To The Death, page 25
Shakira, unsurprisingly, did not understand one single word of that. But she was one of those people who cannot bear just to say, “How interesting,” and move on. Shakira Rashood had to know precisely what was happening.
Of course, she was so endearingly beautiful that she was, generally speaking, indulged, especially by men, and particularly by important men, from terrorist commanders to Irish stud farm owners. Women blessed with great beauty live by an entirely different set of rules.
“You mean a mare named Mighty Mary is the mother of Easter Rebel?”
“Precisely. I sold him as a yearling, but he won four races when he was two, and two more this past spring, one of them a group race over a mile and a quarter in England.”
“Does that mean they all run together—a group race?”
And so on, until Shakira thoroughly understood that Mr. O’Donnell’s broodmare Mighty Mary would be very valuable if Easter Rebel should win the Irish Derby, and that her foal, the filly, could go on to be an excellent racer if she could run half as fast as her brother.
“She’s what’s known as a full sister,” said Mr. O’Donnell. “Same father, same mother.”
“I assumed they all had the same father and same mother,” said Shakira. “Is this like a marriage with horses?”
Michael O’Donnell laughed. “Hell, no!” he said. “We switch ’em around all the time, breeding the mares to any stallion who takes our fancy.”
“What if she doesn’t like him?”
“Oh, we tether ’em good and well so they can’t escape, and then bring the stallion in at precisely the right moment in her cycle.”
Shakira looked shocked. “But that’s terrible,” she said. “What if Mighty Mary hates every moment of it? That’s rape.”
“Ah, jaysus, Maureen,” said Michael. “We’re trying to breed winners, not run a dating agency. Tipperary is one of the most famous horse-breeding places in the entire world.”
“Well, I’m not sure I like your attitude,” she replied, “forcing those horrible stallions on the mares.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Michael. “The sire of Easter Rebel and the filly foal is not horrible. He’s one of the best-looking stallions you’ll ever see.”
“Hmmmm,” said Shakira. “What’s his name?”
“Galileo.”
“Could he run fast?”
“Maureen, there are three major twelve-furlong races run in England and Ireland in the high summer of the year—June and July. In 2001, Galileo won them all. And that does not happen very often.”
“Is one of them the Irish Derby?”
“Sure it is.”
“Then I hope Easter Rebel wins it, like his father.”
“I hope he wins it for his little sister.”
“Why is that important?”
“Well, today she is a very nice foal and may command £50,000 in the sale ring. If the Rebel wins this weekend, she’ll be known as a full sister to an Irish Derby winner and may be worth £400,000.”
“Who would pay that for a horse?”
“Probably the Arab sheiks, but in this case more likely the owners of the Coolmore Stud in Tipperary. She was born there, and they’d probably like her to come home eventually.”
“Is it a beautiful place?”
“The best. Full of perfectly mown paddocks, horsemen who have looked after thoroughbreds for generations, and many of the finest stallions in the world. All of it right down there in the heart of Tipperary, so many foals and yearlings. That’s the place, Maureen. Where the dreams begin.”
“And sometimes end?” said Shakira.
“Ah, no, my girl,” said the Irishman, somewhat mysteriously. “Nature never closes the book.”
And with that, Michael O’Donnell took his leave, heading out of the dining room to meet his wife and daughter. As he went, he called, “There’ll be some kind of a hooley at home on Sunday night if we win.”
Her reply “What’s a hooley?” was lost in the busy Shelbourne dining room.
And that, in a sense, was why Shakira was standing on the sidewalk in St. Stephen’s Green, her forged passport in her bag, awaiting her driver. She had decided, pending the arrival of her husband in a few days, to visit Tipperary, somewhere near this Coolmore Stud, 110 miles south of Dublin.
0900 Saturday 7 July Brockhurst, Virginia
Detective Joe Segel was becoming an expert on brick walls, dead ends, and roads leading nowhere. In the past five days, he had experienced all of them—in his fruitless search for the vanishing barmaid. In his own mind, he was as certain as an experienced detective ever could be that Miss Carla Martin had indeed stabbed Matt Barker to death. It also seemed certain that the big garage proprietor had launched some kind of sexual attack on her and paid for it with his life.
