They were in a separate group from the regular first-class passengers, boarding first. Ahmed noted that two of the Secret Service men went with the admiral and his wife, one at the front, one at the rear. The other two remained behind, standing with the ticket girls, glancing over their shoulders at certain passports. Not until the flight was completely boarded did these two heavyweights walk through and take their seats across the aisle from Arnold and Kathy.
Ahmed had no idea of the seating arrangements on the plane, and that was not his business. He waited until the doors were closed, and then moved away to a viewing area from where he could see, from behind glass, the aircraft take off. He watched the American Boeing 747 back away from the jetway, and then saw it taxi away to the end of the runway.
Ten minutes passed before he saw it again, racing forward and then lifting off into the evening skies. He took out his cell phone and punched in a number in London. When the military attaché at the Syrian embassy answered, he just said: AA163 took off 1846. Four bruisers with seadog.
Ravi ’s cell phone vibrated in his tracksuit pocket. He pulled it out and answered. A voice just said, “They’ve taken off, sir, 1846, four agents with them. ETA London Heathrow 0626.” The line went dead and the Hamas commander decided to have his dinner, since at last he was feeling hungry rather than churned up with the tension of not knowing where the admiral and Kathy were.
As it happened, things had gone precisely to plan. Kathy Morgan had delivered Kipper as promised to her mother’s house in Brockhurst, and the robust King Charles spaniel had lived up to Arnold’s description of him to the letter. He came charging through the front door, fell joyfully upon his old buddy Charlie, and capsized Emily’s perfectly laid tray-cups, saucers, milk, sugar, boiling-hot coffeepot, and cookies-all over the living-room floor. As Arnold had observed, that dog’s as silly as a goddamned sheep.
Eventually Kathy got away and met the admiral right on time at the airport. All Ravi had to do was wait for their arrival, and then for their first shopping expedition into the West End of London. Then it would be over swiftly.
Feeling much less frustrated, Ravi pulled on his driving gloves so as not to leave fingerprints, because he would not be taking the coffee flask with him. He ate his chicken sandwiches thoughtfully and sipped the coffee from the wide lid of the flask. He saved enough for one more cup, and also saved a couple of sandwiches.
And the hours slipped away. In the still of the night, Ravi heard Big Ben chime every fifteen minutes, with the massive main bell resonating on the hour. Two o’clock, three o’clock, four o’clock-and then at a quarter to five there was a minor commotion.
Ravi was half asleep, but he heard the sudden, short, sharp wail of a police siren, two police sirens. He peered out through his closed Venetian blinds and could see the spinning blue lights reflecting in the street-level shop windows. So far as he could see, there was a police cruiser parked on either side of Dover Street, Piccadilly end, right outside the front door to his building.
He had never heard, or even sensed it, before, but he somehow knew people were entering the building. He packed into his duffel bag the remains of his dinner, the two small sandwiches, and the flask. He slipped his briefcase into the wide central drawer of his desk and moved to a position behind his office door, which was locked.
The police were obviously in the building, and he heard, or certainly felt, the dull thud down below as the main front door, between the glass swing doors and the street, was slammed shut. He must have heard it before, but this morning it sounded amazingly loud. He could hear a succession of loud thumps from the lower floors, voices, shouting, growing nearer all the time.
Then he heard Reggie’s voice from almost outside his office. “There’s no one here, boys, you can trust me on that.” Then he added, “Don would have checked the building before he left.” This was of course palpably untrue. Neither doorman had ever checked the building before leaving.
The banging continued, and Ravi guessed the police were knocking hard on every office door. There were intermittent shouts of POLICE! ANYONE THERE? Occasionally Reggie could be heard calling someone’s name-“Mr. Marks-it’s Reggie here, just checking the building-no worries.”
The footsteps grew closer, and finally, shortly after five o’clock, there were three sharp, loud bangs on Ravi ’s door. The terrorist chief froze against the wall.
ANYONE THERE? POLICE!
Ravi knew he could have made a different choice, left the door open, lights on, and been sitting at his desk working. But that would have meant he’d been there all night. Bad idea. Ravi had decided to throw the dice and gamble on the police checking, but not opening, every door in the building.
He heard them banging on the office next door. He heard them go into the bathroom where four hours earlier he had shaved. Then he heard them climbing the stairs to the next floor, and he checked his watch. It was 0516, and he thought about the admiral for the millionth time this night. Seventy minutes from landing. That would put him somewhere over Ireland right now.
He could still hear the footsteps above him, and finally he heard them coming back down the stairs. He heard Reggie say, “Well, I did tell you the place would be empty. Anyway, it’s good you’ve got your blokes in position.”
As the footsteps continued below him, he caught one of the policemen saying “Thanks for coming in, Reggie.”
And he heard the Cockney doorman’s reply: “You can pick me up in a squad car any morning you like, old mate. ’Cept the bloody neighbors’ll think I’ve been nicked!”
The footsteps died away. And there was but one thought in the ex-SAS major’s mind: there were fewer people going downstairs than there had been going up. Somewhere, up above him, the police had left two or three men behind. Ravi stayed absolutely still, waiting for more footsteps descending the stairs. Nothing.
He tried to dismiss it from his mind. But he could not. In Ravi’s opinion, there were at least two, maybe three, London policemen, probably marksmen, stationed on the roof of this building, watching the main entrance of the Ritz Hotel, watching for the sudden appearance of an assassin, a man who might burst out of the crowd and fire a shot at Admiral Morgan, just as that crazed kid John Hinckley had done to President Reagan outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington in 1981.
Ravi ’s assessment was accurate. Scotland Yard had marksmen on the roof of every building that overlooked the main entrance to the Ritz. They were not exactly SWAT teams, with heavy machine guns and missile launchers, ready to repel attack from the air. But they were top-class police snipers who would be unlikely to miss, firing directly down at a would-be assassin.
Lt. Commander Ramshawe had put just enough of a scare into the security authorities for them to install a very serious steel ring of protection around the admiral. But, in Jimmy’s opinion, it was not nearly enough to take care of a top international assassin, the kind of high-level, trained terrorist who he believed would imminently strike at the best friend of the President of the United States of America.
The Dover Street office block again went quiet. Big Ben chimed six times. Ravi went to his leather briefcase and took out the telescopic sight to his rifle, training it on the deserted front steps of the Ritz, staring through the crosshairs, imagining the dimension of his task later this day.