Patrick Robinson - To The Death

“Oh, nothing, Mrs. Gallagher. I was just remembering I stayed there once myself, with my dad. I was only about fourteen years old, but I remember those sandwiches.”

Emily laughed and wished she could have been more helpful. Her parting words to Jimmy and Jane were “Quite frankly, I hope Carla turns up. She was such a very nice girl. And so good with Charlie.”

Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Ramshawe gunned his beloved Jaguar north up Route 17 without uttering one word for twenty minutes. Jane Peacock would have mentioned his uncharacteristic silence, except she was asleep in the passenger seat. Finally, as they ran through the flat-lands of Essex County, three things happened. Jane awakened. Jimmy spoke, or rather cursed. And a Virginia state trooper pulled him over for speeding.

When he produced his driver’s license, he also handed over his National Security Agency identification. The officer looked at both.

“You going straight through to Fort Meade, sir?”

“Right now I’m headed for the Australian embassy.”

The policeman nodded, handed back the documents. “Trouble?”

“Big.”

“Okay, sir. You need an escort?”

“I guess not. I’ll keep it down on the highway.”

“I’ll track you up to Fredericksburg. No problem, and, hey, thanks for what you do for our country.”

The state trooper, who was in his late twenties, offered his hand and confided, “I tried out for the Navy SEALs a few years back, down at Virginia Beach. Too tough for me. But I still appreciate what all you guys do… So long, Commander.”

Jimmy pulled back onto the road and accelerated once more toward Washington. The police cruiser sped along fifty yards in the rear, its blue lights no longer flashing.

Jane shook her head. “It’s a bloody miracle what those three little words mean in this country,” she said. “National Security Agency. It really matters, doesn’t it? Sometimes I forget how much.”

Her fiancé was pensive. After a few seconds, he said, quietly, “Speaking of miracles, I’ll tell you about another one…”

“You will?”

“Yeah. Because that’s what it will be, if that Brockhurst detective ever finds Carla Martin-you know what? He’s never going to find Carla Martin.”

“How do you know? Half the country’s looking out for her.”

“Half the country’s whistling Dixie. Because Carla Martin no longer exists. She died with Matt Barker.”

“Died!”

“Figuratively, I mean. Carla Martin was a professional agent, almost certainly operating on behalf of an Islamic terrorist group. She came here to Brockhurst to set up a field office, with the express purpose of finding out when Arnold and Kathy were leaving the country.”

“Well, where is she now?”

“Dunno, babe. But if I had to guess, I’d say Syria.”

“What do you mean, Syria? How could she get there?”

“No trouble. Air France to Paris, from either Washington or New York. Then on to Damascus. Same airline.”

“And how, Great Oracle, do you alone come to be in possession of these facts? You alone, out of the entire country?”

Jimmy took his right hand off the wheel and tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “Mostly because I alone do not give a rat’s ass about the murder. I’m looking for something else, and I just found it.”

“I don’t know why you have to be so dismissive about the life of Matt Barker.”

“Because he was just a big stupid accident who blundered into the path of a major Islamic terrorist operation. Of course she killed him, but it’s about as important as having a cup of coffee. And I’m the only person right now who is aware of that.”

“Well, the media don’t seem to agree with you. They are possessed by this murder.”

“If his bloody pecker hadn’t been sticking out, none of ’em would have given a damn. It just gave a salacious flavor to a routine country killing. And that’ll do it every time. They wouldn’t recognize the real truth behind the story if it bit ’em right in the ass.”

Jane chuckled. “Christ, Arnold Morgan has had an effect on you,” she said.

“I take that as a compliment,” he replied. “But just ask yourself. This murder has all the hallmarks of an international terrorist operation. And how many times has any newspaper, radio, or television outfit mentioned that obvious truth? I’ll tell you. None. And how often have they mentioned Matt Barker’s pecker? About eight zillion times.”

Again Jane laughed. “I guess his brains ended up in his pecker,” she said. “A darned expensive move-cost him his life.”

“Right. And a very dangerous one for Carla. Just a bit of bad luck. This randy bastard from the garage waits outside the hotel and tries to give her the Big What-Ho. Attacked her in some kind of sexual frenzy. For Carla, there was no alternative but to kill him. Quickly. And efficiently, like all special operators.

“And that meant she had to get the hell out. And now she’s gone, probably abroad, certainly under a different passport. She’ll never be found.”

“How do you know that?”

“For a start, no one knows her name, no one has the remotest idea what country she’s in, and she left, apparently, no trace. No one even knows where she lived.”

“Okay. But the truth may come out in the next few days.”

“I wouldn’t put your life savings on it. Miss Carla was a complete professional. Assume, just for a moment, I’m on the right track, and then look at what she did. Her objective is to find out from Kathy’s mum when Arnold is going on vacation.

“She enters the country almost certainly on an American passport, otherwise the forgery would have been picked up at the immigration desks at the airport. She makes her way to Mrs. Gallagher’s little town and immediately gets a job at the local hotel. She befriends no one, except for one person-Mrs. Gallagher, surprise surprise.

“No one ever sees her arrive at the hotel, and no one ever sees her leave at night. No one has ever seen her car, not even Mrs. Gallagher. You know why?”

“No, ’course I don’t.”

“Because she never had a car.”

“So how did she get to work and home at night?”

“She had a chauffeur, who dropped her off at different places close to the hotel, quiet streets only. And at night he waited for her at an agreed place. She just slipped across the parking lot and ran to where her car was waiting. Until the night when Matt Barker decided to ambush her.”

“Was the chauffeur her boyfriend?”

“Christ, no. More likely a fellow member of Hezbollah or Hamas, or maybe even from a Middle East embassy. Someone right here in the USA gave her that dagger to protect herself if necessary. She’d never have tried to bring it through airport security herself.”

“Well, it all sounds plausible, and I do remember that hotel manager saying she must have removed her documents from the file. And she plainly gave a false address, that Bowling Wharf or whatever it was.”

“Listen, Jane. Sooner or later, someone’s going to report a missing tenant in an apartment block. Remember Emily’s words, apartment, doorman, balcony. And the police are going to trace Carla Martin’s passport, and it will be a dead end, and no one will ever have heard of her.

“And we’ll still be the only people who care about her real purpose. Because Emily told Carla all about the admiral’s trip to London, his hotel, date and time of departure from Washington. And someone is going to be waiting for him. And that someone is going to try to kill him. Arnold’s life is in the gravest possible danger.”

“Is anyone going to believe all this?”

“I doubt it. Certainly not Arnold.”