The only other certainty about Carla was that she had most definitely disappeared off the face of the earth. Just about every radio and television news station in the United States had carried the story. Not just the media in the local Virginia/Washington, D.C. area; the tantalizing mystery of the Barker Pecker had transported the murder story far and wide.
If Carla had been anywhere in the USA, and indeed been innocent of the crime, she would surely have called in to the 800 number at Joe Segel’s police station to clear her name. But she had not done so, which meant one of two things: she had fled the country, possibly before the body was found, or she was hiding out somewhere in the States until the murder hunt died down.
It was now obvious that her passport was a forgery. The two establishments in London that she had submitted as references had never heard of her. Her apartment yielded absolutely nothing, and the film on the closed-circuit system at Chesapeake Heights was so indistinct and the exiting figure so awkwardly presented, not even Fred Mitchell could swear to God it was Jane Camaro.
The lady had covered her tracks with astounding efficiency. The fact was, Joe Segel did not even know her name. He did not even know her nationality. And he sure as hell did not know where she was. He’d even had the FBI and the CIA launch an international search looking for a port-of-entry clue in every major nation in the Middle East, not to mention London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels, Geneva, Berlin, and Milan. Nothing.
Joe did not even have a car description or a license-plate number. There was nothing to go on. This particular murder hunt was headed for the “unsolved” file with near-record speed. There was only one suspect. And that suspect seemed not to exist.
Like Fred Mitchell five days ago, Detective Joe feared for his résumé.
1000 Sunday 8 July National Security Agency, Maryland
Lt. Commander Ramshawe had to be at the Australian embassy for lunch. His time was thus limited, and he moved fast to make sure he caught Admiral Morgan before he went out.
And again he spelled out his fears to the great man, to no avail, even though he stressed the danger that must be prevalent since it was entirely possible that Emily Gallagher had revealed too much detail to the girl now wanted for murder.
“Arnie, is it not possible for you simply to change the dates?”
“Out of the question. After London, we’re going up to Scotland to stay a couple of nights with Admiral Sir Iain MacLean, then we’re all going to Edinburgh for the Festival and the Military Tattoo.”
“I’ve been to that with Dad,” said Jimmy. “It goes on for about a month. Can’t you just go on a different night?”
“Jimmy, I’m taking the salute on a very carefully planned evening. The dates were only finalized on Friday. I have to go when I said I’d go. Anyway, it’s a pretty big honor. A lot of very big-deal military men have taken the salute at Edinburgh Castle. Churchill did it. The prime minister of England is doing it the night after me. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Hmmmmm,” said Jimmy, reverting to his rich Aussie accent, as he normally did when under stress. “Basically, I’m wasting my time, right? Just trying to save your bloody life.”
“Which is of course threatened by a barmaid. C’mon, kid. Let’s stay real. I got plenty of protection, not to mention half the British Army.”
“I’m not worried about the goddamned barmaid. I’m worried about her employers. That’s all. You know there’s some hotshot special operators in those jihadist groups. I’m just trying to keep you out of the crosshairs.”
“Don’t worry about me, kid. I’m fireproof. Gotta go.”
Crash. Down phone.
“Stubborn old prick,” muttered Jimmy.
1400 Sunday 8 July Western Mediterranean
The Kilo-class submarine that bore General Rashood to his destination still ran fast at periscope depth, still snorkeling. Captain Abad was conning her through nine thousand feet of ocean depth, 150 miles south of Majorca in the Spanish Balearic Isles. That put her around fifty miles northwest of Algiers, 37.30 North, 02.30 East.
She ran just below the surface, making twelve knots. In this snorkeling mode, she was, by modern submarine standards, quite extraordinarily noisy, and she was picked up instantly by the sophisticated sonar carried by USS Cheyenne.
