Redemption - Leon Uris [223]
“Ruddy bastards,” Jeremy grunted.
“Thank God all they want is money. That gives us an opening,” Rory said, moving into command.
“You’re bloody right, cobber,” Johnny said. “I say we pick up a couple dozen troops in some bars and rush the place.”
“No, no brute tactics. We can’t get anyone else involved. They want to keep it hush-hush. We have to protect the Major.”
“He’s right, Johnny,” Jeremy said.
“How’d you get here, Yurlob?” Rory asked.
“Taxi. He is waiting down the street.”
“Where’s the lorry?”
“About three blocks from the hotel.”
“Shit, I hope it still has wheels on it.”
“It is fine,” Yurlob assured. “I put it in the yard of military police station. There is a small Sikh unit. My cousin is guarding it.”
“Chester, can you drive it?”
“We’ll find out,” Chester answered.
“You say the lobby seems as if everything is normal?”
“Yes.”
“Big lobby, little lobby?”
“Fair size. A very active hotel.”
“Do you think, like, Modi and Johnny can just walk in and up the stairs to the Major’s room?”
“Yes, but what about the police?”
“There are some short lengths of pipe left over from repairs on the fountain. Knee-cap the cops at the door and take their pistols.”
Johnny and Modi nodded.
“I’ll find the place on the roof where Yurlob watched. Can you reach the Major’s room from there?”
“With a leap.”
“Can you hear the railroad bell clock?”
“Clearly.”
Rory looked at his watch. “When it strikes six, it means five o’clock. On the fifth bong…Johnny and Modi hit the cops at the door. I’ll come through the window. Yurlob, throw the Major under the bed and guard him.”
“I want Farouk el Farouk,” Jeremy hissed.
“I’ll take the inspector,” Rory said.
“But what of the other four armed policemen?” Yurlob asked.
“We’ll think of something. We’ll improvise. Jeremy, you and Yurlob take the taxi. We’re five minutes behind you.”
“Rory!” Sonya cried.
“Oh Christ, are they going to take this out on you?”
“Do not worry. I am halfway to Alexandria. You are wonderful boys. Please smash in Inspector Rawash’s face. He has given me twenty years of misery.”
The room was much as Serjeant Yurlob had described it. Christopher was strewn on a dirty, lumpy mattress with a dirtier sheet half covering him and he was mumbling incoherently.
“It’s me, Jeremy!”
Christopher was glassy-eyed, but focused to some sort of recognition, then flopped back down.
“Where is his uniform?”
Inspector Rawash, who was very easy to identify, nodded to the closet door. Jeremy fished through the pockets and found what he was looking for—a vial and a letter. He lifted the cap on the vial and sniffed it.
“Cyanide,” Rawash said.
“Yours or his?” Jeremy asked.
“His.”
The letter was from Christopher’s wife, Hester. It was but a page in length. She wrote that she had never really loved him and that life in the confines of the earldom was insufferable. She had fallen in love with an ordinary fellow, a musician. She had become pregnant and they had run off together, far away from Ireland and the British Isles.
Any malice, any anger Jeremy had ever known for the poor, limp, blubbering creature had flown.
“You’re going to be all right, Chris,” Jeremy said to his uncomprehending brother. “Yurlob, find some water and clean him up and get him into his uniform.”
“There are some matters to be settled, Viscount, m’lord,” Farouk el Farouk said. “May I introduce you to Chief Inspector Rawash who commands the eastern side of Cairo.”
“I am honored,” Rawash said.
“Sure, so am I.” Jesus, a slithering pair of vipers out of some terrible novel, they were. What a dirty lousy game. Connections…we’ve a live one…praise Allah, his brother is Viscount Hubble, the Lieutenant of Villa Valhalla!
“We have a very serious situation. A woman is murdered in your brother’s room and your brother at this moment does not do great honor to the British Army. If we take him in to the magistrate and prefer charges…well, I have no