To The Death Part 26

"What was he wearing, Mick?"

"I think it was a black T-s.h.i.+rt, 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-s.h.i.+rt 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 smas.h.i.+ng into and weakening the big 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 h.e.l.l 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 a.s.sumed that from the start. At least I a.s.sume 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 h.e.l.l 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."

0800 Same Day The Paramount Hotel Dublin.

General Rashood awakened reasonably early, showered, shaved, and had breakfast in his room. He opened the door and found the Irish Times Irish Times on the carpet. He picked it up and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the lead story, straight across all eight columns of the front page: on the carpet. He picked it up and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the lead story, straight across all eight columns of the front page:

WEST CORK SEAPORT STUNNED AT BRUTAL MURDER Dairy Farmer Found Battered to Death Garda Baffled at Senseless Slaying. Dairy Farmer Found Battered to Death Garda Baffled at Senseless Slaying.

There followed a lurid account of how the longtime Crookhaven resident had gone missing and then been found dead on the cliff top, his truck and 160 gallons of milk missing. The newspaper speculated that it might have been just a milk thief, but later quotes from Detective Superintendent Raymond McDwyer suggested something much more sinister.

Extra police were due to be drafted into the area, and a nationwide search for the killer was launched last night. D-Sup. McDwyer was still in his office at 3 A.M. trying to piece together the many separate parts of his investigation.

Who might want to kill Jerry O'Connell? Did they mean to kill him? Was it mistaken ident.i.ty? Or was this a homicidal maniac who might strike again? Either way, the pressure is on McDwyer to come up with something.

Ravi put down his newspaper and turned to the television news, which was making an even bigger meal of it. There was a camera crew in Crookhaven, reporting "direct from this heartbroken community." There was a crew in Skibbereen awaiting news from "the murder inquiry headquarters." There were pictures of the harbor, pictures of the cliffs, pictures of Seaview Farm, interviews with Mary O'Connell, wedding photographs of the couple, an interview with Mary's aging father.

Ravi pulled some clean clothes out of his bag and began to dress. His new T-s.h.i.+rt was white. He skipped through the remainder of the newspaper, pausing only to look at a story which told of a gigantic bomb blast that had knocked out all the windows in the American emba.s.sy in Tel Aviv.

"Well done, Ahmed," he muttered.

He stuffed a pile of euros into his pocket, picked up his bag, and went downstairs to check out. He paid the 190-euro bill with four fifties. Outside, he jumped into a cab and asked for the Mosque at Clonskeagh, which stands on the south side, next to University College Dublin.

The Mosque, which was opened by President Mary Robinson in 1996 and backed by the great Dubai statesman and racehorse breeder Sheik Hamdan al Maktoum, is one of the finest buildings in Dublin, a ma.s.sive brick-and-steel edifice with a minaret tower and a breathtaking metallic dome. It is built within a giant square, a total of nine buildings including a prayer hall of majestic beauty. The Mosque is surrounded by perfectly kept lawns. It is the Mecca of the Emerald Isle.

Ravi had heard much about it and had been wanting to visit for several years. Now, however, it was an irrelevance, for within its precincts today was the only reason Ravi had to live, his beloved Shakira, the Palestinian girl for whom he had laid down his life and career.

The taxi swung into the wide entrance to the Mosque and headed for the main building. He could see Shakira leaning on the wall, dressed in jeans, sandals, and a white blouse. There she was, waiting for him, longing for him, and entirely oblivious of the fact that he had left behind in County Cork a manhunt as big as the one she had left behind in Virginia.

Should he tell her? Perhaps not. She had quite enough to worry about, without burdening her with yet another preoccupation. Still, she would have to be aware of the need for the utmost caution, even if he did not quite tell her the full details of the murder of Jerry O'Connell.

Ravi permitted the driver to stop about fifty yards from where Shakira stood. He paid, climbed out, and walked slowly back toward her. She was looking the other way, and he put his arms around her from behind; without seeing, she knew it was him. She twisted and flung her arms around him as if she would never let go, and he held her close and told her over and over that he loved her above all else.

But then he broke away from her embrace and said sternly, "Nothing in public that would ever attract attention. Not in our business."

"I know, I know," she said, a shade petulantly. "But it's been so long and I miss you every day. Where are we going now?"

"We are leaving Ireland as fast as we can," he said. "This was just a port of entry for us. We have to get to London as fast as we can."

"How do we do that?"

"We get a taxi to a place called Dun Laoghaire. It's right on the coast, and it's not far from here. That's the ferry port to England."

"I can't see any taxis."

"No, I'm going to call for one. I arranged it this morning. I have the number."

Ravi dialed a number on his cell. Shakira heard him say, "h.e.l.lo, Robert Bamford here. Taxi to pick me up at the Mosque. I ordered it this morning. Yes, that's correct. I'm right at the main entrance . . . to Dun Laoghaire, cash. Okay, five minutes."

