The Lost Temple (5 page)

“I gave it to his widow.”

“Pemberton didn’t leave a widow, you prick. She predeceased him.”

“Maybe it was his sister.” Grant’s eyes were tearing from the smoke, but he never blinked. He held Muir’s gaze for a long moment—then blew the cloud of smoke straight into Muir’s face, so suddenly that Muir shrank back. “What do you think I did with it? I didn’t have time to visit the library. I binned the book and tried to find some Nazis to kill. If you read my report, you’ll know I managed that pretty well too.”

Muir leaned back in his chair. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t suppose you spent much time on the front line.”

“I don’t believe that a man spent his dying breath giving you this book and the first thing you did was throw it away. Weren’t you curious why it was so important to him?”

“He could have given me his lucky matchbox and a locket with his lover’s hair and I’d have done the same.” Grant shook his head. “I flipped through the book, but it was all gibberish and mumbo-jumbo. I had a lot of ground to cover and I couldn’t afford to be weighed down. So I lost it.”

Muir stared at him a moment longer, then abruptly stood. “That’s a pity. If you’d had it, or knew where it was, I might have been able to help you out of here. Might even have been some money in it. After all, I don’t suppose the Yids
will be paying you now.” He looked down expectantly. “Well?”

“Go to hell,” said Grant.

The car nosed into the copse of trees and rolled to a halt. Its headlights threw a pool of yellow light round the clearing, illuminating a battered Humber truck with its canvas sides rolled down. A group of young men in mismatched combat uniforms lounged against it, smoking and checking their guns. They made a terrifying sight—but if the occupants of the car were worried they didn’t show it. No one got out. In the back of the car a handle squeaked as the passenger wound down the rear window.

One of the men walked over and stooped to look inside. The night was warm, but nevertheless he wore an overcoat and a black beret jammed down over his close-shaved gray hair. He carried a machine pistol.

“Are you ready?” The tip of a cigarette glowed in the back seat, but the face behind it was invisible in the shadows. “You found what you needed?”

The man in the beret nodded. “It was in the truck—as you promised. We are ready.”

“Then don’t cock it up. And make sure he gets out alive.”

They took Grant back to his cell, a vaulted cellar from the crusader castle crammed with three wooden bunks. In the utter darkness he had to feel his way to his bed. He flopped on to the mattress, not even bothering to take off his shoes.

A match flared, illuminating a young face with floppy dark hair and olive skin on the bunk beside him. He lit the two cigarettes pursed between his lips, passed one to Grant and blew out the match before it burned his fingers.

Grant took the gift gratefully. “Thanks, Ephraim.”

“Did they beat you?” The boy couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, but his voice was matter-of-fact.
And why not?
Grant thought. Ephraim had been in the prison far longer than he had, almost three months now, sentenced for throwing rocks at a British policeman in Haifa.

“They didn’t beat me.”

“Did they want to know where they can find Begin?”

“No.” Grant lay back, arms behind his head, and blew smoke at the ceiling. “It wasn’t the usual goons. Some spook from London. Wasn’t interested in the Irgun—just wanted to dig up some ancient history.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I . . .”

Even through the meter-thick walls they felt the explosion. The bunks rocked and dust rained down from the ceiling. Grant swung round and leaped to the floor, pulling the boy Ephraim with him. They crouched in the darkness. Shots rang out—first panicked and sporadic, then methodical and constant as the Bren guns started up.

“They’re getting closer.” Holding Ephraim’s shoulder, Grant led him across the room until his hand felt the cold metal of the door—still locked. Flattening himself against the wall, he pushed Ephraim to the opposite side of the door frame.

“Get ready—someone’s coming.”

Lieutenant Cargill returned to his office and poured a long drink from the bottle he kept in his desk. He had met plenty of disagreeable men during the war, and afterward here in Palestine, but few who exuded the same calculated unpleasantness as his nameless visitor.

A knock sounded at the door. Whisky slopped over the rim of the glass. Had the visitor forgotten something?

“Engineer, sir. Come to repair the generator.”

Cargill sighed with relief. “Come in.”

The engineer was a small man, with wire-rimmed spectacles and an ill-fitting uniform that looked as though it had been cut down from a larger size.

“Rather late to be mending the generator, isn’t it?” Cargill dabbed at the spilt whisky with his handkerchief. “Wouldn’t it be easier to wait for daylight?”

The engineer shrugged. He seemed to be sweating profusely. “Orders, sir.” He was still walking toward Cargill, a
holdall clutched in his left hand. “Now, sir, if you’ll just give me your keys.”

“You don’t need my keys to get to the generator. You’ll find it . . .”

Cargill looked up, to see the muzzle of a Luger hovering six inches from his nose. “
What the hell?
”

“Your keys.”

As the man stretched out his hand, the sleeve of his ill-fitting shirt rode up. Tattooed on his wrist, in a bruise-purple color that would never fade, ran a row of tiny numbers.

“You will not be the first man I have watched die. Give me the keys.”

Followed every inch of the way by the Luger, Cargill unclipped the ring of keys from his belt and laid them on the table. Then the engineer—
the Jew
, Cargill corrected himself—took a length of electrical wire from his holdall and tied Cargill’s wrists to the back of his chair and his ankles to the legs of the desk. Cargill bore the humiliations in stoic silence.

“Those keys might unlock the cells, but they won’t get you through the front gates. You won’t just walk out with all your Irgun gangster friends trailing behind you.”

“We will find a way.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a massive explosion shook the castle to its very foundations. It must have been close by. Cargill rocked on his chair, couldn’t keep his balance and toppled over with a yelp of pain, his legs still tied to the desk. Through the dust and smoke that swirled around the room, he saw the Jew snatch the keys, then touch his cap in farewell.

“
Shalom
.”