Right now, Commander Hank Redford had the big LA-class submarine patrolling slowly, approximately a hundred miles south of the island of Formentera, around 110 miles northwest of the oncoming Iranians. The American sonar operators were scanning the wide deep seas to the east, their long electronic towed array strung out astern of the ship like a giant black snake, catching and processing any electronic movement in the ocean. The sonar team, to a man, was watching, waiting for the distinctive engine lines of the Russian-built Kilo with its trademark five-bladed prop.
The bells of the watch came and went. The day finally gave way to night, and by now the Kilo was sixty-five miles closer. In waters this deep, there is no appreciable advantage to any ship, because it is not possible to “back up” against a “noisy” landmass and force your quarry to aim its sonars into the most confusing area. Out here, where the ocean is vast and empty, bereft of any land, all’s fair. The hunter must stay quiet, and the hunted is supposed to stay even quieter, though in the case of Captain Abad this was impossible.
Generally speaking, a U.S. Navy underwater boat has it all over any perceived opponent, but the Kilo was only weeks out of refit, and in recent years the Russians had done a great deal of catching up.
Cheyenne, with that towed array, would certainly locate the Kilo first, but there was an excellent chance the Kilo would pick up the Americans in the end. Thereafter, it was a matter of Captain Abad holding his nerve and hoping to hell the U.S. commanding officer did not feel especially trigger-happy.
A bookmaker would almost certainly have made the Americans favorite to do anything they liked. And that would be logical, if it was just any old Kilo sliding through the water. But this particular Kilo was state-of-the-art, and there was a chance that some U.S. advantage might have been eliminated in the secretive laboratories of St. Petersburg’s Admiralty Yards.
The watch changed at midnight. But no one left the sonar room. Everyone knew the Kilo must be approaching. Her course was plainly direct to the Gibraltar Strait, and, so far as the American navigators were concerned, she was already late.
The satellite pictures had recorded her leaving the coast of Lebanon, and she’d been snorkeling all the way at a steady twelve knots. In the hot still of this Mediterranean night, the Kilo kept going, oblivious of the presence of USS Cheyenne. Captain Abad was confident out here in the dark, in deep lonely waters, but he was instinctively concerned about the sea-scape further west in the busy shipping lanes which lead into, and out of, the Atlantic Ocean.
At 0034, still at periscope depth, with the air-intake mast up and the big diesel generators, deep within the submarine, running smoothly, the Kilo was picked up by the Cheyenne twenty miles away.
Chief Petty Officer Skip Gowans said quietly, “I might have something right here, just a faint rise in the level. It could be a rain shower, swishing on the surface—but I thought it was something . . . arrived kinda sudden . . . give me a few minutes.”
Commander Redford was standing right at his shoulder. No one spoke, and the chief did not say anything more for at least four minutes. Then he said, “I have a definite rise in the level. I don’t think it’s weather—I’m getting something.”
Again there was silence. Chief Gowans was a study in concentration. The entire operations center was hanging on his decision, and at 0044 he gave it: “Captain—sonar . . . I have faint engine lines coming up on the array. Relative eight-nine. Lines fit the sample, sir.”
Commander Redford moved nearer to the “waterfall” screen, which now showed definite engine lines. The computer had already compared them with the Kilo engine sample built into the system.
Chief Gowans muttered, “They fit, sir. No doubt.”
Hank Redford snapped, “Gimme the range.”
“Not close, sir. I’m thinking first convergence. And the bearing hasn’t moved. I’d say she’s coming dead toward us. In my opinion, she’s snorkeling right now. Those Russian Kilos are usually very quiet, but this guy’s making one hell of a racket.”
“We don’t have orders to sink her,” said the CO. “So long as she’s coming straight at us, we’ll hold this course and remain below ten knots.”
“Sir,” said Chief Gowans, “the solution looks good, she’s still out to the east, maybe twenty miles, and still coming our way. She’s not cavitating, which means she’s making under nine knots.”
