Barracuda 945

by Patrick Robinson

  “Not, apparently, when the Lion of the West Wing roars. He’s an ex-nuclear submarine Commander, former Director of the National Security Agency. The President won’t hear a word against him. Won’t move without him. Everyone else is scared of him.”

  “I’m not scared of him,” said Ravi, quietly. “I think we should make some effort to get rid of him.”

  “General Rashood, you are going home tonight, to begin work on our detailed plans for the future. I will make you this promise. If Arnold Morgan is going abroad any time in the near future, and we manage to find out, I will keep you informed. Perhaps then we may put a scheme into place. Meanwhile, let’s not worry about him.”

  “Very well, Vice Admiral,” said Ravi. “But let’s not forget about him either.”

  Two Weeks Later

  Damascus

  General Rashood and Shakira were in Arab dress, strolling along the Sharia Maysaloun toward the Chan Palace Hotel. They’d taken an after-lunch stroll from the excellent Elissar restaurant near the Touma Gate through the city’s ancient Roman Wall; all the way west across Damascus, three-quarters of a mile, past the massive eighth-century Umayyad Mosque, around the Citadel, and on through Martyrs’ Square.

  They were in the right area now, headed for the most famous bookshop in the city, the Librairie Avicenne, a block from the Chan Palace, and Ravi looked forward to buying a few English newspapers. There was nowhere else in Damascus where anyone could be certain of locating these days-old publications, and he came here two or three times a week.

  They were only just in time. Ravi bought the last copy of Monday morning’s London Daily Telegraph, and they spent a contented half hour looking through the shelves in search of books that might contain details of the principal cities on America’s West Coast, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. There was little available, but Shakira found an April edition of French Vogue and two Hollywood show business and film magazines. Shakira was devoted to American movies.

  It was almost four o’clock and they walked back through the warm afternoon breeze, back to Martyrs’ Square for a drink at the Karnak Bar above the Siyaha Hotel. This was a cheerful place, full of Westerners and Arabs alike drinking cold beer or a raki, Damascus not being an observer of the strict Muslim code of no alcohol.

  They found a small table overlooking the square and ordered a couple of glasses of beer. They sat reading for a while until Ravi tired of the newspaper, skipping over the last few pages and then stopping dead at an unlikely headline:

  PERSIAN LADY FOR ROYAL ASCOT

  Kerman Mare’s New Target

  He folded the paper back and read the story with interest.

  “The brilliant victory by Persian Lady in Sandown’s Henry II Stakes last Monday is now widely regarded as the best performance by any stayer seen out this season. On fast, firm ground, the daughter of the Irish-based stallion Saddlers’ Hall covered the extended two miles in only two ticks off the track record, quickening away up the final hill to win by eight lengths from the Newmarket-trained favorite, Homeward Bound.

  Persian Lady’s new trainer, Charlie McCalmont, was delighted with her, and reported she had come out of the race without a mark. Last night he said she would certainly now go directly to the Ascot Gold Cup at the Royal Meeting, on Thursday, June 22.

  Her owner, the London shipping tycoon Richard Kerman, said last night it had always been his ambition just to have a runner at the Royal Meeting, never mind the second favorite for the Gold Cup.

  “We were never quite certain Persian Lady would stay beyond twelve furlongs,” he said, “but the way she finished up the Sandown hill was electrifying. Charlie is very confident she’ll go the extra half mile of the Gold Cup. For my wife and me, this is the thrill of a lifetime.”

  Last night Ladbrokes was offering 6–1 against the compact, bay Persian Lady. Prince Abdullah Salman’s rangy grey five-year-old High Five remained 3–1 favorite in all offices.

  The newspaper made no connection to the mystery of Richard Kerman’s son, Raymond, the missing SAS Officer who had occupied front pages all over the country a couple of years ago. Right here they were dealing with the Ascot Gold Cup, the Holy Grail for the stamina racehorse. Hebron? Where the hell’s that? Sports departments are inclined to be insular places.

