Ray McDwyer looked hard at the image of the man who might have killed Jerry O’Connell for reasons unknown. And he also looked hard at Mick Barton, the local Flash Harry, upon whose memory this entire case rested. Could Mick be trusted? Maybe. Did he have any doubts about this identification? Apparently not.
Ray suddenly viewed the entire scenario with mixed feelings. If Mick was correct, the murderer was no longer in Ireland: he’d gone to England on the two o’clock ferry from Dublin to Holyhead. Right now he could be anywhere. And there were only sixty million people in England.
So far as Ray was concerned, his task was more or less over. The killer had gone, and the most the Irish detective could do was to circulate the picture to all the relevant agencies and see if anyone recognized the man in the brown suede jacket.
This could, of course, be achieved extremely fast with modern E-mail, and Ray instructed a young Garda officer to have the photograph digitally enhanced to the highest possible standard and then transmit it to New Scotland Yard, MI-5 and MI-6, Interpol, the CIA, the FBI, and the Mossad. Each of those agencies would forward the picture on to various military intelligence operations, and within a couple of hours every branch of every secret service in the Western world would be staring at the apparent killer who had come into Crookhaven from the deep rough water that pounds the Fastnet Rock.
Ray McDwyer, though nominally the officer of record on the case, was essentially finished with it, unless someone arrested the suspect and he was brought back to County Cork to face trial. Meanwhile, he would return to Skibbereen, and politely he asked Mick Barton if he would mind sharing the helicopter.
“Yes, I think I can put up with that,” replied Mick. “Although it’s not something I’m used to.”
Two hours later, Mick was walking down Main Street on his way to his home on the outskirts of Skibbereen, and Ray McDwyer was back in his office. So far as he could tell, nothing had broken loose. But he was wrong. Because it had, two and a half thousand miles and two time zones away, in Tel Aviv.
Colonel Ben Joel, leader of the Mossad team that had somewhat spectacularly blown up Bab Touma Street in Damascus the previous February, was sitting with two of his most trusted officers, Major Itzaak Sherman and Lt. Colonel John Rabin. It was a hot, quiet night in the city, and the three of them were planning to go out for a glass of wine somewhere off Dizengoff Square.
Right now, they were just examining the last of a pile of photographs of people on the Mossad “wanted” list. They checked the latest photographs every night before leaving, just in case there had been a sighting, somewhere definite, of someone they really wanted to find.
Tonight there was nothing. Until, staring at the last two or three pictures, Colonel Joel suddenly exclaimed, “Jesus Christ… look who we have here…”
He was holding an eight-by-ten printout of the closed-circuit picture of General Rashood and Shakira at the English ferry port of Holyhead. The E-mail transmission had just arrived from MI-6 in London, with a request for identification if possible.
And had that photograph ever landed in the right place. These three Mossad hitmen had been charged with eliminating Ravi and Shakira in that highly expensive and well-planned operation only five months ago. They had been beaten in the mission mostly because of sheer bad luck. The couple had returned to their house separately, accompanied by different people, and it had been too dark to see the discrepancy. The bomb went off in the main room while Shakira was in the basement-level kitchen and Ravi was not even in the house.
But no one knew what Ravi looked like better than Colonel Joel, who had photographed the Hamas commander through a telescopic lens, from right across the street, had observed him in daylight, would recognize him anywhere.
The other two also knew precisely what Ravi looked like, and there was no doubt in any of their minds. The man in the English ferry port was General Ravi Rashood, and the lady with him was his Palestinian wife, Shakira.
For one final check, the colonel called for comparable pictures of the general, and Itzaak pulled them up on the big computer screen set into the wall like a plasma television. The group consisted of three pictures taken on a cliff top in the Canary Isles and the expansive set of photographs the colonel himself had snapped from across Bab Touma Street in Damascus.
No doubt. This was General Rashood and his wife, arriving in England, and now identified by no lesser figures than the Mossad’s top assassination squad, and Mr. Mick Barton, of the Shamrock Café in faraway Skibbereen.
Colonel Joel called for the MI-6 report, which mostly contained an assessment by Detective Superintendent McDwyer of the murder of Jerry O’Connell in County Cork, and the likelihood that the man in the picture had committed the murder. The report also mentioned the possibility that the murderer had been landed from an Iranian submarine patrolling off the coast of southern Ireland.
The Mossad men knew all about that submarine. They too had been tracking it, not with another underwater boat like the Americans, but via the satellites. And they too had been aware that the damn thing had vanished somewhere in the deep water off the eastern coast of Majorca. Like the Americans, the Israelis had not regained contact, and were more or less certain the Iranian submarine was no longer in the Mediterranean. Somehow, the Israeli Navy believed, it had broken out through the Gibraltar Strait into the Atlantic Ocean.
Colonel Joel sent a POSIDENT signal to all the appropriate departments in the King Saul Boulevard headquarters. He put it on the nets to the Navy and all branches of Israeli Military Intelligence, particularly Shin Bet, the interior intelligence operation, equivalent of London ’s MI-5. No one wanted Ravi Rashood’s head as badly as Ben Joel.
Back in England, MI-6 E-mailed the picture to Military Intelligence, with a special copy to SAS headquarters in Stirling Lines, Hereford, where once Major Ray Kerman had served with honor and courage. By the time the photograph arrived, it was mid-evening, and it would not be examined in the normal course of business until the following morning. However, an urgent communication was picked up from the Israelis at around 10 P.M., and the duty officer instantly summoned the commanding officer.
The communiqué from Tel Aviv read: POSIDENT photograph English ferry port Holyhead. The man is General Ravi Rashood, commander in chief Hamas, formerly known as Major Ray Kerman, 22 SAS Regt. The woman with him is Shakira Rashood, his Palestinian wife, last known address Bab Touma Street, Damascus.
Rashood wanted for murder in County Cork, Ireland. Local farmer Mr. Jerry O’Connell, killed by obvious Special Forces method-smashed central forehead, nose bone rammed into the brain. Looks like Rashood back in England. We stand by to help if required. Joel, Israeli Intelligence.
Lieutenant Colonel David Carter, CO 22 SAS, walked through steady rain to his office, accompanied by Major Douglas Jarvis. Neither of them had been in Hereford when Major Kerman had jumped ship back in 2004, but both of them knew the seriousness of his crimes. It was common knowledge nowadays that Kerman had murdered two highly regarded SAS NCOs and had then wreaked havoc on behalf of the well-funded Hamas terrorists. The name Ray Kerman represented the most inflammatory utterance in SAS history.
The two Special Forces officers shook off their rain smocks and made their way quickly to the CO’s office. Lt. Colonel Carter had served with Ray Kerman in Sierre Leone a dozen years ago, knew him well. The duty officer had put the photograph up on a wall screen, and David Carter took one look at it and said, “That’s Ray. Not a single doubt.”
Douglas Jarvis picked up a hard copy of the report from Tel Aviv, and said, “Christ! He’s here.”
