animal instincts and deep thoughts near the end

He had always presumed the Countess of Richmond, now become again the Java Star, was going to drive herself into some inner harbor and detonate what lay below her decks.
He had presumed she was going to ram something of value as she blew herself up. For thirty days, he had waited in vain for a chance to kill seven men and take over her command. No such chance had appeared.
Now, too late, he realized the Java Star was not going to deliver a bomb; she was the bomb. And with her cargo venting fast, she did not need to move an inch. The oncoming liner had to pass only within three kilometers of her to be consumed.
He had heard the interchange on the bridge between the Pakistani boy and the deck officer of the Queen Mary 2. He knew too late the Java Star would not engage engines. The escorting cruisers would never allow that, but she did not need to.
There was a third control by Ibrahim's right hand, a button to be hammered downward. Martin followed the flexes to a Very pistol, a flare gun, mounted just forward of the bridge windows. One flare, one single spark . . .
Through the windows, the city of lights was over the horizon. Fifteen miles, thirty minutes cruising, optimum time for maximum fuel-air mixture.
Martin's glance flicked to the radio speaker on the console. A last chance to shout a warning. His right hand slid down toward the slit in his robe, inside which was his knife strapped to his thigh.
The Jordanian caught the glance and the movement. He had not survived Afghanistan, a Jordanian jail and the relentless American hunt for him in Iraq without developing the instincts of a wild animal.
Something told him that despite the fraternal language, the Afghan was not his friend. The raw hatred charged the atmosphere on the tiny bridge like a silent scream.
Martin's hand slipped inside his robe for the knife. Ibrahim was first; the gun had been underneath the map on the chart table. It was pointing straight at Martin's chest. The distance to cross was twelve feet. Ten too many.
A soldier is trained to estimate chances, and do it fast. Martin had spent much of his life doing that. On the bridge of the Countess of Richmond, enveloped in her own death cloud, there were only two: go for the man, or go for the button.
There would be no surviving either.
Some words came into his mind, words from long ago, in a schoolboy's poem: "To every man upon this earth / Death cometh soon or late . . ." And he recalled Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of the Panjshir, talking by the campfire.
"We are all sentenced to die, Angleez. But only a warrior blessed of Allah may be allowed to choose how!" Colonel Mike Martin made his choice . . .
Ibrahim saw him coming; he knew the flicker in the eyes of a man about to die. The killer screamed and fired. The charging man took the bullet in the chest, and began to die. But beyond pain and shock, there is always willpower, just enough for another second of life.
At the end of that second, both men and ship were consumed in a rose pink eternity.

The afghan - Frederick Forsyth