Death or Glory I: The Last Commando: The Last Commando

by Michael Asher

  The Field Security bloodhounds had been after him for months, ever since the Goddard incident. What if this entire plan was their gambit to flush him out? What if he'd been fed the supposed Runefish schedule deliberately?

  As for Betty Nolan, he hadn't actually seen her get on an aircraft at Helwan. He couldn't be sure that she'd gone anywhere: for all he knew, she might be in Cairo still. The more he pondered it, the more it seemed to him that this flaunting of a beautiful blonde in full naval regalia, in a conspicuous staff car, wasn't British style. The British made a fetish of understatement and discretion: why send someone who was going to stand out like a nun in a nudist colony, unless you wanted her to be noticed? Could Betty Nolan be the bait in a noose that was slowly tightening around his neck?

  Eisner switched off the transmitter. Having had no feedback from Rohde, his controller, on the initial Runefish report, it was impossible to say whether any action had been taken, or even if the information was significant. Rohde had once accused him of ‘maintaining a millionaire lifestyle at the expense of the Wehrmacht’ in return for ‘worthless intelligence’. It had been embarrassing, and he did not relish the idea of its happening again.

  Rohde was one of the few men who scared Eisner. He had a disturbingly high-pitched voice that didn't fit his robust physique, and a feminine broadness of the pelvis that gave his postures a look that in anyone else might have been camp but in Rohde was grotesque and alarming. He had the revoltingly long fingers of a violinist – so spidery that, behind his back, his colleagues called him the ‘Black Widow’. Eisner had heard rumours about Rohde's actions in Poland and with the Jews in Russia that made his own private activities look like kindergarten romps. The main difference between Eisner and Rohde, though, was that his boss was a family man with a good Nazi wife and four children who had been fanatically devoted to Hitler and to the party since its pre-war street-fighting days. Eisner, who regarded Egypt as his home, wasn't exactly a patriot – at least not in the fanatical sense that Rohde was. Rohde was astute enough to know that Eisner was in it for the adventure, and for what he could get out of it. It wasn't that Eisner didn't want Hitler to win, only that he'd rather it didn't happen just now, when his life was going so well.

  He sat down on the divan and closed his eyes, focusing all his attention on the problem. Within ten minutes he had come up with three possible courses of action. The first, to interrogate Natalie, would be simple enough, but he quickly struck it from the list. The French cabaret girl might possibly be working for Field Security, but he strongly doubted it. If anything, she'd be their unwitting tool. The second course would be much more tricky: snatch and interrogate the officer from whom Natalie claimed to have stolen the Runefish schedule, the G(R) captain, Julian Avery. The third course was to investigate Nolan's flat on the Gezira, to find out if it was still being used, and if so, by whom.

  The flat job would have to be done at once, before Field Security found the dead Sim-Sim and started thinking about what she might have told him. He knew that he was drained mentally and physically, and that he couldn't go out again without sleep. He decided to delegate the job to his assistant, Pieter Shaffer. Shaffer was expendable, and in any case this was a job he could manage perfectly well.

  He lifted the telephone receiver, dialled 18343 and heard a voice say ‘Zamalek Cotton Exporters’.

  ‘Pieter?’ he enquired. ‘It's Leonard. Are we secure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Make a note of this address: Flat 1, 22 al-Hadiqa Street, the Gezira. I want you to go and find out who's living there, if anyone.’

  ‘Got it. Is this a surveillance job?’

  ‘No, there's no time for a long stake-out. Go right up to the door, ring the bell. Say you're working for the Red Cross and that you have a package for a Betty Nolan. Betty Nolan, got that? Treat whoever answers to your most winning smile.’

  ‘What if no one answers?’

  ‘There'll be a concierge. Ask for information.’

  ‘What if the place is already under surveillance?’

  Eisner glanced at his watch. It was now 0729 hours, almost ninety minutes since he'd left Sim-Sim's. The odds were that no one had discovered her body yet. On the other hand, if this was a set-up with himself as the target, Nolan's flat might be staked out as a matter of course. If so, then it would be Shaffer who would cop for it, not him. That would be inconvenient, but not fatal: Shaffer could lead them to his houseboat, but he didn't know anything about major projects, or about Eisner's ‘extracurricular’ activities. He didn't know the whereabouts of Eisner's reserve transmitter or his other safe house. He didn't even know Eisner's real name. It was worth the risk, he thought.

