The President's Daughter (8 page)

“See to her, David,” he said. “Anything she wants for the moment.”

“Consider it done.” Braun hesitated. “She’s a nice woman. Do you really intend to go through with it if you don’t get what you want?”

“Certainly,” Judas said. “Why, are you weakening on me, David?”

“Of course not. Our cause is just.”

“Well, keep that in the front of your mind. I’ll see you later.”

As he turned, Braun said, “Any news from Aaron and the other two?”

“He called in from Salinas on his ship’s radio. It marches, David.” The man who called himself Judas smiled. “It’s going to work. Just keep the faith.”

He walked away along the stone-flagged corridor, and Braun unlocked the door and went in. She turned from the window.

“There you are. So the big bad wolf has gone?”

He ignored the remark. “I know you’re not a vegetarian. On the menu tonight is vichyssoise, followed by fresh sea bass, grilled, potatoes, a mixed salad, and an assortment of fruit to follow. If you don’t care for the fish, there are lamb chops.”

“You sound like a waiter, but no, it will suit very well indeed.”

“Actually, I’m the cook. Would you care for a white wine?”

“No, claret would calm my nerves, and I’ve never subscribed to the idea that you should drink red or white because the food dictates it. I drink to suit me.”

“But, of course, Countess.” He half-bowed in a slightly mocking way and moved to the door.

As he opened it, she said, “And David?”

He turned. “Yes, Countess.”

“ ‘As you like Eliot so much, here’s a quote from
The Waste Land
for you.”’

“And what would that be, Countess?”

“ ‘I think we are in rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones.”’

He stopped smiling, turned, opened the door, and went out, closing it. The key clicked in the lock, and suddenly she was afraid.

S
alinas was a scattering of houses, a harbor enclosed by two jetties and jammed with small fishing boats. Luigi drove along the waterfront and stopped outside the establishment with the sign over the door that said
English Café.

“God knows why it has this name,” Luigi said.

“Perhaps they serve a full English breakfast,” Dillon said. “English tourists like that.”

“What tourists?” Luigi said and shrugged. “Anyway, here you are. I’ll just turn round and drive back to Palermo.”

They got out and Hannah shook his hand. “Grateful thanks, Sergeant. One cop to another.” She smiled and kissed him on the cheek and he drove away.

Dillon led the way up the steps. The night was warm, and as darkness fell, there were lights on some of the boats out there in the harbor. He opened the door and went in. Half a dozen fishermen were at the bar, and it was a poor sort of place, very hot, and the ceiling fan didn’t seem to be working.

He waved to the barman and turned to the others. “It’s a dump. Let’s sit outside.”

They did just that, taking a table by the veranda rail, and the barman appeared. “What have you got to eat?” Hannah asked him in Italian.

“We only do one main dish each day, signorina. Tonight it’s cannelloni ripieni. The way our chef does it, there’s a special stuffing of savory meat and onions. You could have a salad with it.”

“Good, and bring us a bottle of wine,” Dillon told him. “Something cold.”

He explained the meal prospects to Riley, and the barman appeared with three glasses and an ice-cold bottle. He splashed some into a glass and Dillon sniffed it.

“This is the stuff. Passito. Strong, very strong. Three glasses and you’re on your back.” He grinned at Hannah. “I’d make it lemonade if I were you, girl dear.”

“Go stuff yourself, Dillon.”

At that moment, the barman came out, followed by a stout lady who carried a tray with three plates on it and a basket of bread. He deposited all this on the table and he and the woman departed.

The meal was, in fact, excellent, and Riley cleaned his plate. “God help me, but that bread was the best since I last tasted my cousin Bridget’s baking.”

“It was good, I’ve got to admit that,” Dillon said, “although I’m not too certain that it was strictly kosher.”

“Don’t be stupid, Dillon,” Hannah told him coldly. “The Bible doesn’t tell me to starve myself in difficult circumstances. Now I’ll take another glass of wine.”

As Dillon poured, a quiet voice said in good public-school English, “Chief Inspector Bernstein?” They all turned and looked at the man who stood at the bottom of the steps. “Jack Carter.”

