Barracuda 945 am-6

by Patrick Robinson

  "Have they announced anything about this?"

  "No. And they're not going to. Our guys know, because any murder that may have been committed by any person who could have been a terrorist is shared between Scotland Yard and the CIA. But, for Christ's sake, don't shout it around. This is supposed to be classified."

  "You can count on my discretion," said Jimmy. "Hey, thanks for that. It's damned interesting."

  Lieutenant Ramshawe had trouble remaining seated, there were so many antennae leaping out of his head. Only twice in his short career had he been told of men being killed by plain and obvious Special Forces unarmed combat techniques — once early last year when that SAS NCO's body was found in the rubble in Hebron, and now again today. New body, same technique.

  There was something else that was itching his brain. Where the hell's that biography of Studley-Bryce? Here we are… Right here… He went to Harrow School and he's thirty-six years old. Now where's my file on Major Raymond Kerman?… Here we are… Right here…

  Holy shit! Or, as that Greek bastard might have said, Eureka! They went to the same bloody school and they're the same age! They fucking knew each other. Woweee! I think this bastard killed him. Same as he killed the SAS Sergeant, same as he did everything else. But I'm buggered if I know why. I'd better tell Scotty and George.

  Jimmy Ramshawe had taken a very short time to establish a significant reputation in the National Security Agency. He was obviously thorough to an extreme degree, and he was smart as hell, one of those most unusual young men, born to operate at the highest level of Military Intelligence. He was suspicious and cynical, with a memory like a bull elephant. He could match facts, recalling seemingly unconnected incidents. If three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles had been an Olympic sport, J. Ramshawe, representing either Australia or the United States, would have won a Gold Medal.

  "My bloody oath," he told Admiral George Morris. "Did you ever see such a set of facts? We're damn nearly certain he murdered his SAS colleagues, one of 'em with a blow no civilian could deliver. And suddenly we've got another body, killed in precisely the same one-in-a-million way — and it turns out to be a bloke he actually went to school with, same age, must have known him well."

  Rear Admiral Morris grinned. "Jimmy," he said, "I have the greatest respect for your powers of deduction. But I have a couple of questions: One, why do you think this wanted terrorist was in London? And two, if he was, what the hell's he doing wandering around murdering Members of Parliament? You wouldn't be in possession of anything so unusual as a motive, would you?"

  "Gimme a break, Chief. I'm just getting bloody started." In times of stress young Ramshawe was apt to become more Australian than Banjo Patterson. And he kept going: "This is a very big guy in the terrorist world," he said. "And big guys tend to make big waves. You told me that yourself. And every instinct I have tells me to watch out for this character."

  "I don't disagree with any of that. And I think you could very usefully spend the rest of the day trying to shed a little more light on what we already know… Scotty?"

  Capt. Scott Wade, sitting in on behalf of the Military Intelligence Division, nodded carefully to the Director. "Admiral," he said, "we have taken this vanishing SAS Major very seriously since he first went missing. And we got a lot of alarm bells going off right now. If he really was in London, he was there for a darned good reason, running a big risk of capture. I don't know what that reason was, or why he killed a Member of Parliament, but I am completely in favor of Lieutenant Ramshawe going after some more facts… I mean, we know how dangerous he is… This guy could turn out to be a new Abu Nidal."

  No one smiled. And Admiral Morris murmured, "We don't even know his goddamned name anymore."

  "Dollars to doughnuts he's gone back to his original name from Iran," interjected Lieutenant Ramshawe. "What was it… Ravi? Ravi Rashood?"

  "Very likely, among his Middle East guys," replied Admiral Morris. "But there's no way he went to London using that."

  "Oh, no. He went into the U.K. as a Pom, in dress, voice, and attitudes. No doubt of that," said Jimmy. "Even the dead doorman wouldn't have let a robed Arab, a total stranger, into the apartment block, not without specific instructions from a tenant."

  "What's a Pom?" asked Scotty.

  "That's Aussie for Brit," said Jimmy. "Usually whinging Pom. But in this case, just Pom. Major Kerman's no whinger."

