by Jack Higgins
Levin said, 'Why the masks? I don't understand that?'
'A symbol of the fact that they belong to their husbands. No other man may look.'
'A strange country,' Levin closed his eyes. 'Too hot.'
'How old are you?' Villiers asked.
'Sixty-eight.'
'Isn't that a little old for the defecting business? I should have thought you'd left it rather late.'
Levin opened his eyes and smiled gently. 'It's quite simple. My wife died last week in Leningrad. I've no children, so no one they can blackmail me with when I reach freedom.'
'What do you do?'
'I'm Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Leningrad. I've a particular interest in aircraft design. The Soviet Airforce has five MIG 23s at Fasari, ostensibly in a training role, so it's the training version of the plane they are using.'
'With modifications?' Villiers suggested.
'Exactly, so that it can be used in a ground attack role in mountainous country. The changes were made in Russia, but there have been problems which I was brought in to solve.'
'So, you've finally had enough? What were you hoping to do, go to Israel?'
'Not particularly. I'm not a convinced Zionist for one thing. No, England would be a much more attractive proposition. I was over there with a trade delegation in nineteen thirty-nine, just before the war started. The best two months of my life.'
'I see.'
'I was hoping to get out in nineteen fifty-nine. Corresponded secretly with relatives in Israel who were going to help, then I was betrayed by someone I had thought a true friend. An old story, I was sentenced to five years.'
'In the Gulag.'
'No, somewhere much more interesting. Would you believe, a little Ulster town called Drumore?'
Villiers turned, surprise on his face. 'I don't understand?'
'A little Ulster town called Drumore in the middle of the Ukraine.' The old man smiled at the look of astonishment on Villiers' face. 'I think I'd better explain.'
When he was finished, Villiers sat there thinking about it. Subversion techniques and counter-terrorism had been very much his business for several years now, particularly in Ireland, so Levin's story was fascinating to say the least. 'I knew about Gaczyna, where the KGB train operatives to work in English and so on, but this other stuff is new to me.'
'And probably to your intelligence people, I think!'
'In Rome in the old days,' Villiers said, 'slaves and prisoners of war were trained as gladiators, to fight in the arena.'
'To the death,' Levin said.
'With a chance to survive if you were better than the other man. Just like those dissidents at Drumore playing policemen.'
'They didn't stand much chance against Kelly,' Levin said.
'No, he sounds as if he was a very special item.'
The old man closed his eyes. His breathing was hoarse and troubled but he was obviously asleep within a few moments. Villiers leaned back in the corner, wretchedly uncomfortable. He kept thinking about Levin's strange story. He'd known a lot of Ulster market towns himself, Crossmaglen for example. A bad place to be. So dangerous that troops had to be taken in and out by helicopter. But Drumore in the Ukraine - that was something else. After a while, his chin dropped on to his chest and he too drifted into sleep.
He came awake to find himself being shaken vigorously by one of the Rashid tribesmen. Another was waking Levin. The man pulled Villiers to his feet and sent him stumbling through the door. It was afternoon now, he knew that from the position of the sun. Much more interesting was the half-track armoured personnel carrier. A converted BTR. What the Russians called a Sandcruiser, painted in desert camouflage. Half a dozen soldiers stood beside it wearing khaki drill uniforms, each man holding an AK assault rifle at the ready. Two more stood inside the Sandcruiser, manning a 12.7mm heavy machine gun with which they covered the dozen or so Rashid who stood watching, rifles cradled in their arms.
Salim turned as Levin was brought out behind Villiers. 'So, Villiers Sahib, we must part. What a pity. I've enjoyed our conversations.'
The Russian officer who approached, a sergeant at his shoulder, wore drill uniform like his men and a peaked cap and desert goggles that gave him an uncanny resemblance to one of Rommel's Afrika Corps officers. He stood looking at them for a while, then pushed up the goggles. He was younger than Villiers would have thought, with a smooth unlined face and very blue eyes. 'Professor Levin,' he said in Russian, 'I'd like to think you lost your way while out walking, but I'm afraid our friends of the KGB will take a rather different point of view.'
