The President’s Daughter

by Jack Higgins

  Salter leaned back and laughed out loud. “Dear God, Dillon, you little Irish bastard. I don’t know what you’ve done to yourself, but I recognize the voice.”

  Dillon said to Hooker, “Just switch the burner off and put it on the table.”

  “Fuck you!” Hooker told him.

  “What a pity,” Dillon said and shot off part of Hooker’s left ear.

  Hooker screamed and dropped the burner, which for some reason went out. Hooker had a hand at his ear, blood pouring between his fingers, and Dillon nodded to the one man left undamaged.

  “Cut them loose.”

  He wasn’t aware of any movement behind him because the door stood open, only the barrel of a shotgun against his neck. He turned his head slightly and saw, in the mirrored wall, a small, gypsy-looking man with dark, curling hair, holding a sawed-off.

  The man reached for the Walther in Dillon’s hand and Hooker snarled, “Kill him! Blow his bleeding head off!”

  In that moment, Dillon saw the door at the other end of the saloon open, and Blake Johnson, Billy behind him, stepped in. Dillon dropped to one knee, Blake’s hand swept up holding the Beretta, a perfect shot that caught the gypsy in the right shoulder, spinning him round as he dropped the sawed-off.

  “What kept you?” Dillon asked.

  Billy raised the pump gun. “I’ll kill the lot of you!”

  “No, you won’t, Billy, leave off,” Harry Salter told him. “Just cut us free.” He glanced at Baxter’s burnt face. “Don’t worry, George, I’ll get you patched up at the London Clinic. Only the best for my boys.” Released, he stood, flexing his hands. “Dillon, you look ridiculous, but I’ll remember you in my will.”

  The one Dillon had shot in the thigh and the gypsy were sprawled on the bench seat beneath the mirror. Hooker leaned against the table, moaning, blood everywhere.

  Salter laughed. “Out of your league, but you never realized it.”

  “Let’s go,” Dillon said. “Your speedboat awaits.”

  “All right.” Salter turned to Hooker. “Very good Indian surgeon near Wapping High Street. Name of Aziz. Tell him I sent you.” He went out on deck, and they all followed. He paused at the top of the steps down to the speedboat. “I was forgetting. Let me have that Walther, Dillon.”

  Dillon handed it over without hesitation and Salter went back into the saloon. There was a shot followed by another, a cry of pain. He reappeared and handed the Walther back to Dillon.

  “What did you do?” Dillon asked as they went down the ladder.

  “What your lot do, the bleeding IRA. I gave him one in each kneecap, put him on sticks,” Salter said. “I could have killed him, but he’d be a better advert that way. Now let’s get the hell out of here, and introduce me to your friend. He seems to know what he’s doing.”

  Back at the Dark Man, Hall took Baxter away for medical assistance and Salter, Blake, and Billy sat in a booth on the empty bar.

  “Champagne, Dora,” Salter called. “You know this bugger likes Krug, so Krug it is.”

  Billy said, “Here, I’ll help you, Dora,” and he got up and went behind the bar.

  Salter said, “Bloody lucky for me you came along. What was it you wanted to see me about?”

  “Something special,” Dillon said. “Very hush-hush, but mixed in is a lawyer who called on a prisoner at Wandsworth using a phoney name. One George Brown.”

  “How can you be sure he was a lawyer, or not, for that matter?”

  “Let’s put it this way. The way he handled himself would seem to indicate that he knows his way round the criminal system. I thought you might recognize him.”

  He took four photos of the mysterious Brown from his inside pocket and spread them out. Salter looked them over. “Sorry, old son, never seen him before.”

  Dora came over wrestling with the cork of a bottle of Krug and Billy followed with an ice bucket. He put it down on the table and looked down at the photos. “Blimey, what’s he doing there?”

  There was a slight, stunned silence and Dillon said, “Who, Billy, who is he?”