  "Jimmy," said Admiral Morris, good-naturedly interrupting this discourse on the finer points of outback elocution, "you better get right back on the case. I don't know where you'll start. But I expect you have a few ideas."

  "Yes, sir," said the Lieutenant. "I'm on my way." And with that he stood up and left, carrying a large file, heading right back to his post in Security Ops, his computer, and his phones.

  A thought was already formulating in his mind and it concerned Mr. and Mrs. Richard Kerman. Everyone accepted their son had made no contact since his disappearance. After all, phones had been tapped, constant surveillance had been in place, and all mail to the Kermans' home had been monitored. And there had been no contact from the fugitive. But was that still true? Ramshawe ruminated.

  Would have been just as bloody difficult to contact them from a London hotel as from a Jordanian hotel. The phone checks would have picked it up. Don't know about E-mail, but the Brits would be capable of intercepting. And a personal visit to the house would have been spotted by the surveillance guys.

  Nonetheless, Jimmy believed that Major Kerman must have contacted his parents if he had been in London on some kind of a murder mission. Jimmy needed to know what Richard Kerman and his wife had been doing during the week of June 19, and whether it looked like a rendezvous had taken place.

  He went on-line initiating a search for Richard Kerman. He was surprised at the list of headings that faced him: a catalog of newspaper articles about the father of the missing Army officer; another catalog of magazine articles and broadcast transmissions about the London shipping tycoon; more data involving the City, shares, and oil prices; and finally, a list of newspaper stories about his involvement with thoroughbred racehorses.

  Jimmy elected to leave that one till last. But it would be only a few minutes away. He had read much of the other stuff, and took little time to insure nothing much had happened in the last four weeks.

  The racehorse section was much more current, and it immediately revealed the second favorite for the Ascot Gold Cup, Persian Lady, was owned by Mr. Richard Kerman, the London shipping tycoon, and his wife, Naz.

  Ramshawe's eyes opened wide. He jumped out of the Kerman file and keyed straight into Royal Ascot Results 2006. He searched for the Gold Cup, and found the two-and-a-half-mile marathon had been run on Thursday afternoon, June 22.

  Jimmy prayed Persian Lady was "in the bloody shake-up" — and there she was, placed second to a gray gelding called Homeward Bound… beaten a short head… ridden by Jack Carson… trained by Charlie McCalmont… owned by Mr. and Mrs. R. Kerman.

  The Lieutenant scrolled down for a report on the race, looking for an interview, cast-iron confirmation that there had been no mix-up. The Gold Cup runner-up was indeed owned by the parents of the missing SAS man.

  No doubt. "London shipping tycoon Richard Kerman was magnanimous in defeat… 'We're very proud of Persian Lady. She gave it everything,' he said. 'And it took the best staying colt in Europe to defeat her, by the width of your hand, after twenty furlongs.’ "

  Jimmy Ramshawe rifled among his papers… Body discovered Friday afternoon June 23… murder committed the night before, Thursday, just a few hours after the Gold Cup was run… and the bloody MP was right there at the racecourse. Now there's another coincidence for you… There's gotta be a connection.

  He swiveled his chair around, picked up the phone, and called his buddy at the CIA.

  "Can you do me one quick favor? Find out whether the Brits have talked to Mr. and Mrs. Richard Kerman about their missing son the SAS Major any time in the last ten days?"

 
"Shit, you're a nuisance, Ramshawe. Gimme till the morning, will you?"

  Jimmy leaned back and tried to put himself in the Major's shoes. He's buggered off from home and family, everything, every connection he's ever had, and parked himself in the middle of the bloody desert. He knew the score, knew he could not possibly contact home, not even to reassure his parents he was alive. This guy's a Special Forces Forward Commander. He would not have taken that risk, mostly to protect his own mum and dad.

  He stood up and paced his small office. "Poor bastard couldn't even risk a message, could he? Somehow to make a rendezvous," he muttered. "No. He was buggered all ways by the bloody Secret Service, and he, of all people knew how thorough they would be."

  It took another few minutes for the light of truth to dawn upon him. "GOTTIT!" he exclaimed. "Major Kerman went to make his own rendezvous without even telling Richard and Naz. He didn't have to tell 'em. Because he knew, beyond doubt, exactly where they would be standing at around three o'clock on that Thursday afternoon, with their trainer, getting ready to saddle the horse.