Lt. Colonel Carter replied, “Well, he was when that ferry came into Holyhead. Who knows if he’s still here?”
“What do we do now?”
“Well, I suppose we better confirm our positive identification of Kerman to all of the interested parties, looks like Israeli Intelligence, MI-5, MI-6, CIA, FBI, and the Irish. We’ll send our confirmation direct to MI-6 and they’ll take care of the rest.”
“Did you read that bit about he’s supposed to have killed the Irish farmer, sir?”
“Not yet. What did it say?”
“Well, he used our regular unarmed combat blow. You know, smashed forehead bone and upward drive on the nose. I seem to remember from the report, he used that very same method to kill Sergeant Fred O’Hara in Hebron.”
“After eight years with the enemy, he’s probably getting careless. Thinks he’s safe. Looks like he’s getting so confident, he thinks he can move in and out of England any time he wants to.”
“Do you think we’ll ever catch him, sir?”
“Possibly. But we’d need a hell of a bit of luck.”
The Mossad communiqué, via the CIA, landed in Lt. Commander Ramshawe’s computer at 4 P.M. It was accompanied by an urgent phone call from his pal at the CIA, and then another call from Army Intelligence. General Rashood and his wife had been photographed at the English ferry port.
And at that moment, a thousand questions that had been swirling in Jimmy’s mind were answered. In fact, all the questions that had been swirling in his mind were answered. Except for one. Was the woman in the picture with Ravi none other than Carla Martin?
There were only a very few people in the world who could tell him. One of them was Emily Gallagher; another was Jim Caborn, manager of the Estuary Hotel; and, of course, there were Matt Barker’s buddies.
In Jimmy’s judgment, this required a further visit to Brockhurst. But the game had now changed drastically from a very local murder hunt to a hunt for an international terrorist with the most serious implications.
Jimmy seized the picture, and the reports from the Mossad and the Irish police, and proceeded in a major hurry to the office of the director, Admiral George Morris. The somewhat lugubrious ex-battle group commander was studying a copy of Jane’s International magazine when his deputy came through the door without knocking.
Big George knew urgency when he saw it. He looked up and said quietly, “Steady, Jimmy. What’s going on?”
“Every damn thing in the world, if you ask me,” he replied. “You know all that business I was telling you about a terrorist group trying to locate and then assassinate Admiral Morgan?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, it’s happening. Everything just sprang into place. And you’ll never guess who’s at the back of it.”
“Lay it on me.”
“Hamas. General Ravi Rashood. And his wife. Take a look at this picture.”
He handed it to Admiral Morris, who said, “From what I remember, that’s him. I’ve never seen a picture of her. Tell you what, run me through it quickly, will you? Refresh my memory.”
Jimmy did so, fast, recounting the chain of circumstances that led to Carla’s sudden vanishing, in full possession of the admiral’s ETA and hotel in London. Then he reconstructed Ravi’s trip to Ireland, the murder of the farmer, and the police hunt for the master terrorist, which apparently had ended in the ferry port.
“And here they are,” he said, waving the photograph, “after their rendezvous in Dublin, arriving in England, where Ravi will attempt to blow Arnie’s brains out without getting caught.”
Admiral Morris nodded thoughtfully. “One thing, Jim,” he said. “Why Ireland? Why did they not just go to England?”
“Even with forged passports, that would be very risky. There’s nowhere hotter than London for a terrorist to make port of entry. My guess is that Ravi went to Ireland, landed on one of the loneliest coasts in the world, probably from that missing Iranian submarine, and then tried to sneak into England through the back door, the Irish ferry.”
Admiral Morris was thoughtful. “And what do you need to find out? What brought you in here with such obvious urgency?”
“Sir, I need to know whether that girl in the photograph is definitely Carla Martin from the Estuary Hotel.”
“Well, is that difficult?”
“No. Not as soon as I can get down to Brockhurst. And I was wondering if I could take a helicopter, right now.”
“You may. And then we better meet right here in the morning to plan some kind of strategy, stop Arnie from going to England. At least stop him from sticking to his original schedule.”
“Okay, I’ll get going. And be warned-Arnie is not going to take kindly to this interference with his plans.”
One hour later, Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe came in to land on the grassy banks of the Rappahannock River, at the north end of the township of Brockhurst.
Still just in his shirtsleeves and still holding the picture, he walked up to the main road and turned left toward the house owned by Mrs. Emily Gallagher. If she was not in, he would make straight for the hotel. If she was at home, he might not need to bother with a further personal call, because he could probably get Jim Caborn to walk up the street to Emily’s house.
Which was how it turned out. Emily welcomed Jimmy warmly and immediately went to make some tea. Then she took the photograph, placed her spectacles at the end of her nose, and stared at the images.
“My goodness, yes,” she said. “That is very definitely my friend Carla. Where on earth was this photograph taken? She’s never bothered to contact me, you know. So disappointing, so very disappointing.”
She then telephoned the Estuary, and Jim Caborn said he was on his way. Ten minutes later, he arrived and confirmed precisely what Mrs. Gallagher had said. Yes, that was Carla Martin, and no, she had never been in touch.
The three of them sat quietly sipping tea, and Jimmy told them that Carla was almost certainly married to General Rashood, perhaps the most wanted terrorist in the world. Emily and Jim were astounded but seemed grateful for the knowledge, as if a dark cloud had been removed from their lives, some final clarification as to the identity of the girl they had both befriended and whose mysterious disappearance now seemed to make more sense.
Emily remained puzzled why Carla had found it necessary actually to murder Matt Barker, rather than just fight him off. And Jimmy tried to explain to her the mantra of the international terrorist. How, in their minds, there can be nothing to draw attention from anyone.
No matter who gets too close, they must be eliminated. They cannot be allowed to live. And there was no question of just stabbing Matt Barker somewhere on his body where death would not result. Carla could not risk Matt Barker, dripping blood, chasing her down the street like a bull elephant, with all the attendant publicity and questions that would cause. Stealth was her watchword. Matt must die.
Emily seemed to accept this. And it was soon time for Jimmy to leave. Since Detective Joe Segel had never met Carla, he was out of the loop so far as Lt. Commander Ramshawe was concerned. He decided to chat with him on the telephone tomorrow. Meanwhile he said his good-byes to Emily and Jim, and walked back up the street, to board the U.S. Marine helicopter for the ride back to Fort Meade.
All his suspicions were now confirmed. Yes, Carla Martin had journeyed to Brockhurst specifically to find out when the admiral and Kathy would be leaving for a vacation. Yes, the murder of Matt Barker had been a somewhat unforeseen circumstance. Yes, Carla had fled to Ireland carrying a different passport to meet the landed terrorist Rashood in Dublin. And here they both were, entering England to murder Arnie.
And what now? So far as Jimmy was concerned, the Brits could begin a nationwide search for Ravi and Shakira, but they probably would not find them. So far as Jimmy could tell, the only way to snuff out the danger was to persuade Arnold not to go to London under any circumstances whatsoever. And he still had no hopes of that, despite this blazing new evidence which was, in his mind at least, decisive. Hamas had decided that Arnie must go.