  “Berger – Paul Berger.” He turned to Salter. “You remember how Freddy Blue was up for that fraud case nine months ago, taking down payments for television sets that never arrived?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “This guy, Berger, was his lawyer. He came up with some law nobody had ever heard of and got him off. Very smart. He’s a partner in a firm called Berger and Berger. I remember because I thought it sounded funny.”

  Dillon said to Dora, “Get me the telephone book, will you?”

  Billy poured champagne. “Was that what you wanted?”

  “Billy, you just struck gold for us.” Dillon raised his glass. “Here’s to you.” He took the champagne straight down and got up. “I’ll phone Ferguson.”

  He moved down the bar and made his call. After a while, he came back. “Okay?” Blake asked.

  “Yes, Ferguson’s having a check via BT.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t have a Maccabee on their information service staff,” Blake said.

  “Hardly likely. They can’t be everywhere, so no sense in getting paranoid.”

  “And what’s a Maccabee?” Salter asked. “Sounds like a bar of chocolate to me.”

  “Anything but, Harry,” and Dillon held out his glass for a refill.

  His mobile rang and he switched on, taking out a pen and writing what Ferguson told him on the back of a bar mat.

  “Fine, we’ll be in touch.” He switched off and nodded to Johnson. “I’ve got his home address. Camden Town. Let’s move.”

  He got up and Salter took his hand. “Hope you find what you need.”

  “Glad to have been of service, Harry.”

  “Not as bloody glad as I am,” Salter said.

  ELEVEN

  The address was in a lane called Hawk’s Court off Camden High Street. “Fifteen – that’s it,” Blake said, and Dillon slowed.

  The street was lined with villas built on the high tide of Victorian prosperity and varied greatly. It was obviously what real estate agents call an up-and-coming area, with young professionals moving in and improving the properties they had bought. The result was that some of the houses looked seedy and rundown and others had new windows and shutters and brightly painted doors with brasswork.

  Number fifteen filled neither category. It wasn’t exactly rundown, but it didn’t look particularly up-market. Dillon turned at the end of Hawk’s Court. There was an old church there, very Victorian in appearance, with a cemetery. There was a gate through railings, one or two benches, a couple of old-fashioned street lamps. Dillon turned, drove back, and parked on Camden High Street at the side of the road.

  They walked back. Blake said, “How do you intend to handle this?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Dillon told him.

  “Well, we can’t just leave him around like a loose cannon after speaking to him.”

  “We have a suitable safehouse where he could be kept,” Dillon said.

  “And what if Judas misses him? Smells a rat?”

  “What have we got left, Blake, four days? Maybe the time has come to take chances. Let’s find this Berger and put the fear of God in him. To hell with him anyway. Marie and Hannah are more important.”

  They opened the gate, went up a few steps, and rang the doorbell. The house stayed quiet and dark. Dillon tried again. “No good,” he said finally. As he turned to Blake, the door of the next house, one of the rundown variety, opened and a young woman appeared.

  She had blond hair topped by a black beret and wore a black plastic mac and plastic boots in the same color. “Sure you’re not looking for me?” she asked.

  “No. Mr. Berger,” Dillon told her.

  She locked her door. “Sorry, I thought it might be business. He’s out most of the time. Lives on his own since his wife left him. Does he owe you money?”

  “Jesus, no,” Dillon said. “We’re just clients. He’s our lawyer.”

  �
��Well, he usually goes to Gio’s Restaurant in the evenings. Turn right at the end and it’s a hundred yards.”

  “Thanks very much,” Dillon told her, and she walked away very quickly, high heels tapping.

  “Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten,” Blake said.

  “Then Gio’s it is. There’s only one problem. We know my cottage in Stable Mews was bugged with directional microphones. Maybe Berger was personally involved, maybe not, but there’s a chance he knows me, so you’ll have to eat alone.”

  “Poor old Sean, you’ll starve,” Blake said. “But I see your point.”

  Gio’s was a small Italian family sort of place with checked tablecloths, lighted candles, and one or two booths. Dillon stayed back and Blake stood and consulted the bill of fare in the window. He turned his head and said quietly, “He’s alone, second booth from the window, reading a book and eating pasta. He’s heavily into the book. You can look.”