  ‘If I believed that was a possibility, I wouldn't ask you,’ he lied.

  He heard Shaffer take a deep breath. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘When do you want me to go?’

  ‘Now. The longer you delay, the more chance of compromise.’

  ‘I'm on it.’

  Eisner put the phone down, popped four Phenobarbital tablets, and threw himself on the divan. Within minutes he was asleep.

  Betty Nolan was chasing him through a labyrinth of dark alleys lined with open-fronted butcher's shops, where his boss, Heinrich Rohde, and other ghosts in tattered Waffen SS uniforms were cutting the throats of lambs hanging from meat-hooks. There were pools of blood on the floor, and blood smeared the walls. Betty was pointing a crooked finger at him, and whichever way he ran he couldn't escape her burning red eyes. It was like that poster of Lord Kitchener he'd seen on a trip to England – Your country needs you – only instead, Nolan was whispering, ‘One thing is certain: you're going straight to damnation.’ For a second, Nolan's face was replaced by Sim-Sim's, veiled in her magnificent black hair, then the same hair was framing the face of his equally beautiful mother, Eva – the mother he'd hated, the mother who'd betrayed him by marrying the Egyptian, Idriss, the mother he'd silenced for good. Eisner surfaced from the dark river of sleep, gasping for air, and realized that someone was banging on the passage door.

  He rolled off the divan, snatched the .38-calibre Smith & Wesson from under a cushion, and tied up his bathrobe. Speckles of light fell across the state room from the venetian blinds. He stalked down the passage, peeped through the spyhole in the door, and saw Shaffer – a tall, sandy-haired man with classic, square-chinned looks wearing a crumpled off-white tropical suit. He was slapping a rolled-up newspaper against his open palm in a rhythmic tattoo – sets of three long slaps and two short ones – a signal that he hadn't been compromised.

  Eisner let him in and closed the door. Shaffer's clear blue eyes fell on the .38 in his hand. ‘I was battering on the door for ages,’ he said, showing a perfect set of pearl-white teeth. ‘You must be getting past it, old man.’

  Eisner forced a grin. ‘Long surveillance job last night,’ he said. ‘Absolute murder.’ He was in no mood for Shaffer's irrepressibly jolly manner, but it had to be tolerated. A South African by nationality, Shaffer belonged to a German immigrant family in Pietermaritzberg who had almost lost their culture, and who preferred to speak English rather than German. His German was flawed, and he knew no more Arabic than he knew Chinese, but he could pass convincingly as a South African cotton broker with British sympathies.

  Eisner told him to make more coffee, and went to dress. When he returned, Shaffer was perched on the divan with a cafetiere of fresh coffee and his newspaper spread out on the low table. ‘Did you see this stop press?’ he said excitedly. ‘The Luftwaffe launched a massive attack on Tobruk just before dawn this morning, 20 June, bombing the minefields. Rommel's probably inside the perimeter already.’ He turned a page. ‘The BBC scored a wonderful home goal last night. They declared in a broadcast that Tobruk isn't important, and that it doesn't matter a damn if Rommel takes it. That'll really set the cat among the pigeons – imagine the slap in the face to the thousands of soldiers who've died defending it.’

  Eisner sat down next to him and poured himself coffee. ‘It's up
to your lot now, isn't it?’ he said. ‘2nd South African Division. General Klopper.’

  Shaffer's blue eyes glinted in a bar of light. ‘Klopper will fight to the last bullet. If Rommel is inside Tobruk today, you'll see some real fighting.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder whose side you're really on, Pieter,’ Eisner chuckled. ‘Whether you're convinced, or just practising your cover. Or maybe you don't know yourself.’

  Shaffer put on a hurt look. ‘My good man, how dare you? My heart is with the Afrikaners at Tobruk, and ever will be.’

  ‘In that case you've had it. Klopper will hoist the white flag the moment the first panzer enters the town – if he hasn't already.’

  ‘So what will Rommel do then? Will he march on Alex and Cairo?’

