The shuddering blast which knocked down the entire northeastern end of Bab Touma Street caused newspaper editors and television stations to work most of the night. Reporters swarmed around the site of the bombing and quickly realized that many neighboring houses and apartments were either crumbling or dangerously shaken on their foundations.
Miraculously, while there were several people injured in adjoining houses from falling debris and collapsed floors, there were no deaths, except for Abdul Khan, who was known to have been in the house where the bomb went off, but whose body had not yet been recovered.
Ironically, the bodies of the two murdered guards were currently buried under the rubble that had cascaded into the street when the blast detonated outward from the house.
The front-page headline in the English-language Syria Times read:
MIDNIGHT BOMB BLAST ROCKS OLD CITY STREET Homes destroyed. One dead. Many injured. Police mystified.
Beneath this was a photo taken at the scene, in the dark, showing the lights of the police cars and ambulances illuminating the pile of rubble. The caption read: CHAOS ON BAB TOUMA AS OFFICIALS SEARCH FOR BODIES.
On the eight o’clock morning news broadcast, on Syria 2, the reporter stated, “Among those saved and admitted to hospital was Mrs. Shakira Rashood, who was believed to have been in the house where the blast went off. She survived mostly because she was in her kitchen, downstairs on the basement level, and that lower floor had held up while the rest of the house was blown sky-high.
“Mrs. Rashood’s half-brother, Mr. Abdul Khan, was also in the house and police say there is no possibility he could have survived. Early this morning, she was too upset to make a statement, but is expected to leave hospital with her husband, Mr. Ravi Rashood, sometime this morning.”
Jerry, the Mossad field agent, watching the broadcast at his home in the Saahat ash-Shuhada area (Martyr’s Square), was astounded. His apartment was in the far end of the Old City from Bab Touma, but he had heard the blast. When he moved in to clear out the hit team’s apartment, he had stayed west of the devastated area, keeping to the dark side streets.
He could not believe that proven special operators like Ben Joel and John Rabin could possibly have made such a mistake. The entire plan, he knew, had been to wait and watch for the Rashoods’ return.
He accepted that Shakira was alive. The journalists must have picked up her name from the hospital register. But General Ravi? How could that possibly have happened? The guys must have seen him enter the building. Otherwise they would not have detonated the bomb.
Jerry was mystified, like the police. But he walked out into the square and called the office in the Hada Dafna Building on King Saul Boulevard, reporting what the Damascus news services were saying. The Mossad chiefs had not yet seen the Syrian newspaper, nor had they heard the broadcast, but they knew Ben Joel and the team were safely home and had reported in during the small hours, mission accomplished.
As screw-ups go, considered Jerry, this one was well on its way.
At 11 o’clock that Wednesday morning, February 8, Ravi and Shakira walked out of the hospital toward a waiting taxi. They were greeted by a scrum of reporters and photographers, yelling questions… how did you escape?… do you have any idea who could have done this?… Shakira! Shakira!… this way. Mr. Rashood! Did you save your wife’s life?
This was a terrorist commander’s nightmare. Personal publicity, photographs, questions. But he faced the media with equanimity. “Yes, I am the husband of Shakira Rashood… no, we did not leave the restaurant together… my wife came home with her stepbrother to prepare coffee and pastries… twenty minutes later I followed with Abdul’s wife, Rudy. Yes, of course, both women are extremely upset.”
In answer to the question Mr. Rashood, do you think someone was trying to kill you? he replied, “I doubt it. This was either a complete accident, or a badly mistaken identity.”
For several hours, this innocuous statement held good. Ravi and Shakira moved, temporarily, into the Barada Hotel, on Said al-Jabri Avenue. But as the afternoon wore on, the police were wrestling with one problem: this was one hell of a bomb-who the hell detonated it, and why?
It was plainly not some Molotov cocktail put together by a disparate group of jihadists. This was a major, professional weapon, assembled by an expert, and somehow smuggled into that house on Bab Touma and detonated within minutes of Shakira and Abdul’s return.
This was no accident. This was a plan, which may have gone wrong, but was nevertheless a premeditated action. There was not the slightest sign that it was a suicide bomb. In the opinion of the Damascus Police Department, this bomb had been detonated by a remote-control device and it was meant to kill Mr. Rashood, and perhaps his wife. The trouble was, no one knew who the devil Mr. Rashood was.
And while the Syrian police pondered the mystery, the Hamas War Council moved with lightning speed. They sent a car and two jihadist warriors into Damascus from an outpost they maintained in the southern border city of Der’a and scooped up General Ravi and his wife with military efficiency.
They headed back south and crossed the border into Jordan, providing for their esteemed guests passports upon which the ink was barely dry. They kept going south for another fifty miles until they reached the capital city, Amman, where the Rashoods checked into the Rhum Continental Hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Anwar Mehadi, in accordance with their passports. The men from Hamas had, in fact, moved so fast that Mr. and Mrs. Rashood had vanished from the face of the earth.
Which left the Syrian police, and the media, in something of a quandary. Senior law-enforcement officials understood perfectly well that the bomb had been executed with great precision. They also believed someone wanted to kill, at least, Ravi Rashood very badly.
But like the journalists, they had no idea who he was and why he might have such determined, maybe fanatical, enemies. He had, apparently, lived in Damascus for a few years now, and there had never been one hint of trouble before.
By 1900 something had, however, become clear. The police not only had no idea who he was, they also had no idea where he was. They posted men at the airport and at the train station and the bus station. They checked out the Barada Hotel, but he had very obviously left.
As for the Mossad, they were following events blow by blow through the guile of Jerry, who, not wanting to call attention to himself, could do no more than follow events through the television and radio news and the afternoon newspapers.
Thus the Mossad, in the split second of the midnight blast, had lost all of their advantages. So far as they were concerned, General Rashood was as elusive as ever. They no longer had an address for him, they no longer knew even the country he was in, and they no longer knew under what name he was traveling.
BOMB SURVIVOR AND HUSBAND VANISH, confirmed the Syria Times. “Jesus Christ,” said Jerry.
It took another twenty-four hours before journalists cottoned on to the fact that this Ravi Rashood and his wife might well have had sinister connections. The principal clue came when the bodies of the two guards were found. They did not have the AKs with them, since Abraham had “confiscated” those. But they both had spare ammunition clips, and neighbors stated there had often been armed guards in front of the house. On Thursday evening, the police confirmed that both men had been knifed through the heart, which suggested that the bombers had first unloaded the sentries.
