The Killing Crew: An absolutely gripping thriller by Murray Bailey

Author:Murray Bailey [Bailey, Murray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Heritage Books UK
Published: 2022-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

“I have a confession,” Sylvia Rom said. “I wasn’t Haganah—not in the beginning. I was Irgun.”

I stared at her. Our secretary was confessing to being a terrorist. Finney was grinning like it was a sexy confession. He didn’t understand. They weren’t as bad as the Stern Gang, but the Irgun were responsible for many atrocities. My stomach knotted like a fisherman’s rope.

Rom held up her hands. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Did you kill any British soldiers?” I asked, trying to stay calm and rational.

She shook her head and had a genuinely sorry look in her eyes. “I was one of the group that helped immigrants. I helped smuggle them ashore.”

I breathed out.

“That’s not the point,” Finney said.

“Well, it is,” Rom corrected him. “I was Irgun so I knew most of the actions we took. The point is that sometimes attacks were associated with us, but internally we couldn’t explain.”

“For example?”

“The Tel Aviv bank robbery in September last year. It was reported as Irgun. Someone called the newspapers and claimed responsibility, but why?”

I remembered the robbery, not a hundred yards from the prison we’d walked around yesterday. The Anglo-Palestine Bank. Four British police officers were killed and the gang were said to have escaped with over a hundred thousand pounds.

Finney said, “Yes, why would anyone claim responsibility for a bank raid? There’s a difference between criminal activity—”

“—and terrorism,” I said sarcastically. “Remember, British citizens died that day.”

“Consider it. Don’t just dismiss it, Captain.”

It was a reasonable argument. I should at least consider the possibility. I indicated that we should sit in a huddle. Once settled, I said the other thing that was troubling me.

“What would be their motivation? Why would pro-Jews be the Killing Crew?”

None of us spoke for a moment before Rom pursed her lips in thought.

“Why does no one know who they are?”

I said, “They were very careful.”

“But why? The Detonation Squad were blatant.”

I said, “They were different, and that wasn’t their name. They never identified themselves as that. They were just disillusioned, misguided soldiers persuaded to do a terrible thing by the Islamic extremists.”

We bounced the question about for a few minutes before Rom said, “So where is Wolfe?”

I checked my watch. It would be midday soon. Where the heck was he? But I didn’t want to let the others know about my uncertainty.

“He’s busy,” I said, and then to distract them further, added: “I haven’t told you what we discovered.”

And so I told them about Charlie Mason adopting the name Caleb Maaz and working for Shomrim Security before travelling to Transjordan.

“Oh my!” Finney said.

Rom nodded. “You know, that seems to back up my theory. Maybe Mason was pro-Jew all along. You’ve assumed he was the opposite, but from what you’ve said, it would be more likely that he wasn’t. It backs up the idea that the Killing Crew were either Jews or pro-Jew.” She looked at me earnestly. “Don’t you think?”

I looked at the timeline on the noticeboard. We’d started with pro-Arab attacks and then whittled them down.

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