People don't kill friend o' mine and get away with it.' He switched on the radio 'This is where I start having to be polite to those gibbering monkeys down there.'

Rawcliff looked at his watch. Those five Hercules would be well over their target by now.

Four.

'I am not here to offer either apologies or explanations. Nor is the Department. If you're so unhappy about what's happened, then I suggest that you bypa.s.s the usual channels and submit your resignation directly to the Minister. You'll at least have the satisfaction of having it turned down flat.'

Suchard was tired and ill-tempered; he had drunk too much the night before, which was not his habit, and had slept badly. He was in no mood to smooth down the ruffled sensibilities of the SB or to parry the pusillanimous complaints of the Met in general.

Addison, in his capacity as torch-bearer for the Special Branch, sat across the room in St James' Square, stiff and silently furious - a taunt to Suchard's own secret sense of guilt, even horror. For despite his vain cynicism, his worldly indifference induced by a career spent in the black arts of deceit and distortion, even the occasional small iniquity, all in the supposed defence of the Realm, the reports that had begun to seep through on the wires that Friday morning had caused him a profound shock. Whatever the state of the world, and the precarious balance of forces, for both good and evil, the events of this morning had taken things too far, even for Simon de Vere Suchard. The fact that he had been only a minor unwitting accomplice to what had happened offered no comfort: indeed, it seemed to render his own role all the more contemptible.

The news was still sc.r.a.ppy and confused, coming in special flashes over the radio, and playing havoc with the early editions of the evening papers.

On-the-spot communications would be chaotic, even non-existent; and it was likely that the local authorities were deliberately trying to suppress the news in order to avert international panic.

As usual, the wires of the FO were vague and often contradictory; but if only part of the reports proved to be true, it would still add up to a stupendous, horrific outrage. so wanton, so truly infernal, that its implications and consequences were both terrible and impossible to calculate.

Yet here, at one of the nerve-ends of power, and as the truth began to dawn, was come this wretched policeman to nag Suchard about what amounted to no more than a small matter of professional etiquette.

Suchard had stood up and was making himself another cup of black sugarless Nescafe. 'All right, you've got two corpses - Mason, and that miserable Newby, who doesn't belong to us, anyway - and the Yard are whining because they'vebeen deliberately prevented from arresting the culprits. Just bung both on the "unsolved" file! Two more won't make that much difference. And the press have got other things to worry about, after what's happened this morning.

'd.a.m.n it all,' he added, sitting down again, and crossing his legs: 'I am not responsible for policy. You can call me all the rude names you like - errand boy, the Minister's chief lickspittle and f.a.g, Government s.h.i.t-shoveller by Royal Appointment. Just sticks and stones. Complain if you like, but not to me. Christ, man, I'm the last person you should be coming to! / know nothing - except that I'm meant to know nothing. I can't even read between the lines any more, because the official cables have stopped reaching this desk -all my sources have dried up. It's the same with the FO. And it's my guess that even the Minister and Number Ten haven't been too fully informed. Which means - again if my guess is right - that they preferred not to be informed.' He stopped abruptly: 'That's absolutely off the record, of course.'

Addison gave a short nod, this time barely concealing his rage. 'You misunderstand me,' he said gravely. 'My concern is purely with the police angle. I am anxious about the Rawcliff woman. To be quite blunt, I don't want another corpse, this time smack in my "manor". Nor am I going to spare a full detail to keep round-the-clock surveillance on her for the next ten or twenty years.'

Suchard closed his eyes, stiffening his jaw muscles against a yawn. 'All right, -so we scared her off. She's moved out of Battersea and gone to stay with a friend in Richmond. And taken the kid with her. Sensible girl. They'd be as likely to go for the kid as for her. Providing, of course, somebody twigs -which is only likely to happen if that b.l.o.o.d.y husband of hers decides to come prancing back, laughing all the way to the local bank, now they've lifted control restrictions.' He leant back, sipping his coffee.

'Otherwise, she's holed up in a nice comfortable house in a cul-de-sac of Richmond Park. Easy enough for surveillance - which, need I say, cuts both ways. The house owner's in merchant banking, and with Lloyds, so he might not like it if he found you boys trampling all over his lawn. That's about the full score, isn't it, Addison?'

