Jack Higgins - The President’s Daughter

“Hebrew,” she said. “You spoke in Hebrew. I’ve been to Israel. I recognize the language.”

“Good.” He finished his wine. “Now, then,” he said in English, “pack up the lady’s things and follow us up to the cottage.”

“What’s this all about?” she asked calmly.

“All in good time, Comtesse.” He gestured with one hand. “After you, if you please.”

A Ford station wagon was parked outside the cottage. The other young man put her painting things in the rear and she saw that it was also filled with her suitcases.

“This is Moshe, by the way,” David Braun told her. “He started packing up the moment you left. The cupboard, as they say, is bare. I know you’ve only been using taxis while you’ve been here, so the old woman, when she turns up on her donkey, will think you’ve just up and left.”

“To where?”

He opened the rear door. “Your carriage awaits, and an interesting plane ride. What could be better?”

She hesitated, then did as she was told, and he got in beside her. As Moshe drove away, she said, “And the final destination?”

“Ah, now you’re expecting too much. Just enjoy the ride. The view over there, for example.”

She turned automatically, was aware of a prick in her bare right arm, turned and saw a plastic medical hypo in his hand.

“Damn you!” she said, “What was it?”

“Does it matter?” He tossed the hypo out of the open window. “You’ll sleep now – a nice long sleep. You’ll actually feel better when you waken.”

She tried to reply, but her eyes felt heavy, and suddenly he just wasn’t there anymore and she plunged into darkness.

In Sicily, the Peugeot was really into the high country, Monte Cammarata rising six thousand feet to one side.

“That looks like rough country,” Riley said.

Luigi nodded. “Salvatore Guiliano made his home up there for years. The army and the police couldn’t catch him. A great man, a true Sicilian.”

“A great bandit, he means,” Hannah said to Riley, “who paid the rent for some poor old woman now and then and liked to see himself as Robin Hood.”

“God, but you take a hard line, woman,” Dillon said. “Guiliano wasn’t such a bad ould stick.”

“Just the kind of man you would approve of.”

“I know, it’s wicked I am.” At that moment, they entered a village and he added, “A pit stop, Luigi. I could do with the necessary and so could all of us, I suspect.”

“Of course, signor.”

They paused outside a trattoria with a few rough wooden tables and chairs under an awning. The proprietor, an old, gray-haired man wearing a soiled apron, greeted them. Luigi whispered to him, then turned.

“The toilet is at the back, Chief Inspector.”

“On your way,” Dillon told her cheerfully. “We’ll take turns.”

She followed Luigi, who went to the bar area to order the drinks. It was dark in there and the smell of the toilet was unmistakable. Dillon and Riley lit cigarettes as some kind of compensation. The only concession to modern living was an espresso machine.

Luigi turned. “Coffee okay?”

“Why not,” Dillon said.

Hannah emerged from the shadows and made a face. “I wouldn’t linger, gentlemen. I’ll wait outside.”

Dillon and Riley found the back room, which was in an appalling state. Dillon went first and shuddered when he came out. “Make it quick, Dermot. A man could die in there.”

Luigi was still getting the coffees and Dillon moved to the beaded entrance, pausing to light another cigarette. There was a cry of indignation from Hannah. He stepped outside and dropped the cigarette.

She was seated at one of the tables and two young men had joined her, poverty-stricken agricultural workers from the look of it, in patched jackets, scuffed leather leggings, and cloth caps. One sat on the table, a shotgun slung over one shoulder, laughing, the other was stroking the back of Hannah’s neck.

“I said stop it!” She was truly angry now and spoke in Italian.

The man laughed and ran his hand down her back. Dillon punched him in the kidneys, grabbed him by the collar, and ran him headlong to one side so that he stumbled over a chair and fell. In virtually the same movement, he turned and gave the one sitting on the edge of the table the heel of his hand, feeling the nose go, knocking him to the ground.

Dermot called, “I’m with you, Sean,” and came out through the bead curtain on the run. The one who had gone down first sprang a knife in his right hand as he came up, and Dermot grabbed for the wrist, twisted, and made him drop it. The other pulled the sling of the lupara over his head and stood, his face a mask of blood. As he tried to cock it, Dillon knocked it to one side and gave him a savage punch to the stomach, and the man dropped the lupara .

There was a single shot as Luigi arrived and fired into the air. He suddenly seemed a different man, the pistol in one hand, the warrant card in the other.

“Police,” he said. “Now leave the lupara and clear off.”

They shambled away. The old man appeared, strangely unconcerned, four espressos on a tray. He placed it in the center of the table.

“Sorry for the fuss, grandad,” Dillon said in excellent Italian.

“My nephew and his friend.” The old man shrugged. “Bad boys.” He picked up the lupara . “I’ll see he gets this back and there will be no charge. I’m sorry the signorina was molested in this way. It shames me.”

He went inside and Dillon took one of the coffees. “He’s ashamed. It was his nephew and a friend…”

“I heard what he said,” Hannah told him. “My Italian is as good as yours.”

Dillon turned to Riley. “Thanks, Dermot.”

“Nothing to it,” Riley said. “Just like the old days.”

“You move quick, signor,” Luigi said.

“Oh, he does that all right,” Hannah said as she drank her coffee. “Boot and fist, that’s our Dillon, and you should see him with a gun.”

Dillon smiled amiably. “You have a way with the words, girl dear. Now drink up and let’s be moving.”

As they moved down toward the south coast, things changed, the landscape became softer.

“During the war, the Americans came through here on their way through the Cammarata to Palermo. The Italian soldiers fled after receiving a Mafia directive to support the Americans against the Germans,” Luigi told them.

“And why would they do that?” Dillon asked.

“The Americans released from jail in New York the great Mafia don, Lucky Luciano.”

“Another gangster,” Hannah said.

“Perhaps, signorina, but he got the job done and the people believed in him. He went back to prison in America, but was released in nineteen forty-six. On the pardon, it said: For services to his country.”

“And you believe in such fantasy?” she asked.

“During the campaign, my own father saw him in the village of Corleone.”

Dillon laughed out loud. “Now that’s a showstopper if ever I heard one.”

As the landscape softened, there were flowers everywhere, on the slopes knapweed with yellow heads, bee orchids, ragwort and gentians.

“So beautiful.” Hannah sighed. “Yet centuries of violence and killing. Such a pity.”

“I know,” Dillon said. “Just like the Bible. As for me, I’m just passing through.”

He closed his eyes and Riley glanced at him and it was the plane all over again and he felt as guilty as hell, but there was nothing he could do after all. Salinas soon, and it would all be over. Some comfort in that.

Marie de Brissac surfaced in a kind of instant moment, one second nothing, dark as the grave, the next pale evening light. The first thing she was aware of was that she felt fine in herself, no headache, no heaviness, and that seemed strange.