The footsteps were closer now. There was a definite rhythm to them: approach, pause, approach, pause. With each pause, Grant could hear shouts and the clink of metal. Another burst of machine-gun fire from outside drowned the sounds for a moment; when it stopped there were keys jangling right outside the door. Grant tensed in the darkness. There was no
handle on the inside—all he could do was wait as the key slid into the lock, turned, clicked . . .

“
Rak kakh
.”

The door swung in, but the squeak of the hinges was drowned out by the squeal of delight from Ephraim. “
Rak kakh!
” he shouted back, repeating the Irgun slogan. “
Rak kakh
. Praise God you came.”

“Praise God when we get out of here,” muttered Grant.

Their rescuer had already moved on to the next cell by the time they stepped out, but the corridor was teeming with freed prisoners. At the far end an Irgun commando was standing by the exit doling out small arms from a sack.

“Like a bloody Hebrew Father Christmas,” said Grant.

Ephraim looked at him in confusion. “Who’s Father Christmas?”

They pushed their way down the corridor, past the commando—who had run out of guns—and into the main castle courtyard. Eight hundred years had raised the ground almost a meter above the original foundations and a trench had been dug along the front of the building to allow access. Now it was filled with the ex-prisoners and their rescuers, engaged in a furious firefight with the English garrison by the gatehouse. On the far side of the courtyard a pile of smoking rubble and a massive hole showed where the Irgun had blown their way through the castle wall.

“Who’s in charge?”

He had to bellow it in the ear of the nearest fighter, a lean young man blasting away with what looked like a First World War carbine. In the time it took him to jerk back the bolt, slot it home again and aim, he somehow managed to indicate a tall figure in a black beret and overcoat, halfway down the trench. Grant crawled across.

“Where’s your escape route? Through the breach?”

The Irgun commander shook his head. “That’s how we came in,” he said in English. “We go out the back door.” He nodded to his left, where the western wall pushed out into the sea. As Grant stared, he could see a file of men creeping along the shadows at its base, invisible to the British soldiers
who were concentrating all their fire on the prison block.

“Do we swim?”

“Not if you hurry.”

Grant glanced back to the gatehouse. From the top of the tower the lightning muzzle flash of a Bren gun burst through the ancient arrow loops. While they were in the trench they were safe, but the moment they abandoned their position they’d make easy pickings in open ground.

“You’ll need to shut that up before we go.”

The commander looked at him. “Are you volunteering?”

“Why not?”

Lieutenant Cargill’s night had been going to hell ever since the mysterious visitor arrived. His ankle ached where it had twisted when he fell, but that was nothing against the agony of having to lie on the floor, tied to the office furniture, and listen impotently as the battle raged outside. He couldn’t even tell who was winning. Nor was he under any illusion that things would improve when it was over.

The door burst open. Trapped behind his desk, Cargill saw a pair of worn brown boots pound across the room. He craned his neck up, just in time to see a motley, unshaven face peering over the desk in surprise. A plea for help died stillborn on Cargill’s lips.

“You’re the gun-runner.” A horrible thought crossed his mind. “This isn’t to do with your visitor, is it?”

Grant didn’t answer: he was pulling the drawers from Cargill’s desk and turning them out on the tabletop. He lifted a brown leather holster from the bottom drawer. The walnut handle of a Webley revolver jutted from under the flap. Grant pulled it out and checked the chamber.

Helpless and defenseless, Cargill nonetheless put on a brave face. “Are you going to shoot me in cold blood?”

Grant shook his head. “No point. I’ll leave it to the army, when they find out what a balls-up you’ve made of this.” He thought for a moment. “What’s your hat size?”

Outside Cargill’s office a worn flight of stairs climbed to the ramparts. Grant took them two at a time and ran along the wall toward the gatehouse tower. In the confusion no one had remembered to lock the door. Grant slipped inside. This part of the tower had been gutted, except for four steel pillars supporting the gun platform on the roof. They gleamed in the darkness, flickering with the reflections of light from the battle outside, while the drafty chamber echoed like a drum with the thump of the Bren gun above. Grant jammed Cargill’s peaked cap over his tousled hair, touched the Webley that was now buckled securely round his waist, then shinned up the wooden ladder bolted to the wall.

The gunner on the roof could hardly have heard Grant, but he must have noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye. He eased off the trigger and glanced round.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Grant bellowed, in his best regimental English. “Keep those Yids pinned down.”

The voice, and the familiar silhouette of the officer’s cap, was all the reassurance the gunner needed. He couched the Bren gun against his shoulder and let off another furious volley. It gave Grant all the time he needed. He crossed the roof and with one well-aimed kick sent the gunner rolling across the wooden floor in agony. Two more deft punches and the hapless gunner lay sprawled out, unconscious.

Grant pulled off the man’s belt and used it to tie his wrists behind his back. That done, he returned to the Bren gun, shifted it round and loosed a long stream of bullets in the vague direction of the British troops. He grinned as he saw confusion overwhelm them. Some of the more alert soldiers sent a few shots back toward him, cracking splinters off the stone battlements, but most of them seemed in complete disarray. Over by the prison block, meanwhile, the shooting was tailing off as the Irgun used the distraction to make good their escape.

Grant squeezed off a final burst, then picked up the Bren gun—taking care to avoid touching the scalding barrel—and staggered across to the far wall. He heaved it into the
dry moat. By the time anyone found it there, Grant hoped he’d be long gone.

There were only half a dozen fighters left in the trench. A couple more lay dead on the ground, but most seemed to have escaped. Grant made his way to the black-bereted commander. “Just in time,” he grunted. He broke off to slap another magazine into his machine pistol. “We need to get to the boat.” He turned to his right and handed the gun to the fighter beside him. “Keep those English pinned down until we’re over the wall.”