The President's Daughter (29 page)

He kept on going, just a couple of yards behind Aleko, aware of an off-shore current carrying them in and of the sea bed shelving. As they entered the harbor, it was no more than thirty feet deep. They swam under the keels of numerous fishing boats and surfaced beside stone steps leading from the jetty.

Aleko spat out his mouthpiece and checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes. Not bad, but we had a strong current pushing us along.”

“Not too good for the journey back,” Dillon said, and at that moment, Yanni appeared on the steps above them.

“What are you doing here?” Aleko asked.

“They didn’t really need me up at the barn, so I thought I’d see what you were up to.”

“Good lad. Now go and get the inflatable. You can run us back to the boat.”

The inflatable was black and powered by a Mercury engine that was incredibly noisy, even when Yanni throttled back. As they drifted in to the
Cretan Lover,
the boy cut the engine and Aleko tossed the line to Blake.

“It wouldn’t be possible to approach the castle jetty in this thing under cover of darkness,” Dillon said. “Maybe we could row it in.”

“Not without difficulty,” Aleko told him. “Outside that bay there is a fierce cross current. It can run a good two to three knots, enough to blow you off-target.”

“Then how in the hell are we going to do it?”

Blake was leaning over the rail, listening, and Aleko said, “I may have a solution.” He turned to Yanni. “The Aquamobile is in the aft cabin. Bring it up. Help him, Mr. Johnson, it’s an awkward size.”

It was like a large sledge with a framework of aluminium. In the center was a huge battery pack and a triple propeller inside a wire cage.

“How fast will this thing go?” Dillon asked.

“Four knots. Let’s go down and you can try it.”

Dillon submerged, the Aquamobile descended in a shower of bubbles. Aleko grabbed the bar at the stern and switched on, moving away smoothly. He returned and offered it to Dillon, who took over and circled the boat. He switched off and came up beside the inflatable.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Let’s say you and Mr. Johnson ride in the inflatable and I guide the Aquamobile in and tow you.”

Dillon nodded. “It’s a thought, but it might be too heavy.”

“Well, we’ll see.” Aleko looked up at Blake. “Join Yanni in the inflatable, Mr. Johnson, and we’ll try.”

Blake dropped over the rail and Yanni tossed a line to Aleko, who fastened it to the handling bar. “Here we go,” he called and switched on.

Dillon swam alongside, just under the surface, but was gradually left behind as the Aquamobile and the inflatable forged ahead. After a while, they turned in a circle and moved back to the boat. Dillon followed, and by the time he got there, they were pulling the Aquamobile over the rail.

He and Aleko unzipped their inflatable jackets and tanks, and Blake and Yanni reached over for them. Dillon removed his fins and followed Aleko up the small ladder.

He toweled off on deck and lit a cigarette. “That’s it, then.”

“So it would appear,” Aleko nodded. “We’ll go back and tell the Brigadier.”

The barn was built of heavy stone, and whitewashed. There were no windows, but there was electric light. A row of sandbags lay at one end fronted by cardboard cutouts of soldiers.

“So you take it this seriously?” Dillon said.

“Let’s say I like to keep my hand in,” Aleko told him.

They were all there, including the crew of the
Cretan Lover,
and the equipment Ferguson had ordered from Harley at the Ministry was laid out on trestle tables, the black jump suits and flak jackets, the silenced Brownings and Uzis, the night-vision goggles, the stun grenades, and the Semtex blocks and timers.

“Mother Mary, we’re going to war,” Yanni said.

Aleko picked up the pair of night-vision binoculars. “Hey, I could do with these. Beautiful.”

“You can have the lot afterwards if this thing works,” Ferguson told him and turned to Dillon. “Anything else?”

“Yes, I’d like a decent rope. Let’s say a hundred feet long and knotted every two feet.” He looked at Aleko. “Can you manage that?”

“I’ll put the boys right on to it.” He picked up one of the Brownings and weighed it in his hand. “May I?” he asked Ferguson.

“Be my guest.”

Aleko took deliberate aim and fired three times at the end target. He hit it in the chest, widely spaced. “I never was much good.” He gave it to Blake, butt first. “Your turn.”

“It’s been a while. Too busy to practice these days.” Blake held it in both hands in the approved stance and fired three times, the result, a tight grouping in the heart area.