He came in to land at Fort Meade and was driven to the parking lot. There he boarded his Jaguar and headed downtown to the Watergate, where Jane awaited him. She poured him a beer and told him she had successfully launched a raid on the Australian embassy kitchens and left with a couple of prime-cut New York sirloins, which she would grill on the balcony while he had another row with Arnold Morgan.
The steaks were perfect, and the row was predictable. Arnold would not hear of canceling his trip, Ravi Rashood or no Ravi Rashood. “You can’t run your life around these bastards, kid,” he said. “If this character wants to have a shot at me, he’ll have to get past the best security agents in the world. I’ll brief them, and they’ll be waiting for anyone who thinks they can carry out an assassination.”
He added that he was not worried, and that he would keep a sharp lookout all through his forthcoming trip. Cancellation? Out of the question.
The search for the general, Jimmy knew, would now turn out to be a rare marriage between local civil authorities and military personnel. Shakira was wanted for murder in Brockhurst, Virginia, and that was Joe Segel’s territory, and Ravi was wanted for murder in West Cork, which was where Ray McDwyer was still in charge. Concurrently, both Ravi and his wife were wanted by the Mossad for murder, treason, and God knows what else; Ravi was wanted by the SAS for murder and desertion; and the British government wanted him for murder and treason against the state.
After dinner, Jimmy and Jane sat and watched the television news, sipping glasses of his father’s vintage port. Finally Jane asked, “Do you really think someone is going to try and kill Arnold?”
“I know they’re going to try, babe. It’s only a matter of whether they can shoot straight.”
They brought Shakira’s car around to the front of the Syrian embassy shortly after breakfast. Ravi and his wife ran down the steps into the car, and the general drove them around Belgrave Square and out along Pont Street to Knightsbridge, just below Harrods.
Here they turned left and headed out, against the morning traffic, along the tree-lined Cromwell Road toward the western suburbs of the capital city of the United Kingdom. The road followed the River Thames for two miles and then veered upward onto the long, perpetually busy M-4 motorway to South Wales. Ravi, however, did not veer upward. He ducked off, expertly, and drove along the gloomy old road beneath the freeway, running left of the massive gray stone pillars that support the Chiswick flyover.
When the motorway swung slightly north, Ravi headed due west, turning onto the Great West Road for another couple of miles before the Heston junction. And there he turned north, through an area that often looks like a suburb of Calcutta rather than London. Out here, in the colorful suburb of Southall, migrating Asians have built an entire community.
There are three-generation families living here, all tracing their blood roots back to the Subcontinent, to the Punjab, Bombay, Karachi, Jaipur, Bengal, and Bangalore, many of them hardworking families who resolutely faced the hundred-year struggle to fit in, to be accepted, to be British.
And a high percentage prospered as natural businessmen. The entire area is redolent with shops and stores, open all the hours God made. Southall is a thousand light-years from Belgrave Square and London ’s West End -but it lives and it thrives, an Indian and Pakistani enclave-a modern reminder of the price of empire.
Ravi headed straight along Merrick Road, crossed the railroad near Southall Station, and plunged into a labyrinth of side streets full of row-houses. Finally, he turned onto a quiet residential avenue. He checked a piece of paper that Shakira handed him and headed for number 16.
They pulled into the wide driveway and parked close to the front door of a big double-fronted Victorian house. Ravi noticed a new BMW parked around the far side of the property. But that measure of opulence did not extend to the garden, which was heavily overgrown. The grass needed a lawnmower, the bushes were too tall and overhanging the drive, there was not a flower planted, and the general effect was an unkempt section of wild woodland.
The house, however, was immaculately painted, with white window frames and trim and a shiny, jet-black double front door. Ravi left Shakira in the car and knocked.
It was answered by an elderly man of Indian appearance. He was wearing a turban and the kind of short gray work jacket a butler might use for cleaning the silver.
“Good morning, sir. Mr. Spencer?”
Ravi nodded.
“Please come this way.”
Ravi followed him down the hall to a small padded leather door, which opened softly when the Indian inserted a credit card-shaped key into the lock. A green light flashed, and Ravi was faced with a well-lit staircase going downward, with deep steps carpeted in dark green pile.
From below came a voice with an Indian inflection. “Please come down, Mr. Spencer. I am of course expecting you.”
Ravi descended and shook hands with his host, Mr. Prenjit Kumar, whom he understood to be one of the best private gunsmiths in England. There was no one else in the basement workroom, but there were three definite work areas, each one illuminated by a bright overhead light, slung low over a surface that looked like dark red baize. The place was much more like a jeweler’s than an armament factory.
Mr. Kumar was a tall, slender Indian from Bengal. He wore dark blue pants and a white shirt beneath a dark blue sweater. Almost covering his entire wardrobe was a large green apron, like that of a freemason. He wore no turban and stared evenly at Ravi through slim wire spectacles. His eyes were almost black, and his expression was wary.
“You come highly recommended as a client,” he said. “And I understand you require a custom-made piece, a one-off, tailored to your precise requirements.”
“Correct,” replied Ravi. “A sniper rifle, which you’ll probably reconstruct from the Austrian SSG 69.”
Mr. Kumar smiled. “You like that old design?”
“I have never really used anything else.”
“No need, Mr. Spencer. It is a superb piece of engineering. No one has ever built a better rifle-and a lot of people have tried.”
Ravi nodded. And Mr. Kumar smiled. “I know better than to ask,” he said. “But perhaps you were in the SAS in another life.”
“Perhaps I was. But now I must be more careful. And I think our biggest problem may be that I need to dismantle the weapon and carry it in a briefcase, no larger than, say, twelve inches by eighteen. About four wide, maximum.”
“You are not thinking of trying to transport it through an airport, are you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You understand that I must be very guarded, Mr. Spencer. In certain quarters, my work is well-known, even though I would not engrave this rifle with a serial number. It would not be in either of our interests for you to be… er… apprehended.”
“I understand that, of course,” replied Ravi. “You have my assurance that the rifle will never leave the UK.”
“You understand the SSG 69 fires only one single highly accurate shot, although it has a five-round feed magazine?”
“I do, and despite the rather laborious reloading process, it can still achieve a shot-grouping of less than forty centimeters from eight hundred meters.”
“It’s nice to speak to someone who understands the excellence of the rifle. Do you have precise measurements written down for me?”
“I do. And I will require a silencer and a telescopic sight, 6 x 24 ZFM.”
“That will not be a problem, but I do anticipate, given the restrictions on storage and carrying, that your barrel cannot realistically be longer than, say, thirteen inches. Naturally, you have no choice but to go to a bolt action. You have no room for a gas chamber, or anything else to give you a repeater.”
“I anticipate firing only once.”
“Range?”
“No more than a hundred yards. And I must ask you, can you purchase a brand-new SSG 69 and then make the adjustments?”
“People in my trade, Mr. Spencer, can purchase anything.”
“Are you confident about a removable stock?”
