To the Death am-10

by Patrick Robinson

  And with that he was gone. It was almost 9:30 P.M. now, and the bar was emptying out as residents left and went into the dining room. The place would get a “second wind” at around eleven o’clock, but in the meantime Shakira was almost alone.

  She finished her Irish coffee and walked up to the bar to speak to Dennis. “That man told me he used to have an important career,” she said, as always unable to resist getting right to the bottom of any unclear information.

  And Dennis raised his eyebrows and said, “Miss Carson, that man is, secretly, a former freedom fighter with the Irish Republican Army, the fellers who shot and bombed the English into submission over Northern Ireland.

  “Trouble is, he never got over it. Spends his entire life yearning for the good old days when he and a few others were out there causing mayhem. Most of ’em found it very hard to fall back into peaceful civilian life after those years when they were on the run, plotting and planning and killing. That kind of life was like a drug to some of ’em, and Pat Slater is one.”

  Shakira looked bemused. “Were these Irish Republican men terrorists, or did they fight like a national armed force?”

  “No, they were never like that. They attacked the British along the borders, blew up train stations, and sometimes streets. They wore the badge of terrorists proudly, and said they were fighting a war to drive the British out of Ireland forever.”

  “And did they succeed?”

  “As far as anyone could ever succeed in Northern Ireland, I suppose. But up there, the majority of the population wants to keep their British ties.”

  “But did the bombing and killing get results?” Shakira persisted.

  “Oh, yes. No doubt about that. In the end, the Brits were really fed up with it, but so were the people of Northern Ireland. Everyone just grew tired of an endless conflict.”

  “Was it like the Muslim Jihad?”

  “In some ways it was, but not on so large a scale. The IRA was a much smaller force, even though they had a few pretty ambitious targets. There was nothing like the Twin Towers in New York.”

  “Do you think their attacks proved that a great and worthwhile cause can be achieved by a sustained campaign of terror?”

  “In a way, they did. The British government would never have given in so quickly if they hadn’t been afraid of more bombs in London.”

  “Then it was good news for all terrorists,” laughed Shakira.

  “It wasn’t that good,” said Dennis. “Did you ever see a man so gloomy as Pat Slater? He’s like all the rest. The glory for them was in the chase, not the objective. how about another Irish coffee? I’ll have one with you before the late rush hour starts.”

  Shakira nodded cheerfully, and said, “I used to work behind a bar once, back in the USA.”

  CHAPTER 8

  0700 Monday 9 July Western Mediterranean

  Captain Abad’s sonar room had finally located the U.S. submarine Cheyenne, currently steaming slowly on a southerly course, eight miles to the northwest. The total absence of any kind of aggressive move from the Americans, or even an increase in speed, gave him confidence that the Iranian Kilo was in no immediate danger.

  Thus he made a decision to press on regardless, keeping up his speed and holding his course to the Strait of Gibraltar.

  Cheyenne’s sonar room kept watching. “She’s headed straight to Gibraltar,” said the CO.

  “No doubt,” responded the chief. “We never had one shred of intel that said anything about her destination. But this is obvious. She’ll pass about seven thousand yards to starboard at her current speed, one hour from now.”

  “Keep tracking her.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Back in the Kilo, Mohammed Abad kept the air intake raised and ordered the submarine to all-ahead, maximum speed. And the Kilo once more accelerated forward, the two masts leaving a slashing white wake above a turmoil of water being churned up by that big Russian five-bladed propeller only forty-five feet below the surface.

  The wide ultrasensitive sweep of Cheyenne’s radar picked up the accelerating masts in a heartbeat. The Kilo was plainly making a run for it.

  Commander Redford had little choice but to follow, since his orders were very definitely to stay in contact but also to stay in the Med. So the Cheyenne set off, making a southerly course at around twenty knots.

  The Kilo out in front, moving fast, was still at periscope depth and making a major racket just below the surface of the water. The Americans could not fail to track her with consummate ease.

  At 0900, high above, the American satellite photographed her wake, ensuring that U.S. military surveillance knew precisely where the Iranian submarine was located.

