To the Death am-10

by Patrick Robinson

  “And what do you want me to do about it? Fire a torpedo?”

  “Nossir. But I just had a few thoughts.”

  “Don’t tell me. You think the Kilo is being driven by a barmaid from Brockhurst?”

  “Close. I’ll talk to you later.”

  As he said good-bye, the lieutenant commander could hear Arnold Morgan chuckling. heh-heh-heh, the knowing laugh of an ex-nuclear submarine commander who still thinks he’s one jump ahead.

  Which was precisely the opposite of what Jimmy Ramshawe thought. For the first time in his life, he considered the Big Man to be several steps behind. And if he didn’t shape up, he’d be several steps dead. And now Jim pulled his biggest computerized chart into zoom-out mode, showing the ocean from Gibraltar to Kinsale.

  He studied it, measured it, and deduced that the distance was almost 1,500 miles — that was five days, maybe less if she was in a major hurry. And since there was no likelihood that it was proposing to open fire on someone, Jimmy considered it most likely that the submarine was either picking someone up or depositing a person or persons on the shores of Ireland. Probably yesterday.

  Intelligence officers of his caliber often act on a hunch. And right now Jimmy did so. He called a regular contact at the FBI and asked him to check whether anyone, repeat anyone, had purchased an unbooked ticket, either first-class or business-class, on a flight to Shannon or Dublin on the morning of July 3. “Almost certainly Aer Lingus,” he added. “They have a virtual monopoly on flights into southern Ireland from the USA. Try Washington, New York, and Boston.”

  One hour later, he had an answer. A Miss Maureen Carson of an address in Michigan had purchased a first-class ticket from Boston to Dublin on the Aer Lingus flight that left at 10:30 A.M. on Tuesday, July 3. “Better yet, Jimmy. Aer Lingus booked her into the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin that night.”

  “Have we checked that out?”

  “Sure. She was there for three days, then checked out, paying with her American Express card.”

  “Did you check that out?”

  “Sure. It was originally issued to the Jordanian embassy in Paris. Miss Carson is an extra signatory.”

  Jimmy’s heart stopped beating. In his mind, he’d just found Carla Martin. And he’d made the Islamic connection. She was a Middle Eastern agent. And she’d gone to Brockhurst to check out when Arnold and Kathy were leaving the country. She’d killed big stupid Matt Barker, driven to Boston, and bought a ticket to Dublin.

  And, if he was not absolutely mistaken, she’d just been joined by at least one other Middle Eastern agent who’d been landed on the Irish coast by Kilo Hull 901. Carla was either Syrian or Jordanian. The new one was an Iranian.

  No one could string together a long group of unconnected facts like Jimmy. And now he was off and running, his mind in a turmoil. First he called back his pal, Lieutenant Jack Williams at COMSUBLANT, and advised him to keep a watch on the Gibraltar Strait for the return of the Kilo.

  “She left through there, and she’ll return through there,” he said. “Either to restation off Lebanon, like she was before, or to go through the Suez Canal and then home to the Gulf.”

  Jack wanted to know what the Kilo was doing skulking around the Irish coast. Jimmy filled him in. “She dropped someone off, someone who was up to no bloody good whatsoever.”

  Then he called the FBI back and asked if they could make some kind of a search on Maureen Carson, either in Ireland or in Great Britain, where he believed she was headed. This was not going to be a problem, and they would also instigate a check on the Maureen Carson passport.

  Jimmy called the Big Man, yet again. And he was not as cooperative as COMSUBLANT or the FBI. He listened carefully, and then said, rather coldly, “Kid, you have no goddamn idea what the submarine was doing off the coast of Ireland. She could have been on a training exercise. You need better facts. Your imagination will lead you nowhere.”

  “It led me to Maureen Carson,” he said bluntly.

  “Congratulations. Some nice rich lady on a shopping expedition. Not one single shred of evidence against her. Lemme know when they find her, willya?”

  Christ, Arnie could be infuriating.

