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By Root 1036 0

hid nearby. Now I remembered that on this same morning a Russian called Richard, which was a code name, was supposed to join us. I realized that we were very near the place where Richard was supposed to wait for us. Ahmed, before he died, had told me about the rendezvous arrangements. Qemal never said anything about it, but I supposed he just intended to leave the Russian alone in the desert—not meet him. There were certain arrangements. I had met Russians before, with Ahmed. We used to find them with a small radio. You turn on the radio and it makes a sound like an automobile horn. The louder the sound becomes, the closer you are to the Russian. The Russian carried another small radio that sent out a signal. This was necessary because a stranger cannot find his way in the desert. We always kept the location of our camp secret even from the Russians, and we moved all the time. Then, too, the Russians always came by parachute and sometimes the wind would carry them away from the place they said they were going to land. So the radio device was very useful.

“As Siddik and I waited for Qemal it occurred to me that the Russian might be nearby. I had the radio device in my Land Rover, which used to be Ahmed’s vehicle, so I got it out and turned it on. The signal came out of it quite strongly. We walked in one direction and another until it got louder. Then we simply followed the signal until we found the Russian. He was standing in the ruins of an old house, looking at them and muttering to himself. He was rather fat, as Russians usually are. I sent Siddik around behind him, and then I stepped into the ruins. The Russian did not see me at first, he was interested in something written on one of the walls. When he did see me, he leaped in fright. Then he smiled and made salaam.

“There was a password. I gave it because I wanted to be sure he’d come along willingly, not suspecting anything. I said, ‘Heaven is far away,’ which was the password the Russians had sent. The Russian peered at me through his glasses, still smiling foolishly, and said, ‘God is great.’ That was not the prescribed countersign, but these Russians are never straightforward; they don’t always come right out with things like passwords. I said ‘Where is God?’ The Russian said, ‘Allah is everywhere and near at hand.’ That was the countersign, or near enough. I shook hands with the Russian, told him how glad we were to see him, how grateful we were to him, and so on. He kept on being suspicious. At first he was not going to come with me, but when Siddik stepped through the broken wall behind him with his rifle, the Russian stopped arguing and walked to the Land Rover with us.

“Qemal was astonished when he came back and found that we had taken the Russian. I took him aside and told him how I had found him. Qemal was extremely pleased. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘now you can have your revenge for Ahmed, and we can leave a signal the Russians cannot misunderstand to show that we are finished with them.’ Qemal said the Russians would certainly come looking for their man if he did not radio to them that all was well. He said we should kill the Russian and cut off his balls and hang him up the way we had done the others. Then we would radio the Russians and tell them to look on a certain hill for their Richard, who was unable to carry on and wished to return home.

“So that’s what we did. The Russian tried to dissuade us. At first he kept telling us in Arabic that he wasn’t a Russian. He got out his passport which showed he was something else. Qemal read the passport and said it came from a country that was a colony of Russia. He talked Russian to the man. The man answered in Russian. We took him a long way, almost to the camp, before we killed him. He argued with us right to the end. ‘You are making a mistake, a terrible mistake,’ he said. ‘I am not this Richard. I know no Richard. I am a friend of Prince Kalash el Khatar. He is nearby. He will tell you.’ Qemal laughed at him. ‘Prince Kalash is my brother,’ he said. ‘I just spoke to him. He said nothing about any Russian friend.