'They usually do,' Levin told him.
The officer turned to Villiers and said calmly, 'Yuri Kirov, Captain, 21st Specialist Parachute Brigade.' His English was excellent. 'And you are Major Anthony Villiers, Grenadier Guards, but rather more importantly, of the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment.'
'You're very well informed,' Villiers said. 'And allow me to compliment you on your English.'
'Thank you,' Kirov said. 'We're using exactly the same language laboratory techniques as those pioneered by the SAS at Bradbury Line Barracks in Hereford. You, also, the KGB will take a special interest in.'
'I'm sure they will,' Villiers said amiably.
'So.' Kirov turned to Salim. 'To business.' His Arabic was not as good as his English, but serviceable enough.
He snapped a finger and the sergeant stepped forward and handed the Arab a canvas pouch. Salim opened it, took out a handful of coins and gold glinted in the sun. He smiled and handed the pouch to Hamid who stood behind him.
'And now,' Kirov said, 'if you will be good enough to unpadlock these two, we'll get moving.'
'Ah, but Kirov Sahib is forgetting,' Salim smiled. 'I was also promised a machine gun and twenty thousand rounds of ammunition.'
'Yes, well my superiors feel that would be putting far too much temptation in the way of the Rashid,' Kirov said.
Salim stopped smiling. 'This was a firm promise.'
Most of his men, sensing trouble, raised their rifles. Kirov snapped fingers and thumb on his right hand, there was a sudden burst of fire from the heavy machine gun, raking the wall above Salim's head. As the echoes died away, Kirov said patiently, 'Take the gold, I would earnestly advise it.'
Salim smiled and flung his arms wide. 'But of course. Friendship is everything. Certainly not worth losing for the sake of a trifling misunderstanding.'
He produced a key from a pouch at his belt and unlocked the padlock, first on the wooden halter which held Levin. Then he moved to Villiers. 'Sometimes Allah looks down through the clouds and punishes the deceiver,' he murmured.
'Is that in the Koran?' Villiers asked, as Hamid removed the halter and he stretched his aching arms.
Salim shrugged and there was something in his eyes. 'If not, then it should be.'
Two soldiers doubled forward on the sergeant's command and ranged themselves on either side of Levin and Villiers. They walked to the Sandcruiser. Villiers and Levin climbed inside. The soldiers followed, Kirov bringing up the rear. Villiers and Levin sat down, flanked by armed guards, and Kirov turned and saluted as the engine rumbled into life.
'Nice to do business with you,' he called to Salim.
'And you, Kirov Sahib!'
The Sandcruiser moved away in a cloud of dust. As they went up over the edge of the first sand dune, Villiers looked back and saw that the old Rashid was still standing there, watching them go, only now his men had moved in behind him. There was a curious stillness about them, a kind of threat, and then the Sandcruiser went over the ridge and Bir al Gafani disappeared from view.
The concrete cell on the end of the administrative block at Fasari was a distinct improvement on their previous quarters, with whitewashed walls and chemical toilet and two narrow iron cots, each supplied with a mattress and blankets. It was one of half a dozen such cells, Villiers had noticed that on the way in, each with a heavy steel door complete with spyhole, and there seemed to be thr
ee armed guards constantly on duty.
Through the bars of the window, Villiers looked out at the airstrip. It was not as large as he had expected: three prefabricated hangars with a single tarmacadam runway. The five MIG 23s stood wingtip to wingtip in a line in front of the hangars, looking, in the evening light just before dark, like strange primeval creatures, still, brooding. There were two Mi-8 troop-carrying helicopters on the far side of them and trucks and motor vehicles of various kinds.
'Security seems virtually non-existent,' he murmured.
Beside him, Levin nodded. 'Little need for it. They are, after all, in friendly territory entirely surrounded by open desert. Even your SAS people would have difficulty with such a target, I suppose.'