  "And what happens? He runs straight into this bloody joker from his old school who stops him, has a chat with him. It must have been like a horror story. The guy's a member of fucking Parliament, and he's longing to tell the entire world he has discovered the missing Major, an old friend. Ray had just one possible course of action. And he took it.

  "He found out where Rupert lived, and to his dread discovered it was not a house, but an apartment, in a block, with a doorman. He conned his way in, and waited upstairs. Killed poor old Rupe to shut him up. And got rid of the doorman with a knife on his way out. That way his visit to London was still a secret, and his parents had the endless comfort of knowing he was alive and well. More importantly, they would not risk arrest for deliberately witholding information on a wanted traitor to his country."

  Jimmy hit the line to his Director, and was summoned to the office immediately. And there he convinced Admiral Morris and Captain Wade of the unique set of circumstances — the Gold Cup, which his parents almost won, and the murder that night of the MP who had been at school with the Major and was known to have attended the race meeting. "If the old Brits can just get up to The Bishop's Avenue and seriously put the arm on Mrs. Kerman, she'll end up admitting her son turned up at the races for a don't-worry-Mum chat. She will, of course, know nothing about the murder of Rupert Studley-Bryce or the doorman, for that matter. And they may never prove he did it. But I'd say we'll know a lot more about the Major by the time MI5 have finished talking to the Kermans."

  "We might even get a handle on where he lives," offered Captain Wade.

  "I doubt it," said the Admiral. "But, Lieutenant, that's an outstanding bit of detective work. And I can't fault the logic. It all fits. And don't you all get the feeling we're closing in on our man?"

  "Well, sir, we are on the verge of proving beyond any doubt that he's alive. And that has a value of its own."

  "And in a way," said George Morris, "that may make everyone's task just a little more onerous. This character is a big thinker. We have good reason to think he pulled off two of the biggest bank robberies in history. And when he decided to strike a blow against Israel, he didn't just loose off a couple of political prisoners, he released the whole fucking lot!

  "I'm afraid he might be planning some massive strike against the West, something so huge it'll take our darn breath away. I get the feeling this guy could do damn near anything he wanted.

  "Let's put a rocket up the Brits' asses. See if we can't catch him before the galloping Major strikes again. Because when he does, I've a feeling it might be memorable, in quite the wrong way."

  9:00 a.m., July 10,2006

  Headquarters, Chinese Northern Fleet

  Qingdao, Shandong Province

  It was a large but unprepossessing conference room, high in the oceanside office block that overlooked the cool, south-flowing tides of the Yellow Sea. Nonetheless, the long, plain, milk white walls of the room made a stark backdrop to the jet black robes of the two Iranian Ayatollahs.

  Both clerics now sat impassively beneath the glowering portrait of Jiang Zemin, the party politician whose rise to supreme authority in Beijing had included the chairmanship of the all-powerful Military Affairs Committee of the People's Liberation Army/Navy.

  Again and again, while China's defense budget climbed into the billions, irrevocably to an all-time high every single year, Jiang had masterminded its distribution. Now his successors were in place, and they were listening to the most extraordinary request.

  These two Holy Men, from the hot dusty lands that surround the Gulf of Iran, were here to discuss the possibility of the Chinese Navy purchasing two nuclear submarines from the Russians in strictest confidence, never revealing to anyone the identity of the real buyer, which would be, of course, Iran. The two Ayatollahs were accompanied by the Commander-in-Chief of their Navy, Admiral Mohammed Badr, plus his "Senior Military Adviser," General Ravi Rashood, who flanked them at the large conference table.

  Their staff of fourteen Iranian Naval orderlies awaited them, occupying the entire 23rd floor at the five hundred-room complex of the Huiquan Dynasty Hotel overlooking Qingdao's premier beach, a ten-minute ride from the Northern Fleet Headquarters.

  Arms dealers are no strangers to the inner counsels of modern military states. But the sight of the two Muslim clerics, all dressed up trying to get their hands on the world's most lethal weapon, the underwater strike submarine, possessed a certain unreal quality of its own.