Back in the Kilo, Captain Abad’s team did not pick up the Cheyenne. He was now running close to the coast of Algiers, and he told himself for the umpteenth time on this journey that the stealth of the Kilo was always his ally. And he could, if necessary, vanish long before he was cornered. They kept running west-sou’west until dawn, making fifteen knots at periscope depth.
In Cheyenne’s ops room, the engine lines of the Kilo never vanished from the screens. But as her speed increased and the two boats closed to within ten miles of each other, the Americans altered course to one-nine-zero, steering almost due south to gain close contact. This was the most one-sided game of cat-and-mouse. Neither CO had orders to shoot, but the Americans essentially had the Kilo on toast.
1500 Saturday 7 July County Tipperary, Ireland
Shakira Rashood made a leisurely journey across Ireland, driving out of Dublin and heading south across County Kildare and then on down through County Loais. She brought with her an ordnance map that marked the Coolmore Stud close to the little village of Fethard. So far as she could see, the nearest sizable town was Cashel.
She was not planning to buy a racehorse, but like many Arabs she had an inbuilt affinity with the thoroughbred, and she knew that most of the world’s high-mettled racers traced their ancestry back to the desert sands of her forefathers. There was only one famous Arab horse of whom she had heard, and that was the Darley Arabian. And she wondered whether any of his descendants had ended up at Coolmore, which Michael O’Donnell had pronounced the greatest stud farm on earth.
She was not of course to know that every single flat-racing stallion on the Coolmore roster traced back to the Darley Arabian, through his direct descendant Eclipse. And she wished her husband had been with her, because he, somewhat surprisingly for a wanted terrorist hitman, was quite knowledgeable on the subject. General Rashood’s own father, Iranian-born but London-domiciled, was a horse breeder of some note, having very nearly won the Ascot Gold Cup a few years back.
Shakira and Ravi often walked through Damascus to pick up the English newspapers, and she was accustomed to seeing him turn to the racing pages for the results, cards, and reports. He frequently said he missed going racing in England with his father, and that one day, if he could ever return, he would like to own a couple of decent runners. They both knew this was a distinctly unlikely possibility, mass murderers being generally discouraged from attending British and Irish racecourses.
Shakira had, of course, never even seen a thoroughbred in action, but it was a curious piece of unfulfilled ambition. She liked racehorses, liked being told about them, although it had been impossible for her to display anything but the most profound ignorance in the presence of Michael O’Donnell.
And now she was in the heartland of the thoroughbred, County Tipperary, where the great ones had either been born, been trained, or ended their days as stallions and broodmares. She stopped at the newspaper shop in Cashel and bought a small local history of the thoroughbred industry in and around the town.
The names were strange to her, the Derby winners, Nijinsky, Sir Ivor, Roberto, The Minstrel, Galileo, the world-famous sires, Sadlers Wells, Caerleon, Be My Guest, Danehill, Giant’s Causeway. But the names rang with poetry, seeming to echo through the Golden Vale of Tipperary where she now stood.
Shakira signaled for her driver to park the car in a long drive in front of the hotel where her guidebook had suggested she stay. It was a grand pink-bricked eighteenth-century building, now converted into the Cashel Palace Hotel, a mecca for visiting horsemen from all over the world. There had been a mass exodus north from the town for Irish Derby weekend, and it was no trouble booking a single room for a few days. She just checked in, using a hitherto unused American Express card, issued to a British citizen, Margaret Adams. No one even asked to see her passport.
She took her suitcase up to her room, declining assistance from the doorman. She unpacked carefully, hung a few things in the gigantic old polished wardrobe, and stuffed her essentials into her regular leather handbag: forged passports, credit cards, wallet, several thousand euros in cash, her forged British driver’s license with Margaret’s address in Warwickshire, and her driving gloves.
She had one stop to make at the fishing tackle shop she had noticed in the main street. Shakira felt very vulnerable when she was unarmed, as she had been for several days, ever since she had left her principal weapon jutting out of Matt Barker’s chest.
