To The Death

Shakira Rashood made a leisurely journey across Ireland, driving out of Dublin and heading south across County Kildare and then on down through County Loais. She brought with her an ordnance map that marked the Coolmore Stud close to the little village of Fethard. So far as she could see, the nearest sizable town was Cashel.

She was not pla

She was not of course to know that every single flat-racing stallion on the Coolmore roster traced back to the Darley Arabian, through his direct descendant Eclipse. And she wished her husband had been with her, because he, somewhat surprisingly for a wanted terrorist hitman, was quite knowledgeable on the subject. General Rashood’s own father, Iranian-born but London-domiciled, was a horse breeder of some note, having very nearly won the Ascot Gold Cup a few years back.

Shakira and Ravi often walked through Damascus to pick up the English newspapers, and she was accustomed to seeing him turn to the racing pages for the results, cards, and reports. He frequently said he missed going racing in England with his father, and that one day, if he could ever return, he would like to own a couple of decent ru

Shakira had, of course, never even seen a thoroughbred in action, but it was a curious piece of unfulfilled ambition. She liked racehorses, liked being told about them, although it had been impossible for her to display anything but the most profound ignorance in the presence of Michael O’Do

And now she was in the heartland of the thoroughbred, County Tipperary, where the great ones had either been born, been trained, or ended their days as stallions and broodmares. She stopped at the newspaper shop in Cashel and bought a small local history of the thoroughbred industry in and around the town.

The names were strange to her, the Derby wi

Shakira signaled for her driver to park the car in a long drive in front of the hotel where her guidebook had suggested she stay. It was a grand pink-bricked eighteenth-century building, now converted into the Cashel Palace Hotel, a mecca for visiting horsemen from all over the world. There had been a mass exodus north from the town for Irish Derby weekend, and it was no trouble booking a single room for a few days. She just checked in, using a hitherto unused American Express card, issued to a British citizen, Margaret Adams. No one even asked to see her passport.

She took her suitcase up to her room, declining assistance from the doorman. She unpacked carefully, hung a few things in the gigantic old polished wardrobe, and stuffed her essentials into her regular leather handbag: forged passports, credit cards, wallet, several thousand euros in cash, her forged British driver’s license with Margaret’s address in Warwickshire, and her driving gloves.

She had one stop to make at the fishing tackle shop she had noticed in the main street. Shakira felt very vulnerable when she was unarmed, as she had been for several days, ever since she had left her principal weapon jutting out of Matt Barker’s chest.

And now she went into the store and spent a few minutes looking at the fishermen’s knife selection. Finally she chose one with a long straight blade with a serrated edge and leather-gripped handle. She asked the assistant to gift-wrap it, as it was a present for her younger brother.

Shakira did not for one moment expect to use the knife in any form of combat, but neither had she anticipated using her Syrian dagger. She very definitely felt a lot better for having the knife, and she ripped the paper off as soon as she exited the shop, tossed it in a trashcan, and placed the knife in her bag.

Thus rearmed, she climbed back into the car and asked her driver to take her out along the road to Fethard. She had no plans to visit any particular place. She just wanted to see the land where these amazing horses were raised. So far, the cool green landscape of southern Ireland had not reminded her even remotely of her desert homeland, where the Darley Arabian had once lived.

They drove east along the country road amid the endless green of the Irish pastures on either side of the road. In the distance, she could see mares and foals in lush paddocks, but none of them were close to the road.

She remembered that Michael O’Do

When they arrived, Shakira said good-bye to her driver, who was returning to Dublin and promised he would have a local man at the hotel in the morning to transport her around the southwest of Ireland. No, he did not require payment. She could settle next week when he again came south to bring her back to Dublin.

This was not the first time she had really liked the Irish, and once more she made a mental note to forbid Ravi from killing any of them. So far as she was concerned, the Great Satan’s European cohorts ended in England. The Irish were not to be included in any future attacks. They just weren’t the kind of people to have anything to do with terrorists.

Back in her room, Shakira drew back the curtains on the tall windows for the first time, and she was utterly amazed at the sight that awaited her: high on a hill, directly above her room, were the stark ruins of the ancient Irish cathedral high on the Rock of Cashel, for seven centuries the seat of the Irish kings, St. Patrick’s Rock. Great limestone walls, built in the twelfth century, were still standing. There were windows and a historic round tower. A Celtic high cross jutted into the evening sky, and all around the land fell away.

“The view must be breathtaking,” she thought, flicking the pages of her local guidebook. “Tomorrow I will go and stand up there.”

Shakira dined alone in her room, and later, restless for someone to talk to, she made her way down the wide staircase and asked the front desk if there was a coffee shop in the hotel. “No, we’ve no such thing,” replied the desk clerk. “But if you go down those stone steps over there, you’ll find the nicest bar you ever saw. Tell De

Shakira did exactly as she was told, and De

She had no idea that she was sipping such a strong alcoholic drink, but it tasted so good, she never gave it a thought. After twenty minutes, she noticed a heavyset, rustic-looking local, aged around fifty, come down the stairs and order a pint of Gui