To the Death am-10

by Patrick Robinson

  He paid £10 for his ticket and walked through onto the roadway that climbs right through the castle, way up to the high ramparts, from which there is the most spectacular view over the city. Ravi trudged all the way up to the One O’clock Gun, which is fired with a thunderous report every day except Sunday, frightening tourists to death.

  Ravi walked the ramparts, past ancient St. Margaret’s Chapel, along the Argyle Battery, past the Governor’s House and the prison and the Great Hall. He stared down over the great curved front of the Half-Moon Battery where, in the sixteenth century, artillery was ranged to defend the eastern wing of the castle. It was steep. Everywhere was steep. The castle rose up, constructed layer after layer onto its towering black crags, until it dominated the city. And this week, at least, it was as heavily patrolled as a U.S. Army garrison in Baghdad five years ago.

  Everywhere Ravi walked, there were young soldiers, on duty, sometimes in groups, sometimes just in pairs. And all of them carried the standard weapon of the British Army, the SA80 semi-automatic short-barreled rifle, with its 25-round magazine, 5.56mm caliber.

  As a pure precaution, Ravi stopped as he walked by and attempted, with only marginal success, to affect the wide-eyed blank stare of the truly ignorant.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the Scots Guards corporal. “Is that gun loaded with real bullets?”

  “Aye, sir, it is.”

  “Well, that’s very dangerous,” replied Ravi.

  “That’s the general idea,” said the corporal.

  Ravi shook his head in mock exasperation, and continued his walk, going down now, back to the public entrance. And as he did so, a red Royal Navy helicopter circled briefly above the castle and slowly dropped down to land on the wide concourse behind the barracks, the biggest building in the ancient stone complex.

  The area had been temporarily cleared by the military for the arrival of the American Navy commander, Rick Hunter, in company with Lady MacLean, the all-powerful chair of the entire Festival and Rick’s personal guide for the next hour.

  Annie MacLean had made the decision to land on the higher level in order to point out to Rick the precise layout of the Tattoo. She showed him a view of the Esplanade from the heights, the temporary grandstands, and in particular the Royal Box where they would all be seated on Tuesday evening.

  She showed him the huge sloping walls of the Half-Moon Battery, down which the warriors of 42 Marine Commando would abseil, before making a final descent to the Esplanade for their formation and finale.

  Rick did not love it. “The whole place will be in darkness during this time?” he asked.

  “Everywhere. Except for the Royal Box,” she told him. “The military will spotlight the Marines as they climb down the walls to the lower levels. Their display is designed to show how they capture a fortified garrison.”

  Rick still did not love it, mainly because there was so much he would not be able to see. And Arnold, so far as he could tell, would be floodlit as he took the salute, and silhouetted in his seat for the rest of the time. The only aspect of the entire exercise that gave him any confidence was the heavy presence of armed guards, all highly trained military personnel.

  The Navy SEAL had worked with the Brits before, and he knew how outstanding they were. Whichever way he looked at it, it would be damn near impossible to get at Admiral Morgan without getting apprehended or shot. Arnold would be accompanied at all times by five personal guards, including himself, and a phalanx of armed police.

  Rick stood thoughtfully on the ramparts of the Half-Moon Battery, assessing the precise distance Arnold would be from the base of the wall and from the stands that had been erected along the flanks of the Esplanade.

  He noted also that the gradient of the amphitheatre was a slight slope and the surface was uneven. He considered the possibility of an assassin running across the ground toward the admiral and dismissed it. Because, he decided, you could not do this with a pistol, you’d need a rifle, and if you produced one of those here, there was a good chance the guards would hit you with a hundred bullets before you hit the ground.

  Anyone could sense the place was on high alert. And it seemed to Rick that Arnold would be safe here tomorrow night. But he still did not love it.

  He and Lady MacLean walked back up to the helicopter, which immediately took off and headed west, back to Inveraray. Ravi Rashood, driving back to the Cavendish Hotel, saw it leave, climbing up over the city and accelerating away. He wondered, as any ex-SAS officer might, who was in it and why they had paid such a fleeting visit to Edinburgh Castle.