Whichever way anyone looked at it, this was a military-style hit, one that had only narrowly missed succeeding. And there were two outstanding questions that badly needed answering-who was Ravi Rashood, and who wanted him dead?
The trouble in Damascus was that anyone who actually knew who he was, most definitely was not divulging anything. And the only other person in the city who knew the identity of the assassins was Jerry.
Which left the media to speculate, blindly. Was it a gangland killing concerned with drugs? Was Rashood a terrorist the West wanted removed? Had he been attacked by Muslim extremists for whatever reason? Or was this just a local dispute between families or acquaintances?
The latter might have been the favorite explanation but for the enormous size of the bomb. And since no one had any real information, the story quickly died the death. By the weekend, nobody gave it much thought, except for those whose houses had been wrecked.
In Washington the story was barely covered. The agencies picked it up from the Syria Times and transmitted a short item headlined BOMB BLAST IN DAMASCUS. It read:
Damascus. Tuesday. A bomb that detonated in the Old City at around midnight killed at least one man and injured several more. Many houses in ancient Bab Touma Street were damaged, and one was destroyed. The police refused to confirm that it was the work of a jihadist group. But they stressed that it was a very large explosive device, much bigger than those usually associated with suicide bombers.
The New York Times used it at the low end of one of the Middle East pages. The Washington Post used it way inside on an international page. And the Boston Globe omitted it altogether.
Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe caught it in the Post, and instantly thought that was the end of General Ravi Rashood, since Bab Touma Street was the name stated by the imprisoned Ramon Salman.
He called Admiral Morgan, who had already spotted the news item, and had a call in to David Gavron at the Israeli embassy. When the ambassador called back, however, Admiral Morgan detected an air of uncertainty in his responses that was highly atypical of the Israeli general.
Arnold Morgan smelled a rat. And one hour after Jimmy Ramshawe, David Gavron called back and said, “Strictly between ourselves, old friend, there’s been a bit of a foul-up.”
He recounted in some detail how the plan had misfired, and explained that no one really held the Mossad team to blame. “It was a hundred-to-one chance they would return home at different times, with different people,” said the ambassador. “I’d say anyone would have made the same mistake.”
“Yeah. I agree,” replied Arnold Morgan. “And I guess we’ve now lost him. I’ll have the guys in Guantánamo check whether Salman can give us that cell phone number he called in Syria, but I expect he’ll say he can’t remember it. Even if we persuade him differently, you can bet it will have changed after an attempt like that one on Ravi’s life.”
Meanwhile, Ravi and Shakira, now wearing Arab dress, were given exquisitely forged documents and the passports that identified them as Mr. and Mrs. Mehadi, who were supposedly Jordanian travel authors, working on a new publication highlighting the historic wine-growing districts of Egypt, Israel, and other Middle Eastern vineyards. Shakira carried a long-lens camera for authenticity.
Any journey into Israel is fraught not with peril, but with eccentricity. It’s only twenty miles from Amman to the King Hussein Bridge, which straddles the Jordan River north of the Dead Sea. But the Jordanians insist that you are not leaving Jordan at all, even though they declared, in 1988, that they no longer had any ties with the West Bank.
On crossing the bridge to leave the country, they do not actually give you an official stamp, but instead give you a permit stating that you are not going any farther than the West Bank. No one admits they are going into Israel; but halfway across, as travelers enter the Holy Land, the span over the river is suddenly named the Allenby Bridge.
The Israelis immediately stamp you into their country, just as soon as you set foot on the West Bank. But they do it on a separate sheet, since everyone knows passports with an Israeli stamp are bad news when traveling in Arab countries. So right there, standing on the West Bank, you are in two countries at once, never having officially left Jordan.
This was all slightly nerve-racking for the world’s most wanted terrorists; but, coming out of Jordan, the King Hussein Bridge is the only way over the river. There is also only one way to make it over the bridge. You take one of the JETT minibuses, which are the only vehicles permitted to make the crossing. You can’t walk. You can’t drive, you can’t cycle. And you sure as hell can’t hitchhike.
Ravi and Shakira came by taxi to the foreigners’ terminal and proceeded to the minibus. They crossed the Jordan and went into the Israeli terminal, avoiding as much as possible the closed-circuit surveillance cameras. Both were in heavy disguise, Ravi with a full beard, Shakira wearing spectacles and walking like an elderly woman in black robes.
They were each issued a government-stamped document that welcomed them officially into Israel. The problem for their pursuers was the documents did not reveal they were Mr. and Mrs. Ravi Rashood. And they did not look anything like Mr. and Mrs. Ravi Rashood.
They walked for about a mile, carrying only one small leather bag, and then paused as a black sedan, bearing the blue license plate of “The Territories,” pulled up beside them. A chauffeur signaled them to climb aboard and immediately drove west. In the plush backseat, Ravi and Shakira removed their disguises and sank back gratefully, traveling once more in the style of a commander in chief and his greatly revered wife.
And traveling, moreover, in a car that would not attract a throng of stone-throwing youths once they reached their destination. That only happens to cars bearing the yellow Israeli license plate.
They covered the thirty-eight miles to Jerusalem in a half hour, moving swiftly along the highway. From the Holy City, it was a two-hour run to the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean coast. They went through the Israeli military checkpoint with barely a word, thanks, no doubt, to the blue license plates. From there into the town of Gaza was a matter of minutes, and in mild traffic they proceeded to the long Omar el-Mokhtar Street, which runs out of the main Shajaria Square all the way to the seafront.
Gaza has been destroyed by war more than any other town in the world, occupied in its long history by Crusaders, Turks, Muslims, the British, and even by Napoleon’s troops.
As befits an endless battle zone, Gaza is a coastal eyesore, a squalid place of ruined buildings and constant running fights, Arab against Israeli, Palestinian gangs against the IDF, the haves against the have-nots, right against wrong, neither side prepared to give an inch, which is, of course, the trademark of all wars.
Ravi and Shakira drove through the sandy streets, past people who had somehow lost everything and whose presence now renders Gaza the “Soweto of Israel.” Arab women, clad in black robes, balancing baskets on their heads, walked through the streets, heading mostly for one of the eight refugee camps, lending a biblical mood to a vicious, thoroughly modern conflict. These are the displaced Palestinians, thousands of them refugees, blaming the West, blaming especially America and Great Britain, blaming the Israelis. None of it without reason.
Yet this was the spiritual home of Ravi Rashood, the Iranian-born, Harrow-educated British Army officer, who had answered the mystical call of the desert, and its people, after rescuing a Palestinian girl, whom he later married.