He was of medium height and wore a salt-stained sailor’s cap, reefer coat with tarnished brass buckles, and jeans. His face was tanned and he was younger than Dillon had thought he would be. Perhaps twenty-five and certainly no more.

Hannah made the introductions. “This is Sean Dillon and Thomas O’Malley. They’re . . .”

“I know very well who they are, Chief Inspector. I’ve been well briefed.”

He joined them on the veranda and Dillon offered him a glass of wine, but Carter shook his head. “I’ve already made inquiries about our friend Hakim’s villa when we first arrived, discreetly, of course. There’s not much like it in this area, so it was easy to find. We took a run past it.”

“Was that wise?” Hannah asked.

“No problem. A lot of fishing boats around here, and the motor launch we’re using doesn’t look much different, not with a few nets draped around it. Further discreet inquiries at the village store indicate that Hakim is in residence. His two goons were in for supplies this morning.”

“Very efficient,” Dillon said. “So when do we go in?”

“Tonight around midnight. No sense in hanging about, and the Lear’s waiting at Malta. We’ll go down to the boat and I’ll show you how I intend to make our move. Needless to say, I’m going to need Mr. Riley’s input . . .”

“Mr. O’Malley,” Dillon said.

“Yes, of course. Then I’ll need Mr. O’Malley’s input. He, after all, has actually been inside the place.” He turned to Hannah. “You’ll hold the fort here until we return, Chief Inspector. They do have rooms upstairs.”

She nodded. “I’ll walk down to the boat with you, just to see for myself. Then I’ll come back and book in.”

• • •

It was quiet on the waterfront, water lapping against the breakwater, music playing from somewhere, cooking smells. The boat was a forty-foot cruiser festooned with nets, as Carter had indicated. Two men in knitted caps and reefer coats worked on deck forward of the wheelhouse.

“I know it doesn’t look much, but she can do twenty-five knots,” he said, and called, “Only me,” and added to Hannah, “I’ve two more with me, but they’re ashore at the moment. This way.”

He went down the companionway and into the main saloon. There were a couple of charts spread across the table.

“Here you are,” he said. “Salinas, and there’s the villa to the east. I’ve circled it in red.”

They all leaned over the table, and Riley found that he was sweating and felt a distinct need to throw up. It was Hannah who broke the tension.

“Nothing more for me here, so I’ll go back to the English Café, book a room, then I’ll phone Ferguson on my mobile just to bring him up to date.”

She went up the companionway, the others following. When they reached the deck, Dillon said, “Grand legs you’ve got on you, girl, and well shaped. Must come from pounding the beat when you were a constable.”

“Mind your manners, Dillon,” she said severely, but put a hand on his arm. “Try and stay in one piece. You’re a bastard, but for some reason I can never fathom, I like you.”

“You mean there’s still a chance for me?”

“Oh, go to hell,” she said and walked away along the jetty.

“We’d better go and have a look at that chart again,” Carter said and led the way below. Dermot followed, his
heart pounding, for he knew this must be it.

Dillon leaned over the table, and Carter said, “By the way, are you carrying, Mr. Dillon?”

“Of course.”

“Your usual Walther?”

It was then, as some instinct, the product of twenty years of the wrong kind of living, told Dillon he was in very bad trouble indeed, that Carter produced a Browning.

“Hands on head, old chap, nothing silly.” He felt in Dillon’s pockets and found the Walther in one of them. “There we are. Hands behind your back.”

Dillon did as he was told, and Carter took some handcuffs from the table drawer and handed them to Riley. “Cuff him.”

Dillon shook his head. “Naughty, Dermot, very naughty.”

“Arnold, get down here,” Carter called in Hebrew.

Dillon, having once worked for Israeli intelligence, recognized the language at once. It was not one of his best, but he knew enough to get by.

One of the seamen appeared in the entrance. “I’m here, Aaron. You’ve got him, then?”

“What does it look like? You and Raphael make ready for sea. I’ve got to go after the woman.”

“Will you kill her?”

“Of course not. We need her to communicate to Ferguson in London. Go on, get moving.” He turned to Riley. “You stay here and watch him.”

“What about my money?” Riley asked thickly.

“You’ll get it when we get there.”

“Get where?”

“Just shut up and do as you’re told,” and he went up the companionway.

