, and then staggered on past. And the rake knew very well what he had been thinking: “He’s a black sinner too – maybe the hounds will stop and take him instead of me”.’

  The door opened behind Roskill.

  ‘It’s Major Butler, David,’ said Faith
. ‘He wants an urgent word with Hugh.’

  Roskill swung round. Butler loomed solidly in the doorway, silhouetted against the brighter hall behind him. There was a glitter of raindrops on his head – the weather had broken at last.

  ‘For Hugh?’ Audley didn’t look at Roskill. ‘Well, Butler – we’ve just reached the brandy stage – allow us to finish that before you take him away. And join us in the meantime – sit down. Your ill tidings can wait a few minutes.’

  ‘No need to take him away, Dr. Audley.’ Butler dabbed at the damp red stubble on his head as he sat down. ‘A brandy would be acceptable though. As to the ill tidings – your leave’s up tomorrow anyway, Hugh. What other sort of tidings can there be?’

  Roskill knew then with certainty that he was about to be double-crossed – knew it and was filled with gladness. All that remained was to act out a convincing role: should he struggle in the snare or submit with cold dignity? Which would be more in character?

  ‘Jack, you know darned well when my leave ends.’ Struggle, then – even a rabbit struggled. ‘At eight a.m. tomorrow I shall shave off this beard. At ten I’ll pick up my mail at the office, and by three I’ll be at R.A.F. Snettisham. There’s not one thing you can do about it – it was all settled months ago. I belong to the R.A.F. for the next ten weeks. Not to Sir Frederick, and certainly not to you.’

  He looked round the table for moral support. Faith radiated honest sympathy, but Audley’s sympathy was tinged with relief: the hounds had passed him by…

  ‘Ten week’s refresher, Jack – that’s the agreement. Ten weeks to keep me up to the mark so I’ll still have a career when Sir Frederick puts me out to grass. They wouldn’t be thinking of breaking that, would they, Jack?’

  Go on – break it, Jack.

  ‘The beard.’ The suggestion of a perverse smile passed across Butler’s mouth. Butler had been due for some leave when Roskill returned, but then the best press gangs were always made up of pressed men. ‘That’s one reason why I’m here. They’d like you to keep it, even if it does make you look like a pirate.’

  ‘I’m not going to Snettisham with a beard.’

  ‘You’re not going to Snettisham at all, Hugh. Not for the time being, anyway.’

  ‘The beard’s coming off and I’m going to Snettisham.’ Struggle harder and feel the wire tighten.

  Butler looked pained. ‘Don’t be childish, man. If you put your pretty uniform on again tomorrow you’ll stay in it. And not at a nice lively place like Snettisham. More likely somewhere like Benbecula – or wherever they send the awkward ones nowadays. On the ground, certainly. There’d be no more flying.’

  They had to want him very badly to spell it out as crudely as that, with what they took to be the ultimate threat. Or so they thought. That might well be the only thing they didn’t know about him – that one big, secret ace in the hole. And as long as they didn’t know it, it was his strength, not his weakness.

  One final protest should be enough for the record..

  ‘They might as well ground me anyway. If they won’t let me keep up with my flying they’re as good as doing that already. Is this Sir Frederick’s idea of a gentleman’s agreement?’

  Faith pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. ‘I think I’ll go and make a lot of strong coffee – before I’m sent packing.’

  Butler turned towards her hastily. ‘Don’t go, Mrs. Audley. The brandy’s fine – please don’t leave us.’

  Audley grunted angrily. ‘I don’t think she likes watching Hugh blackmailed any more than I do. It’s too much like old times for both of us.’

  ‘At least hear me out,’ Butler looked at Roskill. ‘I think you may not want to go back to the R. A.F. quite so quickly then – I mean that, Hugh. And it really is perfectly in order for you to listen, Mrs. Audley. You may even have something to contribute.’

  Faith sat down again willingly enough, and Roskill felt a pang of disquiet. It was like her to be curious, but it wasn’t like Butler – solid, security-conscious Butler, who mistrusted women and hated amateurs.

  And of all women, Faith. For Butler had deplored Audley’s original involvement with her – ‘that over-bred, under-sexed schoolteacher with foam-rubber tits.’ It was an uncharacteristically facile assessment, except possibly as regards the foam rubber, but what mattered was that it didn’t fit this sudden partiality: Faith wouldn’t hold her tongue, and Butler would know it.

  ‘Get on with it, then, Jack. I can’t wait to hear why I have to keep my beard.’

  Butler took a slow breath, almost a sigh. ‘On Tuesday night somebody stole a car belonging to a Foreign Office man named Llewelyn.’

  Audley sat up. ‘Llewelyn? David Llewelyn would that be?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I used… to know him.’ Audley began guardedly and ended casually. ‘I played rugger against him as a matter of fact.’