He handed the weapon to Dillon. “Now you.”

Dillon turned to Ferguson. “Do I have to?”

“Come off it, Dillon, you Irish are all the same. You love showing off.”

“Is that a fact, now?”

Dillon turned, his hand swung up, two dull thuds as he double-tapped, shooting out the eyes of the first target. There was total silence and then Dimitri whispered, “Jesus, Mary.”

Dillon weighed the Browning. “A nice weapon, but I still prefer the Walther,” and he laid it down on the table.

“Well, after that, I’d say the only thing to do is go and eat,” Aleko said and led the way out.

R
ain swept in across the harbor and there was a wind off the sea. Stavros was in the wheelhouse, the two boys on the deck sheltering under the canvas canopy they had rigged earlier when the rain had started.

The other four were in the main saloon, the weapons laid out on the table. Aleko was wearing a black nylon dive suit and Dillon and Blake had already put on the jump suits and flak jackets.

“You didn’t mention rain,” Blake said.

“Because the weathermen got it wrong as usual. This little lot was due mid-morning tomorrow.” Aleko shrugged. “On the other hand, good cover as long as you don’t mind getting wet.”

“A fair point,” Dillon said. “What about the other fishing boats?”

“They’ve gone up in stages, which will look nice and normal, and it’s usual to work together with the bigger nets in the sardine season. If they check them from the castle, they’ll only see working fishermen.”

“Excellent,” Ferguson said.

Aleko lit a cigarette. “So, we go in, I drop you on the beach by the jetty. How long do you think this thing will take?”

“Half an hour,” Dillon said. “At the most. It’s got to be straight in and hit them hard and out again, or not at all.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You could always kill them,” Aleko said.

“Now there’s a possibility,” Dillon replied.

“So, this is the way it goes. We join the other fishing boats, move in a little closer to shore. Yanni and Dimitri get the nets out. We’ll have the inflatable on the other side of the boat from the shore, load up, and I tow you in.” Aleko picked up four signaling flares. “These are mine. Nice and red. You take two each in case of mistakes. Fire one on your way out of the castle and we’ll come to the end of the jetty in the
Cretan Lover
to pick you up.”

They all sat there thinking about it. It was Ferguson who said, “Your friends in the other boats, what do they know?”

“They think it’s some kind of smuggling thing as usual. Once they see us go, they’ll leave quietly themselves.”

They all sat there quietly and it was Dillon who said to Ferguson, “Do you want to call you-know-who on your mobile?”

Ferguson shook his head. “The only call I want to make to that man now is to tell him we’ve succeeded.”

“Fine,” Blake Johnson said. “Then let’s do it.”

Marie de Brissac stood at the window, peering out into the rain. “There are fishing boats, I can see the lights.”

Hannah was just finishing dinner. She reached for a
glass of water and drank, then went to join her. “It’s a strange feeling, life going on out there, and here we are in durance vile, as they used to say in the historical novels I read as a child.”

“I used to like the fairy stories by the Brothers Grimm,” Marie said, “and it’s the same feeling. They were always locking young women up in towers. Wasn’t there one about a girl whose hair was so long, she let it down from the window for her rescuer to climb up?”

“I think that was Rapunzel,” Hannah said.

“What a pity,” she said quietly. “If Mr. Dillon comes, I wouldn’t have long enough hair.” She gave a sudden dry sob, turned, and grabbed at Hannah. “Suddenly, I’m afraid. It’s so close now.”

“He’ll come.” Hannah embraced her fiercely. “He’s never let me down, not ever. You must believe that.”

She held Marie close, and looked out at the falling rain and in her head she was saying,
Oh Sean, you bastard, where are you? Don’t fail me now.

Raphael was on the battlements, his MI6 slung from one shoulder, examining the fishing fleet through night glasses. Their red and green riding lights were plain and each had a pool of light in the stern from a deck light. There were footsteps and he turned and found Aaron and Levy approaching.

“Nothing to report, Colonel,” Raphael said. “The fishing fleet, but everything else quiet.”

Levy was holding a golfing umbrella against the rain. He handed it to Aaron. “Give me those,” he said and took the night glasses from Raphael.