  By 1115 that morning, the Kilo was a hundred miles southwest of Alicante, off Spain’s Costa Blanca. To the south was the long hot coastline of Morocco. Progress was still fast, and no one had opened fire on her. By dark, the Kilo had progressed over a hundred miles, her speed was steady, and General Rashood, who was no stranger to submarines, estimated that he was more or less on time. He needed to be through the Gibraltar Strait tomorrow, Tuesday, and that could definitely happen at this speed.

  His planned landing on the coast of southern Ireland on July 14 or 15 was still on, and suddenly the Cheyenne seemed to be losing interest, slipping back several miles astern.

  At midnight, Monday, July 9, Captain Abad ordered an increase in speed as they headed directly to the Strait. She was now driving through the water at seventeen knots. And her CO would make several of these one-hour bursts, despite the stress it put on the battery.

  1600 Tuesday 10 July West Cork, Ireland

  Shakira Rashood had left the Cashel Palace Hotel on Monday morning and asked her driver to take her to the wondrous Atlantic coastline of West Cork, upon which, sometime this week, her husband would land. The journey was a little over a hundred miles, and she had checked into a small hotel in the fishing village of Schull on the shores of Roaring Water Bay. She sent the chauffeur back to Cashel with instructions to collect her in Schull on Thursday afternoon.

  Today she had taken a local taxi all the way down the long undulating road to the end of the Mizen Head Peninsula. And from there on this clear summer day she could see the distant lighthouse on the Fastnet Rock. The sea was very blue out here, and the deep Atlantic looked friendly, with two or three yachts sailing close-hauled into the soft onshore breeze.

  Shakira had grown to love Ireland in the short time of her stay. She liked the people and was truly astonished at the breathtaking beauty of the countryside. For someone brought up among the sands of the desert, the browns and the stony reds of the Arab landscape, she found Ireland, with its forty shades of green, to be almost beyond her imagination.

  She felt as if she was standing in a giant oil painting on the cliff top of Mizen Head. Behind her stretched the switchback of hills that rise and fall among tiny stone-ringed fields that had been divided and divided again, down the centuries, as families had split, shared, and migrated, in the endless surge of Ireland’s greatest export, her people.

  All around her, she had sensed the history, the ancient myths, and the legends. Every time she spoke to anyone at any length, there was a story, because the past is never far away for the Irish. The entire landscape is dotted with reminders, the stone ring forts, the huge stone graves, the tall carved religious stones dating from 2000 B.C., the round towers, and the high crosses.

  During her journey south from Dublin, Shakira had stopped whenever she saw something to which she could get close. On the great Rock of Cashel beyond her hotel room, she had spent three hours just wandering around the ancient fortifications, the roofless abbey, and the finest twelfth-century chapel in Ireland. She’d stopped on the road to gaze at ruins, checking her guidebook, perhaps because this sense of times long past was in her blood, this curiosity, this desire to imagine.

  No race of people is more devoted than the Arabs to myth and history and far-lost stories of valor and achievement. Except perhaps
the Irish. Nonetheless, Shakira Rashood was exceptional. If she had not been an Islamic terrorist, she might perhaps have been a scholar.

  She climbed back into her taxi and told the driver to go slowly all along the road to Barleycove and Goleen. Because from those high cliffs she could see way down to the harbor of Crookhaven, the spot chosen by the Hamas High Command, into which they would insert General Rashood after his long journey in the submarine.

  Slowly they made their way back along the road to the West End Hotel in Schull, where she took a long bath and then walked downstairs into the bar for a glass of fruit juice before dinner. And as always, there was another legend being related, of how Bonzo, a local fisherman, had once drunk sixteen pints of draught Guinness in an hour and twelve minutes, which was considered to be an Irish free-standing record.

  Shakira did not consider it to be in the same category as the legend of Brian Boru, who had stormed and captured the Rock of Cashel in the tenth century. But the bards of the Cashel Palace downstairs bar, on the subject of the great Irish king, were precisely the same as the seamen of Schull speaking of Bonzo. They all recounted the mighty deeds in the same reverential tones: all of them as if these pinnacles of Irish history had taken place yesterday.