'One of my men spoke to her this afternoon - report came in less than an hour ago. He had followed her to a local supermarket in Queen's Road. She had the kid with her and he gave her a hand with some of her things. Nothing obvious - no cheek, and no threats. Until they were outside, that is -then he put it to her, gently but straight. If she wanted to stay alive, and keep her son, she must forget everything that's happened to her in the last few days and get out.

Resign her job, sell up everything she had, and go a long, long way away.

Above all, keep clear of her husband. That included letters, telephone calls, telegrams, even messages through third parties.

'Pretty harsh words, I think you'd agree? My man was all set for a minor bout of hysterics, at the very least. But not at all. Know what the girl did? Half spat, half laughed in his face. Told him that she'd heard the news, and if he thought she had the least intention of standing by her husband, who was a ma.s.s-murderer, he had another think coming. All she seemed worried about was protection for the kid.'

'I suppose we ought to do something,' Suchard said wearily. 'Her house is probably in Rawcliff's name, and there's no doubt a mortgage. And even if Rawcliff's dead -and it can be proved - we can't p.i.s.s around with solicitors and insurance companies. It would take months. Some sort of ex gratia paymentcan no doubt be arranged. On strictly compa.s.sionate grounds, of course. I'll have a word with our Personnel Department. Needn't go through the Treasur books. In fact, under the circ.u.mstances, it's essential that i: doesn't.'

Suchard turned, gave Addison a very slight wink 'Enough to set her up somewhere, start again. Canada or Australia. She's an attractive girl, from what I hear. And it would get her off your back, wouldn't it?'

'It would,' Addison said sourly. 'Any news at all about Rawcliff and the other pilots?'

'Not a murmur. We're still expecting the Yids to come through with something.

Or the Americans, maybe. We haven't been running this show, remember - all we're trying to do is to keep our feet out of the s.h.i.t.'

The Special Branch man stood up. 'Very well. I'll put a "red" on the Rawcliff woman for one week - provisionally. And I'd appreciate it, if only as a courtesy, if you would let me know the moment you get anything on the husband.'

'Will do.' Suchard said, without getting up. 'I'll be interested to know what you'll charge him with, if he's fool enough to try and come home!'

But Addison had already left the room without replying.

Five.

Ryderbeit could pick up only a confused jabber and shouting from the ground, most of it in Arabic. It was so loud that he had to turn down the volume. One voice cut in, in English, and asked them to identify themselves. Ryderbeit did so, then the channel went dead. He tried several other frequencies, but it was like tuning into a very noisy party, sometimes even a yelling match.

'Sounds pretty wild down there,' he said, and shut off the radio. 'Seems we all do our own thing today in Cairo.'

He put the Beachcraft down on a corner of the enormous field that was evidently reserved for private aircraft, which included a number of sleek twin-engine jets; the playthings of the big absentee landlords, corrupt politicos, and probably a few of the rich brethren from Saudi and the Emirates who didn't want to risk advertising themselves on the civil airlines, now that Egypt was in the doghouse following the Camp David Agreement with Israel.

No one came out to meet them. It was a long walk through the shuddering heat, towards the ramshackle confusion of the terminal buildings, some, of which were derelict or half-pulled down, others only half-built.

Rawcliff immediately sensed that something odd was happening. A big international airport, at mid-day, should be one of the busiest, noisiest places anywhere on earth. But here there was a strange inactivity. Or rather, the wrong sort of activity. High above, through the dull yellow haze, came the roar and whine of 'stacking' aircraft; while on the ground, across the bleak wastes of concrete, there was no movement - no giant fuel-trucks, baggage trolleys, pa.s.senger buses crawling out from the terminal buildings; no mobile generators or brightly coloured runway controllers; no police or mechanics, no trace of an aircraft taxiing up to the holding position, nor of anything coming into land. It was like the approaches to a dead city - until they reached the terminal building.

They heard the noise first, like the muted roar from a football stadium.