• • •

Dillon said, “You might as well tell me, Dermot.”

Which Riley did in finest detail, Brown and the visit to Wandsworth, details of the plot as it had been put to him—everything.

“So good old Hakim isn’t up the coast at his villa?”

“I wouldn’t know. I never even heard of him till Brown told me his name.” He shook his head. “You’ve got to realize, Sean, it was Brown who came up with everything, the false ASU arms dump in London, this bloody Hakim fella.”

“And you never communicated with him once after leaving Wandsworth?”

“He said there was no need; that he’d always be on my case.”

“So how did he know we were coming?”

“I asked him about that. He said directional microphones were a wonderful invention. He said you could be in the street and still hear what went on in a house.”

“The BT van in the mews,” Dillon said. “The clever bastards.”

“I’m sorry, Sean, but you’ve got to see it from my point of view. All those years facing me in prison. Brown’s offer was something I couldn’t refuse.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dillon told him, “and get out my wallet.”

Dermot did as he was told. “And what am I supposed to do with this?”

“You’ll find five thousand dollars in assorted bills in there and you’re going to need it, old son. It was my operating money.”

“But they’re paying me twenty thousand pounds,” Riley said. “I don’t need it.”

“Oh, yes, you do, you poor bloody fool,” Dillon told him.

• • •

Hannah was shown to a bedroom by the woman who had brought the food on the tray. It was small and simple, a window open to the night so that she could see the harbor. There was a single bed, and a toilet and shower in what was little more than a cupboard. She put her overnight bag on the bed. She was wearing a traveler’s purse on a belt around her waist. It carried her operating money and a Walther, which she took out and checked expertly. Then she went downstairs.

She felt restless and strangely unsure of herself, thinking of Dillon and the job in hand. She didn’t approve of Dillon, never had. All that killing for the IRA and the work he’d done for just about every terrorist group there was. Of course since working for Ferguson, he’d compensated. But her knowledge of his earlier misdeeds simply wouldn’t go away.

She did an unusual thing for her, went to the bar and ordered a cognac, then she went outside and sat at the small corner table.

“Damn you, Dillon!” she said softly.

Something cold nudged her in the nape of the neck and the man who had called himself Carter said softly, “Don’t turn around, Chief Inspector. I should imagine you’re carrying, so take the weapon from your bag in your left hand and hold it up.”

She did as she was told. “What is this?”

He took the gun from her. “Let’s say all is not what it seems. By the way, we got Hakim for you. Consider that a bonus, but everything else was a means to an end. Poor Dermot, his conscience is killing him, but he did as he was told simply to get out of Wandsworth.”

“But to what purpose?”

“We needed Dillon. Oh, we’ll send him back quite
soon and all will be revealed. Tell Ferguson we’ll be in touch and he’ll have to manage without him for a while. Now put your hands on your head.”

There was a short silence. She said, “But why? And what happened to the real Carter and his men?”

There was no reply, and when she turned cautiously he had gone. She went down the steps and hurried along the waterfront, but as she reached the jetty she heard an engine start and then the boat eased away. There was one man in the wheelhouse, another coiling lines in the stern. Nothing to be done, and she turned and hurried along the waterfront.

Carter went down the companionway and found Dillon seated on a bench seat, Riley with a glass in his hand, sitting morosely on the other side of the table.

“Ah, you found the whiskey,” Carter said.

“You saw the Chief Inspector?”

“Yes, and gave her a message for Ferguson.”

“That was kind of you. You were talking Hebrew earlier. I don’t speak it, but I recognize the language. If you’re Israeli, that’s the grand English public-school accent you’ve got.”

“My father was a diplomat in London. I went to St. Paul’s.”

“Not bad. Dermot has revealed all, by the way. So Hakim was just a fantasy?”

“Not at all. The villa exists and Hakim was in residence.”

“You say
was?”

“We did you a favor. I dropped in with my boys last night and knocked him off.”

“Just him?”

At that moment, the engines rumbled into life. “Oh, no, we killed all of them.”

“Including the two women?”

Carter shrugged. “No choice, it had to be all of them. The Arab nations are at war with us, Dillon, so it’s all or nothing. As an old IRA hand, I’d have thought you’d appreciate that.”