For here, in the 3,500-year-old city, lay the roots of his new calling, the foundations of the terrifying fundamentalist organization, Hamas. It all began right here in Gaza, in 1987, when this often-savage branch of the Islamic Resistance Movement was born, created by the fanatical Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
The word Hamas means enthusiasm and exaltation of the Prophet Mohammed, whose grandfather Hamesh is entombed somewhere here in the city. The organization has always claimed much more modern roots, however, with connections to the fabled Muslim Brothers formed in Egypt in 1929.
It is best known for sensational acts of violence, bombs, shooting, and general mayhem against Israel. Hated by the rest of the country, Hamas operated for years in some kind of chaotic murder rampage. It was not until the former SAS major Ray Kerman appeared, first as an experienced officer and then as their fully fledged C-in-C, that Hamas truly did replace the Palestine Liberation Organization as the undisputed front-line muscle of the movement.
In a sense, as they drove through the dusty streets of Gaza, Ravi and Shakira were both coming home. They had spent little time here since Major Kerman first fled the authorities with his young bride-to-be. But now they both sensed a warm welcome awaited them behind these rubble-strewn living areas.
And as they drove on toward the relatively less damaged area of Omar el-Mokhtar Street, they found themselves in a kind of suburb, with white-walled courtyards, palm trees, and green shrubs.
Shakira, who had been born here in the city, just smiled and said, “I always liked it here, Ravi. I think we’ll be very happy.” Ravi, ever the pragmatist, still shaken by the mini-atom bomb which had nearly sent him over the bridge into the arms of Allah, looked nothing like so sure, and not even remotely cheerful.
The car turned into a side street, and then into a labyrinth of small apartment blocks. At the end of the second street, they pulled alongside a high wall, this one red brick rather than whitewashed cement. In the center, it contained a glossy black-painted wooden gate with a six-inch-square door placed in the center around head height.
The chauffeur climbed out and tapped on the big gate. The smaller door opened inward and a voice spoke in Arabic.
“Please, sir, madam, you come now,” said the chauffeur, and they both stepped out of the vehicle into the bright sunlight. The big gate opened and a sentry, holding an AK-47, saluted as Ravi and Shakira walked through into a shaded stone courtyard with a large fountain splashing in the center.
“Perhaps you would like some water,” said the sentry. “Please wait, sir, while I fetch the colonel.”
Ravi filled two small stoneware cups from the fountain, handed one to his wife, and glugged the other one himself. Almost immediately, the door to the house, which was situated at the north end of the courtyard, opened and Colonel Hassad Abdullah emerged, an old comrade of Ravi’s from the attack on the Nimrod Jail.
The two men stared at each other in the unmistakable way of the Bedouin, and then they clasped hands and hugged with the reserved joy of fighting men who somehow had lived to tell the tale.
“General Rashood!” exclaimed the colonel. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am you came today. We will dine together tonight. But then I must go. I think you understand that our High Command is very concerned about the bomb that almost killed you. Well, they’ve appointed me to investigate. I leave for Damascus early tomorrow.”
“Now, that is very sad,” replied Ravi. “I was hoping we might have a few days together. Talk over the past, and, of course, the future.”
“Alas, we have only this evening,” replied the colonel. “That bomb in Bab Touma has sent shockwaves through our entire community.”
“I suppose they still have no idea who was responsible?” asked Ravi.
“No one’s told me. But I have been posted immediately to Damascus.”
“Who does that leave in this house?”
“Just the servants, and two guards at all times. Only you and Shakira.”
“You think it’s safe here?”
“Oh, most definitely. Particularly since no one has even the slightest clue who you are.”
Colonel Hassad Abdullah had been patrolling the street since first light, trying to ascertain where the men who had tried to blow up General Rashood had been stationed. The police report, stressing that the bomb had gone off within minutes of the arrival home of Shakira and Abdul, made it absolutely certain in the minds of the Hamas High Command that someone had been watching.
Only by discovering from where they had watched could the Hamas colonel work out who might have done it. There must be clues. There were always clues. The issue was, where to find them.
Right now he had narrowed it down. The forensic investigators had ascertained that Abdul had been in that front room when he died. So had the bomb. The shards of a big table were so small that it had definitely been right in the upward path of the explosion.
Therefore, whoever had watched had had their eyes on that room. That meant the opposite side of the street, which narrowed down the options. There were only about three places where a would-be assassin could observe the Rashood residence. And only one of them was empty.
Colonel Abdullah had been met with total noncooperation from the real estate agent, and that heightened his suspicions. Which was why he and a young Hamas freedom fighter were about to break into the back entrance of the apartment block lately vacated by the Mossad hit team. In fact, the younger warrior had just wrenched the back door lock open, and was now beckoning the colonel to join him in the building.
Five minutes later, they were both outside the top-floor apartment. The building was quiet, and the colonel himself, using a small crowbar, ripped open the lock to the sound of splintering wood, and they were in.
Silently they moved through the deserted rooms. All empty. Too empty. Someone had wiped out everything. At first sight, there was not a trace that anyone had ever been there, and Colonel Abdullah stood gazing out of the window, muttering to himself, “These were real professionals.”
For in his honed, alert, and instinctive terrorist soul, he sensed he was in the right place, enjoying a perfect view of the gaping hole where once there had been a house, right across Bab Touma Street.
Quietly, he drew back the curtains. Very slightly. They were made of brand-new material, too good for an old slum of a place like this. And then he peeped through the space between them, thinking to himself how little he would have liked that, even if the room was dark. Anyone looking out of the old Rashood residence could have seen the telltale gap. And perhaps wondered who was up there, spying. Especially if they were trained security guards.
And then Colonel Hassad Abdullah spotted a flaw in the obviously new curtain material. Not so much a flaw, actually: a hole, very deliberately cut. And not just one hole. Two of them, about four inches apart.
He poked his fingers through, and tried to look through, out across the street. But the holes were too wide apart. Hmmm, he thought, perhaps just right for binoculars.
They searched for another half hour, but Jerry had been thorough. There was indeed nothing to discover. This had been a ruthlessly planned, most daring and savage attack on the commander in chief. Hamas, in their bloodthirsty and vengeful creed, were vowed and determined to catch, and execute, whoever had been responsible.
But all Colonel Hassad Abdullah had to show for his investigation were two small holes in the curtains. And in his opinion, that was quite sufficient.
Because that apartment had confirmed a great deal. First of all, the place had been rented for only one month. Second, the other apartment on the top floor had been purchased by the same people, and was now for sale. The real estate agent had provided at least that.
