Evans nodded. “And I’ve just had another lecture from the captain about the safety of his ship.”
“Always had him pegged as a sneaky little bastard,” said Sneider.
Evans looked to Hinkler and Bartlett. He said, “I want you two against the offshore rail. Just watch our backs. If we have to move and there’s any attempt to stop us, give them a burst over their heads. I don’t want to kill anyone—just frighten them.”
“What happens if they don’t stop?” said Hinkler.
“No one is to be killed,” repeated Evans. “Take them out at the legs.”
“There she goes,” said Jones. The mooring lines snaked out from the ship, to be collected by the escort tender and ferried in to the shore bollards. Fore and aft the engine whined, bringing the freighter gently in against the quay wall. There was an imperceptible bump and they rocked slightly. Hinkler and Bartlett picked up their gunny sacks and moved away to the far rail, and Evans watched as four of the hatchmen detached themselves and followed. He decided the Greek captain was a bloody fool.
Ashore Kahane could not quell a sense of deepening anxiety.
“It’s early,” he insisted. “It wasn’t due for another hour … more than another hour.”
“What the hell does that matter?” said Greening. “It’s here. And Shimeon isn’t.”
“He said wait,” said Kahane.
“You want a vote!” said Leiberwitz. “So let’s vote. I say we move.”
“With you in charge?” demanded Kahane.
“Somebody’s got to be,” said Leiberwitz. “Somebody who accepts responsibility.”
“I say move,” supported Greening.
Leiberwitz stared at Katz and Sela. The men looked at each other, clearly feeling uncomfortable, and Katz said, “I don’t see why we should wait; it seems pointless.”
Sela shrugged. “The quicker we get it over, the quicker we can be away.”
“You’re outnumbered,” said Leiberwitz to Kahane.
“Habel hasn’t voted,” said Kahane. He knew it was pointless but it would mean a further delay, no matter how slight.
To Sela Leiberwitz said, “Go and tell him what’s happened … what we’re deciding.”
Ahead of them the freighter’s derrick stirred into action, swinging the gangway over the side and then manoeuvring it into position through the split rail.
“They don’t want to wait,” said Leiberwitz.
“They don’t have a choice,” said Kahane.
“Neither do we!”
Sela came back to the first vehicle and said, “He thinks we should wait.”
“Four against two,” said Leiberwitz. He looked contemptuously to Kahane and said, “If you want to sit here wetting yourself, you’re welcome.”
He climbed out of the lorry, leaving the door ajar for Greening to follow. On the quayside the four of them stood for a moment, uncertain what to do next, looking to Leiberwitz for a lead.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Three hundred yards away Swart raised his hand and said, “Not yet, not yet … let them get far enough away from the lorries …”
The driver sat hunched forward, fingers ready on the ignition key.
“Now!” said Swart.
The two cars accelerated away, tires howling, headlights glaring, anxious for maximum surprise before the men on the quay could recover.
The four Israelis stood transfixed, immobile with shock. Kahane responded first, thrusting the Uzi machine gun through the cab window and squeezing off a short burst that went hopelessly wide, ricocheting off the concrete quayside.
“What the hell’s happening!” screamed Grearson. “They were told not to shoot!”
“It’s not coming from the ship,” said Marinetti. “They’re firing from the dockside.”
Aboard the freighter, Evans shouted, “It’s a setup; I don’t know what’s happened, but it’s a setup. We’ll have to fight our way out.”
The men snatched their weapons from gunny sacks and holdalls. Hinkler and Bartlett immediately sprayed warning shots over the heads of the crew who had begun to move when they saw what was happening.
“Face them off,” Evans told Melvin.