0700 Same Day National Security Agency Maryland.

Jimmy Ramshawe was fielding a succession of catastrophically depressing E-mails, all of them confirming that Carla Martin had most definitely vanished. The Maureen Carson lead came to nothing. The pa.s.sport was forged; the only Maureen Carson of Michigan with correlating numbers was dead. The Jordanian emba.s.sy in Paris said they had never heard of Miss Carson, which was, Jimmy guessed, unsurprising since she did not appear to exist.

The Jordanian attache had told the FBI that since Miss Carson appeared to have a forged pa.s.sport, she probably had forged her American Express application as well. Worse yet, the Shelbourne Hotel had not the slightest idea where she had gone after leaving them.

The Kilo had not shown up anywhere along the route from Ireland to Gibraltar. And yet the Ireland connection continued to bother Jimmy. He still believed Maureen Carson was Carla Martin. Who the h.e.l.l else buys a pricey one-way first-cla.s.s ticket to Dublin at an hour's notice, unless they're on the b.l.o.o.d.y run? Who the h.e.l.l else buys a pricey one-way first-cla.s.s ticket to Dublin at an hour's notice, unless they're on the b.l.o.o.d.y run?

And all the b.l.o.o.d.y doc.u.ments are forged, for Christ's sake. Something's going on, and I can't understand for the life of me why n.o.body can see it except for me. And what in the name of Christ are the f.u.c.king Iranians doing frigging around in a submarine, a drive and a nine iron from Kinsale Golf Club? Tell me that. Jimmy, all alone in his office, was working himself into a lather about Ireland. Jimmy, all alone in his office, was working himself into a lather about Ireland.

So much so that he opened his computer and Googled the Irish Times Irish Times just to see what the h.e.l.l was going on over there. And what greeted him was that whacking great front-page headline announcing the brutal murder of the Irish dairy farmer Jerry O'Connell. just to see what the h.e.l.l was going on over there. And what greeted him was that whacking great front-page headline announcing the brutal murder of the Irish dairy farmer Jerry O'Connell.

Jimmy wrote down Crookhaven Crookhaven and checked the distance along the coast to Kinsale Old Head-forty-two miles along the sh.o.r.e. He then compared the GPS numbers; not the numbers that separated Kinsale from Crookhaven, but the ones that separated Crookhaven from the submarine when the Brits detected her. The lat.i.tudes were submarine 51.15, Crookhaven 51.32, about seventeen miles different. Longitude, submarine 08.29, Crookhaven 09.34. About the same forty-odd miles, with the submarine running predictably south. and checked the distance along the coast to Kinsale Old Head-forty-two miles along the sh.o.r.e. He then compared the GPS numbers; not the numbers that separated Kinsale from Crookhaven, but the ones that separated Crookhaven from the submarine when the Brits detected her. The lat.i.tudes were submarine 51.15, Crookhaven 51.32, about seventeen miles different. Longitude, submarine 08.29, Crookhaven 09.34. About the same forty-odd miles, with the submarine running predictably south.

She'd been running all day. It was 4 o'clock in the b.l.o.o.d.y afternoon. I don't know what happened to the Irish farmer. But something's really weird here. b.l.o.o.d.y great headlines, murder, Maureen Carson, towelhead submarines. All concerning Ireland. Give me a break. They've got to be connected.

And this is where Jimmy Ramshawe parted company, mentally, with Admiral Morgan, who told him bluntly, "Kid, you still lack the one truth that might bind all this together. Right now they're all floating coincidences.

"Nothing's connected to anything else. Nothing puts Carla or Maureen on the submarine. Nothing connects either woman with the other. Nothing suggests the submarine was doing anything except a training exercise. As for this murder, no one knows who committed it, and there is not one shred of evidence to indicate that one of the Iranians got off and then kicked an Irish pig farmer to death."

"Dairy."

"What?"

"Dairy farmer, not pig."

"Oh, thank G.o.d. That makes all the difference."

"Arnie, I agree nothing quite adds up. But something's going on, and I don't think you should go to England. . . ."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

1400 Tuesday 17 July Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.

General Rashood bought two first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger tickets for the two o'clock ferry to Holyhead in North Wales, a journey of sixty-five miles across the Irish Sea. This was unusual, because the Stena Line fast ferry is essentially for cars and trucks, roll on, roll off. The vast majority of pa.s.sengers were planning to drive through Wales, England, or Scotland, either vacationing or going home. There were some pa.s.sengers without cars, but mostly students, backpackers, and hitchhikers. Ravi and Shakira did not fit the pattern.

Nonetheless, they found their way up to the first-cla.s.s lounge, and ordered hot sandwiches for lunch. The stewardess would bring them complimentary coffee throughout the journey.

The summer sea was calm, and the ferry, a giant hovercraft, charged toward the United Kingdom in a blizzard of howling spray, ripping past a regular shaft-driven ferryboat as if it had stopped.

Holyhead, their destination, sits on Holy Isle, the northwest point of Wales, jutting out into the Irish Sea. This in turn is joined to the ancient twenty-mile-long Isle of Anglesey where the A-5, the main road into England, begins. Or ends, depending on your direction.