  Meanwhile, 3,000 miles from London, Ravi stared at the story. He was overjoyed at his father’s success, and handed the newspaper to Shakira, pointing out the headline.

  “That’s my father’s horse,” he said. “I remember her when she was a two-year-old. Dad bred her out of an elderly mare by High Line. He’s always wanted a staying horse, but he never thought he’d get one this good.”

  Shakira read the few paragraphs, understanding little of the jargon that racing people take for granted. Then she said, quite suddenly, “Do you miss your parents?”

  “Sometimes,” Ravi replied.

  “You’ve never contacted them, have you?”

  “No. I couldn’t, really. It would have put the most awful pressure on them. They would have felt obliged to inform the authorities I was alive, and then there would have been a desperate investigation. Phone-tapping, mail-searching, and God knows what else. I didn’t want to put them through it.”

  Shakira sipped her beer. “I suppose the only way you could ever see them would be to meet them somewhere.”

  “But that would mean contacting them prior to the meeting, and I’d never quite trust someone not to find out. In the end, I probably wouldn’t turn up.”

  Shakira persisted. “But what if you were to meet them without contacting them?”

  “Well, then they wouldn’t know how to find me. Nor I them.”

  “I know how you could find them without a single word to anyone.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Royal Ascot, or whatever it is. Thursday, June 22. They’ll be there. And easy to find. Especially if Persian Lady wins.”

  “If she wins, they’ll probably have tea with the Queen or something. That’d be harder than getting next to Admiral Morgan.”

  “Then you better meet them before she wins. I expect they’ll be watching the horses before the race.”

  “Shakira,” he said, smiling. “Have you ever been to Royal Ascot?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then I will tell you about it. First of all, there’s about ten zillion people in attendance. Everyone in the Royal Enclosure wears a little colored badge with their name on it. Each man is required to wear morning dress….”

  “I thought it was in the afternoon?”

  Ravi knew the girl he loved was just joshing him, and he carried on regardless. “Morning dress is just an English expression. It means top hat and tails….”

  “Like Frederick Astaire?”

  “Precisely. He’d fit in a treat, especially since he married a jockey.”

  “A JOCKEY!”

  “Lady jockey, dingbats. Super rider, and a very beautiful one. American.”

  “Anyway, Mr. Astaire is dead.”

  “And his morning suit wouldn’t fit me. So I’d have to get my own. But what I’m trying to tell you, in this ocean of irrelevance, is that Ascot is literally crawling with security guards, officious men in top hats and green uniforms as I remember, checking people’s badges, making sure the person wearing it is the person who’s name is written on it.”

  “How do they know?”

  “They don’t. But they can make some very shrewd guesses. They’re always catching someone wearing a badge issued to someone else. And they take it damn seriously. Those Royal Enclosure badges are precious and nontransferable. Are you really suggesting I could get ahold of a false badge, and then pull off a meeting with the owners of one of the main horses in the Ascot Gold Cup? I’d get caught and probably end up in the Tower of London before standing trial for murder.”

  “Is the place where the horses go before the race in the Royal Enclosure?”

  “No. It’s outside down the lawn, where everyone c
an see them parade. Before that, there’s a kind of saddling paddock with boxes where trainers fix the girths and stuff.”

  “And is that in the enclosure?”

  “Well, no. No, it’s not.”

  “So you wouldn’t even need one of those badges?”

  “I suppose not. But I am on the Ascot list. I’ve been on it since I was at Harrow. I’d have to have a badge…. And that badge would probably finish me.”

  “Ravi, my darling, you’re going to talk to your parents, to give them reassurance, just for a little while, just to put their minds at rest, to let them know you’re not dead. Nothing else is important. Anyway I would like to come too….”

  “Shakira. I’m not going. You’re not going. I love you, and I’m not taking you into England. It’s too dangerous.”

  “So it might be. But I still think a big crowd is a very good way for you to disappear, then make contact and spend a half hour with your mother and father before you vanish from their lives again…perhaps forever.”

