Jack Higgins - The President’s Daughter

“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.

“Hey, Arnold, are you there?” Raphael called in Hebrew.

“Yes, I’m under the portico.”

“And smoking a cigarette, I can smell it from here. Don’t let the colonel catch you. I’m going inside to do the corridor rounds.”

“Okay.”

Arnold stepped back into the portico and Dillon whispered, “I’ll go left and attract his attention and you take him from the rear. Don’t kill him. He’s too useful.”

He slipped away, pulled himself up over an ornamental flower bed, and reached the terrace. He walked towards the portico, Arnold very clear in the night goggles.

“Hey, Arnold,” he called in Hebrew. “Where are you?”

“Who’s that?” Arnold called, taking a step forward, and Blake had him in the same moment, an arm around his neck, the other hand over his mouth.

In the jump suit and the goggles, Dillon presented a terrifying spectacle. He took out his Browning, cocked it, and touched Arnold under the chin. When he spoke, it was in English.

“This is silenced, so I can put one in your heart, kill you instantly, and no one will hear a thing. Now you’re going to answer some questions, and if you don’t, I will kill you and we’ll go and find your friend, the one we saw on the battlements. Do you understand?”

Arnold tried to nod and Blake took his hand from the young man’s mouth. “I’d do as he says if I were you.”

“Who are you?” Arnold asked.

“I’ve come back to haunt you. It’s me, Dillon.”

“Oh, my God, but it can’t be. The colonel told us you were dead.”

“The colonel, is it now? Well, he’ll always be Judas to me. Now, answers. The countess, is she still in the same room on the third floor?”

“Yes.”

“And Chief Inspector Bernstein?”

“She’s on the same corridor in the room you were in.”

“How many are you? The same number?”

Arnold hesitated and Dillon jabbed the Browning into his side painfully. “Come on. Judas and five of you. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Who was on the battlements?”

“Raphael.”

“We heard him talking to you.”

“You couldn’t, he spoke Hebrew.”

“So do I, in a manner of speaking, something Judas didn’t know. Raphael said he was doing the corridor rounds. What’s that mean?”

“What it sounds like. He patrols corridors and stairs.”

“And the others, where are they?”

“Braun is usually in the kitchen on the ground floor. He does all the cooking. There’s a small lift to serve the other floors. That’s how he gets food to the women.”

“And the rest?”

“The colonel is usually in his study.”

“Which leaves Aaron and Moshe.”

Arnold hesitated. “Aaron and Moshe?”

Dillon screwed the silencer on the end of the Browning into Arnold’s neck.

“I’m not sure. There’s a billiards room by the library, that’s off the main hall. Sometimes they play.”

“Anywhere else?”

“The recreation room on the first floor. Satellite television, that kind of thing.”

Dillon nodded. “All right, so to get to the stairs up to each floor, we need the main hall?”

“Yes, you take the stairs from there.”

“Good.” Dillon turned him round. “Then show us the way.”

They moved along the terrace through the rain and Arnold opened an iron-studded door leading the way into a corridor. There was a light on, another oaken door at the end.

Dillon pushed up his goggles. “Where are we?”

“The entrance hall is through there.”

“Then lead on.”

Arnold reached the door, turned the iron-ringed handle and opened it, revealing a massive hall beyond. There was a flagged floor, a log fire in an open fireplace, an array of flags hanging from poles above the fireplace, the ceiling vaulted. Why he did what he did next was probably a mystery to himself as much as anyone, for he swung the door back behind him and ran across the hall.