  Shakira was charmed by all of it, and wondered if it could ever be possible for her and Ravi one day to live here in peace and seclusion, half a world away from the flaming hatreds and death that would never leave the lands of her forefathers. But in her heart she knew that she and Ravi had gone too far, that they were both wanted in too many places, that there were too many people who would shoot them both on sight. The steely-eyed hitmen of the Mossad and the CIA would surely offer neither of them one shred of mercy.

  0200 Wednesday 11 July East of Gibraltar

  Right above the Kilo, on the surface of the most westerly reaches of the Mediterranean Sea, the rain was lashing down. This was one of those great summer squalls known in the area as a levanter. Captain Abad welcomed it with all of his heart: the belting rain was sweeping across the dark water, giving him noise cover while the submarine ran at periscope depth, snorkeling. Despite the absence of danger, he still had those ingrained submariner’s instincts—the quieter we run, the better I like it.

  The majestic Rock of Gibraltar, looming above the narrow strait that separates Europe from Africa, was only about five miles to the west. The sea-lanes were quiet at this time of night, and it was no problem to keep the air-intake mast raised for the generators.

  The Kilo was still running fast and making a mighty wake as she came powering through the water. Every twenty minutes, Captain Abad took a short all-around look at the surface picture and could see only a single oil tanker and a freighter, a big container ship, under the French tricolor, probably headed for the port of Marseilles.

  There were, so far as he could see, no warships in the vicinity. And his radar sweep was detecting scarcely anything. The sea was surprisingly calm. And the huge generators purred with life, sending a mild shudder through the entire ship.

  Captain Abad turned to General Rashood and told him first the good news, that no one was tracking them. And then the bad news, which was they would not arrive in southern Ireland until the small hours of Monday morning, July 16. “And that’s only if we get a good fast run up the Atlantic,” he added.

  Ravi, who had been somewhat within himself for the past couple of days, nodded distractedly, as well he might. The terrorist commander had a lot on his mind, not least that sudden, unexpected signal from Shakira on July 3, the one that clearly indicated something had gone wrong—evacuating immediately.

  For all he knew, his wife was under arrest. Anything could have happened. He did not even know what country she was in. He just hoped to hell she had made it to Ireland, that she would somehow be waiting for him in Dublin. Right now he could only be patient, trapped in this submarine, running slightly late but still more or less within his original schedule.

  And Shakira was not his only problem. Because ahead of him was a journey to England, the country where he was still, probably, among the most wanted men, both by the police and the military. Wanted for three murders, that is, and the Brits did not know the half of it. The United Kingdom was by far the most dangerous place for Ravi, so many people knew him from the days, a lifetime ago, when he had been an SAS commander, a leader in Britain’s most elite fighting force, Major Ray Kerman.

  Encapsulated here, in this Iranian submarine, Ravi suddenly felt, for perhaps the first time, a pang of nostalgia, a mixed feeling of wistfulness, possibly even regret. He always tried to dispel memories of the old life, the camaraderie, the respect an SAS officer enjoys, and the lifelong friendships from his schooldays at Harrow. But he had rendered himself an outcast, estranged from his parents, estranged from the military, estranged from the country that had nurtured him.

  He had “gone over the wall” in a moment of rash heroism, horrified by the deprivations being foisted upon the Palestinian people. But, in a sense, it had all been worthwhile. Terrorism had made him a wealthy man, but the greatest prize of all had been Shakira.

  And now, in a sense, they were going once more into battle together, in the minefield that England would always be for him. But first they had to get into the country, through one of the most demanding security systems in the world. The mere thought of England sent a thousand more thoughts, all of them worries, charging through his mind — the passports, the immigration officers, the customs officials, the patrolling police in every airport and ferry terminal, the fear of recognition, and, perhaps above all, the target.