  “Maybe,” said Ravi. “But it’s a risk I cannot take. Putting my mother’s mind at rest is not worth the sacrifice of my own life. And that’s what it would mean. They’d almost certainly make me stand trial for treason, killing two serving SAS NCOs in cold blood, to save a Palestinian girl. I don’t think so.”

  Shakira put her arm around his shoulder. “It’s nice to know we are safe here, though,” she said. “Safe from the horrible English. I do love you.”

  The days in Syria were long and growing hotter. Ravi and Shakira had been given a large, rambling, eighteenth-century house around the corner from the Elissar restaurant in the eastern part of the old city. They had air-conditioning installed and settled into a relaxed and pleasant life in their new country.

  Most weeks they hosted at least two Hamas meetings, and most days they wandered around the covered bazaar. Sometimes Shakira cooked for just Ravi, other times for friends. They kept a near-permanent private table at the Elissar, which served the best food in the city, and they used her brother as a paid general helper, delivering messages, chauffeuring their medium-range Ford car, occasionally collecting visitors from the airport.

  Ravi had no money problems. He had been awarded “prize money” of $2 million after the two sensational bank heists in Israel, the $250,000 “expenses” had been wired into his account by the Iranians, and his annual “General’s” salary of $100,000 was wired into an account he kept in Switzerland, approximately $2,000 a week. There was no question of tax.

  The house, on Sharia Bab Touma, was rapidly filling with travel books that contained information on all United States Embassies, Consulates, and Military garrisons, in Europe, South America, and Asia, and in far-flung outposts in the South Pacific, New Zealand, and Africa.

  With no active operations, they moved through the month of June calmly, even discussing their forthcoming marriage. But on Tuesday morning, June 13, he picked up an encrypted E-mail on his laptop computer direct from Iranian Naval HQ, which jacked Ravi’s pulse up by several notches.

  “To General Rashood. FYI. Admiral Arnold Morgan believed to fly to London, Thursday, June 22, 1800 hours, Andrews Air Force Base-Northolt. Air Force One, ETA 0500 Friday, June 23. Staying privately, U.S. Ambassador, Regents Park. Funds, if necessary, through Iranian Embassy, 27 Prince’s Gate. Prefer you employ third party. Adm. B.”

  Shakira was asleep when he read it, at 5 A.M., and thoughts tumbled through his mind. Parents. Ascot. Same Day. Gold Cup. Assassination. England. Danger. Terrible danger. Was it worth it? Why? Time. Eight days from now. Planning. Assistance. No time. And yet, perhaps the finest hours lay just ahead…a dagger to the very heart of the Great Satan?

  At this precise moment, Ravi was stopped dead in his tracks. He recalled his final farewell to his mother, and the pain was as sharp as if it had happened yesterday. He doubted a day went by without her thinking of him. His father’s hurt was probably worse. They, who had never wished anything but the best for him. He doubted God would lightly forgive him for this flagrant violation of their trust and hopes.

  Ravi committed the E-mail to memory, erased it from the computer, and retired to the kitchen to brew some tea. As if tuned in to the raging neurons in his brain, Shakira joined him, alert to his mood, dressed in a long white robe. She was sensational upon the eye, beneath her tousled jet black locks.

  “What’s happened?” she said.

  “Oh, nothing. Just making some tea.”

  “Yes, but…what’s happened?”

  “Nothing, really. I had an E-mail from Bandar Abbas, and it made me wonder again whether I should try to find my parents at Ascot on the day of the horse race.”

  “What did the E-mail say that made you wonder?”

  “Oh, it just mentioned a certain U.S. diplomat who might be in London in late June.”

  “Surely no one you might want to meet.”

  “No. Not really. Someone I might want to assassinate.”

  “Wow! You mean personally? Or on behalf of a government?”

  “On behalf of the Nation of Islam.”

  “Will you take him out before the horse race, or after?” Shakira spoke with complete seriousness, and Ravi laughed.

  “Oh, I shan’t be involved myself. But I think they might like me to try to hire someone.”

  “Good. Can I come?”

