The Glory Boys

by Gerald Seymour

  The leader of the General Command was in his tent.

  The stubbled, worn face resting on his clenched hands.

  There was a candle held upright in a Pepsi Cola bottle, on the same table where he leaned his elbows. The light faded and rose, at the whim of the cool night that eddied through the flap on the tent, finding the flame and bending and brushing it. It was a time that he loathed and detested, a time when he was helpless and unable to hit back. Four men dead, burned beyond recognition, life cut short as they had screamed. And the technology of his enemy, his speed and his knowledge, took him far away from the puny retaliation possible to the men on the ground.

  Nothing, only the oaths and obscenities shouted into the dirt as they had lain in the fragile cover between the rocks and waited for the echoing noise to pass. And the men who had died, buried already, not deep down - the parched ground prevented that — but hurried into shallow pits at dusk.

  His subordinates, recognizing the signs that he wished to be alone, had left him when he had retired to the tent.

  Others would care for the morale of the young men who had filed past the bodies, would take care that the sight fanned their hatred of the enemy across the border. There was a solitary piece of paper on his table brought by the journalist from Beirut, who had visited and left before the arrival of the jets. He had read it over and over again, keeping the information even from his closest colleagues, savouring among the disaster and horror of the day the news that it carried. The one they called Saleh Mohammed was there, on target and meeting his rendezvous contact.

  The best boy that he had, the one he had willed to survive.

  It would devastate them, he knew that. A plan of such detail and skill that he had hugged and kissed the shy bespectacled recruit who had worked on its conception, not a youth who could go himself across the border, the right claw foot controlled that, but one with brains and with foresight and who had talked not just of the operation but of its consequences, its wounding potential to the state of Israel. It would hurt them, twist behind the nation's rib cage . . .

  The old man who acted as his bodyguard came noise-lessly into the tent.

  'Some food for you, Ahmed. It is time to eat. One cannot sit and starve and grieve.' He was the only one in the camp who would call the leader by his given name. It went back a long time, eight years. They had held the house together at Karameh when the Israelis had swarmed in brigade strength into the refugee village beside the river Jordan ten months after the Six Day War. It should have been so easy for them, but for the first time the Palestinians had stood and fought. The cynics said it was because they had been left no escape route. There was truth in that, but for once the fedayeen had not thrown down their guns and surrendered. There had been mourning in Israel when the casualty figures were announced, more than twenty dead, more than seventy wounded. There had been dancing in Amman as the captured Centurion armour was driven in triumph through the ancient, winding hill-streets, and among the Palestinians there had been much to remember and heady praise and the start of resistance. The hours in the wrecked building, hammered by the tanks and hitting back with the rocket launchers and the Kalashnikovs, had forged the bond between the two men, one a leader and the other a follower. The relationship had not changed. It was acceptable, and the old man knew when he was required.

  He put the plate in front of the leader. A mess of beans and rice and sauce with lamb's meat cut in small squares.

  'They have had their day, the Israelis. We will have ours.

  There is no sudden way to victory,' said the old man.

  'What they have accomplished against us is a mere nothing to the blow that awaits them.' The old man was rarely taken into the leader's inner confidence. He said nothing and arranged a spoon and fork alongside the plate in front of the sitting man. 'Within the next hours, perhaps as long as two days,' the leader went on, 'we shall hit them so that they yelp like dogs.'

  'Across the border? With a burden of sadness. He knew the risks, had cleared too many bundles of the possessions left behind by the suicide squads.

  'Across many borders. Far from here. Bouchi, Dani and the third one, you remember? They went to Europe.

  Bouchi and Dani are dead, the other alone has gone through. He is on course, on target. Today or tomorrow he will move, and then the world will know of him.' He spoke the words hurriedly, interspersing them with pauses as he scooped up the food from the plate, cramming it without finesse into his mouth. He did not look at the man that stood behind him. When the plate was cleared he sat back in his chair and addressed himself to the empty screen of canvas to his front.

  'His target is David Sokarev. Of the utmost importance to them, but a man of whom you will never have heard.

  He is from the world of science, of the very fundamentals of science. He concerns himself with the structure of the atom, and with the breaking of the atom, and with the release of its energies. They are jealous of their anonymity, these men, they do not seek to be answerable to their fellow species. They hide themselves away like slugs underneath wet rocks. It is rare for them to emerge into the open light, but Sokarev has come out. To London. That is where we will meet him, and will kill him.'

  The old man watched as the leader turned toward him.

  He saw the excitement in the eyes, deep and brown and shadowed in their sockets. Not since they had waited for news of the raid into Kiryat Shmona when the orders had been to eliminate as many of the enemy as were within range of the guns, men or women or children, had the old man seen a similar look - the fanatic awaiting his fulfilment.