  He checked into his room, knowing it was impossible to find Shakira. This place was as big as the Kremlin, and he would have to wait until she located him. She knew either he was checked in here under the name of Captain Harry Martin, or he would leave her a note, addressed to Miss Colleen Lannigan (Cavendish staff).

  There was a local map of Edinburgh and its environs, which Ravi studied carefully. He was looking north, along the great expanse of the wide estuary of the River Forth, known locally as the Firth of Forth. He checked the locations of Musselburgh and Port Seton, communities that were on the water, and as he did so, his bedside phone rang. Shakira said eleven words: “They’ll be on the top floor, all rooms overlooking Princes Street.” The line went dead.

  Then he checked the Yellow Pages, found what he was seeking, and went downstairs out onto the sidewalk. Ravi crossed the street and stared up at the flat roof of the hotel, assessing the distance between the top of the wall that surrounded the roof to the line of windows on the sixteenth floor. Right now, Ravi was into a possible Plan B, because he was having doubts about his capacity to successfully hit Admiral Morgan and then make a getaway, in the face of that hard-trained security force in the castle.

  And with this in mind, he took a half-hour drive out to the coast. He pulled into Port Seton, hoping the marine store was open, assuming it would be on a busy boating Sunday in August.

  It was not only open, it was crowded with yachtsmen and power boaters buying all kinds of equipment: dock lines, cleats, lifejackets, winch handles, halyards, and varnish. After a twenty-minute wait, Ravi reached the counter, behind which were large reels of line of varying thickness, all made of modern white nylon, soft to the touch but very strong, with a pattern in either red or blue.

  He ordered two 35-foot lengths of the second largest gauge, and asked for a shackle to be spliced onto one end of each line. The marine store assistant called out “Splice, Jock!” and a young seaman came over and slowly formed an unbreakable join, working in front of a small flame, into which he held the rough end of the line and watched the nylon melt into a mass, which he bound with white tape.

  “Don’t forget, sir,” said the assistant, “if you need to cut this stuff, you need a flame to weld the end like that.”

  Ravi nodded, and also purchased a safety harness, the kind seamen wear in bad weather with the shackle clipped onto the boat to avoid being swept overboard and lost. He also bought a half dozen of the metal rope clips that climbers use to pay out the line in short takes.

  Expertly, the assistant slung each line into a three-foot-long coil and then wrapped the end tight around the “throat,” and handed them to Ravi holding just the shackles. Ravi bought a small inexpensive seaman’s bag and paid in cash. His equipment had cost him the thick end of £150.

  He returned to the city center and parked the Audi in the open-air lot, close to the castle. He walked back to the Cavendish and waited for Shakira to find him in his room.

  Two hours later, she arrived and flopped down on the bed, exhausted. “I was told they were short of staff on the twelfth floor,” she said. “But I didn’t know they were that short. I’ve made about a thousand beds, with only one other girl. I didn’t even get a turn on the vacuum cleaner.”

  Ravi laughed and kissed her. And then he said, with great seriousness, “Shakira, time may be running out for us. I have two plans, both of them highly dangerous. Right now I need to attend to the
details, and then try to formulate an escape route. There are several tasks you must complete.”

  And then, somewhat darkly, he added, “In the end, it may be up to you.”

  It was 4:30 P.M. now, and Shakira had to report to room service. “I won’t see you until ten o’clock,” she said. “Where will you go now?”

  “I’m going to the Mosque for evening prayers,” he said. “These are difficult days, and I need a guiding light. And there is only one light.”

  1600 Monday 6 August Inveraray

  A third police car pulled into the MacLeans’ drive, and a detective sergeant disembarked, holding what looked like dry cleaning, three plastic-covered hangers containing police clothing — dark blue trousers, royal blue sweater with insignia, two white shirts, blue tie, and a bright yellow rain jacket. In his left hand, the sergeant carried a white plastic bag containing shoes, leather belt, and peaked uniform cap with its badge and familiar black-and-white checked headband.