Third, it was the perfect observation post. Those three facts alone suggested that the attempt on General Rashood’s life had been conducted by a professional organization, almost certainly state-sponsored. The newly cut curtains, the sheer size of the explosion, the perfection of the cleanup. It was all carried out with absolute professionalism.
This was no murder attempt by a bunch of hoodlums. This was military. And that really narrowed it all down. Because in all the world, General Rashood had only two copper-bottomed, grudge-bearing, rich, relentless enemies-the United States of America, and Israel ’s Mossad. No one else could possibly hate like them.
In the city of Gaza where the High Command of Hamas was ensconced, the first minister, Commodore Tariq Fahd, was already following the case along those lines. And he had a set of circumstances that were leading him ever onward.
He called a meeting at the secret underground situation room in the house where Ravi and Shakira lived. Colonel Abdullah was back from Damascus; his second in command, Major Faisal Sabah, was in the city; and two other senior Hamas councillors, Ahmed Alaam and Ali al-Fayed, were also summoned.
They gathered together at 10 A.M. on Wednesday, February 15, six jihadist warriors, plus Shakira, who would, if required, kill her Western opponents without mercy.
There were no chairs in the room, just a table. They sat beneath plain whitewashed walls on big colored cushions set upon the sandy floor. There was no window in the room, but there was a stone air vent which led outside into the garden. Lengths of four-inch-thick wood had been carved into elaborate double doors, beyond which were four armed guards.
Commodore Tariq Fahd greeted everyone, and the house servants came in with pots of Turkish coffee, served in plain glasses set into silver holders. They also brought two trays of the sugared, almond-flavored pastries that are so favored in that part of the world.
“It is, of course, obvious now, certainly to all of us, that someone has tried, very determinedly, to execute our commander in chief. Thankfully, we are all able to welcome him and Shakira here today, and to swear, by the blood of the Prophet, vengeance upon these enemies.”
He hesitated for a moment and sipped his coffee. “I should like, if I may, to outline the sequence of events that I believe will lead us to an inevitable conclusion. I should add that I am using only known facts rather than any form of supposition.
“Therefore, I will begin in the small hours of January 15, when we know beyond any doubt that our brother Ramon Salman made a call of confirmation to our command headquarters on Sharia Bab Touma. General Rashood himself took the call and was informed the attack on the Boston airport was a go.” General Rashood nodded in agreement.
“A few hours later,” continued Commodore Fahd, “that attack was foiled, principally because our senior operations man somehow allowed the briefcase carrying the explosive to fall into the hands of a policeman.
“We were then delivered two terrible blows. Our second field operator was shot dead by the Boston police, and the injured Reza Aghani was taken into police custody. We know he went into Massachusetts General Hospital, but from there we are ill-informed.
“Our lawyers say Aghani was almost immediately removed from the United States judicial system. Which most certainly means he was transferred to a military interrogation center. In the opinion of our lawyers, that most certainly means Guantánamo Bay, given the enormity of his potential crime.
“For the purpose of this meeting, we will assume he reached Cuba by January 18. And then, in a very bizarre twist of fate, the New York police picked up Ramon Salman in the Houston Street apartment within a day of that happening. He too was removed from the U.S. justice system, and that much is definite. We have no proof he was also transported to Guantánamo Bay, but our American lawyers say he almost certainly was.
“So we may assume that by January 23, after three days of torture and brutal U.S. interrogation, Ramon Salman may have told them what they wanted to know.”
Commodore Tariq Fahd paused theatrically, and then said, “Four days later, installed in the house directly opposite General Rashood’s residence on Bab Touma, there is a hit team which makes a thoroughly professional attempt on his life, murdering his guards first, in the classic manner of trained Special Forces.”
Colonel Abdullah turned to Ravi and said, “How good were your guards? Are you surprised they were dispensed with so efficiently?”
The terrorist C-in-C looked pensive. Shakira stood up and walked to a table and poured more coffee for her husband. “On reflection, Colonel,” he said, “I am extremely surprised. One of those two guards had fought with me at the Nimrod Jail, and you may remember him yourself. He was the one in the hood, the one who hit the gatehouse, blew away the guards, and smashed the communications system. He was top-class.”
“Of course,” said the commodore, “it’s always easier to succeed when you have the element of surprise on your side. At the jail, the man in the hood had every advantage. Not so on Sharia Bab Touma, hah?”
“Correct,” replied Ravi. “Nonetheless, it remains difficult to imagine how my highly trained bodyguards could have succumbed so quickly to an outside attack.”
“The men who killed the guards were either Israeli or American,” said the commodore. “Of that we can be certain. I do not think the Americans would have moved Special Forces into Damascus so quickly. But I accept they might have.”
General Rashood added, “Whoever it was had all the skills of U.S. Navy SEALs. It was either them or the Mossad. No one else.”
“How about Great Britain ’s SAS Regiment, which did so much for the Israelis?” asked Colonel Abdullah, smiling. “Could they have done it? I am sure the general here will attest to their efficiency.”
“I think they could most certainly have done it. But that last Labour government in Westminster did so much damage to the armed forces, I don’t think they’ve ever recovered. Or ever will. No, the Brits could no longer move that fast. Only the Israelis or the Americans.”
“And which one would you favor?” asked the commodore.
“I’d say it was a combination,” said Ravi. “The Americans have the peace talks coming up in a few weeks. The last thing they need is to get caught blowing up hunks of historic old Damascus.”
“Well, if I had to guess,” said Tariq Fahd, “I’d say the hideous Americans tortured our people, wrung the information out of them, and then tipped off the Israelis to come in and nail the Hamas C-in-C, the man Ramon Salman telephoned the night before the Logan airport bomb.”
“I’d go with that,” said Ravi. “And I should remind all of you, the Mossad always favors the bomb against the bullet. And I doubt they have ever forgiven me for the death of their senior operatives in the restaurant in Marseilles.”
“Not to mention wiping out the entire jail staff at Nimrod, and, in one hit, liberating every last one of the most sworn enemies of Israel.” Tariq Fahd looked wistful.
“Do any of you think we should seek revenge, on behalf of Allah and the Prophet?”
“Always,” said General Rashood. “We should never accept a strike against us on this scale without an immediate response. The problem is, the Mossad probably considers its operation in Bab Touma to have been the most terrible failure. And anyway, you all understand how difficult it is to mount an attack on the Israelis. They’re liable to come back and flatten this entire city. If they suspect Hamas.”
“They won’t just suspect Hamas,” said the commodore. “If anything happens to them, they’ll know it was us, before the dust clears.”