Ravi and Shakira had to wait for the cars and trucks to leave the s.h.i.+p before foot pa.s.sengers were permitted to walk off. They joined a busy line of mostly young people going through the pa.s.sport control area, and twenty minutes later, with only the most cursory glance at one of Shakira's four pa.s.sports, the British one for Margaret Adams, they waved her through.

Ravi, the former British Army officer, said "good afternoon" crisply in that unmistakable tone the British use to intimidate the lower orders, and was waved through immediately. The official paid hardly any attention to this well-dressed Charles Larkman, in his expensive brown suede jacket and white T-s.h.i.+rt.

However, the closed-circuit camera behind him was more observant, and there was a photographic record that Miss Adams and Mr. Larkman had indeed entered the United Kingdom, off the two o'clock ferry from Dublin, on July 17.

From the immigration area, they walked to the car-rental desks, and Shakira hired an Audi A6 for a month, using her new American Express Gold Card, originally issued to a staff member at the Syrian emba.s.sy in London. She offered one of her three driver's licenses, the one in the name of Margaret Adams, and Ravi booked himself in as an extra driver using Mr. Larkman's clean British license.

Thankfully, they stowed their two bags in the trunk and set off on the long 300-mile journey to London, Ravi at the wheel.

The regular route for most drivers is to cross the Menai Strait onto the mainland and then travel all along the North Wales coast until it reaches the fast motorway system south of Liverpool. Ravi would do it differently, driving through the mountains of North Wales, southeast to Shrewsbury, and then south into Hereford, home of the British Army's elite SAS, his old stomping ground. It was perhaps the irresistible urge of the outlaw to return, in the broadest possible sense, to the scene of the crime.

1700 Tuesday 17 July Skibbereen Garda Station.

Shortly after 5 P.M., the two officers from New Scotland Yard agreed to consult with MI-6, Britain's overseas intelligence agency. It was clear to both of them that the man who killed Jerry O'Connell was no pa.s.sing villain: this was a man who had almost certainly made illegal entry into Ireland, and if challenged in any way would kill ruthlessly and without compunction.

Both men had previous experience with such operators, mostly in the field of counterterrorism. The IRA had men like that, and the various jihadist organizations were full of them. Fanatics.

At the heart of the O'Connell killing was the fact that the murderer had been trained militarily. No one can kill like that, not without expert instruction. MI-6 listened attentively and promised to make immediate inquiries, find out if there was a rogue Special Forces operator on the loose.

One hour later, it was clear that MI-6 had raised a serious hue and cry. They'd talked to the CO at Stirling Lines, headquarters of the SAS; they'd touched base with military intelligence in all three branches of the service. They even heard about the suspect Iranian submarine, and it seemed everyone in the entire intelligence community understood there was something very strange about the death of the Irish farmer.

Same Day In the USA.

At 7 P.M. in England, 2 P.M. on the East Coast of the United States, the FBI was put in the picture. This was no longer an Irish-country-murder inquiry; this was now a preliminary examination of a possible terrorist on the loose in the British Isles. Jimmy Ramshawe, who was no longer in the office, was informed by a young duty officer that his buddy in the FBI had called and wanted to talk urgently.

Jimmy was in his apartment at the Watergate with Jane when the message came through. He called back and listened as the agent explained that the Special Branch had flown into Ireland from Scotland Yard and all h.e.l.l seemed to be breaking loose over the death of the Irish farmer.

"Any idea why?" asked Jimmy innocently, hardly able to contain his excitement.

"Yeah. He was apparently killed by an unarmed combat blow which could only have been delivered by a Special Forces guy, you know, a Navy SEAL or an SAS man."

"I KNEW IT!" yelled Jimmy.

"Knew what?"

"I knew there was something going on in connection with southern Ireland."

"Not to mention southern Virginia. Christ, Jimmy, we've made more calls for you than we have for ourselves. Carla Martin, Maureen Whatsername, Aer Lingus, Shelbourne Hotel, pa.s.sports, emba.s.sies. I gotta tell you, buddy, it looks like there might be some connection here-"

"NO s.h.i.+T!" yelled Jimmy, ungraciously. He thanked his buddy for the call, pressed the cutoff b.u.t.ton, and dialed Admiral Morgan.

And once more he related the myriad of "disconnected facts" that suggested to him that someone was going to make an attempt on the life of the president's most trusted adviser, scourge of the Middle Eastern terrorists.

But this time he was leading up to a payoff line. And with something of a flourish, he revealed the priceless information to the admiral: that the Irish farmer had been killed by a blow which could only have been delivered by a member, or at least a former member, of the U.S. or British Special Forces.

"You're telling me, Jimmy, that someone hopped off that Iranian submarine, right out there in the Irish Sea, and killed the farmer on his way to killing me?"

"Well, not exactly. But I do know that an agent, wielding a Syrian dagger, befriended your mother-in-law very deliberately and then vanished from the face of the earth, in the full knowledge of your arrival time and hotel reservation in London on Tuesday, July 31.

"And that female agent, in my opinion, went to Ireland. Where the submarine was, and where another agent, a colleague and Special Forces guy, has just committed a murder on the way to his final destination, which might just be the Ritz Hotel."