  'Eight bombs they have, perhaps nine by now,' the leader went on staring into the other's face, the voice quavering on the verge of self-control. 'Not big — the size of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a city they would kill ninety thousand, up to one hundred thousand. Suck the air from their lungs, burn the bodies of our people, blind them, maim them, infect them so that those that live from their breeding would produce grotesque mutations. They would not make what their American allies call the "clean bomb". They will not waste effort and expense on such refinements. It will be a weapon of filth and of poison, and it is their ultimate defence. They hide behind it in the knowledge that the very mystery of its existence gives them strength. The man that we will shoot is the man who has created this bomb, loved it, succoured it, spent his working life refining the effectiveness of its yield.'

  'And when he is dead, what will have changed?' said the old man.

  it will take the elimination of Sokarev to awake the world to the Israeli power. When he is dead and the news has been carried from continent to continent the world will wonder why the Palestinian people have chosen to exact retribution on one who seemed so mild, so harmless.

  And we will tell them why he was chosen, we will tell them of Dimona, of the plutonium schemes, of the reactors there. And with their knowledge so too will come their fears. Fears of a mushroom cloud settling the "Middle East problem", as they call it, fears of an annihilation more ghastly than the world has experienced since its cleverer men developed this horror. All the world will be talking about the bomb of the Israelis, not just the peasant peoples but in the embassies and the chancellories and the senates and the palaces. There will be demands for inspections and controls - the Americans will want that if only to silence their critics. If their bomb is muzzled their ultimate defence is taken from them, and then they are weak, then they can be beaten. All their men are replaceable. Dayan was replaceable, and Sharon of the Canal, and Rabin, and Eban, and Peres, all have others who wait to take their places. Sokarev, too. Other scientists can move behind his desk, but nothing can replace the bomb. It is final, the complete answer to their defensive strategy when future war goes against them. If it happens as we believe it will, if the governments of the world demand to know of this weapon, exercise control over it, then ultimately Israel will lose and go down stripped of her last and most powerful weapon of defence. That is why we will kill Sokarev.'

  T
he old man ran his fingernails across the bristle of his chin, pondered, his brows lined with deep confusion.

  The leader smiled like a man who has outlined to his friends his plans for the conquest of a woman they all consider beyond reach. The older man had not heard him talk in that way before.

  it is strange,' he said quietly, 'how the death of a man can move the world more than the life he has so long striven to perfect.'

  He let himself out of the tent, taking the plate with him, and was gone, moving his way with familiarity across the sand, bypassing the ropes that held the tents. The night was very clear, a slight moon and the endless abyss of stars.

  The leader snuffed out the candle with his thumb and forefinger, and stripped off his denim coat and trousers.

  He felt his way across to the narrow canvas bed and edged his body under the single blanket that he allowed himself.

  He had no difficulty in finding sleep. The images of the four burned carcases had long since passed, and he dreamed of the small, sad-faced man whose picture he had seen. And the face dissolved into terror, and there was a gun blotting out the picture, and he could hear the man's scream and then the staccato roar of the automatic rifle.

  Beyond his canvas walls the camp was quiet. Only the shuffling movement of the sentries and, at the village a mile away, a dog calling for its bitch.

  It was past three on the Tuesday morning when Jimmy returned to his flat. He had been conscientious enough, nothing to drink, and he had made his calls. He had been to Leconfield House and reported back to Jones, he'd returned to the hotel and seen that Sokarev was in his bed.

  For half an hour he had padded round the hotel checking the fire doors to convince himself they were closed to outside entry, satisfying himself that the Branch men were in position. He had spoken briefly to the Israeli who was sitting up; the one called Elkin. The other slept noisily in the bed close to where they had talked in whispers. The connecting door to the scientist's room was open, and the Uzi lay on the bed beside them. They talked inanities, Jimmy cheerfully, and Elkin with caution, as if unsure of himself with the strange man. Jimmy had said he'd be back by early morning and repeated that under no circumstances were there to be visitors allowed to see Sokarev or that the man under threat should be permitted to leave his room.

  There was a Branch man in the corridor outside the room, another beside the lift-shaft, two more in the ground-floor lobby of the hotel. Too many for them, thought Jimmy, hopeless for the opposition. It relaxed him enough for him to wander out of the front door easy in his mind that no harm could come to his charge during the night.

  From the hotel he drove south and west for twenty minutes till he reached Richmond. The road blocks were in position still, searching the cars travelling in the other direction. He found the police station easily enough, in a side street close to the bridge where the scent of the low water river drifted up to him. It was a chill, damp night, and he hurried from the car across the parking area at the back of the station to the rear door. There was a bustle of activity there, an ants' nest into which a spade had pitched.

  In more normal times there would have been three, perhaps four officers on duty, whiling away the darkness and waiting for their reliefs to come in. Instead the lights were on, blazing throughout the building; corridors were noisy with hurrying men — some in uniform and some in plain clothes; teleprinters chattered messages to and from Scotland Yard; telephones rang. At the front-hall desk Jimmy showed his identification card, and watched as the bored features of the sergeant who looked at it awoke with interest. He was ushered up two flights of stairs and shown the open door of an office where a group of men sat round a table. The air was heavy with tobacco, the flat surfaces littered with maps and plastic coffee beakers.