“Yes. I am sure of that. But you will not want the regular Cycolac stock, which is rounded and firm and will take up too much room. I will cut and remove it and build you a slim screw-in stock made of aluminum that will fit into your case.”
“Speaking of which, I was hoping you would also make the case.”
“Of course. I will build the rifle first and then build the case around it. And I must ask you now, will you be firing from a moving position? Or will you be still? I ask because it is important to know whether you anticipate reloading and firing once more.”
“I’ll be still. But I do not think there will be time. One single head shot is probably all I will get. I prefer the head because it may be several seconds before anyone locates the bullet hole in the skull. A chest shot always tends to be messy and very obvious.”
“Yes, and under such circumstances, the silencer needs to be effective. That way nobody hears, nobody can trace the direction, and you may get one more try if you miss, eh?”
“Mr. Kumar, we are both in a precision business. If the rifle is perfectly constructed, I will only need one shot.”
“Very well, Mr. Spencer. You would like me to build you one bolt-action sniper rifle, reconstructed on the lines of the SSG 69 Austrian masterpiece of the 1980s. Barrel hardened under the regular cold-forging method. A 7.62mm bullet, muzzle velocity 860 meters per second. Lightweight. Short barrel. Malfunction risk: zero.”
“Correct. With case.”
“And, Mr. Spencer, the payment method? After I tell you the cost.”
“Tell me.”
“Including everything. The purchase of the original. The hours of highly skilled work. The new materials, the practice bullets, the specialized target bullets. I would not touch it for under twenty thousand pounds.”
“Cash,” said Ravi. “Ten thousand now. Ten more when I pick it up. How long?”
“Three weeks.”
“Too long. I need it by Saturday morning next week.”
Prenjit Kumar was silent. “Mr. Spencer, I would have to work on that rifle night and day, to the exclusion of all else. There may be some adjustment in the cost.”
Ravi, however, knew one thing for absolute certain: he knew the hawk-faced Indian before him understood that there were ten thousand pounds in his pocket. Ten thousand pounds that he did not get offered every day.
“There will be no adjustment,” he said. “The time you work is not relevant. You know what I want. You have stated a price and I have agreed. It matters not whether it takes you one week or one year. The price is the same.”
“And what if you should arrive and the weapon is not completed?”
“In that case, I would have to make other arrangements and use a different rifle. One that might expose me to greater risk. And you would be very disappointed, and perhaps even resentful, and then I would have to kill you.”
Kumar was well used to dealing with the thugs of the international arms-dealing world, the occasional terrorist, and regular mercenaries. But the man standing before him was like no one he had ever met. To his dark eyes, Ravi was calm but menacing, confident but careful, and there was a coldness about him that had alarm bells ringing in the Indian gunsmith’s head.
“Your rifle will be ready, Mr. Spencer,” he said.
“Twenty thousand?”
“Twenty thousand,” he repeated. “And I am assuming you will want bullets that will explode on impact, making survival from a head shot impossible.”
“Yes,” said Ravi. “Those will do very well.” He reached into the right inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out an envelope which contained two hundred £50 notes. He handed it to Kumar, who acknowledged the down payment with a smile and a respectful nod of his head. He did not count the banknotes.
Kumar escorted him to the front door, the two men shook hands, but before he left, Ravi had one last request.
“Kumar,” he said, “I would also like you to provide me with a pistol. Standard issue, but lightweight and terminally deadly with one shot.”
“That will not be a problem,” the Indian replied. “I’ll find you something, and there will be no further charge.”
The Hamas C-in-C smiled at this confirmation that £20,000 had indeed proved ample payment. And he climbed behind the wheel of the Audi and headed out of the driveway. Hardly glancing to the left or right, he and Shakira drove straight back to the Syrian embassy, from which he would scarcely venture during the coming week.
Meanwhile, news of General Rashood’s sudden appearance in Holyhead flashed through the intelligence networks. New Scotland Yard in London, while anxious not to make a public manhunt out of it, pressed all the buttons to ensure that the archterrorist would not find it easy to leave the country.
The photograph was circulated to all seaports and airports. Serving officers and men from 22 SAS who had known Major Ray Kerman were seconded in teams of six to check passengers at every port of entry or exit in the country. They were detailed to find him at any cost, and not to allow him to slip through the net.
The police, customs officials, and security guards had their leaves canceled in the areas where General Rashood might show up. Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, and Manchester airports looked like military strongholds. The English Channel seaports were steel-ringed with military personnel and armed police who boarded the ferries, searched the freighters, and checked out private yachts.
Even the smaller airports, Bristol, Bournemouth, Southampton, New-castle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Prestwick, were inundated with police and antiterrorist officers. Most of the airport and seaport staff had no idea why there was this sudden red alert. But the atmosphere was so serious, everyone was happy to cooperate. Flights were delayed, ships were held up, and no one even caught a sniff of General and Mrs. Rashood.
This was mostly because they never again left the Syrian embassy for the first five days of their visit. They were officially on Syrian soil, even though it was in Belgrave Square, and all of those usual diplomatic taboos were strictly observed at the Court of St. James. The London police did not harass the embassies, because retaliation was too easy: give the Syrians a hard time in London, and the next thing would be some kind of a witchhunt at the British embassy in north Damascus.
Back in the USA, Lt. Commander Ramshawe was helpless. There was nothing the Americans could do except offer assistance if required. The Hamas military boss and his wife were in hiding somewhere in the UK, and no one knew any more. And with each passing day, Arnold and Kathy were one step closer to the assassination attempt Jimmy Ramshawe was certain would happen.
All week there was only one break. At 0630 (local) on Tuesday morning, July 24, the Royal Navy ops room at the Gibraltar Station detected the Iranian Kilo moving slowly through the Strait, a hundred feet below the surface. They picked her up again several hours later, snorkeling in the narrow seaway, and reported it back to COMSUBLANT.
Again there was nothing anyone could do. The Iranians, despite some hefty breaches of international law, were still entitled to send their navy anywhere they wished on the high seas, just so long as the Kilo did not open fire on anyone. In turn, for a Western power to attempt to sink the Iranians would have been a flagrant act of war, which no one felt like committing. At least not in the Mediterranean.
Jimmy Ramshawe, in receipt of the signal that pinpointed the Kilo, felt nothing but a sense of total frustration. The submarine had turned up where he said it would turn up, a bit late, but it was a long voyage from the south coast of Ireland. He was frankly astounded that his early diagnosis of the plot to kill the admiral was not now universally accepted. Of course the Kilo had dropped off General Rashood in County Cork, and of course Rashood was now in England with Carla Martin, awaiting the arrival of Arnold and Kathy.
He accepted the difficulty of arresting the terrorist couple, of finding them, and, with mounting anxiety, he once more called the admiral. And Arnold, for the first time, seemed to accept that Jimmy might very well be on to something. But he was not being ruled by a goddamned towelhead, nossir. Not even one as lethally dangerous as Ravi Rashood.
“When you have outstanding security, provided by the President of the United States of America, you gotta trust your guys,” he growled.