On the quayside, the Israelis moved into action at last, trying to shield their aim from the blaze of the approaching lights, firing with their handguns. Kahane’s second burst was better than his first, shattering the windscreen of the second South African car. The inrush of glass blinded the driver who was also shot through the shoulder. He still had the instinct to haul the wheel to the left, to swerve away from the hurtling approach to the quay edge and the oily sea below. They smashed into the second Israeli lorry, the impact so violent that Habel was hurled out of the vehicle and shattered his skull against the bordering wall. The driver died instantly, together with the man beside him and one in the rear. The fourth broke his neck but retained consciousness, screaming out in immediate agony and then continuing wail after agonized wail.
The mercenaries were positioned well, protected by the metal of the freighter rail. Sneider sprayed the quay with automatic fire, which was taken up by Evans as soon as Sneider’s ammunition clip was exhausted. By the time Evans ran out for Jones to begin firing, Sneider had reloaded, ready to resume an uninterrupted hail of highcalibre bullets. Behind him Evans heard more shooting, close from Melvin, and then farther away from Hinkler and Bartlett. And then screams as the crew were brought down. The captain was a stupid bastard, he thought agaih. One of Jones’s bursts caught the protruding Israeli lorry, shattering the windscreen and decapitating Kahane. Then one of the rounds penetrated the fuel line, and the vehicle erupted in a violent white and orange explosion.
Swart’s car had slewed around thirty yards from the Israelis, and everyone had got out, using it for protection to shoot at the four men who were trying to crab sideways from their totally exposed position towards the comparative safety of the shed. Two had turned to answer the concentrated and calculated fire from the freighter, and as he watched Swart saw one, then the other, literally blasted off the ground from the avalanche of bullets.
And then the French ambush erupted.
The blackened quay was suddenly flooded with blinding white light as the supposedly broken shed lights and then at least ten more ancillary search beams were switched on.
Car and lorry headlights in a solid, practically unbroken line came on in unison to encircle the berth. In the sudden break in the shooting the clatter of squads of soldiers running was momentarily the only sound. From the sea as well as from inland a flurry of helicopters arrived, with more lights focusing downwards upon the fighting. And then the announcements demanding surrender, amplified metallic voices in French, then in English, saying that they were completely surrounded by police, antiterrorist squads, CRS and a French army detachment.
Calling Hinkler and Bartlett to the shore rail to join with Melvin and Sneider, Evans scurried with Jones, bent double, towards the bridge ladder. A crewman saw them and moved to intervene. The black man shot him almost carelessly, the automatic rifle balanced in his right hand. He waited until Evans had climbed to the top, then scrambled up after him. Side by side they dashed into the bridge housing. Papas was crouched rigid against the storm rail, staring down at the quayside battlefield. Evans snatched at his shoulder.
“Cast off!” he yelled. “Cut the line and get us out of here!”
Papas blinked, like a man awakening from a deep sleep.
“I said get us out of here!” repeated Evans. “Cut the mooring lines.”
“You’re mad,” said the Greek, broken-voiced. “Utterly mad. Don’t you imagine they’ll have sealed the harbour entrance against us. They’ve got helicopters overhead, soldiers on land. I can’t go anywhere.”
Evans swung around, absorbing at once the stupidity of his demand. Below, his men had started shooting again, but at once were answered by equally professional, coordinated fire, blasting out simultaneously from at least five different spots and scything in
to the ship’s side. Even with the protection of their elevation, Evans saw Hinkler clutch upwards and then fall backwards, his face pulped red. As he stood crying, Bartlett was hit.
“They’ve got a tripod-mounted cannon down there!” said Jones. “Nine-millimetre, at least.”
A phosphorous flare, then another, exploded lazily from a helicopter hovering directly above and floated gently down, completely illuminating the deck. At once, still from above, automatic fire rained down on them. Sneider and Melvin died instantly. And the already wounded and dying crewmen twitched and jumped under the relentless downpour.
