‘She’s an orphan now? No one to take care of her?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘She was really quite appealing and intelligent, wouldn’t you say?’
‘She certainly seemed so. I haven’t had any dealings with her personally. Has the Comrade Colonel a special interest?’
‘Possibly. We lost our only daughter last year at the age of six in the influenza epidemic. My wife can’t have any more. She’s taken a job in some welfare department or other, but she frets, Cherny. She just isn’t the same woman. Looking at that child back there in the square made me wonder. She might just fit the bill.’
‘An excellent idea, Comrade, for everyone concerned, if I may say so.’
‘Good,’ Maslovsky said, suddenly brightening. ‘I’ll take her back to Moscow with me and give my Susha a surprise.’
He moved to the desk, pulled the cork from the vodka bottle with his teeth and filled two glasses. ‘A toast,’ he said. ‘To the Irish enterprise and to …’ He paused, frowning, ‘What was his code name again?’
‘Cuchulain,’ Cherny told him.
‘Right,’ Maslovsky said. ‘To Cuchulain.’ He swallowed the vodka and hurled his glass into the fire.
When Major Tony Villiers entered the officers’ mess of the Grenadier Guards at Chelsea Barracks, there was no one there. It was a place of shadows, the only illumination coming from the candles flickering in the candelabra on the long, polished dining-table, the light reflected from the mess silver.
Only one place was set for dinner at the end of the table, which surprised him, but a bottle of champagne waited in a silver ice bucket, Krug 1972, his favourite. He paused, looking down at it, then lifted it out and eased the cork, reaching for one of the tall crystal glasses that stood on the table, pouring slowly and carefully. He moved to the fire and stood there, looking at his reflection in the mirror above it.
The scarlet tunic suited him rather well and the medals made a brave show, particularly the purple and white stripes of his Military Cross with the silver rosette that meant a second award. He was of medium height with good shoulders, the black hair longer than one would have expected in a serving soldier. In spite of the fact that his nose had been broken at some time or other, he was handsome enough in a dangerous kind of way.
It was very quiet now, only the great men of the past gazing solemnly down at him from the portraits, obscured by the shadows. There was an air of unreality to everything and for some reason, his image seemed to be reflected many times in the mirror, backwards into infinity. He was so damned thirsty. He raised the glass and his voice was very hoarse – seemed to belong to someone else entirely.
‘Here’s to you, Tony, old son,’ he said, ‘and a Happy New Year.’
He lifted the crystal glass to his lips and the champagne was colder than anything he had ever known. He drank it avidly and it seemed to turn to liquid fire in his mouth, burning its way down and he cried out in agony as the mirror shattered and then the ground seemed to open between his feet and he was falling.
A dream, of course, where thirst did not exist. He came awake then and found himself in exactly the same place as he had been for a week, leaning against the wall in the corner of the little room, unable to lie down because of the wooden halter padlocked around his neck, holding his wrists at shoulder level.
He wore a green headcloth wound around his head in the manner of the Balushi tribesmen he had been commanding in the Dhofar high country until his capture ten days previously. His khaki bush shirt and trousers were filthy now, torn in many places, and his feet were bare because one of the Rashid had stolen his suede desert boots. And then there was the beard, prickly and uncomfortable, and he didn’t like that. Had never been able to get out of the old Guards’ habit of a good close shave every day, no matter what the situation. Even the SAS had not been able to change that particular quirk.
There was the rattle of a bolt, the door creaked open and flies rose in a great curtain. Two Rashid entered, small, wiry men in soiled white robes, bandoliers crisscrossed from the shoulders. They eased him up between them without a word and took him outside, put him down roughly against the wall and walked away.
It was a few moments before his eyes became adjusted to the bright glare of the morning sun. Bir el Gafani was a poor place, no more than a dozen flat-roofed houses with the oasis trimmed by palm trees below. A boy herded half a dozen camels down towards the water trough where women in dark robes and black masks were washing clothes.
In the distance, to the right, the mountains of Dhofar, the most southern province of Oman, lifted into the blue sky. Little more than a week before Villiers had been leading Balushi tribesmen on a hunt for Marxist guerrillas. Bir el Gafani, on the other hand, was enemy territory, the People’s Democratic Republic of the South Yemen stretching north to the Empty Quarter.
There was a large earthenware pot of water on his left with a ladle in it, but he knew better than to try to drink and waited patiently. In the distance, over a rise, a camel appeared, moving briskly towards the oasis, slightly unreal in the shimmering heat.
He closed his eyes for a moment, dropping his head on his chest to ease the strain on his neck, and was aware of footsteps. He looked up to find Salim bin al Kaman approaching. He wore a black headcloth, black robes, a holstered Browning automatic on his right hip, a curved dagger pushed into the belt and carried a Chinese AK assault rifle, the pride of his life. He stood peering down at Villiers, an amiable-looking man with a fringe of greying beard and a skin the colour of Spanish leather.
‘Salaam alaikum, Salim bin al Kaman,’ Villiers said formally in Arabic.
‘Alaikum salaam. Good morning, Villiers Sahib.’ It was his only English phrase. They continued in Arabic.
Salim propped the AK against the wall, filled the ladle with water and carefully held it to Villiers’ mouth. The Englishman drank greedily. It was a morning ritual between them. Salim filled the ladle again and Villiers raised his face to receive the cooling stream.
‘Better?’ Salim asked.
‘You could say that.’
The camel was close now, no more than a hundred yards away. Its rider had a line wound around the pommel of his saddle. A man shambled along on the other end.
‘Who have we got here?’ Villiers asked.
‘Hamid,’ Salim said.
‘And a friend?’
Salim smiled. ‘This is our country, Major Villiers, Rashid land. People should only come here when invited.’
‘But in Hauf, the Commissars of the People’s Republic don’t recognize the rights of the Rashid. They don’t even recognize Allah. Only Marx.’
‘In their own place, they can talk as loudly as they
