Patrick Robinson - To The Death

Kathy had rarely seen the admiral in a more mellow mood, and she decided to mention the strictest taboo in their lives.

“Jimmy was right, wasn’t he?” she said.

The admiral sipped luxuriously. “Yes,” he replied. “Jimmy was right. Clever little sonofabitch.” Even in defeat, Arnold still needed to take one last swing.

“What about his whole thought process-you know, the girl in Brockhurst, the murder in Ireland, the submarine? Do you think they were all correct, all connected?”

“Of course they were,” the admiral harrumphed. “Every one of ’em. His conclusions were too quick, but the outcome was correct.” At which point, he took another good solid gulp of Corton-Charlemagne and added, “Beginner’s luck, in a way.”

“ Arnold!”

“Well, he’s never worked on a case like that before. Half civilian, half military. And he’d solved it before it started.”

“Very clever,” said Kathy.

“Very goddamned fluky,” said the admiral. “He didn’t have anything like the evidence you need to leap to wild conclusions like that.”

“Do you think he might be a genius?”

“Probably,” growled Arnold. “But just remember, I invented the little sonofabitch. But for me, he’d still be working in the mailroom.”

“There are times, Arnold, when you are a disgrace. Jimmy is the son of an admiral and a very senior diplomat. He came to the NSA as a highly recommended intelligence lieutenant. And he’s one of the youngest lieutenant commanders in the history of the United States Navy. He did not graduate from the mailroom.”

“I meant that metaphorically, of course,” said Arnold, adding, pompously for him, “I have always been wary of precocity.”

“Jesus!” said Kathy. “You’re the most precocious person I ever met. And I bet you always were.”

Arnold laughed. “All right, all right. Jimmy out-thought me. I’m too old; I’ve lost my edge. This is Socrates and Plato all over again. The pupil overtakes the master.”

“Oh, don’t be too hard on yourself, darling,” she replied. “What I really want to know is, do you think the London assassin might try again?”

“Well, he won’t know where we are any longer, will he? Your mom told Carla about the Ritz, and that’s where he showed up. Even we aren’t certain where we’re going to be in the next few days. So I doubt he’ll ever locate us in time to take another shot.”

“ Arnold? Are you sure we shouldn’t head home, right now?”

“Not ’til we’ve finished dinner,” he chuckled. “Remember, no one has the slightest idea where we are and where we’re going. Not even you.”

The admiral signaled for James to take the white Burgundy in, to the table, and to serve him a glass of the 1998 Château de Carles, which had been opened an hour previously. This particular deep red Bordeaux, made on the right bank of the Gironde River, has a pedigree dating back to the eighth century when Emperor Charlemagne camped in the area.

Château de Carles itself dates back to the fifteenth century, and all that history, plus the distant presence of the great warrior Charlemagne, tipped the balance for Arnold, away from his favorite Château Lynch-Bages to the earthy black fruit aromas of the wine from Fronsac.

“Always remember, my boy,” he said to James. “Ninety-eight. St. Emilion and Pomerol, right bank of the river. That’s where they made the top vintage.”

“I did know that, sir. But I’ve never really known why.”

“Because it rained like hell on the left bank,” snapped the admiral.

“Really? Well, how wide’s the river, sir?”

“About a hundred times wider than the one outside the front door,” chuckled Arnold, as he led the way to the table, hugely looking forward to the forthcoming house specialty of honey-glazed duck with pickled plum.

At 10 P.M., British television announced details of the fatal shooting that had taken place on the front steps of the Ritz Hotel that morning. They named the dead man as George Kallan, an American national employed by the U.S. embassy in London and believed to be on the staff of the U.S. admiral Arnold Morgan, who was staying at the hotel. There had been no arrests, and, as yet, there were no suspects. The shot was believed to have been fired from a building on the opposite side of Piccadilly.

From the newscast, it was plain that the police had been very reticent about the nature of the crime. Scotland Yard did not have a representative supplying any extra information, and it was almost impossible for journalists to speculate, given the paucity of information.

Behind the scenes, however, there was pandemonium. Scotland Yard called in MI-5 and MI-6. The long-anticipated attempt on Admiral Morgan’s life had indeed happened. The attack, which had been flagged by the FBI, the CIA, and even the National Security Agency, had been carried out by persons almost certainly connected with the Middle Eastern Jihad against the West.

One way or another, one of the Holy Warriors had tracked down the admiral, the first time he had left the United States in six months. According to all known intelligence, gathered internationally in the last few weeks, the culprit was General Ravi Rashood, the former SAS major, who appeared to be on the loose somewhere in Great Britain. Right now, he was wanted for the murders of Jerry O’Connell and George Kallan.

The news reached Jimmy Ramshawe at 5 P.M. (local) at Fort Meade. It came in the form of a private signal from one of his buddies in the CIA: Jim, someone tried to assassinate Admiral Arnold Morgan at the front door of the Ritz Hotel in London today. The bullet missed, but hit one of the admiral’s bodyguards, George Kallan, killed him instantly.

Lt. Commander Ramshawe went white. He felt no sense of triumph, no feeling of exoneration for all the grief he had been given by the admiral. He actually felt scared, for Arnold and for Kathy. This represented all his dreads. And it was not the stray rifle shot across Piccadilly that bothered him. It was the fact that this organization, to which General Rashood belonged, had very obviously decided the time had come to eliminate the Big Man.

They had, Jimmy was certain, gone to the most enormous amount of trouble and expense to mount this operation, and it had plainly gone wrong. He, Jimmy, had been on to them from the start, and in his opinion they were not the kind of guys to quit. They would regroup and start again, searching for the man who had been their bête noire for so long.

He touched base with the CIA’s London desk, and they informed him that the admiral and Kathy were quite safe and in hiding somewhere west of London, under heavy CIA and police protection. There were two Flying Squad cars on permanent station outside the small hotel where the Morgans were staying. That was a total of seven armed British officers. There was Arnold ’s regular Secret Service detail, and an armed boat from the London River Police was on its way up through the locks and expected to arrive before midnight. If Hamas, or whoever, was planning to try again, this would not be an ideal time.

Nonetheless, Jimmy was extremely worried. Despite all the warnings and alerts received by the security authorities, this character Rashood had slipped through the net and had actually managed to park himself in a building opposite the admiral’s hotel and open fire on him the first time Arnie set foot outside the door. And then get away!

This was no ordinary assassin, Jimmy decided. This was a top-of-the-line professional, Rashood, the former SAS commander, a man once headed for the very top in Britain’s most elite branch of Special Forces.

If Admiral Morgan was to be protected, he would need at his side a man of comparable talents, not some half-trained London bobby. And Jimmy did not know what to do about that. He called Admiral Morris, his boss, who told him to come along to the director’s office immediately. George had not yet heard the news.