But they're real bastards, those Proddies.'
Famy said, 'There was one who went into Israel, and came back alone. All the rest were taken or killed, only this one survived and they found his Kalashnikov had not been fired. And they took him with ten of his friends to the open ground. He had a start of fifty metres, and then his friends began to fire. They all had to shoot, and the guns were checked afterwards, and they were watched to see they did not shoot wide. He did not go many metres, and it only happened once. There was no need for a repetition.'
'You'd better think of something good to say,' said McCoy. The game had gone far enough. There were other preoccupations for McCoy. Where to go, what to do about the wound? All men who go to the lonely war, the guerrilla's war, have a common fear, multiplied in their fantasies till it controls and dominates them. It is the horror of sepsis, of gangrene, of the putrefaction of their flesh. McCoy needed a den, where he could go and curl his legs and watch the entrance, and be safe, and needed it for many days, with hot water and clean towels
… What to do with the bloody Arab? No place for him in the den, the lair for one only. Perhaps kill him — easiest solution, attractive. Something to think on, half an hour more for the driving, and a decision by then.
The problem engrossed him as he drove, and Famy too was quiet, but with what thoughts McCoy neither knew nor cared.
For a full three minutes after the firing of the last shot Elkin covered Sokarev's body. When the scientist tried to move and shift his suppressed left arm from under his body the security man firmly pressed him down again flat on to the polished boards of the floor. There was a great calmness about Elkin's face, and the eyes were very clear, traversing the room for any further threat, and outstretched in front of him as an antenna his arm and the service revolver he preferred to the Uzi.
The Branch man who had taken a position nearest the table had bent down and asked the one inevitable question.
Was Sokarev hurt? Elkin had shaken his head.
'Keep him there, then,' the detective said. 'First we'll clear the casualties, then empty the room. After that we'll work out how to shift him.'
Sokarev was aware that his legs were trembling, uncontrollably, the flesh of his upper thighs lapping together, and he was powerless to stop it. He could remember little of what had happened, just the noise of the window, and then the sight of the shortened barrel of the rifle poking and weaving in the curtain gap, locking on to him. He could recall the moment that Elkin had hit his legs and pulled him down, and then the horrific, unending exchange of gunfire. He had seen Mackowicz dive and lie still and then lift off into the air, and his ears felt pierced by the sound of the grenade.
The stretchers came fast. That on which the chairman lay was covered, end to end, by a grey hospital blanket and left at the far end of the room. What remained of Mackowicz was beside it. The policeman who had helped the ambulance team to lift the Israeli's disembowelled corpse on to the stretcher had vomited as soon as the pink and softened organs were covered over. The ambulances had come from University College Hospital less than half a mile away. It was to there that seven casualties were hurried; four suffering from gunshot wounds, one from grenade shrapnel injuries and two from coronary heart attacks.
The detectives had already started to examine the fire position outside the window when one of their number, walking beside the car used as the platform, stumbled on the body of the constable. When they lifted the young man on to the stretcher it was with care, a degree of gentleness, conscious they were handling their own.
In strange, shuffling silence the guests were ushered from the room and across the wide corridor to a similar lecture hall. Their patience was requested and it was explained to them that though they would not be detained for long it was impossible that they could be allowed to wander from the building while the large-scale search of the immediate area of the university was still under way. After the door had been closed on them few had anything to say. The conflict between Israel and her neighbours was not a thing that many understood. For a few moments they had been exposed to the unfamiliar; but the experience would do little to aid their comprehension.
When everyone had gone Sokarev was helped to his feet.
They stood him back to the wall and hemmed in by policemen, Elkin right beside him, the gun still in his hand but resting against his trouser pocket. Later they brought him a glass of water. He found he could scarcely hold it, and Elkin took the glass and put it against the professor's lips and tilted it to such an angle that some spilled from his mouth and dribbled on to the front of his suit.
Jones had stayed in his office alone that night. Helen, vague about her movements, had been gone three hours.
From a long way down the empty corridors he heard the laboured footsteps of the messenger from communications.
Too old to hurry, and why should he in his ignorance of the message he carried to Room 3/146? He was a little out of breath when he knocked on the outer door, and surprised that the Section head had bounced across two offices to be there to snatch the paper from his hand. There were no thanks from Jones who now concentrated on what the other man could see were three bare lines of type.
They didn't explain much. An attack on Sokarev — unsuccessful rifle fire and an explosion — casualties, large local-scale hunt started for two men — no immediate result.
In his office again Jones sagged back into his chair, read the message three, four times, looking unsuccessfully for any word or interpretation that he might earlier have missed. And nothing from Jimmy. Where was he when all this was going on? Why hadn't he intervened? Why hadn't he called? Half the reason for the man being there was that he'd be on the phone, so the department wasn't relying on the police for information. Should have called in by now. He swivelled half round in his chair and looked at the picture, in deep shadow now because of the angle at which the lights were hung. Pretty little boy, nice smile, big eyes, neat head, looked as harmless as a butterfly, but he'd concealed the wasp sting. Bloody-near pulled it off, him and that Irishman. Jones felt a great sadness that pulled him down, his head deep in his arms on the table.
What was the point of it all, when all the king's horses and all the king's men could be pushed off centre-stage by that little rat? Shouldn't have been an equal contest, shouldn't have been allowed to throw the sucker punch, and he had, and nearly won.
The Soviets sniffing round the Defence establishments, or the Czechs, or East Germans… they were so straight forward. Bit of a game when you became involved with them. Reckoned on the odds, didn't they? And if they didn't think they could win they didn't come in. But this little sod, he hadn't worked out his chances of survival — couldn't have done, or he'd have stayed at home — and yet he was in there kicking. Jones didn't know what his feelings were toward the young Arab. Probably there was a tinge of admiration, that of the older man for youth which does something no longer possible for the other through age. But it was balanced quickly by the anger and frustration that the Arab had put them through the hoops, and laughed at them and lived.
Had to be brave, too, Jones acknowledged that. The old labels weren't any good. Courage if he was from your lot, fanaticism if he was on the other side. He'd learned the futility of the tags when he was still young, when he saw an ME no night fighter with its two-man crew peel away in its tail of flame, known they wouldn't survive, and known too that they'd pressed their attack long after the chance of success had vanished. They were brave men, and they were the enemy, and they'd earned respect, and been prepared to die. The Arab had been prepared to die too, as a sacrifice for his army, whatever bunch of twisted idiots they turned out to be. And all such a waste, and everyone scared out of their wits by the implications of it all — everyone except his Jimmy.