To the Death

The doors slid silently shut and the elevator began its descent. Thus no one saw the same maid, carrying a small inexpensive seaman’s bag, use a master key to open the door up to the roof. Sixteen floors below, the maintenance chief had not yet missed his key.

Meanwhile, over at the castle, high on the west side, General Ravi Rashood was in hiding. He had been there since mid-afternoon, sitting quietly behind a low wall, out of sight of the security team responsible for moving out the paying visitors before 6:30 in preparation for the evening.

He was situated in one of the loneliest parts of the battlements, and had no intention of moving until the light began to fail. When it did, at around 8:15, he reached for his combat knife, which, as ever, was tucked into his belt in the small of his back. He waited until the guards had passed, and then moved quickly to the high wall of what he now regarded as his operational center.

Way above him was a powerful light, a temporary fixture, designed to illuminate the entire area. Tonight it would not function. The electric wire that fed it was fixed loosely to the stonework, and Ravi severed it swiftly. Then he slipped unobtrusively back to his hideout, unseen and unobserved. It was growing darker now, especially in this area on the high west side, where there was no light.

For their short journey to the castle, Lady MacLean and her party traveled in a big black Royal Navy staff car. There was a police car in the lead, and another right behind, in which the bodyguard and Rick were traveling.

They turned right off Princes Street, into the side streets of Old Town, and arrived at the castle on time at ten minutes before nine. The military escort from the Scots Guards was in place as the car drew up, and Admiral Morgan and Kathy were led up to the Royal Box with Sir Iain and Annie walking right behind them.

Rick Hunter, his rifle still slung over his shoulder, walked between the two couples, and four Scottish policemen followed. Arnold’s four personal bodyguards now closed in and positioned themselves strategically close to the front row as the two admirals took their seats in the center of the VIP line.

By now, the Royal Box was filling up. The provost of Edinburgh University and his wife sat directly behind the admirals, flanked by the chief superintendent of the Lothian Police and the commanding officer of 42 Commando, which would again present their display. Another ten city and military dignitaries filled the remainder of the seats.

At this time, just before the Tattoo began, Ravi was just above the new barracks, standing back, out of sight in the shadows. He was still there when the massed bands opened the evening’s proceedings with, in Admiral Morgan’s honor, “The Fanfare to the United States Navy,” specially composed by the conductor of the Royal Marine Bands for the occasion.

Ravi was not, however, interested in the music. He was concerned only with the guards who were in position along the walls, on this night of the Tattoo’s most rigorous security alert ever.

He was unarmed, except for his knife and a small but weighty glass paperweight, which he carried in his jacket pocket. He was dressed as a perfectly normal tourist, except for his shoes. well, boots, which were black and laced high beneath his dark gray trousers.

Ravi was waiting for the guards to send for tea, a procedure he had watched four times on the previous night. The complete guard detail was four men, but every half hour they met, high up on the western ramparts. And that was when one of them walked down to fetch four cups of tea from the military canteen, set up temporarily next to the old hospital buildings.

And now he waited, watching for the single soldier to break away and begin the walk down to the canteen. The Tattoo had been running for exactly fifteen minutes when the four guards came together. They chatted for two or three minutes, and then one of them turned around and began to stride down the hill, into the now-darkest area of the castle.

The soldier was humming along with the music when Ravi burst out of the shadows like a panther, running toward his prey, coming in from the left, but from the back. He swung back his right arm and, with a stupendous display of strength, smashed the paperweight into the guard’s head — right into the brain’s critical nerve center behind the ear.

The heavy glass weight obliterated the protective skull bone, and the young man, who had only yesterday informed the Hamas chief that his rifle was indeed loaded with live bullets, crumbled to the ground. Stone dead.