  ‘He'll be here in a week. Haven't you noticed that our Jewish, Turkish and Greek friends have done a bunk already?’

  He offered Shaffer a cigarette from a box, took one himself and lit both with his gold Ronson lighter. Shaffer sat back and blew out a jet of smoke, watching it swirl in a lightshaft. ‘So why do I sense that you're not exactly over the moon at the prospect?’ he enquired.

  ‘That's easy,’ Eisner said, making a sweeping gesture around the state room with his cigarette. ‘I've grown accustomed to certain standards. Cairo's the most exciting city in the world. When Rommel gets here, we'll both be out of a job.’

  There was a moment's silence while the two men puffed. ‘So, did you do it?’ Eisner asked.

  ‘I did, but I wish you would tell me what this is about.’

  ‘All in good time. Now, what happened?’

  Shaffer let out another long stream of smoke. ‘It turned out to be a first-floor flat,’ he said. ‘You go through a hallway and up the stairs. There's a concierge – an old Berberine, black as your hat. I left the car hidden in another street, and did a turn up and down, looking out for watchers – you know, surreptitious movements at windows, that kind of thing…’

  ‘Spare me the counter-surveillance lecture. I trained you, remember? Get on with it.’

  ‘All right. well, it's quite a busy street near al-Gala'a bridge – newly built flats. Lot of pedestrians, a few cars going past. I don't see anyone eyeballing me, so I finally approach the address – art-deco block, five storeys. The concierge is a bit obstructive, but nothing five piastres won't settle. He says there's a girl there – been there years. He can't tell me her name because it's against the rules, and he can't say if she's in right now. “What does she do for a living?” I ask. The old boy winks. “Nightclub dancer,” he says. Anyway, I ring the bell. Nothing happens. I wait a few minutes, and ring again. Nothing. I decide to give it one more go – otherwise it's going to look a bit fishy to the Berberine. I ring a third time. Nothing again. I'm just about to give it up when I hear footsteps. The door opens, and there she is, this girl.’

  Eisner stared at him intently. ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Beautiful – tall, legs to drive you wild. Nice figure, green eyes, shortish blond hair. Young, maybe twenty-three, twenty-four. Regal bearing – fit – might be an athlete. Anyway, she's giving me the once-over with these big green eyes, very haughty, saying, “Can I help you?” and I flash her the lady-killer smile. I can see it works, because a second later she's melting, and the old eyes are twinkling, as if to say, “Now, there's a handsome man.”

  ‘Pieter, get on with it.’

  Shaffer smirked. ‘If you've got it, flaunt it, I always say… anyhow, I tell her that I work for the Red Cross and I have a package back at the office for a Miss Betty Nolan. Does she live here?’

  Eisner bent forward, making no attempt to conceal his excitement. ‘What did she say?’

  Shaffer noticed the change in his manner and sat back, as if drawing out the moment deliberately. He paused, then went on. ‘She said, “I'm Betty Nolan, but who'd want to send me a Red Cross parcel?” “I don't know, miss,” I say, “but now I know you're here, I'll send it along.” She smiles again, and for a minute I think she's going to invite me in. But then she says, “Thank you, that's very kind of you. Goodbye.” A second later the door's closed.’

  Eisner let out a low whistle. He brought out his wallet, extracted from it the photo of Runefish and slapped it on the table in front of Shaffer. ‘Study it closely,’ he said. ‘Is this her?’

  Shaffer picked up the snapshot and held it up in a beam of light. There was a short hiatus while he examined it. Then he laid the snap back on the table and surveyed Eisner with crystal-blue eyes. ‘I'd lay a thousand guineas on it,’ he said. ‘That's the woman I saw.’

  23

  The Dingo was parked in a pool of shade under a wind-twisted pine where the wadi met the track, her camouflage making her invisible from more than a few yards. As the convoy approached, George Padstowe peeked over the hatch, a pipe stuck in his mouth. He was an ex-Marine, so completely bald that his head looked like a smooth brown boulder. He clambered out through the lower hatch, while Taffy Trubman's fish-shaped head poked up over the top. Caine told Copeland to stop and jumped down to meet Padstowe.

