Barracuda 945 (24 page)

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-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.”

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 the 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.”

Admiral Zhang’s Political Commissar, Vice Admiral Pheng Lu Dong, visibly winced. China’s massive interests in Middle East oil, and overwhelming reliance on the goodwill of the Ayatollahs, stood before him. And the former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the PLAN spoke for the first time, addressing the vexed and simmering dispute over the Exocet look-alike C-802 missile that had caused such friction between them.

Pheng nodded to the Chairman of the meeting, and noted the short bow of Zhang’s head. “Your Holiness,” he said. “I know, of course, your deep and understandable hurt at the failure of that contract, as you in turn must understand the dreadful position in which we found ourselves. And I trust you understand we always acted in your best interests, as well as our own.

“You surely know the Americans would have stepped up and taken military action, probably in Bandar Abbas, had you taken delivery of the C-802. And the possible destruction of your Naval Headquarters would have been very bad for both of us. Not only that, the French were in the middle of it, threatening to refuse us delivery of the missile’s turbojet engine. There were so many circumstances completely beyond the control of us both….”