  He walked to the door and told Angus they were for Commander Rick Hunter. Ten minutes later, the U.S. Naval officer walked out disguised as a Lothian and Borders police constable.

  He carried with him his rifle, in the holder that made it look like fishing rods, and his traveling bag. He waved a brief good-bye to everyone in the household and climbed into the police car. Sir Iain stepped out to see him off and called, “See you tomorrow, Rick.”

  The police driver pulled out onto the main road and set off on the hundred-mile drive to Edinburgh. The helicopter was considered too ostentatious for an operation as clandestine as this.

  They arrived at the Cavendish Hotel a little after 7 P.M., and Rick spoke briefly to the receptionist, who summoned a porter to escort him to the sixteenth floor. The police car waited right outside the main door.

  Rick checked his watch, and walked with the porter along to room 168, a large double bedroom that had an open connecting door to the biggest suite in the hotel. This was situated on the corner of the building and was composed of two large bedrooms with bathrooms, and a substantial drawing room suitable for entertaining sixteen people. This was the room that led into Commander Hunter’s bedroom. It formed what could be, at any time, a three-bedroom suite, suitable for visiting royalty and heads of state, with personal staff and protection.

  The porter asked Rick if he would be needing him further, but Edinburgh’s newest policeman declined and handed over a £10 tip, which the porter thought was not too bad, for a policeman.

  Rick wandered through the rooms, wondering which bedroom he should allocate to Arnold and Kathy, and which to Sir Iain and Annie. The five of them were very much on first-name terms by now, the Scottish aristocrats having long accepted Rick as one of their own — educated, multimillionaire horse breeder, and perfectly mannered naval officer.

  It had been agreed that he alone would decide who slept where, since he alone carried the ultimate responsibility to ensure that no one murdered Arnold Morgan. On this, his initial recce, he checked that the windows were fastened, checked the door locks, and checked that the phone lines were all working.

  Then he called down to inform the desk that no staff was allowed anywhere near the big suite without his express permission and his personal attendance. That included maids, the housekeeper, room service, and anyone else who might wish to attend the two admirals and their wives when they arrived the following day.

  He put his rifle in the wardrobe, hung up his jacket and civilian trousers, and placed the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door handles out in the corridor. Then he placed his Sig Sauer service revolver in his belt, took the elevator down, and climbed into the back of the police car.

  “Over to the castle, sir?” asked the driver.

  “Thank you,” said Rick. “Main entrance.”

  The opening ceremony at 9 P.M. was still an hour away when Rick arrived, but the crowds were already gathering to watch the stirring massed pipers and drummers of the most revered Scottish regiments march down the Esplanade. Rick was rather looking forward to it.

  But right now he was very preoccupied. He walked around to the Royal Box and sat down in the center of the front row, staring out at the grandstands, trying to assess where an assassin might position himself for a long-range shot at the admiral.

  He established there would be either a police or military presence on duty at both ends of the rows of seats. It would plainly be impossible for anyone to smuggle in a rifle, not under the eyes of these trained security men.

  Privately Rick thought a shot from the higher battlements would somehow be too far in the dark, however well the Royal Box was lit. And, anyway, the entire place was crawling with military guards, every fifty yards on the ramparts, all around the castle. Christ, he could see them from here.

  He walked the length of the left-hand grandstand to check whether it went right to the end wall of the Esplanade. It didn’t, and there was a throughway between the last line of seats and the wall with two military policemen on duty, demanding to see people’s seating tickets.

  He found it almost impossible to find a spot from which to fire a high-powered rifle anywhere beyond the Esplanade and the grandstands. He was finding it difficult to find anywhere in the entire castle environs where anyone could produce a rifle without being arrested in a matter of moments.

  Rick went back to the Royal Box and sat down in one of the empty seats along the front row. He watched the huge crowd growing as they took their places around the arena. The VIPs were arriving now, among them two high-ranking generals, plus the Royal Navy’s First Sea Lord, who would take the salute tonight.