Rawcliff sensed the vibrations of ma.s.s hysteria even before he reached the buildings. All the loudspeakers were bellowing simultaneously, in a cacophony of Arabic; while the floors were packed with people, many of them wailing and weeping, and some of them - including policemen and porters and cleaners, even the girls at the check-in desks - had flung themselves down on their knees and were praying towards the East. A few pockets of bewildered Western travellers could be seen huddled round the edges.

n.o.body stopped the two of them as they walked through the barriers, past the Customs and Immigration officers, who were all gathered round transistor radios, one of them howling like a wounded dog. Ryderbeit had grabbed Rawcliff by the arm and soon they were lost in the crowd. It was too noisy even to exchange words. Ryderbeit was heading for the bar, like a horse to water. He paused only to yell at a well-dressed Egyptian in a dark business suit, a transistor pressed to his ear. The man yelled back something in English, and Ryderbeit seized him furiously, forcing the man to repeat himself. This time Rawcliff heard enough to make the sweat all over his body turn cold.

Ryderbeit had released the man and struggled on towards the bar. He leant his face down next to Rawcliff's ear, and said with a long grin, 'You hear that, soldier? Holy Moses. that wasn't in the script! And that script's just rewritten history.'

Rawcliff shouted back, in a voice flat with shock: 'Let's try and get out of here! We're Europeans, remember. b.l.o.o.d.y infidels. And I've heard about the Cairo bomb.'

'Take it easy, soldier.' The bar was unattended, and for some reason it was quieter here. A group of small black-suited j.a.panese, each fondling a camera, blinked at them both through their spectacles. Between the two of them they were able to gather that a JAL flight from the Far East had been due to take off thirty minutes ago for Paris.

Ryderbeit cursed and spat ungraciously in full view of the j.a.panese. 'Well, by the looks of things I guess we're in no hurry. Before I do anything else, I'm going to have myself a drink. I'm going to have a couple of b.l.o.o.d.y drinks!'

And before Rawcliff could stop him, he had vaulted the bar, selected a quart sized bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, and began drinking from the neck.

Sammy Ryderbeit was now drunk. Rawcliff had left him sprawled on his belly under a bench, sleeping like a cat.

It was mid-afternoon, and there were tenuous signs that the airport was returning to some degree of order, if not normality. Squads of fierce-looking riot police with batons, shields and machine pistols at the ready, had been drafted in, with some effect. Those incoming aircraft which had not already been diverted were beginning to land. A skeleton staff of Customs and Immigration was back on duty. But most important, some of the check-in counters were now open.

Rawcliff concentrated his mind, forcing out the one memory he most feared - the final contemptuous words~of his wife. She'd known all along, and she'd been right. But this, of all moments in history, was no time for maudlin reappraisals, for self-indulgent regrets. He had to act, do something, anything: if he stopped now he would be like a man lost in a blizzard, sinking down, never to get up again. He discovered that several of the airport shops, run by the more greedy, or perhaps less religious local entrepreneurs, had reopened. He bought two airline bags, some cheap shirts, including one to replace Ryderbeit's grubby olive-drab combat tunic - from which he had not even bothered to remove the Red Cross insignia on the shoulder - and a couple of rudimentary toilet-kits.

He remembered, from his own experience, that the one sort of pa.s.senger who immediately arouses suspicion is one who travels with no luggage at all. He wasn't worried about heavy luggage - not at this end, at any rate. Those few officials on duty looked as though they had something else on their minds.

Then he went back to rouse Ryderbeit. The Rhodesian might pride himself on being the proverbial Wandering Jew who travelled strictly light, except for the odd throwing knife or elephant-gun. But he was also a born survivor - and a ruthlessly practical one - unlike that impulsive, gullible old plodder, Charles Rawcliff, who threw up everything, abandoning his wife and child, in the simpleton's quest for a crock of Swiss gold.

Ryderbeit stretched himself and yawned. Apart from his leery red eyes, he appeared none the worse for having consumed about half a pint of neat whisky.

And as Rawcliff expected, the Rhodesian was not short of money. But nothing fancy or traceable, like credit cards or travellers' cheques; nor anything so soft as sterling or dollars. Ryderbeit had two sewn-up pockets inside the front of his trousers, next to his zip-fly, each containing a wad of big thick one-hundred-franc Swiss notes.

Ten minutes later they had purchased two single tickets on the scheduled JAL flight to Paris, which was now due to depart in forty minutes. But despite several false alarms, boarding did not begin for another three hours.