  1830 Monday 16 July Plunkett Train Station

  Ravi pulled into the Waterford station after his long, meandering journey from Cork, tired, hungry, and very thirsty. He went into the little bar and asked for a large glass of water and a cup of coffee. He also bought a couple of fresh-looking ham-and-cheese rolls. He gulped down the water and took the rest to a passenger bench in the station to wait for the 7:00 train to Dublin.

  He finished his picnic and then went to the ticket office to purchase a single fare to Dublin. There were two people in front of him, and the clerk was slow. The young woman in front of him turned and said, “You’d think we were going to China, eh?”

  Ravi smiled. She was a pretty girl. But Ravi tried to avoid her gaze. By tomorrow morning, he’d be the most wanted man in Ireland, and he did not want her telling the police she’d traveled to Dublin with the murderer on the train.

  He pretended not to speak the language, and replied in Arabic, which was probably an even bigger mistake. But it discouraged her, and she turned away, bought her ticket, and walked off. At the counter, he bought his ticket, but then the phone rang and the clerk turned away to answer it before he gave Ravi his change.

  The Hamas general hadn’t been thinking about the amount, twenty-eight euros, and had handed over a fifty-euro bill. And now, to get his change, he was going to have to stand here facing the office, where a secretary was still working. So he just took the ticket and retreated to his passenger bench.

  Three minutes later, the clerk came in search of him and handed him the twenty-two euros in change. Ravi thanked him and tried not to look at him, but he was now probably firmly in the memory of the clerk.

  The train ride up through beautiful Kilkenny and County Carlow was picturesque all the way. The track followed the River Barrow for several miles and then swerved right across Kildare before following the Grand Canal into Dublin. Ravi arrived in Heuston Station, just south of the River Liffey along the quays, at 10:15 P.M.

  He stepped out of the station and into a dark shop entrance and dialed Shakira’s number. She was sitting in her room at the Merrion, watching television, and she answered immediately.

  “Be quick, Shakira,” he said. “I’m in Dublin. Meet me at the Mosque, tomorrow morning at 11 A.M. Where are you?”

  “I’m in the Merrion Hotel, around the corner from St. Stephen’s Green.”

  “Good girl. Don’t be late.”

  Shakira almost went into shock. All these weeks waiting to see him, and now he just said “Good girl” and vanished into the night. What was that all about? She was on the verge of stamping her foot in temper when the phone rang again.

  She answered it immediately, and a voice just said, “I love you,” before the line went dead.

  She was not quite sure whether to laugh or cry. And she chose the latter. With happiness. That he was safe, and he loved her, and tomorrow they would be together.

  Ravi too was discontented with the fifteen-second duration of their call. But he had to adhere to that rule, because that rule meant the call could not be heard, traced, or recorded. Ravi was keenly aware that the National Security Agency in Maryland had tapped into Osama bin Laden’s phone calls and often listened in on the terrorist mastermind talking from his cave to his mother in Saudi Arabia. If they could eavesdrop on the great Osama, they could locate him. Fifteen seconds only.

  He had the name of a Dublin hotel, and he flagged down a cab before it drove into the station and told the driver to take him to the Paramount Hotel, corner of Parliament Street and Essex Gate. The place had a Victorian façade, but inside it was all 1930s, very comfortable, and Ravi thankfully checked in. Last time he had slept had been in the submarine, and dearly as he would have liked to join Shakira in the Merrion, he thought he might get more sleep this way, and anyway he did not wish
to be seen publicly with her in a place where staff might recall them.

  Tomorrow morning he would risk watching the television news.

  0900 Tuesday 17 July Skibbereen Garda Station

  Detective Superintendent Ray McDwyer decided he needed help. The wound to Jerry O’Connell’s forehead was something he had never seen before. The bone was completely splintered between the eyes, and the nose bone had been driven upward and into the brain with tremendous force. The crushing blow to the forehead could have been delivered by a blunt instrument, but there was no sign that any implement whatsoever had been used on the nose.

  Ray had spoken to the police pathologist, and he too was mystified. And together they decided that there was something all too precise about this killing. The murder had been carried out by an expert, someone who knew precisely what he was doing. There were no signs of a struggle, no other bruises, no abrasions. The killer had taken out Jerry O’Connell instantly, with the minimum of fuss.

