Patrick Robinson - To The Death

The police, customs officials, and security guards had their leaves canceled in the areas where General Rashood might show up. Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, and Manchester airports looked like military strongholds. The English Channel seaports were steel-ringed with military personnel and armed police who boarded the ferries, searched the freighters, and checked out private yachts.

Even the smaller airports, Bristol, Bournemouth, Southampton, New-castle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Prestwick, were inundated with police and antiterrorist officers. Most of the airport and seaport staff had no idea why there was this sudden red alert. But the atmosphere was so serious, everyone was happy to cooperate. Flights were delayed, ships were held up, and no one even caught a sniff of General and Mrs. Rashood.

This was mostly because they never again left the Syrian embassy for the first five days of their visit. They were officially on Syrian soil, even though it was in Belgrave Square, and all of those usual diplomatic taboos were strictly observed at the Court of St. James. The London police did not harass the embassies, because retaliation was too easy: give the Syrians a hard time in London, and the next thing would be some kind of a witchhunt at the British embassy in north Damascus.

Back in the USA, Lt. Commander Ramshawe was helpless. There was nothing the Americans could do except offer assistance if required. The Hamas military boss and his wife were in hiding somewhere in the UK, and no one knew any more. And with each passing day, Arnold and Kathy were one step closer to the assassination attempt Jimmy Ramshawe was certain would happen.

All week there was only one break. At 0630 (local) on Tuesday morning, July 24, the Royal Navy ops room at the Gibraltar Station detected the Iranian Kilo moving slowly through the Strait, a hundred feet below the surface. They picked her up again several hours later, snorkeling in the narrow seaway, and reported it back to COMSUBLANT.

Again there was nothing anyone could do. The Iranians, despite some hefty breaches of international law, were still entitled to send their navy anywhere they wished on the high seas, just so long as the Kilo did not open fire on anyone. In turn, for a Western power to attempt to sink the Iranians would have been a flagrant act of war, which no one felt like committing. At least not in the Mediterranean.

Jimmy Ramshawe, in receipt of the signal that pinpointed the Kilo, felt nothing but a sense of total frustration. The submarine had turned up where he said it would turn up, a bit late, but it was a long voyage from the south coast of Ireland. He was frankly astounded that his early diagnosis of the plot to kill the admiral was not now universally accepted. Of course the Kilo had dropped off General Rashood in County Cork, and of course Rashood was now in England with Carla Martin, awaiting the arrival of Arnold and Kathy.

He accepted the difficulty of arresting the terrorist couple, of finding them, and, with mounting anxiety, he once more called the admiral. And Arnold, for the first time, seemed to accept that Jimmy might very well be on to something. But he was not being ruled by a goddamned towelhead, nossir. Not even one as lethally dangerous as Ravi Rashood.

“When you have outstanding security, provided by the President of the United States of America, you gotta trust your guys,” he growled.

Jimmy, slipping into a broad Australian outback accent, retorted, “Kinda like JFK and Ronald Reagan.”

“No, not like them. They were both on public duty; JFK was in a motorcade, Ronnie was outside a hotel with a crowd of people waiting. I’m an unknown former U.S. Naval officer on a private visit with my wife. Hardly anyone will know I’m there.”

“I can think of at least two bastards who will know: that bloody barmaid, and her reptile husband who went missing from 22 SAS. For Christ’s sake be careful. That’s all I can say.”

The wide thoroughfare of Piccadilly was gridlocked, all the way from the Wellington Arch at the western end of Green Park to Piccadilly Circus. The morning rush hour was under way, and it was quicker to walk than to take a bus or a taxi.

General Rashood stood among the fast-moving crowd on the corner of Dover Street, diagonally across from the Ritz Hotel. Mick Barton would not have recognized him. He was wearing a slim blond wig, a trimmed moustache and goatee beard, and heavy spectacles, with jeans, a white T-shirt, and sneakers. No jacket. He carried a briefcase.

Right now he was trying to get his bearings, assessing the distance across the yellow-painted lines of the junction into Arlington Street, to the entrance of the hotel. He stood there for only three minutes and then turned and walked through glass-paneled swing doors into the glum reception area of a London office block.

The entrance was sited amid a line of shops that curled around the south side of the block, from the Post Office on Dover Street, briefly along Piccadilly itself, and then around into Albemarle Street. The offices were situated on all six floors above the shops. Ever since the recent property collapse in London, there had been vacancies not only in this building, but in most others.

Ravi had stumbled into a buyers’ market. He wished only to rent, but if necessary he would purchase a leasehold. In this financial climate, however, a leasehold would most certainly not be necessary. Renting would be just fine, at a price way too high for a small space, but not ruinous.

He walked up to the doorman and requested the office manager. “I did call this morning,” he said. “ Haakon Fretheim, Finland Farms Marketing Board.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Ravi was led up to a second-floor office fronting on Piccadilly. The rental agent was a bespectacled thirtyish lady wearing a blue suit and a Sotheby’s International name tag-Judith Birchell.

She confirmed to Ravi that there were seven available suites of offices at present, but the one she had mentioned on the phone, the single room with reception annex, was probably sufficient for one accountant and a secretary.

“It’s on the fourth floor, right above here,” she said. “Views directly across to the Ritz and St. James’s Street… let’s go up and take a look.”

Ravi followed her out to the hall, and they took the elevator two floors higher. There were several doors off the central area, two of which were open with sounds of activity from within. Two others had lights on, and the last one required a key to gain entry.

Judith showed Ravi into a carpeted office with a bright south-facing window. Ravi checked the catch and decided not to request permission to open it. There was a Venetian blind, which obviously could be lowered, and a desk and chair, which the agent said came with the rental, the last tenants having left the furniture and a rent debt for several hundred pounds.

“They left in a bit of a hurry,” she said. “They’d been gone more than a week before we realized they weren’t coming back.”

Ravi chuckled. “What rent were they paying?”

“A little over three thousand a month,” she replied. “But there’s been a rate cut since then. This is yours for twenty-two hundred, first and last deposit, on the six-month lease you mentioned.”

“Can I have it right away?”

“Oh, certainly. This building has a resident cleaning staff. The whole place has been vacuumed, carpets steam-cleaned, and the desk cleared out. The phones are connected, there’s central Internet, and the bathroom is right across the hall. Right next to it is the incinerator. You may dump the dry contents of your wastebasket down there, just paper and unwanted documents, not kitchen waste.

“If you leave the deposit, I’ll give you two keys, and one for the front door. The doormen are on duty from 7 A.M. until 10 P.M. Don and Reggie. You’ll find them extremely helpful.”