Pa.s.sport Control consisted of no more than a wave of the hand from a fat uniformed man whose eyes were still stark with shock. Rawcliff and Ryderbeit were careful to pa.s.s through the gate and to board the plane separately, choosing seats well apart from each other. The DCS was well filled, mostly with pa.s.sengers from the transit area. Besides the ubiquitous j.a.panese, there were also about a dozen Europeans - businessmen and a couple of families returning from the Far East, all with the unhealthy yellow tan of the tropics.

Rawcliff was uncomfortably aware that he and Ryderbeit were the only Europeans among the few pa.s.sengers to join the flight here in Cairo. No crazed-eyed hippies or international pop-idols or smirking, eye-catching little starlets.

Just himself, and Sammy Ryderbeit, who stuck up from among the serried rows of seats like the bad fairy at the princess's christening.

Outside, the light was beginning to fade. There was still little activity on the runways. Inside the cabin the air-conditioning had been turned on, provided by a generator truck outside the plane; and the crowded stillness was filled with the soft placebo of Western musak. Little stewardesses moved in their kimonos, smiling down the aisle and handing out warm scented towels, sweets and chewing gum. The intercom crackled in j.a.panese, then in careful English, regretting that there would be a further delay due to air-clearance formalities.

Rawcliff felt himself drained with lack of food and sleep, yet tense, with a febrile exhaustion that refused to relent, to allow him to relax for one moment. The wheels were still resting firmly on Arab territory and the engines remained silent. It needed no great powers of deduction to realize that anyone interested enough in the first flight out of Cairo that day, after the news of the morning's holocaust had broken, would need to make only a few routinetelephone calls to establish who had boarded that flight and where they were booked to disembark. It was just a question of who was interested? Jo's friend with the Mossad in Rome? Or Ritchie's contact, Klein, with his double-dealing between Washington and Moscow? Not to mention the Arabs. Ryderbeit had put it with poignant simplicity back at the airport bar, as he wiped the last of the Johnny Walker from his lips: 'If we're ever rumbled on this one, soldier, you can sleep at night with the thought that we've just become Public Enemies Numbers One and Two of approximately 750 million worshippers of the one-and-only Allah. And I'd say that on this one Allah's going to have a mighty long arm and it's going to wield a mighty swift sword!'

G.o.d, what a f.u.c.k-up. Rawcliff closed his eyes. He was sitting between two j.a.panese who at least spared him the ordeal of conversation. Half an hour pa.s.sed. The Captain's voice chimed in again, exasperatingly apologetic - a prerecorded litany of Oriental politeness. The girls in their kimonos dispensed more towels, and coffee and tea in paper cups.

An hour pa.s.sed. Lights came on along the runways and several planes landed, but none took off. Rawcliff's head began to throb from the dry, stale air, and his mouth tasted as parched as leather. Then the rear door opened, with a blast of muggy air. Two men entered the cabin, both Egyptians, sallow-faced with black moustaches, dressed identically in bulky dark suits of artificial fibre. Rawcliff could smell police even above the scented towels.

They came down the aisle with that familiar, weary. laconic air of self-confidence, checking each pa.s.senger's pa.s.sport. They showed little interest in the j.a.panese, but spent their time scrutinizing the doc.u.ments of the few other Egyptian nationals aboard.

They had worked their way along to within three rows of Rawcliff, when a loud argument started in Arabic. Both plain clothes men had closed round a stout bald Egyptian who was half-standing out of his seat, rolling his eyes and waving his arms as though in a macabre burlesque. One of the policemen was holding his pa.s.sport, the other seized him by the wrists. Rawcliff could not tell whether he were shouting with fury or terror, as the two policemen hauled him out into the aisle and began to march him clumsily down towards the rear door. There they paused, while one of them went back and fetched the man's fat expensive-looking briefcase.

"The last Rawcliff saw of him was standing at the rear of the plane, suddenly silent, and adjusting his tie with comic dignity; then he was led1 outside and the cabin door swung shut.

Almost immediately the Captain's voice announced that they were cleared for take-off. To compensate for the delay, free alcoholic beverages would be served during the flight.