“Nonetheless, I think we should most certainly devote some time toward planning a major strike against either the Mossad or the USA,” said Ravi. “Something devastating, something that will surely grab the headlines. Make ’em sit up and listen to us, as they have never really done since 9/11. Never done since our beloved Osama bowed out.”
“Could we blow up their entire headquarters on King Saul Boulevard?”
“Only if we did not mind losing possibly twenty of the highest-qualified personnel we have,” replied General Rashood. “Because that’s what it would take, and that’s what would happen. We’d never get out alive.”
“And that would be an awful waste,” replied the commodore. “By the sword of the Prophet, that would be the most awful waste. But Allah will guide us.”
“Allah is great,” intoned Ravi. And he was joined in that Muslim exaltation by everyone in the room. And in the silence that followed, they repeated the following lines from the Koran, the prayer of the jihadist:
… from thee alone do we ask help.
Guide us on the straight path,
The path of those upon whom is thy favor,
… Light upon light,
God guides whom He will, to his Light…
Not every member of President Bedford’s White House staff was absolutely thrilled about the continued presence of Admiral Arnold Morgan at the elbow of the chief executive.
And in particular, there was a small cabal of the president’s speechwriters who considered the admiral a gross intrusion upon their ambitions. These were youngish men, three of them, highly educated, who believed to the depths of their egotistical souls that they alone knew what the president should be saying.
The problem with such people is they also believe they know what he should be doing. Not all the time. But enough of the time to make certain senior staffers extremely wary of them.
The business of writing speeches for the boss has, over the years, developed into the function of a committee. First draft, rewrite, alterations, new thought, new draft… Christ, he better not say that… why not? He is the president, right? Yes, but the media will go for him… they’ll go for him no matter what… yes, but… yes, but… yes, but… yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.
This crowd, bursting with self-importance, would rewrite Shakespeare-To be or not to be (delete the last “to be,” superfluous), That is the question (delete “question” and substitute “problem,” it’s more positive, less indecisive).
Writers and editors, the endless war… I don’t think you should say this, or indeed that.
Yeah, but where were you, asshole, when the paper was blank?
After a couple of years of this internal strife, these literary staffers quite often lose track of the fact that what a president says has nothing whatsoever to do with what he does.
They begin to believe that their thoughts and words represent actual policy. And when a tyrant like Admiral Morgan comes rampaging in, not giving a damn, one way or another, who says what, only about what the president does-well, that causes inevitable friction among the scribes.
They are also apt to rear up a bit when he writes something down, tells someone to type it out and then release it immediately, on behalf of the president-and someone tell those assholes who work here not to touch one single word of it, if they want to stay employed.
Staff relations were never a strong point with Admiral Morgan-though, when he commanded a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine, the crew, to a man, believed him to be some kind of a god.
When he headed up the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, he conducted some kind of a reign of terror, growling from the center of a vast spider’s web, striking fear into the hearts of agents, field officers, military commanders, and foreign heads of state.
When the previous president brought him into the White House as his national security adviser, he caused havoc among senior members of the staff, bypassing some people completely, speaking only to the president. He treated the chain of command as if it were not there, riding rough-shod over anyone who intervened.
That first president, the one who recruited the admiral, trusted him totally. As did the present incumbent of the Oval Office… If that’s Arnie’s opinion, that’s the way we go.
The president who served between these two was virtually frog-marched out of the Oval Office by the United States Marines. Directly into resignation, because he thought he could ignore the advice of the old Lion of the West Wing, the man every serving chief in the armed forces revered above all others.
Arnold Morgan was the Top People’s Man. Only the truly brilliant truly liked him. The rest regarded him with the suspicion that lurks only in less able minds. And this was a quality that had no place in an assessment of Admiral Morgan. He was selfless, demanded no financial reward, and had no personal ambitions.
He had sufficient patriotism to last ten lifetimes. And when he walked through the corridors of the White House, he still nodded sharply to the portrait of the former Supreme Allied Commander, President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
On the wall of his study at home was a portrait of General Douglas MacArthur. Any time Arnold sat alone wrestling with some awkward problem, he invariably ended by muttering, That’s the way the United States of America should go. Maybe not Great Britain, or any of those lightweight foreigners over there. But that’s the way for the U.S. of A.
And then he would look up at the general’s portrait and snap, “Right, sir?” As if expecting a confirming, “Affirmative, Admiral,” from the stern face that gazed out from the east wall of the study in toney Chevy Chase.
How could such a man possibly be understood by youngish graduates consumed by their own ambitions? How could a man who had commanded his mighty nuclear boat in the freezing depths of the North Atlantic ever expect to be comprehended by the president’s speechwriters?
The truth was, the old Cold Warrior, with his innate mistrust of Russia and dislike of China and the “Towelheads,” expected nothing from those he brushed aside in Washington. Except for loyalty to the country, support for the military at all times, and unquestioning obedience.
The speechwriters did not like him, this immaculately dressed bull of a man who held no torch for anyone and whose only concern was for the good of the USA.
The speechwriters were held, literally, at arm’s length by the president throughout the entire day of the Logan bomb. He and Admiral Morgan were closeted in the Oval Office for hours. The admiral drafted the president’s speech; the admiral made the decisions on who was going into military custody and who was not.
As for that missing Flight 62, the one that apparently crashed into the Atlantic off Norfolk. There was rumor all over the White House, but no facts, because the president discussed the issue with no one except for the admiral. Only the serving national security adviser, Professor Alan Brett, was confided in by Paul Bedford.
And anyway, so far as the speechwriters were concerned, Professor Brett, West Point lecturer, Army Commander, and all that, was too much like Admiral Morgan to be trusted.
Neither the president nor Admiral Morgan was a political animal. Neither of them had antennae for personal danger, plotting, and scheming. In a Medieval royal court, the pair of them would have lost their heads in the first ten minutes. They simply did not do intrigue.
And intrigue was brewing in Paul Bedford’s White House. Hints were being dropped to the media… the president did not see a reason to brief on that… the president decides such things entirely on his own, consulting only Admiral Arnold Morgan… there is less cabinet government in today’s White House than at any time in the last forty years.
It was only a remote drip. The press did not pick up the undercurrent of unrest among staffers, and no one thought anyone was briefing seriously against the president and his hard-man buddy. And they were wrong.
The speechwriters had limitless access to the news media, and columnists, and broadcasters. It was just a matter of time before one of them decided to help some writer construct a major feature article about the overpowering presence of Admiral Morgan in the Oval Office. And they could start with one question, of “national importance”-what the hell went on with Flight 62?
