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The newcomer turned to her and said, “Good evenin’ to yer, ma’am. I’m Pat Slater.”
And almost before Shakira had nodded a greeting, De
Mr. Slater smiled and said he had no intention of boring anyone, and besides, he’d only come in for the one. He had a mare due to foal that night, and he wouldn’t be far away from the barn now, would he?
De
And with that he was gone. It was almost 9:30 P.M. now, and the bar was emptying out as residents left and went into the dining room. The place would get a “second wind” at around eleven o’clock, but in the meantime Shakira was almost alone.
She finished her Irish coffee and walked up to the bar to speak to De
And De
“Trouble is, he never got over it. Spends his entire life yearning for the good old days when he and a few others were out there causing mayhem. Most of ’em found it very hard to fall back into peaceful civilian life after those years when they were on the run, plotting and pla
Shakira looked bemused. “Were these Irish Republican men terrorists, or did they fight like a national armed force?”
“No, they were never like that. They attacked the British along the borders, blew up train stations, and sometimes streets. They wore the badge of terrorists proudly, and said they were fighting a war to drive the British out of Ireland forever.”
“And did they succeed?”
“As far as anyone could ever succeed in Northern Ireland, I suppose. But up there, the majority of the population wants to keep their British ties.”
“But did the bombing and killing get results?” Shakira persisted.
“Oh, yes. No doubt about that. In the end, the Brits were really fed up with it, but so were the people of Northern Ireland. Everyone just grew tired of an endless conflict.”
“Was it like the Muslim Jihad?”
“In some ways it was, but not on so large a scale. The IRA was a much smaller force, even though they had a few pretty ambitious targets. There was nothing like the Twin Towers in New York.”
“Do you think their attacks proved that a great and worthwhile cause can be achieved by a sustained campaign of terror?”
“In a way, they did. The British government would never have given in so quickly if they hadn’t been afraid of more bombs in London.”
“Then it was good news for all terrorists,” laughed Shakira.
“It wasn’t that good,” said De
Shakira nodded cheerfully, and said, “I used to work behind a bar once, back in the USA.”
CHAPTER 8
Captain Abad’s sonar room had finally located the U.S. submarine Cheye
Thus he made a decision to press on regardless, keeping up his speed and holding his course to the Strait of Gibraltar.
Cheye
“No doubt,” responded the chief. “We never had one shred of intel that said anything about her destination. But this is obvious. She’ll pass about seven thousand yards to starboard at her current speed, one hour from now.”
“Keep tracking her.”
“Aye, sir.”
Back in the Kilo, Mohammed Abad kept the air intake raised and ordered the submarine to all-ahead, maximum speed. And the Kilo once more accelerated forward, the two masts leaving a slashing white wake above a turmoil of water being churned up by that big Russian five-bladed propeller only forty-five feet below the surface.
The wide ultrasensitive sweep of Cheye
Commander Redford had little choice but to follow, since his orders were very definitely to stay in contact but also to stay in the Med. So the Cheye
The Kilo out in front, moving fast, was still at periscope depth and making a major racket just below the surface of the water. The Americans could not fail to track her with consummate ease.
At 0900, high above, the American satellite photographed her wake, ensuring that U.S. military surveillance knew precisely where the Iranian submarine was located.
By 1115 that morning, the Kilo was a hundred miles southwest of Alicante, off Spain ’s Costa Blanca. To the south was the long hot coastline of Morocco. Progress was still fast, and no one had opened fire on her. By dark, the Kilo had progressed over a hundred miles, her speed was steady, and General Rashood, who was no stranger to submarines, estimated that he was more or less on time. He needed to be through the Gibraltar Strait tomorrow, Tuesday, and that could definitely happen at this speed.
His pla
At midnight, Monday, July 9, Captain Abad ordered an increase in speed as they headed directly to the Strait. She was now driving through the water at seventeen knots. And her CO would make several of these one-hour bursts, despite the stress it put on the battery.
Shakira Rashood had left the Cashel Palace Hotel on Monday morning and asked her driver to take her to the wondrous Atlantic coastline of West Cork, upon which, sometime this week, her husband would land. The journey was a little over a hundred miles, and she had checked into a small hotel in the fishing village of Schull on the shores of Roaring Water Bay. She sent the chauffeur back to Cashel with instructions to collect her in Schull on Thursday afternoon.
Today she had taken a local taxi all the way down the long undulating road to the end of the Mizen Head Peninsula. And from there on this clear summer day she could see the distant lighthouse on the Fastnet Rock. The sea was very blue out here, and the deep Atlantic looked friendly, with two or three yachts sailing close-hauled into the soft onshore breeze.
Shakira had grown to love Ireland in the short time of her stay. She liked the people and was truly astonished at the breathtaking beauty of the countryside. For someone brought up among the sands of the desert, the browns and the stony reds of the Arab landscape, she found Ireland, with its forty shades of green, to be almost beyond her imagination.