  Admiral Morgan, he knew, would have ironclad security all around him; not as tight as in America, but sufficiently tight to allow Ravi only one shot, from a rifle not yet made. Beyond that was the gargantuan problem of getting away. Ravi understood with great clarity that he would need every possible moment in England to plan his strategy. He also knew that one mistake would almost certainly cost him his life. And then what would happen to Shakira? Of course, they might get her too, but that was more than he could bear even to think about.

  He walked out of the control area and stood alone for a moment. “Sweet Jesus, keep her safe,” he whispered, entirely forgetting about Allah and the Prophet. Ravi’s prayer was to the God he had worshiped long ago at Harrow School.

  The Kilo snorkeled in peace, right through the dawn that painted the eastern sky, far astern, the color of spent fire. At 1230, after a solid five hours running and charging the battery, Captain Abad ordered the generators to cease and the submarine to go deep, as they entered the Gibraltar Strait.

  The channel is fourteen miles wide here, between the Two Pillars of Hercules, the Rock of Gibraltar to the north, and Mount Hacho on the Moroccan coast to the south. The Strait then runs for thirty-six miles west, narrowing to only eight miles, before widening once more and washing into the Atlantic.

  On either side, the land is high — the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and the high plateau of Spain. You might consider this a colossal piece of irrelevance for a submarine journey. But that would be a misjudgment. From the high pinnacles of the Atlas to the Spanish plateau, the geological contours run underwater to form one gigantic continuous arc. Which is why the Gibraltar Strait is quite extraordinarily deep, averaging 1,200 feet.

  For Captain Abad, this was hugely significant because it meant his ship could dive to six hundred feet and move quietly on her way, far from the prying eyes of the heavily fortified British naval base, which traditionally scours these waters night and day for signs of a rogue submarine — or anything else that might consider stepping out of line.

  The Brits, of course, have irrevocable links with Gibraltar and, with their American allies, quietly control the only entrance to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic. Spain has never been very thrilled with this incontrovertible truth and has several times stamped its Iberian boot with anger. In fact, none of the Mediterranean countries — France, Italy, Greece, and the North African group — are crazy about
this arrangement.

  But the two heavyweights at the Atlantic entrance have never been inclined to listen to anything. Except for submarines. But there was a smile on the face of Captain Abad as he ordered the only soundless creature in the sea to go deep. bow down ten — make your speed five, steer course two-seven-zero.

  Slowly the Kilo ran through the Strait, passing deep beneath the ferryboat from Gibraltar to Tangier and then accelerating steadily through the final miles, until the seaway widened to twenty-seven miles between Cape Trafalgar and Cape Spartel to the south. The Atlantic Ocean lies beyond that point on the navigator’s chart.

  Immediately after they crossed that unseen line on the ocean’s surface, Captain Abad ordered a course change, forty degrees to three-one-zero. Ahead of them was a dead-straight 180-mile run across the Gulf of Cádiz to the southwestern tip of Portugal, Cape St. Vincent, and then north up the Atlantic to Ireland.

  Ravi enjoyed spending time with the navigation officer, Lt. Alaam. They had each been born in the eastern Iranian province of Kerman, and the Hamas C-in-C liked to hear stories of the land of his birth. But today, when the hectic journey of the submarine had highlighted his concern over his wife, he felt curiously out of place.

  Peering over the shoulder of the Iranian lieutenant, he could see on the computerized chart the two most famous capes on the Iberian Peninsula, each of them the scene of a titanic British naval victory two hundred years ago — Trafalgar, where Admiral Lord Nelson had destroyed the French and the Spanish in 1805, and St. Vincent, where Admiral John Jervis had crushed the huge Spanish fleet eight years earlier. General Rashood felt an instant connection with these names from a schoolboy past. It was an unspoken pride that nobody else in this submarine could possibly understand.

  And, for the briefest of moments, he wondered what the hell he could possibly be doing, surrounded by renegade jihadists, on his way to assassinate one of America’s most revered naval figures. It was, without question, the most mutinous thought that had ever crossed his mind since he had crossed the line and become a Holy Warrior in the cause of Islam, eight years before.