  “No. But I may take you some of the way.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We might both go to Paris. Where I will leave you for two or three days.”

  “And you go to London to the horse race and the assassination without me?”

  “More or less.”

  “What’s that? Yes or no?”

  “Yes. I would have to leave you because my mission may be dangerous, and I don’t want you to end up in a British jail. Even if I do.”

  “Oh.”

  “And we don’t have much time to make our arrangements. Later today, I must call Admiral Badr, and the Syrian Embassy in London. It’s in Belgrave Square. I need to fix a badge for the horse races. The Syrian diplomats are more acceptable to the British than the Iranians.”

  “But I thought we said you did not need one to see the horses before they race?”

  “No. You said that. But I know I must have a proper badge. Royal Ascot is like a club for some people, the English upper classes. Without that little colored badge I’d feel half dressed. And if I did need to talk to anyone, the badge will give me status, make me look bona fide, as if I am there legally, still a part of the regiment. But this is not a military place. And you see very few serving officers. It’s too expensive.”

  “What about Frederick Astaire’s morning clothes?”

  “I need my morning coat, top hat, and tails. That way I can relax, properly dressed, with proper credentials. Nothing suspicious. I’ll just be a smart public school-educated Army Officer enjoying a day at the races.”

  “What will it say on your badge?”

  “The least possible. Just R. Kerman, Esq. Unobtrusive. And I’m not going into the Enclosure, so I won’t have to run the gauntlet with those bloody gatemen.”

  Six Days Later

  Monday, June 19, 2006

  Paris

  The Air France Boeing 737 from Damascus touched down at Roissy–Charles de Gaulle Airport, nineteen miles northeast of Paris, two and a half hours late at four o’clock in the afternoon. Ravi and Shakira hurried through Terminal Two and picked up a cab, directing it to the long narrow Rue du Bac in the Saint Germain area of the city, on the Left Bank.

  In moderate traffic, they pulled up outside the Hotel Bac St.-Germain forty minutes later. To Shakira it seemed she was visiting the City of Light with the most sophisticated man in the entire world. But Ravi’s hotel selection was made from horizons more narrow than she knew.

  He had only ever been to one hotel in Paris in his life. And this was it, his parents’ favorite, a charming, moderately priced, twenty-one-room establishment that served breakfast in the summer months hig
h on a rooftop terrace with a grand fountain in the center.

  Richard Kerman always stayed here, mainly because he liked the terrace and the discreet, semiluxurious nature of the place. Young Ravi had never forgotten the sweeping views over the city he saw as he tackled his first-ever croissant and poured himself hot chocolate from a special pot with sideways handles.

  Behind him to the west, jutting into the sky above the grand buildings of the French Government Ministries, was the Eiffel Tower. Out in front, a few hundred yards away was the Cathedral of Notre Dame set on its ancient island in the middle of the River Seine. Nothing had ever tasted so good as the chocolat chaud to the twelve-year-old Ravi. “This,” he had muttered, “is plainly the life for me.”

  Twenty-four years later, he was back, under very different circumstances, some of which were markedly better, such as the beautiful Palestinian girl with whom he would sleep and have breakfast. Some were sharply worse, like the need for secrecy, the false name, the forged passport, the wariness, the need to remain separate from other guests.

  In general terms, Ravi was pleased to be here, however briefly. And she, in turn, was breathtakenly awed by the size and beauty of the French capital.

  They checked into the Bac, as the French call the hotel, without incident or questions, as Ravi took the greatest care not to reveal he was the son of one of the hotel’s best and most long-standing clients. He thought he recognized the proprietor from all those years ago, but he betrayed nothing and wondered cheerfully whether the same lady still mixed the chocolat chaud. He certainly hoped so.

  Shakira was thrilled by the mass of foreign satellite channels on the television in the room, and had to be coaxed away to dine on that Monday night. It was raining lightly, and they were both tired, gladly accepting the recommendation of the hotel doorman to try, just a few doors away, the Gaya Rive Gauche, the Left Bank outpost of the famous Paris seafood restaurant on the Rue Duphot.