To the Death

He was not losing his new faith. But he was most certainly questioning it. And that was something no one could help. Ravi knew, above all else, that he needed to stand alongside the Prophet Mohammed in order to carry out His work on the planet Earth. The Muslim dream of a vast kingdom stretching from the Horn of Africa to Morocco was well within the grasp of the oil-rich sheiks of the Middle East. But only if men like himself, General Rashood, could pave the way by eliminating the more troublesome warriors of the West.

Just to hear the mullah call the faithful to prayer, to sense those rhythms of the ancient desert religion. That was his need, his requirement, here in this strange Scottish city where he was struggling to regain an impassioned belief in his God, the same belief that forced him every day to turn to the east, toward the holy shrine of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and prostrate himself before Allah.

Ravi took a cab to the Mosque, which turned out to be a hugely impressive building, bigger than the Regents Park Mosque in London, with a massive, geometric steel-and-glass dome and a separate minaret. When Ravi heard the call of the mullah, he once again felt the old familiar lure of the desert.

This was a call to the faithful, and now he was back among that vast throng of faithful Islamists. He belonged there with these people, many of whom wore Arab dress. And he joined them in removing his shoes, and he walked inside to the great hall of prayer, and once more he prostrated himself before his God, and the recent words of Shakira faded away into the darkness of the unbelievers.

When he returned to the hotel, Shakira was awake and changed for the evening, and he explained that he was taking a long drive out to the small town of Inveraray, which stands at the top of Loch Fyne, a 55-mile journey from Glasgow.

He did not wish her to join him, and he hoped to be back by 10 P.M. Shakira accepted the news with equanimity and said she would have dinner by herself. She seemed, once more, both distant and disinterested. But she noticed that he did take his briefcase with him when he left, and distractedly wondered if she would ever see him again.

1500 Same Day Goring-on-Thames

Arnold and Kathy were finally ready to leave the Leatherne Bottel. The Royal Air Force helicopter was once more down in the parking lot, rotors spinning, luggage loaded. There were two police cars stationed top and bottom of the entrance drive, which winds down a steep hill. Two CIA hard men were positioned either side of the entrance door to the helo, and two other guards, Al Thompson and a new man from the U.S. embassy in London, were outside the restaurant’s main entrance, ready to walk close quarters across the terrace with the admiral and his wife.

With everyone on board, strapped in, doors locked, the pilot took off, rising and backing at the same time, until the screaming military aircraft was stationary over the middle of the River Thames. At which point it tilted forward and rocketed upstream, gaining height, rising up to a thousand feet, before it clattered over the thirteenth-century bridge that guards the ancient town of Wallingford.

The pilot headed north, leaving Oxford to his port side, then Birmingham, then Leicester, Nottingham, and York. At this point he changed to a slightly more westerly course, across north Yorkshire, before coming in to land at RAF Leeming for his refuel. The first two hundred miles of the journey had taken a little over an hour.

The ground crew was awaiting the helicopter’s arrival, and they were on their way again after twenty minutes, flying high, directly over the A-66 where Ravi and Shakira had driven the previous day.

They flew right across the north Yorkshire moors, and then over Durham and Northumberland, before crossing the Scottish border just east of the city of Carlisle. Their route to the estuary of the Clyde took them almost identically over the route Ravi and Shakira had taken into Glasgow.

They left Loch Lomond to starboard and flew across the Forest of Argyll, coming out of the east to Loch Fyne, where, under guidance from Arnold Morgan, the pilot swept across the water and put down on the wide flat lawn of a beautiful white Georgian house on the west bank of the loch.

Standing there to meet them was the still-commanding figure of Admiral Sir Iain MacLean, now almost seventy years old. He was accompanied by three rambunctious black Labradors who all charged into the water to meet the helicopter, and then charged straight back out again when the pilot elected to come down on dry land.

Barking and shaking water all over everyone, they hurled themselves at their old friend Arnold Morgan, who greeted them like lost brothers, roughing them up the way Labradors expect to be treated. The American admiral introduced his staff to Sir Iain, and the helicopter’s loadmaster helped with the luggage.