Behind them, the bolts rattled in the door. It opened and a young corporal stepped in, followed by an Arab carrying a pail and two enamel bowls. 'Coffee,' the corporal said.
'When do we eat?' Villiers demanded.
'Nine o'clock.'
He ushered the Arab out and closed the door. The coffee was surprisingly good and very hot. Villiers said, 'So they use some Arab personnel?'
'In the kitchens and for sanitary duties and that sort of thing. Not from the desert tribes. They bring them from Hauf, I believe.'
'What do you think will happen now?'
'Well, tomorrow is Thursday and there's a supply plane in. It will probably take us back with it to Aden.'
'Moscow next stop?'
There was no answer to that, of course, just as there was no answer to concrete walls, steel doors and bars. Villiers lay on one bed, Levin on the other.
The old Russian said, 'Life is a constant disappointment to me. When I visited England, they took me to Oxford. So beautiful.' He sighed. 'It was a fantasy of mine to return one day.'
'Dreaming spires,' Villiers observed. 'Yes, it's quite a place.'
'You know it then?'
'My wife was at university there. St Hugh's College. She went there after the Sorbonne. She's half-French.'
Levin raised himself on one elbow. 'You surprise me. If you'll forgive me saying so, you don't have the look of a married man.'
'I'm not,' Villiers told him. 'We got divorced a few months ago.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. As you said, life is a constant disappointment. We all want something different, that's the trouble with human beings, particularly men and women. In spite of what the feminists say, they are different.'
'You still love her, I think?'
'Oh, yes,' Villiers said. 'Loving is easy. It's the living together that's so damned hard.'
'So what was the problem?'
'To put it simply, my work. Borneo, the Oman, Ireland. I was even in Vietnam when we very definitely weren't supposed to be. As she once told me, I'm truly good at only one thing, killing people, and there came a time when she couldn't take that any more.'
Levin lay back without a word and Tony Villiers stared up at the ceiling, head pillowed in his hands, thinking of things that would not go away as darkness fell.
He came awake with a start, aware of footsteps in the passageway outside, the murmur of voices. The light in the ceiling must have been turned on whilst he slept. They hadn't taken his Rolex from him and he glanced at it quickly, aware of Levin stirring on the other bed.
'What is it?' the old Russian asked.
'Nine-fifteen. Must be supper.'
Villiers got up and moved to the window. There was a half-moon in a sky alive with stars and the desert was luminous, starkly beautiful, the MIG 23s like black cutouts. God, he thought. There must be a way. He turned, his stomach tightening.
'What is it?' Levin whispered as the first bolt was drawn.
'I was just thinking,' Villiers said, 'that to make a run for it at some point, even if it means a bullet in the back, would be infinitely preferable to Moscow and the Lubianka.'
The door was flung open and the corporal stepped in, followed by an Arab holding a large wooden tray containing two bowls of stew, black bread and coffee. His head was down and yet there was something familiar about him.
'Come on, hurry up!' the corporal said in bad Arabic.
The Arab placed the tray on the small wooden table at the foot of Levin's bed and glanced up, and in the moment that Villiers and Levin realized that he was Salim bin al Kaman, the corporal turned to the door. Salim took a knife from his left sleeve, his hand went around the man's mouth, a knee up pulling him off balance, the knife slipped under his ribs. He eased the corporal down on the bed and wiped the knife on his uniform.
He smiled, 'I kept thinking about what you said, Villiers Sahib. That your people in the Dhofar would pay a great deal to have you back.'
'So, you get paid twice - once by both sides. Sound business sense,' Villiers told him.
'Of course, but in any case, the Russians were not honest with me. I have my honour to think of.'
'What about the other guards?'
'Gone to supper. All this I discovered from friends in the kitchens. The one whose place I took has suffered a severe bump on the head on the way here, by arrangement, of course. But come, Hamid awaits on the edge of the base with camels.'
They went out. He bolted the door and they followed him along the passageway quickly and moved outside. The Fasari airbase was very quiet, everything still in the moonlight.