“Bastards!” screamed Evans. He ran out onto the bridge wing, conscious of Jones behind him. Squinting against the light still above them, they both began firing, using the recoil blast of the overhead guns as markers. Suddenly there was an explosion more violent than that of the Israeli lorry, as their bullets caught a helicopter fuel tank. There was a red and black roar, a searing, skin-scorching blast of heat and then the helicopter plunged downwards, lodged for a moment at the very stem of the freighter and then toppled, hissing, into the sea.
Far below the two remaining Israelis ran forward, arms high above their heads in surrender. Leiberwitz was caught in the stomach by a blast from one of the French machine-gun emplacements, practically cutting him in two, before anyone realized what they were doing.
To the men around him beside the car, Swart shouted, “Stop firing. Stay down but keep your hands visible.”
On the bridge, Jones aimed at the quay but only managed a short burst before a second helicopter arrived, flattening them against the deck with its downdraught. It released a flare, which blinded them, so neither Evans nor Jones ever saw the momentary black flecks of the three dropped grenades set to five-second time fuses. The explosion killed both of them as well as Papas, and split the bridge wing from its main housing.
Grearson obeyed Marinetti’s instruction, keeping his hands visible and stretched out against the car dashboard when they were surrounded. Black, hooded figures hauled open the doors to drag them out.
Seconds before it happened, the lawyer said, distant-voiced, “What happened? For God’s sake, what happened?”
“We lost,” said Marinetti.
38
Levy’s concern was entirely for the boy, refusing to let Karen even look at his bloody cuts or the bruising until she had repeated and then repeated again his instructions on how to guide the police to the villa where Azziz was held.
“Sure you’ve got it right?” he said.
“Positive,” she said. “Now let me clean you up.”
Levy shook her off, his voice far away as if he couldn’t believe what he had done. “I had to leave him handcuffed to some piping in the cellar of some empty bloody house. He was crying, asking me to help him, and instead 1 walked away!”
Levy snatched the Browning automatic from the waistband of his trousers and slammed it onto a chest near the bedroom door. “I never want to see a bloody gun again,” he said.
“He’ll be all right,” said Karen. “I’ll see to it he’s all right. Please let me help you.”
“I haven’t time,” said the Israeli. “The ship’s due.”
“You can’t drive like that,” she said. “It was a wonder you weren’t stopped by the police coming here.”
He allowed her to lead him to a chair near the bed, where she eased off his bloodstained jacket and examined the deepest cut.
“It should be stitched,” she said. “It’s very deep.”
“Just bind it—try to stop it bleeding.”
Karen poured water into a bowl from the pitcher and set it down at his feet, aware as she cleaned away the caked blood how pale Levy’s face was; it made the bruising around his cheek and eye appear even more prominent. “Poor darling,” she said. “My poor darling.”
“Stop it!” he snapped. “After what I did to that kid, stop it.”
Karen made a pad from a clean handkerchief and then tore the sheet on her bed for a strip to tie against the gash. Almost at once it began to stain from the unstaunched blood.
She smiled feebly, close to tears. “You look odd,” she said. “Like someone dressed up for a fancy-dress party.”
“It doesn’t feel like a party to me,” he said.
She snatched out, cupping his face between her hands. “Don’t go!”
He snorted at the absurdity of her plea. “They might expect me to do that; Leiberwitz at least.”
“You’ll be killed,” she blurted, eyes flooding. “If not here, back in Israel.”
Levy shook his head. “Israel would never turn the army against its own people! It couldn’t do that and survive. It’ll be compromise, like politics always is.”
He stood, pulling her to her feet. “I have to handcuff you,” he said. “The police will cut you free, once we’ve unloaded the ship and I’ve told them where you are …”
Levy took the wrist bands from his coat and stood staring down at them. “I can’t,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does,” he insisted. “There mustn’t be anything against you … any suspicion.”
He looked around the room and said, “The bed frame, I suppose.”
Karen sat demurely, offering her arm. He clamped on the handcuffs, running his finger round the inner rim to ensure it wasn’t tight. “Just wait until they cut it off,” he said. “Azziz moved around—that’s why he got sore.”