  Dillon did as he was told, recognized Berger for himself, and dropped back. “In you go. I’ll just hang around. When he leaves, we’ll take him in Hawk’s Court.”

  “You mean follow him into his house?”

  “No, he probably has good security, with the kind of clients he’s got. It could be messy. We’ll take him up to that churchyard and have words there.”

  “See you later, then.”

  Blake went inside, to be greeted by a waiter who showed him to a table on the other side of the room from Berger. The American ordered a glass of red wine from the bar and spaghetti with meatballs. Someone had left a newspaper on the chair next to him and he started to read it, one eye constantly on Berger.

  Dillon went into the general store two doors down where they had a selection of sandwiches. He chose ham and tomato on French bread, obtained tea in a plastic cup from a machine, and went back outside. It was raining slightly and he stood in the doorway of a shop that had closed for the night and ate the sandwich and drank the tea. Then he had a cigarette and strolled past the window of Gio’s.

  Berger still had his nose in the book, but seemed to have reached the coffee stage, while Blake was halfway through his spaghetti. The rain increased in volume and Dillon walked back to the car, opened the door, and checked inside. There was a folding umbrella on the shelf by the rear window. He opened it and went back along the pavement, passing Gio’s in time to see Berger settling his bill. As the waiter turned away, Blake waved him over.

  Berger stood up, went and got his coat from a wall peg while Blake was still settling, then he picked up his book and made for the door. Dillon stood back. Berger paused, turned up his collar, and stepped into the rain and Dillon followed, keeping him a few yards ahead. As they turned the corner into Hawk’s Court, Blake caught up and they walked on, side-by-side, until Berger reached his gate.

  As he opened it, Dillon called, “Mr. Brown?”

  Berger paused and turned. “I beg your pardon?”

  “George Brown?” Dillon said cheerfully.

  “Sorry, you’ve made a mistake. My name is Berger – Paul Berger.”

  “Sure, we know that, but you called yourself Brown when you visited Dermot Riley in Wandsworth Prison,” Blake Johnson said.

  “Don’t deny it,” Dillon advised him. “We’ve got you on the security video, so we know who you are, just as we know you’re a Maccabee, one of dear old Judas’s merry band of brothers.”

  “You’re mad,” Berger said.

  “I don’t think so.” Dillon had a hand in the right pocket of his raincoat and he pushed back the flap to disclose the Walther. “As you can see, this is silenced, so if I shoot you now, no one will hear a thing.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “After what you lot have done, I’d dare anything, so start walking, straight up to the cemetery. We’re going to have words.” He pushed the Walther hard into Berger’s belly. “Go on, move!”

  There was a porch just inside the railings of the cemetery, a bench inside it. One of the lamps was close by, so there was a certain amount of light. Dillon pushed Berger down.

  “Right, Judas Maccabeus is a right-wing Jewish terrorist. His followers are called Maccabees and you are one of them. He’s kidnapped the daughter of the President of the United States. He’s now also kidnapped Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein.”

  “This is nonsense.”

  Blake said, “Come now, let’s be reasonable. We know you’re the George Brown who visited Dermot Riley in Wandsworth. We’ve got you on the video surveillance tape from the prison and we’ve also got Riley.”

  “Rubbish, you can’t have,” Berger said, giving himself away.

  “Absolutely. Picked him up in Ireland this morning and brought him back to London. He’s at the Ministry of Defense now. He’ll swear to the fact that you promoted a plan to get him out of prison to set up one Sean Dillon in Sicily, and Dillon will also confirm that.”

  “But that’s impossible,” Berger said, falling into the trap.

  “Why, because he’s dead, murdered in Washington?” Dillon’s smile was terrible as he removed his glasses for a moment. “No, he isn’t, because I’m right here.”

  Paul Berger cried out in terror.

  “Everything so slick,” Dillon said, “right down to the very convenient death of that prison officer, Jackson. Was that you, Berger? I mean, he might have identified you. Who knows?” Dillon lit a cigarette. “But even the great Judas gets it wrong. He’s going down, Berger, and you’ll go down with him, so talk.”

