To the Death am-10 Read online

  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.”

  1600 Thursday 19 July National Security Agency Maryland

  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 unf
oreseen 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.”

  0930 Friday 20 July Central London

  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.”