He adjusted them, bringing the images of the boats into sharp focus, the fishermen at their nets. It was the same with the
Cretan Lover,
Yanni and Dimitri working away
in the rain. What he didn’t see were Blake Johnson and Aleko on the starboard side facing out to sea, slipping the Aquamobile over to float, half-submerged, beside the inflatable.

He handed the glasses back to Raphael. “Stay alert,” then turned, walked to the end of the battlements, and re-entered the castle on the third floor level. Aaron put down the umbrella and followed him and, at that moment, David Braun came out of Marie de Brissac’s room with the dining trolley.

“So, they’ve eaten?” Levy said.

“Yes, Colonel.”

Levy assumed his Judas identity again, pulled on the hood, and stepped into the room. The two women were seated opposite each other at the table by the window.

“There you are,” he said. “The clock ticks faster and faster, but then, as Einstein said, all time is relative.” He laughed. “Especially when you don’t have too much to play with.”

“How kind of you to remind us,” Marie de Brissac told him.

“Always a pleasure to do business with a real lady, Countess.” He made a mock bow and turned to Braun. “Lock them up tight for the night, David,” and he went out followed by Aaron.

There was a moment’s silence, then David Braun said, “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to return to your own room, Chief Inspector.”

Hannah kissed the other woman on the cheek. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She walked past Braun into the corridor, and he said to Marie, “I can do nothing—nothing.”

“Of course you can’t, David. Wasn’t it Kennedy who
said for evil to triumph, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.”

He winced, then went out, locking the door behind him, and took Hannah down the corridor to her own room.

On the
Cretan Lover,
they had just finished getting ready in the cabin. Dillon and Blake were in the black jump suits, festooned with stun grenades and black packs containing extra ammunition and the Semtex door charges and a couple of quarter-pound blocks for emergencies. Each had a holstered Browning and wore night goggles pushed up on the forehead. An Uzi slung around the neck completed the picture.

Aleko fastened a weight belt around his waist, and Stavros clipped an air tank to his jacket. “Anything else?” he asked.

Aleko nodded. “Pass me that dive bag. I’m going to take them a surprise present. You said you’d be half an hour?” he said to Dillon.

“That’s right.”

“Then I’ll drop a little Semtex in the motor cruiser and the speedboat with forty-minute timing pencils. That way they can’t come after us.”

He put some Semtex and timers in the dive bag and hung it around his neck. Ferguson picked up the heavy coil of rope the boys had prepared and draped it around Dillon’s neck diagonally to his waist.

Dillon smiled. “Don’t forget to put the other flak jacket on, you old sod, just in case it gets a little warm later.”

“Mind your back, Sean,” Ferguson told him.

“There you go, on first-name terms,” Dillon said. “I mean, where’s it all going to end?” and he turned and followed Blake and Aleko out through the starboard sliding panel in the cabin wall.

Aleko adjusted his air and went over the rail backwards. He surfaced and fastened the line to the Aquamobile. Stavros hauled in the inflatable, and Blake went over and then Dillon. They crouched there together, keeping low. A moment later, there was a tug as the Aquamobile took the slack and they moved away.

The rain was relentless and the waves broke over the side, so that they were soon soaked. There was no light on the jetty, but lights up in the castle. When Dillon pulled down the night goggles, he could see the jetty clearly. They coasted in and beached, getting out and pulling the inflatable and the Aquamobile up on the sand.

“Good luck!” Aleko whispered, and Blake and Dillon moved away.

Aleko slipped off his jacket, tank and fins, swam alongside the jetty, then went up the short ladder to the motor cruiser. He took a block of Semtex from his dive bag, found a forty timing pencil, broke the end, and thrust it into the block. He opened the hatch to the engine room and dropped it inside.

He slipped across the jetty to the speedboat, repeated the operation, then lowered himself into the water, swam to the beach to retrieve his jacket, tank and fins, and pulled them on quickly. A few moments later and he was making his way back to the
Cretan Lover,
hanging on to the Aquamobile.

Arnold, patrolling the garden, was miserable and wet, so he went up the steps to the terrace and stood in the shelter of the portico. He managed to light a cigarette and stood with the MI6 slung from his shoulder, the cigarette cupped in his hand.

Dillon and Blake, approaching the frontage, paused to take stock, their night goggles giving them a remarkably
clear picture. Dillon, looking up, saw Raphael on the battlements leaning over. He crouched down and pulled Blake with him.