Patrick Robinson - To The Death

For their short journey to the castle, Lady MacLean and her party traveled in a big black Royal Navy staff car. There was a police car in the lead, and another right behind, in which the bodyguard and Rick were traveling.

They turned right off Princes Street, into the side streets of Old Town, and arrived at the castle on time at ten minutes before nine. The military escort from the Scots Guards was in place as the car drew up, and Admiral Morgan and Kathy were led up to the Royal Box with Sir Iain and Annie walking right behind them.

Rick Hunter, his rifle still slung over his shoulder, walked between the two couples, and four Scottish policemen followed. Arnold’s four personal bodyguards now closed in and positioned themselves strategically close to the front row as the two admirals took their seats in the center of the VIP line.

By now, the Royal Box was filling up. The provost of Edinburgh University and his wife sat directly behind the admirals, flanked by the chief superintendent of the Lothian Police and the commanding officer of 42 Commando, which would again present their display. Another ten city and military dignitaries filled the remainder of the seats.

At this time, just before the Tattoo began, Ravi was just above the new barracks, standing back, out of sight in the shadows. He was still there when the massed bands opened the evening’s proceedings with, in Admiral Morgan’s honor, “The Fanfare to the United States Navy,” specially composed by the conductor of the Royal Marine Bands for the occasion.

Ravi was not, however, interested in the music. He was concerned only with the guards who were in position along the walls, on this night of the Tattoo’s most rigorous security alert ever.

He was unarmed, except for his knife and a small but weighty glass paperweight, which he carried in his jacket pocket. He was dressed as a perfectly normal tourist, except for his shoes… well, boots, which were black and laced high beneath his dark gray trousers.

Ravi was waiting for the guards to send for tea, a procedure he had watched four times on the previous night. The complete guard detail was four men, but every half hour they met, high up on the western ramparts. And that was when one of them walked down to fetch four cups of tea from the military canteen, set up temporarily next to the old hospital buildings.

And now he waited, watching for the single soldier to break away and begin the walk down to the canteen. The Tattoo had been running for exactly fifteen minutes when the four guards came together. They chatted for two or three minutes, and then one of them turned around and began to stride down the hill, into the now-darkest area of the castle.

The soldier was humming along with the music when Ravi burst out of the shadows like a panther, running toward his prey, coming in from the left, but from the back. He swung back his right arm and, with a stupendous display of strength, smashed the paperweight into the guard’s head-right into the brain’s critical nerve center behind the ear.

The heavy glass weight obliterated the protective skull bone, and the young man, who had only yesterday informed the Hamas chief that his rifle was indeed loaded with live bullets, crumbled to the ground. Stone dead.

Ravi, working in almost complete darkness thanks to the missing light, ripped off the man’s combat jacket, undid the belt, and tore off the loose trousers. He grabbed the man’s rifle and his woolly hat. Then he lifted the guard under the armpits and heaved him straight over the wall. It was a fifty-foot drop to the rocks and undergrowth that would surely obscure the body until well into the morning. Ravi heard the twigs snap as the Scots guardsman thudded into bushes.

Ravi raced back into the shadows with his new combat kit, and pulled it on over his street clothes, making certain that his combat boots, purchased in a local army surplus store, could now be plainly seen.

He pulled on his leather driving gloves and set off on the twenty-minute walk down to the Half-Moon Battery where the Marine commandoes were setting up their abseil ropes for their daredevil descent to the Esplanade. Ravi did not join them. Instead he hung back, with his rifle slung over his shoulder like a backwoodsman, or indeed an SAS officer going into combat.

The minutes passed and the military displays continued to rousing applause. And then over the loudspeaker came the words-There will now be a demonstration by the commandos of 42 Royal Marine, who will display their versatile skills and efficiency in the capture of a fortified enemy stronghold-Ladies and Gentlemen-the Marines in action!

The lights in the stadium were dulled, and lancing spotlights lit up the high walls above the west end of the Esplanade. Every eye in the grandstand was on the rampart that circled the Half-Moon Battery. It was just possible to see, in the spotlights, the ropes snaking out over the battlements, down the first sixty-foot-high sheer stone wall to the flat rocky promontory. Then there were more ropes over the lower wall, dropping down over the buildings onto the Esplanade.

Ravi stayed back in the shadows, when suddenly there was movement. The first four commandoes ran for the battlements, and, on the word of the commander, grabbed the ropes with their gloved hands, swung backward over the wall, and dug in with their boots. Then they leaned back and pushed out, dropping down, down, down with each kick off the stone surface, the rope sliding expertly through their grips.

It was a breathtaking example of high-caliber soldiering as, four by four, the men bounced down the wall, crossed the rocks at top speed, then abseiled down the last section to the ground. Back at the top, Ravi waited. The formations were slightly more ragged now, simply because some of the troops had been faster than others, and the ropes supported uneven numbers across the battery wall as each man descended.

There were only six men left up there in the darkness, and Ravi suddenly emerged from the shadows and ran in toward the battlements with the others. He had selected his rope and arrived simultaneously with two others.

“Righto, mate, after you,” one of them snapped, barely looking at the Hamas chief.

And Ravi grabbed the rope. He’d done this a hundred times in the SAS and, perhaps more expert than all these young commandoes, he swung over the battlements and bounced his way down, backward, the way a trained Special Forces officer is expected to complete this discipline.

Seconds later, he was on the rocks, running over to the last descent and abseiling onto the Esplanade. In front of him, the troops were lining up on the ground. Ravi moved back against the wall. There were essentially two differences between him and the rest. He was not lying flat on the ground, and his standard issue SA80 semi-automatic rifle was loaded with live ammunition, as opposed to the blanks the demonstration team would fire.

The last two men were down, and the subdued backlighting up ahead on the Royal Box was still silhouetting Admiral Morgan, sitting in the front row, four seats from the left. The VIPs were standing now, applauding the breathtaking display. Ravi could see Admiral Morgan, with Sir Iain to his right and Kathy in her green linen suit to his left.

Commander Rick Hunter was standing away to the right, on the end of the front row, when the first line of Marines opened fire into the air, demonstrating their opening assault on the enemy.

Rick’s mind raced. He had always hated this darkened castle, with his man plainly visible out in front. A thousand instincts honed on the battlefield with his brave and beloved SEALs crowded into his thoughts. He braced himself for the attack, thinking only that this stadium was right now in darkness, and men were firing rifles and he could not see them, and he had no idea who was shooting at what.