The White House staffer who ultimately did the deed was Anthony Hyman, a 31-year-old English graduate with a master’s from Yale and a postgraduate doctorate in political science from Balliol College, Oxford.
Anthony had strict personal goals. He expected to become the president’s chief speechwriter within eighteen months. He expected to have a position with a senior senator, hopefully from his home state of Connecticut, within five years, and to run for office as a congressman well before his fortieth birthday.
He was a tubby person, inclined to sarcasm and impatient with those of less obvious qualities than his own. He blinked at the world through thick lenses set into gold wire spectacles, and he possessed an ego approximately the size of the Smithsonian.
Anthony Hyman’s personal confidence was little short of atomic. He walked on the balls of his feet with a quick, short, bouncy stride and the manner of a busy debt collector. His hair was longish and curly, and his suits usually needed pressing.
He was quick-witted, and no one was in any doubt he was the best writer in the building. A lot of people did not like him. But these were few compared with the long list of people Anthony himself disliked. This included almost everyone, for a vast variety of reasons. But the one at the very top was Admiral Arnold Morgan.
There had, apparently, been an occasion when Anthony had drafted a press release specifically to mollify the liberal branch of the media. It was not altogether necessary, and since the matter was military, the president checked it out with Admiral Morgan, who immediately ripped it up and threw it in the wastebasket.
A few months later, on the day of the Logan bomb, the admiral himself wrote out the main points for Paul Bedford’s forthcoming evening speech. And three people heard him growl, “Better get this polished up, but don’t for Christ’s sake give it to that fat fucker who hasn’t got the brains he was born with.”
Anthony Hyman had just enough enemies for that little episode to be relayed onto the White House grapevine, and in the end, of course, someone made certain he heard about it personally.
The tubby speechwriter seethed. And he planned to strike back, using his particular buddy in the media, the Washington Post political columnist, Henry Brady. And on a chill February evening in a small, unobtrusive bar in Alexandria, Virginia, Anthony Hyman spilled the beans on Arnold and the president. Much like Ramon Salman had done with Ravi Rashood.
They ordered a couple of beers, and the White House man began by explaining the close personal relationship between the two men, how their wives were friends, how Arnold never even knocked when he called at the Oval Office, a habit which had annoyed a succession of secretaries and aides.
He described how President Bedford never even sought another opinion when Admiral Morgan had made a decision. He described how the president took his cue on the phrasing of awkward matters, how he never even consulted his speechwriters when Admiral Morgan issued him with a first draft.
“I’m telling you, Henry,” he said. “This president’s got a lot of brain-power in his writing pool, and a lot of talented advice surrounding him, but there are times when he uses none of it. And it’s usually when that boorish old bastard from another age comes calling.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Anthony,” said the newspaperman. “But Admiral Morgan commands huge respect in the international intelligence community, and he has cracked some big issues on behalf of the United States, more than most people will ever know. And what you’re telling me is certainly excellent background material, but it’s not what you might call hot…”
“I’m coming to that-I’m coming to that,” said Anthony. “Be patient. We’re not in a hurry, are we?”
“No, Anthony, of course not, but no one’s very interested in running a big anti-Arnold Morgan story without some heavyweight information. He’s one powerful dude. And he hates the media, anyway.”
“Okay, okay, keep listening, okay? Now let’s take the Boston airport bombing. I’m here to tell you, the admiral was in the Oval Office, right there with the president, through the whole day. And there were a lot of decisions made that day, especially about the captured terrorist, and how and where he would be interrogated.
“I know he refused to speak to anyone, and I also know it was Arnold Morgan who had him removed to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda-first step in getting him under strict military control, right?”
Henry Brady’s interest visibly heightened. “Well, I admit I did not know that.”
“Neither do you know where that terrorist is right now?”
“We assume still under guard in Bethesda.”
“Wrong, Henry. He’s in Guantánamo Bay, has been for nearly two weeks.”
“Seriously? Hell, that’s news.”
“And I’ll tell you something else. The New York cops picked up some other terrorist plot two days after Logan, and they arrested the mastermind behind the airport bomb. Right there in the city.”
“Yeah?”
“And you know what? Admiral Morgan had him removed instantly to Guantánamo Bay, alongside the other guy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I talk to all the other people who should have had a part in that, and none of them did. The whole thing was Morgan and the president acting alone. They never even took the requisite legal advice.”
“You mean the whole fucking place is being run like some kind of military junta?” replied Henry, who was ever keen to speak strictly in newspaper headlines.
“Precisely,” smiled Anthony, amused at the phrase. “And since then, the president has spoken to the nation twice, and on neither occasion did he even consult with his team of writers.
“And now, Henry, I want to get to the really interesting bit. You may not remember, but on that very same day, there was a civilian air crash, out in the Atlantic, fifty miles or so off Norfolk. Naturally, some of you guys asked formally if there was some kind of connection with the bomb. And you were told a categorical ‘no’ by the White House press office.
“In his speech, the president glossed over the coincidence, and muttered about having no information about the flight or the airline that owned it. Air Traffic Control confirmed that it was a Boeing 737 and it went down in deep water. And that was supposed to be the end of it.”
“Okay?”
“Well, Henry, as you know, the White House is a village, nothing more, nothing less. Gossip gets around real fast. And an awful lot of people who should know better think there was a lot more to it than that.
“What’s more, they think Admiral Morgan was in it, up to his elbows.”
“Jesus.”
“Henry, I’ve spoken to people who think January 15 was targeted to be another 9/11; that al Qaeda intended to blow up the busiest passenger terminal in the Boston airport, to commemorate American Airlines Flight 11 and United 175. The aircraft that hit the North and South Towers. Both of ’em, as I’m sure you remember, took off from Boston.
“On January 15, three or four hours after the disaster in Terminal C, those al Qaeda guys intended to slam another airliner into the Capitol building in Washington. That was Flight TBA 62, which mysteriously vanished into the Atlantic before it got there.”
“But no one knows why?” said Henry.
“No one has the slightest idea why. And no one’s gonna tell you anything. But I have spoken to a very senior man right here in Washington. And he thinks Admiral Arnold Morgan told the President of the United States to order U.S. fighters to battle stations, and to shoot the fucker down, laden with civilians.”
Henry Brady’s jaw dropped about three inches.
“And my source told me, Henry, the president went right ahead and did just that.”
“As secrets go, that one’s pretty good, eh?” The newspaperman took a long draft of his beer. “You could work on that for years, Anthony, and never get a hint of the truth,” he said. “Like you said, we don’t even know where it went down.”
