To the Death

Ravi believed he was a Holy Warrior, on a holy mission to rid his people of their greatest enemy. He must not fail: the eyes of Allah were upon him. The Prophet Mohammed was gazing down, willing him forward, as Mohammed himself had gone forward, fourteen centuries previously. For Ravi, failure was unthinkable. He was the Chosen One, the highly trained warrior for whom this mission was nothing less than destiny.

He stood before the window and ate one of his bananas. The light in London was fading now, just before 9 P.M. One hour hence, Don would leave and lock the building behind him. Neither doorman ever bothered to check if anyone was still working; and on the rare occasion when anyone was still there, the tenants had keys and knew to lock the door behind them.

Midnight came, and Ravi was dozing quietly in his chair, slumped on the desk, his head cradled in his arms. The building was eerily quiet, and the Hamas C-in-C sensed there was no one else in residence. In the quiet of the city, he heard Big Ben chime in the distance. He unlocked the door and tiptoed across to the bathroom. In his pocket he carried a glass paperweight, because if he did encounter anyone in these offices in the dead of night, he would have no alternative but to kill them instantly and haul the body into the safety of his office. Kill them, just as he had killed Jerry O’Connell in County Cork.

Ravi, with his Middle Eastern heritage, had a very dark beard, and he had decided to shave. He locked the bathroom door, took off his tracksuit top and placed it along the base of the door, and switched on the light. The bathroom had no window or outside wall, and he ran the hot water for as little time as possible. Then he peeled off his moustache and beard, shaved, and carefully placed them back on at the conclusion of the operation.

Back in his office, he once more sat in the dark, facing up calmly to the long wait through the small hours of the morning. It was 7 P.M. in Washington, D.C.

1800 Monday 30 July Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C.

Ahmed, the cultural attaché at the Jordanian embassy, sat quietly in a rear seat in the airport lounge, watching the first-class passengers board American Airlines Flight 163 for London. He kept his head down, buried in the Washington Post, but over the top of the newspaper he could see Admiral Arnold Morgan and Mrs. Kathy Morgan, surrounded by four obvious Secret Service men, walking toward the door to the jetway.

They were in a separate group from the regular first-class passengers, boarding first. Ahmed noted that two of the Secret Service men went with the admiral and his wife, one at the front, one at the rear. The other two remained behind, standing with the ticket girls, glancing over their shoulders at certain passports. Not until the flight was completely boarded did these two heavyweights walk through and take their seats across the aisle from Arnold and Kathy.

Ahmed had no idea of the seating arrangements on the plane, and that was not his business. He waited until the doors were closed, and then moved away to a viewing area from where he could see, from behind glass, the aircraft take off. He watched the American Boeing 747 back away from the jetway, and then saw it taxi away to the end of the runway.

Ten minutes passed before he saw it again, racing forward and then lifting off into the evening skies. He took out his cell phone and punched in a number in London. When the military attaché at the Syrian embassy answered, he just said: AA163 took off 1846. Four bruisers with seadog.

0100 Tuesday 31 July Dover Street, London

Ravi’s cell phone vibrated in his tracksuit pocket. He pulled it out and answered. A voice just said, “They’ve taken off, sir, 1846, four agents with them. ETA London Heathrow 0626.” The line went dead and the Hamas commander decided to have his dinner, since at last he was feeling hungry rather than churned up with the tension of not knowing where the admiral and Kathy were.

As it happened, things had gone precisely to plan. Kathy Morgan had delivered Kipper as promised to her mother’s house in Brockhurst, and the robust King Charles spaniel had lived up to Arnold’s description of him to the letter. He came charging through the front door, fell joyfully upon his old buddy Charlie, and capsized Emily’s perfectly laid tray — cups, saucers, milk, sugar, boiling-hot coffeepot, and cookies — all over the living-room floor. As Arnold had observed, that dog’s as silly as a goddamned sheep.

Eventually Kathy got away and met the admiral right on time at the airport. All Ravi had to do was wait for their arrival, and then for their first shopping expedition into the West End of London. Then it would be over swiftly.