  The bushy eyebrows of the Chinese Navy's Senior Vice Chairman, Admiral Zhang Yushu, were raised high as he listened through his interpreters to the totally outlandish request of the clerics from Tehran.

  "But, gentlemen," he began. "Surely you must be aware of the restrictions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Surely, you anticipate Russia will have the gravest reservations about becoming the first nuclear nation ever to sell a ship of this quality to a foreign power?"

  "We believe," replied the less senior Ayatollah, "their desperation for cash may override their, well, conscience about selling such a weapon of war. Let's be honest, they've never hesitated before about selling any hardware to anyone, particularly to yourselves. And in that I include big guided-missile destroyers, Kilo Class submarines, and even, I believe, an aircraft carrier."

  "Well," interrupted Zhang, "you yourselves purchased at least three diesel-electric submarines from them… "

  "Yes, but not nuclear. Nuclear is different."

  "Gentlemen," said Admiral Zhang, "you seem disinclined to let the mere existence of a ship's nuclear reactor stand between yourselves and progress."

  "With your assistance, Admiral, I am rather hoping not."

  "Yes," said Zhang, slowly. "But I sense you are asking us to take a very large risk on your behalf, one that is guaranteed to infuriate Washington."

  "Quite frankly, we do not see a need for Washington ever to discover that you have acted on our behalf."

  "Washington has a way of finding out any damn thing in the world that it considers in any way significant," said Zhang, roughly.

  "But perhaps, not this," replied the Ayatollah, gently enough. "You see, we are asking you to purchase the submarines, which is not in itself so shocking. Then we are looking for a delivery route along the northern coast of Siberia, into the Barents Sea and a docking in the Russian Naval Base of Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. We intend to take delivery there, and set off on our mission from there.

  "We do not intend to involve you in any way except financial. We pay, you buy, the Russians deliver, we take over, in the utmost secrecy. It is likely that Washington will not even know the submarine has been sold out of the Russian Navy when it clears Petropavlovsk."

  "Hmmmm," said Admiral Zhang. "You see us as a kind of agent, handling the sale, eh? But yet, right in the firing line, should the Americans discover the formal owners of the sub?"

  "Well, the documents could scarcely disclose t
he true purchaser… "

  "Of course not," said Zhang, interrupting. "The Russians may very well agree to sell us a couple of nuclear boats, but I do not believe they would fly in the face of world opinion and sell the ships to an Islamic State in the Middle East. That would be a step too far, even for them."

  "Which is, after all, why we are sitting around this table." Admiral Zhang stood up. He was a big man, burly and tough-looking, son of a southern sea Captain, former Navy Commanding Officer.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "I accept that the rudiments of your plan are sound. Yes, we could probably buy the ships you want. Yes, it would be of little consequence to us, so long as you were paying. And yes, there would be little enough risk to us so long as it was delivered to a Russian Naval Base and stayed away from China.

  "But what, I ask, would happen, if you go off in your nice new submarine and make some astounding attack on your Great Satan, and the Russians, under extreme pressure from the West, admit the ship was sold to us? That it sails under the flag of the Chinese Navy. Then what?"

  "I have thought of that," said the Ayatollah, referring to notes written out for him by General Rashood. "You admit the truth, the ship was purchased by the Chinese Navy, but you have never taken delivery, and that it has never set foot in Chinese waters, or indeed in any Chinese port."

  "Which would, of course, be perfectly true," mused Zhang.

  "You simply deny all knowledge."

  "But where will the second submarine be at this time?"

  "That, Admiral, must remain a matter for negotiation. But I was rather hoping we could smuggle it into a Chinese Base and hide it. Maybe take a different route to China altogether."

  "I suppose that would be possible," said Zhang, "but I am at a loss to see what possible advantage any of this could have for either my Navy or our country."

  "It would come under the heading of 'continued agreeable relations' between China and Iran," said the Ayatollah. "You remember, the great Sino-Iranian Pact we have so often mentioned. The one that was very nearly broken when you reneged on our contract over the C-802 missile, leaving us defenseless in the face of American aggression. This is such a perfect opportunity for you to make amends."