  “I can’t. He’ll have me killed.”

  Dillon went into the act beloved of policemen the world over, good guy and bad guy. He turned to Blake, shaking with rage. “Did you hear that? Well, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to kill this bastard myself. I mean, we’re in the right place to do it.” He gestured at the monuments and headstones looming out of the night. “Plenty of room to bury him in there.” He turned on Berger and rammed the Walther under his chin. “I’ll do it now – right now.”

  Blake pulled him away. “You didn’t say there would be killing.” He sat beside Berger. “For God’s sake, tell him.”

  Berger was shaking. “What do you want to know?”

  “How does Judas communicate?”

  “I have a special mobile, that’s how he gave me the job of getting Riley out of Wandsworth. He talks personally.”

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “No, I was recruited by another Maccabee.”

  Blake took over now. “So where does Judas operate from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come off it, son, I can’t believe that,” Dillon said.

  Berger was close to breaking and it was obvious he was telling the truth. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t.”

  There was a pause. Blake put a hand on his shoulder. “What about Chief Inspector Bernstein?”

  “She was picked up outside her grandfather’s house in an ambulance by two Maccabees from Judas’s personal staff.”

  “Names?” Dillon demanded.

  “Aaron and Moshe.”

  Dillon turned to Blake. “They’re the lads who knocked me off in Salinas.”

  “Were you there?” Blake asked.

  Berger nodded. “We took her down to a place on the other side of Flaxby in Sussex. There was one of those old overgrown bomber bases from the Second World War. They had a Citation jet waiting and flew off with her. My job was to dump the ambulance in Dorking.”

  “And you don’t know where they’re flying to?” Blake asked.

  “No idea, I swear it.”

  It was obvious to both of them that he was telling the truth, and it was a sudden thought of Dillon’s that gave them what they needed.

  “You said you were recruited by a Maccabee. Why was that?”

  “I was at a conference on the future of the State of Israel. It was held at the University of Paris. I took part in a seminar, spoke out. I’ve always held strong views.”

  “And?”

  “I was approached by
a lawyer. He said he’d admired my speech and asked me out to dinner.”

  “A Maccabee?” Blake said.

  “That’s right. We sat on one of those restaurant boats on the river and talked. I was there four days and saw him every day.”

  “And he recruited you?”

  “Haven’t you any idea how it sounded? God, I wanted to join, to be a part of it all.”

  “Then Judas spoke to you, the Almighty himself,” Dillon said.

  “He’s a great man. He loves his country.” Berger seemed to have recovered some of his courage.

  Dillon said, “What was the name of the lawyer in Paris who recruited you, and don’t tell me you can’t remember.”

  “Rocard – Michael Rocard.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Dillon turned to Blake Johnson. “The de Brissac family lawyer. He’s got to have been the leak to her identity in some way. Dammit, he even owned the cottage she was using in Corfu when she was kidnapped.”

  “Paris next stop, it would seem,” Blake said. “What about him?”

  Dillon turned to Berger. “Come on.” He pulled him up. “We’ll deliver him to the safehouse. They can hang on to him there until everything’s resolved, then we’ll see Ferguson.”

  They started down Hawk’s Court, Berger in between, and passed his house. He said, “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? There’s no safehouse.”

  Blake said, “Yes, there is, don’t be a fool.”

  “You’re lying!” Berger said in a low voice, and suddenly ran away very fast.

  They went after him. He reached the corner and made to cross Camden High Street on the run, head down, at the same moment as a double-decker bus approached. Collision was unavoidable and he was bounced into the air.

  There was pandemonium as a crowd gathered and the driver of the bus dismounted in considerable distress. A police car pulled in and two officers got out and pushed through the crowd. One dropped to one knee beside Berger and examined him.

  He looked up and said to his partner, “No good, he’s dead.”

  There were expressions of shock from the crowd, and the wretched driver said, “It wasn’t my fault.”