Rawcliff leant forward to tighten his seat-belt, and reached down to rub his trousers under which the sweat was itching out of his groin and down the backs of his legs. He supposed that the incident with the bald Egyptian would have to remain a minor mystery. Even petty, when compared to the enormity of trying to guess who had instigated the terrible events of the morning.

At that moment he heard Number One engine wind up, then Number Four. He caught himself grinning stupidly, dangerously close to hysteria, as he contemplated the absurdity of actually flying as a pa.s.senger once more.

Five minutes later they left the ground, heading north-east towards the Mediterranean and mainland Europe. Eleven-fifteen pm, Paris time. Slack cold rain over the vast expanse of Charles de Gaulle Airport. j.a.pan Air Lines Flight JA 268 from Cairo was one of the last to land before the night lull in traffic.

The pa.s.sengers filed out into a cool quiet tube of stainless steel, to a series of soundless escalators that carried them up into the molecular complex of the most modern airport in the world. After the stifling mayhem of Cairo, Rawcliff had a disembodied, narcotic sensation: timeless, s.p.a.celess, of total unreality. Moving numbly through automatic doors, along rolling floors under stark white lights, into a silent dehumanized world populated only by the squinting, black-suited j.a.panese and the occasional motionless figure of a uniformed official.

An unreality charged with fear. All round him, like static electricity. This was hardly the place for the solitary 'hit-man', the squad of heavies from any number of foreign agencies, or the long arm and swift sword of Allah.

Part of his brain still registered the presence of Ryderbeit, somewhere behind him: a memory of Ryderbeit being drunk again, on the plane, causing the disturbance, upsetting the fragile kimonoed girls when he refused to put out his cigar as the landing-lights came on. As if his appearance were not conspicuous enough, his behaviour seemed to be signalling to every watching eye.

Again, hopelessly, Rawcliff tried to compute their chances. Of survival, escape, or certain death. He had forgotten about the money, deposited in some respectable inst.i.tution that only required his signature and a few polite formalities.

He remembered only that they would be waiting for Ryderbeit and Peters. That was the way the cards had been stacked; but however efficient Pol might be, there was surely no way by which he could have discovered that the hand had been misdealt? The bodies of Peters and the others might lie forever, rotting quickly down to bleached bones, in that empty corner of the Nafud Desert.

There remained nothing to identify them - Ryderbeit had made sure of that.

Ryderbeit was careful. A professional, and slightly crazy with it. Rawcliff caught a glimpse of him now, lank-haired, hooked face and blood-red eyes roaming round the bleak circular hall in which the pa.s.sengers were filing in two columns through Pa.s.sport Control. A couple of CRS officers sat behind their shields of bullet-proof gla.s.s, snapping through the pa.s.sports. Two more officers - dark-blue suits, smart white sashes, machine-pistols clipped to their hips -stood immobile in the background.

But Rawcliff knew that there would be other eyes watching them: closed circuit TV, two-way mirrors, hand-picked experts scrutinizing every face, every suspicious expression and mannerism; checking for anyone from a petty smuggler to a known international criminal or someone on the long official list of 'unwelcome visitors'; eyes trained to spot a familiar profile under a wig or moustache, even by the tell-tale scars of a face-lift.

Rawcliff had only one fixed thought, as he moved up to the check-point. Pol would have told them to expect Peters. Tall, grey blond, cold-killer face.

Probably carrying a British pa.s.sport, details supplied, together with both White and Black African records! s.e.xual a.s.sault, gun-running, mutilation and murder.

Mistaken ident.i.ty was surely out of the question? Not with all the influence and ingenuity of a man like Pol, plus the very latest apparatus and drill for airport security. It was true that Pol had met Rawcliff - but would he havebothered to circulate his description and details, along with the rest of the pilots, on the off-chance that one of them might make it back alive that morning? In any case, Pol could have had no idea that it would be a j.a.panese airliner bound for Charles de Gaulle Airport which would be the first plane to leave Cairo after the time it took for the Beachcraft Duke to fly in from the Nafud Desert.

Unless, of course. . . Rawcliff found himself opposite the bullet-proof gla.s.s. He rocked back on his heels, giddy with exhaustion. The CRS man had flicked open his pa.s.sport, glanced at him, shut it and slid it back under the gla.s.s, with a murmured 'Merci Monsieur'. Rawcliff put it back in his pocket and walked through.

