To the Death

Lt. Commander Ramshawe had put just enough of a scare into the security authorities for them to install a very serious steel ring of protection around the admiral. But, in Jimmy’s opinion, it was not nearly enough to take care of a top international assassin, the kind of high-level, trained terrorist who he believed would imminently strike at the best friend of the President of the United States of America.

The Dover Street office block again went quiet. Big Ben chimed six times. Ravi went to his leather briefcase and took out the telescopic sight to his rifle, training it on the deserted front steps of the Ritz, staring through the crosshairs, imagining the dimension of his task later this day.

The transatlantic passenger jets were beginning to come in now; staring south through the window, Ravi could easily discern the flight pattern as they came in, banking steeply over East London and the city and then tracking the River Thames along the south bank, out past Hammersmith, Chiswick, and into Heathrow, directly into the prevailing southwest wind.

The sun, just rising now, glinted on the fuselages as one by one they dropped down toward the world’s busiest airport. Northwest Airlines, Air Canada, British Airways, Delta, Virgin, American, line astern at the end of their Atlantic crossing. Ravi tried to spot incoming AA163, and at 0615 he thought he saw the sunrise lighting up the entire length of a Boeing 747. He guessed that was the reflection on the familiar bright silver surface of American Airlines.

He may or may not have been correct, but his phone signaled an incoming call that relayed to him only two words: “American landed.”

Just thirty minutes later, at 0645, the phone rang again and a voice said: “Seadog plus bruisers. Two U.S. embassy cars plus two police cars left Terminal 3.”

What the man from the Syrian embassy did not know was that four police outriders, on motorcycles, had joined the four-car motorcade along the slip road to the M-4.

The order of the convoy was now two motorcycles, side by side, riding shotgun in the lead; then one police car, containing four armed Metropolitan police officers; then the first U.S. embassy car, containing the admiral and Kathy, plus two armed CIA men in the front seats; then the second embassy car, containing Arnold’s regular three armed Secret Service agents and the new man, George Kallan; then the second police car, with four more armed policemen; then the final two outriders bringing up the rear. No sirens sounded, and the only flashing lights were on the leading motorcycles.

The convoy ran swiftly into West London. They were in moderate traffic, which was not yet into the eight o’clock gridlock. And there were no holdups whatsoever until they reached the big junction where Cromwell Road meets the Earls Court Road. Then everything slowed down.

But as soon as they crossed that junction, the outriders opened up their sirens, just short sharp whoops that caused the very savvy British drivers to ease over to the left, giving the convoy an almost free run into Knightsbridge.

They swung right down Beauchamp Place and ran straight through to Belgrave Square. Shakira, looking through her bedroom window, saw the motorcycles and cars come streaming past and guessed immediately who was in the black one with the darkened windows. But she thought not of the archterrorist-buster Arnold Morgan, but of his wife, her friend Emily’s daughter, the very beautiful Washington socialite, who only the previous day must have delivered Kipper to Brockhurst.

Shakira was unaccountably overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness, not so much for the mayhem and murder her husband was about to inflict on that family, but for her own lost life, the absence of normality, of calm and happiness. Perhaps Ravi would gun down Arnold Morgan later today. But Shakira was assailed by the fear that wherever the admiral fell, Ravi too must lie someday.

As she turned away from the disappearing convoy, tears trickled down the exquisite face of Shakira Rashood.

…Light upon Light,

God guides whom he will to His Light…

The convoy ran south out of Belgrave Square and then turned east, toward the endless high wall of Buckingham Palace. They sped past the Royal Mews and the Queen’s Picture Gallery, and then swerved around onto the Mall, still at a fast speed.

They passed Clarence House, where Prince Charles lives, and at the next traffic light made a left, past St. James’s Palace, and then straight up St. James’s Street heading north.

Just before the Piccadilly traffic light, the outriders opened up their sirens again and made a sudden left turn along Bennett Street. With the convoy past, two London policemen, each with a submachine gun slung across his shoulder, stepped off the sidewalk and dragged three traffic cones across the entrance to the street.