“I accept that,” said Anthony Hyman. “But you could begin by finding out all about Thunder Bay Airways. They owned the aircraft, they know who was on board, and they might even know where it is. They just might have received a final destination from the pilot. But I’ll tell you one more thing. Thunder Bay Airways is Arab-owned.”
Thus it was, on Thursday morning, February 23, the Washington Post carried a two-page feature on Admiral Morgan, cross-referenced on the front page. It was the biggest feature story Henry Brady had ever written.
The headline read:
THE RETURN OF THE OLD LION OF THE WEST WING Is Arnold Morgan actually running the country? Is the president now isolated with the fire-eating admiral?
The story ran and ran. It detailed the principal events in Admiral Morgan’s career, listed his triumphs, found no disasters, and talked openly of how Paul Bedford had been swept to power when the previous president had refused to tackle a flagrantly vicious terrorist attack on the USA.
It pointed out how reliant so many people had been on the admiral’s support, how the military counted on him to raise hell if their warnings were not heeded.
But it also pointed out how easily he could put people’s noses right out of joint. How he gathered devotees and enemies in equal numbers, how he did not give a damn what anyone thought, just so long as it was right for the USA.
The story stated that President Bedford refused to make big international decisions without him. And that he was ignoring the advice of once-trusted colleagues. Mostly the sentences of Henry Brady started with Insiders say, or Sources close to the president believe, or Staffers fear. Never a name.
Nonetheless, the message was clear. Admiral Arnold Morgan had a great deal to say about the actions of the United States on the international stage, and whereas some people thought “Thank God for that,” there were others. Others who thought this was all very unhealthy, a swerve in the wrong direction, too much power vested in two men, with too little consultation.
Essentially, this very large spread of newspaper type was divided into two sections. The second one occupied a massive “box,” on the right, over three columns, running down most of the page. There was a full-length picture of the admiral, in uniform. In the background was a sinister-looking Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine moored on the jetty. The headline here was:
DID THE ADMIRAL TAKE OVER ON JANUARY 15? And what really happened to the missing Arab 737?
The drift of the story was that the public had never been informed of the true scale of the terrorist plot. They had not even been told that it was, without question, the work of either al Qaeda or an associate organization with close links to Hamas, the Palestinian group.
Henry Brady revealed, flatly, that the man who was shot and then taken, in police custody, to Mass General was now in Guantánamo Bay.
A series of judicious inquiries in New York then led Henry to discover that there had been three arrests at an apartment on Houston Street on January 18, and that one of the men had been flown immediately to Guantánamo Bay. In Henry’s opinion, the other two were on their way, and all of this was on the specific orders of Admiral Morgan.
“No civilian,” wrote Henry, “no retired officer, unelected, unappointed, in the entire history of the United States has ever wielded such formidable power in the Oval Office. Except for Admiral Morgan these past several years.”
He then moved more pointedly to the precise events that took place on January 15. This part of the story was pieced together after a series of interviews with the press office at the Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, Virginia. Henry had conducted these in person, driven out there and informed the receptionist he was Henry Brady of the Washington Post, and he wished to talk to someone in a senior position, orders of the editor.
The editor of course was in no position to order anyone to do anything at Herndon, but it startled the receptionist and Henry was given access to a couple of public affairs officers.
He made the most of what he was given. Which, in fairness, was not much. Yes, the ATC operators had locked on to Flight 62, which had maintained course, despite being instructed to make a change and swing left inland. It had continued north out over the ocean.
“Why was the course change ordered?”
“I’m sorry, sir. That is classified information.”
“Military?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I cannot answer that.”
“Is it classified?”
“Yes, sir.”
“For how much longer, after the 737 ceased to obey orders from Herndon, did you track it?”
“Sir, I did not say it ceased to obey orders. I said it continued on its northerly course.”
“In flagrant defiance of the ATC instructions, right?” Henry was trying to close in.
“Not necessarily, sir. There may have been an electronic foul-up. Flight 62 may not have been receiving us. We were not in communication. And that would make it an accident, sir. Not defiance.”
Henry persisted. “Okay, let me rephrase. For how long were you able to track the aircraft after you first noticed it was not obeying instructions?”
“I would say less than an hour, sir. We had it on radar, fifty miles offshore, east of Norfolk, Virginia.”
“And then it vanished?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have a record of the height the aircraft was flying when it disappeared?”
“I am certain we do.”
“Could I see that record?”
“I am sorry, but everything’s gone to the government department that investigates such matters.”
“Would anyone remember whether Flight 62 was at thirty thousand feet or two thousand feet when it vanished?”
“Possibly, but that information would be classified right now until the documents are released by the government and a satisfactory explanation has been found.”
“Okay, I’m just trying to establish whether that aircraft, packed with civilian passengers, who are now dead, disappeared from your screens way up there in the stratosphere, either because of a bomb or some other explosion. Or perhaps it just suffered what you guys call catastrophic mechanical failure and plunged into the ocean?”
“I’m sure one day, sir, this will all come to light. But right now that is not possible.”
Henry Brady tried to pull rank. “I represent the most powerful political newspaper in the United States,” he said. “And in my opinion, the citizens of this country have a right to know what happened if Americans died in any kind of disaster.”
“Sir, there were no Americans on board. The aircraft was Canadian-based, Canadian-owned. It was not scheduled to stop in the USA.”
“How do you know this, if you were not in communication?”
“Sir, every flight has a number which betrays its origins. This was TBA 62. We have of course been in contact with its parent corporation.”
“That’s Thunder Bay Airways, right?”
“Correct. And they may be able to help you more than we can.”
That last sentence had Henry on the line in double-quick time to the little airline on the freezing north shore of Lake Superior. And there he discovered the aircraft was very lightly loaded, it had made a fuel stop in Palm Beach, unscheduled, and there were no Americans on board.
The chief executive confirmed the flight had been lost, out in the Atlantic, according to the Americans. So far as the airline was concerned, no one had any idea where the wreckage was, not within an area of 2,500 square miles. So far as they were concerned, no further search-and-rescue operations were being conducted.
Yes, they could confirm that the senior directors of the airline were of Arabian descent, and yes, the majority shareholders were extremely wealthy Saudis. That was public record.
Henry at that stage had a smattering of facts. And a very big mystery. So far as he was concerned, that was perfect. So long as he could ascertain that Admiral Morgan was right in the middle of it.
And that would take several leaps of faith, all of them slightly shaky. But Henry was a newspaperman, and his business was not to establish the pure unbridled truth. He worked for a commercial corporation. His business was to sell newspapers, to write a slightly sneering, cynical story against the government, not to establish unbridled truth. Henry was quite prepared to take those leaps of faith.