  ‘They're on the way, skipper,’ the bald man said breathlessly. ‘I reckon we've got half an hour at most. There's a top-hole ambush site just on that bend.’ He pointed his pipe down the track to where it vanished around the foot of a forested escarpment. On the right-hand side lay an undulating gorse-covered plain, stretching away like a horsehair carpet. The smell of the sea was stronger here, but any view of the Mediterranean was blocked by a succession of low ridges covered in acacia bush and hummock-grass. Caine saw that the escarpment would give the ambushers a clear advantage: the maquis scrub was thick and high enough to conceal men and vehicles, and the steep ground would give them a commanding view. The only drawback he could see was an irrigation trench on the other side of the road, which would provide the enemy with cover when they debussed. From the high ground, though, even that would be susceptible to enfilade fire. ‘There's a slope on the other side of the bend,’ Padstowe went on. ‘That means the wagons will have to change down just as they're approaching.’

  ‘Perfect killing zone,’ Caine said. ‘How many vehicles in the convoy, what's the composition, and how far apart?’

  Padstowe ran a hand over his bald skull, stuck his pipe back in his mouth nervously, then took it out again. ‘Can't rightly say, skipper,’ he said apologetically. ‘I reckon there's no more than five, but they were kicking up quite a dust-cloud, and we couldn't get near enough to be certain. The road crosses an open plain past the slope, and we were going in for a close recce when an Itie kite rolls over, drops altitude and starts circling. Had to freeze.’

  ‘We saw her,’ said Caine. ‘A C42 biplane. You weren't spotted?’

  ‘No, but by the time she'd cleared off, I reckoned it was too late for a shufti. It's hard to be sure, but I estimate the wagons are doing about thirty, so I thought we'd better backtrack and report.’

  ‘You did right,’ Caine said, sounding happier than he felt. He knew that Padstowe had done his best, but the variables worried him. For an ideal vehicle ambush, he needed to know the number and composition of the wagons, the number of men, their firepower, and if possible even their orders on being attacked. He had already had Naiman quiz Adud and his daughter about the convoy's composition, but the events at their village the previous day had been too traumatic for them to recall precise details. Layla thought there might have been an armoured car, but wasn't sure.

  Caine hustled the commandos over into the shade for a quick O-Group, getting Padstowe to draw a rough plan with a twig in the sand. It would be a classic ambush – a fire-group in the centre, cut-off groups and an AFV at each side. ‘Our information is sketchy,’ he told them. ‘So it's going to be a hit-or-miss affair. You'll hear the wagons change down as they come up the slope. Hang fire till it looks like there's nothing else coming, then give them all you've got.’

  ‘Hold on, skipper,’ Copeland cut in urgently. ‘This is not going to work.’

  The commandos gawked at
him. Caine glanced irritably at his watch. ‘We haven't got time to debate it, Harry,’ he said. ‘They'll be here in twenty minutes.’

  Cope was wearing his best school-ma'am expression. ‘Skipper, we don't know where Runefish is being carried. If we blitz the column like you said, she'll be killed.’

  Caine's heart flipped a beat. In the excitement he'd forgotten that they were there to snatch Runefish, not to wipe out an enemy convoy. He opened his mouth to answer, but Wallace cut in over him. ‘So what?’ he said sullenly. ‘I thought that was the big idea.’

  There were murmurs of surprise from the group, and Caine wondered why he hadn't told them before that Runefish might have to be taken out. Probably, he thought, because he'd never fully accepted the order himself. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘For those who aren't clear on this, our orders are to snatch Runefish. We are only to execute her if it looks like there's no other choice, and Cope's right – that doesn't include cutting her down because she happens to be among the enemy.’

  There was more murmuring, and Caine realized that even now he was skirting the truth. The execution order was intended to prevent Maddaleine Rose from giving secrets to the enemy, and for all he knew she might have talked already. Whatever the case, he had no intention of going in with all guns blattering before she'd been given the benefit of the doubt. He was about to speak when Wallace hissed, ‘Listen.’ Caine cocked his ears: he could just make out the grumble of motors from far off. There was a second's apprehensive silence as everyone listened closely, straining to pick up the sound, as if they might be able to read some special meaning into it.