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Judas Country

Page 26

by Gavin Lyall


  I swung it gently. Heavy, all right, but balanced. A simple killing weapon, worth maybe a million dollars. Logic, please.

  I shook my head to clear it. ‘Ken, we’ve never been much good on swords. Just forget it.’

  ‘No! That’s it! Our years in jail and losing the aeroplane and all.’

  ‘And growing old?’

  He took a slow breath. ‘Like running out of time. Dying a loser.’

  The phone rang again. I took it out of Gadulla’s hand. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Shalom. Mr Case? You have ten minutes. That’s what they usually say on TV, so it must be right.’

  ‘Shalom.’ I put the phone down. ‘Well, they may not have the place surrounded but they know which front door to kick in. Ten minutes.’

  ‘Move that body, then, if you want to.’

  I looked at Gadulla. After a moment, he stood up. I passed the sword to Ken.

  We wrapped the rug around the arms and face, then carried it down the basement steps, winding full circle or more so at the bottom I didn’t know what direction we were facing. Gadulla turned on a torch and wedged it under his armpit, aiming down a narrow arched tunnel that smelt of rats’ piss and was lined with flaky patches of dry lichen. We took a couple of turns, past heavy old wooden doors with modern padlocks and up a short flight of worn stone steps.

  At the landing, there was a metal grill, its bars rusted thin with time, set in the wall. We put Ben Iver down and Gadulla lifted the grill clear. Beyond was a sort of chimney, leading up and down, and I could hear the bustle of flowing water at the bottom.

  ‘It only fills after a storm,’ Gadulla said. ‘At other times it is dry. Perhaps Suleiman planned that – who can know?’

  ‘Where does he come out?’

  ‘Never. When it is dry you can hear the rats.’

  I paused a moment, then picked up my end. He made a shallow splash that echoed like a bell. Gadulla muttered something and lifted back the grill. The stone blocks at the lip were rounded with centuries of wear, so maybe Ben Iver wouldn’t be lonely.

  ‘What did you say then?’ I asked. I mean whispered.

  ‘Allah-hu ahkbar. God is great.’ And I suppose that about covered it. ‘What will your friend Cavitt do now?’

  ‘You mean what will we do, him and me. Lead the way and we’ll find out.’

  As we came back into the shop Mitzi had just finished wiping the floor clean. Ken was on the phone; he seemed a little surprised to see us, but just dropped his voice and went on talking. ‘… nearly a hundred, I’d guess … Just a clear passage out of the country with the sword … Yes, nine boxes and not here so don’t waste your time looking … Okay.’ He put the phone down.

  Nearly a hundred what? In nine boxes? I sat down because my knees suddenly felt like it.

  ‘You were quick,’ he said. ‘I got to thinking we could maybe arrange something—’

  ‘Not you, Ken. Not you as well.’

  He looked blank, but he’d always been able to. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I mean …’ I mean twenty years and a million flying miles and the girls and the booze and the failed engines and times like in Isfahan … Why can you only think of the pieces of something after it’s busted? ‘… I mean not you.’

  ‘Look, just—’

  ‘I mean nine boxes marked champagne! You swap a terrorist plot for a clean getaway. Who stays behind this time?’

  The Uzi waggled vaguely in my direction. ‘Ah, well …’

  ‘Of course, it’s my turn, isn’t it?’

  ‘Just a couple of years—’

  ‘Ten, for terrorism.’

  ‘Roy, it’s at least half a million dollars! I’ll be waiting.’

  ‘So you do the ten and I’ll do the waiting.’

  His face hardened. ‘I’m never going back.’

  I nodded. The room was thick with over-breathed air and the smell of that spirit stove. Gadulla and Mitzi didn’t seem to feel like contributing.

  ‘Ken – you – you’re a fuckup even as Judas. There’s no boxes. Jehangir got them before I could reach him.’

  ‘Ahhh.’ The sub-machine gun wilted towards the floor. ‘I wish I’d known … I never was much good at the business side. And you don’t look much like Jesus, either.’

  I stood up. ‘Fine. Dump the gun and we’ll walk out of here.’

  ‘No.’ And oddly, his face seemed suddenly younger. Untroubled. He flicked the gun at Gadulla. ‘I want the keys to the roof!’ He got them. ‘Coming, Roy?’

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘See you then.’ He picked up the sword and went through the door to the roof stairs.

  I snapped at Gadulla: ‘Open your front door. Maybe we can distract them.’

  He shrugged fatalistically, but led the way to the front of the shop. As he got the padlock clear, he turned. ‘What will happen to me?’

  ‘If they catch Ken, you could have a problem explaining the sword.’

  ‘But I looked after the sword, when I could have sold it—’

  ‘You looked after it because you were being blackmailed and you were being blackmailed because you’re a Goddamn terrorist and frankly I don’t much care what happens to terrorists. Open it up.’

  He pushed up the metal curtain and I stepped cautiously out into the patchily-lit alley. Figures moved at either end, stepping back into doorways.

  Somebody called: ‘Put up your hands!’

  I put them up and waited. A couple of police, one with an Uzi, the other a pistol, scuttled up and frisked me, then Gadulla. Sergeant Sharon appeared out of the shadows, muttering into a small walkie-talkie.

  Then she said: ‘You can put your hands down. Who are these?’

  I introduced Mitzi and Gadulla.

  ‘Where is Mr Cavitt?’

  I jerked my head at the shop; instinctively, both the other cops levelled their guns at it. Sharon lifted the radio.

  Machine guns went brrrap in another street. Two bursts. Then a third. Then silence.

  He was huddled along the bottom of a house wall, the submachine gun in one hand, the sword glinting dully in the middle of the dark alley.

  ‘Don’t touch him,’ Sharon warned.

  I didn’t need to. A burst had caught him across the chest. I asked: ‘Did he kill anybody?’

  ‘No, but he hit one of our men in the legs.’ Her voice was cold, almost contemptuous. ‘What did he hope to do? There are only seven gates to the City. No other way out.’

  ‘No?’

  She stared at me. ‘But why did he try to fight?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He was growing old. You die of that, too.’

  Tamir materialised at my shoulder. He looked down at Ken. ‘Ah.’ Then, sounding a little breathless: ‘Have you been told you are under arrest?’

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘The charges – we can work those out later. But you will probably go to jail for a small time anyway.’

  I nodded. ‘There’s nobody waiting.’

  A Note on the Author

  Gavin Lyall (1932–2003) lived in Hampstead and enjoyed sailing on the Thames in his motor cruiser. From 1959 to 1962 he was a newspaper reporter and the aviation correspondent for the Sunday Times. His first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, was published in 1961, drawing from his personal experiences in the Libyan Desert and in Greece. Lyall left journalism in 1963 to become a full-time author, writing 17 novels before his death in 2003.

  Discover books by Gavin Lyall published by Bloomsbury Reader at

  www.bloomsbury.com/GavinLyall

  All Honourable Men

  Blame the Dead

  Judas Country

  Shooting Script

  The Most Dangerous Game

  The Wrong Side of the Sky

  Venus with Pistol

  Major Harry Maxim series:

  The Secret Servant

  The Conduct of Major Maxim

  The Crocus List

  Uncle Target

  First published in Great
Britain in 1975 by Hodder & Stoughton

  This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Copyright © 1975 Gavin Lyall

  Cover image © Getty Images

  The moral right of the author is asserted.

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  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  ISBN: 9781448216949

  eISBN: 9781448210107

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