  At twelve minutes after nine o’clock, Ray McDwyer phoned London and requested help from New Scotland Yard, Special Branch.

  At first Scotland Yard wondered what all the fuss was about, the murder of a dairy farmer in a remote spot on the Irish coast. But Ray was persuasive. He told them he thought they were dealing with a highly dangerous character, who might have come in from the sea and might have bigger things on his mind than knocking over a dairy farmer. And after about ten minutes, the duty officer at the Yard was inclined to agree. “We’ll send someone over,” he said, “direct to Bantry. This morning.”

  Twenty minutes after Ray put down the phone, a local farmer, Colm McCoy, walking his dog, found Jerry’s truck hidden in the birch trees. He’d already seen the Cork Examiner and knew about the murder and that the truck was missing. The newspaper had specified there were four large milk urns in the back, and Colm knew what he’d found.

  He called in to the Garda Station, and ten minutes later two police cars turned up, with four officers including Ray McDwyer himself. Behind them came a tow truck to haul Jerry’s vehicle out.

  “Touch nothing,” said Detective McDwyer. “Take it away and have them check for fingerprints. Then tell the Milk Corporation to pick up the cans, dispose of the milk, and return them to the O’Connell family.”

  Meanwhile, back at Crookhaven, officers in a Coast Guard launch were calling on every yacht and fishing boat in the harbor, asking everyone aboard if they had seen any strangers, either afloat or on land.

  The operation had been going on since 8 A.M., and they had drawn a complete blank until they reached Yonder. And there Captain Bill Stannard told them about the little boat that had chugged past him just before six o’clock the previous morning.

  “It was a Zodiac,” he said. “Maybe twelve-foot. Yamaha engine. We got one just like it riding off the stern.”

  “Did you see who was driving?”

  “Sure, I did. Just one guy. There was no one else aboard.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “Not really. He was going past, real slow, when I woke up. He was not an old guy, and he looked kinda broad and tough, short, dark curly hair.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Now that’s what I do remember. It was a brown jacket. Could have been leather, but I think it was suede. Looked smart, kinda out of place out here on the water.”

  “Collar and tie?”

  “No. He had on a dark T-shirt. I think it was black.”

  “Did you see which way he went?”

  Bill Stannard pointed to the shore, farther into the harbor. “He was headed that way, but I was real tired, never saw him land. I guess the boat’s over there somewhere, because I definitely never saw him leave.”

  “Any idea where he came from?”

  “Hell, no. I never caught sight of him until he was more or less alongside. But there’s nothing much down toward the harbor entrance. The guy just showed up, out of nowhere.”

  In the following twenty minutes, the police and Coast Guard searched the harbor from end to end for a twelve-foot Zodiac with a Yamaha engine. Nothing. And no one else had seen it, either. Which presented the investigation with a blank wall, the main trouble being that everything, including the murder, had taken place too early, when hardly anyone was awake.

  Back in Skibbereen, Detective Ray McDwyer decided to concentrate on the killer’s getaway. It was clear that he had driven away from the crime scene in Jerry’s truck and had come as far as Skibbereen at the wheel. But what then?

  The Crookhaven team called in to report the mystery man in the Zodiac, arriving in the harbor wearing a brown suede jacket and a black T-shirt. Both he and, more surprisingly, the boat had vanished.

  Ray assessed that the man had somehow left the area from Skibbereen, and since there was no car dealer open at that early hour, he must have either gone on the bus, taken a taxi, walked, or stolen a car. There had been no report of anything stolen, so Ray dispatched an officer to check the taxi company. He and Joe Carey made calls to any business that might have been operational at seven in the morning.

  The choice was limited. In fact, it didn’t stretch much beyond the Shamrock. Joe Carey went in first and beckoned for the youth behind the counter to come over for a quick word. The two had known each other all their lives, and Joe was friendly.

  “Hello, young Mick,” he said. “Right now we’re looking for a fella who may have come in here yesterday morning, a little after seven.”

  “Anything to do with that murder in Crookhaven yesterday?”

