Khalid began regulating his breathing. He was calm. Confident. Ready. All he needed now was a target.
IN HIS BRITISH ARMY REGIMENT, the Blues and Royals, Khalid's target was known as Cornet Wales. Prince Harry, the handsome young redheaded Royal whose raffishly smiling face had graced so many worldwide magazine and tabloid covers, was the youngest son of the Prince and the late Princess of Wales. He was third in line to inherit the throne of England, but he'd just been promoted to second lieutenant, an honor he treasured.
Khalid did not know the target's true identity, nor did he need to know.
All he needed to know was exactly what the target looked like. And that face was smiling up at him from his sleeve.
He'd studied numerous close-up photographs in the past month, memorizing every feature. Luckily, the target, due to his reddish complexion, had an easily recognizable face, one that would make his job much easier. Given the enormous magnification power of the new scope, he was not anticipating any difficulty once the target stepped outside the sandbag redoubts surrounding the base camp.
'Soldiers emerging from the redoubts,' Khalid said quietly to his companion, the binoculars held to his eyes.
One hour after sunrise, six British soldiers had suddenly emerged from the camp. They moved slowly and began to spread out carefully. One of their number had lost two limbs the previous week when he'd stepped on a Taliban mine. Although the perimeter of the camp was swept almost continuously, it was the old Soviet-era mines that usually caused British casualties.
Khalid, sighted in on a troop, stopped breathing during that natural pause that comes between inhalation and exhalation. He extended the breath pause from the normal three seconds to ten seconds. This was his window and now it was wide open. He began moving the scope in minute increments from face to face among the soldiers, looking for the handsome red-cheeked boy.
No. No. No.
Yes.
Target acquired, he was relaxed, nearing his ten count, the stock welded to his cheek. He applied gentle pressure to the trigger as he centered the reticules carefully, bisecting the face of his target…and began the slow squeeze…
Khalid's expertly trained finger never finished pulling that trigger. His head exploded into a fine mist of blood, gristle, and bone and his body was thrown violently back against the stone face of the mountain wall behind him.
Smith, drenched in the sniper's blood, looked back at his grisly remains in shock. What the hell? He raised his binoculars and looked down to the valley. No shooters, no one looking up in his direction. Where had the shot come from? What the hell was this? Good God! He had to get out of here, now! He scrambled on hands and knees along the ledge behind the rock all the way down to the cave opening.
Inside the mouth of the cave, the two horses waited patiently.
He mounted the faster of the two, a fine Arabian the Sheik had ordered to be given him, spurred the animal's flanks, and headed toward the rear of the cave at a trot, the wavering beam of his flashlight illuminating the dark tunnel.
The cave he'd so carefully chosen was not a cave at all. Although, from the rough wooden-beamed exterior, it looked exactly like the countless others in these mountains.
The cave was actually a half-mile-long tunnel.
It had been built by the Taliban fighters for moments precisely like this one, when emergency escape from imminent attack by enemy forces was necessary. The tunnel had taken more than a year to complete. It burrowed all the way through the rugged mountain. At the other end, another anonymous cave mouth overlooked an entirely different valley.
He knew air support was being called in; it was happening now. USAF F-15Es would be streaking up and down this valley looking for Taliban on the run after the failed assassination attempt on Prince Harry. And troops from the Blues and Royals regiment would be racing up the mountainside in search of the dead sniper and any other enemy combatants who'd run for cover.
Eventually, they would find the corpse outside the cave where Khalid's horse remained, waiting for his dead master's return. But they would not find this entrance to the tunnel, carefully hidden for decades at the extreme rear of this deep cave. He reached it, reined in his horse, and dismounted.
Smith cursed himself as he pulled at the small boulders, clearing away an opening large just enough to accommodate horse and rider. He remounted the stallion and rode through the hole he'd made into the semi- darkness, the distant opening on the other side of the mountain soon visible as a tiny wavering disc of sunlight far ahead.
He'd made two very stupid mistakes. He'd not counted on the enemy spotters and snipers possibly surveilling the mountains above the camp with exactly the same powerful sniper scope and weapon Khalid had been using!
Unforgivable.
And, two, in his haste he'd left the very latest English sniper weapon available beside the dead sniper's body. Virtually impossible for anyone outside the British military to acquire. And yet this dead Taliban fighter had one, and they would assume he knew how to use it.
An English gun. An extremely rare and unusual weapon that could only have come from an English source. They could never trace it to him, of course. How could they? Still, it was a grievous lapse of judgment.
But now, for the first time in all these years of immaculate success, he'd left behind a bloody clue. He knew enough about clues to know that even one could be fatal. Especially with the full force of both British intelligence services arrayed against him.
He emerged into the hard light, dug his spurs into his horse's flanks, and raced toward the safety of Sheik al- Rashad's compound. Just four days ago, he and Khalid had decamped for the mountains above Tangin, supremely confident and sure of success.
As he galloped down and through the narrow valley, he took stock of his situation. He had always thought of himself, when he thought of himself, as a kind of magician. Or, better still, a composer. Yes, exactly that. A conductor orchestrating his own composition, a complex design he had been weaving since childhood, its dark threads, its potent symbols; all those myriad strands of his existence that required the dexterity of a true virtuoso in order to keep flowing.
This mistake, this frayed strand threatened everything; all of his meticulous plans now needed to be accelerated before they unraveled completely. He needed to step back and take a serious look at the fabric of his life. Hit the reset button. Make certain no more missteps were made in these few remaining weeks culminating in his ultimate objective. He could ill afford the one mistake he'd just made.
Still, perhaps the one, but no more.
FORTY-SEVEN
HAWKE AND SAHIRA, DELAYED BY TRAFFIC, arrived at the nurses' station a little after seven in the evening. Visitors' Hours ended at eight, so they would still have more than enough time for a visit.
'Lord Malmsey, please,' Hawke said.
'Just one moment,' the starchy nurse said, peering up at him over the tops of her silver-framed glasses. He must have passed muster because she was calling up the approved visitor register on her computer screen. 'Your names?'
They gave them.
Just prior to the hospital visit, the two had enjoyed an early dinner at Tamarind in Mayfair, Hawke's favorite Indian restaurant. Sahira was dressed in black, a silk suit with white pearls at her neck, having attended three funerals that afternoon. In the soft light, he'd watched the burden of grief lift from her shoulders as the first scotch smoothed the rough edges off the day.
