One hour later, he had an answer. A Miss Maureen Carson of an address in Michigan had purchased a first-class ticket from Boston to Dublin on the Aer Lingus flight that left at 10:30 A.M. on Tuesday, July 3. “Better yet, Jimmy. Aer Lingus booked her into the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin that night.”
“Have we checked that out?”
“Sure. She was there for three days, then checked out, paying with her American Express card.”
“Did you check that out?”
“Sure. It was originally issued to the Jordanian embassy in Paris. Miss Carson is an extra signatory.”
Jimmy’s heart stopped beating. In his mind, he’d just found Carla Martin. And he’d made the Islamic connection. She was a Middle Eastern agent. And she’d gone to Brockhurst to check out when Arnold and Kathy were leaving the country. She’d killed big stupid Matt Barker, driven to Boston, and bought a ticket to Dublin.
And, if he was not absolutely mistaken, she’d just been joined by at least one other Middle Eastern agent who’d been landed on the Irish coast by Kilo Hull 901. Carla was either Syrian or Jordanian. The new one was an Iranian.
No one could string together a long group of unconnected facts like Jimmy. And now he was off and running, his mind in a turmoil. First he called back his pal, Lieutenant Jack Williams at COMSUBLANT, and advised him to keep a watch on the Gibraltar Strait for the return of the Kilo.
“She left through there, and she’ll return through there,” he said. “Either to restation off Lebanon, like she was before, or to go through the Suez Canal and then home to the Gulf.”
Jack wanted to know what the Kilo was doing skulking around the Irish coast. Jimmy filled him in. “She dropped someone off, someone who was up to no bloody good whatsoever.”
Then he called the FBI back and asked if they could make some kind of a search on Maureen Carson, either in Ireland or in Great Britain, where he believed she was headed. This was not going to be a problem, and they would also instigate a check on the Maureen Carson passport.
Jimmy called the Big Man, yet again. And he was not as cooperative as COMSUBLANT or the FBI. He listened carefully, and then said, rather coldly, “Kid, you have no goddamn idea what the submarine was doing off the coast of Ireland. She could have been on a training exercise. You need better facts. Your imagination will lead you nowhere.”
“It led me to Maureen Carson,” he said bluntly.
“Congratulations. Some nice rich lady on a shopping expedition. Not one single shred of evidence against her. Lemme know when they find her, willya?”
Christ, Arnie could be infuriating.
Ravi pulled into the Waterford station after his long, meandering journey from Cork, tired, hungry, and very thirsty. He went into the little bar and asked for a large glass of water and a cup of coffee. He also bought a couple of fresh-looking ham-and-cheese rolls. He gulped down the water and took the rest to a passenger bench in the station to wait for the 7:00 train to Dublin.
He finished his picnic and then went to the ticket office to purchase a single fare to Dublin. There were two people in front of him, and the clerk was slow. The young woman in front of him turned and said, “You’d think we were going to China, eh?”
Ravi smiled. She was a pretty girl. But Ravi tried to avoid her gaze. By tomorrow morning, he’d be the most wanted man in Ireland, and he did not want her telling the police she’d traveled to Dublin with the murderer on the train.
He pretended not to speak the language, and replied in Arabic, which was probably an even bigger mistake. But it discouraged her, and she turned away, bought her ticket, and walked off. At the counter, he bought his ticket, but then the phone rang and the clerk turned away to answer it before he gave Ravi his change.
The Hamas general hadn’t been thinking about the amount, twenty-eight euros, and had handed over a fifty-euro bill. And now, to get his change, he was going to have to stand here facing the office, where a secretary was still working. So he just took the ticket and retreated to his passenger bench.
Three minutes later, the clerk came in search of him and handed him the twenty-two euros in change. Ravi thanked him and tried not to look at him, but he was now probably firmly in the memory of the clerk.
The train ride up through beautiful Kilkenny and County Carlow was picturesque all the way. The track followed the River Barrow for several miles and then swerved right across Kildare before following the Grand Canal into Dublin. Ravi arrived in Heuston Station, just south of the River Liffey along the quays, at 10:15 P.M.
He stepped out of the station and into a dark shop entrance and dialed Shakira’s number. She was sitting in her room at the Merrion, watching television, and she answered immediately.
“Be quick, Shakira,” he said. “I’m in Dublin. Meet me at the Mosque, tomorrow morning at 11 A.M. Where are you?”
“I’m in the Merrion Hotel, around the corner from St. Stephen’s Green.”
“Good girl. Don’t be late.”
Shakira almost went into shock. All these weeks waiting to see him, and now he just said “Good girl” and vanished into the night. What was that all about? She was on the verge of stamping her foot in temper when the phone rang again.
She answered it immediately, and a voice just said, “I love you,” before the line went dead.
She was not quite sure whether to laugh or cry. And she chose the latter. With happiness. That he was safe, and he loved her, and tomorrow they would be together.
Ravi too was discontented with the fifteen-second duration of their call. But he had to adhere to that rule, because that rule meant the call could not be heard, traced, or recorded. Ravi was keenly aware that the National Security Agency in Maryland had tapped into Osama bin Laden’s phone calls and often listened in on the terrorist mastermind talking from his cave to his mother in Saudi Arabia. If they could eavesdrop on the great Osama, they could locate him. Fifteen seconds only.
He had the name of a Dublin hotel, and he flagged down a cab before it drove into the station and told the driver to take him to the Paramount Hotel, corner of Parliament Street and Essex Gate. The place had a Victorian façade, but inside it was all 1930s, very comfortable, and Ravi thankfully checked in. Last time he had slept had been in the submarine, and dearly as he would have liked to join Shakira in the Merrion, he thought he might get more sleep this way, and anyway he did not wish to be seen publicly with her in a place where staff might recall them.
Tomorrow morning he would risk watching the television news.
Detective Superintendent Ray McDwyer decided he needed help. The wound to Jerry O’Connell’s forehead was something he had never seen before. The bone was completely splintered between the eyes, and the nose bone had been driven upward and into the brain with tremendous force. The crushing blow to the forehead could have been delivered by a blunt instrument, but there was no sign that any implement whatsoever had been used on the nose.
Ray had spoken to the police pathologist, and he too was mystified. And together they decided that there was something all too precise about this killing. The murder had been carried out by an expert, someone who knew precisely what he was doing. There were no signs of a struggle, no other bruises, no abrasions. The killer had taken out Jerry O’Connell instantly, with the minimum of fuss.
At twelve minutes after nine o’clock, Ray McDwyer phoned London and requested help from New Scotland Yard, Special Branch.