  ‘So someone pinched Llewelyn’s car,’ said Roskill after a moment’s silence. Butler had evidently hoped that Audley was going to elaborate on his acquaintance, but Audley’s mouth was tightly closed again. ‘That’s a normal occupational hazard in London these days.’

  ‘It was taken in Oxford.’

  ‘Still close enough for the city gangs.’ Butler ignored him.

  ‘He parked the car at six thirty p.m. in Radcliffe square, just next to All Souls – he was having dinner in All Souls that evening. By midnight it had gone. They picked it up at Bicester at seven p.m. next evening.’

  Roskill looked at the map in his mind. Bicester was just north, or maybe north-east, of Oxford. And hardly more than a dozen miles away. There was an R.A.F. maintenance unit there, not far from the American base the F-111’s were moving into soon. And an Army camp – a fair-sized ordnance depot.

  ‘So some jokers missed the last bus home and picked their own transport. It happens.’

  Butler nodded. ‘It happens – aye. In fact it’s what the police suggested. They found the car in an Army depot area, beside a public road.’

  Audley began to say something, and then stopped abruptly, and looked down into his brandy glass. And if Butler was normally resistant to Faith’s charm, Audley equally could never resist hypothesising. So now they were both acting out of character.

  Roskill started to stroke his chin and rather to his surprise encountered his beard: the very idea of preserving it was ridiculous, and also out of character…

  Butler was a colleague, a friend even, so he must now be doing simply what he had been told to do. But Audley ranked as a friend too, and there was something which had scared him off – even though the hounds of Hell had passed him by. So there was something very wrong with the idea of some R.A.O.C. private lifting the Foreign Office man’s car.

  ‘What sort of car was it?’

  ‘Vanden Plas Princess – the 4-litre one.’

  The poor-man’s Rolls-Royce, the company director’s tax dodging limousine.

  ‘All right, Jack. If you want me to play “spot the deliberate mistake” I’ll play it, though you could just as soon have told me. For starters – the wrong sort of car lifted from the wrong place. How’s that?’

  ‘Why was it wrong?’ asked Faith.

  ‘Too obvious. It’s not a popular make. If I wanted to get back to barracks I’d pick something easier to get into and easier to drive. And something less conspicuous. And I wouldn’t lift it from somewhere in the centre of Oxford like Radcliffe Square, if my memory of the place is right. I’d pick up a Mini from a dark side-street. Right, Jack?’

  ‘But it did turn up at the depot, Hugh,’ Faith persisted. ‘Why make a mystery out of nothing?’

  ‘The mystery’s all Jack’s, not mine, Faith. But as it happens it also turned up too late. If it was a substitute for the last bus it’d have been ditched within an hour. Once there was a call out for it they’d have spotted it before midday.’

  ‘They still could have missed it. A parked car is just a parked car if it’s not in a “no parking” zone.’ />
  ‘No, Mrs. Audley,’ said Butler. ‘They didn’t miss it, we do know that. It was parked near enough to one of the depot entrances to be in the way. When it was noticed the engine wasn’t even cold.’

  ‘All of which you could have told us in two minutes flat, Jack.’ Roskill masked his unease; again, it wasn’t like the man to go the long way round. ‘You’re being rather a bore now. Why don’t you just come to the point?’

  ‘The point?’

  ‘I don’t know what Llewelyn does, but if David doesn’t want to say, it’s probably veiled in bullshit. So some bright boy in security will have smelt the same rats I have, and after that the procedure’s straightforward: they checked it out and they found it was bugged. The point is – where do I come in?’

  ‘Aye, it smelt,’ said Butler heavily. ‘It smelt of fish and chips and it had the previous evening’s Oxford paper in it, and it was muddy. Which suggested to the local police that it was a casual job. But they had a look for prints and they couldn’t find one, not one. Which made them think again, because it was a bit too careful.’

  ‘I thought everyone knew enough to wipe off their fingerprints these days?’ said Faith.

  ‘Just so, Mrs. Audley. But only the professionals do the job really thoroughly. When the police delivered it back to London they suggested a closer look might be in order. Young Jenkins was given the job of looking – you met him last year, Mrs. Audley.’

  ‘I did indeed!’ Faith smiled reminiscently. ‘Lots too much hair, but very good-looking. He’s nice.’

  ‘He’s damn good, too,’ Roskill said. Jenkins was the star up-and-coming performer of the electronic backroom boys, which excused his hair and the irreverance that went with it. ‘If there was anything in the Princess, Alan Jenkins would have found it And I take it there was something?’

  ‘There was, Hugh.’

  ‘Well, for Christ’s sake, man, don’t be so mysterious. What sort of bug was it?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ Butler looked obstinately at Roskill, as though he wanted to look away, but couldn’t. ‘Jenkins is dead. It blew him apart, whatever it was. He’s dead.’