When he had connected the other band to the metal bedhead he said, “I have to leave you now.”
Karen bit her lip, not wanting to break down but knowing she was going to. She reached out for his hand, not able to speak.
“I meant it,” he said. “About finding a way.”
“Yes.”
“It’ll take time.”
He bent to kiss her and the tears broke, flooding uncontrolled down her face.
“I love you,” he said.
Which was what Deaken heard as he came through the door.
The fury surged through him, so strong there was a brief moment of faintness. And then he saw the discarded gun.
“Get away from her!”
Deaken moved as he screamed out the demand, plunging into the room and snatching up the automatic.
“Get away!” he said again. There was no hysteria in his anger. He was icily controlled—illogically almost detached—the gun he didn’t know how to use steady and unwavering in his hand. They were very close, only feet apart, and the man seemed to fill Deaken’s vision, magnifying his impression of a strained, scratched and bruised face, the shirt splattered with blood. She had obviously put up a fight.
“No!” said Karen, her voice jagged.
“It’s all right, darling. All right,” said Deaken, eyes fixed upon Levy. “I’m here now. It’s going to be all right.”
“No,” shouted Karen. “Leave him.”
“I’d like to kill you,” said Deaken. He aimed the gun with both hands at Levy. “But I want to hurt you more than that. I’m going to see you locked up forever. I’m going to invoke every law and every statute under every international or national legal convention. I’m going to see that you spend the rest of your life living through the sort of agony you’ve put her through … put me through …”
“I love him.” Karen didn’t raise her voice. It was a calm, positive assertion.
He stared at her, not understanding.
“I love him and I’m going to have his child.”
Deaken blinked against another spasm of faintness, bringing his other hand to steady the gun. God, how he’d make this bastard suffer if her breakdown was permanent.
“And I love her,” said Levy.
“What?” said Deaken. His voice was suddenly weak and unsure.
“We’re going to have a baby,” said the woman. “We’re going to stay together somehow.” Karen hesitated and then she said “I don’t want to be with you anymore, Richard.”
Deaken never remembered making
a positive decision; even any contraction of his fingers. There was a sudden, blasting roar and the gun kicked wildly in his hand so that he almost dropped it. The shot caught Levy fully in the chest, kicking him backwards onto the bottom of the bed and then onto the floor.
Karen’s cry was beyond hysteria, animallike. She threw herself sideways, jerked short by her handcuffed wrist, fingers of her free hand clawing out as she tried to touch Levy’s crumpled body. She threw herself again and again until the blood began to drip from her stripped arm and then she stopped, whimpering in her frustration at not being able to reach him.
She stared up at her husband.
“Bastard!” she said. “You bastard!”
Epilogue
Suslev was waiting for her knock. When it came he hurried to the apartment door, opening it wide to admit her. Excitement churned through him at the first sight of his wife. So beautiful, he thought, so radiant.
“How are you?” he said.
“Fine.”
“Sure?”
“Positive.”
He stood back for her to enter. The apartment was just off Kalinin Prospekt but still with a view of the Kremlin and far more spacious than Suslev had ever expected. He led her around it, like a rich child with a toy no other child could afford, showing her the kitchen quite separate from the dining area, a full-sized room where they could entertain, and the third bedroom, which could be used on the rare occasions when they had guests. The bathroom was equipped with a shower, which he turned proudly on and off to prove that it worked.
“Sergei’s at the academy,” he said. “There’s going to be an acceptance ceremony in a week’s time.” Suslev took a square of pasteboard from a dresser and said, “Here’s our invitation.”
She smiled, enjoying his excitement. Beside the invitation was his official citation, confirming his promotion to full colonel.
“Very impressive,” she said, picking it up. She felt a great weariness and wished she could share his excitement.
“They’re calling it one of the most successful disinformation operations ever,” said Suslev. “There’s even talk of it being included in the training manual.”
Deaken's War Page 26