Rashood leapt back onto his own feet. He heard the brakes of the Citroen shriek as it skidded to a standstill. For a moment he thought the driver was slamming the gears into reverse, and was coming back for them. They were sitting targets, almost in the middle of the road, with Jacques Gamoudi still supine, trying to clear his head from the wallop he had taken when he hit the road.
But no. The Citroen was stopped dead, but the rear door on the right side was opening. Rashood could see the tip of a rifle, then he saw their assailant’s face: a dark, hard-eyed, unshaven thug. Ravi Rashood, the master unarmed combat soldier from the SAS, did not hesitate.
He raced toward the car and, with a thunderous right-footed kick that would not have disgraced a French Rugby Union full-back, he almost took the man’s head off, snapped his neck, and broke his jaw in seven places. The rifle, a primed AK-47, clattered to the ground, and Rashood had time to grab it before the driver of the vehicle was out of the left front door and around the car aiming an identical weapon.
Rashood had no time to aim or fire his own weapon, but he did have time to ram the gun’s butt into the man’s face. It was a vicious, high, stabbing blow delivered like a harpooner within reach of his whale.
The blow smashed the bone in the center of the assassin’s forehead. But he was still standing, still holding the AK-47. But now it was too late. Rashood was on him. He sidestepped the rifle and came over the top, planting the fingers of his left hand deep into the man’s long curly hair. Simultaneously, he rammed the butt of his right palm with inhuman force into the base of the hooked Gallic nose that had briefly helped its owner look so menacing.
Rashood’s blow had traveled more than a foot. And it packed unbelievable power as it exploded into the man’s nostrils. It killed him stone-dead, driving the nose bone into the brain, the classic combat blow of the British- trained Special Forces soldier.
Jacques Gamoudi sat up groggily, just in time to see his colleague kill the second of their attackers. It was, in a sense, the street fight to end all street fights. One kick, one hit, one uppercut. One dead, one dying. All in the middle of the traffic.
“Not too bad,” said Colonel Gamoudi, shaking his head and grinning at the same time, “for a guy who prefers fighting in royal palaces.”
Rashood, who was already beckoning for the chauffeur to come and get them out of there, just said, “Christ, Jacques. That was obviously no accident. Someone out there is trying to kill us. And I have a feeling they want you more than they want me. You probably noticed the French car, French license plate, and that second little bastard smelled like a fucking garlic vat.”
“Try not to impugn my adopted nationality with those English public school prejudices,” replied Gamoudi. “Yes, we use a little
“Silence, Gamoudi,” said Rashood, as he hauled the French officer to his feet. “Otherwise I’ll make you salute me every time I save your life. That’s the second time in a week.”
“At a guess, I’d say dead behind that serving counter in the royal palace,” chuckled General Rashood. “Now try to shut up and get in the back of that car, will you — and don’t get blood all over the seat rest or the King will be very cross…Ahmed, give me some of those tissues, the Colonel has whacked his head.”
“I don’t think his head hurts so bad as those two,” said the chauffeur, passing the tissues and nodding at the two stricken assassins, one of whom was still breathing just inside the rear door. The other was lying dead below the Citroen’s trunk.
“Probably not,” agreed General Rashood.
Ahmed took off, speeding back to the big white house at the edge of the Diplomatic Quarter. And there they sat on the wide rear veranda, sipping fruit juice and deciding that Riyadh was no longer the place for either of them. Tomorrow morning they would both suggest that their tasks for King Nasir were over and that they must return to their own homes.
The trouble was, Jacques Gamoudi was now certain the French government was trying to kill him, and General Rashood agreed. They had to leave Riyadh, but the question was, where was Colonel Gamoudi to take refuge? And how was he going to get there without the French Secret Service hunting him down? It was not a role to which Le Chasseur was accustomed.
“Right on time,” said Jimmy Ramshawe, as he stared at the new pictures arriving online from the National Surveillance Office. The shots showed the Navy base at France’s old Indian Ocean colony of La Reunion. And there, tucked neatly into the submarine pens, was the newly arrived Rubis-class hull number S605, the
He had calculated that the submarine had come through the Bab el Mandeb sometime in the midafternoon of Thursday last week. And he’d marked his chart at a spot right off the Horn of Africa, the jutting headland of Somalia, where he’d assessed the
It was 390 miles across the Gulf of Aden — and at twelve knots that was a thirty-two-hour journey, he told himself. Which left them a straight 2,400-mile run down the deep and lonely Indian Ocean, probably making around fifteen knots for six and a half days. On his chart Ramshawe had written,
“Actually, the bastard’s a few hours early,” he muttered. “Must have been speeding…cheeky fucker.”
“She’s got six and a half days in front of her, so I’m looking at an ETA La Reunion sometime tomorrow evening, or early Sunday morning,” he pondered. “Jesus, if that French bastard shows up on time, for me it’s game, set, and match. Where the hell else has she been? And why did they both go deep in the Red Sea and stay there? None of the other French submarines making that journey
He stared once more at the incontrovertible evidence of the all-seeing eye of the U.S. satellite. There she was right there in the dockyard of La Reunion, the
It seemed incredible just to try and understand what she had done: obliterated the entire Saudi oil facilities in the Red Sea. But Lt. Commander Ramshawe knew what she had done, and in his candid opinion, the U.S. Navy would be justified in going right out there and sinking her — no bullshit.
But those decisions would be made by the Big Man now, and Ramshawe greatly looked forward to hearing his reaction after the weekend, when it would become clear that the two prime suspects in this still baffling case were sitting in the French dockyard a couple of thousand miles south of the datum.
He downloaded the prints and walked slowly along the corridor to see Admiral Morris, still staring at the satellite shots that in his opinion proved the absolute guilt of the French in this worldwide financial horror story.
Admiral Morris studied the prints and nodded sagely. “It’s all starting to fit together, eh, Jim? When’s the
“Tomorrow evening, or early Sunday morning.”
“Okay, let’s not make a report to Admiral Morgan until she arrives. Seems to me a double on Sunday lunchtime is a whole lot better than a single right now at dinnertime on Friday night.”
“We’re going to get it, too,” added Ramshawe. “It’s all starting to make sense.”
The King listened gravely to the account of the attempt on Colonel Gamoudi’s life on Olaya Street last
