Jack Higgins - The President’s Daughter

Riley watched him for a while. A good stick, Sean, one hell of a comrade in the old days fighting the Brits in Derry. On one memorable occasion when Riley had taken a bullet in the left leg, Dillon had refused to leave him, had hauled him to safety through the sewers of the city.

He glanced at Dillon, sleeping now. Sorry, Sean, he wanted to say, but what would have been the point? He couldn’t face going back to Wandsworth and another fourteen and a half years of living hell, so he closed his eyes and tried to sleep himself.

At around two o’clock in the afternoon they came in over the sea, Palermo to one side, and landed at Punta Raisi. Lacey obeyed orders from the tower and taxied to a remote area at the far end of the airport, where a number of private planes were parked. There was a small man in a cloth cap and old flying jacket standing in front of the hangar, and a Peugeot was parked to one side.

“And who might he be?” Riley asked.

“Don’t let appearances deceive you, Mr. Riley,” Hannah said. “That’s Colonel Paolo Gagini of the Italian Secret Intelligence Service. He’s put more Mafia godfathers inside than anyone I know, and he’s an old friend of ours.”

Parry got the door open and Lacey went after him, the rest of them following.

Gagini came forward. “Chief Inspector, nice to see you again, and you, Dillon. Still around and still in one piece? Amazing.”

Dillon took his hand. “This is Tom O’Malley, a colleague.”

Gagini looked Riley over and laughed out loud. “A colleague, you say? Ah, well, it takes all sorts.”

“Stop playing policeman, Paolo,” Hannah told him.

“Anything for you, Chief Inspector. I’ve always found beauty with brains more exciting than beauty on its own, and anything for my old friend Charles Ferguson. I don’t know why you’re here and I don’t want to know, only try to keep it out of the papers.” He turned to Lacey. “And what can I do for you, Flight Lieutenant?”

“I need to refuel and then it’s Malta next stop.”

“Good. Let me dispose of my friends here first.” He turned and led the way to the Peugeot. The driver got out, a small, eager dark-haired man in a check shirt and jeans.

“Colonel?”

Gagini put a hand on the man’s head. “Luigi, I made you a sergeant because I thought you had a certain intelligence. This lady is a Chief Inspector, so treat her accordingly. Mr. Dillon and Mr. O’Malley are colleagues. You drive them across the island and drop them at Salinas. Afterwards, you return.”

“Yes, my Colonel.”

“And if you cock this up in any way, I’ll have your balls.”

Luigi smiled and held open the rear door. There was a bank of two seats. “Chief Inspector.”

Hannah kissed Gagini on the cheek and got into the rear seat. Dillon and Riley sat in the other. Gagini smiled through the open window. “Good hunting, my friends.”

He stepped back and Luigi drove away.

It was some saint’s day or other, and as they passed through Palermo they slowed to a crawl as the traffic became snarled up with various religious processions. There was an enormous catafalque being carried by hooded men in robes, an ornate statue of the Virgin standing on top.

“Would you look at that?” Riley said. “A religious lot, these people.”

“Yes,” Hannah Bernstein said. “But no ordinary Virgin. Haven’t you noticed the knife in her heart?”

“That’s Sicily for you,” Dillon said. “Death is like a cult here. I don’t think your cousin Bridget would like it at all, Dermot.”

“She would not,” Riley said forcefully but looked out of the open window all the same, fascinated.

They moved out of Palermo into the heart of the island, following the route usually taken by tourists driving across to Agrigento on the south coast, and the scenery was spectacular.

They passed peasants on donkeys, vegetables for market in panniers, old men in tweed caps and patched suits, usually with a lupara , the short-barrelled shotgun favored by Sicilians, slung from a shoulder.

There were women in black, working in the fields or walking in a line at the side of the road, baskets on their heads, seemingly impervious to the sun and the villages, buildings that were centuries old, open drains down the center of the street, the smell of urine strong in the sun.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but give me Ireland any day of the week. This is a poor sort of place,” Riley said.

“Still very medieval,” Hannah Bernstein observed.

Luigi spoke for the first time and in excellent English. “These are poor people ground down by poverty. Great landowners and the Mafia have sucked them dry for years, and in Sicily there is only the land. Olive groves, vineyards and, these days, the tourists.”

“Soaked in blood over the years,” Dillon said. “Everybody’s had a piece, from the Arabs to the Normans. Did you know Richard the First of England was once king here?” he asked Hannah.

She showed surprise. “No, I didn’t. You learn something new every day.”

“Isn’t that a fact?” Dillon said and lit a cigarette.

At the same moment in Corfu, Marie de Brissac was walking down the cliff path from the small cottage she had rented on the northeast coast of the island.

She was a slim woman, twenty-seven at the time and looked younger. She wore a tee shirt and khaki shorts, and a straw hat shadowed a calm, intelligent face with high cheekbones. Her fair hair was tied into a ponytail, and she carried a cold box in one hand, her easel under the arm, and in the other hand was her paint box.

The horseshoe beach was delightful and gave her views across to Albania on one hand and to Greece on the other. A folding chair was where she had left it behind a rock, and an umbrella. She positioned them to her satisfaction, then set up her easel and started.

Watercolors were her favorite, much more than oils. She did a quick charcoal sketch of the scene before her, catching a fishing boat as it passed, then faded it down and started to paint.

She still hadn’t got over the death of her beloved mother. The cottage had been a refuge, at least in her mind. No staff, just a peasant woman who arrived on a donkey three times a week with fresh bread and milk and firewood. Time to reflect on the meaning of life and its purpose and to paint, of course.

She opened the cold box. Amongst the other things in there was a bottle of Chablis, ice-cold. She uncorked it and poured a glass.

“Strange,” she said softly, “but everyone seems to die on me. First Maurice in that stupid Gulf War, then the general, and now Maman. I wonder what I’ve done?”

She was not aware of any sound of approach, only the voice saying, “Excellent, I particularly admire that blue color wash and the way you soak it in to the shoreline.”

She glanced up and found him standing there. Probably about her own age, with blond hair and a strong, tanned face. He wore jeans and an old reefer jacket. His English had a slight accent that she couldn’t place.

She said, “I don’t want to sound unwelcoming, but this is a private beach.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, just as I’m aware that you are the Comtesse de Brissac.”

She knew then, of course, that this was no casual interloper, that there was purpose here. “Who are you?”

“What’s in a name.” He smiled. “Let’s say David Braun.” He took the bottle of Chablis from the cold box and examined the label. “Interesting.” He poured a glass and sampled it. “Not bad, not bad at all.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” Strange, but she felt no sense of fear. This was no casual encounter, no threat of rape.

He whistled and called out, not in English this time, and a young man came down the path to join him and she recognized the language at once.