Jimmy, slipping into a broad Australian outback accent, retorted, “Kinda like JFK and Ronald Reagan.”
“No, not like them. They were both on public duty; JFK was in a motorcade, Ronnie was outside a hotel with a crowd of people waiting. I’m an unknown former U.S. Naval officer on a private visit with my wife. Hardly anyone will know I’m there.”
“I can think of at least two bastards who will know: that bloody barmaid, and her reptile husband who went missing from 22 SAS. For Christ’s sake be careful. That’s all I can say.”
The wide thoroughfare of Piccadilly was gridlocked, all the way from the Wellington Arch at the western end of Green Park to Piccadilly Circus. The morning rush hour was under way, and it was quicker to walk than to take a bus or a taxi.
General Rashood stood among the fast-moving crowd on the corner of Dover Street, diagonally across from the Ritz Hotel. Mick Barton would not have recognized him. He was wearing a slim blond wig, a trimmed moustache and goatee beard, and heavy spectacles, with jeans, a white T-shirt, and sneakers. No jacket. He carried a briefcase.
Right now he was trying to get his bearings, assessing the distance across the yellow-painted lines of the junction into Arlington Street, to the entrance of the hotel. He stood there for only three minutes and then turned and walked through glass-paneled swing doors into the glum reception area of a London office block.
The entrance was sited amid a line of shops that curled around the south side of the block, from the Post Office on Dover Street, briefly along Piccadilly itself, and then around into Albemarle Street. The offices were situated on all six floors above the shops. Ever since the recent property collapse in London, there had been vacancies not only in this building, but in most others.
Ravi had stumbled into a buyers’ market. He wished only to rent, but if necessary he would purchase a leasehold. In this financial climate, however, a leasehold would most certainly not be necessary. Renting would be just fine, at a price way too high for a small space, but not ruinous.
He walked up to the doorman and requested the office manager. “I did call this morning,” he said. “ Haakon Fretheim, Finland Farms Marketing Board.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Ravi was led up to a second-floor office fronting on Piccadilly. The rental agent was a bespectacled thirtyish lady wearing a blue suit and a Sotheby’s International name tag-Judith Birchell.
She confirmed to Ravi that there were seven available suites of offices at present, but the one she had mentioned on the phone, the single room with reception annex, was probably sufficient for one accountant and a secretary.
“It’s on the fourth floor, right above here,” she said. “Views directly across to the Ritz and St. James’s Street… let’s go up and take a look.”
Ravi followed her out to the hall, and they took the elevator two floors higher. There were several doors off the central area, two of which were open with sounds of activity from within. Two others had lights on, and the last one required a key to gain entry.
Judith showed Ravi into a carpeted office with a bright south-facing window. Ravi checked the catch and decided not to request permission to open it. There was a Venetian blind, which obviously could be lowered, and a desk and chair, which the agent said came with the rental, the last tenants having left the furniture and a rent debt for several hundred pounds.
“They left in a bit of a hurry,” she said. “They’d been gone more than a week before we realized they weren’t coming back.”
Ravi chuckled. “What rent were they paying?”
“A little over three thousand a month,” she replied. “But there’s been a rate cut since then. This is yours for twenty-two hundred, first and last deposit, on the six-month lease you mentioned.”
“Can I have it right away?”
“Oh, certainly. This building has a resident cleaning staff. The whole place has been vacuumed, carpets steam-cleaned, and the desk cleared out. The phones are connected, there’s central Internet, and the bathroom is right across the hall. Right next to it is the incinerator. You may dump the dry contents of your wastebasket down there, just paper and unwanted documents, not kitchen waste.
“If you leave the deposit, I’ll give you two keys, and one for the front door. The doormen are on duty from 7 A.M. until 10 P.M. Don and Reggie. You’ll find them extremely helpful.”
“That will be excellent,” said Ravi, taking one more look through the window, straight at the curved dark blue- and gold-trimmed awning above the main entrance to the Ritz Hotel. “This will do very nicely indeed.”
“It’s a standard rental agreement, same for everyone. You can sign it in my office, subject to the references I mentioned, plus a bank statement, and a passport if you’re not a British national.”
They returned to the second floor and Ravi produced a nicely forged reference from the Egyptian embassy confirming that they had dealt many times with Mr. Fretheim concerning Finnish trade agreements, and they knew him to be trustworthy and aboveboard. Judith photocopied his equally well-forged Finnish passport, and glanced at the bank account of the Syrian ambassador, upon which the name had been changed and copied to read Haakon Fretheim, of 23 Ennismore Gardens, London SW7.
It showed a current balance of £18,346 in credit, and Ravi, with a remarkable display of affluence, paid Judith a total of three months’ rent with an American Express card issued originally to the military attaché in the Jordanian embassy in Paris.
The agent handed over two office keys and told him to collect front-door keys from Reggie, who was working the morning shift today. “I’ll call him before you get down there,” she said. “I expect I’ll see you around.”
Ravi shook hands with Judith Birchell and made his way downstairs. He stopped for a chat with Reggie the doorman and exited through the glass-paneled doors, back to the corner of Dover Street. He stepped forward and looked up to the window of his new office. He moved to stand directly below it and then looked at the angle diagonally across to the main entrance of the Ritz.
When the traffic light at the top of Arlington Street turned red, he moved swiftly across the central no-parking zone, corner to corner, pacing the precise distance from the outer wall of his office to the six white stone steps that led up to the polished mahogany revolving door of the hotel.
The traffic light had halted the one-way line of vehicles heading directly out of Arlington Street, across Piccadilly and north up Dover Street. But the onrushing line of cars and taxis running toward central London was up and moving faster than Ravi was walking, and he was hustled along by a couple of loud blasts on the horn from cab drivers. He did not look up.
Instead, he kept walking, and kept counting, until he reached the hotel steps: fifty-four yards, add six for the height of his office building, and he was looking at a shot, from sixty yards out, at an angle of fifteen degrees from the horizontal of his office outer wall. That, he considered, would be a breeze for the powerful Austrian sniper rifle with its proven needle-point accuracy from almost a half mile.
Quickly he took stock of the Ritz entrance-the curved brass rails down either side of the steps, the two curly, potted evergreens, like sentries left and right of the steps, the rounded archway of the awning. And directly in the front of the hotel, the no-waiting area, entirely controlled by the top-hatted doormen, moving the guests along, arrivals and departures, with the authority of Metropolitan policemen.
Ravi did not catch the eye of either doorman. Instead, he walked quickly past and kept going for another hundred yards until he reached the pub on the corner of Bennet and Arlington, the Blue Posts, with its cheerful line of small outside tables, none of them occupied.
Ravi sat down and waited for a few minutes until a waiter came out and agreed to bring him orange juice and coffee. And there England ’s most wanted man, heavily disguised as a native of Finland, sat and quietly watched the comings and goings at the Ritz Hotel, acquainting himself with the patterns of the traffic and the people. He was already concerned that this was not a huge area, but one that could easily be swamped by security men.