  “Mind your business.”

  “Sure, it is my business,” replied Mick, quick as a flash. “Any time there’s a bloody killer out there threatenin’ the lives of me and my fellow citizens, right there you’re talking my business. Anyway, I already read your boss is in charge, so it must be about the murder.”

  Mick Barton proceeded to fall about laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation. He was only two years out of school, where he had been the class wit, and now he was the café wit. Joe Carey punched him cheerfully on the arm.

  “Come on, now, the boss will be in here in a minute. Just let me know if there was a fella in here yesterday, early, wearing a brown suede jacket. A complete stranger.”

  “No jacket,” said Mick. “But there was a fella, a stranger who came in. He drunk two big glasses of orange juice down in about twenty seconds. Then he had toast and coffee.”

  “What was he wearing, Mick?”

  “I think it was a black T-shirt, and he was carrying a leather bag.”

  “Anything else you recall about him?”

  “He could have been foreign. He was dark, short curly hair, heavyset. But he spoke English, naturally, or I wouldn’t have known what he was talking about.”

  “Any idea where he went afterward?”

  “Sure. He asked me about the bus to Cork, and I sent him up to the Eldon Hotel for the eight o’clock.”

  Outside the Shamrock, Ray McDwyer put three men on the bus route to check with the drivers where the man in the black T-shirt had gone. They made contact with the Bus Eireann office and had their drivers check into the Skibbereen police station as soon as they pulled into town.

  At midday, Ray and Joe left for Bantry, twenty-four miles away. Two detective inspectors from Scotland Yard’s Special Branch had flown direct from London to Cork and been transported by a Garda helicopter to the town of Bantry, where the body of Jerry O’Connell was in the morgue beneath the new Catholic Hospital.

  Joe and Ray met them at the little airport, which had been constructed mainly to service Bantry’s major oil and gas terminal. All four went immediately to the hospital, and the two men from London expertly examined the body.

  The chief inspector touched it only once. He gently pressed the area in the central forehead with the flat of his thumb. Then he stepped back and said immediately, “Ray, this farmer of yours was killed by an expert in unarmed combat. Death was caused by something smashing into and weakening the b
ig forehead bone, which allows the combatant to slam the septum into the brain much easier.

  “I’ve seen it before. But not often. When you’re looking at a murder like this, you instantly think of the SAS or one of the other Special Forces. But I can tell you, this cat really knew what he was doing. The farmer died in under five seconds. This was a lethal blow.”

  Ray McDwyer nodded thoughtfully. “I wonder who the hell he was,” he said.

  “That’s always the question, right? But this was a very local man, I imagine, no business far beyond West Cork?”

  “West Cork!” said Ray. “Jerry O’Connell didn’t have any business beyond Crookhaven.”

  The inspector chuckled. “And that means he probably died by accident. I mean, the killer had no intention of harming him when he arrived in the area. Jerry just somehow got in the way.”

  “I’ve assumed that from the start. At least I assume it on the basis that the murder could not have been committed by wandering Irish scoundrels.”

  “Absolutely not,” declared the inspector. “This was committed by a professional. The issue is, why was he here, and what’s he doing now?”

  “I’ve got half the force trying to trace him. But we’re having only limited luck. I’ll know more when we get back to Skibbereen. Are you fellas willing to stay a little longer?”

  “Well, we had planned to return to London right away, but this is very brutal, and very bewildering. Do you have any ideas yet where this character came from?”

  “Not really. First sighting was from a yacht captain in Crookhaven Harbor. He saw a man, who answered the rough description, cross the harbor in a Zodiac at the right time. Needless to say, the boat’s missing, but the yacht guy said it came in from the outer harbor.”

  “Could he have been dropped at sea?”

  “It’s hard to imagine how the hell he got there before six o’clock in the morning if he hadn’t been.” Joe McDwyer was visibly uneasy. But, as the Irish host, he stayed cool.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll get you a couple of rooms at the Eldon and we can have a strategy meeting this afternoon. I’m grateful you could come, but your diagnosis has made a grim situation somewhat worse.”