  The Tattoo began with a rousing piece of music played by the band of the Royal Navy, “Fanfare for the First Sea Lord.” And then the massed pipes and drums of the Scottish regiments led the huge parade through the entrance onto the Esplanade. The Guards, the Highlanders, the Borderers were followed by the bands of the Irish Guards, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, and the Rats of Tobruk.

  The ancient sounds of the Scottish marching songs split the night sky above the capital city. The haunting strains of “The Campbells Are Coming” evoked proud reminders of the Siege of Lucknow in 1857, when General Sir Colin Campbell, at the head of 4,500 Scottish troops, marched across the Punjab to defeat 60,000 Indian rebels besieging the British residency.

  It was a superb military pageant, and Rick ignored the unease he felt at the end of the performance when the First Sea Lord stood up in his seat to take the salute. Rick too stood up with the crowd and joined the applause, understanding that every Scotsman in the arena felt an age-old rising of pride in a warlike past.

  The U.S. Navy commander thought it was terrific, and he was almost relaxed when the Royal Marines of 42 Commando began their display, dozens of them abseiling down the castle walls, then forming up and firing their rifles into the air to signify a successful assault on a fortified stronghold. Rick had already checked. Blank rounds.

  He stayed until the end, watching and applauding the Russian Cossack State Dance Company, the massed bands of the Royal Marines with their “Celebration of Trafalgar,” and the 600-strong massed military bands, with pipes and drums, playing their world-famous Edinburgh Tattoo specialties “Mull of Kintyre” and “Caledonia.”

  For the finale, before a Royal Navy Guard of Honor, the entire thousand-strong cast of musicians played “Auld Lang Syne,” and, as the sacred Scottish notes died away, the Lone Scots Guards Piper appeared high on the battlements of the castle, and played a pibroch lament, the slow melancholy classical music of the bagpipes.

  This effectively brought the house down, and Rick stood up and cheered as it ended. And then he stood transfixed as a mighty roll on the drums signified the moment when the great throng of musicians and serving soldiers began the March Out, in strict formation, kilts swirling, to the drums and bagpipes playing “Scotland the Brave.”

  Commander Richard Hunter, a career U.S. Navy officer, had never before seen anything so perfect, so moving, and so inordinately impressive. He’d almo
st forgotten why he was there, forgotten about the policeman’s uniform he wore, forgotten about the grave threat to the life of the great American he was sworn to protect.

  He stood and surveyed the happy crowd leaving the area, and then he walked down among them, back down the Esplanade to the main entrance and through the gap between the left grandstand and the end wall. He found himself thinking, “If I’d just shot Admiral Morgan, I’d bolt straight through here and make for the street in this big crowd. that would mean I’d need to wait until the very end. ”

  He found his police car and was driven back to the Cavendish. He returned to his room and stripped off his yellow police raincoat and the dark blue sweater. He put on his regular sportcoat and returned downstairs to the busy second-floor grill room and ordered himself an Aberdeen steak and a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.

  Rick did not notice another lone diner sitting close by, a man in a black T-shirt and a brown suede jacket, sipping a Scotch whisky and eating a chicken sandwich. He too had been to the Military Tattoo, but had spent his time high in the upper regions of the castle, just checking guard movements and watching the Marines form line of battle before their mock assault on the great Scottish fortress.

  Both men, on this night, would sleep uneasily. And the issue for both of them was timing.

  1500 Tuesday 7 August

  The MacLeans and the Morgans drove away from Inveraray in convoy. A police car led the way, followed by Sir Iain’s Range Rover, and then Arnold’s four personal bodyguards in a Royal Navy staff car, with a second police car bringing up the rear.

  They drove around the lochs and finally picked up the M-8 motorway, which took them all the way into Edinburgh, approaching from the southwest. The police did not use lights or sirens, preferring to make the journey as unobtrusively as possible. They covered the hundred miles in three hours and arrived at the Cavendish Hotel a little after six in the evening.