Even more irritating was the little traffic queue that formed at the top of Arlington Street right outside the main door into the Ritz. A tall vehicle waiting in there could obscure his shot, although he imagined the U.S. embassy car, which would undoubtedly be awaiting the admiral, would already be ensconced in the prime spot at the base of the six white steps.
After an hour, he paid and walked back across Piccadilly to Dover Street and into his new quarters.
“Hello, sir. Back already?” said Reggie.
“Just delivering some of my stationery,” replied Ravi. “I’ll take the elevator.”
Inside his office, Ravi moved the chair to the front of the window. Then he dropped the Venetian blind, bent one of the lower laths downward, and peered across to the Ritz entrance. Five times in the next fifteen minutes, he made notes of a high-sided vehicle driving past the hotel. Two of them parked outside in traffic for between thirty-three and thirty-nine seconds, two drove straight past without coming to a halt, and one was so far over to the right that it made no difference whether it stopped or not.
Only one of the five would have caused him a problem, which the Hamas general decided was a risk with which he would have to live. Once more he exited his new office building, and this time he turned right, walking the length of Picadilly, then crossing, via the Hyde Park Corner tube station, the gigantic road junction at the end of Grosvenor Place.
He strolled into Belgrave Square on an easy stride, pleased with his morning’s work, but full of regret that he dare not take Shakira out this evening to some of his old London haunts-the ones that had decorated his young life, a thousand years ago, when he had never even heard of Hamas, nor the pious self-righteous philosophies which accompany that glowering terrorist organization.
He thought of the Grenadier, just around the corner in Grosvenor Crescent Mews; he thought of the Bunch of Grapes in Knightsbridge, where almost every wealthy young Catholic girl in London could be found after Sunday morning Mass at Brompton Oratory; and he thought of the Scarsdale Arms, and the Windsor Castle, and the Italian restaurants in Fulham Road and King’s Road. So many places where he had once been made welcome, with a credit card provided by his father. But these places would now be like a minefield, still populated, no doubt, by people who might very well recognize him.
With the most profound regret, Ravi finally realized that he was an outlaw in a once-friendly city, an outcast in his own land, an enemy of the people. And at that moment, if he could have turned the clock back and been allowed to do things differently, he would most certainly have done so. Except for Shakira. Always Shakira. Surely, he thought, no man had ever lived with a greater, more perplexing conundrum.
Greater love hath no man than this, muttered Ravi, adjusting the Gospel of Saint John, that he would lay down his country for his wife.
Grinning at the dexterity of his own words, he walked calmly up the steps to the Syrian embassy and rang the bell, as arranged. He was ever the visitor, never a resident. And the lady for whom he had laid down his country welcomed him as if he had been away for six months rather than four hours.
For Shakira, the presence of her husband was the only solace for the long lonely hours she spent in the gilded splendor of the embassy. Occasionally she would be offered lunch or perhaps tea with a visiting Arab sheik, and they would speak politely about the political situation in the Middle East. But on each of the next two days, Ravi would leave in the morning and go to his office, always acquainting himself with fellow tenants if possible, and especially with Don and Reggie the doormen.
He normally lunched at the embassy, but in the afternoons he made another visit to Dover Street, and on Friday evening he was there yet again at 8 P.M., leaving at 9:30, carrying his briefcase, still dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, still wearing his blond wig, moustache, and goatee. Still speaking in what he guessed, wrongly, was a Finnish accent, but in truth sounded more like Trinidad than Helsinki.
Nonetheless, the farm marketing executive from Northern Europe, Haakon Fretheim, quickly became a familiar figure in the building, perceived as a busy, industrious, and courteous gentleman who worked erratic hours for an accountant.
Ravi drove out to the workshops of Prenjit Kumar alone. He parked the car in the same spot and was led down to the basement by the gunsmith himself. And there, lying open on the red baize beneath the light, was a hand-tooled brown leather case containing all the parts of an Austrian SSG 69 sniper rifle, each one set into precision grooves carved into a black velvet interior.
The barrel rested in its own groove, above the main firing section, which contained the bolt and the magazine, plus the trigger and guard. The silencer also had its own section, around which were set the light metal components which would form the newly designed stock, made specifically to fit General Rashood’s shoulder and arm length. Along the bottom part of the interior were spaces for six of the exploding bullets, and the gunsights.
“Problems?” asked Ravi.
“None,” replied Kumar, “except that I have had no sleep for a week.”
“Then you have earned your money,” he said. “Perhaps you would assemble the rifle and then I’ll dismantle it and put it together myself.”
“Of course,” replied the Bengali gunsmith. “And I hope you agree, this is the most beautiful object, a work of art. Very light and very deadly.”
He removed the main firing section from the case and picked up the barrel carefully, as if he were handling precious gems. Expertly he screwed the barrel into place, and then clipped in the sights.
He took out the metal plate that screwed into the neck behind the trigger guard, and then took two silver struts for the stock and screwed each one into place, using just his fingers. The top one went out straight, perpendicular. The second was set at more of an angle, but finished level at the end. Then he took the cast-bronze base of the stock, made to fit Ravi ’s shoulder precisely, and clipped it onto the struts, forming the outline shape of a rifle stock, but without the bulk. Ravi looked on approvingly.
Above the magazine there were two clips, set five inches apart. To these Kumar attached the telescopic sight, sliding it into place and locking it securely. Finally he screwed the silencer into the barrel. And then he held the rifle at arm’s length and said, admiringly, “Magnificent, hah?”
Ravi took it from him and held it against his shoulder, staring into the telescopic sight, straight at the crosshairs. Then he relaxed and held the rifle in the palms of both hands, away from his body, as if weighing it, balancing it. During his years in the SAS, this weapon, or one precisely like it, had been like an old friend-super accurate, super quiet, and super reliable, all the qualities a professional sniper requires.
This SSG looked different now. But it felt the same, a little lighter, but with the same familiar well-balanced deadliness about it.
“Can we try it?” he asked.
“Certainly,” said Kumar. “Follow me. I’ll bring a half dozen practice bullets.” He walked to a door set halfway along the exterior wall, opened it, and beckoned Ravi through. The corridor was well lit, and they walked maybe twenty yards to an indoor shooting range-a long dark tunnel, lit only at the far end, where a large target had been set on an easel. There were wires attached to the target, which was a twelve-inch-wide bull’s-eye. In front of Ravi just below shoulder level was a countertop on which to lean.
“You have five bullets,” said Kumar. “Let’s see how the rifle suits you.”
Ravi leaned forward and, pushing the specially designed safety catch, freed up the rifle to fire. He aimed carefully, placing the crosshairs right across the red heart of the target. He squeezed the trigger, but the target was fifty yards away and it was difficult to see the result of his marksmanship.
In fact, Ravi took no notice of his success or failure. He just fired all five, and then signaled for Mr. Kumar to pull up the target for inspection. The Indian wound it in with a small wheel, exactly the same as in a fairground, but he raised his eyebrows when he checked the piece of cardboard.
