Patrick Robinson - To The Death

“He’d have refused you entry,” replied Fausi. “And they would have put you on the next plane back to London. It’s not a hanging offense. And you’re not a known criminal. It would just have been a plan that went wrong. Inconvenient, but not life-threatening.

“Besides, you carried with you a Carla Martin Social Security number, three Carla Martin credit cards, and a Carla Martin Maryland driver’s license. Everything was in your favor, photograph or no photograph. It was a slight risk, and you took it very well.”

“Thank you, Fausi. I’ll leave the rest of the journey to you.”

The Jordanian agent gunned the car out of Boston, straight down to the Massachusetts Turnpike and southwest to Hartford, Connecticut, and New York. Four hours later, they hit traffic coming to the Triboro Bridge, and it was almost 7:30 in the evening when Fausi pulled up outside the Pierre Hotel.

His passenger left him there, and, as the doorman took her suitcase, she called out, “Early start tomorrow.”

Fausi answered as he drove off down Fifth Avenue. “No problem, Shakira, right here, nine o’clock.”

One hour later, the beautiful Shakira Rashood walked elegantly into the Pierre Hotel’s dining room and joined a smoothly dressed Arab sitting at a corner table, nursing a glass of chilled white wine.

He stood up as she approached, smiled, and said, “So you are the legendary Shakira. I was told you were very beautiful, but the description did not do you justice.”

“Thank you, Ahmed,” she said. “I have heard many good things about you too.”

“I hope from your husband. He is a great hero, both to me and many other devout Muslims.”

“Yes,” she replied. “And he is very impressed with your work here on our behalf.”

“And now you must remember,” he said, “as we all do in the USA, to take extra care at all times. The Americans are a friendly, trusting people, but if the authorities here get a smell that something is wrong, they are absolutely ruthless in hunting down their enemy.”

“And that would be us, correct?”

“That would most certainly be us.”

The waiter poured Shakira a glass of the wine and took their order, grilled sole for both of them. She listened while Ahmed explained how his duties in the Jordanian embassy as a cultural attaché allowed him access to many American institutions.

His embassy, situated just along the road from the Israelis on International Avenue in Washington, was mostly trusted, although not by the CIA. And definitely not by Admiral Morgan. But, broadly, Ahmed was allowed access to any cultural affairs in the nation’s capital and in New York. It had been his job to set up Shakira in the correct place to carry out her mission.

And he had achieved that, more or less accidentally, by attending a recent cocktail party for a cancer charity at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, right on the Georgetown Canal behind the Watergate complex.

To his utter delight, he realized Admiral Morgan and his wife were in attendance, and he was swift to move into prime position for an introduction to Mrs. Morgan, who served on the committee. The Jordanians were often extremely generous in their support of these Washington charities.

It was obvious, in the first few moments, that the admiral was bored sideways by the small talk, and he swiftly left to speak to an official from the State Department.

It was a moment that effectively chopped several months off the preparation time General Rashood had allocated for the hit against Morgan. Because Arnold’s departure had left Ahmed sipping champagne (cheap, New York State, horrified Arnold) with Kathy Morgan.

“And were you originally from this part of the world?” he asked her.

“Well, a long time ago,” she smiled. “I was married before, and we lived for several years in Europe, but then I came home.”

“To Washington?”

“Well, to Virginia. My mother still lives there. Little country town called Brockhurst, way down near the Rappahannock River. It’s very pretty.”

“So you have a nice drive down to see her when the big city gets too much?”

“You’re right,” said Kathy. “I do like going down there. That’s where I was born, but there aren’t many people I still know. Mom’s on her own now, and she gets a bit lonely sometimes. And you?”

“Oh, I am from a place called Petra in the south of Jordan. My parents have a small hotel there.”

“Petra,” said Kathy. “I know about Petra. That’s where they discovered the lost city carved into the rock. Burial grounds, palaces, temples, and God knows what. Pre-Roman.”

“Well, that’s very impressive, Mrs. Morgan,” said Ahmed. “And you are right. There are still very important excavations taking place down there.”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing that dramatic happening in Brockhurst when I go home,” said Kathy, laughing. “Just Emily working in her garden.”

“Emily?”

“Yes, that’s my mom. I always called her Emily. She’s Emily Gallagher.”

“Then you are of Irish descent,” replied Ahmed, with the skilled dexterity of an international diplomat. “Like my own mother.”

“Well, yes, I am-I was Kathy Gallagher. All four of my grandparents were immigrants from Kerry in southern Ireland. But your mother sounds really interesting.”

“Her family came from County Cork, but she met and married my father when he was a Jordanian diplomat in Dublin. He hated the weather, so they returned to Petra and bought a hotel.”

At this point, Kathy excused herself to assist the chairman with her gratitude speech, and she moved away unaware that she had been speaking to one of the most sinister, dangerous undercover terrorists in the entire United States.

Ahmed hated the West, and everything it stood for. He was a rabid extremist for Islam, though not in the front line of strikes against the Great Satan. He operated behind the scenes, and was probably Hezbollah’s most valuable intelligence gatherer. He also helped Hamas whenever he could. Ahmed was permitted to take no risks.

And now, sitting quietly in New York’s Pierre Hotel with Shakira Rashood, he would put his knowledge to work. “Take notes, but destroy them before you get on station,” he ordered. “Your mission is to befriend a Mrs. Emily Gallagher. She lives in a small town called Brockhurst, down where the Rappahannock River runs out into Chesapeake Bay.”

“Have you been there?”

“Yes. I drove down. It’s about 120 miles from Washington. But it’s a good road, Interstate 95 until you hit Route 17, then straight down the right bank of the river.”

“Did you see Mrs. Gallagher’s house?”

“I did. That part was easy. It’s a white stone colonial building on the edge of the town. I think she might be rather a grand lady. So please be extra careful. Those kinds of people are usually a lot cleverer than we may sometimes think.”

Shakira wrote carefully in a small leather-bound notebook. “Did you see her?” she asked.

“No. But I saw the house.”

“And the hotel you mentioned?”

“That’s in the center of town. Quite an old building, with a bar and a restaurant. And quite busy.”

“And I am either to stay there or work there?”

“Correct. But much better to work there if you can. I have an apartment for you about twenty miles north of Brockhurst in a new complex. It’s the penthouse on the twenty-first floor, and I have right here the lease agreement, which you must sign and present to the management when you get there.”

Ahmed reached into his pocket and produced the document, with a banker’s draft made out to Chesapeake Properties for $9,000, the amount of four months’ rent.

“That’s a lot of money,” said Shakira.