And he was prepared to take a really big one on the subject of TBA’s Flight 62.
This is what he wrote: “So what was the true fate of that innocent passenger jet, flying through peaceful American skies, lawfully taking its people home? Was it really subject to ‘catastrophic mechanical failure’? Or did something more darkly sinister befall it?
“As a reporter of more than 20 years’ standing, I am acutely aware of evasiveness; I am tuned to understand when people do not want to answer my perfectly reasonable questions, on behalf of my readers.
“And in this case they most certainly were reluctant to tell me anything, save for the obvious, that the aircraft disappeared off the screens. We do not know why, and since its communications with the tower were down, we do not know precisely where, although it was out over the deep Atlantic.”
Henry could really go no further. But this feature story was designed to be about Admiral Morgan, and Henry was obliged to end it with a bit of a flourish. This he managed to do:
“Perhaps, then, I should offer this: Could the aircraft have been subject to a planted bomb? Or was it in any way possible that this Arab-owned Boeing 737 was somehow connected to the gang that tried to bomb Logan International?
“And might it have been cold-bloodedly shot down by American military fighters, on the specific orders of the President of the United States, on the advice of his permanent right-hand man, Admiral Arnold Morgan? There are those close to the president who believe this is the real truth.”
Henry Brady realized this ending was based on the flimsiest of suppositions, but he remembered Anthony Hyman’s words, that this suspicion had been raised by a very senior man in the White House.
Like many another journalist, Henry had decided to take his chances. If there was a stern White House denial, so what? It all added to the controversy. If nothing was said, then that made his conclusions look even better.
What Henry did not know was that his story about Admiral Arnold Morgan would have massive ramifications. And that they would begin in an underground room at the back end of Gaza City, six thousand miles away.
General Ravi Rashood was devoted to newspapers. When he and Shakira had lived in Damascus, they had bought a selection of foreign newspapers from the most famous bookshop in the city, the Librairie Avicenne, three times a week. He rarely missed purchasing irregularly available copies of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and London Daily Telegraph.
Here in Gaza it was more difficult. Foreign papers arrived only sporadically, and often the Hamas field agents were slow to grasp important items. However, no one missed Henry Brady’s story in the Washington Post, and three copies of it arrived from different sources, in the mail, at the house off Omar el-Mukhtar Street on Monday morning, March 5.
Ravi sat outside in the courtyard, sipping coffee and contemplating the significance of the strange and powerful man who sat effortlessly at the right hand of the President of the United States.
He knew precisely who the admiral was, and had indeed given serious thought to assassinating him in London six years previously. But it had proved impossible. The admiral’s security staff, when traveling, rivaled that of the president himself.
At least it did when he was on official business, as Ravi had assumed he had been, that summer in London.
Shakira brought him some more coffee and asked him what he was reading. “Oh, nothing much,” replied her husband. “Just some newspaper articles about an American admiral.”
“Well, if it’s not important, why do you have three copies of it?”
“How do you know I have three copies of it?”
“Mostly because I am able to count,” said Shakira sassily. “One in your hand, one sticking out of this envelope, and one on the floor.”
“I don’t think that makes them important,” said Ravi.
“Someone did,” she said. “Three people did. Otherwise why did they send them to you?”
“They actually sent them to Colonel Abdullah, who used to live here.”
“Well, if they are not important, why did they send them to him?” A part of Shakira’s charm was her determination to go on asking the same question, over and over, until she received the answer she thought she deserved.
Ravi thought she should have trained as a trial lawyer, rather than a terrorist, but nonetheless declined to mention this to her while she was pouring the coffee.
And it did not escape her attention that throughout the entire morning, the general was very much within himself, thinking, reading and rereading the newspaper cutting, which displayed for all to see the man who was the real nemesis to one of the biggest terrorist operations in the Middle East.
Shakira left him for an hour but returned to find him still staring at one of his three newspaper cuttings. She picked up one of the others and said, “So who is this man here, the one you spend all day looking at? What’s his name, Admiral Morgan? I’ve heard that name.”
“In our business, everyone’s heard that name. That man is the biggest reason in the world why the Great Satan believes that America still has the right to dominate the Middle East, to buy and sell our oil, arm the Israelites with the most terrible weapons against us, and station their armies upon our lands whether we like it or whether we don’t.”
“Why is he such a nuisance?”
“He’s worse than a nuisance, my darling. He’s an ogre, nothing less.”
“What’s an ogre?”
“A giant, with a club, which he uses to smash people from poor nations, to beat them because they cannot defend themselves against the military strength of the USA.”
“Well, we have whacked the USA a few times, hah?”
“Yes, but never as hard as we wish. And it seems to me that every time we can get a plan together, for a major strike against them, this guy ruins it.”
“What does he ruin?”
“Everything. He lost us two nuclear submarines. And he got his hands on our operatives in Boston and they all ended up in Guantánamo Bay. One of them obviously was forced to tell them where we live. That’s why someone tried to kill us both.”
“How do you know it was Admiral Morgan?” said Shakira, who privately thought the admiral, from his picture, was a handsome and rather cheerful-looking older man. Not at all like an ogre.
“So how do you know?”
“I’m reading this story about him. It seems even the Americans are worried he has too much power. Some Americans, anyway.”
“Perhaps we should offer him a job?” said Shakira, laughing. “Then he can get back at the Americans who don’t like him. He sounds to me like he’d make a good terrorist.”
They both laughed. But suddenly Mrs. Rashood had a flash of memory, and she said to her husband, “You remember when we went to Paris a few years back, and you went to London for a few days for an assassination. Was that anything to do with Admiral Morgan?”
Ravi stared admiringly at his beautiful wife. “You remember?” he said. “All that time ago.”
“That was the only time I ever heard you wanting to take the life of one specific person. And I remember you mentioned an admiral.”
“And this is the very same man, and the very same problem, his hatred of us and his determination to crush us.”
“Then you must be very careful,” she replied. “Because I know it did not work out last time. This is obviously a very clever and dangerous person.”
“The last time, when I watched him in London, I was only mildly interested. I was just testing the waters.”
“Will you try again now because of the attempt to kill us in Damascus?”
“Yes, little Shakira. I must. I feel differently now, ever since I saw you in our backyard, trapped, crying and covered in blood. I thought you might die. And that would have broken my heart.
“And this newspaper has given me all the information I need. I will assassinate Admiral Morgan. And this time, I will not fail.”