  The senior officers didn't waste Jimmy's time. He was grateful for that. They explained what they had done, in what they were currently involved, what they planned for the morning. It was thorough and painstaking, and left nothing out. They showed him where they had already searched, where their road blocks were in force, where their patrols, foot and mobile, were operating, the locations of the houses they planned to raid at first light. But he could read the answer he was looking for in their drawn, humourless faces. There was none of the anticipation that catches hold of a huntsman's eyes when he thinks he is closing on his goal. It was routine, good routine, and that he conceded, but there was insufficient material for them to go on, and they knew it, and understood that for them to catch the men whose descriptions were plastered across the district they would need extraordinary luck. Policemen don't expect luck, don't count on it, Jimmy knew that. He sensed that for all the effort being put into the search there were few in the room in which he sat who expected that the night would be crowned by success.

  As he drove back to the flat he could reflect that it had not been a totally wasted journey. Jimmy liked to know where he stood and the monotone description of the police action in the town had provided him with the information he sought. They were loose again, the two little bastards.

  Free and with their guns and with a plan and inching their way closer to the target. They had two full days in which to launch their attack. When they're that close, Jimmy boy, then they have to be in with a chance. No doubt about that. You're enjoying it, you little bugger, he said to himself, it's the way you would have wanted it. You'd have crapped yourself if they'd been picked up, and you'd had to hand the PPK in, unsoiled and unused. Nobody likes a fox that won't run, that goes to earth too fast, and you, you're looking for a good long ride and a good kill at the end.

  He let himself into the flat, took off his shoes by the door and tip-toed into the bedroom. Helen was there, scarcely covered by the sheets, arms and legs heaved apart in the abandon of sleep. Not a stitch on her, poor girl.

  Destined for disappointment again. He undressed, letting his clothes mingle on the carpet with hers, and eased his way on to the bed, careful not to wake her. Something in his presence must have aroused the girl. She hooked an arm across his waist, feeling out the crevice underneath his armpit, but she did not waken, and Jimmy lay still till sleep came to him too.

  He never found it difficult, not even on the nights before he might shoot or be shot at, or when another man's life might rest on his wits and alertness. There was no tension.

  Killing was not important to Jimmy, which was why the sleep came to him fast, which was why Jones championed him, and why the Director General tolerated his presence on the payroll.

  FOURTEEN

  It was the cold that woke Famy. He had been in a half-sleep, tossing under his coat in the back seat of the car searching for warmth, wriggling to escape the chill that had settled on his body and gnawed its way beneath the light cotton of his clothes. For a few moments he could not place where he was as he stared up at the roof of the car, then swung his head up to peer through the window.

  There was a noise, but far away, the sound of children shrieking to each other, the revving of starting cars.

  Beyond the glass he saw the tired untidy shapes of the tower flats, grey and streaked from years of exposure to the weather, soaring up in composite and identical rows to high beyond his view. There was a woman there shouting into the void instructions to a man going to his work.

  Between the flats and his own position were the lines of prefabricated garages, and then nearer still seven feet of chain-wire fence, buckled and bent where children had scaled it. To the far side of the rough, broken ground where the car was parked was another fence and beyond that a railway line. There were other cars alongside, but different from the Cortina, without bonnets, without tyres, wheels even, doors gaping open, deserted as useless and too complicated to dispose of.

  Famy stretched to see over the back of the seat, anticipating the huddled shape of McCoy prone across the width of the car. It hit him a cruel, winding, sledgehammer blow. The emptiness that he saw. He rose on the back seat, jerking his sleep-stiff limbs forward searching for confirmation as the me
ssages raced through his brain.

  Two seats, gear handle, steering wheel, dashboard, nothing else. The sweat started to run. He peered again through the windows, turned round in all directions, before sagging down upright on the seat. With a quick movement he felt for the grip-bag and ran his fingers over the outside till they rested on the hard shape of the rifles. The guns were there, but where was the bastard Irishman?

  The argument and the hard words of the previous evening came back to him, and the long silences as they had walked and then driven through London. You cannot trust any but your own, he should have known that.

  Putting trust in a stranger, one whose involvement was no more than partial, it had been madness. Famy felt a great exhaustion sweeping across him. On his own how could he go forward? Was it possible to continue by himself? He started to cry. He had no strength to fight the tears, interrupt their path to the stiffness of his collar. He had not wept for many years, not since his youngest sister had died at the age of a few days in the front room of the bungalow in Nablus. But he had been only a boy then, and since adulthood he'd prided himself on his ability to keep his emotions tight and controlled. But that the Irishman had left him asleep and defenceless, betrayed him, made an escape without having the courage to face him directly

  . . . that was a total wound, painful and throbbing.

  He opened the door of the car and eased himself out.

  His watch showed past eight and the sun was coming high from behind the flats, casting great shadows and playing patterns on the weeds that grew unchecked on the open ground. He walked warily away from the vehicle taking in his surroundings till he came to the opened gateway which led to the made-up road and further away to the lines of sand-brick, terraced houses that lay behind the long tin fence. There were more people there, none concerning themselves with the tall young figure who watched them.