All five bullets had gone through virtually the same hole. To the left, there was a very slight bulge, maybe an eighth of an inch, and at the bottom there was another minuscule variance. None of the five shots had strayed beyond the basic red circle of the bull.
“Very nice, Mr. Spencer. Very nice indeed. It’s a privilege to be in the company of a master.”
“Sentiments I share,” replied Ravi. “This is an outstanding rifle, and I thank you.”
Together they walked back into the main workshop, and Ravi carefully dismantled the weapon, placing each piece into its allotted slot in the new case. He took his time and then clipped the case shut. He handed over a large brown envelope that contained the balance of the money, again two hundred £50 notes. And again, Prenjit Kumar did not count it.
This omission was noted by Ravi, who perfectly understood that there had been no necessity to check the cash for the down payment last week, since he was scheduled to return. This, however, was different. After today, Ravi would probably never see the gunsmith again, and he looked up and said, “You don’t want to count it?”
The Bengali smiled. “Of course not,” he replied. “I know when I am in the presence of a gentleman.”
And then he presented Ravi with a heavy cardboard box, around five inches square and three deep. “There’s thirty practice bullets in here,” he said. “You will want to adjust the sights for perfect vision from the precise distance of your target. It may take a while, of trial and error, so I have given you plenty of ammunition. Here also are three targets that may be useful.”
General Rashood smiled and thanked him. He offered his hand and said quietly, “Mr. Kumar, there are only five people in the world who know that you have made this rifle for me. Two of them you know, and all of them I know. Should anyone discover our secret, all four of us will know that you have been indiscreet. I am sure you understand what the penalty would be.”
“Mr. Spencer,” he replied, “my own risk is equally great. There will be no indiscretions, I assure you.”
Before he led Ravi up the green-carpeted stairs to the front door, he presented him with one further item, wrapped in a black velvet bag. “This is the pistol you requested. It’s a new Austrian Glock 17 9mm. The safety catch comes off when the trigger is pressed. It will not discharge if you drop it. And it will not let you down.”
Once more they shook hands, and the master terrorist softly said good-bye to the gunsmith from Bengal.
He drove back to the embassy in a thoughtful mood, aware that this was Saturday and of how much he longed to take Shakira out for the evening, perhaps the theatre, and then dinner at the Ivy where the “stars” are apt to gather after a show. Ravi did not have a shred of time for self-obsessed play-actors or any other kind of celebrities, but Shakira would have loved it. Anyway, he doubted that he could have secured a table.
And a much bigger “anyway” was that the entire thing was out of the question. One recognition, by anyone from his former life, and he’d either have to kill them or flee the country. So once more he faced up to a long waiting day at the embassy. Aside from the boredom, he was, however, eternally grateful for the perfection of the cover he enjoyed behind the ramparts of No. 8 Belgrave Square.
Up in their bedroom, he presented Shakira with the pistol, which Kumar had thoughtfully loaded, and Shakira did precisely as she was told and placed it in her large handbag. “You will carry that wherever you go,” he told her. “We have many enemies.”
They had lunch at the embassy, where the cooks were under orders always to produce food that reminded the ambassador of the desert and the culture of the northern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Thus lunch when it arrived was chicken kebabs, rice, houmus, and salad.
They sipped fruit juice and then sat in the opulent rear drawing room. They read the newspapers, and Ravi watched the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, won for the umpteenth time by the Irish with a superb dark bay colt sired by the Coolmore-based champion stallion, Galileo.
Shakira, who had been paying scant attention, suddenly heard the word “Coolmore” and almost jumped out of her chair. “I’ve been there!” she exclaimed.
“Where? Ascot?” asked Ravi.
“No, Coolmore,” she said. “I visited it while I was waiting for you in Ireland.”
“Did you see the great Galileo? That horse who just won was his son.”
“Well, I didn’t actually go in, but I saw the big iron gates, and I saw all the green countryside where the horses live. It’s in Tipperary.”
Ravi, of course, like anyone with the remotest knowledge of horse racing, knew all about Coolmore. He grinned at Shakira and asked, “How on earth did you find your way down there?”
“I met a man in the hotel in Dublin who owned a filly foal. I think she was born there,” she replied, accurately. “And it was very important to him that her brother, called Easter Rebel, would win the Irish Stakes or something.”
“The what?”
“The Irish something. I can’t remember. But it mattered to him.”
“That would have been the first week in July. It was probably the Irish Derby.”
“ Derby, that’s it. He wanted Easter Rebel to win the Irish Derby.”
“And did he?”
“I forgot to find out.”
Ravi laughed. “I’m not sure you’ve mastered an in-depth appreciation of horse racing,” he said. “Otherwise, you’d have remembered to find out what happened to Easter Rebel.”
“I’ll tell you what I do remember,” she retorted. “Easter Rebel was also the son of that telescope man-what’s his name, Galileo.”
“Was he? Well, you ought to know whether the Rebel won and made your new friend rich.”
“How can I find out?”
“I’ll do that for you. If I can use that laptop computer over there on the sideboard.”
Ravi walked over and opened it. He searched with Google and found a site for the Racing Post. Then he tapped in the name “Easter Rebel” and, nine seconds later, learned that the colt had not won the Irish Derby, but had been beaten by a head in a photo finish.
“Just lost,” he told Shakira. And he made a signal with his right hand, placing his index finger about a quarter of an inch above his thumb. “That much,” he added.
“Poor Mr. O’Donnell will be very sad,” she said.
“I assure you he won’t,” said Ravi. “I expect he’s going to sell his filly, and most breeders would be happy going through the ring with a sister to a colt beaten by a head in the Irish Derby. Don’t feel sorry for him.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Was his filly also by Galileo?”
“Can’t remember,” she said absently, leafing through her fashion magazine.
Life and death for Mr. O’Donnell, total lack of interest by Shakira. Ravi smiled and thought of his father, the man the newspapers always referred to as the “shipping tycoon and racehorse breeder.”
He missed seeing his family but was certain that they now knew what he had done and what disgrace he had brought upon them all. Treason, mutiny, murder. My God! He hardly dared to think about it.
Toward the end of the afternoon, Ravi retired to his embassy suite, leaving Shakira to watch a sitcom on the television. He opened the leather case and started counting. Carefully he took out the sections of the rifle, assembling them into the finely engineered finished product.
Then he started his count again, disassembled the weapon, and placed the pieces back in the case. It had taken him twenty-eight seconds to put it together and twenty-four seconds to take it apart. The twenty-eight did not matter, but the twenty-four was critical and it was too long. From the moment he fired that lethal 7.62mm shell at the admiral’s unprotected head, every second counted. Because right then he would be in the critical part of the operation, the getaway.
Twenty-four seconds was almost a half minute. There would be, he knew, American Secret Service agents, London police security, and possibly military personnel swarming outside the Ritz. If they had even an inkling of where the bullet had come from, they would be across Piccadilly in fifteen seconds and into the building where his office was situated. If they were through those glass doors before he was out, he’d be trapped, overwhelmed, and headed for the gallows on charges of murder and high treason against Her Majesty’s forces.