. . . Unless Pol had had agents waiting at Cairo, who had monitored the Beachcraft's landing, then been acute enough, despite the confusion, to pick up their trail -ident.i.ties, flight number, destination - and had somehow managed, probably by short-wave radio, to relay the information in time for Pol to act.

Rawcliff stopped dead. He was in the middle of a bare, domed hall, full of the gentle hum of baggage conveyor-belts. Behind him came a mild stir. The CRS officer was not happy about Ryderbeit's Luxembourg pa.s.sport. The Rhodesian was swearing, in foul, accurate French, with an atrocious accent, while one of the men with machine-pistols came forward and began to lead him briskly away, without resistance.

Perhaps it was this sudden uncharacteristic meekness in the face of authority that first alerted Rawcliff. The Rhodesian had turned once, his good eye glaring back across the hall, and for just a moment Rawcliff thought he detected a slight nod of that hooked face, before it disappeared through an unmarked door.

Then Rawcliff understood. For the last twenty-four hours - drunk or sober - Ryderbeit had simply been obeying orders, following a meticulously worked-out plan and reacting to a number of pre-arranged contingencies.

His only deviation had been to kill Peters - probably for no better reason than that he didn't like him. The only mystery was why he had spared Rawcliff, unless it were merely out of a frivolous desire for companionship: though Ryderbeit hardly struck Rawcliff as a man in constant need of friends.

Ryderbeit was a loner, a pure adventurer. He had warned Rawcliff as much when they had first met in that hole in the wall in Larnaca.

Ryderbeit was useful to Pol and Pol was useful to the French government.

Ryderbeit was the man of action who took the risks, as well as picking up any rewards that came his way. Pol was both master-mind and deus ex machina who enjoyed playing a devious, perverse game for the highest stakes. And the French government found Pol a convenient agent through whom to pursue their more clandestine and nefarious interests, while the politicians and diplomats looked the other way.

Everything that day had gone like clockwork - right up to the moment when Ryderbeit was led away under armed escort. Pol had got to him first, through his agents at Cairo who had tipped off Paris, in good time to meet the plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Ryderbeit was therefore safe -protected from the attentions of other international intelligence agencies, as well as from the host of Islamic zealots who would soon appear, desperate to avenge the morning's awful work.

That left Rawcliff, alone in the baggage-hall - only he didn't have anybaggage. He didn't have any money either. Little more than the clothes he stood up in. A b.u.m contract-pilot who had that day partic.i.p.ated in an act of genocide for which he could expect to be tracked down by enemies from every corner of the earth. And he hadn't even been paid. For he knew that the moment he stepped into that nice Swiss bank, they would get him.

How to make a run for it? And where to? Buy a ticket to London on credit card?

- back to Judith and little Tom, and drag them down with him?

At first he didn't feel the hand on his sleeve. A young man in a well-cut suit said, 'Monsieur Rawcliff? Venez, s'il vous plait.' Rawcliff followed him, across the hall, to the unmarked door through which Ryderbeit had disappeared only a few moments earlier. The young man opened it for him and he stepped forward, dazed, to be greeted by a peal of laughter.

The bed at the Lotti was as comfortable as he would have expected. He blinked up at the crystal chandelier, at the heavy draped curtains drawn against the winter sky.

He sat up slowly, once again feeling himself all over for injuries. He was naked under the sheet and his elbow felt bruised from where he must have fallen. He groped out and pressed a bell by the side of the bed.

Nothing was very clear any more.'I've cracked up, he thought. All he could remember was Pol standing there in the middle of the room, wrapped in a ma.s.sive vicuna coat that was lightly sprinkled with rain, giggling at him through his cherry-lips, while Ryderbeit stood solemnly urinating against the far wall.

A valet answered his call, and some time later Pol came in, squeezing himself into a little gilt chair beside the bed. He patted Rawcliff's arm under the sheet. 'You must sleep, man cher. You are very tired.'

'What happened? I don't know any more. I don't know a d.a.m.n thing. Tell me.'

Pol talked for a long time, gently, reasoning and rea.s.suring, treating Rawcliff like a patient. 'You will be paid,' he said. 'There will be no problem there. Even the dirtiest jobs must be rewarded - when they are necessary.'