'Look at it,' Salim said. 'No one cares. Even the sentries are at supper. Peasants in uniform.' He reached behind a steel drum which stood against the wall and produced a bundle. 'Put these on and follow me.'
They were two woollen cloaks of the kind worn by the Bedouin at night in the intense cold of the desert, each with a pointed hood to pull up. They put them on and followed him across to the hangars.
'No fence around this place, no wall,' Villiers whispered.
'The desert is the only wall they need,' Levin said.
Beyond the hangars, the sand dunes lifted on either side of what looked like the mouth of a ravine. Salim said, 'The Wadi al Hara. It empties into the plain a quarter of a mile from here where Hamid waits.'
Villiers said, 'Had it occurred to you that Kirov may well put two and two together and come up with Salim bin al Kaman?'
'But of course. My people are already half-way to the Dhofar border by now.'
'Good,' Villiers said. 'That's all I wanted to know. I'm going to show you something very interesting.'
He turned towards the Sandcruiser standing nearby and pulled himself over the side while Salim protested in a hoarse whisper. 'Villiers Sahib, this is madness.'
As Villiers dropped behind the driving wheel, the Rashid clambered up into the vehicle, followed by Levin. 'I've a dreadful feeling that all this is somehow my fault,' the old Russian said. 'We are, I presume, to see the SAS in action?'
'During the Second World War, the SAS under David Stirling destroyed more Luftwaffe planes on the ground in North Africa than the RAF and Yanks managed in aerial combat. I'll show you the technique,' Villiers told him.
'Possibly another version of that bullet in the back you were talking about.'
Villiers switched on and as the engine rumbled into life, said to Salim in Arabic, 'Can you manage the machine gun?'
Salim grabbed the handles of the Degtyarev. 'Allah, be merciful. There is fire in his brain. He is not as other men.'
'Is that in the Koran, too?' Villiers demanded, and the roaring of the 110 horsepower engine as he put his foot down hard drowned the Arab's reply.
The Sandcruiser thundered across the tarmac. Villiers swung hard and it spun round on its half tracks and smashed the tailplane of the first MIG, continuing right down the line as he increased speed. The tailplanes of the two helicopters were too high, so he concentrated on the cockpit areas at the front, the Sandcruiser's eight tons of armoured steel crumpling the perspex with ease.
He swung round in a wide loop and called to Salim. 'The helicopters. Try for the fuel tanks.'
There was the sound of an alarm klaxon from the main administration bl
ock now, voices crying in the night and shooting started. Salim raked the two helicopters with a continuous burst and the fuel tank on the one on the left exploded, a ball of fire mushrooming into the night, burning debris cascading everywhere. A moment later, the second helicopter exploded against the MIG next to it and that also started to burn.
'That's it!' Villiers said. 'They'll all go now. Let's get out of here.'
As he spun the wheel, Salim swung the machine gun, driving back the soldiers running towards them. Villiers was aware of Kirov standing as the men went down on the other side of the tarmac, firing his pistol deliberately in a gallant, but futile gesture. And then they were climbing up the slope of the dunes, tracks churning sand and entering the mouth of the wadi. The dried bed of the old stream was rough with boulders here and there, but visibility in the moonlight was good. Villiers kept his foot down and drove fast.
He called to Levin. 'You okay?'
'I think so,' the old Russian told him. 'I'll keep checking.'
Salim patted the Degtyarev machine gun. 'What a darling. Better than any woman. This, I keep, Villiers Sahib.'
'You've earned it,' Villiers told him. 'Now all we have to do is pick up Hamid and drive like hell for the border.'
'No helicopters to chase us,' Levin shouted.
'Exactly.'
Salim said, 'You deserve to be Rashid, Villiers Sahib. I have not enjoyed myself so much in many years.' He raised an arm. 'I have held them in the hollow of my hand and they are as dust.'
'The Koran again?' Villiers asked.
'No, my friend,' Salim bin al Kaman told him. 'It is from your own Bible this time. The Old Testament,' and he laughed out loud exultantly as they emerged from the wadi and started down to the plain below where Hamid waited.