Jack Higgins - On dangerous ground

"God bless your honor for the pat on the head," Dillon said. "And is there just the slightest chance you could be telling me what in the hell this is all about?"

"Certainly," Ferguson said. "There's a bottle of Bushmills on the sideboard. You get the file out, Chief Inspector."

"Thank you," Dillon said with irony and went and helped himself.

Ferguson said, "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it. Remarkable fellow this Yuan Tao. Wish he could work for me."

"I suppose you could always try to buy him," Dillon said.

"Not really," Ferguson said. "He owns three factories in Hong Kong and one of the largest shipping lines in the Far East, besides a number of minor interests, restaurants, that sort of thing. Didn't he tell you?"

"No," Dillon said and then he smiled. "He wouldn't have. He's not that sort of bloke, Brigadier."

"His niece seems an attractive girl."

"She is. She's also returning to Hong Kong this weekend. I bet you didn't know that."

"What a pity. We'll have to find another way of filling your time."

"I'm sure you won't have the slightest difficulty," Dillon told him.

"As usual, you've hit the nail on the head. I obviously wanted you back anyway, but as it happens something special has come up, something that I think requires the Dillon touch. For one thing, there's a rather attractive young lady involved, but we'll come to that later. Chief Inspector, the file."

"Here, sir," she said and handed it to him.

"Have you heard of a man called Carl Morgan?"

"Billionaire hotel owner, financier amongst other things," Dillon said. "Never out of the society pages in the magazines. He's also closely linked with the Mafia. His uncle is a man called Don Giovanni Luca. In Sicily he's Capo di tutti Capi, Boss of all the bosses."

Ferguson was genuinely impressed. "How on earth do you know all this?"

"Oh, about a thousand years ago when I worked with a certain illegal organization called the IRA, the Sicilian Mafia was one of the sources from which we obtained arms."

"Really," Hannah Bernstein said dryly. "It might be useful to have you sit down and commit everything you remember about how that worked to paper."

"It's a thought," Dillon told her.

She handed him a file. "Have a look at that."

"Delighted."

"I'll make some tea, sir."

She went out and Dillon sat on the windowseat, smoking a cigarette. As he finished, she returned with a tray and he joined them by the fire.

"Fascinating stuff this Chungking Covenant business." There were some photos clipped to the back of the file, one of them of Morgan in polo kit. "The man himself. Looks like an advert for some manly aftershaves."

"He's a dangerous man," Hannah said as she poured tea. "Don't kid yourself."

"I know, girl dear," he said. There were other photos, some showing Morgan with the great and good and a couple with Luca. "He certainly knows everybody."

"You could say that."

"And this?" Dillon asked.

The last photo showed Morgan on his yacht at Cannes Harbor, reclining in a deck chair, a glass of champagne in hand, gazing up at a young girl who leaned on the rail. She looked about sixteen and wore a bikini, blond hair to her shoulders.

"His stepdaughter, Asta, though she uses his name," Hannah told him.

"Swedish?"

"Yes. Taken more than four years ago. She's twenty-one in three weeks or so. We have a photo of her in Tatler somewhere taken with Morgan at Goodwood races. Very, very attractive."

"I'd say Morgan would agree with you, to judge from the way he's looking at her in that picture."

"Why do you say that particularly?" Ferguson asked.

"He smiles a lot usually, he's smiling on all the other photos, but not on this one. It's as if he's saying, 'I take you seriously.' Where does the mother fit in? You haven't indicated her on any photos."

"She was drowned a year ago while diving off a Greek island called Hydra."

"An accident?"

"Faulty air tank, that's what the autopsy said, but there's a copy of an investigation mounted by the Athens police here." Hannah produced it from the file. "The Brigadier tells me you're an expert diver. You'll find it interesting."

Dillon read it quickly, then looked up frowning. "No accident this. That valve must have been tampered with. Did it end at that?"

"The police didn't even raise the matter with Morgan. I got this from their dead file courtesy of a friend in Greek Intelligence," Ferguson told him. "Morgan has huge interests in Greek shipping, casinos, hotels. There was an order from the top to kill the investigation."

"They'd never have got anywhere," Hannah said. "Not with the kind of money he has and all that power and influence."

"But what we're saying is he killed his wife or arranged to have it done," Dillon said. "Why would he do that? Was she wealthy?"

"Yes, but nothing like as rich as he is," Ferguson said. "My hunch is that perhaps she'd got to know too much."

"And that's your opinion?" Dillon asked Hannah Bernstein.

"Possibly." She picked up the photo taken on the yacht. "But maybe it was something else. Perhaps he wanted Asta."

Dillon nodded. "That's what I was thinking." He turned to Ferguson. "So what are we going to do on this one?"

Ferguson nodded to Hannah, who took charge. "The house at Loch Dhu, Morgan goes in this coming Monday. The Brigadier and I are going up on Friday, flying to this old RAF station at Ardmurchan, and we move into Ardmurchan Lodge where Kim is already in residence."

"And what about me?"

"You're my nephew," Ferguson said. "My mother was Irish, remember? You'll join us a few days later."

"Why?"

"Our information is that Asta isn't going with Morgan. She's attending a ball at the Dorchester, which is being given by the Brazilian Embassy on Monday night. Morgan was supposed to go and she's standing in for him," Hannah said. "We've discovered that she flies to Glasgow on Tuesday and then intends to take the train to Fort William and from there to Arisaig, where she'll be picked up by car."

"How do you know this?" Dillon asked.

"Oh, let's say we have a friend on the staff at the Berkeley," she said.

"Why take the train from Glasgow when she could fly direct to Ardmurchan on Morgan's Citation?"

"God knows," Ferguson said. "Perhaps she fancies the scenic route. That train goes through some of the most spectacular scenery in Europe."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"The Chief Inspector has a gold-edged invitation for one Sean Dillon to attend the Brazilian Embassy Ball on Monday night," Ferguson told him. "It's black tie for you, Dillon, you do have one?"

"Sure and don't I need it for those spare nights I'm a waiter at the Savoy? And what do I do when I'm there?"

For the first time Hannah Bernstein looked unsure. "Well, try and get to know her."

"Pick her up, you mean? Won't that look something of a coincidence when I turn up at Ardmurchan lodge later?"

"Quite deliberate on my part, dear boy. Remember our little adventure in the American Virgins?" Ferguson turned to Hannah. "I'm sure you've read the file, Chief Inspector. The late lamented Senor Santiago and his motley crew knew who we were just as we knew who they were and what they were up to. It was what I call a we know that you know that you know that we know situation."

"So?" Dillon said.

"Morgan at Loch Dhu for nefarious purposes, an isolated estate miles from anywhere in the Highlands of Scotland, discovers he's got neighbors up for the shooting staying on the other side of the Loch at Ardmurchan Lodge. He'll be checking us out the minute he knows we're there, dear boy, and don't tell me we could all use false names. With the kind of company he keeps, especially his Mafia contacts in London, he'll not have the slightest difficulty in sorting us out."