That twenty-four seconds had to be reduced, and if it couldn’t, he might have to abort the mission. But Ravi knew it could. Over and over, he assembled the rifle and then disassembled it. For almost two hours he practiced, finally realizing that the principal solutions to the operation were the swift removal of the telescopic sight and the level of tightness on the wide silver-plated finger screw which attached the stock to the neck.
After another hour, he could disassemble that sniper rifle in eighteen seconds. Within two hours, he had it down to twelve, and those twelve seconds would be all he could afford while packing the rifle away and bolting down the stairs to the freedom of Dover Street.
Early that evening, before dinner with the ambassador, Ravi went shopping alone. He walked through to Knightsbridge and wandered into Harrods, to the busy ground-floor men’s department where once he had shopped with his mother, purchasing a new tweed jacket for school. Today he wanted a new dark gray suit, a blazer, a few shirts, a couple of ties, boxer shorts, socks, and shoes.
It took him forty-five minutes to punch a serious hole in £2,500, and he paid with his Amex card, which would eventually be billed to the government of Jordan via the Paris embassy. He then made his way to men’s sporting goods and purchased a loose-fitting tracksuit and a medium-sized athlete’s duffel bag.
Casting aside the green Harrods plastic shopping bags, he folded his purchases neatly into the sports bag and walked back to the embassy via Sloane Street and Cadogan Place. He and Shakira dined with the ambassador that evening, in company with two visiting Saudi sheiks.
The following morning, Sunday, July 29, the day before Admiral and Mrs. Morgan were due to board the London flight from Washington, D.C., Ravi summoned the Audi from the Motcombe Street garage and asked one of the embassy staff to fill the tank, because he and Shakira were going on a journey of almost 150 miles.
They left at around 11 A.M., both dressed casually in jeans and sneakers, Shakira wearing a blue shirt and denim jacket, Ravi in his black T-shirt and suede jacket. This was his Irish killing gear, although he did not anticipate murdering anyone today. Indeed, he did not expect to meet, or speak to, one other member of the human race all day.
They once more drove west, but not on the gloomy old A-4 under the Chiswick flyover. This time they sped straight over the top and out onto the wide, fast M-4 motorway. They drove past Heathrow and proceeded for almost an hour to where the landscape begins to rise into the foothills of the Berkshire Downs.
They left the M-4 at Junction 13 and headed north up the A-34 toward Oxford, finally branching left to the switchback road that leads to the village of West Ilsley. This is land where all villages seem to lie in the folds in the Downs, invisible until you are actually in them.
Ravi remembered this country well. He had been out here many times with his father, to look at racehorses being worked, to visit his father’s two trainers. In his mind, he recalled the majestic sweep of the Berkshire and Oxfordshire “prairies,” miles and miles of undulating land where wheat and barley are grown, the endless fields split only by narrow roads and the horse-training gallops.
But most of all, he remembered the long woods, big but narrow growths of trees set high on the summits. In particular, he recalled those above the horse-racing village of Lambourn. He had seen nothing like it, anywhere in the world, these stark stands of high trees, sometimes four hundred yards long and rarely more than a hundred yards deep, like great, dark Medieval castles ranged along the heights.
Ravi did not know precisely where he was going, but he would know it when he saw it. And he drove through West Ilsley and on through the prairies, through literally square miles of ripening wheat and barley, up through the high village of Farnborough, and then fast down the three-mile-long hill to the town of Wantage, birthplace of King Alfred the Great and the largest town in the fabled Vale of the White Horse.
From here, he drove along the road that leads to the 374-foot chalk carving of the white horse, which has peered across the valley at Uffington for more than two thousand years. Ravi, however, swerved off up the hill to the sensational view of the Lambourn Downs, right across the rolling land, to the castles he had come for, the long woods. And there they were, ranged before him, forbidding, even in the bright summer sunlight. The one closest to him stood high above one of the most important jump-racing stables in the world, that of the maestro Nicky Henderson, godson of the late Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.
Like all of the other five long woods, this one was shadowed, several hundred yards in length, and only a hundred yards wide maximum. It did, however, unlike the others, lack privacy, because the road down to Lambourn village ran hard beside it.
Ravi stopped the car and stared out toward the west. High on the Downs to the left, there was the wood that runs close to the gallops used by many trainers. Directly in front, maybe a mile away, were two high woods situated way up on the land above Kingston Warren. But down below, at the far end of the hundreds of acres belonging to Henry Candy and his family, there was a long wood set in a shallow valley, completely out of view of the trainer’s house.
This was a very lonely spot, on the edge of the border country between Henderson and Candy, neither of whom was in any way acquainted with the Hamas commander in chief. It was absolutely perfect for a quiet spell of fine-tuning for a planned assassination.
Ravi drove down from the hills and parked the Audi. He took out the brown leather case and left Shakira in the passenger seat. He walked to the end of the wood, studied the landscape for a few minutes, then climbed the gate and entered the deserted wood. It was just one o’clock on this Sunday, lunchtime. Ravi remembered quite enough about England to know that this was a sacred time for men who work seven days a week throughout the racing season. He did not expect to be disturbed.
First he walked into the center of the trees, and then chose his “range.” He used a small drawing pin to fix one of Mr. Kumar’s targets to the tall trunk of an ancient oak, two feet off the ground, giving him a downward angle. Then he walked back for sixty paces.
He assembled his rifle, fitted the silencer, and slid a practice bullet into the breech. He stared through the telescopic sight and then made two small adjustments on the screws that varied the crosshairs. There was nowhere to rest the weapon, which there would be in his office, so he leaned on a tree to steady his aim, and squeezed the trigger. The sound was hardly discernible, and, still holding the rifle, Ravi walked the hundred paces to the target and saw that the bullet had smashed into it around three inches to the left of center.
He walked back and once more adjusted the crosshairs. Then he fired again, and again, and again. When he walked back to the target, he could see that he was still slightly left. Once more he made the slight adjustment. Too far. Three more bullets hit home a fraction to the right. They were well grouped, but right.
The operation took another twenty minutes of painstaking correcting and recorrecting, back and forth in this gloomy private firing range, undisturbed, unseen, and all alone.
Finally he had the range and the accuracy. He took down the two battered targets and fixed his last new one to the tree. Again he walked back, reached his firing mark, leaned on the tree, aimed, and fired. This time he required only one shot.
He walked back to the target, which was pristine save for one small round hole, 7.62mm across, straight through the dead center of the bull’s-eye. The next time he fired the SSG, the bullet would smash straight through Arnold Morgan’s skull, metal splitting the bone, and then blowing the great man’s brains out. Instant death. Ravi was certain that he could not miss.
Slowly he dismantled the rifle and, with the utmost care, placed it back in its case and clipped it shut. That, he decided, was a good day’s work. The long wood at the end of Henry Candy’s one-mile gallop would keep the secret well, and he sincerely hoped Mr. Kumar would do the same.