Patrick Robinson - To The Death

Ravi Rashood, two hundred yards away, steadied himself on the wall, and, from out of the night, he aimed his SA80 directly at Admiral Arnold Morgan’s chest.

He held his breath and pressed the trigger. But Rick was about a hundredth of a second faster. He bounded two strides forward and launched himself sideways across the front of the Royal Box. He hit Arnold Morgan with a full-blooded rugby tackle that flattened the great man to the floor. They hit Kathy on the way down and flattened her too. Rick tried desperately to protect the admiral, raising himself and instinctively covering Morgan’s body with his own.

Women screamed. The gunfire continued. The police ran in to break up what looked like a fight between two Americans. And as the guns were finally silenced, everyone stood up and dusted themselves off.

No one spoke, but Arnold and Rick could see a line of 5.56mm bullets studded into the back of Arnold’s seat. Directly behind, the provost of Edinburgh University, covered in blood, was slumped dead in his chair.

Rick helped Kathy to her feet. Neither she nor Arnold was hurt, but they were both very shaken. Arnold stared in disbelief at the bullets lodged in his chair. The police called for an ambulance, and the main lights came on. An announcement was made that owing to an unfortunate incident, the remainder of the Tattoo had been called off because of the suspected murder of the provost of Edinburgh University.

The 10,000-strong crowd was told to leave in an orderly manner and that either their tickets would be renewed or their money refunded.

And down behind the left-hand grandstand, in the dark, under the seats, Ravi was tearing off his army clothes and returning to civilian life. As suspected by Commander Hunter, he had bolted through that gap between the grandstand and the back wall. And now he dumped the trousers, jacket, and hat into a trashcan and walked out with everyone else, taking a circuitous route around to Princes Street. For the moment, he abandoned the Audi and walked back to the Cavendish, wearing his suede jacket, with the short-barreled rifle tucked underneath, half down his trousers, out of sight.

He had missed for the second time, and he knew it. He had seen the schemozzle in the front row of the Royal Box, seen the admiral go down just as he had fired. For a split second he’d thought the bullet had hit home, but Special Forces commanders have an instinct about these things. And in his heart he knew he’d missed the admiral.

The important thing, however, was that he was still free, on the loose and able to fight another day. Except that, in this particular case, it would be this day. He said hello to the doorman and headed straight up to his room, hoping to hell Shakira would contact him and finalize their arrangements.

It was after 10:30 now, and Shakira took half an hour to call. Ravi answered the phone and she just said, “They are all arriving. I’ll be down.”

Two minutes later she let herself into the room, having just seen Admiral Morgan and his wife, and having ascertained that, again, her husband had missed the target for which they had both strived for so long.

“Darling,” she said, “can we go home now? Let’s just get away. We have the car, we can make it.”

Ravi shook his head. “This is not a military mission,” he said. “This is the sacred work of Allah. I cannot abandon it. I would burn in hell if I did that. We must complete what we began.”

“But why? We’ve both tried so hard. Maybe this is not meant to be. Why can’t we just go?”

Again, Ravi shook his head. “Is everything ready on the roof?” he asked. “Yes, but I don’t want you to go.”

“Can’t you see that I must?” And Ravi’s voice began to rise. “I have to kill him. He is the enemy of my people, the attack dog of the West, the sworn foe of the Prophet, the scourge of our armies. The admiral must die by my hand…”

Ravi was shouting now, and Shakira was frightened someone would hear. Worse yet, she was afraid of Ravi now, afraid he had lost all sense of reason.

“Go,” he commanded her. “GO! And do the bidding of Allah, as I must. Now GO!”

He watched her walk through the door, and minutes later he followed her along the corridor to the fire escape. He took with him a balaclava and goggles he had bought in the same army surplus store where he purchased his boots.

He climbed the stone steps, fourteen floors, to the stairwell of the sixteenth. He was standing inside the door Shakira had opened earlier that evening. The last short flight of stone steps led to the roof. Ravi checked his watch; three minutes later, Shakira came in.

Ravi told her they were each precious messengers of Allah, and that this task tonight might be the last time they would see each other on this earth. They would, however, be united in the arms of Allah, who would surely welcome two of his finest Holy Warriors into everlasting paradise.

“Besides,” he added in conclusion, “there is nothing here for us any more. Nowhere to go, to live. We’d be hiding for all the days of our lives. Tonight Allah will decide for us.”

He put his arms around her and held her close. Together they’d risked everything for the Jihad, and now there seemed to be nothing left. For a while, Ravi had considered that Admiral Morgan was the one trapped in a corner. And that may have been true, but the corner he and Shakira were in was slower and more deadly.

He kissed her good-bye and said quietly, “Shakira, you know what to do. And if I can make this work tonight, we will still have a chance to escape. If I can’t, we’ve had many wonderful years together, and Allah will unite us soon.”

And with that, General Rashood climbed the stone steps to the roof, and there, standing hidden in the shadow of the air-conditioning unit, was the seaman’s bag containing the dock lines and the harness. He fixed the ends around a thick water pipe which was cemented into the wall, and ran them both through their shackles.

He slipped the safety harness on and fastened it tightly, attaching it to the second line with the rock-climbers’ clips which he could adjust on the way down, playing out the line. And then he waited for Shakira’s call.

In the meantime, over at the castle, the police were trying to make up for lost time. They sent a detail to the Marine commando headquarters and checked every man who had gone over the wall. Everyone was present, every man still had his rifle, and every rifle was empty, having fired only blanks. The police stationed officers at every door, and they began to search people as they left the Tattoo.

Finally they had the CO summon the guard and conduct a roll call of the men who had been on duty. There was, of course, one missing, a 23-year-old Scots guardsman who had been armed with an SA80 semi-automatic, loaded.

This was a rifle with the precise same bullets that had been fired at the U.S. admiral and killed the provost. At 11:30 P.M., the police decided they had a suspect-a missing suspect, but still a suspect.

They posted a further guard detail on the Cavendish Hotel, with men again on duty on the sixteenth floor. Arnold’s four-man bodyguard team was still working, and Rick elected to stay close to the admirals and their wives.

Right now they were having supper in the hotel grill, and no one felt like going to bed after the narrow escape from death Arnold had suffered.

“Jesus, Rick, you saved my life,” he said. “Guess I owe you and Ramshawe together.”

“You don’t owe me anything, sir,” replied the ex-SEAL. “It was an honor to carry out my duty.”

“I guess I’m getting too old for these front-line politics,” said the admiral. “And I think I might be getting stupid as well.”

“I’d find that very hard to accept,” said Sir Iain.