Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

‘Cut the noise,’ she said close to his ear.

He howled louder. She tightened the grip of her legs, pinching his kidneys. As he began to roar she thrust her head forward again, splitting his lips.

He stopped howling and began to gasp. Still holding him with her legs, Sabrina slid her hand quickly from his thumb to halfway along his hand. She took a tight grip, compressed her strength in her shoulder and twisted his wrist past its limit, tearing the flexor tendons.

The man passed out.

She pushed him on to his back, got his keys and freed her left hand. She removed the cuffs from the waste-pipe, rolled him on his face, cuffed his hands behind him and rolled him on to his back again. Blood still trickled from his nose.

She stood up, stretching her legs carefully, flexing them, then she slowly raised her arms and stretched them above her head.

She stood in the middle of the floor, fingering the bump on her head as she slowly rotated her pelvis, feeling the bones of her spine line up. She shuffled round the room a few times until her circulation stabilized, then she drank more water.

It was getting dark, the sunlight turning deep gold. She peered through the slats at the window and saw a path leading away from the building, up past a stand of dusty trees that screened the place from the road. Fifty metres beyond the trees she could see the front end of an old Citroën 2CV.

She turned her attention to the man. He was still unconscious and breathing erratically. Blood oozed from his nose and down over his cheek, making a pool on the floor at the side of his head. She picked up the jug and threw the remaining water in his face.

He came round coughing and spitting, jerking his head from side to side. Sabrina watched as the pain reasserted itself. His eyes opened wide.

‘How’re you feeling, pal?’

‘Let me up!’ he hissed at her.

‘Maybe.’

‘I will kill you!’

‘Not shackled like that, you won’t.’

He shouted something in Arabic.

‘Was that an insult?’

‘My hand is injured! You must let me up! The pain is unbearable!’

Sabrina knelt and rolled him on his side. ‘Curl your knees, that’ll stop you rolling over again.’

His relief was visible. Even so, Sabrina thought, the pain must still be severe, judging from the way his hand had swollen and the thumb hung down.

‘Tell me your name,’ she said, bunching her skirt, cushioning her knees from the floorboards.

‘I am called Sayed.’

‘Well Sayed, I want to know all about Yaqub Hisham.’

‘I do not know the name.’

Sabrina reached out and jerked his arm. He roared with pain.

‘A brief word about me, Sayed.’ She waited until his noise died to a groan. ‘I’m not the kind of woman you’re familiar with. I’m not subservient. I don’t find your maleness daunting. More to the point, I’m vindictive, irritable, pushy and given to excessive violence.’ She leaned close for emphasis. ‘Just so you understand the scale of things, I’ll warn you I haven’t started to hurt you yet.’

She sat back on her heels. ‘Now. One more time. Tell me about Yaqub Hisham.’

Sayed coughed, blowing a puff of dust across the floor. ‘He was a freedom fighter.’

‘A terrorist. I know that. Why did he go to England? Who was he working for?’

‘I am only a messenger, I do not know these things.’

‘Do you swear that?’

‘I swear.’

Sabrina took hold of his elbow and jiggled his arm up and down. He howled again and this time a tear ran along his cheek.

‘Do you still swear?’

‘He … he was here, in Tetuán. He had to hide, you see. Then a man came looking for him. An American.’

‘What was the American’s name?’

‘I don’t know. I swear it,’ Sayed added hastily. ‘I never heard his name. But he had a letter of introduction from a senior officer of Hezbollah.’

‘Now tell me how you know that.’

‘I am a member of a freedom movement which Yaqub Hisham supported.’

‘He trained you, did he?’

‘Yes.’ Sayed paused and took a painful breath. ‘He was our teacher, and also our cousin. We are a movement amassed from his family.’

‘Amassed? How many?’

‘Thirty, perhaps more. We are small, but our determination is great.’ For a moment he looked defiant, turning his head to look up at Sabrina. ‘The strength of our will overcomes any oppression.’

‘Whatever gets you through the day, Sayed. Go ahead with the story. What did the American want with Yaqub?’

‘He wished to give him a professional commission. In England. Yaqub had strong doubts, but he needed money.’

‘And what was the commission?’

‘I swear, I do not know the details.’

Sabrina looked at him. ‘Sayed, that’s not completely true, is it?’ She moved his arm the smallest fraction. ‘Is it?’

‘The commission was to eliminate certain members of an organizaiton.’

Sabrina waited. ‘Well?’

‘I have told you.’

‘What organization?’

‘The name was difficult, I do not–’

He cut off and clamped his mouth shut as Sabrina reached for his arm. She saw he was determined to stay quiet on this one. Using both hands she pushed him sharply on to his back, making him groan. She held his head steady with one hand, leaning her weight on his forehead. She pushed the forefinger of the other hand in under his eyelid. He whimpered and tried to twist away.

‘Bank on what I tell you, Sayed. If I don’t get a believable answer in the next five seconds, I will pull your eye out.’ She pressed hard against the eyeball, making him gasp with pain. ‘If that isn’t enough, then I’ll take out the other eye. Now again, what’s the name of the organization Yaqub was gunning for?’

‘It… it is an emerging Jewish group, based in Germany. They are called Juli Zwanzig. It means July twentieth.’

Sabrina remembered the photograph from the strong-box, the initials JZ on the banner. She withdrew her finger from his eye and sat back. He blinked furiously.

‘Yaqub was given a – what is it called? – a paper with events he had to observe.’

‘A timetable.’

‘Timetable, yes. And first he had to go to London, and there he would stay for a time, and he would use credentials supplied by the American.’

‘So that’s when Yaqub became Kamul Haidar?’

‘He had passport, visa, all necessary identifications. He was supplied with a gun, special model, easy to smuggle.’ Sayed raised his head from the floor. ‘Can I turn on my side? My hand hurts like fire.’

Sabrina rolled him on to his side and stood up.

‘One more question. How many people was Yaqub supposed to kill?’

‘I swear by Allah, I do not know.’

‘Two? More than two?’

‘Yaqub was not told. The American would only say that leading members of Juli Zwanzig were to be his target. He would learn more when he reached England.’ Sayed rolled his eyes sideways, trying to see Sabrina’s face. ‘He believed the visit to Europe was bad luck.’

‘He was right on that one.’ Sabrina rattled through the bunch of keys she had taken from Sayed and found one for a Citroën. I’ll be leaving now.’

‘But you must release me!’

‘I don’t must do anything. Just you lie still and try to feel lucky I didn’t kill you.’ She stood up. ‘One piece of advice before I go, Sayed. Next time you eat a skunk, try peeling it first.’

As she hurried out through the outer room a man coming in from outside nearly collided with her. He stared, leaped back and pulled a curved knife from his belt.

‘Don’t do this,’ Sabrina said, crouching, spreading her arms, getting the car key positioned in her fist like a spike. ‘Just back off.’